US District Court Judge Carlton Reeves on Mississippi Damage Caps in Medical Malpractice

All grief is not equal. All pain cannot be reduced to a one-size-fits-all sum. One cannot
imagine what it is like to know that the doctor right in front of you, the one who is refusing to insert
a chest tube into your body even as nurses beg her to provide that treatment, is causing you to die
and killing your unborn baby as you are helpless to stop her. In Mississippi, though, one’s suffering
at the hands of a health care provider is worth no more than half a million dollars, no matter how
egregious, and no matter if your suffering leads to your death, your unborn child’s death, and leaves
your children orphans. This is offensive.

Clemons v. United States of America, Cause No. 4:10-CV-209-CWR-FKB (S.D. Miss. June 13, 2013).

Slick Willy ——- Father of the Year?

Father’s Day is approaching.  I didn’t know exactly how fast so as any person with a smartphone or computer does, I googled it.  June 16, 2013.  Easy enough.  But one web result caught my eye.

 

When reading that Bill Clinton was named “Father of the Year” the first thing that crossed my mind was that the article must have been written by theonion.com.  That is the website that creates satirical news stories (and some dang funny ones at that).

According to the story, Slick Willy has really been named the Father of the Year by The National Father’s Day Council.  According to the Council, their “mission is to promote the celebration, observation, and preservation of the holidays Mother’s Day and Father’s Day by focusing on the value of good sound parenting.”

Are we talking about the same Bill Clinton that appeared on national television to say “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”?  Please don’t get me wrong.  I like Clinton.  He was President during one of the greatest economic booms of our nation’s history.  He would probably be a really fun guy to take along while shooting ducks and knocking back a few cold ones.  But Father of the Year?  Clinton has done plenty of great things for many people, but there is one thing that should preclude anyone from being Father of the Year.  You can’t stain up a dress and then lie about it on national television.

 

 

Look out for leaks!

On March 18, 2013 much of Central Mississippi was slammed by a hail storm of epic proportions.  Big hail, little hail and every size in between.  Having grown up in the South, hail itself is nothing new but the size of the hail was amazing.  After the storm, my law partner and I walked around the office to survey the damage.  There were dents in the gutters, missing shingles, busted up shingles, craters in stucco, and broken shutters.

Not so apparent from outside inspection was the fact that a large piece of hail hit a piece of flashing that connected an air vent to our roof.  That V shaped white spot in the center of the picture is the outside sky.  Not exactly water tight.

 

Today, a massive rain storm moved though.  Rain of course found the piece of damaged flashing and turned our kitchen into a slip and slide.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a good slip and slide.  However, the office kitchen isn’t where you want one.  It is particularly bad when the water is running out of a light fixture!

When you get home today, check the inside of your homes for moisture.  Even if you do not think you received hail damage or do not think you have any leaks, check anyway.  Water inside your home can lead to mold and mold can be extremely dangerous.  Save yourself the trouble of a mold problem.  Grab a flashlight and take a look at your ceiling and attic space.  It will not take but a few minutes and could save you thousands.

Even more scam email

While March 6 was a busy day for scammers, it looks like today is even more so.  

First, from phallett@cogeco.ca

Dear Counsel:

I wish to file a contempt petition against my ex-spouse for failure to make court ordered payment of Property Division and Family Support Agreement. Please advise if you handle such case.

Ms. Zarifah.

 

Then, from sharontrupm@iprimus.com.au

I wish to file an enforcement petition against my ex-spouse for breaching the court’s decree with regards to payment of property settlement. If you are available for such case Kindly Advise immediately.

Regards,

sha.trump@att.net

 

Ms. Trump then decided to send another dozen or so emails from the following addresses:

sharontrump28@iprimus.com.au

sharontrump01@iprimus.com.au

sharontrump01@att.net

sharontru@iprimus.com.au

shtrump@att.net

Sharon Trump [c0anhuucaibe.tiengiang@moet.edu.vn]

kokbeautiful@yahoo.com.hk

And then we have the same scam from Edward Scholes. [sedward817@yahoo.co.uk]:

Attention:

We seek an attorney who handles breach of contract matters.Let us know if your firm takes such cases.

Thank you

Edward Scholes.

 

How any attorney could possibly fall for this is mind blowing.  

#Twinkies not going away?

 

Despite the recent reports of the demise of Hostess, it looks like they may in fact work out a deal to save the Twinkie.  Maybe the final offer and the final demand weren’t so final after all.  According to news reports, Hostess and the bakers’ union have talks scheduled to begin tomorrow morning in hopes of avoiding the liquidation of Hostess Brands.

So much like the urban legend of the shelf life of a Twinkie, Hostess Brands may survive indefinitely.  For those of you playing the Ebay Twinkie market or hording, this could cause a huge change in bidding for the 3,400+ Twinkie items listed.  Given that the good ol US of A is the fattest nation in the world, one would think a company selling Twinkies should have a gold mine.

All jokes aside, it would be great to see this company stay in business and the reported 18,500 employees keep their jobs.

Thank you #Veterans

Thank you to all the veterans that sacrificed blood, sweat, tears and lives so that we could live in the greatest country in the world.  On a related note, Happy Birthday to the United States Marine Corps.  237 years strong this week.

 

#GoVote

Every year they were alive at election time I would hear my grandpa and my dad say “if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.”  To preserve my complaining privileges, I voted this morning.  It took all of about 5 minutes.

In the 2010 election, Mississippi had one of the lowest percentages for voter turnout in the nation at just 37%.  Think about that.  Men and women have died and will continue to die protecting the democracy that is the United States of America.  At any given time, there are people in harm’s way all across the world protecting your freedom here.  One of the most important freedoms, if not the most important freedom is the right to vote.  Go exercise it!

Chancellor Primeaux summed it up nicely:

If you voted already, thank you, fellow citizens.

If you haven’t voted, please get off of this bleeping computer and go vote right now.

If you don’t plan to vote, or, God forbid, you aren’t even registered, shame on you.

What are you searching for?

WordPress has what it terms a “dashboard” for the administrator of a forum to check statistics on how many people are visiting, if they were referred by another site, and a host of other functions.  One of those functions allows me to see the search terms that people use to arrive at my site.  Some are relatively normal such as:

• Elena Kinoshita scam
• things to do during a divorce
• alienation of affection
• can a divorce decree be revoked
• hoover sauce
• dead beat dads and self employment
• coca cola sued for $31 in texas distracted driving
• false allegations child abuse
• cooking a whole hog on a lang grill
• insurance scam

While others can be quite humorous:

• marriage is cruel
• what can i do with my south african powerball ticket
• i won money from microsoft
• best way bait dove rock salt
• stalling the divorce by not compelling during discovery
• 40 and divorced what now
• stupid tthings to write on facebook about your divorce
• has your girlfriend been called as a witness in your divorce trial
• i didnt flood my crawfish pond for 5 years in louisiana
• can I trust my attorney

No matter what search terms you used to get here, I hope you enjoy your stay and find something of interest.

Statistics

The statistics that generally hit the news about Mississippi are not good.

We lead the nation in teen pregnancy.  Related to that we are also near the top in low birth weight, unwed mothers, and infant mortality.  Not many states exceed Mississippi’s firearm murder rate on a per capita basis, even though many states have more firearm related assaults per capita than we do (I guess the lesson there is that we don’t shoot as often, but we shoot to kill when we do.)  Apparently, Mississippians is also near the top of the stats for citizens that dont exercise their right to vote.

On the bright side, unemployment isn’t as high here as it is in many other states and according to an article from wapt.com, Mississippi is no longer in the top 10 for alcohol related traffic deaths.  Glad to hear we are doing good on jobs and lowering drunk driving.  Now if we could just do a little better on the rest……..

The new drug dealers

My father worked in law enforcement for somewhere around 30 years.  From before I was born until the 80s, he worked at the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics starting as an Agent and ending as the Director.  As a kid, I remember him bringing home pictures taken at busts where marijuana, cocaine and/or money were stacked like cord wood.  One of the most memorable busts involved a individual by the last name of Guidry.  Mr. Guidry ended up losing most of his assets to forfeiture and last I remember, his enormous home in south Mississippi was ironically a treatment center for recovering drug abusers.  Back in those days the drug dealers were pretty easy to spot.  In their line up pictures they looked pretty much like my dad did as an undercover agent……long hair with a fu manchu mustache.

Somewhere along the way, drug dealers changed their looks.  In fact, some now wear scrubs.  More and more it appears that a small group of bad doctors are becoming the new drug dealers.  A doctor in New York has been accused of accepting landscaping and home repair services, a gas grill, paper towels and rolls of toilet paper in exchange for writing prescriptions.  I guess he figured it was easier to trade than accept insurance assignment.  Even though the new drug dealers are dispensing supposedly safe prescription drugs as opposed to bathroom made crystal meth or Colombian cocaine, people continue to die from overdoses.

According to a recent Clarion Ledger article, there were 173 drug overdose deaths last year in Mississippi.  The current Director of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, Marshall Fisher, said the number is even higher and “nearly all of them involve prescription drugs.”