Kentucky Law Review

TRIALS: Diet Drug Trial Starts

Long-awaited diet-drug case goes to trial from COURIER JOURNAL

The prosecutor said they committed fraud that represented "unbridled greed." But attorneys for three lawyers accused of bilking clients out of $65 million in Kentucky's fen-phen case said yesterday that if mistakes were made, others were to blame, and there was no intent to commit a crime.

Lawyers begin opening arguments in fen-phen case from HERALD LEADER

The trial of three attorneys charged with defrauding clients out of millions of dollars from a diet drug settlement is beginning in northern Kentucky.

FEDERAL: Kentucky Trial of the Three Diet Drug Lawyers is NOT the only Controversy Arising from the Class Action Drug Settlement - Other Lawyers and Doctors Have Been in the Mix

The Herald Leader has a story putting the current Kentucky Diet Drug trial into perspective since it is not the only trial involving these claims, nor is it the only trial in which concerns about counsel and criminal activity have been raised. 

First, I would like to say that the Herald Leader's reporters have been doing a  phenomenal job in covering this local development which has had some nationwide coverage.

Second, remember that it is easy to make assumptions and express opinions about the culpability of the participants, but let us not forget that we are a nation of laws and that all are presumed innocent until a court of law determines guilt.

Here is the story that the Kentuckyh Fen-Phen lawyers of Cunningham, Gallion, and Mills is clearly "Not the first fen-phen trial to create controversy".  Controversy has ensued over not only the lawyers but also the medical doctors reading the diagnostic films.

Another story from the Herald Leader is styled "Fen-phen trial grabbing attention" by Jim Warren at the Herald Leader.

FEDERAL: Report critical of diet drug lawyers class action behavior

Law professors' report criticizing the diet drug lawyers' conduct in class action unsealed as reported by this Herald Leader story:

Fen-phen attorneys criticized

Three attorneys facing federal criminal charges in a 2001 fen-phen settlement apparently violated "numerous" procedural and ethical rules in their handling of the class-action case, according to written reports from two legal experts filed by prosecutors in U.S. District Court at Covington.

"A Kentucky lawyer whom I greatly admire once referred to the misconduct of a lawyer in a legal malpractice action as 'this dog's breakfast of facts,'" wrote one of the experts, Edward Brewer III, a law professor at Northern Kentucky University. "If ever there were wrongdoing by lawyers that fit that description, then this case lies at the top of the bowl."

Richard Bales, another professor at NKU's Chase School of Law, wrote in less colorful prose, but concluded that defendants William Gallion, Shirley Cunningham Jr. and Melbourne Mills Jr. "violated several of the basic rules governing class actions" in the fen-phen case.

The reports by Bales and Brewer, filed by federal prosecutors in March, were under seal until this week. Brewer and Bales presumably will be expert prosecution witnesses in the criminal trial of Mills, Cunningham and Gallion scheduled May 12 in Covington.

In another development, a member of Gallion's defense team filed notice with the court that he had been suspended on Tuesday from practicing law in the federal Eastern District of Tennessee. A U.S. district judge found that attorney Herbert Moncier had engaged in unethical conduct during a November 2006 hearing.

FEDERAL COURTS: Judge Bertelsman will not recuse himself in Diet Drug Criminal Trial

Federal judge refuses to step aside, critical of defense HERALD LEADER

A federal judge in Covington has again denied defense motions that he step aside from the pending trial of three lawyers accused of defrauding plaintiffs in a diet drug settlement. In a written decision released Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge William Bertelsman declared motions filed by attorneys for William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr. misrepresent the record.

CLICK ON HEADING FORENTIRE STORY.

FEDERAL COURTS: Diet Drug Criminal Trial Will Not be Delayed

No delay in trial of fen-phen lawyers  HERALD LEADER

Three fen-phen lawyers will go on trial in federal court on May 12, as scheduled. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman rejected motions for a continuance from defense attorneys, saying it was time to move on with the case.

FED: Judge Braden Awards $34-Million To Former Land Owners

Judge Awards $34-Million To Former Land Owners WAVE11

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A federal judge awarded $34.3 million to a group of former landowners in western Kentucky whose property was taken to create a World War II era military training post.

                  

Judge Susan Braden of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., recommended that Congress appropriate at least $34,303,980.42 in restitution for land and mineral rights lost by the landowners when the government appropriated their land to create Camp Breckinridge.

                         

Braden issued a 53-page ruling late Friday, saying the amount represents only 27 percent of the $127 million benefit the government received from taking the land and mineral rights.

"In considering this recommendation, Congress should be mindful that the entire amount of revenue that the Government received for the lease and sale of these rights is unknown, because the Government failed to produce or destroyed relevant documents that
would verify the correct amount," Braden wrote.

   

The long-running dispute over Camp Breckinridge involves more than 1,000 former landowners and their families in western Kentucky brought against the U.S. government in 1993.

            

The former landowners and their heirs, some of whom are in their 80s, are seeking a share of more than $30 million in profits as compensation for the mineral rights under what used to be their farmland. The case was filed in 1993 on a referral from Congress.

FEDERAL: "Judge OKs deal requiring Massey to pay $20 million fine"

From Herald Leader:

Judge OKs deal requiring Massey to pay $20 million fine

A federal judge has signed off on a settlement requiring Massey Energy Co. to pay a record $20 million fine for alleged pollution violations.

The agreement approved Wednesday by U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver settles a complaint filed by the Environmental Protection Agency in May 2007. The EPA had alleged that Massey routinely polluted hundreds of streams and waterways in West Virginia and Kentucky with sediment-filled waste water and coal slurry.

FEDERAL COURTS: Two stories today relating to the plane crash at Lexington - one on the US Senate accusing FAA of risking public safety and the second on the pilot's upcoming deposition

In light of the jet crash at the Lexington airport, the following story in today's Courier Journal is relevant:

Senators accuse FAA of risking public safety

Senators charged yesterday that the flying public's safety is at risk because of lax airline oversight by federal regulators. "The aviation system may be operating on borrowed time before there is another major accident," Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., warned a top official of the Federal Aviation Administration at a Senate hearing.

And while speaking of the crash, here is a story posted in the Lexington Herald Leader on the most recent development in federal case pertaining to the depositions.

Lawyers ask co-pilot to give video deposition in plane crash case

Attorneys for families suing Comair over a plane crash that killed 49 people have set a date later this month to interview the co-pilot and lone survivor, although it remains unclear whether James Polehinke will testify.

UPDATED:  Here is a third story.  This time out of WAVE3.

Federal judge denies Comair's request over FAA case

A judge has denied Comair's request to have its case against the Federal Aviation Administration considered before a trial over the 2006 plane crash that killed 49 people.

FEDERAL: Student barred from expressing opposition to homsexuality may continue his lawsuit

Student lawsuit quest ends

Courier Journal 4/10/08 1:30 AM

A Kentucky student will not be allowed to proceed with a lawsuit against his school district for instituting a policy that barred him from expressing his opposition to homosexuality, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

FEDERAL COURTS: Baptist home funding suit tossed

Baptist home funding suit tossed Coureir Journal story.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against a Kentucky Baptist children's agency and the state yesterday -- eight years after plaintiffs sued, alleging the agency was using their tax dollars to promote its religious beliefs.