Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog

October 11, 2009

Dartmouth Student Ski Personal Injury Lawsuit can Proceed

The College’s request to end a lawsuit filed after the death of Christina Porter ’06 was denied by a federal judge last week. Porter passed away on Jan. 16, 2005, less than a year after sustaining severe head injuries while taking a skiing class at the Dartmouth Skiway.

The court’s ruling came in response to Dartmouth’s request for summary judgment, in which the judge decides the case without a trial.

Porter was enrolled in a beginning ski class to complete her physical education requirement. During a lesson on Feb. 3, 2004, she skied into a tree and was rushed to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. She remained in a coma for the next six months, and passed away the following January due to complications from her injuries.

October 10, 2009

City Settles Police Employment Discrimination Suits for $18 M

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The city of South Gate has paid out $18 million to settle lawsuits filed by a group of officers who said they faced racially-motivated discrimination, harassment and retaliation in the aftermath of the ouster of a Latino police official in 2002, according to the officers’ attorney.

Sixteen police officers filed suits against South Gate, a working-class, predominantly Latino city with an annual budget of about $100 million, alleging that they were subjected to racial slurs and false internal affairs investigations, unfairly disciplined, and passed up for promotions. Many said they were discriminated because of their association with Rick Lopez, a former acting police chief.

October 10, 2009

MA Supreme Court Reinstates Wal-Mart damages

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The MA state Supreme Judicial Court restored $1 million in punitive damages awarded to a former pharmacist at a Wal-Mart in Pittsfield, who said she was fired after complaining about being paid less than her male colleagues.

The verdict – which also upheld a jury award for more than $700,000 in future wages lost – ends a long battle between Wal-Mart and its onetime employee, Cynthia Haddad, who first sued the retail giant for gender discrimination four years ago.

October 9, 2009

30 W.Va. National Guardsmen sue KBR over alleged chemicals exposure

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Thirty members of the West Virginia National Guard filed a lawsuit in Marshall County Circuit Court, WVA, alleging that they were negligently exposed to a highly toxic chemical as they guarded a rebuilding project in Iraq in 2003.

The lawsuit contends that members of the Moundsville-based 1092nd Engineer Battalion of the West Virginia National Guard were deployed to the Qarmat Ali water plant near Basra from April to June 2003. The soldiers guarded the facility while KBR Inc. contractors repaired the plant.

October 8, 2009

RI Orders Texas-based Southern Union to Pay $18 M in Mercury Storage Case

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The Southern Union gas company was ordered to pay $18 million for illegally storing mercury waste, which was exposed to the public five years ago when vandals stole the hazardous liquid from a rundown building and spilled it at an apartment complex.

U.S. District Judge fined the Texas company $6 million and ordered an additional $12 million in payments to the community, saying it had committed a “serious crime” by storing liquid mercury at a neglected building in Pawtucket without the required permit.

“It must be enough to get the attention of other companies who might be doing the same thing,” the judge said of his penalty.

October 8, 2009

DWI: Wrongful Death Dram Shop Lawsuit AllegesThat Driver Plied With Liquor

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The parents of a grad student killed by a drunken driver will file suit against the Queens cafe where her killer got liquored up before the horrific accident.

“All those responsible for the wrongful death should be held accountable,” said lawyer Sanford Rubenstein, who represents the family of victim Panayiota Demetriou.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages from the Cavo Cafe Lounge on 31st Ave. in Astoria for serving Daryush Omar alcohol “up to and past the point of intoxication.”

Omar, 25, got behind the wheel of his car in the early-morning hours of Nov. 16, 2008, and later barreled through a red light.

October 8, 2009

Glaxo Claims to Have Complied With FDA Rules on Paxil

by Dr. Shezad Malik

GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the U.K.’s largest drugmaker, complied with all U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations in testing and monitoring Paxil, according to a former employee for the agency.

Glaxo reported to the FDA on a regular basis and supplied animal toxicology studies that didn’t indicate the drug could cause birth defects, Judith Jones testified as an expert witness for the company. Jones spent eight years in the FDA’s post- marketing surveillance and drug safety group.

“The FDA was provided all of the reports that GlaxoSmithKline had received on a regular basis and they specifically did not identify a signal,” Jones told jurors in state court. “They provided all the necessary information to the FDA.”
Jones testified toward the end of the first trial over claims Paxil causes birth defects. Michelle David blames her Paxil use for her 3-year-old son’s life-threatening heart defects. She accuses the company of withholding information from consumers and regulators about the risk of birth defects and failing to properly test Paxil.

October 7, 2009

Bayer Sued Over Health Claims About Multivitamin for Men

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A nonprofit health advocacy group wants Bayer correct its marketing techniques — this one involving its Men’s One A Day multivitamin.

The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is suing the German drug giant for allegedly claiming falsely that selenium in the men’s multivitamin might reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, comes on the heels of several multimillion-dollar settlements that Bayer has paid out to resolve claims about misleading advertising. This year, Bayer agreed to run a $20 million corrective advertising campaign about its birth control pill Yaz.

In 2007, it paid a $3.2 million fine over weight loss claims involving its One A Day vitamin as part of a consent decree reached with the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice and another $8 million to resolve allegations, raised by state attorneys general, that it hid safety issues surrounding its cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol.

October 7, 2009

Wrongful Death: Water-Drinking Radio Contestant

by Dr. Shezad Malik

After drinking a gallon and a half of water, Jennifer Strange’s thinking would have been so impaired by the time she left a radio station on the day she died that she might as well have been drunk, according to a doctor who testified.

If medical personnel had been on site at the time she left the studios of KDND “The End” 107.9, they could have advised her that she needed a doctor’s care and she likely would have survived, Dr. George Alan Kaysen testified.

Kaysen said hyponatremia, or acute water intoxication, can be easily treated with an intravenous sodium drip.

October 7, 2009

Teen’s Fatal Overdose Blamed on Fentanyl Patch

by Dr. Shezad Malik

For a 15-year-old, or anybody else, Michael Blankenship had already been through a lot when he arrived at Seattle Children’s hospital for some routine dental work.

What left him dead, was the painkiller-laced patch — meant to ameliorate chronic pain in cancer patients and others — that was prescribed to Blankenship.

Discharged to his mother’s home the day of the March 9 tooth extraction, Blankenship was found dead in his bed the following morning. According to a civil suit filed earlier this month in King County Superior Court, a medical examiner found Blankenship had died from a drug overdose caused by the fentanyl patch.