Litigation

Just one week into the swine flu outbreak, health authorities in Baltimore detained 117 passengers on a flight from Cancun, Mexico. And Texas, Maryland and New York officials closed schools. Although the flu strain isn't an official pandemic yet, state and local officials are already flexing legal muscles ' many for the first time.

In last month's issue, we discussed the Vaccine Court's (Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims) trio of decisions that found no causative links between childhood vaccinations and the onset of autism and gastrointestinal problems in three children. The discussion continues herein.

Recent rulings of interest.

Filed in 1981, Tenuto v. Lederle Laboratories is the oldest ongoing non-guardianship case in New York City, according to the Office of Court Administration. Now there's an award. But will it stand?

Recent rulings of interest.

Explaining that the "bankruptcy court had no jurisdiction to take such action," the Fifth Circuit also vacated the district's court's improper ruling that the bankruptcy judge could enter a personal judgment against the asset buyer.

Examiner appointments in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases are uncommon, and despite Judge Peter J. Walsh's statement that he had appointed an examiner only two or three times during his career as a bankruptcy judge, he recently ordered the appointment of an examiner in In re DBSI, Inc.

Lawyers scurried to San Jose, CA, bankruptcy court in April to argue over the remains of SeeqPod Inc., the first big casualty on the newest front in the legal war between the record industry and the Internet.