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Week Of Monday February 6, 2012
High-Profile Priority FREE
With the legislative session slated to begin this week, lawmakers on the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee had been expecting to focus on certain predictable topics: the death penalty, procedures for the identification of criminal suspects by victims, and maybe even medicinal marijuana use. But then the city of East Haven drew national publicity last month for all the wrong reasons — four members of its police force were indicted for allegedly targeting and using excessive force against illegal immigrants. Anywhere from one-half to one-third of the drivers pulled over by certain officers were Latino, a number federal authorities described as “extraordinarily high.”
Surgical Strike Keeps Patent Case Alive FREE
They are described by one lawyer as “the Coke and Pepsi of the medical device market.” And the two business competitors are pouring their efforts into a high-stakes patent infringement case in U.S. District Court in New Haven. The litigation centers on an ultrasonic surgical knife patented by Norwalk-based Tyco Healthcare. Tyco claims that Pennsylvania-based Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc. has infringed on the patent; Tyco anticipates $600 million in damages if its claims eventually prevail.
Verdicts & Settlements
Bus Company Pays $575,000 After Pedestrian Accident FREE
Jayne Fishkind v. Metropolitan Healthcare Services Inc.: A nurse who was hit by a small medical bus while walking to work at Yale-New Haven Hospital recovered $575,000 as part of a recent settlement. Jayne Fishkind, a psychiatric nurse from Guilford, parked her car on Jan. 20, 2008, walked three blocks and was crossing Columbus Avenue in New Haven when she was struck by a jitney bus owned by Metropolitan Healthcare Services, Inc.
In-House Connecticut
Pulling Strings For Nonprofit Organizations FREE
Lesley Rosenthal is a violinist married to a pianist. She’s also a lawyer, and when the opportunity arose to become general counsel to New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Inc., the in-house position was too good to pass up.
Verdicts & Settlements
Hospital Settles Medicare Overpayment Allegations For $472,000 FREE
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Connecticut has reached a nearly $472,000 civil settlement agreement with New Milford Hospital after allegations that the hospital overbilled the government, later discovered its own mistake, and still kept the additional funds.
Guest Commentary
Hacktivists: Robin Hoods Of The New Millenia FREE
As with most criminal activity, the government is basically impotent against cyber crime. As more people log on, there is more crime. The more applications and sophisticated the technologies, the more adept the offenders become at using them to facilitate their criminal acts or avoid detection.
NLRB Offers Detailed Report About Facebook FREE
When can an employee be fired for comments posted on Facebook that reference his or her employer? When, in turn, are an employer’s rules about such postings unlawful? These and other questions about social media in the employment context form the basis of a new report issued by the office of general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board.
Q & A
Using Pictures To Help Juries, Judges Understand FREE
In the late 1990s, the Boston-based intellectual property law firm of Fish & Richardson took the pioneering step of submitting legal pleadings and exhibits on a compact disc. This replaced reams of paper. Not surprisingly, the case was a patent infringement matter in the D.C. Circuit, which is the appeals court for complex patent matters.
Case of the Week
Plaintiff Tries Novel Attack On Dog Bite Claim FREE
Summary: A woman bitten by a dog has sued the landlord under a common law negligence claim rather than file a standard lawsuit against the dog’s owner or keeper under the state’s dog bite statute. A trial judge dismissed the complaint but the state Appellate Court overturned that decision. Now the state Supreme Court will weigh in.
Pratt Names New GC FREE
Joe Santos has been named vice president and general counsel at Pratt & Whitney. He will be based in East Hartford. As head of the Legal Services Department, he will have overall responsibility for the company’s legal matters, as well as contracts, corporate ethics, government compliance, and government security.
Trial, Defense Bars Gear Up For Legislative Session FREE
The most prominent issue for trial and defense lawyers in the upcoming legislative session is a bill to clarify what sort of physician’s letter must accompany a medical malpractice lawsuit. It’s a bill that the plaintiffs bar thought it had pushed through last year, while the defense bar will try again to block it.
New Patent Law Could Have Significant Impact FREE
When the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office opens its first satellite office in Detroit this year, Hartford-based Cantor Colburn will be ready to capitalize on the opportunities it presents. That’s because the firm opened a Motor City office in 2002.
The satellite office is expected to be the first of several nationwide as federal officials seek to expand the number of patent examiners to implement sweeping patent law changes and reduce a backlog. Cantor Colburn, which has about 105 attorneys in five offices nationwide, is prepared to hit the ground running when the patent law changes take full effect early next year.
Too Young To Be A Judge? Old ‘Rule’ Gets Broken FREE
After Connecticut began selecting judges with the aid of the Judicial Selection Commission in 1986, the commission’s members came up with some rule-of-thumb notions. One idea was that a nominee should have a certain minimum amount of experience as a lawyer.
Jewish Center Has No Faith In City Officials 
For a long time, the big house on Hartford’s Bloomfield Avenue has been occupied by religious groups — the Catholics in the early 1950s, and then the Baptists for half a century. In 2009, an Orthodox Jewish group purchased the property with plans to create a religious center primarily for students at the nearby University of Hartford. Given the site’s history, leaders anticipated few problems.
Mandatory CLE Gets A Formal Endorsement FREE
For the better part of two decades, the issue of mandatory continuing legal education has ping-ponged between Connecticut Bar Association supporters and the judges who will make the final call. The issue is about to end up back in the judges’ court.
The CBA’s House of Delegates overwhelmingly approved the latest MCLE proposal at its Jan. 23 meeting, with only one member of at least 35 present dissenting, according to Keith Bradoc “Brad” Gallant, CBA president.
Police Indictments Signal Court Battle FREE
The indictment last week of four East Haven police officers in a long-running civil rights probe signals the beginning of a protracted, if not political, battle in criminal and civil courts. “It’s a tornado and it’s still moving. There are a lot of parts to it with the civil case that’s pending and this new indictment,” said New Haven attorney Jonathan J. Einhorn, who represents the town’s police chief, Leonard Gallo. Gallo was not charged last week, but Einhorn said his client was mentioned in the indictment as “co-conspirator 1”. Gallo is a named defendant in a related civil suit.
Employment & Immigration Law
Employment: Feds Target Connecticut, R.I. Construction Industry FREE
Connecticut and Rhode Island construction industry employers will face increased government scrutiny of their labor and employment practices over the next several years. On Nov. 30, 2011, the Hartford office of the U.S Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued a press release announcing a “multiyear enforcement initiative” aimed at improving what it sees as “widespread noncompliance with minimum wage, overtime and record-keeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act” in the Connecticut and Rhode Island construction industry.
Employment & Immigration Law
Employment: Consider Using ADR For Workplace Disputes FREE
Disputes arise in union and non-union workplaces and you must be prepared to handle them effectively for your client. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) options provide flexibility and efficiency often saving time, money, and publicity sometimes associated with litigation. This article highlights the dispute resolution processes that exist to resolve workplace disputes for both the employer and employee.
After Hours
Tooting Her Own Horn FREE
Renee Redman was playing French horn with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in the late 1980s when she decided that the composition of her life was incomplete. She had already mastered music — not to mention learning Hebrew on the side — when she found herself yearning to learn another language.
Employment & Immigration Law
Employment: NLRB Important To Non-Union Employers Like Never Before FREE
Earlier articles in this newspaper have drawn attention to the phenomenon of the National Labor Relations Board’s efforts to broaden its reach into the non-organized workplace and the significance of its successes in that effort to the great bulk of Americans engaged in private sector, non-unionized employment. The trend continues.
Employment & Immigration Law
Employment: Free Speech Not Limited By Time, Place Or Protocol FREE
Employment law practitioners in Connecticut should take interest in a recent decision handed down by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. The case, Nagle v. Marron, was decided Dec. 12, 2011, and involved a non-tenured teacher’s First Amendment retaliation claim against the school district and its officials.
Employment & Immigration Law
Employment: Changing Gender — The New Sex Discrimination FREE
Sex discrimination used to mean one thing: treating a man differently because he’s a man or a woman differently because she’s a woman. But our nation is in the midst of a civil rights revolution around sexual orientation and gender identity.
Employment & Immigration Law
Employment: Without Crystal Ball, Employment Laws Remain Murky FREE
Employers are once again caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to employment laws, making ongoing compliance difficult and putting them at a competitive disadvantage in the global economy. While well-intentioned employers simply want to know the rules of engagement, conflicting and changing opinions on federal employment laws make compliance an admirable but ultimately illusory goal.
Dispute Over Legal Fees Sends Client To Jail FREE
Last month, Hamden school lunch aide Joann Daddio-Geriac was in a legal bind — caught between her lawyer’s advice and a judge’s order. And the only way out she could see led to her spending 14 days in the York Correctional Center in Niantic, in contempt of court.
Employment & Immigration Law
Employment: Child Abuse And Pornography In The Workplace FREE
Following the recent child abuse scandals at Penn State and Syracuse University, much attention has been focused on the question of whether employers have a legal obligation to report suspected abuse to law enforcement.
Workers’ Comp Litigator Is A Commercial Success
Norwalk attorney Robert J. Sciglimpaglia Jr., who specializes in workers’ compensation claims, is admitted to practice law in three states and Washington, D.C. He’s even been named a Super Lawyer, which in this instance serves as a sort of foreshadowing. Despite his success in the legal arena, Sciglimpaglia’s biggest career break is about to come on Sunday, Feb. 5, a day when no court is in session.
Employment & Immigration Law
Employment: Sorting Out ICE’s Prosecutorial Discretion Program FREE
On June 17, 2011, the director of the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton, issued two memoranda outlining a framework to be used when exercising “prosecutorial discretion” in the context of deportation of non-U.S. citizens.
Verdicts & Settlements
Dentist Gets Drilled For $453,000 Jury Award FREE
Doreen Jasonis v. Rashmi Patel, DMD: A woman employed by a dentist agreed to a procedure that left her with a mouthful of problems and the dentist with a malpractice verdict against him for nearly $453,000. Doreen Jasonis, a Litchfield resident in her late 40s, was hired by Dr. Rashmi C. Patel at Dr. Patel’s Dental Center in Torrington in February 2006, according to the woman’s lawyer, Angelo Cicchiello, of Cicchiello & Cicchiello LLP in Hartford.
New Center Focuses On Gender, Sexuality Issues FREE
With a nationally known Title IX authority on its faculty, not to mention a professor whose legal work paved the way for the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts, it may be no surprise that Western New England University School of Law has become the first New England law school to establish a Center on Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Q & A
A Small Agency With A Big Footprint FREE
As he nears the end of his first year in office, Connecticut Consumer Protection Commissioner William H. Rubenstein has a new perspective on a topic he’s studied throughout an illustrious career in and out of government — the operation of markets. He says the heart of consumer protection is removing the obstacles or “occlusions” that prevent markets from providing a high-quality array of goods and services at the lowest possible price.
Employment & Immigration Law
Employment: Five Reasons Paid Sick Leave Isn’t A Good Idea FREE
On Jan 1, 2012, Connecticut became the first and only state in the nation to require employers to provide paid sick leave to employees. By passing yet another law entitling employees not to report to work under certain circumstances, the state is promoting the continued erosion of an employer’s ability to require regular and predictable attendance as a condition of employment.
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