... and Justice for All

Sealing Court Records Harms Public

Sealing court documents prevents families from learning about dangerous products and is harmful to the public interest. Congress is considering the Sunshine In Litigation Act to end the practice and promote family safety. 

Here's an example according to the American Association for Justice:  Bausch & Lomb has settled more than 600 contact lens solution cases in the last year. The solution is said to cause fungus infections and can cause blindness. Yet Bausch & Lomb forced all court documents in the case to remain sealed, keeping contact solution users and doctors without any knowledge of the causes of the infections.  Among the sealed documents are internal investigations into the cause of the fungus infections and details of outdated company testing procedures used for market approval-standards which are widely used by other contact solution manufacturers. Read here the AAJ's press release: Loophole In the Courts Leaves Dangerous Products On the Market: Car Tires and Contact Lens Solution Just Two Examples.

Another example is a lawsuit filed against Cooper Tires contending defects allowed the tread to separate from the tires and caused the deadly rollover that killed eight students and a teacher from Utah State University.  A key piece of evidence is a memo that the lawyer representing the families located in a court record in Mississippi.  The memo shows that Cooper Tires did away with the basic safety feature that would have prevented the deadly tire separations and associated rollover problems.  The families' lawyer, Bruce Kaster, testified to the House Judiciary Committee:  "Tens of thousands of Americans, if not hundreds of thousands, have been killed or seriously injured by defective products that manufacturers are aware of, but the public is not," because they manage to seal sensitive documents in court. The Deseret News reports further: Do Courts Sanction Suit Secrets?

Robert L. Abell
www.RobertAbellLaw.com

American Association for Justice Reports On Insurance Companies' "Tricks of the Trade"

The American Association for Justice (AAJ) has continued its examination of the insurance industry.  In July, AAJ released a report The Ten Worst Insurance Companies in America: How They Raise Premiums, Deny Claims, and Refuse Insurance to Those Who Need It Most.  Now, AAJ reports on the insurance industry's stonewalling, subterfuge and other unethical and bad faith practices: Tricks of the Trade: How Insurance Companies Deny, Delay, Confuse and Refuse. 

The favorite tricks include the following: denying claims, delaying until death, confusing consumers, discriminating by credit score, abandoning the sick and cancelling for a call.

Robert L. Abell
www.RobertAbellLaw.com

"Get Out of Jail" Free Cards For Corporations -- American Association for Justice Details Undermining of Family and Consumer Protections

The American Association for Justice has released a report, Get Out of Jail Free: How the Bush Administration Helps Corporations Escape Accountability, detailing the systematic and widespread undermining of family and consumer protections by Bush Administration agencies and political appointees.  Through documents and emails obtained via the Freedom Of Information Act the AAJ report traces the evolution and development of a federal preemption strategy, a legal doctrine by which state law protections for families and consumers are eliminated or "preempted" by federal regulations that insulate corporations from liability, accountability and responsibility for their defective products.

Robert L. Abell
www.RobertAbellLaw.com

Pregnant and New Mothers Endangered by Proposed FDA Rule

Pregnant and new mothers are endangered by a proposed FDA rule that will allow drug companies to omit information on their warning labels about dangerous side effects of their products.  For leaving out this important information the drug companies would receive the prize of immunity from lawsuits through the doctrine of preemption.  That's justice under the Bush Administration: create a rule that allows drug companies to harm pregnant and new mothers and get away scot-free.  The ever-vigilant American Association for Justice has protested adoption of the proposed rule that you can read by clicking here. 

Robert L. Abell
www.RobertAbellLaw.com

Railroad Crossing Safety Requires "Active" Warning Systems

Research shows that a stop sign is the most dangerous type of warning system at a railroad crossing.  The safest is an "active" warning system which include flashing lights and gates.  Despite this research, the Federal Highway Administration proposes only to require a stop or yield sign at every railroad crossing in the country. 

Stop signs at railroad crossings pose two types of specific dangers.  One is that large vehicles, such as school buses, require about 10-15 seconds to clear a crossing.  This may not be enough time to clear the crossing before an oncoming train would arrive, even one that could not be seen when the vehicle began crossing.  The second is that some stop signs are placed too far from the crossing to allow a clear line of sight to see if there is an oncoming train.  These problems are why the National Cooperative Highway Research Program has strongly and continually recommended that engineering analysis determine the safest warning system at each railroad crossing.  The American Association for Justice has urged the FHWA to drop this proposal based on decades of research and experience and its letter may be reviewed here. 

This proposed agency rule also offers an illustration of the continuing efforts to use the preemption doctrine to insulate corporations from accountability, responsibility and liability.  The preemption doctrine would hold that installation of a stop sign and the compliance with federal regulation that it would entail would bar any liability under state law for an unsafe crossing.  That is no justice: issue an unsafe federal regulation that encourages dangerous practices and prevents any responsibility or liability. 

Robert L. Abell
www.RobertAbellLaw.com

Worst Insurance Companies: The Top Ten

The worst insurance companies in the United States were identified by the American Association for Justice (AAJ) following a comprehensive review and analysis of thousands of court documents, SEC and FBI records, state insurance department investigations and complaints, new accounts from across the country, and the testimony and depositions of former insurance agents and adjusters.  The AAJ's report The Ten Worst Insurance Companies in America; How They Raise Premiums, Deny Claims, and Refuse Insurance to Those Who Need It Most found that one company stood out above all the others and thus became the titleholder of the worst insurance company in America: Allstate.  The rest of the top 10 were as follows: Unum, AIG, State Farm, Conseco, WellPoint, Farmers, UnitedHealth, Torchmark and Liberty Mutual. 

AAJ's report includes some eye-popping statistics regarding the enormous profits reaped by the insurance industry and the huge reductions in claims payments:

• over $1 trillion in premiums is collected annually by the U.S. insurance industry
• the some $3.8 trillion in assets held by the U.S. insurance agency exceed the GDPs of all countries but the United States and Japan
• the property/casualty insurance industry has averaged annual profits of $30 billion the last 10 years
• the life and health insurance agency has also averaged annual profits of $30 billion over the last decade
• Allstate reduced the percentage of its claims payments from 79% of premium income to 58% from 1996 to 2006
• Allstate dropped its payout percentage on auto claims from 63% to 47% of premium income in the same period

There is a lot of money in collecing premiums and not paying claims.

Robert L. Abell
www.RobertAbellLaw.com

Bush Administration Rules Protect Corporate Wrongdoing

    As part of its ongoing and to date very successful effort to insulate corporate wrongdoing from accountability, responsibility and liability, the Bush Administration has adopted since 2005 a total of 51 regulatory rules that preclude lawsuits arising from all sorts of everyday items including drugs, cars, railroads, medical devices and food.

    The legal doctrine is known as "federal preemption."  Here's how it works: say for instance the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) adopts a regulation outlining drug labeling and packaging.  However, the labeling and packaging causes confusion and, as a result, children are badly injured.  That's what happened to actor Dennis Quaid's newborn twins who were given massive doses of blood thinner at a hospital.  The Quaids filed a lawsuit in Illinois state court claiming that the manufacturer -- Baxter Healthcare Corp. -- was negligent n packaging different doses of the product in similar vials with blue backgrounds.  Under the doctrine of "federal preemption," however, the Quaids' suit could be barred because the manufacturer's compliance with a deficient federal regulation preempts any liability it might have for causing harm. 

    Earlier this year FDA Commissioner Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach publicly acknowledged that the agency "may fail in its mission to protect and promote the health of every American" and that "peril exists."  That admission followed on the heels of a report late in 2007 from the FDA Science Board that the agency does not have the capacity to ensure the safety of the nation's food, cannot adequately regulate the development of medical products based on "new science" and had many other materials failings. 

    Historically, state tort and liability lawsuits have been viewed as complementary to federal agency regulations.  But the Bush Administration has hit upon a successful formula to ensure not consumer safety but corporate immunity from responsibility and accountability: render the regulatory agencies unable to function and preempt any attempt to protect consumers.  The American Association for Justice and other groups are opposing mightily these efforts and you can learn more here.

Robert L. Abell
www.RobertAbellLaw.com