The Minneapolis City Council voted overwhelmingly to settle a discrimination lawsuit brought by five black police officers against the city, the police department and Chief Tim Dolan. The council voted 12-1 to pay the officers a total of $740,000 to settle the suit. The city admitted no guilt and will…
After a 19-year-old Orange County, Calif., man killed two neighbors in 2005, the victim’s survivors sued the murderer’s psychiatrist, accusing him of causing the rampage by giving his client an unstable mix of antidepressants. But California’s 4th District Court of Appeal ordered summary judgment for the doctor, saying that the…
Los Angeles County supervisors have agreed to pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the children of Edith Rodriguez, the woman who died after writhing in pain for 45 minutes on the waiting-room floor of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Medical Center, according to an attorney representing the family.…
Pregnant women who took a popular epilepsy drug, also widely used to treat migraines, pain and psychiatric disorders, had children whose I.Q. scores were significantly lower than those whose mothers took a different antiseizure medication, a new study has found. The drug, valproate, sold generically and under the brand name…
The recall last week of 2 million pounds of pistachios because of concerns about salmonella contamination has been expanded, and federal officials say more recalls of foods containing pistachios are on the horizon. Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, the California company that is the nation’s second-largest processer of pistachios, originally…
A soldier formerly based in Casper WV sued three Casper doctors in federal court for medical malpractice that nearly killed him. Poche and his wife, Cynthia, also wanted Wyoming residents to know they have the right to take action in similar cases, he said. “I survived; the next guy might…
A Michigan hospital can be sued for releasing a man who killed his estranged wife with an ax 10 days later, a federal appeals court ruled. The decision by a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstates a lawsuit filed by the estate of Marie Moses…
A federal jury awarded $2.3 M to a Los Angeles police officer who said she was sexually harassed and gave birth to a stillborn child because of the stress. Officer Melissa Borck, 45, said she suffered discrimination and abuse while she was at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic…
The 3rd Circuit has ruled that children allegedly injured by vaccines are barred from pursuing any design defect claims because Congress expressly prohibited such suits in an effort to guarantee immunity to manufacturers. By rejecting the analysis of a recent ruling from the Georgia Supreme Court, the 3rd Circuit’s ruling…
A federal judge denied an Army contractor KBR’s motion requesting dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the mother of a soldier who was electrocuted in the shower while serving in Iraq. The lawsuit, filed by Cheryl Harris of Cranberry, accuses Houston-based contractor KBR of failing to maintain the electrical infrastructure…