Colorado Business Litigation Lawyer Blog

It was announced March 7, 2011 that CaridianBCT, a Lakewood, Colorado-based medical technology company is being acquired by Tokyo-based Terumo Corp., for a price of $2.63 billion. CaridianBCT, with operations in over 30 countries and sales in more than 96 countries throughout the world, manufactures automated blood component processing technology and medical specialty products.

The company was founded by two individuals in 1964 as Cobe Laboratories. It was acquired by Gambro AB, a publicly traded multinational health care company based in Sweden, in 1990. In 2008, the company was purchased by Indap, a private equity firm.

CaridianBCT, combined with Terumo Corp., will continue to be based in Lakewood, which will remain the hub of the company’s R&D and manufacturing operations. It employs about 1,600 in Lakewood and more than 2300 worldwide.

The company, under the leadership of David Perez, president and CEO and member of the board of directors of CaridianBCT, is known as a very progressive and dynamic organization. Perez said it is unlikely that there will be job cuts in Lakewood.

The acquisition is expected to be completed in late April to early May, 2011.

According to Reuters, banks foreclosed on 1.05 million homes in the U.S. in 2010. Foreclosure filings, including default notices, auctions and repossessions, reached a whopping record of 2.9 million for last year. The outlook for 2011 is bleak, due in part to the fact that an estimated one-quarter million foreclosures that were withdrawn in the latter part of 2010 will likely be re-started in early 2011.

Just five states -- California, Florida, Arizona, Illinois and Michigan -- accounted for more than half of all foreclosure activity.

Congress, financial institutions and the Obama administration are all busily kicking the political football around; meanwhile, the unemployed and the dispossessed impatiently await at least some measure of relief, while the rest of us wait for the other shoe to drop.

Isn't it time our elected officials find a way to work in harmony for the common good? Don't we have the right to insist, even demand, that the largely philosophical differences be worked out by sane and meaningful debate and compromise? Do we have to risk the shutting down of government before breaking the congressional logjam?

How much abuse of the people is too much?

Continue reading "The Alarming Foreclosure Crisis" »

We wrote back on April 29, 2010 about what some SEC staffers were doing while Bernard Madoff was busy perpetrating a massive fraud against his investors. Some high-level employees, including SEC attorneys, were spending as much as eight hours a day watching porn on their government computers.

Now comes word from The Denver Post that, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Denver attorney Kevin Evans, the SEC has disclosed that 33 SEC employees and employees of private contractors in the SEC's Denver Regional Office and six other locations were investigated for accessing pornography sites on government computers during working hours. Seventeen of the employees had senior status and earned at least $99,356 in annual salaries.

In an earlier disclosure, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) says that 24 of the employees who were investigated either resigned or were suspended, counseled or reprimanded. It is unknown if any of those investigated were involuntarily terminated. A federal judge in Denver has ruled to protect the employees' privacy by not releasing the names of the those involved.

It is our observation thataside from the moral implications of porn-watching it really doesn't matter if the slackers were spending their days shopping or just randomly surfing the internet. The fact remains that taxpayers were paying these people handsomely to do the government's work, including work investigating Madoff and other swindlers for the protection of the public.

Don't we have the right to expect more integrity from our public employees, especially from those in supervisory positions? After all, while the supervisors are figuring out ways to waste their time, what are the people they are paid to supervise doing?

Continue reading "SEC Staffers Fiddled While Investors Got Burned" »

We wrote back on April 2, 2010 about some members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas who picketed and chanted hateful slogans near the 2006 Maryland funeral of a veteran of the Iraq war. Some of the signs displayed contained statements such as “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “Fags Doom Nations,” “America is Doomed,” “Priests Rape Boys,” and “You’re Going to Hell.”

The father of the deceased veteran sued the church and some of its members for intentional infliction of emotional distress, intrusion upon seclusion, and civil conspiracy. A federal jury awarded the father $2.9 million in compensatory damages and $8 million in punitive damages. The trial judge reduced the punitive damages award to $2.1 million. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the verdict, holding that the church and its members were exercising protected First Amendment speech rights. The court ordered the veteran’s father to pay court costs of $16,510.

On March 2, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the Fourth Circuit, holding that the church’s conduct constituted “speech” on a public issue and that the picketing was done peacefully in a public place, in compliance with the direction of local police officials, and was indeed protected by the U.S. Constitution. The court said that the church’s belief that God hates the U.S. for its tolerance of homosexuality, particularly in the military, and its condemnation of the Catholic Church for scandals involving priests, were matters of public, not private, concern, and that the Westboro church and its members were properly communicating their beliefs on those issues.

Continue reading "Supreme Court: Hateful and Hurtful Picketing by Westboro Baptist Church at Vet’s Funeral is Protected Speech" »

In view of recent news stories that Colorado police have cracked down on allegedly distracted drivers, it appears that some drivers are unaware of the restrictions and prohibitions against certain uses of mobile phones. Effective December 1, 2009, it became unlawful in Colorado for persons under 18 to talk on or listen to a mobile phone or to use such a phone for texting "or other similar forms of manual data entry or transmission" while operating a motor vehicle.

Certain emergency and public safety exceptions apply to a driver of any age. In addition, a person who holds a valid amateur radio operator license issued by the FCC may properly operate an amateur radio station. Persons 18 or older may talk on or listen to a mobile phone while driving, but may not use the phone for texting or similar uses.

A $50 fine is imposed for a first violation and a $100 fine is imposed for a second or subsequent violation. To constitute a violation, the police officer must actually see the person driving while making a prohibited call or using the phone in a restricted manner. The law does not speak to the issue of who has the burden in court of proving that the phone was used for an emergency or for a public safety use.

In any event, for your safety and the safety of others, you should exercise care and keep your primary focus on driving, even when making lawful use of the phone.

Continue reading "Reminder That Improper Uses of Mobile Phones While Driving are Illegal in Colorado" »