According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a Pennsylvania Superior Court judge was indicted on charges of money laundering and mail fraud in connection with a personal injury verdict of $440,000 that he received in 2001. In August 2001, Judge Michael T. Joyce was struck from behind at 5 miles per hour while in his car, prompting him to file an insurance claim for personal injuries that prevented him from enjoying his normal lifestyle. He claimed to be in constant pain.
Subsequently, Joyce was seen playing golf in such exotic locales as Jamaica, scuba diving, and receiving his airplane pilot’s license, as well as exercising at a gym and inline skating, all activities which he claimed he was prevented from doing in the insurance claim. The money laundering claims stem from purchases he made with the insurance settlement money through a brokerage account.
Legally, Joyce was not required to step down, since his crimes were unrelated to his area of legal jurisdiction. But, in conjunction with the charges, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has suspended Joyce with pay. Amazingly, Joyce maintains his innocence in the charges. In a move that can been seen as either extremely brave or extremely foolish, Joyce has claimed that he will stand for re-election in November when his term is up.
According to the International Herald Tribune, Home Depot has agreed to pay nearly $10 million in penalties and investigation costs to settle a lawsuit alleging it mishandled hazardous waste from its California stores.
Home Depot came under investigation after a hazardous waste container exploded at a store in Marina Del Ray. Investigators found various chemicals had been mixed inside a 55-gallon drum.
The California Department of Toxic Substances Control found that Home Depot routinely collected hazardous wastes in large containers for offsite disposal. Haulers, hired by the company, improperly stored and labeled waste and did not keep proper records.
Apparently Drew Carey couldn’t handle equipment Bob Barker has been working with for decades. TMZ.com reports that the new host of The Price is Right was injured when he got his arm caught in rotating device used in one of the show’s games. A source said he is already back on the set wearing a soft cast to protect a bruised bone.
Carey was only bruised, but we’re sure he’ll have a good time trying to live this down.
Six Ocean City, Maryland Police Department officers, as well as the City, are being sued for $18.6 million in damages for police brutality. Demar Leonard and Brandon Bishop have filed a 93-count civil lawsuit alleging assault, battery, excessive force, and false imprisonment.
According to the Maryland Coast Dispatch, the plaintiffs say the officers confronted them in front of a 7-Eleven store, questioning them about a shoplifting spree at a nearby CVS Drugstore. Questioning escalated into a physical alteration, resulting in the arrest of the boys who were charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
According to police reports, the officers asked the boys for identification. When Leonard ignored several orders to keep his hands out of his pockets the officers attempted to restrain him, after which the violence ensued.
The police abuse lawsuit alleges Leonard was “approached from behind and choked, yanked to the ground and thrown into the side of a paddy wagon before four officer piled on top of him, pushing him into the ground and pulling at his limbs.” According to court documents, when the Leonard’s parents picked him up after booking, they allegedly found he had been badly beaten and required medical attention. Leonard’s family pursued brutality charges against the officers, but an internal investigation amounted to nothing.
Leonard was convicted of two counts of assault, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct. His conviction was overturned on appeal.
A Florida jury awarded a couple $21 million for a “wrongful birth.” Daniel and Amara Estrada have two sons, both suffering with a genetic disorder called Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome. The Washington Post reported that the Estradas sued doctors at the University of South Florida for misdiagnosing their first child’s disorder.
They argued that if doctors had correctly diagnosed the first child’s disorder, a test would have indicated whether the second child was similarly afflicted and they would have terminated the pregnancy. The Estradas asked the jury to award them sufficient funds to allow them to at least care for the second child.
Now the Estradas enter the political realm. Because the University is an agency of Florida state government, the State Legislature must agree to the award. State law limits awards for negligence claims against government agencies to $200,000. The Legislature could pass a bill allowing payment of the full amount.
A few days ago, I wrote that Cao Wenzhuang, a Chinese drug and food safety department head had been sentenced to death, suspended for two years. His sentence could have been commuted if he had shown he had reformed. Reuters reports that, today, the Chinese government executed him. Zheng Xiaoyu (as spelled by the Xinhua new agency) was executed for taking bribes and dereliction of duty, according to the Xinhua.
Zheng was head of the pharmaceutical registration department, having power to approve pharmaceutical production. The Reuters report says he accepted bribes from eight companies totaling 6.5 million yuan ($850,000).
The Supreme People’s Court said the sentence was imposed due to “Zheng Xiaoyu’s grave irresponsibility in pharmaceutical safety inspection and failure to conscientiously carry out his duties seriously damaged the interests of the state and people.”
Reuters speculated that the unusually harsh sentence and its prompt enforcement reflect pressure on Beijing from domestic and international alarm about consumer product safety. Several products have recently faced recall in the United States over safety concerns.
Banana plantation workers have filed lawsuits over pesticides they claim have made them sterile. Over 5,000 workers in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama have filed five lawsuits against U.S. operators of the plantations. The workers were exposed to the chemical known as DBCP in the 1970s.
The first of the trials is scheduled to begin Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
According to the Associated Press, the cases raise the issue of whether multinational companies should be held accountable in the country where they are based or the countries where they employ workers. Workers are suing in the United States due to the gap between civil justice in the U.S. and in developing countries.
The lawsuit names Dole Fresh Fruit Co. and Standard Fruit Co. (now part of Dole) as defendants. The plaintiffs allege Dow Chemical Co. and Amvac Chemical Co., manufacturers of DBCP, “actively suppressed information about DBCP’s reproductive toxicity.” The lawsuit claims Dow and Amvac know about DBCP’s toxicity as early as the 1950s, but continue, even today, to market the pesticide outside of the United States.
A former department head of China’s drug regulation agency was sentenced to death for bribery. The same day, United States regulators ordered a recall of three more Chinese-made products.
The safety of Chinese products sold in the United States has recently been in question.
Canada’s Globe and Mail reports that Cao Wenzhuang, a department director in the State Food and Drug Administration, was given a death sentence for accepting bribes and neglecting his official duties. His death sentence was suspended for two years. The Globe and Mail says such penalties are usually commuted to life in prison if the convict is deemed to have reformed.
Cao was head of the pharmaceutical registration department, having power to approve pharmaceutical production. He was charged with accepting $307,000 (U.S.) from two medical companies that seeking approval to sell their products.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recently announced three recalls, covering jewelry that could cause lead poisoning and a magnetic building set and plastic castles with small parts, which it said could choke children. Other toys, such as Thomas the Tank Engine, were recalled due to paint containing lead. All these products were made in China.
The father of a student at the Citadel in South Carolina has sued the Beaufort County coroner for failing to perform a legally required autopsy, claiming the coroner’s failure hurts his wrongful death lawsuit against the Xpress Lane convenience store.
20-year-old Leith Paul Trask III, died in a car crash after purchasing beer at the Xpress Lane convenience store. According to The Sun News, L. Paul Trask, Jr’s lawsuit claims authorities, including Coroner Curt Copeland failed to perform an autopsy for positive identification of the body, that was burned beyond visual recognition, and to take blood samples for toxicology exams.
Copeland then took over the funeral arrangements for the boy. His body was cremated by Copeland’s funeral home. Trask claims Copeland coaxed him to sign a permission form to have the boy’s body cremated and then lied about when it was signed.
The BBC reports that studies show that the interactive overhead projectors may be harmful to students and teachers. Documents obtained by an industry whistleblower from the British Health and Safety Executive, through a Freedom of Information Act request, say users “should make sure that direct beam viewing of the optical output from this equipment is both controlled and restricted to no more than a few tens of seconds at a time.”
The government documents say that while few people could stand to look directly at a projector’s lamp for enough time to cause harm, the light beam could damage a viewer’s peripheral retina. A straw poll of teaching representatives in Wiltshire, England shows only a few have been told how to use whiteboards safely.
Activists are seeking, at least, a warning label.
Popular Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway Contains Highly Toxic Lead Paint! A Chicago parent recently filed a proposed class-action personal injury lawsuit against “Thomas the Train” manufacturer RC2 for children’s toys featuring red and yellow surface paint containing lead. Plaintiff Channing House claimed in her personal injury lawsuit that she is worried about the possible effects on her children from the defective toys, which include the popular Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway, as lead is highly toxic when ingested. The suit states that children often put toys in their mouth and then claims that children under six will absorb about 50 percent of the lead they ingest, with IQ deficits, behavioral problems, learning disabilities, stunted growth and impaired hearing just some of the possible side effects from ingestion.
On June 14th, the Consumer Product Commission ordered a voluntary recall of the toys. However, House has claimed that RC2 has not properly responded to this potentially serious health hazard. The company has agreed to exchange the dangerous toys with new and safer ones but will not be offering a reimbursement program. RC2 markets its kids products under popular brands like Thomas & Friends, Bob the Builder, John Deere, Nickelodeon, Winnie the Pooh and Sesame Street.
With that said, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Wednesday night that two more lawsuits have been filed against RC2 concerning these toys. Also aspiring for class-action status, these lawsuits are seeking more than $5 million in damages combined.
The President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology recently held a public meeting in Washington on the safety of nanotechnologies. According to MSNBC, a report by Terry Davies says that it’s time to start discussing safety laws to protect the public from risks that may develop in the future.
Nanotechnologies involve materials and devices, some of which are hundreds of times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Nano materials are measured in nanometers, a billionth of a meter. Some uses of nanotechnology already includes stain-resistant pants and suntan lotions. The particles in these products a less than 100 nanometers in diameter. “A sheet of paper, in comparison, is a whopping 100,000 nanonmeters thick.”
What worries some experts are unpredictable behaviours of nano-scale materials. MSNBC reports that even subtle changes in the size of particles can precipitate wildly different changes in the basic properties of those materials, including their toxicity.
Davies said that “We’ve learned with biotech and nuclear power, if there are not adequate safeguards, the public is going to resist the technology and it won’t meet its potential.”
$942,000 Personal Injury Verdict Awarded to Man Working for Union Pacific
A 56-year-old Nebraska man who suffered serious slip and fall injuries outside of a motel that he was paid to stay at by his employer, Union Pacific, was recently awarded a $942,000 personal injury verdict. Terry Sigler worked as a Union Pacific railroad conductor for nearly 40 years when he was stationed to stay at a Super 8 Motel in Missouri Valley on March 7, 2002. While returning from dinner that night, Sigler slipped on a patch of ice and suffered torn knee ligaments that eventually progressed to profound arthritis. This case fell under the Federal Employers Liability Act, which holds employers liable for even the slightest negligence in the workplace. Union Pacific naturally claimed that it was Sigler’s fault for not paying attention to the ice, but his personal injury attorney was able to show that the Super 8 parking lot and sidewalk were not adequately lit and that the motel in question failed do anything about earlier reports that the lightning needed to be changed.
An Omaha World-Herald story detailed that Union Pacific’s bottom line would not be affected in this case because the railroad requires contract hotels to have insurance for such costs and the $942,000 personal injury verdict falls under the company’s $2 million maximum on its insurance policy.
The Boy’s Parents Supported the Lawsuit to Get a Refusing Insurance Company to Pay a $100,000 Claim!
On Thursday, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that a boy who suffered brain injuries as a toddler during an SUV car accident can file a personal injury lawsuit against his parents for improperly installing and maintaining his car seat. Now nine years old, Teddy Harrison suffered a serious brain injury that left him permanently disabled six years ago when he flew from his mother’s SUV during an accident caused by an uninsured driver. A Pioneer Press story detailed how Harrison initially sued the car seat manufacturer Century Products Co. on the claim that the seat was defective since its buckle could click as locked while having a penny lodged in it. Century Products Co. claimed that the boy should have sued his parents in part for failing to install and maintain the seat. After reaching a confidential settlement with the company, the boy filed suit against his parents, whom fully supported the legal action in an effort to get Progressive insurance company to pay for a $100,000 claim.
It turns out that Progressive refused to pay the insurance claim for the boy’s injuries and cited a 1963 “gag rule” barring evidence about the lack of use of seat belts and child-restraint seats in personal injury cases. Progressive told the family that it would pay for the claim if the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of Teddy, and now must do so after yesterday’s decision. Teddy Harrison’s personal injury attorney Robert King expressed satisfaction with the decision and reaffirmed that the lawsuit was not about a boy suing his parents but rather making an insurance company do the right thing.
Congratulations to King and the Harrison Family for not backing down to Progressive, which once again showed how insurance companies operate with their bottom lines ahead of everything else during personal injury cases.
Ex-Supreme Court Nominee Robert Bork Suing Yale Club for Personal InjuriesRobert Bork, a tort reform advocate who once criticized juries for handing out “lottery-like windfalls” in personal injury cases, has found himself on the other side of the fence recently. Bork has been severely criticized and even called hypocritical by some for his recent $1 million personal injury lawsuit against the Yale Club. Bork was set to give a speech at the Yale Club of New York last June when he allegedly slipped and fell backward while trying to mount a platform. Bork’s personal injury lawsuit claimed that the Yale Club failed to provide stairs between the floor and the dais and that he suffered personal injuries which required surgery and physical therapy. The 80-year-old Bork also claimed that he now walks with a cane and a limp because of the fall, and sued for unspecified punitive damages and actual damages for pain and suffering, medical treatment, and losing income and time at work.
Bork’s personal injury lawsuit especially drew the ire in this editorial in The New York Times. Of further interest, Bork was a federal appeals judge in Washington from 1982 to 1988. He was once nominated to the Supreme Court by late President Ronald Reagan in 1987, but the Senate denied this request.
