“The mother of a 19-year-old killed in a traffic accident is suing Coors Brewing Co., claiming that it promotes underage drinking. Jodie Pisco, of Reno, contends Coors has failed in its duty to protect the country’s youth from drinking. Her son, Ryan, was killed in 2002 after he drank Coors at a party and drove his girlfriend’s car into a light pole at 90 mph, the lawsuit says.” (“Mother sues Coors for promoting underage drinking”, AP/Court TV, Apr. 19). For more on the escalating courtroom campaign against alcohol producers, see Mar. 29 (last item), and links from there. Update Jun. 13: case dropped.
Posts Tagged ‘personal responsibility’
“Lawyers Shift Focus From Big Tobacco to Big Food”
People may have laughed 16 months ago when obese teenagers unsuccessfully sued McDonald’s, saying its food made them fat. But a well-honed army of familiar lawyers who waged war against the tobacco companies for decades and won megamillion-dollar settlements is preparing a new wave of food fights, and no one is laughing.
[…]
“I think it’s a mistake, and I’ve told clients this, to underestimate the creativity and the imagination and very frankly the aggressiveness of the plaintiffs’ bar,” said Joseph McMenamin, a defense lawyer and doctor in Richmond, Va. “They have a hell of a track record, frankly. They kept slogging away on tobacco and eventually they prevailed, and the sums of money companies had to pay exceed the gross national product of some third-world countries.”
(Kate Zernike, New York Times, Apr. 9) (via Bainbridge).
Teacher’s relationship with 15-yo not grounds for firing
Australia is in an uproar after a New South Wales teacher, Jeff Sinclair, won a A$28,000 payout for “psychological injury” for being fired for starting a relationship with a 15-year-old student a third of his age. The Department of Education has been ordered to pay him an additional A$317 a week until he finds “suitable” employment. The government is appealing. (Bruce McDougall, “Teacher’s cash over student love”, news.com.au, Apr. 5; Miranda Devine, “The teacher who played victim”, Sydney Morning Herald, Apr. 8) (via Jacobs). Update Jun. 3: jilted wife wants damage from school authority too.
Drunk driver’s family: blame it on the road
17-year-old Steven Terrell had a blood-alcohol level of .162 and had taken OxyContin when he lost control of his car, swerved off the road, hit a culvert, and overturned; not wearing a seatbelt, he died from the resulting injuries. “Roy Terrell and Donna F. Moore, the parents of Steven L.R. Terrell, notified [Morgan County] officials that they blamed the death on the county’s failure to maintain the roadway in a reasonable safe condition, failure to warn, defective road construction and design and failure to have a proper sign. They intend to seek $2 million in damages.” This time, the local press is outraged. (R. Joseph Gelarden, “Couple to sue over son’s death”, Indianapolis Star, Apr. 5; Editorial, “Don’t blame road for this tragedy”, Indianapolis Star, Apr. 7; Editorial, “Lawsuit instigators attempt to defer responsibility”, Purdue Exponent, Apr. 7).
Foam dance lawsuit
Tissue analysis and toxicology tests are still being performed to determine the cause of death of Margaret Piton, a 21-year-old with a heart condition who was found dead with a .260 blood-alcohol level (three times the legal limit) after a “foam party” in a South Padre Island nightclub, but her family’s lawyers have already filed a lawsuit blaming the death on “excessive foam.” (Allen Essex, “Parents file suit against SPI club”, Valley Morning Star, Apr. 7; “Report: Woman found dead had .260 blood alcohol, heart condition”, AP, Mar. 26).
Tipsy totterer: I didn’t mean to sue airline
Curious update to our item of three days ago: Floyd Shuler, who slipped on an escalator after drinking on a flight, now says he “didn’t intend for the suit to be filed. ‘I learned about the filing of the lawsuit against US Airways … along with everyone else,’ Shuler said. ‘It was never my intent to take on the airline industry. I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused US Airways.’ Shuler’s attorney, Paul Kutcher, did not return a phone call from The Associated Press seeking comment.” (“Man Drops Suit Filed Against Airline After He Drank Booze, Fell”, AP/Tampa Bay Online, Apr. 1).
Update: rescuers can’t sue over shock of witnessing disaster scene
Sanity prevails in the Carlsbad, N.M. case we noted last Jul. 25: “A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed on behalf of 26 firefighters and emergency medical personnel seeking damages from El Paso Natural Gas Co. for emotional pain and suffering they say they suffered after an August 2000 pipeline explosion.” The emergency response personnel were physically uninjured themselves but wanted cash for the trauma of witnessing the disaster scene. U.S. District Judge William Lynch, however, cited a longstanding principle of law known as the firefighter’s rule, which “states that a firefighter or police officer is prohibited from recovering damages for injuries arising from the normal, inherent and foreseeable risks of his profession.” (Erin Green, “Firefighters’ lawsuit dismissed”, Carlsbad Current-Argus, Mar. 22).
Sues airline in tipsy escalator mishap
Floyd W. Shuler, 61, of West Virginia, is suing an airline “alleging it didn’t notify him that drinking alcohol at night might adversely affect passengers before he fell down an escalator at Southwest Florida International Airport.” “US Airways failed to warn (Shuler) and its other passengers of the increased effect that consumption of alcoholic beverages has on airline passengers who consume alcoholic beverages while in flight and while flying at night,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Fort Myers. The suit also claims the escalator stopped unexpectedly after Shuler stepped onto it and that it was improperly maintained. (Kristen Zambo, “Man sues airline after falling down escalator after drinking on flight”, Naples Daily News, Mar. 31)(see Dec. 17, Oct. 13, Aug. 8, Jul. 30, Jul. 21; many more tipple-your-way-to-court cases). Update Apr. 3: Shuler says he never intended to sue.
U.K.: fear of three-in-row swings
“The arrival of the American-style compensation culture is turning open spaces and public parks into dreary, fun-free, soulless places, the Government’s architecture and building advisers said yesterday. … The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) estimated that the cost to local authorities of bogus or excessive compensation claims was ?117 million a year,” enough to pay for an additional 3,900 park keepers, it estimates. The report “highlighted the removal of a swing from a playing field because it faced the sun and could blind children. Another regular occurrence, it said, was the removal of three-in-a-row swings because the outer swings could hit the one in the middle.” (Charles Clover, “Compensation culture ‘turns our parks into dreary, fun-free deserts'”, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 25)(related site).
Lawsuit: school failed to supervise gang initiation
On March 28, 2002, 14-year-old Francisco Belman asked to join the “Latin Mafia” gang at H.E. McCracken Middle School in Bluffton, South Carolina, an initiation that required him to be punched several times in the chest. Midway through the school bathroom ceremony, however, he collapsed and went into convulsions; the gang members tried for a few minutes to revive him with “sink water and paper towels.” School officials were eventually summoned, and gave Francisco CPR while waiting for paramedics; paramedics defibrillated, but Belman’s heart stopped again on the way to the hospital; Belman went into a vegetative state and died ten weeks later. So the parents have sued “the South Carolina Board of Education, Beaufort County Board of Education, town of Bluffton, Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office and the parents of the two boys who pleaded guilty this month to involuntary manslaughter in Francisco’s death.” Especially appalling is the newspaper’s editorial defending the lawsuit against peripheral players as an appropriate mechanism for the parents’ grief, but lapses into self-parody:
Clearly, the Belman family wants and deserves an apology. But from whom? The two boys who were trying to initiate Francisco into their club that fateful day have expressed remorse, and how could they not? They are teenagers; they didn’t know their machismo would ultimately kill Francisco.
(Stephanie Ingersoll, “Lawsuit filed in boy’s beating death”, Carolina Morning News, Mar. 26; “Editorial: Don’t judge Belman family for filing lawsuit”, Carolina Morning News, Mar. 26; “Chronology of a tragic day”, Carolina Morning News, Mar. 26; Noah Haglund, “Trial to begin in McCracken student’s death”, Hilton Head Island Packet, Mar. 14).