Archive for April, 2008
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
A Miami-Dade jury awarded a doctor and his family almost $24.2 million after finding that his rare type of cancer was caused by exposure to brake pads made with asbestos. The defendant, Honeywell, previously bought the company, Bendix, that manufactured the brake pads.
What strikes me about this article is the arrogance of the Honeywell spokesman, who said the company is ”confident we will ultimately prevail on appeal,” and that “there is no supportable evidence that Mr. Guilder’s disease was caused by exposure to Bendix products.” Uh, clearly there was some evidence. But beyond that is the pure chutzpah of corporate interests these days. “Oh, we’ll win on appeal.” Most maddening is that they often do.
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
James Lee Woodard, 55, of <a href=”http://dallas.texlawyers.com”>Dallas</a> County, is free after serving 27 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Texas Wesleyan law student Alexis Hoff was instrumental in his release, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
How do you even begin to apologize to someone like Woodard? He’s spent half his life behind bars, his parents died while he was in prison, and now he has no place to go. And he said, “I don’t want to waste my time on negative energy. I don’t have any retaliatory or vindictive thoughts about it. I’m just glad it’s over.” Simply incredible.
Kudos to Ms. Hoff. She isn’t even a lawyer yet and she may have just won the biggest case of her career.
Tags: Dallas, fort worth, james lee woodard
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Monday, April 21st, 2008
Actress Sandra Bullock and her husband were involved in a head-on car wreck last Friday night in Gloucester, Mass. Apparently the woman driving the car that hit their SUV was arrested and charged with DUI. Bullock, her husband and their driver were not hurt.
3 observations:
- Her husband is named Jesse James.
- My father-in-law, an Austin attorney, defended a building contractor in a suit brought by Bullock over some work on her home on Lake Austin. Said she was very nice in person.
- Gloucester is not pronounced “Glahwo-chester,” as I was once rather-rudely told by someone from that part of the country. As I recall, it rhymes with “oyster” or something like that.
Tags: car wreck
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Monday, April 21st, 2008
A man rented a U-Haul truck to help his daughter move. While getting out of the rear of the truck, the 6-ton truck rolled over the man and left him a paraplegic. 14 surgeries later, he still requires around-the-clock care.
He filed a lawsuit against U-Haul, alleging negligence for renting out a truck that was not roadworthy with faulty emergency brake and worn-down gears. A Dallas County jury last Friday found U-Haul liable and awarded the plaintiffs $87 million.
U-Haul says it plans to aggressively appeal the verdict. It issued a statement that this verdict “is another example of abuse of the legal system against corporate citizens in America.”
Shame on U-Haul. There has never been a more corporate-friendly time in our justice system than right now. Big Business has lobbied to change the laws in their favor, they’ve plowed thousands of dollars into electing judges who are favor corporations over consumers, and they’re benefiting from a 20-year media campaign to vilify victims and their lawyers and poison the jury pool against plaintiffs.
The fact that a Dallas County jury hit them hard tells me that the evidence was truly damning, but U-Haul will no doubt string this out in the appellate system for years to come.
Tags: Dallas, Jury, lawyer, truck
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Monday, April 21st, 2008
NBC5i reporting that a gas rig worker was injured Monday morning at a gas rig in Krum.
It happened just before 11 a.m. at Barnett Oil Lease on Burns Ranch Road. The worker was injured after something malfunctioned on the rig, according to Tom Reedy, spokesman for the Denton County Sheriff’s Office.
The worker was taken by helicopter to the hospital. There was no word on his condition.
These sorts of injuries are bound to increase in the Barnett Shale play around Tarrant, Wise, Denton, Johnson (etc.) Counties. Talk to the guys working on the pipelines and wells, and you’ll be shocked at the safety shortcuts being taken. Gotta get that gas to market fast, I guess.
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Thursday, April 17th, 2008
Judy Kostura, an Austin lawyer with a wealth of expertise in insurance subrogation matters, has a good op/ed in today’s Austin American-Statesman:
Why you should always read the fine print
Judy Kostura, LOCAL CONTRIBUTOR, Thursday, April 17, 2008
Wal-Mart’s recent efforts to deprive an employee of her injury settlement highlight an unfair advantage insurance companies enjoy in the legal arena. Unfortunately, the Wal-Mart example is not an isolated incident. The legal tactic Wal-Mart used against the policyholder has recently been endorsed by the Texas Supreme Court and is being used daily against injured Texans.
Deborah Shank, an employee who was covered under Wal-Mart’s group health plan, was catastrophically injured in a wreck caused by an 18-wheeler. Wal-Mart’s employee health policy paid the medical expenses and the Shank family looked to the justice system to hold the trucking company accountable. A settlement from the trucking company was put in a trust account to help fund the round-the-clock care that Shank’s severe brain injury requires.
Wal-Mart attempted to raid the trust account to recover the money it spent, relying on a subrogation clause in the health policy fine print. Wal-Mart backed off on its demand only after being vilified in the court of public opinion.
You never heard of subrogation? Look closely at your health insurance policy. After the pages promising benefits in exchange for your premiums, you’ll find a section demanding reimbursement from you if you are hurt because of someone else’s negligence.
Texas has allowed insurance companies to include subrogation clauses for years, but the insurers were reimbursed only after the injured policyholder was paid for lost wages, scarring, future medical expenses, pain and other damages. Putting the policyholder first is known as the “made whole” doctrine and required courts to interpret the fine print fairly. Allow me to use a real Austin example.
For privacy, let’s call this client “Mary.” One morning, Mary kissed her toddler son goodbye as she dropped him off at day care on her way to work. Minutes later, a car crossed the center stripe and smashed into Mary head-on, breaking her neck and trapping her inside a burning vehicle. Brave bystanders pulled her from the flames. Rendered a quadriplegic by the wreck and burned on her arms and legs, Mary lost her job, was divorced by her husband and spent months in a hospital.
The other driver’s insurance company paid Mary $100,000, which was all of the coverage available. It was not much for a 34-year-old divorced mother who would never walk or work again, but it would help. Mary’s health insurer, armed with a subrogation clause, demanded that Mary hand over the entire proceeds of the settlement. Because of the “made whole” doctrine, the legal system required Mary’s health insurer to waive its subrogation interest, allowing her to keep the recovery.
Vanessa Cantu, like “Mary,” was rendered a quadriplegic in a collision and was able to secure a settlement from the insurance company of those responsible for her injuries. Her settlement didn’t compensate her fully for her terrible injury, but it helped. Cantu’s insurer, Fortis, sued her to recover the money it had paid under the policy. The case found its way to the Texas Supreme Court. The court sided with the insurance company and wrote an opinion that eviscerated the 92-year-old “made whole” doctrine in Texas law. Cantu was the first person hurt by this wrong-headed decision, but she won’t be the last. The Fortis v. Cantu case gives insurance companies a free rein to write deceptive and onerous health insurance policies, promising benefits on one page and taking them away in the fine print on another.
Insurance companies should be treated fairly, but they shouldn’t be able to jump to the front of the line when settlements are paid for serious injuries. Public outcry saved Shank in the Wal-Mart case. The Texas “made whole” doctrine saved Mary, but the Texas Supreme Court has taken that away.
We need a legislative solution. Congress and the Texas Legislature should enact a strong and unambiguous “made whole” doctrine that puts Texas families first.
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Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
A study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association accuses pharaceutical giant Merck of deception in promoting Vioxx. According to the researchers, who had access to thousands of documents gathered in lawsuits involving Vioxx, Merck “waged a campaign of deception to promote its drug, moving slowly to warn of possible hazards while at the same time dressing up in-house studies as the work of independent academic researchers.” Among the allegations are that Merck gave the Food and Drug Administration an incomplete accounting of deaths in a clinical trial involving Vioxx, and that studies ostensibly done by independent scientists were done by employees or contractors.
Two observations: First, this highlights the growing problem of “preemption,” in which drug makers avoid civil liability by hiding behind the FDA’s approval of drugs and devices. That is, if the federal government thinks something is safe enough to sell to the public, a slick trial lawyer and a jury of twelve yokels ought not find to the contrary and award a bunch of money to some poor sap who dies from using it. Preemption has been a darling of the Bush administration and has found sympathetic ears on the Supreme Court. The problem is, as this Vioxx study points out, the FDA is getting their information from the drug makers themselves. Bad idea.
Second, when individuals lie and kill people, we call that a felony and we punish them. When drug companies lie and kill people, their market share increases and their stock rises. How is that right?
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Friday, April 11th, 2008
WFAA.com reporting a truck wreck in Dallas on Stemmons (I35) near Carpenter Freeway involving a cement mixing truck, a car and a motorcycle. Photos show the cement truck on its side apparently on top of an automobile. Southbound lanes of I35 are closed while rescue workers are on the scene.
Tags: Dallas, truck wreck, trucking accident
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Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the city attorney is suing a leading credit card dispute resolution service, accusing it of favoring industry and stacking the system against consumers in debt collection cases.
The suit, filed by the office of City Attorney Dennis Herrera late last month in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that National Arbitration Forum, one of the nation’s biggest dispute resolution companies, is biased in favor of debt collectors. It says the forum “is actually in the business of operating an arbitration mill, churning out arbitration awards in favor of debt collectors and against California consumers.”
The complaint cites forum statistics showing that of 18,075 cases brought before one of its arbitrators from January 2003 to March 2007, a total of only 30 resulted in victories for consumers.
The suit touches on a matter that’s become an increasing concern for consumer groups in recent years - the push by financial services companies and other businesses to impose mandatory arbitration as a substitute for lawsuits to settle disputes with customers.
If I did the math right, consumers win approximately .16 of the cases and the credit card companies and banks win…uh…99.84 of the cases. Amazing.
Tags: lawyers
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Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
Name of Product: Rock ‘N Ride Plush Rocker Toys
Units: About 122,000
Manufacturer: Tek Nek Toys Int’l L.P., of Southlake, Texas
Hazard: The base of the rocker can become unstable and allow the rocker to tip forward or backward, posing a fall hazard to children.
Incidents/Injuries: Tek Nek Toys has received 35 reports of the rockers tipping over, including ten reports of injuries such as bumps, bruises and lacerations.
Description: This recall involves Rock ‘N Ride plush rocker toys sold in eight models: brown pony, pink pony, pink unicorn, deluxe pony, deluxe bull, lil’ penguin, lil’ propeller plane and Clifford big red rocker. The toys have molded plastic rocker bases and were sold for children at least 18 months old and up to 65 lbs. A button on the toy’s ear, hat or dash activates songs and phrases when pressed. Rockers included in this recall have a date code from July 26, 2007 through December 29, 2007. The date codes are printed on a sticker inside the battery compartment.
Sold at: Wal-Mart, Toys “R” Us, Kmart, Target, Atwoods, and Pamida stores nationwide and Internet retailers from September 2007 through March 2008 for about $30.
Manufactured in: China
Remedy: Consumers should immediately take the rocker toys away from young children and contact Tek Nek Toys for a free replacement base.
Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Tek Nek Toys toll-free at (888) 686-2728 anytime, or visit the firm’s Web site at www.teknektoys.com
Tags: recall
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