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Recent news of importance to you and your practice.

State medical licensing boards and hospitals rely on many information sources when making licensing and credentialing decisions. One major source of information is the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), a reporting system managed by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Last month, the reliability of the information contained in the NPDB was called into question after reporting failures within the federal government itself were exposed by a report issued by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The OIG found that three Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies had failed to report as many as 474 medical malpractice cases that should have been reported to the NPDB over the course of several years.

The nation's second trial over health effects of the drug Vioxx got swamped in New Jersey last month, as a jury categorically rejected claims that failure to warn about the painkiller's risks caused a user's heart attack. The jury found, 8-1, that Merck & Co. properly alerted prescribing physicians to a link between Vioxx and an increased risk of cardiovascular events, and found unanimously that there were no consumer-fraud violations in the way Merck marketed Vioxx to physicians. As a result, the jury never reached the question of proximate causation of postal worker Frederick "Mike" Humeston's heart attack.

Recent rulings of interest.

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Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.

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Trust planning clearly contemplates the future incapacity and death of the donor. The future incapacity or death of the trustee, however, is not always planned for with equivalent detail and thought. This lack of forethought often results in contests between the remaining competent trustees or between the beneficiaries and the trustees. In the matrimonial context, divorcing spouses should carefully consider who should serve as trustees of trusts established for the benefit of children and/or former spouses. Again, the consequences of what happens when that carefully chosen trustee ceases or fails to serve might not be contemplated. When the beneficiaries and trustees are not friendly, as is often the case in trusts established as part of a divorce agreement, the stakes are even higher. To avoid unnecessary and costly battles, the drafting attorney and the trust's donor should focus on matters, including the definition of incapacity, the procedures involved with declaring a trustee incapacitated, how the trust will be administered once a trustee is declared incapacitated, short term incapacity or unavailability, and the possible tax consequences of a having an incapacitated trustee.

Custody litigators use expert testimony and tests to influence the court's decision about which parent should have custody of the child(ren). Psychologists and the MMPI2 test are two tools frequently utilized, but they should be viewed with caution. The American Psychology Association Guidelines for Use in Custody Cases (Guidelines), which were promulgated by the American Psychological Association in 1994, have been a source of discussion and controversy in the courtroom since they were first published. Are they guidelines or are they mandatory directives for the approaches to be taken by the evaluator in the custody evaluation process? For those of us who handle custody litigation, a recent case in Pennsylvania is instructive.

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Over the years, there has been an increase in estate litigation, especially in second-marriage situations where the children are often close in age to the second spouse. Primarily because of increased wealth, we have a more litigious society. However, litigation is not only about money, it is also about emotions. Litigation is on the rise not only between the surviving spouse and children, but also among the children themselves, especially when one of them was actively engaged in a business with the decedent. There are also emotional upsets when a parent attempts to take into consideration the wealth of his or her children.