Los Angeles Personal Injury Lawyer - Miscellaneous

More Bayer Birth Control Dangers

Paul Kiesel — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:57:55 GMT

Within the past year both Christine Navarro and Robyn Dunn were rushed to the hospital with life threatening blood clots. At the time Christine was taking the Yaz birth control pill and Robyn was taking its sister birth control drug Yasmin.

Both of these women were young and athletic and blame birth control for their brushes with death.

It's common knowledge that all women's oral contraceptives carry a percentage risk of health complications. But attorney's who've filed lawsuits on behalf of Robyn and Christine contend that Yaz and Yasmin from Bayer carry a greater risk.

These attorneys claim that recent study in the British Medical Journal found increased risk from the drug drospirenone unique to Yaz and Yasmin.

Representatives for Bayer, the maker of Yaz and Yasmin responded to the concerns, saying quote: "Patient safety is Bayer's top priority. Bayer's oral contraceptives have been and continue to be extensively studied and tested worldwide. Bayer reaffirms and stands behind the safety of its drospirenone containing oral contraceptives."

Click here for the rest of the article.

**Also, anyone who has been adversely affected due to taking these prescription drugs, like Yasmin, Yaz or Ocella, should get in touch with Helen Zukin. Ms. Zukin recently retained a client, a young woman, who unfortunately suffered from a stroke, after only taking Ocella (generic version of Yaz) for a month.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Bishops and Thugs: How the Catholic Church is Shaping Health Care Legislation

Paul Kiesel — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:07:42 GMT

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - Catholic bishops have emerged as a formidable force in the health care overhaul fight, using their clout with millions of Catholics and working behind the scenes in Congress to get strong abortion restrictions into the House bill.

They don't spend a dime on what is legally defined as lobbying, but lawmakers and insiders recognize that the bishops' voices matter — and they move votes. Representatives for the bishops were in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Capitol suite negotiating with top officials last Friday evening as they reached final terms of the agreement. Earlier in the day, Pelosi, a Catholic and an abortion rights supporter, had been on the phone to Rome with Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Washington's former archbishop, on the subject.

It wasn't the first time a high-ranking Catholic had weighed in with a key player on writing strict abortion curbs into the health measure. Boston's Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley personally appealed to President Barack Obama about it near the church altar at the early September funeral for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. Bishops quietly called their congressmen and senators to weigh in.

"The Catholic Church used their power — their clout, if you will — to influence this issue. They had to. It's a basic teaching of the religion," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., a leading abortion foe and architect of the health measure's restrictions.

Bringing in the bishops' staff
It was Stupak who told Pelosi last Friday that if she wanted a deal on the health bill, she'd be well advised to invite the bishops' staff, who were already in his office, to her table. "I said, 'Well, they're here, and they're one of the key groups you want to have on your side, so why don't we just bring them in and work this out," Stupak said.

Pelosi did, and the result was a final measure that — much to the outrage of abortion rights supporters — bars a new government-run insurance plan from covering abortions, except in cases or rape, incest or the life of the mother being in danger, and prohibits any health plan that receives federal subsidies in a new insurance marketplace from offering abortion coverage. If women wanted to purchase abortion coverage through such plans, they'd have to buy it separately, as a so-called rider on their insurance policies.

The outcome has put Obama and Democratic leaders — already struggling for consensus on the complex and politically tricky health measure — in a tough spot. Democratic abortion foes in the Senate vow they won't support health legislation that omits the strict restrictions approved by the House, while abortion rights champions say they can't possibly vote for a bill that contains them.

Obama suggested Monday that he wants to strike a balance that doesn't allow backdoor federal funding of abortions but preserves women's insurance choices. For now, however, no such middle ground has been identified, and the bishops have served their notice that they will be a player — perhaps the dominant one — in the final outcome.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

LAT: Headed to the Emergency Room? Bring a book...

Paul Kiesel — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:13:07 GMT

From the Los Angeles Times:

The stereotype of hospital emergency rooms crowded with patients waiting endlessly to be seen by a doctor is true, according to a new study in Tuesday's edition of Archives of Internal Medicine. The conventional wisdom that throngs of low-income, uninsured people who use the ER as a substitute for primary care visits are to blame, however, is wrong.

First, a few statistics:

In 1997, the median wait time for ER patients was 22 minutes. By 2006, it was 33 minutes.
Per capita use of ERs was 40.5 visits per 100 people in 2006, up from 34.2 visits per 100 people a decade earlier.
The proportion of ER patients deemed to be suffering from a real medical emergency fell from 26.9% in 1997 to 18.3% in 2007.
The percentage of ER patients who lacked health insurance remained between 16% and 17% between 1997 and 2006.

These and other statistics were gleaned from data on 151,999 patient visits to emergency departments recorded in the National Hospital Ambulatory and Medical Care Survey. The survey includes four triage categories – emergent (patient should be seen within 14 minutes), urgent (15-60 minutes), semiurgent (61 minutes to two hours) and nonurgent (anywhere from two to 24 hours).

Though wait times got longer for everyone, the problem was worst for emergent patients – their median wait times increased by 4.6% per year, the study found. Waits for urgent patients grew 2.8% per year for urgent patients, 3.9% per year for semiurgent patients, and 1.6% for nonurgent patients.

Put another way, only 56.6% of emergent patients saw a doctor within the time recommended by triage staff, compared to 100% of nonurgent patients. Overall, the proportion of patients who got to a doctor within the “triage target time” fell from 80% in 2000 to 75.9% in 2006, the study found.

One theory to account for increased ER wait times is that more people who can’t afford to go to a regular doctor wind up coming to the ER instead, where federal law guarantees they’ll be treated regardless of ability to pay. The survey data corroborated this to an extent, finding that 17% of uninsured patients in the ER were classified as nonurgent, compared to only 13.9% of people who had private insurance. That works out to about 567,000 extra visits each year.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Salon: Why Loan Modification Scams are Booming

Paul Kiesel — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:28:42 GMT

FYI: Here's a link to a blog I wrote a year ago that portends what's being described in the article below.

From Salon.com:

During the go-go years of the real estate bubble, shady mortgage brokers thrived, thanks to the sluggish response of regulators and law enforcement agencies. Amid the ruins of the crash, there's a new boom attracting unscrupulous mortgage professionals: "Foreclosure rescue" companies promising -- in exchange for a large upfront fee -- to persuade lenders to modify desperate homeowners' mortgages. And authorities are again finding themselves ill-equipped to deal with the deluge.

In a giant game of whack-a-mole, law enforcement agencies at all levels across the country have filed suit against 150 such companies, but they continue to proliferate, and the number of consumer complaints continues to rise.

"This is a very big scam," says California Attorney General Jerry Brown. "They're all over the place, and as soon as you get one, they migrate to somewhere else."

The case of one particularly aggressive firm, 21st Century Legal Services, shows just how ineffective authorities' moves against the companies often are.

Four states have sued 21st Century, and at least three more have open investigations. Over 150 consumers from more than 30 states have filed complaints against 21st Century with the Better Business Bureau. No active firm has more complaints.

Yet the company forges on. Operating under a new name, Fidelity National Legal Services, it continues to solicit consumers nationwide, even in states where authorities have won court injunctions.

Homeowners do not have to pay a company to negotiate on their behalf: They can always contact their mortgage servicer directly for a loan modification, at no cost. But consumers often find the process frustrating. For those who want guidance, nonprofit housing counselors approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development will help for free.

Consumers should especially be wary of companies charging upfront fees or touting guarantees. The Illinois attorney general says that her office has yet to see any such company operate within the boundaries of state law.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Lucrative Fees More Attractive to Loan Servicers than Modifications

Paul Kiesel — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:21:32 GMT

From The New York Times:

This week, the Obama administration summoned mortgage company executives to Washington to demand they move faster to lower payments for homeowners sliding toward foreclosure. Treasury officials called on the companies to hire and train more people quickly to field applications for relief.

But industry insiders and legal experts say the limited capacity of mortgage companies is not the primary factor impeding the government’s $75 billion program to prevent foreclosures. Instead, it is that many mortgage companies are reluctant to give strapped homeowners a break because the companies collect lucrative fees on delinquent loans.

Even when borrowers stop paying, mortgage companies that service the loans collect fees out of the proceeds when homes are ultimately sold in foreclosure. So the longer borrowers remain delinquent, the greater the opportunities for these mortgage companies to extract revenue — fees for insurance, appraisals, title searches and legal services.

“It frustrates me when I see the government looking to the servicer for the solution, because it will never ever happen,” said Margery Golant, a Florida lawyer who defends homeowners against foreclosure and who worked in the law department of a major mortgage company, Ocwen Financial. “I don’t think they’re motivated to do modifications at all. They keep hitting the loan all the way through for junk fees. It’s a license to do whatever they want.”

For the rest of this article, click here.

For another article on Loan Modification Scams, click here.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

NYT: Safer Food?

Paul Kiesel — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:48:51 GMT

From The New York Times:

Far too many Americans are falling ill after eating foods tainted with salmonella, E. coli and other pathogens. The Food and Drug Administration, which is charged with protecting much of the nation’s food supply, doesn’t have the authority or the tools to do its job. The House of Representatives can start to fix that problem if it votes this week to approve the Food Safety Enhancement Act.

Under the current system, the F.D.A. can only try to coax a food production facility to voluntarily recall its product after people have grown sick or even died. The legislation, the best in years, would give the agency a great deal more power and responsibility to prevent such outbreaks.

The F.D.A. would finally have the authority to set strong science-based safety standards for the growing, harvesting and transporting of both domestic and imported food. The agency would then require each food production facility to come up with the best safety plan showing how it would meet those standards.

Click here for the rest of this editorial.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

The Catholic Church Still Doesn't Want You to Know Its Secrets

Paul Kiesel — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:42:00 GMT

From the Associated Press:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A Roman Catholic diocese in Connecticut sought Friday to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep under wraps sex abuse documents that could shed light on how a prominent retired cardinal handled the allegations.

Bridgeport Diocese officials asked the state Supreme Court to continue a stay on releasing the documents while it asks the nation's highest court to review the case.

The state court has ruled that more than 12,000 pages of documents from more than 20 lawsuits against priests should be released. Those documents have been sealed from public view since the diocese settled the cases in 2001.

The records could reveal details on how retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan handled the allegations when he was Bridgeport bishop from 1988 to 2000. Egan's deposition should be in the file, according to an attorney for the newspapers seeking the documents.

In Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law resigned after church records were released detailing his role in handling sexual abuse claims.

The Bridgeport Diocese faced a Monday deadline to appeal before the records were disclosed.

"The diocese believes there are important constitutional issues," said Ralph Johnson III, attorney for the church. "These are issues important to all citizens."

Johnson acknowledged that the nation's highest court takes up only a small percentage of cases it is asked to review.

The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and The Hartford Courant have been seeking the documents. Jonathan Albano, attorney for some of the papers, said that he would object to continuing the stay and that the case really involves state law that has been resolved.

"It's somewhat disappointing that the diocese continues to approach the litigation in a way that delays the public's right to see these documents," Albano said. "There's been seven years of litigation."

An advocacy group for victims of church sexual abuse condemned the latest appeal.

"We're disappointed that the complicity of top Catholic officials continues to remain hidden," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. "This is not what Connecticut Catholics or citizens deserve. It's one more painful reminder that bishops will do everything possible to protect themselves and their colleagues instead of children."

Church officials said that the media have reported on the cases extensively and that attorneys and victims had access to the sealed documents.

Court officials declined to comment.

In California, state courts ordered Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony to turn over to prosecutors private personnel files of two former priests accused of sexual molestation. In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the archdiocese's appeal.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

UCLA Willed Body Program Tactics Seen at Illinois Cemetery?

Paul Kiesel — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:39:20 GMT

As far as what's been reported on this story, yes, it reeks of the UCLA WBP days of 1999-2003 (i.e. trafficking body parts, improper disposition of body parts, bank accounts set up in UCLA's name, without UCLA's permission, by professors and employees of the school, then used by Henry Reid to embezzle money, etc.).

From the Los Angeles Times:

Five employees of the historic Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip were taken into custody Wednesday after authorities learned numerous bodies had been dug up and the grave sites were illegally resold, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said.

Detectives discovered a pile of bones -- from more than 100 decomposed bodies -- above ground and uncovered in an overgrown, fenced-off portion of the cemetery, Dart said.

"What we found was beyond startling and revolting," the sheriff said.

On Wednesday night, as news of the grim discovery spread, devastated families started trickling onto the cemetery grounds to check on their loved ones' graves.

Donetta Newman, 35, whose father and both of her grandparents are buried at Burr Oak, stood in the rain trying to get inside to see if their grave sites had been disturbed. "You always think this is the final resting place," she said. "This is just shocking. I'm very distraught."

One of the first predominantly African-American cemeteries in the area, Burr Oak is home to many historic figures, including Emmett Till, blues legend Dinah Washington and heavyweight boxing champion Ezzard Charles.

Dart said he was certain Till's remains were not disturbed, but he could not ensure the preservation of the others.

"We cannot give people definitive answers at this point," he said, adding they were working with forensic medical examiners to try to identify the remains.

None of the remains had been removed from the site, said Steve Patterson, a sheriff's spokesman. The state's attorney's office and FBI are also investigating, Dart said.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Japanese Gangsters, Illegitimate Liver Transplants, Unauthorized Bank Accounts and UCLA

Paul Kiesel — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:02:46 GMT

First, the unauthorized bank account referred to in the title of this blog stems from the UCLA Willed Body fiasco that took place from 1999-2003. Henry Reid, the former Willed Body Program director at UCLA, who sold cadavers and cadaver parts to Ernest Nelson (body parts broker), used an unauthorized bank account that aesthetically (checks, invoices, etc.) appeared to be an authorized UCLA bank account (it was surreptitiously established by three UCLA employees), to embezzle tens of thousands of dollars over a four-to-six-year period.

Not surprisingly, during the same period that UCLA carelessly allowed its Willed Body Program to be run into the ground by Henry Reid, who, oddly, didn't testify in the trial against Ernest Nelson (even though it was pretty obvious by the copious exhibits presented to the jury that the trial against Ernest Nelson was in fact the trial against both of the hapless body brokers), UCLA allowed Japanese gangsters, who should have never been permitted into the U.S. (thanks, FBI), to receive liver transplants ahead of over 100 patients in terrible need of the same procedure.

From the Los Angeles Times:

UCLA Medical Center and its most accomplished liver surgeon provided a life-saving transplant to one of Japan's most powerful gang bosses, law enforcement sources told The Times.

In addition, the surgeon performed liver transplants at UCLA on three other men who are now barred from entering the United States because of their criminal records or suspected affiliation with Japanese organized crime groups, said a knowledgeable law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The four surgeries were done between 2000 and 2004 at a time of pronounced organ scarcity. In each of those years, more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the greater Los Angeles region.

The surgeon in each case was Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil, executive chairman of UCLA's surgery department, according to another person familiar with the matter who also spoke on condition of anonymity. Busuttil is a world-renowned liver surgeon who co-edited a leading text on liver transplantation and is one of the highest-paid employees in the University of California system.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Court of Federal Claims: Putative Class Members Must Opt Into Class Action Within 6 Year Statute of Limitations

Shehnaz Bhujwala — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:07:02 GMT

From Law.com:

Big Class Actions Against the Feds May Falter Plaintiffs lawyers say recent decision goes against more than a century of practice

Mike Scarcella
The National Law Journal
June 22, 2009

A case quietly winding through the federal courts in Washington could dramatically change the rules for plaintiffs across the country who file big-money class actions against the federal government.

Pending and future class actions may be chopped down to size if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agrees with the Justice Department's strict interpretation of a six-year statute of limitations. Plaintiffs lawyers who handle such cases have issued dire warnings.

Earlier this year, in a takings dispute before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the Justice Department successfully argued that any class member who didn't sign on to the litigation before the six-year window closed is barred from signing on at all. Justice's win shuts the door to potentially hundreds of landowners in Kansas and Missouri who could be owed money for the government's planned conversion of property along an abandoned railroad line into a public hiking trail. Only the original plaintiff, Earleen Fauvergue, can go forward in the case.

But the impact of what even Judge Christine Miller called a "draconian" interpretation of the law doesn't end there. Plaintiffs lawyers say it goes against more than a century of practice and could severely limit the use of class actions against the federal government altogether.

Miller certainly recognized the wider consequences of her decision. If the government has its way, she said in a December hearing before she ruled, then it "really is a severe rethinking of class actions in this court, if not their abrogation."

The Court of Federal Claims, where the government is always the defendant and the dispute is always over money, handles many cases brought by private property owners looking for compensation for takings and by federal employees seeking overtime and back pay. When the liability is greater than $10,000 per person, class actions against the government must be filed in the claims court and not federal district court.

Plaintiffs lawyers argue that filing a class complaint within the six-year window should stop the clock from running against all those as-yet-unidentified class members. Cases involving hundreds of defendants often take considerable time to develop and finding all class members is not swiftly done, say the lawyers. Plaintiffs who don't beat the clock will have to proceed in much smaller groups, individually or -- as the lawyers warn -- not at all.

In Fauvergue v. U.S., the plaintiffs have appealed to the Federal Circuit; their opening brief was filed this month. "Let's be honest, the Justice Department in this case is attempting to take land owned by American citizens and avoid its constitutional obligation to compensate these citizens for the land it has taken," said Mark "Thor" Hearne II, lead counsel in the case. "I find this unconscionable."

Hearne, a partner in the St. Louis office of Lathrop & Gage, argues that Justice is misreading the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last year in John R. Sand & Gravel Co. v. U.S. The high court ruled that the six-year statute of limitations is a jurisdictional limit that the Justice Department cannot waive. Hearne argues that John R. Sand & Gravel has nothing to do with the Fauvergue case because, among other things, it was not a class action.

A Justice spokesman, Andrew Ames, said in an e-mail that "Judge Miller's decision fairly and properly applies the law."

LANDOWNERS LOST

In June 2008, the lawyers for Fauvergue, an elderly widow who lives in Missouri, filed a 50-page complaint in the claims court -- nine days before the statute of limitations expired. Fauvergue represents a class of similarly situated plaintiffs who own land along the former Memphis Carthage & Northwestern Railroad Co. line linking Jasper County, Mo., and Cherokee County, Kan. A notice of interim trail use was filed against the land on June 21, 2002, triggering the statute of limitations.

The case is part of the nationwide litigation involving the Rails to Trails Act of 1983, which let local governments and private groups obtain easements to turn old rail lines into public trails. The plaintiffs in these cases argue that the government must pay for taking land for public trails.

Justice lawyers orally moved to dismiss Hearne's effort to bring additional landowners into the case after June 21, 2008, when the statute of limitations expired. They said John R. Sand & Gravel "crystallized" the absolute nature of the six-year limit. (The statute says simply that a claim in the Court of Federal Claims "shall be barred unless the petition is filed within six years after such claim first accrues.") Environmental division trial attorney Kristine Tardiff argued that, without an exception from Congress, judges cannot expand or restrict the six-year period. She said that the Justice position is not novel and that Hearne, the plaintiffs lawyer, is making "broad-brush statements."

Miller mused in court that John R. Sand & Gravel had handed Justice a gift and now Justice was "experimenting with it and seeing what its reach is."

Six years might seem like a long time, but Hearne said it's not. He said there's often a delay between when the government initiates a taking and when the landowner learns about it -- especially in these Rails to Trails cases. "Nobody knocked on [Fauvergue's] door and said the government is planning to build a trail on her property in the future," Hearne said. That's why litigation generally starts "late into that six-year period."

Hearne, who served as national election counsel to President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, said there are more than 160 parcels in Kansas and Missouri in the Fauvergue case that belong to landowners who, without class action procedure, could not cost-effectively make a claim. In some Rails to Trails cases, he said, the amount of money owed is often smaller than the cost of making a claim. For instance, the government in a 1996 case paid $19,000 for the value of land and nearly $300,000 in attorney fees and costs. By contrast, in a 2005 class action that involved 116 parcels of land, the government paid nearly $7.4 million for the land and just $770,000 in attorney fees.

A LEGITIMATE IRONY

Roger Marzulla, a property rights specialist who has filed an amicus brief in the Federal Circuit appeal, agrees that the department's take on John R. Sand & Gravel is devastating for class actions in the claims court. The department, he said, is expecting that individuals with small-dollar claims will abandon their claims because of the money and time required for an individual lawsuit.

"The real irony about this aggressive use of statute of limitations is that it undermines the whole notion that the Department of Justice is there not to beat down plaintiffs," said Marzulla, whose law firm, Washington, D.C.'s Marzulla Law, has an active practice in the Court of Federal Claims. "If they can beat it on a technicality, they don't care whether the claim has merit or not. That loses sight of the whole purpose of the Justice Department."

Plaintiffs lawyer Ira Lechner, a solo practitioner who splits time between Washington and San Diego, calls the Justice Department "shortsighted" in its approach to Fauvergue and other class actions. Lechner is representing a class of former federal employees suing for back pay. Justice lawyers, citing John R. Sand & Gravel, argued that the statute of limitations should bar all claims in his case. Senior Judge Loren Smith of the Court of Federal Claims denied the government's motion to dismiss about a month before Miller adopted the department's position in the Fauvergue case.

"The Justice Department has completely rejected class procedure," Lechner said.

Hearne said he is "certain" that members of Congress do not support the Justice strategy. He points to an April 2008 statement by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chastising the department for employing a statute-of-limitations argument in another Rails to Trails takings case involving one of Burr's constituents. Burr urged the department to settle.

Whether or not the Justice Department should be aggressively pushing the six-year statute of limitations, however, Miller noted in court this year that the government "can use any legitimate legal tool in its arsenal."

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shehnaz Bhujwala