Category: Daily News

Intravenous injection of bone marrow derived stem cells in patients with spinal cord injuries led to significant improvement in motor functions, researchers from Yale University and Japan report Feb. 18 in the Journal of Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery.

Yale scientists Jeffery D. Kocsis, professor of neurology and neuroscience, and Stephen G. Waxman, professor of neurology, neuroscience and pharmacology, were senior authors of the study, which was carried out with investigators at Sapporo Medical University in Japan. Key investigators of the Sapporo team, Osamu Honmou and Masanori Sasaki, both hold adjunct professor positions in neurology at Yale.

For more than half of the patients, substantial improvements in key functions – such as ability to walk, or to use their hands – were observed within weeks of stem cell injection, the researchers report. No substantial side effects were reported.

The patients had sustained non-penetrating spinal cord injuries, in many cases from falls or minor trauma, several weeks prior to implantation of the stem cells. Their symptoms involved loss of motor function and coordination, sensory loss, as well as bowel and bladder dysfunction.

The stem cells were prepared from the patients’ own bone marrow, via a culture protocol that took a few weeks in a specialized cell processing center. The cells were injected intravenously in this series, with each patient serving as their own control. Results were not blinded and there were no placebo controls.

Kocsis and Waxman stress that additional studies will be needed to confirm the results of this preliminary, unblinded trial. They also stress that this could take years. Despite the challenges, they remain optimistic.

“Similar results with stem cells in patients with stroke increases our confidence that this approach may be clinically useful,” noted Kocsis. “This clinical study is the culmination of extensive preclinical laboratory work using MSCs between Yale and Sapporo colleagues over many years.”

“The idea that we may be able to restore function after injury to the brain and spinal cord using the patient’s own stem cells has intrigued us for years,” Waxman said. “Now we have a hint, in humans, that it may be possible.”

Two California residents were sentenced for defrauding Affordable Care Act programs in at least 12 states of more than $27 million.

63 year old Jeffrey White was sentenced to 36 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release, and 35 year old Nicholas White was sentenced to 13 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release. Both defendants reside in Twin Peaks, California.

Jeffrey White and his son, Nicholas White, conspired to defraud health care plans operating under the Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as “Obamacare”) by fraudulently enrolling individuals in ACA plans in states where the individuals did not live.

The Whites created phony residential leases using fictitious landlords in various states.The Whites also used an online application to obtain false cell phone numbers for the individuals with area codes that made it appear that the individuals lived at the fictitious addresses, and provided the false cell phone numbers to the ACA plans. If anyone at the ACA plan called the false local number, the call would ring through to a phone controlled by the Whites.

In order to enroll the individuals in an ACA plan, the Whites paid the insurance premiums for the individuals, and also paid to have the individuals transported to California where the individuals were placed in expensive residential substance abuse treatment programs. The treatment programs then billed the ACA plans for thousands of dollars of treatment each week, including claims for expensive laboratory tests such as blood or urine toxicology screenings.

The treatment programs paid the Whites thousands of dollars in kickbacks for each referral, and some programs arranged for the Whites to receive a percentage of the money the treatment programs received from the ACA health insurance plans.

In order to maximize their proceeds from the fraud scheme, the Whites enrolled the individuals in ACA plans in states that paid the highest amount for substance abuse treatment, even though the individuals did not live in those states.

The Whites have admitted that their scheme resulted in more than $27 million in losses to ACA plans across the country, including plans in Connecticut, Arizona, California, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.

The DWC has posted the 2019 Ethics Advisory Committee’s annual report on its website. The Committee is independent from the DWC, and is charged with reviewing and monitoring complaints of misconduct filed against workers’ compensation administrative law judges.

The EAC is required to make a public report each year summarizing activities in the previous calendar year. Anyone may file a complaint with the EAC. Complaints may be submitted anonymously but must be in writing.

In 2019, the EAC considered and resolved 5 complaints from 2018. Of 27 new complaints received in 2019, it considered 24 and resolved 21. Of those considered, 9 resulted in investigations, 6 of which were concluded.

Two resulted in findings of judicial misconduct.

In one of those cases, a defense attorney, wrote that complainant was reluctant to file a complaint for fear of possible retaliation against the law firm and its clients. Complainant complained that, for some time now, the attorneys at the firm have been under the impression that the judge acts with bias, often prejudging claims, and has exhibited behavior that they would classify as “bullying” of defendants.

In the specific case reported by this attorney, the judge was unprofessional toward complainant. The judge was belligerent and threatening and would not allow complainant to speak, rebut, refute, or explain anything, in violation of Labor Code section 5311.

Based on its review of the investigation, the EAC found that the investigation supported a finding of ethical violations, including ex-parte communications, prejudging the case, and a violation of Canon 3B(4) for failing to be patient, dignified, and courteous. Based upon that conclusion, the EAC recommended further appropriate action by the CJ.

In another case, a lien representative, complained that over 43 lien hearings have been held without a final order on the doctor’s lien. Complainant claimed that since 2011, 30 hearings have been held before the judge, who has deliberately delayed final adjudication of the lien.

Among other claims, the lien claimant reported that rude and punitive approach to hearings is representative of the judge’s treatment of complainant in all hearings. The judge forced the parties to stay until the lunch hour or the end of the day to receive a disposition unless the disposition was settlement, an unopposed continuance, or an order taken off the calendar (OTOC).

The EAC found that the investigation supported a violation of Canon 3B(4) for failing to be patient, dignified, and courteous. Based on that conclusion, the EAC recommended further appropriate action by the CJ.

Courthouse News reports that an attorney for the California Grocers Association told a federal judge Tuesday a city of Long Beach ordinance providing a $4 an hour boost in hazard pay for grocery workers interferes with ongoing labor negotiations and should be blocked.

The Southern California city’s “Premium Pay for Grocery Workers Ordinance” provides the $4 per hour in premium pay for essential grocery workers who face higher risk during the Covid-19 pandemic.

CGA, which represents 6,000 grocery stores across California, filed a federal lawsuit against Long Beach on Jan. 21, claiming companies operate on thin profit margins and that some have already given their workers hazard pay bonuses.

In court papers, attorneys for CGA said the ordinance would result in grocery stores being more crowded and food prices more expensive for customers.

Upon filing its lawsuit in the Central District of California, CGA moved on an ex parte basis for a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the ordinance.

The next day, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee, who had been initially assigned to the case, denied CGA’s bid, ruling that the association failed to show how it would be irreparably harmed without emergency action by the court.

Gee also called the threat of city-sanctioned lawsuits against noncomplying grocery stores “speculative,” which the ruling said cannot be the basis for granting a TRO.

The case had since been transferred to U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II.

In court papers opposing an injunction, attorneys for Long Beach cited reports of grocery store corporations such as Kroger earning “eye-popping” profits during the pandemic while their frontline workers continue to face potential daily exposure to the novel coronavirus.

In a virtual federal court hearing Tuesday, CGA attorney William F. Tarantino told Wright a preliminary injunction should be granted because the ordinance’s alleged effect on collective bargaining is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act.

To support CGA’s preemption claims, Tarantino cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1976 ruling in Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm, which held local governments should not interfere in business that would otherwise be determined by “the free play of economic forces.”

Wright took the matter under submission and indicated a final ruling on the preliminary injunction would be issued soon.

Tuesday’s hearing came on the same day the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to approve an urgency ordinance requiring national grocery and drug stores chains in unincorporated LA County to pay workers an extra $5 an hour in “hero pay.”

The ordinance – which takes effect immediately and is enforceable for the next 120 days – cited frontline workers’ higher risk of contracting Covid-19 and their ongoing labor contributions as justification for the wage increase.

A California woman, 65 year old Corby Kuciemba, sued her husband’s employer because she believes he caught the novel coronavirus at work and brought it home with him – ultimately infecting her also.

The couple then tested positive for the virus on July 16, 2020, and both were hospitalized as a result, with Corby Kuciemba being held for treatment until the beginning of August.

She and her husband, Robert Kuciemba, alleged in their Oct. 23, 2020 lawsuit that his employer, Nevada-based Victory Woodworks, violated local and federal virus-safety guidelines when it moved workers from one site to another in the San Francisco region.

The company’s failure to take basic precautions allegedly caused Robert Kuciemba to contract the virus and unknowingly bring it home and infect his wife, and both required extended hospital stays and suffer from after-effects.

The closely watched case was removed by the employer to the Federal District Court in Northern California on December 28. The removal was soon followed by a Motion to Dismiss filed on January 4, and then a hearing on that motion set for February 12.

On February 22, the federal judge ruled that the First, Second, Third, and Fifth Causes of Action, titled, respectively, “Negligence,” “Negligence Per Se,” “Negligence – Premises Liability,” and “Loss of Consortium,” are barred by the exclusive remedy provisions of California’s workers’ compensation statutes.

Judge Chesney also ruled that the couple’s Fourth Cause of Action doesn’t meet the required threshold, or standing, to hold Robert Kuciemba’s employer, Victory Woodworks Inc., liable for creating a public nuisance.

However, the plaintiffs were given leave to file, no later than March 19, 2021, a First Amended Complaint.

The case is Kuciemba v. Victory Woodworks, 20-cv-09355, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).