The Associated Press reported yesterday that eight lawsuits have been filed against Bayer AG over the controversial blood-clotting drug Trasylol.
The suits were filed in Florida federal court by attorneys with the St. Louis-based law firms Carey & Danis and The Lowe Law Firm. Brought on behalf of Trasylol (aprotinin) victims and their families, the suits allege that Bayer sold an unsafe drug and failed to warn of the risks associated with its use.
Kansas City lawyer R. Denise Henning of The Henning Law Firm was featured in the article “Widow awarded $3.5 million after death of husband, son.” The story is the online article of the week for the April 14 issue of Missouri Lawyers Weekly.
The article discusses an arbitration award Henning won on behalf of Doris Brandt whose husband and 9-year-old son died when their car hit a guardrail near the Stadium Boulevard exit in Columbia. The guardrail punctured the vehicle, killing Carl Brandt, who was driving, and his son, David, who was seated directly behind him.
Henning told reporter Kyle Lewis:
“[Mr. Brandt] was the only one working in the family, so not only was half of their family wiped out but also their livelihood because he was the one supporting the family.”
Henning filed a wrongful death case against the Missouri Highway & Transportation Department. A three-judge panel awarded the widow $3.5 million. The award was reduced to $1.875 million because of Carl Brandt’s comparative fault. Pursuant to state sovereign immunity caps, the recovery amounts to $710,792.
Simon Passanante attorney John Campbell was featured in the article “Consumer laws a boon to class action plaintiffs,” which appeared in the April 7 issue of Missouri Lawyers Weekly.
The front-page story discusses class action lawsuits that make use of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. The state consumer protection law, also known as an unfair and deceptive businesses practice statute, allows plaintiffs to sue for defective products or services.
In the past three years, Simon Passanante has used the law to file suits against payday lenders, Charter Communications, debt adjusters and a Colorado dairy that allegedly mislabeled its milk as organic.
Campbell told reporter Allison Retka, “The reason the UDAP statutes are so useful is that they don’t require individual proof of reliance or intent to rely because, as you can imagine, if you had to prove that, you could never really have a class action.”
Simon Passanante lawyer Amy Collignon Gunn and Brad L. Blake of Fellows & Blake are two of the featured instructors for an upcoming seminar, “Successful Medical Malpractice Suits.”
Sponsored by the National Business Institute, the seminar is aimed at helping lawyers assess prospective cases from the perspectives of both plaintiff and defense, determining when and how to use expert consultants, identifying potential conflicts of interest, effectively using a comprehensive checklist during the prelitigation process, employing summary judgment as a settlement strategy, assessing hospital and institutional negligence and understanding when right to die and informed consent come into play.
The seminar is scheduled for 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. April 22 at the Ritz Carlton St. Louis. Check-in begins at 8:30 a.m. The seminar, which costs $349, counts for 7.2 hours of Missouri continuing legal education, including 1.2 ethics hours. The Illinois MCLE board has approved the seminar for 6 hours of CLE credit, including 1.0 hour of ethics credit.
A $1.8 million judgment won by John Simon and Jeff Roseman of Simon Passanante is featured as Missouri Lawyers Weekly's article of the week.
On Dec. 31, 2002, Tyrone McWell, a unit driver for U-Haul, was traveling southbound on Interstate 70/55 in St. Louis in a U-Haul truck. As he neared the Poplar Street Bridge, the truck threw a rod and broke down in the left lane of traffic.
Mohammad Othman was also traveling southbound on Interstate 70/55. When he moved into the left lane in order to pass a tractor-trailer, Othman collided with the stalled U-Haul truck and the semi. Othman suffered a closed-head injury in the accident.
Othman filed a negligence lawsuit against U-Haul Co. of Missouri and McWell in St. Louis City Circuit Court. Simon and Roseman represented Othman.
Othman alleged that McWell failed to turn on the U-Haul truck’s emergency flashers, failed to set out emergency triangles, failed to call 911 and failed to move the truck over to the right-hand side as far as possible. He also alleged that the U-Haul failed to properly maintain the vehicle by not checking the oil on a regular basis.
After an eight-day trial, a jury returned a verdict in favor of Othman for $1.8 million. The jury assessed 30 percent fault to Othman for the accident which reduced the verdict to $1,277,500.
The first of what is expected to be many lawsuits against Bayer Corp., maker of the clotting drug Trasylol, has been filed in Missouri, the St. Louis Daily Record reports.
The suit was filed on March 10 by the St. Louis-based based Carey & Danis on behalf of a widow, Genevieve Nakis, whose husband died of kidney failure after open-heart surgery. The Lowe Law Firm, also of St. Louis, is working of counsel on the case.
On Dec. 16, 2005, Samuel Nakis, 81, underwent open-heart surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital in Chesterfield, Mo. During the surgery he was given Trasylol (also known as aprotinin), a clotting drug used to prevent bleeding. Shortly after the surgery, Nakis experienced kidney failure and underwent dialysis. He died a short time later.
In an interview with reporter Donna Walter, Joseph Danis said, “Knowledge is the key factor. We have to prove that Bayer knew of the risks and should have warned of them.”
That’s a standard the attorneys believe they can meet. In addition to recently released studies linking Trasylol to kidney failure and death, Jeff Lowe notes, “There have been reports of problems going back quite a bit even before it was on the market in the United States.”
According to the front-page story, which appeared in the March 13 issue of the Record, about 25 plaintiffs have signed up as Carey & Danis clients to pursue claims against Bayer involving Trasylol.
When Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis hit Florida, they left in their wake shattered homes and businesses. The rubble was hauled away during the cleanup and rebuilding process and some of it wound up in the Saufley Landfill, located in Pensacola, Fla.
The debris included gypsum drywall, which produces hydrogen sulfide as it degrades. Had the landfill been properly managed, the emission of hydrogen sulfide—which gives rotten eggs their foul smell and causes burning eyes, headaches, nausea, fatigue and respiratory problems—could have been controlled.
Instead, it is alleged in a lawsuit filed by residents of the area around the landfill, the reckless and negligent operation of the Saufley facility allowed the hydrogen sulfide level to rise so high that the landfill was eventually declared a public-health hazard.
On Tuesday the Pensacola News Journal reported on a mass tort lawsuit filed against the former operator of the landfill. Jacksonville lawyer Van Kirk McCombs II, along with Todd Hageman of St. Louis-based Simon Passanante and Tracy P. Moye of the Tallahassee, Fla.-based Moye Law Firm, represents the residents in the lawsuit. McCombs told PNJ reporter Michael Stewart:
“It really is a situation that could have been prevented and never should have gotten to the point where we are at today.”
On Wednesday the PNJ detailed the health problems of a teenager who lives near the landfill. The young man suffers from asthma so severe that he missed an entire year of high school.
Local ABC News affiliate WEAR-TV (Channel 3) also carried a story on the latest Saufley Landfill developments.
St. Louis attorney Pat Kiernan was interviewed by KMOV-4 reporter Craig Cheatham for a segment about a legendary con man, Malcolm Aldridge. Kiernan, a former assistant circuit attorney, prosecuted Aldridge a few years ago.
The segment, “News 4 Investigates: The Con Man” appeared during the 10 pm news broadcast last night. Aldridge is described as a career criminal with at least eight felony convictions.
Aldridge defrauded St. Louisans out of approximately a half million dollars 25 years ago, he owes his ex-wife about a million dollars in child support and he rented condemned apartments to desperate, low income tenants while living in a million dollar mansion in Chesterfield.
Seven years ago, KMOV aired a segment that revealed Aldridge was repeatedly violating the terms of his parole. When warrants were finally issued for Aldridge's arrest, he disappeared.
According to Cheatham, Aldridge and his business partner, a convicted double murderer, fled to Memphis. The two men then allegedly swindled more money from unsuspecting people.
According to Cheatham, although Aldridge may be back in St. Louis, he has not yet been apprehended.
Kiernan, now a criminal defense attorney in private practice, noted, “Often, these guys are hiding in plain sight and it doesn’t take a lot of effort to go out and find them.”
Springfield-based attorney Dee Wampler is well known for his top-notch criminal defense work. He's also the author of several books. Now you can add “adviser to an advice columnist” to his list of accomplishments.
On Feb. 28, Wampler was featured in The Wall Street Journal. A woman from St. Louis sent a question to "Work & Family" columnist Sue Shellenbarger. The woman’s 22-year-old boyfriend wanted to finish college and pursue an MBA. The problem: He had two felony convictions, one for assault and the other for burglary. The woman wanted to know what careers were unavailable to her boyfriend.
Shellenbarger turned to Wampler, who explained that in Missouri any occupation requiring a state license would be off-limits. However, Wampler also said that a lawyer might be able to petition a licensing board for a special dispensation on behalf of a client with exemplary postconviction behavior and a strong work record.
St. Louis – Simon Passanante lawyer Amy Collignon Gunn has been named one of the St. Louis Business Journal’s 2008 40 Under 40.
The listing honors professionals under the age of 40 for achievements in their careers and communities. Honorees are selected by a panel of the paper’s editors and former winners.
Gunn graduated from Transylvania University in 1993 and from the Saint Louis University School of Law, where she served as managing editor of the Saint Louis University Law Journal, in 1996. She practices in the areas of personal injury, product liability and medical malpractice litigation. Gunn has tried cases in both Missouri and Illinois and many of them that have resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements. She is also an adjunct professor at the Washington University School of Law.
This is the third award Gunn has received in the past year. She was also the recipient of the Missouri Bar Foundation’s Lon O. Hocker Award in 2007 and was named a 2007 Up and Coming Lawyer by Missouri Lawyers Weekly.
She is married to Kevin Gunn and is the mother of two young boys.
St. Louis-based Simon Passanante, P.C. handles catastrophic injury, mass tort, class action, intellectual property, consumer rights and commercial litigation cases nationwide. For more information, contact Amy Collignon Gunn at 314-241-2929 or e-mail agunn@simonpassanante.com.
Media contact: Geri L. Dreiling
Legal Media Matters LLC
314.743.3851 or 314.520.3897
legalmediamatters@sbcglobal.net
