Dianne Willmore, who passed from mesothelioma in 2009, won a landmark £240,000 case, holding Knowsley Borough Council liable for her asbestos exposure during school. Her case prompted legal and financial ramifications for local authorities nationwide, leading to increased awareness and changes in asbestos-related negligence proceedings.
Shane Flynn, 35, owner of a Mullingar clinic, was convicted of sexual assault after inappropriately touching a client seeking back pain relief. The investigation also revealed 18 hours of footage showing Flynn secretly filming 35 women during massages, raising further concerns about his conduct and abuse of trust within his practice.
Naveed Rana, a Dublin taxi driver, was sentenced to five and a half years for the assault of an 18-year-old woman after a night out. The court heard how Rana took advantage of the victim’s trust, driving erratically and assaulting her before being apprehended due to her quick actions in reporting the incident to Gardaí.
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Two lawyers have been accused of using a paralegal to friend a litigant and access non-public Facebook pages, and the New Jersey Supreme Court in USA has ruled in a decision on the power of the Office of Attorney Ethics. Ethical regulators may subsequently pursue a case against these two lawyers.
Even though the secretary of a local district ethics committee refused to docket the matter, the Supreme Court ruled that the ethics office could investigate the grievance.
The lawyers in question, John Robertelli and Gabriel Adamo are accused of using the paralegal to obtain private Facebook information about a plaintiff in a personal injury case. The plaintiff had been injured after being struck by a police car; and Robertelli and Adamo were representing the governmental body that was being sued.
The paralegal in question allegedly obtained access to the plaintiff’s Facebook account (as the plaintiff had changed the privacy setting on their account) by friending the plaintiff. She did use her real name but did not disclose who she worked for – Rivkin Rader Law firm in Hackensack. The litigant learned that his private Facebook information had been accessed after the lawyers sought to add the paralegal as a trial witness and disclosed Facebook printouts.
The secretary of the local ethics committee refused to docket a grievance lodged by the litigant, because she believed the allegations, if proven, didn’t constitute unethical conduct. However, the director of the Office of Attorney Ethics nonetheless filed a complaint against the lawyers, who said in their answer they were unfamiliar with the privacy settings on Facebook. They did however acknowledge that they asked the paralegal to monitor the Facebook page but have denied asking the paralegal to ‘friend’ the litigant. They claimed that they thought the friend request was an automatic process.
The New Jersey Supreme Court allowed the ethics case to proceed and noted that the matter presents a novel ethics issue that hasn’t been the subject of any reported case law in New Jersey.
A lawyer representing Robertelli and Adamo, told the Wall Street Journal that the opinion highlights a lack of ‘playbook or precedent for how these attorneys should have dealt with the circumstances they were confronted with in 2008.
He also notes that a hearing on the merits of the ethics complaint has not yet been held.
Shane Flynn, 35, owner of a Mullingar clinic, was convicted of sexual assault after inappropriately touching a client seeking back pain relief. The investigation also revealed 18 hours of footage showing Flynn secretly filming 35 women during massages, raising further concerns about his conduct and abuse of trust within his practice.
Naveed Rana, a Dublin taxi driver, was sentenced to five and a half years for the assault of an 18-year-old woman after a night out. The court heard how Rana took advantage of the victim’s trust, driving erratically and assaulting her before being apprehended due to her quick actions in reporting the incident to Gardaí.
Pat Murphy, a 34-year-old father, died after a ruptured artery went undiagnosed at Cork University Hospital. Despite suffering severe chest pains, he faced a nine-hour wait for a CT scan, delayed further by a malfunctioning machine. His family claims this delay contributed to his tragic death.
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