On Friday, banking giant JP Morgan Chase agreed to a $388 million settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit claiming that the company misled investors regarding the stability of $10 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The lead plaintiff in the case was the Fort Worth employees’ retirement fund, along with others including the Northern and Southern
Hawaiian law protects consumers by making merchant sellers of a product liable to all consumers and users injured if a product fails to meet its express warranties. HRS § 490:2-313 explains, an express warranty is any affirmation, promises, description of the good, samples or models which is made part of the basis of the bargain
7/19/2015 Former Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY) was sentenced on Friday to eight months in prison and one year of supervised released in a Brooklyn federal court after pleading guilty to tax evasion. Apologizing in front of Judge Pamela Chen, Grimm pleaded for the judge to avoid prison; however Chen said that she was troubled by the
7/18/2015 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the recall of Medtronic’s Shiley neonatal and pediatric tracheostomy tubes a Class I label, its most serious designation. Under a Class I label, the FDA believes that “there is a reasonable probability that use of these products will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.” Last
7/17/2015 Deputy administrator David Friedman, who oversaw the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) through the majority of its most challenging year ever, left the agency on Friday to take a position at the U.S. Energy Department. Former NHTSA head David Strickland left the agency in January 2014 to join Venable LLP, a law firm
7/17/2015 Republican support of the Supreme Court has sunk to a historical low. Overall however, more Americans currently approve of the Court’s actions, 49 percent, than oppose, 46 percent. In a Gallup poll of 1009 adults nationwide taken from July 8th through July 12th, only 18 percent of Republicans approve, while an equally-staggering 76 percent
7/16/2015 On Wednesday, Toyota announced that it was recalling over 625,000 hybrid vehicles, the large majority of them Prius models, due to a flaw in the software that controls the power converter. The defect could cause the vehicles to shut down and come to a complete stop. The recall affects the Prius V wagon/minivan, which
7/16/2015 Three non-profit groups are suing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in D.C. Appeals Court for its failure to comply with a 2011 court order requiring the agency to write formal rules regarding its controversial body scanners. The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday, which marked the four-year anniversary of the order. The same court ruled
Hawaii has long followed the Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 402A (1965) which sets out the elements a plaintiff must prove in a strict products liability case as: 1) A defect in the product that rendered it unreasonably dangerous for its intended or reasonably foreseeable use; 2) A causal connection between the defect and the
7/15/2015 According to Ryan Smith of ABC News, New England Patriots superstar quarterback Tom Brady and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) plan to file a challenge in federal court if NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell does not overturn the four-game suspension he handed Brady in the aftermath of the Deflategate investigation. Brady was suspended on May