A San Diego Comfort Suites hotel will pay $130,000 to a man in settlement of a disability claim filed by a former autistic employee.

The man had been hired by the Comfort Suites Mission Valley Hotel. Soon after he joined the hotel, he applied for state-provided on-the-job coaching which would have helped him master techniques designed for helping people with autism. However, he was fired in 2008 allegedly because of his disability. The man had earlier worked for another employer, and had good recommendations from that employer.

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the operator of the hotel, Tarsadia Hotels has now agreed to pay the man $125,000. The hotel chain will also pay $7,500 to a San Diego group that provides support to people with disabilities. Tarsadia Hotels has also agreed to make changes to its employment policies in order to accommodate employees with disabilities. The company has also been required to make frequent compliance reports to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In most cases, these settlements and verdicts can be avoided if companies simply make the effort to accommodate employees’ requirements. Making accommodations for a disabled employee can actually be less expensive and time-consuming than coming up against a California employment lawyer later.Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers are prohibited from discriminating against qualified workers on the base of disability. All kinds of employers, including private employers, private agencies, and state and local governments are prohibited from discriminating against the disabled.

These employees must receive equal pay, must be treated equally in matters of recruitment and hiring practices, must be subjected to the same promotion and work-assignment criteria, and must enjoy all of the employment-related benefits that nondisabled employees do. Additionally, the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits employers from retaliating against a disabled employee who asserts his rights.

More than two decades after the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, California disability rights lawyers are seeing more citizens with disabilities joining the ranks of the unemployed. Employment numbers of disabled Americans are at some of their lowest levels in recent years.

According to research, the portion of disabled Americans who are working has dropped to 21%. Back in the early 1990s, the number was about 35%. Currently, the unemployment rate for disabled Americans is about 16%.

Researchers have a number of reasons for this. One of the reasons is that the national employment situation is dire, and the disabled now find more competition for jobs from non-disabled citizens. What California disability rights attorneys also find very disconcerting is the fact that employers have become more discriminating towards people with disabilities. A large number of disabled Americans are being turned away from jobs because of an employer mindset that they are not capable of performing these jobs. This has led to a number of complaints to the Equal Employment Report City Commission.

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there has been a spike in the number of workplace complaints that allege workplace discrimination based on disability. These complaints have increased substantially since the recession. In 2010, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 25,165 disability discrimination complaints. During the first half of 2011 alone, there were 12,317 disability discrimination complains.

The recession and reduced employment prospects seem to have affected disabled workers much harder than disabled workers. According to officials at the Disability Statistics Center at the University Of California, over the past three years, disabled Americans lost jobs at a rate that was nearly 3 times as high as that for non-disabled workers. Workers with some disabilities have been hit harder than others. For instance, those who suffer from hearing disabilities have found their share of participation in the workforce drop by 21% between October 2009 and August 2011.

A new HBO documentary that premiered in June 2011 discusses the $2.9 million jury verdict awarded to Stella Liebeck in 1994 in her lawsuit against McDonald’s for serving their coffee too hot. Many mocked her claim and considered it another “frivolous” lawsuit and an abuse of the civil justice system. Some even cited this case as an example of the very reason our legal system needs tort reform. But after viewing the documentary, which included pictures of her severe burns, millions of Americans changed their minds about the so-called abuse of the legal system

Stella Liebeck is an 81 year-old woman who spilled hot coffee from McDonald’s on herself and suffered extensive burns as a result. In court, she argued that her injuries and burns were so extensive because McDonald’s served their coffee too hot, and the jury agreed. In her documentary, Susan Saladoff, the filmmaker, interviewed randomly selected people regarding the controversial jury verdict. As she expected, many people debunked the lawsuit and dubbed it shameful, greedy, and abusive of the legal system.

After hearing their contemptuous responses, Saladoff showed the interviewees photos of Ms. Liebeck’s extensive burns that resulted from McDonald’s hot coffee. After seeing these disturbing photos, many of the critical people instantly changed their minds and saw the lawsuit as valid and well-founded. After the premiere of hot coffee, the once condemned lawsuit changed many American’s ideas about the legal system and the importance of civil lawsuits. This documentary makes an important comment on the justice system today and has changed people’s minds about what are sometimes thought of as trivial lawsuits.

To view the documentary online, visit HBO’s hot coffee website.

Lawsuits against Abbott Laboratories, the manufacturer of Depakote, have been increasing recently due to the high incidence of birth defects in children whose mother’s took Depakote while pregnant. Research into these serious adverse side effects have become more diligent and have yielded some interesting findings. Specifically, researchers discovered that using this medication during the first trimester of pregnancy significantly increased the risk of six different types of birth defects including spina bifida, cleft palate, and skeletal defects. Also, in a study of over 98,000 pregnancies, researchers found that the risk of children born with spina bifida, a serious spinal defect, increased by more than 12 times if mothers took Depakote.

Depakote is a pharmaceutical drug used to treat epilepsy by interacting with the chemicals in the body that are likely to cause them. It can also be used to treat migraines and certain types of manic episodes in people with bipolar disorder. It was approved by the FDA in 1983. It's long existence on the market and widespread use demonstrate the severity of this issue.

Due to the current research exposing the high risk of birth defects, women across America are filing suit against Abbott Laboratories, the manufacturer of Depakote. If you or someone you know had a child born with serious birth defects after using Depakote, you may be entitled to compensation for your medical bills or other damages. Contact the Depakote litigation attorneys at Arias, Ozzello & Gignac today to discuss your legal options. We will do everything we can to help you or your child.

Since as early as 2006, hundreds, if not thousands, of lawsuits have been filed against the manufacturers of Fosamax, Merck & Company, due to the high risk of developing osteonecrosis of the jaw or ONJ. Approximately 2,400 people who have used Fosamax have developed ONJ, or dead jaw. ONJ usually occurs when the jaw bone is exposed and begins to suffer from a lack of blood. The bone then begins to weaken and die, which can be excruciatingly painful. People across the United States are currently filing suit against Merck for marketing the benefits of Fosamax while minimizing, or allegedly hiding, the harsh side effects.

Fosamax was approved by the FDA in 1995 to treat osteoporosis in post-menopausal women, osteoporosis in men, steroid-induced osteoporosis, and Paget’s disease of the bone. It is in a class of drugs called bisphosphonates that helps prevent loss of bone mass and inhibits the breakdown of old or damaged bones. Since its approval, Fosamax has been used by over 20 million people worldwide. The severity of the adverse side effects and the widespread use of this osteoporosis drug demonstrate that this legal issue should not be taken lightly.

If you or someone you know has experienced ONJ or dead jaw as a result of taking Fosamax, you may be entitled to compensation for you medical bills or other related damages. To see if you have a claim or to discuss your legal options, contact the Fosamax litigation attorneys at Arias, Ozzello & Gignac today for a free consultation.

In the American Association for Justice (AAJ) article, Do As I Say, Not As I Sue, the AAJ comments on the hypocrisy of the U.S.  Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform (ILR). The ILR is a part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Its main goal is to restrict the ability of individuals who have been wronged by a corporation’s negligence from filing civil lawsuits. Yet these corporations themselves are the very people that are over-using the system.

The AAJ article cites several different ILR board members, including Caterpillar and FedEx, as corporations filing frivolous lawsuits, the very lawsuits they are trying to prevent. Caterpillar, for example, sued Disney because the depiction of bulldozers in the movie George of the Jungle 2, were overly aggressive, and FedEx filed a lawsuit against a man for making a chair out of FedEx boxes. The AAJ comments that it seems hypocritical for the board members of the ILR to file lawsuits for seemingly frivolous reasons while attempting to deny American citizens access to the legal system.

To access the full report, Do As I Say, Not As I Sue: Exposing the Lawsuit-Happy Hypocrites of U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform, you can visit the American Association for Justice website.

If you have a mortgage, chances are that your lender sold your loan and that you’re now paying a different company who bills and collects your monthly mortgage payments.  This is a sign that your mortgage was “securitized.”  Investment banks and other financial companies used “securitization” to pool thousands of mortgages together.  The monthly payments received on these loan pools is supposed to be held in trusts.  The trusts are supposed to dole out this money to big investors like pension funds, foreign countries, and other banks who bought “mortgage-backed securities” from the trusts.

You may already know if your mortgage was securitized.

If your mortgage was “securitized,” there is a good chance your monthly payments are going to a mortgage “servicer” that doesn’t have any legal right to collect your monthly payments.  That’s because most securitization trusts never received the mortgages they were supposed to hold as collateral.  As a result, the mortgage servicing companies hired by these trusts may have no legal right to demand and collect payments, declare defaults, initiate and consummate foreclosures, or even report borrowers’ payment status to consumer credit reporting agencies.  

If you or someone you know has a securitized mortgage, your servicer may lack authority to collect mortgage payments.  If so, you may be entitled to court relief protecting you against having to make unauthorized payments, compensation for payments wrongfully collected, or other relief.  To discuss your legal options, contact the mortgage securitization lawyers at Arias, Ozzello & Gignac today for a free consultation.

In June 2011, the FDA released an announcement regarding the safety of the diabetes drug, Actos, and issued a warning to consumers of this drug. The FDA had been researching its link to bladder cancer and found that those people taking Actos for over a year were at an increased risk of developing bladder cancer. This warning came just a few days after both France and Germany took this pharmaceutical drug off the market completely.

The warning came as a result of an investigation the FDA conducted after hearing numerous instances of bladder cancer and tumors developing in patients taking Actos. In an ongoing study including over 193,000 participants of people with diabetes over the age of 40, the FDA discovered that those taking Actos for over a year are at a 40% higher increase for developing bladder cancer. It is alleged that the manufacturers of Actos, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, failed to adequately warn consumers of the link to bladder cancer and tumors, opening the door for possible lawsuits to ensue.

Actos has also already been linked to an increased risk of heart failure and stroke. Actos and drugs like Actos may trigger or worsen cardiac failure and other cardiac events in some patients. The high risk of not only having a heart attack but also developing bladder cancer has led the FDA to investigate carefully the complications currently associated with Actos.

Actos is a drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes by regulating the insulin levels. People with Type 2 diabetes are not able to produce enough insulin to efficiently manage the sugar levels in the blood. Actos acts to increase the sensitivity of body cells to insulin and prevent the levels of sugar in blood from rising to dangerous levels.

People across America are filing suit against Takeda Pharmaceuticals for complications arising after taking Actos. If you or someone you know has experienced either of these complications, you may be entitled to compensation for your medical bills or other damages. To discuss your legal options, contact the Actos litigation attorneys and Arias, Ozzello & Gignac today for a free consultation.

Federal officials have confirmed that patients in at least three U.S. states have developed eye infections from contaminated Avastin injections. California pharmaceutical products liability attorneys now know of at least four eye infection cases in California too. According to a Veterans Affairs medical center in Los Angeles, five patients have developed eye infections from the use of contaminated Avastin, and have lost their vision as a result.

According to Avastin manufacturer, Roche Holding AG’s Genentech unit, the company has received several reports of infections leading to blindness. The company has confirmed several cases of eye infections from Miami, Florida; Nashville, Tennessee and Los Angeles, California.

The cases were first reported in three clinics in Miami, and the Florida Department of Health traced the infections to contaminated syringes. The syringes were then traced to a single pharmacy. The pharmacy had taken single-use vials of Avastin and repackaged them into 1 ml syringes. The 1 ml syringes were then distributed to hospitals.

Health officials believe that the contamination occurred while the drug was being transferred from the vials to the syringes. The vials themselves do not appear to have been contaminated. The Food and Drug Administration has confirmed at least twelve cases in Miami. There are varying reports about the number of infections in Tennessee.

The California cases involve at least five patients at a Veterans Affairs medical center in Los Angeles. In most of these cases, the patients who contracted infections were being treated with Avastin injections for eye diseases like macular degeneration. Avastin is approved as a cancer drug, but is also very often used for off-label purposes, like the treatment of age-related macular degeneration and other eye diseases. The patients who contracted the infections have lost all vision in the infected eye.

Veterans Affairs in California has released a statement saying that its Los Angeles facility has suspended the use of Avastin for treatment of macular degeneration.

In a special report by Alliance For Justice (AFJ), the conservative nature of the Supreme Court is called into question and even criticized because of its negative consequences for individuals filing lawsuits against large, powerful corporations. Specifically, the AFJ mentions the idea of forced arbitration as an injustice in American society, as it favors the powerful and domineering interests of big businesses.

Important cases such as Wal-Mart v. Dukes, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, and Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern California are referenced in order to highlight specific ways in which forced arbitration protects the interests of the corporation over the individual. According to the AFJ, certain laws favored by the conservative Supreme Court allow big businesses to exploit forced arbitration contracts, undermining the rights of the individual and making it difficult for each individual to be heard over the strength of the corporation. In certain cases, individuals experiencing the same or similar types of problems are forced to try cases individually, engaging in the long and difficult process of arbitration.

The AFJ also references the ways in which certain federal laws favor the interests of big businesses over the individual by decreasing the incentives for a corporation to behave ethically. Corporate misbehavior is often overlooked and protected by conservative and corporate-minded rulings by the Supreme Court. For example, certain laws allow corporations to establish procedures for arbitration that rid themselves of any class liability. The AFJ recognizes few, if any, legal disincentives for corporate misbehavior.

Under rulings such as these, the AFJ argues, Americans are being denied certain rights and liberties that each individual should have, namely equal access to federal and state courts and equal standing compared to big corporations in the eyes of the law. The effects of rulings such as these set precedence in the ways corporations conduct business, and as some advocate, open the door for corporate misconduct and misbehavior without punishment or liability. The AFJ seems convinced that the Supreme Court’s rulings are undermining the standing of the individual in the legal realm.