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DOE-Funded Counsel Prior Firm Misconduct: Concealing Safety
Evidence – Condemned by Courts Then:
WA Supreme Court unanimously imposed
record sanctions for discovery abuse [hiding drug
toxicity documents]. Now: Miller & Battelle
Falsifying Research &
Commercial
ventures to conceal
smoking-gun
evidence
via perjury.
Willfully funding this misconduct
for 8 years, Dept. of Energy fleecing taxpayers $1M to
cover up Battelle fraud. Overview DOE-funded Attorney
Delbert Miller was the partner managing the litigation practice at now
defunct Bogle & Gates law firm which engaged in
fraud [discovery abuse] to conceal smoking-gun
evidence [drug toxicity warnings, crash injury data…].
Tactics
used by the firm’s attorneys to wrongfully withhold
evidence are cited below because they are now
being repeated via Battelle and Miller’s material misrepresentations [perjury]
to the court [i.e., DHS Radiation Portal Monitor
Project (RPMP)
research & Battelle commercial ventures] being used to
conceal smoking-gun evidence [e.g., RPMP-funded versions of MDM
(Mobile Data Manager) software] which would further implicate Battelle
in: (1) Misusing/defrauding/skimming
DOE’s small business Technical
Assistance Program
[TAP] [withholding
the DOE-funded software [MDM] from the
government’s intended TAP recipient (Pulver’s small
business), thereby violating
the False Claims Act], (2) Falsifying
inventions [18
USC §1001] to the patent office, and (3) Defrauding those businesses licensing
follow-on versions [BlackBerry…] of MDM software funded
by TAP and exclusively
licensed to
Pulver. Currently being used by Battelle and
DOE at great taxpayer expense [~$1M],
Bogle tactics to obstruct justice by concealing smoking-gun
evidence were condemned by the WA Supreme Court and federal judge [both imposed
sanctions for litigation fraud (discovery abuse)] and gained national notoriety.
Media and court sources
excerpted below and Battelle/DOE documents/testimony confirm the following: (1) DOE-funded counsel Miller and Battelle
top-secret Q clearance holder scientist Dorow are now using the same type of
abusive litigation fraud, but at taxpayer expense, to conceal
smoking-gun evidence [e.g., DHS versions of MDM software re:
Battelle ventures]. (2) DOE
is financing and suborning this litigation fraud/abuse/perjury and covering
up Battelle’s defrauding both a small business and patent office
[USPTO] in order to avoid any protests or almost-certain GAO investigation
while DOE extends, rather than compete the operating contract for PNNL, the country’s longest un-competed
national lab (48 years).
(3) DOE
Offices of Science, Inspector General & General
Counsel will fund/suborn such litigation misconduct when a
whistleblower, small business, university, injured staff et
al. sue Battelle [running 5+ national labs
(PNNL, ORNL, INL, NREL & BNL)
costing billions yearly. Exhibits cite articles on attorney misconduct
from two notorious discovery abuse cases, tactics that DOE Office of Science
is funding to wrongfully conceal evidence of Battelle misusing/defrauding
federally-funded small business assistance and the patent office [USPTO]. In the Fisons
case, WA Supreme Court unanimously ruled to sanction Bogle
& Gates a record $325K for
discovery abuse because they withheld smoking-gun documents on a
drug [theophylline] that permanently brain damaged
a three-year old girl. In
the Subaru injury case two years later, a federal judge sanctioned Bogle because they “obfuscated, stonewalled, and gave
answers that were just plain wrong” to withhold National
Highway Transportation Safety Administration data on rear-impact crash tests
for driver injuries. News articles and WA Supreme Court’s
detailed Fisons decision are cited below; they
clearly show Bogle’s discovery abuse tactics to
conceal evidence [obstruct justice] and the legal community’s outrage over
such on misconduct. As cited
throughout the evidence site, Office of Science, by hiring Miller to invoke
the Bogle tactics condemned by courts, has
confirmed its practice of misappropriating taxpayer funds for such
abusive/fraudulent litigation tactics against individuals or small businesses
suing due to Battelle misconduct.
News
Article Excerpts – Bogle & Gates [DOE-Funded Counsel Prior Firm] – Fisons & Subaru Injury Cases Re:
Attorney Misconduct [Concealing Evidence - Discovery Abuse] –
Sanctioned/Fined by WA Supreme Court &
Federal Court Battelle
& DOE-Funded Counsel Repeating Such Tactics
re: DHS Radiation Portal Monitor Project &
Commercial Ventures http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n4_v61/ai_19254733 [¶9] No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of
Justice in America. The
Progressive by Morton Mintz “No Contest's most devastating section focuses on the obstruction of justice by corporate executives
and their attorneys who withhold, alter, or destroy documents. Consider Jennifer Pollock of Everett,
Washington. In 1986, when Jennifer was two, she suffered seizures that caused
irreversible brain damage after taking an asthma medication, Somophyllin Oral
Liquid…In 1990, an anonymous
source sent the Pollocks' lawyer a "Dear Doctor" letter from Fisons
conveying a stark warning about
the drug's key ingredient, theophylline:
A study had confirmed report
that children with asthma were vulnerable to "life-threatening
theophylline toxicity -- the very same toxicity suffered by Jennifer. Fisons had prepared the letter in 1981 -- more
than four years before Jennifer was stricken -- but sent it to only a limited
group of "influential" physicians…(Fisons also omitted mention in
product's package insert of the risk of disabling or fatal harm.) The company failed to produce the letter even after the
Pollocks and [Dr.] Klicpera filed a discovery motion in 1986, which sought
"any letters sent by your company to physicians concerning theophylline
toxicity in children."…Bogle
& Gates admitted it had reviewed the smoking guns by 1987 and advised
Fisons not to produce them” http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/archives/1993/9309190036.asp
Legal
Conduct Decried Court Rules Law Firm, Client Failed To Supply Evidence “In a landmark ruling on attorney ethics,
the Washington State Supreme Court has denounced the conduct of a major Seattle law firm [Bogle & Gates] and a New York drug
company [Fisons] for
failing to produce "smoking gun" documents in
a lawsuit involving a 3-year-old girl left brain-damaged
by a controversial asthma medication.” http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980503&slug=2748582
Clout
of State's Big Law Firms Wards Off Misconduct Cases. “In
one of the sharpest penalties ever levied against a law firm, the Washington
State Supreme Court fined the Seattle firm Bogle
& Gates and its client, the drug company Fisons,
$325,000 in 1993. The
Supreme Court found that Bogle & Gates and Fisons withheld documents that conclusively showed that Fisons knew one of its products was dangerous if used in
conjunction with other drugs. Two
years later, Bogle & Gates
was sanctioned by a federal court judge for a similar
violation. Representing Subaru of America, Bogle & Gates was asked to provide warranty and personal-injury
claims relating to the seatback design of the
Subaru Justy. The company responded
that it had no records that would answer those questions. Later depositions revealed
that the information did, in fact, exist. Bogle & Gates
had to pay the other side's legal fees and the case was later settled.” http://doug4justice.org/Lawyers/Sleazy.htm
Sleazy In Seattle, by Stuart Taylor, Jr. American Lawyer Newspapers Group, Inc “The covered-up corporate
document that the whistle-blower leaked in March 1990 led to an agreement
this January by Seattle's 200-lawyer Bogle
& Gates and its client Fisons Corp. to pay $325,000
in sanctions for discovery abuse, one of the largest such awards ever. By misleading
its adversaries to avoid producing damning documents
in its client's files, Bogle
provided textbook example of the need for discovery reforms… The seven justices
[unanimously] held that Bogle & Gates and its client, a British-owned
pharmaceutical company with U.S. headquarters near Rochester [NY], had used "misleading"
discovery responses to hide two "smoking gun documents" from lawyers
for a 3-year-old girl who suffered permanent brain damage as a result of
taking a Fisons asthma drug
in 1986, as well as from lawyers for the girl's
pediatrician, who had filed a cross-claim… Since the decision, Bogle has
been forced to admit for the first time that it had the smoking gun documents
since 1987 and had advised Fisons
to withhold them -- while at the same time,
in the supreme court's words, making statements to opposing counsel "that
all relevant documents had been produced." These statements were accompanied by artfully
worded discovery responses that Bogle later claimed
(in a rationale rejected by the court) should have put its adversaries on
notice that relevant documents would be produced only if found in a
particular Fisons product file… In January 1986, 3-year-old
Jennifer Pollock, a child with multiple health problems, suffered seizures
and permanent brain damage as a result of being treated with Fisons' Somophyllin Oral Liquid
for her severe lung disease (including asthma) at a
time when she also had a viral infection. The product's main active
ingredient is a generic drug called theophylline.
The cause of Jennifer's brain damage was (the
litigation established) that the theophylline in
her blood soared to toxic levels as a result of her viral infection. The Supreme Court Rules The Washington Supreme
Court would have no part of Bogle's arguments on
the discovery issues, however…"The drug company avoided
production of these theophylline-related materials,
and avoided identifying the manager of medical communications [Cedric Grigg] as a person with information
about the dangers of theophylline, by giving
evasive or misleading responses to
interrogatories and requests for production,"
the court held… The court also cut
through the twisted argument that the Grigg
documents regarding the dangers of theophylline-based
drugs were not documents "regarding Somophyllin
Oral Liquid" because they were not in that product's file, saying that
"a document that warned of the serious dangers of the primary ingredient
of Somophyllin Oral Liquid is a document regarding Somophyllin Oral Liquid." After all, the court pointed out, Fisons marketed this and its three other Somophyllin products as brand-name embodiments of theophylline. It added that, in light
of the elaborate series of pretexts offered by Fisons
and Bogle for their acts of concealment,
"it appears clear that no conceivable discovery request could have been
made by the doctor that would have uncovered the relevant documents.
The objections did not specify that certain documents
were not being produced. Instead, the general objections were followed by a
promise to produce requested
documents. These responses did not comply with either the spirit or the
letter of the discovery rules." Chief Justice James
Andersen's opinion also stressed that "a spirit of cooperation and
forthrightness during the discovery process is necessary for the proper
functioning of modern trials." He said that "conduct is to be
measured against the spirit and purpose of the rules, not against the
standard of practice of the local bar...Misconduct, once
tolerated, will breed more misconduct, and those who might seek relief
against abuse will instead resort to it in self-defense." The supreme court
remanded the case to Judge French to determine the amount of sanctions…with
instructions to assess an amount "severe enough to
deter these attorneys and others from participating in this kind of conduct
in the future." http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=900005514051 THE
MORAL COMPASS: Calculated Malfeasance,
The ongoing abuse of discovery requires stronger, surer
sanctions Richard
Zitrin & Carol Langford, Law News Network “May 7, 1999
Washington State Physicians Ins. Exch. & Ass'n
v. Fisons Corp., 858 P.2d 1054 (Wash. 1993) exposes
the disturbing behavior of Seattle's Bogle &
Gates, one of the Pacific
Northwest's largest firms. Starting in 1986, Bogle
represented the drug company Fisons in a case filed
by the parents of a three-year-old girl named Jennifer, who was permanently
brain damaged from a dose of theophylline, the
active ingredient in Fisons' Somophyllin
Oral Liquid. The parents also sued the girl's pediatrician for prescribing
the drug. Theophylline can be toxic when given to
children like Jennifer who are also suffering from a viral infection.
Although Fisons knew of this problem, the
pediatrician didn't, because the company had never warned him. The doctor
filed a counter-claim against Fisons, saying he
never would have prescribed the drug had he been told. During
discovery, Jennifer's lawyers requested all documents pertaining to any
warning letters -- including 'Dear Doctor' letters or warning correspondence
to the medical profession regarding the use of Somophyllin
Oral Liquid. Bogle & Gates knew of a 1981 letter addressed "Dear
Doctor" on the subject of "Theophylline
and Viral Infections" that had been sent to 2,000 physicians, but not
to Jennifer's doctor. But the law firm advised Fisons
not to produce either that letter or a 1985 memo documenting theophylline's danger. On appeal, the
Washington Supreme Court unanimously reversed the trial court on the
discovery issue. "It appears clear," wrote Chief Justice Anderson, "that no conceivable
discovery request could have been made by the doctor that would have
uncovered the relevant documents." The higher court then remanded the case to the trial court with
instructions to punish Bogle with an amount severe
enough to deter these attorneys and others from engaging in such conduct
again. Less than 2
years after Fisons opinion, their litigators were
in trouble again. This time Bogle &
Gates represented Subaru of America on charges that the driver's seatbacks in
Subaru's Justy could collapse backwards when hit
from the rear, potentially causing grave injury. In the view of federal Judge
Robert Bryan, Bogle obfuscated, stonewalled, and gave answers that were
just plain wrong. [Lied] In one request,
plaintiffs had asked for National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
records that showed the collapse of driver's Seats from a rear-impact force
of 30 miles per hour. Bogle's response was that the
request was "vague, confusing and unintelligible…30 miles per hour is a
velocity, not a force, and due to this confusion of technical terms, no
meaningful response can be given."
Judge Bryan called this "lawyer hokum," and forced Bogle to pay the other side's attorneys' fees.”
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