A judge has called into question the loyalty of a band of plaintiff attorneys seeking court review of a multimillion-dollar medical research institute’s books and disqualified them from the secondhand-smoke settlement case.
Concluding “there is clearly an appearance of impropriety,” Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jerald Bagley gave the boot to the lawyers who filed the petition — Alex Alvarez, Philip Gerson and Steven Hunter. The judge also ejected four others brought in to help build its case against the Flight Attendants Medical Research Foundation, disqualifying Ramon Abadin, Philip Freidin, Hector Lombana and H.T. Smith.
