May 2009 Archives

A Seroquel lawsuit that was set to be the first of thousands of cases nationwide to go to trial, was dismissed yesterday by a Delaware state court judge who excluded testimony from the medical expert necessary for the plaintiff to establish that she developed diabetes from AstraZeneca’s Seroquel.

The Delaware lawsuit was filed on behalf of Nina Scaife, from Kansas, who allegedly developed diabetes after taking Seroquel off-label for treatment of insomnia. Her claim was one of more than 9,000 similar lawsuits filed in federal and state courts throughout the United States, and was scheduled for trial to begin on June 29, 2009.

Although it is widely acknowledged that side effects of Seroquel may increase the risk of weight gain and diabetes, each individual plaintiff still has the burden of establishing a connection between Seroquel and their diabetes diagnosis.

Excerpted from AboutLawsuits.com. 

Litigation is on the increase and is affecting people’s behavior in all walks of the ski world.  In the latest case a 17-year old boy, Brian Martin, fell off a ski rail in Whiteface Mountain, NY, and broke his tibia on a support bar. His lawyer, Salvatore D. Ferlazzo, argued that the rail was not skirted and the bar should have been covered or cushioned.  He produced video evidence and a skiing expert to support his thesis.

However the court considered all he facts and concluded that the state’s obligation to Martin was to make the conditions of performing an inherently risky maneuver like rail sliding “as safe as they appear to be, not as safe as it could be.”  In other words the person executing the maneuver had to take some responsibility for their actions, make their own decision about how they would behave and accept some of the consequences.

Excerpted from PlanetSKI.com.

Engineering expert Richard Roth testified Thursday in Cape May, NJ, in the vehicular homicide case of New Jersey state trooper Robert Higbee.  Roth said Higbee was driving over 70 mph seconds before he crashed into a minivan in the September 2006 crash that killed teenage sisters Jacqueline and Christina Becker.

The expert testified regarding information from the police car's data recorder. Roth said it showed the trooper drove between 70 and 80 mph before slamming on the brakes just before the crash. The defense lawyer said the trooper ran a stop sign while trying to catch up with a speeder.

Information from Philly.com.

Accident reconstruction experts in the manslaughter trial of Ryan Hurd, 23, were asked to determine who was driving a car that was traveling at nearly 100 mph at the time of a 2007 crash.  The speeding car flipped, crashed and burned, killing one occupant and injuring two others south of New Vineyard, ME.  MorningSentinel.com reports:

Richard Hartley, the attorney defending Ryan Hurd, 23, of Lincoln, contends his client was in the front passenger seat and that the man who died, Terry Richardson Jr., 34, of Dover-Foxcroft, was driving Hurd's car at the time of the accident...  Prosecution expert Wade Bartlett said the passenger could not have been thrown out of the driver's side window because he would have been unable to bypass the driver and the steering column before the vehicle flipped over.

JournalSentinelOnline reports:

A relieved Milwaukee County Board approved a $45 million settlement in the county's pension lawsuit against Mercer Inc. Tuesday, with some claiming vindication and others expressing disappointment.

The county will net about $30 million, which will go into the pension fund. The rest goes to lawyers and other costs of the litigation that began in 2006 and went to trial May 4.

While the money won't fix the county's ongoing financial problems, it should help lower the county's annual contribution to the pension fund, said County Board Chairman Lee Holloway.

County Executive Scott Walker called the settlement "a victory for the taxpayers." He said Mercer made its settlement offer on Friday.

Kim Nicholl, an expert witness for the county, testified last week that the cost of past and future backdrop pension payouts - and of county-paid health care payments for people who have or will retire early because of the pension deal - could be about $325 million.

Financial experts have warned Riverside County supervisors that early retirement offers for more employees will be costly later.  702 employees have accepted a sweetened retirement offer and supervisors are debating whether to extend the offer to probation officers, district attorney investigators and others in law enforcement. The county now employs about 19,000 workers.  NorthCountyTimes reports:

But some financial experts say offering the early retirements merely defers a financial problem that will grow and come due in coming years.  Early retirements have been a very appealing and seemingly painless way to cut expenses, an imperative for the county, which must wrest $130 million from its budget for the coming fiscal year. Supervisors this fiscal year directly control $727 million.

Giving away service years as an early retirement incentive is common, says Jack Dean, editor and publisher of PensionSunamic.com which tracks developments in public employee's pension plans.  "It's a sleight of hand to say that is saving money," he said. "Elected officials don't seem to realize they are paying (increased) pension costs later."

Although GM executives would prefer to restructure out of court, investments experts say all GM is doing now is lining up majorities of stakeholders to make its reorganization move quickly.  To remake itself outside of court, GM must persuade bondholders to swap $27 billion in debt for 10 percent of its risky stock. On top of that, the automaker must work out deals with its union, announce factory closures, cut or sell brands and force hundreds of dealers out of business.

"I just don't see how it's possible, given all of the pieces," said bankruptcy expert Stephen J. Lubben, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law.  GM, which has received $15.4 billion in federal aid, faces a June 1 government deadline to complete its restructuring plan. If it can't finish in time, the company will follow Detroit competitor Chrysler LLC into bankruptcy protection.

Excerpted from NorthCountyTimes.

Canon lawyer Father Thomas Doyle, a church child abuse expert, says he finds it hard to believe the Seattle Catholic Archdiocese wasn't warned about a child-abusing priest who moved in 1976.  Whether the Seattle archdiocese knew about Pat O'Donnell's admitted sex abuse of boys is the key in a lawsuit against the archdiocese brought by two local victims.

On Thursday, the Seattle Catholic Archdiocese made a very public apology, saying the church didn't realize the nature of pedophiles and child sexual abuse, and too often relied on experts who said offending priests had been rehabilitated and were ready for a new assignment.  The Seattle archdiocese says it had allowed O'Donnell to take the post because it hadn't been informed about his history of abuse.

But the expert witness said priests were often given fresh starts in new churches or another chance after therapy.  He told the jury he can't believe Seattle didn't tell Spokane it was sending a sex offender their way.  "Any major issue of that nature the suffragan or the bishop of a diocese would share it with the archbishop," said Doyle. 

Excerpted from KOMO News.com.

U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein in Brooklyn, N.Y., will exclude pharmacology expert Dr. Stephen Hamburger from testifying in the case against Eli Lilly & Co. and the drug Zyprexa.  Plaintiffs allege Lilly urged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for uses not approved by the FDA. Delawareonline reports:

The doctor has offered testimony in some 20 individual Zyprexa cases, seven of which now have pending summary judgment motions before Weinstein, the judge said in a decision issued this week. Hamburger was "shockingly careless about the facts in the cases he proposes to opine about," Weinstein said. The doctor gave conflicting answers to questions about the "claimed causal link between Zyprexa intake and medical injury," he said. "Faced under oath with consistent extensive factual discrepancies in his analysis, he merely shrugged them off or flippantly shifted to new theories," Weinstein said. "He repeatedly and impermissibly stretched the truth to support findings of causality." The Indianapolis-based drugmaker had moved to prevent Hamburger from testifying as an expert witness in the cases. Zyprexa is approved to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The plaintiffs claim Lilly urged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for uses not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Aerospace engineering expert Dr. Robert Key Dismukes, of NASA's Ames Research Center, testified Thursday in the hearing to determine what caused Flight 3407 to plummet to the ground on Feb. 12, killing 50 people. The expert spoke on what causes pilots to lose attentiveness and was surprised by the actions of the pilots when the stick shaker went off, signaling the plane was on the verge of a stall because insufficient air was passing over its wings.  BuffaloNews also reports:

The pilots in Continental Connection Flight 3407 went from a landing speed approach of 182 knots to 130 knots in less than half a minute, when a stall warning went off in the cockpit...  He (Dismukes) said the only way for pilots to react to such emergencies was continued training, so when it happens, the pilots can automatically know what to do.

Ninety-five Chinese nationals brought home from Mexico on May 6 are no longer quarantined amid fears of the A/H1N1 virus, but three others remain under observation in Shanghai, local authorities said on Wednesday afternoon. Among the 98 Chinese citizens and one medical expert, 95 have been confirmed healthy and were sent home as of 4:30 p.m., said Chen Qiwei, spokesman of Shanghai Municipal Government.

"The flu is still spreading. The quarantine is necessary," said Lu Hongzhou, the medical expert back from Mexico and one of the released.  The 98 travelers were brought back to Shanghai on a charted plane May 6. All of the passengers were in normal condition. China sent the flight to retrieve Chinese nationals under an agreement with Mexico, which has been battling the flu outbreak, to return each other's nationals.

Excerpted from ChinaView.com.

Illinois House and Senate judiciary committee members heard testimony last week on two bills that would bring changes to limit the location where a lawsuit can be filed set qualifications for who can be considered an expert witness. Proponents of the expert witness bill say it would keep junk science out of the courtroom but Philip Corboy Jr., President of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association says trial lawyers already work to avoid improper testimony.  PublicNewsService also reports:

"Junk science doesn't exist in the courtroom. Why? Because junk science ends up being found out as junk science by good cross examination, which is the purpose of a trial in the first place."...

Backers of the venue legislation say it would streamline cases by limiting a trial's location to the county where the reason for the lawsuit took place. But Corboy says there's a hidden agenda, as the bill would eliminate the ability to find a venue that is equally fair to both plaintiff and defendant.

Geology expert Robert Curry testified Monday in a federal court hearing about the stretch of Nevada canal that burst and flooded hundreds of homes in 2008. Federal inspectors had warned a Nevada irrigation district in 2005 that the district's irrigation system about 30 miles east of Reno was at a "high hazard" level.

Homeowners who fear another flood this spring are seeking a court order to slow water flows in the canal that runs through Fernley and delivers water to more than 2,500 ranchers and farmers for their crops and livestock.  The expert testified on behalf of flood victims and said the flood happened because of a flawed, century-old canal design, settling soil, inadequate maintenance and a rapid rise of water after a storm.

Former irrigation district employee Don Watson testified before U.S. District Court Judge Lloyd George that he reported the canal leak about October 2007, some three months before the flood.

Excerpted from MercuryNews.com.

The U.S. Department of Justice and residents of Libby Montana lost their case against W.R. Grace on Friday.  Environmental experts testified in the 11 week pollution criminal case which resulted in W.R. Grace and its executives being found not guilty of environmental pollution crimes against deceased and living residents of Libby Montana.  Mineweb.com reports:

Libby residents--of whom 1,200 have died or developed cancer or lung disease related to a vermiculite mine which contained deadly asbestos fibers. The vermiculite was contaminated with tremolite asbestos, which has been linked to mesothelioma, a cancer that can attack the lungs, abdomen or heart.

The defense for the company and Grace executives who had been charged by the Justice Department argued the company had worked for years to clean up the facility.

Engineering expert Frank Baumann, PE, is a registered corrosion engineer, certified water treatment operator and certified water quality analyst. Here he writes on the internal corrosion of plumbing.

Some of the initiating factors include manufacturing defects such as internal surface imperfections, poor workmanship in the installation of the pipe (flux runs, excessive heating, stagnation-formed films in copper pipe, overthreading in steel pipe, faulty joints, direct contact of dissimilar metals [galvanic corrosion], etc.) and wrong (too small) pipe sizes, resulting in excess water velocity thus causing erosion corrosion.

So does the water play any role in this? Of course it does. For corrosion to occur, the corrosion curent must flow from the anode to the cathode. This requires a conductive medium – the water. All waters (with the exception of pure distilled water) are capable of carrying the corrosion current. And some waters are indeed more aggressive than others. Frequently, the water is implicated only inasmuch as it sustains the corrosion reaction – but the water is not the primary cause for the corrosion to occur.

Obstetrics and gynecology expert Dr. Charles Simpson testified Wednesday in the case of April Dawn Halkett, 22, who is accused of abandoning her newborn in the bathroom at the Prince Albert Walmart two years ago.  Halkett said she thought the boy was dead following the surprising, sudden birth.  The expert said it is possible for a woman to give birth without knowing she was pregnant and that Halkett had what is known as a precipitous birth, meaning it took just minutes to deliver the baby. Cases of precipitous birth often send the baby into a state of shock, Simpson added, and the infant can appear dead.

Prosecutor Jennifer Claxton-Viczko questioned why Halkett would take three separate home pregnancy tests in the months leading up to the baby’s birth if she didn’t know she was pregnant. The last test was taken about two months before she gave birth.

Excerpted from TheVancouverSun.com.

The owner of Stockbridge Funeral Home is suing the town of Exeter, NH, over flooding he says was caused by the town culvert. Stockbridge and his engineering expert, William Gallot, testified in court on Thursday. They argued that the development located upland from the funeral home contributed to flooding on the property.

Exeter attorney Catherine Costanzo said it was information presented by Gallot that the town used to establish its points. Costanzo said the town submitted regulations showing the standard of care in 1975 — when the culvert was installed — and that it was only meant to withstand a 15-year storm. The storms that caused the flooding were approaching or exceeding 100-year storms, she said.

Excerpted from SeacoastOnline.com.

Engineering expert Frank Baumann, PE, is a registered corrosion engineer, certified water treatment operator and certified water quality analyst. Here he writes on the internal corrosion of plumbing.

Among a homeowner’s more traumatic experiences, especially if the home is fairly new, ranks the telltale wet spot on the living room carpet (if the plumbing is in the slab), or the soggy bits of not-so-dry-wall (if the plumbing runs overhead.) An inspection is likely to reveal more than just a single trouble spot, and the usual verdict is an expensive replumbing job. The homeowner is upset and wants to be made whole, so he sues the most likely culprit – the water company. After all, it was the water that caused the problem. Or was it not?

The corrosion engineer, in trying to determine the most probable cause of a plumbing system failure, must look for, not just one, but two factors: 1) What initiated the problem, and 2) what propagated it.

There are some aggressive (corrosive) waters which will dissolve metals with which they come into contact, just as there are some saturated ones that deposit heavy scale in water heaters and hot water systems. An aggressive water will usually cause general corrosion. That is, it will dissolve metal at a uniform rate throughout the internal pipe surfaces. The loss of metal at any one point is thus very minor, and the system generally attains its design life. If the same loss of metal were to be confined to just a few small points in the system, however, the loss of metal at those ‘pits’ may result in perforation of the pipe and catastrophic failure of the system due to ‘pitting corrosion’. While there are some waters with a greater propensity to cause pitting, the great majority of pitting corrosion is initiated by factors other than the water.

San Fernando Valley physician Dr. Masoud Bamdad testified this week in his own defense on illegal drug distribution charges.  Bamdad, 55, is accused of selling prescriptions for OxyContin and its generic equivalent, oxycodone, to drug- addicted patients who he knew had no legitimate need for the medication.  One patient later died as a result. 

Bamdad accused DEA agents of entrapping him and said one of the prosecution's drug abuse expert witnesses had been addicted to Vicodin.  Undercover DEA agents said Dr. Masoud Bamdad indiscriminately sold them prescriptions for powerful painkillers in exchange for cash.

Excerpted from LATimes.com.

Infectious disease expert Dr. James Luby at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas said Tuesday that the drug Tamiflu, made and marketed by Roche Holding AG of Switzerland, is the best treatment for the new strain of swine flu.  The medical expert also said that for certain patients who have come down the with disease, and for medical professionals who need to prevent contracting the virus, Tamiflu remains the gold standard, The Dallas Morning News reported. "We don't want the ordinary you or me to go out and start taking Tamiflu," Luby said. "But if you got sick with a 101-degree temperature, and it's within 48 hours of the onset of illness, you'd be a good candidate to receive it once you've had a spot-check for flu."