Does the method of payment make a difference as to the quality of medical care received?

In 1999, my mother went to the ER with severe bleeding. The attending physician diagnosed her with an unusually heavy menstrual cycle, and a UTI. He wrote her a prescription for antibiotics and sent her home. I guess I should mention that she was uninsured at the time. The symptoms did not clear up when she took the medicine, so she looked around for a doctor that would let her make payment arrangements. When she found one, he did the PROPER testing on her and found a cervical tumor roughly the size of a softball. She was then diagnosed with Stage III cancer. Despite the best efforts of the wonderful doctors at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, she was told she had terminal cancer and that she had a month to live. She died three weeks after her 41st birthday.

My question is, do you think the attending physician in the ER gave her substandard treatment because she was uninsured? I bet if she HAD had insurance, they would have done a whole battery of tests right then and there…and possibly caught the cancer before it became untreatable. I wonder if I have a legal case here, gross negligence or discrimination, perhaps? I know a lawsuit won’t bring my mother back, but I don’t think I am the only one who has had something like this happen to them.
Doctors need to provide top-notch care to EVERYONE, not just those with insurance.

Are online pharmacies safe?

Are online pharmacies safe? I mean really safe? I have often thought that they would be a great way for us to save some money and have found a few sites online that sell the medication that my boyfriend takes. But I am not sure if I can trust them. I saw a thing on dateline once where places like this were selling fake medications. I would hate to see one of these pharmacies be like that. I just can not understand how someone could intentionally do this? Why would you sell a person meds if you knew they were unsafe or were not doing the job that they are suppose to do?
So for know I guess I will just have to suck it up and pay the full price for the medications and know that they are safe and will do the job they are suppose to do.

Supreme Court Makes It Harder for Investors to Sue

The high court has unanimously decided to made it harder for investors to join forces and file lawsuits against companies.

In essence, the decision “blocks state class-action lawsuits by stockholders who contend they were tricked into holding onto declining shares.” Specifically, the court is saying that

the 1998 Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act permits suits on behalf of 50 or more investors only by purchasers and sellers of securities, not by people who simply hold investments.

The decision in Merrill Lynch v. Dabit was a big win for Merrill Lynch, which “faced a spate of lawsuits prompted in part by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s 2002 probe into the investment banking firm’s practices.”

I don’t usually side with Big Business, but I like that it’s now more difficult for disgruntled investors to file frivolous securities class action lawsuits.

Sources: This Bloomberg article and “Court Makes It Harder for Investors to Sue,” by AP writer Gina Holland (3/21/06)

Attorney-manned Help Desk for Civil Litigants

Though this isn’t directly related to class actions, it’s definitely useful advice that I’m sure someone out there (especially someone living in Chicago!) could use:

CHICAGO - Mountains of paperwork and confusing legal terms can be intimidating to the thousands of people who forgo a lawyer and represent themselves in court. But a federal court here is staffing a new help desk with an attorney to assist people involved in civil cases, and experts say it is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.

The attorney offers free advice on how to file motions and interpret documents, and tells people if a lawsuit would be a waste of time.

“These are lay people and so they are walking into a legal world that is strange and alien to them,” said Charles P. Kocoras, chief federal judge for the Northern District of Illinois. “This desk will put people on the right track at the beginning of a case where there is often a lot of lost time.”

Kocoras said the help desk, which opened Thursday, will help unburden the judicial system by eliminating unnecessary cases. It also allows people to access proper legal forms.

“It helps the judges because we have to sift through these pleadings and see if they’re comprehendible to us,” he said. “It eliminates a lot of stuff that we have to deal with at some point.”

In 2004, people without attorneys, excluding prisoners, filed 1,026 civil cases in the Northern District of Illinois, up from 913 cases the previous year, said Sheldon H. Roodman, executive director of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.

“The cost of legal services is very high, and getting higher, so these cases are springing up in court systems throughout America,” Roodman said.

Similar help desks have been effective in state, circuit and U.S. bankruptcy courts around the country to help low-income clients or those who simply choose not to hire an attorney, said Dick Carelli, spokesman for the federal courts’ administrative office. But the Chicago help desk is believed to be the first to have a real attorney giving advice, he said.

Not everyone thinks the program cuts to the core of the problem.

Gilda Klein, 53, of Chicago, represented herself in a lawsuit she filed in 2001 against the U.S. Postal Service, claiming she was unjustly fired. She said federal agencies that investigated her complaints created obstacles even before she could file the suit, which was dismissed in 2002.

“The whole process of filing complaints even before you get to court was too bureaucratic,” she said. “People get lost in the process even before they get to court.”

The help desk was the brainchild of the U.S. District Court and the Chicago Bar Foundation. The Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Chicago Bar Association, supplied more than $100,000 for the project.

“A lot of people, not having anywhere else to turn, come to court and file something that may not have any merit,” said Bob Glaves, executive director of the Chicago Bar Foundation. “If they had the opportunity to speak to an attorney beforehand, they might understand that court isn’t their best bet. On the flip side, if a person hasn’t been able to articulate his case, the desk will be able to help those with valid cases.”

“Help Desk Offers Advice to Civil Litigants” was penned by AP writer Megan Reichgott.

ACLU files class action over right of parolees to vote

The Colorado constitution bars prisoners from voting while they’re in prison… but only while they’re in prison. So why does a state law keep those on parole from voting as well?

DENVER — The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging a state law barring thousands of people on parole from voting or registering to vote.

Norman Mueller, a volunteer attorney, said the statute violates the state constitution, which he said bars prisoners from voting only if they are in prison.

“The Colorado Supreme Court has said in several cases that when prisoners are released on parole, they have completed their term of imprisonment,” Mueller said.

The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of an estimated 6,000 people in Colorado who are on parole.

Under Colorado law, felons are allowed to vote only if they are no longer in prison and are not on parole. Last year, Secretary of State Donetta Davidson discovered 6,352 possible voter registration matches for felons, and county clerks were ordered to check the rolls for felons and flag them for poll judges.

Mueller said nationwide, as many as 5 million Americans are barred from voting by a variety of state laws that forbid convicted felons from voting for varying periods of time. Felons are kept from voting in every state but Maine and Vermont, though restrictions vary.

Mueller said this case would only affect Colorado voters.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Florida’s lifetime ban on voting rights for convicted felons, another case that could have had national implications for millions of would-be voters. Florida attorneys argued that states have authority to set their own policies.

Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, a Democrat from Golden and a former county clerk, said if people have served their time, their voting rights should be reinstated.

“I think the ACLU is correct,” she said.

House Minority Leader Joe Stengel, R-Littleton, disagreed.

“The right to vote is not an absolute right. It is subject to some restrictions. Obviously, serving time in prison and on parole is a restriction,” Stengel said.

Class action kings move to NY

TheLawyer.com is reporting that “Houston-based Lanier Law Firm has launched in New York with four lawyers, with the aim of expanding the presence to eclipse its headquarters within three years.”

Officially opened today (16 November), the mid-town Manhattan office of the class action specialists will be overseen by resident head Richard Meadow, who will be supported by three attorneys and five administration staff.

Founding partner Mark Lanier said the firm hoped to rapidly increase the size of the office, with the “expectation to have that eclipse the size of our Houston office within three years.” The Houston office consists of 24 lawyers and 50 additional support staff.

Lanier plans to divide his time between Houston and New York to facilitate this expansion, which will focus on increasing the firm’s client litigation practice, including pharmaceutical, product liability and toxic tort claims.

The New York office is the firm’s second presence, after its Houston headquarters was launched in 1990.

Lanier shot to fame earlier this year, after winning a $253m verdict (the first in the US) against Merck & Co, the maker of Vioxx, an arthritis drug that was found to increase the risk of heart attack.

Lawyers want to bring class-action suits to France

Did you know that class actions are not allowed in the legal system of France? The International Herald Tribune reports on how that might be changing:

Will class-action lawsuits be the next big U.S. import into France? At the moment, such group suits are not permitted in the French legal system, but a group of Paris lawyers is offering collective legal actions through a Web site, classaction.fr. Their first case could be a spinoff of the Paris Court of Appeals decision against Universal Pictures over a copy-protected DVD.

Jean-Marc Goldnadel, creator of the site, said he had gathered more than 700 individuals for a suit against Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers, Columbia-TriStar and other DVD makers. Clients were told on the Web site that they could expect awards of up to 1,000, or $1,170. This would be 10 times the amount awarded to Stéphane Perquin, the consumer who won the original case last in April.

A debate over class-action lawsuits has been brewing in France since Jan. 1, when President Jacques Chirac called for the national legislature to widen the scope of “collective legal actions.” The task force he established to review the issue is expected to reveal its findings this month.

Both the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice oppose the introduction of class actions, as do the office of the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, and Medef, an organization that represents French business interests. They fear that the spread of such large-scale legal actions would harm business, especially in the financial sector, and become a drag on the economy.

Chirac’s call for class actions is joined by consumer groups and the Paris Bar Association.

Meanwhile, an association of lawyers took legal action against the site in May within the first weeks of its creation on the technical grounds that it was offering legal services it was not allowed to provide. Classaction.fr won that case in June, though the court ordered the site to remove any advertising or commercial interests.

But now classaction.fr has a new suit on its hands, this time brought by UFC-Que Choisir, a supporter of class actions in France. The consumer group claims that the site unlawfully recruits clients and does not allow them enough control over settlement decisions.

Do You Have A Class-Action Case?

What factors must be present to start a class action lawsuit?

LawyersAndSettlements.com’s FAQ says:

There are several requirements to consider when attempting to form a new class action case. Simplified, these are:

• Numerosity - adequate number of plaintiffs
• Commonality - common damages and legal issues
• Typicality - each class member’s claim must come from the same event, and must make the same legal argument
• Adequacy of Representation - the representative plaintiff will adequately protect and represent the interest of the class
• Viability of Defendant - although it is not a requirement of the court, it is reasonable to assume that if the accused does not have the means to compensate for the alleged damages and legal costs, it would be difficult to entice a law firm to represent the class.

ATI Technologies in the hot seat

A press release announced today that the Law Offices of Brian M. Felgoise, P.C, will issue a class action lawsuit against ATI Technologies, Inc.:

PHILADELPHIA, PA — (MARKET WIRE) — 08/23/2005 — Law Offices of Brian M. Felgoise, P.C. announces that a securities class action has been commenced on behalf of shareholders who acquired ATI Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATYT) securities between October 7, 2004 and June 23, 2005, inclusive (the Class Period).

The case is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, against the company and certain key officers and directors.

The action charges that defendants violated the federal securities laws by issuing a series of materially false and misleading statements to the market throughout the Class Period which statements had the effect of artificially inflating the market price of the Company’s securities.

The rest of the article can be read here on Market Wire.

No class has been certified in this action as of yet.

Vioxx Timeline

TheStreet.com has a great Vioxx Timeline (1998-2005) on its site.

Here’s the beginning:

November 1998: Merck submits an application to the Food and Drug Administration seeking approval for the Cox-2 inhibitor drug Vioxx as a treatment for osteoarthritis, on the basis of clinical trials involving 5,400 patients. Merck says rates of cardiovascular risk were “similar” among patients taking Vioxx, placebo or other pain relievers.

January 1999: Merck begins the Vigor trial designed to test gastrointestinal impact of Vioxx. A month later, Merck begins the first of two tests to determine if Vioxx has a beneficial effect on Alzheimer’s disease patients.

May 1999: The FDA approves Vioxx.

Here’s the end:

May 5, 2005: Richard T. Clark, a longtime Merck executive, replaces Raymond V. Gilmartin as chief executive. Gilmartin would have reached mandatory retirement age by March 2006.

Aug. 19, 2005: A Texas state court jury votes against Merck in the first Vioxx product liability trial, assessing $253.4 million in economic and punitive damages. Merck says it will appeal.

For the middle of this 3-page article, go to TheStreet.com.

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