In the News

Oak Meadows Gas Explosion Lawsuit Press Release

Proposed Press Release - A team of experienced civil trial attorneys filed suit today against the producers and former producers of gas wells adjoining the Oak Meadows subdivision, in Firestone, Colorado. The lawsuit also asserts claims against the developer of Oak Meadows and the home-builders of the residence that is the subject of the lawsuit.

The individual lawsuit, filed on behalf of one homeowner in the Oak Meadows subdivision, seeks recovery of monetary damages for personal injuries and property damages sustained in the past and likely to be sustained in the future. The claims arise from an explosion of a home located near that owned by the homeowners. The explosion was reportedly caused by gas which had accumulated in the basement of the home. The lawsuit asserts that the sounds, sights and reasonable fears arising from witnessing the explosion have caused the homeowners damage. The lawsuit also alleges that the continuing after effects and possible similar occurrences in the future constitutes a temporary, permanent and continuing nuisance and trespass.

John Boesen

• Boesen Law
• 4100 E. Mississippi Avenue, Suite 1900 Denver, Colorado 80246
• T. 303.999.9999
• F. 303.320.1915
• jboesen@boesenlaw.com

Jason Webster

• The Webster Law Firm
• 6200 Savoy, Suite 150 Houston, Texas 77036
• T. 713-581-3900
• F. 713-581-3907
• jwebster@thewebsterlawfirm.com

Richard A. Capshaw

• Capshaw & Associates
• 3500 Maple Avenue, Suite 1100 Dallas, Texas 75219
• T. 214.761.6610
• F. 214.761.6611
• richard@capslaw.com

Houston Personal Injury Attorney

At The Webster Law Firm, we are dedicated to providing professional and experienced legal guidance to victims and families of personal injury accidents. We have played a substantial role in the legal community and we have even been featured in the news. Our Houston personal injury lawyers strive to serve the community by keeping them updated with current news and recent events. Below, you can read about the news and developments that we have been involved with over the years. You can examine our latest updates to develop a stronger understanding of our firm and how we can make a difference in your case.

Slip and Fall Settlement

On February 26, 2015 The Webster Law Firm successfully mediated a slip and fall case for seven figures. The Webster Law Firm’s client suffered serious injuries from slipping while working and underwent several surgeries and medical treatments. Slip and fall cases are very difficult in Texas, and in fact, our client was turned down by two other attorneys before approaching The Webster Law Firm. We believed in his case and were ready to take to trial if he was not adequately compensated for all his injuries. Fortunately, the defendant also saw the damages sustained by our client and justly compensated him for his injuries. We are pleased to announce that our client was thrilled with the result and we consider this a victory for our team.

Lac-Mégantic Train Derailment Update

MMA Railway Settlement Announcement $200 Million for Lac-Mégantic Train Derailment Disaster Victims

CHICAGO— In accordance with a draft Plan of Compromise and Arrangement filed with the Quebec Superior Court today in the CCAA case for Montreal Maine and Atlantic Canada Co. (MMAC), nearly $200 million in settlement funds will be distributed to the victims of the Lac-Mégantic, Quebec train derailment disaster that occurred on July 6, 2013. According to the trustee for Montreal Maine and Atlantic Canada Ltd. (MMA), MMAC's U.S. parent company, a similar plan will soon be filed in the MMA chapter 11 case. In addition, the parties continue to pursue additional settlements with parties who are not yet contributors, failing which litigation will continue against those parties, with the goal of materially increasing the settlement fund.

"We are pleased to finally reach a partial resolution and settlement for the victims of the train derailment disaster," said Robert Keach, the appointed trustee for the MMA bankruptcy case. "Due to the diligence and respect by all parties associated with this plan in Canada and the United States, we have put forward a favorable resolution. With continued diligence by all parties, the settlement amount will be significantly higher."

"Our litigation in Illinois played a dramatic role in increasing the amount of funds that will be distributed to our clients who are the families of the deceased victims of the Lac-Megantic disaster," said Peter Flowers, wrongful death plaintiffs' lawyer of Meyers & Flowers Law Firm in Chicago, who is working directly with Attorney Jason Webster, of The Webster Law Firm in Houston. Flowers and Webster are representing the plaintiffs who died in the train disaster and their families. Attorney Mitchell Toups of Beaumont, Texas, is also involved in the legal representation of the wrongful death victims.

"We have driven the value in the wrongful death estate higher than our clients would have received under Canadian law," Flowers said. "But, this is just the beginning of the settlements for our clients, as there are three huge contributors to this disaster including World Fuel Services, Canadian Pacific Railway and Irving Oil. And they are not yet contributing a penny to this resolution. We will turn over every stone on earth before we give up on them and intend on pursuing them in Illinois and any other state to ensure that they are brought to justice and held responsible for this disaster."

Allstate denies a home owner's claim arising from hurricane Sandy and then puts their destroyed house in an Allstate commercial bragging about how much they care.

NYTimes - F.D.A. Seeks to Tighten Regulation of All-Metal Hip Implants

After an estimated 500,000 patients in the United States have received a type of artificial hip that is failing early in many cases, the Food and Drug Administration is proposing rules that could stop manufacturers from selling such implants.

Some all-metal hip implants have failed prematurely, forcing thousands of patients to undergo operations to replace them.

Under the proposal, which the agency is expected to announce on Thursday, makers of artificial hips with all-metal components would have to prove the devices were safe and effective before they could continue selling existing ones or obtain approval for new all-metal designs.

Currently, companies have to show only that their devices resemble ones already on the market, and they are not required to conduct clinical studies before selling them.

The F.D.A. action is intended to close a loophole in the 1976 federal law under which medical devices were first regulated. It is the agency’s first use of powers that Congress granted to it last year to deal with medical devices, like all-metal hips, that have been in regulatory limbo for decades.

The move comes amid one of the biggest device-related failures in decades. Just a few years ago, all-metal hips — implants in which the ball and cup component is made from a metallic alloy — were used in one of every three joint replacement procedures performed annually in the United States.

Traditional hip replacements, which are made of materials like plastic and metal, typically last 15 years before wearing out. But the all-metal hips, which companies rarely tested in patients before aggressively marketing them, are failing at high rates not long after implantation.

As a result, thousands of patients have been forced to undergo painful and costly operations to replace the devices. In addition, tiny particles of metallic debris released as the artificial joints move have caused severe tissue and bone damage in hundreds of patients, leaving some of them disabled.

Dr. William H. Maisel, deputy director for science at the F.D.A., said the agency’s proposal would require makers of all-metal hips to produce clinical data to justify their use because of the “large number of patients who received these products and the numbers of adverse events associated with them.”

The use of all-metal implants has plummeted, with the devices now accounting for about 5 percent of hip implants. For some of those devices, which are used in a procedure called resurfacing that is an alternative to total hip replacement, the F.D.A. already requires clinical trials before granting approval.

The impact of the proposal on manufacturers of traditional all-metal hips will not be immediate, and industry lobbyists may oppose its adoption or seek to modify it. Agency officials said it would most likely take a year for the rules to be finalized; after that, producers will have 90 days to submit clinical data to support a device’s safety and effectiveness.

In 2011, the F.D.A. ordered manufacturers of all-metal hips to conduct post-marketing studies to determine, among other things, whether the implants were shedding high levels of metallic debris. Dr. Maisel said he expected that device makers might try to use data from those studies to satisfy the proposed requirements.

If a company decided not to submit clinical data or if the information failed to meet agency standards, it would have to stop selling the implant.

The regulatory limbo involving all-metal hips resulted from the Medical Device Amendments of 1976. The law set differing test requirements for various devices, depending on the perceived risk of using them or the role they played in sustaining a patient’s life and health.

Producers of devices considered high risk, like implanted heart defibrillators, had to perform clinical trials to obtain F.D.A. approval for new products. But makers of devices considered less risky, like hospital pumps, had to show only that a new product resembled one already on the market.

However, at the time the legislation was passed, several types of medical devices, including all-metal hips, were already on the market. So lawmakers crafted what was supposed to be a temporary solution: regulators would treat potentially high-risk products like the hips as moderate-risk products until officially determining how to classify them.

But in the case of all-metal hips, the final classification never happened. Over the years, the F.D.A. started procedures to classify the implants but never completed them. Implant companies also lobbied the agency to classify all-metal hips as moderate-risk products rather than high-risk ones.

The result was that device makers like Johnson & Johnson and Zimmer Holdings were able to start selling a new generation of all-metal hips a decade ago without running clinical tests.

Under the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012, the agency now has a more streamlined way of classifying older devices. It no longer has to seek an economic review of a decision’s impact, a process that can take years, said Nancy K. Stade, the F.D.A.’s deputy director for policy.

About 20 types of older medical devices still await reclassification.

In recent weeks, the first of thousands of patient lawsuits involving the most troubled all-metal device, an implant once sold by the DePuy division of Johnson & Johnson, have started to come to trial. Some plaintiffs’ lawyers say it may cost Johnson & Johnson billions of dollars to resolve the litigation, which involves an implant called the Articular Surface Replacement.

On Thursday, the F.D.A. also expects to issue new guidance to doctors monitoring patients who have received all-metal hips.

For the first time, the agency will recommend that patients who are experiencing pain or other symptoms that indicate possible device failure undergo routine testing to detect levels of metallic ions in their blood.

Dr. Maisel said the agency was not recommending a specific ion level at which doctors should consider replacing an implant. Instead, he said physicians should monitor such tests over time and use that data, along with other information, to make such decisions.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 17, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: F.D.A. Seeks to Tighten Regulation of All-Metal Hip Implants.

November 13, 2012

Join us in supporting Take Justice Back!

"We are trial lawyers. We do not fight for powerful corporations. We fight for people just like you when they are the unfortunate victims of corporate malfeasance or negligence.

The Constitution gave you the right to pursue justice in court when you believe you’ve been harmed. But well-financed corporations circling in Congress are working every day to undermine your rights. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars scheming up ways to avoid accountability when they hurt someone. Chances are, this is the first you’ve heard of it.

We launched Take Justice Back because nothing concerns us more than the erosion of our civil justice system. We are not anti-corporate; business built this great country into what it is today. But when corporations act irresponsibly they must be held accountable just like anybody else.

As trial lawyers we represent clients. But look around this website and you will see no advertising. No solicitations. This is not about money. It is not about us. It’s about you, your rights and the gift of democracy that some powerful corporations are working hard to undermine.

Please join our effort to Take Justice Back. Sign up. Join our Twitter conversation. Engage us through Facebook. Learn how to make a difference – because you can."

- Take Justice Back

May 21, 2012

Since the majority of the Webster family lives in the Dallas area, they frequently mail me cut out articles on legal matters from the local newspapers. Although I have never met Talmage Boston, I was eager to read the article about him in the Dallas morning news which came in the mail from my mother. The title of the article is great until he cannot help himself but attack the Plaintiff. It happens about midway thru when he blames “runaway juries and huge pay –days for plaintiff attorneys” as a primary reason for the disrepute attributed to lawyers in the public. Large verdicts by juries are derived directly from ordinary citizens serving as jurors listening to story after story of the corporate powers in America whom have basically looted the government, polluted the environment and killed countless innocent individuals thru their own negligence. All for the almighty dollar and corporate greed. There is nothing “run-away” about it.

Our nation’s first trial lawyer and 2nd President John Adams once said “It is not only the juror’s right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.”

Mr. Boston’s analysis discredits the figure Atticus Finch and Abraham Lincoln as they believed in the power of a jury to do the right thing. This criticism of “runaway juries and huge pay –days for plaintiff attorneys” completely ignores the huge pay day this man has earned while representing numerous corporations in dispute resolutions. Whatever that means. I seriously doubt he has ever attended his client’s funeral or held their hand after their life has been destroyed by the same corporations he is sure to represent. Better yet, I bet he has never stood next to his client in court and waited on that jury to make a decision that would affect that person’s life and their families for the rest of their days. Not what affects the corporate bottom line.

What he fails to mention is how so many of us must explain to our clients that they will get no money after the jury (especially here in Texas)sends them home with nothing. Or better yet try to explain that one of the judges (placed and financed by the same corporate powers) sends the spouse of a dead worker home with no chance at all for a jury to even here their case or give them a chance for justice.

To use Lincoln or the fictional character of the great Atticus Finch while criticizing the jury system is legal blasphemy to me as a lawyer who represents people. Not the corporations whom our Supreme Court has deemed a living soul. Mr. Boston is a longtime partner at Winstead PC. They had an annual revenue of $144,000,000 in 2010.

As I mentioned above, I do not know Mr. Boston or his family. But I promise you this, I can tell you far to many stories of widows, orphans and families that I have personally represented that have been affected by these same attitudes promulgated by his corporate clients. I truly believe that Lincoln, Finch, Jaworski and maybe even James Baker believe in the jury system and that they would advocate to building up our profession and not tearing it down with self-serving rhetoric.