Personal Injury Resources

The police of Los Angeles have recently had a lot of fun, when they were filling out papers to register a series of car accidents. As it turned out, drivers were losing control and running into other vehicles because of a giant women's pubis, which they could see displayed on the front part of an oncoming car. The LA police started desperately looking for the unfortunate pubis and came upon the tracks of young hairdresser, Nelly Node.

Nelly's passion for arts made the young woman photograph her own crotch and put the zoomed picture on her Volkswagen Beetle. Nelly decided to use such a shameless method to prepare her college course work, in which she analyzed the art of design. The witty student's idea worked for the college professors: she was proudly driving her "pubic beetle" until the police arrested the woman.

The court ruled that Nelly's car was creating a dangerous situation on the roads: the girl had to paint her car's bonnet over.

how the drug giant merck tweaked tests on vioxx to hide the fact the painkiller could cause heart attacks and strokes..

For instance, a group called Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR) advocated for limits on our civil justice system and Proposition 12, which limited medical malpractice awards to $250,000. They have advocated for the use of mandatory arbitration stripping our Constitutional rights to a judge and jury. Their advocating has resulted in little if any reductions in consumer goods or protections for consumers, but has provided overwhelming protection from lawsuits for business interests.

Capping medical malpractice payouts, putting in place President Bush's centerpiece education law and modernizing the election system also are among the GOP goals that, critics say, expand federal powers at the expense of states' rights.

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the masterful attorney who gained prominence as an early advocate for victims of police abuse then achieved worldwide fame for successfully defending football star O.J. Simpson on murder charges, died Tuesday. He was 67.

Cochran died of an inoperable brain tumor at his home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, according to his brother-in-law Bill Baker. He had been diagnosed with the brain tumor in December 2003, Baker said.

We faxed the copy of the cashed money order from our bank and letter stating the facts to Malasia twice and san,diego. They claim the don’t know any thing about it. Look if anyone else is thinking Class action law suit then count us in. Between constant calls saying we did not pay and trips to kinkkos to fax letter, we have’nt had time to grieve my mothers death. Look its fraud and I’m sure of it now. How does a company do this?

The loss of men was too great to be explained by New Zealand’s high male youth suicide rate, or by death through risk-taking or car accidents. The imbalance is an oddity - New Zealand has one of the highest ratio of women to men among developed countries. In Denmark and Germany, the imbalance runs the other way.

Doctors and hospitals will have more protection from medical malpractice lawsuits beginning July 1 under four bills signed into law Monday by Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

Hines and Terry Kinnas, Republican candidate for the legislative seat left by former Rep. Peter Larkin of Pittsfield, remarked on the high cost to Massachusetts employers of workman's compensation and unemployment insurance.

Lawyers filed into a federal courtroom Friday for the first pre-trial hearing in the federal Vioxx liability case, the start of a legal process expected to be complex, years-long and potentially very costly for the painkiller's maker, Merck & Co.

Certified public accountant Mark M. Gleason spends much of his time helping clients, either buyers or sellers, value an asset to determine a fair price. But the Pittsburgh accountant also is gaining a national reputation for knowing how to make assets last.

Gleason, 54, is one of three court-appointed trustees overseeing a $2.5 billion fund established to pay asbestos victims who can link their problems to exposure to products made by subsidiaries of Halliburton, the Houston, energy, engineering and construction services company once chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney.

"Well over one million claims could be submitted ... anywhere from today to 30 or 40 years from now," Gleason says.

In an unholy alliance between a few opportunistic members of the medical community and a handful of super-wealthy asbestos lawyers, healthy people taking chest exams bought and paid for by law firms almost always receive positive indications of asbestos injury. Doctors and radiologists have even been paid more for positive results than negative results and some physicians have certified hundreds of people a day as positive for asbestos damage to the lungs without ever examining a single patient. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of these plaintiffs are then included in lawsuits against companies that have little if any relationship to asbestos or products containing asbestos.

The latest evidence of distorted legal evidence comes from scientists working for and with Johns Hopkins University, who were asked by beleaguered asbestos defendants to examine the legitimacy of radiology findings by plaintiffs' experts in asbestos cases. The results seem to indicate more than professional disagreement over ambiguous diagnoses. Independent radiologists were asked to review 492 chest films without being told the X-rays were evidence in asbestos lawsuits. They found only 4.5 percent positive for asbestos damage while radiologists employed by plaintiff lawyers found 96 percent positive for asbestos. These results mirror similar findings reached by the RAND Corp. in recent years. Serious questions of the validity of testing and suspicions of manufactured evidence also have emerged recently in a similar silica lawsuit being heard in a Corpus Christi federal courtroom.

Near the end of class on Wednesday, several students expressed their concern over how the seemingly legitimate, voluntary concession of rights required by EULAs has the serious potential to chill innovation: by providing a legal precedent under which contract law may supercede the previously determined precedent of fair use protection for reverse engineering, hardware and software developers may be deprived of this extremely useful (and, as was pointed out in a previous post, historically significant) technique. There is, however, a larger issue at stake, one that in part rests upon the outcome of this case - the appearance of legal authority over small, independent development teams gained by corporate software studios in cases such as Davidson & Associates v. Internet Gateway may indirectly discourage the type of grassroots efforts from which many original works spring.

A jury has awarded $2.1 million to a 60-year-old former Navy engineer and his wife for exposure to asbestos that left him with terminal lung cancer.

Anthony and Maxlyn Cadlo of Pine Haven, Wyo., won the verdict Tuesday against John Crane Inc. of Illinois and Metalclad Insulation Corp. of Anaheim after a six-week trial in San Francisco Superior Court.

Cadlo joined the Navy in 1964, at age 18, served four years and was in combat in Vietnam. He was exposed to asbestos from the equipment and insulation he installed and removed on the ship and from dust emitted by the destroyer's guns when fired in combat, his suit said.

Cadlo was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma in 2002 and is near death, the couple's lawyer, Christopher Andreas, said.

Jurors assigned one-third of the fault to the Navy, but it is immune from damages, Andreas said.

TXU on Friday agreed to pay $150m to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the US utility misled investors about its strategy and financial performance.

Dallas-based TXU denied any liability in the action first brought in October 2002, but also agreed to look at tightening its corporate governance standards following negotiations lasting more than eight months. Counsel for the plaintiffs said the proposed settlement required these changes to be made.

A federal judge has dismissed a class-action lawsuit filed against Aquila Inc., allowing the utility to avoid potential damages in the millions at a time when it wants to sell some of its operations to pay its massive debt.

The lawsuit charged that shareholders were cheated when the company, then known as UtiliCorp United, reacquired part of its energy trading operation three years ago. U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. granted summary judgment to Aquila on Wednesday.

Different River has an interesting post on medical malpractice. He attempts to use the econ technique where you point out that if X were true, there would be a lot of money to be made by doing Y. So if Y is not happening, X is unlikely to be true. While this is a part of “the economic way of thinking", IMHO, we should be careful not to have too much confidence in the output, since its easy to make subtle mistakes. The comments section demonstrates some such issues for this case.

A class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of purchasers of ChoicePoint Inc. common stock during the period between April 22, 2004 and March 3, 2005 (the "Class Period"), the law firm Lerach Coughlin announced March 10, 2005.

The suit comes after ChoicePoint disclosed in February that a secruity breach of its systems compromised personal information on as many as 145,000 consumers nationwide - including credit reports and Social Security numbers.

The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants disseminated materially false and misleading statements concerning the security of the Company's systems, its results and operations.

"At the same time ChoicePoint's security breaches were concealed, two of the Company's top officers sold $20.89 million worth of their ChoicePoint stock," according to the lawsuit.

Help is available to borrowers who have claims against their lenders for violating the Truth in Lending Act and other laws regulating credit transactions. Such violations may be a defense to a mortgage foreclosure. If there is a violation, you may be able to void the mortgage and apply 100% of your payments to principal. You may also be able to recover money damages.

If the answer to any of the following questions is "yes," please arrange for a professional auditor to review your loan documents (including demand and collection letters, correspondence, and any account histories or monthly statements).

A serious problem in the regulation of drugs is that manufacturers do not have to make all of their data on the safety and effectiveness of drugs available to the public. We have seen this in the recent controversies surrounding Vioxx and the use of anti-depressants with children.

There is legislation in the Senate called the Fair Access to Clinical Trials Act of 2005 (or FACT -- cool name -- S.470) that would go a long distance toward solving this problem.

I sought out information about the lawsuit at the Zylon vest class action website but it had nothing useful. A year-old Detroit News piece, Cop death tarnishes armored vest maker, covers the background to the suits pretty well and clearly favors the company. The article mentions the two reputed failures of SCBA/Zylon vests. The first involved an Oceanside, California officer who was killed in the line of duty while wearing a Second Chance vest. The article repeats the company view that the fatal hit came at the edge, where vests often fail to stop bullets. The second incident that happened in Pennsylvania a few days later incontrovertibly involved vest failure and led directly to the Department of Justice getting involved.

The Complaint charges defendants with violations of the federal securities laws, specifically Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 14a-9 promulgated thereunder. The Complaint alleges that the defendants have issued materially misleading proxy statements (the “Proxy Statements”) to the limited partners of the Textainer Partnerships requesting that the limited partners grant proxies to be voted in favor of the Sale and related proposals. In the action, the plaintiff alleges that (1) the Proxy Statements failed to appropriately disclose that the prices at which the assets of the Partnerships were to be sold were materially lower than current market conditions would dictate; (2) the Proxy Statements omitted to state that there was a risk that the Partnership’s Assets were being sold at a value below the market because Textainer Financial and its affiliates had required any bidder agree Textainer Equipment Management Limited be retained to manage the assets of the Partnerships after they were sold, a condition which effectively eliminated other container leasing companies from the bidding process or artificially capped the amount that they would bid; adjustments made to the pricing of the Sale did not account for the increasing value of containers; and (3) the Proxy Statements omitted to state other material facts that an investor would consider important in deciding whether to grant their proxies to be voted in favor of the Sale and the related proposals.

Nationwide, the cost of auto insurance is expected to rise by just 1.5 percent in 2005, the smallest increase in five years, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

The average cost for auto insurance nationwide for 2005 is estimated at $870, an increase of $13 per vehicle from last year, reports the I.I.I. The projected increase represents a continued slowdown from 2004, when auto insurance costs rose by just 2.8 percent, said Robert Hartwig, senior vice president and chief economist of the I.I.I.

“The price of auto insurance is increasing by little more than one-half the rate of inflation,” Hartwig said. “Many people who, for example, drive safe cars, have excellent safety records and good credit-based insurance scores may see their rates go down.”

Hartwig cited the declining number of auto accidents, safer cars, new auto theft technology and fraud-fighting efforts as key factors behind the trend.

The household use of products containing asbestos has spread through the years since the discovery of the special qualities this material posseses. Such properties make asbestos specially useful for certain tasks. Some of these uses are thermal and acoustical insulation, strengthening of other materials, fire proofing, flooring and roofing.

Asbestos is added to insulating materials, for example, papers, textiles and shingles that are found in roofs, walls and ceilings; pipes covering, household appliances, etc. The reason for this is the fact that asbestos is resistant to heat and cold.

Asbestos is also used to make floor coverings more resistant to humidity. Likewise, it is employed for thermal insulation in many household apliances, for example toasters, ovens, dishwashers, etc.

Today’s first case, Tory v. Cochran, No. 03-1488, involves an appeal brought by an ex-client of superstar attorney Johnnie Cochran. The client challenges the constitutionality of a permanent injunction that forever prohibits him from “orally uttering statements about Cochran [or] Cochran’s law firm.”

Erwin Chemerinsky will argue the case for the petitioner, Ulysses Tory, whose brief is available here. Jonathan B. Cole will argue the case for the respondent, Johnnie Cochran, whose brief is available here. Check out the following link for extended coverage of one of this Term’s more amusing cases.

Not only has the prevalence of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) increased over the past 40 years, it is anticipated that the increase will continue because of the widespread use of asbestos from the 1940s to the end of the 1970s. MPM is a highly lethal neoplasm, and diagnosis is difficult because of the frequency of vague symptoms present over a long period of time. Chest radiography and computed tomographic (CT) scans can be helpful only in revealing the presence of pleural effusion. Enthusiasm for the use of pleural biopsy has waned, and other procedures such as percutaneous needle biopsy, fluoroscopy and CT biopsy have significant limitations. Heilo and associates assessed the clinical use of ultrasonographically (US)-guided core-needle biopsy performed with a one-hand automatic sampling technique in the diagnosis of MPM.

A police department in New York is suing Ford Motor Company because they feel that the cars they’ve been buying from the company, the Crown Victorias, are unsafe.

Chicago Tribune - About a year ago, Buffalo Grove police joined a class-action lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. alleging that the company’s Crown Victoria sedans, the car of choice for most law-enforcement agencies, weren’t safe.

Except now they’re going to drop out of the lawsuit. Why? Because they want to buy more Crown Victorias from Ford and Ford won’t sell them.

I'm surprisingly out of practice when it comes to dealing with children, and his presence was initially very jarring. After a short time, Jeff and I decided it would be appropriate to stop “banging” my “ho” with my “gat” in the new Grand Theft Auto, so we switched to more benign games, like Burnout 3. It seemed obvious to us that actively trying to cause car accidents was a healthier atmosphere for impressionable minds.

The term asbestosis refers to a chronic disease of the lungs produced by asbestos exposure. This lethal ailment can initiate permanent lung damage, it can enhance the risk of lung infections and trigger heart malfunction. The first signs and symbols of asbestosis are shortness of breath, coughing and breathing is accompanied by a dry sound. The person can also experience chest pains and in the long run becomes weak when doing physical efforts and even when resting.

Here’s a post at Kadachi’s blog which describes the online advertising game by way of the high payout for the keyword mesotheliomaTechnorati Tag. It’s actually pretty hilarious the way ambulance-chasing law firms are so desperate to find clients for their class action suits.

For those of you who aren’t aware, mesothelioma is a lung disease that sometimes results from exposure to loose asbestos fibers.

Current law allows doctors to go without med-mal coverage if they post a notice on the wall of their office in the reception area to let patients know they don't have insurance. They also must agree to pay any judgment against them up to the amount of insurance they otherwise would have had to carry.

But if this proposed law passes, Florida doctors would be required to either buy med-mal insurance, have a letter of credit or have an escrow account set up to pay judgments in a malpractice lawsuit.

It's a move some say will have devastating results on health care in the state if it passes. That's because doctors "already can't afford the insurance, and some insurance companies won't insure the doctors in high-risk specialties," says Lisette Gonzalez Mariner, spokeswoman for the Tallahassee-based Florida Medical Association, which represents about 16,000 doctors in the state.

For anyone faced with a dire prognosis of cancer or any other disease, the following interview will inspire you. In the annals of cancer, mesothelioma is one of the worst possible types of cancer to have. In the words of oncologists it has a "dismal therapeutic outcome"� and is "an aggressive incurable tumor."� The median survival from diagnosis ranges from 6 to 18 months�. Despite this prognosis, Mr. Paul Kraus is alive nearly 8 years after he was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma. What is equally remarkable is that Mr. Kraus had no orthodox cancer therapies - he opted to say 'no' to chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. Instead, Mr. Kraus made radical lifestyle changes, altering his diet, using intravenous and oral vitamins, herbs, amino acids and other immune boosting therapies and supplements, and tapping into the power of the mind-body connection.

Lawyers filed into a federal courtroom Friday for the first pre-trial hearing in the federal Vioxx liability case, the start of a legal process expected to be complex, years-long and potentially very costly for the painkiller's maker, Merck & Co.

The mood was cordial at the initial procedural hearing, which lasted just over an hour. Russ M. Herman, the lawyer speaking for the plaintiffs, even went out of his way to compliment Merck's attorneys.

The bespectacled and balding Judge Eldon E. Fallon said he was impressed by caliber of lawyers before him. But he also noted the difficulty of the case and encouraged lawyers on both sides to work together. "Most of the time an agreement you make will be better than one I impose," he said.

The frequency of medical malpractice lawsuits is starting to decline in West Virginia, but the medical and legal communities are at odds about why fewer cases are being filed now than a couple years ago.

The West Virginia Legislature changed civil justice laws relating to medical liability lawsuits in 2001 and 2003.

The 2001 changes went into effect the following year and required all medical negligence lawsuits to have a certificate of merit completed before the case could be filed, introduced mandatory mediation and established litigation deadlines to keep cases from languishing in the court system.

The 2003 changes were more diverse and included a lower limit on non-economic damages from $1 million to a sliding scale of $250,000 to $500,000, a $500,000 limit on total damages for malpractice lawsuits arising from trauma care and financing for the new West Virginia Physicians Mutual Insurance Co. The 2003 reforms took effect July 1, 2003.

The complaint charges Audible, Donald R. Katz (Chairman and CEO), and Andrew P. Kaplan (CFO) with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. More specifically, the complaint alleges that the Company failed to disclose and misrepresented the following material adverse facts which were known to defendants or recklessly disregarded by them: (1) that the Company intended to pursue new business initiatives; (2) that the Company's growth, through these expensive initiatives, would severely undermine Audible's margins and earnings; and (3) that as a consequence of the foregoing the Company's ambitious growth plan posed a substantial risk to the future stability of the Company and its stock price.

During the Class Period, defendants concealed the fact that Dexanabinol, the company's flagship drug product for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) trial was not exhibiting materially favorable reaction. Prior to disclosing this information to the public, Pharmos sold millions worth of stock in private placements. Furthermore, the Company's CEO sold 20% of his holdings and its President sold almost 50% of his holdings. Such sales occurred after the close of Phase III enrollment and after the six month post-enrollment period concluded. On December 20, 2004, just weeks after insiders sold 400,000 shares of stock, Pharmos announced that Dexanabinol was not found to be materially effective in Phase III testing. Furthermore, after years of touting the effectiveness of Dexanabinol, the Company abruptly ceased its effort to gain approval for Dexanabinol for TBI.

Class action law suits in the US are still pending, but Adecco said it believed they had no merit and had filed to have them dismissed, although it added that there could be no assurance that the resolution of any of these matters would not have a material effect on the group.

City Clerk Sandi Ramsey stated that workman's compensation had to be paid. She added that the city has been breaking even after making payments to employees and paying phone bills to keep services from being shut off.

Ian Walker, partner at London personal injury law firm Russell Jones and Walker, said he was representing four customers seeking compensation.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, March 17 /PRNewswire/ -- A new report issued by the Consejo de Latinos Unidos, a national non-profit organization which educates and assists Latinos and others, shows that Hispanic patients and physicians in Puerto Rico appear to never have been informed in Spanish about the cardiovascular risks of Vioxx.

The Complaint alleges that defendants violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. Unbeknownst to the market until February 15, 2005, from approximately October 2003 through October 2004 criminals using "low-tech" methods had been able to access thousands of records containing personal information maintained by ChoicePoint. Throughout the Class Period, the Defendants made material misrepresentations and/or omitted to make material disclosures by falsely claiming that ChoicePoint had unique capabilities and systems in place to enable the responsible use of information while ensuring the protection of personal privacy. Defendants also falsely claimed during the Class Period that the theft of consumer data they recently announced was unprecedented and that the Company welcomes national discussion on how to ensure that information is used responsibly.

As the market learned in February, 2005, ChoicePoint did not have adequate controls in place to protect the privacy of the information it compiled and sold. Defendants became aware of the criminals' access of the Company's records in October of 2004. Despite knowing of this serious threat to consumer privacy and despite knowing that their representations about the security of ChoicePoint's data were inaccurate, Defendants waited until February 15 of this year to disclose any information about the breach in Company security. As the market learned on March 2, 2005, a similar incident occurred five years ago resulting in the disclosure of 7,000 records. Notwithstanding their nondisclosure and misstatements, Defendants Smith and Curling sold over eighteen million dollars of stock between the time they discovered the criminals' access and their initial disclosure of the breach of their system in February.

Consumers whose private information may have been put at risk due to the recent security breaches at ChoicePoint now have a new consumer information and action center available at www.ChoicePointClassAction.com. The website will feature up to the minute news on the ChoicePoint case as well as the pending Choicepoint litigation.

“The ChoicePoint class action site is designed to continually update those consumers who may have been affected by the security breaches at ChoicePoint,” said Leonard Bennett, lead counsel for the ChoicePoint class. “Our goal is to provide the latest news and information to those consumers who are members of the ChoicePoint class and point them to resources for coping with the effects of identity theft.”

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Richard Byrd, R-Kirkwood, includes a $250,000 cap on "pain and suffering" damages, constraints on punitive damages and a provision that injury lawsuits be held in the county where the plaintiff was injured.

Republican lawmakers said the provisions will reduce doctors' growing malpractice insurance premiums.

Some Democrats argued that the bill goes beyond helping doctors and gives favors to special interest groups. To illustrate their argument, they pointed to language that extends special protections to pharmaceutical companies and nursing homes.

"This bill goes too far," said Rep. John Burnett, D-Kansas City. "This bill has been hijacked by special interests."

People who file medical malpractice lawsuits would be required to go through mediation before their cases could move through the court system under a bill approved by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Doctors complain that too frequently lawsuits that are filed against them are thrown out, leaving them with legal expenses, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Harrison, R-Columbia.

"Mediation earlier in the process eliminates some of the costs of defending frivolous claims," Harrison said.

On March 10, 2005 it was disclosed that EchoStar's audit committee had launched an internal accounting probe and that the Company and Defendant Ergen, the Chief Executive Officer, were the subjects of an SEC inquiry. According to a March 10, 2005 Reuters article, the probe relates to the booking of transactions with suppliers and consulting payments to a friend of Ergen's. A Bloomberg article reported unnamed sources claimed that the investigation had uncovered "evidence," including "company records that showed Ergen may have directed or authorized vendor transactions and consulting payments to an unidentified friend." The Bloomberg article also noted that since July 2004, the SEC has been examining the way EchoStar and other companies in the telecommunications industry account for subscribers.

The Complaint alleges that Forest Labs violated federal securities laws by issuing false or misleading public statements. Specifically, the Complaint alleges that Forest Labs concealed deficiencies with its Celexa/Lexapro drugs in treating adolescent depression and when Forest Labs ultimately disclosed an agreement with the New York State Attorney General to make available summaries of previously undisclosed studies on the drugs, the price of Forest Labs stock dropped to as low as $36 per share.