And so it ends. The Personal Injury Law round-up now appears to be dead. Again.

I started doing the round-ups on February 28, 2007. The first one didn't have a number, since I didn't know if I would continue it. But I enjoyed the challenge of scouring the personal injury blawgosphere to see what was out there. And I learned two valuable things:

• When you do round-ups, people on the web find you since you are busy throwing about links left and right;
• Doing round-ups makes you a better blogger, since you read the posts of others with a far more critical eye. It's an excellent way to learn good blogging technique.
  

But I stopped the round-ups on November 16th on my first year blawgoversary, because the round-ups meant less time for other posts. There are, after all, only so many hours in a day. I wrote at that time,

The Personal Injury Round-Up that I have been doing is now kaput. It was fun while it lasted, but very time consuming to do on a regular basis...I hope to spend more time on individual stories and, hopefully, occasionally write stories that are not yet in the press.

But lo and behold Brooks Schuelke, stepped into the void, picked up the ball and ran with it. Until today. Brooks has also realized that, while these may be fun to do on an occasional basis, it's tough to do week in and week out. He wrote today:

...the Round-Up has taken on a life of its own. Even with the help of a law clerk, I spent most of my blogging time looking for Round-Up stories at the expense of the more in-depth posts that I previously enjoyed. So after much thought, I'm not going to return to the Round-Up. I have really enjoyed the Round-Up, but I think it's time to move on.

And so there it is. Unless, of course, someone else sees an opportunity to create value on their blog while at the same time making themselves known in this niche. Maybe, perhaps, the round-up is only on life support? Perhaps someone else will step out of the shadows to embrace the project for a few weeks time, 'til it passes to yet another? Only time will tell...

(And I never did figure out if it should be round-up, roundup or round up. I've probably been screwing that up for a year and a half.)
---------------------------------------
Updated! And just like that, new life is breathed into the almost-still body of the round-up by TortsProf Bill Childs and his merry band of professorial bloggers! Click here for the official audio annoucement.

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

Why Winners Win: Decision Making in Medical Malpractice Cases (Linda Crawford, J.D., Journal of American Academy of Orthopedics) (via Mary Whisner);

New York's Appellate Division, First Department carves out an excepton to the general rule of granting summary judgment against the second car in a rear-end collission: If the lead car is double-parked, the court won't grant summary judgment even if the driver of the trailing
car falls asleep at the wheel. The case is White v. Diaz (Via Thomas Swartz, NY Legal Update);

Who owns the blog if you are a partner at a firm? (Francis Pileggi);

Blawg Review #144 is up at Cyberlaw Central by Kevin Thompson with its Lord of the Rings theme.

And Personal Injury Law Round-Up #47 has been posted by Brooks Schuelke.

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up, Random Notes

I'm back from a short vacation and I find once again how quickly blog postings can fill up an RSS reader and how many emails can accumulate.

Thankfully, Brooks Schuelke has a round-up of personal injury posts to get me started with the blogs. It's times like this when round-ups of all sorts are invaluable for keeping up.

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

Brooks Schuelke is still going strong with the round-ups, showing no sign of slowing down.

Personal Injury Law Round-Up #45 is up and running at his blog.

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

Despite being knee-deep in trial, Brooks Schuelke comes through with another edition of the Personal Injury Law Round-Up. Now that's dedication.

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

Personal Injury Law Round #43 is up at Perlmutter & Schuelke. And despite the claims of limited time due to an impending medical malpractice trial, Brooks Schuelke still manages to put up 20+ blog postings on our favorite subject.

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

Personal Injury Law Round-up #42 is up, as Brooks Schuelke is up to the task of finding PI legal news in a very slow news week.

And here is one more (that appeared after Brooks did his round-up):

A lawsuit about Starbucks serving hot coffee to a baby (The Consumerist).

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

Personal Injury Law Round-Up #41 is up at Perlmutter and Schuelke. As always with great links, and a particular emphasis this week on tort "reform" and attorney advertising.

And now a great challenge ahead...how will Brooks Schuelke find enough links during the two holiday weeks ahead?

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

Personal Injury Law Round-Up #40 is up at Perlmutter and Schuelke, with some great links on tort "reform," litigation and Supreme Court news, among the picks.

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

Personal Injury Law Round-Up #39 is up at Perlmutter & Schuelke, with another great collection. Seventeen different stories dead on point plus a half dozen unrelated fun and interesting things tossed in for good measure.

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

Personal Injury Law Round-Up #38 is up at Perlmutter & Schuelke. So while the ABA chooses to ignore the field of personal injury law, Brooks Schuelke shows that it's blawgosphere is as vibrant as any other, with an ever-expanding array of law, policy and links.

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

As readers know, I stopped doing the personal injury law round-ups because it was too much to sustain for one person on a weekly basis if I also wanted to write about other stuff (and have a law practice).

So thanks to Brooks Schuelke, who has picked up the ball to run with it. In this abbreviated week, he did a great job right out of the box and also introduced me to blogs I've never seen.

So head over to Personal Injury Law Round-Up #37. And please, if you have your own blog, let your own readers know with a link. Those links are a small thank you for the time that was put in creating the round-up.

If others would like to take a turn spinning around the PI blogosphere one week, or be part of a weekly rotation, please let me know. You can email me at Blog [at] Turkewitzlaw.com

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the final edition of the Personal Injury Law Round-Up, as a couple of changes are being made as I hit my first year anniversary...

We'll start with the issue of tort "reform":

In a resounding victory for patients, an Illinois court found that a tort "reform" damages cap is an unconstitutional violation of due process and equal protection by artificially limiting what medical malpractice victims can receive for their pain and suffering. Mark McKenna has more with a link to the decision; And Justinian Lane at TortDeform explains that the failure of this "reform" made no difference for an insurer's decision to stay in the state;

[Edit - 11/19/07: In an email to me, Robert Peck of the Center for Constitutional Litigation, who argued the case, alerted me that the decision was ruled unconstitutional based solely on separation of powers issues. It was therefore unnecessary to reach the other issues.]

John Day gives some statistics from Tennessee on medical malpractice suits, settlements and more, in the context of why further tort "reform" is not necessary;

Ron Miller discusses how non-economic damage caps may be considered discriminatory toward women;

Justinian Lane at TortDeform follows the Texas story of tort "reform," to find out who benefited, and who didn't;

At TortsProf, guest blogger Chris Robinette discusses the efforts in Arizona to kill off as many emergency room negligence cases as they can by raising the standard of proof to "clear and convincing evidence;"

Kanye West's mother died during cosmetic surgery in California, and Hans Poppe wants to know if he would be able to find a medical malpractice lawyer to investigate if he wanted to because, you guessed it, tort "reform" that caps damages;

Also at TortsProf, Robinette finds a notebook from a student of William Prosser (Prosser on Torts) has surfaced, with some of the legendary professor's thoughts.

And into litigation:

Not in suit yet, but...Nine children were hospitalized after eating Aqua Dots that used a toxic glue, according to The Consumerist. The product came from China, naturally.

John Day and on the discoverability of insurance policy limits (which is standard disclosure in New York);

Bill Childs on a suit against the KKK for the beating of a man, with the announced purpose of putting the Klan out of business;

Bill Marler discusses the lame excuses Cargill is giving for distributing contaminated beef;

From the land of settlements: Drug and Device Law has more on the Vioxx settlement and expands upon a subject I mentioned in my marathon Blawg Review #134 (discussed just after the 21 mile point), that being the impact of those that choose not to settle, which are likely to be the more substantial cases. And as Ed Silverman points out at Pharmalot, the settlement is only for U.S. claimants. Ted Frank has a good round up of analysis on the potential problems spots at Point of Law; And Howard Erichson reports on a plaintiffs-only conference to discuss the settlement;

From the miscellaneous category: New York State practitioners should take note of a reversal in Raffellini v. State Farm regarding the issue of whether a "serious injury" threshold applies to supplemental insurance. No Fault Paradise has the scoop;

And finally:

• Dr. Wes on why medical errors are good for you;
• An animated cartoon about aging baby boomers that has absolutely nothing to do with personal injury law;
• And the New York Personal Injury Law Blog ends these round-ups on a sad note, for we did not get an invite to Mark Lanier's annual holiday bash.

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

We start with pre-litigation issues:

I've covered Texas with some frequency recently (see: Texas Tort "Reform" and the New York Times, Round-Up #31, Round-Up #33). And so, following up, a Houston Chronicle article discusses a lot of doctors angry at the state's medical board for its aggressive investigations, which started when Texas also granted some immunity for negligent conduct with its tort "reform" (via Kevin, M.D.). The number of disciplinary actions brought against physicians has nearly tripled since 2001.

And since we're starting with the Lone Star State, you might as well check out Texas medical-blogger GruntDoc writing on one of his favorite topics, "defensive" medicine that is actually good care. The cardiac death of a 33 year old man waiting for hours in the ER without tests tends to put things in sharp focus. Don't miss the comments;

The Boston Globe ran a piece last Friday on the efforts to curb medical malpractice in Massachusetts;

The New York Times Blog ran a piece on the emotional toll of medical malpractice victims, raising once again the issue of doctors saying they are sorry (via Ben Glass);

As the story of beef tainted with eColi continues to grow, Bill Marler tells us that not only are the Canadians having problems with the same beef, but the left hand of the Canadian government doesn't know what the right hand is doing (are we exporting bureaucrats in addition to beef?);

From bad beef to bad products, the Consumerist says over 14 million products have been recalled due to lead contamination so far this year;

Two stories from the I'm Sorry Department: Jacob Goldstein at the WSJ Health blog asks, Does Medical Liability Mean Never Saying You're Sorry? While The Medical Quack reports on the flip side: An actual apology from a hospital for its medical malpractice;

The myth of arbitrary medical malpractice verdicts continues at White Coat Notes (via Kevin, M.D.) despite research that shows juries actually favor doctors and that plaintiffs rarely win a weak case. Nevertheless, even in the face of empirical evidence, we should expect immunity-seekers to continue propagating the myth of frivolous litigation;

Medtronic heart defibrillator leads were in the news last week after a recall (Personal Injury Round-Up #34), and this week again on the front page of the WSJ. Cardiologist-blogger Dr. Wes discusses the ramifications;

And in my own neck of the woods, disbarred New York personal injury attorney Richard Boter pleads guilty in court to stealing $148K from clients, a result that came out of the New York District Attorney's probe into the use of runners to recruit clients (see previously: New York Personal Injury Attorney Probe Catches Another Ambulance Chaser);

And in to litigation we go:

The family of a 12 year-old New Yorker has filed a $25M Notice of Claim (notice of an intention to sue) against the City of New York for releasing the MRSA (a drug-resistant staph infection) infected boy from the emergency room of a city hospital, who later died. The amount, by the way, is well in excess of anything the judiciary would allow even if awarded by a jury. And 10,000 hand sanitizing pens are about to get distributed to city school kids in a sign of deep worry and possible panic regarding the MRSA infections;

A trial lawyer reflects on being called for jury duty;

An Arizona doctor accused of medical malpractice when three different people died during or after liposuction, has fled, according to Ron Miller;

Returning to Bill Marler, he is less than amused when Nebraska Beef, defending itself for selling eColi contaminated meat, decides to sue a church that served its tainted product;

Jeremy Colby reports on the growing body of law regarding the constitutionality of the Graves Amendment (granting immunity to auto renting and leasing companies from vicarious liability) with a New York lower court ruling that upholds the law;

Newdorf Legal has suggested questions for experts at depositions (rules in your jurisdiction may vary as what is allowed, but a good list to start with);

On Halloween, Proof & Hearsay reports that an entire jury in a lead paint case came in dressed in judicial robes (via Deliberations);

John Day discusses what happens to the verdict when counsel misbehaves in front of the jury;

A disastrous fire that killed 100 people at The Station nightclub in Rhode Island in 2003, set off by fireworks while the band Great White was playing, has resulted in additional settlements, as per TortsProf Bill Childs;

From the Trial Technology Department, Mac users get a quick tutorial on using Keynote to make blow-ups for the jury at The Trial Technologists View (via The Mac Lawyer).

And finally:

• Blawg Review #132 is up at Home Office Lawyer;
• Grand Rounds, where medicine and law sometimes meet, is hosted at Running a Hospital;
• Insure Blog has the Health Wonk review (anti-Halloween edition), where health and law often meet;
  
• Alan Henderson found some law bloggers dressed up for Halloween;
• Beck/Herrmann celebrate one year in the blawgosphere at Drug and Device Law this week, and they ruminate on life, law and the hard work of blogging;
• The anonymous Editor of Blawg Review posts a list of finalists for Best Law Blog of 2007, which includes two New York-centric Blawgs. The terrific Sui Generis by Nicole Black, and edging her out by a hair for my vote, Scott Greenfield's superb Simple Justice, both sitting there among an impressive bunch of A-list law bloggers. You can vote for them here. Or one of those other people. Scott, of course, doesn't have a chance in hell of winning, so I didn't feel bad voting for him twice, now giving him a three vote total.
  

Enjoy the weekend.

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

Let's start with some pre-litigation issues:

The New York Medical Examiner, under the leadership of long time Chief Charles Hirsch, has rejected the September 11 attack as a cause of death for a 34 year-old retired cop that worked long hours on the pile. There is no lawsuit here, just parents that wants their son recognized as victim of the attack;

Dainius A. Drukteinis (M.D. and J.D.) discussed the legal issues presented when a consultant refuses the request of the ER doc, at NY Emergency Medicine;

Tort "reform" took center state at a Republican presidential debate. Overlawyered's Walter Olson explains how Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson squared off against each other;

And since we're on the subject, tort "reformers" like to blame lawyers for "defensive medicine" that increases health care costs, and sometimes the media picks up their talking points. But as Grunt Doc explains after Kevin, M.D. appears on a CBS Evening News report, there is often a reason for that "defensive" procedure;

Ed Van Dorn discusses what happened in New Hampshire after the state instituted a medical malpractice screening system. Did it result in an efficient, time and cost saving method of disposing of claims as tort "reformers" argued would happen? Or did it cause delay, delay, delay (as perhaps, they privately hoped);

Florida dismisses a case against a pharmacy from the family of a teen that OD'd on Oxycontin he got from his college roommate. The drugs had been stolen by a friend of the roommate, and the pharmacy had less than adequate security (via Overlawyered);

Beck/Herrmann discuss a law review article by TortsProf Bill Childs, and broach the subject of litigation driven scholarship. Bill adds some more thoughts at his own place;

Judge Richard Posner tackles Should Hosts Be Liable for Serving Liquor to Guests Who Cause Accidents While Driving under the Influence? The response comes from his co-blogger, Prof. Gary Becker;

Cardiologist Dr. Wes has some thoughts on a recall by heart defibrillator maker Medtronics, due to concerns the lead may tear inside the body: As the advertising by attorneys heats up:

The Newark Star-Ledger has a piece on one of my pet issues: Fake medicine, real problem (via Pharmalot). Why is it a pet issue? Y0u can read the counterfeit drug resource page at my firm's website or click on counterfeit drugs in the sidebar here;

From today's New York Daily News:

A bogus Brooklyn dentist dumped a 71-year-old woman onto the curb like garbage after she began foaming at the mouth and lost consciousness in his chair, police said Thursday.

Zagat's is now rating doctors. Can attorneys be far behind?

And in to litigation we go:

From the Celebrity Lawsuit Department: Tennessee Titans Pacman Jones has been sued for a shooting outside Vegas strip club, according to John Day; Is a Kid Rock lawsuit far behind?

Tainted food guru Bill Marler is no doubt exceptionally busy these days with the outbreaks of eColi. But that doesn't stop him from blogging, in this case regarding the New York Times article on the problems at Topps;

Medical malpractice suits against cruise lines are getting tossed out with some regularity, according to the Wall Street Journal, based on assertions that the cruise ship doctor is not a crew member, but an independent contractor. And since the doctor is not usually American and the malpractice occurred on the high seas, they must be sued in their own country, and often can't be found leaving the victim without any recourse (W$J, ABA Journal synopsis);

Award winning blogger Matt Lerner at New York Civil Law examines the liability issues of a common carrier in New York, as New York's high court rules on the subject;

The Maryland high court tossed out a case by a powerlifter that was injured trying to hoist 530 pounds. At issue, Ronald Miller explains, was the relationship between the concept of assumption of risk for sporting activities, and the allegations that the spotters were negligently trained;

A $30M medical malpractice case was tossed out by a 5-1 majority of the Ohio Supreme Court, due to the conduct of "famously obnoxious" attorney Geoffrey Fieger (via TortsProf);

Ted Frank at Point of Law has a piece on jurors in long trials v. short trials. While his synopsis of a recent study probably won't come as too much of a surprise, it is worth the look;

Settlements are often tricky in personal injury cases, as it is not easy to place a value on an individual's pain and suffering. A new service, according to Ron Miller and Evan Schaeffer, tries to assist.

And finally:

• David Maister hosts Blawg Review #131;
• Blawg Review hosts Carnival of the Capitalists #211, the longest continuing floating carnival in existence;
• Insurance and law meet up in the Cavalcade of Risk, at Hill's Personal Finance;
• Anne Reed has a very scary post about how we pick politicians by the look on their faces, and that has ramifications for jury selection;
  
• Scott Greenfield follows up on the ironic efforts of Dozier Internet Law to protect their clients, when its ludicrous legal claims become fodder for discussion;
• And finally, are you using animation or medical illustrations in your trials? If not, why? Video link from Street Anatomy via Kevin, M.D.
  

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

We start, as always, with pre-litigation issues:

Adam Liptak in his Monday Sidebar column for the New York Times takes on the very high price of Google ads for attorneys, mostly those who deal with personal injury. Cited in the article are blawgospheric regulars Ted Frank, Walter Olson and Prof. William Childs. Oddly absent from the column is any interview with people who actually run the ads;

Following up on the Texas tort "reform" issue in the October 5th Times (see Texas Tort "Reform" and The New York Times and Personal Injury Law Round-Up #32), there are two letters to the editor worth noting: Kenneth E. Raske, President of the Greater New York Hospital Association printed in the Times and Jay Harvey from the Texas Trial Lawyers Association (which the Times apparently declined to run, but is offered via Bob Kraft's P.I.S.S.D.);

And Stephanie Mencimer at The Tortellini points out that of all those docs heading into Texas, none seem to be going to the poor counties, just the rich ones already stocked with docs, with more on the subject from Perlmutter & Schuelke;

Kia Franklin at TortDeform has a piece on the White Coat of Silence, with medical practitioners at health care giant Kaiser Permanente being punished for reporting negligence concerns over their colleagues;

Anne Reed tackles the subject of ferreting out anti-Semitism in voir dire over at Deliberations, fresh on the heels of comments made by David Duke in drag while on the Donny Deutsch show;

Doctor Anonymous reports that a dentist charged with fondling the breasts of 27 women has his defense ready: It was medically necessary (via Kevin, M.D.).

And on to some actual litigation:

A federal judge has allowed suits against airlines to go forward that charge them with causing deep vein thrombosis when a passenger complained of pain from a cramped seat and was denied the opportunity to move to a less-cramped space (Justin Scheck, The Recorder, via Law.com);

New York's high court has refused to recognize the independent tort of spoliation of evidence, according to Thomas Swartz at New York Legal Update;

In Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court said a podiatrist can not testify against an orthopedist in a bunion surgery case, according to Leon Aussprong (M.D., & J.D.) at his new Philadelphia Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog;

In New York, about 9,000 ground zero workers may be near a billion dollar settlement (Daily News via TortDeform);

That potential settlement comes as the first of the September 11 suits gets set for trial (see: September 11 Judge Says Families Should Settle And Move On) before Judge Alvin Hellerstein, in the Southern District of New York. He made pre-trial rulings on the damages phase for the remaining 16 claims -- which will precede the liability phase in hopes of encouraging settlements -- according to this New York Times report;

Colin Miller makes his Personal Injury Law Round-Up debut with a post at EvidenceProf regarding the suit against Lindsey Lohan, and the admissibility of a police report (I also note that under New York law the result he suggests would likely be different) (via TortsProf):

Last week a jury returned with a verdict of $134.5M in compensatory damages against Wyeth related to its hormone replacement drugs Prempro and Premarin (Personal Injury Round-Up #32). Then the jury said "Oops!" because it had included punitive damages in its award, and so it reduced the award by $100M. And what did they then do in the punitive phase? To no one's surprise, they gave the money right back. (Howard Erichson at MassTorts, with more at Pharmalot);

Emergency room physician Shadowfox ruminates on a $5.4M medical malpractice verdict in the state of Washington over at Movin' Meat, and says his first instinct is sympathy for the doctor, not the family of the decedent (via Overlawyered).

And finally...

• Blawg Review #130 was a twofer this week, with one part coming from Geoff Sharp's Mediator Blah Blah from New Zealand and the other from Diane Levin's Online Guide to Mediation in Massachusetts;
• Grand Rounds is presented by NY Emergency Medicine, often of interest to those following medical-legal issues;
• The Healthcare Economist has the Health Wonk Review;
• One angry Grandma takes the law into her own hands and goes after Comcast, with a hammer; And another wields a gun.
  
• Lastly, Improv Everywhere understands it is legal for men to take their shirts off in public, but how about inside Abercrombie & Fitch? Video at right (via NY Mag)...
  

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law blog brings you the week that was:

Before getting to the lawsuits, let's look at related issues:

From the Department of Medical Mishaps: The Medical Quack lets us know that a man's dentures were lost during surgery, and found a few days later in his throat;

Last week I wrote about Texas tort "reform" and the New York Times article on the increasing number of doctors in Texas. The Times, I asserted, blew the statistics it used regarding increasing disciplinary actions, asserting a mere 8% rise instead of 79%. This was noted by Prof. Bill Childs at TortsProf, who has now started a study of the disciplined physicians to see how many are new arrivals. Prof. Tony Sebok at FindLaw also picked up the story with Does Texas Really Have More Doctors as a Result of Medical Malpractice Reform? Why a New York Times Article Making that Claim Is Seriously Misleading.

This is not the first we've heard about Texas and doctors (nor likely the last), as Prof. Charles Silver wrote in November 2006 at TortDeform: What's Up Doc? Not The Number of Physicians Practicing in Texas, with more discussion in the comments with Ted Frank. As the new doctors get credentialed and set up their practices, we will see, perhaps, if doctors facing troubles in one state pack their bags and flea to Texas, as I think they will due to the various immunities and protections afforded to them for negligence;

A battle over three jailed lawyers in Kentucky related to misappropriating tens of millions in legal fees heated up even more with the discovery that an assistant to one of the lawyers was an FBI mole that tape recorded conversations (ABAJournal). Was the wiretapping ethical will be the next issue, according to the Kentucky Law Review;

Personal injury attorney John Arthur Eaves, Jr is running for Governor of Mississippi, but as MassTorts prof Howard Erichson explains, it isn't on the usual Democratic platform;

As many as 40 doctors, nurses and other hospital employees are under investigation or suspension for leaking information regarding the medical care of actor George Clooney after a motorcycle accident (via Kevin, M.D.). Bob Coffield at Health Care Law Blog tackles the HIPAA violation, as does Orac at Respectful Insolence and girlvet at Tales of an Emergency Room Nurse;

Dr. Wes has information on "fake" medical board certifications, something to keep in mind when checking the credentials of any medical witness that claims to be "board certified;"

And now on some actual lawsuits:

John Bisnar at the California Injury Blog has sued the California Supreme Court regarding its issuance of an unpublished opinion that strikes down a jury award. The suit is premised on a violation of due process and equal protection rights. Days later, Daniel Solove posts, Should Courts Issue Unpublished Opinions? at Concurring Opinions, wondering where the compelling argument is for such things;

Kentucky has sued Purdue, according to Bill Childs, for misrepresentation of the addictiveness of Oxycontin, for the expenses related to treatment;

Sean "Diddy" Combs, rapper, promoter and marathon runner, has been sued in New York with an allegation that his guards beat the stuffings out of a fellow promoter at at a Bronx nightclub (via Sui Generis). The suit claims $5 in damages, though making this type of claim violates New York's prohibition against specific damage claims as per New York's Civil Practice Law and Rules, section 3017(c):

In an action to recover damages for personal injuries or wrongful death, the complaint, counterclaim, cross-claim, interpleader complaint, and third-party complaint shall contain a prayer for general relief but shall not state the amount of damages to which the pleader deems himself entitled. (See also New York Cleans Up Claims Act);

A cop has sued the parents of a brain damaged child (via Jeralyn Merritt at TalkLeft). The child had been pulled from the family pool and the officer was there for resuscitation and slipped on the water. So where is the negligence? Was the family supposed to mop up the water while trying to save the life of their child?

Blackwater has been sued for its activities in Iraq by the Center for Constitutional Rights, also from TalkLeft, for allegedly opening fire on unarmed Iraqis;

A trial against Allstate (PI Round-Up #31) based on improper claims procedures has resulted, according to Kentucky Law Review, in a defense verdict; And blawger Hans Poppe pops up in another interview;

A $143M verdict came in against Wyeth related to increases in breast cancer for those that took hormone replacement therapy Prepro/Premarin (Howard Erichson, Mass Torts); [Update from MassTorts: Jury reduces damages by $100M, as they had included punitive damages in the compensatory award. Punitive damage hearing to follow.]

The Legal Reader notes a Rocky Mountain News story of a Colorado judge that tossed out a $1.2M verdict because, he said, the plaintiff's attorney engaged in "disrespectful cockalorum, grandstanding, bombast, bullying and hyperbole." (Other than that, your honor, how was the show?)

Notorious child killer Joel Steinberg succeeds in getting part of the $15M judgment against him thrown out by New York's high court. (Decision, Launders v. Steinberg). I covered the matter previously in: NY Child Killer Wants $15M Award Tossed -- Decision May Have Wider Repercussions. More commentary by Nicole Black at Sui Generis;

And Evan Shaeffer has a list of upcoming Vioxx trials, for those who are keeping score.

And finally:

• David Harlow puts up Blawg Review #129 over at HealthBlawg, as he explores the best of the blawgosphere;
• The Cavalcade of Risk is up at Robert Laszewski's Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review, taking a look at risk management, that special place in the world where law and insurance come together;
  
• And a YouTube search of "personal injury attorney" returns 879 hits, showing how some are using video to pitch their services, and how others just want to have fun.
  

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law blog brings you the week that was:

Let's start with what's really important. Me. I'm pleased to announce that this blog (and this round-up) has been added to an electronic law library at Western New England College, School of Law via their monthly Cybercites. Thanks to TortsProf Bill Childs (who was also added) for the heads up.

And now off to the races, with a top-heavy helping of tort "reform" pieces from various states:

Ben Glass gives an example of the harshness of Virginia's tort "reform" law that caps both economic and non-economic damages, which sacrifices the most badly injured on the alter of insurance company profits; and Wisconsin's harsh "reform" statute that forces the taxpayers to pick up the tab for repeatedly negligent doctors;

Out of California, J. Craig Williams at May It Please The Court looks at the same tort "reform" issue in California, and the immunity for negligence so many medical practitioners now enjoy;

In Texas, Dr. Forney Fleming, a leading tort "reform" advocate that seeks immunities and protections for defendants and has done the talking head bit on TV for the cause, turns out to have been reprimanded by the Texas Medical Board on one case and accused by the Board of providing substandard care to at least six others. You can get lots of the gory details at TortDeform, The Burnt Orange Report, and Perlmutter & Schuelke, including that he has also been sued at least 14 times and admitted to practicing medicine while drugged up. But hey, you know that it is all really the fault of those darned plaintiffs' attorneys, right? Stay low so the black helicopters don't get you;

Texas tort "reform" also landed on the front page of today's New York Times, with a focus on the huge increase in doctors flooding into the state. But did the Times blow the story on the escalation of disciplinary actions also occurring? I hit that subject earlier today with links to many other bloggers on the subject;

And at Overlawyered, tort "reformer" Walter Olson addresses Fred Thompson's opposition to congressional limits on liability on federalist grounds. Those on my side of the bar may be surprised at Olson's opinion;

Meanwhile, Anderson Cooper this week presented Insurance companies fight law on punitive payouts on CNN, as the industry fights back against a law that punishes them for bad faith. No Fault Paradise ruminates on just how such a law would work;

Moving on to the problems of those injured in accidents, a new report referenced by Stark & Stark, finds that those who have suffered a brain or spinal injury are 33% more likely to file for bankruptcy;

From the Department of Dangerous Crocs: Are the popular shoes dangerous on escalators? A rash of accidents and injuries, reports the Southern California Injury Blog, have been appearing around the nation and could give rise to product liability suits;

We'll need good shoes to climb the ivory tower to visit TortsProf Sheila Scheuerman, who has a useful list of the 10 top downloads in tort and liability law from the Social Science Research Network;

And from the Department of Blown Apologies: Thomas and Friends customers were sent an apology for lead paint in their toys. And a gift!!! Which was painted with...ahem...lead paint. Story at The Consumerist.

And off into litigation we go...

Arkansas prepares a $600M lawsuit against pharmaceutical makers for marketing off-label uses of their goods (Lawsuits and Judgments);

Greedy Trial Lawyer has info Allstate being the "Good Hands People," at least for those that accept their low ball offers, and the trial starting this week against Allstate for fraud. The Poppe Law Firm Blog also has coverage. I previously asked about "Allsnake" here.

Tony Seebok at FindLaw continues with the second of his two-part series on Vioxx and whether class action certification is appropriate (part one is in Round-Up #29 with other Vioxx posts): When Is A Class Action Superior to Multiple Individual Lawsuits?;

When 21 million pounds of ecoli tainted hamburger beef gets recalled, it is time to check in with food poisoning guru Bill Marler for the scoop, and yes, the lawsuits against Topps have already started. And late-breaking news, the company is going out of business, proving once again the ruthless efficiency of capitalism: If you screw up, your company goes down;

A furious federal judge has levied up to $5M in sanctions against defense counsel and their clients in a medical insurance class action (via ABAJournal);

In Kentucky, a case against McDonalds regarding a strip search has gone to the jury, with Kentucky Law Review providing many links. Hans Poppe was interviewed by local television for the story, and gives his opinion. (Addendum: Late-breaking, according to an email from Hans, there is a $6.1M verdict against McDonalds with $1.1M in compensatory damages and $5M in punitive damages);

In Miami, a retained surgical sponge has resulted in a $2.4M medical malpractice verdict;

Isiah Thomas, James Dolan, and the owners of the New York Knicks, have been hit with an $11.6 million punitive damage award for sexual harassment in a New York courtroom. Ted Frank at Overlawyered complains the award is too high, but of course the award must still pass judicial review at the trial court level and an appeal. The case is far from over;

Isiah Thomas and Clarence Thomas. Both about race and both about sexual harassment and both at the same time. What were the odds? Bridget Crawford at Feminist Law Professors ties together the two Thomases and sexual harassment, as does Megan Izen at RaceWire, Lisa Takeuchi Cullen at Time-blog, Kia Franklin at TortDeform and Michael Dorf at Dorf on Law (my own thoughts on the judge are here: Is Clarence Thomas Playing the Race Card Again?)

But litigation sometimes keeps going, even after verdict or settlement. Alexandra Lahav at MassTorts covers the story of New York's continuation of prisoner strip searches in violation of a prior settlement, that may affect tens of thousands of people.

And finally:

• Blawg Review #128 comes to us out of Lex Ferenda from Trinity College in Dublin;
• Grand Rounds 4.02, the medical world's own blog carnival, arrives in Seussian fashion at Musings of a Distractable Mind;
• This one is priceless and really deserves its own post if I weren't so busy: From Public Citizen's Consumer Law and Policy Blog comes: Don't Post This Cease-and-Desist Letter, Or Else. Seems some chuckleheaded lawyer representing DirectBuy -- which isn't happy that some folks think the company's direct buy plan is a "scam" and a "nightmare" -- thinks his threatening cease and desist letter is copyrighted and can't be posted online. Ha! says Public Citizen, which tells Dozier Internet Law, P.C to stick it where the sun don't shine. And yes, "chuckleheaded lawyer" is clearly an opinion.
  
• Finally, while I thought I had some pretty good x-rays at my web site, this one beats them all: (Radiology Picture of The Day, via Respectful Insolence).
  

Enjoy the weekend.


(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

A mixed bag of stuff this week, all of it interesting...

A big front page article in the New York Times on Sunday is one I wanted to blog, but didn't get the time for: At Many Homes, More Profit and Less Nursing. It seems that Wall Street has been scooping up nursing homes, cutting medical care to the bone, and reaping the profits. And the patients? A predictable result of injury, death and lawsuits. But hey, they got those profits! Some commentary here: Lara Pettiss Harrill, Angry Bear, NewsInferno, The Consumerist, Financial Armegeddon;

The New York Post has a column on New York's medical malpractice insurance problems (via Kevin, M.D.), but it's too bad the Post didn't first find out what the real cause of the problem is, as I posted in Why New York Medical Malpractice Insurance Jumped 14%;

A million baby cribs have been recalled after three deaths, and Perlmutter and Schuelke want to know whether the recall came about due to the deaths, or due to the impending publicity:

The London Sunday Times peeks behind the scenes at a drug counterfeiting operation in, where else, China, as per Adam Fein at Drug Channels;

Do doctors now need to take a personality test to obtain medical malpractice insurance (The Medical Quack)?

Ben Glass relates from northern Virginia, that a politician has figured out a way to blame trial lawyers for the massacre at Virginia Tech. I kid you not, check out the post;

Ron Miller reports on the Maryland medical malpractice "crisis" that wasn't, and asks if it now time to roll back the "reforms" now that the cooked books have been opened up;

As those that follow drug cases know, the FDA tried in 2006, without congressional approval, to simply claim that their federal regulations regarding drug approval trump state law. This would result, if upheld, in stopping state action in "failure to warn" lawsuits. This federal power grab, by an administration that tries to call itself "conservative," has been hotly disputed, especially since Congress declined to go along. Beck/Herrmann has a scorecard of drug preemption rulings to date on the subject. They also have a medical device preemption scorecard. And for those whose eyes glaze over at the concept of federal preemption for drugs or devices, they also provide a primer on the subject that will get you up to speed.

But...are the primer and drug scorecard outdated already? Ron Miller reports on legislation signed this week that makes clear that regardless of FDA approval, the duty to warn remains with the pharmaceutical companies to adequately provide a meaningful warning about the risks associated with the use of their product. A copy of the bill and the comments of legislators on the subject can be found at People Over Profits;

Are you having trouble with a hip or knee implant? The New Jersey Law Journal reports today on a $311M settlement of kickback charges against four manufacturers as they wooed doctors to use their products;

Consumer Law and Policy blog has a piece on anti-plaintiff bias in the Texas Supreme Court:

TortsProf reminds us of a classic res ipsa case...a toe found in chewing tobacco. I'll be using that cite in the coming weeks in an appeal I am now working on;

Kevin M.D. points to a Newsweek article about spotting medical mistakes and saving lives;

Are laws suits all "about the money" as some like to claim? Apparently not, as this hospital apologized to the parents of a patient that died via a video, and posted it on the web. This facilitated the settlement (via Overlawyered);

A follow-up to the Charlie Weiss medical malpractice story: Kevin M.D. had linked to an article in the Massachusetts Medical Report on what's its like from a doctor's perspective to have a malpractice trial. But in the same issue I also found a front page story on the post-game analysis of the defense verdict in the Weis med-mal trial, so the link is good for two stories;

We're used to seeing punitive damage awards decreased, but here a judge has increased them with respect to a telephone lineman being left a paraplegic after an accident (TortsProf Bill Childs);

If you took the case on contingency, you only get paid at the end. But paid how? From WSJ commentary, a problem of attorneys double-dipping on the legal fee, getting paid once from the client and a second time from the adversary (via How Appealing.

And finally for the weekend:

• The Kansas City Star has a story on the lawyer who fought Jesse James in court. And won (via How Appealing);
• A tip from Susan Cartier Liebel on furnishing your office for free;
• All kinds of risky behavior is blogged about at Cavalcade of Risk #35;
  
• George Bush celebrates February 30th (Legal Antics);
• And a double-amputee police officer returns to the force with bionic legs.

Enjoy the weekend, and pray for the Mets.

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York.)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

The pre-litigation section this week is topped by lawyers, and not their clients, this week...

Miami attorney Louis Robles was headed to his own criminal trial, and MassTorts Prof Howard Erichson explained why no one wanted to try the case. Which is one reason it was then resolved with a plea that includes a 15-year sentence (ABA Journal). Along the same lines, Howard Bashman rounds up posts on the guilty plea of class action king William Lerach; And today co-class-action King Melvyn Weiss was indicted , though Scott Greenfield is wondering where the big crime is;

Less prominent lawyers are also in the bad side of the news: Three New Jersey attorneys have plead guilty to orchestrating false insurance claims (New Jersey Law Journal). As always, the rotten apples in any particular group always make the rest of the group look bad. (On a side note, I wonder if a lawyer wearing scuba gear while filing a complaint might also belong here);

Point of Law points to a series in the San Francisco Examiner on the profession; which Robert Ambrogi at Law.Com Blog calls "blatantly one-sided;"

Ronald Miller discusses the way that insurance companies sometimes race to the door of a negligence victim to get a quick settlement, often offering pennies on the dollar. Does Miller think that's a good idea? Guess first, then read. He also wonders if medical malpractice verdicts are fair to doctors;

No round-up would be complete without something on tort "reform" and this one is no different with Ken Shigley reprinting a critique from his friend Jay Cook of Athens, GA;

It's not a lawsuit yet, but you can bet it will be shortly: The tasering of audience member Andrew Meyer during a speech by John Kerry has lit up the Internet. Why a taser was needed when the guy was already on the ground being held by six cops will no doubt be the subject of endless discussion, which promptly started (Simple Justice, Above the Law, Althouse, Concurring Opinions). Other issues, such as whether he had committed such a grave transgression as to deserve his initial removal and of Senator Kerry's response are also likely to fill a few blog posts going forward. And it will certainly fill the airwaves, at least until the next celebrity arrest or missing blond-haired white girl;

Counterfeit drugs is an issue I cover from time to time. So add to this round-up the busting of a massive counterfeit drug operation in the U.K. (FightTheFakes) as well as more on drug diversion here in the United States, brought to you by The Whistleblower Law Blog and Pharmafraud;

In the Safety Department, Bob Kraft discusses a new radar being used in Texas: It catches tailgaters, not speeders. Hey, bring one to my neck of the woods!

Now on to the actual litigation...

Voir dire in New York is pretty straightforward, and often very fast paced (questioning 30 jurors in 60 minutes will do that). There is little time for shtick. Not so elsewhere as Walter Olson discusses at Overlawyered in the BP explosion case where attorney antics clearly soared over the line of legitimacy;

TortsProf Bill Childs has a particularly interesting wrongful death case against U-Haul (though "interesting" is most likely not the word the bereaved family would use);

In White Plains, New York, a man who served 16 years in prison for a killing he did not commit has brought suit in federal court against the police and medical examiner for fabricating evidence;

From the Department Of The Weird, you would think that a Nebraska State Senator suing the Lord Almighty would take top honors, or perhaps that He (or She) sent a messenger to answer the suit. But you would be wrong. On the Pharm reports that a man woke up during his own autopsy. Oops.

Just because a lawsuit starts doesn't mean you will get to the jury: The family of Rachel Corrie -- the Washington state activist that was killed by a bulldozer in Gaza in 2003 while the Israel Defense Forces were conducting activities -- had their suit against Caterpillar dismissed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mary Whisner at the Washington School of Law explains the basis of the dismissal;

In the Department of Merck: City and State of New York have sued Vioxx maker Merck alleging fraud. Merck is also in the news because a trial is starting in Florida regarding Vioxx (LaBovick Injury Law Blog) and, as Tony Sebok reports from his FindLaw column, the New Jersey Supreme Court decertified a Vioxx class action (part 1 of 2);

I've been following the September 11 suits coming up for trial in New York, and a bunch more just settled. There are 21 cases to go set for trial in the coming weeks;

In the Department of Appeals, a Florida doctor admits he gave false testimony at a trial (via Kevin, M.D.).

And finally, for the weekend:

• Blawg Review #126 is at Small Business Trends;
• John Day has a new book coming out on Tennessee tort law;
• Bruce Kluger and David Slavin planted a microphone in the home of Alberto Gonzalez and caught this conversation with his wife (audio only, office friendly).
  

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

We start, as usual, with pre-litigation issues:

TortsProf Bill Childs discusses a man who died on the Coney Island Cyclone this summer. Or did he?

The failed tort "reform" experiment in Michigan was in the Detroit Free Press, and Tort Burger - Hold the Reform has the details;

But another type of "reform" has been percolating along, where state court actions get "preempted" by the federal government. Perlmutter and Schuelke have the details of tort "reform" by preemption. (Ironically advocated by those who usually argue about keeping the federal nose out of the state business. But political ideology often disappears when Fortune 500 companies have the checkbook out at election time.)

An article in the National Law Journal ponders whether the Bush administration is now targeting plaintiffs' attorneys;

John Day (Day on Torts) reports on the tough jury climate in a case where a jury awarded zero dollars for pain and suffering despite a herniated disc with surgery and the defendant was at fault; But Ronald Miller (The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog) has a different view, as seen through the eyes of a 28-year old article he was reading on the same subject;

And since we are talking herniated discs, if you need a refresher course or haven't dealt with the subject before, David Gottlieb's No Fault Paradise points to this site on disc anatomy;

Ted Frank at Overlawyered writes about lawsuits where the passenger was injured while sitting in a reclined seat. The comments section goes wild since the story doesn't say how far reclined the seat was, giving everyone a chance to spin the story any way they want;

Moving on to the numerous recalls of painted children's toys that originated in China, the New York Times reports that lead was used because (surprise!) it helped to increase industry profits;

Still overseas, Howard Erichson at MassTorts discusses a new article on suing Saudi Arabia for terrorism activities;

Before moving to litigation, doctor/attorney Dainius A. Drukteinis (NY Emergency Medicine) analyzes the conflicting issues of a patient in handcuffs that has swallowed crack cocaine and a cop that wants his stomach pumped;

Of course, to have a trial you need a judge, and as readers of this space know, New York's judges are woefully underpaid. And while New York's Chief Judge Judith Kaye had threatened suit, she then backed down much to the disappointment of her judicial flock. But as Daniel Wise now reports from the New York Law Journal, that didn't stop four other judges from suing this week for that pay raise, with Chief Judge's Kaye former Associate Judge on the court, George Bundy Smith, acting as plaintiffs' counsel. Matthew Lerner has a copy of the Complaint.

Now on to litigation:

Evan Schaeffer starts us off with practice tips on readying your trial notebook;

The Illinois Injury Lawyer Blog reports that a man shot to death by the cops (with 42 bullets) has been sued by one of them;

Showing up for trial is pretty important. And Hans Poppe has this legal malpractice story regarding a car accident, a $1.7M verdict, and the failure by the insurance company lawyer to even contact the defendant to let him know the trial was happening.

Michael Jeffcoat reports on a whopping $55M verdict for a 10 year-old girl catastrophically injured by a U.S. gov't vehicle, awarded by a U.S. District Court judge;

In the Settlements Department, the ABA Journal reports that Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego has agreed to pay $198 million to settle claims of clergy sex abuse by 144 alleged victims, following another settlement for $660M for 508 cases in July;

The ABA Journal also brings us this unusual $1.8M settlement from a Washington city, when a drunk driver they mistakenly released from jail killed a man in a hit-and-run accident;

Turning to legal fees, the Legal Pad reports some California courts are capping contingency fees on minors at 25%, a one-size-fits-all judicial rule that seems really bizarre since some cases may settle pre-suit and others may go to verdict, appeal and re-trial.

And finally:

• Blawg Review # 125 was hosted by Kevin O'Keefe at his newly re-designed blog, Real Lawyers Have Blogs, with tips about law blogging;
• Grand Rounds, the medical equivalent to Blawg Review, was hosted by The Efficient MD, for those of you whose practices straddle the medical-legal world;
• The Cavalcade of Risk was hosted this week by David Williams at his Health Business Blog;
  
• Scott Greenfield (Simple Justice) ruminates on the 9/11 anniversary, from his vantage point in my old stomping ground at The Woolworth Building, just steps away from the towers, and discusses a case of gross incompetence in the courthouse;
• Paul Levy (Running a Hospital) tells us that some people will check their Blackberry most anywhere...and I do mean anywhere;

And to those celebrating the New Year, L'Shana Tova Tikatevu.

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law presents the week that was:

Prior to suit, we'll explore some related issues:

Ronald Miller starts us off with a discussion of medical malpractice caps in Illinois and Maryland at the Maryland Lawyer Blog;

The Consumer Law and Policy Blog picks up a New York Times story on the Consumer Product Safety Commission and how the Bush administration has allowed corporate lobbyists into policy making positions to further the position of big business over consumer protections. The result? Injuries, death and tainted products. They also pick up on the third recall from Mattel. This time it's Barbie accessories;

David Lowe picks up the story of lung disease from an ingredient in artificially flavored popcorn (which previously was found to affect workers, not consumers, see Round-Up #24). You'll find the most comprehensive materials on the web regarding "Popcorn Lung" at The Pump Handle. There's also an interview on the subject with pulmonologist Cecile Rose at the WSJ Health Blog;

Drug safety pops up in a New England Journal of Medicine editorial, and the FDA's inadequate response to the Institute of Medicine's 2006 report (via TortsProf);

Last week's round-up had a small give-and-take on the contingency fee, and David Giacalone continues on at f/k/a with contingency fees and the clueless fiduciary. This part of his post jumped out at me: "Tort lawyers ...obtain repayment of substantially all litigation expenses they advance, including expenses advanced in the cases where they do not prevail." Perhaps in academic theory the expenses can be recouped on a lost case, but not in the real world where many claimants simply don't have the money. Not only is the risk of laying out many thousands in disbursements real, but from the business end it doesn't even begin to address the harsh cash-flow problems of funding cases for years before they finally come to trial (see for example, Medical Malpractice Economics);

At Point of Law, Walter Olson points to a New York Times article today that questions the accuracy of some of the data regarding health problems to ground zero workers.

And into the cauldron of litigation we go:

Sheila Scheuerman from TortsProf reports that Greek victims of a Nazi atrocity may sue Germany;

The Kentucky Law Review reports that a trial against an obstetrician accused of unnecessary hysterectomies was continued due to protests (note: Only lawyers use the word "continued" when we really mean postponed). The protests were due, in part, to a letter circulated around the medical community. The eventual verdict is here;

With trials coming up regarding the September 11 attacks, MassTorts prof Howard Erichson tries to figure out exactly what it is that the plaintiff's want...is it really money?

A trial is starting in Texas over the 2005 BP explosion that killed 15 people and will be about, as TortDeform reports, whether the oil giant put profits over safety;

A partial settlement was reached in the catastrophic Rhode Island night club fire that killed 100 people and injured 200 more in 2003 when the manager for Great White ignited a pyrotechnics display. Four defendants coughed up $13.5M. There are still 93 other defendants. The New York Times (reg. req.) has the story as does the Boston Globe (no reg.):

Mary Whisner from Trial AD notes a $5M medical malpractice verdict in a case where the jury disagreed with a report from the state's Department of Health that claimed the doctor's conduct fell within the standard of care. From the comment section of the blog, it looks as if a juror has responded. I let jury blogging guru Anne Reed know, and she followed up at Deliberations with, If Your Juror Were Writing Online, Could You Find It?

And a federal judge has ordered Iran to pay $2.65 billion to the families of the 241 U.S. service members killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. A bit more from PrairiePundit.


And finally:

• George Lenard's Employment Blawg brings us a Labor Day special, Blawg Review #124;
• Bary Barnett finds out that "trial lawyer" is not a "regular occupation;"
• In case you wanted to ditch that PC for a Mac, The Mac Lawyer has a synopsis of the available business applications an attorney might use;
• While Senator Larry "I'm not gay" Craig tries to take a mulligan on his resignation, his face pops up on a new t-shirt;
• Don't forget to put your car in park when you get out;
  
• And a young lady goes back to school after having a blast this summer.

Enjoy the weekend.

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York.)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

From the last, slow days of August, we start with pre-litigation stuff:

New York bar examiners still can't find complete essay answers for 400 test takers, meaning they face the prospect of taking the exam again;

Smoking by workers at the World Trade Center site at the former Deutsch Bank building has been found to be the cause of a fire that resulted in two firefighter deaths in late June as the contaminated building was being dismantled. A tangled web of owners, leaseholders, construction contractors, subcontractors, the City of New York and the Fire Department, will soon lead to a very messy lawsuit of finger-pointing. Among the many issues will be lack of inspections, lack of experience by the contractors and a broken standpipe that prevented water from being pumped upstairs to the blaze;

Also at the WTC site, Jeff at Tort Burger - Hold the Reform reports on increased rates of asthma for Ground Zero workers; He also responds to yet another attack on judges, this one from Forbes (Courts Gone Wild);

According to TortsProf Bill Childs, the Duke lacrosse players are preparing to file suit;

Moving to legal fees, Perlumtter & Schuelke wrote In Defense of the Contigent Fee as a form of value billing -- as opposed to the billable hour with its inherent conflict of interest between client and attorney. David Giacalone at f/k/a didn't like that, and attacked Perlmutter -- OK, not just Perlmutter but attorneys in general who work on contingency -- in a post entitled why do lawyers lie (about contingency fees)? Among Giacalone's complaints, he asserts that "The client rarely is given essential information (such as the likelihood of success, the probable size of a recovery, and the amount of time and money that is likely to be invested by the lawyer) that would allow him or her to place a value on the lawyer's participation." There's probably a good reason for that, being that the information is often unknown at the time the retainer is signed.

With the papers abuzz over tainted products from China, Ann Brown (former Consumer Products Safety Commission chair) and Pamela Gilbert (former CPSC executive director) lets rip in a harsh Washington Post op-ed that discusses, in part, why we have so little oversight (via TortsProf);

TortDeform's Kia Franklin goes to battle against an article in American Magazine that advocates health courts, dismantling the arguments in: What's The Real Crisis in Medical Malpractice Law? The Threat to Patient Safety;

Also on tort "reform," the Chicago Tribune has an article stating that more medical malpractice insurers are coming to Illinois in the wake of litigation caps on recoveries to those most badly injured. Is anyone else shocked that, when corporate profits increase (on the backs of the injured and disabled), profit-seekers will come in? No word yet on whether insurance rates will actually go down (via Point of Law);

Before heading into the litigation section, Progressive decides it would be nice to slip its investigators into a church sponsored therapy group to investigate a car accident, and record the comments made by the group, and Hans Poppe reports on a PBS documentary on why insurance companies deny legitimate claims;

Into the start of litigation:

The Kentucky Law Review reports that the co-pilot in the Comair crash that killed 49 people in Lexington a year ago has brought suit, claiming poorly designed runway lights;

Charles Toutant at the New Jersey Law Journal has a piece on eight class action suits against Shering-Plough for the off-label promotion of some of its drugs, a policy that led to a whopping $435 million settlement of civil and criminal charges last year. Interestingly, they don't deal with personal injury, but allege fraud under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, unjust enrichment, civil conspiracy, common-law fraud and negligent misrepresentation. From the defense side, Michael Krauss opines on the subject at Point of Law;

Mark McKenna has the story of a $15M verdict from a defective motorcycle tire;

And the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dumps a $52M punitive damages verdict in White v. Ford and orders a new trial against the automaker. A third trial, Barry Barnett of Blawgletter tells us, as the first had been for $150M in punitives. Part of the problem, no doubt is that confusing decision of the Supreme Court in Philip Morris v. Williams that will plague courts for years to come.

At Overlawyered, Ted Frank points to a mere $4,100 in damages awarded by a German court to a man who had to have the top of his skull replaced with plastic because of a faulty hospital fridge, and says in his subject heading: One Reason European Healthcare Is Cheaper Than The American Version. Personally, I'd rather pay the few extra bucks and keep my skull;

And finally:

• Blawg Review #123 is up at Texas Appellate Law blog;
• Grand Rounds is up at Rickety Contrivances of Doing Good, for those with medical interests;
• The Cavalcade of Risk is hosted this week by Health Affairs;
• Food poisoning legal guru Bill Marler is the focus of a long (and flattering) magazine profile;
• Trial Ad Notes reports that B-List and C-List celebrities seek new life on Jury Duty, coming to television;
  
• And, a little boy ("I'm not little!") takes in his very first baseball game.

Enjoy the long weekend.

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York.)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the weeks that were:

Before the lawsuits, let's look at risks and pre-litigation issues:

We start with the Accident Prevention Department: Less speeding means fewer accidents, and Dr. Wes brings us a rather unique method of reducing speeding. Trust me, you haven't seen an ad campaign quite like this before;

In the Risk Management Department, a person vents anger at a doctor on a blog (via Kevin, M.D.). Yet another good reason for all professionals to be on their best behavior;

And in a related matter (sort of), Tony Caggiano at the Orlando Injury Lawyer Blog discusses the secrecy surrounding disciplinary actions against doctors;

Ben Glass has a post that touches on personal injury law: How one health insurer not only wastes his premium money, but is violating the law as it does so; While another health insurer refuses to pay surgical bills because it claims its insured was 56 cents short in his payments; (via The Medical Quack);

Perlumtter & Shuelke have a copy of the Baylor Law School study: Straight From the Horse's Mouth: Judicial Observations of Jury Behavior and the Need for Tort Reform. Ted Frank at Overlawyered thinks the real problem is corrupt Texas judges ("in the pocket of the plaintiffs' bar," is the phrase Frank uses);

The New York Sun rips trials lawyers over a medical malpractice commission being formed after a 14% malpractice rate hike (see my prior post, Why New York Medical Malpractice Insurance Jumped 14%), and the New York State Trial Lawyers Association sets them straight in a response.

As we move into litigation:

With dangerous products filling the front pages of the papers -- mostly as a result of Chinese manufacturing and the use of lead paing on toys and, perhaps, American importers turning a blind eye to what is going on -- NPR does an interview with the Chair of the Consumer Products Safety Commission; And class actions have been filed against Mattel seeking medical monitoring;

Mark R. McKenna has more on the Minneapolis bridge collapse, including pre-collapse warnings; The first suit has already been reported. In addition, Minneapolis firms are teaming up for pro bono representation for the bridge collapse victims.

Who says the law is a boring subject? Not John Day, who reports on whether a husband is liable for injuries his wife inflicts on his girlfriend. Ouch.

Howard Erichson at the Mass Torts Litigation Blog reports on a unique effort to have four simultaneous trials in the Atlantic City courthouse, where Judge Carol Higbee has been overseeing the action;

Oddly, Vioxx litigation also landed on the front page of the New York Times with a story saying Merck hadn't settled a single suit. Why this was front page news is beyond me since there doesn't seem to be anything surprising about it. Taking a hard stand was, from a litigation perspective, the only rational thing Merck could have done. In fact, in New York medical malpractice cases the exact same thing occurs. It's standard operating procedure;

Also in the defense arena, Beck/Herrmann has a blog on how to defend a case if you believe that the plaintiff has used prescription drugs in an illegal manner;

The Cerebral Palsy Blog writes about the $70M verdict in New Jersey that was recently upheld by an appellate court. The blog follows up on this article from the New Jersey Law Journal;

This verdict was for the defense, as Bary Barnett at Blawgletter tells us, where a court refused to ask jury panel members on their feelings about personal injury lawsuits in a personal injury lawsuit (via Point of Law);

And an Illinois lawsuit against Philip Morris over "light" cigarettes, that at one time had been subject to a $10B verdict, has been snuffed out.

And finally:

• From the Worst Attempt At A Bogus Lawsuit Department, see QuizLaw;
• Scott Greenfield on how he fended off a punch in the nose and it impacted a client's life; and the issue of cameras in the courtroom;
  
• Blawg Review #122 presented by David Gulbransen as a syllabus;

Enjoy the weekend.


(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

Consider this the dog days of August edition, part 1:

Starting with the tort "reform" movement, a bill is proposed in Congress to ban mandatory arbitration agreements entered into before a dispute arises (ABAJournal);

John Day is contacted by a Tennessee Supreme Court judge regarding his posting on the effects of bankruptcy on a personal injury case. I wonder if the judge found Day in the maternity ward?

The collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis may have claims up to $1B, according to Robert Ambrogi at Law.com.

Ambrogi also points out, in the attorneys-acting-badly department, the ambulance chasing going on. This is the same type of conduct that occurred in New York after the 2003 Staten Island Ferry disaster that killed 10 -- newspaper ads being submitted before the injured and dead were all taken from the scene -- that led to new rules on attorney advertising and solicitation, including a 30-day prohibition on certain conduct. More by Mark Cohen at the Minnesota Lawyer Blog.

In addition, New Jersey has chalked up its first convictions for using "runners" to find clients according to Maria Vogel-Short and his former firm, the winners being Irwin Seligsohn and his firm Seligsohn, Goldberger & Shinrod (New Jersey Law Journal via Law.com). This comes fresh on the heals of last week's action by the Manhattan District Attorney on the same subject; and three Kentucky Fen-Phen lawyers being forced to cough up $42M (plus interest) in legal fees to former clients. Kentucky blawgers Hans Poppe and the Kentucky Law Review have that story;

And lest you think lawyers-acting-badly is confined to just personal injury counsel: San Diego federal Judge Rudi Brewster accused Qualcomm and its trial counsel of committing "gross litigation misconduct" by withholding crucial evidence in Qualcomm's patent infringement case against Broadcom Corp. (Jessie Seyfer for The Recorder, via Law.com);

The Big Dig tunnel collapse has resulted in a charge of involuntary manslaughter against a New York epoxy manufacturer. Whether this is just the first, or the last, remains to be seen. Ted Frank of Overlawyered tells us why prosecuting the company is really just a plot to carry water for trial lawyers;

If you get cancer from a kidney transplant, is it malpractice or simple negligence? Thomas Swartz at New York Legal Update lets us know what one of our appellate courts said, and why it was important;

And in other transplant-legal news, Jacob Goldstein reports that a California transplant physician has been accused of hastening death in order to harvest the organs (WSJ Healthblog);

Tom Lamb tackles the latest research paper on the risks of Avandia, at Drug Injury Watch;

Bill Childs notes at TortsProf that not only is the Consumer Product Safety Commission investigating toys, but that attorneys have taken notice;

Doctors and medical malpractice practitioners take note: Theo Francis at the WSJ Health Blog reports that Medicare, recognizing that hospitals actually profit from malpractice because of the need for continued treatment, will stop paying bills to remedy their flubs;

Some matters in litigation...

In tobacco litigation, the daughter and husband of a woman who died of lung cancer can proceed with their lawsuit against Philip Morris and other tobacco companies under a design-defect theory and can seek punitive damages in New York state court (New York Law Journal via Law.com);

In New York the steam pipe blast in NYC has resulted in litigation and yesterday, a temporary restraining order was signed to prevent Con Ed from destroying evidence;

In the popcorn lawsuit department (you didn't know we had one?) 44 more plaintiffs have filed suit claiming they were suffered lung disease from popcorn flavoring, as per Tort Burger, Hold the Reform [Edit: much more at The Pump Handle, via TortsProf];

Mary Whisner points to an article on whether summary judgment is unconstitutional;

In the jury deliberation department, Sam Yospe at Concurring Opinions discusses blogging jurors. (Edit: I wonder if Brad Pitt blogged his jury duty? If so, QuizLaw might have something in common with him);

When the case is over, will you get paid for your time? Check out this ABAJournal horror story on a contingent fee, involving a cut from 20% to 4% in a case with 35,000 clients and $22M in charged costs;

And finally for the lazy, summer weekend, a mixed bag of law and medicine:

• Medical blogger Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei takes Grand Rounds to his beach house;
• Dr. Wes describes what happens when a fly enters a no-fly zone after the incision is made;
  
• Professor Kingsfield steps out of the celluloid to present Blawg Review #120;
• The Workers' Comp Insider hosts the Health Wonk Review;
• And lastly, in the children's department: Dinosaur Musings points to the lyrics of Tom Chapin (brother of Harry) reflecting on No Child Left Behind, and courtesy of Kevin, M.D., this x-ray shows why you teach your children to carry pencils point down, with the point in their hand.

Enjoy the weekend.

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

Before starting, however, thanks to Tom Mighell at Inter Alia for making my tiny corner of the web the Blawg of the Day on Monday. That was a nice way to start the week.

Now on to some pre-litigation issues:

Starting with tort "reform" we get this heads-up from Perlmutter & Schuelke on a not-yet-published study from Baylor Law School surveying Texas judges, and their thoughts on whether juries were too liberal with awards. Here's a hint at what the article will show: Well over 80% of the judges did not think there needed to be additional "reform" to address frivolous lawsuits;

An anesthesiologist has blown the whistle in Florida on unnecessary surgeries on Medicare patients. More at the Labovick firm's Whistleblower Law Blog;

At Dorf on Law, Michael Dorf returns to the issue of contingent fee relationships between government and private counsel, specifically responding to a Walter Olsen piece printed in the Wall Street Journal; (and a subject I addressed in May, in a less academic fashion, at Bush Prohibits Contingency Fees for Gov't Attorneys, with many links by Beck/Herrmann here);

Dora the Explorer and other Fisher-Price toys face a recall for lead paint, just six weeks after Thomas the Train underwent the same fate (Round-Up #17). In recent weeks we've also seen tainted food products, toothpaste and pet food. Want to guess what country they were all imported from? (More at ConsumerReports and The Peon).

In North Carolina a man gets the crap beat out of him (that's a technical term) by the local police for desecrating the American flag by flying it upside down with a picture of President Bush and anti-war slogans. The police, it seems, were trying to protect the flag and all that it stands for by shredding the First Amendment. QuizLaw has the gory details. It's not a lawsuit. Yet.

And John Day discusses the liability issues of the Minneapolis bridge collapse and the immunity issues that exist if such an event happened in his state;

And now on to litigation, including a few that didn't make it too far...

A federal judge in New York barred a punitive damage claim in a smoker's suit against Philip Morris, based on New York's participation in a 1998 settlement with 46 states. Previously, a Florida judge had reached an opposite conclusion. The court also rejected a design-defect claim that had been the source of a $20M state court verdict in another case (New York Law Journal via Law.com);

John Day discusses a case being dismissed because the plaintiff had filed for bankruptcy and had failed to disclose that when filing the bankruptcy claim. Since the personal injury claim would belong to the trustee, the injured person was not a proper party. Only the trustee could assert the claim. And since many personal injury victims fall into hard times as a result of the accident, every personal injury attorney should make question, "Have you ever filed for bankruptcy?" part of every intake questionnaire;

The family of St. Louis pitcher Josh Hancock, who came under withering scorn for having brought a wrongful death lawsuit after he was killed when he crashed into a stopped tow truck, while drunk and talking on his cell phone (Round-Up #14), has voluntarily discontinued the case. The explanation is furnished by Sheila Scheuerman at TortsProf;

Roy "Pants" Pearson has now lost more than his $54M trousers. He's lost his job (Washington Post). Let me be the first to predict he will bring a lawsuit as a result;

Suit has been filed in a Florida federal court regarding the July 17th plane crash on a Brazilian runway that killed 199 people (ABAJournal);

The WSJ Law Blog has more on the $101M wrongful conviction bench-trial verdict out of Boston, with an interview with plaintiff's counsel, Juliane Balliro;

Every trial lawyer wonders what the jury is thinking. This juror was doodling during trial. Anne Reed at Deliberations tells us what happened as a result;

In the Uncategorized category, some bloggers aren't happy with each other: Ogan Gurel of Life Sciences Daily lets go with his opinions on the nasty ad hominum attacks that permutate the DrugWonks blog, by using a statistical analysis (via TortsProf). Personally, I find the DrugWonks style so off-putting I often don't get past the openings, as the attacks cloud the issues. Perhaps they have some good material in there, but it takes work to find it; And Scott Greenfield lets rip against William McGeveran at Concurring Opinions for wasting so much time in the fantasy world instead of the real one, with: Harry Potter and Legal Scholarship. Give Me A Break!


As you head home for the weekend, you might find the round-ups of others of some interest:

• David Williams hosted Grand Rounds, a round-up of medical blogs at Health Business Blog (that includes a post from me);
• David Lat at Above the Law hosted Blawg Review (that includes a different post from me);
• Jason Shafrin at The Healthcare Economist hosted Cavalcade of Risk, a round-up of insurance related issues (that includes yet two other post from me);
• And Howard Zimmerle of Quad Cities Injury Lawyers points us to The Law of the Simpsons (that, thankfully, does not include anything from me).
  

Enjoy the weekend.

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York.)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

Before heading to the trials, let's spend some time focusing on medical malpractice and insurance:

But before heading into that med mal world, we turn to:
The best post of the week: Bill Childs, our favorite TortsProf, points us to an invaluable resource, saying, "It's weekly, it's concise but still funny, and it consistently links to something I haven't noticed before;" Walter Olson had previously discussed this same resource as "invariably worth reading," which is to say, it seems like a site worth plugging to others;

Welcome back (you did check it out, right?) and now on to the promised medical malpractice news:

Tresa Baldas at the National Law Journal writes of the Movement Building to Abolish 'Locality Rules' in Med-Mal Litigation;

Michael Townes Watson discusses how North Carolina is working to strip the right to jury trials from the most badly hurt victims (at TortDeform);

And more on trial practice rules: I asked back on May 18th: Is Medical Testimony Getting A New Standard? (via John Day). The subject is a change in standards from "reasonable degree of medical certainty" to "more likely than not." A debate has now opened up, according to Walter Olson at Point of Law, on the subject, starting with Beck/Herrmann here, with Peter Norbert responding at Blog 702 (Daubert on the Web); and then a rebuttal by BeckHerrmann here. We surely have not heard the last on the subject of the "proper" level of medical certainty an expert physician must have for an opinion to be admissible.

Dainius A. Drukteinis (MD and JD) discusses the Michigan Law Review study that shows medical malpractice juries favor doctors disproportionately to other types of lawsuits, contrary to the accepted "wisdom" that juries favor plaintiffs out of sympathy (at NY Emergency Medicine);

At Concurring Opinions, Melissa Waters opines on the sensitive issues of unauthorized pelvic exams while in the hospital;

And still with malpractice, Orac (a surgeon) at Respectful Insolence first discusses a liposuction death at the hands of a homeopath, and then delves further into "legalized quackery" with the broad range of authority given to Arizona homeopaths;

Newsday also opines on malpractice: Don't blame victims for problems with malpractice (via TortDeform)

And on the non-malpractice front, a federal judge has thrown out as unconstitutional many of New York's new attorney advertising rules. The State will appeal.

Now on to the litigation:

If a woman falls and shatters an ankle while trying to climb up on to a bar and dance, is the bar owner responsible? Walter Olson presents that case at Overlawyered. But if the woman was intoxicated and if the bar employees were cajoling her to do so, is the answer still as one-sided as headlines suggest?

A New Jersey man has sued Starbucks when the lip of the cup lid came off, scalding his hand with 3rd degree burns;

On to drugs: There is a Vioxx Product Liablity Litigation Update Report by Tom Lamb at his Drug Injury Watch that is chock full of information on the state of Vioxx trials if you want to play catch-up. And this interesting bit: Pharmalot reports that two governors have been subpoenaed to testify at a Vioxx trials. Find out why at the link;

In New York, the fiancee of Sean Bell, shot more than 50 times by the NYPD, has brought suit (via Quizlaw);

Bill Childs brings us the story of an Iraq war veteran who committed suicide after coming home with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and his family has now sued the government. Colorado Confidential picks up the story on how PTSD could do that;

From the land of verdicts, Bill (who acts as amusement park guru in his spare time) also brings us a bizarrely bifurcated trial where damages were tried before liability;

Returning to malpractice, a New York appellate court tossed out a case against an obstetrician that was late for a delivery (via New York Law Update). One of the weird parts about this is that the law firm apparently representing the plaintiff-respondent is a well-known local medical malpractice defense firm, Kopf, Nardelli and Dopf;

The LaBovick Injury Law Blog brings us a $40M verdict out of Florida on a Ford truck accident;

Also from Ford and Florida, a $6M verdict in a rollover accident (ABAJournal)

And yet another verdict from Florida, a $21M verdict in a wrongful birth case for failing to detect a genetic defect (from EyeOnDNA);

Robert Ambrogi reports on a $101M verdict for wrongful conviction in Boston;

And in case you missed it, Notre Dame head football coach Charlie Weis was sacked for a loss in the medical malpractice trial he brought against the physicians who did his gastric by-pass surgery. Kevin, M.D. follows up by letting us know that Weis wasn't all that pleased with how it turned out;

From the land of post-verdicts, a New York man shot by the police has his multi-million dollar award thrown out by an appellate court. For the second time. The decision is here: Barnes v. City of New York;

More the issue of the taxability of mental anguish awards (from John Day courtesy of Sylvius von Saucken at The Garretson Firm) that I previously discussed here: Are Emotional Injury Recoveries Tax Exempt? An Appeals Court Dumps Its Own Opinion and about 3/4 the way through Personal Injury Law Round-Up #20;

And from the land of the Supreme Court, Ted Frank does a review on behalf of the business-oriented American Enterprise Institute on the term just concluded: The Roberts Court and Liability Reform.

And finally for the weekend:

• Blawgletter goes for funny at Blawg Review #118;
• New York State Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman, in Shackled to the Courthouse, blogs on the loneliness of being a judge in New York (at Judicial Reports);
  
• Monkey Girl shows there's more than one way to do a round-up with Change of Shift;
• Grunt Doc tells us how Dick Cheney was almost on the hook for medical malpractice;
• Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice with a terrific essay for small firm and solo practitioners: Why We Don't Belong in Biglaw. And yes, it's for BigLaw people too, though they probably don't read Scott's blog or mine. Best line: "It takes years to learn to wear a pink shirt properly."
  

Enjoy the weekend.


(Eric Turkewitz is personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

Before heading to the trials, let's spend some time focusing on the issues of risky conduct and tort "reform:"

Topping the wee-bit-too-much-risk department: A father takes his 10-year old son for a run with the bulls in Pamploma (via QuizLaw);

Since defective products are often the subject of injuries, Lowell Steiger at Los Angeles Personal Injury Blog brings us a link to a new government website that provides links and recall information from six different government agencies;

And more from Texas on their tort "reform" that, I noted in last week's Round-Up, has now encouraged more doctors to come to Texas. Kevin M.D. points to the benefits of fewer lawsuits, while Stephanie Mencimer at The Tortellini tells us about the convicted sex felon who is now a practicing Texas physician. In the same vein, Ronald Miller at the Maryland Lawyer Blog discusses a West Virginia physician that has 120 malpractice suits against him, and who has just stopped practicing there and changed his name. Will he try to restart his practice elsewhere, and if so, which state is most favorable for him?

The American Constitution Society For Law and Policy Blog has a report on how the U.S. Supreme Court is blocking the courthouse door by making it dramatically more difficult, if not impossible, for ordinary Americans to have their day in court. U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement agrees, as he discussed in a speech in Philadelphia on Tuesday (via How Appealing);

Bill Childs at TortsProf has the story of the California Supreme Court invalidating waivers for gross negligence (via Point of Law), keeping at least one courthouse door propped open; He also reports that there may be an immunity deal surrounding The Big Dig in the works;

David Williams at his Health Business Blog provides an update of the Veggie Booty recall, part of a spate of medical and food issues resulting from goods imported from China; The Consumerist live-blogged the Senate hearings on the Chinese Poison Train; and Bill Marler starts a suit in New York, where the plaintiff had simply asked for an apology and been denied;

Sheila B. Scheuerman, also at TortsProf, brings us a report that Avandia side effects have tripled (See also Pharmalot); This comes at the same time that Avandia's maker, GlaxoSmithKline, is sending out threat letters to attorneys who are advertising for clients (Pharmalot); (See also TortsProf on Avandia spam and my post on the potential ethical issues involved);

David P. Lowe of InjuryBoard:Milwauke Personal InjuryLawyer reports on yet another amusement park fatality, this time in Wisconsin;

Now on to some litigation:

The widow of slain Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl filed a federal lawsuit in Brooklyn against the terrorists suspected of killing him and one of Pakistan's largest banks. (Sharon Cobb)

In the picking a jury department: Ken Shigley at Atlanta Injury Law and Civil Litigation Bloghas new data on public opinion and jury selection. Of course, that presumes we have a jury to pick. Anne Reed asks, Is The Jury System Dying over at Deliberations, positing some reasons why we see fewer trials today, and following up with Clients, Choices and the Jury System;

Working with one of Anne's posts, Howard Zimmerle at QuadCities discusses the dangers of over-reaching with your claims, in What Jurors Think of Your Personal Injury Claim;

Judicial Reports reports (in its 2nd item at this link) that the World Trade Center litigation list grew yesterday as three rescue workers announced they will sue the city over Mayor Bloomberg's allegedly "squandered" attempts to use the $1 billion insurance fund for 9-11 victims to help rescue workers who filed work-related injury claims; TortDeform has more on this after the filing of suit;

In verdicts, a practicing physician and mayor has lost a medical malpractice case (Kevin, M.D.)

After the money is in, there could still be problems. Especially if you are Houston attorney John O'Quinn. Ted Frank at Overlawyered reports that he has to refund at least $35M (plus interest) to his breast implant clients. He follows up a day later with a copy of the decision; According to Robert Ambrogi, by the way, Walter Olson's Overlawyered may have been the first ever legal blog;

While on the subject of lawyers, Ken Shigley asks a question I've never heard: Are trial lawyers sharks, wolves or sheep dogs? You have to read Ken's piece to find out;

In the settlements department, the Archdiocese of Los Angles agreed to a whopping $660M settlement for over 500 victims of sexual abuse by priests (USA Today Opinion, also at MassTorts Litigation Blog, RomanCatholicBlog, and LiberalCatNip, among many others;


And finally, Blawg Review #117 was hosted this past week by Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer Jamie Spencer.

Enjoy the weekend.


(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

Before heading to the trials, let's spend some time focusing on the issues of risky conduct and tort "reform:"

Historic Rye Playland in Westchester County, New York has seen three deaths in three years , including one last month. With that in mind, TortsProf and amusement park afficienado William Childs points to a story in the New York Post about a spot check done by the paper and some very unhappy findings;

Also in the lawsuit waiting to happen arena, Seth at QuizLaw gives us one truck driver with 131 accident claims in six months;

At Overlawyered, guest blogger Ron Coleman notes a stampede of doctors to Texas in the wake of tort "reform" that places sharp limits on recoveries. Imagine that, the government steps in to give varying degrees of immunity and protections to tortfeasors, and people rush in to the protected palace of immunity. Ironically, the post is captioned "Free Market Magic," despite the quite obvious protectionism of government that does exactly the opposite (also at Kevin, M.D.);

And since Texas tort "reform" is being discussed, I might as well point out that one unwitting loser in the deal could be small Texas businesses, as explained by Austin practitioners Perlmutter & Schuelke;

Quad Cities Lawyers has blogged on an 8-minute video on tort "reform" that includes industry being the guiding force behind the faux movement, the McDonalds case and Pants Pearson;

At Trial Ad Notes, Mary Whisner reports on a study that concluded that the Illinois tort system does not appear to be the cause of the undisputed fact that doctors' liability insurance premiums showed dramatic rises (via Deliberations);

And since we are on the subject of doctors, let's turn to electronic health records, who some had hoped would lead to improved medical care. But according to Theo Francis at the WSJ Health Blog, computerized records aren't much better than paper;

And it seems that the world of ambulance chasing has reached new depths, with David Bershad of Milberg Weiss & Bershad pleading guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice. (Other blog posts at the link);

Before going on to trial, I note that a Canadian woman died from using counterfeit drugs. Also, Chinese food and drug chief Zheng Xiaoyu was executed for bribery related to unsafe products. This gives me another opportunity to urge Congress to pass Tim Fagans Law, to make our drug supply chain safer;

Now on to some actual trial stuff:

As we pick a jury, we often hear excuses for why people can't serve, inlcuding this one from a personal injury attorney in one of my own jury pools. The Legal Reader brings us an even more extreme example, so bad that charges may be brought;

Howard Zimmerle of Quad Cities Injury Lawyers blogged on a UK study done on the "value" of life lost in wrongful death cases;

Michael Sung at Jurist reports that Judge Alvin Hellerstein in the Southern District of New York has scheduled trial for six wrongful death lawsuits related to the September 11th attack; (also at Sui Generis)

And from the Department of Verdicts:

A federal jury in West Palm Beach, Fla., has awarded $5.5 million to the estate of a young West Palm Beach man who died from an overdose due to the malfunction of a popular prescription pain patch (Duragesic) manufactured by two Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries. (Daily Business Review via Law.com, See also Cuban & Reyes Blog, PharmaGossip, and InjuryBoard: West Palm Beach Personal Injury Lawyer)

After a defense verdict in a lead paint case, David Lowe of InjuryBoard:Milwaukee Personal Injury Lawyer adds to the blawgospheric discussion of governments that hire outside counsel on a contingency basis. Suffice is to say, there will be no caterwauling about the legal fees the government needs to pay this time.

(For those interested, there is a long analysis of the concept of using outside counsel by Michael Dorf at Dorf on Law, an analysis directly at odds with this April 6, 2007 blog by Beck/Herrmann;)

TortsProf has the jury verdict in a suit against basketball star Allen Iverson's bodyguards;

This New York medical malpractice verdict comes courtesy of doctor-attorney Dainius Drukteinis, from NY Emergency Medicine, and involves the amputation of two fingers and delays in the ER with respect to contacting orthopedics for reimplantation surgery;

With a verdict in hand, we wonder about the tax consequences of the pain and suffering part, a subject I covered at that link on January 12th of this year based on Murphy v. IRS in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The panel has now reheard the matter and upheld the prior determination that the award is taxable. There are several opinions on the subject at the TaxProf Blog;

From Thomas Swartz at New York Legal Update, an appellate court reverses a malpractice award against a psychiatrist that had resulted after a patient committed suicide;

Before leaving the courthouse, we'll let two attorneys reflect on the end game, with Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice discussing his passion for the win in Fighting Form, and Ronald Miller lamenting in Losing at the Maryland Personal Injury Law Blog. The fact is, anyone who tries tough cases for a living will undoubtedly lose some, but that intellectual response doesn't really ease the pain;

And finally, Seventh Circuit Judge Terence Evans is Talkin' Baseball in a suit involving George Brett and a "stealth" bat. (Type in "Brett" at this link to find the case.) How many other judicial opinions have cited a clip of the infamous pine tar incident on YouTube? (Via How Appealing);


(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was...

A shortened version due to the holiday week. But before heading over to the courtroom for a few interesting suits, let's look at risky conduct that leads to lawsuits and check to see that the courthouse doors are open:

Since we start with risk, let's peak in at the Consumer Products Safety Commission and their list of recalls for the month of June. (via Consumer Law & Policy) Anything you bought on that list?

Tort "reform" issues usually find a place at the beginning of these round-ups, so we turn to Michael Townes Watson at TortDeform to discuss the detrimental effects of medical malpractice caps in Texas;

In the world of drug lawsuits, the issue of federal preemption comes up as defendants try to gain immunity for their pharma clients by claiming federal law trumps state law, and that FDA approval grants immunity to their clients. As Byron Stier at the Mass Tort Litigation Blog blog points out, the Vioxx judge in the multi district litigation has rejected that claim of immunity;

And finally, before heading into the lawsuit section, a study finds that 20% of hospitals give bad emergency room advice on strokes, heart disease and other cardiovascular conditions (via The Medical Quack):

A look inside the courthouse:

Bill Marler weighs in with the first lawsuit concerning salmonella poisoning arising out of Veggie Booty;

When I reported in last week's Round-Up on the Starburst Fruit Chew lawsuit I called it "pathetic" and wrote, "hope the attorney who took this wasn't counting on it to make the rent." Well, John Day is not nearly as nice as I was about that, shredding the plaintiff's lawyer who brought that frivolous suit. Sadly, because the attorney doesn't have a web site, I am unable to Google Bomb his site by linking the words "frivolous lawsuit attorney" to it;

Perhaps the most unusual, but I think inevitable, suit is the one where a mother sued over her son's 90-minute execution (via Above the Law).

With a verdict or settlement in hand, our client wants to know which parts he has to pay taxes on. For personal injury suits, we know that pain and suffering awards are tax exempt since they merely replace that which was lost, as opposed to being income. But Andrew Bluestone at the New York Attorney Malpractice Blog tells us of one appellate court that believes a recovery for mental anguish is taxable;

And finally, a woman who almost died from a bikini wax (via Kevin, M.D.)

Hope your holiday week was as good as mine.

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

Before heading over to the courtroom, we look at risky conduct that leads to lawsuits and check to see that the courthouse doors are open:

Dispute resolution often needs a courthouse, and with corporate interests always looking for ways to get immunity through tort "reform," TortDeform presents: Michigan Lawyer's Weekly has exposed tort deform for what it is: Chamber of Commerce anti-lawyer propaganda based on myths instead of hard data;

And over at the Maryland Injury Law Blog, Ronald Miller scratches his head at a doctor who thinks that limiting the rights of patients is "the most important thing on the planet." Someone give that guy a newspaper;

Courts mean nothing without a judge...and since New York's judges have now gone 9 years without even a cost-of-living pay raise, so our Chief Judge has threatened a lawsuit. But Jason Boog at Judicial Reports sees a potential alternative: Will New York Judges Go On Strike?

In the risk management department, the RFID Law Blog reports on a new bill to help stop counterfeit drugs breaking into our drug supply chain (via Adam Fein at Drug Channels);

And before we get to our new clients and litigation, Rob Sachs from ShragerLaw shares some insight as to why some Philadelphia hospitals are doing well, why some do poorly, and who the bad ones want to blame;

Also regarding hospitals, Kia Franklin at TortDeform takes on the issue of patient dumping in Los Angeles;

As the new client walks into the office, we are reminded of a post from Kevin, M.D. about chatty doctors who lose the focus of the exam when talking about personal events, and we wonder if we make the same error while making small talk with the new client;

And into the courthouse we go...

A federal judge sitting in New York has allowed a Zyprexa class action to go forward, according to Prescription Action Litigation;

Medical care in prisons jumped to the news in The BLT: Blog of Legal Times, as they report on a suit brought due to deprivations of medical care for those incarcerated;

The Medical Quack reports that a medical malpractice case resulted from triple-bypass surgery being done. It seems the doctor was looking at the angiogram films of another patient
(via Kevin, M.D.);

TortsProf William Childs has links to a bunch of new personal injury matters this week: A Kentucky Amusement park ride that resulted in a 13-year-old having both feet sliced off; (with more on theme park safety from Sluggobear and the Kentucky Law Review); Settlement discussions on the Boston death of a woman when a tunnel at the Big Dig collapsed, and a Las Vegas "gentleman's club" altercation involving strippers, bouncers, guns, biting and a former pro-football player;

From tragic to bizarre, the Consumerist writes of a Taco Bell Employee that Allegedly Spit and Urinated in Food;

From bizarre to comical: Lowering the Bar gives us a woman who sued for emotional distress because she was not in the lottery;

From comincal to pathetic: Manny at QuizLaw brings us the case of a woman who injured her jaw because Starburst Fruit Chews were, well, too chewey. I hope the attorney who took this wasn't counting on it to make the rent. And if you guessed that Overlawyered might also have the story, you would be correct;

Following closely behind the Starburst suit in the cateogry of "what the hell was the lawyer thinking?"...from Thomas Swartz at New York Legal Update, a lawsuit that drives the good lawyers crazy because it should never have been brought -- a woman who sued after falling while ice skating, when some 15 minutes before her fall, she observed that the skating surface was deteriorating, and there were ice chips, bumps, and wet spots on the ice. Fancy how that happens after people have been skating;

Can a child sue his own parents for negligence in failing to properly put him in his child seat? The Minnesota Supreme Court says yes in this case reported by The Injury Blog;

And a New Jersey court rules a duty owed by the passengers of a car to aid an injured man, from John Day at Day on Torts;

Billy Merck at Above the Law has a: Lawsuit of the Day: Belk Cosmetics Contractors Win Damages for Being Watched. Who needs a real window to play Peeping Tom, when you can snoop via video?

When you can get an opposing witness to testify multiple times, it ususally helps a case, and litigants in the September 11 litigation got just such a bonus when former EPA head Christie Whitman gave congressional testimony, and Joe at Tort Burger -- Hold the Reform brings us some of the details;

As the trial goes on, I have always wondered just how much background knowledge the jury has on certain subjects. I'm not the only one to wonder, as Anne Reed writes in What Do They Know? which followed up on a Newsweek poll about the lack of knowledge some Americans have on various subjects;

When you started that case, I hoped you picked the right lawyer. As Andrew Bluestone from New York Attorney Malpractice Blog points out, this claimant thinks she did not, after netting just $6.60 from a $35,000 settlement. She has now brought a legal malpractice suit against high profile New York personal injury attorneys, the Barnes Firm; (See also, Suit 'winner' nets pocket change, via Buffalo Pundit)

Some causes of action award legal fees, such as this consumer fraud claim in New Jersey regarding Vioxx. Mark Herrmann at Drug and Device Law complains that the legal fees were $4.9M on a claim that was only worth $4,000 (also Ted Frank at Point of Law) So with that kind of risk, why didn't Merck try to settle that particular claim?

Of course, that case for attorneys fees is not to be confused with that of former Judge Robert Bork who asked for lawyers fees in a New York personal injury case, with a small problem being that such fees are not permitted, even if successful;

After verdict, the action isn't always over, as Princeton Insurance found out the hard way, after a $75M verdict (reduced to $37.5M) in a dram shop case. They had apparently failed to negotiate in good faith on the $1M policy, and they are now stuck with a $21.4M bill (Law.com via The Legal Intelligencer);

As you pack your bags and go home for the weekend, or a full one week Fourth of July respite, a few things to mull over:

• Is this how they usually treat suspected purse snatchers in Texas, by running them over with a truck? (via QuizLaw);
• MonkeyGirl wonders what would it be like to have indicator lights on your head for others to see the reactions to your comments;
  
• And finally, with the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championship just days away, it seems the 6-time champ is having problems with his jaw (via Kevin, M.D.). I knew you'd be concerned...
  

Enjoy the upcoming holiday week...

(Submissions for next week's edition, if I feel like doing one, can be made to -->> blog [at] TurkewitzLaw.com)

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

In doing these round-ups I like to start with risky conduct before delving into the litigation, for that is what brings on the injuries and attorneys. So let's start here:

Headlining the arena of risk this week: Doctor Anonymous reports on a 15-year old that performed a C-section "under his parents watch" (via Kevin, M.D.);

Defective toys made in China were big news this week, including the use of lead paint on Thomas the Train toys. The Gun Toting Liberal was unsparing in his commentary of who to blame;

We've seen a lot of food poisoning stories lately. Wonder how it happens? Bill Marler tells us that slaughtering a goat in the kitchen may be the source in one case;

And the Vatican (!) sees danger and risk too, and has issued some new commandments regarding driving (via California Personal Injury and Insurnace Blog);

The New Jersey Law Journal sees that Electronic Health Records Raise New Risks of Malpractice Liability, the coming of which I discussed briefly on December 15, 2006;

The Cavalcade of Risk, with the latest edition by the Workers' Comp Insider, has made my job easier this week, by covering numerous risky issues at the insurance-related blog carnival;

Let's head to the courthouse now and see what we find:

Sheila B. Scheuerman from TortsProf gives us the latest obesity lawsuit, but it might not be quite what you think;

Howard Erichson from MassTorts reports that it was a good week for the paint industry as two state high courts knocked out lead paint nuisance claims;

Sometimes judges turn into litigants. Anyone come to mind? Anthony Sebok at his FindLaw Writ column discusses: Judges Behaving Badly: Their Ill-Considered Suits Against a Dry Cleaner, and Against the Yale Club. For a few more badly behaving judges, see: Judges Gone Wild;

And from the discovery department: Law firms Wiley Rein and Coughlin Duffy learned the hard way about discovery issues when walloped with $1.25M in sanctions by Southern District of New York Judge Alvin Hellerstein (New York Law Journal) due to document destruction and misleading statements that added years and millions of dollars to the cost of prosecuting suits on behalf of people who died or were injured or suffered property loss in the September 11 attacks;

(And since I went to Wiley Rein and Coughlin Duffy's websites for the links above, I might as well add that both firms are in violation of New York's new ethics rules by failing to note on their home pages that their websites are "attorney advertising." Doh!)

It's not just defense lawyers that acted badly this week, but plaintiff's too, as the New Jersey Law Journal reports today on two lawyers indicted for staging phony car accidents;

Returning to discovery, if you need some documents from the FDA to help your case, I hope you asked for them a loooooong time ago. Ed Silverman at Pharmalot reports there are some Freedom of Information Act requests pending for three years;

Sometimes trying a case can involve moments of great drama, but as Howard Zimmerle from Quad Cities Injury Lawyers reminds us, sometimes it is simply nuts-and-bolts lawyering to resolve things like How to get the chiropractor bills paid that is required. I like this this new blog as it addresses actual issues, as opposed to the trap so many personal injury attorneys fall into of reporting on the latest accident...And then writing if you were hurt, call us at blah, blah, blah...

In sorting through the viable claims, Day on Tort's John Day reports that the Kentucky Supreme Court has rules there can be no recovery for pre-impact fear in a wrongful death case, a decision that doesn't make any sense to this New Yorker;

Some fodder for the weekend:

• Thinking of hanging your own shingle? Carolyn Elefant of My Shingle fame creates SOLOFORMANIA! A Cornucopia of Forms for the Busy Solo;
• Fellow blawger Ron Miller and his Maryland Injury Lawyer blog got some nice local press. We could all use a little of that from time to time;
• And not to be missed (via 911doc at M.D.O.D.) from The Onion, I've Got Some Bad News, And I've Got Some Hilarious News. Is this medical malpractice or simple negligence? You decide...

Enjoy the weekend.
(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com) xxx

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

Lawyers, drugs and money will once again be a recurring subject. But before heading over to the courtroom, let's look at some preliminary issues:

In one of the saddest stories of the last month, a woman in Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital in Los Angeles was dying on the floor of the emergency room. So she was arrested. And then died just outside the hospital doors. Though it happened last month it is news again because the 911 tapes were just released. Randall Udelman (Injury Board: Phoenix) discusses the incident in the context of a degradation in California health care since tort "reform" caps were put in place in 1975; and Dr. Deb uses it to describe the mangled state of health care in the country;

Also in the horrible story department: On Staten Island, a seventeen-year-old track star died from an anti-inflammatory found in sports creams such as Bengay and Icy Hot. This Newsday story comes via TortsProf;

At any stage mediation might come up as an option. To that end, we check in with Diane Levin to help us along with Premature negotiation: how to get rid of performance anxiety at the mediation table, featured at her Online Guide to Mediation blog (via Ambrogi at Law.Com);

Ed Silverman at Pharmalot brings us a good dose of irony. Or hypocrisy. Take your pick. It seems that Eli Lilly is complaining about attorney advertising unfairly influencing patients. Except that there own marketing budget encourages people to take the drugs to begin with. You can find out, courtesy of Advertising for Success, what Lilly officials wanted its reps to say about Zyprexa's side effects;

In the "picking the right lawyer category" we stay with Silverman and Avandia: Here Come the Chicken Pluckers!, with a story of two types of law firms: Those that run around advertising for cases (the chicken catchers) and those that actually know how to try them (the chicken plucker's);

OK, let's head head into the courthouse to see what we find:

Still on the subject of picking the right lawyers: Two examples this week of the wrong ones, as Scott Greenfield sets out in You Paid How Much? as well as my own dissection of the counsel Judge Robert Bork chose for his New York personal injury case;

Of course, being your own lawyer has its problems too, as Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson should know regarding his now-infamous $54M pants lawsuit. It's isn't personal injury law, but since ABC News quoted me, I'll add it to the Round-Up here:

Frivolous lawsuits like this one are an embarrassment to the profession...I see he has a claim for $500,000 in emotional damages. I don't doubt that he has some emotional suffering, but I don't think it's related to the pants.

From picking counsel to picking courts: Philip Morris doesn't like that it when plaintiffs bring their actions in state court instead of federal. So they tried to have a tobacco case removed from state court to federal, a subject discussed here in Round-Up #11. Michael Dorf (Dorf on Law) explains how a unanimous court rejected its arguments that Philip Morris was "assisting a federal officer," simply by complying with the law, and was therefore entitled to force the action into the federal system (more by Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog and by Scott Nelson at Consumer Law & Policy Blog);

But just because you started suit doesn't mean you'll get to finish. At Drug and Device Law, Beck/Herrmann describe Compliance With FDA Regulations As A Defense in drug cases, and list the specific state laws that are available to get your case dismissed without the merits being addressed;

Having survived the motion to dismiss, we go to the practice tip department: Evan Schaeffer at his Illinois Trial Practice Weblog brings up a tactic I've never tried: Ask for the Story in Reverse;

And from the admissibility of evidence department, Ronald Miller at the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog writes today about getting those photographs of the damaged vehicles into evidence;

At Respectful Insolence, pseudonymous surgeon/scientist Orac discusses a trial now underway regarding the claims that the mercury in the thimerosal in childhood vaccines has caused autism;

As litigation winds on, some personal injury litigants, who might not be able to work anymore, become desperate for cash to keep on going. Andrew Bluestone at his New York Attorney Malpractice Blog describes an attorney's suspension for having loaned money to clients;

Though it could be worse: Three Kentucky fen-phen lawyers were indicted on fraud charges related to overpaying themselves after a $200M settlement on behalf of hundreds of clients (via Point of Law);

As we get to the end of trial, the jury must be charged: The medical malpractice attorneys and doctors who visit here will want to read this post about the emergency doctrine as it applies to childbirth: As Thomas Swartz explains at his New York Legal Update, a New York court Finds Obstetrician Is Not Entitled To Emergency Doctrine Charge involving shoulder dystocia;

With our jury now deliberating we anxiously pace the courthouse hallways, because second-guessing ourselves is the only thing we can do at this point, and wonder if any of our jurors have an agenda. So we turn once again to Anne Reed's Deliberations for a discussion. One probing question I will add to my voir dire repertoire: Do you have any favorite magazines or web sites?

And just because you won at trial doesn't mean the battle is over. Justinian Lane at TortDeform reports on a study showing appeals judges favor defendants in jury verdicts by 2:1;

In the miscellaneous-but-still-important category, Jacob Goldstein at the WSJ Health Blog reports that, When Hospitals Err, Medicare Might Not Pay. Which is to say, a hospital may no longer get paid for fixing certain problems that they created. Will they discharge patients and make them worse? Time will tell...

As you pack up the trial bag and go home of the weekend, a few things to check out:

• At Nicole Black's Legal Antics she has a contest for the Top 10 Funniest Law Blogs;

• Though none of those bloggers hold a candle to this patient, who uttered the best one-liner ever from a patient, according to Paul Levy at Running a Hospital;

• And if you wanted to add some medical bloggers to your own RSS, but didn't know which ones? Kevin M.D. rounds up his top eight.

Enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

Before heading over to the courtroom, let's look at some preliminary issues:

Prior to undertaking litigation, we may want to get a bird's eye view of the whole thing. Beck/Herrmann at Drug and Device Law give the Anatomy of a Mass Tort, from a defendant's perspective;

Of course, you need the right lawyer to give you that bird's eye view, and how do you find one? Will the brand new ratings system by Avvo help you out? Scott Greenfield has a few thoughts after taking the system for a trial spin in Yippee! The Avvo Ratings Are Here!

It's not only important to have the right lawyer, but to make sure suit is timely. Cases against Vioxx maker Merck in Oregon had been barred by the statute of limitations. But as Ed Silverman at Pharmalot reports, that may be about to change as a bill passes the Senate ezxtending the time to file suit for Vioxx claims;

The claims that can be made in a wrongful death case vary from state to state. Edmund Scanlan of the Chicago Accident Law Blog tells us that Illinois Wrongful Death Act now allows jurors to award damages for "grief, sorrow, and mental suffering," thereby bringing them into the modern age. New York and five other states remain in the dark ages with respect to these damages;

But before we head to litigation, let's consider the ethical dilemma faced by Dr. Smak, when she knows she has missed a diagnosis and knows her patient has suffered harm;

OK, let's head head into the courthouse to see what we find:

In a unique suit that deserves watching, Anthony Sebok writes of a suit against Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a Boeing subsidiary that is a contractor to the CIA. The suit results from human rights violations arising out of the Bush policy of "extraordinary rendition" and torture. The column is: A Bid to Litigate the Legality of U.S.-Sponsored Torture in Federal Court: Will It Succeed? (via TortsProf). A copy of the Complaint is here.

In another unique suit, Law.com reports that a Miami sole practitioner, J.B. Harris, has brought a suit that Accuses Tobacco Firms of Targeting Black Consumers. For some other links on this subject from the skeptical side, head over to Walter Olson at Overlawyered;

Former SCOTUS nominee, and conservative leader Robert Bork, brought a trip and fall case against the Yale Club, claiming "in excess of $1,000,000," plus punitive damages, plus a couple things he couldn't get no matter how bad the alleged wrongdoing was. If he was the judge on his own case, I wonder what he would think about some of those claims?

And now, a group of lawyers who seem hell-bent on giving the rest of us a bad name, one plaintiff's side and three on the defense:

• From the plaintiff's side: A cop sues McDonalds because of the slimy stuff a couple of teens put in his sandwich. His biggest problem may be that he didn't even take a bite. (via California Injury Blog);
• From the defense side: One of the cardinal ethics rules of lawyers: Don't talk to the other party if they are represented by counsel. Except that, as Lisa Brennan reports from the New Jersey Law Journal (Law.com), someone apparently forgot that part of lawyering, and a judge was seething over such conduct in one of the Menu Foods pet food cases;
• Another good ethical rule to remember: Don't alter the documents!!! You wouldn't think I wouldn't have to write that out (via Day on Torts)
• Destroying evidence is also a pretty big no-no, as Greedy Trial Lawyer tells us in Hospital Risk Management Carried To Its Dishonest Extreme (via TortDeform)

Practice tips are always a good thing for this section, so we'll start with the basics: Defending the plaintiff's personal injury deposition by Ron Miller, at the Trial Lawyer Resource Center.

A more complex practice tip goes to Suing Uncle Sam Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, courtesy of the Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog;

This story comes out of Japan from The Asahi Shimbun, Patient died after "live" demo operation (via Kevin, M.D.)

The trial itself often exudes drama. This is not a play where all the lines are known in advance. So if you like dramatic courtroom scenes, though this isn't a personal injury case, go to Anne Reed's Deliberations and make sure you read to the end of Tears, Pain, And History In The James Seale Voir Dire;

Of course, just because you try a case to verdict doesn't mean the case is over, as those following the Vioxx trials know. Sometimes a jury will do a wacky thing, like award $50M in compensatory damages to someone who had a heart attack due to Vioxx. Or an expert witness will be less than candid in discussing his credentials. Ted Frank at Point of Law discusses these issues in Rulings in Barnett and Plunkett Vioxx cases;

Here is another verdict that seems destined for appeal, with The Injury Blog reporting: Mother of Shooting Victim Awarded $10 Million in Bronx Personal Injury Lawsuit;


With the week done, we pack our trial bag up and go home with some lighter weekend reading:

• Since the issue of live-blogging trials has been in the news, Kevin O'Keefe reports on a case study of live-blogging a trial that was a big success;
  
• A great round up of last week's legal blogs: Blawg's Blog blawgs Blawg Review #111. Now say that ten times fast.
• If you're interested in how insurance company bloggers think, you can crack open the Cavalcade of Risk: 1st Anniversary Edition;
• And last -- particularly important if you have small children -- Dr. Wes tells us that the 5-second rule has merit. Maybe I'm not such a bad parent after all.
  

Enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

Before heading over to the courtroom, we look in on risky conduct that leads to lawsuits, check to see that the courthouse doors are open, and that we've selected the right attorney for the job:

The lawyer flying commercial flights with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis landed on the front page of the New York Times today. But Daniel Solove at Concurring Opinions had already taken a crack at the subject with Can the TB Patient Be Sued? Professor Bainbridge also opines on it in Flying TB Infected Lawyer's Liabilities. The carrier is Atlanta attorney Andrew Speaker of The Speaker Law Firm, but don't bother going to his site, as it has been taken down. Incredibly, he is the son-in-law of a microbiologist. Did he also give his new son-in-law some fatherly advice? Which leads to the next question of who might be sued if someone else contracted the disease...

Last week's Round-Up heavily covered the breaking story of diabetes drug Avandia, and this week the responses: Ed Silverman at Pharmalot on the drop (to zero) of new prescriptions for the drug; The WSJ jumps all over the issue claiming NEJM editors gave short shrift to the study's flaws; David Phillips at 10Q Detective points an accusatory finger at the press in Who Benefits from Glaxo's Drug Disaster?; Glaxo defends itself in the British journal Lancet (WSJ Health Blog) and Derek Lowe from In The Pipeline does an analysis in The Avandia Wars Continue. (several via Kevin, M.D.) Mark at A Georgia Lawyer discusses the FDA smear campaign against the Avandia critic;

One question that comes up prior to starting a suit is the extent of insurance coverage (because you can't get blood from a stone), but in this accident, I'm betting it is one issue that the parties won't worry about (via South Carolina Trial Law Blog);

Andrew Bluestone from New York Attorney Malpractice Blog brings us a story that will no doubt result in lawsuits against many: A man had his conviction overturned, and then spent the next 17 years in jail, while his attorney, the prosecutor and the courts all dropped the ball;

Still on the subject of attorneys and clients, this one is too good not to include even though it doesn't deal with personal injury law: From Scott Greenfield's Simple Justice, The Wrong Things Potential Clients Say To Criminal Defense Lawyers And Why;

Moving on to the start of litigation:

Here is a litigant that apparently wishes they never started suit...Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky brought a retaliatory lawsuit against two attorneys that had alleged unclean conditions at the hospital in numerous lawsuits, and then saw most of them dismissed. So the hospital turned around and sued, and was more than happy to talk about it to the press. Perhaps what they didn't expect, for some bizarre reason, is that the attorneys who had been sued would actually defend themselves and publicly give the basis of their suit...and it wasn't pretty since it dealt with unclean conditions. Now what? The hospital, after starting the suit and starting the comments in the press, turns around and asks the court for a gag order. Michael Stevens at the Kentucky Law Review has all the details...and then...late breaking news, the Hospital asks the court to gag their gag order. I wonder how much they billed for all that.

William Childs at TortsProf writes of an asbestos case where the judge rejected a pre-packaged bankruptcy;

Baseball fans have no doubt heard of St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Josh Hancock being killed in a car accident April 29 when he slammed into a tow truck. Published reports said he was drunk, speeding and talking on his cell phone. His father sued the bar on a dram shop theory, as well as the tow truck operator for not having appropriate warning devices, as well as the driver of the car needing aid. A sober legal analysis of the claims comes from Howard Wasserman at the Sports Law Blog (via TortsProf) and a snarky analysis from David Nieporent at Overlawyered;

As we get ready for trial, we always wonder about juries and jury selection. And so, we turn once again to Anne Reed at Deliberations for more insight and tips in: "Do Juries Deliberate?" A Survey In Seattle;

Now in the middle of trial, we turn to Flea, the pseudonymous med-blogger that was outed during his cross-examination. In Round-Up #11 back on May 11th, I wrote this:

In part of an extraordinary medical-legal series, pediatrician (and blogger) Flea repeatedly let loose with his observations and emotions regarding his own medical malpractice trial: as defendant in a wrongful death case. Jury selection is now complete, and he reflected on the jurors chosen and the traumatized parents. Except that Flea has now taken down some, though not all, of those the posts on the subject. Why has he chosen some, but not all? With the death of a child at stake, it is clear Flea's trial is not just about money...Will the nail-biting drama end in verdict or sigh-producing settlement? I'm guessing we haven't heard the last of this.

From settlement to verdict: In New Jersey, an Accutane trial has resulted in a $2.6M award for inflammatory bowel disease, based on a failure to warn of the disease, according to Tom Lamb at his Drug Injury Watch;

And finally a little weekend reading:

• From Kevin, M.D.: The best anti-smoking ad ever created.
• From Sheila Scheuerman at TortsProf, top 10 downloads for papers posted on the Social Science Research Network for the last three months in the Journal of Torts & Products Liability Law.
• Blawg Review #110, by Norman Fernandez at the Biker Law Blog was all about Memorial Day and our veterans. Since it was updated during the week, it's worth going back even if you've seen it once.
  

Enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

Lawyers, drugs and money were big in the news this week, so we'll alter the format a bit:

Let's start with the money, before going to drugs and lawyers, and money starts with tort "reform." Michael Townes Watson discusses at TortDeform, the fact that Medical Malpractice Reforms Don't Increase Healthcare Safety;

And since we start with tort "reform," I'll point out that both Day on Torts and The Hartford Courant have stories on medical malpractice premiums dropping. That tends to happen when Mr. Market goes up, and a malpractice "crisis" develops when Mr. Market goes down;

Tort "reform" also leads to discussion of damage caps. But sometimes caps aren't instituted by the legislature but by the limits of an insurance policy. Unfortunately, the merits of the action often take a back-seat to the practical realities of insurance coverage, as noted by Charles Silver at TortDeform in How Much Malpractice Coverage Does Your Doctor Have?

Now on to drugs: There was big drug news this week on Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes drug now implicated in cardiac deaths, courtesy of an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. A round-up of many medical posts can be found at the Clinical Cases and Images Blog. New TortsProf blogger Sheila B. Scheuerman collects some posts on the problems at FDA regarding its approval process at Hearing on FDA's Role In Evaluating Drug Safety. And perhaps most significantly from a medico-legal (and political) perspective, Public Citizen has stated that the FDA knew back in 2002 of the heart problems (via Pharmalot); And if you can't get enough of the subject, Kevin, M.D. (the Howard Bashman of the medical world) has links to many more;

Can we bring a state-based pharmaceutical case based on the drug's labeling, or does the drug company enjoy immunity because it was FDA approved? This goes to the heart of a state-federal power struggle that has roiled the nation since it was born, with the feds now wanting to claim it can preempt state laws without congressional approval, but with mere FDA support. Ironically, the seizure of such power is taking place under a Republican administration. Ed Silverman's Pharmalot brings us the action for a case the Supreme Court may want to hear;

It could be, of course, that the drug problem isn't from the labelling, but from dispensing too much. How does that happen you ask? Automatically. OnThePharm fills us in on the sad facts of auto-refills;

Did we check out that doctor that urged us to have surgery? Ben Stevens at the South Carolina Personal Injury Law Blog tells us of three doctors facing up to 50 years in prison for recruiting patients to undergo needless surgeries in order to defraud insurance companies;

Now on to the lawyers: As we look for an attorney, we wonder in this day and age of scams and con artists, is this person really an attorney? Solo Carolyn Elefant of My Shingle fame helps us find out;

It used to be that many would use Martindale-Hubbell to find, or at least research, counsel. But that seems to be going the way of the dinosaur, as Robert Ambrogi lets us know at Law.ComBlog in Firms Opt Out of Martindale-Hubbell;

But just being a member of the bar is no guarantee you have the right counsel. As Ken Shigley writes at his Atlanta Injury law and Civil Litigation Blog, there are unethical chiropractors, lawyers and runners out there, and it disgusts him. According to Ken, The Bar should act to penalize and deter illegal and unethical case solicitation. Yell it loud, Ken, I think the vast majority of us are in your corner. I hit a similar mark in one of my first posts as a blogger, discussing how to find a personal injury attorney;

In a similar vein, Tony Caggiano from the Orlando Injury Lawyer Blog reports: Federal Judge Acts on Improper Solicitation by Counsel. The reality is that if we don't get rid of the bad apples, they will continue to tarnish the reputations of us all;

How will the lawyer get paid is an important issue, and more so since President Bush decided he didn't want the federal government hiring lawyers on contingency. Better to let a firm run the hourly meter, I guess, than to pay for the efficiency of the contingent fee arrangement. The padding of those hourly bills is part of the opening to Enrico Schaefer's Blawg Review #109 at The Greatest American Lawyer. Beck/Herrmann (Drug and Device Law) rounds up a slew of posts on the subject of the contingency fee arrangement, but never seems to address the fact that padded hourly rates could be far worse;

The judge you are assigned to might be in issue, if your case is in Florida and the insurance company doesn't like the judge. According to Ronald Miller of the Maryland Personal Injury Law Blog, it seems one general counsel went so far as to accuse a judge of being "paid off." While we're over at that blog, we might as well rummage the many pleadings, motions and discovery devices that make up their Attorney Help Center to see if they can be of use to us;

And on to a few lawsuits: Some actions are easier than others, and no one will say the September 11th suits regarding post-attack air quality are easy. Sheila B. Scheuerman at TortsProf reports that the New York Medical Examiner has now confirmed a new death was due to the bad air, and discusses the ramifications for those pending lawsuits;

Since we are at TortsProf, Williams Childs lets us know of two odd amusement park lawsuits that struck his interest;

This New York legal malpractice case was premised on a medical malpractice case with a result the plaintiff didn't like. Plaintiff's counsel rejected a $1m offer and there was a subsequent $350 jury verdict. Plaintiff claims she was not properly informed of the offer. The case speaks to many different issues including jury risks, communications with client, and properly prepping your client for trial (via New York Attorney Malpractice blog);

And now for some quirky weekend reading/viewing:

MonkeyGirl isn't pleased about all those pharma ads she sees, and figures out a way to wrap them into one with Men and their Pee-Pees; She also wants asks you....make that begs you...to make sure you and your children wear their seat belts, or else...

Biker-lawyer Norman Fernandez at the Biker Law Blog gets euphoric over the perfect commercial, while also showing us via video How to Get Yourself Killed Speeding on A Motorcycle in a Curve;

One more video, a classic Monty Python skit about lawyers (well, it's about arguing) brought to you by Nicole Black at Legal Antics;

And finally, David Lat at Above the Law teaches us one thing to never say to a judge: "I suggest to you with respect, Your Honor, that you're a few French fries short of a Happy Meal in terms of what's likely to take place." And without peeking, any thoughts on what the judge did?

Put up the flag and enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was, taking you from pre-litigation through verdict and appeal:

Before heading into the courtroom, we look in on risky conduct that leads to lawsuits, check to see that the courthouse doors are open, and that we've selected the right attorney for the job:

Are our consumer products safe for us to use? Depends on who you ask. But if President Bush has his way with the nomination of Michael Baroody to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission, you will certainly think twice about it. Seems Pres. Bush wants the lobbyist for the National Association of Manufacturers to watch out for safety. David Arkush at the Consumer Law and Policy Blog has the action;

Do you think our drugs are safe? What if the pharmacist can't even read the chicken-scratch that passes for a prescription? On The Pharm has a few examples of illegible prescriptions;

When does a Good Samaritan law apply? Well, not in the emergency room in North Dakota when a doctor expects to be paid, (OnPoint LegalNews) even if he was called in an emergency while waiting to operate on another (via Kevin M.D.);

Do we have the right counsel? Well, if the gov't hired private counsel on a contingency, there may be an issue at stake, as Howard Erichson discusses at the Mass Tort Litigation Blog in States Revise Policies on Outside Counsel. Subsequent to that post, Pres. Bush signed an executive order banishing the practice on a federal level, though the order doesn't seem to me to make much sense;

Before we start a suit, we better make sure it's good. Unlike the matter of the horse that lost the Triple Crown because of an article in the newspaper (via WSJ Law Blog). Yeah, you read that right. In dumping the suit, Florida's Judge Gary Farmer ripped into traditional judicial style style in this concurring opinion in Funny Cide Ventures v. The Miami Herald (via Orin Kerr at Volokh who hated the piece);


Our case hasn't settled and we believe we have the all-clear for litigation, so off we go:

We need to carefully consider the causes of action for that medical malpractice case, because it might also be a breach of warranty case as Jacob Goldstein of the WSJ HealthBlog notes in A Warranty for Heart Surgery;

We also need to make sure we have the right parties. Demonstrating that an injury can have multiple causes, this lawsuit was brought against State Farm for denying coverage for surgery that doctors agree could have prevented her paralysis (via the Injury Blog);

If our state has one of those one-size-fits-all caps that deprives the most badly injured of fair compensation, we might have a problem. As Justinian Lane at TortDeform points out in a man-bites-dog type of story, however, at least one Oregon hospital wants to see the cap raised;

Discovery can sometimes be tricky. Here, the Florida Supreme Court weighed in on a medical malpractice case regarding discovery requests for hospitals to turn over lists of hospital privileges granted to physicians by the facilities' credentials committees;

Also on the subject of medical malpractice, pediatrician and med-blogger Flea, who had started live-blogging his own malpractice case, first took down three recent posts last week, and has now taken down the whole site without explanation. Kevin M.D. wonders if we are seeing the demise of the medical blogosphere with other docs taking down their sites;

Did cross-examination go as well as we thought when we caught that particular witness with prior inconsistent statements? The Drug and Device Law Blog has An Empirical Study Of The Value of Impeaching With Prior Inconsistent Statements;

Sometimes we settle during discovery. Jim Higgins reports, from the Tennessee Law Blog, a $64 million class-action settlement regarding the effectiveness and dangers of Paxil on minors;

Will the verdict withstand appeal? In a Ford rollover case with a $55M punitive damage award, the US Supreme Court has remanded the punitive damages for consideration in light of the recent case of Philip Morris v. Williams regarding jury instructions in such cases. The problem, as readers of this space know, is that the Supreme Court had issued a very confusing opinion in Philip Morris; As it happens, Traci M. Braun and Thalia L. Myrianthopoulos wrote on the subject this week for Law.com in 'Philip Morris' Decision May Be Hazardous to Jurors' Comprehension; And Rob Luke has yet more on at LegalNewsLine;


With the week done, we pack our trial bag up and go home with some lighter weekend reading:

• Ever wonder what it was like to actually cut open the body? Find out at SurgeonsBlog in Operation, Deconstructed. Two: cutting in;

• A new legal humor blog debuts, Legal Antics, brought to you by Nicole Black of Sui Generis fame;
  

• And finally, at Lowering The Bar, Fake-Lawsuit Plan Derailed by Chance, Stupidity.

Enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was, taking you from pre-litigation through verdict and appeal:

Before heading into the courtroom, we look in on risky conduct that leads to lawsuits, check to see that the courthouse doors are open, and that we've selected the right attorney for the job:

We start with drugs, as Byron Stier at the Mass Torts Litigation Blog reports that Amgen and Johnson & Johnson, manufacturers of Epogen and Procrit, may have to cut back the over prescription of the drug. Why was it over prescribed? Well, the New York Times reports that millions in "rebates" were given to doctors who administer the drug. Of course, one man's rebate might be viewed as another man's kickback. Think the over prescribing and the, uhh, "rebates" are related? Jacob Goldstein at WSJ Health Blog writes it up at Anemia Drug Rebates to Docs May Spur Overuse;

Epogen, by the way, is a favorite of counterfeiters. So from the risk management department, we bring you the dangers of counterfeit drugs, also featured on the front page of the New York Times this week;

Prof. Stier reported on another drug issue this week, as he wrote of Mothers' Depakote Use Linked to Mental Deficits in Children;

And lastly on drugs this week, Ed Silverman at Pharmalot reports that Purdue Pharma agreed to a whopping $634M fine for misbranding the powerful narcotic, OxyContin In addition, three executives including its president and the top lawyer pleaded guilty for the misbranding; Howard Erichson discusses the likely impact on other OxyContin cases;

From drugs to food: KFC got some good news when a federal judge tossed a case against it, that was based on KFC concealing the fact it was using transfat. Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice reports on what he considers finger-licking good news. I guess even criminal defense lawyers have to eat. An in-depth view of the KFC case is done at the Drug and Device Law Blog (Beck/Herrmann). True, fried chicken is neither a drug or a device but I guess it's close enough, and these guys have to eat too;

From mere risk to real loss: Why do hospital patients call lawyers? Some like to think it's always about the money. But the reality is that the emotionally devastated know that money is often meaningless. At Paul Levy's Running a Hospital, he reprints an award winning essay from Cameron Page, entitled "You Lied To Me." It's not just a heart-breaking example of loss, but shows the circumstances under which that loss may be seen as betrayal;

And Tales Of An Emergency Room Nurse writes a headline that succinctly speaks to her concerns after a patient dies after discharge from the ER: Call The Malpractice Lawyer Quick; (via Kevin, M.D.);

Since we're hanging out in the ER at the moment, you can check out CharityDocs' tale of unrelenting horror as he tries to get a child admitted in Dereliction of Duty. It would make a nice law school exam of issue-spotting, if it weren't a real-life Danteseque tale of parents, doctors and administrators all facing down one very angry doctor trying to save a beaten child from limbo or worse;

We're hiring a lawyer now, because we think it's clear there's a problem, and we need to make sure we have the right one for the job...but you probably wouldn't want the firm that ran this miserable ad representing you...for anything...(via Overlawyered)


Before heading into litigation, we check in with Jon Coppelman at the Workers' Comp Insider for a look around California and proposed legislative changes, in California Apportionment: Pennies for your Pain?

Our case hasn't settled and we believe we have the all-clear for litigation, so off we go:

This lawsuit started in an unusual way: Racial epithets were being spewed by a nursing home patient, leading to allegations of abuse. Before you get outraged, consider that the patient suffers from dementia (via Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog);

And yet more unusual, Kevin Underhill at Lowering the Bar brings us Cardinals Fan Sues Over Botched Tattoo:

Finding an expert is one thing, finding a good one that won't get torn apart on cross-examination is another: From American Medical News (via Kevin, M.D.) -- In search of truthful testimony: Scrutinizing expert witnesses;

Ben Stevens at South Carolina Personal Injury Law Blog lays out some strategies for pursuing products liability cases;

But wait. Are we in the right court? Philip Morris is again in the Supreme Court, not testing the limits of punitive damages, but as Tony Sebok relates at FindLaw, about its claim the case should be in federal court instead of state. The claim in Watson v. Philip Morris is based on the thin argument that, because the cigarette company performed the tests rating the tar and nicotine in "light" cigarettes that are the heart of the plaintiffs' suit, they themselves were acting as "federal officers" since the tests were required by the Federal Trade Commission. Ergo, federal court;

Sometimes our cases settle, such as this $7.4M settlement for 305 Louisiana patients who said they had unnecessary heart procedures;

But ours didn't settle, so let's go pick our jury. Have a question about it? No problem, because the National Center for State Courts just released a wealth of data on the subject. How extensive? More Americans Than Ever Serving on Juries. Most Comprehensive Study of Jury Practices Ever Conducted. Sounds good to me. (via Deliberations)

As our trial starts, the courtroom is tense, the anxiety palpable. In part of an extraordinary medical-legal series, pediatrician (and blogger) Flea repeatedly let loose with his observations and emotions regarding his own medical malpractice trial: as defendant in a wrongful death case. Jury selection is now complete, and he reflected on the jurors chosen and the traumatized parents. Except that Flea has now taken down some, though not all, of those the posts on the subject. Why has he chosen some, but not all? With the death of a child at stake, it is clear Flea's trial is not just about money, as David Nieporent at Overlawyered likes to think. Will the nail-biting drama end in verdict or sigh-producing settlement? I'm guessing we haven't heard the last of this. (Addendum, 5/15/07, the site has now been taken down completely);

With our trial underway, we have to worry not only about our questions, evidence and witnesses, but about naked attempts to influence the jury by passing out "newspapers" to jurors on the issue of tort "reform," as discussed by NPR in Texas Newspaper Accused of Tort-Reform Bias (via TortsProf);

Part of trying the case is the time-honored exercise of pacing the hallway. Why? Because the jury is deliberating and there is nothing for you to do but wait, wait, wait, as the folks trying the Equal v. Splenda case are now doing, as discussed in the Legal Intelligencer (Law.com) in: Splenda's Not Equal, But Is It Separate From Sugar?

We have the verdict, now will we withstand appeal? In New York, I wrote how an intermediate appellate court knocked down the verdict in this AIDS phobia case from $592,5000 to $250,000, and in doing so dismissed all claims for post traumatic stress disorder starting at six months after her exposure, under the theory a person shouldn't be any further emotionally damaged;

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, our TortsProf William Childs tells us this plaintiff sees his $2M libel verdict holds up at that state's highest court;

And in San Francisco, the retrial of a tobacco case that I mentioned in Personal Injury Law Round-Up #10 that had resulted in an increase in compensatory damages from $1.7 to $2.5M, has now also resulted in a punitive damages award of only $250K compared to the original $20M;


With the week done, we pack our trial bag up and go home with some weekend reading:

• Prof. Childs prints a long abstract of a new paper about physician supply in Pennsylvania, testing a tort "reform" theory that during the most recent malpractice "crisis" rising liability insurance costs lead physicians to relocate to lower-cost states, restrict the scope of their practice (for example, by eliminating high-risk procedures), or stop practicing altogether. Tort "reformers" are unlikely to be happy with the results.

• Dispatches from the Tort Wars: A Review Essay, from Anthony Sebok, reviews three different books on tort "reform" and is available at the Social Science Research Network in advance of its publication in the Texas Law Review;
  

• The Drug and Device Law blog (Beck/Herrmann) was so delighted at all the attention they got last week from doing a nice round-up of blogs in their areas of expertise, that they have a sequel, more blogs on the subjects of complex litigation, mass torts and Daubert hearings;

• If you haven't read it yet, check out Blawg Review #107 by Prof. Kingsfield at Blawg Review; and finally,
  

• Midwife with a Knife brings us the hair-raising tale of delivering twins, both breach (with pictures!), in Twins! Breech! Stat!; (via The Blog That Ate Manhattan)

Enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was, taking you from pre-litigation through verdict and appeal:

Before heading into the courtroom, we better check to see that the courthouse doors haven't been closed on us and take a look at the risks around us:

In this story from NorthJersey.com, a doctor insists that you sign away your rights to bring a lawsuit before treatment is even administered;

A new Oklahoma Tort "reform" law was vetoed, from Tulsa World (via Point of Law). The old law had been ruled unconstitutional, as I had discussed here some months back and again here (with a copy of decision). Legal Newsline tells us why the Governor vetoed the new law (via TortsProf);

There was a particularly nasty WSJ op-ed by Kim Strassel claiming that trial lawyers are "deeply loathed" (via Overlawyered). Can that be true? Not from my experience questioning 1,000+ jurors, and having them all answer "yes" when I ask if they would hire an attorney to bring suit if they felt it necessary. WSJ fantasy world, meet real world;

Ted Frank discusses at Point of Law a response by the authors of Jackpot Justice to Judge Richard Posner's critique of it. An interesting part of the response is that the authors were unable to come up with a good answer to this critique: That the data they used came from industry-funded Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, and that:

It is impossible to determine from Tillinghast-Towers Perrin's report what the sources for most of its data are, and so the figures I have quoted must be taken with a grain of salt

The response, in part, reads like "just trust them" because "Tillinghast's unique experience as a consulting company for insurers also has given them inside knowledge and historical experience with the industry." Like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.

Byron Stier at the Mass Torts Litigation Blog brings up this Washington Post story, Pet Deaths Spur Call for Better FDA Screening:Imports Raise Concern About Human Foods. It seems that, from the perspective of the food industry, a little extra work in risk management may be in order;

And more on risk management, MonkeyGirl's view from the emergency room is that a certain nearby nursing home ought to review its procedures about who gets sent to the hospital and when, as she reviews an extraordinary nursing home dichotomy. It seems that, if they don't work on their procedures, some very angry patients (or their families) will be visiting an attorney's office nearby;

An unhappy Professor Stephen Bainbridge, steamed about plastic clamshell packaging designed by the devil, adds a bit more on risks he sees that look like a class action waiting to happen;

And before we start any suit, we want to do a little research. Thanks to Robert Ambrogi for pointing us to: New Site Collects Hundreds of Legal Articles. And yes, Litilaw is free.

And now that litigation is under way:

Our case could get tossed out on summary judgment, even when there is a disagreement as to the facts. You say courts aren't supposed to be fact-finders, only jurors? Well, tell it to Judge Scalia and the Supreme Court, which this week decided in Scott v. Harris (via SCOTUSBlog) that it likes its own view of the facts, thank you very much, and not the views taken by other judges. Scott Greenfield has a scorching blog posting on the subject in Beer with a Cop Chaser; And then, within 24 hours of his posting, a chase after a car thief results in a bus full of children overturning, discussed in Sadly, Another Point Proven;

A deposition can be an ugly war, both as Steven Lubet reports from The American Lawyer (via How Appealing), and as Above the Law reports where a nasty bench slap was delivered in rhymed couplets;

At Overlawyered, Ted Frank offers a practice tip on how to deal with objectionable questions at deposition, while trying not to run afoul of the prohibitions that may exist for directing a witness not to answer;

And to help us along a bit during discovery, Ronald Miller from The Maryland Injury Law Blog hands out a few tips on Protecting the Injury Victim During Deposition, especially if you think there may be a claims history;

While our trials often deal with lost wages, this is sometimes difficult when the victim is a stay-at-home mom. John Day at Day on Torts reports on an article that works to put a number on the value of mom's services;

Objecting during summations is also sometimes a problem, as Matt Lerner discusses in New York Civil Law, in the context of a judge that prohibited summation objections;

As the jury goes out to deliberate, we wonder about how the jurors will decide issues of fact and truthfulness, and whether race played any factor. We think about this as Anne Reed at Deliberations points to a study in the New York Times on the subject, in Another Day, Another Unconscious Bias Study;

As we go from verdict to appeal and back for retrial, it seems that second time can be worse than the first for an appellant. A smoker suit had resulted in 1.7M in compensatory damages the first time, and on retrial, a jury came back with $2.5M (Calif. Smoker Gets Higher Compensatory Damages in Second Trial). There had also been $20M in punitive damages the first time, and as of this writing the punitive phase of the second trial had not been completed. The court will now have to craft jury instructions in accordance with the confusing, recent SCOTUS decision in Philip Morris v. Williams.

And finally:

• Drug and Device Law (Beck/Herrmann) has a nice round-up of different health law blogs.

• 12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know, from Aviva Directory (I don't know how good the cited law is, but it does a good job of issue identification)
  

• This isn't legal, but medical -- From CharityDoc, a story of a bullet's travels after it enters the body and the efforts to save the patient.

Enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

We'll start with pre-litigation issues and risks that we see:

William Childs at TortsProf brings us the dueling "state rankings" from the US Chamber of Commerce (worst states for litigation) and the American Association of Justice's (formerly ATLA) sharp response with a list of the "ten worst states to get sick or injured in". (With criticism of that sharpness by Stephanie Mencimer at The Tortellini, and more from Law.com)

Were you given the best drug for your illness? At MassTorts, Byron Stier writes of Pharmaceutical Industry Influence on Doctors. The peddling of drugs to doctors by Pharma was big this week and covered also at the Public Library of Science, in Following the Script: How Drug Reps Make Friends and Influence Doctors. Here's a sample quote, that you shouldn't read if you are on meds:

It's my job to figure out what a physician's price is. For some it's dinner at the finest restaurants, for others it's enough convincing data to let them prescribe confidently and for others it's my attention and friendship...but at the most basic level, everything is for sale and everything is an exchange.

Other articles on the cozy relationship between docs and Pharma at WSJ Health Blog, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Pharmalot. Do you still have confidence in the prescription you were given?

And there's yet more on drugs at Tom Lamb's Drug Injury Watch as he discusses the high number of adverse drug reactions in hospitals, some of whom were given the wrong drug or the wrong dose;

Over at TortDeform, New York State Senator Eric Schneiderman blogs on the 44,000 and 98,000 hospital deaths each year attributed to preventable medical errors, and his sponsorship of legislation that would require doctors to inform patients when significant medical errors take place;

So what makes people call an attorney after a bad experience? Often is it is anger. Or a sense that a trust was betrayed. Paul Levy at Running A Hospital brings a classic complaint from a patient about the care he was rendered in Who can blame him? The patient is apparently also a physician. Imagine how a patient without medical training would feel;

As we sit in the office and sort through the medical records of an unhappy potential client we consider taking for litigation, both we and the medical profession need to be mindful of HIPPA. Thankfully, we can turn here to Jayne Juvan's Health Law Update, as she has information on HIPPA violations, in particular violations of the Privacy Rule and enforcement by the FDA's Office of Civil Rights;

Into the onset of litigation we go: With Howard Erichson at MassTorts reporting that class action lawsuits against Menu Foods, maker of the tainted pet food, are piling up fast. (I had previously written that individual claims might cost more to prosecute than they are worth.)

From pets to people, we go to the recent food poisoning outbreaks in the news that occurred with peanut butter and spinach. This has resulted in a troubling new issue: That the FDA knew of the contamination problems for years (Washington Post via TortsProf);

As we litigate along, we hope our clients are candid with us, unlike this woman who claimed to be permanently paralyzed but was videotaped walking down the street with a cane. As this case shows, litigation can be expensive, in oh so many different ways;

Now on toward trial: Medblogger Flea opens a rare and enlightening public window into preparing for cross-examination for his malpractice trial two weeks from now, in Flea Takes a Screen Test and What Do Malpractice Juries Care About? (Flea seems to have good counsel on how to conduct himself, but not such good counsel when told medical facts matter only 3% of the time);

Flea will be happy to know, however, courtesy of Charles Toutant at the New Jersey Law Journal, that juries tend to side with doctors. This is also covered this week at the Orlando Injury Blog, from Tony Caggiano (Orlando Medical Malpractice Lawyers Find Truth in Jury Bias Study) and was previously covered here (with link to original source);

As the trial starts, we take a few tips from James W. McElhaney at his monthly column in the ABA Journal about how needing themes when you talk to jurors during the trial;

Since we are now standing in the well of the courtroom, Anne Reed at Deliberations has a nice primer on exposing a lie from a witness. You would correctly presume that shouting at the witness is not one of the methods that works with jurors (or anyone else, for that matter);

From cross-exam to summation, we move to Lowell Steiger at the Los Angeles Personal Injury Law Blog and this story of highly prejudicial arguments by the defense that warrants a new trial after a defense verdict: Defense Tricks: Frivolous Lawsuits? I Think Not (hat tip to TortDeform);

With our trial over: Tiffany Sanders at The Total Injury Blog deviates from the blog's usual fare of verdicts and settlements to note that their entire content is being scraped by another blog. One day these intellectual property issues will result in litigation for sure, if it hasn't happened already;

Since the case is resolved, by settlement or verdict, we turn to legal fees (if any). Two posts from Andrew Bluestone's New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on legal fees when the first hired attorney is discharged, in Attorney Fees and Termination, and More Fee Issues;

Legal fees come up in another context, as Walter Olson discusses at Point of Law, this being the issue of government hiring private sector counsel on contingency, setting up a conflict between the neutrality a government attorney must have, and the zealous advocacy that private counsel is ethically bound to provide; In another posting he plugs this round-up as "Invariably worth reading," no doubt knowing I am a sucker for flattery and will now have to buy him a beer if we meet;

As we empty the trial bag with our week done: We welcome a new blogger cutting his teeth at Massachusettes Auto Accident Blog (via California Personal Injury and Insurance Blog). Let's hope they follow the sage advice of Kevin O'Keefe and refrain from making it just another "Call me if you are injured!" island of self-promotion, but instead an interesting, linkable and integrated site. Unless, of course, that island of blogospheric purgatory is the desired result.

And finally, Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground collects some hits from the past with his description of different types of lawyers, for some kick-off-the-shoes weekend reading; (Schaeffer also plugged the Personal Injury Law Round-Up last month...if this keeps up, I'll move from Z-list blogger to Y-list. And owe a few more beers.)

Enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

Just a few posts today as I've been too busy to search many blogs for personal injury material.

David Lowe reflects on showing up for jury selection, Jury Service-- Seeing It From The Other Side, (InjuryBoard/Milwaukee), an experience significantly different than that of the personal injury attorney who appeared in one of my jury pools recently and talked himself off;

Ronald Miller at the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog discusses medical malpractice cases by professional athletes against team doctors in Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Filed Against Carolina Panthers' Team Doctor;

An article in the Chicago Tribune reports on Catholic Charities dropping its Chicago foster care program after its insurance company dropped them as a result of a $12M payout in a civil action from three abused minors. Christopher Hurley, one of the lawyers that obtained that settlement, wants to make sure you know The Truth About Catholic Charities Foster Care Settlement;

A new article on punitive damages is available at the Social Science Research Network, with extract courtesy of William Childs at TortsProf, Punitive Damages and Valuing Harm;

Dr. Paula Hartzell at MedicalEconomics shares her experience as a defendant who lost a medical malpractice case, in The Way I See It: Medicine is a blame game;

And, just moments ago, a Texas judge has apparently dismissed about 1,000 Vioxx claims, based on federal preemption. The text of the decision is not available at the moment.

Finally, at age 100, Richard Bird is still practicing law, Monday-Friday, 9-5.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

No discussion of personal injury law can take place without talking juries. And so, an interesting paper on medical malpractice juries by Philip Peters, Jr. at the Social Science Research Network, Doctors and Juries, is worth reading. One of its conclusions: "From the perspective of defendants at least, jury performance is remarkably good" (free download, and hat tip to Anne Reed's well-written Deliberations);

And since we discuss doctors and hospitals here, I want to point out something startling: A hospital CEO engaging in transparency. Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who started Running a Hospital last year, blogged Central Line Infections, both better and worse for his own hospital. This post goes hand-in-hand with the trend of states to immunize doctors for saying they are sorry to patients. If this pattern keeps up, patients might actually feel better informed, and more tolerant when errors occur, causing a decrease in medical malpractice cases.

Tony Sebok at FindLaw has the second half of his series on reopening the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund for the thousands of relief workers who were injured in the aftermath;

Brian Wolfman at Public Citizen's Consumer Law and Policy blog discusses a danger I had not previously heard of: 15-20 million lightweight stoves installed in kitchens around the country that have an awful tendency to tip over when weight was applied to the oven door.

William Childs at his TortsProf Blog notes a new abstract at the Social Sciences Research Network called "Judicial Tort Reform in Texas." From the abstract, it appears the tort "reform" is judicially created rather than legislatively. I wonder if former Gov. George Bush will decry the judicial activism?

This Texas "reform" coincides with an article by Mimi Schwartz in Texas Monthly, Hurt? Injured? Need a Lawyer? Too Bad! (hat tip to TortDeform);

Moving on to the military, Jonathon Turley at the USA Today Blog writes about the immunity the military enjoys for negligent conduct, and how there is little deterrence for military negligence beyond self-regulation, bad publicity or a political scandal. And perhaps that military immunity is why the gov't ignores dangers? Justinian Lane of TortDeform points out a story where the military is refusing to do a risk assessment of toxic fumes near 100 military family homes. Are the two connected?

Walter Olson at Point of Law discusses Ohio's decision to follow Rhode Island in pursuing lead paint manufacturers. (Also Byron Stier at MassTortsProf; Jonathan Adler at Volokh) My question: If the states hire private counsel on a contingency bases for such a risky endeavor (Jane Genova at Law and More), and they prevail, will the states then try to renege on the fee agreement as was done in the smoking cases?

Also at Point of Law, Ted Frank discusses experts who cut their fees after a trial is lost, in the context of an improper contingency fee arrangement;

And yet more from Point of Law, Frank discusses the categories of class action Vioxx cases;

The big Vioxx news, however, will come next week when a Texas judge is expected to dismiss 1,000 Vioxx cases from state court. This means (among many other things) that Evan Schaeffer at his Legal Underground site will have to quickly update the schedule of upcoming Vioxx trial he posted just before this news broke late yesterday.

And from the world of tabloid stories, the Duke lacrosse case was dismissed. Carolyn Elefant at the Law.com Blog speculates on possible suits the Duke players might bring.

And finally, Bill Gratsch's Blawg's Blawg lets loose with some interesting statistics about the size and growth of legal blogs.

Enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the week that was:

We start with a patient that had the wrong testicle removed by the VA, (tip to Kevin, M.D), because I know that is one way to get your attention.

And I'll try to keep that attention by turning to Randall Udelman of InjuryBoard (Phoenix) to talk about carnivals -- referring not to Blawg Review #102, the April Fool's Blawg Review Prequel, or a similar round-up of common-subject posts -- but to talk of actual rides (fun!), and the problem of state laxity of control (OK, maybe not-so-fun) in Carnival Safety in Arizona;

From testicles and carnivals and into the courtroom: Charles Silver at TortDeform does an analysis of the "haircuts" that jury verdicts often receive after you have read about that big verdict in the papers; And there is a response to Professor Silver from Ted Frank at Point of Law on the subject;

Sticking with verdicts, John Day at Day on Torts has a summary of one state's jury verdicts, and the low number of plaintiff's verdicts for those cases that go all the way; he also brings up data that shows hospital errors are increasing, not decreasing, over the past few years;

Medical malpractice also brings up the difficult subject of "wrongful life," which Ronen Perry wrote of at the Social Science Research Network;

From medical malpractice to legal: Andrew Bluestone writes of a doctor that is suing his defense lawyer for legal malpractice after a $217 million verdict in Florida at his New York Attorney Malpractice Blog. The original article is here. Seems the defense lawyer may have been doing the bidding of the insurance company instead of the doctor when he refused the offer to settle for the policy limits;

And since we talk of insurance companies, long a subject of complaints, Michael Stevens at the Kentucky Law Review discusses some of the eye-popping profits that insurance companies have been making;

Since all personal injury litigation involves evidence, almost all attorneys will ultimately face the issue of evidence spoliation, which includes anything from a wrecked car to a fetal monitor strip gone missing. Matthew Lerner at New York Civil Law notes that New York's high court will hear argument on whether spoliation of evidence can exist as an independent cause of action;

And we close with John Bisnar at the California Injury Blog ruminating on Elderly drivers, how old is too old? It is worth checking out for an absolutely priceless deposition quote.

Enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]TurkewitzLaw.com)

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

From the New York Personal Injury Law Blog, the week that was:

• We start with the truly bizarre, a post by Ben Glass (InjuryBoard:Northern Virginia) that discusses one of the more bizarre laws he has seen proposed, that would grant immunity in Virginia for space travel;

• There is a new "study" from right wing Pacific Research, that claims tort cases, in addition to a parade of other horrors, are killing people. The Blawgletter apparently disagrees and starts the road to debunking the "study," TortDeform chips in early with a list of other debunkings on the subject.

• The Trumatic Brain Injury Blog reports that, according to the U.S. government, the number of serious head injuries is on the rise;

• Howard Bashman's How Appealing reports that the Connecticut high court adopted a far more plaintiff-friendly rule in negligence cases involving so-called self-service operations, whether they are big-box department stores or small cafes with salad bars. Story in the Hartford Courant;

• David Swanner at the Trial Lawyer Resource Center discusses why it seems it is so hard to move cases;

• The Total Injury blog gives an update on the results of a fatal 2005 train wreck in Mississippi and the report of the National Transportation Safety Board;
  

• Do doctors who work in administrative positions for health insurers break the Hippocratic oath when they work to deny coverage? So says a column in the Boston Globe, but David Williams at the Health Business Blog has a rebuttal;

• Merck wins the latest round in the "Judicial Hellhole" of Madison County, Ill (WSJ Health blog);

• Anyone who does personal injury must deal with the miserable subject of liens. Michael Stevens at the Kentucky Law Review does a great round up of posts and materials on Medicaid subrogation in light of Alhorn v. Arkansas;

• New York firm Napoli Bern Ripka found themselves in a story regarding possible ethics violations by apportioning the settlement in a manner designed to inflate the firm's share of the funds, as Andrew Bluestone recounts at his New York Attorney Malpractice blog;

• Anthony Sebok at FindLaw discusses The Issues Raised by the Recent Proposal to Reopen the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund: (I can't mention the VCF without tipping my hat in a very big way to Special Master Ken Feinberg, who I heard personally handled over 1,000 of these heartbreaking claims);

• Medical blogger Flea didn't like one of my posts regarding the cross-examination of attractive physicians and responded with Meet the Turk, setting off a small doctor-attorney brouhaha that now encompasses posts and commentary on at least five blogs, the others being Simple Justice, Sui Generis, and Creating the Godcomplex. Decide for yourself who presents compelling logic and who presents snark.
  

• And just in case you want some additional reading, the Law Review of New York Law School has an edition all about the plaintiff's bar, for which I've printed a small outake and links to the various articles: Plaintiffs Personal Injury Attorneys Get Analyzed.

Enjoy the weekend.

Labels: Personal Injury Law Round-Up

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

We start with a non-PI case since this is a problem that could stop this blog cold: Law.com reports of a malpractice liability insurer (Executive Risk Specialty, a unit of Chubb) stopping lawyers from blogging out of a fear of legal malpractice concerns -- Before You Blog, Check With Your Insurance Carrier. Does this mean their insured won't also be able to write an article? Put up a web site? Give a CLE lecture? If you have Chubb as your carrier, you may want to tell them to take a powder before they tell you. And tell them why they have lost your business.

Moving right on to the juxtaposition of law and medicine -->> In the world of FDA regulation, Pharmalot not only reports on how the FDA will limit conflicts of interest with respect to drug and device manufacturers, but does so a day ahead of it being the lead article in the New York Times. If you have pharma cases, this new blog, started in January, is chock full of news, apparently aiming to be to pharma what Howard Bashman's How Appealing is to lawyers;

From the FDA to cigarettes --> Byron Stier notes at the Mass Torts Blog that Tobacco Companies May Not Market Cigarettes As "Low Tar" or "Light" Overseas; while on the same blog Howard Erichson discusses the ethics involved in mass tort representation;

In hospital news, the WSJ Health Blog reports that at Massachusetts General Hospital it was found that doctors and nurses didn't wash their hands as often as they should. If that's what it's like at one of the best hospitals in the nation, what is going on in your neighborhood? (Though it's still an improvement over practicing medicine with your fingernails.)

Also in medical malpractice, Kevin at LexBlog reports on a widow that warns of a hospital's medical malpractice on her husband in a blog. The widow's blog posting now seems to be a dead link, but Kevin's is not. Once upon a time an angry customer might stand outside a store with a picket sign if she felt she was wronged. Now she can blog it to the world. What next, webcams in the hospital to watch your family?

Blogs also come up on the heels of last weeks $55M verdict against Chrysler, as the plaintiff's attorneys are speaking out in the comments section of blogs to defend the verdict against what they apparently view as Chrysler propaganda. Ted Frank at Overlawyered had complained about the verdict, which resulted in a lengthy comment from plaintiff's counsel and subsequent emails. He then put up a new post with the comments and responsive emails included, which was good to see since the folks that try a case are invariably in a better position to speak to merits than others. One of the plaintiff's attorneys also wrote in responding to my own blog, Will DaimlerChrysler $50M Punitive Damage Verdict Withstand Review?.

From Chrysler to Ford, a $15M rollover verdict was tossed by a federal court in part due to the misconduct of plaintiff's counsel;

While all those folks will likely be in appellate litigation for years to come, Ronald Miller has a piece on how to avoid just that for the less sensational suits, at the Trial Lawyer Resource Center blog, about negotiations and listening to insurance adjusters;

On more a more pedestrian front, Miller discusses at the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog why it is so important to be choosy on slip and fall cases on ice and snow.

Still in Maryland, John Day from Day on Torts reports on a significant new ruling from the highest court on economic loss in tort cases;

Since weather obviously plays a role in so many personal injury cases, I might as well point out a good practice tip from the Kentucky Law Review on obtaining certified copies of past weather conditions from National Climatic Data Center;

Another practice tip comes from Evan Schaeffer at his Illinois Trial Practice Weblog regarding various technologies to keep track of trial and deposition testimony;

Anne Reed's tips on voir dire questions at Deliberations reminds me of a question I heard a few years back from defense counsel in a med mal I was trying, which I am sure no potential juror was expecting: "What magazines to you subscribe to?" If the answer is Mother Jones or Guns and Ammo you may get insights you might have otherwise missed. Perhaps one might also ask these days, "Do you read any blogs, and if so, which ones?"

From voir dire and into trial, at Simple Justice new blogger Scott Greenfield writes about cameras in the courtroom in I'm Ready for my Close-up, Justice DeMille as the matter gets debated in our state capitol.

Shifting gears to a bit of constitutional law that reared its head regarding the federal Transportation Equity Act of 2005. This law attempts to preempt those state statutes that permit the owners of rented or leased motor vehicles to be vicariously liable for the negligence of the drivers. If valid, it would override New York's own law to the contrary. But one state judge held in September 2006 that it was unconstitutional, asserting in Graham v. Dunkley that the Commerce Clause did not apply and that the federal government was seizing a state right in violation of the Tenth Amendment. Matthew Lerner at New York Civil Law discusses this week the precedential value of the case and how other courts have responded;

From Conlaw to Petlaw -- >> Stephanie Mencimer writes in the Tortellini about tainted pet food in Whither the pet plaintiff. In New York, as in many places, damages are limited to the cost of the pet (assuming you could prove causation), making good lawsuits and discovery unlikely unless some type of class action could be brought. My gut feeling is that it would take a lot of creative lawyering to achieve anything beyond the costs of the food. This did not stop this one New York couple and their lawyer, which just filed suit for compensatory and punitive damages for their dog that they said has died from the tainted food. Since causation will have to be proved, the legal fee might not pay the rent even if they succeed on the compensatories, and punitive damages will no doubt be a difficult road. [Addendum: CNN reports that the first class action suit has been filed in Wisconsin]

Mencimer, who is the author of Blocking The Courthouse Door, is also interviewed in FailureMagazine, in And Justice For All? Debunking the Lawsuit Myth;

And finally, slightly off the personal injury page to employment discrimination, Monica at The Common Scold tips us off to a creative blog about the issues The Office manages to bring up in each episode in, That's What She Said.

Enjoy the weekend.

(Submissions for next week's edition may be made to blog[at]