Another two defendants pleaded guilty in the Fayette, Miss. fen-phen fraud case (see Nov. 14, Oct. 20 and links from there), including one who’d previously been vocal in proclaiming her innocence. Eva Johnson, 55, “allegedly bought a Jaguar with some of the $2.75 million she helped relatives claim” from makers of the diet-drug combination; she “told [federal judge William] Barbour [Jr.] she takes medication for schizophrenia.” (Jimmie E. Gates, “Two more plead guilty in Fen-Phen fraud case”, Jackson Clarion Ledger, Dec. 29; “2 charged in Fen-Phen case plead guilty”, Dec. 30). Another participant in the scheme, Lillie M. Walker, was sentenced to ten months in federal prison and restitution of $250,000 for her role. (Jeremy Hudson, “Woman sentenced in Fen-Phen scam”, Dec. 22).
Author Archive
Update: Molski, Frankovich unabashed
In California last month (see Dec. 12) federal judge Edward Rafeedie ruled that perennial ADA plaintiff Jarek Molski is a “vexatious litigant” who runs a “scheme of systematic extortion” by filing mass disabled-rights complaints; Rafeedie also sharply criticized Molski’s lawyer, Thomas Frankovich. But that doesn’t seem to have cramped the duo’s style much: Frankovich says he intends, on behalf of Molski, to “refile a lawsuit against Peachy Canyon Winery within two weeks in state Superior Court, asking for money because the tasting room didn’t comply with the ADA when he visited in 2003. ‘We’ve got to get compensated for the work we did to fix it,’ Frankovich said. ‘We went out and had an expert inspect it, told them what was wrong and tried to get a settlement.'” The winery’s lawyer says it is now in compliance with ADA standards, but Frankovich says that wasn’t the case in 2003. (Ryan Huff, “Winery will face ADA suit again”, San Luis Obispo Tribune, Jan. 5). (& letter to the editor, Mar. 15 (another frequent Calif. ADA filer)).
WorldCom directors’ settlement
Larry Ribstein has a commentary (Jan. 6) on the just-announced WorldCom settlement, in which ten of the company’s directors, notably including prominent former Georgetown Law School dean Judith Areen, agreed to contribute $18 million from their own personal funds toward the settlement of investors’ class action claims arising from the company’s giant accounting scandal. Update Jan. 12: following closely on the heels of the WorldCom settlement, Enron directors agreed to a settlement likewise throwing personal funds into the kitty; in this case the semi-celebrity outside director who settled was Wendy Lee Gramm. Ribstein again comments.
Tune in: CNN, Wisconsin radio
I’m scheduled as a guest tomorrow on CNN Saturday Morning (8-9 a.m. Eastern time slot), discussing recent developments in criminal cases such as the overturning of Andrea Yates’s conviction (as opposed to civil litigation, my more usual topic)(more on criminal law). And today at around 2:35 p.m. Central I’m scheduled to appear on Madison, Wisc.’s WIBA radio, discussing President Bush’s medical malpractice proposals (more on medicine and law).
“Judge to hubby: forget prenup, pay up”
Donna Austin, 37 at the time, signed a prenuptial agreement waiving alimony before marrying Craig Austin back in 1989, in what was a second marriage for both parties. Nonetheless, a Massachusetts appeals court has decided that her alimony waiver is “unreasonable” and will not be enforced. A lawyer for Craig Austin says his client plans appeal and says Donna Austin benefited substantially from the division of property assets from the marriage. (David Weber, Boston Herald, Dec. 30). And the New Jersey Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether Craig Caplan, who retired in his 30s with a so-called silver parachute, should be obliged to return to the work force to pay increased child support, thus sparing his ex-wife Sandra the need to dip into her $2.4 million divorce settlement; for more on the “imputed-income” doctrine, see Sept. 18, 2003 (Michael Booth, “In Divorce Case, Early Retiree Gets Tangled in Silver Parachute”, New Jersey Law Journal, Oct. 6).
Conference next Thursday: lessons of the 9/11 fund
Next Thursday, Jan. 13, the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Legal Policy is giving a half-day symposium in Washington, D.C. on “The 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund: Successes, Failures, and Lessons for Tort Reform”. The event is at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill and runs from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. (agenda and registration). I’ll be on the second of the day’s two panels with very brief remarks responding to the primary paper(s). Among notable panelists are Yale Law’s Peter Schuck and Robert Reville, director of the Rand Institute for Civil Justice; Kenneth Feinberg, Special Master of the 9/11 Fund, will deliver the luncheon address.
Suing New York City
Some of the characters who’ve sued the New York City government in cases previously unremarked on this site:
* The alleged wife-beater who, on being arrested by police, stumbled drunkenly down the stairs and broke his ankle, though he got nothing from a Manhattan jury;
* The legally blind Bronx man who “drove his car into a concrete barrier” and sued arguing that better lighting might have prevented the accident;
* The man who sued for wrongful arrest after being charged with buying a stolen SUV at a city airport parking lot for $75; he claimed in his unsuccessful suit (PDF) that he thought that was a legitimate sale price;
* The “two inmates who shot themselves with a smuggled handgun in their Rikers Island jail cells — and sued. (A guard was responsible, they argued before a judge kicked out their case.) ”
Meanwhile, a 1998 jury award of $76.4 million to remains on appeal; that’s the one where “a reputed Bronx gang member [was] left paralyzed by a gunfight with an off-duty police officer. The city argued that the officer only returned fire after the plaintiff shot at him with a Tech-9 submachine gun.” (Larry McShane, “Who Do You Call When Someone Says ‘Sue the City’? Meet Michael Cardozo”, AP/New York Lawyer, Dec. 20). Two other cases won by the city this summer, not mentioned in the article: this excessive-force case (PDF) involving a Bronx man who tried to escape two officers in a high-speed chase (more high-speed chase cases); and this slip-fall accident (also PDF) in which the locus and circumstances of the injury seemed mysteriously to have revised themselves in a manner unfavorable to the city. (More on suits against New York City.)
MSNBC’s “Abrams Report” tonight
I’m scheduled to be a guest on MSNBC’s “Abrams Report” tonight at 6 p.m. Eastern, discussing the impact of litigation on society.
Vioxx-suit spam
The first three instances I’ve seen of spam promoting Vioxx litigation crossed my desk Dec. 28. The three emails used different names as the supposed sender, different “word salad” strings (“celandine bolshoi mandamus buckley tetragonal malleable”) aimed at baffling spam filters, and different subject lines (“Been hurt by Vii0xx? – Claim #565014”, “Make your claim against Vii0xx and Merck – Claim #206614”, and “Get what you deserve from Vii0xx and Merck – Claim #4978”). However, all three were evidently from the same sender, since they all contained the same core message: “Merck & Co., Inc. announced a voluntary withdrawal of Vii0xx from the U.S. and worldwide market due to safety concerns of an increased risk of cardiovascular events (including heart attack and stroke) in patients on Vii0xx. If you or a family member has experienced an adverse cardiovascular event after taking Vii0xx, please file your claim at:…” followed by links to one of two (apparently identical) websites at http://www.worldwideteamwork.com/notice and http://www.whereitallhappens.com/notice .
And what of this website to which spam-responders are steered? It contains no ads; it does contain some standard-looking information about the drug recall; but its main purpose appears to be to get persons interested in pursuing Vioxx claims to submit their names and contact information. A subpage (http://www.worldwideteamwork.com/notice/how_to_file.htm) announces, “Simply fill out the form below and a lawyer will immediately contact you to determine whether your claim will meet the necessary requirements.” Perhaps the creators of the site believe they can find lawyers willing to pay for leads generated that way, or are already in touch with such lawyers. According to Forbes (David Whelan, “Ambulance Chasing, Web-Style”, Dec. 27, at KeepMedia), lawyers are paying up to $15.03 for each clicked-on ad with a Vioxx keyword at Yahoo’s search engine, and $30.17 for a “Vioxx heart attack” click.
For the recent controversy over the “Get your million dollars” Vioxx website, which was much more lurid in content but whose proprietor was not alleged to have dabbled in spam, see Nov. 15, Nov. 18 and Dec. 22.
P.S. Reader Keith Williams writes to say that according to a WHOIS search, the web sites www.worldwideteamwork.com and www.whereitallhappens.com, mentioned above, are owned by the same registrant, Riverside News of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
“Marvel Battles Role Players”
City of Heroes, an entry in the “massively multiplayer online game” category pioneered by Sony’s Everquest, allows its nearly 200,000 participants to “bring the world of comic books alive” by inventing characters and selecting names, costumes and powers for them; the characters then interact with other players’ characters. Some users choose to imitate established comic-book heroes in creating their characters. In November, comic-book publisher Marvel Entertainment sued the site’s proprietor. According to Marvel’s complaint (PDF, courtesy Electronic Frontier Foundation), “Defendants’ Creation Engine facilitates and, indeed, encourages players to create and utilize heroes that are nearly identical in name, appearance and characteristics to characters belonging to Marvel” and the site is responsible for “directly, contributorily and vicariously infringing upon Marvel copyrights and trademarks”. Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing, a veteran of online free-speech fights, counters: “Asking City of Heroes to police their users to ensure that they don’t replicate Marvel characters is like asking a school to police its students to make sure none of them show up for Halloween in a homemade Spider-Man costume.” (Daniel Terdiman, Wired News, Nov. 16; Fred von Lohmann, “Et tu, Marvel?”, Law.com, Dec. 3 (contemplating a future offense of “pretending without a license”)).