Vintage Filings Legal Blog

The U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri dismissed all remaining claims in a lawsuit against the City of Arnold, Missouri, and American Traffic Solutions (ATS), confirming the legality and constitutionality of Missouri’s red-light camera programs.

The comprehensive ruling in Kilper, et al. v. City of Arnold, Missouri, et al., adds onto the list of other cases across the United States in stating that photo-enforcement programs are constitutional public safety programs. Today’s ruling is consistent with a January ruling by the Seventh Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals, affirming the constitutionality of red-light photo-enforcement programs.

“We have long held that this lawsuit was frivolous, and we are pleased that the U.S. District Court of Eastern Missouri has confirmed this fact. This opinion further negates unfounded claims against red-light camera safety programs and confirms the legality, constitutionality and safety benefits of photo enforcement,” said James Tuton, President and CEO of American Traffic Solutions. “Red-light camera safety programs successfully modify driver behavior by increasing compliance with traffic laws. These programs have proven to improve safety on the roadways by reducing red-light running, which causes unnecessary crashes, injuries and deaths.”

The U.S. District Court held that the ordinance allowing for the City of Arnold’s red-light camera safety program “…has a legitimate, non-punitive, public safety purpose. Moreover, the use of red light cameras and related proceedings are rationally connected to the valid public safety purpose of reducing traffic accidents at traffic light intersections.” The court further held that because enforcement of a red-light camera ordinance is a civil proceeding, issuing notices of red-light violations to the owner of the vehicle did not violate due process or wrongfully shift the burden of proof.

All of the plaintiffs and all of the defendants in the civil lawsuits stemming from the August 2007 accidents at the Crandall Canyon Mine have reached a comprehensive settlement for a confidential amount.

According to the parties, the settlement brought numerous and widely varying interests together. The parties expressed hope that the settlement would bring a measure of closure and a sense of healing to the families of those who were lost or injured, current and former company employees, company management, the residents of Carbon and Emery Counties, and the coal mining industry in general.

Ultimately, the plaintiffs, the defendants, and their insurers recognized the extent of factual complexities and novel questions of law, and the time and expense of resolving them. Rather than engaging in lengthy, expensive, and unpredictable litigation, the parties decided to work together toward an amicable, reasonable settlement to put these matters in the past, provide for the victims’ and their families’ futures, and allow all concerned to move forward. The parties succeeded in doing so, and the resolution reflects the sincere concerns and very best efforts of everyone involved.

A jury in Superior Court of the State of California, County of Santa Clara, returned a verdict in the ongoing litigation between Luna Innovations and Hansen Medical. The jury found in favor of Hansen determining that Luna Innovations breached its contract with Hansen as well as misappropriated trade secrets belonging to Hansen. The jury awarded approximately $36 million in damages to Hansen.

Luna Innovations is evaluating the outcome, will file post-trial motions and will make a determination as to whether it intends to appeal the outcome at a later date.

-A Miami-Dade County jury awarded Amanda Slavin $38,323,196 in compensatory damages against Defendants McKesson Medication Management LLC and a local neurosurgeon today, announced lead counsel Julie Braman Kane, partner at the Coral Gables-based law firm Colson Hicks Eidson, who tried the case with her partner Joseph J. Kalbac Jr.

On October 24, 2003 Miami-Dade county resident Amanda Slavin underwent intraspinal surgery for a repair of a spinal fluid leak. During surgery, the neurosurgeon injected Slavin’s intrathecal space with Methylene Blue which operating room personnel acquired from a medicine cabinet maintained by McKesson Medication Management LLC. McKesson had contracted with Mt. Sinai to run their pharmacies and train Mt. Sinai’s nursing and medical personnel regarding pharmaceutical issues. McKesson did not provide the doctor or any of Mt. Sinai’s medical personnel with training or with the information the FDA required indicating that Methylene Blue was contraindicated for intraspinal injection.

Following the surgery, Slavin developed ascending adhesive arachnoiditis, a debilitating condition characterized by severe burning pain and neurologic disability. She has subsequently undergone multiple surgeries, is bedridden and in severe pain, and has been forced to give up her profession as a nurse.

The lawsuit alleged negligence against McKesson Medication Management LLC for failure to provide training of the nursing or medical staff regarding obtaining information about medications used during surgery, as they were required to do under their contract wit Mt. Sinai.

The lawsuit also alleged that the doctor fell below the standard of care in the care and treatment of Amanda Slavin by using Methylene Blue intraspinally despite the contraindication and warning against the same.

The Jury agreed and found both McKesson Medication Management LLC and the neurosurgeon were negligent and at fault for Amanda Slavin’s damages.

“While no amount of money will fairly compensate Amanda for this catastrophic injury, which has rendered her in severe pain and bedridden, the verdict recognizes the tremendous harm that the Defendants’ negligence caused her,” said Kane.

“This tragedy easily could and should have been prevented by the Defendant McKesson, had the medical staff been trained of the risk of using Methylene Blue during spinal surgery, which was their responsibility to do under their contract,” said Kalbac Jr., who assisted Kane in the case.

Canwest Global Communications announced today that it has received $34 million in full settlement of amounts owing to its subsidiary, Canwest Media and Canwest Publications, pursuant to an arbitration award in connection with its dispute with Hollinger International which is now the Sun-Times Media Group.

In January 2009, the arbitrator awarded Canwest approximately $51 million, relating to unresolved adjustments and claims associated with the 2000 acquisition by Canwest of certain newspaper assets from Hollinger.

CMI has received $30.5 million of the settlement that will now be deposited as cash collateral under its senior credit facility. This will increase the balance of the collateral deposit to approximately $50 million. The remaining $3.5 million in settlement proceeds will benefit Canwest Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Canwest Limited Partnership.

This past month an arbitral tribunal issued its final award in the dispute between Vivendi and Elektrim.  The tribunal awarded damages of 1.876 billion euros (plus accrued interest from February 2005) to Vivendi for intentional breaches by Elektrim of the investment agreement entered into in September 2001 regarding their joint venture Elektrim Telekomunikacja and their investment in Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa.

This final award follows a partial award rendered on 19 March 2008 which declared that “Elektrim breached the basic premise of the [investment agreement] by systematically acting against the interests of Telco in furtherance of its own interests and by refusing to acknowledge Telco’s right to the economic benefit of the PTC shares.” All of Elektrim’s counterclaims against Vivendi have been dismissed.

Elektrim had received more than 1.8 billion euros from Vivendi to transfer the PTC shares to Telco and protect Telco’s economic interests therein. Vivendi is the largest creditor of Elektrim and this final award confirms its claim, of which recognition is requested in Elektrim’s bankruptcy.

The confirmation of Telco’s ownership rights on the PTC shares is still pending before the Polish courts.

Judge Steven M. Gold of the Eastern District of New York has entered an order granting final approval of a class action settlement reached between purchasers of certain models of Toshiba DLP televisions.

Jessica Greenberg, a legal analyst at CitySpur.com, said that this was another in a string of consumer based victories in the past several quarters.  Originally filed in 2007, the class action lawsuit alleged that the lamps of certain Toshiba DLP televisions were susceptible to premature failure causing purchasers to repeatedly expend hundreds of dollars for replacement bulbs, which allegedly suffered from the same defect. Plaintiffs pursued through their class action complaint claims sounding in consumer protection law and breach of express and implied warranty.

The settlement, a product of several months of negotiations between counsel, provides reimbursement to class members who purchased a bulb replacement that failed before its useful service life and also extends the warranty on replacement bulbs from six months to twelve months. The parties estimate that the affected class is comprised of approximately 265,000 persons throughout the United States and that the settlement is valued in excess of $1 million.

“This settlement accomplishes precisely what we sought to achieve when filing this litigation,” said Gary E. Mason of The Mason Law Firm, LLP and lead counsel for Plaintiffs. “It fully addresses the complaints of class members who reasonably expected their high-end DLP televisions to last several years without the need to purchase costly replacement parts.”

A San Francisco judge has confirmed the findings of an arbitrator who ruled that former Joseph Phelps Vineyards Chief Executive Officer Thomas Shelton and award-winning winemaker Craig Williams are owed more than $24 million for their share in the winery.  In a ruling dated February 6, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch found that Joseph Phelps Vineyards had not demonstrated legal grounds to contest the award.

“We are grateful that Judge Busch has helped bring a close to this unfortunate dispute,” said Forrest Hainline of Goodwin Procter, the attorney representing Mr. Shelton and Mr. Williams. “These two men made a significant contribution to the excellent reputation of Joseph Phelps Vineyard and they should be compensated for that contribution.”

Mr. Shelton and Mr. Williams received an equity stake in the winery in 1999. But the Phelps family had sought to devalue their shares and tried to block their sale to a third party. The dispute went to arbitration in 2007. Ultimately, the Phelps family filed fraud and breach of contract claims against Mr. Shelton and Mr. Williams, all of which were rejected by arbitrator Judge William Bettinelli.

Mr. Shelton died on July 26, 2008 from brain cancer, leaving behind a wife and five children.

Under the terms of the award, Shelton’s widow, Laurie Shelton, is entitled to damages of $12,264,327 plus 10 percent interest. Mr. Williams has been awarded damages of $11,856,684 plus 10 percent interest. The arbitrator also awarded Mr. Shelton and Mr. Williams more than $2 million in attorneys’ fees and costs. Under the court’s order, Joseph Phelps Vineyards will also be required to pay attorney fees and other costs incurred in seeking confirmation of the award.

After five consecutive court defeats, the City of East Palo Alto has agreed that rent increases initiated earlier this year by a major property owner are legal after all.  Lawyers for East Palo Alto say the City will permanently dismiss claims against Page Mill Properties, which represents the investors and property owners of 1789 rental units in the Woodland Park neighborhood west of Highway 101 in East Palo Alto.

“I’m pleased that these false allegations of ‘illegal’ rent increases have been finally resolved,” said Jim Shore, General Counsel of Page Mill Properties. “It’s been confusing for tenants and the public and it’s never nice to be accused of engaging in ‘illegal’ acts.”

Pushed by lawyers from the Stanford Legal Clinic, East Palo Alto made its accusations in a lawsuit filed in late July, 2008, when it asked for temporary restraining orders to prevent the owners from enforcing the rent increases. Several judges rebuffed the requests for temporary restraining orders. And on October 9, 2008, the City’s motion for a preliminary injunction was also denied. Now, under an agreement between the Page Mill owners group and the city, attorneys for the city acknowledge that the rent hikes weren’t illegal and have chosen to simply give up and dismiss the case.

These were not the first losses for East Palo Alto in its legal battle with the Page Mill owners and investors. Five times, the owners have succeeded in cases where they argued their rights under the local rent control ordinance, state law and the California and United States Constitutions had been violated. East Palo Alto has been ordered to pay attorney’s fees in one of those cases, and motions for fees will soon be filed in the others. The cost to the city for following the advice of the Stanford tenant lawyers could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At the heart of the dispute is a cumbersome, out-of-date, and poorly worded rent control ordinance with a provision that allows owners to increase rents in line with increases in the cost of living index. However, the process was so complex that many previous property owners chose not to even try for the allowable rent increases. Some were forced into bankruptcy and the properties deteriorated.

“What many in the public didn’t realize is that hundreds of these units hadn’t had a rent increase allowed by the local ordinance in years,” Shore explained. “We bought these properties and have set out to rehabilitate units that were deteriorating and had in some cases had become uninhabitable because of landlord neglect.”

Prior to the purchase, city officials had confirmed to the Page Mill owners group its ability to recapture unused annual rent increases. Had the City held to its initial position, a great deal of confusion and litigation could have been avoided, since the courts have now affirmed the ability of the owners to pass-through the increases. However, the city recanted under pressure from the tenants’ lawyers and the Rent Stabilization Board, setting off the court battles.

“We are extremely pleased with the defense verdict in this case and are gratified that this Cleveland jury has joined many other juries across the country that have already heard and rejected similar claims. The jury’s finding that the defendants did not distribute a product with a marketing defect confirms what these companies have been saying all along. This is an industry that has always worked to ensure the safety of welders, and is proud of its history of providing appropriate warnings and safety information with its products.

“Just as important as this verdict is the overall trajectory this litigation has taken over the past several years. This litigation has been marked by numerous dismissals, and there is an ongoing and sharp decline in the number of pending lawsuits. In the past three years, plaintiffs have moved to dismiss more than 4,000 cases in the MDL, upwards of 80% of their claims, and the total number of pending welding fume cases has dropped by over two thirds.

“In addition, plaintiffs have been forced to dismiss five trial-ready cases due to evidence of fraud, three of which plaintiffs themselves had selected for trial in the MDL.

“Welding consumable manufacturers have been unfairly targeted in these lawsuits and will continue to defend themselves vigorously against these baseless claims.”