Maryland personal injury lawyer Robert K. Jenner says trendy toning shoes might bring in big profits for manufacturers, but studies show injury risks outweigh purported health benefits.

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Maryland attorney Justin A. Browne, an associate with Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC in Baltimore, was recognized on March 25 as the 2011 Evening Program Service Award Recipient during the Fifth Annual Evening Program Reception at the University of Maryland School of Law.

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Citing physicians’ concerns, Baltimore personal injury lawyer Robert K. Jenner says toning shoes’ risks outweigh benefits.

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Maryland lawyer Robert K. Jenner and Indianapolis attorney Irwin B. Levin have renewed their application to consolidate more than 150 federal pain pump lawsuits.

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In addition to family, friends and health, cancer survivor Diane Wisneski has added Philadelphia jurors to her Thanksgiving gratitude list.

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A jury on Monday awarded $28 million in punitive damages to a woman who contracted breast cancer after taking hormone replacement drugs for 11 years.

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Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession, has named Kenneth M. Suggs as the “Columbia, SC Best Lawyers Product Liability Litigator of the Year” for 2010.

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A Montgomery County Circuit Court jury has awarded a former Frederick couple $1.85 million for the wrongful death of their newborn son, their first child, according to court documents.

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Robert K. Jenner of the Baltimore law firm of Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC was one of several lawyers named as the 2009 Trial Lawyers of the Year by the Maryland Association for Justice.

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The Supreme Court’s ruling that federal law does not pre-empt state claims of inadequate warnings on pharmaceutical safety labels has drawn praise from plaintiffs’ attorneys and resignation from defense counsel.

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Lawyers for a couple who won a $4.4 million verdict in a York County medmal case said an electronic display of fetal monitoring data helped the jury understand the medical technicalities behind the plaintiffs' claims.

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Best Lawyers has decided to name lawyers in certain high-profile legal specialties and in certain large legal communities “Lawyers of the Year”. This honor is based on a particularly high level of recognition from fellow attorneys in each area and specialty.

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A York County jury on Friday awarded $4.4 million to the parents of a child who suffered a brain injury at birth. The award was against Piedmont Hospital.

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The American Bar Association Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section has honored Kenneth M. Suggs with its Pursuit of Justice Award. The award recognizes lawyers and judges who have shown outstanding merit and excelled at ensuring access to justice.

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The federal lawsuits from across the country all tell a similar tale. An otherwise healthy person, typically between the ages of 20 and 40, undergoes arthroscopic shoulder surgery. Following the successful procedure, a “pain pump” is inserted, a device that injects local anesthetic directly into the shoulder joint.

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JANET, JENNER & SUGGS, LLC partner Robert K. Jenner made news as one of the lead attorneys seeking to consolidate more than a dozen personal injury lawsuits that have been filed against the makers of shoulder pain pumps. Jenner was interviewed by Lawyers USA, a national legal newspaper, about those claims.

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JANET, JENNER & SUGGS, LLC has filed a Petition with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation seeking transfer, coordination and/or consolidation of all product liability actions pending in federal courts concerning the use of intra-articular pain pumps following arthroscopic shoulder surgery. Patients seeking MDL consolidation have all developed Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis (PAGCL), an extremely painful, debilitating condition resulting in a destruction of the patient’s shoulder cartilage.

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"Several lawsuits have been filed recently that seek to hold pain pump manufacturers and drug companies liable for encouraging physicians to use the devices to deliver pain medication directly into shoulder joints following arthroscopic surgery, contrary to uses approved by the Food and Drug Administration."

"Neither the drug companies nor the pump companies had ever tested the devices for use in delivering painkillers directly into the joint space, nor did they warn anyone of potential dangers, plaintiffs alleged. And, given studies linking painkillers to cartilage deterioration, combining the drugs with the direct delivery pump system was "foreseeably fatal" to the shoulder cartilage, according to Robert K. Jenner, of Janet, Jenner & Suggs LLC, Baltimore, who is representing plaintiffs in Light, Hughes, and McDaniel. "

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An ABC News Reporter for World News Tonight interviewed Robert K. Jenner about the hormone therapy trial verdict where the jury awarded the plaintiffs over $134 million dollars. "I think pharmaceutical companies always look at the bottom line. Now, they have to look at the bottom line with their investors, because this is a verdict that hurts, and should hurt," he said.

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The nationwide class action, filed on Friday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, maintains it aims to protect the rights of those consumers that have been affected by ConAgra's "carelessness".

Law firms Schiffrin Barroway Topaz & Kessler and Janet, Jenner & Suggs, which filed the suit against ConAgra, maintain that there has been an underreporting of illnesses, and that ConAgra put consumers at further risk by delaying a recall.

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As government scientists searched for the source of a multistate E. coli outbreak linked to frozen hamburgers, a class-action lawsuit was filed Wednesday against the producer of the patties and supermarkets that sold them.

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Lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit yesterday against a New Jersey meat company whose hamburgers were linked to a virulent strain of E. coli, prompting a huge recall.

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Baltimore, MD and Radnor, PA - Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC, of Baltimore, and Schiffrin Barroway Topaz & Kessler, LLC of Radnor, PA, today filed the first nationwide class action involving some 22 million pounds of ground beef suspected in an outbreak of a virulent strain of E-coli related illness in eight states over the weekend.

  Press Release [PDF]

Firm partner Ken Suggs was an invited speaker at the Appellate Judges Education Institute's 2007 Summit in Washington, D.C. held on September 27-30, 2007. Mr. Suggs joined Jeffrey M. Smith, Justice Mark Martin, Professor Alice Gresham Bullock, and Robert W. Hesselbacher, Jr. in the presentation, "The Legal Malpractice Minefield."

  Conference Brochure [PDF]

Janet, Jenner & Suggs attorneys continue to be recognized as some of the nation's top lawyers.

Principals Howard Janet and Robert Jenner were named "Maryland Super Lawyers"® for 2008. This is the second consecutive year they earned this recognition. Jenner was also named among the "Top 50" Super Lawyers® in Maryland.

In addition, Stephen Offutt, also a partner in the firm, was named to the 2008 Maryland Super Lawyers® list.

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The number of women joining the battle against Wyeth's Prempro drug has increased exponentially since March of 2003, when the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated and transferred the first five cases related to Wyeth's Prempro drug to the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Arkansas. Wyeth now faces approximately 5,000 suits over Prempro, with women around the country filing lawsuits against the pharmaceutical giant alleging that the combination hormone therapy caused breast cancer.

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Prempro was approved as a hormone replacement therapy to treat menopause and prevent osteoporosis only. The wide-spread over-prescribing of the drug for other conditions was a result of Wyeth promoting the drug for off-label uses. Wyeth's massive off-label promotion of HRT has come back to haunt the drug giant. According to SEC filings, as of December 31, 2006, there were approximately 5,200 lawsuits pending against the company filed on behalf of approximately 8,400 women for injuries related to its HRT, with about 60% of the cases filed in federal courts and 40% in state courts.

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Diane Wisneski filed a lawsuit in 2004 against New Jersey-based drug manufacturer Wyeth, alleging the hormone-therapy drugs Prempro and Premarin she took for post-menopausal symptoms triggered her two breast cancer cases.

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Howard Janet and Robert Jenner named "Maryland Super Lawyers". Mr. Janet was honored for Plaintiff's Medical Malpractice. Mr. Jenner was honored for Class Action / Mass Torts.

The Super Lawyers Website

"You won't hear many tort reformers admit it. They've done too good a job demonizing trial lawyers to let their bogeymen fade away. Twenty years ago, tort reform was an obscure movement with a funny name; today, politicians speak of "ending lawsuit abuse" or "eliminating frivolous lawsuits"-tort reform by more felicitous names-whenever they need a failsafe applause line. " ... "Plaintiffs lawyers, accustomed to thinking of themselves as champions of the people, fighting big business on behalf of the little guy, seethed at the vulturous image tort reformers created for them, but didn't grasp its implications. They were, by their own admission, so slow to respond to what Robert Jenner of Janet, Jenner & Suggs calls "the ridiculous propaganda" of their opponents that they permitted the chamber of commerce and the American Tort Reform Association to co-opt the very language of the debate. "

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Thanks to a $15.5 million jury award, Minnesota taxpayers won't have to foot the bill for a lifetime of care for a child permanently disabled by birth injuries due to medical negligence, his lawyer said today.

€œThe economic burden will fall on those responsible for his condition, not on public health services, which often pick up the tab in catastrophic situations. This is not only justice for the child and his family, but for society as a whole,€ said Howard Janet, of Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLP, Baltimore, MD.

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Janet, Jenner & Suggs LLC has awarded grants totaling $20,000 to two grass-roots cerebral palsy organizations as part of its Cerebral Palsy Awareness Grants Program.

€œWe wanted to give back to the cerebral palsy community in a way that would help further public education about prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cerebral palsy. Both organizations are doing this in unique ways,€ said Howard Janet, managing partner.

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"In the first state court case, the jury today found that plaintiff's use of Wyeth's hormone therapy Prempro was a cause of her breast cancer and awarded Jennie Nelson, age 67, $1.5 million in compensatory damages. The case will continue to a second, or liability, phase following today's jury decision in Jennie Nelson v. Wyeth, in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

Ken Suggs of Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC, co-counsel representing Mrs. Nelson commented, €œWe are very pleased with the jury's verdict in Phase I. Clearly, the medical evidence overwhelmingly showed that Wyeth's drug Prempro caused Jennie Nelson's breast cancer, which required years of medical treatment and undue suffering for Mrs. Nelson and her family."

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"Charles Bradley was temporarily down on his luck last Saturday, his payday postponed, so he walked five miles for a hot dog and some human kindness.

Bradley's stop under the blue tent in a downtown law firm's parking lot was his first. But for others €” the chronically homeless, the permanently out-of-work €” the every Saturday hot dog lunch is a weekly lifeline.

'Being here allows them to know somebody cares,' said C.J. Bilka, who dreamed up the hot dog program and established His Hands Ministry, a 501-3C nonprofit, to facilitate his vision. 'To us they are our friends. We treat them as friends.' "

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Ken Suggs of Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC and Immediate Past President of the American Association for Justice, has been awarded "Advocate of the Year" by the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center.

SCALJC is a non-profit organization dedicated to advocacy for low income people in South Carolina. Their mission is to effect systemic change by acting in and through the courts, legislature, administrative agencies, community and the media, and helping others do the same through education, training and co-counseling.

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Janet, Jenner & Suggs expanding practice to include business-to-business litigation. €œWe are frequently tangling with major corporations, whether it's in the health care industry [or] the pharmaceutical industry,€ said Howard Janet, adding that this has provided the firm with €œa lot of experience and expertise in going up against formidable opponents.€

Kenneth M. Suggs, this year's president of the American Association for Justice, will head the business litigation practice, the firm announced.

The new practice will take on contract and bidding disputes as well as fraud, among other things. And Janet said that businesses will realize many advantages in hiring a €œplaintiff firm€ to represent them.

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"Lawsuits are ordinary Americans' last resort"

Ken Suggs takes The Examiner (Washington) to task for its "frivolous argument" linking the war on terrorism, American values and lawsuits. In his opinion piece, Mr. Suggs says:

"The Examiner has a frivolous argument when it somehow manages to work the war on terrorism into a screed against lawsuits and the civil justice system.

The civil justice system is the embodiment of American values such as responsibility, fairness and a level playing field... it is also the last resort for ordinary Americans to hold corporate CEOs accountable when they put profits before human life."

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On October 25, 2005, Christian Mester represented the plaintiffs' perspective as co-lecturer at a day long seminar entitled The Experienced Practitioner's Guide to Achieving Favorable Personal Injury Settlements in Maryland, which focused on advanced personal injury practice and tips for Maryland attorneys and paralegals.

South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State, recently reported on the rising importance of South Carolina in the legal community. Two Columbia lawyers, David Dukes, 47, and Ken Suggs, 59, become presidents of the Defense Research Institute and the American Association for Justice, respectively, both of whom, though having similarities, have opposing viewpoints on tort reform.

The State reports, "The two men climbed to the top of their industry after years of trying cases all over the nation, and working in other executive positions in the industry organizations they now lead."

" 'It's an interesting confluence of events,' said Suggs, who leads the Columbia office of Baltimore's Janet, Jenner & Suggs law firm. 'We're both from South Carolina; both from the same law school, University of South Carolina; both graduated from Clemson (as undergraduates).' Dukes, managing partner at the Midlands' largest law firm, Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough, said that 'for many people outside South Carolina, there could be a question of why South Carolina should have this national prominence.' "

South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State, recently published an editorial by Ken Suggs concerning the safety of Vioxx, Merck's response, and the hazards the drug poses to the public.

"David Graham, a scientist at the Food and Drug Administration, has estimated that Vioxx contributed to the deaths of as many as 55,000 Americans.

Documents revealed in the Vioxx trial show that Merck was aware of the cardiac risks of Vioxx as early as 1997. The company's top scientist stated in March 2000 that a clinical trial of Vioxx confirmed that the drug had heart risks. In fact, this clinical trial showed that the drug caused five times as many heart attacks as another pain relief drug. Merck executives ignored an FDA request to add a warning label to Vioxx for four months, because they calculated they could make an extra $229 million by waiting."

Mr. Suggs, president of the American Association for Justice, is a partner in the law firm of Janet Jenner & Suggs.

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Covering the damages and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, The AAJnta Journal-Constitution recently published an article focusing on the crippling effects on the legal community.

"From banks to barbershops, Katrina shut down an untold number of businesses in her path. With them is the whiplashed legal community in New Orleans, now scattered like so many papers in the wind, leaving thousands of attorneys --- and their clients nationwide --- in the lurch."

The effects are widespread including flooded courthouses, displaced law offices, missing employees, lost paperwork, delayed trials, computer failures, and other serious concerns that have paralyzed the legal community.

"People think lawyers only deal in lawsuits, but most lawyers, especially the small firms, do a whole range of services including tax work, real estate, financial transactions --- all the things that help people move along in their everyday lives," said Ken Suggs, president of the American Association for Justice.

"When people eventually come back to New Orleans, I'm afraid there's going to be a whole infrastructure that's going to be gone."

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Jury awards record verdict for child's cerebral palsy caused by brain injury sustained during birth.

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The Medlaw Legal Team is proud to announce that Robert K. Jenner has been selected by his peers to be included in the 2006 edition of The Best Lawyers in America.

Best Lawyers is widely regarded by both the profession and the public as the definitive guide to legal excellence in the United States. Best Lawyers has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, and The Washington Post, and is the basis of more than 50 €œbest lawyers€ features in regional newspapers and magazines. More than 18,500 leading attorneys throughout the country cast more than a million votes on the legal abilities of their colleagues.

Rob Jenner is a national leader in the fight against manufacturers of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs and defective medical products. His pharmaceutical team within the firm in now working extensively on Hormone Therapy, Vioxx, Guidant and Medtronic defibrillators and pacemakers, and , among others.

Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC announces the appointment of Kenneth M. Suggs as the President of the American Association for Justice (AAJ). AAJ is the world's largest trial bar with a broad-based, international coalition of more than 60,000 attorney, law professor, paralegal, and law student members worldwide.

During his career of more than 30 years, Ken has remained a tireless champion of consumer rights.  His distinguished record of service to clients, the legal profession and our community demonstrates his commitment to the civil justice system.

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Kenneth M. Suggs knows trial lawyers have an image problem.

A wave of public relations campaigns funded by insurance companies and pro-business groups have made many jurors believe that lawyers routinely file frivolous lawsuits aimed at winning big judgments, he said.

That's why Suggs is trying to convince the public that America needs trial lawyers.

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South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State, recently reported a legal settlement with Ford motor company involving faulty door latches in some pick-up models. Previously, and in most states, settlement amounts are sealed from public access. A two-year court order requires such settlements be open in federal courts in South Carolina.

The federal lawsuit involved a Horry County (S.C.) man who claimed that a defective latch resulted in permanent, serious, injury. Ford Motor Company agreed to settle the case for $3.5 million.

"Columbia (S.C.) plaintiffs' attorney Ken Suggs hailed the open Horry settlement, adding it will help people make decisions about which vehicles are safe.

€œHad Ford not been convinced the jury would say there was a defect in the vehicle, they would never have paid that kind of settlement,€ said Suggs, rising president of the 60,000-member American Association for Justice, a group that represents plaintiffs in lawsuits."

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On May 10, 2005, Ken Suggs and Christian Mester received a $5.9 million verdict in the District of Columbia on behalf of a 62 year old woman and her husband. In the case, the surgeon and hospital failed to diagnose and treat a spinal epidural hematoma timely. The negligent failure to act promptly lead to the wife's partial paraplegia and neurogenic bowel and bladder.

  Case Summary

On April 14, 2005, a South Carolina jury awarded Lisa and Damon Viele, and their daughter Elizabeth $3.7 million dollars to compensate them for Elizabeth's cerebral palsy injuries that she suffered at birth following Lisa's doctor's failure to perform a timely delivery. At trial the jury agreed that the doctor should have saved Elizabeth when she had the chance. Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC, was privileged to represent this wonderful family, and was pleased they were able to provide adequate compensation for the child's future needs.

  Case Summary

Reporting on the status of Vioxx lawsuits nationwide, The Daily Record interviewed several lawyers including Attorney Rob Jenner of The MEDLaw Legal Team. The article includes information about the possible consolidation of Vioxx lawsuits in federal courts, the legal challenges faced by both plaintiff attorneys and by Merck, and places the question 'What did Merck know, and when' at the center of Vioxx litigation.

"[As] with all pharmaceutical litigation, it's what did Merck know, and when did they know it?" said Jenner and plaintiffs' attorneys. "The question is, did the company act throughout the course of its development and sales and marketing of Vioxx with the concept 'patients' first? We're going to prove that they didn't."

Robert K. Jenner, of Pikesville-based Janet, Jenner & Suggs, says he was looking at 50 to 100 claims before the Vioxx recall; six months later, he says his firm has looked at over 3,000 cases nationwide. "Certainly that's when the floodgates opened and people started calling," he said.

Most Vioxx patient, he said, were people in their 50s or 60s who took the drug for arthritis or pain. Jenner has filed one case on behalf of a 58-year-old man who allegedly suffered three strokes after taking Vioxx for thumb pain; another client is a 69-year-old who allegedly suffered 2 strokes after taking Vioxx to relieve pain in his knee.

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On December 15, 2004, Robert K. Jenner and John Cord recovered a $2 million settlement for the family of a man in a wrongful death action against Henry's Wrecker Service. The settlement, which occurred mid-way through trial, revealed countless instances of efforts by the tow truck company to cover up and destroy incriminating evidence. Internal company documents revealed an extensive history of maintenance that was both negligent and in violation of state and federal laws.

  Case Summary

On October 21, 2004, following 14 days of trial, a jury in Columbia, South Carolina awarded $48,000,000.00 to Ken Suggs' client, Heritage Propane, in a dispute over a stolen contract. In 1999, Heritage Propane successfully outbid several of their competitors to purchase SCANA Corporation's propane assets for $73,500,000.00. Heritage and SCANA finally reached a "meeting of the minds" on all of the material terms of the contract. Unbeknownst to Heritage, Suburban Propane had entered the equation at the last minute and offered 94 million dollars to "oust" Heritage.

The jury agreed with Heritage that a man's word should count for something.

  Case Summary

"The long-running battle over the high cost of malpractice insurance has taken an ugly turn. Many doctors blame trial lawyers and their malpractice suits for causing huge jumps in insurance premiums. Lawyers blame it on the insurance industry.

Earlier this year, a furor erupted over a database that was billed as the first to profile plaintiffs, their lawyers and expert witnesses in malpractice cases in Texas and other states. The Web site, www.DoctorsKnow.Us, shut down after critics accused it of blacklisting patients who had sued doctors for malpractice.

This anger is showing up in more subtle ways, too. Lawyer Ken Suggs said some doctors are becoming less willing to help attorneys when called to provide their expert opinions.

"It's a little bit harder to get their cooperation in those things," said Suggs.

But Suggs agrees with fellow lawyers who think doctors' anger with them is misplaced.

"We've always considered this an insurance issue," he said. "Their malpractice insurance is rising, as is ours."

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See our Highlighted Cases for information about recoveries we have obtained for our clients.