A Temple church group chartered a bus from Central Texas Trails Inc. on Valentine’s Day 2003 to attend a Christian music concert in Dallas. It was raining when charter-bus driver Johnny Cummings approached an Interstate 35 traffic jam too fast, lost control of his tour bus, crossed a median, swerved into oncoming traffic, and collided with an SUV, killing five of his passengers. Cummings and the charter company declared bankruptcy, so 19 injured bus passengers and survivors sued Motor Coach Industries, the bus manufacturer, for its failure to include three-point seatbelts on its 1996-manufactured bus. The bus met federal safety standards, NHTSA has found that seatbelts on tour buses do not “enhance overall occupant protection,” and no tour buses sold in the US have seatbelts, but a McLennan County jury awarded $17.5 million anyway. Judge Jim Meyer allowed Houston attorney Thomas Brown to argue that a jury vote for the plaintiffs was a vote for the cause of safety. A second trial with a second set of plaintiffs from the bus accident remains to be scheduled. (Matt Joyce, “Jury awards bus crash victims $17.5 million”, Waco Tribune-Herald, Nov. 4).
Posts Tagged ‘Houston’
Today’s police chase lawsuit roundup III
- Antonio Chatman has already pled guilty to charges of fleeing police (the third time he’s been in trouble for doing so in his lengthy criminal history) and resisting arrest, but now claims that he jumped upon a Dumpster to give himself up, and sued the city of Johnstown and police officer Michael Page over its use of Obi, a police dog that bit him when he fought the apprehending dog. A jury didn’t buy his story.
On Thursday afternoon, Page shook hands with and thanked the jurors who cleared him. The 35-year-old also said the threat of a lawsuit can haunt officers as they make split-second decisions on the street.
“You have these type of things in the back of your mind,” Page said. “And unfortunately, that hesitation may cause me or somebody else to get hurt.”
Chatman’s attorneys argue that Page should have been equipped with a baton, though Page was over 50 feet away. (Mike Faher, “Jurors clear police dog”, Tribune-Democrat, Nov. 18; Id., “Police defend dog accused of biting”, Nov. 16; Id., “Officers testify in dog-bite lawsuit”, Nov. 15; Id., “Police-dog bite lawsuit begins”, Nov. 14). The district court had granted summary judgment, but the Third Circuit reversed (as the law required them to do) because of the “he said, he said” factual dispute. Unless Pennsylvania prosecutes Chatman for perjury, he will suffer no consequences for bringing the lawsuit.
- Patrick Sterling was fleeing police after being caught drag racing when he lost control of his Honda Civic and killed a thirteen-year-old pedestrian, Dennis Howard. So, of course, the family is suing the town of Orange. (Gerard A. Frank, “City faces lawsuit in boy’s death due to chase”, East Orange Record, Nov. 17; Scott Weinberger, “Family’s Claim About Cop Unfounded”, WCBS, Nov. 11).
- A Houston policeman complains about the safety implications of the city’s implementation of police-chase regulations. “Basically, that’s telling the crooks out there to just go on and do what you want and get away with it, because we’re not going to be chasing you.” The city denies that the revisions are the result of lawsuit fears, though it has been subjected to litigation over an innocent killed by a criminal fleeing police. (Jeff McShan, “HPD: To chase or not to chase”, KHOU, Nov. 23).
- An interview of a teenage car thief provides more support for the proposition that regulating police chases just encourages criminals to drive dangerously more often: “The police in the District would see us and chase us, but once they saw us go over 70 miles an hour they stopped.” In the words of one policeman, “If the [DC and Maryland] police were allowed to do their job and chase stolen cars, people wouldn’t run from the police. They don’t have this problem in Virginia. If you steal a car in Arlington, the Virginia State Police will chase you all the way to Georgia.” DC has gotten sufficiently lawless that Police Chief Charles Ramsey’s car has been stolen. (Michael Patrick Carney, “‘Don’t hurt me, I’m just a kid'”, Washingtonian, Dec. 2005).
Earlier coverage: Oct. 26; Mar. 29; Mar. 15 and links therein.
Katrina: “Lawyers Planning a Deluge of Hurricane Damage Lawsuits”
Glad to see the bar’s priorities are in order. “At least one suit was filed in the last week, and plans were being sketched out for many more. The targets include real estate agents, insurance companies and federal agencies. The potential damages being sought range from a few thousand dollars to billions of dollars.” One plaintiff’s law firm is suing a real estate agency under price-gouging statutes because a homeowner raised the price of his Baton Rouge house over the old list price, which can’t be a comforting thought for anyone who owns real estate in a rising market. Others, including the infamous Dickie Scruggs, seek to sue insurers in “thousands of suits,” arguing that flood exclusions in policies do not apply because a house totallly destroyed by a flood was partially damaged by wind, and that the insured should get the full amount. A Houston Chronicle article underplays the risk. (Joseph Menn, LA Times, Sep. 15; Brett Martel, AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sep. 14; Mary Flood (!), “Storm lawsuits a long shot”, Houston Chronicle, Sep. 15).
Don’t take his money, St. Luke’s
Many Houston doctors are outraged that St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital is preparing to rename its medical tower, a local landmark, after controversial plaintiff’s attorney John O’Quinn (Apr. 28, 2004, etc.) in exchange for a $25 million gift. O’Quinn was the chief driver of the silicone breast implant litigation, which though decisively refuted in its major scientific contentions inflicted billions of dollars in costs on medical device providers and, not incidentally, plastic surgeons. And just this year O’Quinn’s law firm was singled out for condemnation by federal judge Janis Graham Jack in her scathing ruling on the shoddy business of mass silicosis-screening — “diagnosing for dollars”. Doctors “last week began circulating a petition against [the renaming proposal] and Monday night convened an emergency meeting of the medical executive committee….By late Monday, about 80 had signed the petition. ‘It offends us to have money we earned — and which he took by suing us — going to name after him a medical building in which we work each day,’ says the petition.” The University of Houston law school has already renamed its law library after O’Quinn, a full-length oil painting of whom looms over the students. (Todd Ackerman, “Doctors push St. Luke’s to forgo $25 million gift”, Houston Chronicle, Aug. 9). More: Kirkendall and MedPundit comment; so do GruntDoc and Michigan Medical Malpractice.
Smuggled illegals suffocate, trailer maker gets sued
In May 2003 nineteen illegal aliens being smuggled through Texas died when the driver transporting them, Tyrone Williams, abandoned the trailer at a Victoria rest stop. Now the law firm of Moreno, Becerra, Guerrero and Casillas of Montebello, Calif., representing victims’ families, is suing not only Williams, who has been convicted on numerous counts in the deaths, and the company for which he worked, but also the trailer’s manufacturer, Great Dane, and its lessor, Salem Trailer Leasing Inc. Charles Rhodes, law professor at South Texas College of Law, assures the Houston Chronicle that the naming of the more remote defendants is “not an unusual practice”; after all, “attorneys are looking for the deep pockets”. Oh, well that’s all right then. (Dale Lezon, “Immigrants’ relatives sue over truck deaths”, Houston Chronicle, Aug. 3).
Texas lawmakers modify zero tolerance
Good news for a change: a bill awaiting the signature of Texas Gov. Rick Perry would restore some discretion to school boards, reducing the chances that students will be expelled over inadvertent violations of zero tolerance rules. In particular, according to a newspaper report quoted at Zero Intelligence (Jun. 6),
If the bill becomes law, students still could face severe sanctions for serious offenses, such as bringing a weapon onto a campus or a school-sponsored activity off campus. But if the bill passes, administrators would be able to consider the student’s intent or lack of intent, disciplinary history, a disability that substantially impairs the student’s capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct and whether the action was done in self-defense.
Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers took active roles in support of the bill. (Helen Eriksen, “Discipline bill on Perry’s desk”, Houston Chronicle, Jun. 4).
Laminated glass in car windows
Belatedly following up on the Mar. 7 report about the $31 million verdict against Ford Motor in Zavala County, Tex., on attorney Mikal Watts’s theory (as we put it then) “that the [ejection] injuries were Ford’s fault because it should have used laminated instead of conventional glass in the side windows as a sort of substitute restraint system,” law student Shane Murphy (George Mason U.) had the following comment:
Laminated glass, which is two layers of plate glass with plastic laminate in between, is used on automotive windshields. It has been used for decades to keep objects from easily getting through the windshield and entering the vehicle, not the other way around. In fact, I have seen more than one hapless unbelted occupant of a vehicle propelled fully through a laminated windshield.
Safety glass, which is designed to shatter into very small pieces, is used on side windows in cars. This type of glass is easy to shatter should you need to make a hasty exit from the vehicle, and that’s a key reason it’s put there. It also shatters into small pieces with very little “sharding,” reducing the opportunity for serious injury from broken glass.
Laminated glass requires a special saw to get through. With 12 years of experience, it still takes me five minutes to saw through a car windshield. If your car is on fire you’d prefer safety glass for this reason alone. Laminated glass also causes serious head and facial injuries to those who do full face-plants against the windshield despite seat belt warnings. It will have the same effect in a side window if an occupant is unbelted.
Some automakers are putting laminated glass in the side windows of high-end cars, but this trend should be viewed with great caution. This type of glass does prevent people from “popping a window” to escape from a vehicle in an emergency situation. Two examples of emergencies of this type are vehicle crashes with resulting fires and accidents where a vehicle ends up partially submerged in a body of water. In both cases, the electrical system will likely short out and will prevent easy exit since nearly all cars now have power windows.
I really cannot believe this theory about auto glass even got past the laugh test, never mind into the jury room. Automotive glass should not be used to keep people in the vehicle. Using automotive glass as a backup safety feature would do more harm than good. Seat belts are to keep you in the vehicle, not windows. In fact, I much prefer glass that breaks easily.
More: reader Brian Poldrack of Houston, Texas writes in to say:
Update: Lap dance class action
An appeals court in Houston has ruled that two men can proceed with their intended class-action lawsuit against six strip clubs for having added a $5 fee to the price of a lap dance when paid for with a credit card, a practice they say violates Texas law. As has been previously noted (see Sept. 10, 2003), the fun is likely to begin if and when standard notices go into the mail informing past lap dance customers that a lawsuit has gone forward in their name; many of these notifications are likely to be opened by wives and other family members in the class member’s absence. (Roma Khanna, “Panel says men can sue strip clubs over extra fees”, Houston Chronicle, Apr. 23)(via The Slithery D). More: Wave Maker (May 5) wonders whether it might not be divorce lawyers, rather than class action lawyers, behind the scheme.
Ford’s $31 million sweetheart verdict
The famously pro-plaintiff jurisdiction of Zavala County, Texas once again lived up to its reputation the other day when one of its juries returned a $31 million verdict against the Ford Motor Co. in the case of the rollover of a 2000 Explorer which killed two occupants and injured two others. Legal commentators around the web are abuzz about the most remarkable angle of the story, namely that until deep into the trial Ford did not learn that one of the jurors, Crystal City city manager Diana Palacios, was the girlfriend of Jesse Gamez, one of the lawyers on the team of plaintiff’s attorneys headed by Houston’s Mikal Watts. Ford also presented evidence that Palacios, incredibly, had actually solicited two of the crash victims for her boyfriend to represent. Nonetheless, Judge Amado Abascal refused to declare a mistrial, instead dismissing Palacios from the jury and issuing a supposedly curative instruction to the remaining jurors. David Bernstein, Tom Kirkendall and John Steele comment. (John MacCormack, “Juror’s relationship with lawyer stalls Ford trial”, San Antonio Express-News, Feb. 23). (Addendum: one of John Steele’s readers has drawn his attention to this 1997 Texas Supreme Court opinion which co-stars the very same Mr. Gamez and Ms. Palacios in a Norplant case — very curious stuff.)
The other issues raised by the verdict, however, deserve attention as well. The accident was caused by the speeding of the vehicle’s driver, and none of the four occupants was wearing a seat belt; all were ejected. Attorney Watts (Apr. 12-14, 2002) advanced the theory that the injuries were Ford’s fault because it should have used laminated instead of conventional glass in the side windows as a sort of substitute restraint system. (John MacCormack, “Zavala jurors hit Ford for $28 million”, San Antonio Express-News, Mar. 2). Notes the Detroit News:
Ford said laminated glass wouldn’t have kept the women from being ejected and was hardly ever used in side windows when the vehicle was made.
“At that time, 99.9 percent of all vehicles made by all manufacturers, through the 2000 model year, had the kind of tempered glass used in this vehicle,” Vokes said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration doesn’t require laminated glass in side windows, she said.
(“Explorer suit costs Ford $31 million”, Detroit News, Mar. 3) AutoBlog has a short write-up with a good comments section; note in particular comment #22, on one possible safety advantage of not using laminated glass on cars’ sides. More: Mar. 22, May 13, May 16, May 29.
Judicial Hellholes III Report
The American Tort Reform Association today released its third annual Judicial Hellholes report — ATRA’s report on the worst court systems in the United States where “‘Equal Justice Under Law’ does not exist.”
Here is the press release from ATRA. The highlights, including the top nine worst areas (seven counties and two regions — all of West Virginia and all of South Florida) and a salute to Mississippi for its tremendous and far-reaching tort reforms are on this page. The full report is in PDF format here.
But there may yet be hope: