A wrongful death lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Georgia claiming an undercover drug officer who shot and killed a minister in September was not legally certified as a police officer at the time.

Abigail Ayers, widow of Rev. Jonathan Ayers, filed the wrongful death lawsuit that also goes on to claim that Stephens County Sheriff’s Deputy Billy Shane Harrison was not trained properly to use firearms by the sheriff’s office. The suit also alleges that Harrison’s supervisor should have been aware of his lack of certification and not included him in the arrest that ended in Rev. Ayers’ death.

Allegations in the suit that Harrison and another deputy, Chance Oxner, engaged in criminal activity run parallel with findings in the police investigation into Ayers’ death, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The suit also points a finger at Stephens County Sheriff Randy Shirley and Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell, the two supervisors who put Harrison and Oxner on the Mountain Judicial Circuit Narcotics Criminal Investigation and Suppression Team, a drug task force. The lawsuit claims the two sheriffs ignored problems observed in Harrison and Oxner and let them on the task force regardless of the issues.

Attorneys representing the defendants denied all of the accusations in the lawsuit. Harrison’s attorney Gus McDonald said all accusations of Harrison not being certified to fire a gun are false, and that Harrison has achieved several certifications in his career.

Rev. Jonathon Ayers, 28, accidentally stepped into the middle of an undercover police operation when he was found with a suspected drug dealer and an admitted prostitute on Sept. 1, 2009, according to the Journal Constitution. Officers were just about to move in and arrest the woman after a drug deal, and in the process they saw her getting out of Ayers’ vehicle near a hotel.

Officers confronted Ayers at a nearby gas station and tried to block Ayers’ vehicle, and identified themselves as officers, but he still tried to evade them, according to the Constitution. Harrison said he shot at Ayers because he thought Oxner was possibly killed by Ayers and he might be next.

Ayers kept driving, though he was wounded, until he crashed his vehicle in a nearby utility pole. He died later at a hospital.

The personal injury lawsuit Harrison, Oxner and their immediate supervisor Kyle Brant of wrongful death, assault and battery. The suit also claims that the two sheriffs fell short of their responsibilities and that Shirley and Harrison both acted with negligence.

Toyota may be facing even more legal problems stemming from their recent recalls, but these aren’t because of sticky gas pedals.

Several groups of vehicle owners are now filing class action lawsuits against the Japanese auto maker, alleging that all of the personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits that have been filed against the company are lowering resale values of their Toyotas.

The class action suits alone could cost the beleaguered car company $3 billion and possibly more, according to a study by the Associated Press.

Possible payouts and court-ruled damage costs for wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits filed against Toyota could still cost the company millions alongside the class action suits.

There are at least 6 million car owners claiming their vehicles have lost value, and while such claims may have lower individual payouts than the injury cases, the sheer volume of them could cost the automaker billions.

University of Pennsylvania law professor Tom Baker described the possibility of so many class action suits as more damaging than cases when a person was actually injured or killed.

“A super-big injury case would be $20 million,” Baker told the AP. “But you could have millions of individual car owners who could (each) be owed $1,000. If I were Toyota, I’d be more worried about those cases.”

The crux of the class action suits claim the automaker knew about car safety problems and concealed that knowledge from the public. Kelley Blue Book made a recent decision to lower the resale value of recalled Toyotas an average 3.5 percent.

An upcoming court hearing in San Diego could have a dramatic effect on the various lawsuits filed against Toyota since the company began recalling automobiles for gas pedal problems.

A panel of judges will decide whether all of the different lawsuits can be consolidated into one legal action, and whether all the claims have enough merit to move forward in court.

According to the AP, about 8 million vehicles worldwide have been recalled by Toyota since fall 2009. At least 52 people have died in crashes that appear to have stemmed from the accelerator issues that led to the sweeping recalls.

The $3 billion figure mainly stems from the estimate made by Northeastern University law professor Tim Howard, who is serving as a leading attorney in the class-action cases. If each of the 6 million car owners who claim a drop in value are paid roughly $500 each by Toyota, the total figure would be about $3 billion.

The United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a landmark case that will decide whether people can file personal injury lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies if vaccines are found to be the cause of health problems.

The case of Hannah Bruesewitz, who started having seizures after a series of vaccines, could set a sweeping precedent over an ongoing debate within the U.S. about the risks and benefits of vaccines.

The Supreme Court will decide if it is legal for consumers to sue vaccine producers outside of a special forum set specifically to protect drug makers from this type of lawsuit. The court will also take into account matters of liability and if drug makers are producing the safest possible vaccines.

In 1986 Congress established a special “forum,” nicknamed The Vaccine Court, to allow pharmaceutical companies to steadily release vaccines with fewer concerns about lawsuits of the kind the Bruesewitzes filed against Wyeth Laboratories, reports CNN.

Hannah Bruesewitz was born in 1992 outside Philadelphia. She was described as healthy by her parents until she was given DPT shots as an infant. The shots combine vaccines for diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus. After the shots, the Bruesewitzes found Hannah started having seizures and is now developmentally disabled.

The lawsuit claims Wyeth Laboratories, the producer of the DPT vaccines and now a part of Pfizer, did not make the potential health dangers caused by the vaccines clear enough for parents to make an educated decision about immunizing their children.

While the family’s initial claim was rejected by the “Vaccine Court,” the Bruesewitzes sought an audience with federal courts, under the justification that the side effects that Hannah experienced could have been avoided with better drug production, according to CNN.

But a federal court ruled in favor Wyeth, under the ruling that any design defects in the vaccines given to Hannah were still protected under the 1986 law that established the “Vaccine Court.” Wyeth actually urged the Supreme Court to hear the case despite their victory in the appeals court.

Drug manufacturers, including Wyeth, have contended before that vaccines are not profitable, so the legal protection from suits allows them to make them readily available to people without excessive threats to their bottom line. The companies also said instances where side effects caused harm are few.

“After exhausting administrative remedies in the vaccine program, children in Georgia who are injured by vaccines may bring design defect claims against vaccine manufacturers when the use of safer alternative vaccines could have avoided their injuries,” the Supreme Court wrote to explain why they will hear the case.

“By contrast, Hannah Bruesewitz and children like her … may be precluded from pursuing identical design defect claims even when the same safer alternative vaccines could have avoided their suffering too,” the Supreme Court wrote.

A California man, who had a heart attack after being hit by a Taser stun gun and is now disabled, filed a personal injury lawsuit against the weapon maker.

The lawsuit alleges that Taser International, manufacturers of the controversial “non-lethal” police weapon, had past knowledge that voltage from the Taser could cause permanent harm to a person, specifically when the weapon is fired directly at a person’s chest as in the case of Steven Butler.

Butler, a resident of Watsonville, Calif., admitted to CNN that he was drunk and acting out on the night of October 7, 2006. Butler was on a city bus and refused to step out of the vehicle, even after area police officers ordered him to do so. According to CNN, the police officer then used a Taser three times on Butler.

Doctors later reported that while Butler was shocked, he went into cardiac arrest. Emergency medical technicians nearby were able to bring him back to life, but he was still left with permanent impairments such as loss of short and long term memory. Butler’s attorneys have claimed that while he was in cardiac arrest, Butler was deprived of oxygen for at least 18 minutes as a result of the Taser injury.

John Burton, who is representing Butler and his family in the injury lawsuit, told CNN he can prove that tasers can cause heart attacks if fired near a person’s chest, and that Taser International knew about this before October 2006.

“We suspect they had all the necessary data since 2005, since they were funding the study,” Burton told CNN about whether Taser International knew if their weapons could cause harm.

In early 2006, the American College of Cardiology Foundation published a study that was funded by Taser International to see what effects the weapons had on hearts. The testing was performed on pigs, according to CNN.

Within the published piece, authors said it wasn’t likely that Tasers could cause a heart attack, but they did recommend that the darts should not be fired near the heart to avoid the possibility altogether.

The shock coming from darts connected to wires that lead from the handheld Taser mechanism can drastically spike a person’s heart rate, CNN reported. An average resting heart rate is between 60 and 80 beats per minute but a Taser shock can spike a heart rate to as high as 220 beats per minute.

Dr. Douglas Zipes, an Indianapolis-based cardiologist, is scheduled to testify against Taser International.

“I think Taser has been disingenuous and certainly up to 2006 — the case we are talking about — Taser said in their educational materials that there was no cardiac risk whatsoever, that Taser could not produce a heart problem, that there was no long lasting effect from Taser,” Zipes told CNN.

A Chicago man who filed a personal injury lawsuit 18 years ago against the city’s board of education after he was severely hurt while jumping off a trampoline received a record-breaking settlement from the city.

Ryan Murray, 30, was offered a $14.7 million settlement last week to dismiss his lawsuit against both the Chicago Board of Education and a private youth center. Murray has been a quadriplegic since age 13 when he was injured doing tumbling stunts at what was then Bryn Mawr Elementary School, near Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood.

During an extracurricular activity held at Murray’s school, Murray attempted to do a flip off of a mini-trampoline onto a mat. While attempting the stunt, he struck his head and broke his neck, according to the Chicago Tribune. Murray has been paralyzed from the neck down ever since.

The trampoline itself was property of Chicago Public Schools and the class was supervised by a staff member with a private group called the Chicago Youth Centers, the Tribune reported. This settlement is considered by attorneys involved to be the largest payment offered by the city’s Board of Education for such a case.

“He’s relieved,” Attorney Susan Schwartz said to the Chicago Sun Times. “He knows that he will be cared for in the future. If something happens to his mother, he will have the resources to hire someone to take care of him.”

Schwartz, who has represented Murray since the suit was initially filed in 1992, said he needs 24 hour care for his various needs. Before going to her job selling insurance, Murray’s mother takes care of his son in the early morning, waking up at 4 a.m. every day, Schwartz said.

Murray’s attorneys have also been quoted saying that the staff member supervising the tumbling class was not adequately trained for such a responsibility, the Sun Times reported. Lawyers for the board were quoted saying that the board opted to pay the personal injury settlement because other personal injury verdicts in favor of plaintiffs have yielded even higher payouts than what was offered to Murray.

The case had bounced back and forth between various Illinois courts for over a decade and a half, before it came in front of the Illinois Supreme Court in 2006. The court originally ruled that Murray did not have the right to sue the board, but then changed that decision in 2007.

Murray and representatives of the school board did not offer comments on the decision.

A Virginia federal appeals court reinstated a personal injury lawsuit filed against McDonald’s after a man burnt his lips on a chicken sandwich.

The suit, originally filed five years ago, was thrown out in 2008 before a jury could come to a decision on whether McDonald’s was liable for 62-year-old Frank Sutton’s injuries. The lawsuit claimed Sutton’s fried chicken sandwich had popped with scalding grease from the deep fryer when he bit in, burning his mouth and lips, according to the Associated Press.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton had thrown the case out during the jury trial, saying at the time that there was no actual proof McDonald’s had committed any wrongdoing.

“There’s just no evidence here of any kind of negligence,” Hilton said after he ordered the case to be dismissed. “He ordered a hot piece of chicken and he got a hot piece of chicken. It was hotter than he anticipated, and that was unfortunate.”

The Federal Appeals Court in Richmond, Va. reinstated the case based on evidence Judge Hilton had barred from the original jury trial, according to AP. Sutton’s defense reportedly had evidence that an employee working at the McDonald’s within the Daniel Boone truck stop in Duffield, Va. made a possible admission that the chicken was not cooked correctly.

According to Sutton’s lawyer, one of the employees saw Sutton’s burns and said something similar to, “This is what happens to the sandwiches when they aren’t drained completely.” The appeals court ruled that the jury should be allowed to hear that evidence, AP reported.

During the 2008 trial, Sutton testified that he and a few family members stopped at the Duffield truck stop around 1:30 a.m. and ordered food. Sutton’s friend Bill Giffon was at the McDonald’s at the time, and testified that “grease flew all over his mouth” when he bit into the sandwich, causing personal injury.

Sutton told the court that his lips were bleeding and blistered the following morning, and his wife testified that it was difficult to kiss her husband after he was burned. Sutton told the AP that he can still see scars from the damage.

“It’s a permanent situation with me at this point,” Sutton said. “My opinion is it was nothing but negligence on the part of the McDonald’s people.”

Sutton said he decide to sue only after McDonald’s declined to pay his medical bills, as well as $22,000 in lost wages for a job he lost while healing from the burns.

A spokeswoman from McDonald’s declined to say how often the food company is sued for burns that possibly happened because of their food’s temperature.

The mother of a 21-year-old woman killed in a 2007 car crash recently filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Toyota, claiming a sticking accelerator in the woman’s vehicle led to the accident.

Sandra Livingston, a Long Island, New York resident, filed the federal suit against the Japanese auto maker on Feb. 22. A spokesman for Toyota said he would not make any comment about pending court actions.

The vehicle in question in this lawsuit is a Toyota Yaris, which at this time is not included in the eight different Toyota models that have been recalled due to braking and accelerating issues. About 8.5 million Toyota vehicles have been recalled worldwide.

Tyrene Livingston was driving on state Route 30 in east Pittsburgh around 8:45 a.m. on Oct. 26, 2007. According to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, she was pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Pittsburgh and was on her way to a teaching internship at the time.

The personal injury lawsuit claims Tyrene Livingston’s Yaris started accelerating quickly, and she was not able to stop the vehicle with the brakes.

“The Yaris crossed four lanes of the highway at a high rate of speed, went over a curb, crashed through a guardrail, went down an embankment, and into some trees, eventually resulting in her death,” according to the suit.

Four days before the crash, Tyrene Livingston had taken the vehicle into an auto shop for a brake inspection and test. She was told nothing was wrong with her vehicle, according to the Post Gazette.

Bob Massie Toyota, the service shop that gave the inspection, was not named a defendant in the lawsuit. Sandra Livingston’s attorney Todd Walburg told the Post Gazette that he has not found any proof of wrongdoing on the part of the shop.

“Even though the Yaris isn’t included on any recall lists, our investigation shows that all Toyota vehicles, from 2002 to the present, can possibly have a defect in the electronic throttle system,” Walburg said to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Livingston’s suit is among two others filed by Pittsburgh-area residents against the automaker, citing acceleration problems. McMurray resident Robert Elmes, 76, sued Toyota in 2008 for about $75,000 in damages stemming from an accident he was in while driving a 2002 Camry.

Elmes claimed in his injury lawsuit that his Camry accelerated without any warning to a high speed and he drove off a bank. HIs 2002 model Camry was not included in the recent recall.

A personal injury lawsuit was filed by the widow of an Internal Revenue Service worker who was killed when a man crashed his plane into an office building in Austin, Texas.

The lawsuit claims Sheryl Mann Stack, widow of the plane’s pilot Andrew Joseph Stack III, should have warned people that her husband might be dangerous and “owed a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid foreseeable risk of injury to others.”

Valerie Hunter, wife of Vernon Hunter who was killed in the plane crash, filed the seven-page wrongful death personal injury suit on Feb. 22 in the Travis County Courthouse in Texas.

Joseph Stack, a software engineer, flew his Piper Cherokee PA28 single-engine plane into the side of an IRS office in Austin, Texas, killing himself and Hunter while also injuring 13 other people. Stack left behind a lengthy typed manifesto that was posted on his company Web site before he crashed the plane. The note described several years of anguish and contempt against the U.S. government and taxation within the country.

Stack was facing financial woes and set his house on fire before flying his plane into the IRS building, according to the Austin American Statesman.

The suit listed negligence under the causes of actions section against both Joseph and Sheryl Stack. It claims Joseph was flying in violation of FAA regulations by flying too low in an area with obstacles.

It also alleges that Sheryl Stack was negligent since she took her daughter and stayed at a hotel out of fear the night before Stack crashed the plane. The suit claims that action meant she had a responsibility to inform others that her husband could be dangerous.

Valerie Hunter’s injury attorney Dan Ross told the American-Statesman that the Hunter family wants to know if insurance proceeds given to the Stack family could be considered part of awarded damages in the lawsuit.

The suit requested a jury trial to be held and damages to be awarded. Within an affidavit filed along with the wrongful death lawsuit, Valerie Hunter requested that results of an autopsy performed on 67-year-old Vernon Hunter remain sealed from the public.

“This is an extremely difficult time for me and my family and the release of the autopsy report to the public will cause me and my family severe and irreparable emotional distress,” Valerie Hunter wrote in the signed affidavit. “Once the report is released, I will not have an adequate remedy at law as the damage will be done.”

A personal injury lawsuit filed against a police officer, who was considered a hero after holding off a shooting rampage in Salt Lake City, was quietly settled recently.

Natasha Child sued Ogden police officer Ken Hammond on claims that he used excessive force against both her and her husband during a May 2008 arrest.

The personal injury suit was settled without either party confirming any the terms of the settlement. U.S. District judge Tena Campbell dismissed the suit with an agreement on both sides to terms, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

The injury lawsuit came after Hammond’s role  in a Feb. 12, 2007 shootout at Trolley Square which left many people claiming him a hero.

Sulejman Talovic, 18, opened fire at the Salt Lake City-area shopping mall, killing five bystanders and wounding four others. Hammond was off duty at the mall when the shooting took place, and held Talovic off in a shoot out until other officers arrived and gunned Talovic down, according to the Utah-based Fox 13 network.

Child’s suit claimed that she suffered police brutality on May 18, 2008, as her husband was being arrested by Utah State Highway Patrol officers in the Ogden area on suspicion  of drunk driving.

Hammond was assisting patrol officers with the arrest. Child claimed Hammond kicked out her husband’s legs from under him and elbowed him, even though her husband was cooperating.

When Child told Hammond she was witness to his actions, Hammond allegedly order her to be arrested as well. The suit further claimed that while Child was handcuffed, Hammond lifted her hands over her head and her pants started falling while she struggled.

Hammond pulled her pants the rest of the way down to the ground, according to the Tribune. The suit claims Hammond then said, “Now you don’t have to worry about them.” Child also claimed Hammond slammed her to the ground during the arrest.

Child was later charged with interfering with an arrest, public intoxication, resisting an officer and disorderly conduct, although the charges were later dropped, the Tribune reported.

The suit also implicated the Ogden Police Department for failing to properly train Hammond, even though both Hammond and the police department denied all charges against them from the injury suit.

Child’s suit was not the last legal entanglement for Hammond. Hammond resigned from the Ogden Police Department in January 2009 during an investigation into charges that he had sex with a teenager.

Hammond later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in relation to the charge and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

David Givens will have to find another way to score against his former team.

A federal judge recently dismissed a personal injury lawsuit filed by the former NFL wide receiver against the Tennessee Titans football team. The judge said Givens will have to pursue further action through arbitration under the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement.

In a $25 million personal injury lawsuit filed in September 2009 against the Titans, Givens claims he was encouraged to play in games, even though it was known he had a knee condition that could not hold up against the jarring impacts of NFL play, according to the Tennessean.

U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell dismissed the suit by filing an order. Within the order, Judge Campbell wrote that Givens’ suit was not “sufficiently independent of the terms of the collective bargaining agreement” made between the football league and the players.

“The Supreme Court has held that because preempted claims must first be presented through the arbitration procedure established in the collective bargaining agreement, those claims be dismissed,” Campbell wrote.

The Titans have not released a statement about Givens’ suit since it was thrown out.

The suit claims Givens was not made aware of results of an examination on his knee made by orthopedic surgeon Dr. Tomas Byrd. According to the suit, Byrd’s exam found Givens might need surgery at some point on the knee due to a large defect within his knee joint, where the upper leg connects to the knee the Tennessean reported.

Byrd’s report continued to say the condition and treatment for it could have kept him out of the NFL for a whole season, according to the suit. Byrd examinated Givens before he signed a 5 year contract with the football team in March 2006.

Givens’ sports injury occurred in November 2006 during a home game against the Baltimore Ravens. The suit claims the lesion in his knee had crumbled, and he has not played in an NFL game since then.

The suit further states that Givens did not know about his knee condition until February 2009, when he finally reviewed the medical file.

Givens’ attorney Dan Warlick told the Tennessean that the decision by Campbell was not a surprise. Warlick said Campbell’s ruling does not question the actual validity of the suit.

“When we filed, it was one of the issues we had to overcome, whether we could get it into federal court without the arbitration,” Warlick said. “We just thought federal court would be a better place to try.”