A 17-year old girl and her family have filed a personal injury lawsuit against a private, liberal arts university near San Antonio and three men, including at least two current students, for an alleged incident that happened in 2005. The plaintiffs in this Texas personal injury case allege that three men lured the girl to a college residence at Schreiner University with the intention of drugging and sexually assaulting her. The unnamed girl was 15 years old at the time of the alleged incident, which was filed with the Kerrville Police Department. The police case is currently suspended.
The girl and her family are charging the men with conspiracy and Schreiner University with premises liability and gross negligence. Specifically, the family claims that Schreiner University was aware of the risks and failed to assure the girl’s safety. According to the story in the Kerrville Daily Times, Schreiner University has not yet been served with any legal documents in the case, and its director of university relations would not comment further on the case.
An Atlantic City man was awarded what’s believed to be the biggest personal injury settlement for slip and fall injuries in the southern New Jersey area last week. Thomas Malick was given $5.75 million for the herniated disc injury that he suffered in 2003 after slipping on a patch of oil while installing a remote alarm starter in a car at the Seaview Lincoln-Mercury car dealership. Malick sued both the car dealership—now called Holman—and ACR Mobile Detailing, which was working on the dealership’s garage at the time of his personal injury.
The attorneys for the car dealership and detail shop argued that Malick made the injury up because he did not report it immediately. Malick’s New Jersey personal injury attorney said his client waited about six days. After two hours of deliberation, the jury found the car dealership 99 percent negligent and the detailing company 1 percent negligent. Malick’s Atlantic City personal injury attorney also added that Seaview’s insurance carrier will pay the entire settlement amount, according to a confidential agreement.
Actress Keira Knightley has filed a lawsuit for libel against the publisher of the British tabloid Daily Mail. Knightley claims in her personal injury lawsuit that the tabloid “dishonestly sought to mislead the public” about whether she had anorexia and also linked her alleged condition to the death of a teenage girl caused by an eating disorder. Knightley expressed her sympathies for the family of the girl.
The Keira Knightley libel lawsuit also states that the Daily Mail showed pictures of the thin actress in a bikini without her permission. Knightley and her personal injury attorneys deny that the actress is anorexic but did admit that her family has a history of anorexia. This lawsuit against Associated Newspapers is expected to go to trial in London’s High Court sometime this year or early next year. The 21-year-old Knightley has appeared in popular movies like “Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End,” “Love Actually” and “Bend It Like Beckham.”
An interesting story in today’s Bowling Green’s The Daily News details the dangers of a potential train accident carrying chemicals through this fourth populous city in Kentucky. Earlier this month, a CSX freight train derailed and crashed in Brooks, which is about 30 miles south of Louisville. According to the story, around 500 people were evacuated from the rural area around the crash site, and 11 people were hospitalized with injuries. If this train had not crashed, it would have went eventually passed through Bowling Green, raising this story about what a similar train derailment could mean to this city.
The Daily News story reports that a similar Bowling Green train accident involving hazardous chemical exposure would require the evacuation of 100 times as many as residents as compared to Brooks. That’s roughly 50,000 people who could be affected by a Bowling Green train accident! In event of such an occurrence, emergency crews would evacuate the surrounding area. Considering lag time, this process could take anywhere from 1-4 hours; revealing the importance of Bowling Green families living near rail lines to have emergency plans and supply kits on hand in case of a train accident.
The very grease which made McDonald’s Big Macs, golden fries and Chicken McNuggets such hot commodities has the popular fast food chain feeling the heat in Illinois. A personal injury case involving a former McDonald’s employee who burnt her hand in a deep fryer of hot grease after slipping and falling on a wet floor is beginning hearings. Julie Ann Wynard is seeking a minimum $30,000 in damages from McDonald’s Corporation and Frymaster, L.L.C. following a 2001 accident at a Carol Stream McDonald’s.
Wynard was cleaning out a deep fryer when she allegedly slipped and fell on a slippery floor, which caused her hand to be thrust into a fryer of hot oil and sustain burns. In her Illinois personal injury lawsuit, Wynard alleges that McDonald’s failed to develop adequate rules for cleaning their deep fryers, housed unreasonably dangerous fryers, designed unreasonably slippery floors, and failed to warn her of such hazards. She also alleges that Frymaster carelessly designed the fryer in question and did not warn of the dangers of contacting heated grease. Will McDonald’s get out of this hot water? The Injury Blog will keep you updated on any developments.
While ATV vehicles are meant for recreational use, their dangers should not be underestimated. Earlier this month, a 30-year-old man was killed in an Illinois ATV accident with a tractor-trailer in Alexander County. Kevin A. Poppen was pronounced dead at the scene after he failed to stop his ATV at a stop sign and struck the right front tire of the passing tractor trailer, according to a story in today’s Southeast Missourian.
In detailing the need for safety when driving all-terrain vehicles, today’s Southeast Missourian story also cites some interesting statistics on ATV accidents:
• The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission attributes nearly 6,500 deaths over the last 23 years to ATV accidents. More than 2,000 of those deaths involved children under the age of 16. A child as young as six years old may legally operate an ATV vehicle under adult supervision.
• Missouri was ranked 13th in the United States with 46 ATV deaths from 2002 through 2004. Kentucky led with 106 ATV deaths in that time period. There were 210 reported Missouri ATV accidents in 2005 with 172 injuries and 18 fatalities, according to the state’s Highway Patrol.
Avoid personal injuries from ATV accidents by following all local statutes, driving diligently at appropriate speeds, wearing necessary safety gear including helmets, and supervising your children when on these vehicles.
A Louisville, Kentucky personal injury lawsuit will undergo a new trial after a judge learned that a juror became drunk during the initial trial. A verdict had already been reached in a personal injury case involving a woman claiming she sustained car accident injuries in a collision with a garbage truck when Judge Geoffrey Morris of Jefferson Count Circuit Court learned some less than intoxicating news. A female juror had been drinking vodka from her plastic water bottle throughout the trial!
The jury foreman told Morris that the juror was disruptive during deliberations and so drunk that she couldn’t participate in coming to a verdict. Morris dismissed the woman from jury duty and had her husband pick her up from the courthouse. She was not sanctioned or mentioned in Morris’ court order, which stated that the juror’s actions were so extraordinary that a new trial should be granted.
A Seattle couple has been awarded a combined $110,000 car accident settlement for the injuries they sustained during a 2002 crash with a Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy. Michael Brooks was awarded $95,000 while his wife Maria settled separately for $15,000 in agreement that they drop their personal injury lawsuit seeking medical costs, pain and suffering, and other damages from the accident.
The couple was driving their Volvo near Gold Bar, Washington on July 1, 2002 when Sheriff’s Deputy Ed Covington responded to a nonemergency police call and made an abrupt turn across traffic from the eastbound lane into a private driveway in front of their vehicle. Covington did not turn on his emergency lights, and the Brooks never saw him before crashing into the department-owned Ford Expedition and spinning out. The Brooks successfully claimed that Covington failed to yield and was careless, and the Snohomish City Council unanimously agreed to the pay the settlement. Covington is still employed with the sheriff’s office.
Falling into a gap between a train and a loading platform can lead to serious physical injuries and even death. A Newsday story reports how gap-related personal injury lawsuits have been filed against the Long Island Rail Road and its parent company for nearly 35 years, and little has been done to fix this common occurrence of train accidents.
Specifically, Newsday examined 500 of thousands of personal injury lawsuits filed since 1970 against the railroad and its parent agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Examining courts in Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn, the report found that slip and fall injuries and gap-related injuries were the most prevalent claims made with 65 and 63 lawsuits respectively. Falling into a gap has led to physical injuries like torn ligaments, fractured bones, dismemberment and paralysis in some of these cases, according to the story.
The LIRR has settled most of these train accidents before going to court. In some instances, victims have signed nondisclosure agreements. According to the story, the railroad paid nearly $700,000 to 15 of the gap victims. The company is now facing 16 pending gap-related lawsuits, including a $50-million suit by a woman who broke her neck when falling into a gap in October 2004. The railroad was also sued for $5 million in October by the family of a Minnesota teen who died after falling into a gap.
This report raises an important question: couldn’t all of this settlement money been used to initially solve the problem after the first such incident and prevent all of these gap-related train accidents from occurring? Why hasn’t the LIRR done more to fix the problem, especially with so many people commuting via train daily in the state of New York?
If you’ve been injured in a gap-related incident, speak to a New York personal injury attorney for immediate assistance.
Eric Turkewitz at the New York Personal Injury Blog asks this question this week: So why put arbitrary caps in place if common sense ones already exist?Turkewitz’s answer to that question, along with his dose of real-life facts about verdicts in personal injury cases and how they’re capped without arbitrary statutory limits, is worth a look.
Sustaining a brain injury is a serious manner, regardless of how it is caused. While football fans in Chicago, New Orleans, Indianapolis and Foxborough get ready for today’s NFL conference championship games and a potential shot at the Super Bowl, the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of former All-Pro saftey Andre Waters demonstrate this point. A standout player during his 12-years in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals, Waters committed suicide last November at the age of 44. A University of Pittsburgh forensic pathologist determined on Thursday that the brain damage Waters suffered on the football field ultimately led to his suicide.
More specifically, Bennet Omalu determined that Waters’ brain tissue displayed early characteristics of Alzheimer’s Disease and was similar to that of an 85-year-old man. Omalu said that he believed the brain injuries were related to multiple concussions that Waters suffered during his career. In the years prior to his death, Waters had shown signs of depression which Omalu also believed to be related to his brain trauma. Omalu indicated that Waters would have been fully incapacited within 10 years if he had not committed suicide. An NFL spokesman said that the league is continuing to devote resources for independent research further exploring concussions and player safety.
The state of Connecticut has agreed to a $50,000 car accident settlement with a North Haven woman whose van was hit by a car being chased by a police officer six years ago. Michelle Reed claimed in her personal injury lawsuit that the accident caused post-traumatic disorder which requires her to rely on the comfort of a service dog 24/7 to deal with her pain. Reed did not sustain any physical injuries from the accident.
The strange case began when Connecticut Trooper William Urgo pulled over Ricky Lyons for speeding in July 2000 and developed what he described in testimony as a “gut instinct” that the woman in the car with Lyons was being held against her will. This feeling proved wrong as the passenger, Colleen Shea ,was in the vehicle based on her own will. In fact, Shea owned the car.
Nervous by Urgo’s suspicions, Lyons suddenly sped off from the officer. A chase ensued for the next 4.5 miles with speeds reaching 90 mph. Immediately after Urgo’s supervisor called off the chase when Lyons drove down a North Haven ramp, the suspect slammed into Reed’s van at a stoplight. In addition to the state and Reed’s Connecticut personal injury lawyer coming to terms on a settlement, Lyons and Shea agreed to pay $7,000 and $500 respectively to Reed.
Two sisters have filed a personal injury lawsuit against their former swimming coach and Florida preparatory school after learning that they were secretly videotaped while changing into their swimsuits in his office. Kimberly Brabson III secretly taped the two girls when they were 15 and 17 years of age at Tampa Preparatory School. Police say he had been videotaping students for at least three years.
Tampa Preparatory School fired Brabson on November 10th of last year after learning that he had asked members of the swim team to change in his office rather than the girls’ locker room. Brabson faces 10 charges of voyeurism. Under Florida law, illegally videotaping a person is only a felony for a repeat offender. Brabson has no criminal record.
Ironically, the father of the two girls bringing the suit is a Clearwater personal injury attorney. Tom Carey filed the suit on behalf of his daughters, who are now in college and for privacy reasons have been listed as Jane Doe Carey and Jane Roe Carey. He said he is seeking legislation to change Florida law, which appears imminent. State Senator Mike Fasano has said that he is working on a new bill that would make it a felony for anyone who videotapes nude children.
Due to his own personal feelings in the case, Tom Carey has turned representation in the suit over to his law partner, Jodi Leisure, who says the school should have known Brabson was a problem. Brabson had been reprimanded once before when a student complained that he made her model a swimsuit. She added that police have identified 21 of 50 victims on a seized Brabson videotape.
A Washington Court of Appeals has ruled against employees of a psychiatric hospital near Tacoma who claimed that the hospital intended to injure them when it failed to address a history of attacks on staff members by criminally-insane patients. Employees of Western State Hospital alleged in personal injury lawsuits that they were injured by patients during various attacks from 2001-2004, and argued that the hospital was negligent in not training them for “certain” incidents in the future.
Personal injury lawyers for these employees specifically contended that this history of patient assaults was proof enough to the hospital that future attacks were certain to happen. In not providing employees with training to defend themselves for future assaults, the hospital willfully disregarded the problem, according to the plaintiffs. The court did not agree and wrote that these types of assaults were foreseeable but not certain. The Appeals Court’s decision reaffirmed a previous Superior Court ruling on these claims.
Stories of train accidents and settlements have frequently been in the news recently. Just yesterday, some residents of Bullitt County, Kentucky were either evacuated from the town or ordered to stay inside their homes following a CSX train derailment that caused a chemical fire.
This accident follows last week’s personal injury settlement of a 2005 Graniteville, South Carolina train wreck which released a toxic cloud that killed nine, injured hundreds and forced some 1400 people to evacuate the small town. Also happening last week, 18 people were injured in a Washington Metro derailment, and an Iowa man was awarded $1.1 million in a railroad car accident settlement with CSX Railroad.
Trains are safe and reliable means of transportation for many Americans each day. In those instances when there is a train accident, you need to know your rights if involved and should speak to a local personal injury attorney.
