Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

by

Lufthansa is the owner and operator of Germanwings, which operated Flight 9525 — the plane that crashed on March 24, 2015, killing all those on board. The investigation that followed the crash found that the copilot had locked out the pilot from entering the cockpit and directed the plane to crash into a mountain.

Under a treaty that governs deaths and injuries aboard international flights, airline operators are required to pay relatives of victims for proven damages up to a limit currently set at $157,000 regardless of what caused the crash.

But higher compensation is possible if a carrier is held liable. To avoid carrier liability, it has to prove that the crash was not due to “negligence or other wrongful act” by its employees according to Article 21 of the 1999 Montreal Convention.

Continue reading

by

John Blommer worked as an apprentice carman repairing railroad cars for Great Northern Railway, which was the predecessor to BNSF Railway Co. He started working at the railroad in 1953 and worked for several months before joining the U.S. Army. He returned to the railroad after his military service and then left his employment in 1956 to work at the U.S. Postal Service. In all, Blommer worked for the railroad for a total of nearly 26 months. During that time, he was exposed daily to asbestos from various products he handled. Asbestos was found to be included in pipe wrapping, insulation, raw asbestos fibers and other asbestos-containing products.

In 2010, Blommer, then age 78, was diagnosed with mesothelioma. He underwent chemotherapy treatments and talc pleurodesis, which is a procedure in which fluid is drained from the lining of the lungs; then the ribcage and lining are scraped and filled with a talc product to glue the lungs to the ribcage. The purpose is to prevent the fluid from returning. After about two years, the fluid did return and Blommer underwent additional chemotherapy until the treatments were no longer effective.

Blommer sued BNSF under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) claiming that the railroad chose not to provide a safe workplace by protecting employees from asbestos exposure.

Continue reading

by

Carl Rogers had been working at a tire plant owned by Kelly-Springfield Tire Co., which is a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. subsidiary. He started working at the plant in 1969 and left employment after just one year. He returned to work there in 1975, and he continued working through the mid-1980s. Rogers worked with various tire-building machines but also used asbestos-containing brake assemblies.

He was exposed to asbestos during his ongoing repair and replacement of asbestos pipe installation at the Goodyear plant.

In August 2008, he was diagnosed with mesothelioma as a result of being exposed to asbestos. He died the next year at the age of 60 survived by his wife and two adult daughters. His paid medical expenses stipulated at the jury trial were $170,000.

Continue reading

by

Amarjit Khunkhun was a 43-year-old truck driver when he was found burned to death in the cab of his truck owned by his employer, GMG Trucking of Fresno, Calif. Khunkhun was survived by his wife and three children. The state fire investigators found that the fire started inside the cab and concluded that Khunkhun’s use of a portable stove might have caused the fire. No stove or propane tanks were found in the cab during the investigation.

Khunkhun’s family, with the assistance of attorneys Bill Robins, Hector Longoria, Mohinder S. Mann and Gruinder S. Mann, filed a lawsuit against GMG Trucking and its owners. The family’s attorneys also hired a fire cause-and-origin expert. That investigation showed the fire started beneath the truck, not by a stove or propane tanks. A truck mechanic expert determined that transmission fluid had leaked from the truck’s transmission, where it was ignited by the cab’s exhaust system and other hot components. Because of the fire underneath the cab, carbon monoxide vapors leaked into the cab where Khunkhun was left unconscious, and then the truck cab burst into flames resulting in Khunkhun’s death.

The lawsuit brought against GMG Trucks and its owners alleged negligent maintenance and inspection of the trucks. The family alleged that the owners were aware of the transmission leak in the tractor, but chose not to repair it in violation of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.

Continue reading

by

A federal jury has entered an $11 million verdict for victims of the design defect of the 1996 Toyota Camry.

The jurors indicated that Toyota was 60% at fault for the 2006 crash that left two people dead and two seriously injured. They also found that another defendant, Koua Fong Lee, who had insisted that he tried to stop his car before it slammed into another vehicle, was 40% at fault for the crash. Lee and his family members, the family of a girl who died and two others who were seriously injured, sued Toyota Motor Corp. in the United States District Court in Minneapolis, Minn.

The lawsuit alleged this crash was caused by the acceleration defect in Lee’s Toyota. Toyota maintained that there was no design defect and that Lee was negligent and the sole cause of the crash.

Continue reading

by

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has revised its reporting requirements when an employee dies on the job or suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye. If an employee is severely injured, employers will now be required to immediately notify OSHA of the work-related fatality within 8 hours and work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye within 24 hours. This shortened the timing that employers are required to notify OSHA of these serous injuries.

In the past, OSHA was required to report only work fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees. In other words, if only one employee died or was seriously injured at work, no report to OSHA was required.

The new reporting rule goes into effect Jan. 1, 2015 and is particularly directed at workplaces under federal OSHA jurisdiction. This would exempt companies who employ 10 or fewer individuals regardless of the industry classification.

Continue reading

by

Clarence Roach was a car man working for Union Pacific Railroad at the West Side rail yard in Chicago where commuters’ rail  cars are inspected and repaired. Roach was earning about $60,000 per year. On Feb. 1, 2008, Roach was hit by a train performing a “shove,” where a rail car was coupled to a commuter train that was being assembled.

Roach suffered several serious injuries, including “degloving” injury to the right leg, which tore the skin off the underlying tissue. Roach was treated by several doctors and then returned to work 13 months later on March 9, 2009.

On May 16, 2008, Roach filed a lawsuit against Union Pacific Railroad alleging negligence against Union Pacific. In March 2010, with his case still pending, Roach suffered a stroke. He died on May 14, 2010 at the age of 57.

Continue reading

by

In a case that has been labeled one of first impression, the wife of a victim of mesothelioma has prevailed after the defendant, Tennessee Valley Authority, moved to dismiss the case. The case was heard in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Barbara Bobo brought this lawsuit against nine defendants, eight of whom were dismissed pursuant to stipulation for dismissal leaving only her claim against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The plaintiffs were the co-personal representatives of the estate of Barbara Bobo who maintained a variety of claims against the TVA based on her contraction of pleural mesothelioma from washing her husband’s work clothes. It was alleged that the work clothes contained asbestos dust originating from his job duties at TVA’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Power General Facility in Limestone County, Ala.

In this case, the principle issue was the causation of her contraction of mesothelioma. Before the court was a motion to exclude specific causation opinions of doctors. The motion to exclude the specific causation opinion was found to be moot and the motion to exclude specific causation opinion of another doctor was denied.

Continue reading

by

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago has dismissed an appeal from a U.S. District Court judge. In an extremely sad case, Robert Lindner’s parents, Burton and Zorine Lindner, were driving under a bridge near north suburban Glenview, Ill., when a Union Pacific freight train derailed overhead. The derailment caused the collapse of the bridge crushing the Lindners in their car. Their son brought a lawsuit against Union Pacific and a wrongful death action in Illinois state court alleging that Union Pacific’s negligence caused the accident and his parents’ wrongful deaths.

At the time the lawsuit was filed, there was complete diversity between the parties. That means that the residencies of the plaintiffs and the residencies of the defendants must be of different states. The decedents were residents and citizens of Illinois. The residency determines diversity jurisdiction. Mr. Lindner was acting as a representative of the estate.

Union Pacific is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Omaha, Neb. Union Pacific removed the case to the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago because of the complete diversity of the parties.

Continue reading

by

A wrongful-death verdict that was vacated by a trial judge was affirmed on appeal by the Illinois Appellate Court. The jury’s verdict of $4.25 million was reached in a wrongful-death trial awarded to the family of a woman killed in a highway crash. But the trial judge vacated the verdict after it was revealed that the woman was married and that her parents and siblings were not her heirs under Illinois law. The judge would not let the woman’s husband file an amended complaint finding that he engaged in fraud with the woman’s family.

In an opinion that covered 107 pages written by Justice Robert E. Gordon, the panel found that the trial court was correct in vacating that verdict. But in a partial reversal, the panel will allow the woman’s husband to file an amended complaint.

The parents and eight siblings of 28-year-old Hawa Sissoko sued Alfred C. Baggiani and Roadway Express, the driver and owner of the semi-trailer that struck and killed Sissoko in 2007. She was standing behind her car in the right lane of the Indiana Toll Road outside Chesterton, Ind., when the accident occurred.

Continue reading