PI Newswire

Johnson & Johnson will pay $158 million to settle Texas’ complaint of Medicaid fraud, ending a trial in Travis County Court that began on Jan. 10.

State prosecutors said Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals pushed Risperdal for off-label uses, to treat children and adults for schizophrenia and dementia, though the FDA had not approved it for that. Johnson & Johnson also “downplayed the harmful side effects of this drug,” the Texas Attorney General’s Office said in a statement announcing the settlement.

Physicians are allowed to prescribe drugs for off-lable uses, but drug companies are not allowed to push their drugs for that.

The state said its Medicaid program overpaid pharmacies that dispensed Risperdal to Medicaid patients for unapproved uses.

Prosecutors said it was the Medicaid overbilling case to go to trial in the state. ActavisGroup went to a trial in early 2011. It settled with the state in December for $84 million.

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You’re married and you discover that your spouse is unfaithful. You’re devastated and consider getting a divorce. But, divorce doesn’t seem to be enough — shouldn’t someone pay for the anguish and shame the affair has caused you?

Yes, according to Louisiana State University law professor and tort expert William R. Corbett, whose 2001 paper, “A Somewhat Modest Proposal to Prevent Adultery and Save Families: Two Old Torts Looking for a New Career,” has been cited by dozens of researchers, most recently Shauna M. Deans in her 2010 paper “The Forgotten Side of the Battlefield in America’s War on Infidelity: A Call for the Revamping, Reviving, and Reworking of Criminal Conversation and Alienation of Affections.”

Although rare, some spouses have been able to cash in on the so-called heart balm torts, which are still legal in seven states. They are among the 23 states where adultery is illegal. In 2010, two spurned North Carolina wives sued their husbands’ mistresses — Cynthia Shackelford won $9 million and Dr. Lynn Arcara won $5.8 million. Before she passed away, Elizabeth Edwards was supposedly looking into using the alienation of affection tort to sue former aide Andrew Young for allegedly contributing to the demise of her marriage to John Edwards, who had a child with Rielle Hunter.

And that may be appropriate, Corbett says. If we believe that marriage is important, shouldn’t we be able to punish those who try to destroy it?

Deans doesn’t think it should stop at married couples, however. She wants the torts to cover cohabiting couples and other “quasi-marriages,” since more people are seeking alternative committed relationships.

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In an about-face, the feds have admitted wrongdoing in the cases of two elderly women who say they were strip-searched at Kennedy Airport by overzealous screeners.

Federal officials had initially insisted that all “screening procedures were followed” after Ruth Sherman, 89, and Lenore Zimmerman, 85, went public with separate accounts of humiliating strip searches.

But in a letter obtained by the Daily News, the Homeland Security Department acknowledges that screeners violated standard practice in their treatment of the ailing octogenarians last November.

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Betsy Markey concedes to state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) that Sherman was forced to show security agents her colostomy bag — a violation of policy.

“It is not standard operating procedure for colostomy devices to be visually inspected, and [the Transportation Security Administration] apologizes for this employee’s action,” Markey wrote.

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Lindsay Lohan can’t catch a break! Today, on her way into the courthouse, a process server dumped a new mess in her lap, so to speak. A certain Thomas A. Green, Jr., is suing Lindsay for various things, including “unfair business practices” for not going into business with him (as he thinks she promised) and—get this—helping to kill Osama Bin Laden. Or maybe not helping. It was kind of mixed up, and the name was misspelled, reports a TMZ exclusive. But it’s clear he is demanding $300,000.

After all she’s been through, now Lindsay Lohan has to deal (or her people do, assuming she still has any people) with a lawsuit that was properly filed and properly served in Los Angeles County Superior Court—but which reportedly makes no sense. Twelve pages of “incomplete, incoherent gibberish,” reporters call it. Doesn’t the court care if a document makes sense? Apparently not, as long as all the fees are paid in a timely manner, and the other rules are followed. Green says he is a former U.S. Marine, and he has been homeless, due to “delusions and hallucinations.” Sad for him, but not Lindsay’s problem, after all. She has plenty, already.

Thomas A. Green says Lindsay Lohan led him to believe, on Facebook, that she would go into business with him, in a dot.com effort that does not yet exist. But surprise, surprise, she does not plan to do so, and now Green feels duped and misled.

Then, while pursuing his wishes, Green uncovered a plot about the killing of Osama Bin Laden which involves Lindsay. Green alleges: “[Thomas] set out to command [Lohan] to twitter and stated if [Lohan] acknowledges this is an Osoma Bin Ladden op all civilians in past wrong doing will receive clemency.” Huh?

Just to make it all clear, Green adds: “[Lindsay Lohan] might be a high end prostitute.” The commentors on TMZ are having fun with that.

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A woman found not guilty of secretly recording Chicago Police officers who allegedly tried to discourage her from filing a complaint against an officer who groped her filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the city and the officers.

Tiawanda Moore, 21, claims Chicago Police responded to her home for a domestic dispute and one of the officers groped her breasts and buttocks while interviewing her in a bedroom, according to a suit filed in U.S. District Court.

Before leaving the bedroom, the suit claims the officer wrote his home phone number on a piece of paper and told Moore to call him because they should “hook up.”

The suit claims Moore called police to report the officer’s misconduct, and met with a lieutenant and an Internal Affairs Division officer, who discouraged her from filing a complaint.

Moore began secretly recording her conversation with the lieutenant and IAD officer on her Blackberry, according to the suit. Police then arrested her and charged her with violating the Illinois Eavesdropping Statute, which prevents people from secretly recording conversations.

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A passenger who walked away from a traffic stop in Barling, Arkansas was tasered and beaten by local police. Though the force used was excessive, a federal judge ruled on December 27 that Derrol Dee Kirby III should only get $1 for his pain and suffering.

Prior to a 2010 US Supreme Court ruling (view case), some courts argued that passengers were not seized and that they could “walk away” from a traffic stop because they were not under arrest. In this case, Kirby was riding in a vehicle that allegedly ran a stop sign and had no license tags on November 8, 2005. Kirby’s girlfriend, Danielle Ingram, had been driving the car and was arrested because she had what appeared to be methamphetamine in her purse. Police performed field sobriety tests and a breathalyzer test on Kirby, even though he was not driving. He was found to have a blood alcohol content of 0.04 — under the legal limit. His mother was called to the scene so that she could take Kirby home.

About forty minutes had elapsed during which police agreed Kirby had been cooperative. He was not under arrest and the four officers had no reason to fear for their safety. Nonetheless, they asked Kirby to consent to a pat-down search; he declined. When Kirby’s mother arrived, he began walking to her. One officer ordered him to “comply or be tased.” Kirby kept on walking and was hit by a taser, causing him to fall face first onto the pavement. A federal judge found this excessive.

“Plaintiff by backing away or beginning to leave was not evading or resisting an arrest at that point, because there was no evidence of a crime or other basis for any arrest of plaintiff to be made,” Chief US Magistrate Judge James R. Marschewski ruled. “At most the evidence established that the severity of plaintiff’s conduct was the failure to comply with a command of an officer. While this may be a crime, defendants offered no proof of any such crime or its severity, and plaintiff was never charged with any such crime.”

Once on the ground, Kirby struggled against the officers and rolled down a hill. He was blasted simultaneously by two tasers, handcuffed and — by Kirby’s account — kicked several times. The court ruled this treatment was Kirby’s fault.

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Former Lower Merion School District student Paige Robbins on Wednesday morning withdrew her lawsuit that alleged a district laptop’s camera took photos of her undressed without her knowledge.

Robbins and her parents said after a hearing at U.S. District Court in Philadelphia they plan no further legal action against the district. Their son, Blake, won a $175,000 settlement in 2010 after he was photographed by his school laptop at home.

“I just wanted to make sure there were no (laptop) pictures of me that would ever be seen again,” Paige Robbins, 19, said.

“This is the end of it,” said Holly Robbins, her mother. “We were never doing this for the money. We wanted to find out if there were any pictures still being held by the school district.”

U.S. District Court Judge John Padova granted Robbins’ request at a hearing originally called to discuss Robbins attorney Mary Elizabeth Bogan’s motion to be relieved as counsel, citing irreconcilable differences.

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Cosmetic treatments advertised in magazines and on websites and posters offer seemingly easy ways to look younger, lose weight and correct physical flaws.

But the victims of this growing industry’s blunders go far beyond those women whose PIP breast implants ruptured. Having false gel nails taken out in a nail bar should be routine. But Sara Thomas of Manchester lawyers Linder Myers said a female client of theirs had an awful experience.

“In the nail bar no lotion was applied to ease the process of removal, so the false nails were literally ripped off and this in turn ripped off the real nails underneath and caused damage to the nail bed. As you can imagine this was extremely painful for the client.”

Another client’s thigh was left permanently scarred by a series of laser treatments to remove unsightly veins which the clinician thought were spider veins. Six courses of treatment caused a great deal of pain before the clinician – a GP who had set himself up as a cosmetic surgery expert – realised they were varicose veins. Worryingly, added Thomas: “To gain qualification for using the laser machine you simply had to watch a series of internet videos published by the machine manufacturer.” The woman eventually won £35,000 damages from the doctor.

Rachel Donovan, a lawyer at John Pickering and Partners solicitors in Liverpool, took on five new cosmetic surgery cases in 2011. Three involved breast surgery, one a nose job and the other a facelift. “The most alarming cases involve breast surgery, with horrific results requiring further surgery, implants being removed and clients’ lives being devastated.

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As 2011 concluded, problems with unpaid bills continued to pile up for copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas.

Records Saturday showed Righthaven has been sued by its own process server and also faces a request by defense attorneys that it be found in contempt of court.

Righthaven is the copyright enforcement partner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and formerly of the Denver Post.

Righthaven is half owned by the family of billionaire Arkansas investment banker Warren Stephens, who owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal through his Stephens Media LLC company.

Stephens made headlines this week when his majority-owned Halifax Media Holdings LLC agreed to buy 16 newspapers around the country from the New York Times Co. for about $143 million.

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A supermarket sent a private detective to film one of its workers as she recovered from a serious back injury sustained when she slipped on a broken egg in the store warehouse.

Grandmother Irene Heslop was left with a suspected spinal fracture after falling on to a concrete floor at the Asda store where she had been employed as a bakery assistant for seven years.

Mrs Heslop was left unable to walk long distances or lift heavy equipment following the fall and approached bosses to ask to return to work on lighter duties, but was told no such work was available.

Around the same time, 15 months after the fall, the retail giant twice sent a spy to prove Mrs Heslop, now 65, was fit to work by filming her as she went about her daily chores.

The grandmother-of-two didn’t realise she had been followed until the footage was revealed three years after she was injured at the store in Hulme, Greater Manchester, during a compensation battle which saw her awarded a total of £27,000 for her injuries and loss of earnings.

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A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated a closely watched lawsuit accusing the federal government of working with the nation’s largest telecommunication companies to illegally funnel Americans’ electronic communications to the National Security Agency without court warrants.

While the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the long-running case brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the three-judge panel unanimously refused to rule on the merits of the case, or whether it was true the United States breached the public’s Fourth Amendment rights by undertaking an ongoing dragnet surveillance program the EFF said commenced under the Bush administration following 9/11.

The San Francisco-based appeals court reversed a San Francisco federal judge who tossed the case against the government nearly three years ago. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, now retired, said the lawsuit amounted to a “general grievance” from the public, and not an actionable claim.

Walker also presided over the only case that found the Bush administration illegally spied on American citizens when it unleashed the NSA on Americans’ conversations, ruling that the government violated the rights of two American lawyers for al-Haramain, a now defunct Islamic charity. The government is appealing that ruling.

Writing for the majority on Thursday, Judge Margaret McKeown ruled (.pdf) that the EFF’s claims “are not abstract, generalized grievances and instead meet the constitutional standing requirement of concrete injury. Although there has been considerable debate and legislative activity surrounding the surveillance program, the claims do not raise a political question nor are they inappropriate for judicial resolution.”

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Sean “Diddy” Combs was served papers on Friday night in that fat lawsuit claiming that he had his bodyguards rough-up a New York promoter — and TMZ was right there to catch the hand-off.

Diddy was walking into his flagship store in New York City for a launch party celebrating his new Sean John women’s line. As Diddy was being served, his bodyguards smacked the papers to the ground while Diddy stormed inside. Eventually, one of Diddy’s guys returned to retrieve the papers — but chased the process server off the premises.

The man who filed the suit, James Waldon, claims he tried to approach Diddy last June at his booth inside a club, but Diddy signaled for his men to “forcibly remove” Waldon from the area. Waldon claims he suffered “bruises, contusions, lacerations … and injuries to his mouth and his teeth,” and is suing Diddy and his entourage for $5 million.

Be sure to tune in to TMZ TV on Monday to see the video of the whole thing going down.

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