Now this is an interesting lawsuit. In Massachusetts, Marlboro Airport wants payment of $676,048 for damage caused by “negligent” use of its facility, including unauthorized vehicles that tore up its field. The problem is that the culprit is the U.S. government. In 2010, President Barack Obama descended on the airport and brought with him a huge entourage, including a massive vehicles that were too heavy for the tarmac. After trashing the field, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security refused to compensate the company that runs the field.
Continue reading “Presidential Hit and Run? Obama Sued For Trashing Massachusetts Airport”
Category: Torts
In my torts class, we often discuss accounts of “spontaneous combustion” particularly after discussing the case of spontaneous combustion of a hay rick in Vaughn v. Menlove. Such cases have occasionally been reported with people, albeit to skeptical police. The latest comes from Ireland where Michael Faherty, 76, seemed to spontaneously combust.
Continue reading “Irish Coroner Finds Death Was Case Of “Spontaneous Combustion””
NASA still is unsure where a giant six-ton six-ton satellite will hit this week, but they are trying to calm nerves by saying that the risk of someone being hit is only 1 in 3200. I was struck by that figure because in tort law that would be considered an unacceptable risk in cases of product liability or malpractice.
Continue reading “Space Torts: NASA Puts Risk of Being Hit By Falling Satellite At 1 in 3200”
This newly released photograph has raised concerns that the recent deadly crash at the Nevada air race may have been caused by a defective cockpit seat. The pilot, Jimmy Leeward, should have been seen in the cockpit even if he had passed out in the Galloping Ghost, his vintage WWII-era P-51 mustang.
Continue reading “New Picture Shows Pilot Missing on Galloping Ghost Shortly Before Fatal Crash”
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Webster’s defines compassion as:
compassion \kəm-ˈpa-shən\, n.,
: sympathetic of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it
In yet another instance of corporate callousness, Claudia Rendon, a 41-year old mother from Philadelphia, was fired from her job at Aviation Institute of Maintenance after taking leave to donate a kidney to her son, Alex. Kidney transplant surgery normally takes six to eight weeks recovery time. Rendon had discussed taking unpaid leave from July 19 to undergo the kidney transplant surgery on July 21 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and to return to her job on September 1. She told ABC News that on her last day of work, her manager presented her with a letter to sign acknowledging that her job was not secure one hour after telling her that she would have her job upon her return. On August 24, Rendon informed Aviation Institute of Maintenance that she might not be able to return to work September 1 due to severe lower back pain; a common complication of such surgery. Aviation Institute of Maintenance said they wanted a letter from the doctor. The University of Pennsylvania hospital and her short-term disability provider each wrote letters to Rendon’s employer stating she would return to work Sept. 12. Upon making a social visit to Aviation Institute of Maintenance on September 8, she found out her position had been filled by someone else on September 6. Alex, who was a student at AIM, has also suffered repercussions of undergoing this lifesaving transplant. The school is trying to collect $2,000 related to time he took off in addition to trying to charge him $150 to re-enroll. Did Aviation Institute of Maintenance break the law? Or are they just another example of a callous employer lacking in compassion?
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Cecelia Ingraham had a daughter. Her name was Tatiana. In 2003, her then teen-aged daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. After a brief period of remission, the cancer returned. An opportunistic infection claimed Tatiana’s life in 2005. Tatiana was an only child.
Cecelia Ingraham had a job. It was in New Jersey. She worked for Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical for 12 years as an administrative assistant in the marketing department. At this job, she had a cubicle. In this space, Cecelia kept mementos of her daughter not unlike any grieving parent might; pictures and a pair of ballet slippers. On this job, like any job, not all discussions are about business matters. In the course of meandering discussions, Cecelia sometimes talked about her deceased daughter not unlike any grieving parent might. In the spectrum of trauma human beings can face, “what’s the worst trauma” is a zero sum game, but in that spectrum there are certainly forms of trauma that are uniquely painful due to their nature. In that regard, for a parent to lose a child is a unique trauma. It leaves an emotional scar that for most never fully goes away.
About a year and a half after Tatiana’s death, Carl DeStefanis, Director of Marketing, at the urging of Human Resources, had a discussion with Cecelia Ingraham “to convey complaints [Human Resources] had received about plaintiff’s conduct and interaction with co-workers. Several of those complaints were unrelated to Tatiana, but administrative staff in the department had also remarked about plaintiff’s tendency to speak to them about Tatiana’s tragic passing. The co-workers said they sympathized with plaintiff, but they felt uncomfortable and at a loss for ‘what else that we can say that we have not said already.’ The co-workers said they tended to avoid contact with plaintiff and to take work or questions elsewhere.” DeStefanis told Cecelia Ingraham that she needed to remove the pictures and ballet shoes of her deceased daughter from her cubicle and that she could “no longer speak of her daughter because she is dead” and should act as if her daughter “did not exist”.
Distraught, Cecelia left work that day and did not return. Over the next few days, she began to have sudden heart palpitations that required surgery. After the surgery and some recovery time, Cecelia Ingraham resigned her position at Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical. She then filed suit for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED) against Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, their parent company Johnson & Johnson, and Carl DeStefanis. What happened next might be seen by some people as adding insult to injury. Her case was dismissed. But was it a result of bad law or a failure in basic empathy?
We have previously followed employees fired or denied benefits for resisting robberies, even when coming to the aid of customers. In the case of Jeremy Hoven, the pharmacist says he was fired by Walgreens after he foiled a late-night robbery in Michigan. He has now filed a wrongful termination lawsuit and Walgreens’ answer to the complaint has an interesting reported twist.
Matthew Scheidt, 17, has been charged in a bizarre case where he successfully posed as a physician’s assistant for two weeks at a hospital. He was able to work in the ER, remove IV, and perform examinations at the Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee, Florida.
Continue reading “Florida Teen Arrested After Successfully Posing As Physician’s Aide At Hospital ER”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
It appears that a prototype of the new iPhone 5 was lost at a bar in San Francisco. Can you say déjà vu all over again? Apple was able to track the device to a residence in San Francisco and four San Francisco police officers accompanied two Apple employees to the residence.
“The two Apple (security) employees met with the resident and then went into the house to look for the lost item. The Apple employees did not find the lost item and left the house,” the police statement said.
Continue reading “Police Assist Apple Security In Search For iPhone 5”
Now this is a bizarre potential tort case out of Britain. A 26-year-old woman’s gel breast implant exploded when hit by a paintball traveling at 190mph. The question is whether Paintzone Park near Croydon, or the paintball gun manufacturers, should be liable under a strict liability or negligence theory.
Continue reading “Negligence or Assumption of the Risk? Paintball Causes British Woman’s Breast Implant to Rupture”
A Colorado jury has rendered a rare award to the family of a burglar killed in the course of a crime. Verdicts like this one are likely to be used by advocates of Castle Doctrine or “Make-My-Day laws — laws designed to protect citizens from criminal liability in the protection of their homes, or in some cases, their businesses. The El Paso jury awarded roughly $300,000 to the family of Robert Johnson Fox, who was shot in the course of an attempted burglary of a car lot.
Continue reading “El Paso County Jury Rules In Favor Of Family Of Burglar Killed By Business Owner”
With Rick Perry taking the lead in the Republican primary, tort reform is expected to be, again, a major campaign issue. I have long been a critic of efforts to cap damages and I have seen firsthand how these caps often lead to families being unable to secure counsel in fights with big companies. Now, Perry is claiming that his “reforms” have led to 21,000 more doctors coming to Texas. The article below shows how this claim is entirely unsupported.
Continue reading “Eleven Out of Ten Doctors Agree: Perry’s Shaky Math on Tort Reform”
This week, I was milking sympathy after being stung twice by bees on two successive days walking our dog, Molly, through our nearby forest. The sympathy then came to an end when I saw this story about an elderly man in Redondo Beach, California.
There is an interesting torts case of consent out of Shelbyville, Kentucky where truck driver Phillip Seaton, 64, sued after a doctor amputated part of his penis in what was supposed to be a simple circumcision operation. Dr. John Patterson insists that, upon examination, he found the penis to be infused with cancer and took the step in the best interests of the patient. A jury agreed and ruled for Patterson.
Continue reading “Kentucky Man Loses Lawsuit Over Amputation of His Penis Without Consent”
There was an interesting story out of Germany where researchers have found a highly carcinogenic substance in a flask of lotion believed to have belonged to Queen Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut ruled Egypt 3,500 years ago and was known to have powerful enemies, including her stepson Thutmose III. However, she may have died from poisoning at her own hand.
Continue reading “Was Queen Hatsheput Poisoned? Scientists Find Evidence of What Could Be One Of The World’s Oldest Product Liability Cases”