Phoenix Arizona Legal News Blog

Diocese pays $4.24M in sex abuse case

2009-11-05T14:17:00.000-08:00

The Catholic Diocese of Savannah, Ga., said it would pay $4.24 million to a 40-year-old man who says he was sexually abused by a former priest.

The figure is the second largest payout to an individual since the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal erupted in the 1980s.

The diocese said it agreed to pay former St. James Catholic School of Savannah student Allan Ranta Jr. "to avoid the expense and burden of a lengthy trial by all parties."

Ranta had filed a complaint in a Jasper County, S.C., civil court stating he was molested by the Rev. Wayland Y. Brown from 1978 to 1983, starting when Ranta was 10 years old.

Read Article United Press International

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Judge puts restraining order on Ill. abortion law

2009-11-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

Just hours after a state board voted Wednesday to allow the enforcement of a long-debated Illinois law requiring a teenage girl's parents be notified before she has an abortion, a judge issued a temporary restraining order putting the measure back on hold.

The order will remain in effect until the judge can hear arguments on the issue. Cook County Judge Daniel Riley said he felt the American Civil Liberties Union, which sought the order, "demonstrated the distinct possibility of irreparable harm."

Illinois' law was passed in 1995, but never enforced because of various court actions. Thirty-five other states have similar laws, which meant some teens seeking abortions came to Illinois for them.

"This is a dumping ground for other states," said Joseph Scheidler, national director of the Pro-Life Action League. "You go look at the license plates at the abortion clinics."

Allowing the law to take effect raised the possibility that "young women in this state would be abused, they would be kicked out of their homes," Lorie Chaiten, head of the Illinois ACLU's reproductive rights project, said after the court hearing.

Assistant Illinois attorney general Thomas Ioppolo argued against the restraining order.

Read Article FindLaw

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Lawry's will pay more than $1 million to settle discrimination suit

2009-11-04T14:48:00.000-08:00

The Lawry's chain of high-end steakhouses will pay more than $1 million to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit contending that for decades it hired only women as servers, the government said Monday.

The lawsuit, filed in 2006 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said that a company as large as Pasadena-based Lawry's Restaurants Inc. should have known that the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited such a policy.

The case was based on a 2003 complaint by a busboy who said he was denied a higher-paid position as a waiter because of his gender.

The company, which dates its founding to the opening of the Tam O'Shanter Inn in Los Angeles in 1922, said it remedied its policy in 2004 and was glad to resolve the issue.

Read Article LA Times

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Hospital fined for wrong-site surgery

2009-11-04T13:29:00.000-08:00

The Health Department has fined Rhode Island Hospital $150,000, after determining that a surgical team violated safety policies when it operated on the wrong finger of a patient on Oct. 22.

The surgical team failed to properly mark the fingers and failed to follow the rules for “time out,” a pause before surgery to verify the patient, procedure and site, the department’s investigation found. Indeed, the report said, Rhode Island Hospital was not even following the much-ballyhooed error-prevention protocol that was adopted statewide on July 1.

“This pattern of surgical errors is completely unacceptable and must be corrected to protect the safety of all patients at the hospital,” said Health Director David R. Gifford.

Read Article The Providence Journal

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Suicide Warnings for 2 Anti-Smoking Drugs

2009-07-29T18:26:00.005-07:00

Federal drug regulators warned Wednesday that patients taking two popular drugs to stop smoking should be watched closely for signs of serious mental illness, as reports mount of suicides among the drugs’ users.

But officials emphasized that fear should not stop patients from taking the smoking-cessation medicines, Chantix, made by Pfizer, and Zyban, made by GlaxoSmithKline, which also sells it under the brand name Wellbutrin, for depression.

“Stopping smoking is a goal we should all be working towards,” said Dr. Curtis J. Rosebraugh, director of a drug evaluation office at the Food and Drug Administration. “We don’t want to scare people off from trying a medication that could help them achieve this goal. You should just be careful.”

Pfizer will add a so-called black box warning — the F.D.A.’s most serious caution — to the packaging information for Chantix.

Read Article New York Times

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Autism patients' treatment is denied illegally, group says

2009-07-29T18:26:00.003-07:00

State regulators are violating mental health and other laws by allowing health insurers to deny effective treatment for children with autism, consumer advocates contend.

In a lawsuit, Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica group that monitors insurance practices, is asking a judge to order the Department of Managed Health Care to require insurers to provide autistic members with the services their physicians have ordered.
Without court action, the suit says, "California's thousands of autistic children and their families will continue to suffer."

The department said it was "holding health plans accountable to provide a range of healthcare services for those with autism" and was handling consumer complaints according to the law.

Insurers also insist that they are following the law and reimbursing policyholders for most autism care. The dispute centers on certain kinds of expensive therapy and whether a 1999 law requires insurers to pay for them.
Autism impairs communication and socialization and is often accompanied by repetitive, injurious behavior.

Read Article Los Angeles Times

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Jury: Home Depot owes $1.5 million in accident

2009-07-29T18:26:00.001-07:00

A Cobb County jury has awarded a Home Depot customer and his wife $1.5 million in a personal injury case stemming from a forklift accident inside a store.

According to the complaint, in November 2005 shopper Larry Reece fell and suffered neck and spine injuries after a pallet of plywood fell 24 feet from a forklift.
The wood hit a barricade that knocked over Reece, who wound up trapped under the plywood.

The accident occurred at a store on Roswell Road in Marietta. As part of the verdict, Reece’s wife was awarded $30,000 for loss of marital relations, said the couple’s attorney, Jeff Shiver. Shiver said medical expenses for Reece’s neck injuries were about $120,000, including surgery to repair herniated discs.

Shiver said his client accepted Home Depot’s offer for punitive damages, but the case went to a jury over personal injury damages. The award was handed down after a two-day trial. Reece, a 58-year-old Cumming resident, was unable to resume his work in residential construction, Shiver said.

Read Article Atlanta Journal Constitution

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Lawsuit over black teens' 1964 slayings goes forward

2009-07-29T18:25:00.006-07:00

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee has concluded the lawsuit against Franklin County filed by the families of two black teens killed by Klansmen in 1964 should go forward.

It is the first such lawsuit to clear the hurdle of the statute of limitations since unpunished killings from the civil rights era began to be reopened in 1989.

"This is a landmark case - an extremely significant case," said Dennis Sweet of Jackson, an attorney for the families of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, who were abducted and beaten by Klansmen on May 2, 1964, before being drowned in an old portion of the Mississippi River.

Reputed Klansman James Ford Seale is serving three life sentences for kidnapping and conspiracy in the case. His lawyers are appealing that conviction.

Read Article Jackson-Clarion Ledger

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Santa Clara County settles suit in cyclist's death after crash with sheriff's deputy

2009-07-29T18:25:00.005-07:00

Santa Clara County has agreed to pay $2.3 million to the parents of one of the bicyclists killed when a former sheriff's deputy drove his patrol car into a group of cyclists in the Cupertino foothills.

The payment settles a lawsuit filed against both the county and the deputy by the family of cyclist Matt Peterson, 29, who was killed in the crash. Negotiations are still ongoing in civil suits filed by the family of the other cyclist who died, Kristy Gough, 30, and with Christopher Knapp, 21, who suffered two broken limbs but survived.

Former Deputy James "Tommy" Council said he fell asleep at the wheel on March 9, 2008, crossed a double yellow line and plowed into the group of cyclists on a training ride on Stevens Canyon Road. Before he became a deputy, he was convicted in 2001 for his involvement in a speed contest in Los Angeles County.

The settlement, dated March 18 but released this week, was expected; the only question was the amount. Immediately after the crash, county officials accepted responsibility and a tearful Sheriff Laurie Smith apologized to the victims' families.

Read Article Mercury News

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Tweeting, Texting, Googling Banned for Mich. Jurors

2009-07-29T18:25:00.003-07:00

Call it the silencing of the tweets.

The Michigan Supreme Court has laid the hammer down on gadget-happy jurors in banning all electronic communications by jurors during trial, including tweets on Twitter, text messages and Google searches.

The ruling, which takes effect Sept. 1, will require Michigan judges for the first time to instruct jurors not to use any hand-held device, such as iPhones or BlackBerrys, while in the jury box or during deliberations.

The state's high court issued the new rule on Tuesday in response to prosecutors' complaints that jurors were getting distracted by their cell phones, smartphones and PDAs, in some cases texting during trial or digging up their own information about a case and potentially tainting the judicial process. Wouldn't common sense suggest that's wrong?

Read Article Law.com

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Mentally disabled in housing fight

2009-07-29T18:25:00.001-07:00

Samuel Golden admits he wants to keep his 53-year-old daughter, who functions at the level of a 2-year-old, in what some critics would label a large "institution." Her life, he said, would deteriorate if she were forced to move into a smaller group home that couldn't provide adequate therapy and daily activities.

But Stanley Ligas, 41, who has Down syndrome and can hold a job and balance a checkbook, wants to do just that -- leave a 96-bed facility in favor of a residential home with two or three other people and live closer to his sister.

The two men vividly represent both sides of a federal lawsuit filed by Ligas and six other plaintiffs that aims to move thousands of Illinois adults with mental disabilities into community-based group homes. After four years in court, the case on Wednesday inched closer to a settlement despite concerns raised by hundreds of opponents who fear the proposed agreement will jeopardize the future of larger facilities.

Read Article Chicago Tribune

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Bone-Growth Proteins Show Risk in New Study

2009-07-29T18:24:00.004-07:00

Patients who received a bioengineered protein during spinal fusion procedures to correct neck pain had far more complications than patients who did not get it, according to a study released Tuesday.

The study, published Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, reinforces previous concerns about the use of the proteins in fusion procedures to treat upper spine, or cervical, pain. The substances studied, sold by either Medtronic or Stryker, are not federally approved for cervical procedures, although surgeons are free to use them for that purpose.

The new study, by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, reviewed hospital records from 2002 to 2006. Bioengineered proteins, which mimic natural substances that promote bone growth, were first approved in 2002 by the Food and Drug Administration but initially only for use in spinal fusions to alleviate lower, or lumbar, back pain.

Read Article New York Times

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Supreme Court Ruling Offers Little Guidance on Hiring

2009-07-29T18:24:00.003-07:00

In ruling for a group of white firefighters in New Haven on Monday, the Supreme Court tried to address a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t quandary for many cities and other employers: what they should do when an employment test yields results that overwhelmingly favor whites.

But many legal experts said that instead of setting forth clear new rules, the court’s decision left things as muddled as ever for the nation’s employers — and seemed to ensure much more litigation over the explosive issue of employment discrimination.

“We don’t see clear, bright-line guidance here,” said Lars Etzkorn, a program director with the National League of Cities. “This is going to be good for employment lawyers.”
The 5-to-4 ruling applies largely to public-sector hiring and to civil service exams, but could also affect private employers that use tests or other screening methods.

The court said that if an employer used a hiring or promotion test, it generally had to accept the test’s results — unless the employer had strong evidence the test was flawed and improperly favored a particular group.

Read Article New York Times

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Calif. High Court Gives Workplace Violation Suits Route Around Class Certification

2009-07-29T18:24:00.001-07:00

Employees wanting to sue their bosses for workplace violations were given an alternative route Monday that gets around the arduous task of gaining class certification under unfair competition laws.

By unanimous vote, the California Supreme Court ruled in two companion cases that employees need not meet class requirements if they seek civil penalties for themselves and others under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004, commonly called PAGA.

That was significant because the court also held -- as parties on both sides expected -- that individuals trying to bring unfair competition suits on behalf of others must qualify them as class actions. Employers have been able to fend off UCL suits through rulings denying class certification.

Richard Bergstrom III, the San Diego-based co-chairman of Morrison & Foerster's employment and labor group, said one of Monday's rulings provides "a back door around the class certification process through PAGA. Employees can now pursue claims for penalties for violations of any Labor Code provision without having to go through the class certification procedures."

Read Article Law.com

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A new charge of malpractice against VA hospital

2009-07-29T18:23:00.004-07:00

Barry Lackro was exposed to the notoriously toxic defoliant Agent Orange in Vietnam in the early 1970s. He wasn't surprised when he developed prostate cancer in 2004 at age 54, but he took heart that the malignancy was caught early and was highly curable with either surgery or radiation.

Today, almost five years later, he not only has terrible complications from his treatment, but also expects the cancer to kill him. Lackro's complex case raises new questions about the quality of prostate-cancer care provided by the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and its contractor, the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Lackro is one of the 92 veterans that the Philadelphia VA admits received too little radiation - or too much - from radioactive brachytherapy seed implants done between 2002 and 2008.

Read Article Philadelphia Inquirer

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GM Makes Further Concessions on Liabilities to Smooth Sale Path

2009-07-29T18:23:00.003-07:00

General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, is making last-minute concessions to opponents of its planned asset sale that leave the new company with liabilities it could have erased in bankruptcy.

The Detroit-based company amended the sale agreement to clarify that it will take on some tax and workers’ compensation claims, maintain utility service to plants being left behind and accept future product liability and “lemon law” claims. That should “significantly alleviate” objectors’ concerns, it said.

GM lawyer Harvey Miller said at today’s hearing in New York on the proposed sale before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber that liability from any accident that occurs after the closing will be assumed by the new company. There hasn’t been any progress with resolving asbestos claims, he said, and those and other tort claims will remain with GM’s bankruptcy estate.

Read Article Bloomberg

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3rd Circuit Recognizes New Cause of Action for Civil Rights Violations at Nursing Homes

2009-07-29T18:23:00.001-07:00

In a landmark opinion that recognizes a new category of lawsuits, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Federal Nursing Home Reform Amendments give residents of county-run nursing homes the right to bring civil rights claims under Section 1983 to challenge the quality of their treatment.

"The language used throughout the FNHRA is explicitly and unambiguously rights-creating," U.S. Circuit Judge Richard L. Nygaard wrote in his 23-page opinion in Grammar v. John J. Kane Regional Centers.

"These provisions make clear that nursing homes must provide a basic level of service and care for residents and Medicaid patients," Nygaard wrote in an opinion joined by U.S. Circuit Judge D. Brooks Smith.

The ruling revives a suit brought by the administratrix of the estate of Melvinteen Daniels that says the 80-year-old mother of eight died in an Allegheny County, Pa.-operated nursing home as a result of neglect, malnourishment and bed sores that were so severe they led to a fatal case of sepsis.

Read Article Law.com

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Police Union Chief Says He's Being Illegally Investigated

2009-07-29T18:22:00.002-07:00

The chairman of the D.C. police union has filed a federal lawsuit accusing police officials of launching an illegal internal investigation of him because he has publicly challenged "numerous policies and practices of [the department] and its leadership."

Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police labor committee for Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 1, said police officials were also "monitoring" what he said at public meetings. The suit asks a judge to block the internal investigation from proceeding. A spokeswoman for the police department could not be reached. Baumann did not return an e-mail seeking comment.

The suit centers on a barricade situation May 30 between police and a man suspected of shooting at officers. More details about the incident could not be determined. In the lawsuit, filed in the District's federal court Monday, Baumann alleges that he referred questionable command decisions about the incident to the union's safety committee for investigation.

Read Article Washington Post

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Settlement reached in lawsuit against town of Jonesville

2009-07-29T18:22:00.001-07:00

The town of Jonesville has settled for $430,000 a lawsuit filed against it by a woman who claimed that the Jonesville Police Department and two of its officers failed to protect her and enforce a restraining order against her estranged husband, an attorney for the officers said today.

Vernetta Cockerham filed the suit in 2004, two years after her husband, Richard Ellerbe, killed her 17-year-old daughter, Candice, then stabbed Cockerham. Under the terms of the settlement, the town admits no liability in the death of Cockerham's daughter, said William Hill, an attorney for the two officers, Scott Vestal and Tim Gwyn.

The lawsuit was closely watched by advocates for victims of domestic violence across the state. On Nov. 13, 2002, Cockerham filed a domestic-violence protective order against Ellerbee. That order required that he not threaten her and her children, and that he had to stay 250 feet away.

Ellerbee ignored the order. The next day he broke into her house and left a note, Cockerham said in an affidavit filed with her lawsuit."I will kill you," the handwritten note said. "You will die." Ellerbee dug graves across the street from Cockerham's driveway and later told Cockerham that those graves were for her and her three children.

Read Article Winston Salem Journal

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Court: Coast Guard can't be sued in 'Lady D' tragedy

2009-07-17T18:21:00.003-07:00

When a squall flipped the Lady D water taxi in 2004, killing five people and injuring many more, the pontoon boat had 25 people aboard - 10 more than there should have been - because of a Coast Guard mistake. The agency overestimated the capacity the boat could safely carry. But it can't be held responsible.

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the Coast Guard cannot be sued in the Inner Harbor tragedy because the inspection process it used fell under certain discretionary duties that are immune from legal blame. The decision confirms a lower court ruling made last year, after the boat's owners, operators and insurers collectively sued the Coast Guard.

"But for that mistake, the accident would not have occurred, and the vessel would have had sufficient stability to withstand the storm," said Robert Hopkins, an attorney for the Lady D affiliates, who sued to recoup money they paid to settle death and injury claims stemming from the accident.

Read Article Baltimore Sun

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Metrorail Crash May Exemplify Automation Paradox

2009-07-17T18:21:00.001-07:00

Sometime soon, investigators will piece together why one train on Metro's Red Line hurtled into another last Monday, killing nine people and injuring dozens. Early indications suggest a computer system may have malfunctioned, and various accounts have raised questions about whether the driver of the speeding train applied the brakes in time.

The problem, said several experts who have studied such accidents, is that these investigations invariably focus our attention on discrete aspects of machine or human error, whereas the real problem often lies in the relationship between humans and their automated systems.

"It is easy to focus on the last act that may or may not have prevented the collision," said John D. Lee, a professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "But you can trace the accident back to purchasing decisions, maintenance decisions and track layout. To lay the blame on the end result of when and how quickly someone activated the brake may not help with improving safety."

Read Article Washington Post

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$200 Million Wage-and-Hour Suit Filed Against Northwestern Mutual

2009-07-17T18:20:00.002-07:00

Three financial representatives who worked for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. have filed a $200 million lawsuit against the company for failing to pay them overtime wages under California and federal law.

The suit was filed on Thursday in federal court in San Diego on behalf of all sales and financial representatives at Northwestern Mutual who allegedly were denied overtime compensation. Lint v. Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., No. 09-cv-1373 (S.D. Calif.).

"They've got a system of white-collar peonage here. The class members are tightly controlled. They work huge hours and they earn very little money, ridiculously low sums," said Jeremy Heisler, a partner at Washington, D.C.-based Sanford Wittels & Heisler. "But Northwestern thinks you can get around the minimum wage and overtime laws simply by classifying them as independent contractors, when these people have very little freedom to do anything."

Read Article Law.com

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Senate Panel Hears of Health Insurers' Wrongs

2009-07-17T18:20:00.001-07:00

Health insurers have forced consumers to pay billions of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid, according to a report released yesterday by the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee.

The report was part of a multi-pronged assault on the credibility of private insurers by Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). It came at a time when Rockefeller, President Obama and others are seeking to offer a public alternative to private health plans as part of broad health-care reform legislation. Health insurers are doing everything they can to block the public option.

At a committee hearing yesterday, three health-care specialists testified that insurers go to great lengths to avoid responsibility for sick people, use deliberately incomprehensible documents to mislead consumers about their benefits, and sell "junk" policies that do not cover needed care. Rockefeller said he was exploring "why consumers get such a raw deal from their insurance companies."

Read Article Washington Post

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Federal bill would allow G.I.s to sue for medical negligence

2009-07-17T18:19:00.002-07:00

A colonel who underwent surgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to remove a cancerous breast says her physician operated on the wrong side of her body, mistakenly removing several healthy lymph nodes and disfiguring her.

But the government rejected all claims brought by Col. Adele Connell of Stansbury Park under a law that makes it nearly impossible for GIs and their families to sue the military for medical malpractice.

Connell hopes a bill the House Judiciary Committee expects to consider today will allow military families like hers to hold the government accountable for noncombat-related injuries. The Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act would overturn the so-called Feres Doctrine, named for a 1950 Supreme Court case that effectively bars service members from collecting damages for death or injuries caused by negligence.

Read Article Salt Lake Tribune

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Record verdict: Former gang member awarded $21 million for wrongful conviction

2009-07-17T18:19:00.001-07:00

After spending more than 11 years in prison accused of murder, Juan Johnson won the largest award in Chicago history for a wrongful conviction lawsuit on Friday.

But even though the City of Chicago was ordered to pay him $21 million in compensatory damages, Johnson said he wasn't looking for more money from the police officer he said framed him. All he wanted was an apology.

Johnson didn't get one on Monday, however, and so Reynaldo Guevara, a former Chicago police officer who says he's living paycheck to paycheck, now owes Johnson $15,000 in punitive damages himself.

"He could have picked a side -- protect [himself] or apologize," said Jon Loevy, Johnson's attorney. "If he had expressed remorse, we wouldn't have asked for anything."

Read Article Chicago Tribune

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At V.A. Hospital, a Rogue Cancer Unit

2009-07-17T18:18:00.004-07:00

For patients with prostate cancer, it is a common surgical procedure: a doctor implants dozens of radioactive seeds to attack the disease. But when Dr. Gary D. Kao treated one patient at the veterans’ hospital in Philadelphia, his aim was more than a little off.

Most of the seeds, 40 in all, landed in the patient’s healthy bladder, not the prostate.
It was a serious mistake, and under federal rules, regulators investigated. But Dr. Kao, with their consent, made his mistake all but disappear.

He simply rewrote his surgical plan to match the number of seeds in the prostate, investigators said.

The revision may have made Dr. Kao look better, but it did nothing for the patient, who had to undergo a second implant. It failed, too, resulting in an unintended dose to the rectum. Regulators knew nothing of this second mistake because no one reported it.

Read Article New York Times

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Bayer threatened with lawsuit over vitamin claims

2009-07-17T18:18:00.003-07:00

Bayer HealthCare may get slapped with a lawsuit if it continues to run advertisements for its One-A-Day vitamins that claim the product reduces men’s risk of prostate cancer.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based health advocacy group, is threatening to sue Bayer for “misleading men” about the benefits of its product.
The group said in a statement today that Bayer’s radio and TV ads falsely claim that selenium, an ingredient of One-A-Day Men's Health Formula and 50+ Advantage, helps prevent prostate cancer.

It does not, said David Schardt, the group's senior nutritionist.
“Bayer is exploiting men’s fear of prostate cancer just to sell more pills,” he said. “The largest prostate cancer prevention trial has found that selenium is no more effective than a placebo. Bayer is ripping people off when it suggests otherwise in these dishonest ads.”

To back its claim, the group cites a seven-year, $118-million study by the National Institutes of Health, which failed to find any evidence that selenium prevents prostate cancer in men. The study involved 35,000 U.S. and Canadian men.

Read Article Los Angeles Times

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$788,000 Paid to Doctor Accused of Faking Study

2009-07-17T18:18:00.001-07:00

Medtronic said on Wednesday that it had paid nearly $800,000 over an eight-year period to a former military surgeon who has been accused by the Army of falsifying a medical journal study involving one of the company’s products.

The surgeon, Dr. Timothy R. Kuklo, claimed in the study that the use of a Medtronic bone growth product called Infuse had proved highly beneficial in treating leg injuries suffered by American soldiers in Iraq.

The British medical journal that published the article retracted it this year after an internal Army investigation found that Dr. Kuklo had forged the names of four other doctors on the study and had cited data that did not match military records.

Other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where Dr. Kuklo worked until August 2006, said that he had also overstated the benefits of the Medtronic product.

Read Article New York Times

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Air France Crash Spurs Debate Over Lawsuit Locations

2009-07-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

While investigators scour the Atlantic for clues to the cause of the crash of Air France Flight 447, lawyers in Brazil, France and the U.S. are taking steps to determine the proper forum for any lawsuits.

Sophie Bottai, whose client was the first granted victim status in a French criminal probe, said the nation’s courts should review any claims as many passengers were French as were the airline and the airplane, an Airbus SAS A330-200.

“The plane is French, the carrier is French,” said Bottai, representing a 38-year-old Frenchman’s family, who she said wishes to remain anonymous. “The jurisdiction is French.”

Debate over jurisdiction issues may get even more heated with families making the ultimate decision based on where they can receive the most compensation. In addition to where the claims are filed, the amount of any award depends on the victim’s age, family status and work situation, according to lawyers specializing in aviation disasters.

“It’s not black and white,” said Robert Clifford, a Chicago lawyer specializing in aviation-related cases. “At this moment, it would be premature to select a venue without knowing more regarding the cause. If you make the wrong choice of forum, then you’re stuck.”

Read Article Bloomberg

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U.S. sues state for not rehiring reservist

2009-07-17T18:16:00.002-07:00

The Justice Department on Monday sued on behalf of a former state worker whose sexual harassment lawsuit against former Nevada Controller Kathy Augustine was dismissed on a legal technicality.

The Justice Department lawsuit, filed against the state and the controller's office on behalf of Art Ingram, contends the state violated federal law by not promptly rehiring him and then dismissing him after he returned from active military duty.

Ingram, an Army reservist colonel, was the state's chief deputy controller when he went on active military duty in mid-2003. He tried to get rehired after being discharged in early 2008.

The Justice Department complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Reno, alleges a violation of the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, known as USERRA. The legal action is separate from the sexual harassment lawsuit Ingram filed against Augustine in 2004.

Read Article Las Vegas Review Journal

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Obama Open to Reining in Medical Suits

2009-07-17T18:16:00.001-07:00

The American Medical Association has long battled Democrats who oppose protecting doctors from malpractice lawsuits. But during a private meeting at the White House last month, association officials said, they found one Democrat willing to entertain the idea: President Obama.

In closed-door talks, Mr. Obama has been making the case that reducing malpractice lawsuits — a goal of many doctors and Republicans — can help drive down health care costs, and should be considered as part of any health care overhaul, according to lawmakers of both parties, as well as A.M.A. officials.

It is a position that could hurt Mr. Obama with the left wing of his party and with trial lawyers who are major donors to Democratic campaigns. But one Democrat close to the president said Mr. Obama, who wants health legislation to have broad support, views addressing medical liability issues as a “credibility builder” — in effect, a bargaining chip that might keep doctors and, more important, Republicans, at the negotiating table.

Read Article New York Times

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A.I.G. Balks at Claims From Jet Ditching in Hudson

2009-07-17T18:15:00.001-07:00

For the first couple of days after his flight ditched into the Hudson River, Paul Jorgenson was just glad to be alive. But then he started to need his laptop, his wallet, his car keys — all the essentials he had stowed under his seat and left behind in the sinking plane.

A pleasant woman at US Airways told him not to worry; he would be made whole for his losses. But then the matter shifted to US Airways’ insurer, the American International Group, operating under government stewardship since its bailout last fall.

“Everything went downhill,” said Mr. Jorgenson, a software executive in Charlotte, N.C., whose laptop and keys have not been recovered.

When a homeowner has a burglary or a driver has a crash, all it normally takes is a call to the insurance company and a description of the loss to activate the policy. But aviation liability insurance is different. It is activated by a finding of negligence on the part of an airline. If there is no negligence, then arguably there is no liability, and no obligation to pay claims.

Read Article New York Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

2 Orange County nursing homes fined for patient deaths

2009-07-17T18:14:00.004-07:00

State officials have fined two nursing homes in Orange County for providing care so inadequate that it led to the deaths of two patients. In one case, a woman died from dehydration. In the other, staff failed to provide CPR to a man suffering a heart attack because they mistakenly believed he was under orders not to be resuscitated.

Alamitos West Health Care Center in Los Alamitos was fined $100,000, and state officials levied an $80,000 fine on the Huntington Valley Healthcare Center in Huntington Beach. At Alamitos West, the California Department of Public Health found that the nursing home failed to give an 82-year-old woman sufficient fluids, causing her to suffer dehydration and acute kidney failure.

On Dec. 19, the woman's condition had deteriorated so much that she was transferred to a hospital, where she was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, dehydration and an "altered mental status."

The patient died six days later, on Christmas Day.

Read Article Los Angeles Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Aetna targeted in suit for losing data

2009-07-17T18:14:00.003-07:00

U.S. insurer Aetna has been targeted in a lawsuit alleging it failed to protect personal information of employees and job applicants, documents indicate.

The lawsuit comes after Aetna, of Hartford, Conn., was struck by computer hackers to access a company Web site holding personal data for 450,000 current and former employees as well as job applicants, the Hartford Courant reported Wednesday.

The suit was filed by former employee Corneilus Allison of Darby, Pa., last week in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania, and charges the insurer with negligence, breach of implied contract, negligent misrepresentation and invasion of privacy. Allison is seeking certification of the lawsuit as a class action, the Courant said.

Read Article United Press International

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Federal Judge Dismisses Suit Over Community Service Death

2009-07-17T18:14:00.001-07:00

The widow of a man who died of a heart attack while performing court-ordered community service on the day of an excessive heat warning has lost her civil rights suit that accused county officials of ignoring her husband's obvious medical risks.

In his 45-page opinion in Marvel v. Delaware County, Senior U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter concluded that no jury could ever find that county officials were liable under the "state-created danger" theory because the evidence showed that David Marvel had volunteered to do construction work and had never asked for light-duty work to accommodate his heart condition.

For plaintiff Grace Marvel and her lawyer, Don P. Palermo of Hannon & Palermo, the ruling is a stunning turnaround because Buckwalter had issued an opinion in April 2008 that rejected a defense motion to dismiss and said the allegations satisfied all four prongs of the state-created danger test.

Read Article Law.com

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Plaintiffs Lawyers Are Stuck on Denture Cream Lawsuits

2009-07-17T18:13:00.002-07:00

Plaintiffs law firms are sinking their teeth into product liability lawsuits alleging that denture cream products cause zinc buildup in the body and neurological problems.
A dozen cases pending in federal courts in California, Colorado, Florida, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Tennessee are awaiting the result of a May 28 multidistrict litigation panel hearing in Louisville, Ky. In re Denture Cream Products Liability Litigation, M.D.L. No. 2051.

The cases target PoliGrip denture adhesive maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Procter & Gamble Co., which manufactures Fixodent, and the companies' subsidiaries.
Scott William Weinstein, an attorney in the Fort Myers, Fla., office of Morgan & Morgan, said his firm has begun to screen more than 3,000 potential cases and is ready to bite the bullet on about 40.

"Tens of millions of consumers use these products, PoliGrip and Fixodent, and you'd be surprised about the demographics," Weinstein said.
Potential clients range from the elderly, who use the product to adhere a full set of dentures, and younger people, who use denture cream for devices like bridges, he said.

Read Article Law.com

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

S.F. may pay freed man $4.5 million settlement

2009-07-17T18:13:00.001-07:00

San Francisco officials have tentatively agreed to pay $4.5 million to a man who spent nearly 14 years in prison before a judge reversed his murder conviction, finding that city authorities had withheld evidence his attorneys said could have cleared him.

The payout to John "J.J." Tennison, 37, would be the largest settlement ever in San Francisco of a lawsuit related to police conduct, records show. It will go first to the Police Commission and then the Board of Supervisors for approval.

Tennison was freed in 2003 after a federal judge overturned his conviction for the August 1989 killing of 18-year-old Roderick "Cooley" Shannon. He had been serving a prison term of 25 years to life.

Another judge freed Tennison's co-defendant, Antoine Goff, who was serving 27 years to life. A Superior Court judge subsequently declared both men "factually innocent." They then sued in federal court, saying the city had violated their civil rights.

Read Article San Francisco Chronicle

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

A Political Message Amid the Movie Trailers

2009-07-17T18:12:00.002-07:00

INSTEAD of the latest on Hollywood stars, moviegoers may get a dose of advocacy this month when they settle into their seats for the feature presentation.

Coming to theaters are commercials that are intended to spell out the perils of frivolous lawsuits as told by “everyday Americans,” including small-business owners who have been hit with costly lawsuits they believed were arbitrary and abusive.

The owner of a pool supply store in Rockville, Md., tells of being sued for $750,000 by a passer-by who fell and was injured after being startled by a wild Canada goose nesting near his store. A gasket maker in Monroe, La., narrates how he is grappling with 100 asbestos lawsuits, and a Colorado couple describe how their family was sued for $75,000 after their 7-year-old son struck a fellow skier.

The series of two-minute trailers is the latest salvo in a long-running political battle over whether there should be curbs on bringing civil lawsuits. President George W. Bush often criticized what he called “junk lawsuits,” but trial lawyers fought back, citing research by the RAND Institute and other groups that as few as 2 percent of injured people file lawsuits.

Read Article New York Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Starbucks wins reversal of $100-million tips verdict

2009-07-17T18:12:00.001-07:00

The tempest in a tip jar tipped back in favor of Starbucks Corp. on Tuesday when a California appeals court reversed a ruling that had ordered the coffee giant to pay more than $100 million in restitution for allowing shift supervisors to share baristas' tips.

The class-action lawsuit was brought on behalf of more than 100,000 current and former baristas in 2004 by former barista Jou Chau, who complained that shift supervisors were illegally getting a cut of employee tips. San Diego County Superior Court Judge Patricia Cowett ruled in favor of the baristas last year after a bench trial and awarded $86 million in restitution plus about $20 million in interest. Starbucks called the decision "fundamentally unfair and beyond all common sense and reason."

An appeals court reversed the ruling Tuesday, saying that the original decision was improperly based and that supervisors at the nation's largest coffee-shop chain "essentially perform the same job as baristas." "We conclude the trial court erred in ruling that Starbucks's tip allocation policy violated California law," the state Court of Appeals in San Diego said in the decision. "The applicable statutes do not prohibit Starbucks from permitting shift supervisors to share in the proceeds placed in collective tip boxes."

Read Article Los Angeles Times

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High court overturns worker's $5M award

2009-06-29T19:18:00.004-07:00

A Tennessee railroad worker isn't entitled to $5 million awarded him by a jury for allegedly being exposed to asbestos, the U.S. Supreme Court says.

The High Court ruled Monday against Thurston Hensley, who had sued CSX Corp. for monetary damages based in part on his fear of developing cancer in the future, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The railroad contended that the jury instructions in Hensley's case were too friendly to him. They arguing that they wanted the jurors to be instructed that it was Hensley's responsibility to show his cancer fears were genuine and serious but that was denied by the lower court, the Journal said.

In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court sided with CSX, saying the trial judge clearly erred in delivering the jury instructions.

Read Article United Press Interantional

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R.J. Reynolds Must Pay Widow $30 Million, Jury Says

2009-06-29T19:18:00.003-07:00

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the second-biggest U.S. cigarette maker, was told by a Florida jury to pay $30 million to a woman whose husband died of lung cancer after years of smoking, according to a lawyer.

A six-person jury today in state court in Pensacola, Florida, ordered R.J. Reynolds to pay Hilda Martin $25 million in punitive damages to punish the cigarette maker for the death of her husband, Benny Martin, according to the company’s lawyer, Mark Belasic. The jury last week awarded Martin $5 million in compensation. Belasic said he would appeal.

The case is at least the seventh of its kind to be tried since the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 ruled that smokers couldn’t sue as a class, or group, on behalf of smokers statewide. The court, in the so-called “Engle” case, said smokers could sue individually and extended the time for them to do so. Thousands of such cases are pending across Florida.

Read Article Bloomberg

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Lawsuit claims plane crash caused by Fort Pierce pilot's negligence

2009-06-29T19:18:00.001-07:00

If David Castle hadn’t decided to fly his single-engine plane into a thunderstorm when he and his friend Frank Delaporte of Fort Pierce took off from the Bahamas on March 24, 2008, it wouldn’t have exploded in mid-air, according to a lawsuit filed Friday at the St. Lucie County courthouse. Both men were killed when the plane broke up, dropping them hundreds of feet into the sea below.

On behalf of his father’s estate, Frank Delaporte, 26, of Sebastian says Castle should have stuck with his original plan to abort the flight instead of deciding to fly in stormy weather. He is asking for a jury trial and seeking monetary damages from Castle’s estate to the extent allowed by law.

Delaporte, who owned Delaporte’s Heating and Cooling, was 54 when he died, his son said. The business closed after the accident.

Read Article Treasure Coast Palm

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Witness settles lawsuit over jail

2009-06-29T19:17:00.002-07:00

Harrison County has settled a civil rights lawsuit with a man whose kidneys failed in 2006 after he was left tightly strapped in a restraint chair for about eight hours at the Harrison County jail.

Kasey D. Alves testified against former Sheriff’s Sgt. Ryan Teel in August 2007, when Teel was convicted in a “color of law” case for the fatal beating of inmate Jessie Lee Williams Jr. and a conspiracy to abuse inmates and cover it up.

Alves’ testimony in the criminal case helped corroborate a pattern of abuse at the jail. Terms of the settlement in his suit are confidential. What happened to Alves was “an eerie foreshadowing of what happened to Williams, federal trial attorney John Richmond said at Teel’s trial in the criminal case.

Teel, convicted on multiple counts including murder, was sentenced to life in prison; nine former jailers pleaded guilty to related but lesser charges. Teel was the corrections officer who strapped Alves in a restraint chair a month before Teel led the fatal assault against Williams in the booking room Feb. 6, 2006. Williams also had been strapped in a restraint chair.

Jail surveillance cameras recorded both incidents. Both videos were shown at Teel’s trial.

Read Article Sun Herald

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Expedia ordered to pay $184 million in lawsuit over hotel taxes, fee

2009-06-29T19:17:00.001-07:00

A King County Superior Court judge has ordered Bellevue-based Expedia to pay $184 million in a 4-year-old class-action lawsuit against the Internet travel agency.

The lawsuit, filed by Seattle law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro on behalf of Expedia customers, accused the company of paying hotel taxes based on a room's lower wholesale price but collecting based on its higher retail price.

Also, it accused Expedia of bundling an additional service-fee charge with taxes into a single line item on a hotel bill, making the taxes appear higher than their actual amounts.
Superior Court Judge Monica Benton ruled that Expedia should return $184 million in service fees to customers who booked a hotel stay from mid-February 2003 to mid-December 2006.

Read Article Seattle Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Bank of America Wins Ruling on $1.6 Billion Verdict

2009-06-29T19:16:00.002-07:00

Bank of America Corp. doesn’t have to pay a verdict worth as much as $1.6 billion in a customer suit claiming the bank illegally took overdraft fees out of Social Security direct deposits, the California Supreme Court ruled.

The state high court unanimously upheld a 2006 appeals court ruling that reversed the 2004 verdict. The lawsuit claimed California law prohibits banks from taking exempt funds, such as Social Security benefits, from customers’ accounts. Bank of America, the largest U.S. bank, continued the practice anyway in accounts of elderly or disabled customers, lawyers for the plaintiffs said, deducting as much as $160 a day out of one customer’s account.

A San Francisco trial judge in December 2004 ordered the bank to pay customers $296.6 million in compensatory damages and said as many as 1.3 million customers should receive $1,000 each for emotional and economic harm. The bank appealed.

Read Article bloomberg

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Drug Agency May Reveal More Data on Actions

2009-06-29T19:16:00.001-07:00

For years, the Food and Drug Administration has withheld information about drugs and medical devices from the public when their makers cite trade secrecy — even in cases where the agency suspects that the products are causing serious illness or death.

Now the new leadership at the F.D.A. may change that. The Obama administration plans to announce on Tuesday that it is setting up a task force within the agency to recommend ways to reveal more information about F.D.A. decisions, possibly including the disclosure of now secret data about drugs and devices under study.

The task will be complicated. Agency confidentiality decisions are governed by several interconnected laws, including the Federal Trade Secrets Act. Changing them would “involve more than one Congressional committee and impact thousands and thousands of companies, and thus would be an extremely difficult legislative path,” said Peter Barton Hutt, a former general counsel to the agency.

Read Article New York Times

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Zoo settles with brothers in tiger attack

2009-06-22T15:21:00.001-07:00

The San Francisco Zoo agreed Thursday to pay $900,000 to two brothers who survived the fatal attack by an escaped tiger on Christmas Day 2007, sources familiar with the case told The Chronicle.

The agreement with Kulbir, 25, and Amritpal "Paul" Dhaliwal, 20, resolves claims the brothers brought in U.S. District Court against the city, zoo and Sam Singer, a crisis public relations consultant the zoo hired after the attack, one source said.

Thursday's settlement comes less than two weeks after attorneys for the brothers filed court documents alleging that police officials had ordered officers to issue arrest warrants for the Dhaliwals, accusing them of manslaughter in the death of their friend, 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. of San Jose, who was killed by the tiger.

Read Article San Francisco Chronicle

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Texas Anti-Fraud Bill Goes to Governor

2009-06-22T15:20:00.006-07:00

Texas lawmakers passed HB 148, legislation aimed at telemarketers who contact crash victims by purchasing accident reports from local police departments.

The bill now on its way to Governor Perry for his signature makes it illegal for lawyers, chiropractors and other health professionals to solicit the victims of auto accidents or catastrophes by telephone or in person.

The legislation is a huge step in curtailing the activities of today's ambulance chasers, said the Texas Committee on Insurance Fraud, a group of insurance industry representatives, state and county government, as well as Texas and national anti-fraud organizations.

The TCIF says that crash victims are often told they need to visit a certain chiropractor whether they have been injured or not. The group claims that while victims may be awaiting treatment, they are at times solicited by lawyers or people representing law firms who promise free legal advice.

Read Article Claims Journal

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Bausch & Lomb settles 600 fungus suits

2009-06-22T15:20:00.005-07:00

Some eye doctors are still hoping that some of the lawsuits over a lens cleaner made by Bausch & Lomb will end up in court, so that the events that led to hundreds of fungal infection lawsuits will be aired publicly.

That hasn't happened. Over the past year, the company has quietly settled nearly 600 lawsuits, with dozens of individual claims still to be resolved. The cost so far is about $250 million.

The secrecy is what the company had in mind when it went private in 2007. Its chief executive says it wanted to handle a recall of the lens cleaner "without a lot of outside distraction."

More than 700 lens-wearers in the United States and Asia say they were exposed to a potentially blinding infection while using ReNu with MoistureLoc.
Seven people had to have an eye removed. Dozens more needed corneal transplants.

Read Article Boston Globe

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Curse of defective drywall forces Florida families to flee homes

2009-06-22T15:20:00.003-07:00

There's something rotten in Homestead.
It's the odor in Jason and Melissa Harrell's house, which was built with defective, Chinese-made drywall redolent of strong paint or rotten eggs. The smell got so bad that the Harrells felt forced to move. They now pay rent on top of their mortgage.

''What it boiled down to is, I had to choose between my financial health and my children's physical health,'' Melissa Harrell said. When the sulfurous stink in Gary and Andrea Suhajcik's Boynton Beach home wouldn't go away, the builder offered to rip out the walls, wiring, plumbing and molding in hopes of making it livable.

Builders and homeowners have feuded over construction defects, real and imagined, since the first slab was poured in the first house in the first subdivision somewhere in suburbia. But South Florida has never seen anything quite like the curse of the Chinese drywall. Tens of thousands of homes were built with the material, which was brought in by boat from the Far East when the demand for drywall exploded during the building boom.

Read Article Miami Herald

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

New Warning on Hormone Replacement

2009-06-22T15:20:00.001-07:00

Hormone therapy taken by women to counter the effects of menopause can increase the risk of dying from lung cancer, researchers reported here on Saturday.

The findings represent the latest black mark against a therapy already being used much more sparingly than it once was. But researchers said the new data should serve as a caution to women who did continue to take hormones not to smoke.

“We shouldn’t be using both combined hormone therapy and tobacco at the same time,” said Dr. Rowan Chlebowski of the Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center in California and lead author of the study, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Chlebowski said there was one avoidable lung cancer death over eight years for every 100 women who both smoked and took hormone therapy.

Read Article New York Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Antidepressants Cut Effectiveness of Tamoxifen in Breast Cancer

2009-06-22T15:19:00.006-07:00

Tamoxifen, a breast cancer medicine used by millions of women, doesn’t work when taken with antidepressants like Eli Lilly & Co.’s Prozac, Pfizer Inc.’s Zoloft and GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Paxil, a study says.

Tumors were more than twice as likely to return after two years in women taking the antidepressants while on the cancer drug, compared with those taking tamoxifen alone, the study showed. The research, by Medco Health Solutions Inc., was presented today at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Orlando.

Doctors began treating hot flashes with antidepressants, an unapproved use, after a U.S. study seven years ago linked the former standard remedy, hormone replacement therapy, to an increased risk of breast cancer and heart attacks. Other types of antidepressants, such as Wyeth’s Effexor, may be safer for women on tamoxifen than Paxil or Prozac, said Powel Brown, director of cancer prevention at the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Read Article Bloomberg

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US court rules class action against AT&T can go on

2009-06-22T15:19:00.005-07:00

A U.S. District Court ruled on Wednesday that consumers can go ahead with a class action lawsuit against AT&T Inc (T.N) that stems from the 2004 merger of Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless.

The case arose from complaints from customers after the merger that they were being forced to pay fees and buy new phones to transfer their service plan from the AT&T Wireless network to Cingular, now operating under the AT&T brand.

AT&T argued customers should channel their complaints through individual arbitration rather than class actions, but a U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle ruled against the company on Wednesday, allowing a class action to go ahead.
AT&T representatives confirmed the ruling by Judge Ricardo Martinez and said in an emailed statement the company was studying the ruling and considering its options.

Read Article Reuters

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Wal-Mart Wins Initial Approval for Wage Settlements

2009-06-22T15:19:00.003-07:00

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s biggest retailer, won preliminary court approval to pay as much as $85 million to settle 30 lawsuits claiming the company didn’t pay employees for all hours worked.

The settlement covers cases filed in federal courts in 29 states and Puerto Rico, according to court filings. The accord is part of a global $640 million resolution of wage-and-hour claims reached between Wal-Mart and workers in December.

The settlement is “fair, reasonable, and adequate,” U.S. District Judge Philip M. Pro said in granting tentative approval today. The agreement was a “hard-fought compromise of claims that have been actively litigated before this court” since February 2006, he said.

The suits claimed that Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart violated wage and hours laws by denying workers rest breaks and manipulated time cards to “shave” their pay. The suits were filed as class actions, or group lawsuits, on behalf of all hourly workers in the individual states, including Alabama, Michigan, Maryland, Oregon and Texas.

Read Article Bloomberg

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Countrywide loses bid to dismiss mortgage lawsuit

2009-06-22T15:19:00.001-07:00

A federal judge in San Diego rejected Countrywide Financial Corp's bid to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of steering borrowers into risky mortgages to maximize profit, lawyers for the plaintiffs said on Thursday.

The class-action complaint accuses Countrywide of inappropriately convincing borrowers to take on subprime mortgages they could not afford, violating federal racketeering and conspiracy laws, as well as state laws barring unfair competition and unjust enrichment.
Countrywide was the nation's largest mortgage lender before being acquired last July by Bank of America Corp (BAC.N).

In a statement, Bank of America said "the ruling is NOT reflective in any way on whether the factual allegations have any merit, or whether plaintiffs will ultimately be able to prove their case."

Read Article Reuters

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Blue Shield wins ruling over rescinded health insurance

2009-06-22T15:18:00.004-07:00

A judge ruled Thursday in mid-trial that Blue Shield of California had acted properly in canceling the health insurance policy of a former Cypress resident after he was seriously injured in a car accident.

It's the first verdict stemming from the spate of rescissions that have enraged consumer activists and led to regulatory enforcement by the state. The judge made the ruling in response to a motion by Blue Shield that included an agreement it had reached with plaintiffs Steve Hailey and his wife, Cindy. The Haileys stipulated they had lied about his preexisting conditions to obtain coverage.

Blue Shield declared the resolution a "complete vindication."

"It means we acted properly every step of the way," Blue Shield's top lawyer, Seth Jacobs, said in a statement. "It means that our underwriting procedures were fair and complete, our application was clear, and we acted in good faith. This decision proves that Blue Shield of California had every right to rescind the Haileys' coverage."
Michael Nutter, the lawyer for the Haileys, declined to comment.

Read Article Los Angeles Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Disney, tram-injured woman reach settlement

2009-06-22T15:18:00.003-07:00

A Chinese woman who fell out of a moving Disneyland tram and suffered injuries that left her needing 24-hour medical supervision for the rest of her life has reached a settlement in a lawsuit she filed against the Walt Disney Co.

Lawyers for Qi Zhao and Disney reached the agreement Tuesday, bringing a two-week trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court to an abrupt end.
Details of the accord were not released.

Zhao, 48, filed her suit in 2007, alleging the tram driver was going too fast. She was riding the tram with two sisters and a niece. According to the complaint, one of the sisters fell from the King tram as it moved toward a parking lot.

Reacting to the fall, the other two sisters also fell out. One suffered minor injuries and Zhao hit her head on the pavement, suffering severe traumatic brain injuries and skull fractures and was in a coma for three weeks.

Read Article Los Angeles Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

A Simple Smooch or a Toxic Smack?

2009-06-22T15:18:00.001-07:00

THE debate seems to resurface every few years. Do some lipsticks contain lead? If so, is the amount so negligible that consumers have nothing to be concerned about? Or will all those years of applying lipstick several times a day add up to a worrisome accumulation of a dangerous substance?

On one side are advocacy groups and doctors who insist that, over time, those who wear lipstick containing lead are at risk of absorbing high levels of a neurotoxin that may cause behavioral, learning and other problems. On the other side are the Food and Drug Administration and outside experts who say that any traces of lead that do exist are too minute to cause harm.

In February, the debate reared its head again when the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a coalition of health and environmental groups, issued a plea to the F.D.A. to release information the agency had accumulated on the amount of lead in lipstick. The study was conducted in response to an independent analysis in 2007, paid for by the safe cosmetics group, which found that one-third of 33 lipsticks had lead in excess of 0.1 parts per million, the federal limit for candy.

Read Article New York Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Cleaning Up Baby Products

2009-06-22T15:17:00.000-07:00

IN March, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics reported finding formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, a trace contaminant of some chemicals used in cosmetics, detergents and shampoos, in 55 children’s personal-care products. The chemicals are listed as probable human carcinogens by the Environmental Protection Agency. Seventeen of them — including Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo — contained both chemicals.

Last month, Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand announced legislation called the “Safe Baby Products Act,” asking for the Food and Drug Administration to investigate the chemicals in children’s toiletries. “As a mother, and as a parent, when I read the list of these products, I was highly concerned because many of the products on this list were literally in my bathroom,” she said in a conference call.

Read Article New York Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Land Rover maker ordered to pay $21.1 million in rollover case

2009-06-12T18:31:00.003-07:00

A Los Angeles judge has ordered automaker Jaguar Land Rover to pay $21.1 million to a Simi Valley man who was paralyzed in 2003 when his Land Rover Discovery sport utility vehicle rolled over several times after a collision on the 118 Freeway.

L.A. County Superior Court Judge Robert H. O'Brien cited two key reasons for his decision: The vehicle's high center of gravity made it susceptible to rolling over, and its roof collapsed too easily, causing Sukhsagar Pannu to suffer a debilitating spinal cord injury. O'Brien issued the judgment May 18 after a trial.

Pannu, 53, who had played competitive field hockey in Hong Kong, permanently lost the use of his arms and legs as a result of the injury. He lives with his parents and three children, who provide him around-the-clock care.

"This verdict is a wonderful decision for Mr. Pannu. It will give him that extra money he needs to have sufficient caregivers. The system worked for him," said Pannu's attorney, Garo Mardirossian. "Hopefully, other manufacturers will look at this case and say, 'Let's spend the money and make the cars safe.' "

Read Article Los Angeles Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Quadriplegic Oakland musician wins $18 million verdict against Ford Motor Co.

2009-06-12T18:31:00.001-07:00

An Oakland musician who was made a quadriplegic in a rollover crash four years ago won an $18.3 million verdict against Ford Motor Co. in federal court today. Dax Pierson, 38, was a member of Subtle, an electronic hip-hop band. He suffered severe spinal injuries when a Ford passenger van that the band was traveling in ran off an icy highway in Iowa and rolled over in a ditch on Feb. 24, 2005.

Pierson sued Ford for creating a defective seat-latching mechanism that caused his seat to come loose, resulting in his head hitting the roof of the rolled-over van. The $18.3 million jury award came after three weeks of trial in the court of U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton. It includes $12.3 million for past and future medical expenses and lost earnings plus $6 million for pain and suffering.

Daniel Dell'Osso, a lawyer for Pierson, said, "Now Dax's care is properly funded."

Read Article Contra Costa Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

City to Pay $2 Million in Death After Hospital Wait

2009-06-12T18:30:00.006-07:00

New York City has agreed to pay $2 million to the family of a woman who died last year on the floor of the psychiatric emergency room at Kings County Hospital Center after waiting more than 24 hours to be treated.

A video showed the woman on the floor for more than an hour while workers at the city-run hospital did nothing to help her. It prompted widespread criticism, as well as pledges of reform.

The city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation accepted full responsibility for the death of the woman, Esmin Elizabeth Green, 49, and said it had taken steps to relieve crowding and increase the size of the staff to provide mental health services at the hospital.
The death came amid mounting concern over conditions in the psychiatric service at the hospital, the only mental health provider for many poor people in Brooklyn.

Read Article New Yorlk Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

State pays woman who blinded herself in prison

2009-06-12T18:30:00.005-07:00

Iowa authorities have reached a legal settlement with Shayne Eggen, a mentally ill woman who used her finger to blind herself while she was in prison.

The state paid $141,533 last month to Eggen and her lawyers. The money settles allegations that instead of giving Eggen proper treatment, prison authorities repeatedly locked her in solitary confinement for behaviors caused by schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Advocates for the mentally ill say Eggen's case illustrates how the United States misuses prisons to warehouse people who need psychiatric care. Her family says that when she blinded herself in 2002, she was confined alone at the state women's prison in Mitchellville.

Eggen, 45, has struggled for decades with mental illnesses. Her supporters say that before going to prison, she was repeatedly released from mental-health facilities without proper follow-up care.

Read Article DesMoines Register

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Court Rules Bicycling Is a 'Leisure' Activity, Finds No Assumption of Risk

2009-06-12T18:30:00.003-07:00

Drawing a distinction between "sporting" and "leisure" activities, a Brooklyn-based appellate court has refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by an avid Long Island bicyclist who was injured in an accident precipitated by roadway repairs.

The Appellate Division, 2nd Department, in Cotty v. Southhampton, 2007-08536, declined to apply the assumption-of-risk doctrine as a matter of law and ruled unanimously that the negligence action of Karen Cotty could proceed.

Courts frequently dismiss such suits, guided by a public policy of encouraging "vigorous participation in athletic activities" and reasoning that athletes might otherwise be reluctant to play aggressively for fear of being sued, the panel said. Morgan v. New York City Board of Education, 73 NY 2d 650.

For example, another 2nd Department panel recently held in Anand v. Kapoor that a golfer had no duty, as a matter of law, to yell "fore" before making a shot that left another golfer blind in one eye.

Read Article Law.com

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Mortgage-related litigation on the rise — both by investors and by homeowners

2009-06-12T18:30:00.001-07:00

Plaintiffs win a round in suits against Jefferson Parish over Katrina flooding

2009-06-12T18:29:00.003-07:00

The lawsuits against Jefferson Parish over widespread flooding after Hurricane Katrina are inching forward again now that the Louisiana Supreme Court has decided the government may be held responsible for its storm planning years earlier.

Offering no explanation, the high court decided in a 6-1 ruling Friday against hearing the government's argument that it could not be sued for following a disaster plan drafted well before the 2005 hurricane season. Justice Jeffrey Victory of Shreveport was the lone dissenting vote.

The Supreme Court upheld the March decision of a state appeals court that had dubbed the government immune from liability for any decisions made at the height of the Katrina emergency. But a faulty "doomsday policy," even if drafted under a former administration, was another matter, both courts seemed to say.

Read Article New Orleans Times Picayune

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The Dangers of Treadmills

2009-06-12T18:29:00.001-07:00

The death of Mike Tyson’s 4-year-old daughter after a treadmill accident has highlighted the dangers that home exercise equipment poses to children.

The child, Exodus Tyson, was discovered with a treadmill cord around her neck. The girl was found by her brother while her mother was cleaning in another room.
Doctors estimate about 25,000 children end up in the emergency room each year as a result of injuries related to home exercise equipment. According to Consumer Reports, children can be harmed in a variety of ways.

Emergency rooms around the country are reporting a growing number of severe burns on the hands and fingers of young children who reach down or under and touch the treadmill belt when it’s running. Though some incidents occur when unsupervised children are playing with unlocked equipment, many occur when children approach from behind as a parent is using the equipment. Curious hands that reach out and touch the moving belt or reach under the machine can suffer excruciating burns that can require multiple skin grafts and cause permanent disability.

Read Article New York Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Merck Gets High Court Hearing on Investor Vioxx Suit

2009-06-05T18:18:00.001-07:00

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider Merck & Co.’s bid to stop a shareholder lawsuit over the now-withdrawn Vioxx painkiller in a case that might mean tighter deadlines for investor fraud lawsuits.

A federal appeals court said Merck must defend against a proposed class-action lawsuit that accuses the drugmaker of defrauding investors about the risks posed by Vioxx, which the company pulled from the market in 2004 because of links to heart attacks and strokes. Merck argues that the investors filed suit too late.

The appeal turns on the starting date for the two-year window that investors are given to file some types of federal securities lawsuits. The question for the high court concerns how much notice an investor must have about possible company wrongdoing to cause that window to open.

Read Article Bloomberg

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Psychiatrists rewriting the mental health bible

2009-06-05T18:17:00.004-07:00

Is the compulsion to hoard things a mental disorder? How about the practice of eating excessively at night?

And what of Internet addiction: Should it be diagnosed and treated?
As the clock ticks toward the release of the most influential of mental health textbooks, psychiatrists are asking themselves thousands of complex and sometimes controversial questions. The answers will determine how Americans' mental health is assessed, diagnosed and treated.

Over the next 18 months, psychiatrists will hammer out a draft of the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Assn.'s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, more commonly called DSM-V. Nowhere have the discussions been more heated, the ramifications most vividly foretold, than here at the organization's annual meeting.
Some psychiatrists warn that the tome runs the risk of medicalizing the normal range of human behaviors; others vehemently argue that it must be broad enough to guide treatment of those who need it.

Read Article Los Angeles Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Class-action lawsuit over tobacco ads proceeds

2009-06-05T18:17:00.003-07:00

Consumers have the right to sue as a group over advertising they believe misled them into buying products, a divided state Supreme Court ruled Monday in reinstating a massive suit against the tobacco industry.

The 4-3 decision rejected business arguments that, if accepted, would have virtually prohibited class-action suits for false advertising by requiring proof that every plaintiff - millions of them, in some cases - had seen an allegedly deceptive ad and relied on it to make a purchase. The court majority said that evidence is required only for the single plaintiff or small group that represents the entire class.

"This gives the consumers rights to protect themselves from fraudulent advertising," said Mark Robinson, a lawyer for the smokers who sued tobacco companies in 1997.
The ruling could make California "the class-action capital of the country," retorted William Stern, a lawyer for business organizations and a co-author of Proposition 64, a 2004 ballot measure at the heart of the case.

Read Article San Francisco Chronicle

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AT&T wins court case on pre-1979 maternity leaves

2009-06-05T18:17:00.001-07:00

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday for AT&T Inc in a dispute over how retirement benefits should be calculated for women who took maternity leaves before the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act took effect in 1979.

By a 7-2 vote, the justices overturned a U.S. appeals court ruling that AT&T had violated federal civil rights law by not granting women credit for their entire pregnancy-related leaves taken before 1979.

The 1979 law barred companies from treating pregnancy leaves differently from other disability leaves. Since then, maternity leave has been considered disability leave and has been credited toward retirement.

The ruling was a defeat for four AT&T employees who each took at least one maternity leave between 1968 and 1976 and had sued. AT&T at the time allowed pregnant women up to 30 days of paid leave, but the women lost between 67 and 261 days of uncredited leave.

Read Article Reuters

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Wrongful death lawsuit: Parents of boy killed by garage door sue homeowner, manufacturer and installer

2009-06-05T18:16:00.002-07:00

The family whose 6-year-old son was killed after a garage door closed on him filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Wednesday against the Chicago homeowner and two companies believed to have manufactured and installed the door.

Angela Washington-Sanders and Marshall Sanders sued in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of their son, Dijion, whose death Saturday was from compressional asphyxia after he was trapped under the garage door, according to the medical examiner's office. His 9-year-old brother found him fatally injured and alerted their mother after Dijion was playing outside alone, the family said.

The suit names as defendants Darrell Washington, the victim's uncle who owned the home in the 9200 block of South Saginaw Avenue in the Calumet Heights neighborhood where the accident occurred, as well as Mid-America Door Co. and Sears, Roebuck & Co.

The suit alleged that the garage door wasn't equipped with a motion sensor and that Washington failed to warn his relatives that it "could unexpectedly close or fall."

Read Article Chicago Tribune

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Broward jury awards widow of smoker $1.5 million

2009-06-05T18:16:00.001-07:00

A Broward jury awarded a Hollywood widow about $1.5 for million for the death of her husband, who died of lung cancer at the age of 69 in 1996 after smoking three to four packs of Winston cigarettes a day.

The jury on Friday decided in R.J. Reynolds Tobacco's favor on four of five counts, but on the fifth count found that John Sherman's death was caused by the company concealing information about the health effects of cigarettes. The jury assigned equal responsibility between Sherman and the company for his death. Gary Paige, attorney for widow Melba Sherman, said she is ``very grateful.''

R.J. Reynolds vowed to appeal.

Read Article Miami Herald

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Doctor Falsified Study on Injured G.I.’s, Army Says

2009-06-05T18:15:00.002-07:00

A former surgeon at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who is a paid consultant for a medical company, published a study that made false claims and overstated the benefits of the company’s product in treating soldiers severely injured in Iraq, the hospital’s commander said Tuesday.

An investigation by Walter Reed found that the study cited higher numbers of patients and injuries than the hospital could account for, said the commander, Col. Norvell V. Coots.

“It’s like a ghost population that were reported in the article as having been treated that we have no record of ever having existed,” Colonel Coots said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “So this really was all falsified information.”

The former Army surgeon, Dr. Timothy R. Kuklo, reported that a bone-growth product sold by Medtronic Inc. had much higher success in healing the shattered legs of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed than other doctors there had experienced, according to Colonel Coots and a summary of an Army

Read Article New York Times

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Suit dismissed in '05 tour boat capsizing

2009-06-05T18:15:00.001-07:00

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the company that modified the Ethan Allen tour boat that capsized in upstate New York in 2005, killing 20 passengers.
Nineteen of the 20 who drowned in Lake George were seniors from southeastern Michigan on a fall sightseeing tour in the Adirondack Mountains.

One of the victims was Trenton resident Earl Hawley, 76. Anna May Hawley, who was pulled from the water by a family on a passing boat, was dismayed by the ruling.
"I'm very disappointed, but I guess there's nothing we could do," she said Monday, declining further comment.

U.S. District Judge Thomas McAvoy ruled Monday that there is no evidence to determine whether the vessel was rendered unstable by the replacement of a canvas-and-metal canopy with a canopy made of wood. The modified canopy was installed by Scarano Boat Building Co.

Read Article Detroit Free Press

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Vioxx Class Action Suit in California Rejected

2009-06-05T18:14:00.004-07:00

A California state judge has rejected a proposed class action lawsuit brought on behalf of state residents who took the painkiller Vioxx before it was pulled from the market in 2004.

Lawyers for former Vioxx users and health insurance plans wanted to sue the drug's maker, Merck & Co., to recover at least part of what they paid for the medicine. The plaintiffs lawyers argued patients would have taken other pain relievers, had they known that Vioxx doubled risk of heart attack and stroke.

However, Judge Victoria Chaney of Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that the patients and insurers cannot sue as a group. She wrote that patients paid varying amounts for Vioxx and had too many other differences to sue jointly, including their medical histories and how long they took the anti-inflammatory medicine.

Read Article Law.com

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

Seattle home for suicidal children sued over death

2009-06-05T18:14:00.003-07:00

The suicide of a teenager in a home for suicidal children in Seattle has resulted in a lawsuit against the program.

The case for unspecified damages was filed Thursday by Steven Bunch, father of the late Ashlie Bunch, against the McGraw Residential Center, a program of the Seattle Children's Home.

The 15-year-old girl hanged herself on Jan. 29, 2008, with shoelaces she had been given by a staff member. According to the lawsuit, she was not supposed to have shoelaces because she had previously attempted suicide. State investigators also determined that she had not been checked by a staff member every five minutes as required.

Gena Palm, executive director of the children's home, says her organization has not been served with the lawsuit and she won't comment on it.

Read Article Seattle Times

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Wal-Mart avoids charges in post-Thanksgiving death

2009-06-05T18:14:00.001-07:00

Wal-Mart Stores Inc agreed to improve its post-Thanksgiving Day crowd control as a condition of avoiding criminal prosecution in the fatal stampede of frenzied holiday shoppers at a Long Island store.

In a settlement made public on Wednesday with the district attorney of New York's Nassau County and the world's largest retailer also agreed to set up a $400,000 victims' compensation fund, donate $1.5 million to the community and provide 50 jobs annually to high school students in the area.

The deal came as a result of the DA's investigation into the death of a 34-year-old security guard, Jdimytai Damour, who was knocked to the ground and trampled to death in the early morning hours on the Friday after Thanksgiving as shoppers stormed a Wal-Mart.

Read Article Reuters

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Health Insurers Agree to End Higher Premiums for Women

2009-06-05T18:13:00.002-07:00

Insurance companies offered Tuesday to end the practice of charging higher premiums to women than to men for the same coverage.

Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, made the offer in testifying before the Senate Finance Committee. It was the latest concession by insurers as Congress drafts legislation to overhaul the $2.5 trillion health care industry.

In November, insurers said they would accept all customers, regardless of illness or disability, if Congress required all Americans to have coverage. In March, insurers offered to stop charging higher premiums to sick people.

Read Article New York Times

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Sue the company? Most contracts force consumers to forfeit that right

2009-06-05T18:13:00.001-07:00

If you have a credit card, a cellphone or even just a job, chances are you've already signed away your right to sue if something goes wrong.

Mandatory arbitration clauses have become a routine part of the fine print in most financial, telecom and employment contracts, as well as numerous other customer agreements. They typically require you to abandon the right to a jury trial or class-action lawsuit, and to agree instead to take any grievances to a professional arbitrator.

But because of the way the system is set up, critics say, arbitration often favors the company and not the individual. So the likelihood of a positive outcome (for you) can be less than if you had pursued litigation. Consumer advocates, sensing a shift in the political winds under President Obama, believe the time is right to challenge mandatory arbitration and have banded together to support legislation ending the practice.

Read Article Los Angeles Times

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Movie Trailers From U.S. Chamber Institute Warn of Frivolous Lawsuits

2009-06-05T18:12:00.004-07:00

Moviegoers seeking diversion from pressing public policy issues won't escape the tort reform debate in select Colorado, Louisiana and metropolitan Washington theaters.
On April 28, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform continued its multiyear, multimillion-dollar campaign to curb abusive lawsuits with two-minute movie theater trailers.

The trailers, which are running in four Washington area theaters and a total of four theaters in Denver and Baton Rouge, La., continue an advertising campaign dating back to December 2007. Previous ads have run on television, radio and on the Internet, but the Institute views movie theater advertising as a unique way to reach a captive audience, said spokesman Mark Szymanski.

Read Article Law.com

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Souter’s Exit to Give Obama First Opening

2009-06-05T18:12:00.003-07:00

Justice David H. Souter plans to retire at the end of the term in June, giving President Obama his first appointment to the Supreme Court, and has written to the president to tell him so, senior Democrats said on Friday.

They said the letter was on its way to the White House, and one Democrat said it was likely to be released by the White House as soon as Friday afternoon.

Justice Souter, who was appointed in 1990 by a Republican president, the first George Bush, but became one of the most reliable members of the court’s liberal wing, has grown increasingly sour on Washington and intends to return to his home state, New Hampshire, according to the people briefed on his plans. One official said the decision might be announced as early as Friday.

Read Article New York Times

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Georgia settles with drug company for $6M

2009-06-05T18:12:00.001-07:00

Georgia has decided to enter into a multimillion-dollar settlement with Eli Lilly and Co. over the pharmaceutical giant’s off-label promotion of the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa.
The state will get more than $6 million from the deal. Even so, lawyers familiar with the case wonder if Georgia is missing out on a much larger payday.

A dozen other states have decided not to settle. They have filed their own lawsuits seeking massive damage awards. The suits seek, in part, reimbursement for Medicaid payments for unwarranted Zyprexa prescriptions. The suits contend Lilly misled patients and their physicians about Zyprexa’s potential side effects — diabetes, hyperglycemia and excessive weight gain. Lilly has denied wrongdoing in these civil cases.

Georgia has joined 30 other states in taking the settlement, a Lilly spokeswoman said.
Mark Zamora, an Atlanta lawyer who represents clients with Zyprexa claims, said Georgia should take on Lilly in court.

Read Article Atlanta Journal Constitution

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Court rebuffs feds, reinstates torture suit

2009-06-05T18:11:00.002-07:00

A federal appeals court rebuffed the Obama administration's assertion of secrecy Tuesday and reinstated a lawsuit by five men who say a Bay Area subsidiary of Boeing Co. helped the CIA fly them to foreign countries to be tortured.

The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is the first major setback for the new administration's attempt to use secrecy doctrines to fend off challenges to clandestine activities authorized by President George W. Bush. President Obama's Justice Department is also defending a Bush wiretapping program in lawsuits pending in San Francisco.

Tuesday's ruling involved extraordinary rendition, the practice of abducting suspected terrorists and criminals without any extradition or legal proceedings, and taking them to foreign countries or CIA prisons for interrogation. The defendant, Jeppesen Dataplan of San Jose, was described in a 2007 Council of Europe report as the CIA's aviation services provider.

Read Article San Francisco Chronicle

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Nationwide Class Action Reinstated Against Ford Motor Over Accelerator Pedals

2009-06-05T18:11:00.001-07:00

Among Detroit's Big Three, Ford Motor Co. looks to be in the best shape. But sometimes, even when you think you're in the clear, you're not. (At least in litigation.) That's what happened to Ford last week in Oklahoma, where the state's Supreme Court reinstated a nationwide class action against Ford and auto parts maker Williams Controls (pdf) that had been tossed by an intermediate appellate court. The class, which includes an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 members, contends that certain models of Ford Super Duty pickup trucks and Expedition sport utility vehicles contain faulty accelerator pedals, causing the trucks to idle rather than accelerate when drivers step on the gas.

The case, which was first filed in 2004, alleges breach of warranty, negligence and product liability. The trial court certified a nationwide class in 2007, but last year the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals reversed the lower court. In reinstating the case, the Oklahoma Supreme Court found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in certifying a class on the breach of warranty claims. It declined to affirm class certification on negligence or product liability claims.

Read Article Law.com

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Shell Settles Air Pollution Accusations

2009-06-05T18:10:00.002-07:00

The oil company Royal Dutch Shell said Thursday that it had reached a $5.8 million settlement over claims of air pollution at its Deer Park refinery near Houston.

The proposed settlement would require Shell to reduce emissions from air pollutants from its plant by 80 percent within three years, upgrade chemical units and reduce gas flaring.
The agreement is subject to review by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department. It must also be approved by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, where the complaint was filed.

Shell was sued last year by Environment Texas Citizen Lobby and the Sierra Club, claiming violations of the Clean Air Act. The suit contended there had been more than a thousand instances of illegal pollution at the plant since 2003, releasing a total of five million pounds of air pollutants into the atmosphere, including toxic chemicals like benzene and 1,3-butadiene, as well as sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen.

Read Article New York Times

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Group says flea collars for pets endanger kids

2009-06-05T18:10:00.001-07:00

Some cat and dog flea collars leave chemicals on fur that are hazardous to the pets and their owners, in violation of California's anti-toxics laws, according to a national environmental group's lawsuit Thursday. The Natural Resources Defense Council urged federal regulators to remove the products from the market.

Two chemicals in the pet collars left residue sufficient to pose the risk of cancer and neurological damage to children - as much as 1,000 times higher than levels established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the group said.

"Just because a product is sold in stores doesn't mean it's safe," said Dr. Gina Solomon, a physician and a toxicologist with the environmental group and an author of the study.
Under California's Proposition 65, which was approved by state voters in 1986, "consumers have a right to know if a flea-control product could make their pets or families sick," Solomon said.

Read Article San Francisco Chronicle

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O’Connor favors merit selection of judges

2009-06-05T18:09:00.002-07:00

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor believes merit selection is the best way to choose judges and keep them independent, saying it is hard for judges to remain impartial knowing their decisions will influence how long they keep their jobs.

She told a crowd of about 500 people attending a St. Joseph County Bar Association luncheon Wednesday that the money being spent by people running for the judiciary in states that don’t have merit selection is causing people to trust judges less.

“I hope that lawmakers will be cautious and look at what an independent judiciary has meant to this nation,” she said. “Our judges must be capable of staying above politics if they’re going to serve the function of making impartial decisions.”

Read Article Chicago Tribune

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U.S. Steel tries to kick pollution lawsuit into federal court

2009-06-05T18:09:00.001-07:00

A lawyer for U.S. Steel Corp. has filed papers to move a lawsuit against 11 industries active in Northwest Indiana into Hammond federal court because the defense lawyer claims more than $5 million could be at stake.

Plaintiff Ron Kurth, of Crown Point, is seeking class-action status for his suit claiming companies -- including U.S. Steel and ArcelorMittal USA Inc. -- are responsible for harming children with pollutants.

The suit alleges Lake County children are exposed to high levels of airborne toxins. Studies show the toxins put children at an increased risk of cancer, damage during organ development and mental disabilities, the suit claims.

Lawyer Terence M. Austgen filed the motion to move the suit with agreement from all other defendants, court records state. Austgen lists several reasons the suit should be handled federally, including the claim that the amount in controversy could exceed $5 million.

Read Article Times Online

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With Son in Remission, Family Looks for Coverage

2009-06-05T18:08:00.004-07:00

When Danna Walker left the second-floor conference room and returned tearily to her desk — where someone had already deposited a packing box for her belongings — her first thought was not of the 14 years she had worked for DHL or the loss of her $37,000-a-year salary.

It was of Jake. In three months, once her benefits ran out, how in the world would she provide health insurance for Jake, her mountainous, red-headed 21-year-old son, who had learned three years earlier that he had metastatic testicular cancer?

Since the day she was laid off in October, Ms. Walker and her husband, Russ, co-owner of a struggling feed store here on the outskirts of Houston, have mounted a largely fruitless quest to find affordable coverage for Jake’s pre-existing condition. Their odyssey has become all too familiar to millions of newly uninsured Americans who suddenly find themselves one diagnosis away from medical and financial devastation.

Read Article New York Times

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Owner of Apollo nuke plant settles suit with residents

2009-06-05T18:08:00.003-07:00

People who live near a former nuclear fuel plant will get $52.5 million to settle their 14-year-old lawsuit against Babcock & Wilcox Co.

The settlement, approved Friday by a federal judge in Pittsburgh, ends the final claim brought by 365 people who live in the Apollo area, about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

The same group last year got $27.5 million to settle claims against Atlantic Richfield Co. that plant emissions and groundwater pollution caused an unusually high cancer rate, other illnesses and property damage.

The case concerns the former Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. plant, which was built in 1957 and sold to ARCO in 1967. B&W bought the plant in 1971 and has been cleaning up the site since shutting it down in the 1980s.

Read Article Pittsburg Post Gazette

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Kaiser Permanente to settle kidney transplant claims for $1 million

2009-06-05T18:08:00.001-07:00

Kaiser Permanente has agreed to pay $1 million to settle claims on behalf of five patients alleging that the HMO mishandled its kidney transplant program, endangering lives and causing deaths.

The arbitration claims were filed shortly after a Times investigation in 2006 found that Kaiser's Northern California kidney transplant program jeopardized hundreds of patients by forcing them into a new program unprepared to handle an enormous caseload. Less than two weeks after the first article ran, Kaiser announced plans to shut down the San Francisco-based program.

"The failure of the program resulted in the deaths of some patients who did not timely receive kidney transplants. The health of others was severely jeopardized," said Lawrence Eisenberg, an attorney for two former patients and the families of three deceased patients. "As the largest HMO in the country, Kaiser's gross mismanagement of the kidney transplant program certainly did not allow their patients to thrive."

Kaiser released a brief statement confirming the settlements.

Read Article Los Angeles Times

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Overseer of Medical Trials, Under F.D.A. Pressure, Agrees to Suspension

2009-06-05T18:07:00.001-07:00

A Colorado company that approved a make-believe clinical trial run by doctors who did not exist got a dose of reality on Tuesday.

Under pressure from the Food and Drug Administration, the company agreed to temporarily suspend approving federally regulated medical studies or enrolling new patients in ones currently under way.

The agreement by the company, Coast Independent Review Board of Colorado Springs, could have an impact on its future operations. It may also affect some of 300 active studies involving human patients that Coast currently oversees on behalf of makers of drugs or medical devices.

Coast said last month that it planned to overhaul its procedures, a theme it emphasized in a statement released Tuesday. “Coast I.R.B. is changing everything, said the company’s chief executive Dan Dueber. “We are revamping every aspect of the company.”

Read Article New York Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

As Pills Treat Cancer, Insurance Lags Behind

2009-06-05T18:06:00.001-07:00

Chuck Stauffer’s insurance covered the surgery to remove his brain tumor. It covered his brain scans. And it would have paid fully for tens of thousands of dollars of intravenous chemotherapy at a doctor’s office or hospital.

But his insurance covered hardly any of the cost of the cancer pills the doctor prescribed for him to take at home. Mr. Stauffer, a 62-year-old Oregon farmer, had to pay $5,500 for the first 42-day supply of the drug, Temodar, and $1,700 a month after that.
“Because it was a pill,” he said, “I had to pay — not the insurance.”

Pills and capsules are the new wave in cancer treatment, expected to account for 25 percent of all cancer medicines in a few years, up from less than 10 percent now.

Read Article New York Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

$3 million settlement for family in King-Harbor death

2009-06-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles County supervisors have agreed to pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the children of Edith Rodriguez, the woman who died after writhing in pain for 45 minutes on the waiting-room floor of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Medical Center, according to an attorney representing the family.

Rodriguez's death nearly two years ago attracted national attention, becoming a symbol of an indifferent emergency system. A triage nurse had dismissed her complaints in the early morning of May 9, 2007. A security videotape showed a janitor mopping around Rodriguez and other staff walking past.

Authorities also released two 911 calls of people pleading for help for Rodriguez. Each had their concerns dismissed by dispatchers. [UPDATE: In the first call, a dispatcher said help could not be sent because Rodriguez was already at a hospital. In the second, a dispatcher curtly told the female caller that it was not a "life-threatening emergency" and offered to give her the number for the business line.]

Read Article Los Angeles Times

Posted By Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys

As Pills Treat Cancer, Insurance Lags Behind

2009-04-17T17:51:00.003-07:00

Board that disciplines doctors may be reined in

2009-04-17T17:51:00.001-07:00

A bill that was the subject of a 5½-hour hearing Tuesday would sharply curtail the powers of the Texas Medical Board if it becomes law.

Backers argued that it would bring much-needed transparency and provide greater fairness to doctors whom, some say, the board is persecuting. They especially raised concerns about practitioners of alternative medicine and those who treat conditions such as autism.

Opponents, however, said the legislation would leave patients more vulnerable to bad doctors and make it difficult for patients to complain about physicians in a state where the Legislature has made it harder to sue for malpractice.

In the end, the House Public Health Committee said it would amend House Bill 3816, which also would disclose the names of some complainants to doctors and create an advisory committee to oversee the the board. The committee didn't specify what it might change.

Read Article Austin American Statesman

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GM recalls 1.5 million cars due to fire risk

2009-04-17T17:50:00.002-07:00

General Motors Corp is recalling nearly 1.5 million Buick, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and Pontiac mid-sized cars due to a potential leak of engine oil that could cause an engine fire.

The recall applies to the 1997-2003 Buick Regal; 1998-2003 Chevrolet Lumina, Monte Carlo and Impala; 1998-99 Oldsmobile Intrigue; and 1997-2003 Pontiac Grand Prix, GM said in a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
A total of 1,497,516 vehicles, all equipped with a 3.8 liter engine, are involved in the recall.

GM said some of the vehicles have a condition in which drops of engine oil may be deposited on the exhaust manifold under hard braking.

Read Article Reuters

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$3 million settlement for family in King-Harbor death

2009-04-17T17:50:00.001-07:00

Metro employees sue over stairwell collapse

2009-04-17T17:49:00.002-07:00

Two people injured when a stairwell collapsed last month in a century-old Main Street building have filed a lawsuit against the property owner and his wife, claiming the couple should have known the structure was unsafe.

Louisville's new head of downtown development, Alan DeLisle, and his chief deputy, Patti Clare, filed the suit on March 12 in Jefferson Circuit Court against Paul Bariteau and his wife, Carolan.

On March 3, DeLisle and Clare went to tour the Fort Nelson building with the Bariteaus because DeLisle had been visiting vacant properties in Louisville, Chris Poynter, a spokesman for Mayor Jerry Abramson, has said.

The stairwell collapsed and fell two stories, trapping DeLisle, Clare and Paul Bariteau under debris.

Read Article Louisville Courier Journal

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