Posts Tagged ‘ Morgan Stanley ’

Week Adjourned: 4.8.11

April 8th, 2011. By LucyC

Top Class Actions

HAMPered Loan Modifications? It seems there’s no end in sight to the mortgage crisis—with new twists and victims appearing regularly. In fact, you could argue that it’s spawned a whole spin-off industry of fraud, and related legal actions. For example, this week, Saxon Mortgage Inc, the mortgage service division of Morgan Stanley, was hit with a potential class action lawsuit over allegations that the company uses the Homeowners Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) to attract customers into making “trial” payments on loans it has no intention of ever permanently modifying.

Filed in Northern California, the suit alleges a pattern of misconduct by Saxon which involves collecting trial payments, delaying the processing of loan modifications, and then denying the application altogether for demonstrably false reasons. Where do you start?

The suit’s lead plaintiff, a small business owner in San Francisco, Marie Gaudin, had, like millions of Americans, fallen on hard times as a result of the recession and approached Saxon for a loan modification on her home. Long story short, she was directed to Saxon’s “Home Preservation Department” and subsequently asked to provide extensive documentation of her financial condition, which she did. She received a written agreement from them that appeared to promise a permanent HAMP loan modification after she made three “trial” payments as proof she could handle the loan repayments. But—Saxon didn’t honor its agreement. Are we surprised?

The suit claims that Saxon delayed the processing of the HAMP loan modification, while Gaudin continued to make trial payments, which were duly noted as received in correspondence from Saxon. Nevertheless, Saxon denied her a permanent HAMP modification. According to the suit Saxon claimed that Gaudin had failed to make payments or comply with document requests. They also allegedly claimed that she did not make payments, while in the same letter actually acknowledged that she was current on all payments (do they not read their own correspondence before it goes out?). Saxon also claimed that the U.S. Treasury Department was involved in reviewing HAMP applications. Who gets paid to think this stuff up?

Not surprisingly, the suit alleges that Saxon’s breach of contract, rescission and restitution, and deceptive debt collection practices violated California’s Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (Rosenthal Act), and fraudulent, unlawful, and unfair business practices under California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL).

Top Settlements

Goodyear Discrimination Suit Settles. Here’s a good news story—we like those. A jury in Cumberland, NC recently awarded Lashanda Shaw $450,000 as settlement of her wrongful termination suit against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.’s Fayetteville plant this week.

Court documents reportedly state that Shaw was fired for making a complaint about racial and sexual discrimination in the workplace. She filed her suit in 2009. When she finally got to court the trial took five weeks with the jury unanimously agreed on the compensatory damages. I’ll bet she’s sleeping better now.

May be Justice—but at What Cost? A 79-year old woman in Scranton, PA was awarded $550K this week as settlement of her medical malpractice case. But here’s the downside—Irene Doherty filed the suit because she suffered a 23-month delay in the diagnosis of her lung cancer. The verdict was returned against radiologist Earl Detrick, who practiced in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, PA, prior to retiring.

Ms. Doherty’s lawyers argued that Detrick failed to properly report to Doherty or her physician his conclusions regarding a computerized tomography (CT) scan of her chest. That’s helpful. It turns out that that scan revealed a mass in Doherty’s right lung that required medical follow-up—but it wasn’t brought to Ms. Doherty’s attention until nearly two years later when she underwent a subsequent CT scan of her chest. The second scan revealed a much larger cancerous mass. So, in the 23 months between CT scans, the mass had doubled in size, and was inoperable. Worse, the cancer had spread to Doherty’s lymph nodes. Frankly, I find this astonishing—how does this kind of oversight happen?

Needless to say, Doherty’s suffering and physical deterioration due to her lung cancer could have been prevented had the radiologist done his job—which was to report the results of the January 2007 CT scan as soon as he saw them. And that’s exactly what her lawyers argued. If nothing else Doherty’s case emphasizes the importance of being your own advocate when it comes to healthcare. Don’t get me started…

Ok. That’s it for this week. See you at the bar.

Tags: Discrimination, Dr. Earl Detrick, Employment lawsuit, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, HAMP, Homeowners Affordable Modification Program, Irene Doherty, Leshanda Shaw, loan modification, Marie Gaudin, medical malpractice, Morgan Stanley, Saxon Mortgage
Posted in Week Adjourned | 7542No Comments »Week+Adjourned%3A+4.8.112011-04-08+18%3A51%3A26LucyC

Landmark Ruling Awards Florida Smoker $300 Million

November 21st, 2009. By Hunter West

cig1 Landmark Ruling Awards Florida Smoker $300 Million Fort Lauderdale, FL: A landmark ruling by a jury in Fort Lauderdale late Thursday could set the stage for additional personal injury lawsuits after a Florida woman was awarded $300 million in a tobacco lawsuit. Provided the verdict survives an assumed appeal by defendant Philip Morris, the award represents the largest single award to an individual suing a tobacco company.

Lucinda Naugle was 20 when she started smoking, a habit she maintained for 25 years before finally quitting at the age of 45. Now 61, Naugle suffers from severe emphysema and requires a lung transplant she can’t afford.

If she lives long enough to see an end to the appeal process, Naugle would have more than enough to fund her surgery. The sister of a former Fort Lauderdale mayor was awarded $56 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages. Following three hours of deliberation after a three-week trial, the jury assessed liability to Naugle at 10 percent, whereas Philip Morris was saddled with 90 percent.

Altria Group, the parent company of Philip Morris based in Virginia, indicated that it would appeal the verdict. A spokesperson called the Florida rules “fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional.”

Lawsuits against tobacco companies are not unique, especially since 1998 when the seven largest tobacco companies agreed to fork over $206 billion in a master settlement agreement with 46 states.

Florida was one of those states. However, what sets Florida apart is a major legal ruling three years ago that makes it easier for individuals to sue tobacco companies, by way of the lowering of the burden of proof.

In 2006 the Florida Supreme Court rejected a class-action verdict and an award totaling $145 billion to plaintiffs, stating that plaintiffs would have to litigate individually. However-and this is the important caveat-the court dictated that plaintiffs would not be required to prove some key elements that had been upheld in the first stage of the class action: namely that nicotine is addictive, that smoking causes diseases and that cigarette companies fraudulently withheld those facts.

“That makes Florida unique,” said Clifford Douglas of the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network, in comments published yesterday in the New York Times.

Naugle’s legal counsel told the New York Times that 25 additional cases would go to trial in Florida next year. In all, more than 9,000 people from the former class action have filed individual lawsuits in various Florida courts. Approximately 4,000 of those cases were filed in federal court and have been stayed pending a review scheduled for early next year.

A tobacco analyst for Morgan Stanley said that the tobacco industry could afford several hundred million dollars a year in legal losses. “That is a financially manageable issue,” David Adelman said.

Tags: Altria Group, Clifford Douglas, David Adelman, Lucinda Naugle, Morgan Stanley, Philip Morris, University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network
Posted in Personal Injury | 1958No Comments »2009-11-21+16%3A31%3A21Hunter+West