Comments on: Here comes the peanut butter/salmonella lawsuits

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:24:00 +0000

I ate some Kroger peanutbutter, no numbers on and had lots of shit since,,,I am on vacation. nice way to see the john, I am reading lots of stuff..but what do I need to do to get back on the road again?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:00:00 +0000

yeah, my mom freaked out and threw out all the peanut butter in the house. peanut butter seems to be lucrative this winter. check out the number of people suing conagra:

http://www.mainstreetnews.com/2007/February/B0228C.html

http://www.class-action-finder.com/medical/peter-pangreat-value-peanut-butter/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17361579/

By: illbill

illbill — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 05:34:00 +0000

Why don’t you all come to my office and take calls. We are tesing 2,500 jars – those negative do not ahve a case.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:35:00 +0000

We had one of the accused lot numbers. I just opened as went to eating it as usual. What are white cells for if we aren’t going to use them?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 05:49:00 +0000

Improving the system is rather simple. Fist all tort actions must meet the current thresholds for toxic tort cases when it comes to first establishing general causation and then specific causation. Secondly, clinical testimony is limited to the things that a clinician can actually determine from their expertise – the condition that is present, treatment for it and standard of care. What would be gone is parroting of the history of the plaintiff as the cause of the diagnosis. It takes zero background, training and expertise to say – they are telling me X and I choose to believe them (unless they are suing me). Causation testimony would be based upon an actual scientific evaluation of the event in question. For example, for an auto accident, one would actually independently (not as an advocate) analyze the accident to determine if the the appropriate forces and motions required for the causation of the diagnosis were actually present. This would actually return the burden of proof back to the plaintiff instead of the current situation in which the plaintiff need only hire an advocate that will automatically attribute causation to whatever history is provided and have that then serve as some form of legally admissible proof.

By: NoAcuteDistress

NoAcuteDistress — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 04:16:00 +0000

“blaming a lawyer for suing is like blaming a dog for eating his own vomit – that’s just what they do.”

ROFLMAO

You made my day! Do I have your permission to ass that one along?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:15:00 +0000

Obviously it’s bottom of the barrel, space constraints require it to be.

How would you go about improving it?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:11:00 +0000

The Q/A posted above is substantive in regards to what even a bottom of the barrel defense attorney should do. However, this does not mitigate the problem in regards to unequal application of the evidentiary standards governing expert testimony. Putting Kelley-Frye aside for the moment… the application of Daubert and particularly the prong related to error rate of the methodology of relying on an involved litigant to provide an accurate history should preclude clinical causation testimony. No other field of expertise gets the degree of latitude as do clinicians when it comes to the lax application of the FRE 702 or Daubert/Kumho Tire.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:46:00 +0000

“Most of the ridiculous stuff that gets said in court and depositions would attract proper condemnation if we could only see it. Experts might think twice before lying if they knew their lies would be exposed before the public and their peers.”

You can see it, at least with regard to trial testimony. Trials are public record – all you have to do is call the court reporter. Maybe it’s not as prevalent as you’d like to believe since it hasn’t been done to any great degree. There are a few sites, but as a percentage of total cases, they don’t show much.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:45:00 +0000

"Expert witness testimony is unregulated and unmonitored."

That's not even vaguely true. If there was no opposing counsel, no Daubert motions, etc. that might be true. But the other side has a vested interest in eliminating or limiting an expert's testimony as much as possible.

Now, you may disagree with the judge's decision to allow someone to testify now and again, but people would probably disagree with your decisions on experts at time.

And even when one does get through, the weaknesses in their testimony, their CV, their experience, are AMPLY explored before the jury.

And providers don't get to just get up there and say "This is what caused X" unchallenged. Anyone who has witnessed a cross exam knows that this is about how it goes:

Q. Now doctor, there's no objective way to measure X, is there?
A. No.
Q. And you don't have the ability to determine what previous injuries she may have had independent of her medical records or her telling you, correct? (Assuming a soft tissue injury)
A. Correct.
Q. So it's fair to say that the basis for your opinion as to the cause and/or the amount of suffering rests solely on what the plaintiff told you, right.
A. That would be correct.

That's a short version, but any competent defense counsel makes it very clear what are truly objective findings by the physician and what are subjective complaints of the plaintiff.