When Judges Don’t Know Everything - NYTimes.com

Linda Greenhouse on judicial imperfection.  - gwc
When Judges Don’t Know Everything - NYTimes.com:
Judge Richard Posner, on judging:

“By self-awareness and discipline, a judge can learn not to allow his sympathies or antipathies to influence his judicial votes – unduly. But the qualification in ‘unduly’ needs to be emphasized. Many judges would say that nothing ‘outside the law,’ in the narrow sense that confines the word to the texts of formal legal documents, influences their judicial votes at all. Some of them are speaking for public consumption, and know better. Those who are speaking sincerely are fooling themselves.”

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Study: U.S. Hospitals Admit 7,500 Kids A Year With Gunshot Wounds

Study: U.S. Hospitals Admit 7,500 Kids A Year With Gunshot Wounds:

A new study says that each year approximately 7,500 children are admitted to U.S. hospitals with gunshot wounds and more than 500 children die during hospital admission from these injuries.

An abstract of the study, titled "United States Gunshot Violence--Disturbing Trends," was presented on Sunday by researchers at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, Fla. The study also found that states with higher numbers of firearm ownership had higher proportions of childhood gunshot wounds.
"Handguns account for the majority of childhood gunshot wounds and this number appears to be increasing over the last decade," Arin Madenci, MD, MPH, the author's lead study, said in a statement issued by the AAP. "Furthermore, states with higher percentages of household firearm ownership also tended to have higher proportions of childhood gunshot wounds, especially those occurring in the home."

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Penn State to Pay $59.7 Million to 26 Sandusky Victims - NYTimes.com

Penn State to Pay $59.7 Million to 26 Sandusky Victims - NYTimes.com: "Rodney A. Erickson, the president of the university, issued a statement calling the announcement a step forward for victims and the school.
“We cannot undo what has been done, but we can and must do everything possible to learn from this and ensure it never happens again at Penn State,” said Erickson, who announced on the day Sandusky was convicted in June 2012 of 45 criminal counts that Penn State was determined to compensate his victims."



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New Case Management Order in New Jersey DePuy ASR Recall Litigation Extends Discovery to June 2014, More than 650 Metal Hip Lawsuits Filed in Consolidated Proceeding

New Case Management Order in New Jersey DePuy ASR Recall Litigation Extends Discovery to June 2014, More than 650 Metal Hip Lawsuits Filed in Consolidated Proceeding: "A new order has been issued in a consolidated DePuy ASR lawsuit litigation (http://www.depuy-asr-hip-recall.com/) currently underway in New Jersey’s Bergen County Superior Court, Bernstein Liebhard LLP reports.
According to a Case Management Order filed with the Court on October 17th, discovery for all matters related to the DePuy ASR metal-on-metal hip replacement has been extended to 2014. This follows a discovery end date for 2013, which will expire on or before the end of the year. Further discussion of discovery deadlines will take place at the consolidated proceeding’s next status conference on November 21, 2013, the order states.
Court records indicate that over 650 DePuy ASR recall lawsuits have been filed in the New Jersey litigation, and similarly allege that the metal-on-metal hip, which was taken off the market in August 2010 after it became associated with excessively high early failure rates, may cause serious complications in recipients. (In Re DePuy ASR Hip Implants Litigation, BER-L-3971-11)"



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Watch PBS Frontline: League of Denial | Dave Pear's Blog

Watch PBS Frontline: League of Denial | Dave Pear's Blog: "Last night, PBS aired their full two-hour documentary League of Denial on Frontline and the accompanying book from Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru is now available online at Amazon: League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth."



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Jury Finds Bank of America Liable in Mortgage Program Nicknamed the 'Hustle' - NYTimes.com

Jury Finds Bank of America Liable in Mortgage Program Nicknamed the 'Hustle' - NYTimes.com:
by Landon Thomas, Jr.

Bank of America, one of the country’s largest banks, was found liable on Wednesday for having purposely sold defective mortgages, a result that will be seen as a victory for the government in its aggressive effort to hold large American banks accountable for their role in the housing crisis.

Moreover, the jury also found a top executive at Bank of America’s Countrywide unit liable, pinning some — if not all – of the responsibility for the bad acts on an individual.

During the trial, federal prosecutors accused Rebecca Mairone, a top executive at Countrywide at the time, of having opted for quantity over quality in its mortgage writing program, which resulted in the bank churning out housing loans that were destined to fail.

In its case, federal lawyers claimed that Ms. Mairone, who now works at JPMorgan Chase, led a program nicknamed the “hustle,” derived from HSSL, or the “high-speed swim lane.” The program linked bonuses to how fast bankers could originate loans. As a result, the credit quality of the borrower was given short shrift, the government contended. When these loans were sold on to mortgage giants like Fannie Mae andFreddie Mac, they failed, generating more than $1 billion in losses.

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The Great Coronary Angioplasty Debate: Giving Patients the Right to Speak | The Health Care Blog

Informed consent.  Progress away from Father Knows Best is slow. - gwc
The Great Coronary Angioplasty Debate: Giving Patients the Right to Speak | The Health Care Blog:
by Nortin hadler, MD
Univeristy of North Carolina, School of Medicine

"I don’t, and don’t want to sit on guidelines panels. I don’t, and don’t want to sit on the committees that define the indemnifiable. I want to urge my patient to feel empowered to ask, “How certain are you that…will benefit me and what is the basis for that degree of certainty?” I want to educate my patient so that they can actively listen to the answer.
When it comes to angioplasty with or without stenting for STEMI or any other manifestation of coronary artery (or carotid or renovascular) disease, I want my patient to understand that this is not a lottery. You are as likely, or nearly as likely, to do well without the procedure as with it and will be spared the down-side. If they are so educated, even if they value the “nearly” prospect that I discount for myself, I have served them well."

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Concurring Opinions » Victim compensation: different visions for different victims

Massacres yield more public support than other tragedies. - GWC
Concurring Opinions » Victim compensation: different visions for different victims:
by Prof. Julie Goldscheid

"This month’s deadline for filing claims with the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund (the “Fund”), has caused me to review how victim compensation has evolved since Congress created the Fund in 2001, in response to the World Trade Center attacks.  The Fund responded to widespread sympathy toward survivors and surviving family members, and provided compensation for economic and non-economic losses resulting from the attacks, in return for waiver of the right to sue for damages.  By 2004, when the original Fund closed, it had paid over $7.049 billion (in public funds) to survivors of those who died in the attacks and to those who were injured in the attacks or the subsequent rescue efforts.  In 2011, Congress reactivated the Fund and expanded its scope to cover additional injured persons and to provide medical treatment and monitoring for 9/11-related health conditions.
The combination of government-supported and philanthropic resources available to survivors of the 9/11 contrasts sharply with the resources available to survivors of other crimes. "

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OTHERWISE: Major NJ firms: Laterals and Clerks Dominate New-Associate Ranks, Study Finds

OTHERWISE: Major NJ firms: Laterals and Clerks Dominate New-Associate Ranks, Study Finds:



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The McDonald's Coffee Case

The urban legend of the McDonald's coffee case. Watch the video.  - gwc
The McDonald's spilled coffee case

RETRO REPORT

Scalded by Coffee, Then News Media

In 1992, Stella Liebeck spilled scalding McDonald’s coffee in her lap and later sued the company, attracting a flood of negative attention. It turns out there was more to the story.

New, Young Help for Poor in Infamous Bronx Courts - NYTimes.com

Jeffrey Skinner, Columbia 2L, and Philip Hamilton, Esq. - Bronx Defenders representing Geraldine Rojas in Bronx Criminal Court

New, Young Help for Poor in Infamous Bronx Courts - NYTimes.com:
by E.C. Gogolak

On a recent afternoon in the South Bronx, Cordice Smith, a 79-year-old Korean War veteran wearing a Yankees hat, was standing in the tiled lobby of his apartment building — something he no longer takes for granted. Earlier this year, he almost lost his home after receiving a letter from his landlord’s lawyer: an eviction notice.

Justice Denied

Articles in this series explore the Bronx's dysfunctional court system.

Related

• Bronx Courts Trim Big Backlog, With Outside Judge at the Helm(July 30, 2013)

Connect With NYTMetro

Follow us on Twitterand like us on Facebookfor news and conversation.

The landlord claimed that Mr. Smith, who had pleaded guilty two years earlier to cocaine possession, had used his apartment to sell drugs, and so could be evicted. Kemper Diehl, a third-year Columbia Law School student, argued otherwise.

Mr. Diehl was one of a group of Columbia law students interning with the Bronx Defenders, an organization that provides free legal services to the indigent, working in the trenches of the borough’s notoriously sluggish and dysfunctional court system, where there are hardly enough lawyers to go around and cases can drag on for years....

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Another DePuy ASR Metal on Metal Hip Lawsuit Settles Quietly | Dallas-Fort Worth Legal Examiner | Dallas-Fort Worth Texas Personal Injury Lawyer

Another DePuy ASR Metal on Metal Hip Lawsuit Settles Quietly | Dallas-Fort Worth Legal Examiner | Dallas-Fort Worth Texas Personal Injury Lawyer: "According to court records, Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary DePuy, has settled another DePuy ASR metal-on-metal hip implant lawsuit. The lawsuit, MacDonald et al v. DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. et al, filed in the Bergen County division of the New Jersey Superior Court, is set to be dismissed once the court receives formal notice from both sides.

Judge Brian Martinotti, who is overseeing the New Jersey litigation, annouced that the case “has been resolved.”  wrote. “All pending motions are withdrawn, the complaint will be dismissed with prejudice upon receipt of a fully executed stipulation signed by all counsel,” Martinotti wrote."



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The Myth of the Medical-Device Tax - NYTimes.com

The Myth of the Medical-Device Tax - NYTimes.com: "The medical-device industry faces virtually no price competition. Because of confidentiality agreements that manufacturers require hospitals to sign, the prices of the devices are cloaked in secrecy. This lack of transparency impedes hospitals from sharing price information and thus knowing whether they are getting a good deal.

Even worse, manufacturers often maintain personal relationships (sometimes involving financial payments like consulting fees) with physicians who choose the medical devices that their hospitals purchase, creating a conflict of interest. Physicians often don’t even know the costs of the devices, and individual physicians often choose devices on their own, which weakens a hospital’s ability to bargain for volume discounts."



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After Decades, a Water Tunnel Can Now Serve All of Manhattan - NYTimes.com

After Decades, a Water Tunnel Can Now Serve All of Manhattan - NYTimes.com: "There have been 350-pound steel cutters, a 70-foot-long tunnel-boring machine and heaps of Manhattan schist. There have been generations of workers, known as sandhogs, charged with blasting through, hearing be damned, then resurfacing above ground to find, as one worker observed in 1973, that “you’re still shouting” long after a return home.
And there have been deaths, 24 of them, for many years “a man a mile,” in sandhog parlance. For those with decades of experience underground, or who had fathers or uncles or even grandfathers who toiled in one of the three tunnels, the memories are resilient enough to preclude even the faintest discussion of the better fortunes of recent years."


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A Regulator Cuts Its New Teeth on JPMorgan in 'London Whale' Case - NYTimes.com

A Regulator Cuts Its New Teeth on JPMorgan in 'London Whale' Case - NYTimes.com:

Updated, 8:49 p.m. | Lobbying groups for Wall Street’s biggest banks cautioned that a new rule before the nation’s commodities trading regulator “could have myriad unintended adverse consequences.” A hedge fund trade group feared that the rule was “overly aggressive.” And the CME Group, one of the world’s largest futures exchanges, warned that the rule was susceptible to legal action.
Now, roughly two years after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission adopted the rule, lowering the legal requirement for proving that financial firms manipulate the markets, Wall Street is feeling the effects of the rule it fought so hard to tame.

The agency announced on Wednesday thatJPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank, agreed to pay $100 million and admit wrongdoing to settle an investigation into market manipulation involving the bank’s multibillion-dollar trading loss in London.
JPMorgan’s trading activity was so voluminous that the bank was recklessly “employing a manipulative device” in the market for swaps, which are financial contracts that allowed the bank to bet on the health of companies like American Airlines. The bank sold “a staggering volume of these swaps in a concentrated period,” the trading commission said.

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Claims administrator ordered to halt oil spill claims payments | Legal Newsline

Claims administrator ordered to halt oil spill claims payments | Legal Newsline

Here is the Order

: "NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) — U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier has ordered claims administrator Patrick Juneau to immediately stop business-related loss payments connected to the 2010 BP oil spill.

NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) — U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier has ordered claims administrator Patrick Juneau to immediately stop business-related loss payments connected to the 2010 BP oil spill.

Barbier

Barbier, who is overseeing the case at the Eastern District of Louisiana, made the ruling Friday — a day after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with BP concerning the way funds were being paid out under the Court Supervised Settlement Program under the leadership of Juneau.

BP claims Juneau misinterpreted the settlement agreement and allowed businesses that could show little or no economic damages to receive payments. While business claims will be suspended for the time being, all other claims will be allowed to be processed.

“This order is issued only as an immediate and interim measure until the Court is able to confer with and receive input from the parties in order to confect an appropriate ‘narrowly tailored’ preliminary injunction order as instructed by the Fifth Circuit,” Barbier wrote."
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Settlements Totaling $688 Million Approved in Merck Vytorin Suits

Settlements Totaling $688 Million Approved in Merck Vytorin Suits:
by Mary Pat Gallagher // New Jersey Law journal

A federal judge in Newark on Tuesday gave final approval to a $688 settlement of litigation over the cholesterol drug Vytorin.Class counsel called the settlement the largest ever in a securities-fraud against a pharmaceutical company.It resolves investors' claims that Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. concealed clinical trial results showing that the drug was no more effective than cheaper alternatives.Vytorin is a combination of Zetia and the generic drug simvastatin. The plaintiffs claimed losses from a two-year delay in the release of results from a study that found no benefit from Vytorin over use of simvastatin alone.U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh signed off on the settlement in dual actions, captioned In re Schering-Plough Corp./ENHANCE Securities Litigation and In re Merck & Co. Vytorin/Zetia Securities Litigation.

Read more: http://www.law.com/jsp/nj/PubArticleNJ.jsp?id=1202621916424&Settlements_Totaling_688_Million__Approved_in_Merck_Vytorin_Suits#ixzz2gfWwO4XQ

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OTHERWISE: Partial win for BP in appeal of benefit calculations

OTHERWISE: Partial win for BP in appeal of benefit calculations:
Two Circuit Court rulings require the MDL Court to modify how settlements are calculated and to clarify the record regarding divergent effects of accrual-basis vs. cash-basis accounting on Gulf Oil Spill settlement calculation.



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Coronary-Stenting Abuse Cases Highlighted in Bloomberg Story

Reported by theheart.org - Medscape Cardiology

Coronary-Stenting Abuse Cases Highlighted in Bloomberg Story:

NEW YORK, NY — An article in yesterday's financial press surveys recent high-profile cases of alleged coronary-stenting overuse, described by a sources as "just the tip of the iceberg," and alternates them with stories from some of the patients involved[1]. Although there are a few comments from leaders in the cardiology community that try to put the cases in perspective, the 3500-word story ultimately portrays a subspecialty too often abused by practitioners bending or ignoring the guidelines in pursuit of procedure-based profits.
"When stents are used to restore blood flow in heart-attack patients, few dispute they are beneficial," notes the story from reporters Peter Waldman, David Armstrong, and Sydney P Freedberg published yesterday in Bloomberg BusinessWeek . But heart attacks account for only about half of stenting procedures, it notes.
"Among the other half —elective-surgery patients in stable condition—overuse, death, injury, and fraud have accompanied the devices' use as a go-to treatment," the article says, citing "thousands of pages of court documents and regulatory filings, interviews with 37 cardiologists and 33 heart patients or their survivors, and more than a dozen medical studies."
Coronary stenting "belongs to one of the bleakest chapters in the history of Western medicine,” the article quotes Dr Nortin Hadler (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill).

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