All Topics

• Kent County Judge Retires

  Tim Smith | March 20, 2008 8:34 AM | 0 CommentsGrand Rapids, MI

  Judge Kolenda announced his retirement from the Kent County Circuit Court bench. His sense of fairness and an unwaivering quest for the truth makes his loss as a jurist a sad day for the folks of Grand Rapids. He issued an opinion in a case involving one of the Big-3 auto makers who had played games with the plaintiff's attorney and the court in obstructing discovery and witholding evidence. His...

• Purchasing Justice from Cliff Taylor

  Tim Smith | February 05, 2008 5:49 PM | 0 CommentsGrand Rapids, MI

  Attorney Adam Liptak, a Yale Law Grad, published an article in the January 28th, 2008 edition of The New York Times where he looked at the inherent conflict created when campaign donors to judicial campaigns appear in front of those same Judges as parties to a lawsuit. Studies of both the Ohio Supreme Court and the Louisiana Supreme Court documented the fact that the larger the contribution to...

• Countrywide Financial Admits to Fabricating Evidence

  Tim Smith | January 25, 2008 10:53 AM | 0 CommentsGrand Rapids, MI

  In a bankruptcy case pending in Federal Court in western Pennsylvania, Countrywide Financial Corporation admitted that it had fabricated or as they say "recreated" documents as part of their case. This comes at a time when Countrywide is confronting escalating complaints from borrowers who allege that Countrywide forced them into risky loans. The documents which were faked by Countrywide are...

• U.S. Insurance Companies Profit From Overpricing and Underpaying

  Tim Smith | January 21, 2008 1:52 PM | 0 CommentsGrand Rapids, MI

  The Consumer Federation of America recently reported that the U.S. property/casualty insurance industry systematically overcharges policy holders and underpays on claims. Robert Hunter, the Consumer Federation's Director of Insurance, reported at a news conference that the reason why insurance companies nationwide have secured record high profits is due to the fact that they have been...

• Auto Insurance Protection

  Tim Smith | December 19, 2007 9:31 AM | 0 CommentsGrand Rapids, MI

  Most people assume when they ask their agent for "full coverage" that they are receiving the best protection they can get for their money. Unfortunately, "full coverage" means different things to different insurance companies.The bodily injury coverage on your policy is what your insurance company pays to someone else if you cause an accident. But what if you aren't at fault? What if a drunk...

• Senator Kuipers Protecting Drug Company Donors

  Tim Smith | December 13, 2007 9:34 AM | 0 CommentsGrand Rapids, MI

  Merck, the makers of Vioxx, got caught defrauding the FDA and the folks that they injured with their drug and agreed to pay $4.85 billion dollars in damages. But, none of the victims in Michigan will get paid a penny because we're the only state in the country that provides blanket immunity to drug manufacturors whose products injure or kill. This legislative immunity was enacted in 1995 and our...

• Supreme Court's Latest Victim

  Tim Smith | November 25, 2007 7:17 PM | 0 CommentsGrand Rapids, MI

  Less than a week after the Michigan Supreme Court victimized Carolyn Jones [see below], Justice Cliff Taylor and his fellow Justices Young, Markman and Corrigan are at it again. On the day before Thanksgiving, they threw out the case of Michele Kaseta despite the fact that her trial Judge in Macomb County Circuit Court and the Michigan Court of Appeals both held that her case had merit and she...

• Car Crash Plaintiff Victimized Twice

  Tim Smith | November 20, 2007 5:19 PM | 0 CommentsGrand Rapids, MI

  In 2005, Cynthia Jones was a pedestrian crossing the street. She was run over by a driver that wasn't paying attention. The impact snapped her leg in half. The surgeon had to cut her leg open and use plates and screws to piece her leg back together. She was in the hospital for 4 days following the surgery and required in-home health aides once she was discharged home. Early on, whenever she...

• Employment Discrimination at Morgan Stanley

  Tim Smith | November 07, 2007 9:25 AM | 0 CommentsGrand Rapids, MI

  Lawyers for Morgan Stanley announced Monday, October 29 that their client had agreed to pay $46,000,000 in cash to resolve a class action gender discrimination lawsuit filed by female employees of the company. The terms of the settlement include not only the financial compensation but requires Morgan Stanley to make changes to the manner in which it compensates and promotes employees as well as...

• You're in "Bad Hands" with Allstate

  Tim Smith | November 05, 2007 4:12 PM | 0 CommentsGrand Rapids, MI

  In Lexington, Kentucky, Attorney J. Dale Golden filed suit against Allstate on behalf of one of their insureds, Geniva Hager. Internal documents obtained during discovery against Allstate Insurance Company show that the company and their consultants created a computer program to generate low settlement values for injury claims, sent fraudulent data to government regulators to avoid...