Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog

July 8, 2010

Wrongful Termination Suit Filed Against Trash Hauler

A California man has filed a lawsuit against his former employer, Coastside Scavenger, claiming that he was wrongfully terminated by new owners because of his “whistleblower” reputation.

Jose Castellanos claims in his lawsuit that after his two sons were fired from Coastside in 2008 for complaining of mistreatment, his bosses began to criticize him and suggest he quit.

He was fired last summer, and says that his boss “went out of her way to malign his reputation to prospective employers.” Julia Scott, San Jose Mercury News 07/06/2010
Read Article: San Jose Mercury News

July 7, 2010

PG&E Agrees to Settlement Over Fatal Car Accident

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Utility provider PG&E has agreed to pay $5 million to the mother of a 20-year-old woman who was killed in a car accident involving one of the company drivers.

Mary Bernstein and a friend were killed in the wreck in 2006 when John Mayfield, a diabetic, blacked out a the wheel after forgetting to test his blood sugar. Under the terms of the agreement, PG&E agreed to record the resolution as a judgment, rather than a confidential settlement.

Mary’s mother Lisa has also said she will petition California legislators to pass regulations that require companies to more closely monitor their fleet drivers. Tracey Kaplan, San Jose Mercury News 07/06/2010
Read Article: San Jose Mercury News

July 7, 2010

Dallas CBS 11: North Texas Yaz Yasmin Lawsuits

by Dr. Shezad Malik

We were recently featured on Dallas CBS Channel 11 evening news.

Please click here to read the interview and watch the video link.

Our client suffered massive brain damage following the use of Yaz.

July 7, 2010

Medical Malpractice: Some Veterans Not Notified of HIV Risk From Colonoscopies

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The Miami Herald (7/7, Tasker) says that the Department of Veterans Affairs, “which in March 2009 revealed that more than 2,400 Miami-area veterans were given colonoscopies with improperly cleaned equipment, announced Tuesday that 79 veterans mistakenly were not notified they are at risk of contracting a disease such as HIV from the procedure.”

The agency, which “said the failure to contact the 79 veterans came from administrative errors relating to their charts,” has “temporarily removed Mary Berrocal, director of the Miami VA Healthcare System,” and replaced her with Thomas Capello, director of the Gainesville VA hospital, “until a 30-to-60-day investigation is complete.”

Read full Miami Herald story here.

July 7, 2010

Wal-Mart Fighting $7K OSHA Fine in Trampling Death.

by Dr. Shezad Malik

On the front page of its Business Day section, the New York Times (7/7, B1, Greenhouse) reports, “Wal-Mart Stores has spent a year and more than a million dollars in legal fees battling a $7,000 fine that federal safety officials assessed after shoppers trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death at a store on Long Island on the day after Thanksgiving in 2008.”

The company’s “all-out battle against the relatively minor penalty has mystified and even angered some federal officials,” but Wal-Mart “says that regulators are trying to enforce a vague standard of protection when there was no previous OSHA or retail industry guidance on how to prevent what it views as an ‘unforeseeable incident.’

Read the full story here at the New York Times.

July 7, 2010

Suit Alleging PA Board of Nursing Discriminates Against Heroin Addicts

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The Legal Intelligencer (6/22, Duffy) reports, “In a groundbreaking case that could help to define the rights of recovering drug addicts, a federal judge in Scranton has ruled that the Pennsylvania Board of Nursing must answer a lawsuit that says the agency has a secret, unwritten policy that forbids any nurse from holding a license while receiving methadone treatment for a chronic opioid addiction.

Requiring nurses who are recovering from heroin addiction to prove that they are ‘weaned’ from methadone may be found to violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, US District Judge James M. Munley held in Reynolds v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

Read full story here.

July 6, 2010

Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Filed Against Comcast

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A discrimination lawsuit has been filed against Comcast by a former employee who claims that, upon his transfer to the Naples, Fla., office in 2006, he was discriminated against because he is African-American.

Timothy Morrison, who worked for Comcast for 10 years, claims that his bosses in the Naples office created a “pattern of harassing and hostile treatment based on his race,” including suggesting he should move back to Chicago to be near “his people.”

Morrison also alleges that when he formally complained about the treatment, he was fired. The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages. Leslie Williams Hale, Naples News 06/23/2010
Read Article: Naples News

July 5, 2010

Jury: State to Pay Damages for Death of Inmate

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Maryland jury awarded $2.025 million to the family of an inmate who was hit by a truck and killed while he was picking up trash on work detail in 2007.

According to the lawsuit, Rodney Jennings was crushed by a speeding dump truck that was exiting the highway he was working on.

The lawsuit also alleges that jail officials mistakenly believed that a vehicle had been in place to block the exit ramp from traffic, keeping the inmates safe. Ruben Castaneda, The Washington Post 06/25/2010
Read Article: The Washington Post

July 4, 2010

Sierra Nevada Trails Contaminated With Lead, Arsenic, Asbestos.

by Dr. Shezad Malik

San Francisco Chronicle (6/23, Zito) reports, “The thousands of mine shafts that pockmark the Sierra Nevada and testify to California’s Gold Rush riches have also left a legacy of toxic contamination in some of the state’s popular recreation areas, according to a new study.

Soil tests on a handful of trails near mine mouths in the foothills have revealed extremely high levels of lead, arsenic and asbestos, said researchers at the Sierra Fund, a small environmental advocacy group.” Elizabeth Martin, chief executive of the group, said, “This is the longest neglected environmental problem in California.”

Read the full story here.

July 3, 2010

BNSF Argues MN $21.6M Train Death Verdict Preempted By Federal Law.

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The Minneapolis Star Tribune (6/23, Levy) reports on a case before the Minnesota Court of Appeals in which Burlington Northern Santa Fe is appealing “a record $21.6 million” verdict awarded “to the families of four young people killed in a 2003 train-car accident in Anoka,” MN.

BNSF attorney Sam Hanson said that Washington County Judge Ellen Maas’ “failure ‘to eliminate Minnesota state common law and replace it with federal regulations’ when instructing the jury at the start of the trial ‘entitled’ BNSF to a new trial, based on federal preemption.”

Read full story here.