A judge has cut from $100 million to $10 million the punitive damages portion of an unusual verdict in a lawsuit arising from Kristin Rossum’s alleged murder by poison of her husband, Gregory de Villers. The distinctive feature of the verdict, on which we commented Mar. 27, was that the jury assigned 25 percent responsibility for the murder to Rossum’s employer, San Diego County, which employed her as a toxicologist and was said to be blameworthy for letting her steal drugs which she administered to him. (“Judge Cuts $90 Million in Damages in San Diego Murder Case”, AP/L.A. Times, Jun. 19)(via Childs).
Posts Tagged ‘deep pocket’
By reader acclaim: MySpace sued over alleged assault by date
On MySpace, a 19-year-old Texas youth approached a 14-year-old girl; his profile claimed that he was a high school senior on the football team. She says that following a series of emails and phone calls, she went out with him and their evening on the town culminated in his sexually assaulting her, for which Rupert Murdoch should pay $30 million as owner of the social networking site. Still to come: suits against shopping malls, ice cream shops and music venues for providing environments in which older teens can approach younger ones and sweet-talk them into eventual dangerous situations. (Claire Osborn, “Teen, mom sue MySpace.com for $30 million”, Austin American-Statesman, Jun. 20). Prof. Childs has more, here and here, as do Joanne Jacobs, KipEsquire and Shakespeare’s Sister.
Deep pocket files: landlord’s fault apartment resident let in a stranger
Shortly after 7 am on July 11, 1992, Y.M.’s doorbell rang in her Lefrak City project apartment. Y.M. opened the door without asking who was there or checking her peephole. Unfortunately for her, at the door was one Lawrence Toole, who (allegedly?) raped and beat her at knifepoint. This was, according to Y.M.’s suit, the fault of her landlord and its security service for allowing Toole into the building. The Court of Appeals of New York (the high court of that state) held that Y.M. stated a cause of action. “More discovery is warranted to discern how foreseeable a risk [Toole] was and what measures defendants had in place to deal with him.” Mason v. U.E.S.S. Leasing Corp. was decided in 2001: anyone know how this case was resolved on remand?
Deep pocket files: 1st Security Self-Storage
In June 2004, a jury found Edward James Egan guilty of raping a 15-year old girl. Egan had asked the victim to mop out a storage shed and raped her in an apartment; she also had a sexual encounter with him in an empty storage unit. This was, according to the follow-up lawsuit filed a month later, the fault of 1st Security Self-Storage, which employed Egan. Egan passed a background check, including references from previous employers, but the defendant paid a $150,000 settlement. The article quotes me, as I note the hidden costs of penalizing employers for their employees’ crimes committed outside the scope of their employment. (Mike Allen, “Self-storage company agrees to pay $150,000 settlement”, Roanoke Times, Jun. 7).
“Jurors award $2 million in child’s mower death”
Lawyers successfully urge a Virginia jury to send a message:
Justin Simmons was killed in April 2004 in Daleville, north of Roanoke, when a mower operated at his daycare center rolled backward while going up a slope and over the child….
The jury held MTD responsible for not designing a mower that automatically stops its blades whenever it rolls backward. No such mower exists or has ever been tested, [company attorney John] Fitzpatrick said.
The company also argued that the operator of the mower, whose wife was the daycare provider, had ignored safety warnings. (“Jurors award $2 million in child’s mower death– company to appeal”, AP/Richmond Times-Dispatch, Jun. 15).
More: Considerable further detail is to be found in Mike Allen’s coverage for the Roanoke Times: “Lawyers for lawn mower maker, operator lay blame in boy’s death”, Jun. 8, and “Lawn mower company liable in boy’s death”, Jun. 15.
More: Aug. 18.
Deep pocket files: Racibozynski v. Knox College
Clyde Best was sentenced to sixty years for murdering his Knox College classmate, Andrea Racibozynski, in 1998 after a fraternity-party fight; he was identified and caught within three hours of the crime. The murder is, Racibozynski’s attorney Ed Manzke argued, the fault of the college for the way lighting in the stairwell was designed; a jury agreed, and awarded $1.05 million. (Bill Bird, “Family wins $1 mil. suit against Knox College”, Naperville Sun/Chicago Sun-Times, May 24).
Deep pocket files: Stevens v. NYC Transit Authority
In this reported case, a nameless plaintiff was pushed onto the railroad tracks in front of an oncoming train by a nameless third party, and sued the NYCTA for her personal injuries because the train didn’t stop in time. A jury found the NYCTA 40% at fault for “speeding,” despite conflicting testimony whether it was even physically possible for the train to stop in time at the slower speed. The court was kind enough to reduce this to 20%, which still puts taxpayers on the entire hook for economic damages, if halving the noneconomic damages under New York’s version of joint and several liability.
Lied about her age to get into wet T-shirt contest
Not only that, but she assumed the whirring video cameras were just for onlookers’ personal use. Certainly she wasn’t expecting the spring break footage to turn up in commercially available compilations. So Monica Pippin is now extracting legal settlements from entities including Playboy and Anheuser-Busch; however, the Daytona Beach hotel at which the contest took place objects to being sued on the grounds that it “had no role in producing or distributing the videos and did not profit from them”. (Kevin Graham, “Lawsuit says video exploits teen’s naivete”, St. Petersburg Times, Apr. 28). Similar: Sept. 28-30, 2001; Mar. 6-7, 2002.
Deep Pocket Files: Anthony Pellicano fallout
Like libertarian blogger Amber Taylor, I’ve been enjoying the DVD of the show “Veronica Mars.” Kristen Bell plays a perky private eye who uses bugs and stolen medical records to solve cases. I just have to suspend my disbelief, and understand that Mars lives in a fictional world like that of Bruce Wayne where the laws that would have her sued into oblivion for her wiretapping and HIPAA violations don’t exist.
The Pellicano scandal (Apr. 3 and links therein) shows the real-world results. It’s natural that wiretapping victims are suing Pellicano and the law firms that hired him over his alleged wiretapping and bribery tactics.
But plaintiffs’ lawyers aren’t stopping with the egregious wrongdoers. For example, Craig Stevens pled guilty to taking bribes to run searches on Pellicano clients—a sign of Pellicano incompetence, since the data would be available from public databases on the Internet. (Want to know who’s in jail?) Stevens has resigned from the Beverly Hills Police Department, but the city (along with Los Angeles, who allegedly had their own bribed cops) is being sued for failure to stop their officer from being bribed. Los Angeles attorney Kevin McDermott predicts that the telephone company will also be sued for not doing enough to stop Pellicano wiretapping and, sure enough, Lisa Bonder Kerkorian has sued AT&T. In the Vanity Fair article, don’t miss the bit about how Daniel and Abner Nicherie allegedly used a blizzard of over a hundred lawsuits to protect a $40 million swindle. (Bryan Burrough and John Connolly, “Inside Hollywood’s Big Wiretap Scandal”, Vanity Fair, June 2006; Gabriel Snyder, “Names take aim at Pellicano article”, Variety, Apr. 28 (via Defamer); Greg Krikorian and Andrew Blankstein, “Filmmaker Says He Lied in FBI Probe”, Los Angeles Times, Apr. 18).
County 25% responsible for employee’s murder of husband
In a sensational 2002 murder trial with echoes of the film “American Beauty”, Kristin Rossum was found guilty of poisoning husband Gregory de Villers and trying to make his death look like a suicide. Now a lawyer for de Villers’ family has convinced a jury that Rossum’s employer, San Diego County, should be held 25 percent responsible for $6 million in resulting wrongful-death damages. Rossum had access to lethal drugs through her work as a toxicologist for the county, and had not been subject to background screening; she relapsed into methamphetamine use a week before the murder. “It is not the duty of the county of San Diego to prevent a wife from murdering her husband,” said Senior Deputy County Counsel Deborah A. McCarthy, who predicted that the county would succeed in overturning the verdict on appeal. “If this case stands, it will expand public liability in a way the state of California never envisioned.” (“Millions of Dollars Awarded to Family of Man Killed by Toxicologist Wife”, North County Times, Mar. 20)(via Childs). Update Jul. 2: judge cuts verdict.