Remember the 1994 "hot coffee lawsuit" in which a jury awarded an elderly New Mexico woman nearly $3 million (later appealed and settled for an undisclosed sum) because she was injured by a cup of java at a local McDonald's?

Enter the "hot nacho cheese lawsuit."

A Chula Vista. Calif. couple filed suit against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts this week, claiming their 4-year-old son received severe burns during dinner at Orlando's Magic Kingdom last March. According to the family's San Diego-based attorney, Sean Cahill, Isaiah Harris was injured at Cosmic Ray's Starlite Cafe when a paper cup of scalding nacho cheese splashed on his face after he'd grabbed a food tray to keep from falling out of an unsteady chair. The suit claims the child suffered "permanent scarring, pain and suffering" as a result of the burns, and his parents, Michael and Maria Harris, suffered "serious emotional distress

"The cheese should not have been that hot," said Cahill. "Nobody has a reasonable expectation that it be served at a temperature causing immediate and severe burns on contact."

When asked for comment Friday, Disney issued the following statement: "It's unfortunate when any child gets injured. We just received notice of the lawsuit and we are currently reviewing it."

The hot nachos suit is the second filed against a Disney park this week. On Monday, a quadriplegic visitor to Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. claimed Disney violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not having adequate evacuation procedures for visitors with mobility disabilities. Jose Martinez of San Pedro, Calif. says Disney left him in his wheelchair in the "It's a Small World" ride for 40 minutes after the ride had stalled and other guests had been evacuated during a visit in November, 2009.

While waiting for help, the Orange County Register reports, Martinez suffered from dysreflexia, a medical condition that can cause death if untreated. "It feels like an ice pick going through your temples," Martinez said. The pain was exacerbated "especially when you couple that with the continuous, 'small world' music in the background."

Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown told the Register company officials had yet to see the lawsuit.

"Disneyland Resort is accessible to guests with varying needs, including those with mobility disabilities. If it is necessary to evacuate an attraction, we have procedures in place for all guests," Brown said in a statement.

Posted Feb 11 2011 10:42PM

By Laura Bly, USA TODAY

The National Labor Relations Board and an ambulance services company have settled a complaint about the firing of a woman who had criticized her supervisor on Facebook.

The board's Hartford, Conn., regional office filed a complaint against American Medical Response last October, arguing that negative comments posted on Facebook by an emergency medical technician, Dawnmarie Souza, were protected speech under federal labor laws. American Medical Response, based in Connecticut, said it fired the woman because of complaints about her work, according to the Associated Press.

The financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but workplace reforms were detailed.

The Associated Press reported that Souza would not be returning to work at the company.

Souza and officials at American Medical Response were unavailable for comment Monday.

Under the settlement with the federal board, American Medical Response has agreed to change its policy that barred workers from criticizing the company or its supervisors on websites, on blogs and in online communication with one another, the board said in a statement.

American Medical Response will also revise a policy that stated employees could not talk about the company in any way on the Internet without permission, the board said.

In 2009, using her home computer, Souza wrote a profanity-laden message on Facebook about a supervisor who had told her a customer complained about her work, the Associated Press reported.

Souza's comments also referred to her boss using the company's code for a psychiatric patient, and some of her co-workers posted responses on Facebook expressing approval and support of her comment, the Associated Press said.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, employees are legally allowed to discuss the "terms and conditions of their employment" with their colleagues and others online and elsewhere, the board said.

The federal agency also said American Medical Response failed to provide Souza with union representation during interviews with her about the Facebook comments. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to no longer deny its employees union representation in such meetings, the agency said.

A Seattle woman struck by a Metro bus while she was in a crosswalk on Seattle's Alaskan Way in 2008 has reached a $4.5 million settlement with King County.

The settlement between Ree Ah Bloedow, 45, and the county was reached two weeks before the case was to have gone to trial.

"We deeply regret the incident occurred," said King County spokeswoman Rochelle Ogershok. "We think it was a fair settlement. Now the pedestrian will have the resources needed for her medical needs."

Bloedow's attorney, Jack Connelly, said the settlement was important because Bloedow lost her career as a staff attorney for the state Department of Social and Health Services because of the brain injury she suffered in the accident.

Bloedow was crossing Alaskan Way in January 2008 when she was struck by a mirror on the bus. Along with the brain injury, her arm was shattered. Connelly said the settlement will not only pay for needed medical care but also lost wages because she had to leave her job.

The lawsuit was filed in early 2009 and was set to go to trial Feb. 14.

The settlement is important, Connelly said, because Bloedow is unlikely to regain her mental faculties, and her career is gone.

"I appreciate the fact King County recognized the injury and its responsibility to her. She walked in a clearly marked crosswalk and the driver wasn't watching," he said.

The county admits it was negligent and accepts responsibility for the accident, according to a letter from the King County prosecutor.

It's not the largest settlement Metro has paid in an injury claim. A year ago it agreed to pay $7 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a woman severely injured when a Metro Transit supervisor's van struck her while she was riding a Vespa scooter to work.

By Susan Gilmore

Seattle Times staff reporter

A Brooklyn man whose wife died of a heart attack after waiting more than 90 minutes for an ambulance during last month's blizzard will slam the city with a $20 million lawsuit on Monday.

Robert Davis said he called 911 around 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 27 to report his wife, Claire Reed, 63, was experiencing chest pains.

Davis, 58, said he made a second call before 8 a.m. as the pains became worse. His wife was screaming she was having a heart attack during the followup call - cries the 911 operator must have heard, Davis said.

An FDNY report obtained by The News indicates medics were assigned to the call at 9:07 a.m. - 97 minutes after Davis said he first called for help.

The medics arrived at the couple's basement apartment on Cortelyou Road in Flatbush three minutes later, but Reed had already stopped breathing and had no pulse, according to the FDNY report. "If they got there on time, I think she would have had a better chance," Davis said.

The FDNY report notes the ambulance crew responded to the scene with lights flashing and sirens on. It also indicates that the nearly 2 feet of snow that had fallen overnight wasn't a factor.

The "conditions causing delay" section is blank - including the box labeled "weather."

A Fire Department spokesman declined to comment on the incident, citing pending litigation.

City officials have conceded there was a backlog of 1,300 calls for emergency service in the wake of the monster storm.

Mayor Bloomberg, who has come under heavy criticism for being absent while his commissioners bungled the city's response to the blizzard, demoted Chief of the Emergency Medical Service John Peruggia.

"A 1-1/2-hour delay to respond to a life-and-death situation is inexcusable," said Davis' lawyer Sanford Rubenstein, who plans to notify the city of the wrongful death lawsuit Monday.

It's the second suit that attributes a blizzard-related death to the city's negligence. Last week the family of 75-year-old Laura Freeman blamed her death on a three-hour wait for an ambulance in Queens.

Davis, a guard who works for the Education Department, gave his wife mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while waiting for help. Medics and firefighters worked on Reed for 30 minutes before pronouncing her dead.

Adding to the indignity, Reed's body remained on the couch for a full day until a rep from the medical examiner's office arrived to verify her death was not suspicious. "I slept on the floor right beside my wife," Davis said.

Reed had suffered a disabling stroke five years ago. No autopsy was performed and her death was attributed to heart disease.

BY John Marzulli
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

HUNTSVILLE, AL -- The families of two people killed in the University of Alabama in Huntsville shooting last year have filed wrongful death lawsuits against the university provost Dr. Vistasp M. Kharbari, the alleged shooter Dr. Amy Bishop and her husband James Anderson.

The separate lawsuits were filed today in the Circuit Court for Madison County by the families of Dr. Maria Ragland Davis and Dr. Adriel Johnson, both of whom died in the Feb. 12 shooting.

According to a statement from a public relations firm in California, the suits claim the the provost did not follow procedures that could have saved the lives of Davis and Johnson. Bishop is accused of opening fire in a biology department faculty meeting last February, killing Johnson, Davis and Dr. Gopi Podila and wounding three others.

Douglas Fierberg, a lawyer with Bode & Grenier in Washington, D.C., is representing the Davis and Johnson families. In today's statement, he said the provost was required to protect the staff from what happened at UAH.

"There are clear parallels between this case and Saturday's massacre in Arizona. We have learned from departmental emails that Dr. Bishop's severe mental instability was known by administrators, some of whom she had threatened, harassed and hounded following denial of tenure," Fierberg said.

"The University of Alabama Huntsville Provost had clear obligations under UAH regulations, and standards adopted by universities nationwide following previous high-profile massacres, to obtain intervention by university police and counseling services in order to protect staff and students before Dr. Bishop was allowed into a staff meeting where she gunned down her colleagues," he said.

The University of Alabama in Huntsville released a statement this morning in response to the lawsuit:

"The university expresses once again its deep regret for the loss of life and injuries that occurred as a result of the violent, criminal act carried out on this campus on February 12. While it is clear that blame for this loss must be placed squarely on the perpetrator of this horrible crime, the university has worked diligently to ensure that the families of our deceased employees receive all available work-related benefits.

"The university is saddened by the decision to sue Dr. Vistasp Karbhari and does not agree that Dr. Karbhari, or anyone associated with the university, could have predicted or prevented this random act of violence. The university will vigorously defend this lawsuit and is confident that the outcome will exonerate Dr. Karbhari."

The federal government will pay $2.3 million to settle a medical malpractice lawsuit involving a child born with neurological damage at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center.

U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar approved the settlement between the Justice Department and the Holweger family of Virginia Beach, according to a court filing made public Monday.

Scott and Michelle Holweger sued the United States early last year, seeking $15 million in damages. The couple alleged that inadequate care at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center caused their child to be born with developmental disabilities.

The government denied any malpractice and admits no wrongdoing in the settlement.

In 2006, Michelle Holweger checked into the hospital with severe cramping in her lower abdomen. She was 35 weeks pregnant, according to the lawsuit. She was moved to a triage room and connected to a fetal heart monitor, which showed abnormalities indicating the fetus was under stress, the suit says. Instead of notifying a doctor, the papers say, the staff left Holweger for more than an hour without any intervention.

About 2-1/2 hours after she was admitted, doctors performed an emergency cesarean section. The doctors determined that the placenta had detached from the uterine wall, causing a loss of oxygen to the fetus, the suit says.

The baby girl was born pale and limp, with respiratory failure and a slow heart rate, the suit says. She was intubated and later transferred to Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters.

The girl's "neurological injuries are extensive, severe and permanent," the suit says. "She is severely delayed in all areas of development." The damage, including cerebral palsy, will be lifelong.

The case was set for trial Dec. 7, but the parties had been working on a settlement for at least two months, the court records show.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, which defended the suit, declined to comment Tuesday. Attorneys for the Holwegers did not return phone messages.

The judge's settlement order states that the Holwegers' attorneys will receive about $675,000 in fees and expenses, $54,000 will go toward medical bills, and the remaining $1.57 million will go into a trust set up to care for the child.

A San Diego car dealership will have to pay a portion of the $14.4 million awarded to the sons of San Diego couple who were killed in a 2006 vehicle accident in Arizona, but the exact amount was unclear Wednesday.

Attorney William DelHagen, who represented Mossy Ford in the wrongful-death lawsuit, said the net jury award is about $8.5 million, after calculating offsets and reductions based on other defendants who were found to bear some fault in the accident.

But Robert Buccola, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said the amount was close to $11 million.

Attempts to obtain documents in San Diego Superior Court outlining the specifics of the Tuesday jury verdict were unsuccessful Wednesday.

Casey and Melanie Barber’s three young sons were plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed against Mossy Ford and other defendants. Barber was driving his Ford E350 Sportsmobile van on Highway 98 near Page, Ariz., on July 31, 2006, when a tire-tread separation caused him to lose control of the vehicle, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

They contended in trial that Mossy Ford performed a faulty tire repair — instead of taking the tire out of service — that led to the rollover accident.

DelHagen said he argued in trial that the tire-tread separation was caused by the vehicle hitting an object in the road, not by the repair.

Buccola said the Barbers’ sons, who were 8, 5 and 3 at the time of the accident, now live in the Los Angeles area with their aunt and her husband.

By Dana Littlefield

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 5:22 p.m.

The collective might of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a half-dozen other pro-business groups failed to convince the Nevada Supreme Court that Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. deserves another day in court.

In denying a request for another hearing, the court in an opinion published Thursday took the opportunity to clarify its July affirmation of a $30 million verdict against the tire giant, a verdict that came after a judge took away Goodyear's ability to defend a wrongful death lawsuit after she found company attorneys acted in bad faith and engaged in stall tactics.

The wrongful death lawsuit came after a deadly August 2004 rollover killed three people and severely injured another.

A Goodyear tire is alleged to have failed, leading to the crash, but the facts of the case were never presented to a jury. Instead, former District Judge Sally Loehrer sanctioned Goodyear by striking its answer to the lawsuit, leaving only damages for the jury to decide.

While the company's appellate attorneys argue Loehrer should have held an evidentiary hearing to determine how severe and how much damage the delays caused, six of the seven justices agreed the judge can impose such severe sanctions without a hearing if the sanction is "non-case concluding."

Critics of the sanction, including Justice Kris Pickering, the lone dissenter, call it the civil death penalty. Pickering in her dissent said Goodyear deserved a rehearing because it was not afforded fundamental due process protection at the District Court level.

The opinion, written by Justice Mark Gibbons, noted the case law that attorneys cited did not support their argument Goodyear was entitled to the evidentiary hearing as a matter of law, and reiterated Nevada law does not require the hearing if the sanction does not end in a dismissal.

Goodyear was supported in friends of the court briefs filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the National Association of Manufacturers; National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center; American Tort Reform Association; American Insurance Association; American Chemistry Council; and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Gibbons noted the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure and state case law clearly allow a judge to "strike a party's pleadings if that party fails to obey a discovery order or fails to attend his or her own deposition," which is precisely what Loehrer determined Goodyear had done.

Regarding due process, Gibbons said that when Loehrer held a hearing to discuss the discovery dispute in January 2007 the only witnesses were the lawyers.

"These attorneys are all officers of the court," Gibbons wrote. "Their conduct is governed by Nevada Rule of Professional Conduct 3.3, which addresses the standards of candor that a lawyer must have towards a court."

With these standards in mind, the "representations of the respective lawyers were sufficient for the district court to question the lawyers about the deposition and document production dispute without the necessity of cross-examination."

Goodyear provided attorneys for the plaintiffs 74,000 documents that were not labeled or sorted by category. Also, Goodyear representatives failed to attend their own deposition.

January 5, 2011

Pfizer Inc. must pay $1.5 million in damages to a pharmacist who developed breast cancer after taking one of the company's menopause drugs, a jury in Puerto Rico ruled.

Jurors in federal court in San Juan deliberated about 7 hours over two days before finding yesterday that Pfizer's Wyeth subsidiary failed to properly warn Helen Rivera-Adams and her doctors about the health risks of its Prempro menopause medicine, one of her lawyers said in an interview.

Rivera-Adams, suffering from the late stages of cancer, pushed ahead with the trial "to get the message out that this drug is dangerous," Michael Robb, one of her lawyers, said in a telephone interview today. "I don't know how many times Wyeth executives will have to hear that this drug ruins women's lives before they acknowledge it," he said.

"We are disappointed with the jury's verdict and believe there is no basis in fact or law for this decision," Christopher Loder, a spokesman for New York-based Pfizer, said in an e- mailed statement today. The company is weighing its legal options."

"Hormone therapy medicines are an important treatment option for many women with debilitating symptoms of menopause," he said. "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has regularly reviewed the benefits and risks of these medicines," he said.

More than 6 million women took Prempro and related menopause drugs to treat symptoms such as hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer. Wyeth's sales of the medicines, which are still on the market, topped $2 billion before the release of the Women's Health Initiative, a National Institutes of Health-sponsored study.

Drugs Combined

Until 1995, many menopausal women combined Premarin, Wyeth's estrogen-based drug, with progestin-laden Provera, made by Pfizer's Upjohn unit, to relieve their symptoms. Wyeth combined the two hormones in its Prempro pill.

Pfizer, the world's largest drugmaker, completed its $68 billion purchase of Wyeth last year.

Pfizer's Wyeth and Upjohn units have now lost eight of the 15 Prempro cases decided by juries since trials began in 2006. The drugmaker got some of those verdicts thrown out after trial or had the awards reduced. It resolved some of the verdicts through settlements, while other decisions are on appeal.

Wyeth also has won dismissals of more than 3,000 cases before trial, according to court filings. The companies had won the last four Prempro suits to go to trial before Rivera-Adams's case.

San Juan Pharmacist

Rivera-Adams, 62, is a pharmacist in San Juan who owns her own drugstore, Robb said. She and her family had sought $8 million in damages over her Prempro-linked breast cancer, he said.

Jurors found the drug helped cause Rivera-Adams's cancer and that Wyeth officials didn't provide adequate warnings about the drug's cancer risks to her or her doctors, said Robb, who is based in Miami.

Rivera-Adams took Prempro for 19 months before being diagnosed with cancer in January 2002, according to court filings.

The case is Rivera-Adams v. Wyeth, 03-1713 (JAF), U.S. District Court, District of Puerto Rico (San Juan).

by Jef Feeley and Phil Milford- Bloomberg

Toyota is going to shell out $10 million to settle a lawsuit brought in the fatal crash that set off a safety scandal for the automaker, it is being reported.

An attorney says Toyota will pay to settle with the family of an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer, who was killed along with three others, in August 2009. Toyota agreed to the settlement, according to the Los Angeles Times. He was killed after floor mats apparently jammed against the accelerator in a Lexus ES that he had borrowed from a San Diego-area dealership while his own car was being serviced. The car sped up and apparently couldn't be halted as a panicked passenger in the car related in a 911 call.

The attorney, Larry Willis, who released the amount of the settlement represents the car dealer, Bob Baker Lexus, which is yet to settle with the family.

The Associated Press says a Los Angeles judge denied a motion by Toyota and the plaintiffs to keep the settlement sealed. Toyota had 48 hours to file a stay with a California appeals court.

Toyota issued a statement saying it is disappointed that the amount of its settlement had been made public:

Unfortunately, Bob Baker Lexus, along with the Orange County District Attorney and several news organizations, fought to make the amount of the settlement public, and the court agreed to do so.

Indeed, Bob Baker Lexus already knew the terms of the settlement. However, Mr. Baker now wants the amount publicized in an apparent effort to shift the focus away from his dealership as he continues to litigate this case with the families.

In the statement, Toyota blamed the dealer for not having acted on a warning to remove floor mats in the vehicles after it became known they could jam against accelerators

By Craig Gustafson

Thursday, December 9, 2010

The family of an Oldham County teenager who collapsed and died after a recreational soccer game has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against his doctor, claiming he failed to alert them to the teen's heart problems.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Jefferson Circuit Court, alleges that a 2006 physical showed that Bryce Turner had a heart murmur, which prevented him from playing on the Trinity High School soccer team until he was cleared by his personal physician, Dr. Carl D. Paige.

Paige, who has a practice in La Grange, did not tell Turner's parents that a test showed the teen had a thickening of his heart muscle, which "could be indicative of a life-threatening condition," or share with them a recommendation that the teen be tested again in a year, according to the suit, which names Paige and his office.In July 2006, Paige faxed a note to Joel Turner, Bryce's father, indicating he could play sports, but not mentioning the test findings. Turner went on to play varsity soccer at Trinity, where he achieved academic all-state honors before his graduation in 2007. Turner played two years of soccer at Chapman University in Orange County, Calif.

On March 16, 2009, Turner, 19, collapsed on a soccer field after playing an informal game at Chapman. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. The lawsuit said Turner died of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, thickening of the heart muscle, which is a well-known cause of death for athletes.

"Patients and parents have a right to know about serious abnormal test results so they can make appropriate medical decisions about treatment, and here that didn't happen," said Hans Poppe, an attorney for the family.

Claims made in filing a lawsuit present only one side of the case. Paige did not immediately return a phone call to his office.

Turner was a member of the soccer team at Chapman, where he was in his second year, majoring in business administration with a minor in English. He was also a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

The lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the Bryce C. Turner Memorial Foundation, which encourages early detection and greater awareness of this heart condition in athletes, is seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as a trial by jury.

By Jason Riley • jriley@courier-journal.com • December 16, 2010

A New York woman rendered a quadriplegic after a Cybex weight machine crushed her vertebra won a $66 million jury verdict that threatens to bankrupt the Medway company.

Cybex International Inc. said it's responsible for $49.5 million of the judgment in favor of Natalie Barnhard, 30, of Buffalo. The verdict in New York state Supreme Court was one of the largest personal injury awards ever in Erie County.

The company, which has less than $4 million in insurance to cover the claim, said it will "vigorously pursue" an appeal.

By Donna Goodison
Thursday, December 9, 2010

Legal and public relations problems expanded Monday for Las Vegas nightclub and restaurant executive Michael Morton and his N9NE Group when they were hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit by a fired employee.

Leslie Culler, art director of the N9NE Group, charges in the lawsuit she was fired in July after eight years with the company because, in part, she refused sexual advances directed toward her by Morton and other male executives "and objected to all of the constant sexual harassment she had to endure at her work place."

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Las Vegas adds to the current drama at the N9NE Group, which runs popular restaurants and nightclubs at the Palms hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

Morton is entangled in litigation with Palms owner George Maloof Jr. over allegations Morton has mismanaged and stolen from their joint-venture restaurants and clubs.

One of the allegations of mismanagement was that Morton in recent years had hid from Maloof and N9NE Group investors a $460,000 settlement of a workplace discrimination lawsuit filed by black and Hispanic security guards; and that the joint-venture faced new discrimination allegations from Culler.

The joint venture, N-M Ventures; along with Morton’s Nine Group LLC (the N9NE Group), were named as defendants by Culler in Monday’s suit along with Morton, Morton’s longtime partner Scott DeGraff and N9NE Group executive Bronson Olimpieri.

Perhaps significantly, Monday’s lawsuit says: "Despite being documented as working for N-M Ventures LLC, plaintiff (Culler) was instructed to do projects for other Nine Group entities, as well as for Morton and his wife, Jenna."

Culler will likely be a witness in the Morton-Maloof litigation in which Maloof charges N-M Ventures employees like Culler did projects on the side that benefited Morton and his wife and Morton's new wine bar restaurant at Wynn Las Vegas -- all at the expense of Maloof.

Morton, who has denied the allegations of wrongdoing, claims Maloof and disgruntled N9NE Group investors are wrongly trying to remove him from their lucrative venture.

Mark Ferrario, one of Morton’s attorneys in the litigation with Maloof, said Monday he hadn’t seen the Culler discrimination lawsuit and therefore couldn’t comment on it.

Culler specifically charged in her lawsuit:

-- She was subjected to more than 200 instances of sexual harassment and discrimination by Morton, DeGraff, Olimpieri, N-M Ventures vice president of brand marketing and Culler’s immediate supervisor; and Michael Fuller, a former N-M Ventures executive. N-M Ventures officials have said Fuller was fired over an incident in which he tried to escort an underage woman into N9NE Group’s Moon Nightclub at the Palms.

-- DeGraff once told her, while on company property, that she should play tennis with him and that she should wear a skirt, but not panties or undergarments.

-- DeGraff, at N9NE Group’s Ghostbar, without permission touched her breasts and said he wanted to snort cocaine off of her breasts.

-- Morton, at a company holiday party, grabbed Culler, bent her over a sofa and in the presence of others spanked her so hard she was left with welts on her buttocks.

-- Morton, during a company director’s dinner, grabbed Culler and told her he wanted to "know what it would feel like to’’ have sex with her.

-- Morton, during a work-related birthday party at the Palms, grabbed Culler and tried to kiss her.

-- Morton and DeGraff, at work, set the air conditioner at a cold temperature in order to make Culler’s nipples hard.

-- At the Palms, a friend of Morton’s grabbed Culler’s wrists and "Morton brutishly grabbed the defenseless plaintiff’s breasts." Afterwards, Culler wept about what Morton allegedly had done and a friend of Culler’s reported the incident to N-M Ventures President Andrew Belmonti, but Belmonti did nothing to properly address the situation, the lawsuit alleges.

-- In another incident Morton grabbed Culler’s buttocks.

-- At N9NE Group’s N9NE Steakhouse at the Palms, Morton forced Culler, without her consent, to sit on his lap.

-- Olimpieri on a regular basis, alone and in front of other employees, offered Culler money to pull her pants down, bend over and expose her buttocks. "Plaintiff refused to participate in such degrading activities,’’ the suit says.

-- Fuller, another supervisor of Culler’s, told her that on a scale of 1-10 she was a 9, but would be a 10 if she didn’t wear a bra under her shirt. He once threw water on Culler’s white shirt so he could see her breasts through the shirt, the suit alleged.

"Plaintiff never encouraged, welcomed or consented to the sexual harassment or lewd and physical acts,’’ the lawsuit says.

Culler said in the lawsuit that while working at the N9NE Group, she was fearful of losing her job because previous employees who challenged Morton, DeGraff and other executives were fired without cause.

"Conversely, employees that engaged with sexual activities with Morton were rewarded with favorable treatment. Morton, during plaintiff’s employment, engaged in an intimate relationship with a hostess, who was a subordinate of Morton. Shortly thereafter, the employee was promoted to cocktail waitress," the suit charged.

Culler said in the lawsuit the real reason she was fired was because she was dressing more conservatively, she was trying to get pregnant and that plaintiff "was not fun" in defendants’ eyes.

Filed by Las Vegas attorney Andre Lagomarsino, the lawsuit alleges counts of hostile work environment/sexual harassment; unlawful discriminatory employment practices; retaliation for Culler’s refusal to participate in the sexually charged acts imposed upon her at work and because she was trying to get pregnant; intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and includes counts of assault and battery against Morton, charging, "Morton inappropriately touch plaintiff throughout her employment, and numerous times throughout her final two years with N-M Ventures LLC, in excess of 200 times.’’

The Greenspun family, owner of the Las Vegas Sun, is a minority investor in the Palms.

By Steve Green (contact) Las Vegas Sun

Consol Energy Inc. has been hit with a $7.8 million jury verdict in an Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas civil case involving two subcontractors who were injured when a metal stairway collapsed.

One of the injured men, Clifford Decker, 58, of Bethel Park, and his wife, were awarded $5 million, according to a press release sent out by the plaintiffs' attorneys today. The other man, David Gillingham, 51, of Munhall, and his wife, were awarded $2.8 million.

Attorneys for Consol could not immediately be reached for comment, and the company has the right to appeal.

The case stemmed from a 2007 accident at a Consol-owned building on Brownsville Road in South Park.

Attorney G. Timothy Conboy, representing the Gillinghams, said in an interview that the stairway was bolted to a wall with four bolts, and they did not hold when the two men stepped onto it. Mr. Gillingham suffered a permanently frozen right shoulder that was not improved by rotator cuff surgery. Mr. Decker suffered a severely fractured left hip and leg.

The case hinged on whether Consol had adequately inspected and maintained the staircase over the four decades prior to its collapse, he said.

"The jury was insulted that Consol failed to accept responsibility for their failure to inspect and maintain this stairwell," Mr. Conboy said.

LOS ANGELES -- A jury has hit the state with $1.73 million in damages in a suit by the family of an illegal immigrant who died of penile cancer that went untreated during more than a year in state and federal custody.

The Los Angeles Superior Court jury found state prison doctors partly to blame Wednesday for the death of Francisco Castaneda in February 2007. A separate suit against the federal government is tentatively scheduled for trial in April, the family's lawyers said Thursday.

Castaneda entered the United States with his mother in 1982, at age 10, after fleeing El Salvador during that country's civil war. He was convicted in 2005 of possessing methamphetamine and spent about four months in state prison, then was held in federal detention centers while the government moved to deport him and he applied for political asylum.

According to the lawsuit he filed before his death, a doctor at North Kern Prison in Delano (Kern County) first noticed a growth on his penis in December 2005 and requested an immediate biopsy, but the prison's chief physician rejected it. Castaneda was then transferred to a prison in San Diego, where another doctor recommended a biopsy but failed to follow up, his lawyers said.

Multiple lesions developed and Castaneda's pain increased after he was transferred to federal custody, but doctors and immigration officials provided only pain pills and a clean pair of boxer shorts each day, the family's lawyers said.

A federal physician ordered a biopsy in January 2007, but the immigration agency released Castaneda 11 days later. He then underwent a biopsy and amputation of his penis in a Los Angeles County hospital, the suit said. He died at his Los Angeles-area home shortly afterward at age 36.

State lawyers denied that the physicians were responsible for Castaneda's death and argued that his cancer was untreatable. Lawyers for the family contended his life could have been saved with proper diagnosis and care.

The jury awarded Castaneda's 17-year-old daughter, Vanessa, $1.5 million for the loss of her father and $230,000 for past medical expenses, some of which will be reimbursed to Medi-Cal, her lawyers said.

"Finally, after three years of the state denying responsibility, a jury of Vanessa's peers found that the state killed her father and recognized the tremendous loss with a full and fair verdict," said Conal Doyle, her lead attorney.

State lawyers were unavailable for comment. They could appeal the verdict.

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

The widow of a liver transplant patient who said her husband died after contracting hepatitis C at Mayo Clinic plans to sue the Jacksonville hospital.

Lawyers for Peggy Wolford said they notified hospital officials Tuesday of her intention to file a medical malpractice claim related to the treatment of her husband, Dennis.  

The 61-year-old Stuart man died in September 2008 after two liver transplants at Mayo, the first in 2006 and the second in 2008.

The legal action follows the hospital's revelation in August that at least three patients contracted hepatitis C after an infected Mayo radiology technologist contaminated syringes used in injections. 

Mayo officials said the employee injected himself with patients' painkillers and refilled empty syringes with saline, creating a way to spread the disease even though he put new needles on the syringes to be given to patients.

Authorities charged Steven Beumel with fraudulently obtaining or attempting to obtain a controlled substance. The hospital fired him.

Peggy Wolford said tests showed her husband didn't have hepatitis C before his first transplant. After he suffered complications, tests in early 2007 showed he did. 

"They did tell us it wasn't from the organ and it wasn't from blood work," she said Tuesday, sitting at a conference table with her lawyers, Frank Ashton and Marc Hardesty. "We knew he got it from Mayo Clinic but we didn't know how."

Her lawyers said they didn't believe Wolford's husband was among the three unnamed patients Mayo officials previously announced. Of those patients, hospital officials previously said one died from a case of hepatitis that was a genetic match to the worker's infection, one died after an unrelated battle with cancer, and the other patient was living.

In September, hospital officials said they started sending letters to the more than 3,000 patients they believed came into contact with Beumel so those people could get tested for infection.

Wolford's widow said nurses told her after her husband's infection that the hospital was testing employees who had been involved in his care. She said her husband was angry but decided to undergo a second transplant at the hospital "because they were the only game in town." Seven months later, her husband of 29 years, a professional carpenter who served in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine, died in their home.

Wolford's widow, now 66 and living in White Springs, said she had to sell that home and declare bankruptcy since then. While her attorneys didn't put a number on the amount of monetary damages the lawsuit would seek, they said it would be significant.

Ashton said Mayo officials won't share information about the strain of Beumel's hepatitis, but he believes it will be a match to the strain his client's husband had. The lawyer also questioned why a radiology tech had access to narcotics and administered them to patients.

Mayo Clinic spokesman Kevin Punsky said Tuesday the former tech didn't give any patient injections. But Ashton said another client who was a patient at Mayo saw Beumel injecting medication into her I.V.

Punsky also released a statement from the hospital expressing sympathy for Wolford's family following his death, but said Mayo officials don't comment on any pending

A jury found DeTar Hospital Navarro negligent Thursday in a 2008 surgery in which a surgical sponge was left inside a patient.

They awarded the patient, Ronald Molder, $4.08 million in damages.

According to court documents, Molder, 45 at the time, went to surgeon John Barber to have his gallbladder removed on Dec. 16, 2008.

In March 2009, Molder, of Victoria, was rushed to the emergency room with severe pain and a fever. A CT scan later revealed a surgical sponge had been left inside Molder and his gallbladder had, in fact, not been removed.

Barber was also named as a defendant in the case but was cleared of negligence.

His lawyer, Brett Rowe, of San Antonio, said Barber removed an abnormal mass where a sonogram showed the gallbladder should be and that Molder's initial symptoms improved after the surgery.

"So the removal of the gallbladder wasn't an issue in the case," Rowe said. "The jury said it was 100 percent the sponge."

Nurses are responsible for counting sponges and other supplies after surgeries, according to court documents. Barber wrote in his post-surgery report that the nurses twice confirmed the sponge count.

After the sponge was found, Molder underwent more surgeries and was hospitalized for 80 days, racking up $290,000 in medical bills. He remains incapacitated, according to witnesses for the plaintiff.

Ann Watson, of Houston, who represented the hospital, argued Molder suffered from abdomen problems before he came to DeTar, and the hospital should therefore only be responsible for "what's fair."

Watson was quoted as saying, "We are going to fully accept blame for the fact that there was a sponge left in him inadvertently," in a motion filed by the plaintiff. "It was not intentional, they certainly didn't do it on purpose, but we know it happened. We're not going to deny that. We never have."

Watson could not be reached for comment after the verdict and a spokesperson for the hospital said, "As it is a legal matter, we don't have a comment."

The attorney representing Molder, Jack Modesett, of Austin, declined to comment as well.

The jury did not award damages to Molder's wife and co-plaintiff, Emily Molder.

Judge Skipper Koetter presided over the trial, which began Oct. 18.

Larry Halcomb was driving to work on his motorcycle when Inca Elementary School special education teacher Claudia Rodriguez, driving her own vehicle, turned left from Yuma Road onto Durango Road. Halcomb slammed into Rodriguez's driver's-side door and ended up underneath her truck.

Rodriguez was working for the district and was on her way to a training session when the accident happened, according to district officials. Rodriguez was cited by Buckeye police for failing to yield at an intersection. Halcomb, who was not wearing a helmet, claims he suffered a severe concussion that led to memory loss and partial loss of vision.

The lawsuit names Rodriguez, the district and the town as defendants. Halcomb's Phoenix lawyers said the district is liable for employee conduct and the town is liable for the "inherently unsafe" intersection. Halcomb, his wife Jennifer, and two children, Cheyenne, 10, and Shawn, 8, are listed as plaintiffs.

The lawsuit did not request monetary damages. Previously, Halcomb's notice of claim, a legally required precursor to a lawsuit, asked for $28.5 million. Halcomb's lawyers told The Republic. Halcomb claims lost wages and medical expenses he has encountered since the accident amount to about $4 million.

The district and town have not been served with the suit yet, according to Halcomb's lawyers.

Town spokesman Bob Bushner said Buckeye's lawyer has not seen the lawsuit and has no comment on any impending legal actions. The Buckeye Elementary School District did not return calls for comment.

Pima County and the organizers of El Tour de Tucson have settled a lawsuit with a Surprise resident who was brain-damaged in a crash nearly two years ago. The settlement was for $3.5 million.

The agreement was reached during mediation last week and is expected to be presented to the Pima County Board of Supervisors for approval this morning, said Stephen Leshner, who represents Gary Stuebe.

Stuebe was riding in the bicycling event on Nov. 22, 2008, when William Wilson, then 91, turned north onto Westward Look Drive from West Ina Road and collided with 10 bike riders.

Stuebe, then 41, suffered a life-threatening brain injury, and four others suffered a variety of less-serious injuries.

Stuebe's wife and four of the injured bicyclists sued Wilson, the organizers of the race - Perimeter Bicycling Association of America - Sheriff Clarence Dupnik and Deputy Muriel McGillicuddy, who was providing traffic control at the scene.

All five of the plaintiffs settled their lawsuits with Wilson for a confidential sum several months ago, and four out of the five have now settled with the county. San Diego attorney and bicyclist Don English, who punctured a lung and broke seven bones, is scheduled to go to trial Nov. 2.

Taxpayers won't be directly responsible for the $3.5 million. Although the county normally pays the first $2 million of any judgment or claim settlement, the Perimeter Bicycling Association took out a $2 million policy on the event, which will cover the county's out-of-pocket obligation, said William Rubin, who helped represent the county. Insurance will cover the rest.

Leshner said it's miraculous that Stuebe is alive. He suffered damage to his frontal and temporal lobes, had portions of his brain removed and spent 40 days in a coma. He still suffers from epilepsy as a result of the crash.

Before the crash, Stuebe was a senior inventory analyst for PetSmart, but he will never be able to return to that job, Leshner said.

"Gary has a lot of challenges, but the settlements give him a secure financial future," Leshner said.

Despite the settlements, Leshner said Stuebe is determined to work again and is considering a job offer to sack groceries.

Wilson fled the scene and hired attorney Michael Bloom, who provided Wilson's name to authorities two days later.

He pleaded guilty to attempted leaving the scene of an accident and was placed on three years' probation in June 2009.

Bloom said at the time of his sentencing that Wilson left only because he was frightened by angry bicyclists who had gathered around his car and yelled at him.

According to Bloom and the plaintiffs, Deputy McGillicuddy manually adjusted the lights on Ina Road so that traffic going both ways had a green light. Twenty minutes before the crash, the deputy also removed a cone intended to prevent eastbound traffic from turning north onto Westward Look Drive.

One of the issues being litigated before last week's settlement was for whom McGillicuddy was working - the county or the bicycle association.

Bloom said that when Wilson turned north onto Westward Look, he could not see the bicyclists because his vision was obstructed by vegetation in the median and by two lanes of cars that were backed up as a result of a crash farther up westbound Ina Road.

At the time of his sentencing, Wilson was living in an assisted-living center in Georgia. In Pima County Superior Court, Judge Richard Nichols forbade him to drive, although he already had surrendered his license.

Kim Smith Arizona Daily Star Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 12:00 am

The company will reinstall seat-belt anchors in the Impala for model years 2009 and 2010 that have the defect, according to a letter on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website today.

“If it occurs, the belt can separate in a crash, so it’s obviously something we need to get taken care of,” Alan Adler, a GM spokesman, said in an interview. “It separates at the anchor to the lower part of the seat.”

No injuries are associated with the defect, which GM, based in Detroit, discovered through warranty reports, he said.

An Alachua County jury returned a $6.2 million medical malpractice verdict Wednesday against Shands at the University of Florida hospital in Gainesville in favor of the survivors of a University of North Florida Business School professor who died there during a CT scan in 2002.

According to the family's attorney, Frank Ashton of Hardesty, Tyde, Green & Ashton in Jacksonville, Professor Cory Fine was 41 when he went to Shands Gainesville to undergo gastric bypass surgery for weight loss in December 2002. The operation was uneventful.

But five days after the surgery, Fine developed breathing difficulties. Ashton said he was sent without medical monitoring to undergo a CT scan of his lungs. Even though Fine told the CT technicians that he would have difficulty breathing if lying down, they elected to strap him down flat to the CT table for several minutes in preparation for the exam, Ashton said.

Fine was then put into the CT machine for the scan and died during the procedure.

He is survived by his wife, Lisa, and his 10-year-old son.