"MASS TORT DEBACLE" 
Over the weekend, The New York Times ran an interesting story dissecting the legal career of Paul J. Napoli. He is one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the class action suit filed by over 9,000 9/11 cleanup workers, who say they were exposed to toxic dust at the site that made them sick. Turns out that after Napoli made millions representing thousands of users of the controversial diet drug fen-phen, one of many ethics charges lobbied against him came from a former client and law firm who said he manipulated the distribution of fen-phen settlement money to his firm’s advantage. (In January, the Appellate Division upheld an earlier decision by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos and allowed the case to proceed to trial.) The Times’ article reexamines the fen-phen “goldrush” — cited as a “mass tort debacle” by The American Lawyer — and ponders how Napoli’s troubles might affect the 9/11 litigation. “There’s no federal order or state order that says I ever did anything wrong,” said Napoli. “We tried to do the right thing.”

"HUMAN DIGNITY" AND THE STRIP SEARCH 
Last Friday, Eastern District Judge Denis Hurley ruled that more than 20,000 people who were strip-searched after being arrested on misdemeanor charges in Nassau County may sue for damages, since “human dignity is inextricably intertwined in the nature of the unlawful act at issue — the strip search.” Newsday has the story. By law, such searches can only take place if the arrestee is suspected of carrying contraband. “All these years, they have subjected people with misdemeanors to this disgusting procedure for no reason,” said a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Robert L. Herbst. The case could cost the county tens of millions of dollars.

CASES PILE UP IN CHENANGO AND BROOME COUNTIES 
In other news, The Greater Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin investigates a rising backlog in the Broome and Chenango county court systems. One judge’s retirement, along with unusual glut in homicide cases — one of which will finally go to trial 18 months after indictment — are partly to blame, the paper reports. Chenango County Judge W. Howard Sullivan — who recently recused himself from the retrial Peter Wlasiuk after his second-degree murder conviction was vacated by the Court of Appeals — has been assigned to address the Chenango County Family Court’s backlog.

SEAN BELL UPDATE 
And again from Newsday, an update from the Sean Bell murder trial, which is entering its sixth week and its most crucial stage. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman will soon hear testimony from the two men wounded in the shooting, followed by testimony from the shooters themselves. The crucial questions are whether the officers reasonably believed deadly force was necessary, and whether they identified themselves as police before unleashing a 50-shot barrage.