Current Events

There are 1.27 million lawyers in the United States, one for about every 300 Americans — about 400,000 more of them than there are doctors. Their work is rarely glamorous, and especially for those just starting out in the profession, it can be grinding and repetitive. Jason Luckasevic, hired out of law school in 2000 by a firm in Pittsburgh, passed the bar exam on his first try and was quickly sworn in to practice. The ceremony, such as it was, took place on a Thursday in a clerk’s office, rather than in a courtroom in front of family and friends, because his bosses needed him to get started. The following Monday morning, he drove to Johnstown, about 90 minutes away, where he spent the day taking depositions from former employees of an enormous steel plant that had exposed them to asbestos. Late that afternoon, he climbed back into his Honda Civic and headed home. He repeated this routine for the next six months, five days a week, racking up some 400 depositions and about 20,000 miles on the road.

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Lawmakers have called for a U.S. criminal investigation into Japanese auto supplier Takata Corp. following a report that the company destroyed results of airbag tests conducted in secret in 2004.

In 2004, Takata tested some 50 airbag inflators in secret after a Honda Accord’s inflator exploded in an accident, injuring the driver, the New York Times reported late Thursday. Instead of alerting regulators about the risks posed by the inflators, Takata executives ordered technicians to destroy the test results, the paper said, citing two former Takata employees.

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Jesse Salazar III says an ignition-switch flaw in his 2008 Chevrolet HHR has depressed its value, and he wants manufacturer General Motors Co. (GM) to make it up to him. GM will argue in court filings later today that it shouldn’t owe money to Salazar and hundreds of thousands of people like him.

Salazar has several thousand dollars at stake in U.S. bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber’s ruling. Hanging in the balance for GM is more than $2 billion, according to a Bloomberg News calculation.

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Honda must answer questions under oath and faces up to $35 million in fines if it fails to comply with the federal investigation, according to a NHTSA special order. Honda faces a November 24 deadline to file written responses to NHTSA.

"NHTSA has received information that American Honda Motor Co. failed to report incidents involving Takata airbags, which resulted in a death or injury, and for which claims were asserted against Honda," NHTSA said in a statement posted on its Web site.

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Proposition 46, which would have changed California's medical malpractice law, has failed, AP reports. It would have raised the limit on lawsuit awards for pain and suffering from $250,000 to about $1.1 million, to account for inflation since the cap was implemented in 1975.

In addition, the measure would have required hospitals to randomly test their physicians for alcohol and drug use. Doctors also would have been tested after the occurrence of certain medical mistakes or any events that caused a patient’s death or serious disability.

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Nearly nine months after General Motors began recalling millions of its cars for a dangerously defective ignition switch, almost half of the vehicles still have not been fixed.

A spokesman for the automaker said it was increasing its outreach to owners through social media and a new call center staffed with 72 employees dedicated to contacting those who have not scheduled repairs.

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Stryker, the major producer of artificial hip implants, said on Monday that it had reached a settlement of thousands of patient lawsuits involving now-recalled all-metal devices that is expected to cost the company about $1 billion.

The Stryker deal, negotiated with lawyers representing the patients, would be one of the highest amounts paid in the last year by an implant manufacturer to resolve claims by patients who said they were injured by a hip replacement in which a device’s ball and cup components were both made from metal.

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In the largest-ever penalty for a violation of the Clean Air Act, the Korean automakers Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors will pay the federal government a combined $300 million as part of a settlement for overstating vehicle fuel-economy standards on 1.2 million cars, Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency officials said on Monday.

The action, announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Gina McCarthy, the E.P.A. administrator, is part of a broader, more aggressive enforcement effort by federal regulators on the auto industry. Analysts said it was meant to send a clear message to automakers that they would be harshly treated for compromising federal rules.

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Nov 3 (Reuters) - Boston Scientific Corp on Monday was set to face its first federal trials in two courts over claims from women who say they were injured by the company's transvaginal mesh devices.

One, in Charleston, West Virginia, involves allegations from four women over the company's Obtryx device, used to treat stress urinary incontinence. The other, in Miami, concerns women implanted with the Pinnacle, which treats pelvic organ prolapse.

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About 14 million older vehicles have been recalled in recent years because airbags made by the Takata Corporation can explode in a crash, shooting pieces of metal into the cabin. But a different Takata defect that can have the same effect is emerging in newer vehicles.

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As more and more shopping takes place online, the safety of consumers’ data is increasingly in the hands of online retailers and websites. While these corporations profit from the data we entrust to them, they are increasingly taking steps to shield themselves in confusing, hard-to-find legalese that gives consumers little or no recourse if their information is leaked or misused, or even if consumers are cheated by online merchants.

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