Author Archive

There Will be No Lawsuits in Chile

October 14th, 2010. By Hunter West

We’ve all been enthralled, inspired, mystified while watching the successful rescue of the 33 Chilean miners unfolding on our television screens this week. It’s a compelling story that is ready-made for Hollywood—and you want to bet it will be a movie and a series of books, the options for which have already been hammered out. It would make for a worthy introductory movie for Oprah’s OWN network when she launches next year. 

The point is, an event that could have ended so tragically—didn’t. The grace of God has to certainly be a factor. So is luck. The president of Chile called it a miracle, and of course he is right. But the Chilean government and the mining authority did so many things right that by the grace of God and Lady Luck, they pretty much guaranteed a good outcome. 

Miracles can, and do get helped along by good planning. 

Compare what we have just witnessed on TV screens around the world to some disasters on our own shores—or just off them—that didn’t need to happen but did because someone, somewhere cut corners. 

Look at the BP oil spill. Of course, there is inherent risk with any drilling attempt. But oil drilling R&D over the years has come up with a series of checks, balances and safeguards that serves to minimize that risk. In the BP case it is alleged and widely believed that a number of those safeguards were skipped in the interest of haste and cost. A final inspection that would have identified deficiencies leading to a catastrophic failure, was called off. The inspection team was on the Deepwater Horizon, ready to go, when they Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Chile Miners
Posted in Employment, Personal Injury | 2 Comments »

Facebook Made a Hero out of Adam Guerbuez

October 7th, 2010. By Hunter West

Okay, we’ve all heard about him by now. “The 873 Million Dollar Man,” otherwise known as Adam Guerbuez, the Montreal computer whiz and self-confessed internet marketer who was found to have sent millions of unwanted and uninvited solicitations to Facebook users for everything from erectile dysfunction and penis enlargements to marijuana products. 

Facebook took him to court, and two years ago a California court convicted Guerbuez of violating US anti-spam laws. He was fined a couple of hundred bucks for every spam (advertisement) he sent, which totals $873.3 million, when you add it all up. 

Last week the Quebec Superior Court upheld the US ruling, in theory requiring Guerbuez to pay the judgment. 

Give me a break. 

First of all, no one of Guerbuez’s financial stature and position has that kind of money lying around. This is just a guy and a laptop. And if you want to be really impressed, that $873.3 million when converted to Canadian funds at the 2008 exchange rate equates too more than a billion dollars Canadian. 

That’s like the US music publishing industry fining a single mom millions of dollars for allegedly pulling off music from peer Internet music sites without permission, violating copyright. Or fining some guy millions of dollars for pulling movies off the web before their theatrical release. 

Okay, if they re-sold this stuff and made millions, then such a fine would be appropriate. But they’re not. We’re talking a single mom pulling down tunes because her daughter is Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Adam Guerbuez, Facebook, Million Dollar Man
Posted in Intellectual Property, Internet/E-commerce | No Comments »

Recall Notice: Dirty Words for Medical Devices

October 1st, 2010. By Hunter West

There are people walking around with faulty hip implants. If they can even walk at all. This month DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of the giant Johnson & Johnson family of companies, finally recalled troublesome hip implants after removing them from the market last year. DePuy undertook the latter response amidst a hail of criticism that the metal-on-metal implant featured a flawed design.

Okay, so recalls are nothing new. Cars and appliances are recalled all the time. But hip implants, and heart defibrillators are not cars and appliances. They are devices implanted in a patient’s body and not easily resolved. 

Who could forget the pacemaker lead from a few years ago that was recalled? The device, which made fans of surgeons who liked the ease and flexibility of the new, thinner leads that proved easier to thread to the heart, was initially hailed as a breakthrough. 

And then they started to break. Fracture, really. Hairline fractures. But just enough to affect the performance of the device. Patients who required life-giving shocks to keep their hearts going weren’t getting them; while others were injured or killed when a properly performing heart was suddenly hit with a rogue electric shock because the fractured lead impeded the flow of information from the heart to the pacemaker. Believing the heart to be failing (it wasn’t), the device went into action to re-engage a heart that in reality had not failed—often with tragic consequences. 

Which begs the question—why does this keep happening? 

Johnson & Johnson has been under siege of late, with a spate of recalls from the DePuy hip, to artificial knee joints, to medication such as Motrin. The company has had to shut down one of its manufacturing facilities due to a departure from GMP (good manufacturing practices), and there have been questions raised about the behemoth company’s oversight. The management and conduct of J&J has been the subject of congressional investigation. 

But a larger question remains, and it is one not tied to any one company—but any company Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Defective Products, medical devices, Recall
Posted in Defective Products, Drugs/Medical | 2 Comments »

When Exactly is a Paid Bill Paid? Bell Canada’s Finding Out

September 28th, 2010. By Hunter West

Up in the Great White North, a class action lawsuit against Bell Canada and its mobile subsidiary Bell Mobility has been settled, with plaintiffs claiming to have been docked late charges for bills they had actually paid before the mandated deadline. 

The amount of the settlement was not disclosed, and as is often the case in such matters the defendant admits to no fault, wrongdoing or obligation—but did agree to take certain actions in response to the class action, filed on behalf of Suzanne Brazeau last April. 

One of those actions is the donation of funds to various charities on behalf of individuals who may have been Bell, or Bell Mobility customers from March 26^th, 2008 through August 9^th, 2009 and may have incurred unjust late charges, but who are no longer customers with the network. 

The lawsuit, and the settlement illustrate the challenges of living in these times. 

Gone are the days when one spouse went out to earn a living, leaving the other to stay at home and run the household—tasks that usually included bill-paying accomplished at a leisurely pace well ahead of the due date, with a postal service unencumbered by cutbacks and downsizing. 

Gone too, are the days when there was basically only one way to pay a bill—by check. 

Today, the options are numerous and varied. Yes, you can write a check and mail it. But you Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bell Canada, Bell Mobility
Posted in Class Action | No Comments »

Children’s Motrin: Another Example of a Toothless FDA

September 24th, 2010. By Hunter West

A controversy emerged this week over an alleged agreement between the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Johnson & Johnson subsidiary McNeil HealthCare over a ‘soft’ recall of Children’s Motrin and other products that were thought to be defective due to lax GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) at one of McNeil’s facilities. 

The allegation, if true, suggests that one arm of the FDA doesn’t know what the other is doing. It also appears to suggest—again—that so long as the FDA does not have the mandate to force a drug company to conduct a recall, or do anything it doesn’t want to, for that matter, the federal drug regulator is like a tiger without teeth. 

As for the drug companies, it appears as if they subscribe to the credo, “don’t ask permission, beg forgiveness.” 

According to documents and testimony at a congressional hearing this week, the FDA had decided that Motrin product, which had been identified as defective due to GMP problems at the facility where it was manufactured, should be subject to a Class 2 recall. 

There are various levels of recall identified by the FDA, with a Class 1 as the most serious. The latter is urged if there is a problem that could lead to serious health effects or even death. Class 2 is suggested if the problem could cause temporary, or medically reversible adverse health consequences. 

Further, a Class 3 is issued if a product defect is not likely to cause serous health consequences at all. 

Then there’s the ‘market withdrawal,’ which according to CNN Money on Tuesday is not a recall Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Children's Motrin, FDA, J&J, Johnson & Johnson, McNeil
Posted in Drugs/Medical | No Comments »