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A lawsuit over a historical post office in my local community of Stamford, Connecticut, exemplifies the clash between the United States Postal Service's efforts to modernize and downsize its facilities and laws meant to protect America's historical heritage and the local environment. I wrote about the dispute for the Connecticut Law Tribune: 

 In the early 1900s, federal buildings tended to be monumental—beautifully designed and built with high-quality construction materials so they would last. One hundred years later, the result is an inventory of historic post offices that are often larger than the U.S. Postal Service requires due to the declining volume of mail and increased automation.

Federal court litigation over the Stamford Main Post Office, built in 1916, is just the latest example of how the USPS's modernization efforts are putting the quasi-public agency in conflict with laws meant to preserve history and protect the environment.

The postal service closed the building last September and is transferring it functions to other postal facilities in the city. The USPS wants to sell the building to the Cappelli Organization for $4.3 million. The White Plains, N.Y., developer wants to demolish part of the post office and erect two 20-story luxury apartment towers behind the building.

A group of plaintiffs went to court on the day the developer and the postal service were ready to close the deal, arguing that the "postal service seeks to pass title to a developer without obtaining from it sufficient protections for the historically and culturally important features of the property."

The plaintiffs are the National Post Office Collaborate, a nonprofit formed two years ago to fight to preserve the historic post office in Berkeley, Calif., and now fighting to preserve historic post offices nationally; the Stamford-based Center for Art and Mindfulness, which tried unsuccessfully to buy the building as an arts center; and Stamford resident Kaysay Abrha.

Jacquelyn McCormick, executive director of the collaborate, said since her group and the other plaintiffs filed their lawsuit last fall, the postal service has not closed any post offices elsewhere in the country. The legal dispute over the Stamford building could be a test case for how the postal service handles the disposition of its historically significant properties, she said.

Historical post offices in Derby and New London are also for sale, according to a congressional report from the Advisory Council on Historical Preservation published earlier this year.

The USPS' "intention is to use their quasi-public status … and turn their back on it when it suits them," McCormick said.

The Stamford Main Post Office, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places for almost 30 years, is set on a pink granite base. Granite steps lead to a terrace bordered by two wings of the building. The plaza has two bronze-and-glass lantern fixtures. The interior has high ceilings and the lobby floor is trimmed in pink and white marble.

The plaintiffs challenging the plan argue that the "building is a spectacular example of American-Italianate architecture and represents a piece of American history from a bygone era."

Despite the historical features, the defendants claim the post office, also known as the Atlantic Street Station, is in poor condition and poses health risks from falling plaster, lead paint, mold and a lack of hot running water. A deal reached with a previous private bidder was scuttled, in part because of costs related to removing asbestos and lead paint, according to the USPS.

The USPS argued in court papers that it has no money available to fix the building, as it has already borrowed the $10 billion maximum available to it for capital expenditures nationwide.

The plaintiffs argue that the USPS only gave two days notice that the post office would be closed. The plaintiffs also argued that the USPS failed to follow Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires federal agencies to consider the effect of selling historic properties. Further, the plaintiffs alleged the USPS failed to conduct an environmental assessment or obtain an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act. That federal law requires agencies to consider the effect of major federal actions on the "quality of the human environment."

Last October, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton granted a preliminary injunction barring the sale of the property on the grounds that the post office's compliance with the environmental review law was deficient.

The USPS categorically excludes from the environmental review process any sale or real property that "does not involve an increase in volumes, concentrations, or discharge rates of wastes, air emissions, or water effluents." But Arterton expressed skepticism that the construction of two high-rise apartment buildings would have the same impact on the neighborhood environment as the day-to-day operations of a post office that has already been built.

"At oral argument, USPS was unable to point to any evidence in the record showing that USPS specifically considered Cappelli's plans to develop two high-rise residential apartment buildings at the site," Arterton wrote. "The only evidence of USPS's consideration of the categorical exclusion was a simple unelaborated 'yes' response on a checkbox form completed over two years prior to the contemplated action."

Arterton noted the USPS' difficult financial circumstances, including a mandate to pay $5.5 billion into a health fund for future retirees. However, the judge said, the USPS cannot evade compliance with the environmental review law just because compliance is time-consuming or inconvenient.

David Friedman and Kristen Zaehringer, of Murtha Cullina in Stamford, and Barry Trilling, of the Trilling Environmental Law Firm in Fairfield, are representing the plaintiffs.

The U.S. Postal Service is represented by the U.S. Attorney's Office for Connecticut and the U.S. Department of Justice's Environmental & Natural Resources Division. One of the attorneys involved, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Nevins, based in Bridgeport, declined to comment on the pending litigation.

The case in Stamford also could test the contours of the public trust doctrine, a principle which holds that certain resources are preserved for public use and that the government is required to maintain them for the public's reasonable use.

In this case, the plaintiffs argued that while the USPS actively manages its post offices, the public retains the superior right of collective ownership of those buildings. The postal service says the plaintiffs are misinterpreting the law.

The federal lawyers said the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the public trust doctrine is a creature of state law and applies only to the states in some dealings with private parties.

Oral arguments were held in May on the public trust doctrine claim and another claim. No ruling has been issued yet.

I'm writing several times a day about products liability for Law.com/The National Law Journal. Occasionally I cross-post a blog I find particularly interesting.

One plaintiff's lawsuit in Louisiana federal court over allegations that diabetes drug Actos increases the risk of bladder cancer resulted in a $9 billion verdict. What might a jury do in a case consolidating claims by two plaintiffs?

Takeda Pharmaceuticals America Inc. is at trial over combined claims by Delores Cipriano and Bertha Triana, who allege they received inadequate warnings about Actos. Cipriano's attorney, Robert Eglet, said he plans to seek a multibillion-dollar verdict, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.

Before the trial started, attorneys Kelly Evans, Chad Fears and Justin Hepworth, of Snell & Wilmer in Las Vegas, with other defense lawyers, asked the Nevada Supreme Court to bar consolidation of the two cases.

“Consolidation causes prejudice on the issue of causation by creating false cancer clusters which, in turn, magnifies juror sympathy for each individual plaintiff,” Takeda's counsel wrote. “Magnification of such juror sympathy should be a real concern in mass tort litigation in light of the colossal verdicts entered recently in consolidated trials in Nevada.”

The state high court rejected the defense petition for extraordinary writ relief. The consolidated case is expected to run until May.

Actos plaintiffs haven’t always met with success in Nevada. One such trial resulted in a defense verdict. But in Louisiana federal court, last week’s the verdict in Allen v. Takeda Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. was the first of nearly 3,000 lawsuits coordinated for pretrial purposes in federal multidistrict litigation.

In that case, the jury awarded $1.475 million in compensatory damages. Takeda was found 75 percent liable and Eli Lilly & Co., which co-promoted Actos, was found 25 percent liable. The jury awarded $9 billion in punitive damages, with $6 billion against Takeda and $3 billion against Lilly.

Here's the story I wrote for the Connecticut Law Tribune regarding a civil-rights attorney who alleges her own civil rights were violated by the city of Bridgeport in its hiring of outside counsel to represent city employees: 

osephine Miller is no stranger to litigation involving the city of Bridgeport and its school district.

In the highest profile case, which went to the state Supreme Court, the Danbury-based civil rights litigator represented parents who objected to the state's decision in 2011 to replace members of the elected school board with its own appointees.

Now Miller also has her own legal complaint pending. She is alleging in federal court that her civil rights were violated by the Bridgeport City Attorney, who is responsible for hiring outside counsel for school district employees entitled to city-paid legal representation. Specifically, Miller alleges that City Attorney Mark Anastasi paid a white attorney who formerly provided representation for a certain client, but that he has refused to pay Miller, who is an African American, for her work for the same client.

Miller's client, Andrew Cimmino, is a former Bridgeport elementary school teacher who was fired following sexual abuse allegations. Cimmino claims the allegations were fabricated by two school employees, and he has pursued civil claims against the employees and the school district. Miller defended Cimmino in a sexual harassment and constitutional-rights lawsuit the two school employees brought against the Bridgeport Board of Education, the city of Bridgeport and Cimmino.

Most recently, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Bryant has ruled that Miller's claims of racial discrimination regarding payment for her representation of Cimmino could survive a motion to dismiss. But the judge seemed to express some skepticism about the complaint, writing Miller "faintly alleged" her conspiracy claim.

Miller's new counsel in the civil rights action, Richard C. Gordon, of Bloomfield, said in an interview that it is "not unusual" to see skeptical language from judges at an early stage of court proceedings. Discovery is not complete, Gordon pointed out, and he expressed confidence that they will fully prove the allegations of racial discrimination.

Miller's complaint does not provide any information about how much she thinks she is owed. The complaint does says she has not been paid since January 2010 and that Cimmino's prior attorney was not required to first incur legal fees and expenses before he received reimbursement.

Bridgeport Associate City Attorney Betsy Edwards said the allegations of racial discrimination in the city attorney's hiring of outside counsel "are demonstrably untrue." She said Miller has personal knowledge that the City Attorney's Office has African-American attorneys on its staff and also hires them for outside counsel.

The bottom line, according to the city, is that Anastasi is the only one authorized by the city charter to decide if city employees can hire outside counsel paid for by public tax dollars, and that authorization has not been granted to Miller in the Cimmino case. Edwards said Miller is trying to "force and coerce the City Attorney's Office" into hiring her to represent city employees entitled to legal representation, Edwards said.

But Gordon said the choice of outside counsel should not belong to the city attorney. "Any plaintiff in any matter has the right to select his or her attorney," said Gordon. "It would patently unfair to essentially require a plaintiff to use an attorney that he or she does not want."

In her ruling, Bryant noted that Miller often represents non-school employee clients who are suing the city of Bridgeport. For that reason, the judge said, the city may be reluctant to hire Miller to represent its own employees.

"While the record does not indicate the nature of the various representations, it is not inconceivable, for example, that an attorney who represented the city would be privy to information which would be adverse to its interests in a subsequent action against the city," Bryant said.

The federal judge rejected Miller's request to amend her complaint to add new claims of tortious interference with her contracts with her clients, conspiracy between two or more individuals to unlawfully deprive Miller of the right to make and enforce contracts due to her race, and other claims.

According to the judge's opinion, Miller also wanted to add allegations that she was told by an assistant city attorney that the city would not settle lawsuits brought by Miller because she has so many cases pending against Bridgeport. Miller also wanted to add a second allegation that another assistant city attorney told Cimmino, the fired principal, that "he should not employ Miller, that she was often reversed on [court] decisions entered in her favor, and that the client should employ a different attorney."

Miller also wanted to add a third allegation she has not been paid for representing another Bridgeport city employee.

Bryant ruled that those allegations don't share a nucleus of common fact with what Miller has already alleged regarding Cimmino, the judge said.

"While Miller alleges that various Bridgeport city attorneys were involved in the alleged conspiracy, she has utterly failed to connect either the attorneys or the incidents she alleges to be involved," Bryant said. "Moreover, although she alleges that this conspiracy's goal was to deprive her of her right to make or enforce contracts based on her race, Miller has failed to allege any inference of discrimination in the new incidents she seeks to add to the action."

Gordon said he will file a new complaint on Miller's behalf with the allegations that the judge did not permit to be added to the Cimmino case as well as the conspiracy claim regarding the Cimmino situation.

Read more: http://www.ctlawtribune.com/id=1202649823476/Attorney-Claims-City-Refuse...

Legislation is pending again in Connecticut that would reduce the size of the zones near schools, daycares and public housing projects that trigger enhanced sentences for defendants convicted of drug possession and selling within those zones. Here is the piece I wrote about the subject for the Connecticut Law Tribune:

During the crack epidemic of the 1980s, it seemed like a commonsense move to help protect the young and the innocent.

The state would add enhanced penalties for drug possession and drug trafficking within 1,500 feet of schools, day-care facilities and public housing complexes. Drug defendants faced an extra three years on their prison sentence if convicted of the extra charge.

But in recent years, some lawmakers and members of the legal community have had second thoughts. The Connecticut General Assembly is once again considering legislation that would reduce the size of the drug-free zones from 1,500 to 200 feet.

The Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the matter March 12. The legislation, which has the backing of both prosecutors and defense attorneys, has not been scheduled for a vote.

Former Supreme Court Justice David Borden, who now chairs the Connecticut Sentencing Commission, said the commission has recommended that there be a reduction in the size of the sentencing enhancement zones.

The commission found that in Connecticut's biggest cities nearly every piece of land is within 1,500 feet of a school, day-care center or public housing facility. And so the penalties for posessing drugs are the same in virtually every part of those municipalities. If there are no zones where penalties are increased, "there's no special deterrent, which is the theory of the enhanced sentences," Borden said. "If every area is a special area, then there is no special area."

The commission includes members from various sectors of the criminal justice system, and proposals adopted by the panel have the group's consensus, Borden said. Mark Dupuis, a spokesman for the Office of the Chief State's Attorney, said there are state's attorneys on the Sentencing Commission and the office is supporting the commission-backed legislation.

Morgan Ruecker, a board member of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and a partner with Shipman & Goodwin, said the Sentencing Commission "has come up with commonsense changes to address some issues that need to be addressed. This is a recommendation that we really support. It's an appropriate time to move forward with this."

The Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), a Northampton, Mass.-based reform group, says the concept of drug-free zones in areas where children congregate is a popular one across the nation. A just-released PPI report says that Connecticut is one of the states with the largest zones. PPI found that 94 percent of Hartford residents, 93 percent of New Haven residents and 92 percent of Bridgeport residents live in areas covered by the sentencing enhancement.

The report's author, PPI's legal director Aleks Kajstura, said she understands the concern about reducing sentencing enhancement zones at a time when narcotics remain illegal. But Kajstura echoed Borden's point that the law hasn't really created any "pressure penalties" because entire "urban areas are essentially all within enhanced penalty zones."

There also are "racial disparities that this law creates" because more minorities live in cities, Kajstura said.

In a 12-month period ending in October 2012, 3,109 white defendants in Connecticut and 3,102 nonwhites were charged with drug crimes in school zones, according to prepared testimony by Sentencing Commission Acting Director Andrew Clark.

Connecticut is not the only state to revisit the issue. In 2010, New Jersey passed a law that requires judges to consider a variety of factors before handing down an enhanced sentence for drug arrests near schools and day-care centers. This past January, Massachusetts reduced its school zone radius to 300 feet.

Legislation that would have shrunk Connecticut's zones to 300 feet appeared on the way to passage last year in the Legislature before lawmakers from suburban and rural areas raised objections. They said the problems with the enhanced enforcement zones covering entire municipalities is an urban problem and that the zones should not be shrunk statewide.

"We're identifying an issue in urban areas and applying it to 169 cities and towns," Rep. Jason Perillo, R-Shelton, said during debate on the issue last year. "Who are we helping? We're helping that drug dealer who happens to sell his product 500 feet from a school."

This year, state Rep. Prasad Srinivasan, R-Glastonbury, submitted testimony in opposition to the legislation. "Shrinking the drug zone, to my mind, is sending the wrong message" about illegal drugs, Srinivasan said.

The legislator said he does understand the concern that urban residents convicted of drug possession and drug trafficking are more likely to face enhanced penalties than rural residents. He said other policy changes should be considered. Last year, Rep. Rosa Rebimbas, R-Naugatuck, proposed and then withdrew an amendment that would have allowed municipalities to determine the size of school zones by local ordinance.

State Rep. Christie Carpino, a Republican who represents Cromwell and Portland, also submitted testimony this year to the Judiciary Committee opposing the reduction in drug-free zones.

Carpino noted that there are about 3,500 schoolchildren in her district. "Each one of these kids will face struggles throughout their lives," she said. "Giving drug dealers reduced penalties for selling close to their schools is one danger we should not impose on them."•

Earlier this year, I wrote about how many homeowners still waiting for insurance payouts after Superstorm Sandy will soon run out of time to take their cases to court if that is necessary. In Connecticut, it is industry practice to include in homeowners' insurance policies a time limitation on lawsuits. The law lets insurers limit lawsuits by property owners to 18 months after a disaster hits.

Now the Connecticut General Assembly has taken up a bill that would extend the time period to sue to two years after a disaster hits. Another bill would allow property owners to recoup attorney fees and court costs after a disaster.

An excerpt on my piece about the legislation for the Connecticut Law Tribune: 

Lawmakers are considering several pieces of legislation that would change state laws governing homeowners' insurance policies, including a bill that would award reasonable attorney fees and lawsuit costs to plaintiffs who win their cases against insurers.

The legislation is supported by trial attorneys, but opposed by the insurance industry.

State Rep. Robert W. Megna, D-New Haven, and co-chair of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee, said there's merit in authorizing plaintiffs who win their cases to be able to obtain attorney fees and lawsuits costs.

When policyholders report damage claims to their insurers and when those claims have been denied to some extent, the policyholders have the burden of hiring an attorney and paying for that attorney out of any recovery they obtain, Megna said. The proposed legislation would remove that burden.

As it stands, attorney fees are "going to come off the property damage settlement," Megna said. "Even if the homeowner prevails, they're at a disadvantage when it comes to fixing their home."

The committee will decide this week whether the bills, including the attorney fees measure, will be voted out of committee, Megna said.

Ryan Suerth, a Hartford-based solo practitioner who represents policyholders in insurance disputes, testified in support of the legislation. "The intent of it is to ensure that the policyholder gets the benefit of the policy they purchased… You get taken care of 100 percent," Suerth said in an interview.

If the legislation is passed, there may be a decrease in litigation alleging bad faith by insurers or alleging that insurers violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act and the Connecticut Unfair Insurance Practices Act, Suerth said. Attorney fees can be obtained in those types of lawsuits but not in breach of contract actions prosecuted against insurers.

The Insurance Association of Connecticut said in submitted testimony that, at times, it can be unclear when policyholders "prevail" in legal action against an insurer, and thus it would be confusing just who is entitled to attorney fees and costs.

"The proposal is contrary to the traditions of the American judicial system," the association said in its prepared testimony. "Insurers should be able to challenge questionable claims when there is a good-faith basis for such a challenge … Examining the validity of claims helps insurers maintain rates for all policyholders by weeding out the frivolous or meritless claims."

If the policy behind the legislation is to deter insurers from unnecessarily denying or delaying claims, the threat of bad-faith claims or penalties from the Insurance Department already does that, the association said.

I wrote a story for Hearst about one of many prayer vigils held around the country to commemorate the people lost to gun violence. Here is an excerpt: 

Each pair represented the absence of people killed by guns.

Dale Ferguson's father was one of those people.

Edward Ferguson was a school custodian shot dead outside of the Elizabeth S. Shelton elementary school in Shelton in August 1988. Ferguson was 8 years old.

His daughter, now grown, said that new tragedies of gun violence bring back a "flash-flood of memories."

"I could see the place where the bullet went above his right eye," Ferguson said. "I can see it so clearly after 25 years."

Ferguson, of Stratford, spoke at an interfaith vigil held Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford as part of the national "Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath" weekend.

Ferguson said she didn't just lose her father. People don't realize, she said in an interview after speaking at the vigil, that the cost of murders by guns is not just losing the person killed. It's also the ripple effect of that death.

She also lost touch with her father's family, and her mother was never quite the same after losing her best friend and love of her life, Ferguson says.

"We could never 100 percent prevent ... events from happening, but we can do our part to make sure we did everything we could for it not to happen again," Ferguson said.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said constituents have asked him since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, " `Hasn't America moved on? Hasn't America forgotten about this issue?' "

But he says that is not so. Other issues are higher priority than gun control for many voters, but he thinks that a majority still want reform.

Nearly a year ago a gun-control bill drawn up after the Sandy Hook mass shooting was defeated in the Senate.

There was a majority in support of the legislation, but not enough senators to stop a filibuster, Blumenthal said.

I'm blogging several times a day about products liability for Law.com. Occasionally I cross-post an excerpt of a blog I find interesting:

Plaintiff's lawyers in a bellwether trial over whether Eli Lilly and Company's Actos drug causes bladder cancer allege that a witness for defendant Eli Lilly has committed perjury and have asked for the court to issue a default judgment as a consequence.

The plaintiff's counsel also allege that the witness committed “contumacious” conduct, or conduct that is willfully disobedient to the court's authority.

Plaintiff's counsel allege that Ronald Hoven, former senior director for global marketing at Eli Lilly, committed perjury and disobedience to the court's authority because he “expressed a stunning lack of knowledge throughout his adverse witness examination by plaintiffs.” In contrast, Hoven submitted a declaration in a state-court lawsuit about Actos that he had personal knowledge about issues involving the drug, plaintiff's counsel said.

For example, the plaintiff's lawyers said in court papers that Hoven said he had no knowledge that there was a change to the Actos label to include a bladder-cancer warning even though it is a drug “for which he was previously a brand leader, about which thousands of lawsuits across the country have been filed, and for which he received a litigation hold.”

In another example, the plaintiff's lawyers said “Hoven denied having any knowledge of Upjohn backing out of the approval process of Actos due to safety, even though Upjohn's withdrawal was a direct windfall for Eli Lilly to step in and control the United States marketing aspect for Takeda from 1999 to 2006 in addition to being a long-term global partner that continues to reap the benefits from the sales of Actos.”

Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc., is a codefendant in the case of Allen v. Takeda Pharmaceuticals going through a trial in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Louisiana.

In a third example, the plaintiff's counsel allege that Hoven committed perjury by denying involvement in Zyprexa, a drug on which Eli Lilly entered a corporate integrity agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspect General for illegal marketing.

I'm blogging several times a day about products liability for Law.com. Occasionally I cross-post an excerpt of a blog I find interesting:

The Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled against a plaintiffs' attorney for the second time in a dispute with two former clients over who owes money for discovery undertaken on the behalf of all plaintiffs in the massive federal diet-drug litigation.

Herbert Lee Jr. represented 13 plaintiffs who settled their claims that they were injured by taking diet drugs for around $32 million, according a recent opinion by Justice David Chandler. Lee agreed that six percent of the “gross amount of recovery” of each of his clients would be paid for the discovery materials generated in the diet-drug multidistrict litigation in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Lee, however, billed the $1.92 million MDL fee to the plaintiffs. The federal court ordered one-third of all “common benefit fees” refunded.

Plaintiffs Gloria Thompson, who was paid $7.4 million in her settlement, and Deborah Dixon, who was paid $3.1 million, sued Lee, arguing that he had failed to refund their portion of the MDL fee and that his attorney fee exceeded their contingency agreements by 5 percent. Lee retained 45 percent of the MDL refund and refunded each of his 13 clients 1/13th of the remaining 55 percent.

When the case got to the Mississippi Supreme Court for the first time, the court upheld the plaintiff's victory in the trial court on the MDL fee. The Supreme Court said that the federal court required the MDL fee to be paid by attorneys and that Lee “erroneously had billed the MDL fee to his clients.”

During trial on remand, the jury found that Lee breached his 40 percent contingency fee contracts with his clients by charging them 45 percent. Still, the panel returned a verdict for Lee, finding that the plaintiffs had ratified a 45-percent fee by signing their settlements free from intimidation, coercion or fraud. Still, the trial judge determined that Lee owed plaintiff Thompson $420,000 and plaintiff Dixon $180,000 for the MDL fee.

During Lee's second appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court, the court rejected Lee's arguments that the plaintiffs “fabricated that the original contingency-fee agreements provided for a 40-percent fee,” not a 45-percent fee as he claims. The plaintiffs contended at trial that Lee forged retainer agreements providing for a 45 percent fee.

An excerpted version of a piece I wrote for the Connecticut Law Tribune:

One of David Rosen's personal injury cases resolved for a confidential amount last fall. When he got the case, his offices were in New Haven, about 10 miles away from where plaintiff Brenda Adelson was living in Hamden.

But Adelson hadn't been hurt in Connecticut or even the continental United States. Her leg was severely crushed by a failing water tower in Mali, a landlocked Western country and a former French colony. Adelson's companion was killed.

Adelson was airlifted from Mali to Paris, then taken from Paris to Hartford, and then by helicopter to New Haven. Even though Adelson lost her left leg near the hip, doctors at Yale-New Haven Hospital saved her life, Rosen says.

In pursuing a lawsuit against the owners of the water tower, her lawyers traveled even further. Discovery was conducted in four countries on three continents, including Mali's capital of Bamako and Quebec City. Meanwhile, Rosen's associate, Hunter Smith, flew to Paris in just his third week on the job to participate in a deposition being taken in French. Smith grew up in Europe, and he learned French in school.

Adelson was in Mali as a volunteer for MBA Enterprise Corps, an organization that deploys recently graduated MBAs from U.S. business schools for long-term volunteer assignments in developing nations.

She went to a tiny village in Mali to view the newly constructed water tower at the invitation of Cristina Nardone, the local employee of a nonprofit group that supports sustainable tourism projects in developing countries and is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

According to court papers, Nardone was the one who issued the purchase order for the construction of the water tower. She was also the one killed when the tower collapsed while it was being filled with water for the first time during Adelson's and her visit to the village. The builders of the tower were ultimately convicted in a Malian court of involuntary homicide, involuntary battery and violating Mali's construction law.

Rosen and Smith, along with their cocounsel and opposing counsel, traveled to Mali to take depositions for the civil lawsuit. The capital was in the last section of Mali that was still held by the government, which was trying to put down an Islamist rebellion with the help of the French.

The attorneys stayed in a nice hotel in Bamako, where there was a "very, very high level of security," Rosen said. Armed guards screened vehicles in the parking lot and guests in the hotel lobby.

When the lawyers asked a witness why he was willing to travel eight hours to the capital to give a deposition, Rosen said the witness explained that it was the Malian way to try to help someone if asked for assistance.

At one point, the plaintiffs team looked for a piece of rebar—concrete reinforced with steel rods—because the issue arose whether rebar had been used in the water tower. During a break, taken so the witnesses and the interpreters could go to Islamic Friday prayers, Smith said he went out onto the street and asked a complete stranger if he could help acquire rebar. Just like that he got assistance.

I'm blogging several times a day about products liability for Law.com. Each day I cross-post an excerpt of the day's blog I found most interesting.

A notice in a Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy, that tort claims would be barred after a date certain, applies to plaintiffs who did not know they would develop illnesses induced from a chemical producer's product, a federal judge has ruled.

Nine plaintiffs who worked for Chemtura Corporation's Firmenich plant filed lawsuits alleging they had been injured by exposure to diacetyl, a butter-flavor ingredient used in food products. Exposure to diacetyl can lead to lung disease.

The plaintiffs argued to U.S. District Jesse M. Furman of the Southern District of New York that they did not receive constitutionally adequate notice of the “bar date” for creditors because they did not know they had diacetyl-induced illnesses until after then. “The appellants argue that, while the notice may have been adequate as to people with reason to know they might have diacetyl-related claims, it was inadequate as to appellants because they 'had not yet been diagnosed with diacetyl-induced disease' and thus had no reason to know that they might have claims,” the opinion said.

Furman thought otherwise. “It cannot be said that, had the Firmenich claimants read the notice, they 'would have remain completely unaware that their substantive rights were affected' by the bar date,” the judge opined. “The notice, which was disseminated in a local newspaper circulated in the area of the Firmenich plant, advised that Chemtura had sold diacetyl to flood-favoring companies throughout the United States from 1998 to 2005, and specifically referenced Firmenich as one of those companies.”

The bankruptcy judge had barred from the plaintiffs from bringing tort actions.

The Oct. 31, 2009, bar date requires all creditors, including diacetyl claimants to file their proofs of claim. Notice included a publication in the Homes News Tribune, a newspaper circulated in Middlesex County, N.J. — the same county in which the plaintiffs filed their lawsuits. The notice alerted tort plaintiffs that they would have their claims barred for an injury that “becomes apparent either now or in the future,” the judge said.

The plaintiffs were on notice that they might have been exposed to diacetyl, that they might have been injured and that they would lose their rights to recover for injuries that had not yet manifested if they did not file a proof of claim form by the bar date, Furman said.