Lawyers USA has announced their “Lawyers of the Year 2010.”

Among the honorees are trial lawyer Robert Eglet, of Mainor Eglet in Las Vegas, and Bill Levin, of Levin Simes in San Francisco.

Courtroom View Network captured both Mr. Eglet’s and Mr. Levin’s award winning performances in 2010.

In Chanin v. Teva and Baxter, Robert Eglet and Will Kemp won a $500M+ verdict on behalf of a Las Vegas man who had contracted Hepatitis C at an endoscopy clinic as a result of unsafe dosing practices. The plaintiff argued that the extra large vials of anesthetic used by the clinic were defectively sized and failed to adequately warn against re-use.

In Evans v. CertainTeed, Bill Levin won a $200M+ verdict against asbestos pipe manufacturer CertainTeed. The plaintiff’s mesothelioma resulted from exposure to asbestos fibers when she washed the clothes of her husband, who was a pipe cutter.

Subscribe to CVN for just $199 and watch both award-winning performances above, plus thousands of other attorneys and expert witnesses for an entire year.

The plaintiffs in Greene v. Sonoma County allege that a California county violated the civil rights of two elderly gay partners, Clay Greene and Harold Scull, when it placed Greene in a nursing home, Scull in a hospital, prevented Greene from seeing Scull, and auctioned almost $500K worth of personal property from the home that the two men had shared. Scull died in the hospital a few months later.

Sonoma County, however, claims that it was protecting Scull from Greene’s physical abuse, and that Scull did not wish to return to the two men’s shared home.

According to the New York Times, 

Mr. Greene’s troubles began when Harold Scull, his partner for more than 20 years, fell down the steps of their home in April 2008. At the time, the complaint said, Mr. Scull was showing signs of mental impairment.

County officials successfully petitioned the court to gain some powers of conservatorship. Then they “sold, kept, converted to their own use, and otherwise disposed of” almost $500,000 worth of belongings from the home shared by the two men — including furniture, art objects, memorabilia from the years Mr. Scull spent working in Hollywood, as well as a truck and two cats, the lawsuit alleges.

Mr. Greene said that he and Mr. Scull had previously specified each other as executors in case either became incapacitated, but the county ignored the legal documents and the history of their relationship, and at one point referred to Mr. Greene as Mr. Scull’s “roommate.

Scull died at age 89, without ever seeing Greene again. Greene’s lawsuit also names as defendants the nursing home and the auction company.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights launched a national media campaign to bring visibility to the case. “In the 33 years of our organization’s history, this case is perhaps among the most tragic the NCLR has ever been involved in,” said NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell. The complaint is available here.

According to the County, hospital employees saw bruises on Scull’s arms and face, and suspected elder abuse. Sonoma County claims that Scull required assistance with his financial affairs and medical needs, and that Scull was afraid of Greene, and did not wish to return to him. The County asserted that it acted properly in response to Clay Greene’s domestic abuse of Harold Scull.

CVN will webcast Greene v. Sonoma County gavel-to-gavel.

Courtroom View Network is pleased to announce the launch of CVN Law School, a law student web portal integrating audio and video legal information to give students at 50+ law schools the most powerful way to learn the law.

AudioCaseFiles will be rebranded to become Courtroom View Network Law School (CVN Law School). The new website will be unveiled at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) annual conference in Denver, July 10-13. This new website will be available at lawschool.courtroomview.com.

This move continues the integration between AudioCaseFiles and CVN. AudioCaseFiles is an online resource geared to law students and faculty that offers audio opinions of precedential judicial opinions. Over the last two years, AudioCaseFiles has also provided users with access to Courtroom View Network’s real trial video of prominent attorneys in compelling civil litigation. This move will fully integrate the two websites, making AudioCaseFiles a product of CVN Law School, CVN’s new law student portal.

“We are really excited about this latest upgrade to our law school offering,” said Stanley Goldberg, VP of Operations. “This transition will allow us to continue to add more content, more features, and be more responsive to our subscribers’ needs, while creating a seamless learning experience from law school to associate.”

The transition to CVN Law School will give AudioCaseFiles subscribers continued access to all previous content, and also provide new features from Courtroom View Network, such as legal news, an improved interface and improved functionality. The purpose of the change, according to Goldberg, is to “Even better prepare law students for their future as attorneys, from learning to doing.”

Law schools that currently subscribe to AudioCaseFiles will continue to use their same credentials to log in. CVN Law School will also offer individual subscriptions to law students whose law school does not subscribe.

To see the new website unveiling, visit the AudioCaseFiles / Courtroom View Network at Booth 515, at July’s AALL conference. 

View the Press Release. 

CVN is pleased to announce its newest video collection, “Large Verdicts,” which includes more than 25 of CVN’s largest verdicts to date. The Large Verdicts collection will be constantly growing, as we continue to add multi-million dollar verdicts and punitive damage awards.

CVN’s entire Large Verdicts collection is available for as little as $49 per month, and includes these cases:

$505M – Chanin v. Desert Shadow Endoscopy. Punitive damages were awarded based on inadequate warnings on vials of the anesthetic Propofol that caused the spread of Hepatitis C.

$364M – Bondi v. Citigroup. Citigroup was awarded damages as a result of the Parmalot fraud.

$316M – McDavid v. Turner. Owner of the Atlanta sports teams “Hawks” and “Thrashers” breached a contract to sell the teams.

$233M – Rowatt v. Wyeth. Three breast cancer survivors who had used Wyatt’s Hormone Replacement Therapty (HRT) drug, Prempro recovered compensatory and punitive damages.

$208M. Evans v. A.W. Chesterton. The plaintiff contracted mesothelioma from asbestos fibers on the clothing of her husband, who sawed pipes.

$78M.  U.S. Global v. Progress Energy. Commercial litigation involving breach of asset purchase, commission, and services agreements. 

$54M. Godfrey v. Precision Automotive. A private airplane crashed due to a defective carburator.

$50M. Thomas v. Global Vision. Defendant violated California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA) by marketing its hair regrowth treatment Avacor as “natural” and “herbal”, even though it had same active ingredient as Rogaine.

$47.5M. Hermans v. Merck. Pharmaceutical products liability trial against Merck for heart attacks allegedly caused the painkiller drug Vioxx.

$38M. IREF v. Pfizer. Trade secret misappropriate claim arising from Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) clinical drug trials for Bextra, a second-generation Cox-2 inhibitor. 

NEW $30M. Buonomo v. R.J. Reynolds. $25M in punitive damages were awarded to the wife of a man who started smoking as a teenager, and died of emphysema after a lifetime of smoking three packs per day.

$30M. Cohen v. R.J. Reynolds. The plaintiff’s husband in this Engle-progeny tobacco trial was a smoker who died of lung cancer in 1994.

$25M. McCarrell v. Hoffman La Roche. The plaintiff developed inflammatory bowel disease and had his colon removed after he took the acne medication Accutane. 

$20M. Putney v. R.J. Reynolds. The plaintiff’s wife in this Engle-progeny tobacco trial was a smoker who died of lung cancer in 1995.

$18M. E*Trade v. Deutsche Bank. E*Trade won a breach of contract claim based on an accounting error that overstated the value of a business it purchased from Deutsche Bank.

$18M. Watson v. Ford. A Ford Explorer sudden acceleration case resulting from an allegedly faulty cruise control.

$18M. Moreno v. Ford. A Ford Explorer roll-over accident was caused by a tire dealer’s installation of a Firestone tire that had been recalled.

$17.7M. Wheeler v. Ford.  A Ford Explorer’s defective rear seat occupant protection system left the plaintiff a permanent, complete quadriplegic. The case settled while the jury was deliberating over a punitive damages award.

$16M. Schein v. Ernst & Young. The plaintiffs recovered $10M and $6M respectively based on negligent audits conducted by Ernst & Young.

$14.7M. Kentucky v. Watson. AstraZeneca misstated the wholesale price on its drugs.

$13.5M. McDarby v. Merck. The defendant withheld information about its pain killer Vioxx, which caused a heart attack. 

$12M. Cannon v. E&D. The plaintiff was severely burned when a tow truck smashed into the rear of his stalled Ford Mustang.

$11M. Citrus Canker Litigation. Inverse condemnation proceeding seeking compensation for 133,720 citrus trees that were destroyed in a failed effort to contain a bacterial plant disease.

$10.5M. Kendall v. Hoffman La-Roche. The defendant failed to adequately warn that its acne medication Accutane could cause Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

$9M. Wisconsin v. Abbott Laboratories. Defendant, Pfizer’s Pharmacia, misstated its drug prices in this Average Wholesale Price (AWP) Medicare fraud litigation.

$8.5M. Starrh v. Aera. Oil production field waste water was placed in unlined percolation pits, which contaminated a neighboring farmer’s groundwater.

$8M. Hess v. R.J. Reynolds. The plaintiff’s husband in this Engle-progeny tobacco trial died of lung cancer in 1997 because he was addicted to tobacco.

$4.6M. Alterman v. Zep. Road construction companies failed to adequately warn drivers of a rolling roadblock. 

$4.5M. Kornak v. North Broward Hospital. The plaintiff’s 35-year old husband died after he was placed under anesthesia even though he was experiencing respiratory distress.

$4.3M. Kroll v. Zolfaghari. The plaintiff suffered brain, liver, and kidney damage as a result of the failure to diagnose an enterovirus infection at the time of her birth.

CVN’s entire Large Verdicts collection is available for as little as $49 per month. Or try CVN’s two free days offer, no obligation. 

In Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery v. Nestlehutt, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a statutory damage cap in medical malpractice cases was unconstitutional because it violated the right to a trial by jury. 

CVN was there for the oral arguments.

Michael Terry, of Bondurant Mixon & Elmore, argued:

“For 200 years it’s been the exclusive province of the jury to set the damages in the first instance, based on the evidence in the case.  It’s the exclusive province of the trial court to review the verdict for consistency with the evidence, and it’s the exclusive province of the appellate court to review the trial court’s decision.”