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Bret Michaels Head Injury Lawsuit Settles

May 18th, 2012. By AbiK

Seems like ages ago now, but remember when Bret Michaels was all over the news after suffering that brain hemorrhage? Thankfully for him, his daughters and family, and Poison fans everywhere, he recovered—and we all got a glimpse of his ordeal when People magazine ran Michaels on its cover with the headline “I’m Lucky to be Alive”.

But while a hemorrhage can seemingly occur out of the blue, in Michaels case, there had been a head injury only the year before—in June, 2009. Michaels’ head injury occurred—rather publicly—during the 2009 Tony Awards, at which he and his band, Poison, were performing “Nothin’ But a Good Time”.

When the song was over, Michaels turned to leave the stage and that’s when a rather large piece of the set descended and appeared to hit Michaels in the head, knocking him down. He suffered a fractured nose and needed stitches in his lip.

Given the timing of the head injury, and then the brain hemorrhage less than a year later, Michaels filed a personal injury lawsuit in March, 2011 claiming the stage accident contributed to his life-threatening brain hemorrhage.

Both the Tony Awards and CBS were defendants in the lawsuit which alleged that the Tony Awards producers did not warn Michaels of a set change after his performance and CBS aired the accident thereby allowing it to be picked up by viewers who then made the accident go viral on sites like YouTube.

Needless to say, terms of the settlement—reached last week after a mediation session—are undisclosed. The head injury lawsuit did not specify the monetary damages being sought when Michaels filed it, however according to the Associated Press, Michaels did state that the injury hurt his ability to play at future shows.

Speaking of shows, now that Michaels is performing, fans can catch him on tour this summer–here’s list of Bret Michaels tour dates.

Tags: Brain Hemorrhage, Brain Injury, Bret Michaels, Bret Michaels Lawsuit, CBS, Head Injury, Poison, Settlement, TBI, Tony Awards
Posted in Accidents, Celebrity, lawsuits, Personal Injury | 10030No Comments »2012-05-18+12%3A00%3A38AbiK

Ride the Ducks Accident Settles, Some Question Canopy Safety

May 17th, 2012. By AbiK

The recent multimillion-dollar Ride the Ducks settlement serves as a stark reminder that even the most seemingly innocent of rides can spell disaster. Ride the Ducks—those amphibious vehicles that have become a tourist attraction at a number of locations across the US—would appear to be a pretty tame ride compared to what’s on tap at your local Six Flags theme park—that is, of course, if your eardrums can withstand the continual honking of the duck quack whistles all Ride the Ducks passengers receive (see below right).

Unfortunately though, for two Hungarian students who were visiting Philadelphia in July, 2010, their Ride the Ducks experience ended in death—and wrongful death lawsuits.

The duck boat, which in the Philly location drive-swims into the Delaware River, had had a mechanical failure and was floating adrift in the river when it was struck by a tugboat-guided barge. Sixteen year old Dora Schwendtner and twenty-year old Szabolcs Prem both drowned following the incident.

Both the Ride the Ducks tour company and the tugboat operator were sued—and the tugboat pilot, Matthew Devlin, was sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to misconduct of a ship operator. (Both defendants had blamed each other for the accident.)

The Ride the Ducks Philly tour boats are back in the water—they’ve been given the ok by the US Coast Guard–but not everyone thinks they’re the safest things on the water. The boats have canopies—which, having been on one in the dead of summer, was a welcome relief from the glaring sun. However, in the event of capsize, the canopy could become a trap leaving passengers struggling to free themselves from underneath it while under water. The irony of it is that it might be easier to escape a canopy trap without having a life jacket on–but, of course, no one would advocate not wearing a life jacket.

The Ride the Ducks settlement was for $15 million, to be split by both families of the victims. A $2 million fund was also set up for 18 other passengers who survived the duck boat accident. At the time of the accident, there were approximately 4o people onboard the duck boat.

Tags: Delaware River, Duck Boat Lawsuit, Duck Boat Tour, Philadelphia, Ride the Ducks
Posted in Accidents, lawsuits | 10020No Comments »2012-05-17+18%3A07%3A33AbiK

Actos Lawsuit Angles: How Many Can You Come Up With?

May 14th, 2012. By AbiK

If you’ve tried to figure out what’s going on with Actos—and more specifically, Actos lawsuits–you’ve probably found it can get a bit confusing. This drug has more lawsuit angles now than a tetrahedron. So here’s a list of Actos lawsuit angles:

Actos Bladder Cancer Lawsuits

Actos bladder cancer lawsuits are not class action lawsuits. These are lawsuits filed by individuals who allege they now have bladder cancer because of taking Actos to treat their type 2 diabetes.

When there are many individual lawsuits claiming similar injury (i.e., Actos bladder cancer) brought on by the same defendant(s), it’s a mass tort not a class action. The reason for that is because even though all the victims have bladder cancer, each individual case will be different—for example, the extent of harm will be different from one victim to another, and any damages paid needs to reflect that. In a class action lawsuit, everyone in the class receives the same exact damages.

Typically, parts of a mass tort that are in common across all injured parties will be consolidated into what’s called ‘multi-district litigation’ (MDL). Once the common aspects of all the lawsuits have been resolved, any individual lawsuit differences can be addressed.

Actos Class Action Lawsuit

While there is not an Actos class action lawsuit for bladder cancer injury itself, there has been an Actos class action filed that alleges Takeda, the manufacturer of Actos, engaged in wrongful conduct when it designed, manufactured and marketed the drug–because the drug wound up being linked to bladder cancer and getting an FDA warning because of it.

Actos Whistleblower Lawsuit

Moving right along, a former consultant for Takeda, Dr. Helen Ge, came forward in a whistleblower lawsuit stating that Takeda knew about and yet either did not report or underreported cases of both Actos bladder cancer and Actos myocardial infarction (i.e., Actos heart attack).

According the lawsuit, Ge asserted that “Takeda instructed its medical reviewers not to report hundreds of non-hospitalized or non-fatal congestive heart failure cases as ‘serious adverse events and thus avoided its responsibility of accurately analyzing and reporting these hundreds of serious adverse events to the FDA.

Actos Heart Attack Lawsuit

Like the song “One Thing Leads to Another”, the Actos whistleblower lawsuit sheds light on another potential Actos lawsuit angle: myocardial infarction. Initally, in 2007, the FDA placed a warning on Actos (and Avandia) for congenital heart failure. That warning, however, did not include mention of mycardial infarction (i.e., heart attack). Yet, there had been complaints of Actos heart attack, and those complaints more or less hung in limbo. With Dr. Ge stepping forward, however, it would appear that her allegations could spell more lawsuits for Takeda—this time from Actos heart attack victims. If, in fact, Takeda knew that there was an increased risk for myocardial infarction given their own adverse event reports but did not report that risk, the potential for additional Actos lawsuits is there.

And that could perhaps mean a whole other Actos lawsuit…in the form of an Actos class action. After all, remember how Takeda aggressively advertised that it was a “safer” alternative to Avandia once Avandia took the hit for heart side effects? Stay tuned.

Tags: Actos, Actos Bladder Cancer, Actos class action lawsuit, Actos heart attack, Actos Lawsuit, Dr. Ge, Takeda, type 2 diabetes, Whistleblower
Posted in Class Action, Emerging Issues | 9972No Comments »2012-05-14+19%3A50%3A57AbiK

Tennis Balls Get their Fuzz Up in Top Seed Lawsuit

May 7th, 2012. By AbiK

We’re over a month away from Wimbledon, but there’s plenty of action on the court for tennis fans. Make that in the court as Penn delivers an offensive lob over to Dunlap in the form of a false advertising lawsuit. Seems Dunlap has had the balls (too easy, had to take it) to dub itself the “World’s No. 1 Ball” and the company also claims to have a 70% share of the worldwide tennis ball market. Apparently, Penn (owned by Head USA, Inc.) doesn’t agree.

Note, fwiw, Penn dubs itself as “America’s No. 1 Selling Ball”.

The tennis ball lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Connecticut also includes charges that Dunlap had previously agreed to stop using “No. 1″ in its advertising, but hasn’t done so.

For those who are interested, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) publishes a list of “USTA-approved” tennis balls each year. And, in true diplomatic fashion, the list of brands is shown in alphabetical order—clearly they’re not stepping into the clay, er fray, by showing any favoritism to either ball brand.

No word from Wilson in the matter—but let’s face it, they had their hands full last week making commemorative NFL Draft footballs. And Prince? Well, they just filed for bankruptcy.

Tags: #1 Tennis Ball, Dunlop, false advertising, Head USA, Penn, Prince, Tennis Ball Lawsuit, USTA, Wilson
Posted in Consumer Fraud, lawsuits | 9961No Comments »2012-05-07+15%3A17%3A44AbiK

Is ‘Jesus Heals’ False Advertising When He Doesn’t?

May 7th, 2012. By AbiK

Cruising down I-95 a while back there was a billboard that simply said, “Jesus Saves”. No idea who sponsored it, though one would imagine it was a Christian organization of some sort. Regardless, as with most billboards, it was advertising something. In this case, Jesus. The come-on of course being that if you “buy” Jesus, He’ll seal the transaction by saving you (or your soul). But, what if He doesn’t? Is that false advertising?

Well, a recent Australian billboard took things a bit further by saying, “Jesus Heals Cancer” (see picture, photo by Paul Taylor, nzherald). The billboard also reportedly had a tally of those whom Jesus had apparently healed—a total of six cancer survivors. Glory be to God.

However, not everyone was happy with the Jesus Heals billboard—including an Australian family whose 3 year old son is undergoing treatment for leukemia. Their beef? The sign read like a factual statement—not a message of hope, and therefore, it’s misleading—and offensive.

Amen.

And one can only wonder had the 3 year old been old enough to read, how would mommy and daddy be expected to explain why Jesus hadn’t healed him yet? Were they not ‘good enough’ Christians (assuming, of course, that they’re Christians)? Why was he being ostracized from the healthy and the cleansed?

After the Australian Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a total of nine such complaints, it launched an investigation into the matter. The result? The ASA deemed that while the sponsor of the ad did not have any intention to offend, it clearly did not display the ‘”due sense of social responsibility required” and therefore breached the code of ethics.’ (nzherald.co.nz)

Unfortunately, most of us know someone who—even with ‘taking the narrow path’ in life—has succumbed to cancer. And most practicing Christians certainly believe that while God is omnipotent, there is only so much He can, or will, do—leaving us mere mortals to find solace in platitudes like “God must have needed him/her in heaven”. What else is there to say, after all?

The billboard in Australia was the work of the Equippers Church—their tagline: “Equipping People for Life through Faith in Jesus Christ”. Here’s an excerpt from one of their web pages (boldface added by author):

Equippers exists to create an environment where young and old of every culture can easily connect and discover the purpose of their existence. We value the different cultures that make up our community, however we also believe in the importance in having the same spirit in all our expressions. We encourage everyone to put the culture of the Kingdom ahead of their own cultural expectations, as we become united in the same purpose, the cause of Christ.

We believe that the Bible is inspired by God—that it is accurate authoritative and applicable to every part of our lives. Our desire is to communicate the message of God’s word without compromise in a relevant, life-giving way.

Draw your own conclusions from the above, but one word comes to mind: fundamentalist. To round out your picture of the Equippers Church, a few applicable keywords might be: Christian contemporary music, missions, ministries, Hallelujah Project, Shout Conference. You get the vibe. Unfortunately, the vibe tends to call for drinking the proverbial kool-aid and encouraging others to partaketh of the cup as well. Even if it means buying a billboard to proselytize the weak into thinking they’ll be ‘healed’.

To their credit, they do practice what they preach and do so with apparent conviction—case in point, here’s an example from Senior Pastor Kathy Monk’s twitter stream:

Choose to do life with Jesus, the other alternative is ridiculous, stupid & deadly…#JustDoIt

Deadly? Stupid?

Wouldn’t that be a nice message for a cancer patient right now—yes, Jesus heals cancer—but wait there’s more!—an addendum that didn’t make it onto the billboard: to NOT follow Jesus is deadly! And guess what? If you don’t follow Him, you’re stupid, too! Christianity at it’s most ‘Christian’ there, right? Thankfully not the Christianity I grew up with (for the record, I’m Christian born and bred.)

So yes, clearer minds prevailed on this one. The sign was apparently updated to read: “Jesus Heals every Sickness & Every Disease – Matthew 4:23″. Which, from a false advertising perspective is just fine. After all, when you’re trying to promote what’s in essence a best-selling book and its book club, what better to use than a pull quote?

Tags: Consumer Fraud, Equippers Australia, Equippers Church, false advertising, Jesus Heals Billboard
Posted in Consumer Fraud, Emerging Issues | 99421 Comment »2012-05-07+13%3A35%3A39AbiK