Author Archive

Week Adjourned: 8.6.10

August 6th, 2010. By admin

Top Class Actions

Could Say He was Over his Overdraft Fees. I think these guys deserve a Business As Usual, As Usual award. Commerce Bancshares, a Kansas City-based financial institution operating simply as Commerce Bank in the state of Missouri is being sued by a client who claims the company’s bank overdraft fees violate state law.

The plaintiff, Harold J. Joseph Jr., has accused the banking chain of manipulating the sequence of debit card purchases in an attempt to maximize the number and size of overdraft fees that they can impose.

Any of this sound familiar? Excessive bank overdraft fees lawsuits have been filed and/or settled against a variety of banks, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, M&T Bank and Wachovia. The lawsuits allege that banks charge excessive overdraft fees when customers’ accounts go into overdraft. They further allege that the banks use a number of unethical practices to push their accounts into overdraft, such as misrepresenting customers’ account balances and reordering debits and credits to accounts.

New regulations that will take effect by mid-August seek to rectify this problem by making overdraft protection an opt-in service and by regulating the terms of the action.

FYI: Information about Commerce Bancshares second quarter earnings were posted in a press release July 21. Those of you hit with excessive overdraft fees may find the numbers interesting…”Commerce Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: AstraZeneca, Audi, Commerce Bancshares, Overdraft fees, Seroquel, Volkswagon
Posted in Emerging Issues, Week Adjourned | 4648No Comments »Week+Adjourned%3A+8.6.102010-08-06+21%3A06%3A20admin

Asbestos Corporate Bankruptcies: Don’t Shed A Tear

April 29th, 2010. By admin

Guest blogger, RJ Abernathy, is an Asbestos attorney with Goldenberg Heller Antognoli and Rowland. He has a unique perspective as an asbestos lawyer, having been a Laborer with Local 100 in East St. Louis, Illinois for over 20 years prior to becoming an attorney. As a Laborer, he worked in many of the same conditions as those in which his clients have worked. Abernathy also lost his own father to asbestos-related cancer in 1999.

A recent article published by an arm of the US Chamber of Commerce noted that another company “collapsed” under the weight of asbestos claims. According to this article, 89 such companies have “collapsed” since 1982. In the latest case, Durabla Manufacturing sold asbestos containing products well into the 1980′s, long after asbestos was recognized as a dangerous and deadly material. pink panther owens corning thumbs up Asbestos Corporate Bankruptcies: Dont Shed A Tear

A closer look at the other 88 “collapsed” companies reveals that not only have many of these companies remained in business, but many of them thrived after ‘going bankrupt.’ Walk into any Home Depot or Lowe’s home improvement stores and you will find a large percentage of these “collapsed” companies’ products on the shelves. For example, the Pink Panther didn’t lose his job when Owens Corning went bankrupt. Dick Cheney’s former employer, Halliburton, never missed a beat over the past seven years during the Iraq war since filing for bankruptcy protection due to its subsidiaries asbestos liabilities.

In another case, W.R. Grace filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001, even though it has annual sales of nearly 3 billion dollars. In 2005, the United States Department of Justice filed criminal charges against Grace, including counts for fraudulent transfers of nearly 5 billion dollars just prior to the bankruptcy filing.

In other cases, I think it is hard to argue that these companies should not have “collapsed.” The miners, manufacturers and purveyors of raw asbestos fibers should have been out of business Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Asbestos, asbestos lawyer, Asbestos Mesothelioma, Goldenberg Heller Antognoli and Rowland, RJ Abernathy
Posted in Asbestos Mesothelioma | 3468No Comments »2010-04-29+18%3A38%3A13admin

Ambulance Fat Fees coming to an EMS near you…

July 2nd, 2009. By admin

plamobilambulance Ambulance Fat Fees coming to an EMS near you... First it was the airlines—for which weight discrimination is still a hot topic of debate. But now, it seems American Medical Response (AMR) of Topeka, KS has been given clearance by the Shawnee County Commission to raise its fees for transporting overweight and critical care patients.

According to a June 30th article on ABC affiliate Nebraska.tv, AMR will now be able to increase what it charges for ambulance costs for critical care patients and overweight people from $629 to $1,172. It doesn’t take a math scholar to figure out that it’ll cost you almost double if you tip the scales at over 350 lbs (the threshold weight for the increase). Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: weight discrimination
Posted in Emerging Issues | 553No Comments »2009-07-02+17%3A37%3A47admin

New study on MRI & Gadolinium…but does it matter?

July 1st, 2009. By admin

mriscan New study on MRI & Gadolinium...but does it matter? The June issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (as reported by docguide.com) has the results of a new study on MRI health risks–particularly those associated with gadolinium contrast. According to the docguide.com article,

“Even at very high doses, gadolinium-based contrast agents alone are not sufficient to cause nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) in patients with kidney problems,…”

That’s a statement that caught my eye given all the prior studies on the risks of gadolinium as an MRI contrast agent and its connection to Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis (NSF).

In the study, led by Dr. Mellena D. Bridges, of the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, records of 61 patients who received high-dose IV gadodiamide for catheter angiography or computed tomography (CT) between January 2002 and December 2005 were examined. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Gadolinium, MRI Health Risks
Posted in Drugs/Medical | 548No Comments »2009-07-01+19%3A17%3A33admin

Hydroxycut Class Action Filed in California

June 17th, 2009. By admin

hydroxycutpackage1 Hydroxycut Class Action Filed in California Here’s one that just came flying across my virtual desk—yes, it does happen to be from a law firm that advertises on LawyersandSettlements.com, but given that Hydroxycut Diet Supplements were touted as “America’s #1 Selling Weight Loss Product” (right on the package!), it does make you wonder about the extent to which adverse effects with Hydroxycut have been underreported. Here’s the release…

Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman Files National Hydroxycut Consumer Fraud Class Action Lawsuit on Behalf of Millions Who Consumed the Recalled Weight Loss Supplement

LOS ANGELES– Recalled Hydroxycut products are defective and dangerous according to a lawsuit filed today by Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman in federal court in Los Angeles on behalf of everyone who consumed any of the recalled weight loss Hydroxycut supplements.

The lead plaintiff in this class action, Marvin Thomas of Los Angeles, is seeking compensatory, equitable, declaratory, and injunctive relief for himself and everyone in the Hydroxycut class against the defendants for, among other things, violations of various states’ deceptive trade practices acts, misrepresentation, fraudulent, false and misleading advertisements, and unjust enrichment by distributing a product about which they had been making unsubstantiated claims of safety and effectiveness.

Tags: Hydroxycut, Hydroxycut Class Action, Hydroxycut Diet Supplements
Posted in Defective Products | 383No Comments »2009-06-18+01%3A32%3A53admin