Brent Adams & Associates Legal Blog

Wrongful Death Case Awarded $15 Million

Millions Awarded to Construction Worker

Lawsuit Settled with Children of a Flight Nurse

Investigation Conducted After Fayetteville Police Car Hits Pedestrian

An August 31 incident in which a pedestrian narrowly avoided personal injuries after being struck by a Fayetteville police officer’s patrol vehicle is now under an administrative investigation.

A police spokesman said that 39-year-old Fayetteville resident Kyle Payne was hit by a patrol car driven by 23-year-old Officer Jonathan Smith. At the time, Smith was turning left onto Grove Street from B Street. The incident took place shortly before 4 p.m.

Police say that at the same time, Payne was crossing Grove Street in the same direction. According to a witness, he was not initially in the crosswalk, but apparently realized he was not and tried to move into it.

The spokesman said that Payne said he believed Smith was going to go in front of him on Grove. Instead, Smith cut short behind the pedestrian. The spokesman said that Payne said he then jumped back onto the hood of the vehicle.

Only minor damage was inflicted to the vehicle.

According to a spokesman, Smith has been a member of the Fayetteville Police Department since November 2007. He will remain on patrol as the investigation is conducted.

Man Fatally Attacked By Goat

According to officials, an 88-year-old Georgia man suffered fatal personal injuries in an attack by an unusual animal. The man was fatally attacked outside his north Georgia home by a goat.

According to Madison County Coroner Michelle Cleveland, 88-year-old Vestal Davis was pronounced dead at Athens Regional Medical Center in Athens, Georgia on August 28.

According to a report from the Madison County, Georgia sheriff’s office, Davis told a deputy that he had gone outside when he was charged by a neighbor’s goat and knocked to the ground repeatedly.

The deputy said that the owner of the goat, a 69-year-old neighbor, said the animal escaped from its pen, but he wasn’t aware of the attack.

Cleveland said the district attorney would determine charges, if any are to be filed.

Major Company Settles Lawsuit For Millions

Court Reinstates Part of Bus Wreck Case

A school bus transporting Lee High School students to a local trade school, overturned over a retaining wall on an elevated part of Interstate 565 at the U.S. highway 231 exit and plummeted 30 feet. There were 4 that were killed when the bus wrecked. 3 were killed on the day of the accident and the 4^{th teenager died the next day. A 1990 Toyota Celica apparently hit the side of the school bus. The bus driver apparently attempted evasive action, and a reaction sent the right tire climbing up the protective barrier. The buses momentum caused it to teeter on the wall briefly, flipped upside down, careening headlong onto the ground below.}

In a recent opinion, the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that the lack of seat belts in the school bus that crashed can be used in a lawsuit against the bus manufacturer. A judge had ruled the issue of seat belts in school buses should be addressed by the Legislature, not by the courts. The Legislature has not addressed safety belts in school buses since 1986.

ShaghettiO Recall

Ford Recalls Vehicles to Replace Recliners

Ford is recalling some 33,000 vehicles because they need to fix the front seat recliners. The recall affects some versions of the 2010 Ford Fusion, Explorer, Explorer Sport Trac and 2010 Mercury Milan and Mountaineer with front seat manual recliners. The vehicles under recall were built from mid-December through early February.

The front seat recliners’ gears may have problems that would lead to the seat back and head restraint moving toward the rear in a crash, which will increase the risk of injuries. While no injuries have been reported as a result of the defect, NHTSA found that the seats don't meet federal standards for head restraints and must be replaced. Ford will replace the hardware free of charge. For more information, visit NHTSA's website.

Dealers will replace the manual seat recliners free of charge. Owners can call Ford at (866) 436-7332.

Outdoor Gas Fire Columns Recalled

Howard Berger Recalls Extension Cords

There has been about 12,000 indoor and outdoor extension cords and power strips that have been recalled due to a fire hazard. Howard Berger Co. Inc. of Cranbury New Jersey has recalled the extension cords and power strips because they may have inadequate coating material around the cords and copper conductors that are smaller than required, posing a fire hazard to consumers.

The recall involves Brightway heavy duty outdoor extension cords and Brightway indoor household extension cords and power strips. The model numbers that are involved in the recall are R2600 through R2615 which are outdoor extension cords, EE6 through EE20 which are indoor extension cords and MP6DG for the power strips. "Brightway" is printed on the cords.

There have not been any injuries involved with these extension cords and power strips but consumers should stop using them immediately and return them for a full refund. For additional information, you can contact Howard Berger at 1-800-221-5895, or you may visit the web site at www.hberger.com. You may also email them at robertwinterstein@hberger.com.

Five People Killed in a Refinery Blast

There was a toxic explosion last month at an oil refinery in Washington State that killed more than five people. There was five workers killed and two more were injured. The blast occurred at the refinery located north of Seattle, and it was the deadliest refinery blast in five years.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board which is the federal agency that investigates large industrial accidents is investigating this explosion. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will also be involved in the investigation. The state environmental regulators fined the refinery $85,700 for 17 serious safety and health violations that could have lead to death or serious physical injury.

An area of the plant was shut down near the blast site at a unit that makes naphtha, a key gasoline component. When the explosion occurred, the workers that were killed and injured were putting a unit back in service after a maintenance project.

Many refinery accidents happen during the restart or shutting of units. Tesoro has seven refineries in the western part of the country, with a combined capacity of about 665,000 barrels a day.

$89 Million Awarded in Plane Crash Case

A jury in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania awarded $89 million last month to family members of the passengers that were killed in the Youngstown, Ohio, plane crash and to a survivor of the crash. It was found that the manufacturer of the plane’s engine had concealed information about a faulty carburetor that caused the crash. It was a six-seat Piper Cherokee plane, built in 1968, which crashed shortly after takeoff following a refueling stop in Youngstown in 1999.

This case has been in court for the past ten years. The state Supreme Court had rejected it twice with argument by the manufacturer that the claims were barred under a statute severely limiting negligence lawsuits for defects in airplanes more than 18 years old. Lycoming Engines of Williamsport, Pennsylvania was the engines manufacturer.

There were reports by the National Transportation Safety Board that found the plane was near its maximum weight limit when it took off, and that much of its weight was distributed toward the back, making it difficult to operate. Lycoming Engine Company was well aware of the carburetor problem but had failed to notify the FAA or Federal Aviation Administration of the problems.

The jury awarded $25 million in compensatory and $64 million in punitive damages.

$141 Million was Returned in Verdict Against Pfizer

A jury has found that Pfizer, Inc. violated the federal racketeering law by improperly promoting its epilepsy drug, Neurontin. The jury ordered the world’s largest drug maker to pay $47 million in damages. The penalty is automatically tripled under the RICO act, so the verdict will actually cost Pfizer $141 million, but the company says it will appeal the verdict.

The Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan alleged that Pfizer had illegally promoted Neurontin for unapproved uses. Some of the uses were for migraine headaches, pain and also bipolar disorder. It appears that the drug doesn’t work for those purposes.

This is not the first bad thing that has occurred for this drug company. Pfizer, in 2004, agreed to pay $430 million to federal and state governments and pleaded guilty to criminal charges of illegally marketing the drug Neurontin. Pfizer contends that the judge improperly allowed details of that case and settlement to be considered by the Boston jury.

Pending against Pfizer, there are 1,000 civil lawsuits, accusing it of illegally promoting Neurontin for unapproved uses and helping to cause some users’ suicides. Along with the $430 million settlement of allegtations over Neurontin, Pfizer also paid $2.3 billion in October 2009 to resolve U.S. Justice Department allegations that it illegally marketed the pain killer Bextra and three other drugs.

Brake Override System installed On ALL Cars by 2012

Jury Orders Bayer to Pay Rice Farmers

A jury in Arkansas has returned a verdict against the Bayer Crop-Science and awarded farmers nearly $50 million in damages for allowing a genetically altered strain of rice to escape into the commercial market. By the rice escaping, the rice prices were damaged in 2006. Bayer was lost the case last month before a jury of Lonoke County, Arkansas.

The farmers said an experimental rice strain developed by Bayer called "Liberty Link" was allowed to make its way into the stream of commercially marketed rice. Liberty Link was developed to withstand a popular herbicide that kills weeds in the farmer’s fields.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in August , that trace amounts of Liberty Link rice was found in U.S. long-grain rice stocks. This case was the fourth to go to trial among dozens filed already by rice-belt farmers against Bayer. The Bayer CropScience is a subsidiary of the German chemical giant that makes aspirin.

Bayer had faced judgments of $4.5 million in the three cases it had lost before they lost this one. Liberty Link rice was developed so farmers could apply Liberty herbicide without fear that it would damage their crops.

Rice futures plummeted by $150 million immediately after the contamination announcement. No nation has approved genetically modified rice for the marketplace. European nations quit accepting shipments of rice from the United States that hadn’t been extensively tested to show that they were not contaminated. There was a handful of states that argued that Bayer was not only negligent in its handling of Liberty Link rice, but acted with malicious intent by not announcing the contamination of the rice-seed pool as soon as the company had learned about it.

Bayer knew of the contamination as early as January 2006, before that year’s crops were sowed. The farmers didn’t learn of the contamination until it was almost time for them to harvest their crops. Scott Powell of the Birmingham firm of Hare, tired this case and did an excellent job.

Case Settles Over Lap-Only Seat Belt

Jury Awards $19 Million In Texaco Leaded Gas Suit

$10 Million Awarded in Ambulance Birth

An ambulance service was hit with a $10 million verdict by an Orlando, Florida jury who found it at fault in connection with the premature birth of a child. The mother gave birth to her son in the ambulance while on her way to the hospital. The child, who is now six years old, weighed only 1.7 pounds at birth and suffered a lack of oxygen to the brain, leaving him with cerebral palsy.

The original lawsuit included Bert Fish Medical Center in New Smyrna Beach, Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach and two more doctors for their role in the case. Both the hospitals settled with the Plaintiff for a total of $1.4 million.

The expectant mother went to Bert Fish Medical Center because she was suffering from pain and premature labor, but the ER doctor had planned for her to be treated at Halifax but an ambulance was told to go to the wrong hospital. The baby was born about 15 minutes into the trip and had trouble breathing, and so they performed CPR.

Switching from Keppra to Generic May Prove to be Deadly

Scientist Guilty of Research Misconduct

Case Settled with Kentucky Worker Strip Search

Jury Awards Millions in Workplace Fall

Dealer Lawsuit Settles Against North Carolina

Toyota Minivans Recalled