Using himself as an example: Plaintiff Howard Engle's Progeny

Dr. Howard Engle passed away on July 22 at age 89, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He had smoked multiple packs of cigarettes a day since college. Though he tried many times to quit, he never succeeded, and continued to smoke until his death.

His medical specialty had been pediatric neurology, and he frequently worked with cerebral palsy patients. He preached to his patients about the dangers of smoking, using himself as an example. "He wanted to teach people, especially kids, that smoking is not a good habit," said his son David.

Among his patients in the 1980s were the children of two medical malpractice lawyers, Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt. In 1991, the Rosenblatts brought a class-action suit against tobacco companies on behalf of flight attendants who had inhaled secondhand smoke, winning a settlement that cost the companies $300 million. Dr. Engle took a keen interest in the case.

Because he was a smoker with emphysema who wished to publicize the addictive nature of smoking, he agreed to become the lead plaintiff in a second class action suit, filed by the Rosenblatts in 1994. In 2000, the plaintiffs received the largest punitive award ever decided by a jury, for $145 billion. An appeals court voided the award as excessive and said the class of plaintiffs was too disparate. Later, the Florida Supreme Court let that ruling stand, though it allowed individuals to bring suit. Thousands of individuals have done so, and courts are now beginning to decide their cases – which are known as the Engle Progeny.

Advice: Use your standing and your personal network to fight for public health. Sometimes you have to sue the B*ST*RDS.

Read a very different ">class action lawsuit story.

Thanks to Bruce Weber for the source obituary in the Boston Globe of July 25.

Is it better to bring 8,000 individual cases?: Pathology errors in breast and prostate cancer biopsies

Patients impacted by a misdiagnosis and the quality of service at the Miramichi Regional Hospital will file a class-action suit on Tuesday.

Halifax lawyer Raymond Wagner will file the proposed lawsuit in Miramichi on Tuesday. It is available to any patients who had a biopsy or other procedure at the Miramichi Regional Hospital between 1995 and February 2007, regardless of their test results.

"They suffered great mental distress, frustration, and needless anxiety while awaiting confirmation that the original results were correct," he said.

The province is reviewing more than 23,700 cases from the hospital dating from 1995 to 2007 while a public commission is examining the rate of breast and prostate cancer misdiagnoses.

An independent audit of 227 cases of breast and prostate cancer biopsies from 2004-05 found 18% had incomplete results and 3% had been misdiagnosed at the health authority in northeastern New Brunswick, which was being served by a now-suspended pathologist.

Filing a lawsuit will hold the system accountable, Wagner said, adding that arguments revolve around allegations of negligent hiring and poor quality control at the pathology department.

"The suit of course is to assist the people in the community surrounding the Miramichi with respect to their health care," he said. "It is to bring to account the hospital administration with respect to oversight and quality control and to assure the community that their health care is of sufficient quality for them to have confidence in that health care."

A judge will have to decide if the suit will go ahead, which will involve testing whether the lawsuit is the most efficient way to proceed, Wagner said.

"Is it more appropriate and more efficient to have the case determined in one case, or is it better for everybody to bring their own individual cases, in other words 8,000 cases?" he said.

The Halifax law firm, Wagners, is working in co-operation with Newfoundland and Labrador firm Ches Crosbie Barristers.

Advice: Pathologists have to use very subjective judgments in assessing biopsies. Ask the pathologist how certain s/he is about the findings of your biopsy.

Read another Pathology error story.

The source article comes from a posting today on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website.