Poisoning Kills More People Than Car Wrecks

National Center for Health Sciences reports that opioid painkillers such as morphine and oxycodone were involved more than forty percent of drug poisonings.

Racial Profiling Civil Rights Comlaint Filed

Waddell Law Offices filed a federal civil rights action on August 31, 2011 on behalf of two black men who were unlawfully arrested without probable cause.

Appellate Decision in Civil Rights Action

Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Affirms Judgement for Attorney's Fees and Cost in West Virginia Civil Rights Police Case Filed by Waddell Law Office

Important employment law development in federal disability law

The EEOC has issued its final implementing regulations for the American with Disabilities Amendments Act.

EEOC probing whether hiring practices discriminate against unemployed applicants

In the Legal Intelligencer (2/25), employee rights attorneys Jeffrey Campolongo and Jennie Maura McLaughlin reported the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is investigating whether employers' hiring practices discriminate against the unemployed. At a February 16 EEOC public meeting, National Employment Law Project Executive Director Christine Owens pointed to several job postings in which employers specified they would not consider unemployed applicants. Owens "also provided anecdotal evidence that recruiters and staffing agencies have been informed by their clients that they will not be considering people who have been out of work for more than a specified period of time." The claim was questioned by others, including a YMCA human resources executive, who suggested unemployed candidates may possess outdated skills "compared with a candidate whose skills are fresh ..."

Company fires woman who claimed sexual harassment

From American Association for Justice's TRIAL Magazine:

"Lynda Beck, 42, began working in the accounts payable department of Guardian Leasing, Inc. Over the next several months, her supervisor, Harrindor Singh, began asking inappropriate questions about Beck’s sex life and making sexually suggestive gestures. Singh also grabbed Beck’s buttocks and rubbed her leg at work.

Beck rebuffed his advances and complained to the company’s owner and son. After a one-day investigation, they told her that the harassment could not be substantiated.

Beck was subsequently fired for poor performance. She had been earning about $25,000 annually and was out of work for seven months before finding similar employment. Within two years, she was laid off from that job and is now unemployed.

Beck sued Guardian Leasing, alleging sexual harassment and retaliation under Texas law.

The jury awarded $868,000, including $750,000 in punitive damages."

 

Data suggests patients in veterans' hospitals receive inadequate osteoporosis evaluation, treatment.

MedWire reported, "Few elderly people with hip fracture receive adequate evaluation and treatment for osteoporosis, a study of patients attending US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals shows." For the study, published in the journal Osteoporosis International, researchers "reviewed the medical records of 3347 patients treated for hip fracture between 2004 and 2006." They found that "only 42 (1.2%) fracture patients underwent" bone mineral density testing; and "only 487 (14.5%) received osteoporosis therapy within 12 months of fracture."

Many painkiller prescription errors caused by similar looking, sounding monikers.

HealthDay reported, "Confusion caused by look-alike and sound-alike names contributes to a large number of the painkiller prescription errors that occur in hospitals," according to a study published in the January issue of The Journal of Pain. Researchers reviewed "714,290 orders for painkillers in a large database of pharmacist-detected-and-

prevented prescribing errors." The researchers found that "the overall error rate was 2.87 per 1,000 prescriptions (2,044 cases) and the rate of potentially serious prescribing errors was 0.63 per 1,000 (449 cases)."

Supreme Court's retaliation ruling a boon to employees.

In ongoing analysis of the Supreme Court's ruling on third-party retaliation suits, the Wall Street Journal Law blog reported that Federal law prohibits employers from retaliating against a close relation of a worker who filed a discrimination complaint. Writing on behalf of a unanimous court, Justice Antonin Scalia noted an anti-discrimination provision in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes "a broad range of employer conduct" that could dissuade "a reasonable worker" from protesting prejudice.

        The Wall Street Journal The Juggle" Blog suggested the ruling will prohibit employers from using retaliation as a scare tactic. It added that the opinion comes as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is seeing a rise in retaliation claims against employers.

Patients with dementia often subjected to aggressive treatments, transfers.

The New York Times  "The New Old Age" blog reported that "dementia patients are often subjected to aggressive treatments and transfers, even though studies show little benefit," according to a study published online Jan. 10 in the Archives of Internal Medicine. In a study involving "more than 300 patients with advanced dementia in Boston-area nursing homes over a period of 18 months," researchers also found that the majority of "hospital trips occurred when patients developed respiratory infections, particularly pneumonia, a common and recurring problem when dementia progresses to its final stages." The study's lead author estimated that approximately three-quarters of hospitalizations could be avoided.

Patients in hospitals where nurses work long hours may be more likely to die of pneumonia, heart attack.

HealthDay reported that "patients in hospitals where nurses work long hours are much more likely to die of pneumonia and heart attack," according to a study published in the journal Nursing Research. Investigators "looked at patient outcomes and staffing information at 71 acute care hospitals in Illinois and North Carolina, along with survey responses from 633 nurses who worked at the hospitals." Nursing professor and study author Alison Trinkoff explained, "Alertness and vigilance required for providing good nursing care depend upon having an adequate duration of quality sleep and rest, and long work hours can impact the quality of nursing care and can increase the potential for error."

Many elderly ICU patients may be receiving unnecessary prescriptions.

Medscape reported, "More than half of elderly people admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) receive prescriptions for drugs they do not need when it's time to go home, according to a study presented at the Society of Critical Care Medicine 40th Critical Care Congress." One "example is the use of an antipsychotic...to combat the delirium that is common in the ICU. Such a" medication "should be stopped at discharge, because there is no longer a need for it."

Massey miners' families weigh settlement vs. litigation options.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported families of the victims of the West Virginia coal mine explosion "wonder whether they should accept a $3 million offer to settle civil litigation arising from the April 5 blast. Others wonder whether a lawsuit would force operator Massey Energy Co. to disclose what happened inside the Upper Big Branch mine." Nancy Burgess said she refuses to settle until "they have some answers." So far, seven families have accepted Massey Energy's settlement and benefits package. Additionally, families were offered beneficiary life insurance, "20 years of health benefits," and college scholarships for miners' children. Attorney Harry Bell called the package "strong" and "a very smart defensive strategy." But he added, "if it comes out during the course of the investigations that there was willful neglect -- well, then you're looking at a case that has a higher value."

LATimes says Wal-Mart class-action ruling will set precedent for discrimination cases.

The Los Angeles Times editorializes in favor of a Supreme Court ruling granting class-action status to nearly 500,000 female Wal-Mart employees in a discrimination suit. The Times argues, "class-action suits are often the only way to achieve justice for workers who can't - and shouldn't have to - proceed with anti-discrimination claims individually." It calls the case, which accuses the retailer of paying women less than men "a bold attempt to persuade a conservative Supreme Court to dramatically narrow the criteria for determining what a class is." The Times praised the ruling of an appeals court, which found class certification "reasonable in this case." The Times concludes a ruling in favor of Wal-Mart would mean courts have adopted "narrow interpretations" of civil rights laws "that close the courthouse door to victims of bias."

Many at high heart risk don't get enough drugs

Reuters reports on a new study that found patients hospitalized after suffering a heart attack are missing the kind of intensive cholesterol-lowering drugs that could save their lives. It is recommended that people who have survived a heart attack be placed on intensive lipid-lowering therapy, but those guidelines are often not followed, according to data from the new study. Study author Dr. Gregg Fonarow said because physicians are not advising treatments based on what has proven effective, "there are patients that are having coronary events that could have been prevented."

Many Americans struggling with medical bills sent in error to collection agencies.

In "Patient Money," the New York Times reported that "an estimated 14 million Americans are struggling with medical bills that they believe were sent in error to collection agencies, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit healthcare research group." What's more, "nearly half of all collection accounts that appear on consumer credit reports are unpaid medical bills, according to a study by the Federal Reserve." Notably, "when medical bills do go unpaid, doctors, hospitals or other medical providers rarely report the debts directly to the big three credit reporting agencies -- Experian, TransUnion and Equifax -- as most creditors would," but instead "sell unpaid bills to collection agencies for pennies on the dollar."

Study shows Supreme Court increasingly business-friendly

The New York Times reported an analysis of about 1,450 Supreme Court decisions since 1953 showed the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. "ruled for business interests 61 percent of the time, compared with 46 percent in the last five years of the court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist." For example, the Times cites 13 of 16 cases in which justices "favored the" US Chamber of Commerce, which threw its lobbying power to lift campaign spending restrictions in the Citizens United decision, and urged the court to consider class-action status in Wal-Mart's gender discrimination suit. The joint study by Northwestern University and the University of Chicago added the court's "engagement with business issues has risen along with the emergence of a breed of lawyers specializing in Supreme Court advocacy ..."

Court Chooses Guardians for Orphaned Arguments

From the New York Times:

"Adam G. Ciongoli, the general counsel of a big insurance company, argued a case before the Supreme Court last week. But he was not representing his employer. Indeed, he was not representing any client at all.

Mr. Ciongoli was there because neither the prosecution nor the defense was willing to support a particularly harsh sentencing decision from the federal appeals court in St. Louis. The Supreme Court had appointed him to defend the decision because no one else would.

The court uses that odd procedure roughly every year or so. It is a great honor for the lawyer involved, but it raises questions about whether the court is engaged in a kind of judicial activism in shaping the case before it.

The adversary system generally allows the parties to decide which issues to present. And the Constitution says that federal courts should decide only actual cases and controversies.

In an article to be published in the Stanford Law Review in April, Brian P. Goldman analyzed the phenomenon of appointing lawyers to argue positions abandoned by the parties.

He found that the Supreme Court had named more than 40 lawyers to argue such positions, and he concluded that about a third of the appointments were problematic examples of “judicial agenda-setting” at the expense of “party autonomy.”

But Mr. Goldman said Mr. Ciongoli’s appointment was “not improper” because it concerned a point that the parties were not free to decide for themselves. The question in the case, Pepper v. United States, was whether judges who resentence defendants after an appellate reversal may take account of the defendants’ conduct in the meantime."

Class action suits rise as employers misclassify workers.

The USA TODAY has reported that, "The number of worker class-action lawsuits claiming that employers misclassified them as independent contractors rose 50% this year to a record 300 or so, says Garry Mathiason, vice chairman of labor law firm Littler Mendelson." Consequently, "state and federal authorities, as well as workers themselves, sharply increased crackdowns this year on companies that misclassify employees as independent contractors." Interstate Labor Standards Association head Jack Finn says states have passed about 20 laws in "the past two years that make it easier to force employers to reclassify contractors as employees and seek unpaid taxes." USA Today notes "Companies are increasingly using contractors to meet peaks in demand and complete short-term projects. The trend intensified in the recession as firms cut staff."

NYT Editorial: Wal-Mart Class Action Must Continue

The New York Times opined today that the largest discrimination class action in United States history should be able to go on as planned after the Supreme Court placed the case on its upcoming docket schedule.  Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, defining class actions, sets no limit on size. Its purpose is to make it more efficient to litigate cases involving many people with common claims — specifically challenges of a large group of plaintiffs.  The Times stated that, "If Wal-Mart discriminated against female employees on a scale matching the company’s reach, justice must be expansive enough to give them their due."

Court Allows Discovery of Deleted Facebook and MySpace Pages

Millions of people are currently using social networking websites such as Facebook.  Along with this usage, people post pictures, thoughts, and a slew of other personal information.  Such information, even once deleted, may now be available to opposing parties through discovery requests.  In a recent New York trial court a judged entered an order granting the defendant’s request for access to the plaintiff’s “current and historical Facebook and MySpace pages and accounts, including all deleted pages and related information.”

Most interesting about this ruling is that the judge ruled that a privacy setting on a social networking site does not mean that an individual has a guarenteed right to privacy for their information.  Because neither Facebook nor MySpace “guarantee complete privacy,” the court determined that the plaintiff had no “legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy” in the information she posted on those websites.

Court to look at huge Wal-Mart sex bias lawsuit

The Supreme Court will consider whether to keep alive the largest job discrimination case in U.S. history, a lawsuit against Wal-Mart that grew from a half-dozen women to a class action that could involve billions of dollars for more than a half million female workers.

Wal-Mart is trying to halt the lawsuit, with the backing of many other big companies concerned about rules for class-action cases — those in which people with similar interests increase their leverage by joining in a single claim. Class actions against discount seller Costco and the tobacco industry are among pending claims that the high court's decision might alter.

The suit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. contends that women at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores are paid less and promoted less often than men. The case the high court accepted on Monday will not examine whether the claims are true, only whether they can be tried together.

Estimates of the size of the class range from 500,000 to 1.5 million women who work or once worked for Wal-Mart.

Warning: Hot Coffee may change the way you view our justice system

The link provides a very interesting and brief look at a new documentary entitled "Hot Coffee."  This new documentary by Susan Saladoff examines how a case involving McDonald's and hot coffee put a light on America's litigation system.  Additionally, the documentary debunks myths and false information that was spread around this case.  Saladoff also examines how liability caps on lawsuits can protect the guilty at the expense of their victims and what happens when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spends millions of dollars to get business-friendly judges elected.

Whistleblowers instrumental in recovering millions in fraud cases.

The National Law Journal reported since 2009, the US Justice Department recouped over five billion under the False Claims Act, much of which came from "health care fraud recovery." Assistant Attorney General Tony West of the Civil Division said the $4.6 billion came from "cases of procurement fraud, grants for small businesses and federal and Indian mineral leases." West also noted that "most of the cases that resulted in a recovery of taxpayer money were brought through the whistleblower provision" of the Act.

Patient Safety Is Not Improving in Hospitals, Study Finds

Study finds that medical malpractice attorneys are needed now more than ever as patient safety in hospitals continues to decline.