A judge today rejected a putative class action in which readers of Lance Armstrong's books alleged they were subjected to fraud and false advertising in "inspirational true accounts" that "should have been labeled fiction" due to Armstrong's use of performance-enhancing drugs. Instead, the books were protected as free speech.
With 70 percent of American Indians living in urban areas, the nation's first legal clinic for city-dwelling American Indians and their unique legal problems is still going strong after seven years.
When we think of disasters, we don't automatically think of legal services. But this interview with a legal aid attorney shows that legal advocacy is a huge part of recovering from disasters like Superstorm Sandy. "If in the future legal services are understood to be an essential part of disaster relief, that would be a big improvement. Now that we have experience, future disaster responses will be much more coordinated. We know what to expect, what to prioritize, how to assist clients, and what resources we need to ask elected officials and the government for," according to an attorney from the New York Legal Assistance Group.
In the wake of a ticket-fixing scandal and ensuing federal prosecution, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday on whether the justices, along with the court that hears judicial discipline cases, can suspend judges that get into trouble, @zneedlestli reported for The Legal Intelligencer.
(The Legal Intelligencer- second of two-part series on The Future of Long-Term Care Litigation)
While health care headlines focus on the implementation of Obamacare's individual mandate and establishment of insurance exchanges, the landmark legislation also is going to affect long-term care for older Americans.
Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing facilities must have had compliance and ethics programs in place by March, but regulations are still forthcoming.
Compliance programs for the health industry are not a new thing, said Susan V. Kayser, a partner with Duane Morris' New York office who chairs the long-term care and senior services subgroup of that firm's health law practice. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General issued guidance in the 1990s for compliance programs on the basis of the federal sentencing guidelines, she said. New York is the first state to require Medicaid providers to have a compliance plan, she also added.
"I suspect that by and large, most nursing homes until earlier this year may not have had one," Kayser said. "And now they are required to have one."
Due to the fact the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has not yet issued the regulations that would put the meat on the skeleton of the Affordable Care Act, "you have a legal requirement to have a compliance program with no real governing regulations," said consultant David Hoffman, whose firm works on compliance programs for nursing homes and is a former federal prosecutor who specialized in health care fraud and abuse.
To read the full report I wrote for The Legal Intelligencer: http://www.law.com/jsp/pa/PubArticlePA.jsp?id=1202618827884&Obamacare_to...
The Legal Intelligencer
Amaris Elliott-Engel
(first of two-part series on The Future of Long-Term Care Litigation)
When Rhonda Hill Wilson started representing clients in the field of long-term care litigation, there was not a lot of interest in representing elder Pennsylvanians for the torts they might have been wronged by.
Damages were only thought of in an "economic sense," said Wilson, of the Law Offices of Rhonda Hill Wilson in Philadelphia, and the trial-lawyer bar was more interested in representing clients who were breadwinners.
But in recent years, the understanding has developed that "even a person who is elderly or aged has value in his or her life," Wilson said.
Plaintiffs and defense lawyers told The Legal that litigation against nursing homes and other facilities that provide care to older Pennsylvanians has ticked upward in the last decade, along with increased advertising by plaintiffs firms.
In 2010, 15.4 percent of Pennsylvanians were aged 65 or older, while 13 percent of all Americans were aged 65 or older, according to the last U.S. Census.
'FAVORABLE CLIMATE'
Lawyers prosecuting health professional liability actions traditionally sued doctors and hospitals, but those sort of lawsuits died down with tort reform, said William J. Mundy, a Harrisburg attorney who is co-chair of Burns White's health care and professional liability group and has a longtime practice focusing on long-term health care litigation.
To read the rest of the report I wrote for The Legal Intelligencer: http://www.law.com/jsp/pa/PubArticlePA.jsp?id=1202618550735
A United Nations official has called on courts in South Carolina and Oklahoma to respect the human rights of a little girl who is a member of the Cherokee Nation and is the subject of a cross-state custody dispute. Veronica lived the first two years of her life with adopted parents in South Carolina and the next two years with her American Indian father, who argues he did not consent to the adoption. When the US Supreme Court heard the case, the justices ruled that several provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act did not apply to American Indian biological fathers who are not custodians. The UN official cited the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which sets out goals for the collective rights of indigenous peoples around the globe and which President Obama has agreed to follow.
A law professor opines the injunction against Aereo rival FilmOn X by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia could adversely affect Aereo's separate expansion plans to capture broadcast TV transmissions through individual antennas and retransmit the programming over the Internet, the Boston Herald reports.
This copyright case is primed to test the scope of intellectual property.
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
