I'm mad as hell !!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a_6Mxz6ewOfY

( Fair Use Excerpt )
Public Plan to Have ‘Small’ Impact on Health Premiums, CBO Says
By Brian Faler

Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- A proposed government-run health- insurance option would probably have only a small effect on private insurance premiums, according to Congress’s official budget scorekeepers.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said today that a draft of the so-called public option approved July 15 by a Senate panel would add some competitive pressure in insurance markets served by relatively few companies.

It would probably only have a “small” impact on private insurance rates because the legislation would require a government program to be self-sufficient, meaning it would have to rely on premium revenue rather than tax dollars, the agency said. Such a plan would probably attract a “substantial minority” of people enrolling, the agency said...

******​

“Premiums for the public plan would typically be roughly comparable to the average premiums of private plans,” said the CBO letter...

If we're going to truly fix healthcare, we have to fix a bunch of other things too. I've come to believe that's the reason that real reform of anything at all hasn't happened. We're treating a lot of the issues that need reforms as separate and wholly independent from each other. They're not. They bleed into each other and overlap and affect each other, and you can't fix one without fixing the others.

How would one get the lawmakers to understand that???
 
You're right; we qualify for very little. College loans sometimes, and VA loans for ex-service members, but that's about all. At the same time, most of us have medical insurance where we work or we buy it ourselves. :cool:

What's your definition of "most"?
 


This ( see article below ) is, of course, utter bullshit. There hasn't been anybody in this country since at least 1964 who can legitimately claim they didn't know smoking wasn't good for you. Anybody who is now suing the tobacco companies is doing so for a single reason— they're taking a shot at winning the legal lottery.

Frankly, anybody who claims they weren't aware that smoking was not good for you ought to be flushed out of the gene pool on grounds of stupidity. Everybody knows they were called "coffin nails" or "cancer sticks" as far back as at least the early 1960s. Nobody can claim otherwise with a straight face.

None of this has anything to do with equity or justice or fairness; it's an attempted shake-down. You know it; I know it; they know it; everybody knows it. This is all about the ambulance chasers taking a shot at the judicial lottery.



Cancer-Free Smokers Can Sue Philip Morris, Court Says
By Andrew M. Harris

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Philip Morris USA can be sued by cancer-free smokers seeking a court order that the company pay for medical monitoring for signs of the illness, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled...

Full story:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aK1dCrfmErfM
 
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Once again, our national maggots are hard at work. Jaysus, I've got "emotional distress" from having to drive on the same roads with the bone-headed morons that infest this country.

Good ol' NPR ( National Plaintiffs Radio ). If you want to know why your next automobile costs more, if you want to know why your automobile insurance premiums keep rising, if you want to know why people are reluctant to do business in the U.S., ...



http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123971113
Toyota Seen Facing Multiple Lawsuits
by Wendy Kaufman

It's not just Congress, regulators or consumers who are taking aim at Toyota these days. Lawyers are joining the fray, with the number of lawsuits filed against the world's largest automaker climbing daily.

Toyota has already recalled more than 8.5 million vehicles because of unintended acceleration and braking problems. Now, the company and the U.S. government are looking into steering complaints involving its popular Corolla compact.

"There's blood in the water," says Byron Stier, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. The former corporate defense lawyer suggests that when companies are under siege, as Toyota is now, lawyers gear up.

"What Toyota is looking at is a battle that has a variety of stages that will take place in a variety of different courts," Stier says. "They really have to be fighting on multiple fronts all at once."

Toyota will be facing at least three kinds of lawsuits, including ones on behalf of those seriously injured or killed in Toyota vehicles, class-action suits for emotional distress or the diminished value of a car, and shareholder lawsuits.

Lawsuits Over Deaths Or Serious Injuries
Roughly three dozen deaths have already been linked to alleged defects and problems in Toyota vehicles. Still, more fatal accident reports are expected over the next few weeks. Families of some of those victims have already filed suit, and many more lawsuits are expected.

Attorney Todd Walburg in the San Francisco office of Lieff Cabraser Heimann and Bernstein says lawyers have already filed actions in cases where Toyota vehicles accelerated unintentionally and couldn't be stopped. He says these are product liability suits.

"We have to prove there was a design defect or prove there was a failure to warn," Walburg says. "At this point, we are pursuing both theories."

Walburg says lawyers intend to show that Toyota knew about the sudden acceleration problem for years, but didn't warn consumers.

Walburg expects the automaker to blame the drivers, saying they hit the gas when they thought they had hit the brakes.

But Walburg says a "black box" on many of the vehicles could provide some answers. The event data recorder, he says, "stores various kinds of data about the crash speed, braking and so forth, and I think when we are able to see what happened just before the crash, I think Toyota will have a tough time explaining it wasn't caused by a defect in the vehicle."

Lawsuits For Emotional Distress, Diminished Value
University of South Carolina Law School professor David Owen, who has written textbooks on tort law, says courts have generally been unresponsive to claims regarding emotional distress or the diminished value of a car.

"Diminished value is difficult, because while Kelley Blue Book has reduced the value of a car by 3 percent, it's kind of a fictitious loss for somebody who planned to keep his Toyota anyway," Owen says. (The 3 percent reduction would amount to hundreds of dollars.)

But he says the claims of emotional distress could be problematic for Toyota. A case in point: if a young mother is anxious about having to drive her kids to school in a car that might not be safe. "Now whether that's worth $100, $1,000 or $10,000 is a big question," Owen says.

Attorney Darren Robbins in the San Diego office of Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman and Robbins says investors lost hundreds of millions of dollars because they relied on statements made by Toyota that turned out to be false and misleading. For example, Toyota said last year that floor mats — as opposed to something more complicated — were the cause of unintended acceleration.

"Juries understand lies," Robbins says. "It boils down to a very simple concept. We believe the objective evidence will show that when these representations were made, they were made at a minimum with a reckless disregard for the truth, and in some cases an intent to mislead investors."

Toyota's Response
Asked about the charges being made in various lawsuits, a spokesman for Toyota says that, as a matter of policy, the company doesn't comment on pending litigation.

Stier, the professor at Southwestern Law School, used to defend major corporations. He suggests that Toyota's legal predicament is particularly challenging because whatever it says or does to address safety concerns or mollify consumers or regulators could be turned on its head and used against the company in court.

The question Toyota may have to consider is whether any public comment amounts to "an admission of responsibility, of negligence [or] of some kind of defect in their car," Stier says.

The legal bills, along with compensation for any damages, will be costly to the automaker. Earlier this month, Toyota said costs related to the massive recalls could total about $2 billion. Some experts believe the lawsuits could cost Toyota even more.
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxlicker101
You're right; we qualify for very little. College loans sometimes, and VA loans for ex-service members, but that's about all. At the same time, most of us have medical insurance where we work or we buy it ourselves.


What's your definition of "most"?

Today I came to this thread and realized there were some queries that I had not answered.

"Most" is a rather vague term. but consider this: I have read and heard there are forty million uninsured Americans. This includes illegal aliens but, even so, there are many citizens and green card holders who do not have health insurance. However, 300 - 40 = 260. There are 260 million americans who do have insurance, which is about 86% of the population. Anybody would consider that to be most of the population. :)
 
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Here is another comment I should have addressed but didn't:

Originally posted by DeeZire:

I agree we need tort reform, but tort reform is not going to fix our healthcare system. Our healthcare system is flawed from the ground up. We're flushing 30% of our healthcare dollars down the toilet of capitalism. What do we gain by utilizing the free market capitalist model? Let's see: denials of coverage for pre-existing conditions, denials for valid claims, canceled policies, exorbitant rates for the self-employed who can't get onto a group plan, and countless deaths in the segment of the population that can't afford insurance, or preventative care. Tort reform does not address any of these issues.

Sorry. I should have said 34%

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051110215547.htm

'
Of the total insurance premiums used to cover hospital and physician care, this research showed that 21 percent is spent on insurance administration. Another 13 percent is used to cover other administrative tasks. Only 66 percent is used for patient care.

I asked where you derived the 30% figure, and this was your response. From the way you worded your previous post, it looked as if you were saying that 30% of the revenues were profit, and I questioned this. Now you are saying that 34% of the revenues go to various administrative costs. I find this equally hard to believe, because it means they make no profit. People don't stay in business if they are not making a profit.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxlicker101
All I mean is that the idea of gov. run medical insurance isn't as new as some seem to think. I worked for Medicaid 35 years ago, and they weren't new even then.

So you're saying you're okay with a public option for healthcare? Pardon me for misconstruing your posts.

I said no such thing. I only said that it exists and has existed for a long time and, in an earlier post, I expressed disdain for Medicaid. I did so because I saw close up how much waste there was in the program. This was before the Reps. Contract with America in the Nineties, which eliminated a lot of welfare, so it might be a lot better now. :eek:
 
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Milberg Lawyers Leave Jail, Hit Links, Slopes; Reflect on Life

By Carlyn Kolker

March 20 (Bloomberg) -- The four lawyers who ran Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach LLP, the firm that got investors $45 billion from securities lawsuits against publicly traded companies, are reacquainting themselves with life on the outside now that they’ve left prison.

“I am enjoying my freedom,” Melvyn I. Weiss, 74, said in a phone interview from his apartment in Boca Raton, Florida. “I am honing my skills at golf. I am thinking about the experience I just went through and what I should do with it.”

His former partner, William S. Lerach, 64, was freed March 8. Two others, David J. Bershad, 70, and Steven G. Schulman, 58, left prison in July. Prosecutors said the men, who industrialized the filing of securities fraud class actions, secretly paid clients to pursue such cases, bringing the firm $251 million in attorney fees from 1979 to 2005. All four pleaded guilty. Their old firm, now Milberg LLP, agreed to pay $75 million to end the case.

Milberg, based in New York, used intermediaries to pay clients who would serve as plaintiffs in shareholder lawsuits, the government said. The practice helped the firm file cases faster than rivals at a time when being first to sue meant it would likely control the case, reap a larger reward in the verdict or settlement, and get bigger fees.

Bershad was first to plead guilty in Los Angeles federal court in July 2007, agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. He was followed by Schulman, Lerach and finally Weiss, who pleaded guilty in April 2008 to racketeering conspiracy.

“It’s no fun being in prison,” Lerach said in an interview when asked about his time behind bars. “You are away from your family, your loved ones and your dogs.”

Lists of Clients
Before the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, a law aimed squarely at Milberg Weiss, shareholder lawyers seeking to lead class actions, or group suits, needed simply to be the first to file. Law firms had lists of clients who owned shares in huge companies that were considered susceptible to litigation.

The reform act required plaintiffs with the biggest losses, usually institutional investors such as pension funds, to assume the lead plaintiff role, regardless of who filed first. Milberg Weiss and firms like it adapted by lobbying state and union pension funds to hire them as regular counsel. Even with the restrictions, Weiss’s firm collected $1.7 billion in legal fees and expenses from 1995 to 2005, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. The firm also handled 43 percent of the 755 shareholder class actions that settled.

Six Month Sentences
Bershad and Schulman were given six-month sentences when they were sentenced for the client-kickback scheme. Lerach received two years and Weiss 2 1/2 years. All four men, once feared in corporate boardrooms, have been disbarred.

Weiss said he is practicing his golf swing, doing charitable work and considering assisting the Haitian art community, all while reflecting on his prison experience.

“At my age it’s not easy,” he said of being incarcerated. “You have to get used to sleeping on a one-inch mattress on a metal frame, sharing toilets with 80 other guys. The food is not what you’re used to. The medical facilities are vastly understaffed.”

Weiss added that, in prison, “you meet a lot of people who you feel a great deal of sorrow for, because they have grown up in sad conditions and there is seemingly no way out for them. These are all things that I am thinking about.”

As one of the oldest inmates at the low-security prison in Morgantown, West Virginia, Weiss said he was given the moniker ‘Pops.’

Mel ‘Pops’ Weiss
“They would call me Pops, because some of these people never had a father,” the ex-lawyer explained.

Weiss declined to discuss any involvement with his former law firm. He was released from federal custody Feb. 5, after serving his last month and a half in home confinement.

Lerach said he plans to teach a course titled “Regulation of Free Market Capitalism -- Why We Have Failed,” at a law school he declined to name.

He is also planning to lecture at universities and work with a progressive think-tank, Lerach said in a phone interview from a ski vacation in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. His future also includes trout fishing in Alaska and exploring his roots in Bavaria, he said.

While in Prison
While in prisons in Lompoc, California, and Safford, Arizona, Lerach read books, kept a diary and stayed abreast of the financial crisis, he said.

“I tried to stay current on the events by watching financial and other news. You sometimes have to push and shove to get CNBC on rather than big truck crash programs, but that was all right,” said Lerach, who also spent time in a halfway house and home confinement.

Schulman declined to comment.
“Right now I am getting my life together,” said Bershad, when reached at his home in Montclair, New Jersey. “I am happy and doing fine.”

Of his prison time in Otisville, New York, he said, “It was a learning experience.” He declined to give details about what he is doing.

Lerach left Milberg Weiss in 2004 to help found his own securities-fraud firm in San Diego. He said he won’t be returning.

Coughlin Stoia
That firm, now called Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP, has more than 150 lawyers, partner Michael Dowd said. It is changing its name to Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd as partner Patrick Coughlin steps down from partnership status.

The Milberg firm paid the government more than two-thirds of the $75 million it owes, ahead of the five-year schedule set forth in its plea agreement, partner Matthew Gluck said in a phone interview.

“Over the past couple of years, while everybody has been laying off lawyers and cutting pay, we’ve been giving lawyers raises and extra bonuses,” Gluck said.



http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aheIjkMi34dc
 
Hey dummy - I'm with you.....don't give anyone healthcare....who gives a fuck, right? I mean, if they needed it, they wouldn't know what to do with it. So I say:
Let'em die quickly and quetly, who gives a fuck?
You and I sure don't, right?
So you: 3sail, and me say: "FOCK EM!"
Die and Die quickly......
 

Read it and weep for your country—
from NPR ( National Plaintiff's Radio ):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125145206



Lawyers Jostle To Lead Charge Against Toyota
March 25, 2010

Toyota is facing an avalanche of lawsuits related to its safety recall of millions of cars, and outside the public eye, powerful plaintiff's attorneys are competing to get in on a contest that could extract billions of dollars from the Japanese auto giant.

Northeastern University law professor Tim Howard says the stakes are huge.

The 89 class-action lawsuits filed against Toyota "ranks as the largest automobile class action in the history of American law and the world," he says.

There are so many lawsuits, in fact, that a panel of federal judges in San Diego is meeting Thursday to sort out the timing, location and logistics of the legal battle.

The suits each claim to be filed on behalf of at least 6 million drivers. Some say Toyota knew about the sudden acceleration problems but failed to tell consumers. Others say Toyota's solution ignores the real problem — flawed electronics. Whatever the reason, owners all claim the value of their cars has plummeted since last fall's recall, and they want full refunds.

Separately, there have been wrongful death and injury suits filed against Toyota and suits filed by shareholders who claim losses from tumbling stock prices.

"There's a lot of money involved," says Arnold Rosenberg, a professor at Thomas Jefferson Law School in San Diego. "Legal fees and referrals are the big payoff for the lead counsel."

Intense Scramble
Experts say Toyota could end up paying out as much as $3 billion for the lost-value claims. Lawyers typically rake in about 30 percent of that settlement.

And that means that behind the scenes, attorneys with vast class-action experience are vying to be picked as one of the leaders in the charge against Toyota.

They're forming alliances with colleagues from past cases; factions are sprouting, and everyone is scrambling to stay ahead of their competitors. Howard says the pace is intense.

"We have dinners. We have all-day symposiums. We share ideas. We share e-mails. We have internal training sessions from highway safety experts," he says.

One of the top lawyers behind the lawsuits against Toyota is New Orleans attorney Richard Arsenault. He's filed cases in Missouri, Louisiana and California, and is investigating several dozen more claims.

"I'm not preoccupied with being lead counsel," he says. "I'd like to play a meaningful role in the litigation. It's an opportunity for creative lawyering; it's an opportunity for creative thinking."

Arsenault put some of that creative thinking to work leading a conference for about 100 lawyers Wednesday in San Diego. There were mini-tutorials on topics like how to decipher the litigation, and on Toyota's event data recorders, which contain information on crashes.

New York lawyer Hunter Shkolnik says attending conferences like these is key if you want to get in this game and understand the issues.

Wikinvest data is provided as-is, delayed, and subject to Terms."Someone who's sitting on the sidelines doing nothing, [who] pops up on the last day, generally is not the person who is going to be thought of as a leader in the case," he says.

'A Beauty Contest'
Still, it's up to the judge.

"All of the meetings and get-togethers and jockeying really means nothing," Shkolnik says. "It's the judge and who the judge wants to have run the case. Ultimately, it becomes a beauty contest; beauty in the sense of who brings the most to the table that will do the best job for the litigation."

The panel of judges meeting Thursday is expected to announce a decision in two weeks on whether similar lawsuits filed in different districts should be centralized at one location, and on whether the many claims against the carmaker can be consolidated as one huge class action.
 

The number of Caesarian-section births continues to rise dramatically.



It's largely being driven by fear of litigation.
-Robert Atlas, M.D.
Mercy Medical Center


We used to have physicians who would tackle vaginal breeches. No more. We've lost an entire generation of vaginal breech obstetricians due to a legal decision in 2000.
-Robert Atlas, M.D.
Mercy Medical Center
 


This sounds like a legal shakedown to me.


Roche to Face Hollywood Stars in Accutane Trial

By Jef Feeley

July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Roche Holding AG faces a lineup of Hollywood stars in the New Jersey trial of an actor’s lawsuit alleging he suffered the loss of his colon after taking the company’s Accutane acne drug.

James Marshall, who played U.S. Marine Louden Downey in the 1992 hit movie “A Few Good Men,” claims his acting career was derailed by his use of Accutane, which Roche no longer sells. Marshall will ask a jury to award at least $11 million in damages at a trial starting next week that will feature testimony from stars such as Martin Sheen and Brian Dennehy, according to court filings.

Sheen, Dennehy and director Rob Reiner will testify that Marshall, 43, was headed for stardom before bowel ailments allegedly caused by Accutane forced doctors to remove his colon, Michael Hook, the actor’s lawyer, said in an interview. Basel, Switzerland-based Roche faces thousands of lawsuits claiming it failed to warn patients that the drug could cause inflammatory bowel disease in some users, Hook said.

“The jury will hear that James Marshall had the potential to be the next James Dean-like star,” Hook said. “That dream is gone because he took something to treat acne.”

Roche said today that Accutane’s safety label has warned about the risks of inflammatory bowel disease for more than 20 years.

‘Responsibly Warned’
“Since 1984, Roche has responsibly warned about the possibility of inflammatory bowel disease to the medical, scientific and regulatory communities, even though the science to this date questions whether such a link exists,” Christopher Vancheri, a New Jersey-based spokesman for Roche, said in an e- mailed statement.

About 13 million people have taken Accutane, once Roche’s second-biggest selling drug, since it went on the market in 1982. Roche lost patent protection on the drug in 2002 and continued to sell it along with generic competitors. In addition to bowel disease, Accutane has been linked to birth defects and depression.

Roche, the world’s biggest maker of cancer drugs, pulled its brand-name Accutane off the market in 2009 after juries awarded millions of dollars in damages to former users over the bowel-disease claims.

“Roche has been faced with high costs from personal-injury lawsuits that the company continues to defend vigorously,” company officials said in a 2009 statement.

Losing Streak
The company has lost all seven Accutane cases that have been considered by juries since 2007, including the last three in a row, Hook said. New Jersey and Florida juries ordered the drugmaker to pay a total of at least $45 million in damages in those cases, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.

Appeals courts later threw out two of the verdicts, including a 2007 award of $7 million to a Florida man who blamed the drug for his inflammatory bowel disease.

Roche has won dismissals of Accutane cases filed in federal court and has challenged the state court verdicts by asking judges to throw them out or filing appeals, Vancheri said in today’s statement.

Marshall’s case has been combined with claims by two other former Accutane users for trial before Judge Carol Higbee in state court in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Accutane is made by Roche unit Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc. of Nutley, New Jersey, allowing Marshall, Gillian Gaghan and Kelley Andrews to bring their claims in the state. All three are California residents. Andrews, 29, is an account manager while Gaghan, 34, is a nursing assistant.

Family Friend
All three contend the drug left them struggling to deal with their bodily wastes, Hook said. Both Andrews and Marshall battle incontinence while Gaghan has developed lupus as a result of taking drugs to deal with her Accutane-linked bowel disease, the lawyer said.

Sheen, 69, who appeared in films such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Wall Street,” has known Marshall since he was a baby, Hook said.

Sheen met Marshall’s family in New York while Sheen was a young actor, Hook said. Marshall’s father was a publicist for Radio City Music Hall and Marshall’s mother danced with the Rockettes, the lawyer said.

Marshall was born James Greenblatt in 1967, according to court filings. The family moved to California from Bergen County, New Jersey, in the 1980s, Hook said.

Sheen is scheduled to testify in person about Marshall’s potential as an actor, Hook said. Other Hollywood figures on Marshall’s witness list include Reiner, who directed Marshall in “A Few Good Men.” Reiner, 63, is also known for his role as Michael “Meathead” Stivic in the 1970s television sitcom “All in the Family.”

Actors, Executive
Reiner, who will testify by videotaped deposition, will tell jurors Marshall had a bright future in the entertainment business that was cut short by his Accutane-related illnesses, Hook said.

Dennehy 72, who appeared in films such as the 1977 pro football comedy “Semi-Tough” and the 1983 Cold War thriller “Gorky Park,” will appear in person along with Esai Morales, who played a police lieutenant on the TV series “NYPD Blues” in the early 1990s, according to court filings.

Marshall also will call Rick Nicita, chairman of independent film producer Morgan Creek Productions and a former Hollywood talent agent, to tell jurors about Marshall’s potential in the entertainment industry, Hook said.

The case is Greenblatt v. Hoffman-La Roche Inc., ATL-l- 1246-06, New Jersey Superior Court, Atlantic County (Atlantic City)
 
http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/new...mendment.fortune/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote




Chevron pushes ahead in key First Amendment case

by Roger Parloff, legal analyst
August 5, 2010

FORTUNE -- Now that Chevron has begun sifting through 421 tapes of unreleased footage from a documentary film called Crude -- which a federal appeals court ordered filmmaker Joe Berlinger to turn over to the oil giant three weeks ago -- the sensitive First Amendment issues raised by the case seem to be multiplying, not abating.

The documentary concerns the 17-year-old litigation by a group of Ecuadorian Indians against Texaco, bought by Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500) in 2001, for Texaco's alleged role in oil and toxic-waste dumping between 1972 and 1992.

Berlinger resisted Chevron's earlier attempts to inspect his outtakes by invoking his journalist's privilege; thus, the case is creating precedents that, under certain circumstances, could also be used to make reporters turn over their notebooks or, conceivably, testify about sources. When the federal appellate court ordered Berlinger to turn over certain outtakes last month, media companies including Associated Press, ABC, NBC, CBS (CBS, Fortune 500), Dow Jones, HBO (like Fortune, a unit of Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500)), the New York Times, and the Washington Post had submitted a friend-of-the-court brief urging the narrowest possible ruling.

Those issues are heating up again because Chevron claims that the outtakes it has seen so far dramatically confirm its earlier suspicions that attorneys for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, who are suing Chevron in Ecuador, have been secretly colluding with the ostensibly neutral court-appointed expert in that case, Richard Cabrera. (Cabrera has previously dismissed such allegations as "unthinkable.") In November 2008 Cabrera recommended to the court in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, that it order Chevron to pay $27.4 billion in damages. Chevron believes the evidence of collusion is now strong enough as to warrant deposing filmmaker Berlinger about the circumstances surrounding the outtakes, and what occurred when the cameras stopped rolling.

Steven Donziger -- one of the plaintiffs lawyers allegedly depicted meeting with Cabrera in the outtakes -- declined to comment. A lawyer for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, Ilann Maazel of Emery Celli, declined to discuss specific charges leveled in Chevron's papers, but said that Chevron's filing violated court orders, and that it was a "desperate," "diversionary tactic" designed to distract attention from Chevron's commission of "one of the greatest environmental crimes in the world."

The filmmaker, Berlinger, said in an email, "I am dismayed at the level of mischaracterizations in Chevron's Memorandum brief. . . . The footage citations are being taken out of context and not being presented to the court in its entirety, creating numerous false impressions, precisely what we feared when we were first issued the original subpoena."

What the footage shows
With those provisos, here's what Chevron says the outtakes show. (Though Chevron filed a CD displaying certain outtakes with the Manhattan federal court, I have so far been unable to see it, as court clerks have said that it is not yet available for viewing or copying.)

Chevron claims that one outtake shows lead plaintiffs attorneys Donziger and Pablo Fajardo and several of their litigation consultants meeting with Cabrera on March 3, 2007, two weeks before Cabrera was officially appointed to become the ostensibly impartial and neutral "global expert" in the case, and discussing how Cabrera would perform that task and how the plaintiffs would secretly assist him.

"Although the cameramen obviously attempt to avoid filming Cabrera," Chevron attorneys allege in their filing, "he can be seen in the margins of the screen. When the discussion turns to plans for drafting Cabrera's report, Fajardo tells the assembled group that the expert is going to 'sign the report and review it. But all of us . . . have to contribute to the report.' Toward the end of the portion of the meeting shown on film, Donziger brags: 'We could jack this thing up to $30 billion . . . in one day.'"

Chevron claims that another outtake depicts a follow-up meeting the next day, without Cabrera, at which one of the plaintiffs litigation consultants, Dick Kamp, allegedly comments, "Having the perito [expert, i.e., Cabrera] there yesterday in retrospect . . . That was bizarre." According to Chevron's brief, in response "Donziger looks at Kamp for about two or three seconds. He then instructs Kamp: 'Don't talk about it,' and tells the camera crew, 'And that is off the record.' Donziger tells the experts, 'I've got total control over the film . . . .' He then retracts his statement, saying, 'I'm just joking, I really don't.' Donziger then explains, 'That's the way it works,' adding, 'Believe me, I would much rather have it work the normal way . . . I would rather have it work the normal way, then I wouldn't have to worry about stuff like that.'"

In his email to Fortune, filmmaker Berlinger said that, "in order not to waive my journalist's privilege, I am not able to comment on the specific content of the footage." Nevertheless, he did say this: "Chevron's accusation that we were instructed by and obeyed the instruction from the plaintiffs to avoid filming Richard Cabrera or anyone else in the March 3, 2007 meeting at Selva Viva in Quito, Ecuador is completely false. I was not personally present at the meeting, but Crude producer/camerman Michael Bonfiglio has no recollection whatsoever of being asked to avoid filming Mr. Cabrera or anyone else in the room, and confirms that had he perceived any individual's presence in that meeting to have been in any way inappropriate, we can only imagine that we would not have been permitted to film the meeting. In fact, it defies logic that if we were instructed not to film someone, that he is in our footage."
 


This sounds like a legal shakedown to me.


Roche to Face Hollywood Stars in Accutane Trial

By Jef Feeley


Roche Wins Reversal of $10.5 Million Accutane Verdict
By Jef Feeley

Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Roche Holding AG won reversal of a $10.5 million verdict over its Accutane acne drug because a judge improperly barred the company from using evidence about the medication’s use, an appeals court ruled.

Roche’s lawyers should have been able to use data about how many acne sufferers had used Accutane over the years throughout Kamie Kendall’s 2008 trial of her lawsuit over the drug, the New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division ruled today. The decision prompted a judge in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to delay the trial of an actor’s suit alleging the medication causes inflammatory bowel disease.

“Roche was unduly impeded at this trial from adducing and advocating numerical proofs that could have potentially and reasonably led a jury to reach a different verdict,” the appeals court said in an 89-page unpublished decision.

About 13 million people have taken Accutane, once Roche’s second-biggest selling drug, since it went on the market in 1982. Roche, based in Basel, Switzerland, lost patent protection on the drug in 2002 and continued to sell it along with generic competitors. In addition to bowel disease, Accutane has been linked to birth defects and depression.

Roche, the world’s biggest maker of cancer drugs, pulled its brand-name Accutane off the market in 2009 after juries awarded millions of dollars in damages to former users over the bowel-disease claims.

‘Unfair Trial’
The New Jersey court sent the Kendall case back for retrial “because the original verdict followed from an unfair trial,” Christopher Vancheri, a U.S.-based spokesman for the drugmaker, said in an e-mailed statement. Mike Hook, Kendall’s lawyer, declined to comment.

An Atlantic City jury ruled in April 2008 that Kendall, a Utah resident who blamed Accutane for causing her bowel disease, deserved $10.5 million in damages. The panel found Roche didn’t adequately warn Kendall about the risks that the drug may cause bowel disruptions.

Roche’s lawyers sought to use statistics on the total number of Accutane users during Kendall’s trial. Judge Carol Higbee only let the panel hear the statistics during the trial’s final stage, according to court filings.

The trial didn’t provide “a full and fair opportunity for Roche to present and advocate the relevant numbers evidence,” the appeals court concluded.

The company has lost all seven Accutane cases that have been considered by juries since 2007, Hook said earlier. New Jersey and Florida juries ordered the drugmaker to pay a total of at least $45 million in damages in those cases, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.

Marshall Trial Delayed
Appeals courts later threw out two of the verdicts, including a 2007 award of $7 million to a Florida man who blamed the drug for his inflammatory bowel disease. In February, an Atlantic City, New Jersey, jury ordered Roche to pay $25.1 million to a man who attributed his inflammatory bowel disease to Accutane. The case was a retrial of an overturned verdict.

Hook said the appeals court decision prompted Higbee today to delay jury selection in the case of James Marshall, a Hollywood actor who alleges he lost his colon after taking Accutane.

Marshall will call a parade of Hollywood stars, including Martin Sheen and Brian Dennehy, to testify his acting career was derailed by the drug, according to court filings, said Hook, who also represents Marshall. Higbee hasn’t set a new trial, he added.

“We’re looking forward to trying the case whenever it is rescheduled,” the lawyer said.

The Kendall case is Kendall v. Hoffmann LaRoche Inc., ATL- L-8213-05, New Jersey Superior Court, Atlantic County (Atlantic City). The Marshall case is Greenblatt v. Hoffman-La Roche Inc., ATL-l-1246-06, New Jersey Superior Court, Atlantic County (Atlantic City).


http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aVNSg01sk3nY
 
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a.Zm3eO.JEJ4


Lawyer’s Lover Loses His Corvettes, 1936 Mercedes

( A more appropriate title would be, "Sleazy Shyster Bites The Dust" )

Commentary by Ann Woolner

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- When famed Texas trial lawyer John O’Quinn skidded off a Houston parkway in a speeding SUV and slammed into a tree last October, he left behind a mixed legacy.

He had won billions of dollars for clients but incurred rebukes from bar groups for ethical misconduct. Ex-clients and employees said he had cheated them , but he also handed over massive contributions to multiple good causes.

In the last five years of his life, he had collected more than 800 classic cars. And that’s now the source of one of the most bitter disputes his death has provoked.

What the twice-divorced lawyer didn’t leave behind was a single sheet of paper that would have bequeathed to his longtime companion the 28 cars she says he meant her to have.

Even with a private marriage ceremony she says occurred, a wedding ring and her reputation as his wife, this brilliant lawyer never filed a simple document at the courthouse that would have made them legally married. Nor did he update his year-old will, which left everything to his charitable foundation.

A probate judge this week turned down Darla Lexington’s bid to halt the sale of five of the cars she claimed were hers: three classic Corvettes, a 1936 Mercedes-Benz and a 1938 Talbot- Lago valued at $3.5 million to $4.5 million.

Look for them among other shiny toys in auction in Pebble Beach, California, this weekend.

The moral of the story is promise her anything, but write it down if you mean it, and do it soon. For companions who figure a lover’s intentions are good enough, remember: They aren’t.

Disputed Claims
That O’Quinn’s sudden death at 68 would provoke disputed claims should surprise no one.

In life he said he stood for the powerless against the powerful. With tobacco, breast implant and asbestos cases, his huge wins put him among the most successful plaintiffs’ lawyers in Texas, which is saying a lot. He won a $1 billion judgment in a diet-drug case against Wyeth.

And yet one of the debts the estate has agreed to pay is $46.5 million to thousands of breast implant clients who claimed he overcharged them.

A concrete contractor says O’Quinn had for years been dodging a bill for work at a planned car museum, now $132,441 with interest. A court official told him, “Mr. O’Quinn was very difficult to serve,” the contractor said in a probate claim.

O’Quinn used to say he was devoted to justice, but state bar associations in South Carolina and Texas said he broke ethics rules in his pursuit of it.

Egregious Misconduct
In the most egregious misconduct, the O’Quinn firm was among those a federal judge in Corpus Christi said had essentially concocted bogus lung disease diagnoses for thousands of people.

And for all his lucrative wins, the estate told the probate judge it must sell the cars or else default on a bank loan. The Houston Chronicle reports he owed $90 million to Bank of America, apparently for his legal and real estate businesses.

Waiting in the wings is another multimillion-dollar claim against the estate. Riding with O’Quinn when he smashed into the tree was a law firm employee who had been his assistant, Johnny Lee Cutliff, 56. He also died at the scene.

The Cutliff family is suing the estate for $7 million plus punitive damages, which could be substantial. Police concluded O’Quinn had been doing between 76 to 79 mph in a 40-mph zone. O’Quinn and Cutliff were at a Houston airport when the lawyer realized he had forgotten key documents and they rushed back to retrieve them.

Many Grievances
Plenty of folks have grievances against O’Quinn, but so far Lexington doesn’t blame him for her plight. Now in her late 50s, she met him through the breast implant case he filed for her, according to an estate lawyer. Eventually, she testified in probate court last week, he became her “husband, partner and lover.”

She nursed him in sickness and threw parties for him in health. She merged her assets into his, she said in court documents. O’Quinn promised repeatedly to look after her financially and legally.

At his urging, she said, she gave up her own ventures and job prospects to oversee his ranch and car collection.

But O’Quinn signed a will a year before his death, leaving the whole estate to his charitable foundation. And while a provision in the will reserved to him the right to list individual bequests later, he never did.

A to-do list he wrote shortly before his death names a lawyer to see for a “will change for D.” He never made it there.

No Insurance Policies
Neither car titles nor auto insurance policies bore her name, although witnesses said he told them some of the cars were hers.

“What’s relevant in the eyes of the law is not what people say he was going to do, but rather what he actually did,” Houston lawyer Dale Jefferson, who represents the estate, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

O’Quinn did name Lexington the beneficiary in a $2 million life insurance policy, Jefferson said. And the estate is paying her $6,000 a month, at least for now.

By all reports, O’Quinn was larger than life when advocating for clients or donating millions to hospitals, colleges and political campaigns or, yes, even cutting ethical corners.

Now, in death, he seems so much smaller.
 

Scientifically illiterate jurors are routinely manipulated by shysters and ambulance chasers into incorrectly concluding that association or correlation is causation. The result costs you money each and every day ( without your knowing it ).
______________________________


http://www.reuters.com/article/idCNLDE68F0B020100916?rpc=44


Acne depression link may not be due to drugs-study
Thu Sep 16, 2010 6:00am EDT

* Study finds strong link between depression and severe acne

* Suggests drugs like Accutane not to blame - scientists

* Roche stopped selling Accutane, but generics available


By Kate Kelland

LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Fears that acne drugs like Roche's Accutane could cause depression may have been overblown, since the condition itself is strongly linked to suicidal thoughts and depression, scientists said on Thursday.

Levels of depression and suicidal thoughts were two or three times higher in young people who had the most severe acne than in those with little or none of the skin condition, Norwegian researchers found.

The results suggested depressive side effects previously associated with acne medicines may be due to the condition -- likely to be quite severe in those prescribed drugs for it -- rather than the effects of the medication, they said.

"There is a pretty strong and consistent association between acne and symptoms of depression or mental health problems," said Jon Anders Halvorsen of Oslo University Hospital, whose study was published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

Accutane, which Swiss drugmaker Roche said last year it would stop selling because of generic competition, has had a controversial history since its 1982 launch. It is now available as a generic medicine, known as isotretinoin.

While powerful at clearing acne, the drug has been linked to birth defects if taken during pregnancy and has also been suspected of causing mental side effects, although Roche has vigorously defended personal injury claims in this area.

A study by Canadian scientists published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in 2008 suggested isotretinoin might double the risk of developing depression.

Acne is a widespread skin complaint found in up to 80 percent of adolescents. It affects glands on the face and neck that produce grease and results in spots, pimples and inflammation and can lead to scarring.

Most cases are classed as mild but in more severe cases it can be quite disfiguring -- a sensitive problem in a social group that is already very body conscience. Experts say around 10-20 percent of adolescents can develop severe acne.

"There has been a lot of controversy regarding these drugs and that has made many dermatologists cautious about prescribing isotretinoin," said Halvorsen. "Our study is important becuase it provides an argument for not being so cautious."

Halvorsen studied results from a survey of 3,775 18 and 19-years olds in Oslo. They found twice as many girls and three times as many boys with severe acne reported having suicidal thoughts than peers with little or no acne.

Generic drugmakers Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Mylan and Ranbaxy sell generic isotretinoin, which Halvorsen described as "very effective" against acne.

Cambridge University psychiatrist Ian Goodyer, said it may be too early to draw firm conclusions. "From this research I do not think we can say negative impacts on mental health were nothing to do with the drugs taken for severe acne. There may be additive effects in an already vulnerable group."
 


Merck won more than 65% of the individual cases that were tried yet still succumbed to the legal extortion and racketeering that the mass tort industry represents.

Who do you think pays for this?

__________________________

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a6BjQrzNOjuU


Merck Vioxx Settlement Lawyers Will Get $1.55 Billion; Lead Lawyers Will Receive $315 Million
By David Voreacos and Jef Feeley

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A lead group of lawyers will get $315.3 million for doing most of the work on lawsuits against Merck & Co. over its Vioxx painkiller while other attorneys who filed suits will share $1.24 billion, a judge ruled.

Lawyers who worked for the so-called common benefit of the plaintiffs in thousands of lawsuits against Merck deserve 6.5 percent of the $4.85 billion settlement, or less than the 8 percent they initially sought, said U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon in New Orleans.

Fallon ruled in August 2008 that lawyers who sued could collect as much as 32 percent of the settlement. The judge ruled yesterday that the $315.3 million in common benefit fees will come from the total legal fees, leaving $1.24 billion for other lawyers who sued Merck.

“The tension in this case is between the attorneys who have done common benefit work and the primary attorneys who have not,” Fallon ruled. “The undeniable fact remains that the great bulk of the work as well as the expense was borne by the attorneys who performed common benefit work.”

The lawyers doing common benefit work billed for 562,944 hours at 109 law firms, according to the judge. They took more than 2,000 depositions, reviewed more than 50 million documents, briefed and argued more than 1,000 motions, conducted trials around the U.S., and negotiated a settlement, Fallon ruled.

Won 11 Trials
Merck won 11 of 16 Vioxx suits at trial before agreeing in 2007 to settle all claims.

The settlement, announced in November 2007, resolved almost 50,000 claims of Vioxx users who blamed the drug for heart attacks, strokes, and claims of lesser injuries.

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, settled after battling plaintiffs who claimed in state and federal courts that it didn’t adequately disclose Vioxx safety data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, didn’t properly warn doctors and patients of the drug’s risks and misrepresented the potential harm in marketing materials.

The company reserved $1.9 billion for legal fees.

Fallon has overseen Vioxx lawsuits since February 2005 through a process known as multidistrict litigation.

The case is Vioxx Products Liability Litigation, MDL-1657, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).
 


Un-fucking-believable. Can you believe this shit?

( You know what happens if, god forbid, the shysters prevail? The ambulance chasers will collect tens of millions in cash while the putative "plaintiffs" will receive coupons worth $25 that are redeemable on their next purchase of a Toyota ). Meanwhile, the price of Toyotas will be marked up enough to recover the cost of this legal shakedown and everybody else will end up picking up the tab.

The lawsuit is on behalf of owners who may not have experienced sudden acceleration but who claim economic loss. By this they mean: Toyota's recalls and all the bad publicity reduced the value of their cars. The judge turned aside Toyota's request to dismiss the lawsuits.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

NPR's business news starts with more lawsuits against Toyota.

INSKEEP: A judge says a class action lawsuit against Toyota can proceed. This lawsuit is on behalf of owners who may not have experienced sudden acceleration, but who claim economic loss. By this they mean that Toyota's recalls and all the bad publicity reduced the value of their cars. The judge turned aside Toyota's request to dismiss these lawsuits. He says there is evidence that Toyota knew more about the problems than it revealed to the public, and Toyota's failure to act more quickly drove down the value even of cars that worked properly.

_________________________________
Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only.

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/01/13171...mmentKey:061da82c-8587-4603-804a-3b09fdc2a31a



 
Just some numbers that might help.

4%- average profit margin for health ins. co.

60% Percent of Americans have health ins. provided by employers.

47 Million Americans without health ins.

18M make over $50K annually. Half of them make $75K.

At least 5 million are illegals. Now we are down to 24 million.

8 million are under age 18. In Arizona less then 50% of the eligible children in Arizona are signed up for AHCCCS or SCHIP. Not the kids fault but the parents. Assuming 50% could have ins. We are down to 20M.

The U.S. Government admits 17M still will not have health ins once the new law kicks in. The numbers now look a lot less dramatic once you see them.

Just because you do not have health ins. does not mean you will not receive medical care. All hospitals are required to treat every patient who presents whether or not they have the ability to pay.

I once treated an illegal who came across the boarder just so he could get an organ transplant. Her got it and went home while at home complications developed and he recrossed and receiver additional care. All paid for by someone else. The hospital took a $1M+ hit. Your health care cost just went up.

$60 Billion. Medicare fraud cost last year and several of the preceding years.

Corporations do not pay taxes. They do not pay fines, nor pay legal costs or the resulting judgment from lawsuits. You the consumer pays. So if Toyota looses $100M you will do your part in paying part of the cost when you buy your next Toyota.

It works the same health care. Merck looses and the cost of drugs go up.
 
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aylCNP61QXKU


“What we did wrong, I have no idea.”

The stalled economy...has fueled public anger, affecting lawsuits against companies in unrelated cases across the country...“Jurors are more willing to believe that there was corporate wrongdoing that was intentional,...” “It’s easier to get people angry when they’re already brooding...”

...Ten of the 50 largest jury verdicts last year came in product-defect cases, compared with five in 2009 and one in 2008... There were 15 such verdicts of $25 million or more in 2010, compared with seven in 2009...


...“Our shareholders just lost a huge value on the fear of what might happen,” he said. “This is real money. This is peoples’ lives. This is going to cost all of us until it’s resolved rationally...”
 
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aylCNP61QXKU


“What we did wrong, I have no idea.”
Quote:
The stalled economy...has fueled public anger, affecting lawsuits against companies in unrelated cases across the country...“Jurors are more willing to believe that there was corporate wrongdoing that was intentional,...” “It’s easier to get people angry when they’re already brooding...”

Quote:
...Ten of the 50 largest jury verdicts last year came in product-defect cases, compared with five in 2009 and one in 2008... There were 15 such verdicts of $25 million or more in 2010, compared with seven in 2009...

Quote:
...“Our shareholders just lost a huge value on the fear of what
]

Not to worry about these people losing a lot of money. American shysters will make up for it by making even fatter profits. :eek:

Of course, some of it will go toward more bribes for their toadies in the Dem. Party.
 

WTF?


First, government mandates seatbelt requirements then it says even though you comply with the rules, you can STILL be sued. Fuck it— every self-respecting economic pundit will tell you that the way to prosperity is simply to sue each other.

The next time you purchase any automobile or insurance, this will be included in your cost.

This, on top of the complete absolution of Toyota ( by the government, mind you ) of any evidence of sudden acceleration claims— after, of course, the company spent hundreds of millions defending itself from the onslaught of legal maggots.



________________

U.S. Supreme Court Opens Automakers to Seatbelt Lawsuits
By Greg Stohr

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court opened the auto industry to new lawsuits over seatbelt design, ruling that Mazda Motor Corp. must defend against claims pressed by the family of a woman killed while riding in an MPV minivan.

The justices unanimously today said that compliance with federal seatbelt regulations doesn’t shield a company from claims that it should have installed a safer type of belt.

The ruling marks a change in the law in much of the country. Every lower court to consider the issue had concluded that the federal rules preempted suits by accident victims over seatbelt design.

The ruling scales back a 2000 decision that said federal law insulates automakers from claims under state product- liability law that they should have moved more quickly to install air bags.

The case is Williamson v. Mazda Motor of America, 08-1314.


more...
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aG1CmAlKd6cM
 


God help us. We've got an economy based entirely on (1) suing each other, (2) delivering pizza, (3) shuffling paper and (4) producing noise.


___________________
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...raft-to-pay-8-1m-to-settle-contamination-suit

Kraft Foods Inc. has been ordered by a federal court to pay $8.1 million to 124 families in Attica, Ind., following a class-action lawsuit alleging that one of the foodmaker's factories contaminated air and water inside their homes.


According to the settlement, approved last Friday by a federal judge in Indianapolis, the Northfield-based company also must clean up the plant site and groundwater and install systems to manage the contamination in the affected homes.


The suit was filed in March 2009 by Susan and Patrick Stoll, Mary and Charles Bowles and more than 100 others. In it, they claimed that chemicals including vinyl chloride and trichloroethylene had been spilled at the plant since 1957 and that those chemicals had leaked into the groundwater, seeped into their homes and caused toxic vapors.


“We're pleased that the residents of Attica had their day in court and that the end result here, besides monetary compensation, is cleanup of the area and improved quality of life for these families,” said Norm Berger, a partner at Chicago-based Varga Berger Ledsky Hayes & Casey, one of two law firms that handled the case; the other firm was Collins Law Firm P.C. in Naperville.


A predecessor of Kraft acquired the site through a series of corporate acquisitions in the 1970s and 1980s, and Kraft never operated the site, according to a company spokeswoman. The plant originally manufactured parts for the television industry.


"In the interest of avoiding the uncertainty and expense of ongoing litigation, we came to an agreement. We are pleased with the outcome of the settlement hearing and that the judge found the proposal to be fair," she said. "We are committed to continuing the remediation efforts. We are working diligently with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the city of Attica and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to complete the appropriate environmental investigations and clean-up activities at and near the site."
 
According to the settlement, approved last Friday by a federal judge in Indianapolis, the Northfield-based company also must clean up the plant site and groundwater and install systems to manage the contamination in the affected homes.
A good and proper outcome.

Kraft can't sell mac-and-cheese to dead people, after all.
 

Uh, huh. We gotta settlement of $8.1 million spread over 124 households? Even someone with a limited or flawed understanding of the legal system can figure out what's going on here. Lessee, the ambulance chasers took a third, leaving $5.3 million to be spread over 124 families— that works out to ~$43K per family. That must've been some kinda really, really dangerous, god-awful, life-threatening "toxic vapors" out there in Attica, Indiana from fifty years ago.


Anybody with half a shred of intelligence recognizes what this was all about; it was a legal shakedown and harassment. Champerty, anyone? Barratry for fun and profit?

 
"toxic" does imply godawful and life threatening, yes.

Vinyl chloride is ranked as one of the most hazardous compounds (worst 10%) to ecosystems and human health.

Trichlorethine ranks up there as well.

Also, the lawsuit evidently says; "Since 1957" which means that the spills have been happening more recently than 50 years ago. In fact they might have been ongoing for fifty years. We can't tell of course, the little article doesn't give many details.

I know you're mad as hell, but perhaps you want to investigate before you pop off, huh?
 
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