Articles Posted in In The News

The Federal Trade Commission announced that it has entered into a consent order which settles charges it had brought against the South Carolina State Board of Dentistry in 2003 alleging unfair trade practices.

The FTC alleged in 2001 that the Board of Dentistry had unlawfully restrained competition by requiring a dentist to examine every child before a dental hygienist could provide preventive care (such as cleanings) in schools.

Changes were made in 2000 to South Carolina law which allowed dental hygienists to provide preventive type services without a dentist having to first examine the child. The Board of Dentistry followed with the requirement that a dentist first examine all children which the FTC alleges resulted in fewer children receiving preventive care in schools.

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State newspaper reporter, Joy Woodson, has reported that Mihaela Sinzianu Livingston, a Romanian exchange teacher, has alleged in a lawsuit that she lost her job because she fell in love, got married, and decided to stay in America.

Ms. Livingston is suing FACES, a Columbia-based academic and cultural teaching exchange program, even though she signed a contract that bans participants from trying to remain in the United States and requires them to return home to teach for at least two years.

Ms. Livingston’s attorney says the contract is “unenforceable” and “unconscionable.”

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Associated press writer Jim Davenport reported that the South Carolina legislature has agreed on a plan whereby employers who lie about what their workers do to save money on insurance premiums will face fines and prison time. The new legislation also calls for new standards on how injuries are reported and what is covered. The agreement also requires workers and their physicians to provide more specific information about their injuries.

House and Senate negotiators agreed to the overhaul about 30 minutes before the Legislature adjourned, but the legislators still need to come back for a special session on June 19 to approve the plan.

“I think this is a fair bill that takes a first step toward improving our business climate in South Carolina,” said Cam Crawford, executive director of the South Carolina Civil Justice Coalition, a group that mostly looks out business owner interests.

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The Associated press has reported that accidents from roller shoes are far more common than previously thought, contributing to roughly 1,600 emergency-room visits last year, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday.

The target market for the wheeled shoes is mostly children and they are the ones being injured.

Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said last week that the agency knew of at least 64 roller-shoe-related injuries and one death between September 2005 through December 2006.

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A lawsuit which was initiated as a result of a falling-out between the Charleston-based creator of “Flip This House” and the cable network that carried the reality television series will go forward.

U.S. District Court Judge C. Weston Houck ruled on Wednesday, June 6, 2007 that there is enough evidence to suggest that the two sides made a verbal agreement to equally share profits from the cable network show.

Judge Houck denied the request by A&E Networks to dismiss the suit brought by Richard C. Davis of James Island-based Trademark Properties.

A poignant editorial by the Reverend Wiley B. Cooper was published in The State newspaper on Friday, May 25, 2007. Rev. Cooper is a native of South Carolina, eligible for membership in both the Sons of the American Revolution and the Sons of the Confederacy, and the grandson of a pastor in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He is the pastor of a racially and politically inclusive congregation.

Reverend Cooper gave the following reasons as to why the Confederate flag must be removed from the State House grounds:
* No flag representing a former power that is no longer sovereign in South Carolina flies on the State House grounds. Not the French or Spanish flag, not the British flag, not even the flag of the American revolutionary armies or those who stood for country in the War of 1812. Why this one alone?
* According to the Ordinance of Secession, the primary reason that the Civil War was fought was to defend and perpetuate an economic system and way of life based upon one human being owning another. That cause was wrong then, and it is wrong now.

* Since the end of the Civil War, the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia has been used by lawless elements intent on frightening and murdering our black (and sometimes Hispanic or Jewish) brothers and sisters into a new subjugation. From the Klan, to those who threw rocks and spit at civil rights protesters, to the flags that flew over the hastily constructed “segregation academies,” to the present-day Nazi party, it continues to be displayed as a symbol of hatred and race and class enmity. It denigrates the lives and dignity of brothers and sisters of every race. It must not stand as a present symbol of South Carolina or her people.

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The Charleston School of Law, South Carolina’s new law school, graduated its first class of 186 students on Saturday, May 19,2007.

Charleston School of Law Dean Richard Gershon said, ” These are our pioneers.” The law school opened in 2004 and is located in downtown Charleston. The school received its provisional accreditation from the American Bar Association in December of last year and now has around 600 students.

Former Democratic U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings told the graduates that lawyers are among the greatest American leaders, invoking names like Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt

The New York Times reported last week that a diethylene glycol, an industrial solvent and prime ingredient in antifreeze, can also kill people. If the syrupy poison is ingested, first the kidneys fail, and then the central nervous system begins to fail. Paralysis can result which makes breathing difficult and then impossible without assistance. Ultimately, most victims die. Many of the victims are children who are poisoned at the hands of unsuspecting parents.

Over the years, diethylene glycol has been used by counterfeiters in many varieties of medicine; cough syrup, fever medication and injectable drugs. The counterfeiters use the cheap sweet -tasting solvent instead of the safe, more expensive syrup (usually glycerin).

Toxic syrup has been involved in at least eight mass poisonings around the world in the past two decades. Researchers estimate that thousands of people have died. Records and interviews show that in 3 of the last 4 cases the syrup was made in China, which is a major source of counterfeit drugs. Last year, government officials in Panama unwittingly mixed diethylene glycol into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine. As a result, families have reported 365 deaths from the poison, 100 of which have been confirmed so far. Panama’s death toll leads directly to Chinese companies that made and exported the poison as 99.5% pure glycerin. The counterfeit glycerin passed through three trading companies on three continents, yet not one of them tested the syrup to confirm what was on the label.

Columbia police officer, David M. Dechane, has been named the South Carolina Bar’s Law Related Education Citizen of the Year. This award was created by the S.C. Bar to recognize people outside traditional legal and education fields who support the development of students into responsible citizens.

Officer Dechane has been a member of the Columbia Police Department for three years. He said working with the public and youth through his patrol duty has given him an appreciation for educating children about the law through positive experiences.

“Far too often, the only law-related education that young people come into contact with is through police intervention and the juvenile justice system,” he said.

The 40-foot hand-cranked Confederate submarine, “The H.L. Hunley “sank the Union blockade ship,” Housatonic” by ramming it with a spar with a black powder charge, sinking the vessel on Feb. 17, 1864. The Confederate submarine also sank and was finally located in 1995. It was raised five years later and brought to a conservation lab at the old Charleston Naval Base in Charleston, South Carolina.

Senior U.S. District Judge Sol Blatt, Jr. has dismissed a counterclaim to a lawsuit relating to the discovery of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which was the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship. Underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence claimed he suffered as much as $309 million in damages because the discovery was credited to author Clive Cussler.

A group headed by Cussler initially sued Spence six years ago. Cussler’s group claims that Spence’s continuing claim he found the submarine injured the reputation of Cussler’s National Underwater & Marine Agency.

The South Carolina Hunley Commission supports the Cussler group’s claim that they found the sub off the coast of Charleston 12 years ago. Spence counterclaimed in 2002 and asked the court to declare him the finder.

Judge Blatt dismissed the counterclaim this week saying the three-year statute of limitations on admiralty claims had expired. Lee Spence’s attorney had argued the statute of limitations period started when the coordinates of the Hunley were published by the state in 2000. Judge Blatt ruled, however, that it started to run in 1995, the day Cussler and his team announced the discovery.

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