Recently, I had not heard about the latex spill into the Delaware River and went to my local ACME and found that all the bottled water had been cleaned out. Except, of course, Aquafina which has a serious marketing problem. But that is a separate story. Anyway, here is what happened per the City of Philadelphia. A synthetic latex product spilled from the Trinseo facility along a tributary of the Delaware River near Bristol Township, Bucks County, 13 miles north of the Baxter Drinking Water Treatment Plant intake, shortly before midnight on Friday, March 24, 2023. The product spilled is used in making products such as headlight covers. The Trinseo company, which apparently caused this says the product is water soluble, so it dissolves in water. I’m not sure if that is good or bad.
So, what can you do about this? Really nothing other than panic a little as everyone did. I think a little panic was the correct response! I don’t particularly have an opinion on headlight covers, but they don’t seem very natural. Anyway, as a PA resident, you have a right under the PA Constitution to be free from infringements on your right to a safe environment and you may have been out a few bucks for bottled water, but that is about it. Some public interest law firm may be able to bring a claim about violation of the clean streams act, but I expect the regulators are fairly pissed about this already.
Continue Reading ››
Springtime
Posted on April 04, 2023 in holiday
Finally, have a Happy Easter, Happy Passover, and Ramadan. It is a lovely time to be in Eastern Pennsylvania as all our trees are flowering and it is really very pretty here for a while.
Continue Reading ››
Focus Groups
Posted on March 21, 2023 in For Lawyers
Nobody did focus groups better than Mad Men
Over the course of a typical year, I will conduct a focus group on one or two cases. The cost is usually minimal in relation to the overall case value. The purpose of running a focus group is usually to evaluate specific case issues and get a feel for how an impartial jury feels on seeing your case on first impression. For various reasons, using focus groups for determining case values is not particularly reliable.
A focus group collects panelists who reflect the typical makeup of your expected trial jury in the county where your case will be tried. We all prefer a representative sample of the educational level, racial makeup, political leanings etc.
Usually, I will prepare a reduced presentation of exhibits and an outline of the case. Since the defense is not present, I try to deliver a middle of the road presentation. Think about a just the facts ma’am, Sgt. Friday type presentation. The goal is not to argue one side or another. Rather, the goal is to ferret out how jurors feel about issues in your case that are problematic or will make or break your case.
Continue Reading ››
Madoff/Tom Girardi in LA
Posted on March 21, 2023 in For Lawyers
I am always amazed at how some of the most notorious white collar thieves went astray. Girardi negotiated a $53-million settlement in 2013 for a young burn victim named Ruigomez, but told his parents the agreed amount was only about $7.2 million, according to the indictment. Bernie Madoff stole billions of dollars running a non-existent trading operation.
Both of these men were highly skilled marketers and salespeople. Why they went astray is hard to fathom, but that is not my focus here. Rather, each of these guys was able to convince people, some educated and some not, to trust them on a scale rarely seen. Madoff did so by convincing people that it was a unique secretive privilege to be a client of his. Girardi preyed on the less educated accepting his word without question. In another context, both men would have been super successful as large parts of the business world are dependent upon truly great marketers and salespeople.
If you were trying to market a successful business or conduct networking for a law firm, it might be worth it to spend a moment to study what these two were doing before things went awry. Having looked at both their stories, it is apparent that unlike many of us who are working lawyers, meaning working at our lawyer jobs, both of these men were 100% all in on marketing themselves or their operations.
Continue Reading ››
Eye drops / not product liability per se
Posted on March 21, 2023 in Medical Malpractice
There is a current recall on eye drops and eye ointments manufactured by Global Pharma Healthcare Private Limited, which is an Indian manufacturing company. Their over the counter eye products were detected to have bacterial infection and were intended to be sterile. So, if you use these products, you may be directly dropping harmful bacteria into your eye. Bad, huh? This is evidence of a manufacturing problem. However, without the FDA’s involvement and a resulting voluntary recall, infection cases are very hard to prove either as medical malpractice or as product liability. There are several reasons for this. The claim here is that the manufacturer’s procedures to ensure sterility failed and bacteria entered the drops before they were sealed and shipped to the US.
Unlike cuts to the skin or inhaled bacterial infections, the eye is very sensitive to bacterial infections. What may initially look like pink eye or conjunctivitis can rapidly lead to degeneration of the retina or delicate structures in the eye. While doctors can infuse antibiotics directly into the eye, the structures of the eye can permanently degenerate because you have a lot of bacteria in a small, enclosed space with limited circulation. So, infusing bacteria into your eye is bad and can and has already led to reports of blindness.
Continue Reading ››
DRUMMING UP BUSINESS OR DRUMMING YOURSELF TO THE DISCIPLINARY BOARD?
Posted on March 15, 2023 in Uncategorized
Recently, I took an extraordinary step that I don’t usually take. I am in the middle of a case involving three deaths. Through researching that case, I came across reports of another similar case in the area. I did not know the deceased’s family and ended up contacting them through a letter to which they responded. It ended up that they did not have a case that I wanted to pursue, but there are certain rules about how we as personal injury lawyers may pursue cases.
While we are allowed to send old-fashioned letters through the mail inquiring as to the need for representations, we cannot pay non-lawyers to hunt down cases for us. Second, we cannot call people who have just been in an accident and ask to be their lawyer. There is supposed to be sufficient time between the traumatic event and the solicitation to allay the upset of the trauma. Beyond that, there is a big gray area. If you want to read a great lawyer book called The Litigators, you will read about the Bhopal Union Carbide disaster and the flood of personal injury lawyers who jumped on airplanes to India with blank retainer forms to sign up clients. There is also the old commercial where a city bus crashes on a rainy day in front of a personal injury office and the lawyer’s dreary day turns sunny.
Continue Reading ››
CHRIS MARAGOS VERDICT / LOST EARNINGS
Posted on March 15, 2023 in Medical Malpractice
Chris Maragos was a special teams player for the Eagles. He recently won a $40 million dollar verdict in Philadelphia against Rothman Institute in which he claimed that their failure to properly evaluate a meniscus tear in his knee cost him years of football earnings. His lost earnings made the number far higher than any other individual would normally see.
Lost earnings are very hard to prove for many people. If you are W-2 employee, they are fairly straightforward. Many people these days are not W-2 employees and it is very, very hard to prove lost earnings in those situations. I once had a client very mad at me because they felt that their real estate commission income was not fairly valued in a settlement conference. The client had earned about $75,000 per year in commissions as a realtor. But, the case occurred in 2010, in the middle of a terrible real estate downturn, when no houses were selling. It was very hard to justify a lost earnings value in that case, but the client definitely had lost earnings. Whether we could prove causation, or whether the earnings loss was caused by her injury was very problematic. Eventually, the client was pissed off, but accepted the settlement offered. I have not heard from them since then suggesting that they still felt aggrieved by their lost earnings.
Continue Reading ››
