Current Events

An outbreak of a rare type of meningitis, linked to spinal injections for back pain, is growing and has killed four people and sickened at least 30 others in five states, health officials said on Wednesday. New cases are appearing every day.\

“I’m afraid we’re going to see many more cases spread across the country,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

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American Express is paying $112.5 million in refunds and fines to settle regulators' accusations that it charged unlawful late fees and deceived customers to pressure them to pay off old debts or buy extra credit card services.

The company agreed to the settlements announced Monday by four federal agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Utah regulators.

American Express is refunding $85 million to about 250,000 customers and is paying $27.5 million in civil fines.

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A federal court in Virginia on Tuesday approved a settlement in which Abbott Laboratories agreed to pay $1.5 billion over allegations that it promoted the anti-seizure drug Depakote for uses that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Abbott agreed in May to pay a criminal fine and forfeiture of $700 million and settlements with the federal government and states totaling $800 million. The settlement was approved Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Abingdon. Virginia will receive $4.2 million from the civil settlement.

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General Motors is recalling more than 40,000 vehicles, citing concerns that a fuel pump module could crack and cause a fire in the event of a fuel leak.

The recall, disclosed in a letter by GM to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Friday, affects five models from 2007 through 2009: the Chevrolet Cobalt (2007-2009), Chevrolet Equinox (2007), Pontiac G5 (2007-2009), Pontiac Torrent (2007) and Saturn Ion (2007).

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Bank of America has resolved one of the largest and most embarrassing pieces of litigation related to its merger with Merrill Lynch in 2008. But the settlement comes with a pretty hefty price tag, since the bank has agreed to pay $2.43 billion to end the lawsuit. That monetary award ranks it as one of the largest settlements in a securities class-action case, behind the settlement over the disastrous AOL-Time Warner merger.

The acquisition of Merrill caused Bank of America plenty of headaches by adding toxic mortgage assets to its balance sheet on top of what the bank took on when it bought Countrywide Financial. The bank has also been fighting with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over whether it will have to take back bad mortgages packaged into mortgage-backed securities.

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After the government approved a $25 billion housing settlement in February, scams promising relief to homeowners with troubled mortgages have risen, according to the Washington Post.

“Every time there’s a new government program announced — in this case, it’s a very large settlement — scam artists use that as an opportunity to defraud people,” Lisa Madigan, the Illinois Attorney General, told Washington Post.

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Can you collect Workers' Compensation benefits while you're working?

Most Workers' Compensation claimants are not aware that if they return to work after their injury, whether with the same employer where they were injured or another, that they may still be eligible to receive a Workers' Compensation award. If the injured worker earns less than what they were earning on average at the time of their injury because of this injury, then the worker will be entitled to an ongoing Workers' Compensation benefit equal to 2/3's of the difference between their pre-inury wage and their current wage.

It is always imperative to inform your attorney and the Workers' Compensation insurance carrier of a change in status if you return to work in any capacity, even if you are volunteering without pay or bartering your services for other goods or services. A failure to diligently and timely inform all parties of a change in work status can potentially result in a permanent forfeiture of future monetary benefits.

Original content copyright 2012 The Law Firm of Alan W. Clark & Associates, LLC

The above is not intended to constitute legal advice.

About 6,900 garden swings imported from China and sold at Big Lots stores nationwide have been recalled because the seat can break.

The Wilson & Fisher Garden Swings, made by Anji Jiayi Garden Supplies Co. of Xiaofeng Town, China, were sold at Big Lots stores between March and June.

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The ink was barely dry on the government’s $25 billion mortgage settlement with the nation’s biggest banks earlier this year when scam artists seized on the opportunity.

In Alabama, struggling homeowners received calls promising them cash payments from the settlement, if only they would provide the routing number to their bank accounts. In Illinois, they were told they qualified under the settlement for a loan refinancing, but only after they paid a hefty upfront fee. In California, the attorney general herself received a call claiming that she was eligible for aid from the settlement.

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The peanut butter recall that started this past weekend with a salmonella-linked product sold at Trader Joe’s has now been expanded to dozens of peanut, cashew and almond butters, according to producer Sunland Inc.

The New Mexico-based company manufactured and packaged the Trader Joe’s Creamy Salted Valencia Peanut Butter that regulators have since connected to 29 salmonella illnesses in 18 states, including California.

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Stryker Corp. (SYK) stopped selling three versions of its Neptune Waste Management System after two people were harmed, one fatally, using the devices that were sold without formal clearance by U.S. regulators.

Stryker initiated a Class 1 recall, the most serious device withdrawal, on June 5 after two reports of serious injury from the products used to collect fluid waste during surgery, the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based company said today in a statement. In one instance, a patient’s passive chest drainage tube was hooked to the Neptune 2 System, a high-vacuum, high-flow device. The patient died, Stryker said.

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