From: Boil The Frog
by Arthur Firstenberg, Cellular Phone Task Force, Aug 11, 2014
Another Step …
Twenty-nine high-profile lawsuits brought by people whose brain
tumors were caused by their cell phones are finally moving toward trial.
Six of these cases were originally filed in 2001 and 2002. Many of the
plaintiffs are no longer alive.On Friday, Judge Frederick H. Weisberg,
in the D.C. Superior Court, admitted the testimony of five expert
witness for the plaintiffs, and the 12- and 13-year-old cases will now
move into the discovery phase. Each of the plaintiffs is asking for more
than $100,000,000. There are 46 defendants including Motorola, Nokia,
AT&T, Bell Atlantic, Cellular One, Cingular Wireless, SBC
Communications, Verizon, Vodafone, the Telecommunications Industry
Association, the IEEE, ANSI, the CTIA, and the FCC. The plaintiffs are
represented by Jeffrey B. Morganroth of Morganroth & Morganroth, a
law firm in Birmingham, Michigan.For over a decade the industry and the
plaintiffs have played tug-of-war with the oldest cases, sending them
back and forth between federal and state courts, and fighting over
whether the plaintiff’s claims were preempted by the Telecommunications
Act of 1996.
In 2009 the D.C. Court of Appeals, in Murray v. Motorola (982 A. 2d
764), ruled that the telecommunications companies could not be sued over
brain tumors caused by cell phones manufactured after 1996. But since
all of these plaintiffs had used pre-1996 phones, their lawsuits were
allowed to go forward. They were also allowed to go forward on their
claims that the defendants made false and misleading statements and
failed to disclose information about the dangers of cell phones. These
claims were brought under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act.
In December 2013 and January 2014, testimony was heard from:
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