The LA City Council agreed to pay nearly $13 million to people injured or mistreated in a May Day melee in MacArthur Park, bringing to more than $30 million the money spent over the last two weeks to settle lawsuits alleging LAPD misconduct. For the LAPD, the $12.85-million payout —…
A Travis County jury has awarded a woman $900,000 after finding that she was fired from her job at a state civil rights agency for complaining about discrimination against minorities at the agency. The jury arrived at the verdict after a six-day trial in a lawsuit that Marilou Morrison filed…
A peanut processing plant in Texas run by the Peanut Corp. of America, which is being investigated for a national salmonella outbreak, operated for years uninspected and unlicensed by Texas health officials. The Peanut Corp. of America plant in Plainview was never inspected until after the company fell under investigation…
Independent water quality tests conducted by environmental activists show high levels of arsenic and other toxins in river water near the site of a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee and several miles downstream. The samples were collected about one to two weeks after 1.1 billion gallons of ash sludge…
Federal health officials opened a criminal investigation into the Georgia peanut-processing plant at the center of the national salmonella outbreak. The investigation into Peanut Corp. of America follows reports of poor sanitation practices and inspections that found the company sold contaminated peanut products to food makers. At least 529 people…
A lawsuit by the widow whose husband died of lung cancer is headed to trial again. Nearly two months after ending in a mistrial, the first of about 8,000 cases against tobacco companies in Florida is scheduled to head to trial again in Florida. Elaine Hess is suing cigarette maker…
On Dec. 12, 2008, a pipefitter recovered $90,780 after a jury found that he was partially responsible for injuries he sustained in an accident at a refinery in Port Arthur. In 2005, James Levine was working on a scaffold owned and erected by United Scaffolding when a piece of plywood…
In 2004, a 24-year-old mother found blood in her stool and kept having pain when she went to the bathroom. When she went to her local doctor, she was repeatedly told that she was merely suffering from hemorrhoids. Seven months after she visited the doctor, she was rushed to University…
High school cheerleading is a contact sport and therefore its participants cannot be sued for accidentally causing injuries, according to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The court ruled that a former high school cheerleader cannot sue a teammate who failed to stop her fall while she was practicing a stunt. The…
The plant in Georgia that produced peanut butter tainted by salmonella has a history of sanitation lapses and was cited repeatedly in 2006 and 2007 for having dirty surfaces and grease residue and dirt buildup throughout the plant, according to health inspection reports. Inspection reports from 2008 found the plant…