In celebration of Thanksgiving, I give you our annual Turkey Torts of a few potential and actual lawsuits from this holiday. From deep-fried Turkeys to salmonella salads, the holiday gives personal injury lawyers a great deal to be thankful for.
Category: Torts
David Hackbart, 35, will be awarded $50,000 after being ticketed in Pittsburgh for flipping the bird in traffic.
Continue reading “A Bird in the Hand is Worth . . . $50,000: Pennsylvania Man Receives $50,000 After Being Given Ticket for Flipping the Bird at Officer”
Police in Bruceville-Eddy, Texas shot and killed a dog that they insist was threatening them and then tasered its elderly owner for failing to obey their commands. The man turns out to be deaf and there is still no word on the investigation that began in March in the incident.
Continue reading “Texas Police Shoot Dog and Then Taser Dog’s Deaf Elderly Owner For Failing to Obey Commands”
The Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld but reduced a punitive award to a McDonald’s manager who was duped into a prank forcing a young worker into a strip search. The punitive award against McDonald’s was reduced from $1 million to $400,000. However, the court let stand the $5 million award of punitive damages for 18-year-old worker who was the subject of the search.
There is another fatality connected to the use of tasers. Ronald Petruney, 49, of Washington, Pa. died after he was hit by three tasers by police trying to restrain him.
Continue reading “Pennsylvania Man Dies After Hit By Multiple Tasers”
A new alleged abuse is receiving national action from the ever-expanding controversies surrounding Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. We have been following the scandals surrounding Arpaio from his crackdown on illegal aliens to use of his office for a reality show to his attack on the press to his shaming of prisoners to his defense of deputies who rifle through the files of lawyers. Now, he is accused of forcing Alma Minerva Chacon to give birth in shackles when she went into labor the night of her arrest. What is interesting is that this is not the first such case of a shackled birth.
Over the years, we have followed hunting accidents (here and here and here) — the subject of an earlier column on “buck fever.” We have a new and tragic such case in Virginia. Ferrum College senior Jessica Goode, 23, went out hiking with friends last week when Jason D. Cloutier, 31, mistook her for a deer. He shot and killed her in the chest with his .35-caliber, high-powered rifle. The bullet went through her chest and into the hand of her friend Regis Boudinot, 20.
Continue reading “Hunter Kills College Student and Wounds Another in Hunting Accident”
We previously followed a study of how leading restaurants were found to substitute cheap fish for salmon and other high-end fish without informing customers. Now, biologists have taken it upon themselves to test some of the sushi that they were served and discovered that, rather than tuna, it was often escolar — a fish that is often tied to diarrhea and other negative digestive reactions.
Continue reading “Bait and Switch: Study Shows Sushi Restaurants Substituting Tuna With Low-Grade Varieties or Even Endangered Species”
Milford, Connecticut police officer Jason Anderson has been charged with two counts of second-degree manslaughter and one count of reckless driving in an accident that killed 19-year-old David Servin and 19-year-old Ashlie Krakowski. Anderson was driving at 94 miles per hour at the time and the crash was caught on the dashcam of another cruiser by Police Officer Richard Pisani.
Nathalie Blanchard seems to have had one “friend” too many on her Facebook page. The Quebec woman is on long-term sick leave but posted pictures of herself on the beach and enjoying a show with the Chippendales. One of the viewers was the insurance company paying for her total disability due to depression from her job at IBM.
We have a new major recall this morning. Procter & Gamble is recalling Vicks Sinex nasal spray in the United States, Britain and Germany because of the presence of bacteria. Shooting live bacteria up your nose puts a new meaning in the gamble that comes with Procter & Gamble.
Continue reading “Bacterial Spray: Procter and Gamble Recalls Vicks Nasal Spray”
A federal judge in New Orleans has found “monumental negligence” by the U.S. Army’s Corps of Engineers in the operation and maintenance of a shipping channel called the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet. The finding allows residents to collect damages against the U.S. government after their homes were swamped by Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters in 2005.
Continue reading “Court: Corps of Engineers Responsible for Flood Damage in New Orleans”
We have been following the expansion of defamation cases linked to Internet sites, here, and here. We now have an interesting Twitter case involving rock star Courtney Love, who lost her bid recently to dismiss a libel action filed by designer Dawn Simorangkir. Simorangkir claims in the lawsuit that Love “has embarked in what is nothing short of an obsessive and delusional crusade to terrorize and destroy” her.
Continue reading “Tweet Torts: Rocker Courtney Love Sued by Designer For Defamation on Twitter”
In North Buffalo, Pennsylvania, Randy Good has created a novel and disgusting nuisance. He has agreed to remove a pile of hundreds of dead deer from his property which has neighbors gagging from the odor.
Here is today’s column in USA Today on the continuing trend toward shaming or creative punishments.
Continue reading “Shaming Undermines Justice”