Couple sues home seller, but loses at trial

Lincoln Journal Star
December 13, 2011
By Lori Pilger
A couple who sued another couple after buying their Lincoln home, alleging they had misrepresented the condition of the home on the disclosure statement, got their day in court.

But at the end of a 2 1/2 day trial, a Lancaster County jury found against the buyers, Terry and Karen Williams, and for the sellers, Don and Mary Kuhn.

The Williamses sued the Kuhns in May 2010 over the 2009 sale of the home at 6701 Almira Lane. At a trial that started last week, they sought $67,351 in damages for the cost of unanticipated repairs.

Jarrod Crouse, the Williamses’ attorney, said that after they moved in, they discovered issues that included live wires in a crawl space, problems with the foundation and structural problems.

He argued that hiring a home inspector before signing the purchase agreement would have made no difference because the defects were hidden, in some cases behind drywall or in ceilings.

But the Kuhns’ attorney, Joel Nelson, said the Kuhns didn’t lie or misrepresent their home, built in the 1960s, and even acknowledged structural problems and a basement leak on the disclosure statement. He said they weren’t trying to hide anything.

Nelson said the Williamses wanted a Cadillac house but had bought a Chevy, and it was wrong to stick the bill for an upgrade to the Kuhns.

After the jury came back with its verdict Monday afternoon, the case was dismissed.

Read more: http://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/couple-sues-home-seller-but-loses-at-trial/article_6b1f2342-dce4-5457-bbf3-cc031ee747b4.html#ixzz1gQp42WPu

From the Lincoln Journal Star:

Court says woman can sue over elevator shaft fall

By Lori Pilger

The Nebraska Supreme Court says a woman seriously injured after falling down an elevator shaft can sue the owner of the building where it happened.

Darlene Howsden was working at Metcalf Funeral Home at 245 N. 27th St. in Lincoln on Aug. 28, 2009, when she fell 16 feet down an empty elevator shaft to the basement as she was on her way to leaving the mortuary.

Employees rarely used the elevator to travel to other floors of the building, but rather as a passageway between hallways because a floor had been built atop the elevator car, according to the suit.
On the day of the accident, she opened the door to the hallway and took a step — not realizing that the makeshift floor was gone.

Howsden, then an employee of Roper & Sons, was left with significant injuries and got workers’ compensation benefits through the mortuary.

She also sued Roper’s Real Estate Co., which was owned and operated by the same shareholders, alleging the company’s negligence led to her injuries. The Metcalf building is owned by Roper’s.

Roper’s Real Estate argued that, because it essentially was the same company, workers’ compensation was Howsden’s only option.  In February, a judge sided with the company and dismissed the lawsuit.
But, on appeal, the state’s high court reversed the decision, finding that Howsden was not barred from bringing her own claim against the owner of the premises.

In Friday’s opinion, Judge John Gerrard wrote that Roper’s Real Estate contended that it and Roper & Sons, her employer, should be considered the same entity. “We disagree,” he said.

Because the companies are legally separate entities, the court sent Howsden’s case back to Lancaster County District Court.

On Friday, Howsden’s attorney, Joel Bacon, told The Associated Press he had not had a chance to tell Howsden about the opinion.
According to court documents filed in 2010, she sued for medical expenses that by then had added up to about $75,000, plus unspecified damages for lost wages and pain and suffering for her back injury.

James Snowden, an attorney for Roper’s, did not immediately return a message left seeking comment.

If you or a loved one have suffered a serious injury contact Keating, O’Gara at 888/234-0621 or online at YourNebraskaLawyers.com.

State prison employees file civil rights lawsuit
November 17, 2010
By Lori Pilger
Lincoln Journal Star

Four black prison guards at the Nebraska State Penitentiary filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court alleging the prison is a racially hostile work environment and administrators have failed to address their concerns.

Jaryl Ellis, Michael Hunter, Tiffany Johnson and Paul Zeiger, all of Lincoln, say in the suit they have been subjected to racially offensive comments and discriminatory actions while working at the prison.

“The racially charged environment at NSP is so severe that no reasonable person … should be expected to endure it,” their attorney, Jefferson Downing, wrote in the suit.

They are suing state Corrections Director Robert Houston, Deputy Director Frank Hopkins and penitentiary Warden Dennis Bakewell and Associate Wardens Cathy Sheair and Joseph Staley.

Downing said the comments and conditions the four have had to endure are unacceptable.

Over the past year, he said, it has become common practice for non-black staff and supervisors to make racially charged comments as black employees come in for the first-shift roll call, saying things like “looks like the back of the bus is here,” “smells like fried chicken” and “the hood has arrived.”

He alleged a corporal told one of the guards this summer he hates “how blacks act” and if they were in a group he would “shoot them all,” and that prison staff directed racially offensive words and comments at inmates that humiliated and embarrassed them.

Downing says the four reported their concerns to a lieutenant and a sergeant in August, and to prison management a month later when nothing was done. The response was disappointing, he said, and didn’t follow the prison’s policy in addressing workplace harassment.

He described the response in the lawsuit.

* Despite a policy that ensures confidentiality, word spread among staff and inmates that they had complained of a racially hostile environment after Sheair began an inquiry in October. Two of the employees’ vehicles were vandalized in the parking lot, and one of the guards was told they had better “watch their backs.”

* Later that month, they were called to a meeting with Bakewell and the associate wardens and waited two hours in a room with a picture on the wall of a black man picking crops. One snapped a picture of it with a cell phone.

* When the meeting started, they say, Bakewell said it was the first he had heard of any racial problems at the prison and he didn’t like to get involved in the issue. He said he was going to split them up and transfer them to different facilities within the Department of Correctional Services, but they objected.

* On Nov. 10, they met with Houston, Hopkins, Bakewell and Sheair and were told it would be difficult to take action to stop racially offensive comments, and that the most that could be done was to note inappropriate behavior in employment files.

Downing said it reached a point they didn’t think the institution was taking steps to address the problem, which led to the lawsuit. In it, they seek a judgment declaring the prison’s actions unlawful, an injunction to keep prison management from subjecting them to a racially hostile and intolerable work environment, and damages.

The four hope to improve the culture of the institution, he said, and while that may not happen overnight, it’s not happening at all now.

“If we can speed things along that would benefit not only our clients but also future employees of NSP,” Downing said.

Corrections spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith said the department had not officially received the lawsuit late Wednesday afternoon.

“Once we do we will respond through the appropriate channels,” she said.

But, Smith said, the department “has strong policies and practices that uphold equal treatment for all employees.”

From the Wall Street Journal:

BP Doesn’t Deserve a Liability Cap
By RICHARD A. EPSTEIN

Our national frustration continues to rise with each new drop of BP oil that leaks into the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone knows we can’t legislate away environmental risks without consigning ourselves to the Stone Age. What’s needed going forward is a comprehensive legal strategy that addresses the risks though a combination of regulation before the fact and tort liability (and criminal sanctions where appropriate) afterwards.

Tort remedies are essential to protect people (and their property) who do not have contractual relations with defendants from harms such as air and water pollution. The legal system should never allow self-interested parties to keep for themselves all the gains from dangerous activities that unilaterally impose losses on others—which is why the most devout defender of laissez-faire must insist, not just concede, that tough medicine is needed in these cases. The fundamental question here is one of technique: What mix of before and after sanctions will do the job at the lowest cost?

The first element in the mix is a no-nonsense liability system that fastens full responsibility on the parties who run dangerous operations, no excuses allowed. Accordingly, we have to be especially wary of statutory caps on tort damages, including the current law, under which, in the case of the oil industry, the “total of liability . . . with respect to each incident shall not exceed for an offshore facility except a deepwater port, the total of all removal costs plus $75,000,000.” That $75 million is chicken feed. Fortunately, the law removes that cap if the incident was caused by “the gross negligence or willful misconduct” of any party, or its failure to comply with any “applicable Federal safety, construction, or operating regulation.”

To truly have a “system of justice”, you can not have liability caps–for BP or any other negligent actor.

Actor Dennis Quaid sues drug maker

Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly have filed a lawsuit against a drug maker alleging similar labels for the blood thinner Heparin and a less potent drug caused a mix-up at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center threatening the lives of his newborn twins in 2007.

Quaid filed the lawsuit Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of his children against Baxter Healthcare Corp. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Both Heparin and the lower dose version, Hep-lock, are packaged in similar vials with blue backgrounds and very small print on both labels, according to the complaint.

Quaid’s twins, who were born in November 2007, were both administered multiple near-fatal doses of Heparin to treat staph infections, according to the lawsuit.

The children, Zoe Grace and Thomas Boone, were given 10,000 units of Heparin, rather than the 10 units of Hep-Lock they were prescribed, according to the complaint.

Baxter Healthcare should have recalled the vials of Heparin containing 10,000 units because the company knew infants had died because of similar medication errors, according to the lawsuit.

The company also was obligated to warn healthcare providers of the previous medication mistakes, the suit states.

The children suffered internal injuries and shock, but the extent of what happened to them will probably not be known for years, according to the suit.

Newborns and infants are often given Hep-Lock to flush their prevent clotting because their intravenous lines are so small . . . .

The twins’ overdose is just one of the estimated 100,000 fatalities stemming from medical errors that occur every year in American hospitals and from pharmaceuticals. If you or a loved one have been injured by medical malpractice or through a medication errorand would like to talk with an experienced Nebraska defective drug lawyer, call the Keating, O’Gara Law Firm at 888/234-0621 for a free consultation.

Encouraged by the many students he has taught legal writing to over the years as an adjunct professor at the UNL College of Law, Gary put his survival tips into a very readable guide he dubbed Law School Ninja.

The book is now available at Amazon.com.

Remboldt Luedtke partner Troy Kirk, a former student of Gary’s, posted this review at Amazon:

Gary Young’s combination of wit and unconventional wisdom makes Law School Ninja a fantastic read, particularly for any first year law student hoping to excel in law school. The book provides a concise compilation of several practical insights and tools necessary for succeeding in the dreaded 1L year and beyond. If you are a prospective law student who intends to compete for the top jobs out of law school, you need to read this book. I only wish I would have had Young’s wisdom and insights prior to my law school experience.

It’s the book we all wish we would have had as a freshman in law school.

As an experienced Nebraska workers’ compensation attorney, Anne Winner has given numerous presentations over the years dealing with on the job injuries.

On November 6, Anne will address “Multiple Injuries in One Accident: Stacking, Compensation per the Schedule v. Earning Capacity for Two or More Members & More” at the NSBA Workers’ Compensation Section Annual Seminar at the Cornhusker Hotel in Lincoln.

For more information on the seminar, go to the NSBA website here.