Category: Daily News

Detroit’s three big automakers – General Motors, Ford and Chrysler parent Stellantis – announced that they are not yet mandating vaccines for thousands of their unionized workers.

The UAW has resisted suggestions it agree to vaccine mandates. Last September, UAW President Ray Curry told its members that until the various rules are finalized, the UAW’s bargaining position continues to be that vaccination is strongly encouraged, but a personal choice.”

Biden has worked hard to win the autoworkers’ support, in part because UAW members are crucial to winning elections in Michigan and other Midwestern states. But the UAW’s reluctance to support vaccination mandates reflects a broader resistance among many unions to the Biden administration’s policies.

According to a statement given by the UAW Task Force, they aligned on a policy of voluntary and confidential disclosure of vaccination status for UAW members. Each company will provide additional communication to employees on how, where and when to report their vaccination status.

In addition to encouraging members to disclose their vaccination status, the Task Force continues to urge all members, coworkers, and their families to get vaccinated and get booster vaccinations against COVID-19, while understanding that there are personal reasons that may prevent some members from being vaccinated, such as health issues or religious beliefs.

After reviewing the status of CDC and OSHA guidelines, the Task Force also decided it is in the best interest of worker safety to continue masks in all worksites at this time.

While it is understood that masks can be uncomfortable, the spread of the Delta variant and recent data outlining the continued high rate of transmission in some geographic areas continue to be a serious health threat.

One of the best ways to fight this virus is by getting as many people as possible vaccinated. The more UAW members, coworkers and their families are vaccinated and have boosters, the quicker this deadly pandemic can be vanquished.

The Task Force will continue to closely monitor the COVID health status, and all legal and procedural changes to CDC and OSHA guidelines in order to ensure that everything possible is being done to keep families, members and employees safe.

According to a report by Reuters, Stellantis said it would require all of its 14,000 U.S. salaried non-union employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 5, as it prepares for a phased reopening of its U.S. offices next year. Nearly 80% of its salaried non-union U.S. workforce self-reported that they are fully vaccinated, Stellantis said.

Earlier this month, Ford said it would require most of its 32,000-strong U.S. salaried workforce to be vaccinated. The second largest U.S. automaker earlier this month said more than 84% of U.S. salaried employees already are vaccinated.

Ford said earlier it was still evaluating its policy for “manufacturing locations, parts depots and Ford Credit, including analyzing federal and collective bargaining requirements.”

GM, Ford and Stellantis said last month they would mandate vaccines for all autoworkers in Canada.

A big question in opiod litigation pertains to how far down the chain of distribution, from the drug manufacturer, the prescribing doctor, to the pharmacy that fills a prescription, can liability be established by plaintiffs seeking payment of the opiod litigation. A new jury verdict this week may help answer that question.

Bloomberglaw reports that a Cleveland jury concluded Walmart Inc., CVS Health Corp. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. helped create a public-health crisis by failing to properly monitor opioid prescriptions, the drug industry’s latest loss in the expanding litigation over the painkillers.

The federal-court panel backed claims by northeast Ohio’s Trumbull and Lake Counties that the pharmacy chains failed to create legally mandated monitoring systems to detect illegitimate opioid prescriptions. The counties are seeking reimbursement for the costs of dealing with addictions and fatal overdoses. Similar suits are pending against drugmakers and distributors. A judge will hear arguments in May about the counties’ compensation claims.

The two Ohio municipalities want the pharmacy owners to pay a combined $2.4 billion to replenish depleted budgets for drug treatment, social services and police, with $1.3 billion for Trumbull and $1.1 billion for Lake, according to people familiar with their demands.

Walmart and other pharmacy operators argued the municipalities couldn’t prove they created a so-called “public nuisance” through lax prescription oversight when the scripts were written by licensed doctors. They also touted their systems designed to help pharmacists track patients’ visits, making it easier to spot red flags among prescriptions.

It’s the first jury verdict in the sprawling, four-year opioid litigation. Municipalities across the nation have accused opioid makers, distributors and sellers of downplaying the painkillers’ addiction risks and sacrificing patient safety for billions in profits. The jurors in Cleveland deliberated for more than five days before returning the unanimous verdict on Tuesday.

“The jury’s decision sounds a bell that should be heard by pharmacy companies around the country,” Mark Lanier, the Ohio counties’ lead lawyer, said after the verdict was announced. “Laws regarding proper monitoring of prescription drugs are be taken seriously and not ignored or downplayed.”

The companies all said they would appeal the verdict. “We look forward to the appeals court review of this case, including the misapplication of public nuisance law,” Mike DeAngelis, a CVS spokesman, said in an emailed statement. “The facts and law do not support the verdict,” Walgreen’s Fraser Engelman added.

“We will appeal this flawed verdict, which is a reflection of a trial that was engineered to favor the plaintiffs’ attorneys and was riddled with remarkable legal and factual mistakes,” Randy Hargrove, a Walmart spokesman, said in an emailed statement.

The outcome of several verdicts in litigation against the makers of the Roundup weed killer are of significance to worker’s compensation administrators who might be involved in CT claims filed b.y agricultural workers. There may, or may not be opportunities for subrogation depending on the eventual trend.

The latest development this month involved an $86.7 million damages award for a Livermore couple stricken with cancer after years of spraying Roundup weed killer. This result will now be final, after the California Supreme Court refused to hear Monsanto’s appeal.

The decision effectively upholds a 2019 jury verdict that found Monsanto was aware of the risks associated with its product and negligently failed to warn consumers, and in so doing also acted with malice, oppression or fraud.

Courthouse news reports that both Alva and Alberta Pilliod were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma that they attributed to decades of using Roundup: Alva with systemic diffuse large B-Cell lymphoma in his bones in 2011; Alberta with diagnosed with an aggressive subset of that lymphoma in her brain in 2015.

In addition to $55 million in combined compensatory damages, the jury awarded each of the Pilliods $1 billion in punitive damages. During the course of the five-week trial back May 2019, Alberta testified that she never would have bought the popular herbicide if she had known that it was brought to market based on approval studies that were found to be invalid.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith ultimately slashed the award to a total of $86.7 million, and an appellate court affirmed it in an August order where Justice Marla Miller wrote that “Monsanto’s continuing to sell Roundup after learning that the original approval studies were invalid shows conscious disregard for public health and safety.”

In other Roundup cases, two other Bay Area residents were awarded hefty damages by separate juries. In August 2018, a jury found Monsanto owed Dewayne Lee Johnson $289 million in damages – later reduced by a judge to $78 million – after finding Roundup caused his terminal non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and a federal jury awarded Ed Hardeman $75 million in punitive damages for failing to warn him about the product’s hazards, which a a judge cut down to $20 million.

Bayer AG, which bought Monsanto for $63 billion in 2016, has since appealed the Hardeman case to U.S. Supreme Court.

However, the defendants recently secured a win in Los Angeles state court, where a jury found there wasn’t enough evidence to prove Roundup was a substantial factor in causing the rare cancer that killed a young boy.

A federal judge in Georgia also found in Bayer’s favor on a plaintiff’s failure to warn claim, ruling that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act requires the company to follow instructions by the EPA not to sell Roundup with a cancer warning on its label. An appeal is pending before the Eleventh Circuit.

In June 2020, Bayer announced a $10 billion agreement to settle a bevy of claims related to Roundup users who have contracted non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But this year, U.S. District Judge Vincent Chhabria refused to approve a $2 billion deal to resolve claims from Roundup users who have not developed cancer but may be diagnosed in the future.

Bayer has also vowed to remove glyphosate-based products from retail store shelves by 2023 to prevent future litigation, though the company has consistently said that it stands behind Roundup’s safety.

Mercury News reports that a former volunteer reserve captain for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department has been charged with defrauding the state workers’ compensation program of $17 million.

54 year old Simon Semaan, who lives in Los Angeles County,  faces a maximum 16 years in state prison if convicted of seven felony counts of fraud and seven enhancements of committing a white collar crime of more than $500,000.  He has pleaded not guilty and is free on $4 million bail. He was let go by the Sheriff’s Department this September

According to authorities, Semaan ran Pacwest Security Services, but did not have workers’ compensation insurance for his employees as required by law. He did have insurance with two different companies for a firm called PSSM Inc. The Costa Mesa company that provides licensed, unarmed security guards,

Semaan had been a sheriff’s reserve officer since 1993 and was a noted supporter of former Sheriff Michael S. Carona. Carona ultimately was found guilty of a federal charge of witness tampering and served 52 months in prison. Semaan, a Los Angeles resident, was let go by the Sheriff’s Department in September.

In 2008, he was appointed by then Gov. Arnold Schwarzegger to a state private security disciplinary review committee.

The alleged $17 million theft represents the largest insurance premium fraud case ever filed in Orange County and the second largest in California, authorities said.

“The Orange County District Attorney’s Office is committed to prosecuting these dishonest business owners as a way of protecting legitimate business owners who follow the law and play by the rules,” said Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “Everyone deserves a level playing field, and Orange County is continuing to ensure that no one is gaining an unfair advantage to undercut the competition.”

An attorney for Semaan did not return Mercury News phone calls seeking comment.

The Sheriff’s Department declined to comment, other than to say he was no longer with the agency.

Three members of a San Fernando Valley family have been sentenced – two of them in absentia after they fled justice following their convictions at trial – to years in federal prison for scheming to fraudulently obtain more than $20 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) COVID-19 relief funds.

On Monday, United States District Judge Stephen V. Wilson handed down prison sentences to the Encino residents:

– – Richard Ayvazyan, 43, who was ordered to serve 17 years;
– – Marietta Terabelian, 37, Richard Ayvazyan’s wife, who was sentenced to six years; and
– – Artur Ayvazyan, 41, Richard Ayvazyan’s brother, who was ordered to serve five years in federal prison.

At Monday’s sentencing hearing, Judge Wilson said he could not recall a fraud case conducted in such a “callous, intentional way without any regard for the law.” Judge Wilson further described Richard Ayvazyan as “an endemic, cold-hearted fraudster with no regard for the law” and someone who “views fraud as an achievement.”

The FBI is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Richard Ayvazyan and Terabelian, who allegedly cut their tracking bracelets on August 29 and went on the run while awaiting sentencing in this case. Judge Wilson sentenced them in absentia, and they remain fugitives from justice.

At the end of an eight-day trial, a federal jury on June 25 found Richard Ayvazyan, Terabelian, and Artur Ayvazyan guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, 11 counts of wire fraud, eight counts of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Richard Ayvazyan and his brother were also convicted of aggravated identity theft.

On June 28, the jury further found that Richard Ayvazyan and Terabelian must forfeit bank accounts, jewelry, watches, gold coins, three residential properties and approximately $450,000 in cash.

Judge Wilson previously sentenced four defendants in this case:

– – Manuk Grigoryan, 28, of Sun Valley, was sentenced on October 25 to six years in prison;
– – Edvard Paronyan, 41, of Granada Hills, was sentenced on September 27 to 30 months in prison;
– – Vahe Dadyan, 42, of Glendale, was sentenced on October 18 to 12 months and one day in prison; and
– – Arman Hayrapetyan, 39, of Glendale, was ordered on October 18 to serve 10 months of probation.

Tamara Dadyan, 42, of Encino, is scheduled to be sentenced on December 6, but Judge Wilson has not yet ruled on a motion to withdraw her guilty plea.

The defendants used dozens of fake, stolen or synthetic identities – including names belonging to elderly or deceased people and foreign exchange students who briefly visited the United States years ago and never returned – to submit fraudulent applications for approximately 150 PPP and EIDL loans. In support of the fraudulent loan applications, the defendants also submitted false and fictitious documents to lenders and the Small Business Administration (SBA), including fake identity documents, tax documents and payroll records.

The defendants then used the fraudulently obtained funds as down payments on luxury homes in Tarzana, Glendale and Palm Desert. They also used the funds to buy gold coins, diamonds, jewelry, luxury watches, fine imported furnishings, designer handbags, clothing and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The conspirators sought to fraudulently obtain more than $20 million in COVID-19 relief funds.

The FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, the Small Business Administration’s Office of Inspector General, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General investigated this matter.