Lawsuits & Judgments

On August 10^th a San Diego judge rendered a $24 million judgment against Botanic Labs, the manufacture of Prostrate Cancer Supplement, PC Spes. PC Spes was alleged to be an all natural herbal supplement for sufferers of prostrate cancer. Unfortunately it for those who purchased it, the treatment, it was neither all natural or all herbal and inf act, was dangerous.  The Judge wrote:

Contrary to the IMR Defendants representations, PC Spes was not all natural, was not all herbal, was not a dietary supplement, and was in fact a very dangerous product, adulterated with chemicals, including the female estrogen (DES) and the active ingredient in rat poison (Warfarin). The inclusion of DES and Warfarin in PC Spes violates both state and federal law

In his ruling the judge found that there was an intention to defraud the consumers and certified the class in this lawsuit to include anyone who purchased PC Spes from 1998 to 2002 . Any consumer who meets that requirement is eligible to share in the judgment.

The unfortunate situation with this lawsuit, as is the case with so many medical and pharmaceutical suits, is that a number of the eligible class members have already passed away.

Three Ecuadoran nationals who claimed to have contracted cancer as result of Texaco’s (a division of Chevron) oil field operations in Ecuador have filed two lawsuits against the US based oil company. One suit was filed in the US and the second was filed in Ecuador.

The US case was dismissed by a judge in the a Federal court in California who ruled that the case was fabricated. The judge was especially harsh on the lawyers in the case and singled them out as noted in a release on the Chevron website:

In granting Chevron’s motion for summary judgment and to dismiss as a sanction for fraud on the court, Judge Alsup delivered a sharp rebuke to the lawyers who brought the complaints against Chevron: “This is not the first evidence of possible misconduct by plaintiffs’ counsel in this case. It is clear to the Court that this case was manufactured by plaintiffs’ counsel for reasons other than to seek a recovery on these plaintiffs’ behalf. This litigation is likely a smaller piece of some larger scheme against defendants.”

The second lawsuit will continue in Ecuador where the same lawyers have brought the case there. In their defense, Texaco points out that their environmental programs in the region have met the requirements of the Ecuadoran government and that more than 1000 samples taken from the region as part of the case, reveal that the levels of contamination in the soil also meet the requirements of the the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Not surprisingly, the plaintiffs lawsuit enjoys more support in the Ecuador which could make it tougher for Chevron Texaco to fight.

On the 10^th of August, attorneys at The Brualdi Law Firm of New York, NY filed a class action lawsuit against Motorola, the Illinois based wireless communications company. The following day, the firm of Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins of San Diego, CA initiated a similar lawsuit. Both actions were filed in the Federal Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

These shareholder lawsuits allege that Motorola executives made misleading statements in order to artificially inflate the company’s stock price during the period from July 2006 through January 2007. OF course, the stock prices eventually fell and the shareholders are alleged to have suffered greatly.

An article on CNN Money sites the specifics:

In order to artificially inflate the price of Motorola stock, defendants began a series of false and misleading statements regarding the Company’s business and prospects. Specifically, defendants repeatedly told investors to expect strong growth in sales and revenues. On October 17, 2006, defendants announced that Motorola had failed to meet its revenue and sales projections. As a result of this announcement, Motorola’s stock price declined over 7% in two trading days. Then on January 4, 2007, defendants announced that Motorola’s fourth quarter 2006 results also failed to meet expectations. This time, the Company’s stock price declined almost 8%.

In order to be considered an eligible member of “the class” for these suits, you had to have purchased Motorola shares during the July2006 to January 2007 period cited above.

If you think you might be eligible to join the class for either case, you can find the firms at the links below:

http://www.lerachlaw.com

http://www.brualdilawfirm.com/