Legal experts predict that thousands of tobacco lawsuits could gain momentum in Florida after a Fort Lauderdale jury ordered Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million to a former smoker who says she needs a lung transplant.
If it survives an appeal, the verdict late Thursday would be the nation’s largest award of damages to an individual suing a tobacco company and could encourage thousands of plaintiffs who have filed similar cases in Florida, according to Clifford E. Douglas of the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network.
A state supreme court ruling in Florida a few years ago made it easier to pursue tobacco lawsuits there than in other states. But the tobacco industry, which plans to appeal, appeared unfazed. Tobacco companies have considered product liability suits as little more than a cost of doing business since the seven biggest companies agreed to pay $206 billion in a master settlement agreement with 46 states in 1998.
Florida, despite being one of those states, had a major legal ruling in 2006 that lowered a plaintiff’s burden of proof against a tobacco company.
The Florida Supreme Court rejected a class-action verdict and a $145 billion award to plaintiffs, saying smokers would have to sue individually. But the court said plaintiffs would not have to prove some key elements that had been upheld in the first stage of the class action: that nicotine is addictive, that smoking causes diseases, and that cigarette companies fraudulently hid those facts.
“That makes these cases in Florida unique,” Mr. Douglas said. Smokers in other states are still suing cigarette makers, he said, but they have higher legal hurdles.
A spokesman for the Altria Group, the Virginia-based parent company of Philip Morris USA, indicated it would appeal the verdict and said the Florida rules were “fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional.”
A foot model named Christina Ambers filed a $10 million lawsuit against her apartment building, ‘ Avon House’ on the East 74th Street in New York City because she claims the co-op board is trying to force her out
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge found Wednesday evening that poor maintenance of a major navigation channel by the Army Corps of Engineers led to some of the worst flooding after Hurricane Katrina. The ruling was a major victory for homeowners who suffered damage in the aftermath of the storm.
It was the first time that the government has been held liable for any of the flooding that inundated the New Orleans area after Aug. 29, 2005, vindicating the long-held contention of many in the region that the flooding was far more than an act of God.
If upheld, the ruling could force the federal government to pay tens of millions of dollars, if not more, to homeowners whose property was lost or damaged by water from the navigation canal, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, known as MR-GO (pronounced Mister Go).
“It is the court’s opinion that the negligence of the corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness,” wrote Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. of Federal District Court.
In many ways, the ruling still fell short of what many residents of the area had hoped.
The South Asian sport of kite-fighting -- featured in the book and movie "The Kite Runner" -- nearly cost a skateboarding Queens boy his life when a razor-sharp wire sliced his throat, according to a lawsuit.
Jared Kopeloff was skateboarding outside his Flushing co-op apartment building in October 2009 when he was clotheslined by a downed kite string.
The glass-encrusted wire ripped into the then-12-year-old's throat and left him scarred from ear to ear from a wound his lawyer said took 400 to 500 stitches to close. The boy also lost two lymph nodes in the accident.
Now his family is suing the city for allowing the kite fights to take place in nearby Flushing Meadows Park and the co-op complex for failing to remove the wire that was left hanging between two buildings after getting severed in a duel and drifting over to the complex.
Suddenly Jon Gosselin thinks he is deserving of $5 million from TLC, citing that they have pretty much ruined his reputation and his ability to find a job.
Well, you knew this was coming -- AT&T's amended its advertising lawsuit against Verizon to include Big Red's new holiday ads, including that oh-so-cute Island of Misfit Toys spot, and demanded that they be taken off the air. At question is the same map of AT&T's 3G coverage used in the other commercial, which Ma Bell says misleads customers into thinking it has no service at all in large swaths of the country. Best part? AT&T's lawyers had to describe the ad in their new filing, leading to passages like this:
Pfizer and Lilly lead a parade of U.S. companies that have paid $7 billion in penalties after promoting drugs for uses not approved by the FDA. This unlawful behavior may not end until prosecutors force a drugmaker into bankruptcy.
Two Indiana teenagers whose sexually suggestive slumber party pictures made their way into the hands of the high school principal are fighting back against what they say is an unfair suspension from athletics for activities that took place off school grounds.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana has filed suit on behalf of the two sophomore girls. The suit claims the Smith-Green Community School Corporation and Churubusco High School Principal Austin Couch violated the girls' First Amendment rights when they suspended them from extra-curricular activities and forced them to attend counseling sessions over a few racy photos that were posted on their MySpace pages.
So if you're a loyal Democrat, you're probably all riled up about the health insurance reform going on in congress. You're probably anxious for Congress to get something, ANYTHING passed. Not so fast there buddy. Health insurance reform, even if it's done by Democrats could end up making things WORSE, not better.
"What? How could this possibly be?" you might ask. Well...
It's old news by now that insurance giant Wellpoint, owner of Maine's Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, is suing the State of Maine, to increase their profits. But you may not know the entire backstory: Anthem Blue Cross, in anticipation of the individual mandate for health insurance, has jacked up their rates 18% from what they were previously, jacking many people's rates through the roof.
What may surprise you if you're not paying close attention, is that the Health Insurance industry is actually in favor of health insurance "reform." How could this be? Did they suddenly grow a concience, and decide that letting people die to increase their profit margin was wrong? Are they crying out to Big Government to regulate them like Sinners calling out to Jesus? "Please, Government! Save us from our own wicked nature!"
Not a chance in Hell.
It's no surprise that Wellpoint has run television ads in favor of the health insurance "reform" being pushed by Democrats in Congress. If the individual mandate becomes a final part of the bill, whether you can afford to or not, we will all end up having to pay these new increased rates, or face federal fines of up to three thousand dollars, depending on which version of the individual mandate ends up in the final bill.
Maine's state government has the power to regulate insurance rates. In light of this 18% increase, the State of Maine stepped in, and reduced the increase from 18% to 11%. So people's rate are still going up, and health insurance is still becoming less affordable. But that wasn't enough for the private insurance giant.
Last year Wellpoint made $2 billion in profits. In Maine alone, they've paid out over one million dollars in CEO bonuses. Rather than cut CEO bonuses to reduce their overhead, they are increasing their rates. Let's call a spade a spade. Wellpoint is essentially suing to ensure not their profit margin, but their CEO bonus margin.
[full article at link]So if you're a loyal Democrat, you're probably all riled up about the health insurance... more
To defend itself in a major environmental lawsuit in Ecuador, it appears that American oil giant Chevron is employing methods -- and people -- that are as dirty as the toxic waste pits it left scattered across the rainforest floor.
According to The New York Times:
"An American whose secret recordings have placed him at the center of a $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador is a convicted drug trafficker, records show, throwing another complication into a case already tainted by accusations of bribery and espionage."
Click on the link to read my full story on Alternet about Chevron's contrived "corruption scandal" and its desperate attempts to derail a lawsuit by 30,000 indigenous people and campesinos in Ecuador who are seeking to hold the oil giant accountable for massive contamination of their rainforest communities.To defend itself in a major environmental lawsuit in Ecuador, it appears that American... more
A Sacramento, California radio stunt gone gone bad will cost the radio station and its parent company $16.57 million.
The survivors of a woman who died almost three years ago after her participation in radio station's KDND "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest were awarded the money for a wrongful death suit.
The contest promised to give the person who could drink the most water without urinating or vomiting a free Nintendo Wii video game system.A Sacramento, California radio stunt gone gone bad will cost the radio station and its... more
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A new lawsuit alleges that convicted swindler Bernie Madoff financed a cocaine-fueled work environment and a "culture of sexual deviance," and he diverted money to his London, England, office when he believed federal authorities were closing in at home.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in New York's State Supreme Court, was brought on behalf of former investors and seeks unspecified punitive damages and compensation.
Beyond that, it offers a look at what the plaintiffs' attorneys say was once Madoff's multimillion-dollar empire and what is now his world in a federal prison in North Carolina.
Among the allegations in the 264-page lawsuit are that during the mid-1970s, Madoff began sending employees to buy drugs for company use.
The complaint alleges that some employees and investors were aware of the drug purchases, and that BMIS [Bernard Madoff Investment Services] was known by insiders as the "North Pole" in reference to the excessive amount of cocaine use in the work place...(Continued)NEW YORK (CNN) -- A new lawsuit alleges that convicted swindler Bernie Madoff financed... more
A lawsuit filed by the Cancer Project accuses McDonald's Corp., Burger King Holdings Inc. and Friendly Ice Cream Corp. of selling chicken they know contains a chemical that can cause cancer even in small amounts. A similar suit against seven restaurant chains in 2006 and another against Yum! Brands Inc.s KFC unit last month were filed in California. That state listed the chemical, PhIP, which forms during the grilling process, as a known carcinogen in 1994, according to the complaint.(Source: Bloomberg)A lawsuit filed by the Cancer Project accuses McDonald's Corp., Burger King Holdings... more
California’s attorney general, Jerry Brown, said Tuesday that he was suing State Street, the large Boston-based bank, accusing it of committing “unconscionable fraud” against the state’s two largest employee pension funds, Calpers and Calstrs.California’s attorney general, Jerry Brown, said Tuesday that he was suing State... more
New York medical staff took legal action Thursday to halt a massive swine flu inoculation program being rolled out across the United States, claiming the vaccines have not been properly tested.
Lawyers for the group filed a temporary restraining order in a Washington federal court against government medical regulators they claim rushed H1N1 vaccines to the public without adequately testing their safety and efficacy.
"None of the vaccines against H1N1 have been properly tested," attorney Jim Turner, one of half a dozen lawyers working on the case, told AFP.
If the complaint is upheld, it would stop the roll-out of the H1N1 vaccine nationwide, said Turner, who accused public health officials of hyping the swine flu outbreak but failing to back up their stance with adequate testing of the vaccine.
"Officials have said the virus is so much like the ordinary flu virus that they don't need to do special new drug testing on it because it's just the same old virus with a minor change to it," said Turner.
"We're saying, if that's the case, then all the hype about this thing being a worldwide threat is misplaced and they've stampeded the state of New York into taking an action they never would have taken if it were just another flu."New York medical staff took legal action Thursday to halt a massive swine flu... more
An 18-year Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Manager for the FBI has called for a Special Counsel to be appointed to investigate the allegations of FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. John M. Cole, who now works as an intelligence contractor for the Air Force, made his comments during an audio interview released late last week with radio journalist Peter B. Collins.
He also offered a detailed insider's look at the concerns among high-level officials inside the Bureau as Edmonds' disturbing allegations began coming to light back in 2002, before they would be quashed for seven long years by the Bush Administration's unprecedented use of the so-called "State Secrets Privilege" to gag her.
Earlier last week, following the publication of a remarkable American Conservative magazine cover story interview with Edmonds --- detailing a broad bribery, blackmail, and espionage conspiracy said to have been carried out between current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials and covert operatives from Turkey and Israel, resulting in the theft and sale of nuclear weapons technology on the foreign black market --- Cole had been quoted by the magazine confirming one of Edmonds' key allegations.
"I am fully aware of the FBI's decade-long investigation of" Marc Grossman, he said in response to the AmCon article/interview. Grossman had served as the third-highest ranking official in the Bush State Department and was alleged by Edmonds in the interview, and in a sworn, video-taped deposition a month earlier, to have been the U.S. ringleader for a massive Turkish espionage scandal reaching through the halls of power and into top-secret nuclear facilities around the country to the benefit of allies and enemies alike. Cole said that the FBI's counterintelligence probe "ultimately was buried and covered up," and that he believes it is "long past time" for an investigation of the case to "bring about accountability."
In his subsequent interview with Collins last week (audio and text excerpts posted below) Cole elaborated on those comments in much greater detail, noting that Edmonds has been "one hundred percent right on the money, on the mark" and confirming the existence of an "ongoing and detailed effort by Turkey to develop influence in the United States" through various illegal activities.
"Yes, I can confirm that," Cole told Collins, "That's true."
The FBI veteran executive also offered an insider's account of the panic that ensued inside the highest echelons of the bureau following Edmonds' first disclosure of information in 2002, recounting how an executive assistant director admitted to him at the time, just after the story first broke, "Well, all I know is that everything that Sibel is stating is true. I read her file. Everything she stated is, in fact, accurate."
Cole further describes how the concerns about Edmonds ultimately led to the Bush Administration's two-time use of the Draconian "State Secrets Privilege" in hopes of keeping her extraordinary information from becoming public. "Everybody at headquarters level at the bureau knew that what she was saying was extremely accurate."
"I know they didn't want her to go out and speak about it at all," Cole revealed, "and I know they were trying to figure out ways of keeping this whole thing quiet, because they didn't want Sibel to come out."
He also offered information which directly counters one of the criticisms of Edmonds' allegations as frequently offered by skeptics. Namely, that as a short time FBI contract translator --- even though she was tasked to review some seven years of counterintelligence wiretaps made from 1996 to 2002 --- she couldn't have had enough understanding of the full scope of the investigations to understand what was really going on.
More...An 18-year Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Manager for the FBI has called for... more
A heavily bandaged man lies in a hospital bed while a sexy nurse tends to him. The man glances around the hospital room through bandaged eyes, spotting the nurse and asking her that all-important question.
“Who can I sue?”
The nurse refers him to www.whocanisue.com, a South Florida-based website, where the man finds a lawyer, files a lawsuit and winds up with a convertible Mercedes Benz as well as the nurse – who has traded her nurse uniform for a sexy short dress.
Although the television ad is not anymore risqué than your average Go Daddy commercial, it has still raised the ire of some in Florida’s legal community.
But not those lawyers who are advertising on the site.
"I'm getting probably twice as many phone calls," Martin Saenz, a Miami labor and employment lawyer who has been advertising on the site for just more than a month, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
But critics say whocanisue and other online referral services degrade the legal profession and often steer the public to lawyers who operate under a business model of "bring in as many cases as you can and settle them."
The website, which is run out of Boca Raton and launched in October 2008, is not the first time unconventional methods have been used to attract clients.
In 2007, a Chicago law firm came up with the slogan “Life is Short. Get a Divorce,” which is posted on billboards throughout the city, to much controversy and success.
In fact, the slogan became so popular that the firm, Fetman, Garland & Associates, created a website to sell t-shirts.
However, earlier this year, a Chicago alderman had one of their signs torn down under a technicality. The firm apparently did not have the proper permit for the sign.
But so far, critics have not found a pretext to remove the Who Can I Sue website despite the fact that they also use billboards to advertise the site. Considering they are lawyers, don't be surprised if they eventually do.
Gary Lesser, managing partner of a 10-lawyer firm started by his grandfather as well as vice chairman of the Florida Bar’s advertising committee, which oversees lawyer advertising, calls the site “egregious.”
“There are real people who are hurt, who need lawyers," he said. "Whocanisue.com is part of an emerging trend. They are not a law firm, but a referral agency."
F. Gregory Barnhart a senior partner at Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley in West Palm Beach calls the site a “disgrace” because they are targeting people looking to make money off whiplash cases.
But those are the type of clients that a personal-injury lawyer would seek, so it made sense to Mitch Polay of Fort Lauderdale, who says his phone hasn’t stopped ringing in the month he’s been using the site.
Whocanisue was launched in October 2008 by Curtis Wolfe, 46, a former in-house counsel at a large Miami firm.
“We wanted to provoke people,” he said. “Most lawyer advertising is unremarkable and not memorable. I would sit at home and see these ads asking if you're injured blah, blah, blah. There was no branding involved. We have a brand."A heavily bandaged man lies in a hospital bed while a sexy nurse tends to him. The man... more
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