October 2008 Archives

The Texas A&M University bonfire tragedy in 1999 that resulted in the deaths of eleven students and a graduate as well as injured 27 others finally closed a chapter recently with the last case against the University being resolved for a payout of $2.1 million to four families of students who were killed and to three students who were injured. This agreement brings the total payments to victims and their families to $7.6 million. However, lawsuits against companies that provided machinery and personnel involved in erecting the pyre are still active.
The 60 feet tall bonfire is a century old tradition of the students of the University and is considered a highlight of the Thanksgiving- time football game against their archrivals, the University of Texas. However on November 18, 1999 the bonfire collapsed and resulted in the death of several students.
To read the original story click here.

Pic1 courtesy Mikel Duke from flickr.com

Pic2 of Bonfire Memorial courtesy surveillant/ Clint Vigil from flickr.com 

The Mississippi Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed against General Motors by a Marion County couple as they had waited too long to sue for breach of warranty.
Hilda Forbes and her husband had bought a 1992 Oldsmobile that was supposed to be equipped with airbags. However, when they had an accident in 1997 the air bags failed to function as the company had represented they would. As a result of this, Hilda Forbes was injured in the accident. The couple sued GM in 2000 which the Supreme Court said was already too late as, when they had bought their vehicle in 1991 or 1992, the six- year clock had already began ticking on any breach of warranty claim.

In 2005, Krysten Chambrot was severely injured in an accident with a car and truck while riding a bicycle. As a result of the accident she had to amputate her left leg. Although partially to blame, Chambrot sued the city of Columbia and Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission amongst others in a personal injury lawsuit.
This week, Chambrot received $450,000 of the $1.8 million awarded in the lawsuit. This amount was arrived at using the ‘pure comparative fault’ theory adopted by the Missouri Supreme Court in 1983. According to this theory a plaintiff can still be awarded money even if they are partly at fault. Thus, the court found Chambrot to be 75 percent at fault for the accident which according to the theory was deducted from the $1.8 million awarded overall.
Judy Pope who was driving the car that hit Chambrot first, was found to be 12 percent at fault while Arens, who was driving the truck that hit her after Pope, was found to be 13 percent at fault along with the city of Columbia. Thus the city had to pay $234,000 and Pope had to pay $216,000.
Jeff Parshall, attorney for the city of Columbia and Arens was not satisfied with the result as he said they were trying to prove that the entire accident was Chambrot’s fault. Chambrot’s attorney was satisfied though he had hoped that his client would be awarded the $4 million they had sought in damages.
Read the original article here.

Rodney Heemstra, a milo farmer convicted for the murder of his neighbor Tom Lyon, walked out of the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility a free man this week. Heemstra, who spent four years and four months behind bars for slaying his neighbor at close range with a single rifle shot to the head, claimed that he had killed him in self defense after he lunged at him. The two farmers often had confrontations over land and cattle watering equipment.
Rural Warren County residents still harbor deep animosity towards Heemstra owing to which he is not expected to return there.
Heemstra was first convicted of first- degree murder in 2003 and was sentenced to life in prison following which, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that he deserved a new trial in 2006. Last year, as a result of his second trial, he was convicted of manslaughter and received credit for his previous prison term thus making him a free man this year.
A Warren County judge had initially awarded Lyon’s family $11.5 million in damages based on the murder conviction. This decision was declared invalid by a three judge panel of the Iowa Supreme Court. A wrongful death civil trial is set to begin next week based on a lawsuit filed by Lyon’s family who will be allowed to seek punitive damages since Heemstra was clearly liable for Lyon’s death.

The year 2005 witnessed over 14,000 plaintiffs being awarded monetary damages in civil trials held nationwide of whom less than five percent received damages of more than a million. The Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) held a study which is the first nationally representative measure of general civil bench and jury trials in state courts of general jurisdiction.
For a detailed account of the study click here.

Dr Paul Minotty, the founder- director of the Florida Eye Institute at Vero Beach, Florida, who is battling a civil case against him initiated by three of his doctor partners, suffered a setback recently when he was asked to pay higher damages.  By awarding $2.9 million in punishment to Minotty’s partners as a punishment to him for installing secret microphones in their offices, the jury was adding to their earlier decision to award his partners $6.8 million in damages for his alleged interception of their communications as well as for financially misleading them.
Thomas Baudo, Karen Todd and John Zudans are involved in a lawsuit with Minotty over the ownership of the Florida Eye Institute and their victory in this case will be instrumental in deciding the outcome of their request to convert the management of the institute into a business receivership.

The jury's decision comes after more than a month's deliberation over the civil trial that began on 22 September. The partners' original claim was for $16.1 million in damages of which $10.1 million was to be paid to the professional association that runs the institute and $6 million would be paid for the alleged invasion of privacy of the three doctors. The partners' attorney, Lois Rosenbaum, contended that Minotty had surveillance equipment illegally installed in their offices after they took legal action against him. He further claimed that Minotty had taken advantage of the partners in several institute business dealings.   

The parents of a Bradenton teenager killed in a motorcycle crash have initiated a wrongful death suit against her friend, on whose motorcycle she was riding, which began today at a Manatee County court. Jaclyn Bien was killed on Aug 12 2006 in a motorcycle crash while riding with her friend Ricky Lee Rowell who her parents claim, was under the influence of alcohol. The suit against him seeks $5 million to $10 million in damages, however, Bien’s parents don’t expect any financial recovery as Rowell does not have any assets. According to the Bradenton Herald, Bien’s parents stated that they just wanted the judicial decision to dignify their daughter’s life and to discourage other young people from driving under the influence of alcohol.
Rowell who is not represented by an attorney had a blood alcohol level of .031 the night of the tragedy which is illegal considering he was underage at the time. The law does not allow those under the age of 21 from having a BAC of more than 0.02.
Bien’s parents, Jeanine Gregory and Jeffrey Bien, also filed a suit against Karen Librizzi, Rober Librizzi and their daughter Lauren as they hosted the party that Jaclyn went for. They reached a settlement with the Librizzis’ insurance company.

Pic courtesy Akeg/ Eric Schmuttenmaer from flickr.com

Clow Valve recently filed a civil conspiracy and fraud lawsuit against Chevron USA, Diamond Oil Company and Oskaloosa Gas and Oil. Attorneys representing Clow asked for punitive damages while the defense attorneys asked for a direct verdict from the judge. Neither request was granted as the jury returned to listen to the first witness’ statement this week.
Clow is seeking punitive damages for four misrepresentations by Chevron on whose advice they discontinued the use of a Mystik food- grade grease and began using Chevron food machinery (FM) extreme pressure grease which is aso a food- grade grease. Later, Dr. Carl Ward who invented Chevron FM grease stated that food grade greases did not perform as well as conventional greases in terms of corrosion. According to Clow’s lawyers, this created a very dangerous situation for the company owing to which their being awarded punitive damages was warranted.
Chevron’s attorney conceded that if the company had prior knowledge that their grease caused corrosion and still went to Clow with it, then that would warrant punitive damages.

  18 months after the most savage fire in Minnesota in 80 years, a 64-year-old Washington, D.C. man was indicted for allowing his campfire on Ham Lake to blow out of control on a windy day in May. Stephen George Posniak was indicted by a grand jury in a federal court of Minneapolis. The fire cost the state $11 million to battle, destroyed 150 buildings costing millions of dollars, not to mention the environmental cost in terms of the destruction of wildlife and was spread across 75,000 acres of forest land.
The irresponsible camper could face more than five years in prison for the accident apart from which he may have to pay civil damages.
In a similar case in 1995 after a blaze near Saganaga Lake a youth camp director was asked to pay $3.8 million in damages to the government which was reduced to $750,000 after some negotiation.

Pic courtesy Greg Clarke from flickr.com

American courts have a long tradition of non- intervention in Church related disputes. Going against this tradition, a Montgomery County court has been embroiled in a conflict of interests between a priest and a bishop.  This particular lawsuit was filed by a priest against an Episcopal bishop who he claims, defrocked him fraudulently six years ago without a hearing before diocesan officials. Rev. David Moyer, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, seeks unspecified damages for loss of employment and mental suffering from Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr.
This case is the first of its kind in America and could set a precedent allowing clergy in religious institutions to sue their superiors in a civil court as opposed to a church court.
The judge, Joseph Smyth, was not sure if the case belonged to the church court purview or the civil court purview. After much deliberation he decided he would continue to hear out the whole case. His decision came after Bennison’s attorney requested the judge to throw the case out.
Bennison suspended Moyer for six months in March 2002 threatening him with removal from priesthood if he did not comply. However, after the suspension and despite Moyer’s compliance, Bennison and the diocesan standing committee used a rarely invoked canon and declared that he had ‘abandoned the communion’ of the Episcopal Church following which he was removed without a trial.

  A civil lawsuit was filed against a substitute teacher and her husband in Pierce County Wisconsin, for the sexual harassment of a thirteen year old boy of Prescott Middle School. The lawsuit asks for compensatory and punitive damages from Ann and Wade J. Knopf for sexual abuse, assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress on the boy.
Although the husband was not involved in actually committing the offence, according to the lawsuit, he had full knowledge about what was going on in his household and did not do anything to put a stop to it. Further, the suit states that Knopf had been diagnosed and treated for mental illness in the past, which her husband was aware of.
According to the complaint, on 1 January and 18 May 2007, and on several other occasions, Knopf, 38, engaged in phone conversations, letters and face- to- face conversations with the boy.
In July, Ann Knopf pleaded guilty to second degree sexual assault of a minor and was sentenced to nine months in prison. A man assaulting a minor girl would have received a much more severe punishment so why this leniency with Ann Knopf?

Pic courtesy Txspiked from flickr.com

Ty Pickyavit filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Clete Carter, a Millard County Sheriff’s deputy, in Fillmore San Francisco, alleging that he used excessive force while arresting him in the month of May for being inebriated. According to the lawsuit, Pickyavit admits to drinking and having trouble walking. He was offered a ride by a passerby after which they were pulled over by Carter. Pickyavit was handcuffed but had difficulty standing up because he had consumed so much alcohol, according to what his attorney wrote in the lawsuit. The lawsuit further described how the deputy went on to shove Mr Pikyavit’s head into the side of the truck with great force while ordering him to stand still. His attorney, Robert Sykes stated that this force was unnecessary as Mr. Pikyavit was not fleeing, resisting arrest or threatening the officer.

The 19-year-old was taken to a hospital where he was treated for head injuries. Pikyavit says in the lawsuit that the deputy also lied to emergency medical staff about how he sustained such serious injuries.

Pikyavit is suing the deputy for $5,000 in medical bills and other punitive damages.

A former police chief of North Arlington recently settled a civil dispute with the Meadowlands Racetrack and the New Jersey State Police over a dispute that has taken several years to sort out. Frank Italiano was taken to court for a disorderly persons offence that allegedly took place at the racetrack in 2004 where he trains horses. The judge decided to throw the case out as there wasn’t sufficient evidence against Italiano. After the judge’s decision in the original case, Italiano filed a civil lawsuit against the Meadowlands Racetrack and state police within ninety days. His claim was that the two departments had humiliated him and prosecuted him under false charges resulting in the defamation of his character.
The settlement was made out of court and the amount Italiano settled for was not disclosed.
Italiano was relieved that his name had been cleared. Victory was all the more important for him as it affected his reputation. During the whole ordeal, Italiano’s friends stood by him and vouched for him. Most of them were shocked about the nature of the charge as they stated that they had never known him to do anything improper.

A 20 month long stalemate between former NFL players and the NFL Players Association finally ended this week with their case being heard at a federal district court in San Francisco. NFL retirees had filed a class action suit against the players association based on the allegation that that the union and its for-profit Players Inc. marketing arm were failing to share millions of dollars in revenue from various commercial ventures such as the sale of collectibles, trading cards and electronic games.
According to Manatt Phelps, the law firm representing the retired players, the lost income for more than 2000 class members was estimated to be around $106.9 million. This figure could triple if the retirees won their case and if jurors awarded them maximum punitive damages.

Pic courtesy David Farrell from flickr.com

A southern California resident who is suffering from cancer was pushed into filing a Lemon Law lawsuit against Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation, a Delaware corporation based in South Carolina after their negligent and insensitive behaviour over the repair of a motor home purchased by him. Doug Sohn, a Lemon law attorney who represents the man and his wife in the case alleges that the $200,000 motor home had defective brakes that caused the couple to have an accident on their very first trip apart from which it also had defective slide- outs and lever jacks. After the accident, the vehicle sat at the Freightliner repair facility for two months while the brakes were being repaired without any repairs being done to the front of the vehicle which had been damaged during the accident.
California's Lemon Law is a consumer protection law that attempts to encourage manufacturers to resolve cases early to avoid paying a civil penalty (similar to punitive damages) which they have to in case it is proven that they deliberately refused to comply with the law. The couple stated that before they even hired an attorney, they tried to convince Freightliner to obey the law. The corporation refused, forcing them to file suit. Owing to Freightliner's deliberate refusal to repurchase the RV, California law will require them buy it back and to pay a civil penalty of up to $400,000.

Italian multinational, dairy and food corporation, Parmalat, initiated a trial five months ago against Citigroup Inc. which backfired. A New Jersey jury verdict stated that Parmalat had defrauded Citigroup and awarded the bank $364.2 million in damages.
The trial was initiated by Parmalat’s new management who claimed that Citigroup bankers had aided corrupt officials of the disgraced corporation in masking the 4 billion Euro gap in the accounts that led to the collapse of the corporation in 2003. For this they claimed $2 billion in damages.
The verdict comes at a bad time for the corporation as it pursues two other similar claims against Bank of America and Grant Thornton, the accounting firm, at a Manhattan court set to begin sometime next year. In addition to this, Parmalat shares plunged after the verdict.

Pic courtesy Goatopolis from flickr.com

Reaching an $894 million deal, drug giant Pfizer Inc has settled most of its lawsuits over the withdrawal of its pain reliever Bextra which has been linked to an elevated risk of heart attacks and strokes. Not having to pay as much as its rival, Merck & Co, Pfizer is planning on ending 92 percent of its law suits with this agreement.

To read the complete article click here.

An man involved in a shootout in April in Indianapolis Colts' receiver, Marvin Harrison’s hometown of

Philadelphia

has sued the NFL star for the injuries he has sustained. Acknowledging that he owned the weapon used in the shootout (a Belgian made F5.7 firearm), Harrison clearly stated that he did not have anything to do with the incident. The alleged victim, Dwight Dixon is seeking more than $50,000 in compensatory damages and more than $50,000 in punitive damages.

Pic courtesy The Brit_2 from flickr.com

Dozens of large black hogs have been a perpetual menace in Southwestern Wisconsin for several years, where they run wild, damaging property, uprooting trees and forcing people to stay indoors. These hogs are not native to the region and state investigators say they know who is responsible for bringing them to Wisconsin and they want him to pay. Former Gays Mills Elk Farm owner Robert S. Johnson has been identified as the culprit by the investigators who claim he brought 31 hogs from Texas to Wisconsin in 2002 and let them loose near the Kickapoo River in Crawford County.
Charged in February with illegally stocking wild animals, a civil infraction, Johnson’s trial began on September 5 and has since been delayed. Proceedings are set to resume this week.
The state Department of Justice, which is handling the case, wants Johnson to pay at least $31,000 in forfeitures, which works out to $1,000 for each pig, as well as money to cover environmental damages.

Pic courtesy Carl Von Canon on flickr.com

A class action suit filed by 150 claimants in Madison County claims that they were unaware of the dangers of asbestos exposure because of false and misleading information provided.

The case, against Metropolitan Insurance Co. and John Crane, says that false and misleading reports were published in order to maintain a favorable atmosphere for the continued sale, use and distribution of asbestos.

Texaco management ordered the destruction of reports documenting oil spills in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. The company, now owned by Chevron, faces $ 16.3 bn potential liability in a civil lawsuit.

Two persons who are now Chevron employees and were previously lawyers for Texaco have recently been indicted for fraud in environmental clean-up.

Now a newly discovered internal memo, from 1972, sent to the company's operations manager in Ecuador, threatens to be a major threat to the company. The memo orders that all previous reports  related to oil spills should be removed from offices and destroyed. Only major events that have attracted the attention of the press or regulatory authorities should be reported.

Texaco has already admitted to dumping more than 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste into Amazone waterways and abandoning over 900 waste pits. Cancer and other health problems are far more predominant in surrounding regions than in other parts of Ecuador.

The $16.3 bn damages claim has been arrived at by an independent court appointed expert, to pay for clean up of pits, improvement of infrastructure, a system to deliver clean water, compensations for cancer deaths, and disgorgement of part of the company's profits.

A spate of cases involving divorced people who are suing former spouses for giving them potentially deadly diseases such as AIDS is throwing up a number of ethic related questions.

Is a person liable for giving a sexually transmitted disease to a partner? What if a person doesn't know if that she or he is infected? What if the person does not know for sure, but has behavioral patterns that increase the risk of infection?

The law states that a person who knows that he or she has an infectious disease and either deliberately or recklessly passes on the infection to another can be civilly, and sometimes criminally, liable.

In one case, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a wife who sued her husband for giving her  HPV was not entitled to damages because the husband had no symptoms and may not have known he had the disease.

Recently, a jury in Iowa awarded $ 1.5 million to a woman who sued her dentist boyfriend for infecting her with HPV.

Five police officers have sued Detroit police, saying that they were forced to go on leave once their bosses realized they were pregnant, even if they could perform their duties.

The officers are challenging a policy that prevents them from working unless a doctor certifies them capable of crawling in confined spaces, jump and forcibly make arrests.

The lawsuit seeks financial damages and restoration of seniority.

British judges have rejected proposals by the Civil Justice Council and the Office of Fair Trading that could have triggered US style class action suits in UK. The proposals relate to consumers who have suffered due to anti-competitive practices of businesses.

The new proposals recommended that damages be determined so that the perpetrators be stripped of unlawfully gained damages, or  to deter potential wrongdoers.

The Judges have upheld English law that damages should be limited to the extent of provable losses. Analysts said that this development would deter many claimants, who would question whether the financial returns would justify the effort put into a suit.

Farmers in five states sued Bayer a German producer of genetically altered seeds after the U.S.government in 2006 said trace amounts of modified rice being grown experimentally by the company in Louisiana were found in rice raised for consumption. About 1200  rice farmers of the U.S.had filed a class suit against the company for the contamination of crop, but they lost the bid for this group act. District Judge Catherine Perry in St. Louisin refused to allow the claims to be combined in class-action suits, one per state.

Though the farmers lost group leverage for forcing settlements because of the ruling, they may regain it if Bayer lose early trials. Read more here

Parke-Davis division’s illegal and fraudulent use and promotion of an unapproved drug, manufactured by an American pharmaceutical company, Warner-Lambert has led this American company to plead guilty and pay civil and criminal damages amounting to a huge sum of approximately $ 430 million.
Read the article by the department of justice here.

Nineteen year old Kayhan Dong, of East Brunswick, was struck by a car driven by Michael T. Alape, and badly injured disabling him from dancing and running which he loves the most. The driver paid a fine of $ 222 to  the sufferrer according to a deal with the county prosecutor and escaped imprisonment.
However Dong’s family being unsatisfied with the ruling had filed a civil law suit against Michael and was offered $125,000 as compensation. But Dong and his family are still waiting for the right verdict, the reason being that Michael was drunk when he was driving and such people need to learn a lesson so that they do not repeat the same mistake again.
William M.  Dellicato, victim’s right attorney for MADD (national office of Mothers against drunk driving) stated that it is not about punishment, but letting the drunk drivers know that they would have to face severe consequences for their actions and, that awarding punitive damages would deter the effect.

This is an interesting case of a Roman Catholic priest, found guilty of molesting 3 youths and held liable for civil damages, in a law suit filed by these youths. The priest, Father McCutcheon is at fault, as he has denied an order to give psychologists,  his permission to testify about the sessions. However the priest’s attorneys argued that the defendant had the privilege of maintaining the privacy of the counseling sessions.
Contrary to this,  the priest had waived the privilege as he tried to defend himself , stating that his actions were the outcome of a mental illness called pedophilia-desire for children.

Father McCutcheon was originally sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment for sexual assault, but,  later his sentence was reduced to a probation, where
he was required to spend a year in a church run by the center in New Mexico.

The jury will also decide what, if anything, Father McCutcheon has pay in punitive and compensatory damages.

Kenneth Deshun Woods a former Galveston police officer, currently serving 40 years in prison is accused of raping and violating the civil rights of Jeanna Sue Bouras a Dickinson native.
Besides Woods the Galveston Police Department are co-defendants in this case and Bouras has filed the suit before the Southern District of Texas. Since inception the lawsuit has been updated about 10 times with U.S. District Court Judge Vanessa D.Gilmore which states that Bouras was alone on Galveston's East Beach when Woods, ordered her to get inside the police car after which Ms. Bouras was taken to a secluded area of the beach and sexually assaulted her.

Bouras claims she was coerced into committing several sexual acts and left abandoned on the beach. Bouras then informed her boyfriend of the situation and subsequently filed a complaint at Galveston.

An investigation ensued in which Woods was successfully tried,  and found guilty of the aggravated assault and sexual harassment.
Woods was suspended from his job and peace officer license and is incarcerated in the Texas Department of Corrections' Beto Unit in Palestine.

According to the law suit Bouras states the incident has shattered her to death.
The city is blamed for its "failure to properly train, discipline, investigate or otherwise control its employee Woods."

The police department is really ashamed for "implementing a policy of ignoring all the complaints of the plaintiff.
Bouras, who is represented by Houston attorney Joseph W. Walker, seeks punitive and exemplary damages and a jury trial.

 

Beginning its new term this October,  the supreme court is expected to deny most of   the appeals and arguments as regards law suits against tobacco companies. Out of the thousands of appeals only 10 appeals have been accepted for next year, the first being a dispute over whether federal regulation of cigarettes prevents smokers from suing tobacco companies for allegedly deceptive advertising of light cigarettes

Altria group and its subsidiary were sued by 3 Maine residents for malpractices in marketing. However the federal law forbids the state from imposing any specification for the advertisement of cigarettes,thus ruling out any  such law suit.

A Worcester County Circuit Court judge has dismissed a civil suit filed by the family of a man killed by an automobile while crossing the Coastal Highway in June 2007. The family had also claimed $ 1 million in punitive damages against the driver of the vehicle.

Although there were no criminal charges against the drive, Brian Scott in the case, the family of the victim, Dale Blankenship, had filed a civil suit in August 2007 $750,000 in compensatory damages and another $1 million in punitive damages.

Scott’s attorney, Cornbrooks argued that Scott did not act maliciously when he ran a red light and struck and killed Adams, despite the agreed-upon facts in the case that state he was intoxicated and underage at the time.

Now Circuit Court Judge Theodore Eschenberg has ruled that Adams’ behavior did not meet the standard for malicious behavior and granted the motion for summary judgment.

A civil lawsuit filed by Carsten and Sally Ellison against the Catholic Diocese of Superior in connection with the death of their son, James, has been rejected, and an appeal is unlikely. The courts had previously ruled that Fr. Ryan Erickson likely shot and killed both James Ellison and Daniel O'Connell in 2002. Erickson later hanged himself outside the church soon after authorities began investigating his possible involvement in the double homicide.

The Ellisons were seeking unspecified damages for their son's death, claiming that the Diocese knew that there were allegations of sexual assault and other abusive behaviors linked to Erickson, were overlooked.

Now Eau Claire County Judge Paul Lenz has rejected their claim that the church should have known that more drastic measures were needed for Erickson to avoid certain tragedy. The judge ruled that it was not realistic to expect church officials to foresee that Erickson would kill.

Here is an interesting article that lists some of the most important questions that will face Judges during the term that starts today.

These include issues such as whether a consumer harmed by a prescription drug can sue the manufacturer for failing to warn of the risk, when the drug and its label had been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Also whether smokers can sue the makers of "light" cigarettes for false advertising, when the FDA had approved statements on the product labels.

Read about these and other issues for discussion here.