Category Archives: Legal News

Blog, Business Law, Drug Companies, Legal News

Drug makers spend big to fight California price control referendum

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Drug Companies To Pour $100M Into Battle Against California’s Price Control Ballot Initiative

The initiative, likened by one lobbyist to a “grenade being rolled into the conversation,” would require the state to pay no more for prescription drugs than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the industry is gearing up to fight back. In other news, Novartis’ heart-failure drug is getting a warmer welcome in Europe than America, and the company is considering its options in selling its stake in Roche.

Politico: Drug Makers Spend Big To Fight California Price Control Referendum

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton give drug makers the jitters when they talk about Medicare negotiating the prices of prescription drugs. But the biggest near-term threat to the industry comes from a California ballot initiative that would test a version of that idea in the most populous state. That ballot initiative “is a grenade being rolled into the conversation, and it is being taken very seriously,” says a Republican drug lobbyist in Washington, D.C. (Cook and Karlin-Smith, 4/25)

The industry is expected to pour $100 million into an effort to squash the November ballot initiative.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton give drug makers the jitters when they talk about Medicare negotiating the prices of prescription drugs. But the biggest near-term threat to the industry comes from a California ballot initiative that would test a version of that idea in the most populous state.

That ballot initiative “is a grenade being rolled into the conversation, and it is being taken very seriously,” says a Republican drug lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

Drug companies are expected to pour $100 million into an effort to squash the referendum in what will be a test of the industry’s strength at a time of growing consumer backlash against drug prices. The initiative would require the state to pay no more for prescription drugs than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — one of the few federal agencies allowed to negotiate drug prices.

From the industry’s perspective, California could set a dangerous precedent. Besides having an economy the size of many small countries, the liberal bastion is often a laboratory for new ideas that take root and then spread east. That’s even more likely given that the presidential front-runners are pushing the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare.

“This is the crack in the door” on drug pricing, said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a California nonprofit devoted to consumer protection issues. “If any Democrat in America wants bulk purchasing in Medicare, it will start with bulk purchasing for the most liberal state government in America.”

Which is precisely the intention of the initiative’s sponsor, Michael Weinstein, CEO of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “If we win, we hope it will start a national prairie fire,” he said.

Weinstein pursued the ballot measure after years of in-your-face activism on AIDS and after watching the California state legislature fail to do anything about drug prices — a big concern to people with HIV/AIDS who may be taking costly drugs for the rest of their lives.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/drug-makers-california-referendum-222334#ixzz471Q9mg4k
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Blog, Divorce, Family, Legal News

Mississippi Fails To Add Domestic Violence As A Legal Reason For Divorce

Melissa Jeltsen Senior Reporter, The Huffington Post

Advocates say the state’s antiquated divorce laws can make it harder for victims to leave abusive spouses.

A bill that would have added domestic violence as a legal grounds for divorce died in the Mississippi state Senate last week.

In Mississippi, a person can get a divorce if their spouse is a habitual drunk, commits adultery, has an incurable mental illness or is naturally impotent.

But if their spouse beats them? That would make things more complicated. As it currently stands, domestic violence is not among the 12 legal grounds for divorce in the state.

A recent effort to rectify that died in the Mississippi state Senate last week.

The bill would have made domestic violence the 13th legal justification for divorce, as long as it was “established by clear and convincing evidence, where the perpetrator commits upon a spouse one of the following: attempting to cause, or purposely or knowingly causing, bodily injury to the spouse; or attempting by physical menace to put the spouse in fear of imminent serious bodily harm.”

Wendy Mahoney, executive director of the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said she was disappointed that the bill failed, and characterized the state’s current divorce laws as antiquated.

“In this day and age, we were just trying to get some language that would be more fitting about what transpires in situations of domestic violence,” she said.

The coalition pushed for the bill after many domestic violence survivors reported that their greatest need was assistance with legal services, particularly divorce.

“Basically, we wanted to make this process easier for individuals, being that they are already dealing with so many issues — child custody, rebuilding their lives and so on,” Mahoney said.

William Wright, a divorce lawyer who has been practicing law for 42 years, said it’s harder to get a divorce in Mississippi than in most other states.

Under state law, if both members of the couple agree to divorce, they can claim “irreconcilable differences” and don’t need to provide a legal reason, he said.

But if one spouse doesn’t want the divorce, the process is often stymied. The person seeking the divorce must settle on unfavorable terms or claim one of the 12 grounds allowed by state law, and the court will decide whether to grant it.

“What you have down here is that the one who doesn’t want the divorce just holds out for a good deal,” he said. “One party holds the other party hostage.”

Wright said domestic violence victims trying to divorce abusive partners typically allege “habitual cruel and inhuman treatment,” which is among the current legal grounds for divorce.

But that can be hard to prove unless the abuse was physical and ongoing, he said. Subtle types of abuse, like emotional, verbal and economic, are much more difficult to demonstrate.

Stacey Sarver, legal director of WomensLaw, said that while it’s common for states to include cruel and inhuman treatment or extreme cruelty as a grounds for divorce, most don’t require proof that the abuse was ongoing or “habitual.”

“It seems in Mississippi, one incident is not enough,” she said. “That is not commonly found in the statutes of other states.”

Mahoney said she hopes the bill will pass in the next legislative session.

“We will have more support next year, and I think we will be better positioned to make sure it passes,” she said.

Sourced From – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mississippi-domestic-violence-divorce_us_571f7969e4b01a5ebde34227

Blog, Legal News, Personal Injury

How Big Is Cycling? Big Enough to Have Its Own Personal-Injury Lawyer.

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Bruce Deming is happy, mostly for the right reasons, to see Washington’s surge in biking. The trim, 59-year-old DC attorney is a once-avid road racer who still takes the occasional 50-mile weekend ride with the National Capital Velo Club.

But he also sees a market in the snarl of cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians jockeying for space amid construction sites, double-parked vans, and gridlocked intersections. Deming specializes in representing injured bike riders, and business is booming.

“The growth is primarily among new riders in their twenties and thirties who use bikes for transportation,” he says, adding diplomatically, “They’re less skilled in the art of accident avoidance. They also trust in bike lanes a little more than they should.”

Deming began his career suing oil companies for price violations at the Department of Energy 30 years ago. After leaving government in the mid-’80s, he “sort of fell into personal-injury law,” he says. “When I started my practice, I did everything, but I rode bikes daily and I raced. Biking friends called for help.” As Washington increasingly took to two wheels, “one case led to another,” he says. “Bicyclists are a social group, so your name gets around.”

Deming takes only about half of the 200 or so cases he hears about each year, earning about a third of damage awards that range from hundreds of dollars to millions: “I pick my fights—and it’s always a fight.”

What makes bike-injury cases difficult, according to Deming, is cops’ casual attitude toward reporting accidents. Last year, Jeanie Osburn,62, a longtime DC bike commuter, was pedaling near FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue when a driver slowed while preparing to turn left and fooled Osburn into thinking he saw her. She was wrong—and went to the hospital with back and shoulder injuries. When it came time for Osburn to make a claim against the driver’s insurance company, the police report was inaccurate and incomplete. “There was a sea of blue,” she recalls of her accident scene, “but no officer took down witness names.”

Read Full Article – http://www.washingtonian.com/2016/04/11/cycling-personal-injury-lawyer-biking-in-dc/

Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

How an alleged mafia chief’s appetite for pizza led to his arrest

An alleged mafia chief’s appetite for pizza has cost him his freedom.

Roberto Manganiello, 35, an alleged boss in Naples’ notorious Camorra mafia in southern Italy, has been arrested by detectives disguised as pizza boys who delivered food to his home as he was watching a football match.

Mr Manganiello, one of Italy’s most-wanted crime bosses, had been on the run since 2013.

He was watching the Naples-Inter soccer match on Saturday with his girlfriend when the operation took place this weekend in Caserta, near Naples.

He has been sought since 2013 for two killings in 2004 that launched a clan feud. Police said he also ran a drug and extortion ring and he has been listed as one of “Italy’s 100 most dangerous criminals”.

Mr Manganiello was unarmed and did not resist arrest. A 30-year-old Neapolitan woman was arrested with him.

Angelino Alfano, the interior minister, said on Sunday the arrest was “the result of a high-level investigation” with coordination across several agencies.

It was reported by Germany’s Deutsche Welle that the investigation included at least 50 people working in a team tracking his movements.

Adding to Mr Manganiello’s humiliation, Milan defeated his home team 2-0, all but crushing Naples’ hopes of a first Serie A title in 26 years.

The Camorra is based in Naples and the surrounding region of Campania and has never been stronger than it is now, and is second only in wealth and ruthlessness to the ‘Ndrangheta mafia of Calabria, an expert on organised crime told the Telegraph earlier this year.

In the past, there were more than 100 semi-independent clans within the Camorra, often at war with each other.

In August 2011, Italian and Spanish police swooped on Salvatore D’Avino, then one of Italy‘s most wanted fugitives, as he was filling his car with petrol in a town on the Costa del Sol.

D’Avino, 39, alleged to be a member of the Camorra mafia, had been on the run for four years.

Sourced From – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/18/how-an-alleged-mafia-chiefs-appetite-for-pizza-led-to-his-arrest/

Blog, Criminal, Immigration, International, Legal News

Depp’s Wife Amber Heard Pleads Guilty in Australian Dog Smuggling Spat

Actor Johnny Depp and wife Amber Heard arrive at the Southport Magistrates Court on Australia’s Gold Coast, April 18, 2016

SYDNEY — Actor Johnny Depp’s wife Amber Heard pleaded guilty Monday to providing a false immigration document amid allegations she smuggled the couple’s dogs into Australia.

Prosecutors dropped two more serious charges that Heard illegally imported the Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, into the country last year, when Depp was filming the fifth movie in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series.

A conviction on the illegal importation counts could have sent the actress to prison for up to 10 years. The false documents charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a fine of more than 10,000 Australian dollars ($7,650).

The hearing in Southport Magistrates Court on Queensland state’s Gold Coast was temporarily adjourned on Monday to allow the judge time to review documents.

The debacle over the dogs began last May, when Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce accused Depp of smuggling the tiny terriers aboard his private jet when he returned to Australia to resume filming the “Pirates” movie.

Australia has strict quarantine regulations to prevent diseases such as rabies from spreading to its shores. Bringing pets into the country involves applying for a permit and quarantine on arrival of at least 10 days.

“If we start letting movie stars — even though they’ve been the sexiest man alive twice — to come into our nation (with pets), then why don’t we just break the laws for everybody?” Joyce said at the time. “It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States.”

Depp and Heard were given 72 hours to send Pistol and Boo back to the U.S., with officials warning that the dogs would otherwise be euthanized. The pooches boarded a flight home just hours before the deadline ran out.

The comments by Joyce, who is now the deputy prime minister of Australia, elevated what might otherwise have been a local spat into a global delight for comedians and broadcasters. One newspaper ran a doggie death countdown ticker on its website that marked the hours remaining before the dogs had to flee the country, and comedian John Oliver dedicated a more than 6-minute segment to lampooning the ordeal.

Depp himself poked fun at the drama during a press conference in Venice last year where he was asked if he planned to take the dogs for a gondola ride. “No,” he replied. “I killed my dogs and ate them, under direct orders from some kind of, I don’t know, sweaty, big-gutted man from Australia.”

The couple was swarmed by reporters when they arrived at court Monday. They said little apart from Depp responding “Fine, thank you,” to reporters shouting questions about how they — and Pistol and Boo — were doing.

Sourced From – http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/amber-heard-pleads-guilty-australian-dog-smuggling-spat-n557431