U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon has declared a new trial is warranted on the issues of damages in a federal case where the jury awarded Gerald Barnett $50 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. In his ruling, Judge Fallon said the award was "grossly excessive". A new trial date has not yet been set but it is important to note that the same jury will re-hear the...
Many of our closest friends and cherished relatives live in nursing homes. We place our trust in the caregivers. When caregivers violate that trust, they need to face the consequences. And so must their employers. The headline read: "Nurse Surprised to Face Charges". The story indicated that the nurse charged with killing her 88-year-old patient by neglect said Tuesday that she followed the...
An active area of medical malpractice litigation is the late diagnosis or mis-diagnosis of cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the second most common malignancy in women worldwide, and it remains a leading cause of cancer- related death for women in developing countries. In the United States, cervical cancer is relatively uncommon. The incidence of invasive cervical cancer has declined steadily...
Boston Scientific announced earlier this month that it has set aside $381 million in anticipation of lawsuits stemming from faulty Guidant defibrillators and pacemakers. Boston Sci inherited Guidant's legal problems when it bought the company earlier this year for $27 billion.Included in the fallout are about 72 product liability class action lawsuits and about 477 individual lawsuits. The suits...
In Mickelson v. New York Life Insurance Co., the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals held in favor of an employee who claimed that she had been discriminated against with respect to pay. The Court noted that there are two ways a plaintiff can proceed on a claim of salary discrimination: on a theory of intentional discrimination on the basis of sex in violation of Title VII, or on a theory of wage...
On August 15, 2006 the fourth victim of a helicopter crash that killed three Payette National Forest firefighters and their pilot was been identified. Ms. Lillian M. Patten of Olympia, Washington was a fire lookout. She was on her way with other team members to a guard station when the helicopter crashed. Aviation experts from the U.S. Forest Service and the National Transportation Safety...
Well, AT&T has become the next corporation to allow hackers to steal private data concerning its customers. About nineteen thousand consumers who shopped on-line through an AT&T web site have had their credit card and other personal identification information stolen. In this case, apparently AT&T offered to pay for credit monitoring services to assist consumers for awhile. The extent of...
The parents of a girl who was attacked and murdered after she left her shift at a Tyler Wal-Mart settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the retail giant just a day before the case was scheduled to go to trial. Megan LeAnn Holden was kidnapped and killed by Johnny Lee Williams, Jr. in January 2005. Her parents, Sheri Dunlap and Vincent Holden said they hoped the settlement will make Wal-Mart...
An employer can use objective criteria or subjective criteria to determine whom to employ or promote or terminate. An employee's failure to meet the objective criteria generally terminates claims of discrimination and can result in summary dismissal of the plaintiff's claims. However, the failure to meet subjective criteria is generally not fatal to the plaintiff's claims. In such a case, the...
Despite the rhetoric of homeowners liability insurance companies, if you get hurt while on the property of another, you have rights to be compensated. But if you listen to the claims adjuster, who calls when you are injured, the adjuster will try to convince you otherwise.If you slip and fall on another person's property, or a business property, the cause of your fall may have been the owner's...
@thumbnail.jpg "M. Brandon Smith")
