| 2012 Annual Meeting & Advanced PI CLE, December 6-7 at the Four Season's Hotel, Austin | Formerly the TTLA Annual Conference, our December event is now the Annual Meeting & Advanced PI CLE! We've streamlined this event and we're now offering a one-day Advanced PI CLE, along with the Annual Membership & Board Meeting, President's Luncheon, and a spectacular Holiday Party with dinner and dancing with the famous Lee Roy Parnell. Click on the headline to learn more!
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| Have You Voted? | Find early voting locations in your county, the last day to early vote is November 2.
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| Suit: Fast Food Manager Sexually Harassed Girls |  | Two teenage girls in Des Moines, Iowa, have filed a lawsuit against a local McDonald's shift trainer, accusing him of sexually harassing them. In their suit, the sisters say the man made constant sexual advances toward them, groped one of them and sent them graphic sexual images via text message. When they reported the behavior to the store manager, the plaintiffs say they were chastised and alienated at work.
Jeff Eckhoff, DesMoines Register 10/24/2012    | | Read Article: DesMoines Register |
| Safety Becomes a Concern With High-Caffeine Drinks | | Among the latest entrants in the energy industry’s caffeine race is a pocket-size squeeze bottle called Mio Energy. Each half-teaspoon serving of Mio, which is sold by Kraft Foods, releases 60 milligrams of caffeine in a beverage, the amount in a six-ounce cup of coffee, the company says. But one size of the bottle, which users can repeatedly squeeze, contains 18 servings, or 1,060 milligrams, of caffeine — more than enough, health specialists say, to sicken children and some adults, and even send some of them to the hospital.
BARRY MEIER, The New York Times 10/24/2012 | | Read Article: The New York Times |
| Sterility Found Lacking at Drug Site in Outbreak | | The compounding pharmacy blamed for a deadly national meningitis outbreak repeatedly failed to follow standard procedures to keep its facility clean and its products sterile, Massachusetts officials said Tuesday, painting a harrowing picture of a company that flouted crucial rules as it hurried to ship drugs around the country. The findings raise questions about whether the meningitis outbreak could have been averted, or reduced in magnitude, had proper procedures been followed.
ABBY GOODNOUGH, The New York Times 10/24/2012 | | Read Article: The New York Times |
| Meningitis Lawsuits: Product Liability or Medical Malpractice? | | Victims of a deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak are starting to sue the physicians and clinics that administered tainted steroid shots, and the success of the suits could hinge on whether judges decide the injections are subject to product liability or medical malpractice laws.
Nick Brown, Reuters 10/24/2012 | | Read Article: Reuters |
| Ruling Raises Questions About List of Unsafe Consumer Products | | Consumer groups said Tuesday that a federal court decision could threaten the effectiveness of saferproducts.gov, a relatively new federal database of unsafe products. The ruling, by Judge Alexander Williams Jr. of United States District Court in Maryland, sided with a manufacturer who sued to keep its name out of the database, arguing that the complaint against it was confusing and contradictory and therefore should not be published.
Andrew Martin, The New York Times 10/24/2012 | | Read Article: The New York Times |
| New Federal Rules for Debt Collectors | | Debt collection agencies, whose sometimes aggressive tactics have earned them scrutiny from consumer protection groups and state regulators, will come under federal supervision for the first time beginning Jan. 2, when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau begins oversight. In addition to companies that specialize in collecting money from consumers for personal, family or household debt, the consumer bureau will begin monitoring debt collectors that contract with the Education Department to collect overdue student loans.
EDWARD WYATT, The New York Times 10/24/2012 | | Read Article: The New York Times |
| Credit Card Data Breach at Barnes & Noble Stores | | Hackers have stolen credit card information for customers who shopped as recently as last month at 63 Barnes & Noble stores across the country. The company discovered around Sept. 14 that the information had been stolen but kept the matter quiet at the Justice Department’s request so the F.B.I. could determine who was behind the attacks, according to these people. The information was stolen by hackers who broke into the keypads in front of registers where customers swipe their credit cards and enter their personal identification numbers, or PINs.
MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and NICOLE PERLROTH, The New York Times 10/24/2012 | | Read Article: The New York Times |
| Report Casts Doubt on Medical Guidelines | | Many medical guidelines don't stick to quality standards designed to make them trustworthy, and the situation hasn't improved over the past two decades, researchers have found. Guidelines help doctors keep up with the latest developments in their fields and are widely perceived as a recipe for good patient care. But studies have found that guidelines are often based on opinion and weak data, instead of high-quality evidence from clinical trials. And the new findings show wide variation in how closely they follow quality standards set out by the Institute of Medicine.
Frederik Joelving, Reuters 10/24/2012 | | Read Article: Reuters |
| Woman Files Discrimination Suit Against NBA | | A New Jersey woman has filed a lawsuit against the National Basketball Association, claiming she was forced out of her job because she is a woman with young children. In her suit, the woman claims she and two others were forced to work different hours after returning from pregnancy leave which prevented her from caring for her children, forcing her to quit her job. The lawsuit is seeking $3 million in damages.
Wire Report, Ft. Worth Star Telegram 10/23/2012 | | Read Article: Ft. Worth Star Telegram |
| Suit Filed over Hepititis C Outbreak | | Seventeen Pennsylvania residents have filed a lawsuit against the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center (UPMC) over a hepatitis C outbreak allegedly caused by a former hospital employee. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, claims a former employee of the UPMC infected hospital syringes while using them to feed his drug habit; after leaving his position at UPMC, the man allegedly contaminated syringes at eight more hospitals. The suit says the hospital failed to report the man to authorities after discovering his actions.
Paula Reed Ward , Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 10/24/2012 | | Read Article: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
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