July 2006 Archives

Former "Riverdance" star Michael Flatley can proceed with a $100 million extortion and defamation lawsuit against Tyna Marie Robertson who falsely claimed he raped her in Las Vegas. Flatley won an Illinois State Supreme Court ruling that he is allowed to sue and the case can proceed to trial.

According to court papers, the 48-year old dancer received a letter from Robertson's attorney D. Dean Mauro in January 2003 alleging that Flatley had raped Robertson the previous year in a Las Vegas hotel, where Flatley was appearing in a show.

Court papers state that Mauro threatened in the letter, and later during phone calls, that he would file a sexual assault lawsuit unless Flatley agreed to a "seven figures settlement." Police declined to press criminal charges and Flatley said the sex was consensual.

A settlement of $13 million between Kmart and disabled shoppers in a lawsuit over access at its stores has been approved by a federal judge.

.S. District Judge John L. Kane approved the agreement, which also gives the company 7 1/2 years to bring its stores nationwide into compliance with federal standards for merchandise, counters, restrooms, fitting rooms and parking lots. Kmart and the plaintiffs announced the proposed settlement in March.

The $13 million includes $8 million in cash and $5 million in gift cards. It will be distributed to class-action plaintiffs in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Texas, whose laws have minimum damages for failing to comply with disability access rules.

Plaintiff's attorney Amy F. Robertson has said the most an individual could receive would range from $100 in Colorado to $8,000 in California, depending on each state's laws.

A St. Louis jury has awarded $11 million to the relatives of Lois and Randy Anderson who were killed at the Lake of the Ozarks by carbon monoxide from their boat's generator.

The couple and two friends were killed in 1999, when the corroded exhaust pipe of the cabin cruiser's generator leaked carbon monoxide into the cabin, the suit said.

The Andersons' children, and the mothers of both Lois and Randy Anderson, had sued the generator's manufacturer, Kohler Co., and Oklahoma marina owner Bratco Inc. Relatives of the other victims, John C. Harris and Robert A. Stein, had already settled their lawsuits before trial, lawyers said.

The jury found that the Wisconsin-based Kohler had sold a generator that was defective and "unreasonably dangerous," and that the defect led to the death of the Andersons.

A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on behalf of author Studs Terkel and other activists against the NSA program of collecting phone-company records has been dismissed.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly said that "The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records to the federal government could give adversaries of this country valuable insight into the government's intelligence activities."

A number of such lawsuits have been filed around the country against AT&T and other phone companies for having provided users' records to the National Security Administration.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco had ruled that media reports of the program were so widespread there was no danger of spilling secrets.

But Judge Kennelly said the news reports amounted to speculation and in no way constituted official confirmation that phone records had been turned over.

He also said Terkel and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which sought class-action status, had not shown that their records had been provided to the government. As a result, they lacked standing to sue the government, he said.

A Korean woman is suing the Department of Homeland Security for $ 5 million, for the sexual assault that she suffered during a citizenship interview.

The woman claims that Officer Kelvin Renard Owens asked her during a June 2004 interview "If I let you pass, what are you going to give me?" He then bodily assaulted her and asked her to meet him outside the building to find out whether she had passed the test.

Owens pleaded guilty in federal court to sexual assault in March 2005. A judge ordered him to spend weekends in prison for six months. The judge also put him on probation for five years and fined him.

A lawyer for the U-S Citizenship and Immigration Service denied any liability in an April letter to the woman's lawyer, saying Owens was not acting within the course or scope of his job.

A state appeals court has ruled that the City of Oakland is partly responsible for the death of Freddie Marie Christian, who was stabbed by her boyfriend, when he should have been in jail.

Christian's boyfriend, Clarence Brown had been served a restraining order, but the next day, she came home to find him in her apartment. She called the police, but instead of being booked into the city jail, as required by state law and police regulations, he was released by Officer Matous.

Brown returned to Christian's apartment, hid and stabbed her to death.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Christian's three children, represented by attorney John Burris. The appeals court panel called the conduct of the city "reckless, indifferent and negligent".

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The family of Ed Lino, a slain mobster, is suing his alleged killer, mob cop Stephen Caracappa, for $100 million.

Caracappa, a former detective and his partner, Louis Eppolito, allegedly got $70,000 from Luchese family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso to kill Lino, a member of a hit team that had tried but failed to kill Casso.

The suit, filed by Lino's widow, Anna, also seeks to hold the city responsible, charging that the NYPD failed to properly supervise and monitor the pair.

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A jury has ordered a labor union to pay $ 17.3 million to the health care organization, Sutter Health for a defamation campaign unleashed against the hospitals run by the organization.

The Placer County jury found that Unite Here, one of the nation's largest unions, defamed Sutter Health early last year by mass mailing postcards to women of child-bearing age in Northern California. The postcards claimed that the organization's hospitals used unclean linens. The union was in a labor dispute with the laundry service that cleaned the linens at the time.

Sutter Health runs a number of Bay Area hospitals, including Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland, Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame and Sutter Delta Medical Center in Antioch.

"We are pleased that leaders of Unite Here have been held legally accountable for recklessly frightening patients and the public through outrageous and false allegations," said Michael Roosevelt, chairman of Sutter Health's board of directors.

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Greg Walker, a former business associate of Superstar Beyonce Knowles, has sued House of Dereon, the clothing and accessory design company she owns with her mother, Tina.

Walker, CEO of Icon Entertainment, says he was hired by the singer and her mother in 2003 to help get endorsement licensing deals. He scored a $15 million deal for the House of Dereon with clothing manufacturer Wear Me Apparel, Corp, but was not fully compensated for his work.

Of the deal, Walker says he’s only collected $25,000, which he says is quite far from the agreed terms. He has now filed a breach of contract suit against Beyonce and Tina in New York’s Supreme Court and asked for a compensation of $ 1.5 million.

Walker is also suing Wear Me Apparel for neglecting to pay the remainder of his fee. The  company has paid him $85,000, he claims.

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Margaret Mueller and her partner Charlotte Stacey are suing two doctors who treated Mueller for ovarian cancer when she actually had cancer of the appendix. The suit says that she underwent years of unnecessary and devastating treatment while the cancer spread.

Mueller and Stacey have been domestic partners for 21 years and were joined in a civil union in Connecticut in 2005. Now Stacey is also suing the doctors for the harm to her relationship, known as a loss of consortium claim. Before the law granted gay couples the same rights as heterosexual married coupled in Connecticut, only a married partner could seek that compensation.

Attorneys for the doctors said they have no plans to challenge Stacey's right to be included in the lawsuit.

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Joseph Garza, a former Navy worker suffering from asbestosis was awarded $ 1.1 million in a suit against Asbestos Corporation Limited. Garza was a fireman and boilerman on ships during his career in the Navy from 1948 through 1957. He worked in conditions in which he was exposed to asbestos-containing cements, insulation, gaskets and packing.

In early 2004, Mr. Garza was diagnosed with asbestosis, a progressive and debilitating scarring of the lung tissue that is caused by exposure to asbestos. This left him dependant on supplemental oxygen and medications. Mrs. Garza is disabled and had relied on her husband to perform household services, such as cooking, cleaning, gardening and maintenance.

A jury awarded over $1.1 million to Joseph Garza and $400,000 to his wife for the loss of his companionship. The defendant, Asbestos Corporation Limited, acted with malice or oppression, according to the jury, which added another $10 million in punitive damages against the company.

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Asbestos Corporation Limited is the owner and former operator of asbestos mines in the Thetford Mines region of Quebec, Canada.

An Atlantic County jury has ruled that Vioxx was not a substantial cause of the heart attack suffered by Elaine Doherty, 68.

The jury found that Doherty's heart attack was caused by her own medical problems, which included arthritis, heart disease, blocked arteries, high blood pressure,  obesity and diabetes. Vioxx was not a substantial factor in Doherty's 2004 heart attack, and Merck will not have to pay compensatory or punitive damages. The jury also found that Merck did not violate New Jersey's consumer fraud law, meaning it used good faith in its marketing and did not conceal Vioxx risks.

Lawyers for Doherty had argued that Vioxx was a major cause of her heart attack and that Merck downplayed the risks of Vioxx both to doctors and to patients. Doherty, the first female Vioxx user whose case has come to trial, had taken Vioxx for 2 1/2 years for arthritis before suffering a mild heart attack in January 2004.

Merck lawyers countered that company officials disclosed the drug's risks appropriately and that Doherty's own cardiac risk factors were responsible for her heart attack.

The jury found that Merck properly warned doctors about the drug's cardiac risks, but did not warn the woman, the first time a jury in a Vioxx liability case has considered whether patients were warned.

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The family of a 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, who died after a manhandling by guards at a juvenile boot camp, are seeking more than $40-million in damages from state and local agencies.

The suit has been filed against the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Bay County Sheriff's Office, which ran the camp under contract with the state.

The teenager's death in January led to protests, the resignation of the head of the state's law enforcement agency and the elimination of military-style boot camps.

Anderson died in Pensacola after his videotaped ordeal with guards in the Panama City boot camp. "As seven guards punished Martin by kicking, punching, kneeing, choking and slamming him while they jammed ammonia tablets up his nose and covered his mouth, a nurse watched him slip in and out of consciousness," the family's lawyer Ben Crump said. "These heinous, malicious, and torturous treatments led to his death."

Crump said he based the $40-million figure largely on a similar Texas case, in which a jury awarded a family $40.1-million after their 18-year-old died while being forced to complete intense physical programs in a boot camp despite pleas for medical help.

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In January 2005, Carriel Louah, 25, traveled to Darlington, Wisconsin, to wish her mother a happy birthday. After spending the night at her mother and step-father's house, the next morning she slipped in their driveway, breaking her ankle and injuring her leg.

Louah's mother, Wendi Reichling, wrote her a letter saying that she and her husband "should have fixed that damn (gutter) years ago. We have learned we have to take better care of our sidewalks."

Now Louah is using the same letter as ammunition in a lawsuit, arguing that her parents should be held liable for damages for maintaining "an unnatural accumulation of ice" on their driveway. She alleges that the gutter of their house was defective and they should pay her more than $75,000 in damages.

A federal judge has refused to throw out the lawsuit, setting up a potential mother-daughter courtroom showdown at a trial scheduled for November.

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North American farmers have filed a class action lawsuit against the Australian Wheat Board, alleging that the Board used bribery and other corrupt activities to corner grain markets. The class action names six farmers but allows for more than 20,000 to join and is claiming $1 billion in damages.

The lawsuit will draw on evidence obtained by the Cole inquiry probing AWB's $300 million in kickbacks to the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. The suit also alleges that AWB used similar methods to secure grain sales in other markets in Asia and the Middle East. AWB is accused of conspiring to use tactics including bank fraud, bribery and money laundering.

The farmers are suing under a legislation that was designed to target the mafia and outlaw bikie gangs, the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organisations (RICO) Act.

Bill Fletcher, spokesman for the growers said, "What the AWB did at the expense of American and Canadian wheat farmers is create a situation where the global price of wheat became inflated and there could literally be damages in excess of $1 billion."

AWB, which is yet to be officially served with the writ, said it would defend the claim. "Such actions are ill conceived and if any action is formally brought against AWB we will vigorously defend," spokesman Peter McBride said.

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The U.S. Department of Justice has sued the city of Euclid seeking to block elections until the election process is restructured to give black candidates a better chance at holding public office.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Cleveland, alleges that in the present system, it is virtually impossible for a black candidate to get elected, as majority whites vote as a bloc in an at-large election setup.

"The Justice Department believes today's lawsuit is necessary to preserve the voting rights of African-American citizens in the city of Euclid," Assistant Attorney General Wan J. Kim, who heads up the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a news release.

The city's population of 53,000 is 30% black, but no black person has been elected to a local seat.

At issue is the City Council voting system. Each of four wards elects a representative; four additional council members and the council president are elected citywide. In 2005, all five citywide office holders were from the same ward.

Kim warned city officials in a letter in March that he was prepared to sue.

The lawsuit claims black candidates would fare better if the city were split into eight wards, each electing its own council member. That would create at least two majority-black districts, according to the lawsuit.

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A Houston jury has ruled that Johnson & Johnson are to pay $ 773,000 to the family of Michaelynn Thompson, who died after wearing a defective drug patch. No punitive damages were awarded in this case, the first one involving drug patches.

Thompson was wearing a patch that delivers controlled, hourly doses of fentanyl, a commonly used anesthetic that in high doses can turn off the respiratory center in the brain.

A lawyer for the Thompson family says that a leak on the patch she was wearing greatly increased the dose of the painkiller Thompson received. A test by a private-lab showed the level of fentanyl in Thompson's blood was about ten times what it would have normally been for pain-killing.

Johnson and Johnson said it disagrees with the outcome of the wrongful-death trial, in which eleven out of 12 jurors decided the Duragesic patch Thompson wore was defective.

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In 2004, the Wisconsin Supreme Court had ruled that families of malpractice victims who die could collect damages only for wrongful death and not for pain and suffering.

On Friday, the court overturned its own ruling and reinstated a $ 1.2 million award to the family of Helen Bartholomew, who suffered a heart attack and died after a doctor misdiagnosed her.

Victims should be eligible for both wrongful death damages and pain and suffering damages because they are separate causes of action, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote in the majority opinion for four justices. The damages are capped under Wisconsin law - to $350,000 for wrongful death for adults, $500,000 for wrongful death for children and $750,000 for pain and suffering.

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Allen Heckard of Portland, Oregon, is suing Michael Jordan and Nike founder Phil Knight for $ 832 million, claiming that he has suffered for being mistaken for Jordan for the past 15 years.

Heckard is suing Jordan for defamation and permanent injury, emotional pain and suffering. He is suing Knight for defamation and permanent injury for promoting Jordan and making him one of the world's most famous athletes.

Heckard bears a physical resemblance to Jordan because he has a shaved head, an earring in his left ear, and is in good physical shape — from playing basketball. He says many people miss the fact that he is roughly six inches shorter than Jordan.

When asked how he arrived at the figure of $ 416 million each against Jordan and Knight, Heckard says, "Well, you figure with my age and you multiply that times seven and then I turn around and I figure that's what it all boils down to."

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The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that Philip Morris USA and other cigarette makers will not pay a $145 billion award, the largest in U.S. history, to Florida smokers. The court refused to reinstate a punitive-damage award that the companies had said would bankrupt them.

The case related to a $145 billion verdict that a Miami jury ruled in July 2000 against Philip Morris, a unit of Altria, Reynolds American Inc.'s R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and other U.S. cigarette companies. A state appeals court had rejected the award in May 2003, calling it "grossly excessive.'' The Florida Supreme Court affirmed that appeals decision today.

The ruling comes as a shot in the arm to the tobacco industry, reeling under multiple lawsuits over smoking-related deaths and disease. It also paves the way for Altria to separate the company's tobacco and food businesses. Shares of Altria Group Inc. and Reynolds American Inc.'s R.J. Reynolds Tobacco jumped to all-time highs as a result of this ruling.

The court held that the case cannot be treated as a class action, and Florida smokers must proceed with their claims individually. Florida smokers in the case were given one year by the ruling to file individual claims.

The court found that the amount of punitive damages was excessive "because it would bankrupt some of the defendants.'' The $ 145 billion verdict was also found to be improper because the trial court had decided the punitive amount for the whole class without first determining what actual damages were needed to compensate smokers for their injuries.

In today's decision, the court upheld $6.9 million in compensatory damages awarded to two smokers who served as representatives of the state-wide class. The court reversed $5.8 million in compensatory damages to a third class representative.

The Florida suit was filed in 1994 on behalf of some 700,000 smokers in the state, including Howard Engle, a Miami Beach pediatrician with emphysema who represented the plaintiffs' class. Florida's 3rd District Court of Appeal overturned the award and decertified the class, asserting that "the issue of damages requires individualized proof with regard to each smoker.''

In addition to Philip Morris, the world's biggest cigarette maker, and R.J. Reynolds, the other defendants in the case include Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.; Loews Corp.'s Lorillard Tobacco Co.; and Vector Group Ltd.'s Liggett Group Inc. In July 2004, R.J. Reynolds acquired Brown & Williamson's U.S. operations.

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A class action lawsuit against Management and Training Corporation, a firm that used to run the Santa Fe County jail, over the practice of strip searching all inmates, has been settled for $ 8.5 million.

The suit was filed in January 2005 and contended that the policy of strip-searching all prisoners violated their constitutional rights.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff‘s Department is now running the jail, and the policy of strip searching is no longer in use.

The settlement will be shared by persons who were booked into the jail between January 2002 and the present.

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With the unexpected death of former Enron CEO, Kenneth Lay, the criminal conviction against him, that was expected to result in a prison sentence, now stands void. Efforts to get restitution for victims of his fradulent practices through criminal proceedings are also no longer possible after his death.

However, the civil cases against him will not be affected and will proceed against his estate.

Kenneth Lay's death is also not likely to have an impact on the sentence or appeal of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling.

A second proposed class-action lawsuit has been filed against Microsoft Corp. over Windows Genuine Advantage, on behalf of two Washington businesses and three Seattle-area residents. The lawsuit alleges that the company's anti-piracy tool qualifies as spyware.

The latest suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, raises issues that include the way a test version of the tool checked in daily with Microsoft's servers. The company says that this practice has now ended.

The suit  also challenges the company's method of distributing the tool as part of its Automatic Updates system, more commonly used for security patches. Many of the claims in the second suit are similar to those in the first, which Microsoft has called baseless.

The company says the purpose of the Windows Genuine Advantage tool is to inform people when they are running unlicensed versions of the Windows PC operating system.

Read our post about the first WGA lawsuit.

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El Paso's National Center for Employment of the Disabled, recently renamed Ready One Industries, is suing its former president & CEO, Bob Jones, for over $30 million.

Bob Jones is credited with having built Ready One, which was recently investigated by the FBI, a U.S. Senate committee and two regulatory agencies. The nonprofit disclosed that it paid Jones $6 million last year, according to the lawsuit. The suit demands the return of $24 million in compensation paid to Jones since 2003 and accuses Jones of putting millions of company dollars to his personal use and of other financial improprieties.

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A Superior Court judge at Middletown has awarded $ 3.5 million in damages to Ajai Bhatia, whose former fiancee falsely accused him of sexually abusing their daughter during a bitter custody dispute five years ago.

The accusations cost Bhatia his $100,000-a-year engineering job and his house, and caused him to spend tens of thousands of dollars in a prolonged legal battle to clear his name.

Bhatia faced the humiliation of being escorted out of his office at Pitney-Bowes, Shelton in handcuffs, accused of being a pedophile. He spent four days in jail. He endured a long criminal trial, was acquitted of sexual assault charges resulting from his fiancée's complaint and has been the subject of multiple child-abuse investigations involving the state Department of Children and Families.

Now the large monetary award is little solace to Bhatia, who believes that he will probably never recover anywhere near that amount from his former fiancée, Marlene Debek of Bridgeport. And the accusations have damaged his relationship with his daughter, now 9.

Superior Court Judge Julia L. Aurigemma found that Debek had no probable cause to accuse Bhatia of a crime. "She did so with malice in that her motive was to harm the plaintiff and keep him from having any contact with their daughter," Aurigemma wrote. "In the custody battle, Ms. Debek used the claim of sexual abuse as the final weapon in her arsenal against Mr. Bhatia when her other weapons, false-claims of physical violence and danger of [his] flight to India, were not effective."

Aurigemma awarded Bhatia $2.5 million in damages for his emotional distress, loss of reputation and humiliation, which she said was "staggering."

"It is difficult to imagine anything worse than being falsely accused of sexually assaulting your own child and having the accuser brainwash the child into believing the false allegations," Aurigemma wrote in her ruling.

The judge gave Bhatia an additional $500,000 for his loss of income, $410,000 in punitive damages and $130,000 for attorney's fees from his initial criminal trial. Bhatia was represented in the malicious prosecution case by New Haven attorney John R. Williams.

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The state of Monana is due to receive $1.3 million dollars as a settlement from Enron Corporation for damages suffered by electricity customers as a result of the firm's manipulation of the energy market.

It is likely that the settlement amount will be reduced as a bankruptcy judge gives out the company's assets to creditors.

The state argued that Enron's market manipulation, which led to big price spikes in the West in 2000 and 2001, had illegally driven up the price of power for consumers of wholesale electricity in the state.

Last week, the Federal Energy Regulator Commission and Enron agreed to a two-part settlement with Montana. The state will get a $1,000,000 "unsubstantiated claim" in the Enron bankruptcy proceeding, and a $300,000 payment assigned by FERC as part of a "substantiated claim" in the bankruptcy case.

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