Friday, September 9, 2016
Extension Sought in St. Thomas Negotiations
By Walter F. Roche Jr.
Negotiators seeking a resolution to some 110 lawsuits against a Nashville, Tenn. clinic missed a court imposed deadline today and are asking the presiding judge for another week to work out final details.
In a motion filed late today in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass., attorneys for the Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgical Center and related parties asked U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel to extend the deadline to Sept. 16.
Zobel had set today as the deadline for the parties to finalize a master settlement agreement and the language of individual releases to resolve some 110 claims by victims of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak.
Stating that "the material terms of this settlement have been agreed to for some time," the motion states that additional time is needed to resolve how liens from the federal Medicare program and other insurers will be handled.
"The parties have exchanged multiple drafts of the master settlement agreement and continue to resolve any remaining differences," the motion by attorney Marcy Greer states.
The Saint Thomas clinic is half owned by the Saint Thomas Network and Nashville's Howell Allen Clinic.
The claims come from patients or their survivors who were injected with a spinal steroid that was supposed to be sterile but was instead laden with fungus, according to state and federal regulators.
The steroids were shipped to the Nashville clinic and dozens of other health facilities across the country by the now defunct New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass.
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com
The checks do not go to the victims but to their attorney's who have to hold them till all the funds are distributed. Another long wait
ReplyDeleteWhy do the attorneys have to hold the payments?
DeleteInstead of extensions, judge should be imposing daily fines, including obstruction of justice. Bet everyone would get off, their as hind ends (assess), and be legit, stop *#+k:n around
ReplyDeleteWhen the 90 day deadline was reached the judge should have just scheduled the first bellwether case for the second week of September. Instead she gave them their way, so now they know she will not pull out her judicial stick and tell them no. Since the end of May we were told an agreement was reached and working out the fine points. To me it shows that victims/survivors of victims are the ones being watched out for.
ReplyDeleteWally thank you for always following and keeping us apprised. Was there info on the judges response to this request by the attorneys for Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurological Center? Thank you, Pat
ReplyDelete