Legal Radar

Court of Appeals Adds Life to BASF Fraud Case

The 3^rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals brought to life a fraud case against a BASF SE unit and a NY-based law firm, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, who defended it for years regarding the asbestos litigation --- reversing a lower court judge who shot down the supposed class action.

The plaintiffs, those representing alleged asbestos victims, said that Cahill and Cahill have gathered and destroyed or kept evidence hidden of products contaminated with asbestos made by Engelhard, BASF’s predecessor, to evade any legal actions and enforced swift settlements.

The decision from the 3^rd Circuit has left BASF and Cahill to shield itself from a likely class action that accuses the firm of fabricating the harmful material, then preventing victims from having their day in court.

Plaintiffs alleged the defendants of taking part in a scheme targeted at the integrity of the judicial process which includes destruction of evidence.

New attorneys for BASF discovered and created a group of old documents, which allegedly has been stored in a Cahill facility. Such documents led to the alleged class action.

New Jersey Court of Appeals Ordering $175k Case Sanction

An appeals court in New Jersey ordered plaintiffs in a business class to pay $175,000 of sanction fees racked up by attorney in two states on what was deemed a “playful” litigation. The fees are to be made payable to Weingarten Brown, an L.A.-based firm recently bought by Newark’s McCarter & English, and Venable LLP.

According to the Appellate Division, the high-paying sum was reasonable given the plaintiffs’ actions which include harassment, measured attempts to prolong the litigation, and bringing in multiple defendants.

The legal clash started in 2011 of sales contacts providing for a purchase of servers and applications from MD Tablet and Grange Consulting Group --- healthcare tech firms owned by plaintiff Parmjit Singh Parmar, from Pineboard Holdings Inc.

Pineboard wound up making a payment of $4.1 million plus a $1 million settlement linking to an after-sale disagreement.

The defendants in the case moved for sanctions, in which the Superior Court granted, demanding Parmer to pay over $197,000 to cover legal fees for the defense counsel.

The sanction was revised to over $175,600.

Bank of America Gets Hit with $4B Litigation

The Bank of America said recently its earnings from the second quarter took a dive as a result of high litigation costs.

The North Carolina-based bank earned $2 billion on its second quarter after payments made to preferred shareholders. This was below the $3.6 billion in the same period last year --- a 43% drop.

Bank of America also indicated it arrived at a $650 million settlement recently with American International Group, Inc., to close out any outstanding resident mortgage securities litigation between both firms.

The bank said all of its litigation payments that happened in the second quarter were related to current mortgage matters.

Just like its rivals, Bank of America is still coping with the fallout from a financial crisis that started in 2007 and the housing market collapse.

Bank of America has yet to settle on a federal probe regarding its management on subprime mortgages. Citigroup said recently that it settled with the Department of Justice for $7 billion, while JPMorgan agreed to settle for $13 billion in November.

Judge Sees Fraud in Abestos Lawsuit

New evidence of the effectiveness of transparency in public affairs stemmed from a surprising source: a class action litigation on behalf of individuals who allegedly developed mesothelioma from asbestos exposure. From the number of companies that have closed as a result of case is the Chapter 11 bankruptcy lawsuit of Garlock Sealing Technologies. Numerous law firms filed claims against the company to compensate for the victims. Such firms have filed for claims amounting to millions of dollars.

On January 10^th 2014, George Hodges, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge, set a ruling that revealed evidence which had been kept secret for years. Hodges was worried that victims told trust administrators that they’ve only filed a single claim in the Garlock litigation, when in fact, they’ve made multiple claims from several trusts on the client’s behalf. Through this approach, fraud payouts have been given to both attorneys and victims.

Senator Jeff Flake guarantees that further transparency in the asbestos bankruptcy lawsuit is on its way. He recently brought in the Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act of 2014. The measure enables complete revelation of names and exposure history of every claimant. The measure exempts medical records and full social security details of claimants.

 

Tobago Attorneys Allow for Litigation Investigation in Prison

The Tobago Lawyers Association (TLA) indicated it’s worried with matters brought about the Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell, a Solicitor General, regarding a litigation made by inmates against the state.

The TLA mentioned it was also concerned of the negative allegations which issues on members of the legal practice.

On August 30, 2013, Donaldson-Honeywall detoured what Minister Attorney General Anand Ramlogan wrote to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, which suggested a complete investigation by the Inspector of Prison, Police Service, and Law Association to be made to see if attorneys involved in the litigation jail litigation are part of an inappropriate business scheme.

Since an appointment on the executive last Friday, the TLA officially issued a statement approved by Vice President Dawn Palackdharry Singh.

The statement described the TLA having the confidence of conducting a complete and fair investigation regarding the litigation issue. The association will patiently wait for the investigation process to arrive at a conclusion.

 

Former 'Riverdance' Star Can Sue Woman For False Rape Charges

Former "Riverdance" star Michael Flatley can proceed with a $100 million extortion and defamation lawsuit against Tyna Marie Robertson who falsely claimed he raped her in Las Vegas. Flatley won an Illinois State Supreme Court ruling that he is allowed to sue and the case can proceed to trial.

According to court papers, the 48-year old dancer received a letter from Robertson's attorney D. Dean Mauro in January 2003 alleging that Flatley had raped Robertson the previous year in a Las Vegas hotel, where Flatley was appearing in a show.

Court papers state that Mauro threatened in the letter, and later during phone calls, that he would file a sexual assault lawsuit unless Flatley agreed to a "seven figures settlement." Police declined to press criminal charges and Flatley said the sex was consensual.

Father Falsely Accused of Sexual Abuse Wins $ 3.5 Million

A Superior Court judge at Middletown has awarded $ 3.5 million in damages to Ajai Bhatia, whose former fiancee falsely accused him of sexually abusing their daughter during a bitter custody dispute five years ago.

The accusations cost Bhatia his $100,000-a-year engineering job and his house, and caused him to spend tens of thousands of dollars in a prolonged legal battle to clear his name.

Bhatia faced the humiliation of being escorted out of his office at Pitney-Bowes, Shelton in handcuffs, accused of being a pedophile. He spent four days in jail. He endured a long criminal trial, was acquitted of sexual assault charges resulting from his fiancée's complaint and has been the subject of multiple child-abuse investigations involving the state Department of Children and Families.

Now the large monetary award is little solace to Bhatia, who believes that he will probably never recover anywhere near that amount from his former fiancée, Marlene Debek of Bridgeport. And the accusations have damaged his relationship with his daughter, now 9.

Superior Court Judge Julia L. Aurigemma found that Debek had no probable cause to accuse Bhatia of a crime. "She did so with malice in that her motive was to harm the plaintiff and keep him from having any contact with their daughter," Aurigemma wrote. "In the custody battle, Ms. Debek used the claim of sexual abuse as the final weapon in her arsenal against Mr. Bhatia when her other weapons, false-claims of physical violence and danger of [his] flight to India, were not effective."

Aurigemma awarded Bhatia $2.5 million in damages for his emotional distress, loss of reputation and humiliation, which she said was "staggering."

"It is difficult to imagine anything worse than being falsely accused of sexually assaulting your own child and having the accuser brainwash the child into believing the false allegations," Aurigemma wrote in her ruling.

The judge gave Bhatia an additional $500,000 for his loss of income, $410,000 in punitive damages and $130,000 for attorney's fees from his initial criminal trial. Bhatia was represented in the malicious prosecution case by New Haven attorney John R. Williams.

Read