Angel Reyes : Texas Litigation Lawyer and Attorney : Dangerous Drugs : Wrongful Death : Business Litigation

Over the past few months, the Auction Rate Securities (ARS) markets have suffered a $350 billion market disintegration. Many companies have been forced to write-down their losses due to investments in ARS. The February 2008 collapse of the ARS market affected companies of all sizes and levels of ARS investment. It also affected many individuals who thought that an investment in ARS was safe and secure. Individual investors saw their assets frozen, and most are unable to access their accounts. Companies and individuals lost hundreds of millions of dollars in ARS, even though brokers marketed them as safe, secure, liquid investments.

In fact, this market disintegration has widened to include the State of New York, which, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, filed civil fraud charges on July 24, 2008 against UBS AG, accusing the firm of a "multibillion-dollar consumer and securities fraud," and demanding that the firm pay back its profits from the business, make investors whole and pay damages.
My firm, Heygood, Orr, Reyes, Pearson & Bartolomei has helped many investors recover their losses from ARS investments.  If you’re one of those investors, give me a call at 1.877.308.7900 or email angel@reyeslaw.com for a confidential assessment of your claim.

For more information on ARS losses, read the following Wall Street Journal articles below:

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The following are a letter from Janette Fennell, Founder and President of KidsandCars.org, and the KidsandCars.org newsletter. It’s astounding how many children have been killed as a result of non-traffic accidents this year.  I can’t fathom how anyone could leave their children in a hot car on a smoldering summer day, but apparently these accidents are still prevalent in this country.  Janette’s plea is a kind one; she assigns no blame. Rather, she chooses to educate and urge us to be on the lookout for children or pets left in cars, and work towards viable solutions for this growing problem.

Hello:
 
This has been a very difficult summer.  So many precious little lives have been lost.  Unfortunately there have been 23 hyperthermia deaths already this year, 48 backover deaths and a total of 110 children killed due to nontraffic incidents.  Despite our efforts and accomplishments, children are still being harmed in and around motor vehicles. 

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I recently posted an article about the Actavis Totowa LLC recall of the drug Digitek, the #1 choice in the United States for treating congestive heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms.  This recall included Digitek tablets manufactured at the New Jersey Actavis facility because tablets may have been commercially released in the U.S. market with double the thickness of the normal sized tablets.  The flawed Digitek tablets could have twice the strength of the recommended dosage, and cause serious digitalis toxicity and even death.

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The recent crane accident scourge sweeping the country has finally made the government take notice.  The Democrats are now strongly urging OSHA to do something about the gross lack of safety regulations of construction site cranes.  Read the July 25, 2008 Wall Street Journal article on this topic in its entirety below:
 

Democrats Seek Tougher Crane Safety Standard as Deaths Mount
By KRIS MAHER
July 25, 2008; Page A3

Crane-related fatalities continued to mount, with six deaths in the past week, prompting Democrats in Congress to push for an enhanced federal safety standard and put more pressure on the agency charged with overseeing workplace safety.

A crane holding a church steeple collapsed Thursday in Oklahoma City, crushing a car and killing the man inside it.


An elderly man who was in his car watching a church steeple being assembled in Oklahoma City Thursday was killed when the boom of the crane fell on the car, according to a local fire-department official.

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Regulators should turn their attention to preventing casualties, not more after-the-disaster analysis.  Think about it, not since 1971 have crane regulations been updated.  Unfortunately, over 80 people a year since then have died in construction site crane accidents.  Presumably, many of those tragedies could have been avoided if someone at OSHA cared.

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On July 30, 2008, while an old bridge was being torn down over the Colorado River in Smithville, Texas (near Austin) a construction crane became overloaded with steel beams and toppled over.  The crane then smashed into a manlift basket holding two workers.  It killed 47-year-old James Michael Miles of North Richland Hills, Texas, and injured the other worker.  Mr. Miles fell approximately 60 feet from the top of the bridge, landed on construction equipment and died.

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Following the December 12, 2007 raid on the Swift & Company meatpacking plant, my firm, Heygood, Orr, Reyes, Pearson & Bartolomei, filed a class action lawsuit against Swift for its pattern of practice of replacing legal US Citizens and legal resident aliens with undocumented immigrant workers.   Now, yet another big company makes the news.  In May, 2008 in Postville, Iowa, federal immigration agents raided Agriprocessors Inc., the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, rounding up 389 illegal immigrants for deportation.

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According to a CNN.com article dated Monday, July 28, 2008, home deaths from medication errors have risen dramatically over the last 20 years.  Twenty-five years ago, prescription painkillers and other potent drugs were only used in hospitals.  Now medical providers give them out like candy.  Got a migraine?  Here’s a script for Vicodin!  Feeling a little stressed?  Xanax ought to do the trick!  Apparently, we’re not supposed to feel pain or negative emotions anymore.  We’re supposed to be happy and what makes us happy in the 21st century good old US of A?  Drugs, of course. But alas, medical providers aren’t considering one big factor when doling out these dangerous meds – the human factor.

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After eight long years in the wilderness, the U.S. is finally paying attention to product safety.  Congress is poised to implement the biggest overhaul to U.S. product safety rules in a generation.  Since 2000, the U.S. has seen dangerous products imported from China, India, and other foreign countries that while certainly cheaper than similar products made to stricter standards, caused untold suffering to the people who were injured by these products.  Let's see, in the past few years we've seen recalls of Chinese food products, poisonous toothpaste, children's pajamas, cheap all terrain vehicles, fax machines that catch fire, children's dolls painted with lead contaminated paint, etc.

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