A Michigan jury on May 6 issued a $21 million verdict against a hospital accused of performing brain surgery on the wrong patient in 2012. The 81-year-old patient died after spending 60 days on life support, her lawyer told the jury.

The attorney for Bimla Nayyar’s family, Geoffrey Fieger, said the woman was hospitalized at the hospital in January 2012 with jaw joint problems.

“Oakwood Hospital claimed that it mistakenly thought that Mrs. Nayyar was bleeding in her brain and needed an immediate brain operation.” Fieger said in a release. “She was taken to the operating room where five holes were drilled into her head and the right side of her skull was sawed out. At that time, they realized that there was nothing wrong with her, but did not inform the family that they had operated on the wrong patient.”

Oakwood has been reported to be considering an appeal.

Read the release.

The parent company of New Jersey’s largest utility has reached settlements worth more than $200 million with insurance providers over claims from Hurricane Sandy, according to a quarterly filing, ending a legal dispute stemming from the October 2012 storm, reports NJ.com.

PSEG filed a lawsuit in the summer of 2013 claiming that its insurers wrongly denied the company full coverage for its losses during the storm, NJ.com reports. A state Superior Court judge in Essex County sided with PSEG in that case in March, finding that the company’s damages from storm surge were not subject to a limit for flooding.

Read the story.

Vernon Nelson, partner in Wilson Elser

Commercial services/gaming attorney Vernon Nelson has joined Wilson Elser’s Las Vegas office as a partner.

Formerly with Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, Nelson maintains a full-service commercial practice focused on the gaming/hospitality industry. He handles casino regulatory compliance and gaming/hotel operations, licensing and other matters before the Nevada Gaming Control Board and Nevada Gaming Commission. He also represents self-insurers in claims involving multimillion-dollar prizes and giveaways and has represented commercial creditors in collection and bankruptcy matters.

In addition, Nelson represents commercial clients in commercial transactions, real property sales and leases, buy/sell transactions and management contracts.

Nelson’s clients hail from Nevada and other states with a gaming presence. He represents domestic and international clients and tribal entities in multiple jurisdictions, state and federal courts, and bankruptcy courts.

“There isn’t a matter related to gaming and hospitality that Vernon hasn’t handled,” shared Michael Edwards, regional managing partner of Wilson Elser’s Las Vegas office. “With 15 years working in-house with Tropicana and Caesars Palace and another five years in private practice, Vernon’s experience adds new areas of focus to our Commercial Services practice and expands our Government Affairs practice beyond our Albany and Connecticut offices.”

Nelson is admitted to practice in Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California and Arizona. He is a member of the Nevada State Bar Association and its Gaming Law Section, the Clark County Bar Association, the International Association of Gaming Attorneys and the American Inns of Court Foundation.

Committed to giving back the community, Nelson has served as director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Nevada and “I Have a Dream”® Foundation, Southern Nevada.

Nelson earned his J.D. degree from Seton Hall University School of Law (1993) and graduated from Rider University, cum laude, with his B.S. degree.

About Wilson Elser

Wilson Elser, a full-service and leading defense litigation law firm (www.wilsonelser.com), serves its clients with nearly 800 attorneys in 27 offices in the United States and one in London and through a network of affiliates in key regions globally. Founded in 1978, it ranks among the top 200 law firms identified by The American Lawyer and is included in the top 50 of The National Law Journal’s survey of the nation’s largest law firms. Wilson Elser serves a growing, loyal base of clients with innovative thinking and an in-depth understanding of their respective businesses.

A free on-demand webinar hosted by NAVEX Global says one of the most effective ways to measure a compliance program is by analyzing data from internal reporting systems. But how can you know what is good or bad without context?

The firm compiled 2014 calendar year statistics from more than 4,600 company reporting systems for its annual Hotline Benchmark Report. Some of the key findings be surprising; for example, retaliation reports are up 125 percent since 2013.

NAVEX Global says the webinar is intended to help participants be able to use industry benchmarks to understand:

• Whether your anonymous ethics hotline/helpline is truly effective
• If you’re getting the right numbers and types of reports
• How to interpret hotline findings and put them to work in your compliance program
• What types of hotline data are best to use in board and executive reporting

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Gibson Dunn has posted a free webinar discussing practical approaches for building a robust compliance program that is risk-driven and integrated into the business.

“The extraordinary events of the past year, from international cybersecurity breaches to significant economic and trade sanction developments, emphasize the expansive array of challenges facing today’s compliance professionals,” the firm says on its website.

The presentation features new Gibson Dunn partner Lori Zyskowski, formerly Executive Counsel, Corporate, Securities & Finance at the General Electric Company, where she advised GE’s board of directors and senior management on corporate governance and securities law issues, and of counsel Daniel Chung, an experienced trial and appellate attorney who previously served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York where he investigated and prosecuted a wide range of complex federal criminal cases.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a much-anticipated final rule modifying some of the scheduling practices used by interstate natural gas pipelines to better coordinate the scheduling of the wholesale natural gas and electricity markets (Order No. 809 or Final Rule), reports Reed Smith LLP is a new white paper.

“In the Final Rule, FERC retreated from certain changes it proposed in its April 1, 2014, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR), which initiated this proceeding,” wrote authors Amy S. Koch, Michael A. Yuffee, Todd L. Brecher. “Notably, FERC did not implement its proposal to change the start of the Gas Day to better align it with the electric operating day. Based on the response of the electric and natural gas industries to this proposal, FERC determined that the record did not establish that the benefits of such a change outweighed the costs. FERC noted that ISO-NE and PJM – two of the regions of most concern – have recently undertaken operational and market actions to address generator availability and performance, and that all of the ISOs and RTOs are considering changes to better align their markets with the Gas Day.”

Read the white paper.

Jackson Walker L.L.P. has added Lewis Kasner and Briggs Knight to the firm’s Houston office. Kasner and Knight join Alfie Meyerson, Thad Armstrong, David Jones, and David Robins, who moved from Thompson & Knight to Jackson Walker on April 20. In joining Jackson Walker, Kasner becomes a partner in the Real Estate group, while Mr. Knight joins as an associate.

The new additions add even further to the depth and distinction of Jackson Walker’s robust Real Estate and Finance practice groups, Jackson Walker said in a release.

“We are delighted to have Lewis and Briggs with us at Jackson Walker,” Meyerson said. “Keeping our team together was a key aspect to making this a successful move and a seamless transition for our clients.”

Real Estate practice leader Steve Martens agreed, stating, “To have such a strong, cohesive group join Jackson Walker is a boon to our firm and our clients. Lewis and Briggs are excellent lawyers whose practices are a perfect fit with ours. We couldn’t be happier to have them on board.”

With the new additions, Jackson Walker now boasts more than 50 attorneys who are dedicated to Real Estate law, making the firm’s group one of the largest and most experienced in the region.

Kasner has developed a reputation for providing clients with practical solutions based on his years of experience representing both lenders and borrowers in different types of transactions. He regularly represents financial institutions in both interim and permanent loan transactions of all sizes and complexity – ranging from $1,000,000 to $100,000,000. He also routinely represents commercial real estate owners and developers with the acquisition, disposition, and leasing of commercial property. Mr. Kasner is Board Certified in Commercial Real Estate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and was named a “Texas Rising Star” by Thomson Reuters in 2013-2015.

Knight focuses his practice on real estate and banking matters. He represents purchasers, owners, and developers in connection with a variety of types of improved and unimproved real property. Additionally, he represents lenders and borrowers in connection with loans secured by commercial real estate, such as retail, office, and multifamily projects, and middle market commercial loans. Mr. Knight’s real-world experience as an analyst in the commercial mortgage lending group at AIG Investments from 2006-2009 provides a depth of practical knowledge that is invaluable to clients. In addition, during law school, he served as a judicial intern to Judge David Hittner in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in 2011.

Kasner and Knight join a growing number of lateral attorneys who have made the move to Jackson Walker over the last few years. The firm’s competitive platform and efficient cost-structure have proven highly attractive to Texas attorneys looking to both expand their practices and provide excellent service to existing clients, the firm said in the release.

Jackson Walker L.L.P. has 125 years of experience in providing legal counsel to clients throughout Texas, the United States and internationally. The firm provides a strong regional base of more than 350 attorneys in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Angelo, San Antonio and Texarkana.

Jon Spanbauer, partner in Quarles & Brady

The national law firm of Quarles & Brady LLP has announced that Jon M. Spanbauer has joined the firm’s Chicago office as a partner in its Intellectual Property Practice Group.

Spanbauer’s practice focuses primarily on complex patent litigation. He has litigated significant patent disputes throughout the United States in a wide range of technologies, with a particular emphasis on pharmaceuticals (Hatch-Waxman litigation), medical devices, and biologics.

He received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin, his master’s degree in biological chemistry from the University of Michigan, and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin.

About Quarles & Brady LLP

Quarles & Brady is a full-service law firm with more than 475 attorneys offering an array of legal services to corporate and individual clients that range from small entrepreneurial businesses to Fortune 100 companies, with practice focuses in health care and life sciences, business law, data privacy and security, and complex litigation. The firm has offices in Chicago; Indianapolis; Madison; Milwaukee; Naples, Florida; Phoenix; Scottsdale; Tampa; Tucson; and Washington, D.C. Additional information can be found online at quarles.com, as well as on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Farrell Fritz associate Robert M. Harper has been elected to the Suffolk County Bar Association’s board of directors. On June 5, 2015, he will be sworn in at the Association’s Installation Dinner at The Larkfield in East Northport, NY. He will serve a three year term.

Harper focuses his practice in estate litigation. He is active in the SCBA, serving as co-chair of the Surrogate’s Court Committee and an officer of the Suffolk Academy of Law. He earned his J.D. degree from Hofstra University School of Law and his B.S. degree from Boston College.

Hogan Lovells announces that Alice Valder Curran has been named the new regional managing partner for its Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis offices.

Curran joined Hogan Lovells in 1998, and is a Health partner in the firm’s Government Regulatory practice. She is a nationally recognized expert on the Medicare and Medicaid price reporting programs that are a key compliance obligation for pharmaceutical manufacturers in the United States.

Curran succeeds Emily Yinger, who has been in the role since 2010. Yinger has been integral in improving professional development programs for associates, counsel, and partners. Yinger also has been instrumental in the ReVision project, which is a major undertaking to improve and update the work environment in the Washington office.

“Emily’s leadership has been central to our growth in the region during her five years at the helm,” said Hogan Lovells CEO Stephen J. Immelt. “We are excited to have Alice continue in this pivotal role, ensuring the continued success of the firm.”

Hogan Lovells’ Washington, D.C. office is one of the city’s largest and most established law practices, leveraging impressive regulatory capabilities to serve clients at the intersection of business and government. While Washington is one of Hogan Lovells’ two international “hubs,” all of the offices Curran will oversee bring unique strengths to the firm, including: M&A and intellectual property capabilities in Northern Virginia, life sciences industry expertise in Baltimore, deep FDA regulatory experience in Philadelphia, and outstanding litigation capabilities in Minneapolis.

“I have been with the firm for more than 17 years and have worked with each of these offices to leverage all these areas of expertise. I personally understand the region’s considerable impact on the overall success of our firm,” said Curran. “We see a number of opportunities for growth in several key practice and industry areas where the firm already has a strong national and international presence.”

About Hogan Lovells

Hogan Lovells is a leading global legal practice providing business-oriented legal advice and high-quality service across its exceptional breadth of practices to clients around the world.

“Hogan Lovells” or the “firm” is an international legal practice that includes Hogan Lovells US LLP and Hogan Lovells International LLP. For more information, see www.hoganlovells.com.

Bell Nunnally & Martin LLP partners Jeffrey J. Ansley and Karen-Lee Pollak have been selected by their peers for inclusion on D Magazine’s “Best Lawyers in Dallas 2015” list.

The “Best Lawyers in Dallas 2015” features attorneys across more than 35 practice areas chosen by fellow Texas attorneys who answered the publication-posed question: “Which Dallas lawyers, of those whose work you have witnessed firsthand, would you rank among the current best?” Respondents were asked to provide two lawyers from outside their firm and one within their firm across all voting categories. After tallying the votes, nominees were evaluated by the magazine’s editors in concert with a panel of attorneys selected by the publication.

“It is an honor for the firm to have attorneys selected to this list. The respect their peers have shown Jeff and Karen is a testament to their fine client work and one more barometer of the high caliber of firm we have worked hard to build,” said James Skochdopole, managing partner of Bell Nunnally.

Ansley leads the firm’s White Collar Criminal Defense and Internal Investigations practice. A former federal criminal prosecutor and enforcement attorney, he focuses his practice on white collar criminal and regulatory defense and has represented numerous corporate and individual clients in high stakes litigation before federal courts, the SEC and other federal and state agencies. Ansley has also conducted internal investigations involving alleged securities fraud, tax fraud and health care violations. In addition, he develops compliance and ethics programs for corporations and other business entities. He is a graduate of Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law (J.D., 1994) and Texas A&M University (B.A., 1991).

Pollak leads the firm’s Immigration practice and provides full-service legal immigration counsel to large corporations, small businesses and individuals. Her docket routinely includes representing businesses and families in obtaining immigrant and non-immigrant visas to live and work in the United States. Pollak also assists corporations in compliance audits and immigration-related corporate policy formulation. Her immigration litigation practice focuses on federal court litigation under the Administrative Procedure Act and removal defense. Pollak is a graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, where she earned both her undergraduate and law degrees (B.A., 1989; LLB, 1993).

About Bell Nunnally & Martin LLP

With more than 50 attorneys and three decades of doing business, Bell Nunnally & Martin LLP is among the most respected business law firms in Texas, one of the 25 largest in North Texas and one of the state’s fastest-growing firms. The depth of the firm’s knowledge and breadth of its expertise sets Bell Nunnally apart. The firm provides a full range of services, including litigation, appellate law, commercial finance, corporate and securities, creditors’ rights, bankruptcy, health law, intellectual property, labor and employment, immigration, real estate, entertainment, mergers and acquisitions, estate planning, tax and white collar criminal defense. Bell Nunnally is regularly singled out as a “Go-To” firm by America’s largest companies each year in Corporate Counsel magazine. For more information, please visit www.bellnunnally.com.

Frederic Levy, until recently the chair of McKenna’s government contracts practice, will serve as co-chair of Covington’s government contracts group with Jennifer Plitsch and Alan Pemberton. (PRNewsFoto/Covington & Burling LLP)

Covington is significantly expanding its government contracts practice with 19 lawyers from one of the nation’s top government contracts groups, including its former chair and leaders in contractor tort liability, bid protests, procurement fraud, trade secrets and employment, according to a release from Covington.

The group of five partners and 14 other lawyers from McKenna, Long & Aldridge expands and deepens Covington’s capabilities across a range of government contracts matters. Frederic Levy, until recently the chair of McKenna’s government contracts practice, will serve as co-chair of Covington’s government contracts group with Alan Pemberton and Jennifer Plitsch.

These additions double the size of Covington’s government contracts group and place it among the nation’s largest. The work of the new lawyers runs the gamut from contract formation to bid protests to claims and internal investigations to tort litigation to False Claims Act litigation. Chambers has consistently ranked McKenna’s government contracts practice in its highest band, and the group that joined Covington includes most of that firm’s Chambers-rated lawyers in government contracts.

Read the story.

As companies become more aware of — and liable for — breaches involving confidential data, they are seeing more negotiated provisions governing breaches, says a paper published by Nossaman LLP on JDSupra.

Some provisions require notice earlier than statutory requirements, notice in a particular manner, or specific information included with the notice, writes Nossaman partner Brendan Macaulay. Those provisions are often accompanied by indemnity provisions that can be burdensome and open-ended.

He advises companies to re-examine those indemnification provisions and scale back open-ended obligations in light of the current data breach and regulatory environment.

Read the paper.

Employers in the health care industry often subcontract labor through outside vendors to fill positions like travel nurses, security guards, and janitors. But outside contractors may not be in compliance with federal and state employment laws, including wage-and-hour laws, points out a white paper published by Fisher & Phillips.

Because of the “joint-employment” doctrine, the health care facility employer may be on the hook for the contractor’s violations, David Amaya wrote in the paper. “Failure to acknowledge and address this possibility could result in surprise and unforeseen financial responsibility. It’s important to understand the issues raised by this legal rule and to have strategies at the ready to proactively address them.”

Read the white paper.

Eric N. Assouline

Attorney at Law Magazine has named Eric N. Assouline of Florida Attorney of the Month in its greater Miami edition.

Assouline is co-founder of Assouline & Berlowe, P.A., a business litigation and transactional boutique law firm. The firm’s main practice areas are patent and intellectual property law; commercial litigation and appeals; real estate; labor and employment; international law and arbitration; creditors’ rights and bankruptcy. The firm has three South Florida offices, and has served as counsel of record on many complex cases outside of Florida, the magazine article says.

The magazine tracks Assouline’s career from when he worked on the University of Miami Law Review, then in the Miami office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, and eventually opening a modest office in Coral Gables as Assouline & Berlowe, with partner Peter Berlowe.

“From those humble beginnings, Assouline & Berlowe expanded with an office in Broward, and later another office in Boca Raton,” the article says.

Read the article.

Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP represented plaintiffs in $99 million settlement subject to court approval with Eva Airways Corp. in In re: Air Cargo Shipping Services Antitrust Litigation, 06-MD-1775 (JG) (VVP), a multi-district litigation pending in the Eastern District of New York.

To date, plaintiffs have entered into settlements with 24 defendant groups totaling $1.04 billion, of which settlements with seventeen defendant groups for $485.5 million have been granted final approval by the court, the firm said in a release.

These settlements are for significant percentages of defendants’ relevant sales of air cargo shipping services to and from the United States. This litigation is still pending against four defendant groups.

Kaplan Fox serves as one of four co-lead counsel representing a class of direct purchasers from defendants of air cargo shipping services for shipments to, from and within the United States seeking compensation for alleged overcharges sustained as a result of a price-fixing conspiracy alleged against over two dozen airlines.

A Los Angeles County Jury has returned a $13 million verdict in favor of Judith and John Winkel against the Colgate-Palmolive Company, finding that the company’s Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder was responsible for causing Judith Winkle to contract mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer caused by asbestos. This is the first verdict ever against Colgate-Palmolive for asbestos exposure from talcum powder, according to a release from the plaintiffs’s firm, Worthington & Caron, P.C., based in Los Angeles.

According to the lawsuit, Judy began using Cashmere Bouquet in 1961, when her coworkers gave her a can of the powder as a gift. She said she used the product virtually every day from 1961 to 1976. She was diagnosed with mesothelioma in January 2014.

Jurors found the company for the manufacture or sale of powder, resulting in a substantial danger, And the company failed to warn consumers, they found.

Read the story.

If you are thinking about signing any agreement with a non-disparagement clause, ask questions about it, understand it and get competent legal advice, especially if you are the one who is, let’s say, more likely to disparage the other party to the contract, advises David Farren of Phoenix-based Jaburg Wilk in a white paper.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other government agencies “have recently voiced concerns about whether some disparagement clauses may go too far by illegally prohibiting employees or former employees from filing legitimate, but “disparaging,” charges with those agencies,” he writes. “As a result, many disparagement clauses today carve out an exception for filing such charges, and you should ask for that and any other exception that might apply to you if you sign one.”

Read the white paper.

Agiloft Inc., a leading provider of Contract Management services, has been named the Most Popular Contract Management Software by Capterra, an online service that connects buyers and sellers of business software.

The rankings for Capterra’s Top Contract Management Software infographic are based on a combination of total number of customers, number of active users, and online presence, the company said in a release.

“Agiloft’s Contract Management application has skyrocketed in popularity thanks to its comprehensive feature set, which includes everything needed to manage the complete contract lifecycle right out of the box,” the release said.

“Available as a SaaS application or in-house deployment, Agiloft’s 100% web-based Contract Management solution is accessible anytime, anywhere, so users can manage contracts with vendors, partners, and customers on the go.”

Read the story.

Chesapeake Energy has agreed to a $25 million civil settlement with Michigan to settle claims by the state that the Oklahoma City-based producer conspired with another exploration-and-production company to fix bids in oil and gas lease sales in the state in 2010, according to a report in Platts.

The settlement resolves allegations that Chesapeake “had conspired with Calgary-based Encana Oil & Gas to avoid bidding wars against each other in Michigan public auctions for oil and gas leases that caused lease prices to plummet in October 2010,” Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said in a statement announcing the settlement.

Platts says the settlement also addresses complaints that Chesapeake defrauded hundreds of private citizens by fraudulently canceling their oil and gas leases in 2010.

Read the story.