According to a report in the New York Daily News, ” New York City will pay $8.7 million to settle a wrongful death claim brought by the widow of a victim of the 2003 Staten Island ferry crash. John Healy died when the ferry crashed into port at full speed. The pilot was found to be on painkillers at the time, and in violation of policies requiring two pilots for docking, only one pilot was on duty. The trial was scheduled to start Monday.”

In a piece by Gordon Dickson of the Ft. Worth (TX) Star Telegram, he reports:

“In light of the recent Sherman bus crash that killed 17 people, a review of Texas charter bus companies reveals that they often continue to operate under a new name when their authorizations are revoked. At the time of the accident, the owner of the bus in the Sherman crash was operating under a different name after being closed due to safety violations. A total of 201 companies had their authorizations revoked by the state over the last 24 months.”

A test developed by Yale promises to detect ovarian cancer in the early stages when it is most treatable. Currently, only about 20 percent of cases are detected when the cancer is limited to the ovaries, when the disease has a 90 percent survival rate. In the later stages, only 30 percent will survive five years.

However, the Food and Drug Administration and others caution that the test has not been proved effective at detecting the cancer in the early stages and may pose risks.

Responding to recent outcry that children’s over-the-counter cold and cough medicines may be ineffective or even dangerous, The Food and Drug Administration will revise standards for those medications. This will be the first time the criteria have been revised in decades. In March of 2007, a group of pediatricians filed a petition with the FDA seeking to restrict the use of childrens’ medicines.

The US government must pay more than ½ million dollars to a man who was imprisoned after 37 pounds of marijuana were discovered in a vehicle he purchased from the federal government.  Attorneys for the man claimed the customs officials failed to search the vehicle, which had been sized from drug traffickers and sold at auction. 

The award will cover lost income, medical bills, and legal fees plus the cost of the vehicle.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, aka HIPPA, has regularly failed to keep private personal medical records from public scrutiny – or so says a story published in the Des Moines Register.  In one case, a local newspaper released a story, at the urging of a medical services firm and its public relations team, which included a patient’s full name and detailed descriptions of her medical conditions.  However, since HIPPA was enacted in 2003, almost no charges have been brought under its guidelines.  So what’s the use?

This is the same government that wants to run a medical health insurance program.

Physician, heal thyself.

Federal safety officials have just ordered Iguala BusMex and Angel Tours Inc. to cease commercial operations while last week’s fatal accident in North Texas is investigated.es

Safety experts and Texas lawmakers called for tougher enforcement of motor carrier regulations Monday as federal investigators combed for clues to what caused an illegal bus to crash in North Texas, killing 17 Vietnamese Catholics from Houston.

Others in Texas and elsewhere echoed that sentiment as two more bus crashes in Mississippi and Nevada over the weekend put bus safety back on every politician’s agenda. On Sunday, three women were killed when the tour bus they were riding in rolled over, while 29 people were injured in an unrelated crash after their bus left the road in Nevada.

In Washington, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, issued statements Monday calling for the passage of their legislation, known as the Motorcoach Enhanced Safety Act.

The bill, which would require bus owners to provide seat belts, fire extinguishers and other safety enhancements, was introduced after a bus crash in Georgia killed several athletes from an Ohio college. It is now scheduled for a hearing before the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee next month.

Calling for reform, however, is a tune Texans have heard before. In the past six years, 52 people have died in passenger bus accidents and very little has been done to weed out troubled bus carriers, records show.

In the Sherman case, the bus owned and operated by Angel de la Torre was illegal because the operator had been barred not once, but twice, from traveling outside Texas under two different company names.

Three years ago, a bus bearing an expired and illegal tag belonging to another bus was sent to Bellaire to pick up elderly evacuees trying to escape a looming Hurricane Rita. Hours later, the poorly maintained passenger coach erupted into fire, killing 23 aboard.

And yet, not one of the recommendations made by the NTSB after the 2005 Hurricane Rita bus fire have been acted on by the federal government, surprise, surprise.

Ford Motor Company, the second-largest U.S. automaker, must defend a lawsuit claiming the company fraudulently induced a family to settle a claim over a death in an Explorer rollover accident, a federal court said.

When a driver lost control of an Explorer after a Firestone Inc. tire broke apart. His family sued Ford and Firestone’s parent, Bridgestone Corp., claiming defects in the vehicle and tire.

In 1999, the family settled with Ford for $500,000 and with Firestone for an undisclosed amount.

In 2001, after reports linked Explorer rollovers to Firestone tire failures, the family filed a new claim. It argued Ford withheld evidence to settle for less than the case was worth. A federal judge in Mississippi dismissed the new suit in 2006. A U.S. appeals court in New Orleans reinstated it July 31, finding the family could sue Ford for deceit.

Ford’s problem with the Explorer definitely isn’t going to end.

Some lawyers may reopen cases already settled, an we will likely continue to see new cases filed against Ford over uncaptured tires that weren’t picked up during multiple recalls.

The Mississippi judge who dismissed the lawsuit concluded that “the plaintiffs were required but had failed to rescind the settlement agreement and return the proceeds they had received under it,” the federal appeals court said. “It is clear from the plaintiffs’ amended complaint in this case that they seek to affirm the settlement agreement and maintain an action in damages for deceit.”

Ford doesn’t expect to appeal the ruling and will likely ask the trial court again to dismiss the case.

The family seekd an additional $4.5 million in actual damages, the value of the case had the family received evidence of alleged design problems that it sought in the original lawsuit.

The reputation of the Explorer, the top-selling sport- utility vehicle at the time, was hurt by a U.S. investigation into at least 271 highway deaths involving tread separations by Firestone tires. Ford and Firestone settled hundreds of lawsuits over rollovers related to tire failures.

The United States attorney’s office in Massachusetts

subpoenaed in connection with its sales of bile duct

stents, broadening an investigation.

Abbott Laboratories and Boston Scientific, which also produce the stents, have said previously that they have been contacted by investigators.

The devices, also called biliary stents, are plastic or metal tubes intended to treat obstructions to the liver. They had an American market of about $40 million in 2007 for approved uses, according to the Millennium Research Group, a Toronto market research firm.

In February, Boston Scientific said the Justice Department was investigating whether manufacturers had been promoting the devices for unapproved uses, among them the repair of weakened blood vessels.

Boston Scientific, based in Natick, Mass., and Abbott, of Abbott Park, Ill., also have said they are cooperating.

Biliary stents are approved to treat obstructions in tubes that carry bile, a digestive fluid, to the intestines, but reports to the F.D.A. indicate that they are often inserted to prop open blood vessels in the legs. The reports also stated that unapproved uses may be injuring patients.

Once a medical product is approved by regulators, doctors are free to use it to treat any ailment. But F.D.A. guidelines say drug companies and device makers may not promote their products for unapproved purposes or patient categories, like prescribing adult medicines for children.

The Mississippi Attorney General has settled its dispute with State Farm Insurance Cos. over how the insurer handled Hurricane Katrina damage claims in Mississippi. 

State Farm has complied with a January agreement with Mississippi by reopening some claims and agreeing to pay at least $74 million more to Gulf Coast policyholders whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Katrina’s storm surge.

The insurer also has agreed to notify nearly 150 more State Farm policyholders who haven’t sued or settled their claims that they still can have their cases re-evaluated.

The settlement required State Farm to establish a U.S. District Court-approved administrative procedure to re-evaluate claims of its policyholders and make new offers to its policyholders for no less than 50 percent of the limits for slab or pier-only claims, subject to policy limits and prior payments.

State Farm had refused to comply with U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr.’s requirements to obtain his approval of the class action settlement, which led to the breach-of-contract suit, according to Hood.

Instead, State Farm set up the process with the then Mississippi Insurance Commissioner to re-evaluate the claims.

The original terms of his agreement would have required State Farm to pay out much more in claims – up to $400 million.