December 2009 Archives

In Is Mold Causing Your Indoor Air Quality Problem?, environmental health and safety expert James L. Unmack, PT, CIH, CSP, REA, writes:

We have all seen molds on food or paper products (books, bathroom walls, etc.). These visible manifestations are only indicators of potential problem. The problem is actually not seen by the naked eye. It is the reproductive result of these indicators that is of concern.

Molds and yeasts are grouped under a heading of fungus (plural, fungi). Fungus is a primitive plant form that does not contain chlorophyll. Fungi must have a source of food and water to grow. Where there is sufficient food and water, fungi grow and multiply at an astounding rate. It is this growth rate that is one of two conditions for concern. Many fungi grow by expelling (1) spores or (2) small bits of growth material, into the air for creation of colonies in other areas. If these spores or growth material are created in air handling systems for instance, they can be part of the air we breath and can find their way into our bodies, impacting our immune system. The second condition is the dormant stage of fungi. Long after the water has been removed (remember food and moisture are required for growth), colonies can remain quasi-dormant: that is, spores can become air borne by disturbance such as pulling affected books off a shelf, cleaning carpets with a vacuum, removing wall board from affected areas, etc. When this happens, spores can be released and inhaled into the respiratory system where it is moist and may have food sources.

Save the Lampasas River (STLR) will take their concerns over the the state-mandated Competitive Renewable Energy Zones project to the Texas Public Utilities Commission. CREZ is part of a Texas Senate bill to get electricity generated by the wind from the Panhandle and West Texas to the more heavily populated parts of the state. Once completed in 2012, CREZ will have created more than 2,400 miles of high voltage lines transmitting 18,500 megawatts of wind energy. 

STLR says the group recognizes the need for the lines in a booming state, but from its fact gathering has come to the conclusion that there is simply a better place for it. STLR believes it has enough evidence to show there is a better route from the choices available. The group’s expert witness has identified a more northern route out of the 40 options that takes it away from the river. It goes along existing lines and according to Ware, is $9 million cheaper to build.

For more, txfb.org.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of Racine County and Oracular Milwaukee next month. Oracular was hired to install new human resources and payroll software. When the completion date came and went and the system was only 50 percent installed, the county terminated the contract and sued Oracular in Racine County Circuit Court.

The three questions the Supreme Court is expected to address in its review are:

- whether expert testimony is required to prove a breach of contract claim based on a delay in completion when the work to be completed is complex and interdependent.

- the proper analysis of when something is considered a "profession." Under Wisconsin law, if professional services have a different standard required for termination.

- whether people who provide computer software programming services relating to customized software are "professionals" under Wisconsin law.

For more, see www.journaltimes.com.

Seven experts on interrogation techniques, confessions, coercion and juvenile suggestibility are scheduled to testify next month at a hearing that asks for a new trial for the teen convicted of killing Teresa Halbach.  Manitowoc County, WI, Judge Jerome Fox, who presided over Brendan Dassey's two-week trial in 2007, has scheduled five days to hear forensic psychology experts and arguments on a post conviction motion asking for a new trial.

Dassey's legal team says experienced police investigators used "psychologically coercive techniques" on Dassey, who was then a high school sophomore, enrolled in some special education classes.  Police and prosecutors contend Dassey was enrolled in mainly mainstream courses and understood his rights and the implications of his statements.

For more, see greenbaypressgazette.com. 

A new grand jury report on the March fire that killed four of the nine residents of a Hamilton County group home offers some meaningful recommendations to protect the safety of New York’s developmentally disabled citizens, the New York Civil Liberties Union says.  The grand jury report says that a fire origin expert witness has identified the port of origin for the fire as being on the exterior screened porch located on the rear of the building and indicates that the fire started in a trash can on the porch.

In June, the Department of State, Office of Fire Prevention and Control had determined that the cause of the fire was the result of “human action”.  “We submit that this demonstrates the very significant challenge presented in evacuating individuals who do not have self preservation skills. We also submit that these circumstances were reasonably forseeable.” Fire safety in this group home and in the thousands others like it are reviewed by employees who monitor the quality of care provided to residents. They have little training and “cannot in any sense be considered experts in the field,” the report says.

For more, see northcountygazette.org.

The battle of the experts in the Illinois River watershed pollution lawsuit resumed Monday, as the state of Oklahoma challenged claims by an expert witness for the defense that the poultry industry is not to blame for any water-quality problems.  John Connolly, an expert in water quality and pollutant migration, testified Monday that the state's evidence he reviewed indicated that no correlation existed between poultry production and the amount of phosphorus in Lake Tenkiller.

David Page, an attorney for the state, cross-examined Connolly, asking him to comment on a series of scientific studies on which the state has relied in its case against the poultry industry. Page asked Connolly why so many investigators focused on so-called "nonpoint" sources of phosphorus pollution — meaning pollution that doesn't come from one point, such as a wastewater-treatment center — when they examined water quality in the Illinois River watershed.

For more, see tulsaworld.com.

Construction of Norfolk's starter light-rail line is running as much as 41 percent over its original budget, and that has angry local leaders demanding an explanation from Hampton Roads Transit, which manages the project. HRT officials said this week they need $38 million to $40 million more to finish the 7.4-mile transit system, which is just over 50 percent complete.

"We at HRT understand that our business practices need to be revised," said HRT President Michael Townes and stated that HRT has recently hired a transit construction expert and a financial consultant.  Townes noted that the original design of the light-rail project was "bare bones" to meet stringent criteria for federal money. He said the newest budget is close to the price tag HRT estimated several years ago before slashing more than $100 million in a "value engineering" exercise to reduce costs.

For more, see hamptonroads.com. 

Consultants from Bureau Veritas spent parts of late November and early December sampling air pockets, liquids, sludges and solids located in and around Bauer Road and Industrial Boulevard, Wooster, OH, and found that the highest concentration of the stench was coming from EnviroClean Services, 515 Industrial Blvd.

The study found high concentrations of dimethyl sulfide in air quality samples taken both inside and directly outside the facility, and at a rear unloading station. Other samples taken away from the property registered significantly lower levels of the chemical, which became even weaker at greater distances from the facility.

City Law Director Richard Benson said the consultant from Bureau Veritas will be available to testify as an environmental expert witness should the matter come before the courts.  According to the Material Safety Data Sheet on dimethyl sulfide, the effects of overexposure to the chemical can include headache, memory loss, confusion, convulsions, and unconsciousness.

For more, see http://www.the-daily-record.com/

Cory Ledeal King, 52, of Burley, Idaho, was sentenced yesterday to three years probation for violating the Safe Drinking Water Act and making false statements, the United States Attorney's Office announced. Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, sitting in Pocatello, also ordered King to serve four month's home detention and to pay a fine in the amount of $5000.

In April 2009, King was convicted by a federal jury sitting in Pocatello. During the three-day trial, the jury heard evidence that in 2005, King, the farm manager and part owner of the Double C Farms/Lambert Produce cattle feedlot and farm facility located 12 miles south of Burley, Idaho, had ordered his workers to inject excess surface fluids from various sources into at least four deep agricultural irrigation wells at the Double C ranch on numerous occasions.  

According to groundwater expert witnesses and sworn testimony provided at trial, these injections of fluids occurred without having the required Underground Injection Control permit from the State of Idaho Department of Water Resources.  In addition, the jury heard evidence that King lied to a State of Idaho Department of Agriculture inspector, who was inspecting the facility.  The jury found King guilty of four counts of violating the Safe Drinking Water Act and one count of making false statements.

Source: Press Release: U.S. Department of Justice.

On Tuesday, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Associate Judge Kevin Ward ruled in favor of dairyman A.J. Bos in building and operating a large-scale dairy operation in Nora, IL.  23 neighbors and green lobbyists formed Helping Others Maintain Environmental Standards (HOMES) and took the issue to court two years ago, seeking a permanent injunction against the development of Traditions Dairy. 

Geology expert witness Samuel Panno, a staff member of the Illinois Geological Survey and one of the plaintiff’s expert witnesses, said that there were a more tests that could have been performed to provide a more definitive indicator of the presence of karst. The plaintiffs found that the ground water chemistry evaluation, well monitoring, and dye tracing tests were cost prohibitive.

For more, see www.journalstandard.com.

Connie Barton, Peoria of Ill. is one of more than 13,000 people who have sued drug maker Wyeth over the last seven years, claiming in courts across the country that its menopause drugs caused breast cancer and other problems.  In October, a jury in a Pennsylvania state court awarded  Barton $75 million in punitive damages from Wyeth on top of compensatory damages of $3.75 million. Barton says used Prempro in part because her doctor told her it could help prevent heart disease and dementia,

Medical expert Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, an associate professor at the medical school of Georgetown University, considers both Premarin and Prempro examples of drugs that gained widespread popularity before science had established the full extent of their risks. “Where there has always been a push is where there isn’t data,” says Fugh-Berman, an expert witness for plaintiffs in the hormone litigation. “Now, low-dose hormones are being pushed.”

For more, see ocala.com.

A group of plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit over recalled Medtronic Quick-Set infusion sets for its MiniMed insulin pump claiming that the defects in the insulin delivery systems for diabetics caused users to suffer severe injuries and hospitalizations.  The Medtronic insulin pump infusion set lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas on November 30, on behalf of six plaintiffs; five diabetics who used the Medtronic MiniMed insulin pump and one of the plaintiffs’ husbands. All five diabetic plaintiffs allege that they were hospitalized after receiving incorrect insulin dosages from Paradigm Quick-Set infusion sets, designed to work with the MiniMed pumps.

The product liability lawsuit cites an FDA warning letter sent to Medtronic just weeks before the recall which highlighted deficiencies in quality control at its Puerto Rico production facility. According to FDA investigators, the plant had a wide range of problems that included lax testing of products for defects, proper record keeping, as well as not employing a properly trained medical expert for determining the danger of defects.

For more, see aboutlawsuits.com.

Testimony has ended in the Des Moines County Courthouse trial of Dennis Duane Richards Richards, 59. Richards is charged with second-degree murder in connection with the Jan. 4 death of his 46-year-old fiancee and former wife, Cyd Charisse Richards. He also is on trial for second-degree arson on allegations he burned the woman's house shortly after he killed her.  Joe Lestina, a special agent from the Iowa State Fire Marshal's Office, gave the jury a thorough review of how the arson investigation was conducted.

One piece of evidence in particular, an empty gallon bottle of Gatorade seized from Richards' DMC 99 apartment tested positive for gasoline residue.  Lestina said fire cause and origin experts ruled out everything that could cause an accidental fire, including a lightning strike and electrical malfunction.  Data collected from the scene indicated pointed the fire, which started in the woman's basement, was intentionally set "using an open flame on an ordinary combustible material," he said.

For more, see thehawkeye.com.

The a jury was seated in Eldorado, TX, late Wednesday for the trial of Allan Eugene Keate.  Keate will be the second member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to stand trial on a charge of child sexual assault as an outcome of the state’s historic April 2008 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Schleicher County.  Following jury selection Wednesday, 51st District Judge Barbara Walther accepted motions from the lawyers and approved one to exempt expert witnesses from the rule that normally excludes them from being seated in the courtroom and listening to the testimony of other witnesses.

Last month in the same makeshift courtroom, another FLDS member, Raymond Merril Jessop, was sentenced by a Schleicher County jury to 10 years in prison on charges similar to those brought against Keate.

For more, see gosanangelo.com.

An Angelina County, TX, district judge denied a motion to exclude a taped conversation from evidence in the case of two Lufkin counselors accused of lying under oath.  The father involved in the custody case secretly tape recorded the counseling sessions. A motion to keep the tape out of evidence was made by the couple's defense attorneys, claiming that the tape's authenticity was compromised. After listening to testimony from expert witnesses in authenticating voice recordings from both sides, Angelina County District Judge Paul White denied the defense's motion.

For more, see luftkindailynews.com.

A key mortgage modification program facilitated by federal incentives has not only failed to reach the potential envisioned by its founders, but it also has several key flaws that may have destined it for failure from the start, expert witnesses testified to the House Financial Services Committee Tuesday. Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which allocates capped incentives to servicers, lender/investors and borrowers that participate in modification of mortgages at risk of foreclosure, was a large focus of testimony. 

Real estate finance expert witness Anthony Sanders, professor at George Mason University, testified that "In order to facilitate lasting loan modifications, banks must be allowed to gradually write-off losses and the private sector must be allowed to help modifications."

For more, see housingwire.com.

Bipolar patients treated with antiepileptics attempted suicide at the same rate as patients who received no medication or lithium according to Robert D. Gibbons, PhD, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and colleagues. Gibbons has served as a forensic psychiatry expert witness for the US Department of Justice, Wyeth, and Pfizer.  Patients with bipolar disorder who take antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) do not have an increased risk of committing suicide, despite FDA warnings to the contrary, results of a new study showed.

The researches wrote "Despite Food and Drug Administration reports regarding increased risk of suicidality associated with AED treatment, the current study reveals that, as a class, AEDs do not increase risk of suicide attempts in patients with bipolar disorder relative to patients not treated with an AED or lithium." 

For more, see medpagetoday.com.

Warren Buffet's buyout of BNSF has spurred hearings on how and where four cases in Tarrant County, three in Dallas County, and five in Delaware will be consolidated into one class-action lawsuit over the cost of the take over. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway agreed to buy BNSF stock for $100 a share, a 31 percent premium over the previous day’s closing stock market price.

Dallas lawyer Trey Branham said says it’s difficult to predict how the judges will decide where the case should be tried.  Branham said such lawsuits are a way to make sure that small, individual stockholders get a fair return on their investment. The shareholders’ attorneys will seek to have expert witnesses testify that BNSF is worth more than the $100 a share Berkshire has agreed to pay.

For more, see www.star-telegram.com.

The Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission is considering the sale of Verizon Northwest's 487,000 local landline telephone consumers to Frontier Communications Inc.  Public Counsel Sarah Shifley, of the state Attorney General's Office, doesn't think the transaction should be approved, saying that the sale of Verizon could result in a "degradation of service quality."  The public counsel represents residential and small business customers of regulated telecommunications companies in actions before the commission. 

In expert witness testimony filed with the commission the public counsel pointed out Frontier may have a weak financial condition due to the amount of debt it would assume if the sale is approved.  The commission staff members also are concerned Frontier could suffer the same fate as other Verizon spin-offs in Hawaii and New England that have resulted in bankruptcies.

Excerpted from blog.seattlepi.com.

A jury has cleared Dr. Clement Samson K. Banda of any wrongdoing in the death of Thelma Fowler, 81, of Dunkirk. MD. The lawsuit claimed that her death was "directly related and proximately caused by the acts or omission" of the ER doctor.  Fowler was transported to Calvert Memorial Hospital on April 22, 2007, with complaints of chest and abdominal pain. She died three weeks later of sepsis after two operations at Washington Hospital Center. 

Lodowski, the attorney for the Fowlers, called medical expert witness doctors who testified that Fowler presented symptoms of a perforation during her initial ER visit on April 22 around 2:30 a.m. and the chest X-ray taken at that time did not show a fracture, which was the diagnosis. Doctors also testified that more diagnostics should have been performed to identify a perforation in her small intestine that the plaintiffs claim was present during her first ER visit.

For the complete story, see www.somdnews.com.

After issuing an order in October to deny class-action certification because the two plaintiffs did not adequately represent nurses in the Memphis area, U.S. District Judge Samuel H. “Hardy” Mays Sr. is now allowing lawyers for the nurses to make the case for introducing a substitute plaintiff.  The lawyers suing the hospitals are alleging that Memphis hospitals conspired to suppress nurse wages and plan tactical changes by filing a “renewed motion” for class-action status and calling on a different expert witness if Anna Bachelder becomes a substitute plaintiff.

Bachelder, the proposed substitute plaintiff, is a registered nurse at Methodist. Her lawyers have informed the court they plan to file a “renewed motion for class certification.” In addition to being based on the report of expert witness Henry Farber, this new motion will also explore a different track. It will “also seek an alternative certification of a narrowed class based on an additional expert report by Princeton economics expert Professor Orley Ashenfelter,” the lawyers said in a filing. Ashenfelter has submitted expert reports in similar cases alleging nurse wage-fixing in Detroit and Albany, N.Y.  

For more, see memphisdailynews.com.

Oregon lawmakers are considering whether to set new rules for appraisal management companies — a growing but unregulated sector in the real estate industry. Known as AMCs, these companies act as middlemen, taking money and appraisal orders from mortgage lenders and then hiring appraisers.

Richard Hagar, a Washington appraiser and real estate expert witness, says about 10 states have already passed new rules for AMCs, while 10 others are following suit. He says the company Valuation Logistics demonstrates the problems of leaving AMCs unregulated.  There have been complaints about nonpayment by the firm, the address listed on its Web site is no longer valid, and the company appears to be the target of a criminal investigation

For more, see www.bendbulletin.com.