Legal Research

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BUCHANAN INGERSOLL SETTLES LEGAL MALPRACTICE SUIT FOR $9.8M
"Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, the wind-down committee of another firm and a former partner of both firms, Stephen Cohen, have agreed to pay more than $10 million to settle a Morris County suit alleging they botched work on a New Jersey company's stock transactions and failed to alert the company to the errors. RCM Technologies of Pennsauken accused Cohen of preparing a stock registration agreement that failed to memorialize a plan to restrict the rights of two key shareholders to sell their RCM holdings. A Securities and Exchange Commission filing by RCM shows the company recovered $9.8 million â?? $5.9 million after taxes â?? in a settlement with Buchanan Ingersoll."

MASS-TORT PLAN SOUGHT FOR SUITS OVER ORTHO-MCNEIL'S LEVAQUIN
"Users of Levaquin, an antibiotic linked to muscle ailments, are asking the New Jersey Supreme Court to accord mass-tort treatment to their suits against the manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc. Levaquin is prescribed for bacterial infections of the respiratory system, urinary tract and skin. In July 2008, the Food and Drug Administration ordered Ortho-McNeil to include on Levaquin's label a warning about heightened risk of tendonitis and tendon rupture in the shoulder, biceps, hand and thumb. The attorney requesting mass-tort treatment has also asked that the litigation be centralized in Atlantic County, where several suits have already been filed."

APPLEBEE'S RESTAURATEUR CAN'T SUE FOR LIBEL OVER INTERNET POST
"A New Jersey judge has dismissed a defamation claim by an Applebee's restaurant franchisee against a man who wrote online of sexual harassment of female employees. The comment, appended to a Web site news article titled 'Meet Ed Doherty, restaurant king,' alleged among other things that 'women ... are routinely sexually harassed and that this behavior is condoned by high-level management at Doherty Enterprises right up to the top.' In Doherty Enterprises v. Murray, ESX-L-10079-08, Superior Court Judge Donald Goldman rejected the claim, finding some of the allegedly defamatory statements were opinion and others touched on a matter of public concern."

LAWYER FACES SEVEN YEARS IN JAIL FOR MISAPPLYING CLIENT FUNDS
"Disbarred Red Bank lawyer Gary Edelson faces a seven-year jail term based on his plea of guilty on Monday to the crime of second-degree misapplication of entrusted property. Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin said an investigation disclosed that Edelson, who represented multiple clients in real estate transactions between August 2003 and November 2005, illegally retained and disposed of more than $300,000 that he was holding in trust, applying them to personal and business expenses. "

WHEN SERVING THE POST OFFICE, DON'T RELY ON MAILBOX RULE
"In a holding fraught with irony, a Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel has declared that the 'mailbox rule' ' the ordinary presumption that a letter mailed is a letter received ' cannot be invoked against the U.S. Postal Service to save an otherwise time-barred claim. Instead, the court said in Lightfoot v. United States, No. 08-2602, a plaintiff pursuing a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act has the burden of proving that the federal agency was in actual receipt of the claim, whether on initial presentment or on a request for reconsideration."

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