ThePopTort

If Hypocrisy Made Your Nose Grow…

We’ve all heard the argument by drug companies who  rail against juries for “second-guessing” the “expert” Food & Drug Administration, when unsafe drugs and devices end up on the market.  Well, except when the jury’s on their side, apparently.  Check out this quote from a lawyer representing the Mentor Corporation who won a jury verdict in a case brought by a woman injured by an unsafe surgically-implanted urinary incontinence device.

He says, “We think it’s very telling that a jury can understand the safety and efficacy of the product … We think it’s an important point and shows these particular concepts can be heard by folks that hear all data.”  Ah-huh.  

In other hypocrisy news, Tom Donahue, the CEO and president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been trumpeting his support the $700 Wall Street bailout as a crucial “defibrillator” to an economy that he apparently regards as having had a proverbial heart attack.

As American Association for Justice Chief Executive Jon Haber put it, the U.S. Chamber actively lobbied for the very deregulation that caused the country’s “heart attack.” “The U.S. Chamber has lost all credibility to push self-serving solutions for a crisis they helped create,” said Haber. 

Ponzi Schemes

Lately, the news has been loaded with articles (see here, here, and here) about civil lawsuits expected – with the first one already filed – as investors try to recover their losses from the infamous Bernard L. Madoff $50 billion “ponzi scheme,” which ensnared New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, Daily News Publisher Mort Zuckerman and Mets Owner Fred Wilpon, among countless others.  

We found it more than interesting that the first suit was filed by Irwin Kellner seeking class action status.  Here’s a guy who once advocated so-called “tort reform”, limiting injured patients’ right to sue in order to reduce health care costs.  (Guess he didn’t know that medical malpractice claims and premiums amount to less than 2 percent of health care costs.)

Anywho, now he’s the one running to court. 

But don’t get us wrong.  Just because someone says something “inartful” about lawsuits doesn’t mean he can’t see the light, have a change of heart.   Everyone’s doing it.

In fact, we hope Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) does it too, and soon.  As the New York Times wrote over the weekend, Schumer has been a “champion of Wall Street.”  But that means that he has been busy trying to deregulate (and we know now what a big mistake that was!) as well as seeking severe limits on lawsuits by defrauded investors.  In the 1990s, he even pushed one bill over President Clinton’s veto.

That law, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and its sister, Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act in 1998, both aimed at curtailing lawsuits by injured investors in securities fraud claims, were bad laws and should be repealed.

Healed! Civil Justice Cures What’s Ailing Kaiser Doc

We’ve been writing a lot lately about incompetent doctors and hospitals (see here, here, here, and here), but in civil justice terms, this may be the greatest medical story ever told.

It involves a California-based radiologist named Dr. Michael Martinucci who was forced out of his job for having the gall to complain to a superior about faulty work standards at the Kaiser Sunset Hospital in Hollywood. Reportedly, Dr. Keith Terasaki, the department head to whom Dr. Martinucci complained, responded by telling Martinucci “that it was more important to get along with the staff than to be an extraordinary radiologist.”

Even worse, not long after this exchange, false accusations about Martinucci started to fly. “Among the defamatory remarks falsely attributed to Martinucci were that he wanted to fire all black employees in his department; that he did not like it when blacks dyed their hair certain colors; that Filipinos were dumb as a box of rocks and that Salvadorans have nice legs, but are not very smart.” Eventually Martinucci resigned under the threat of being fired.

And where do you think the good doctor turned to remedy this terrible injustice? You guessed it, civil justice fans! Dr. Martinucci ran straight to the courthouse—suing Kaiser for wrongful termination, failure to promote, and defamation. (Funny how doctors generally tremble at the word “lawsuit,” but undergo miraculous conversions when they’re the ones who get hurt!) In the end, Martinucci was victorious on all counts, collecting both compensatory and punitive damages from Kaiser.

Hallelujah civil justice! And an extra-special special amen to its latest convert, Dr. Michael Martinucci!

Forbes Gives New Meaning to “Doublespeak”

Brace yourselves, civil justice fans—you’re about to hear one of the strangest, most egregious examples of “tort reform” double talk you are ever likely to encounter.

We all know that one of the favorite arguments of the so-called “tort reform” crowd is that the pharmaceutical industry needs complete immunity because without it, the expense of litigation will stifle innovation of new drugs (see here, here, and here).

Well… turns out they don’t really believe that, at least according to the business mag Forbes.  In this article, the magazine argues that lawsuits are simply a “painful, but bearable cost” of doing business for drug companies.  Not exactly stifling.

So which is it? Stifling costs, or no big deal?  Inquiring consumers want to know (although we can see a hoax when we see it.)

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I’ve Got Hypocrisy In My Tummy!

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again.  Exposing hypocrisy is stupendously delicious!  So we’re in a feeding frenzy today over this little item from Texans for Public Justice (TPJ).

According to TPJ,

Lawyers for Dallas billionaire T. Boone Pickens—who spent $1 million over the last four years to slam courtroom doors in the faces of Texas plaintiffs—traveled 1,500 miles this month to file a $60 million lawsuit against the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers. That takes what people in Manhattan, where Pickens filed his lawsuit, call “chutzpah.”

The $1 million that Pickens gave to Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR) [the anti-consumer “tort reform” group] makes him the No. 2 donor to Texas’ biggest special-interest PAC.  On behalf of the wealthy businessmen who bankroll it, TLR promotes severe restrictions on Texas’ civil-justice system.

What makes this story so especially mouth-watering is that T. Boone’s sprint toward the courthouse door was not an unusual occurrence for a TLR member.  By April 1995, shortly after TLR helped lobby for legislation that capped punitive damages, limited governmental and professional liability, undermined joint and several liability and decimated Texas’ Deceptive Claims Practices Act, TLR Board members had themselves filed over 60 lawsuits either personally or as business owners.

Yes, civil justice fans, the jacket of T. Boone’s book, The First Billion is the Hardest, may identify the oil tycoon as the “Oracle of Oil,” but there can be no doubt—he is also a delectable “Harbinger of Hypocrisy.” 

Who ISN'T In Bed With Drug Companies and Medical Device Manufacturers?

With the U.S. Supreme Court about to hear arguments whether drug companies should have complete immunity for putting unsafe drugs on the market, the news has been filled lately with stories about drug and medical device companies and what seems to be their disturbingly cozy relationships with some of the researchers who do reports on drug safety, and even a prominent FDA decision-maker.

For example, FDA officials are now looking into a possible conflict of interest involving University of Michigan professor Martin Philbert, who heads an FDA advisory panel that is set to deliver a “pivotal ruling” on the safety of the (possibly toxic) plastic baby bottle ingredient BPA.

This past summer, the risk science center at Michigan (that Philbert heads) received a $5 million pledge from Charles Gelman, a retired manufacturer of medical equipment who is “openly skeptical” of BPA's risks.  And key members of Congress, expressing alarm over this, are also calling for an investigation.

Meanwhile, the New York Times recently reported that prominent research psychiatrist Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff  “earned more than $2.8 million in consulting arrangements with drug makers from 2000 to 2007, failed to report at least $1.2 million of that income to his university and violated federal research rules.”  (Isn’t research by guys like this likely to end up on the FDA’s desk when it considers a drug’s safety?) 

Coincidently, today’s Times reported that U.S. Senators Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) have sent letters to the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, as well as Columbia University’s Medical Center that is closely connected to the Foundation, asking for “information about its financial relationships with device manufacturers and drug producers.”

To paraphrase Hamlet, something seems rotten in the state of the medical world.  Let’s hope the U.S. Supreme Court takes that under advisement when it decides later this term whether drug companies should be completely immune from lawsuits over dangerous and defective drugs.

SNL Slams AIG

Regular readers of ThePopTort know we like to remark from time to time on the greed and mismanagement of insurance giant AIG. Now Saturday Night Live has gotten into the act. Check out this link—the AIG material begins about 2/3 of the way through the clip at the “2:14” mark….

Corporate Hypocrisy Exposed! Yum!

Regular readers of ThePopTort know we find few things more delicious than exposing corporate hypocrisy (here, here, here).  You also know how critical we have been of mandatory arbitration clauses that so often deny justice to injured consumers (here, here, here).

You can imagine then, how we’ve been feasting on a recent study profiled
in the New York Times that found corporate executives who “routinely sing the praises of
arbitration clauses” when dealing with consumers, seldom impose such
agreements upon themselves.

The study, that included contracts by 21 different telecommunications
and financial service companies, found mandatory arbitration clauses
jammed into 75 percent of consumer agreements, but just 24 percent of
contracts overall. And in previous studies, the report’s authors found
that just 11 percent of companies used arbitration clauses when
contracting with fellow businesses.

Companies say that arbitration is “a fair and cost-saving process,” said
Theodore Eisenberg, a law professor from Cornell and one of the study’s
authors, but “if they believe that is true across the board, why don’t
they insist on it when they contract with one another?”

Oh, I don’t know—could it be…hypocrisy?

Note From Insurers: “Do As I Say, Not As I Do”

We have often blogged about how “tort reform” movement is full of hypocrites (here, here) – people and corporations who complain about lawsuits brought by injured consumers.  But as soon as they think someone harmed them in some way, what do they do?  They run straight to the courthouse door! 

Now there’s a new hypocrite on the block - the insurance industry.  No bigger “tort reform” proponents than insurance companies, that’s for sure.

It seems health insurers and health plans felt ripped off by GlaxoSmithKline over their drug Paxil.  And so they sued!  Glaxco just settled with them for about $40 million dollars!

How so very fantastic for them!  It should add nicely to the zillions of dollars they already make.

In the News

Great piece in Forbes, called “How caps on medical malpractice cases hurt the most vulnerable victims.”

LA Times analysis about the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case to decide if drug companies that produce defective or dangerous drugs should be immune from lawsuits.  “If the ruling this fall is made for the defendant – the pharmaceutical company Wyeth – it would tilt the playing field largely in favor of the pharmaceutical industry...” says the paper.

Hospitals suing tobacco companies!

Corporate lawyers for Chevron indicted by the Ecuadorean government “accused of being part of a conspiracy to fraudulently certify that Chevron predecessor Texaco had completed the cleanup of more than 100 mines in the Ecuadorean rainforest in the 1990s. The government released Chevron from liability on the basis of those certifications.” 

Drug company influence on the medical profession is something we all know about – but here’s more proof. "The influence that the pharmaceutical companies, the for-profits, are having on every aspect of medicine ... is so blatant now you'd have to be deaf, blind and dumb not to see it," said Journal of the American Medical Association editor Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, a longtime industry critic. "We have just allowed them to take over, and it's our fault, the whole medical community."

State Farm agrees to settle major Katrina lawsuit.

Civil rights lawsuit by man recovering from intestinal surgery, against police who tore out his catheter during a police search.

Wyoming lawmakers discuss severe problems with the state’s workers compensation system.

Illegal spying lawsuit still going forward against phone giants and government – for now!