Bodily Injury Blog

Lawyers swooped in after the Metrolink crash, looking for clients and California State bar officials cite possible professional sanctions, but the aggressive attorneys note that time is limited and the stakes are expected to be very high.

Many relatives of victims, whose names sounded familiar to lawyers who’d spotted a name among those badly injured in the Sept. 12 Metrolink crash in Chatsworth quickly received calls from attorney’s they had never met; urging them to retain the lawyer to sue the government railroad for all it was worth.

In the weeks since Metrolink Train 111 crashed head-on with a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth, killing 25 and injuring at least 130 others, litigators have pursued clients so aggressively that the State Bar of California reminded lawyers of the professional sanctions they could face for initiating contact with accident victims.

Any unsolicited contact with a potential client either in person or by telephone (and perhaps even by mail) by an attorney or someone acting on his or her behalf is both illegal and unethical and it is especially serious when the contact or solicitation takes place at the scene of the accident or at the hospital where the injured person has been taken for care and treatment.

Some attorneys took out newspaper and purchased TV time to solicit or even track down the injured at hospitals, all seeking a piece of what is likely to be hundreds of millions of dollars in damage awards for the victims and their loved ones.

The state bar rightly cautioned potential claimants against agreeing to unsolicited representation or quick settlements, noting that the injured and distressed are often unable to exercise reasonable judgment in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy.

The stakes are high for both the families and the attorneys hoping to represent them. The damage claims are expected to exceed the $200-million statutory cap on liability from any single accident and that cap has never been challenged in court.

Being the first lawyer to publicly announce representation can be an advantage in drawing the attention of other potential plaintiffs who aren’t sure how to proceed and have little if any experience in retaining a lawyer.

Some in the legal community, including myself, are critical of the speed at which some firms acted.

I don’t chase, and most good lawyers don’t chase, business. The scramble by some to get business cards into the hands and firm names into the minds of those likely to sue for damages is, sadly, often the rule rather than the exception.

Some litigators, especially those with experience in suing railroads, might argue that lawyers must be proactive because few clients are aware of California’s six-month deadline for filing legal action over an accident. Even among litigants who filed suit on time after the 2005 Glendale Metrolink crash, dozens saw their cases dropped because lawyers didn’t fill out all the forms or jump through the hoops and hurdles correctly.

One of the methods used is to convene a meeting to advise potential claimants on how to proceed. Such meetings, considered a little different from contacting victims, and are called ‘educational.’

Legal referral specialists recommend that crash victims and their relatives find lawyers the way they would find doctors or dentists: by word of mouth or recommendation from a trusted friend or associate.

It was no ‘trial of the century’ in Las Vegas, but the verdict in the most recent O.J. Simpson trial came and went in the dark of night in a Las Vegas courtroom. The proceedings may not even have been breathlessly awaited

This latest verdict was seen by many as a sad epilogue: either Simpson is getting what he deserves or he can’t figure out how to stay out of trouble. Or both.

The issues, this time, were armed robbery and kidnapping, not murder and race. The verdicts were read without fanfare. It was not a day the Earth stood still, as it did 13 years ago for the reading of the verdict.

But as news of the verdict spread, many observers just had to weighed in and the typical reaction was that I just they actually got him on this, as opposed to a double murder.

The first O.J. trial mesmerized the country, spinning out like a daily soap opera. Every detail was gobbled up and people around the world passionately discussed them: a blood-stained glove, a Bruno Magli shoe print, a howling dog wandering from the murder scene.

It was Los Angeles pre-9/11, pre-mortgage debacle, still nursing painful memories of the 1992 riots that racked the city in the wake of the Rodney King verdict. Race and justice were obsessions, and Simpson, seemed the perfect avatar.

The courtroom was packed daily, and outside the courthouse, a carnival sprang up of media, gadflies and vendors peddling souvenirs. On verdict day, from the hallway outside the courtroom filled with reporters — including a pregnant Katie Couric — to airplanes in flight and ships at sea, the world waited to hear how the soap opera would end.

But the Las Vegas trial was no soap opera, and race relations have changed. A black man is running for president. Yet there are people who saw either race or hatred for Simpson at play in the verdict this time.

Some thougth it was payback since Simpson was innocent then and now.

But many, like myself, had no doubt that jurors, those unsung heros or bumbs depending on our viewpoint, convicted him because he was guilty, not because they believed he got away with murder in the first trial.

We should all be proud of our juries.

In an article written by Denise Gellene and Thomas H. Maugh II of the Los Angeles Times report that Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff of Emory University failed to report a third of the income he received from companies whose drugs he was evaluating.

Dr. Nemeroff is a prominent Emory University psychiatrist who received at least $2.8 million in consulting fees from companies whose drugs he was evaluating and failed to report a third of it, congressional investigators studying medical conflicts of interest said Friday.

The allegations against Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff, the latest in a series of such charges, are the most striking to emerge from the probe, which seems likely to alter the cozy relationships between prominent academics and the drug industry.

Nemeroff received the money from GlaxoSmithKline between 2000 and 2007 while he was the principal investigator on a $3.9-million National Institutes of Health study of five Glaxo drugs for treatment of depression.

Nemeroff continued to receive large amounts of money for delivering talks to other physicians even after he signed university documents pledging to accept no more than $10,000 a year from any one company, the inquiry found.

Responding to the allegations, Nemeroff voluntarily stepped down as chairman of the psychiatry department at Emory on Friday pending a resolution of the matter.

Frankly, is his misbehavior should have caused Emory to ask for his complete resignation.

A university statement quoted him as saying, “To the best of my knowledge, I have followed the appropriate university regulations concerning financial disclosures.”

Nemeroff is at least the sixth psychiatrist identified with such conflicts since this spring, when the congressional investigation began.

Experts added, however, that the problems extend throughout the profession.

The findings are beginning to have repercussions.

At least two companies, Eli Lilly & Co. and Merck & Co., have said they will begin making such disclosures of all payments over $500 made to physicians next year.

At issue is the safety and efficacy of the stream of new drugs undergoing clinical trials. Several studies have shown that researchers who receive money from drug companies are more likely to report positive results from such trials.

Despite calls from leading pediatrician groups, federal health officials on Thursday declined to ban over-the-counter cough and cold medicines for young children. A top Food and Drug official said that an outright ban might unintentionally harm children. Doctors have pushed for a recall citing mounting evidence that the medicines have little benefit for children under age 6.

Wisconsin officials are asking a federal judge to throw out nearly $300,000 in damages awarded to a prisoner who claimed he was forced to sleep on a wet and moldy mattress for two months. The state Justice Department argues that the award is excessive and that jurors did not truthfully answer pre-trial questions. In the verdict, jurors found that the prison’s failure to replace the mattress violated the prisoner’s civil rights.

An Iowa man has filed a lawsuit against a Des Moines bus driver and bus agency after being run over while attempting to cross an intersection. According to the lawsuit, the driver was traveling too fast and Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority was negligent in its hiring and training of the driver. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for medical expenses, pain and suffering and lost income.

An Indianapolis-based trucking company and its driver were negligent in a 2006 accident that injured two Texas men, a jury has found. Jurors ordered Celadon Trucking Services, Inc. to pay $1.5 million in damages for medical bills and physical impairment resulting the from crash. The trucking company will likely review the verdict before considering an appeal.

Illinois’ highest court overturned two lower court rulings Thursday, clearing the way for the family of a 15-year-old boy to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Park Ridge and its paramedics. According to the suit, Park Ridge paramedics committed misconduct by failing to provide adequate treatment after the boy suffered a drug overdose. The city has defended the actions of emergency response personnel in the incident.

Pic-Cell, a Seattle-based company offering cell phone services to students studying abroad, is accused of violating the Washington State Consumer Protection Act. A suit filed on behalf of six students claims the company added a 3 percent premium and charged unfairly high roaming fees, resulting in monthly bills as high as $1,700.

China’s melamine-tainted milk scandal is increasingly global in its impact, as Cadbury PLC became the latest company to announce a recall amid concerns that chocolate from its Chinese plant may be contaminated with melamine. Cadbury recalled all products made in its Beijing plant, which were distributed throughout mainland China, Australia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Although government tests did not detect the chemical in their milk products, the company said they took this precautionary step because of questionable results of additional testing.