Subject:
             Brief Update on Tobacco/Union/Blues
        Date:
             Sun, 19 Dec 1999 16:28:19 -0800
       From:
             "Robert B. Sklaroff, MD" <rsklaroff@home.com>
 Organization:
             @Home Network
 
 
 

Although many people are vacationing for the next two weeks, there will
continue to be activity on all three fronts.  I'm working on a new
MSA-related filing to Commonwealth Court, a few Blues-briefs will be due
within days, and we're acquiring data for both our JFK-efforts and our
potential class action litigation.  Details on these points are
available upon request, and highlights follow:

TOBACCO--

Functioning "pro se". . .I have learned that a Court that doesn't want
to be bothered with a motion or appeal will inform me of that
fact--usually--within a day or two (and sometimes return the
documents).  Thus, last week, the lawyers for Philip Morris must have
been becoming antsy as the pendancy of my Reargument/Reconsideration
Motion before Judge Herron (on the Wawa Billboard Case) was crossing the
three-week threshold.  (They even failed to block me from supplementing
the record with further information regarding the return of these Wawa
ads, two weeks ago!)  How can I tell?

I received a curious communication from a lawyer representing PM on
Friday.  The letter opined an incorrect conclusion (that my recent
appellate filing to Commonwealth Court voluntarily mooted my
Reargument/Reconsideration Motion).  It seemed to escape her attention
that I wanted to ensure I had filed within 30 days after the Order had
been docketed, lest the opportunity pass.

It prompted an immediate response--

http://sklaroff.globalink.org/globalink-WBA-12_17_99.html

--so as to neutralize this little bit of chicanery.  This letter,
ostensibly written to me, was sent via snail-mail to myself but via FAX
to Judge Herron.  The obvious effort was to goad him into discontinuing
his review of my case (on Thursday) before I had had a chance to clarify
matters (on Friday).

Cute, very cute. . . .

The Tobacco Industry is so vile that it even transforms its lawyers into
worms.

{I have prepared a short-FAX of the juiciest MSA-related documents that
is also available, upon request.  Until I get a scanner, the only
information being uploaded to my Web-site is that which has been
word-processed.}

BLUES--

More Order clarifications continue burning-up the FAX lines, but the
bottom line is that it is unlikely the Prehearing Conference will be
called before March 1.  Copies of these documents are available--and I
filed a formal request to have them electronically transmitted, so that
I can upload them all on my Web-site--but of greater importance will be
the effort made by the petitioners to expand a confidential record,
opposed by "Highmark" as it tries to limit a public record.  The games
continue. . . .

UNION--

We're preparing our submission to the Federal Mediator, whom we hope
will certify signatures ASAP.  Also, we are updating our proposed PA
legislation to accommodate the Texas bureaucratic "experience."
Finally, I am attempting to gain support for this effort through the PA
College of Internal Medicine, via transmission of an appropriate
resolution to the Annual ASIM-ACP Meeting (in Philly, this Spring).