Planted Gun's in Car & Etc of Physician who Whistleblow, Hospital Uses Shocking Tactics to Retaliate!

If a physician whistleblower dares to challenge the financial dealings of a powerful hospital, a defamation lawsuit may be only the beginning of his troubles, according to an account in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Michael Fitzgibbons won the lawsuit filed against him by Integrated Healthcare Holdings, Inc., which took over several hospitals in California. Fitzgibbons had distributed information about its financial situation to selected individuals. The information was in the public domain, but the hospital retaliated nonetheless.

The lawsuit itself caused Fitzgibbons serious financial troubles, as referring physicians were intimidated and turned against him. Then two weeks after it was dismissed, Fitzgibbons was arrested in the hospital parking lot because of false accusations that he had brandished a gun in a fabricated incident of road rage. Black gloves and a gun were planted in his car by operatives hired by the hospital, according to Court documents.

No charges were brought, but soon his tires were slashed by a method calculated to cause catastrophic failure at high speed. The resulting rollover while his daughter was driving the car on the freeway could have killed her and others.

Fitzgibbons was eventually awarded $5.7 million by a jury, but this was overturned by a judge who apparently has a conflict of interest. Authorities have so far declined to investigate the tire slashings uncovered by a forensic expert.

In the Journal article, Dr. Lawrence Huntoon reviews trial and deposition transcripts as well as reports by the OC Weekly, a newspaper that followed events intensely.

He concludes: "While the last chapter in this saga has yet to be written, physicians can learn from it the tremendous power of hospital cartels, and the ruthlessness they may display in retaliating against a physician who opposes them or exposes their wrongdoing."

Source... http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hospital-uses-shocking-tactics-to-retaliate-against-physician-whistleblower-reports-journal-of-american-physicians-and-surgeons-212145581.html

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ABC Fails to Keep 'Pink Slime' Lawsuit in Federal Court

 * Defamation lawsuit moves to South Dakota state court

* Beef Products says ABC reports hurt reputation, sales

* ABC News plans to seek dismissal of $1.2 billion lawsuit

A South Dakota meat processor that sued ABC News over a series of reports that called its signature product "pink slime" has won the right to move its $1.2 billion defamation and product disparagement lawsuit back to the state court where it began.

Wednesday's decision to move the case by U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is a defeat for ABC News, a unit of Walt Disney Co, and returned the lawsuit by Beef Products Inc (BPI) and two affiliates back to the Union County Circuit Court in that state.

Schreier said state court was the best place to handle the lawsuit in light of where the various plaintiffs and ABC defendants were incorporated. She did not rule on the case's merits.

Schreier said state court was the best place to handle the lawsuit in light of the lawsuit could be heard in state court

Defendants sometimes prefer to fight lawsuits in federal courts, where procedures are more standardized and where the prevailing law may be more favorable.

"This is purely a decision on what court will hear the case," an ABC spokesman said. "The court stated that ABC and the other defendants have the right to move to dismiss the case in the state court, and ABC intends to do just that."

Erik Connolly, a partner at Winston & Strawn in Chicago representing BPI, said: "We look forward to presenting our case in state court."

BPI had last September sued ABC, news anchor Diane Sawyer, reporter Jim Avila and other defendants, accusing ABC of harming its reputation and costing sales by mischaracterizing its "lean finely textured beef" product in reports last March and April as "pink slime."

Lawyers for ABC countered in court papers that the lawsuit was a meritless attempt to inhibit free speech, and that the "pink slime" term was the kind of "hyperbolic" language that courts routinely protect under the First Amendment.

To keep the case in federal court, ABC argued that BPI Technology and Freezing Machines were not "real parties in interest."

That would have left only BPI, which is incorporated in Nebraska, suing ABC, which is incorporated in Delaware, creating a "diversity" of U.S. states.

Such diversity would have been lost if BPI Technology and Freezing Machines, which are both incorporated in Delaware, remained in the case.

But Schreier said South Dakota law "entitled" BPI Technology to pursue its defamation claim, regardless of its merit.

She rejected what she called ABC's request that she first review whether the claim might be successful before determining whether she had authority to make such a determination.

"That is putting the cart before the horse," Schreier wrote.

BPI is the largest U.S. producer of lean finely textured beef, a low-fat product made from chunks of beef including trimmings, and exposed to tiny bursts of ammonium hydroxide to kill E. coli bacteria and other contaminants.

The Dakota Dunes, South Dakota-based company's beef was once routinely used in fast-food hamburgers and in packaged ground beef sold at grocery stores.

But after the ABC reports, some restaurants and retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Safeway Inc stopped selling ground beef that contained the product.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and industry experts have called the meat safe.

BPI closed three of its four plants and cut about half of its 1,300-person workforce in the wake of the media coverage.

Read More... http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/usa-media-abc-bpi-idUSL2N0EO29C20130613?feedType=RSS&feedName=marketsNews&rpc=43

Law Offices of Jonathan Franklin
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Call Us Now (310) 273-9600   
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James Franco Hasn't Bothered to Answer Defamation Lawsuit

The NYU professor suing the actor asks for a default judgment.

In what might be a case of history repeating itself, lawyers for a former New York University professor suing the actor for defamation submitted a motion for a default judgment on Wednesday based on Franco's failure to answer.

Jose Angel Santana filed the lawsuit in September in New York state court against the actor, alleging that Franco had made "disparaging and inaccurate public statements" against Santana after receiving a "D" in his class in 2010.

Since the filing of the lawsuit, Santana has gone on the attack against Franco.

For his part, Franco has remained mostly silent about the lawsuit.

The legal action targets comments made in public by the actor where he called his ex-teacher "awful," adding, "I didn’t feel like I needed to waste my time with a bad teacher.”

Last November, co-defendant NYU answered the lawsuit, arguing that Santana's suit was nonsense because the allegedly defamatory comments "consisted of nothing other than Franco's personal opinions regarding Santana's teaching skills."

Franco could easily take a similar tact and ask the judge to weigh what's fact vs. opinion.

(In response to Franco's reasons for not wasting his time in class, Santana's lawyers say "Franco's reason(s) for not attending Plaintiff's class is also a fact that can be proven true or false... Notably, Franco had previously cited his work on the movie 127 Hours as the reason he was unable to attend Plaintiff's class.")

But to make the case that his comments were only opinion, which can't be defamatory as a matter of law, Franco has to retain a lawyer and show up.

Santana's own attorney says that hasn't happened even though the actor was served with a summons and complaint at his California residence on December 16.

Read More... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/james-franco-hasnt-bothered-answer-421369