The mother of a man who died while evading police officers filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Arkansas, claiming a deputy hit him with a Taser while he was in a pond, knocking him unconscious and causing him to drown.

Martha Neely, mother of 36-year-old Brett Howie, filed the personal injury lawsuit against Jefferson County, Sheriff Gerald Robinson and Deputy Randy Dolphin, who had fired the Taser at Howie during a chase.

Howie was wanted on two felony warrants at the time of his death for missing court dates based on charges placed on him in 2005. Howie was charged with possession of a controlled substance as well as delivery and manufacturing a controlled substance.

On Feb. 19, 2007, Howie was fleeing Jefferson County deputies, including Dolphin, who were trying to arrest him on the two warrants he had out, and chased to an area near a pond outside of Pine Bluff, Ark.

But what happened next is disputed between Neely’s attorney, Austin Porter Jr., and the sheriff’s office.

Both Arkansas State Police investigators who looked into Howie’s drowning and Prosecuting Attorney Stevan Dalrymple put into official record that no Taser darts made contact with Howie’s skin, and decided the Taser could not have contributed to his death, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

However, Porter told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that Dolphin’s Taser did shock Howie while he was in the pond, based on local police reports and Neely’s own firsthand account of what happened, since she was there when Howie died.

According to the suit, Dolphin “Tasered Mr. Howie, who in turn became incapacitated due to the electrical shock. As a result of being incapacitated … Brett drowned in the lake.”

Dolphin, who is still working for the sheriff’s office as a sergeant, did not respond to the Democrat-Gazette’s attempts to reach him, and the sheriff’s office also did not offer any comment on the lawsuit.

Arkansas State Police Spokesman Bill Sadler wrote in an email that the state police worked about a 2 month long investigation into the case, and closed it on April 27, 2007.

Within the email, Sadler wrote that Dolphin told detectives he had fired the Taser at Howie, but missed him.

“Howie swam further toward the opposite lake bank, submerged underwater, reappeared on the surface, then submerged a second time,” Sadler wrote in the email.

Deputies were originally called out to the area near the pond for a domestic dispute, and were told Howie was the cause of the disturbance, according to the Democrat-Gazette.

The Ford Motor Company opted to settle for most of the requested $17.7 million in a personal injury lawsuit after a Ford SUV crash left a woman paralyzed from the neck down.

Ford decided to pay $16 million to Lynn Wheeler recently during the end of a trial in Clayton County, Ga., while they jury was deciding whether to fine Ford for punitive damages beyond the initially-requested $17.7 million, according to an article in the Fulton County Daily Report.

The jury ruled that Ford was liable for damages to compensate what Wheeler and her attorneys described as design problems with the Ford Explorer.

Around Christmas 2005, Wheeler was riding in the middle of the back seat in a 2002 Ford Explorer sport model SUV, which seats five passengers, according to the Fulton County Daily Report. Wheeler’s son was driving, his wife was seated in the front seat and Wheeler herself was seated between her two young grandchildren in booster seats.

A smaller sport coupe was coming the opposite way and lost control while making a turn. The vehicle slammed head-on into the Explorer. Alan Hamilton, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, said that Wheeler’s son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren walked away from the car accident with “essentially no significant injury at all.”

Wheeler, on the other hand, was severely injured. With a lap seat belt to hold her, Wheeler was sent forward and down at force when the rear seat latch failed and collapsed on her, according to the Daily Report.

The pre-trial report read that “Lynn Wheeler’s head and neck were driven down and forward into the front seat and/or center console, catastrophically injuring her spinal cord.”

Hamilton said that Wheeler is also on a ventilator to help with breathing, in addition to being paralyzed.

The suit claimed the auto maker was negligent on the vehicle’s design of both the rear seat latch and the lap belt put in place for the middle seat rear seat, instead of a belt with a shoulder restraint of some sort.

The suit also claimed Ford did not provide enough warning for both the Wheelers and the general public about the possibility of the injury that happened to Lynn.

Ford argued that at the time, the Explorer had exceeded all government-mandated safety requirements.

Attorneys for the company argued further that the lap belt was a needed addition to accommodate child safety seats, and that they can be safer for smaller children who do not fit properly with shoulder-restraining belts.

Ford’s attorneys argued that it was not technologically possible to install a shoulder-belt in the middle of a bench seat, which is where Wheeler was seated.

Ford’s attorneys also argued that the rear seat latch was tested to hold through similar force as the accident that Wheeler was in.

A third wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against Toyota for faulty gas pedals sticking to the floor and causing accidents.

The family of 34-year-old Trina Renee Harris filed against the large Japanese automaker after she died in a car accident shortly before Christmas in Houston, Texas. While driving a 2009 Toyota Corolla, Harris was not able to stop and crashed into a cement divider after going through a stop sign, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The car accident lawsuit is the latest among an ever-lengthening saga of problems caused by faulty accelerator pedals that stick and floor mats that pinned accelerator pedals in place within Toyota vehicles around the globe.

Toyota has launched a voluntary recall for millions of vehicles, as dozens of injury, wrongful death and class action lawsuits are filed against the company.

This week, Toyota announced it would be recalling about 400,000 models of their iconic Prius across the globe, Reuters reported. The company’s hybrid gas-electric fueled vehicle would be recalled to modify software in the anti-lock braking system. The recall includes the most recent version of the sedan released during summer of 2009.

Michael Harris, Trina’s husband, filed the suit against Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., gas pedal manufacturer CTS and the Houston-area store Fred Haas Toyota World, who leased the vehicle to the Harrises. The lawsuit was filed around the same time Toyota announced it would begin fixing the faulty pedals.

“I want those who were negligent to be held responsible. This problem was there before Dec. 18 when she died,” Michael Harris said.

Michael Harris, a U.S. Navy Petty Officer, had just returned from a tour of duty on an aircraft carrier stationed in the Middle East when he learned of the accident. He was in San Diego at the time, and called Toyota right after he returned to the Houston area and learned about Trina’s accident, according to the Chronicle.

Michael Harris said he remembered his wife mentioned there were problems with the accelerator in their vehicle. She told him the car seemed to move, at times, on its own.

Harris said he did not hear back from Toyota when he first called the company to explain what happened to his wife. After learning about the recent recalls, Harris filed for $200 million in actual and punitive damages within the wrongful death lawsuit, claiming the company was grossly negligent.

With the addition of the Prius models, Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles since November 2009.

A personal injury lawsuit has been filed against a Wisconsin country sheriff after a former deputy was convicted of shooting his then-girlfriend and a 12-year-old girl in 2008.

The suit, filed Feb. 5, claims that Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. and two of his higher ranking staff members conspired to keep the deputy on staff after the shooting.

The suit goes on to allege that Clarke acted negligently by letting the former deputy carry a department weapon after knowing about past domestic violence cases in which he was involved, according to a report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Former Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas D. Hutchins, 41, is now serving a 20-year sentence after he pleaded no contest to two counts of intentional first-degree reckless injury and one count of endangering safety by use of a dangerous weapon.

On Dec. 15, 2008, Hutchins became upset with his former girlfriend after she disciplined their child, and he struck her face while they were arguing, the Journal Sentinel reported. The woman told Hutchins to leave and started to call 911 when he remained in the house.

Hutchins pulled the phone out of the wall and aimed his department-issued handgun at her before saying, “You take my job, I’ll take your life,” according to the Journal Sentinel. Hutchins said the woman struck him in the head with a candlestick and he shot his gun to protect himself.

A mug shot of Hutchins taken after the arrest shows a bloody wound on his forehead and bandages around his entire head.

Hutchins then fired his gun twice, hitting the woman in the face.

She ran out from the house to a neighbor’s home and was let in, but Hutchins continued firing through the walls. Bullets hit a 12-year-old girl three times in her thigh and grazed her right hand, the Journal Sentinel reported.

During Hutchins’ criminal trial, the family whose house Hutchins shot his gun into said they found bullet shells in their Christmas presents a few weeks after the incident.

The suit seeks damages for the woman and girl who were shot, and also several children who were present for Hutchins’ eruption. The suit said witnesses to the incident “have and will likely continue to suffer repeated and severe bouts of mental anguish and psychological repercussions.”

The suit was logged as “Jane Doe vs. defendant” without any addresses listed for the woman and children.

Personal injury Attorney Robert Stack, who is representing the plaintiffs, told the Journal Sentinel that the plaintiffs are “rather nervous, rather scared.” Stack also said he was not aware if anyone had been threatened.

A wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Grambling State University after a basketball player died last August following a “punishment” run of four miles in high heat without water.

Henry White, 21, became ill on Aug. 14 after participating in what was described by a university statement as a “conditioning drill.” About two weeks later, White died while being treated at the LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, according to the Monroe, La.-based News Star.

About one month after White’s death, GSU fired men’s basketball head coach Rick Duckett, as well as assistant coaches Phillip Stitt and Steve Portland.

The wrongful death lawsuit names Grambling, its advisory board and the Louisiana Board of Trustees of State Colleges as defendants. The suit does not, however, include any of the coaches who were supervising the team, the Associated Press reported.

The personal injury lawsuit was filed on behalf of White’s mother, Natalie Wood, and claimed that Portland forced other players to run the distance in 100 degree heat for “failing to timely register” for classes. Nicknamed the “Tiger Max,” the run is supposed to be completed in less than 40 minutes, according to the News Star.

Water was not made available to the White and the others during the run, and no supervisors or trainers were with them during the exercise, according to the lawsuit.

White collapsed during the run and was taken to the university’s assembly center, according to the AP. Other players tried to wake him back up by pouring water on him. According to the lawsuit, Portland “made no attempt to intervene or call for assistance.”

White slipped into a coma and remained unconscious until he passed away on Aug. 26.

“I’ve been practicing law close to 20 years and this is the most egregious example of institutional failure that I have encountered,” Wood’s attorney Larry English said in a prepared statement. “The results of that failure was the death of a young man.”

White’s mother was left with about $300,000 in medical costs for his treatment. The suit does not ask for a specific amount of money for damages, English said.

The University of Louisiana System, which oversees eight state universities including Grambling, did not offer any comment about the suit. A ULS spokesperson said the organization does not make public comment about pending legal cases.

The 6′6” White was considered a standout player within high school prep sports circles, playing at Marshalltown Community College and then at Hill Junior College in Texas during his sophomore year before being recruited to play for the GSU Tigers.

A jury ruled last week that a central California-area skydiving center was not responsible for spinal cord injuries as a result of an accident during a jump about three years ago.

In a 10-2 decision, jurors at the San Joaquin Valley Courthouse ruled that the Parachute Center owner and pilot Bill Dause did not act in a manner considered reckless beyond normal skydiving actions when 33-year-old Christian Barton was injured during a jump, the Record newspaper reported.

During summer of 2006, Barton jumped out of Dause’s twin engine plane at about 3,000 feet above sea level. Right after leaving the plane, Barton struck the plane’s tail before continuing to fall. Barton’s emergency chute opened and he landed hard in a nearby vineyard, the Record reported.

The fall left Barton with severe injuries to his spinal cord leaving him unable to walk at first. He later regained partial ability to walk. Pictures taken of Barton show him using a cane to walk into the San Joaquin Valley Courthouse

The verdict against the $8 million injury lawsuit Barton filed against Dause and the Parachute Center came after two weeks of trial dates. During the trial, Dause’s attorney Kurt Siebert alleged that Barton jumped inappropriately out of the airplane, which caused him to roll in the direction of the tail.

Dause’s response to the personal injury lawsuit filing in 2008 said that Barton “literally jumped out” of the plane instead of using “the proper roll out technique.”

During the trial, Barton’s attorney Michael Goldstein claimed Dause did not sufficiently warn Barton about the potential risk that of striking the plane’s tail while falling. Goldstein also argued that Dause did not keep the plane level enough in accordance with skydiving industry standards, according to the Record.

Near the time of the accident, Dause was quoted by the Lodi News-Sentinel saying that Barton was an experienced jumper who had jumped over 200 times before the accident.

Kyle Moutray served as jury foreman during the trial, and described the deliberations between jurors as “very relaxed” and included “a lot of really good discussion.”

While the jury eventually ruled in favor of Dause, it was not a quick decision, Moutray told the Record after the trial concluded.

The first vote was 8-4 in favor of Dause, while the next one went 6-6. The jury then came to a 7-5 vote still in Dause’s favor before finally settling on 10-2 in favor of the pilot.

“Both parties have some responsibility in the entire incident,” Moutray said. “I wish we could’ve done something for Christian.”

In the latest chapter of the Japanese automaker’s woes, Toyota customers are filing lawsuits against the company with complaints that faulty gas pedals are causing, or could cause, car accidents and injuries if their vehicles suddenly accelerate.

About 6.5 million vehicles worldwide are being voluntarily recalled by the auto maker for either sticking gas pedals or faulty floor mats, and another 1.7 million are marked for recalls to fix both problems, according to a release from Toyota. The recall includes eight vehicle models sold in the United States and Canada, including some of the company’s most popular models like the Corolla, Camry, Tundra and Rav.

The sales stoppage of the above models was announced on Jan. 26 and included the Matrix, Avalon, Highlander and Sequoia models.

The recalls mainly involve vehicles built between 2008 and today, although Camry and Tundra models dating back to 2007 could be affected. Avalon models built between 2005 and now also were listed by Toyota for recall.

The two main issues in the vehicles involve accelerator pedals that stick when stepped on and floor mats that can jam the pedals toward the vehicle’s floor. The pedals were made by the CTS Corp. supplier, according to Reuters.

Since November, 10 personal injury lawsuits have been filed in the United States and Canada requesting class action status for the claims. Four lawsuits included in the 10 were filed this past week.

Albert and Sylvia Pena are one of the four new four cases. The Penas told Reuters that their 2008 Toyota Avalon sped up suddenly on Jan. 14, causing them to hit a stop sign. The Penas said the same vehicle had abruptly accelerated before.

Missouri attorney Gary Robb told Reuters that Toyota could lose “billions” in liability due to the large number of vehicles included in the recall and claims of serious injury and death.

While no confirmed injuries have found to be the result of stuck gas pedals on recalled Toyota models, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that five people died because of pedals getting caught on floor mats, according to Reuters.

On Feb. 1, Toyota began fixing pedals in recalled vehicles, according to a news release on Toyota.com.

According to the release, Toyota’s engineers have “developed and rigorously tested a solution that involves reinforcing the pedal assembly in a manner that eliminates the excess friction that has caused the pedals to stick in rare instances.”

A Texas man who filed a personal injury lawsuit after he was severely hurt in an accident at petroleum magnate BP’s Texas City oil refinery won a $1.72 million verdict in a recent court ruling.

Ernesto Tamez and his wife Maria filed the industrial accident lawsuit against Maxim Crane Works, an industrial company based in Pennsylvania. The lawsuit was filed about four years after Tamez was injured at the refinery. A jury at a Galveston County, Texas courthouse ruled Maxim was fully liable for the accident, according to release from Arnold & Itkin law office.

According to court documents, Tamez was working at the refinery on January 18, 2006 when he was struck by an oil burner. The burner was hoisted in the air by a crane operated by a Maxim worker. Tamez reportedly sustained crushing injuries to his neck, back, shoulder and ribs, which required extensive surgery to repair.

Tamez was awarded $300,000 in lost wages, $550,000 in medical expenses and $170,000 for his wife in the decision.

“It has taken four years to get to this point, but our hope is that this verdict will help our client and his family move on with their life,” Cory Itkin, who served as one of Tamez’s injury attorneys, said in the release.

Last December, a federal jury awarded $100 million in damages to 10 workers who were exposed to toxic fumes at the Texas City refinery.

The ruling was the first in about 100 similar suits against the company from workers and residents in the area who claim BP has not taken enough measures to reduce the release of harmful fumes from the refinery.

The Texas City refinery has a history of other safety violations, including an explosion at the facility in March 2005. According to CBS, 15 workers were killed and least 170 were injured in the accident at the site, which occupies a two square miles.

BP was fined a record $87.4 million in November 2009 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for falling short of needed efforts to safely rebuild the plant after the explosion, The Wall Street Journal reported.

On March 23, 2005, contractors working at the plant had restarted a unit that was shut down for repairs. The unit was filled with gasoline but it overflowed and then filled up an emergency backup unit. The end result of the two overflows was a geyser-like spurt of gasoline into the air, followed by the explosion, CBS reported in 2005.

A personal injury lawsuit was filed in early January against a Camden, PA.-based chocolate plant after a worker was killed last summer when he fell into a vat used to melt chocolate.

Vincent Smith II, 29, was working at the Lyons and Sons chocolate plant on July 8, according to CBS. Officials said at the time that Smith was standing on a nine-foot-tall platform while loading solid pieces of raw cocoa into a melting vat when he fell into the container.

While the chocolate’s temperature was believed to be about 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the chocolate was not responsible for his death. Smith was struck in the head by an agitator, a large paddle-shaped object used to move the chocolate while it melts, and suffered fatal injuries because of the blow, according to CBS.

Attorney Thomas Kline, who is representing Smith’s relatives, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that several security measures were missing near the vat. He said no guardrails were placed around the vat, the floors nearby where slick with melted chocolate, no equipment was nearby for workers to try to get him out of the vat, and no emergency shut off was installed on the platform, according to the Inquirer.

The suit was announced just after the plant and the company Smith was working for were fined about $39,000 for an array of safety violations. Smith’s employer, Cocoa Services, was also named in the family’s lawsuit, as well as other contractors who designed and constructed the plant.

“This was a sure death,” Kline told the Inquirer. “When he fell in, he stood no chance of survival.”

Inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration placed the recent fines on the plant for failure to meet the security measures described by Kline.

Right after Smith’s death, the plant was shut down and fined about $1,150 for operating without a mercantile license. Inspectors also found problems with plumbing and electrical systems in the plant. Officials representing the plant had said before the inspection that those areas were fixed, according to the Inquirer.

“This worker was unknowingly invited into a death trap,” Kline said to the Inquirer. “They ignored any rule of occupational safety or common sense.”

Officials from Lyons and Cocoa services declined to comment to the Pennyslvania newspaper.

“My brother was a very careful guy,” Smith’s brother Carl Smith told ABC shortly after the accident. “Come to find out they say it could have been carelessness on his part? That’s not his character at all.”

More than 30 personal injury lawsuits have been filed in Illinois and Texas after a tainted medication led to allergic reactions and deaths in 2008.

Baxter International Inc. recalled herapin, a blood thinner and anti-coagulant, in 2008 when ingredients in the medication were found to cause adverse reactions. Key components at fault within herapin were traced back to animal products from China included in the product, according to Bloomberg.

A main component of herapin is made from pig intestines, a Baxter spokesperson said in a 2008 statement.

Baxter had supplied about half of the United States’ blood thinner and anti-coagulant when reports of allergic reactions started coming in. Erin Gardiner, a company spokeswoman, told Bloomberg that the company began a voluntary recall when they noticed the increase in adverse reactions.

The US Food and Drug Administration found after the recall that herapin was contaminated with a substance similar to herapin but was actually over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate, according to the Southeast Texas Record.

A China-based company manufactured the active ingredient in herapin from raw materials bought from smaller, family owned workshops. The workshops extracted what was used for herapin from pig intestines, the Southeast Texas Record reported.

“The decision to source from China is based solely on supply — the majority of the world’s supply of crude heparin comes from China, due to the large number of pigs required,” Baxter said in 2008.

Gardiner told Bloomberg recently that Baxter was unable to pinpoint exactly where the contaminated materials came into the manufacturing of herapin, since it was introduced into the process before it ever reached Baxter’s facilities.

The company, based in Deerfield, Illinois, said they “deeply regret any impact the 2008 herapin contamination may have had on patients and family members.”

The U.S. FDA set new standards in manufacturing the blood thinner in 2008 after the recall, but Chinese suppliers do not fall under the same scrutiny of U.S.-based health agencies.

The Illinois-based personal injury lawsuits accuse Baxter and supplier Scientific Protein Laboratories with negligence and are seeking monetary damages for both people who were hurt by the tainted products and for their family members, Bloomberg reported.

A lawsuit filed in Texas also accuses Baxter of failing to disclose test results, failing to act reasonably to recall the drugs and failing to act as a reasonably prudent drug manufacturer, according the Southeast Texas Record.

In 2007, actor Denis Quaid and his wife filed a product liability lawsuit in Chicago against Baxter after their newborn twins were given high amounts of herapin by accident, the Associated Press reported.

Quaid’s suit alleged that higher doses of herapin were packaged the same as lower amounts.