Police: Allegations in city mower death inconclusive

By Peter Salter, Lincoln Journal Star, May 6, 2011

The months-long police investigation into last year’s lawn mower death of a city worker is done, delivered — and largely inconclusive.  And it will likely do nothing to quell complaints that the city’s street maintenance department fosters fear, intimidation and unsafe practices.

“When an investigation about whether they protected employees from safety hazards comes back inconclusive, it doesn’t speak well about the management of the organization,” said Gary Young, attorney for the union representing the city’s blue-collar workers.

Young called the street maintenance department “the worst-managed division of any public employer” of the unions he represents.  ”The accident that happened, if it’s going to happen, this is where it’s going to take place.”

On Aug. 16, Eric Kohles was found crushed by a 1,200-pound riding mower at the bottom of a grassy ditch.  The 37-year-old worked for the city’s storm water division but had been helping mow that day — first near 56th and Sumner streets, and, after lunch, near 56th and Seward in northeast Lincoln.
The husband and father died four days later.

The next week, nearly a dozen street maintenance employees filed a grievance against their supervisors, alleging Kohles was told to mow an unsafe area with an unsafe mower he’d never used before.  They also said they’d warned supervisors about the mower and they’d been punished and humiliated for raising concerns.

They sought a third-party investigation of the accident and in early November — after the Public Works Department’s own probe proved inconclusive — the mayor asked the police to look into the complaints.
An internal affairs detective spent about 80 hours on the assignment, focusing only on complaints in the grievance. He interviewed 18 workers and managers, pored over records, checked aerial photos and weather data.

“All we could conclude was that no supervisor told Eric to mow that ditch with that mower, and that he had never received training on that mower,” Police Chief Tom Casady said.  The investigation found no evidence to conclude Kohles was told to mow with the Heckendorn. He was told to drive the pickup pulling the mower, and he beat his foreman to the site, Casady said. “It looks to me that Eric wasn’t the kind of guy who would stand around waiting for his foreman. He unpacked his equipment and went to work,” Casady said.

An experienced supervisor would have likely prevented the riding mower from mowing the steep slope of the ditch.  There’s little flat ground at the site, so it’s not clear why Kohles was sent there hauling the Heckendorn, Young said.  ”Why was it sent there? Because the management of that department failed to protect against it being sent there. And the person they assigned to use it was inexperienced and didn’t know better. Why they sent it there, I don’t know.”

The police also couldn’t prove employees warned street maintenance director Scott Opfer about the mower in 2008 — or that employees were punished for raising safety concerns.  The workers said they raised concerns about two mowers; Opfer told the investigator he was told about a Toro boom mower and had it checked out, but couldn’t recall warnings about the Heckendorn, Casady said.

Union members also told investigators two workers were forced to cut the shop yard’s grass with push mowers under a hot sun in September 2008. Casady said his department compared mower records with weather data — and found no evidence of the allegation.  And Casady made it clear: Just because his department couldn’t prove an allegation, it wasn’t ruling it out, either. It’s simply inconclusive.

That’s not good enough for Young, the union lawyer. The standard of proof they required decided the matter before it started,” he said.

Multiple employees gave accounts substantiating the grievance, Young said. For example, employees witnessed and reported the alleged push-mower punishment.  The police department should have considered a preponderance of evidence, but the chief set the bar too high.  ”When employees testify and that’s not enough, then you can’t prove anything.”

Casady said his department used the same standard as in all internal affairs investigations: An allegation must be conclusively proven to be sustained.  ”In my book, 51 percent doesn’t cut it when people’s jobs or careers could be on the line, whether it is a laborer, a manager or anything in between.”

With the investigation done, the Public Works Department now must decide whether to grant the grievance — and remove several supervisors from managing employees, as requested by the union — or reject it. Public Works Director Greg MacLean could not be reached for comment Thursday.  Then the union will decide its next step, which includes appealing a rejection to the city personnel board.

Casady did recommend the Public Works Department’s safety committee review the department’s training requirements, which he called “a bit iffy.”  Some equipment — graders and snowplows, for instance — require training. But it’s not as formal for smaller pieces, like riding mowers.  Public works should determine the equipment and tools that require training and then keep records of trained employees, the chief said.

“At the police department, you don’t get a rifle, a pistol, a Taser or a nightstick until you get trained.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to a defective product, call the Keating O’Gara Law Firm at 888/234-5621.

Fatal Houston crash leads to lawsuit against Toyota
By Mary Flood
Feb. 1, 2010, 10:40PM

The family of a Houston woman whose car sped through a stop sign and smashed into a cement wall, killing her on impact a week before Christmas, filed what is likely the third acceleration-related wrongful death lawsuit against Toyota in the nation Monday.

Trina Renee Harris, a 34-year-old mother of two, died on impact when her 2009 Toyota Corolla slammed into an East Hardy Toll Road cement divider at Barry, leaving no skid marks, Houston police reported.

Her husband, Michael Harris, filed a lawsuit Monday against Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., gas pedal maker CTS Corp. and Fred Haas Toyota World, which leased her the car. Lawyers involved in the lawsuit said it’s likely the third such case filed in response to acceleration problems that prompted Toyota to recall millions of vehicles and halt some production.

“I want those who were negligent to be held responsible. This problem was there before Dec. 18 when she died,” Michael Harris said. The U.S. Navy petty officer first class had recently completed a stint on an aircraft carrier in the Middle East and was in San Diego when he learned of his wife’s death. He returned to Houston, where the family opened Christmas gifts Trina Harris had bought . . . .

If you or a loved one have been injured in Nebraska due to a defective Toyota accelerator pedal, call the Keating, O’Gara Law Firm at 888/234-0621 for a free consultation.

For helpful advice on what to do if the accelerator sticks, watch the following video:

Already on the hook for the lion’s share of a $17.7 million judgment and waiting for a decision from a jury that was out considering punitive damages, Ford Motor Co. decided to settle with a couple who sued following a Christmas 2005 wreck that left the woman paralyzed.

The agreement came after a Clayton County, Ga., jury ordered Ford on Dec. 18 to pay more than $16 million of the judgment to compensate for what the plaintiffs argued were design defects in the 2002 Explorer sport utility vehicle in which the woman was a passenger.

Lynn Wheeler, then 58, was seated in the back seat between her two grandchildren, who were in booster seats, as her son drove to church that morning along Noah’s Ark Road in Clayton County . . . Wheeler, who was restrained only by a lap belt, slammed forward and down as the rear seat latch failed, and it collapsed on her.

“As a result,” says the pre-trial order, “Lynn Wheeler’s head and neck were driven down and forward into the front seat and/or center console, catastrophically injuring her spinal cord.”

* * *

The complaint asserted that the automaker’s design for both the rear seat latch and decision to install a lap belt rather than a three-point shoulder belt constituted negligence, and it also said Ford should have warned the Wheelers and the general public “of the dangers in a reasonably foreseeable collision presented by the design of the Ford Explorer rear seat, occupant restraint system and surrounding structures.”

If you or a loved one have been injured due to a product defect such as a poorly designed restraint system, please call the Keating, O’Gara Law Firm at 888/234-0621 for a free consultation.

The NY Times article on the debate includes the following sobering statistics:

In a nation of 8.6 million pools and 5.6 million hot tubs, according to industry estimates, every summer seems to have a spate of drownings. State and federal health agencies reported that about 260 children younger than 5 died underwater in 2006, including 2-year-old Shaan Pathak of Hicksville; Jolie Annecco, also 2, who lived in Lindenwood, Queens; and Isha and Ahmad Faniel, 4-year-old twins from Union, N.J.

A 2003 report by the American Academy of Pediatrics estimated that for each drowning, up to four more children suffer near-drownings serious enough to require hospitalizations, many resulting in permanent disability.

Year in and year out, drowning is the second-leading cause of accidental death for children under 14, behind traffic fatalities, according to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. For children under 5, pools account for far more drownings than bathtubs and natural bodies of water, according to the National Safety Council and the National Center for Health Statistics.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to the negligence of another, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.

BAKERSFIELD – A New Jersey importer of Chinese-made tires is asking the federal government for help in recalling almost half a million defective tires that may have already contributed to one death.

The tire recall follows other major recalls of Chinese-made products, including pet food, toothpaste, and toy trains, prompting widespread consumer concerns.

Now consumer groups wonder if Chinese-made products are safe, given the recalls made in recent months.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration said a New Jersey company—Foreign Tire Sales—has announced a recall of at least 450,000 tires made in China, although who is going to pay for the recall and tire replacements remains in question.

The defective tires, used on light trucks and SUV’s, have been sold under the names of Westlake, Telluride, Compass and YKS.

Lawyers are blaming the tires for a fatal accident last year near Philadelphia.

“Check your tires,” said Jeffery Killino, a lawyer for accident victims. “Make sure that you’re not riding on these tires!”

This tire recall follows several other recent recalls of Chinese-made products, including toothpaste containing a poisonous chemical, contaminated pet food, and Thomas the Train Engine toys decorated with lead paint.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to the negligence of another, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.

Arielle Newman, a cross-country runner at Notre Dame Academy on Staten Island, died after her body absorbed high levels of methyl salicylate, an anti-inflammatory found in sports creams such as Bengay and Icy Hot, the New York City medical examiner said Friday.

The medical examiner’s spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove, said the teen used “topical medication to excess.” She said it was the first time that her office had reported a death from using a sports cream.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to the negligence of another, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.

In 2004, there were 3,308 unintentional fatal drownings in the United States, averaging nine people per day. This figure does not include the 676 fatalities, from drowning and other causes, due to boating-related incidents (CDC 2006; USCG 2006).

For every child 14 years and younger who dies from drowning in 2004, five receive emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries. More than half of these children were hospitalized or transferred to another facility for treatment (CDC 2006).

Nonfatal drownings can cause brain damage that result in long-term disabilities ranging from memory problems and learning disabilities to the permanent loss of basic functioning (i.e., permanent vegetative state).

Boating carries risks for injury. In 2005, the U.S. Coast Guard received reports for 4,969 boating incidents; 3,451 participants were reported injured, and 697 died in boating incidents.

If you or a loved one have been injured around water due to the negligence of another, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.