Ford just announced the recall of 3.8 million of its pickup trucks and SUVs due to concerns over engine fire concerns. Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday recalled 3.8 million pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles for a cruise control switch suspected of causing engine fires. It is the fifth largest auto industry recall in U.S. history.
Ford said the recall of 1994-2002 model-year vehicles includes the company’s hot-selling F-150 pickup truck, Ford Expedition, Lincoln Navigator and Ford Broncos. The company said it would start sending out recall notices to vehicle owners immediately.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the No. 2 U.S.-based automaker have been investigating complaints of engine fires linked to the switch.
NHTSA has received more than 550 complaints of engine fires from the cruise control switch. There have been allegations of three deaths in cases cited in news reports or lawsuits in Iowa, Georgia and Arkansas.
The affected vehicles include: 1994-2002 model F-150s, 1997-2002 Expeditions, 1998-2002 Navigators and 1994-1996 Broncos equipped with factory-installed speed control.
Bankrupt Church or Church Bankruptcy
The following is an excellent editorial in the National Catholic Reporter:
EDITORIAL
Issue Date: September 9, 2005
Bankruptcy: the gamble that backfired
Words matter. More for a church than for other institutions because religion purports to be about truth. These truths, especially in the Catholic church, are largely conveyed through words — scripture, pastoral letters, encyclicals, books, homilies, even newspapers.
And, of late, in court documents.
In the two-plus decades we have reported and commented on the clergy sex abuse scandal, we have witnessed church leaders torture the language to avoid accountability.
Mistakes were made say some bishops, wary of attaching a personal pronoun to the criminal behavior of church officials who transferred child molesters from one kid-rich environment to another.
We treated the problem as a sin, not a crime, say other church leaders, as if the two are mutually exclusive.
We relied too heavily on the therapeutic community, say some bishops, which may be true but is hardly exculpatory.
Most famously, perhaps, was then-Bridgeport, Conn., Archbishop Edward Egan’s 1997 testimony that the priests of the diocese were not employed by the church, and therefore answerable to him, but were instead independent contractors. Egan subsequently became the cardinal archbishop of New York.
On the other side of the country, the language is as tortured in the bankruptcy proceedings of the dioceses of Spokane, Wash., and Portland, Ore. There, the church’s high-priced legal teams designed a too-clever-by-half, two-pronged strategy: First, forestall civil litigation against the church (and define its parameters) by voluntarily seeking the protection of federal bankruptcy courts and next, limit potential payments to creditors by shrinking the size of the pot established to pay off claimants.
The first aspect of the plan worked. Those who had a potential claim on diocesan funds stepped forward and have been counted.
On Aug. 26 in Spokane, the second part of the strategy — limit the scope of the assets available to claimants — failed. It did so because it is built on an assertion that any Catholic would recognize as false.
The Spokane diocese argued that the bishop has virtually no control over the parishes in his dominion. Therefore, those with claims against the diocese would have to settle for some percentage of the funds and the proceeds of sold property directly controlled by the chancery.
The diocese’s argument flew in the face of state law, under which the bishop is the “corporation sole,” the man who by virtue of his office “owns” the real estate and assets of the church in Spokane. Previously, in unrelated court proceedings, the diocese argued precisely that point: that the bishop was the owner of parish property. (Historically, the church supported the corporation sole provisions of civil law — a centralized approach to governance — as a reaction against potentially unruly lay parish trustees.) The diocese, implied Judge Patricia Williams, was talking out of both sides of its mouth. She ruled that all the assets of the church — its schools and social service centers, hospitals, retreat houses and parishes — must be considered in play.
The diocese also argued that the court should accept its interpretation of canon law as a basis for limiting the pot. Church law, said the diocese, sees parishes as “juridic persons” unto themselves. To even question that argument, said the diocese, was to trample on the church’s religious freedom.
To which Williams said: Canon law has no standing in a civil bankruptcy proceeding. If the church wanted to avoid an adverse ruling on the point, it should never have voluntarily filed for bankruptcy.
A similar narrative is about to unfold in Portland, where the diocese will make almost identical claims to those made by Spokane.
The arguments made by the dioceses of Spokane and Portland bring to mind Marx’s (Groucho’s not Karl’s) famous question: Are you going to believe me or your own eyes? The niceties of canon law aside, power in the U.S. church, ownership if you will, clearly resides with individual bishops in their dioceses. That power is wielded benignly by some, less so by many, but it is disingenuous to say that it doesn’t exist. Bishops answer to Rome and, presumably, to God, but not to their pastors and certainly not to the people in the pews.
It is a bankrupt church in more ways than one.
National Catholic Reporter, September 9, 2005
4 Things Vioxx Maker Merck Doesn’t Want You To See
One week before its second trial is about to begin, Merck lawyers are trying to block jurors from seeing the following information: 1)FDA researchers estimated Vioxx deaths, 2)Picture of the plaintiff prior to taking Vioxx, 3)Merck’s profits, and 4)Merck executives’ salaries. In their ongoing campaign of disinformation, Merck is more interested in profits than public safety. However, there may be serious consequences to their behavior. In Texas, the state itself contends that Merck defrauded it out of hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid payments. While Texas is the first state to take this extraordinary step, it probably won’t be the last. In addition, to $168 million in damages, Texas is seeking additional civil penalties. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot believes the state can prove total damages in excess of $250 million including triple reimbursement of $56 million for five years of filled Vioxx prescriptions. It is estimated that 700,000 Vioxx prescriptions were filled through Medicaid during those five years in Texas alone. According to the Attorney General, this is “a prime example of a company’s drive for profit steamrolling its duty to be safe.”
Merck Faces Vioxx Heart Attack Case
In the wake of Merck’s disastrous first trial in Texas last month, the embattled pharmaceutical company faces a trial in New Jersey that involves a plaintiff that suffered a heart attack which is precisely the injury to which Vioxx use was linked. In another setback for Merck, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Carol A. Higbee, who is presiding over 2,475 Vioxx cases filed in New Jersey, refused to grant Merck an adjournment of the trial now scheduled for September 12. There is very little that favors the drug giant in this trial and many experts believe that another loss would make it virtually impossible for Merck to scare victims into small settlements.
Merck May Settle Some Vioxx Suits
In an abrupt turnaround from its previous stance, Merck & Co. spokesman Kent Jarrell told the Associated Press today that it might consider settling some of its lawsuits. However, the company continues to insist it won’t enter into any type of global settlement. Perhaps as more bad facts surface surrounding Vioxx, they may change their opinion once again.
Analyst Sees Vioxx Liability at $10 billion
According to a Bloomberg News report published today, Credit Suisse First Boston business analyst Catherine Arnold doubled her liability estimate for Merck & Co. to $10 billion. Merck is appealing last week’s jury verdict in Texas that awarded Robert Ernst’s widow $253 million.
Vioxx’s Bad Facts
In today’s NY Times there’s a story discussing the reason(s) why Merck lost its first Vioxx trial. The story concludes Merck lost because of bad facts. Jurors got to see a mountain of documents and email messages that showed how Merck researched Vioxx’s heart risks and presented what it knew to doctors and consumers. The documents showed that scientists at Merck were worried about Vioxx’s potential cardiovascular risks as early as 1997, two years before Merck began selling the drug. In spite of these bad facts, Merck’s general counsel, Kenneth C. Frazier, continues to insist, “We know we acted responsibly.” Go figure.
My Thoughts On the Vioxx Verdict
The size of the first Vioxx verdict ($259 Million) against Merck is an indication that juries in other cases will be angry at Merck when they hear the evidence of the company’s wrongdoing. The core evidence presented in the Ernst case is the same evidence that will be presented in other cases. While each case will have medical facts that vary for each plaintiff, the acts of wrongdoing by the company will be similar in each case. The Ernst verdict will likely be reduced significantly by the Judge under the provisions of some of the Texas tort reform laws that were passed to protect big companies but the significance of the large award by the jury indicates that Merck will have serious problems defending the 4,000 lawsuits that have already been filed and the tens of thousands of lawsuits that will be filed in the next few years.
Merck boldly claims that it will fight each case and will not settle. To date there have been no reported settlements by Merck of any cases. However, if the lawsuits drive the stock price of the company down far enough and it it is advantageous to the company’s shareholders the company has a duty to the shareholders to start settling cases.
The next trial set is in New Jersey in September and the first federal trial in the consolidated multidistrict litigation is in November in New Orleans. This multidistrict litigation is the consolidation of all of the cases pending in all the federal courts throughout the country which have been consolidated in New Orleans before Judge Eldon Fallon.
Additional evidence is being discovered every week in the ongoing depositions in the pending cases and it is likely that more evidence of wrongdoing by Merck will be uncovered that can be used in later trials. For example, recent evidence has been discovered that Merck’s early studies showed an increase in heart attacks after only a few weeks of Vioxx use. Merck had said when Vioxx was pulled off the market that the evidence of increased heart attacks only were shown after 18 months of Vioxx usage. That statement has now been shown to be untrue. David Graham, a scientist at the FDA, has estimated that Vioxx has killed over 60,000 people. That is more people than were killed in the Vietnam war. The Vioxx debacle is a public health catastrophe and apparently the only ones actively investigating or prosecuting Merck are the private trial lawyers and their brave clients.
Merck Ordered to Pay for Death Caused by Vioxx
Merck & Co. was found negligent in the death of a 59 year old triathlete who used Vioxx. The jury awarded the man’s widow $24 million in actual damages and $229 million in “exemplary” or punitive damages for a total of approximately $253 million. A jury of seven men and five women ruled 10 to 2 against Merck on each of three key questions. They found Merck failed to warn doctors of Vioxx’s danger, that the drug was improperly designed, and that Merck’s negligence caused Robert Ernst’s death. Merck plans to appeal.
More Allegations Against Fr. Richard Emerson
In spite of their protestations to the contrary, the Diocese of Gary in Indiana told parishioners this past Sunday that there are more sexual abuse allegations against Fr. Richard Emerson, who abused one of my clients while stationed in Orlando Florida. It takes a great deal of courage for young people to come forward and face their abusers. They are real heroes who deserve our support.