MEDICAL MALPRACTICE | WRONGFUL DEATH | PERSONAL INJURY
Fort Lauderdale 954.523.9922 | WWW.HPSLEGAL.COM | Orlando 407.841.9866
Contact us for co-counsel opportunities
DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
by Katheryn Tucker
Stryker Corp. won a complete de-fense verdict Friday in an action filed by the family of a man who died during lung surgery.
The case was tried over the past month before Senior Judge George Shahood in the Circuit Court of the 19th Judicial Circuit in St. Lucie County. The jury delivered the verdict about 11 a.m. Friday. Hildy Sastre and William Geraghty of Shook, Hardy & Bacon led the winning team for Stryker. They declined to comment, though Geraghty noted the family de-manded up to $40 million at trial—$20 million each for the wife and son of William Cavanaugh—and that the company's defense was that a nurse's
Hildy Sastre and William Geraghty of Shook, Hardy & Bacon led the winning team for Stryker.
Stryker Defense Team Wins in Case Targeting Surgical Suction Device
see stRykeR, page a6
by Marcia Coyle and Tony Mauro
A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled for a Colorado baker who refused on religious grounds to make a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the 7-2 major-ity, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, said the state com-mission's order that baker Jack Phillips “cease and de-sist” discriminating against same-sex couples violated his First Amendment right of free exercise of religion.
Kennedy also made clear the decision was relevant for this case only. "The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts, all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities
when they seek goods and services in an open market," he wrote."Whatever the confluence of speech and free exercise principles might be in some cases, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s con-sideration of this case was inconsistent
by Miriam Rozen
Corporations must reckon these days with the need to act during a crisis at social media’s often breakneck acceler-ated pace, as evidenced when The Walt Disney Co.'s ABC Inc. took only hours to cancel Roseanne Barr's television show after a racist tweet by the controversial actress and comedian.
Clients must also abide by regulators’ new demands that the public be notified within 72 hours about data breaches. What used to take days of executive de-cision-making now gets crunched into minutes. To prepare for such fast-mov-ing crisis management, companies and law firms are engaging in what’s known as “tabletops,” a day- or days-long plan-ning and drilling sessions.
During these gatherings, various cri-sis scenarios are acted out so top execu-tives and their myriad advisers may test in realtime their reactions and certain crisis management systems.
“When a crisis hits there is so much happening all at one time,” said J. Gordon Cooney Jr., a partner and leader
Justices Rule for Colorado Baker Who Refused to Make a Cake for Gay Wedding
Hours, not Days for Corporate Crises Create Work for 'tabletop' Big Law teams
ShutterStock
In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the 7-2 majority, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, said the state commission’s order that baker Jack Phillips “cease and desist” discriminating against same-sex couples violated his First Amendment right of free exercise of religion.
by P.J. D’Annunzio
A federal appeals court has revived part of a discrimination lawsuit filed by a black woman who claimed she was denied a transfer to a tech job because her employer "wanted a Korean in that position," and was terminated for com-plaining about it.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed a federal judge's grant of summary judgment in part and allowed plaintiff Jerberee Jefferson to proceed with her case against Sewon America, where she worked as a temporary employee, was promoted to full-time in the finance divi-sion, and later fired.
The company claimed Jefferson was fired after a negative performance eval-uation, but Jefferson argued she was terminated because she complained about being denied a position in the information technology department be-cause of her race.
"The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Sewon. We reverse in part because Jefferson presented direct evidence that Sewon failed to transfer her on the basis of her race and nationality and circumstantial evidence
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Daily Business Review, 1 SE 3rd Ave, Suite 1750, Miami, FL 33131
Should you have delivery questions, call 1.877.256.2472
puBliC noTiCeS & The CouRTSPublic notices, court information and business leads, including foreclosures, bid notices and court calendars. B1
Public notices from Miami-Dade, Browardand Palm Beach also available at DailyBusinessReview.com/public_notices.jsp. Public notices published in newspapers statewide available at FloridaPublicNotices.com.
of the firm’s global litigation practice at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. The firm is one of many pitching their expertise in tabletops, a tool initially developed for the oil and gas industry to help compa-nies preparing response to environmen-tally threatening accidents.
Tabletops then transitioned to data breach planning, as well as a wider range of potential corporate crises. Morgan Lewis has assembled a team of crisis management lawyers with capa-bilities related to environmental litiga-tion, employment, cybersecurity, prod-ucts liability, and government and secu-rities enforcement.
There are two primary reasons that large firms seek to highlight their exper-tise through tabletops: Cultivating poten-tial future revenue sources and, perhaps more significantly, a chance to spend a day helping a few key executives think and imagine responding to worst-case corporate scenarios.
“It brings you in very close proxim-ity to the decision makers in a company and working with them collaborative-ly,” Cooney said. “From a relationship standpoint, that is incredibly important. Hopefully the clients we are working with won’t ever have to face these crises. But, if you have done the crises manage-ment planning, the work that will flow in
your direction in the event that there is a crisis is significant.”
Bolstering relationships within the C-suite and enhancing current client re-lations sometimes obviates the need for immediate compensation from partici-pating in tabletops.
“There’s a value in clients seeing how their lawyers think through poten-tial problems, how they interact with the organization. It helps lawyers who show some dexterity in these drills,” said Reginald Brown, who frequently takes part in tabletops as a member of the stra-tegic response group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, where he serves as chairman of the firm's financial institu-tions group and leader of its congressio-nal investigations practice. “It’s position-ing for actual scenarios. Sometimes you get paid and sometimes you don’t.”
It’s not as if lawyers don’t serve a pur-pose in the planning sessions.
“Lawyers are naturally the right people to lead these exercises because they can spot issues that may get overlooked, like insider trading risks during an undisclosed cyber event, and mandatory breach notifi-cation obligations, which are likely to affect the overall communications strategy,” said Davis Polk & Wardwell partner Avi Gesser, who handles cybersecurity issues.
State, federal and overseas govern-ments have recently signaled that they want companies to respond quickly in the event of a data breach and some regulators have even encouraged them
explicitly to engage in tabletop exer-cises, said Robert Braun, a Los Angeles-based partner at Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell, who has a cybersecurity prac-tice and has written about tabletop drills.
The European Union included in its General Data Protection Regulation, which became effective May 25, a re-quirement for notification within 72 hours after becoming aware of the breach. The New York Department of Financial Services and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners have both recently adopted 72-hour breach notification requirements.
“Companies are realizing more and more that they can’t sit on issues. The cover-up is worse than the crime, they have to move more quickly,” Braun said. “If you move quickly you have a bet-ter chance of controlling the narrative. They’ve realized this is a good tool and it’s not just for cybersecurity.”
With speed becoming more impor-tant to client service in the crisis com-munications arena, so are the drills.
“Clearly the marketplace is demand-ing answers more quickly,” said Morgan Lewis’ Cooney. “The great challenge is navigating the tension of the need for speed and the need for accuracy.”
He identifies two categories of poten-tial harm in a corporate crises—harm to others and harm to the company’s reputation. Reputational harm “can hap-pen very quickly if there isn’t advance thought,” Cooney said.
Morgan Lewis has labeled in its mar-keting materials a “crisis management team,” which includes partners who have advised companies facing crisis scenarios. But Cooney emphasized that “not one size fits all. Different companies have different issues.”
Sometimes, a highly publicized nega-tive event involves a single customer who was treated badly. Under those circum-stances, the cost of settling fast is minimal compared to the gain. But other times the potential claimants are much greater in number—such as in the event of a data breach. “You have to make sure that there is no further harm. And you have to be more careful about explaining what hap-pened and why it happened,” Cooney said.
For law firms, too much billboard-ing about their past experience helping clients with crisis management matters might cause problems, since few corpo-rate clients want widespread knowledge of a crisis they avoided or sidestepped becoming public.
“It’s a challenging space for market-ing,” said Wilmer’s Brown. “It requires a lot of sensitivity.”
The best advertising, he said, is “word of mouth from GCs and the C-suites,” or exactly the type of recommendations law-yers can get by being in close proximity with key executives during tabletop drills.
Miriam Rozen covers the business of law and focuses on how lawyers preserve and expand their client roster. Contact her at [email protected]. Twitter: @MiriamRozen.
with the state’s obligation of religious neutrality," Kennedy wrote. "The reason and motive for the baker’s refusal were based on his sincere religious beliefs and convictions."
During oral arguments in the case, Kennedy was visibly angry about the dis-paraging comments made by a commis-sioner when the state commission held its hearing on the discrimination charge.
Kennedy, who has authored key Supreme Court decisions favoring gay rights, stated in his opinion, “Our society has come to the recognition that gay per-sons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dig-nity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the ex-ercise of their civil rights.”
But he added, “At the same time, the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of ex-pression.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissent-ed, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Ginsburg said the commission’s actions “do not evidence hostility to religion of the kind we have previously held to sig-nal a free-exercise violation, nor do the comments by one or two members of one of the four decisionmaking entities considering this case justify reversing the judgment below.”
In 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins visited the Masterpiece bakery and asked its owner, Phillips, to create a cake for their wedding. Phillips declined, saying he did not make cakes for same-sex weddings because of his Christian beliefs and because same-sex marriage was not then legal in Colorado.
Craig and Mullins filed a com-plaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, alleging discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation. The state public accommodations law, simi-lar to laws in 22 states, prohibits any place of business engaged in sales to the public from discriminating on the basis of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sex-ual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry.
The commission and later the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the two men. The Colorado Supreme Court denied Masterpiece Cake's request for further review.
In the high court, Phillips, repre-sented by Kristen Waggoner of Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that ap-plying the state anti-discrimination law violated both his speech and re-ligious exercise rights under the First Amendment.
David Cole, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, argued on behalf of Craig and Mullins. Colorado Solicitor General Frederick Yarger argued for the state commis-sion. In a statement, Craig and Mullins said: “Today’s decision means our fight against discrimination and unfair treat-ment will continue. We have always be-lieved that in America, you should not be turned away from a business open to the public because of who you are."
Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the ACLU, said in a statement:
“The court reversed the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision based on concerns unique to the case but reaffirmed its long-
standing rule that states can prevent the harms of discrimination in the market-place, including against LGBT people.”
Phillips drew support from the Trump administration's Justice Department. In a friend-of-the-court brief, the U.S. Solicitor General's Office argued that the justices could decide the case on the speech claim alone.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement:
“We are pleased with today’s Supreme Court decision. The First Amendment prohibits governments from discriminat-ing against citizens on the basis of reli-gious beliefs. The Supreme Court rightly concluded that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission failed to show tolerance and respect for Mr. Phillips’ religious beliefs. In this case and others, the Department of Justice will continue to vigorously defend the free speech and religious freedom First Amendment rights of all Americans.”
During high court arguments in December, the justices seemed closely divided, with those on the left deeply skeptical of Phillips' speech claim and those on the right more sympathetic to his religion claim.
A number of justices raised con-cerns about where to draw the line as to which types of speech are protected. Justice Stephen Breyer said at the time, "We want some kind of distinction that won't undermine every civil rights law including African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, including everybody who has been discriminated against in very basic things of life, food, design of furni-ture, homes and buildings."
The intense interest in the case was reflected in the overflow crowd outside of the high court on argument day as well as by the outpouring of supporting briefs on each side. Fifty amicus briefs were filed in support of Phillips; 45 amic-us briefs supported the same-sex couple.
Marcia Coyle, based in Washington, cov-ers the U.S. Supreme Court. Contact her at [email protected]. On Twitter: @MarciaCoyle. Tony Mauro, based in Washington, covers the U.S. Supreme Court. Contact him at [email protected]. On Twitter: @Tonymauro
FROM PAGE A1
cake
FROM PAGE A1
tabletops
Thread the
needle.
Finding a consistently effective mediator is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Visit our panel of mediators at: agree2disagree.com
A2 dailybusinessreview.com TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
DAILY BUSINESS REVIEWDADE / BROWARD / PALM BEACH
TUESDAY - JUNE 5, 20181/16 PAGE - $519
AUCTIONJUNE 26 • POMPANO, FL
Subject to Prior Sale
AMERICAN WESTHANDBAGCOMPANY
$1MM INVENTORYLeather Bags, Wallets, More
$150,000+/- A/R • FF&EINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Names, URL’s, Phone Numbers, Trademarks, EtcBulk or Category Bids Accepted
BRING ALL OFFERS NOW
www.stamplerauctions.com954.921.8888
BUYER’S PREMIUM
A AB U1 29 96 5
BID LIVE ONSITE OR ONLINE
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
by Christine Sexton
Months after Gov. Rick Scott promised a hard line against nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, much of the industry is not in compliance with new rules as the state heads into the 2018 hurricane season.
Scott pushed to require that nursing homes and assisted living facilities have backup power systems to make sure that residents can remain cool for 96 hours in case buildings lose electricity.
The Agency for Health Care Administration this week released data showing that nearly 66 percent of nurs-ing homes in the state have complied with the new rules but that only 18 percent of assisted living facilities have done so.
Mallory McManus, a spokeswoman for AHCA, said the state expects full com-pliance with the rules, which required special approval from the Legislature because of the steep costs for businesses. The state will cite facilities that aren’t in compliance, which could lead to fines, she said.
“AHCA will stop at nothing to en-sure assisted living facilities and nurs-ing homes are following this important rule,” AHCA Secretary Justin Senior said in a statement. “We will hold all facilities accountable.”
But compliance doesn’t necessar-ily mean that facilities have equipment, such as generators, and fuel in place to meet the requirements, which call for be-ing able to keep buildings at 81 degrees Fahrenheit for 96 hours. That’s because nursing homes and assisted living facili-ties that requested six-month extensions
to meet the mandates also are consid-ered compliant, McManus said.
A review of the data shows that 102 nursing homes can meet the require-ments and that 348 facilities have asked the state for more time. There are 686 nursing homes in Florida.
The data is as of May 25, a week be-fore the requirements took effect Friday with the start of hurricane season.
Florida Health Care Association spokeswoman Kristen Knapp said nurs-ing homes that requested extensions could face challenges at the local level such as delays in zoning approvals.
“I don’t believe it’s fair to say that if a facility submitted a request for an ex-tension it doesn’t mean they won’t be ready,” she said in an email.
Likewise, 205 assisted living facili-ties have proper equipment to meet the mandates. Another 344 are deemed in compliance because they have approved extensions or have submitted exten-sions. Six requests for extensions have been denied.
Unlike nursing homes that will be able to offset the costs of equipment with Medicaid funding, there is no assistance for the 3,102 assisted living facilities in the state.
Skip Gregory, who served as Florida’s chief of health care facility plans and construction for 17 years, said the in-dustry is moving to comply with the new rules but that it takes time.
“It’s not as simple as snapping your fingers and saying. ‘Let there be air con-ditioning at all nursing home and ALFs,’ ” he said.
But Gregory said there still are “gray areas” regarding the rules and rattled
off a number of issues such as long-term storage of diesel fuel and the use of natu-ral gas for generators.
He also warned that allowing assisted living facilities to use gasoline generators to meet the requirements is a mistake.
He predicted that it would take 100 gallons of fuel to keep the generators powered for 96 hours and said owners of small ALFs would stockpile five-gallon gas tanks.
“I just don’t think that’s a good idea,” Gregory said. “That’s like a bomb wait-ing to go off.”
The rules are not what Scott ini-tially sought in 2017 after the deaths of residents at The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Broward County following Hurricane Irma. The hurricane knocked out the nursing home’s air-conditioning system, leav-ing residents in sweltering conditions for three days. Authorities have attrib-uted 12 deaths to the problems at the nursing home.
The Scott administration initially is-sued emergency rules that required facili-ties to have generators installed. But the emergency rules sparked successful legal challenges from some industry groups concerned about the potential costs. The state appealed the decision and contin-ued to enforce the rules but also worked with Republican legislative leaders on codifying a pair of permanent rules.
The new rules don’t require that the equipment be installed, which indicates it could be portable, and don’t mandate a generator be used to keep air tempera-tures cool. They instead suggest genera-tors but allow for each provider to deter-mine the most appropriate equipment to meet their facility needs.
Moreover, the new rules require facil-ities to be able to cool off a set amount of square feet based on the number of resi-dents. Nursing homes are required to cool at least 30 square feet per resident, and assisted living facilities are required to cool 20 net square feet per resident.
“By June 1, 2018, facilities must have access to an emergency power source such as a generator for use during a power outage, have arrangements to bring a power source onsite when an emergency is declared, or evacuate if the facility is in an evacuation zone,” AHCA said in a news release.
Justice for Aging attorney Eric Carlson supported Scott’s original rules but was more reserved in his support of the new ones, noting that the square footage re-quirements were “pretty tight.”
“They’ve been watered down,” he said.
Christine Sexton reports for the News Service of Florida.
by Jim Turner
Florida’s embattled top financial reg-ulator resigned amid pressure for his re-moval from state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis.
In a letter submitted late Thursday to Gov. Rick Scott and the state Cabinet, Office of Financial Regulation Commissioner Drew Breakspear said he would leave the post at the end of June “to ensure a smooth transition for the agency.”
“I am very grateful for the opportu-nity to serve the state of Florida, and I look forward to retirement,” Breakspear wrote.
Breakspear also defended his agency for its progress, accomplishments and “positive relationships with the financial services industry, stakeholders, and our state and federal counterparts.”
The future of the office is ex-pected to be discussed by Scott and the Cabinet — Patronis, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and Attorney General Pam Bondi — on June 13.
Taking a lighter tone than when he called to remove the regulator, Patronis said in a statement Friday he appreci-ated Breakspear’s years of service to the state and wished him “all the best in his future endeavors.”
“During his time as commissioner, he had an understanding of the financial
needs of Floridians, and it is my hope his years of service will help ensure a smooth transition for Florida consumers and stakeholders,” Patronis, who was appointed CFO last year by Scott, said in a prepared statement.
Patronis’ office had said he received numerous calls for a new top regula-tor from mortgage and security indus-try leaders who had clashed with the agency.
In announcing his push to remove Breakspear on May 3, Patronis pointed to a “lack of cooperation, responsiveness, and communication” from Breakspear’s office.
Earlier this week, Patronis spokes-woman Anna Alexopoulos Farrar out-lined a number of issues to support Breakspear’s potential removal, from poor decision-making and a failure to follow emerging trends and technology to “a lack of responsiveness to our office and others.”
One of the issues dealt with a sexual-harassment allegation involving employ-ees of the Office of Financial Regulation during an after-hours event. An agency deputy declined to take action on the allegation.
As Patronis went public, Scott and other members of the Cabinet de-ferred comment pending a Cabinet re-view, a stance that did not change after Breakspear’s resignation.
“The appropriate time to address this matter is during an open and public meeting of the governor and Cabinet,” Putnam spokeswoman Jennifer Meale said in an email Friday.
Patronis, who said he already had an interim replacement in mind, need-ed support from Scott and one other Cabinet member to make the leadership change.
Any replacement still faces the pros-pect of being replaced at the start of 2019, after a new governor takes office. Also, Bondi and Putnam are term-lim-ited this year from their Cabinet posts, and Patronis is running for re-election.
In his resignation letter, Breakspear bullet-pointed areas of accomplishments by his office, such as reducing the time to issue licenses from 22 days in 2012 to five days and assessing emerging issues such as cryptocurrencies, cybersecu-rity, marijuana and banking and Native American banking related to tribal sovereignty.
“The OFR was recently reappointed to a third consecutive term on (the U.S. Department of Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s) Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group,” Breakspear noted. “Consecutive ap-pointments are unusual, and this unique relationship is a result of FinCEN’s assessment that Florida is the best state with whom to work.”
A Naples resident with an MBA from Harvard, Breakspear has been in the $135,158-a-year position since 2012. A longtime executive in international banking and management consulting, he had been an executive vice president and general auditor at Boston-based State Street Corp. prior to taking the state job.
Patronis’ push was the second time Breakspear faced public pressure for his removal.
Scott went after Breakspear, along with a couple of other agency heads, in 2015. The effort was blocked by then-Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater as Cabinet members questioned the involve-ment of Scott’s office in the controversial exit of longtime Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey.
Atwater left the Cabinet for a job with Florida Atlantic University in June 2017. Scott replaced him with Patronis, a for-mer state legislator and longtime Scott political ally who had previously been appointed by the governor to the Public Service Commission.
Patronis is running for a full term this year and is expected to face a chal-lenge in the November election from Democrat Jeremy Ring, a former state senator from Broward County.
Jim Turner reports for the News Service of Florida.
J. Albert DiAz
The rules are not what Gov. Rick Scott initially sought in 2017 after the deaths of residents at The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Broward County following Hurricane Irma.
Many Nursing Homes, ALFs Don’t Meet Power Requirements
Patronis Pressure Leads to Regulator’s Exit
DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 dailybusinessreview.com A3
FlOriDA LAW REVIEW
CITY OF DORAL NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
All residents, property owners and other interested parties are hereby notified of a Local Planning Agency (LPA) meeting on Tuesday, June 19, 2018 beginning at 5:00 PM, to consider the following rezoning applica-tion. This meeting will be held at the City of Doral, Government Center, Council Chambers located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Florida, 33166. The proposed rezoning applies to the property shown on the map below.
The City of Doral proposes to adopt the following Resolution:RESOLUTION No. 18-
A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DORAL, FLORIDA, SIT-TING AS THE LOCAL PLANNING AGENCY, RECOMMENDING APPROVAL / DENIAL OF, OR GOING FORWARD WITHOUT A RECOMMENDATION FOR A REZONING FROM INDUSTRIAL COMMERCIAL (IC) TO DOWNTOWN MIXED USE (DMU) FOR A 1.95± ACRE PARCEL GENERALLY LOCATED AT 8484 NW 36 STREET, CITY OF DORAL, FLORIDA, AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE
HEARING NO.: 18-06-DOR-02APPLICANT: Stanley B. Price, Esq. PROJECT NAME: Doral Court Plaza PROJECT OWNERS: Doral Court Plaza, LLCLOCATION: 8484 NW 36th Street, Doral, Florida 33166 FOLIO NUMBERS: 35-3027-001-0241 SIZE OF PROPERTY: 1.95± Acres PRESENT LAND USE: Office/Residential (OR) PRESENT ZONING: Industrial Commercial (IC)REQUEST: The Applicant on behalf of Doral Court Plaza, LLC is requesting a rezoning from Industrial Commer-cial (IC) to Downtown Mixed Use (DMU) for the property located at 8484 NW 36th Street, Doral, Florida 33166.
LEGAL DESCRIPTION: The land referred to herein below is situated in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and is described as follows:
A portion of the West 847.72 feet of Tract 29 and 30, of Florida Fruit Land Company’s Subdivision No.1, in Section 27, Township 53 South, Range 40 East, as recorded in Plat Book 2, Page 17, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, being more particularly described as follows; Commerce at the Northwest corner of said Tract 30; thence North 89’58’53” East along the North line of said Tract 30 for a distance 609.88 feet; thence South 00’21’28” East for a distance of 55.00 feet to a point lying on the South right of way line of NW 36th Street and the Point of Be-ginning of the herein described parcel of land; thence North 89’58’53” East along said right of way for a distance of 239.71 feet; thence South 01’50’30” East for a distance of 297.24 feet; thence South 89’58’15” West for a distance of 247.41 feet; thence North 00’21’28” West for a distance of 297.14 feet to the Point of Beginning.
Containing 72,365 square feet or 1.661 acres more or less.
TOGETHER WITH
CASTER PARCEL:
A portion of the west 847.72 feet of Tracts 29 and 30, FLORIDA FRUIT LANDS COMPANY’S SUBDIVISION NO.1, in Section 27, Township 53 South, Range 40 East, according to the Plat thereof, as recorded in Plat Book 2 at Page 17, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, being more particularly described as follows:
Commence at the Northwest corner of said Tract 30; thence North 89’58’53” East along the North line of said Tract 30 for a distance of 609.88 feet; thence South 00’21’28” East for a distance of 55,000 feet to a point lying on the South right of way line of NW 36th Street (Doral Boulevard) and the Point of Beginning of the herein described parcel of land; thence continue South 00’21’28” East along the West line of the lands described in Partial Release of Unities of Title recorded in Official Records Book 22183, Page 4630, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, for a distance of 297.14 feet; thence South 89’58’15” West, along the Westerly prolongation of the South line of the lands described in said Partial Release of Unities of Title, for a distance of 42.00 feet; thence North 00’21’28” West for a distance of 297.15 feet; thence North 89’58’53” East, along the South right of way line of NW 36th Street (Doral Boulevard) for a distance of 42.00 feet to the Point of Beginning.
Containing 12,480 square feet or 0.29 acres or more or less.
Location Map
Information relating the subject application is on file and may be examined in the City of Doral, Planning and Zoning Department Located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, FL. 33166. All persons are invited to appear at this meeting or be represented by an agent, or to express their views in writing addressed to the City Clerk, 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Fl. 33166. Maps and other data pertaining to these applications are available for public inspection during normal business hours in City Hall. Any persons wishing to speak at a public hearing should register with the City Clerk prior to that item being heard. Inquiries regarding the item may be directed to the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL.
Pursuant to Section 286.0105, Florida Statutes If a person decides to appeal any decisions made by the City Council with respect to any matter considered at such meeting or hearing, they will need a record of the proceedings and, for such purpose, may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. This notice does not constitute consent by the City for introduction or admission of otherwise inadmissible or irrelevant evidence, nor does it authorize challenges or appeals not otherwise allowed by law. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, all persons who are disabled and who need special accommodations to participate in this meeting because of that disability should contact the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL no later than three (3) business days prior to the proceeding.
NOTE: If you are not able to communicate, or are not comfortable expressing yourself, in the English language, it is your responsibility to bring with you an English-speaking interpreter when conducting business at the City of Doral during the zoning application process up to, and including, appearance at a hearing. This person may be a friend, relative or someone else. A minor cannot serve as a valid interpreter. The City of Doral DOES NOT provide interpretation services during the zoning application process or during any quasi-judicial proceeding.
NOTA: Si usted no está en capacidad de comunicarse, o no se siente cómodo al expresarse en inglés, es de su responsabilidad traer un intérprete del idioma inglés cuando trate asuntos públicos o de negocios con la Ciu-dad de Doral durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación, incluyendo su comparecencia a una audiencia. Esta persona puede ser un amigo, familiar o alguien que le haga la traducción durante su comparecencia a la audiencia. Un menor de edad no puede ser intérprete. La Ciudad de Doral NO suministra servicio de traducción durante ningún procedimiento durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación.
Connie Diaz, CMC City ClerkCity of Doral 6/5 18-73/0000323393M
by Amanda Bronstad
An appeals court has upheld an in-junction freezing the assets of Stanley Chesley—once known as the “master of disaster” for his work in mass tort litigation—after concluding that the dis-barred Cincinnati plaintiffs attorney is likely to continue what it called a “high-stakes shell game.”
In the latest chapter of a saga that began two decades ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Thursday upheld a district judge’s in-junction freezing Chesley’s assets as part of a case brought by his former clients who are attempting to collect on a $42 million judgment from a Kentucky state court. The payments come from a $200 million settlement in 2001 over the diet drug cocktail fen-phen in which Chesley and several of his co-counsel were ac-cused of pocketing the funds. The for-mer clients brought a fraudulent con-veyances action in federal court against Chesley’s former firm and a Cincinnati attorney in charge of his assets.
The panel upheld the order even after the Ohio Supreme Court on Oct. 5 struck down an attempt to transfer Chesley’s assets to Ohio probate court—the target of the injunction—because it was part of a “misuse of the judicial process.”
Chesley has “offered us no reason to trust that he will discontinue his years-long scheme to avoid the $42 million judgment,” Sixth Circuit Senior Judge Richard Suhrheinrich wrote. “The cen-tral focus of that scheme has been to ship all of his money away to places safe from the plaintiffs’ reach but still within his control. If we were to lift the injunc-tion, he would be free to continue doing that, which raises the same concerns about his judgment creditors’ ability to recover what they are owed.”
Donald Rafferty of Cohen, Todd, Kite & Stanford in Cincinnati, an attor-ney for Chesley’s former firm, Waite, Schneider, Bayless & Chesley—which is no longer practicing and in wind-down mode—and Thomas Rehme, the Cincinnati attorney in charge of Chesley’s assets, did not respond to a request for comment.
Angela Ford of Ford Law PSC in Lexington, Kentucky, who represents Chesley’s former clients, said in an emailed statement: “The Sixth Circuit wrote with impressive clarity, and I’m hoping the speed with which the court acted will create a sense of urgency in the district court. After nearly 14 years, it’s about time for the machinations to end.”
Chesley was a prominent plaintiffs at-torney in the mass tort bar. In addition to fen-phen, he got a $200 million settle-ment in 1983 for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange; a $3.2 billion settlement with Dow Corning in 1998 for women claiming diseases caused by silicone breast implants; and a $2.7 bil-lion settlement in 2003 with the govern-ment of Libya for families of victims of Pan Am Flight 103, destroyed by a bomb over Scotland.
In the case over fen-phen—a combi-nation of the appetite-suppressing drugs fenfluramine and phentermine—his cli-ents, who were supposed to get about $134 million from the settlement, re-ceived $74 million instead, says the Sixth Circuit’s opinion. The rest went to their lawyers, including Chesley, who ended
up with about more than $20 million, ac-cording to his 2013 disbarment proceed-ing in Kentucky.
“The lawyers, at least for the time be-ing, made out like bandits,” according to the opinion.
But former clients suing over the missing funds won the $42 million judg-ment. And two of Chesley’s co-counsel, Shirley Cunningham Jr. and William Gallion, got prison sentences in 2009 of 20 and 25 years, respectively.
In 2013, the Kentucky Supreme Court disbarred Chesley, who subsequently retired from practicing law in Ohio. It was then that Chesley set up a “wind-up agreement” with Rehme as part of the dissolution of his law firm: “Ostensibly, the agreement’s purpose was to help wind up WSBC’s business en route to dissolving the firm,” the opinion says. “It also served as a vessel through which Chesley could move his assets.”
Before U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland of the Southern District of Ohio issued his injunction in the federal fraudulent conveyances suit, Rehme transferred the assets in 2016 to a new-ly formed trust, which moved them to a third party “for the purpose of instituting an assignment for the benefit of credi-tors action” in Ohio probate court.
In their appeal, Chesley’s former firm and Rehme argued that the trans-fers were for legitimate purposes, par-ticularly since Chesley could no lon-ger practice law, and that Cleland had violated the Anti-Injunction Act by is-suing his order against an Ohio state court. After the Ohio Supreme Court ruling, however, the Sixth Circuit asked both sides to provide supplemental briefs on its impact.
Chesley’s former firm and Rehme argued that the decision mooted the in-junction’s purpose, but the former clients said it only reaffirmed Cleland’s reasons for imposing the order in the first place.
The Sixth Circuit agreed with the plaintiffs, calling the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision “strong evidence of Chesley’s pattern of fraudulent behav-ior.” The panel also noted evidence that Rehme wrote Chesley $5.4 million worth of checks for things like personal legal bills and household expenses and that the timing of the asset transfer “bolsters the suspicion that it was an attempt to evade the plaintiffs.”
In a footnote, the panel noted other “red flags,” such as Chesley’s former firm selling 33 cars insured for more than $5 million to his wife, U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott of the Southern District of Ohio, for $543,000, then buying them back for the same price, and a $1 million check in 2014 to “Cory Kumler,” who turned out to be his wife. “These trans-actions are curious, as there appears to have been no exchange of economic benefit,” the footnote says.
Moreover, Chesley’s actions have gone on for two decades, according to the panel.
“There is a fundamental public inter-est in ending such abuse of the judicial system, in conserving judicial resources, and in preventing further confusion and disruption in this litigation,” the panel wrote.
Amanda Bronstad is the ALM staff re-porter covering class actions and mass torts nationwide. She writes the email dispatch Critical Mass. She is based in Los Angeles.
Court Acts to Freeze Assets of Chesley, Ex-’Master’ of Mass Torts
froM the CourtS
A4 dailybusinessreview.com TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
by Christine Simmons
Seeking to stem the exits of talented senior associates, New York-based Weil, Gotshal & Manges next year plans to shorten the length of its partner track, allowing associates to obtain a coveted partnership position after seven-and-a-half years.
Weil is cutting back its partner path by two years across all its offices, buck-ing the trend of a lengthening journey to partnership in Big Law. The firm is betting that the move will prompt more fourth- and fifth-year associates to stay at Weil, rather than jump to a com-petitor or an in-house career.
“The current generation of lawyers doesn’t want to wait nine or nine-and-a-half years” for a promotion decision, said executive partner Barry Wolf.
At the same time, Wolf is quick to rebut what may be on the minds of skeptics who see this as an “up or out” system—which he insists it is not. “It’s not designed to weed people out,” he said.
The firm informed associates about the changes Wednesday morning.
Currently Weil associates can be el-evated to partner or counsel after nine-and-a-half years. And once an attorney becomes counsel, he or she could remain there for an unlimited period of time.
Under the new system, associates will be promoted to partner or counsel after seven-and-a-half years. “We ex-pect substantially all of our associates who are here at seven-and-a-half years will be promoted to one or the other,” Wolf said. After a phase-in period of the new system, the firm will no lon-ger have any eighth- or nine-year as-sociates, except under unique lateral situations.
While the firm hasn’t yet set the new partners’ compensation scale, Wolf said he expects it to be at least $100,000 more than what attorneys were making as an eighth-year associate. A typical eighth-year associate in a large New York firm, with year-end bonuses, makes $400,000 or $425,000, he noted.
As before, associates promoted to partnership will first join the firm’s non-equity ranks, a group that doesn’t share in the firm’s profits. Weil refers to this group as fixed-income partners.
Others, after seven-and-a-half years, will be promoted to one of two catego-ries of counsel. One will be a niche coun-sel category in which an attorney can re-main for the rest of his or her career, re-served for specialty practices, Wolf said.
Other non-niche counsel will have a three-year term, and will be eligible to become partner after one, two or three years. If the counsel attorney doesn’t become partner at the end of the three-year period, Weil will transition them out of the firm, offering outplacement services, Wolf said.
Even in the counsel ranks, the at-torneys will make more than what they would have made as an eighth- and ninth-year associate, Wolf said. Weil will offer counsel in their second and third years a “stay bonus—the firm is con-sidering $50,000—to motivate them to remain.
“If they don’t become partner, they will have a title and more money to then go out and look for a job,” he said about those who don’t stay on at Weil.
As part of the change, the firm will tell associates at the end of their fifth year about their prospects for advance-ment. While Wolf acknowledges that some associates may leave at this point, he said that if they are already at their fifth year at Weil, most of them will be encouraged to stay at the firm through their seventh year.
The new career track will be imple-mented firmwide at the end of 2019, effective for Jan. 1, 2020, promotions. Next year, the firm will consider promot-ing associates who are in the seventh, eighth and ninth year.
After the initial ramp-up period, the firm expects to promote the same num-ber of associates each year to partner as it does now, while counsel promotions will likely increase, Wolf said. (Last year, the firm elevated 10 attorneys to partner and nine to counsel.)
Heading Off HeadHunterSWeil, like the rest of the industry, has
lengthened its partner track over the last couple of decades, including in 2010, when it became nine-and-a-half years.
At the same time, law firms are strug-gling to fill in the ranks of midlevel and senior associates. While the associate at-trition rate dropped slightly in 2016 to 16 percent, one industry report found that 81 percent of entry-level associates leave law firms within five years. The report pegs annual attrition costs for a 400-attorney firm to be $25 million, due to turnover, recruiting and replacement expenses.
Wolf said Weil’s attrition rate is simi-lar to others firms in New York. After four or five years, headhunters “prey upon the uncertainty” in an associate’s future and the length of time to make partner, Wolf said, with associates of-ten asked, “do you really want to spend the next five years doing this” without a promise of success.
Wolf said Weil’s new approach was heavily vetted within the firm, after the management committee formed a part-ner team in July 2017 to study how to improve associate retention and gath-ered input from associates. Firm part-ners unanimously approved the system on May 24.
Even though the firm may be pay-ing more attorneys a higher salary, “we don’t expect this to be a cost because we expect to retain significantly more senior-level associates, which will clearly improve leverage, increase revenue, de-crease the cost of hiring laterally,” Wolf said.
At the same time, he said he hopes and expects the new approach will help retention and advancement for all as-sociates, including diverse associates, while the firm will continue sponsoring, mentoring and other programs.
nOt ‘up Or Out’?Wolf said he doesn’t see the fifth or
seventh years as a new threshold for the firm to push some associates out sooner, and there is no change in the criterion and standards for associates to make partner. Just as before, the amount of time that new partners stay in the fixed-income ranks will vary by their perfor-mance, Wolf said.
“We believe this is in the long-term best interests of our law firm,” he said, noting the firm is making the change from a position of strength after record revenue and profit growth last year.
He acknowledged there would likely be skepticism in some corners. “People may initially think that all of a sudden, we’re going to the Chicago model,” he said, not naming any particular firms but pointing to firms with “up or out” systems.
Firms known to employ “up or out” systems include Kirkland & Ellis and other Midwestern-founded firms, said
David Barnard, a consultant to Am Law 100 firms as a founding partner of Blaqwell. In such systems, attorneys make nonequity partner after about seven years. and then, if they prove their business-generating potential within three to five years, they are promoted to equity partners, he said. If they don’t, they are out of the firm.
But countering concerns of Weil be-coming an up or out system for partners, Wolf stressed that under the existing and the new system, “We expect everyone that we make partner will retire as a partner.”
It’s possible some attorneys may also worry about a shorter tenure as a result of the change. “Lawyers are trained to find problems with anything,” Wolf said. “Will someone say, ‘Oh my god, instead of having nine-and-a-half years of as-sured employment, we only have seven-and-a-half years’?”
“That is something we have to drive home and make clear that’s not what’s intended here,” Wolf said, adding he anticipates most associates at the fifth year will be encouraged to stay, and most at the seventh year will be told they will have the partner or counsel title.
Blaqwell’s Barnard is one of the skep-tics. He questioned whether Weil couldn’t already retain their most talented asso-ciates—“they would find a way to retain [a superstar associate],” he said—and he has doubts whether the approach will actually improve overall associate retention.
Still, he said, the new system is “great for those people who become partner after seven years,” and it will help Weil continue to keep its super-star associates.
Christine Simmons writes about the new York legal community and the business of law. email her at [email protected] and find her on twitter @chlsimmons
Weil Gotshal/youtube
By trimming two years off of its partner track, Weil is betting that fewer fourth- and fifth-year associates will jump to a competitor or an in-house job.
Weil Gotshal Shortens Path to Partnership in Bid to Retain Associates
frOm tHe COurtS
DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 dailybusinessreview.com A5
in briefMiaMi attorney Carlos rodriguez Joins aMtrust title
MIami attorney Carlos M. Rodriguez has been named Florida agency manager by AmTrust Title Insurance Co.
Rodriguez has nearly two decades of title, commercial real estate, compliance and insurance experience.
In his new post, Rodriguez is responsible for developing, marketing and managing AmTrust Title’s Florida agency operations as well as identifying and advancing new business opportunities.
Before joining AmTrust Title, Rodriguez was in private practice focused on cor-porate regulatory compliance, contract negotiations, problem solving and gov-ernment relations.
He previously worked for First American Title Insurance Co., Fidelity National Title Insurance Co. and Greenberg Traurig and is chairman of the PGA Tour’s Latinoamerica Tour Championship.
AmTrust Title is a subsidiary of AmTrust Financial Services Inc., a Fortune 500 multinational insurer, offering specialty property and casualty insurance products.(Catherine Wilson)
by erin Mulvaney
A Walmart store in Washington dis-criminated against two deaf workers, keeping them from important work-place communication and denying ac-cess to translators or comprehensive note-taking for meetings, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, accused Walmart manage-ment of failing to accommodate two workers, Troy Miles and Tonya Bland, who communicate primarily through sign language. Miles and Bland worked at a Walmart Supercenter location in northwest Washington.
The lawsuit claimed Miles, who worked in the store from June 2014 to August 2017 as a sales associate and manager, was not given accommoda-tions to, among other things, participate in meetings, including daily meetings for department managers. The complaint alleged Miles requested access to sign language interpreting or comprehensive note-taking for certain meetings.
“The unlawful employment practices complained of herein were done with malice or with reckless indifference to the federally protected rights of Miles,” according to the lawsuit.
Walmart is represented by Littler Mendelson attorneys Dorothy Young and Randi Halbert. The attorneys were not reached for comment. A Walmart spokesman said in a statement: "We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. We take this seriously and will respond appropriately to the complaint."
Bland worked in the Washington store from September 2013 to August 2016 as an overnight stocker. She was not provided access to sign language or detailed written notes for meetings and trainings, including new employee ori-entation, daily group meetings and one-on-one meetings related to personnel matters, according to the lawsuit.
“Bland repeatedly made it known to management that, without accom-modations, she could not understand the information being presented. Accommodations requested by Bland that were denied to her included access to ASL interpreting and closed-caption-
ing for video presentations,” the EEOC's lawsuit claimed.
In addition to compensation for the workers, the EEOC is seeking an injunc-tion against Walmart against refusing to accommodate an individual with a disabil-ity and an order requiring the company to institute and carry out policies, practices and programs for equal employment op-portunities for individuals with disabilities.
The EEOC in September sued a Walmart store in Wisconsin for alleged discrimination against an employee who is deaf and visually impaired.
"Employers have a legal obligation un-der federal law to work with employees who need accommodations for disabili-ties," Gregory Gochanour, regional attor-ney for the EEOC's Chicago District, said in a statement then. "When companies shirk that obligation, the EEOC will fight to up-hold the rights of people with disabilities."
Walmart, represented by MWH Law Group, has denied the charges.
erin Mulvaney covers labor and em-ployment issues from the swamp to silicon Valley. she’s a texas native based in Washington, d.C. Contact her at [email protected]. on twitter: @erinmulvaney
error caused the injury, not a device defect.
Cavanaugh died during surgery in 2012. The case was first filed in federal court in 2014, then later refiled in state court. Attorneys for the family alleged Cavanaugh was killed by a surgical waste-removal device called the Stryker Neptune 2. The suc-tion unit was used during an operation to remove one of his
lungs because of cancer, ac-cording to the lawsuit. When his blood pressure dropped, the doctor reopened his chest to find acute bleeding with bright red blood in the right chest cavity where the lung had been removed, the suit claimed. Also, the heart was in the right chest cavity, when it belongs on the left, and “Mr. Cavanaugh could not be saved,” the complaint said.
The lawsuit also referenced incident reports to the Food and Drug Administration as early as August 2010 regard-
ing death resulting from the use of the Stryker Neptune 2 “where the chest tube of a patient was connected to the machine and resulted in death from intra-thoracic hemorrhage from high power suction postoperatively.”
Searcy Denney attorneys Jack Scarola and Darryl Lewis represented the Cavanaugh family.
"While we have great re-spect for the senior judge who presided over the trial, we are confident that mul-tiple erroneous legal rulings
will result in a new trial," Scarola said by email Friday evening. "Stryker will even-tually be held responsible for the consequence of its il-legal marketing of a seriously dangerous product that was involved in multiple serious injuries and deaths."
The case is Cavanaugh v. Stryker, in the Circuit Court of the 19th Judicial Circuit in St. Lucie County, Florida.
Katheryn Hayes tucker is an atlanta-based reporter covering legal news for the daily report and other alM publications.
EEOC Sues Walmart for Alleged Discrimination Against Two Deaf Employees
froM tHe Courts
FROM PAGE A1
STrykEr
that Sewon fired her in retaliation for her complaint, and we affirm in part because Jefferson failed to present sub-stantial evidence that Sewon fired her on the basis of race or national origin," Eleventh Circuit Judge William Pryor Jr. wrote in the court's opinion.
According to the opinion, Jefferson approached her supervisor, Gene Chung, about transferring to the IT de-partment at Sewon while she was in the probationary period of her new full-time finance clerk position and was tak-ing technology classes at a local college.
Chung gave her a basic computer proficiency test, on which she performed poorly, according to Pryor. Later Chung
informed Jefferson that she was ineligi-ble for the transfer because she was inex-perienced and because a higher-ranked manager “wanted a Korean in that posi-tion," according to Pryor's opinion.
At the same time, Jefferson was having issues with her managers, who claimed she was unproductive, re-turned from lunch late multiple times and did not silence her phone during work. According to Pryor, she received a negative performance review, and Sewon claimed Jefferson was fired as a result.
Jefferson received no written warn-ing or final warning before her dismissal, despite the fact that there was a policy in place requiring just that, Pryor said. Jefferson filed suit claiming discrimina-tion both in her denial of a transfer to the IT department and her firing.
The appeals court reversed the dis-trict judge's application of what it said was the wrong legal standard in dis-missing the denial of transfer claim, one that deals with circumstantial evidence when Jefferson presented direct evi-dence of discrimination.
However, Pryor said, "To be sure, at least some of the blame for this error lies with Jefferson because she repeat-edly described her evidence as circum-stantial, not as direct evidence of dis-crimination."
Jon M. Gumbel of Burr & Forman in Atlanta represents Sewon and did not re-spond to a request for comment. Nor did Jefferson's lawyer, Amanda A. Farahany of Barrett & Farahany in Atlanta.
reporter at the legal intelligencer cover-ing public corruption, federal courts, and breaking news.
FROM PAGE A1
jOb
A6 dailybusinessreview.com TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
Designations: Official Court Newspaper, by the chief judges of the County and Circuit courts in Miami-Dade and Broward and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida by local rule 5.2c.
120 Broadway, New York, NY 10005 • 212- 457-9400
President & CEO: Bill CarterPresident/Media: Jay KirschPresident/ALM Intelligence: Andrew NeblettChief Financial Officer/President of Events: Mark FriedChief Content Officer: Molly MillerChief Marketing Officer: Carol EversenChief Sales Officer/Paid Content: Allan MilloyChief Sales Officer/Marketing Solution: Matthew WeinerSenior Vice President/General Counsel: Dana RosenVice President/Human Resources: Erin Dziekan
Rodriguez
DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 dailybusinessreview.com A7
FOCUS LATIN AMERICATeam Studies Bones to Identify the Disappeared in Mexicoby Maria Verza
A pair of rubber-gloved hands carefully separates the red "Evidence" tape from a pa-per bag and empties the con-tents onto a table. Hundreds of burnt bone fragments spill out.
The fragments look like bits of volcanic pumice. Yet for the hands that gently smooth them out over the table top, each one bears a name and holds a piece of a story that nobody knows, but that someone, somewhere is desperate to hear.
The fragments laid out by investigators for the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team are among the remains of tens of thousands of people who have simply disappeared in Mexico's long and bloody drug war. These particular bones come from one of three isolated ranches in the city of Cuauhtemoc in the north-ern border state of Chihuahua, where bodies of victims were dissolved or burned in drums. Nearby stand boxes and bags of other evidence bearing the names of the places and condi-tions in which they were found, such as "Dolores Ranch" and "(Bone) Fragments stained with diesel."
As President Enrique Pena Nieto prepares to leave office later this year, another admin-istration has come and gone with little progress in solving one of Mexico's biggest prob-lems: the disappeared. Distrust of Mexican authorities runs deep, and many families see the Argentine experts as the only ones to offer any answers to suffering that has stretched on for a decade or more.
In January, Mexico passed a "very important" law that introduces good methods for conducting searches and classi-fying crimes, said Ariel Dulitzky, director of the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas
at Austin. But the law still needs funding and political will for en-forcement, and it will only work together with a crackdown on corruption, he said.
Meanwhile, the disap-pearances continue: 21,286 during this administration so far since Dec. 1, 2012.
Cuauhtemoc, a ru-ral hub that marks the entrance to the imposing Sierra Tarahumara moun-tains, has only 170,000 people, but is nicknamed "the capital of the disappeared" for its relatively high rate of abductions. The local state prosecutor's office has list-ed 676 disappearance cases in the region since 2008, and 395 are missing just within the city.
One of the largest cases is of the Munoz family, where eight people disappeared seven years ago.
The family doesn't gather much anymore at the old, tree-shaded railway workers' house on the outskirts of Cuauhtemoc. They were holding a Father's Day celebration there on June 21, 2011, when their world came crashing down.
In the afternoon, some strangers came around and threw out insults, according to family members. A fight broke out, and the family called police. Officers came but didn't do any-thing. One of the Munoz men took a radio from a patrol car and threw it out the window, sparking angry threats from the police, the family said.
A few hours later, a dozen pickup trucks with armed, uni-formed men wearing ski masks turned up at the house. The men burst into the home and said they were looking for the radio.
"We all ran," said Emma Veleta, the family matriarch, standing next to a banner with the photos of her husband, four sons, a grandson and a nephew who were taken away that day.
"Some went in one direction, some in another."
One of her sons held onto her and pleaded, "Mom, don't let them take me!" But it was useless. The women were tossed to the floor.
"It was here that they grabbed them out of my hands," Veleta said. "I never saw them again, I just heard their shouts."
They took eight men in all. The authorities have made little progress since in finding out what happened.
"They have forgotten us," said Albino Cruz, whose son Oscar disappeared that day. "We are going to die this way."
Cruz and his wife, Maribel Munoz, still live in the house, and sadness hangs over the whole family like a disease. Their 3-year-old daughter shows a photo of the last col-lateral victim of the disappear-ances: the Cruz's other son, who hanged himself in despair.
Disappearances in Mexico are rarely solved because cor-ruption complicates investiga-tions and encourages impu-nity. And resources are scarce. Experts say Mexico's levels of
violence are similar to those found in war zones, but its fo-rensics capacity is that of a na-tion at peace.
The federal government says it is working on laws and help-ing states to improve technical methods of dealing with disap-pearances. It hopes to eventual-ly draw up a national database of the missing that can be cross-referenced with thousands of unidentified bodies.
Seven years after the Munoz disappearances, the only thing the family has found is a belt buckle that could have belonged to Toribio Munoz, Veleta's 61-year-old husband. A child recognized it among the thou-sands of charred fragments be-ing analyzed by the Argentines. Local prosecutors wanted to close the case, but the family is still waiting for evidence, and the Argentine investigators are looking for a DNA match, or at least for some answers.
"Nothing has been proven," said Luisa Munoz, Toribio's sister and the mother of Luis Romo, then 21, who disap-peared that day.
The family thinks the police were involved in the disap-pearances and that explains the state government's failure to act. Assistant state prosecu-tor Jesus Manuel Carrasco said the officers who were there that day have since left the force.
"We cannot dismiss the pos-sibility that they directly partici-pated, but there is no evidence for it," he said.
Disappearances in Mexico really started to take off in 2006, when President Felipe Calderon launched an offen-sive against the drug cartels. Victims' families were afraid to report the crimes, and authori-ties looked the other way and sometimes even directly coop-erated, said Dulitzky.
A veil of silence fell over much of Mexico, including Cuauhtémoc.
The otherwise unremark-able city was valued for its routes into the mountains, a prime drug-growing area, and the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels started fighting over it. The city's businesses and its location, just 140 miles from the U.S. border, made it all the more attractive to export drug proceeds.
The city was "a perfect laun-dering machine," said Carrasco.
Both cartels infiltrated every level of the city through money and threats. People didn't ap-pear dead on the streets, they simply disappeared. The lack of a corpse made the possibility of prosecution — always unlike-ly — almost nonexistent.
The families that did file crime reports were ignored, or harassed. Some decided to leave.
Cartels are still fighting over Cuauhtemoc and people are still disappearing. But a fed-eral law since January allows authorities to prosecute crimes even without a corpse.
Maria Verza reports for the Associated Press.
MarCO Ugarte/aSSOCiated preSS
Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team experts carefully spread out burned fragments at a lab in Cuauhtemoc, Mexico.
• Litigation and Trial Support • Financial Services • Office Space for Lease and SaleRESOURCE GUIDE LEARN HOW TO BE FEATURED IN THE RESOURCE GUIDE Call 800.777.7300, ext. 6647
LEARN HOW TO BE FEATUREDIN THE
RESOURCEGUIDE
Call
800.777.7300, ext. 6647
OFFICE/RETAIL SPACEOFFICE/RETAIL SPACEOFFICE/RETAIL SPACE
A8 dailybusinessreview.com TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
Commentary byTodd R. Friedman
The cryptocurrency market capitaliza-tion peaked in January at $835 billion
and then promptly lost nearly half of its value by the following month. After $400 billion vanished, law-suits quickly filled the void, including two class ac-tions filed in the Southern District of Florida.These cases present the Southern District of Florida with an
opportunity to serve as the first federal court to publish decisions on digital cur-rency issues, including whether these cur-rencies are securities, commodities, or an altogether new class of assets.
Centra teChThe first cryptocurrency-related class
action filed in the Southern District of Florida alleges that Miami Beach's Centra Tech violated federal securi-ties law by selling unregistered securi-ties. The class claims that Centra Tech raised over $30 million by hosting an ICO (initial coin offering) of CTR tokens. According to Centra Tech, CTR tokens enable its holders to access and navigate Centra Tech’s product line. The product line boasts a variety of audacious digi-tal currency financial products under development, none of which would be more revolutionary than a prepaid card purportedly capable of holding any ma-jor digital currency (i.e., Bitcoin, Ether, Ripple, etc.), transacting on any exist-ing payment card network (like Visa or MasterCard), and exchanging digital for fiat currency in real time.
The class seeks a determination that CTR tokens are securities, entitling the class to certain rights and privileges un-der federal securities law. However, it is unlikely that the court will weigh in on that issue for quite some time. Centra Tech has moved to compel arbitration, and separately, it argues that the class representative lacks standing because he did not suffer a monetary loss.
In arguing that arbitration should be compelled, Centra Tech claims the class representative signed an agreement con-taining an arbitration clause and a class-action waiver provision. Centra Tech contends that the "main way" customers, including the class representative, pur-chased CTR tokens was by registering on Centra Tech's website. To register, us-ers necessarily clicked through a series of online pages and links, including digitally signing an agreement containing an arbitration and class-action waiver provision. Centra Tech points to its possession of the class representative's personal information as proof of his par-ticipation in the registration process.
In response, the class representa-tive counters that he did not register on Centra Tech's website. Rather, he claims he purchased his tokens from a "smart contract" address. Smart contracts are automated, self-executing protocols that control the transfer of digital assets in accordance with specified conditions (analogous to a vending machine). Digital currencies are platforms on which de-velopers build and host smart contracts. In practice, this means the class repre-sentative would not have to visit Centra Tech’s website to purchase CTR tokens.
Instead, he could purchase CTR tokens by sending Ether (ETH) from his digital wallet to a smart contract address on Ethereum’s blockchain and avoid visit-ing Centra Tech’s website altogether.
Resolution of this arbitration issue will require an examination of the facts, and might provide an opportunity for the court to discuss smart contracts.
The class representative's standing is also at issue. Centra Tech argues that the class representative did not suffer a loss. The class representative purchased ap-proximately 8,000 CTR tokens valued at $0.42 per token. He then sold those to-kens three months later at $0.50 per to-ken, apparently reaping a profit of nearly 20 percent. However, the class representa-tive counters that he suffered a loss of 2.38 Ether (ETH) or nearly $2,000. He says he purchased his 8,000 CTR tokens with 16.1
ETH and then sold them three months later, re-ceiving 13.72 ETH in re-turn. (ETH rose in value by more than 30 percent during that timeframe,
hence the smaller payout.) In other words, if the class representative had never pur-chased these unregistered securities and merely held onto his ETH, he claims would have 2.38 ETH more in his pocket. This is-sue presents an opportunity to render an early decision on the proper mechanism for measuring damages when assessing these volatile currencies.
Utility tokensUltimately, if the class representa-
tive overcomes these initial obstacles, the ultimate question is whether CTR tokens are securities under the Howey test. Under the Howey test, a security is an investment of money in a common enterprise with an expectation of prof-its predominantly from the efforts of others. Centra Tech is positioning itself toward arguing that CTR tokens are not securities because they are "utility to-kens." In other words, Centra Tech will argue along the lines that CTR tokens are assets with functional utility beyond serving as, for example, digital stock cer-tificates. Centra Tech has yet to describe the CTR token's functional utility in de-tail, but any judicial decision on this ar-gument will garner intense scrutiny by all interested parties for guidance. For an idea of what constitutes a utility, two contrasting examples are useful.
Codex ProtoColCodex Protocol is developing the
Codex Title token that could serve as a strong example of a pure utility token. Codex Protocol aims to build a digital, decentralized title registry to track own-ership of art and collectibles. To track art and collectibles on this digital registry, owners of artwork or collectible will ac-quire discrete, nonfungible Codex Title tokens. Each token will correspond to discrete, non-fungible artwork or collect-ibles. In other words, each Codex Title token serves as a digital record of title and ownership, like a certificate of title or bill of sale. Thereafter, anytime own-ers sell their art or collectible, they will also transfer their Codex Title token to the purchaser. Using Codex Title tokens, anyone can verify an items ownership and provenance on a public, immutable ledger to better ascertain an item’s au-thenticity. Altogether, Codex Title tokens
exemplify utility tokens because they serve the functional purpose of register-ing ownership, recording provenance, and facilitating the exchange of property.
MUnCheeAs distinct from the Codex Title token,
Munchee's token—the MUN Token—presents an example of a token that will likely not be deemed a utility to-ken. Toward the end of 2017, the SEC ordered Munchee to cease and desist from hosting an ICO to publicly sell MUN Tokens. Munchee represented that MUN Tokens would serve as utility tokens on its decentralized application (com-monly known as a DApp). Munchee de-veloped a restaurant-review DApp (like Yelp), which required the use of MUN tokens to access and navigate. Under its model, MUN token holders would draft restaurant reviews and upload content on Munchee’s DApp. Munchee would reward reviewers with MUN tokens. In return, MUN Ttoken holders would then pay for meals at participating res-taurants with MUN tokens or exchange them for a share of Munchee’s advertis-ing revenues.
The SEC concluded that profits from MUN tokens would primarily come from the entrepreneurial and managerial ef-forts of Munchee “and its agents” because Munchee would “revise the Munchee app, create the ‘ecosystem’ that would increase the value of MUN,” “and support secondary markets.” (In contrast, Codex Protocol is "open source" meaning that anyone can modify its code, somewhat like the way anyone can modify content on Wikipedia.) Consequently, the SEC argued, “Investors had little choice but to rely on Munchee and its expertise. At the time of the offering and sale of MUN tokens, no other person could make changes to the Munchee app or was working to create an ‘ecosystem’ to cre-ate demand for MUN tokens.” The SEC also pointed to the sale of MUN Tokens on secondary markets as evidence of in-vestors expecting profits.
ConClUsionAlthough the cryptocurrency market
lost an eye-popping $400 billion in val-ue over the past month, it still boasts a $435 billion valuation. It has continued to persevere and gain mainstream adop-tion, notwithstanding a corresponding increase in skepticism. Indeed, the SEC, the Chinese Communist Party and the South Korean Financial Supervisory Service have both encouraged regulated development of blockchain technology, central banks in England and Saudi Arabia have announced experimenta-tion with digital currency projects, and even Venezuela launched a national cryptocurrency supposedly backed by oil and other commodities. It is only a mat-ter of time until the Southern District of Florida will play a pivotal role in contrib-uting to this rapidly developing space.
Todd Friedman, an associate at Kenny Nachwalter, focuses his practice on business litigation. He has second-chaired several trials in Florida’s state and federal courts and first-chaired an appeal before a Florida appellate court. In addition to his trial and appellate experiences, Todd also has par-ticipated in several arbitrations, mediations, settlement conferences, hearings and other court proceedings.
Southern District of Fla. Primed to Be First to Tackle Digital Currency Issues
Friedman
BOARD OFCONTRIBUTORS
We o�er preselected and customizable bundles with cutting-edge contentfrom industry leaders.
Bundles can be exclusive to an individual attorney or packaged for a legal team.
Use promo code ALM20
Take 20% o� your choice of CLE for a limited time.
YOU STRIVE FOR PERFECTION.
SO DO WE.
Trusted. A�ordable. Instant.
pRaCTICe FoCus / alTeRNaTIve DIspuTe ResoluTIoN
DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 dailybusinessreview.com A9
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
SOUTH FLORIDA TRAnSAcTIOnS
These reports are based on public records filed with the clerks of courts. Building area is cited in gross square footage, the total area of a property as computed for assessment purposes by the county appraiser.
DEAL OF THE DAY
Tamarac Property Sells for $1.6 MillionAddress: 7850 N. University Drive in TamaracProperty type: This is a 4,925-square-foot building with a designated use for professional services, which includes medical offices.Price: $1,575,000Seller: HC-7850 N University Drive LLCBuyer: H & R Tamarac LLCPast sale: $2,562,400 in March 2015
gOOgLE
by Dan clark
In 2016, 7-Eleven had over 10,000 properties in the U.S. and Canada and a small team of real estate attorneys to handle its real estate portfolio. With its real-estate portfolio expanding, senior counsel Kristen Cook re-alized that there needed to be a change, which led to a collabo-ration with Seyfarth Shaw that allowed for uniformity in how real estate for the convenience store chain is handled across the country.
That collaboration was what placed them among the 2018 Value Champions by the Association of Corporate Counsel.
“I think the real issue was that we have a growth initia-tive from our parent company at 7-Eleven so we were want-ing to meet the demands of the company as well as realizing that we work a lot with outside counsel and wanting to make sure that we were appropri-ately allocating our internal re-sources as well,” Cook said.
7-Eleven then sent out re-quest for proposals to outside law firms hoping to find a way to reduce spend and bring uni-formity to the way their real estate transactions and legal issues were handled. 7-Eleven decided to have Seyfarth Shaw serve as the exclusive outside counsel for their real
estate portfolio. Ultimately, Seyfarth and 7-Eleven put to-gether a value-based sourcing system and created a hybrid “insourced/outsourced model.” Seyfarth also used its technol-ogy, SeyfarthLink, to create a website dedicated to streamlin-ing real estate communication between the legal department and its real estate professionals.
“A lot of firms will just give standard discounts; they’ll cut their fees by 10 percent or 25
percent or whatever number. What we wanted to do was im-prove the efficiencies, the tech-nology that 7-Eleven uses and come up with a systematic ap-proach to do better deals that would naturally reduce, be-cause of the efficiencies, the le-gal fees,” Seyfarth partner Eric Greenberg said.
Greenberg said it was also the goal of Seyfarth to put sys-tems into play that would cre-ate uniformity in the way the
real estate portfolio is handled across the country.
“I think Seyfarth brought a new and innovative way to do that large body of work,” Cook said.
In addition to handling a large share of the real estate portfolio, Seyfarth created a hub that exclusively works on title and survey review for 7-Eleven.
“What we found was that there was a certain body of work that 7-Eleven needed to do on a large-scale basis that applied to a lot deals that didn’t necessarily need to be done at one office or another so what we did is put together a bunch of paralegals, staff at-torneys and case assistants in our Atlanta office, which is a lower cost center," Greenberg said. "So [it's] still sophisticat-ed, great quality work, but at a lower cost for 7-Eleven and it’s also a one-stop-shop. So for all of their needs for this particu-lar type of work, they have one place that they can go to and have a dedicated team they can refer to and use on a daily basis. It’s just created a much more streamlined process."
The collaboration between Seyfarth and the convenience store chain has proven to be fruitful. Since its implementa-tion 7-Eleven has reduced its spend on outside counsel by 19 percent. Outside counsel fees for
the development of new stores are down by 13 percent. Now, 80 percent of all real estate dis-putes are resolved in-house be-cause 7-Eleven was able to hire an attorney dedicated to real estate disputes.
“She can take disputes, han-dle about 80 percent of them in-house and that dramatically reduces our outside litigation fees in two ways. One because we’re not hiring outside coun-sel and two because we were able to resolve things without them going to a lawsuit,” Cook explained.
To be named a value cham-pion by the ACC, the process put in place must be replicable. Greenberg said that if someone were to make a similar effort in transforming a portfolio it is im-portant to have as many people in the room as possible.
“A lot of times you need to get your in-house counsel and outside counsel in the room to-gether; you also need the busi-ness people,” Greenberg said.
He said when putting the program in place attorneys from 7-Eleven and Seyfarth were joined by 7-Eleven’s real estate team to make sure they were all on the same page.
“Their input was needed. Its communication and collabo-ration,” Greenberg said. “And without opening the doors you’re not going to have the most efficient process in place.”
7-Eleven decided to have Seyfarth Shaw serve as the exclusive outside counsel for their real estate portfolio.
7-Eleven, Seyfarth Shaw Collaborate to Streamline Real Estate Portfolio
CITY OF DORALNOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
All residents, property owners and other interested parties are hereby notified of a Council Zoning Hearing meeting on Tuesday, June 19, 2018 beginning at 6:00 PM, to consider the following rezoning application. The City Council will consider this item for FIRST READING. This meeting will be held at the City of Doral, Govern-ment Center, Council Chambers located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Florida, 33166. The proposed rezoning applies to the property shown on the map below.
The City of Doral proposes to adopt the following Ordinance:
ORDINANCE No. 2018-11
AN ORDINANCE OF THE MAYOR AND THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DORAL, FLORIDA, APPROVING/ DENYING A REZONING FROM INDUSTRIAL COMMERCIAL (IC) TO DOWNTOWN MIXED USE (DMU) FOR A 1.95± ACRE PARCEL GENERALLY LOCATED AT 8484 NW 36 STREET, CITY OF DORAL, FLORIDA, AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE
HEARING NO.: 18-06-DOR-05APPLICANT: Stanley B. Price, Esq. PROJECT NAME: Doral Court Plaza PROJECT OWNERS: Doral Court Plaza, LLCLOCATION: 8484 NW 36th Street, Doral, Florida 33166 FOLIO NUMBERS: 35-3027-001-0241 SIZE OF PROPERTY: 1.95± Acres PRESENT LAND USE: Office/Residential (OR) PRESENT ZONING: Industrial Commercial (IC)REQUEST: The Applicant on behalf of Doral Court Plaza, LLC is requesting a rezoning from Industrial Commer-cial (IC) to Downtown Mixed Use (DMU) for the property located at 8484 NW 36th Street, Doral, Florida 33166. LEGAL DESCRIPTION: The land referred to herein below is situated in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and is described as follows:
A portion of the West 847.72 feet of Tract 29 and 30, of Florida Fruit Land Company’s Subdivision No.1, in Section 27, Township 53 South, Range 40 East, as recorded in Plat Book 2, Page 17, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, being more particularly described as follows; Commerce at the Northwest corner of said Tract 30; thence North 89’58’53” East along the North line of said Tract 30 for a distance 609.88 feet; thence South 00’21’28” East for a distance of 55.00 feet to a point lying on the South right of way line of NW 36th Street and the Point of Beginning of the herein described parcel of land; thence North 89’58’53” East along said right of way for a distance of 239.71 feet; thence South 01’50’30” East for a distance of 297.24 feet; thence South 89’58’15” West for a distance of 247.41 feet; thence North 00’21’28” West for a distance of 297.14 feet to the Point of Beginning.
Containing 72,365 square feet or 1.661 acres more or less.
TOGETHER WITH
CASTER PARCEL:
A portion of the west 847.72 feet of Tracts 29 and 30, FLORIDA FRUIT LANDS COMPANY’S SUBDIVISION NO.1, in Section 27, Township 53 South, Range 40 East, according to the Plat thereof, as recorded in Plat Book 2 at Page 17, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, being more particularly described as follows:
Commence at the Northwest corner of said Tract 30; thence North 89’58’53” East along the North line of said Tract 30 for a distance of 609.88 feet; thence South 00’21’28” East for a distance of 55,000 feet to a point ly-ing on the South right of way line of NW 36th Street (Doral Boulevard) and the Point of Beginning of the herein described parcel of land; thence continue South 00’21’28” East along the West line of the lands described in Partial Release of Unities of Title recorded in Official Records Book 22183, Page 4630, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, for a distance of 297.14 feet; thence South 89’58’15” West, along the Westerly prolongation of the South line of the lands described in said Partial Release of Unities of Title, for a distance of 42.00 feet; thence North 00’21’28” West for a distance of 297.15 feet; thence North 89’58’53” East, along the South right of way line of NW 36th Street (Doral Boulevard) for a distance of 42.00 feet to the Point of Beginning.
Containing 12,480 square feet or 0.29 acres or more or less.
Location Map
Information relating the subject application is on file and may be examined in the City of Doral, Planning and Zoning Department Located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, FL. 33166. All persons are invited to appear at this meeting or be represented by an agent, or to express their views in writing addressed to the City Clerk, 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Fl. 33166. Maps and other data pertaining to these applications are available for public inspection during normal business hours in City Hall. Any persons wishing to speak at a public hearing should register with the City Clerk prior to that item being heard. Inquiries regarding the item may be directed to the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL.
Pursuant to Section 286.0105, Florida Statutes If a person decides to appeal any decisions made by the City Council with respect to any matter considered at such meeting or hearing, they will need a record of the proceedings and, for such purpose, may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. This notice does not constitute consent by the City for introduction or admission of otherwise inadmissible or irrelevant evidence, nor does it authorize challenges or appeals not otherwise allowed by law. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, all persons who are disabled and who need special accommodations to participate in this meeting because of that disability should contact the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL no later than three (3) business days prior to the proceeding.
NOTE: If you are not able to communicate, or are not comfortable expressing yourself, in the English lan-guage, it is your responsibility to bring with you an English-speaking interpreter when conducting business at the City of Doral during the zoning application process up to, and including, appearance at a hearing. This person may be a friend, relative or someone else. A minor cannot serve as a valid interpreter. The City of Doral DOES NOT provide interpretation services during the zoning application process or during any quasi-judicial proceeding.
NOTA: Si usted no está en capacidad de comunicarse, o no se siente cómodo al expresarse en inglés, es de su responsabilidad traer un intérprete del idioma inglés cuando trate asuntos públicos o de negocios con la Ciudad de Doral durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación, incluyendo su comparecencia a una audiencia. Esta persona puede ser un amigo, familiar o alguien que le haga la traducción durante su comparecencia a la audiencia. Un menor de edad no puede ser intérprete. La Ciudad de Doral NO suminis-tra servicio de traducción durante ningún procedimiento durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación.
Connie Diaz, CMC City ClerkCity of Doral 6/5 18-77/0000323394M
by Yakob Peterseil
George Soros says the euro area is in “existential danger” — and the world’s biggest banks are flogging a flurry of products to parlay his warning into tan-talizing returns.
Investors spooked by the record sell-off in Italian government bonds can pounce on structured securities to short the single currency or place more-mod-est bets that the economic recovery is on thin ice. And it can often be done for as little as a few dollars apiece.
The “euro project is coming under pressure because of declining global liquidity and weaker reflation,” strat-egists at Macquarie Group Ltd. led by Viktor Shvets wrote in a note. “The ECB will be tested yet again."
Here are some structured products for bearish wagers.
GearinG UpGunning to short European stocks?
There are a slew of leveraged certificates that offer traders the opportunity to bet wildly or merely hedge underlying stock exposures. The products resemble the boom in geared exchange-traded funds in the U.S., and there’s typically noth-ing backing them except for the credit of the issuer. Oh, and the leverage can reach eye-watering levels, as much as 18-times for notes listed in Stockholm.
On Monday, for example, more than $9.4 million worth of notes from Societe Generale SA have been traded that pro-vide seven times the daily performance of Italy’s benchmark FTSE MIB.
Equity-linked structured securities can offer stellar returns. A seven-times inverse product tied to Italian shares soared 76 percent on June 24, 2016, a day after the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, as stocks in peripheral nations tumbled the most in the world.
Bank BearPessimistic about Italian lenders
stuck in the continent’s second-most in-debted country? Zurich-based Leonteq AG is selling notes to local investors that could yield a double-digit coupon and their money back as long as the share prices of a trio of large Italian banks don’t rise by more than a third over the next 18 months.
Still aching to short? The U.S. dollar-denominated version of the so-called in-verse multi-barrier reverse convertibles pay a coupon of 11.6 percent a year and redeem at par as long as none of the shares rises by more than 30 percent over that time.
DicinG With DeBtWorried that European companies
will take the biggest hit in the next cri-sis? It’s lucky that debt investors are spoiled for choice to position for the prospect. Among institutional inves-tors and wealthy individuals, notes tied to indexes of credit default swaps have exploded in popularity in recent years, with derivatives on the index often more liquid than underlying bonds.
In one current deal, Nomura is selling $1.5 million of notes tied to the iTraxx Europe Index of investment-grade cor-porate bonds from the region, which pay a coupon equal to 5.34 percentage points more than three-month Libor.
Money managers in index-linked notes are effectively selling protection against the bonds in the index, with the coupon derived by the premium paid by the protection buyer. To cushion them-selves should the credit cycle abruptly turn, a popular variation has investors buying so-called tranche notes, which allow for a set number of defaults among index members before holders suffer losses.
Forex FienDAnd what of the euro? Products that
bet on the common currency’s trajec-tory are known as FX reverse convert-ibles. A typical note might have a con-version strike price set below the spot level: if the exchange rate never dips below that, investors get a coupon and their money back. If it does, the product is redeemed in the weaker currency.
The notes are phenomenally popular in Switzerland, where traders bought $25.6 billion worth in the first quarter alone.
So while European assets appear to have shrugged off existential fears for now, there’s no shortage of exotic secu-rities for those bearish on the world’s largest trading bloc.
Yakob Peterseil reports for Bloomberg News.
Jasper Juinen/bloomberg news
George Soros says the euro area is in “existential danger” — and the world’s biggest banks are flogging a flurry of products to parlay his warning into tantalizing returns.
Think Soros Is Right? Traders Chase 76 Percent Returns Shorting Europe
BANKING/ FINANCE
A10 dailybusinessreview.com TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 dailybusinessreview.com A11
CITY OF DORAL NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
All residents, property owners and other interested parties are hereby notified of a Local Planning Agency (LPA) meeting on Tuesday, June 19, 2018 beginning at 5:00 PM, to consider the following Small-Scale Devel-opment Amendment to the City’s Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Map. This meeting will be held at the City of Doral, Government Center, Council Chambers located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Florida, 33166. The proposed future land use amendment applies to the property shown on the map below.
The City of Doral proposes to adopt the following Resolution:RESOLUTION No. 18-
A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DORAL, FLORIDA, SITTING AS THE LOCAL PLANNING AGENCY, RECOMMENDING APPROVAL / DENIAL OF, OR GOING FORWARD WITHOUT A RECOMMENDATION FOR A SMALL-SCALE DEVELOPMENT AMENDMENT TO THE CITY’S COMPREHENSIVE PLAN FUTURE LAND USE MAP FROM OFFICE/RESIDENTIAL (OR) TO DOWNTOWN MIXED USE (DMU) FOR A 1.95± ACRE PARCEL LOCATED AT 8484 NW 36 STREET, CITY OF DORAL, FLORIDA, AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE
HEARING NO.: 18-06-DOR-01APPLICANT: Stanley B. Price, Esq. PROJECT NAME: Doral Court Plaza PROJECT OWNERS: Doral Court Plaza, LLCLOCATION: 8484 NW 36th Street, Doral, Florida 33166 FOLIO NUMBERS: 35-3027-001-0241 SIZE OF PROPERTY: 1.95± Acres PRESENT LAND USE: Office/Residential (OR) PRESENT ZONING: Industrial Commercial (IC)REQUEST: The Applicant on behalf of Doral Court Plaza, LLC is requesting a Small-Scale Development Amendment to the City’s Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Map from Office/Residential (OR) to Downtown Mixed Use (DMU) for the property located at 8484 NW 36th Street, Doral, Florida 33166. LEGAL DESCRIPTION: The land referred to herein below is situated in Miami-Dade County. Florida, and is described as follows:
A portion of the West 847.72 feet of Tract 29 and 30, of Florida Fruit Land Company’s Subdivision No.1, in Section 27, Township 53 South, Range 40 East, as recorded in Plat Book 2, Page 17, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, being more particularly described as follows; Commerce at the Northwest corner of said Tract 30; thence North 89’58’53” East along the North line of said Tract 30 for a distance 609.88 feet; thence South 00’21’28” East for a distance of 55.00 feet to a point lying on the South right of way line of NW 36th Street and the Point of Beginning of the herein described parcel of land; thence North 89’58’53” East along said right of way for a distance of 239.71 feet; thence South 01’50’30” East for a distance of 297.24 feet; thence South 89’58’15” West for a distance of 247.41 feet; thence North 00’21’28” West for a distance of 297.14 feet to the Point of Beginning.
Containing 72,365 square feet or 1.661 acres more or less.
TOGETHER WITH
CASTER PARCEL:
A portion of the west 847.72 feet of Tracts 29 and 30, FLORIDA FRUIT LANDS COMPANY’S SUBDIVISION NO.1, in Section 27, Township 53 South, Range 40 East, according to the Plat thereof, as recorded in Plat Book 2 at Page 17, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, being more particularly described as follows:
Commence at the Northwest corner of said Tract 30; thence North 89’58’53” East along the North line of said Tract 30 for a distance of 609.88 feet; thence South 00’21’28” East for a distance of 55,000 feet to a point ly-ing on the South right of way line of NW 36th Street (Doral Boulevard) and the Point of Beginning of the herein described parcel of land; thence continue South 00’21’28” East along the West line of the lands described in Partial Release of Unities of Title recorded in Official Records Book 22183, Page 4630, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, for a distance of 297.14 feet; thence South 89’58’15” West, along the Westerly prolongation of the South line of the lands described in said Partial Release of Unities of Title, for a distance of 42.00 feet; thence North 00’21’28” West for a distance of 297.15 feet; thence North 89’58’53” East, along the South right of way line of NW 36th Street (Doral Boulevard) for a distance of 42.00 feet to the Point of Beginning.
Containing 12,480 square feet or 0.29 acres or more or less.
Location Map
Information relating the subject application is on file and may be examined in the City of Doral, Planning and Zoning Department Located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, FL. 33166. All persons are invited to appear at this meeting or be represented by an agent, or to express their views in writing addressed to the City Clerk, 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Fl. 33166. Maps and other data pertaining to these applications are available for public inspection during normal business hours in City Hall. Any persons wishing to speak at a public hearing should register with the City Clerk prior to that item being heard. Inquiries regarding the item may be directed to the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL.
Pursuant to Section 286.0105, Florida Statutes If a person decides to appeal any decisions made by the City Council with respect to any matter considered at such meeting or hearing, they will need a record of the proceedings and, for such purpose, may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. This notice does not constitute consent by the City for introduction or admission of otherwise inadmissible or irrelevant evidence, nor does it authorize challenges or appeals not otherwise allowed by law. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, all persons who are disabled and who need special accommodations to participate in this meeting because of that disability should contact the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL no later than three (3) business days prior to the proceeding.
NOTE: If you are not able to communicate, or are not comfortable expressing yourself, in the English language, it is your responsibility to bring with you an English-speaking interpreter when conducting business at the City of Doral during the zoning application process up to, and including, appearance at a hearing. This person may be a friend, relative or someone else. A minor cannot serve as a valid interpreter. The City of Doral DOES NOT provide interpretation services during the zoning application process or during any quasi-judicial proceeding.
NOTA: Si usted no está en capacidad de comunicarse, o no se siente cómodo al expresarse en inglés, es de su responsabilidad traer un intérprete del idioma inglés cuando trate asuntos públicos o de negocios con la Ciu-dad de Doral durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación, incluyendo su comparecencia a una audiencia. Esta persona puede ser un amigo, familiar o alguien que le haga la traducción durante su comparecencia a la audiencia. Un menor de edad no puede ser intérprete. La Ciudad de Doral NO suministra servicio de traducción durante ningún procedimiento durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación.
Connie Diaz, CMC City ClerkCity of Doral 6/5 18-74/0000323428M
by Rod McGuirk
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation's largest bank, said on Monday it has agreed to pay a $531 million fine for failing to comply with measures to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing.
The bank negotiated the fine with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center, the govern-ment's financial intelligence agency better known as AUSTRAC, to resolve a civil Federal Court case that began in August. The agreement is subject to court approval.
The bank has also agreed to pay AUSTRAC's AU$2.5 million legal costs.
The bank admitted that it was late in reporting more than 53,500 suspicious transactions exceeding AU$10,000 be-tween 2012 and 2015. Each offense was punishable by a fine of up to AU$21 million.
The bank blamed a single software error in its deposit-taking automated teller machines and argued those vio-lations should be treated as one rather than as a series of individual offenses.
The suspicious transactions were conducted by people connected to the international drug trade and the bank suspected some transactions may have been associated with terrorism financing.
Matt Comyn, who became the bank's chief executive officer in April, said in a statement that court approval of the agreement would bring certainty to one of the most significant issues the bank has faced.
"While not deliberate, we fully ap-preciate the seriousness of the mistakes
we made. Our agreement today is a clear acknowledgement of our failures and is an important step toward mov-ing the bank forward. On behalf of Commonwealth Bank, I apologize to the community for letting them down," Comyn said.
The statement added that it would work closely with AUSTRAC on a con-structive approach to combating finan-cial crime and protecting the integrity of the financial system.
The bank's share price rose more than 2 percent to AU$70.20 after the fine was announced.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index climbed 0.6 percent at 6,026.1 points, within the first hour of trade, while the broader All Ordinaries index rose 0.5 percent to 6,137.1 points.
The government welcomed the agreement.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the bank's disregard for its obliga-tions allowed criminals to exploit its sys-tems and put the Australian community at risk.
Treasurer Scott Morrison said that the Australian public expected the fi-nancial sector to better protect itself from exploitation by criminals and individuals associated with terrorist groups.
"Complying with the law is non-negotiable, especially when it comes to our largest financial institutions that Australians rely on for their homes and businesses and the government is se-rious about enforcing any breaches," Morrison said.
Rod McGuirk reports for the Associated Press.
by Mari Yamaguchi
Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso has taken a voluntary one-year salary cut after 20 officials were penalized for tampering with documents related to a government property sale linked to the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife.
The Finance Ministry has acknowl-edged tampering with hundreds of pages of documents related to the 2016 land sale to a school where Akie Abe once held an honorary position.
Aso apologized Monday over the tampering by lower level officials and resulting damage to public trust, but said Akie Abe was not directly involved.
"I would like to do my best to fulfill my duty as the finance minister," Aso said. "I am not thinking about resigning."
Aso is reportedly returning only 1.7 million yen ($15,600) of his annual sal-ary as Cabinet minister, but not giving up his income as lawmaker.
The scandal relates to the sale of government land to a right-wing school operator, Moritomo Gakuen group in Osaka, at one-seventh of its appraised price. There are allegations Akie Abe's influence might have enabled Moritomo to get favorable treatment for a planned
new private elementary school, which in the end failed.
Abe has denied any wrongdoing by him or his wife. The tampering with the documents, including removing references to his wife, took place in February-April 2017. The fiddling was done to ensure the documents matched explanations by top finance officials to parliament during questioning about the scandal, Aso said.
The case was also investigated by Osaka prosecutors, though they recently dropped the case, citing lack of evidence to prove criminal acts in the tampering.
Scandals have caused Abe's support ratings to fall as low as the mid-30 per-cent range. But so far there is no indica-tion they might force him from office.
Opposition lawmakers criticized the ministry probe for failing to clear doubts over a systematic ministry cover-up of Akie's alleged involvement in the land deal and demanded Aso's resignation.
Nobuhisa Sagawa, who headed a Finance Ministry department in charge of state property deals at the time, stepped down in March over the docu-ment tampering.
Mari Yamaguchi reports for the Associated Press.
Australia's Largest Bank to Pay $531 Million Compliance Fine
Japan Finance Minister Takes Pay Cut, Officials Punished
BANKING/ FINANCE
A12 dailybusinessreview.com TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
CITY OF DORALNOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
All residents, property owners and other interested parties are hereby notified of a Local Planning Agency (LPA) meeting on Tuesday, June 19, 2018, beginning at 5:00 PM, to consider the Capital Improvement Element Annual Update (2018) of the City’s Comprehensive Plan. This meeting will be held at the City of Doral, Government Center, Council Chambers located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, FL. 33166.
The City Council sitting as the Local Planning Agency will consider the following:
RESOLUTION No. 18-
A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DORAL, FLORIDA, SITTING AS THE LOCAL PLANNING AGENCY, RECOMMENDING APPROVAL / DENIAL OF, OR GOING FORWARD WITHOUT A RECOMMENDATION FOR THE ADOPTION OF THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS ELEMENT ANNUAL UPDATE (2018) OF THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN CONSISTENT WITH CHAPTER 163, PART II OF THE FLORIDA STATUTES; PROVIDING FOR TRANSMITTAL OF THE 5-YEAR SCHEDULE OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS TO THE STATE LAND PLANNING AGENCY IN THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY; PROVIDING FOR SEVERABILITY; AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE
HEARING NO.: 18-06-DOR-03APPLICANT: City of Doral REQUEST: To adopt the Capital Improvements Element Annual Update (2018) of the Comprehensive Plan and authorize transmittal of the 5-Year Schedule of Capital Improvements to the State Land Planning Agency in the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO).
Information relating to this request is on file and may be examined in the City of Doral, Planning and Zoning Department located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Fl. 33166. All persons are invited to appear at this meeting or be represented by an agent, or to express their views in writing addressed to the City Clerk, 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Fl. 33166. Maps and other data pertaining to these applications are available for public inspection during normal business hours in City Hall. Any persons wishing to speak at a public hearing should register with the City Clerk prior to that item being heard. Inquiries regarding the item may be directed to the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL.
Pursuant to Section 286.0105, Florida Statutes if a person decides to appeal any decisions made by the City Council with respect to any matter considered at such meeting or hearing, they will need a record of the proceedings and, for such purpose, may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. This notice does not constitute consent by the City for introduction or admission of otherwise inadmissible or irrelevant evidence, nor does it authorize challenges or appeals not otherwise allowed by law. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, all persons who are disabled and who need special accommodations to participate in this meeting because of that disability should contact the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL no later than three (3) business days prior to the proceeding.
NOTE: If you are not able to communicate, or are not comfortable expressing yourself, in the English language, it is your responsibility to bring with you an English-speaking interpreter when conducting business at the City of Doral during the zoning application process up to, and including, appearance at a hearing. This person may be a friend, relative or someone else. A minor cannot serve as a valid interpreter. The City of Doral DOES NOT provide translation services during the zoning application process or during any quasi-judicial proceeding.
NOTA: Si usted no está en capacidad de comunicarse, o no se siente cómodo al expresarse en inglés, es de su responsabilidad traer un intérprete del idioma inglés cuando trate asuntos públicos o de negocios con la Ciudad de Doral durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación, incluyendo su comparecencia a una audiencia. Esta persona puede ser un amigo, familiar o alguien que le haga la traducción durante su comparecencia a la audiencia. Un menor de edad no puede ser intérprete. La Ciudad de Doral NO suministra servicio de traducción durante ningún procedimiento o durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación.
Connie Diaz, CMC City ClerkCity of Doral
6/5 18-72/0000323445M
by Jane Wollman Rusoff
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is better prepared to act when financial fraud is suspected than it was 20 years ago, when SEC exam-iners warned that financier R. Allen Stanford could be running a massive Ponzi scheme but were powerless to get the enforcement division to investi-gate him, says former SEC policymaker Norm Champ, in an interview. By 2009, Stanford had defrauded 30,000 inves-tors out of $7 billion.
Champ writes about that and his 2010-2015 stint at the SEC in “Going Public: My Adventures Inside the SEC and How to Prevent the Next Devastating Crisis” (McGraw-Hill Education 2017). The attorney, 55, worked at the agency in the years following the global melt-down as it tried to stabilize the U.S. fi-nancial system.
The hedge fund industry and secu-rities lawyer, 55, is now a partner and member of the investment funds group of Kirkland & Ellis. In 2010, he was hired by then-Chair Mary Schapiro as part of her effort to better oversee the markets by staffing the SEC with people who had actually worked in financial services.
During the crisis, the Commission had been widely criticized as failing in its watchdog responsibility. At the agency, Champ recommended and es-tablished policy changes that were de-signed to protect investors.
He argues in the interview that if na-tional policies and procedures similar to those he put in place had already been in effect, Stanford — and likely Bernie Madoff — could never have committed devastating fraud.
Champ joined the SEC in Washington as deputy director of the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, and was later appointed director of the Division of Investment Management, having started as associate regional director of examinations in the SEC’s New York regional office.
Under his leadership, the Commission adopted new rules to reform money market mutual funds as well as other policy changes in the investment man-agement division.
In the interview, he discusses how the SEC’s former lax procedures al-lowed Stanford — who was indicted in June 2009, almost to the day that Madoff was charged — to perpetrate his ruinous scheme.
ThinkAdvisor recently spoke with Champ, on the phone from his New York City office. In our conversation, he opined on what he calls the worst part of the Dodd-Frank Act and how he expects it to be changed. Here are excerpts:
THINKADVISOR: R. Allen Stanford’s Ponzi scheme defrauded 30,000 inves-tors out of $7 billion. He was arrested in 2009 and three years later sentenced to 110 years in prison. An SEC BD ex-aminer group had spotted his “possible fraud” in 1997, but they couldn’t get SEC Enforcement to “take the case,” you write. Pretty shocking.
NORM CHAMP: The examiners re-alized that something was wrong. But they were unable to interest the Enforcement division in it. One of the main things we wanted to get done was to make sure that examiners were empowered to see that that didn’t hap-pen again. So we put in place policies and procedures that said: If you think there’s fraud, you need to escalate that up the chain. You can’t just think, “Oh, Enforcement will take it.”
Is the SEC in better shape now to deal with another financial crisis?
We know that the next crisis will come from some unexpected direction, as they always do. So I don’t think the SEC is going to head off the next crisis, but I do think they’re better equipped with information. They’re doing more with the data they have and have a much better capacity to process it. If something goes wrong, they have a better chance of understanding it and starting to move on it.
It’s surprising that the SEC, such an important organization, had few formal policies and procedures in the examiner and investment management divisions at the time you joined.
The financial crisis gave us the moment to focus and get something in place that, hopefully, will help avoid another situation like those of 2008. For example, Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford caused incredible harm to people — in many cases their life savings were stolen. So it was important to have [policies] because those frauds left individuals terribly harmed.
When you started at the SEC, what was your biggest obstacle?
Before the crisis, the SEC had one of the great reputations of any regulator ever — very well respected and presid-ing over the world’s best capital mar-kets. So when there’s a massive failure by a long-term successful organization, people inside it don’t believe it’s a re-sult of how they were doing things. [The SEC] believed that the five biggest bro-ker-dealers they regulated that went out of business, were taken over by banks or that became banks were isolated in-cidents that didn’t have anything to do with how the Commission was doing things.
What challenge did that pose for you?When there’s a lot of success and
then a failure, people don’t say, “Maybe we should do things differently.” In fact, they mostly want to just hang onto what they’re doing. So the biggest issue [was] making people understand that maybe those events were related to how they did things.
What approach did you take to make them understand?
Talked to everyone in the exam divi-sion, got their input and developed with them measures to make change. The biggest thing is that change is hard.
Jane Wollman Rusoff reports for ThinkAdvisor.
Norm Champ Says SEC Should Get an A-Minus
BANKING/ FINANCE
DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 dailybusinessreview.com A13
CITY OF DORAL NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
All residents, property owners and other interested parties are hereby notified of a Council Zoning Hearing on Tuesday, June 19, 2018 beginning at 6:00 PM, to consider the following Small-Scale Development Amendment to the City’s Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Map. The City Council will consider this item for FIRST READING. This meeting will be held at the City of Doral, Government Center, Council Chambers located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Florida, 33166. The proposed future land use amendment applies to the property shown on the map below.
The City of Doral proposes to adopt the following Ordinance:ORDINANCE No. 2018-10
AN ORDINANCE OF THE MAYOR AND THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DORAL, FLORIDA, APPROVING/ DENYING A SMALL-SCALE DEVELOPMENT AMENDMENT TO THE CITY’S COMPREHENSIVE PLAN FUTURE LAND USE MAP FROM OFFICE/RESIDENTIAL (OR) TO DOWNTOWN MIXED USE (DMU) FOR A 1.95± ACRE PARCEL GENERALLY LOCATED AT 8484 NW 36 STREET, CITY OF DORAL, FLORIDA, AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE
HEARING NO.: 18-06-DOR-04APPLICANT: Stanley B. Price, Esq. PROJECT NAME: Doral Court Plaza PROJECT OWNERS: Doral Court Plaza, LLCLOCATION: 8484 NW 36th Street, Doral, Florida 33166 FOLIO NUMBERS: 35-3027-001-0241 SIZE OF PROPERTY: 1.95± Acres PRESENT LAND USE: Office/Residential (OR) PRESENT ZONING: Industrial Commercial (IC)REQUEST: The Applicant on behalf of Doral Court Plaza, LLC is requesting a Small-Scale Development Amendment to the City’s Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Map from Office/Residential (OR) to Downtown Mixed Use (DMU) for the property located at 8484 NW 36th Street, Doral, Florida 33166.
LEGAL DESCRIPTION: The land referred to herein below is situated in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and is described as follows:
A portion of the West 847.72 feet of Tract 29 and 30, of Florida Fruit Land Company’s Subdivision No.1, in Section 27, Township 53 South, Range 40 East, as recorded in Plat Book 2, Page 17, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, being more particularly described as follows; Commerce at the Northwest corner of said Tract 30; thence North 89’58’53” East along the North line of said Tract 30 for a distance 609.88 feet; thence South 00’21’28” East for a distance of 55.00 feet to a point lying on the South right of way line of NW 36th Street and the Point of Beginning of the herein described parcel of land; thence North 89’58’53” East along said right of way for a distance of 239.71 feet; thence South 01’50’30” East for a distance of 297.24 feet; thence South 89’58’15” West for a distance of 247.41 feet; thence North 00’21’28” West for a distance of 297.14 feet to the Point of Beginning.Containing 72,365 square feet or 1.661 acres more or less.TOGETHER WITHCASTER PARCEL:A portion of the west 847.72 feet of Tracts 29 and 30, FLORIDA FRUIT LANDS COMPANY’S SUBDIVISION NO.1, in Section 27, Township 53 South, Range 40 East, according to the Plat thereof, as recorded in Plat Book 2 at Page 17, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, being more particularly described as follows:Commence at the Northwest corner of said Tract 30; thence North 89’58’53” East along the North line of said Tract 30 for a distance of 609.88 feet; thence South 00’21’28” East for a distance of 55,000 feet to a point lying on the South right of way line of NW 36th Street (Doral Boulevard) and the Point of Beginning of the herein described parcel of land; thence continue South 00’21’28” East along the West line of the lands described in Partial Release of Unities of Title recorded in Official Records Book 22183, Page 4630, of the Public Records of Miami-Dade County, Florida, for a distance of 297.14 feet; thence South 89’58’15” West, along the Westerly prolongation of the South line of the lands described in said Partial Release of Unities of Title, for a distance of 42.00 feet; thence North 00’21’28” West for a distance of 297.15 feet; thence North 89’58’53” East, along the South right of way line of NW 36th Street (Doral Boulevard) for a distance of 42.00 feet to the Point of Beginning.Containing 12,480 square feet or 0.29 acres or more or less.
Location Map
Information relating the subject application is on file and may be examined in the City of Doral, Planning and Zoning Department Located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, FL. 33166. All persons are invited to appear at this meeting or be represented by an agent, or to express their views in writing addressed to the City Clerk, 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Fl. 33166. Maps and other data pertaining to these applications are available for public inspection during normal business hours in City Hall. Any persons wishing to speak at a public hearing should register with the City Clerk prior to that item being heard. Inquiries regarding the item may be directed to the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL.
Pursuant to Section 286.0105, Florida Statutes If a person decides to appeal any decisions made by the City Council with respect to any matter considered at such meeting or hearing, they will need a record of the proceedings and, for such purpose, may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. This notice does not constitute consent by the City for introduction or admission of otherwise inadmissible or irrelevant evidence, nor does it authorize challenges or appeals not otherwise allowed by law. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, all persons who are disabled and who need special accommodations to participate in this meeting because of that disability should contact the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL no later than three (3) business days prior to the proceeding.
NOTE: If you are not able to communicate, or are not comfortable expressing yourself, in the English language, it is your responsibility to bring with you an English-speaking interpreter when conducting business at the City of Doral during the zoning application process up to, and including, appearance at a hearing. This person may be a friend, relative or someone else. A minor cannot serve as a valid interpreter. The City of Doral DOES NOT provide interpretation services during the zoning application process or during any quasi-judicial proceeding.
NOTA: Si usted no está en capacidad de comunicarse, o no se siente cómodo al expresarse en inglés, es de su responsabilidad traer un intérprete del idioma inglés cuando trate asuntos públicos o de negocios con la Ciudad de Doral durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación, incluyendo su comparecencia a una audiencia. Esta persona puede ser un amigo, familiar o alguien que le haga la traducción durante su comparecencia a la audiencia. Un menor de edad no puede ser intérprete. La Ciudad de Doral NO suministra servicio de traducción durante ningún procedimiento durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación.
Connie Diaz, CMC City ClerkCity of Doral
6/5 18-76/0000323447M
by Emma Ockerman and Scott Deveau
New allegations of questionable behavior by Athenahealth Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Bush are emerging as the health technology ex-ecutive attempts to fend off a takeover proposal from an activist investor.
In the past week, Bush has apolo-gized for assaulting his ex-wife, and public records have surfaced alleging that he subjected a female employee to what she described as a “sexually hos-tile environment.”
Now more examples of potentially inappropriate behavior by Bush have emerged.
A 2017 video clip seen by Bloomberg of Bush at a health-care industry event features the CEO dressed up as a race car driver, pretending to be the title char-acter from the 2006 comedy “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” and at times reading from a cue card.
Midway through the skit, he says he wants to “jump down on’’ one of his fe-male employees “and do inappropriate things.” He then briefly pauses. “Uh, but obviously that’s totally inappropriate and would never happen or be said on a microphone.” The exact context of the remarks isn’t clear.
The company is facing a take-over attempt by the hedge fund Elliott Management Corp., which has cited Athenahealth’s poor management as one reason for its underperformance. The company, which makes an online platform doctors use to manage their practices, so far hasn’t bowed to Elliott’s proposal to buy it for $160 a share.
Athenahealth’s annual meet-ing of shareholders is scheduled for Wednesday, and the allegations from Bush’s past may present a challenge for the 49-year-old CEO, co-founder of the company and nephew of former President George H.W. Bush.
2007 ComplaintBloomberg also obtained a 2007 com-
plaint filed by a female Athenahealth employee with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, a state body that investigates discrimina-tion complaints.
The woman, who according to the complaint worked as a manager for Athenahealth, alleged that she was wrongly terminated and was told she was “destructive to the team,” despite be-ing given positive performance reviews. In the complaint, she said Bush “engaged in highly inappropriate conduct regard-ing a female employee at an awards ban-quet in or around early 2005.”
Attempts to reach the woman who filed the complaint were unsuccessful, and the complaint was withdrawn with a note saying that the woman intended to refile it in civil court. It wasn’t imme-diately clear if she did so.
In a statement responding to video and the 2007 allegation, the company said that “the Athenahealth board takes these matters seriously and is commit-ted to taking appropriate steps to serve the best interests of the company and its stakeholders.”
The company declined to make Bush available for an interview or provide a
comment from him, and a voicemail left for him on a cellphone was unreturned.
Complex CharaCterIn interviews, multiple current and
former employees at Athenahealth, all on the condition of anonymity, painted a complex picture of Bush, some calling him fun to be around, others saying his actions weren’t always appropriate, in their view, for a CEO of an about $6 bil-lion public company.
Bush also faced a complaint in 2009, by another woman who said she was mistreated and left the company in part because of the “sexually hostile environ-ment which I was forced to work in.”
The former employee alleged in a complaint to the Massachusetts commis-sion that Bush had stared at her breasts, made sexual remarks and talked openly about his sex life in a way that made her uncomfortable. The complaint was first reported by the New York Post.
The 2009 case was settled, and the employee, who spoke to Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity, called Bush a good person and leader, and said she regretted filing the complaint.
Athenahealth said its decision to settle a claim doesn’t necessarily speak to its credibility or merit. The company also pointed to its updated harassment and discrimination policies, its women’s leadership forum and efforts to promote diversity.
The past allegations against Bush come amid a cascade of women alleging sexual harassment, assault and inappropriate behavior by powerful men. Bush’s broth-er, the entertainment figure Billy Bush, left NBC in October 2016 after he appeared in the leaked 2005 “Access Hollywood” video of President Donald Trump making lewd comments about women.
abuse allegationsBush has also faced allegations of
physical abuse of his former spouse.In court records from a 2006 custo-
dy battle in Massachusetts, his ex-wife Sarah Seldon alleged that Bush punched her in the sternum, and pushed her on other occasions more than a decade ago.
The assault occurred at their home “while she was holding their one-year-old son in her arms," according to the court documents.
Athenahealth said it wasn’t aware of the domestic-violence allegations until May 25, when it was approached by the U.K.’s Daily Mail, which first reported the allegations. Bush issued an apol-ogy for his actions, saying he had taken “complete responsibility for all these regrettable incidents involving my dear former wife.”
Seldon issued a separate statement saying the “incident did happen, and is part of his and our family history, how-ever it should not define Jonathan as a person, or our relationship overall.” Bush emphasized that the attack had occurred 14 years ago “during a partic-ularly difficult personal time in my life when I was going through a divorce.”
After the abuse reports, Athenahealth said Bush has “made amends with his ex-wife and has shown deep remorse."
Emma Ockerman and Scott Deveau re-port for Bloomberg News.
Athenahealth CEO Bush Faces New Allegations as Video Emerges
BANKING/ FINANCE
A14 dailybusinessreview.com TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
CITY OF DORAL NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
All residents, property owners and other interested parties are hereby notified of a City Council Zoning Hearing on Tuesday, June 19, 2018, beginning at 6:00 PM, to consider adoption of the Capital Improvement Element Annual Update (2018) of the City’s Comprehensive Plan. The City Council will consider this item for FIRST READING. This meeting will be held at the City of Doral, Government Center, Council Chambers located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, FL. 33166.
The City of Doral proposes to adopt the following:
ORDINANCE No. 2018-12
AN ORDINANCE OF THE MAYOR AND THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DORAL, FLORIDA, ADOPTING THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS ELEMENT ANNUAL UPDATE (2018) OF THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN CONSISTENT WITH CHAPTER 163, PART II OF THE FLORIDA STATUTES; PROVIDING FOR TRANSMITTAL OF THE 5-YEAR SCHEDULE OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS TO THE STATE LAND PLANNING AGENCY IN THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY; PROVIDING FOR SEVERABILITY; AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE
HEARING NO.: 18-06-DOR-06APPLICANT: City of Doral REQUEST: To adopt the Capital Improvements Element Annual Update (2018) of the Comprehensive Plan and to authorize transmittal of the 5-Year Schedule of Capital Improvements to the State Land Planning Agency in the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO).
Information relating to this request is on file and may be examined in the City of Doral, Planning and Zoning Department located at 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Fl. 33166. All persons are invited to appear at this meeting or be represented by an agent, or to express their views in writing addressed to the City Clerk, 8401 NW 53rd Terrace, Doral, Fl. 33166. Maps and other data pertaining to these applications are available for public inspection during normal business hours in City Hall. Any persons wishing to speak at a public hearing should register with the City Clerk prior to that item being heard. Inquiries regarding the item may be directed to the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL.
Pursuant to Section 286.0105, Florida Statutes if a person decides to appeal any decisions made by the City Council with respect to any matter considered at such meeting or hearing, they will need a record of the proceedings and, for such purpose, may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. This notice does not constitute consent by the City for introduction or admission of otherwise inadmissible or irrelevant evidence, nor does it authorize challenges or appeals not otherwise allowed by law. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, all persons who are disabled and who need special accommodations to participate in this meeting because of that disability should contact the Planning and Zoning Department at 305-59-DORAL no later than three (3) business days prior to the proceeding.
NOTE: If you are not able to communicate, or are not comfortable expressing yourself, in the English language, it is your responsibility to bring with you an English-speaking interpreter when conducting business at the City of Doral during the zoning application process up to, and including, appearance at a hearing. This person may be a friend, relative or someone else. A minor cannot serve as a valid interpreter. The City of Doral DOES NOT provide translation services during the zoning application process or during any quasi-judicial proceeding.
NOTA: Si usted no está en capacidad de comunicarse, o no se siente cómodo al expresarse en inglés, es de su responsabilidad traer un intérprete del idioma inglés cuando trate asuntos públicos o de negocios con la Ciudad de Doral durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación, incluyendo su comparecencia a una audiencia. Esta persona puede ser un amigo, familiar o alguien que le haga la traducción durante su comparecencia a la audiencia. Un menor de edad no puede ser intérprete. La Ciudad de Doral NO suministra servicio de traducción durante ningún procedimiento o durante el proceso de solicitudes de zonificación.
Connie Diaz, CMC City ClerkCity of Doral
6/5 18-75/0000323452M
BANKING/ FINANCE
by Sarah Frier
Facebook Inc. is disputing a New York Times report about how it shares data with device makers from Apple and Amazon to Samsung. They’re privy to Facebook users’ information but it’s nothing like the access that led to the Cambridge Analytica controversy, the social network said.
The New York Times reported Facebook had struck deals with device manufacturers that allowed them full ac-cess to information on users and their friends. But the U.S. company contends those pacts were intended to help de-vice makers create their own versions of Facebook apps, and the data mostly re-mained on phones that accessed it. That kind of arrangement was necessary be-fore phone operating systems relied on app stores, it added.
Facebook and other internet com-panies are grappling with a global backlash over the extent to which they hoover up and handle user data. The New York Times said the vast amounts of information shared with Apple Inc. and other phone-makers included data on users’ friends that had supposedly barred access.
Facebook said it had begun disman-tling pacts with device makers dating back as much as a decade -- when the social network was rarely directly installed on phones. Hardware manufacturers used Facebook’s software tools to allow their own users to access contacts or post pho-tos to their profiles, among other things, the company said in a blog post.
“There were no app stores at the time and this was the only way to make our product work on their devices. We tightly controlled these APIs from the get-go,” Ime Archibong, Facebook’s vice president of product partnerships, said in an interview. “These partners signed agreements that prevented people’s
Facebook information from being used for any other purpose than to recreate Facebook-like experiences.”
Archibong said Facebook approved each of the experiences that were built, and that they worked differently to its public, platform APIs. The company has since terminated 22 partnerships with device makers, he added.
Shares of Facebook were down 1.8 percent pre-market at 6:34 a.m. in New York Monday, following a similar trend in Europe where it was down 2.2 per-cent at the same time in Frankfurt.
Facebook is retooling its approach amid a global consumer and regulatory backlash. Critics accuse its news feed algorithm of spreading misinformation and terrorism content among 2 billion-plus users. Lax policies around sharing data with third parties led to the leak of information to consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which worked on successful Republican campaigns, including that of President Donald Trump.
An app developer gave information on up to 87 million Facebook users to Cambridge Analytica mostly without their permission, setting off a scandal over data privacy when it was reported this year. That developer was able to make the deal with the firm because the data was stored on his servers. Facebook said that in the device partnerships described by the New York Times, personal data was mostly processed on users’ phones.
Facebook however doesn’t view device makers as outsiders — allowing them deeper access, the New York Times re-ported. It said it discovered some device partners could retrieve users’ relationship status, religion, political leanings and up-coming events, among other things.
“We’re not aware of any people’s in-formation being misused by these com-panies,” Archibong said.
Sarah Frier reports for Bloomberg News.
Facebook Disputes Report It Grants Phone Makers Deep Data Access
Samsung, Hynix Probed by Chinese Regulator Amid Chip-Price Rallyby Sam Kim
Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc., two of the world’s biggest chipmak-ers, said they’re being investigated by China’s government after their U.S. rival Micron Technology Inc. received a simi-lar visit from the country’s regulators.
Investigators from China’s regulatory agency visited Samsung’s Chinese sales offices on May 31, Suwon, South Korea-based company said in an emailed state-ment. “Samsung is cooperating with Chinese authorities.” Hynix, based in Icheon, South Korea, said separately it is cooperating.
Micron, the largest U.S. maker of com-puter memory chips, said last week that Chinese authorities visited its offices in that country, potentially opening another front in a growing trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies. China is the largest maker for semiconductors yet isn’t home to even one of the top 10 producers of the crucial electronic com-ponents. The memory chip market has been increasingly concentrated in the
hands of Micron and its two Korean ri-vals, who have enjoyed record profits from the devices that are essential to ev-erything from supercomputers to smart-phones over the last year.
None of the three chipmakers have said publicly what they are being questioned about. South Korean media said China was accusing them of colluding with each other to hike memory chip prices.
“It’s an expression of China’s inten-tion to bring down memory prices,” said Park Kang-ho, an analyst at Daishin Securities Co. “It’ll have some psycho-logical effect, but it’s unlikely to have a serious impact on the share prices.”
China has been spending heavily to boost its domestic supply of semicon-ductors, buying chipmaking equipment from South Korea. Its companies such as Huawei Technologies Co. and Xiaomi Corp. compete with Samsung in the global smartphone market, while the Korean company is struggling to regain its momentum with its phone sales in the Chinese market.
Sam Kim reports for Bloomberg News.
DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 dailybusinessreview.com A15
When results matter
Ranked by Alexa#1 Global Legal Job SiteCLASSIFIEDS
Through Daily Business Review Classified Advertising.Call 212-457-7762 or e-mail [email protected]
SUBSCRIBE TO THE DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
To order your subscription, call Toll Free 1-877-256-2472 or subscribe online at
DailyBusinessReview.com
Lawjobs.com
Lawjobs.com is the #1 Legal recruitment site with 100,000+ resumes* and 20,000 active job seekers to help you find the industry’s top talent. Learn how Lawjobs.com will help you find your next perfect employee.
The Office of the General Counsel of the University of Miami
seeks experienced and highly-qualified applicants for the
position of Assistant General Counsel. The position, which
reports to the General Counsel, will provide advice on a
wide range of complex legal issues to institutional clients.
Qualifications are: a Juris Doctor from an ABA accredited
law school, membership in the Florida Bar, and a minimum of
ten years of experience as a practicing attorney.
ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL
Apply online at: www.miami.edu/careers
Position #: P100028171
OFFICE FOR RENT
Turn Key Set Up.
888 S.E. 3rd Avenue, Suite 402 Fort Lauderdale,
FL 33316 3 Blocks south of the Broward
County Main Courthouse.
Call (954) 566-9889
The Coral Gables Office of Nosich & Ganz is looking for an experienced Legal Assistant. Liability and PIP experience is preferred. The ideal candidate should be detail oriented and highly organized.
Please email or fax resume to Ronni Rothstein:[email protected] | fax: 305-442-2339
LEGAL ASSISTANT
Immediate opening in dynamic, sophisticated, high
end Family Law boutique located in downtown
Miami for experienced office manager. Must have
significant experience in Word, Outlook, Quickbooks
VERDICTS & SETTLEMENTSFor more detailed reports from Verdict Search, to request research or to submit a case for publication, go to www.VerdictSearch.com or call (800) 832-1900.
A16 dailybusinessreview.comTUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018
by Samantha Joseph
Gary Paige, of Gordon & Doner, and Hardee Bass, of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, se-cured $14 million in punitive damages and another $7 mil-lion in compensatory dam-ages for client Faye Theis.
Theis' husband, Edward, died in February 1997 at age 53. Court pleadings show he'd smoked for decades and was addicted to nicotine, af-ter having his first cigarette at 15.
"He tried very hard to quit," Paige said. "He went to classes, used Nicorette ... He really tried to quit for many years. He wanted to quit, and actually switched to light cigarettes, thinking they were safe."
His widow's attorneys say Edward Theis did overcome his nicotine addiction, but it was too late. By then, he'd already developed late-stage cancer—a diagnosis that came three months after he quit smoking.
“At that point, it was al-ready stage 4," Paige said. "He suffered tremendously, and then passed away.”
'ENgLE' PRogENyAs the personal represen-
tative of her husband's estate, Theis sued cigarette manu-facters Philip Morris USA Inc. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in an Engle progeny case. Her four-count complaint al-leged strict liability, fraud by concealment, negligence and
conspiracy to commit fraud by concealment.
Her suit is one of thousands resulting from the landmark Engle decision, which stemmed from a 1994 Florida case by six lung cancer patients ac-cusing major U.S. country’s major cigarette manufactur-ers of fraud, negligence, inten-tional infliction of emotional distress, breach of express warranty, strict liability, con-spiracy to commit fraud and breach of implied warranty.
A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge divided the case into three phases: The first re-sulted in a jury finding the to-bacco companies’ conduct entitled the class to punitive damages. The second award-ed compensatory damages and also set a $145 billion punitive damages award for the entire class. But an appeal by the defendants disrupted the third phase, which would have asked to set “specific causation and damages for the remaining class members in Phase III.”
In a win for the defense, the Florida Supreme Court found class certification inappli-cable, saying findings would hinge on each plaintiff’s com-parative fault, legal causation and other individual circum-stances. But the high court also upheld much of the jury’s Phase I findings—that the companies’ behavior entitled the class to punitive damag-es—except “on the fraud and intentional infliction of emo-tional distress claims, which involved highly individualized determinations, and the find-ing on entitlement to punitive damages questions, which was premature.”
The Florida Supreme Court ruled that individual plain-tiffs could bring their own suits, and that the “retained findings” would apply under the res judicata doctrine that prevents the relitigation of ad-judicated claims between the same parties. The class-wide
punitive damages award was vacated.
In the Theis case and oth-ers that followed, jurors had to uphold the Engle findings and go into deliberations ac-cepting the tobacco compa-nies committed multiple torts, including civil-conspiracy concealment, breach of im-plied warranty, fraud by con-cealment, breach of express warranty, strict liability and negligence. However, these jurors also had to weigh case-specific elements to determine whether addiction caused each plaintiff’s disease.
LEgaL CauSE of DEaThAfter the first phase of
the trial, the jury found that Edward Theis and both de-fendants were to blame for the longtime smoker's illness and death. It found the ad-diction was the legal cause of Edward Theis' death, and that products from both manufacturers played a part.
Edward Theis had only smoked R.J. Reynolds ciga-rette for less than five years in his youth, but plaintiff's lawyers presented witness testimony from a Mayo Clinic expert, who showed significant risk for addic-tion among young smokers. That testimony allowed the plaintiff lawyers to make a case for the jury to hold both companies responsible.
R.J Reynolds' defense strat-egy sought to point to flaws in the Engle ruling. It argued the Florida Supreme Court had invalidated part of the Phase I findings, calling them “non-specific” and “inadequate to allow a subsequent jury to consider individual questions of reliance and legal cause.” It also claimed the decision "con-tains several errors of law and denies the Engle defendants their due process rights."
"By answering plain-tiff’s allegations regarding the application of Engle to this litigation, Reynolds does
not waive any objections to the Florida Supreme Court’s opinion or any such issues that may be raised upon fur-ther review," the company argued in its answer, defens-es and jury demand. "To the contrary, as set forth below, Reynolds denies, for a num-ber of substantive
reasons, that the Engle findings of fact can be ap-plied in this or any subse-quent individual action."
Philip Morris also denied it should shoulder any li-ability for Edward Theis' illness and death. It argued the Theis suit failed to state a cause of action, that the litigation fell outside the stat-ute of limitation, and that the plaintiff did not qualify as part of the Engle class.
Brian May, a spokes-man for Philip Morris' par-ent company, Richmond, Virginia-based Altria Group Inc., declined to comment.
The jury assigned 60 per-cent of the blame to Philip Morris, 15 percent to R.J. Reynolds and 25 percent to Edward Theis. It award-ed Faye Theis $7 million men-tal pain and the loss of her hus-band's companionship. It also found "clear and convincing evidence" for punitive dam-ages against both companies.
After the second phase of the trial, jurors awarded $10 million against Philip Morris and $4 million against R.J. Reynolds.
"The cigarette companies tried to shift the blame," plaintiff counsel Bass said after the proceedings be-fore Sarasota Circuit Judge Frederick P. Mercurio. "But (Edward) was more likely than not addicted to ciga-rettes by the time he gradu-ated high school."
Samantha Joseph is a litigation editor in ALM’s global newsroom. Grad school: Newhouse Syracuse. Contact: [email protected]. On Twitter: @SjosephWriter
South Florida Attorneys Secure $21 Million Verdict for Widow of Cancer Patient
Gary Paige, of Gordon & Doner, and Hardee Bass, of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, secured $14 million in punitive damages and another $7 million in compensatory damages for client Faye Theis.
MEDICAL MALPRACTICEHILLSboRougH CIRCuIT CouRT
$110M Award to Quadruple Amputee for Surgical Error
A jury awarded nearly $110 million to a former Defense Department ana-lyst whose hands and feet were am-putated because of alleged negligence during outpatient surgery.
In 2010, Lisa-Maria Carter, 45, went to Tampa General Hospital, a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of South Florida College of Medicine, for the removal of a benign ovarian cyst, but her small bowel was perforated. After surgery, her blood pressure dropped and could not be stabilized. Gangrene set in, and she required amputation of both hands and feet. Carter's counsel argued in a trial following two hung juries that Dr. Larry Glazerman negli-gently transected her small intestine, causing the loss of blood and complica-tions.
The jury determined the private hospital was liable and awarded Carter $109.8 million.
Case: Carter v. GlazermanCase No.: 12-CA-009942Plaintiffs attorneys: Ken G. Dandar,
Thomas J. Dandar and Timothy M. Dandar, Dandar & Dandar, Tampa
Defense attorneys: Louis J. La Cava and Iva Valtcheva, La Cava & Jacobson, Tampa
PREMISES LIAbILITYPALM bEACH CIRCuIT CouRT
Jury: Owner Blameless in Installer’s Fall From Ladder
A jury found a homeowner was not to blame for a man’s fall from a ladder.
On Oct. 6, 2016, Jean Colimon, then 69, was helping install shut-ters on the windows at Jean Pierre’s home before Hurricane Matthew. To install the shutters, Colimon climbed a ladder, while Pierre held it at the bot-tom. When Colimon was about 10 feet above ground, he fell from the ladder and fractured his left elbow and a hip. Colimon claimed Pierre did not prop-erly hold the ladder in place, causing it to be unstable and causing his fall.
Pierre claimed he secured the ladder as best he could and followed the in-structions of Colimon, who had years of experience working with ladders. The jury rendered a defense verdict.
Case: Colimon v. PierreCase No.: 50-2016-CA-014309-XXXX-
MBPlaintiffs attorneys: Jonathan
Cox and W. Ellis Petit, Keller, Keller & Caracuzzo, West Palm Beach
Defense attorney: Ramon E. Javier, Ramon E. Javier & Associates, Miami
Case: Faye Theis, as personal representative of the estate of Edward Frederick Theis Jr., v. Philip Morris USA Inc. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.Case No.: 2011-CA-1941 NCDescription: Engle prog-eny caseFiling date: Dec. 5, 2007Verdict date: May 22 and 23, 2018Judge: Sarasota Circuit Judge Frederick P. MercurioPlaintiffs attorneys: Gary Paige, Gordon & Doner, Davie; T. Hardee Bass, Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, West Palm BeachDefense attorneys: Walt Cofer and Mike Walden, Shook Hardy & Bacon, Kansas City, Missouri; Kurt Weaver, Womble Bond Dickinson, Raleigh, North CarolinaVerdict amount: $21 mil-lion
