Danbury settles landfill lawsuit for $1.8 million
July 29, 2010
City officials have reached a $1.8 million settlement in a 5-year-old lawsuit filed by the general contractor who worked on capping the Plumtrees Road landfill.
According to the City Council’s agenda for its meeting Tuesday, the board will be asked to approve a new ordinance that would allow the city to bond $1,840,000 to settle the lawsuit, which was filed in 2005.
Metcalf & Eddy, the general contractor for the landfill project, filed a claim with the city that year for $8.9 million, saying the city owed it additional money for the work.
Article: Newstimes
Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law
Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States — from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners — nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision.
The policy was designed 33 years ago to protect trade secrets in a highly competitive industry. But critics — including the Obama administration — say the secrecy has grown out of control, making it impossible for regulators to control potential dangers or for consumers to know which toxic substances they might be exposed to.
Article: Washington Post
Widow sues Army Corps
The widow of a Rochester man who was killed when the boat he was in crashed into Summerville Pier claims the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to adequately light the pier at night. Joyce Brown Mitchell filed a lawsuit against the agency last month in U.S. District Court as administrator of the estate of Cori L. Mitchell, 28, who died when the boat piloted by Howard F. Eddy III hit the pier on June 28, 2008. She seeks $5 million in damages for herself and the couple’s four children.
Article: Democrat and Chronicle
Couple sues CAMC, pediatric surgeon for daughter’s injury
A couple is suing Charleston Area Medical Center and a pediatric surgeon after their infant child was injured during an operation.
On Dec. 30, 2005, Dr. Robert W. Letton Jr. was performing an operation on Dianna and Danny Lovejoy’s infant daughter, Savannah Lovejoy, according to a complaint filed Aug. 10 in Kanawha Circuit Court.
During the operation, Letton lacerated Savannah Lovejoy’s spleen, causing her severe injury, pain and suffering, according to the suit.
The Lovejoys claim Letton owed a duty to them to perform the surgery within an acceptable standard of medical care and breached his duty.
Article: WV Record
Schering-Plough Wins Approval of $165 Million Investor Accord
Schering-Plough Corp., the drugmaker acquired by Merck & Co., won a U.S. judge’s approval of a $165 million settlement to resolve lawsuits over alleged fraudulent statements to investors about the Clarinex allergy medicine.
U.S. District Judge Katharine Hayden in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, gave final approval to the class-action settlement, which affects as many as 280,000 investors. The accord was “reasonable and fair” after seven years of litigation and a “robust mediation process,” she ruled.
“While Schering-Plough arguably could pay more, pushing for more in the face of risks and delays would not be in the interests of the class,” Hayden ruled Dec. 31.
Investors claimed Schering-Plough made false statements from May 2000 to February 2001 that failed to adequately disclose “serious and widespread deficiencies” in manufacturing and quality operations, which risked a delay in approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of Clarinex, a successor drug to Claritin, according to court filings.
Schering-Plough announced Feb. 15, 2001, that the FDA cited manufacturing deficiencies at its facilities in New Jersey and Puerto Rico, causing the agency to withhold approval of Clarinex. Schering-Plough shares fell 15 percent the next day.
Article: Bloomberg
New Look at Food Safety After Peanut Tainting
July 24, 2010
Christopher Meunier, 7, had not been sick since he was a toddler, but in late November, he suddenly had a high fever and bloody diarrhea and started vomiting.
Health Guide: Salmonella Enterocolitis“He was just in screaming pain,” said his mother, Gabrielle Meunier of South Burlington, Vt. “He said, ‘It hurts so bad, I want to die’ — something you don’t expect to hear out of a 7-year-old’s mouth.”
Hospitalized for six days, Christopher had salmonella poisoning, making him one of more than 500 people sickened across the country after eating peanut butter or peanut products made at a Peanut Corporation of America plant in Blakely, Ga.
The Food and Drug Administration has charged that the company knowingly shipped contaminated products to some of the largest food makers in the country from a plant that was never designed to make peanut butter safely, causing one of the most extensive food recalls in history. The company responded that it disagreed with some of the agency’s findings and that it had “taken extraordinary measures to identify and recall all products that have been identified as presenting a potential risk.”
Article: NY Times
Deadly Sherman bus crash probes may be close to finished
Nearly six months after 17 people on a religious pilgrimage died in one of the worst bus crashes in U.S. history, law enforcement authorities are working to wrap up investigations that could lead to state and federal charges, including negligent homicide.
Federal authorities have conducted interviews in recent weeks aimed at verifying the chain of ownership of the retreaded tire believed to be the cause of the accident, a possible signal that their investigation is nearing conclusion. Among those interviewed was the owner of the Pennsylvania retreading plant where the tire was made.
The FBI, Sherman police and the National Transportation Safety Board have followed a trail of evidence through at least three states since a charter carrying a Vietnamese Catholic group from Houston to a retreat in Missouri skidded off the highway and smashed through a bridge guardrail last Aug. 8 about an hour north of Dallas.
Investigators are trying to determine how the retread was illegally placed on the bus’ front axle, who should have noticed it and what ultimately caused it to fail.
Article: DentonRC.com
Broader labor agenda likely to face rougher waters
Labor, riding high after quick wins with President Barack Obama, faces the harsh reality that the Democratic-controlled Congress will not find it easy to push more fiercely contested legislation to improve the status of workers or the unions trying to organize them.
Obama on Friday issued executive orders that union officials say will undo Bush administration policies favoring employers. Among the orders, federal contractors would be required to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change, and they would be prevented from receiving reimbursement for expenses meant to influence worker decisions on joining unions or engaging in collective bargaining.
Article: Sign On San Diego
Relief Denied For Life Insurers
A national panel of insurance regulators yesterday voted down a plan that would have propped up life insurers by allowing them to operate with thinner financial cushions.
The life insurance industry had pleaded for the relief, saying some companies need help urgently to weather the economic crisis.
Opponents said the plan would have weakened insurers’ ability to keep promises to policyholders and would have made it harder for consumers to know how much confidence to have in any individual insurer.
“This will pull the wool over the eyes of millions of Americans,” J. Robert Hunter, a former regulator who now focuses on insurance issues for the Consumer Federation of America, said at a hearing Tuesday on the proposals that comprised the plan.
In effect, the proposals would have served as a cashless bailout. They would have changed the way companies and regulators measure life insurers’ financial strength, making them look healthier than they otherwise would appear.
Article: Washington Post
Crib warnings missed before recall
July 23, 2010
Susan and Robert Cirigliano were thrilled when they learned of Delta Enterprise’s October recall of 1.6 million cribs. Finally, they thought, the company was acknowledging the death of their 6-month-old son in a Delta baby bed.
Bobby Cirigliano died in 2004, trapped between the mattress and the side railing of his Delta crib after the railing popped off its track.
But when the Long Island couple went online for more details, they felt sick. A Delta spokesman had told reporters around the country that the company was “erring on the side of caution” after two infants died. Bobby wasn’t mentioned.
“We felt like Delta spun it so that they were acting like heroes, like they had saved babies,” said Susan Cirigliano, whose family is suing Delta for wrongful death.
Article: Chicago Tribune