As originally reported by John Hochfelder, March 12, 2002 was a fateful day for Thomas Dockery. Dockery was a Verizon employee and generally healthy 34 year old.

Sadly, while sleeping one night, he suffered from a grand mal seizure and was hurried to the hospital.

According to Hochfelder:

“At the hospital, a CT scan was interpreted as normal. An MRI two days later, though, was interpreted as showing a lesion that seemed to be a glioma (a central nervous system tumor) and Dockery was immediately referred to M. Chris Overby, M.D., a neurosurgeon, who concurred. A second opinion from Philip Gutin, M.D. of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan corroborated Dr. Overby’s diagnosis and surgery was set for March 25th.

A pre-surgical MRI on March 24th, though, indicated an inconsistent massive edema of the brain and Dockery underwent a craniotomy the next day during which pus in the lesion area was removed and found to be a non-tumorous abscess that had grown rapidly during the prior several days and caused an edema that produced herniation of the brain.”

Unfortunately, despite the treatment, Mr. Dockery suffered from severe aphasia which damaged his comprehension of language and ability to retain memory.

Dockery sued the two doctors who were responsible for his treatment, men by the names of Dr. Overby and Dr. Gutin.

Throughout a complicated trial process, an original finding of over $100 million dollars was eventuall reduced to just over $5 million. The general consensus was that Mr. Dockery’s injuries warranted compensation, but that some of the original monetary values were grossly inflated.

One of the large takeaways from this case is the unpredictability of brain surgery, and the difficulties faced by both patients and doctors throughout these procedures.

* * *

If you’d like to learn more about the legal aspects of brain surgery, or if you need a representative, consult The Brain Injury Defense Attorneys at Dolan Legal.

March 10, 2010

By Russell Carter, Womack Publishing Service

A Gretna woman filed a $15 million lawsuit Thursday in Pittsylvania County Circuit Court on behalf of her 12-year-son who drowned in 2008 at Smith Mountain Lake State Park.

Dora Mae Henley is suing Sycamore Baptist Church and the Commonwealth of Virginia, along with lifeguards, chaperones and a park ranger.

Henley’s son, Marvin Strickland Jr., was at Smith Mountain Lake State Park with a youth group from Sycamore Baptist Church when he drowned Aug. 7, 2008.

Strickland was found in 6-7 feet of water around 20 feet from the shore.

The Virginia Conservation and Recreation Department, which investigated the drowning, estimated Strickland had been missing about 15 minutes before lifeguards began searching for the youth.

After Strickland was reported missing, lifeguards removed everyone from the water and began diving in the area the boy was last seen.

He was found 20-30 minutes later.

In addition to Sycamore Baptist Church, the lawsuit names Kathy Mohilan, director of youth programs for the church, as well as adult chaperones Lonnie Rowland, Cindy Rowland and Annie Rowland Jones.

Others named in the lawsuit include Anna Woodford, the head lifeguard at the park; lifeguards Joey Nance and Austin Wood; and park ranger Meredith Bennett.

According to the lawsuit, Strickland was among six children from Sycamore Baptist Church who went swimming at the state park.

“When taking the youth group, including Master Strickland, on the trip to the state park, the adult chaperones, and each of them individually, expressly or impliedly assumed duties to supervise and care for Master Strickland for the duration of the trip,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit claims the chaperones were responsible for Strickland’s care on the trip, lifeguards were responsible for watching the boy while he was in the park and the park ranger was responsible for making sure lifeguards were properly trained.

Henley, who is represented by the Roanoke law firm of Crandall & Katt, is seeking $15 million for sorrow and grief, loss of her son’s income and his funeral expenses.

The plaintiff also asked for $350,000 in punitive damages.

February 7, 2010

Middletown, Connecticut (CNN) — Five people were killed and at least 12 were injured in a gas explosion Sunday at an under-construction power plant in central Connecticut, local officials said.

Residents up to 20 miles away reported hearing the blast at about 11:19 a.m. at the Kleen Power Plant in Middletown, a suburb of Hartford, Connecticut.

“There is no present or continuing threat to anybody from either substances getting into the atmosphere or of a possible subsequent explosion,” Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano said, adding terrorism has been ruled out.

He said plant workers were purging a natural gas pipeline when the explosion occurred.

“Urban search-and-rescue teams are on the premises … with dogs, attempting to locate and account for further victims,” Giuliano said.

It’s unknown how many people were working in the plant, which was about 95 percent complete, at the time of the explosion. Multiple contractors were involved in the project, Giuliano said, complicating efforts to account for those who may have been on the site.

“[Each contractor] has their own foreperson, their own employee list, so we’re trying to sort that out,” Giuliano said.

Deputy Fire Marshal Al Santostefano said later Sunday that no one has come forward with any names of missing people and dogs have not detected signs of life beneath the rubble left by the explosion.

The plant was expected to go online this summer, Giuliano said.

Santostefano initially said about 50 people, most of them construction workers, were working at the time, but Giuliano said “we don’t know that as a hard number right now.”

“What I’ve been told by the owners of the project is that there could be anywhere from 100 to 200 people working on the site on any given day,” Giuliano said.

But Santostefano later said the numbers Giuliano cited were weekday figures, and he repeated his estimate of 50 to 60 people at the site Sunday when the explosion occurred. He said he thought most of those escaped the blast.

A no-fly zone was established over the site because of the unstable structure, Gov. Jodi Rell announced Sunday night.

Middlesex Hospital in Middletown said it received 11 patients from the explosion. One patient with serious injuries was flown to a hospital in Hartford, and another was transferred to Yale New Haven Hospital, according to a statement on Middlesex’s Web site. Two others had minor injuries and were treated and released. The remaining seven patients sustained injuries “mainly to the extremities, including broken bones, blunt trauma and abdominal pains,” the statement said.

Emergency room physician Dr. Jonathan Bankoff told reporters that some patients reported being thrown 30 or 40 feet by the blast.

Two people were airlifted directly to the Hartford hospital from the scene, Middlesex spokesman R. Brian Albert said. A center was being set up at Middletown’s City Hall for relatives of plant workers, he said.

As of late Sunday afternoon, the hospital said it was not expecting more patients from the plant.

After the explosion, it took a while for emergency crews to get into the plant, Santostefano said, because the plant was on fire and the natural gas had to be turned off at the source. No major incidents at the site had been reported since construction began there a couple of years ago, he said.

People miles away reported hearing or feeling the blast.

“It felt like the house was shaking,” Peter Moore, who lives about 10 miles away in Durham, told CNN. He said he thought at first there had been a traffic accident on his street or there was a problem with his house.

Moore said his mother, who lives in Woodbridge, about 20 miles away from the plant, also said she heard the explosion, and said it “sounded like someone pounded on the back door a couple of times.”

“It was almost like an earthquake,” nearby resident Lynn Townsend told CNN affiliate WTNH. She said she heard the explosion and went outside to see “a very big, bright orange flame” between the plant’s two smokestacks, and immediately dialed 911.

“It really shook the house,” she said. “Everybody was scared. The kids started to cry.

Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance told WTNH his agency has received “an immense amount of inquiries” from residents who heard or felt the explosion.

If you or anyone you know was injured or killed in the power plant gas explosion, please feel free to contact the Hayes Firm online or call 1-800-603-6833.  We will work to find the best attorney in your area to advise you and fight for your rights. 

By Jan Jarvis

February 4, 2010

It began with a tingling sensation, as if her foot was going to sleep.

Then numbness set in. It crept up to Elizabeth Gilley’s calf and onto her thigh.

Over the next six months, the Mineral Wells woman grew weaker, her skin turned pale, and she could barely walk across the room without gasping for breath.

When she collapsed in 2007, Gilley was taken to a hospital.

“The doctor didn’t know how I was still conscious,” Gilley said.

At first, doctors told her that she had leukemia, but tests didn’t confirm cancer. CT scans, MRIs and blood tests followed. Still Gilley was no closer to a diagnosis.

After a year of seeing doctor after doctor, she finally found out what was causing the symptoms, but she could hardly believe what the physician was telling her.

“Within five minutes of seeing him, he asked me if I wore denture cream,” said Gilley, 26, who was forced to get dentures as a teenager after a genetic condition ruined her teeth. “I handed him the tube; he told me to stop using it.”

By then the damage was done. Gilley could no longer walk, drive a car or get around without a wheelchair. Once an active young woman who had recently gotten married, she was rarely able to leave her home.

Gilley joined a growing number of people nationwide who have filed lawsuits alleging that the makers of some denture creams knew about the health risks associated with high levels of zinc in their products and did nothing about it. Fixodent and Super Poligrip are named in class-action lawsuits filed in Tennessee last year.

Gilley’s suit against GlaxoSmithKline was recently filed in Philadelphia, where the manufacturer is located. About 20 other claimants have also filed suits in mass tort court in Pennsylvania.

GlaxoSmithKline declined to comment on the litigation. But on the Web site for Super Poligrip, the manufacturer addresses issues surrounding zinc.

Both GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Poligrip and Super Poligrip, and Procter & Gamble, the maker of Fixodent, have said that their products contain zinc at levels recognized as safe. GlaxoSmithKline’s label now states that there have been reports of serious health effects from increased zinc intake over a long period. But the company notes that small amounts swallowed during normal use are not harmful and that consumers should not apply the product more than once a day.

In addition, the Food and Drug Administration classifies the creams as medical devices and does not require zinc to be listed as an ingredient.

But dozens of people have been permanently disabled after using the cream for years, and at least one person has died, said Ed Blizzard of Houston, Gilley’s attorney.

“I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “I think a lot of people out there have neuropathy and don’t know it could be connected to their dentures.”

Being accused of a crime is a very serious matter, and one that brings a lot of stress into people’s lives. A critical part of the legal process when accused is finding and meeting a good criminal defense attorney. The Illinois Truck Accident Attorneys at Dolan Legal recently created a blog post with advice on how to handle your first meeting.

In their post they say: “Despite the importance of a first meeting, criminal defendants need not feel anxious about the meeting. The meeting is nothing more than a conversation.  Your lawyer will ask you about the circumstances of the incident(s) leading to the arrest, discuss the charges against you, and the potential penalties that may be imposed if you are convicted.  Together, you will explore your defense and you will develop a plan to move forward with your case.  Of course, any pressing issues such as bail or restraining orders will be addressed and all of your questions will be answered.”

One of the most important things to remember is that your attorney will not be trying to incriminate you. They will ask questions, but the goal of which will be to establish the facts about the case and develop as strong a defense as possible. It may feel awkward and uncomfortable revealing all the details surrounding your situation, but is important not to lie or withhold on your attorney.

At first meeting, it is also key to get a sense of how committed your attorney is for you. If you are getting the impression that he/she is “phoning it in”, it may be in your best interest to find someone else who will take an active interest in your case. To be certain you are finding someone who is both competent and ethical, it can be valuable to go through a service that recommends lawyers (free of consultation charge). They can give you the best advice on how to proceed and who to pursue.

You criminal defense attorney will be your most important line of defense in securing the best result possible in court and preserving your good name. Give the situation your best effort and try to maximize results even from the very first  meeting. Be prepared, open minded, and ready to communicate.

NEW YORK, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Three personal injury lawsuits were filed against Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) on Thursday, claiming its smoking cessation drug Chantix caused attempted suicides and death.

The lawsuits, filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, claim that at the time the plaintiffs took Chantix, Pfizer did not tell doctors and patients about dangers it allegedly knew were related to the drug, including depression and thoughts of suicide.

Although Pfizer subsequently added warnings to its package insert, the law firm that filed all three lawsuits alleged the drug’s label is still inadequate.

Pfizer introduced Chantix in the United States in 2006, hoping it would become a multibillion-dollar product and revive flagging profits. The drug’s sales have fallen off as concerns about side effects increased.

Chantix sales fell 15 percent to $155 million in the third quarter of 2009.

Attorney Marc Grossman alleged in the lawsuits that the company “intentionally, recklessly, and/or negligently concealed, suppressed, omitted, and/or misrepresented the risks, dangers, defects and disadvantages of Chantix.”

Grossman is with Sanders Viener Grossman LLP in Mineola, New York.

Two lawsuits claim the plaintiffs tried to kill themselves as a result of using Chantix. The third is a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of Indiana resident Annette Pine, claiming she committed suicide after using Chantix.

The lawsuits seek trials by jury, punitive and compensatory damages, medical and legal expenses, and, in Pine’s case, funeral expenses.

Pfizer issued a statement defending the drug, approved in some 86 countries as a smoking cessation aid.

“At all times, Pfizer has clearly communicated important information about the safe use of Chantix, which is available only with a prescription,” Pfizer spokeswoman Sally Beatty said in the statement.

“We intend to vigorously defend this medicine,” she said, adding that Chantix has helped many smokers to quit.

The lawsuits claim that each of the plaintiffs used the drug properly. They also claim that in each case the plaintiffs and their doctors were “not aware and through diligent efforts were not able to discover the risk of serious injury, and/or depressed mood and/or suicide associated with and/or caused by Chantix.” (Reporting by Ransdell Pierson and Bill Berkrot; editing by Carol Bishopric)

Saturday, December 12, 2009

By Katherine Sayre, www.al.com

 A Mobile County jury awarded $20 million this week to the family of a woman who plaintiffs’ lawyers said died after receiving improper anesthesia care.

The jury returned the wrongful death verdict against medical group Coastal Anesthesia, Dr. Randall Boudreaux and Don Ortego, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, court records show.

Paulett Pettaway Hall, a 32-year-old wife and mother of two, died Jan. 16, 2006, after receiving anesthesia prior to exploratory surgery, according to Cunningham Bounds, the law firm that represented Hall’s estate.

Hall, who had been suffering from severe abdominal pain, breathed bile from her stomach into her lungs, the lawyers stated in a news release. She died at Springhill Medical Center.

Coastal Anesthesia, Boudreaux and Ortego denied the claims in the lawsuit, according to court records.

Defense lawyer Wesley Pipes, speaking on behalf of his clients, said, “We were disappointed in the jury’s verdict, and we’re disappointed that they did not seem to understand the evidence we tried to present.”

Pipes declined further comment.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that Boudreaux and Ortego did not examine Hall’s abdomen or look at her medical records prior to the exploratory surgery, which would have identified her risk factors for breathing fluid into her lungs, according to the Cunningham Bounds news release.

By The Associated Press

Posted November 23, 2009

A Philadelphia jury has ordered Wyeth Pharmaceuticals to pay a woman $75 million in punitive damages after finding a link between her breast cancer and a hormone-replacement drug.

 The punitive damages in the case of Connie Barton were unsealed yesterday, the same day of a verdict in the case of Donna Kendall, who was awarded $6.3 million in compensatory damages and $28 million in punitive damages, said Esther Berezofsky, an attorney for Barton.

Last month, the jury awarded Barton $3.75 million in compensatory damages and found Wyeth willfully hid evidence of a cancer link.

 The punitive award for Barton, of Peoria, Ill., had been sealed until yesterday because Kendall’s case was being heard in the same courthouse. A handful of Prempro lawsuits have gone to trial out of several thousand filed across the country.

Wyeth, based in Madison, was acquired by New York drugmaker Pfizer Inc. for $68 billion last month. A spokesman for Pfizer said the company will challenge both verdicts.

“We are disappointed with the verdicts in these cases,” Pfizer spokesman Chris Loder said in a statement.

“The company believes that neither the awards of punitive damages nor the liability verdicts were supported by the evidence or the law.”

Barton, 64, a retired hospital records clerk from Peoria, took Prempro for five years before her 2002 cancer diagnosis.

Wyeth, in court arguments, told jurors that women are now fully informed of the risks and benefits of Prempro, a combination estrogen-progestin pill.

Kendall, 66, of Decatur, Ill., took combination estrogen-progestin therapy from 1991 to 2002, including the last four years on Prempro, and was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, said her attorney, Tobi Millrood.

In her case, Wyeth was ordered to pay $16 million of the punitive damages and Upjohn Co., which is now a division of Pfizer, was ordered to pay $12 million, Millrood said.

“Today’s verdict is a resounding victory not only for Donna Kendall but for women around the country,” Millrood said.

Sales of Prempro have plummeted since 2002 when a large federal health study, the Women’s Health Initiative, was stopped when researchers saw more breast cancers in those on Prempro.

A study this year shows that lung cancer seems more likely to prove fatal in women who are taking the combination drug.

By Duff Wilson, NY Times

Published: November 20, 2009

Legal experts predict that thousands of tobacco lawsuits could gain momentum in Florida after a Fort Lauderdale jury ordered Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million to a former smoker who says she needs a lung transplant.

 If it survives an appeal, the verdict late Thursday would be the nation’s largest award of damages to an individual suing a tobacco company and could encourage thousands of plaintiffs who have filed similar cases in Florida, according to Clifford E. Douglas of the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network.

A state supreme court ruling in Florida a few years ago made it easier to pursue tobacco lawsuits there than in other states. But the tobacco industry, which plans to appeal, appeared unfazed. Tobacco companies have considered product liability suits as little more than a cost of doing business since the seven biggest companies agreed to pay $206 billion in a master settlement agreement with 46 states in 1998.

Florida, despite being one of those states, had a major legal ruling in 2006 that lowered a plaintiff’s burden of proof against a tobacco company.

The Florida Supreme Court rejected a class-action verdict and a $145 billion award to plaintiffs, saying smokers would have to sue individually. But the court said plaintiffs would not have to prove some key elements that had been upheld in the first stage of the class action: that nicotine is addictive, that smoking causes diseases, and that cigarette companies fraudulently hid those facts.

“That makes these cases in Florida unique,” Mr. Douglas said. Smokers in other states are still suing cigarette makers, he said, but they have higher legal hurdles.

A spokesman for the Altria Group, the Virginia-based parent company of Philip Morris USA, indicated it would appeal the verdict and said the Florida rules were “fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional.”

Shares of Altria, which had been up more than 27 percent this year, dropped 1.2 percent Friday, to $18.98.

Lucinda Naugle, the 61-year-old sister of a former Fort Lauderdale mayor, was awarded $56 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages Thursday after a three-week trial and three hours of jury deliberation in Broward County Circuit Court.

Ms. Naugle, an office manager, had started smoking when she was 20 and quit when she was 45 years old, her lawyer, Robert W. Kelley of Fort Lauderdale, said in a telephone interview Friday. She now has severe emphysema and needs a lung transplant she cannot afford, he said.

The jury assigned her 10 percent of the liability for her smoking and disease, and Philip Morris 90 percent.

“She’ll get paid, I would hope, within a year or two,” Mr. Kelley said. “The question is will she live long enough.”

Mr. Kelley said about 25 more cases were lined up for trial in Florida next year. In all, more than 9,000 people from the former class action filed individual suits in various courts in Florida against tobacco makers by January 2008, the deadline set by the state Supreme Court.

About 4,000 of those cases were filed in federal court and have been stayed, pending a review scheduled in January by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta.

Brendan J. McCormick, a spokesman for Altria, said Friday that the company expected the federal appellate court to reject the standards of proof set by the state Supreme Court. “What you have is a defined number of cases in Florida with unique issues that will ultimately be resolved on appeal,” he said.

David J. Adelman, a tobacco analyst for Morgan Stanley, said the Florida case and, separately, forthcoming class-action lawsuits over light cigarette claims pose an “undeniable” increase in the industry’s legal risk “which had previously declined to an unprecedented low point.”

In an interview, Mr. Adelman noted that there were no jury trials in cigarette cases all of last year, and that other states had decertified class-action suits in ways more favorable to the tobacco industry. Further, Mr. Adelman said, the major legal threats to the industry were removed by the 1998 settlement with states. And since then, the industry has fended off calls in court and Congress for a huge disgorgement of its profits.

Even in light of the Florida verdict, Mr. Adelman said the tobacco industry could afford several hundred million dollars a year in legal losses if it had to. “That is a financially manageable issue,” he said.

Of more concern, he said in the interview and a note to investors, is a coming round of cases claiming fraud and damages from past marketing of so-called light cigarettes.

Those products have been shown to be no less harmful than regular cigarettes because smokers inhale them more deeply. Congress, in landmark tobacco legislation earlier this year, prohibited the use of the terms “light,” “low” or “mild” in all cigarette labeling and marketing, effective June 22, 2010.

The first of the “light cigarette” class-action cases is scheduled in Minnesota next October, followed by Missouri in January 2011.