Annals of public employee tenure, this time from Norwalk, Ct.: “The city will not appeal a state Labor Department ruling to reinstate police Officer Liam Callahan, a nine-year veteran fired last fall for taking a skull fragment from the scene of a May 2005 accident. ‘The laws in the state are such that it’s extremely difficult to overturn a ruling,’ Deputy Corporation Counsel Jeffry Spahr said yesterday after discussing the matter in executive session with the Norwalk Police Commission.” According to numerous press reports, co-workers of Callahan’s said he planned to use the skull fragment as an ashtray. An investigation concluded that Callahan’s statement after being confronted that he had intended to return the fragment was not credible. (Created Things (Jeff Hall), Jan. 16; Brian Lockhart, “City officer in skull-fragment case reinstated”, Stamford Advocate, Oct. 24). And on the sued-if-you-do, sued-if-you-don’t front, note well: “Callahan and the city still face a civil lawsuit from [victim Alfred] Caviola’s family.” Unless Callahan personally turns out to provide a deep pocket, it appears the longsuffering taxpayers of Norwalk may find themselves on the hook for who knows what sort of payout — juries in other cases have expressed outrage at mishandling of decedents’ remains — even as the city is unable to sever the actual perpetrator of the act from its payroll.
Posts Tagged ‘sued if you do’
Damned if you do files: $400k for “profiling”
John Cerqueira was sitting next to two Israelis boisterously talking in English and Hebrew on a 2003 Boston-Fort Lauderdale American Airlines flight, when the flight crew decided that all three raised a concern. “Police determined that none of the men was a threat after questioning them, evacuating the plane, and rescreening all baggage.” Cerqueira complained that AA wouldn’t give him another flight, and sued for discrimination. A jury awarded $130k in compensatory damages and another $270k in punitives.
This is the first case of its kind to come before a jury since 9/11 (other plaintiffs with similar cases have settled out of court). The verdict has some flight crews fearful it will set a precedent and discourage concerned crews from taking action in the future.
Spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association (APA) Captain Denny Breslin told the Boston Herald, “[Ehlers] did what any one of us would have done, especially back in ’03. We’re human beings, not mind-readers. What would [the plaintiff] have us do? Ignore our concerns?”
Air Line Pilots Association spokesman Pete Janhunen said the verdict could impinge on a pilot’s authority granted by the FAA. “The pilot in command is responsible for everything that happens involving that flight. We need to ensure that the authority of the captain is protected so that they’re never intimidated or afraid to make the right call.”
(Shelley Murphy, “Jury awards airline passenger $400,000”, Boston Globe, Jan. 16; “Ejected Passenger Awarded $400K By Federal Jury”, Aero-News Net, Jan. 16; Laurel J. Sweet, “Pilots blast court’s ‘outrageous’ verdict: Defend ejection of suspicious passenger”, Boston Herald, Jan. 16). (NB: this John Cerqueira was not the much younger WTC hero who carried a wheelchair-bound woman 68 stories down and out of the North Tower.)
Update: It’s unclear from press coverage whether the lawsuit was over the initial questioning (which inconvenienced everyone) or the refusal to allow Cerqueira to board a second flight, which does seem less defensible. His lawyer’s comment implies both, however.
Second update: Matt Heller of Courthouse News has links to the American Airlines motion for judgment and joint pretrial statement. AA’s version of the story:
[Cerqueira] acted hostilely toward a flight attendant before boarding the flight, … boarded the flight out of turn, that plaintiff spent an inordinate amount of time in the lavatory facilities on board the flight before it departed, … appeared to be feigning sleep during the hectic boarding process, and … reacted inappropriately to flight crew instructions during an exit row safety briefing. AA further expects the evidence to show that the two passengers seated next to the plaintiff in the exit row approached the captain of the flight before boarding and made strange comments to him, that those passengers made odd comments to passengers aboard the flight, and that those passengers acted inappropriately during an exit row safety briefing.
…State Police and TSA believed it necessary to rescreen all of the passengers and to have bomb-sniffing dogs come aboard the aircraft after another passenger reported that one of the removed passengers had a box-cutter taken away from him at the security check point.
Update, January 2008: reversed by First Circuit. Further update Mar. 2, 2008: Cerqueira responds.
Dr. Lawrence M. Poliner v. Presbyterian Hospital update
The ludicrous $366 million award on a conspiracy theory (Aug. 30, 2004; Sep. 2, 2004) was, as we predicted reduced by remittitur to a still ludicrous $22.5 million. (Plaintiff’s attorney’s press release, Sep. 21). Kevin M.D.’s commenters note that the trial bar simultaneously complains that doctors don’t do enough to police themselves and then hold doctors liable for policing other doctors.
Note that the doctors whom the verdict was issued against weren’t even the ones on the peer review committee that suspended Dr. Poliner’s privileges for a few months; they were just the ones who started the peer-review process.
9th Circuit: UPS must hire deaf drivers
The package delivery company believes that the safer policy is to hire only hearing drivers to operate its trucks, but the 9th Circuit finds that a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act:
The ruling puts employers in a “damned if they do and damned if they don’t” situation, said Joe Beachboard, a Los Angeles lawyer who represents employers.
If UPS doesn’t employ deaf workers as drivers, it can be sued under the disability act, he said. But if a deaf UPS driver has a serious accident, the company also could be sued.
(Lisa Girion, “UPS Ban on Deaf Drivers Is Rejected”, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 11). More: WSJ editorial, subscriber-only (“Common Sense-Impaired”, Oct. 19).
From the comments: a chill on safety discussions
While the comments action has been lively elsewhere on this site, I noticed a comment that Jim Collins made on Ted’s post “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t files: Putnam Hospital” which I thought deserved its own freestanding entry:
The medical profession isn’t the only place where this happens. I used to be an aircraft mechanic for one of the major airlines, several years ago. Twice a month, after finishing our shift, we would go to a breakfast meeting. This meeting was attended by all of the mechanics from all of the airlines at that airport who worked the same shift. Several people from the airport and the FAA also attended. The purpose of this meeting was to share information on maintenance and airport safety issues. The FAA rep always took notes, compiled them from all of the shifts and a couple days later a copy was in your mailbox. I know of several problems and possible accidents that were prevented because of the information shared at these meetings. These meetings were suddenly stopped after company management found out that trial lawyers could obtain the minutes of them, from the FAA, through the Freedom of Information Act and use them against the airline in court.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t files: Putnam Hospital
Osteopath John King (who now calls himself “Christopher Wallace Martin” in his Alabama practice after surrendering his West Virginia and Texas medical licenses) had a poor record in numerous previous jobs in numerous states, but West Virginia’s Putnam County Hospital, the only acute-care center in the county, wasn’t able to find that out because the former employers were afraid of being sued. King lasted a few months at Putnam before he was dismissed for incompetence after an investigation, and King responded by suing Putnam and the independent expert who testified against him at a private peer review (as well as the newspaper that reported on his problems). Meanwhile, trial lawyers engaged in a feeding frenzy, filing dozens of lawsuits for tens of millions of dollars against the deep pocket (and some against each other), creating enough adverse publicity that Putnam lost nearly half of its business, and was on the verge of shutting down tomorrow before a last-minute deal to save the hospital was negotiated. Martha Montelongo has an overview in the August 17 Human Events Online. (Lawrence Messina, AP/Charleston Daily Mail, Aug. 28; Chris Dickerson, “Druckman sues former clients over work on King cases”, West Virginia Record, Aug. 8; Lawrence Messina, “W. Va. Hospital Says Lawsuits Drive Conversion to Urgent Care Center”, AP/insurance Journal, Aug. 7; Chris Dickerson, “Putnam General blames impending closure on trial lawyers”, West Virginia Record, Aug. 1).
Damned If You Do Department: Campus Suicides
We’ve previously noted that colleges, out of fear from liability over student suicides, have been taking extreme steps to preempt the problem by requiring medical leaves of absence. George Washington University discovered that avoiding suits from Scylla doesn’t mean that Charybdis won’t sue: Jordan Nott has sued the school after being barred from campus after seeking hospitalization for suicidal thoughts. Liability reform is clearly needed: either schools aren’t responsible for student suicides, or they aren’t responsible for the steps they take to prevent such suicides. (In the famous Elizabeth Shin/MIT case, the parties recently settled after a court ruling expanding schools’ liability in suicide cases, including the possible liability of administrators without mental health credentials.)
Amanda Schaffer, writing in Slate, argues for a middle ground—a program based on one at the University of Illinois intervening in the lives of suicidal students without kicking them off campus. But Schaffer doesn’t recognize that the middle ground doesn’t resolve liability issues, including hindsight-based lawsuits for the cases where the middle ground isn’t successful; even the Illinois program has reduced suicides by only half. Educational reform can’t happen without legal reform.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t files: sunscreen edition
If there is anything behind that sunscreen class action seeking damages because sunscreen manufacturers comply with warning label regulations, it’s because the FDA refuses to approve Mexoryl, a sunscreen ingredient widely used in Canada and Europe that protects against UV-A rays. (Mike Thomas, “Not legal — but best thing under the sun”, Orlando Sentinel, Apr. 23).
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t files: toy safety
Maryland PIRG complains about the toy industry:
Some toy manufacturers are over-labeling toys by placing choke hazard warnings on items that do not contain small parts. This could dilute the meaning of the warning labels, making them less useful to parents.
One looks forward to the day where a Ralph Nader-founded organization intervenes as amicus in a failure-to-warn lawsuit to make the argument that liability should not be found because holding a manufacturer liable will create incentives to over-label and dilute the meaning of warnings.
Osbourne album remix prompts class action
After bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake filed lawsuits demanding royalties over their performances in two Ozzy Osbourne albums, “Blizzard of Ozz” and “Diary of a Madman”, recording executives remastered the albums to strip out their performances and replace them with performances by Robert Trujillo and Mike Bordin for the 2002 reissue. Now Illinois fan Anthony Wester has sued Sony Entertainment and Epic Records, saying he felt misled and cheated to learn of the substitution, and his lawyer wants class-action status for the suit. (Steve Patterson, “‘Remastered’ Osbourne albums a snow job, fan’s suit charges”, Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 21; “Bassist, drummer cut from Ozzy album remixes, fan sues”, AP/AZCentral.com, Feb. 23).