Colorado Settles Strip Search Lawsuit for $1M

In March 2015, a division director in the Colorado Department of Health and Human Services ordered 60 residents of the Pueblo Regional Center to be strip searched. The residents were developmentally disabled patients of the center, and DHA officials never sought consent from the patients, their families, or legal guardians. According to a lawsuit filed later, the aggressive strip searches included hands-on genital manipulation of the patients, many of whom had histories of physical and sexual abuse.

The state settled those claims this week, agreeing to pay $1 million to the families of the victims, and institute other reforms.

Nonconsensual Strip Searches

DHS officials attempted to justify the searches by claiming there had been incidents of patient abuse, but later admitted to investigators they made no attempt to contact the families or legal guardians of the residents to get consent for the searches. (An investigation by the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office resulted in just one charge against a Pueblo Regional Center staff member.)

Staff also protested the searches without guardian consent but were told the body inspections were mandatory and needed to be done immediately. According to the lawsuit filed on behalf of the patients:

On or about March 25, 2015, Division Director for Regional Center Operations Defendant Tracy Myszak directed nearly a dozen of her subordinate Defendants at CDHS [Colorado Department of Human Services] to storm into the Pueblo Regional Center without notice and conduct warrantless, nonconsensual strip searches of most or all of the residents, including hands-on genital contact in many cases ...
Even if the residents had been given the opportunity to refuse or consent to these illegal searches -- which they were not -- most of the residents were legally incompetent to consent, and Defendant CDHS and its Defendant agents never sought or received consent from their legal guardians.
These compulsory, unlawful strip searches and the associated nonconsensual genital contact foreseeably caused profound distress to the victims who were strip searched, many of whom have histories of physical and sexual abuse, and all of whom are particularly vulnerable to suffering deleterious effects from such a brazen exploitation of power.

Search Settlement

Along with the monetary compensation to the patients, the settlement calls for the Colorado Department of Human Services to provide new training for staff incident reporting rules, facilitate regular meetings with patient families, and increase pay for staff at the center, among a list of other reforms.

Related Resources:

• Colorado Agrees to $1M Settlement Over Strip Searches (AP)
• N.M. Man Sues Over Multiple Anal Cavity Searches (FindLaw's Injured)
• DUI Strip Search Settlement Costs County $355K (FindLaw's Injured)
• Traffic Stop Anal Probe Settlement: $1.6M (FindLaw's Injured)

from Injured https://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2018/08/colorado-settles-strip-search-lawsuit-for-1m.html

Uber Sued After Driver's Multiple Sexual Assaults

Uber is the target of yet another sex crime lawsuit, this time concerning a driver who purportedly is a repeat offender. The driver, John Kyle Lane, sexually exposed himself to a rider just days after he had sexually assaulted another rider in a nearby town. 

In this suit, the two women claim the company was negligent in its retention of Lane after the first incident, and are seeking at least $25,000 in damages yet to be determined.

Victim #1, Sexual Assault

In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a woman was sexually assaulted by Lane on July 22, 2017. The victim contacted the local police and Uber immediately. Uber replied the next day that they had launched an internal investigation, refunded her fare, and placed a restriction on her profile so that the two would never be paired again. Lucky for Victim #1, but not so lucky for Victim #2.

Victim #2, Indecent Exposure

On August 6, 2017, just fifteen days later, Lane picked up another Uber passenger, struck up inappropriate conversation, and exposed himself to her and demanded she touch him. This passenger immediately contacted local police and Uber. The company took six days to respond this time, and again promised an internal investigation, and that the driver wouldn't be paired with this rider again. (Evidently a rider needs to be actually assaulted to get a refund?) However, this victim told Uber she wanted Lane's account to be suspended, so that there would be no Victim #3. This time, Uber permanently banned Lane from the App.

Negligent Hiring and Retention by Uber

Uber has been hit with a multitude of negligent hiring claims in the past, including this one, for failing to exercise care and doing a sufficient background check on drivers. However, negligent retention has been less common. In a different case, Uber did continue to negligently retain a driver they knew had violently assaulted a woman months earlier, but that original victim was not an Uber rider. In this instance, Uber knew he had assaulted an Uber rider, chose to keep Lane on the App, and he committed a substantially similar crime on another Uber rider. It may be very hard for Uber to dodge liability for failing to "exercise reasonable care in retaining Lane and continuing to allow him to drive its customers", given Uber had actual knowledge of the first sexual assault claim.

In the meantime, Lane has been charged with stalking, harassment, sexual battery, and indecent exposure.

If you have been the victim of a sexual assault, especially by an employee or contractor, contact the police and a local sexual abuse attorney who is trained to listen to your case, and provide you with insight and legal counsel on how best to proceed.

Related Resources:

• Contact a Local Sexual Abuse Attorney (FindLaw Lawyer's Directory)
• Man Beaten By Security Guard Wins $58M (FindLaw's Injured Blog)
• Over 100 Uber Drivers Accused of Assault, Abuse (FindLaw's Injured Blog)

from Injured https://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2018/08/uber-sued-after-drivers-multiple-sexual-assaults.html

Fatal Food Poisoning: English Mom Dies After Eating Uncooked Chicken in Greece

"Natalie started to eat hers and as she cut the chicken the chicken oozed red blood to which point I commented it looked bloody." Not the start you want to a meal while on vacation.

That was widower Stewart Rawnsley, describing food from a restaurant buffet in Corfu, Greece. His late wife, Natalie, immediately returned the chicken for another piece, but not before consuming a bite. That bite would turn out to be deadly, as Natalie's condition deteriorated from food poisoning to fatal over the course of that night. Natalie Rawnsley passed away less than 48 hours after consuming the uncooked chicken -- so what happened?

The Wrong Genes

"It seems like Mrs. Rawnsley had the wrong genes -- to put it crudely," infections expert Professor Sebastien Lucas told the Hertfordshire Mercury. "It depends on what your genes are. Assuming it is an E-Coli infection -- coming from uncooked chicken seems a very reasonable theory."

"There's a tipping point when it starts producing DIC," Lucas added. "By definition, once it starts doing that, you are doomed." DIC refers to disseminated intravascular coagulation, which happens when proteins that control blood clotting become overactive, causing small blood clots in the blood vessels and cutting off the normal blood supply to organs such as the liver, brain, or kidneys. Rawnsley was initially diagnosed with gastroenteritis, inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract that can be caused by ingestion of E. coli bacteria, and can be linked to DIC.

The Wrong Restaurant

"I screamed out and her brother screamed out," Stewart Rawnsley told a coroner's court, after Natalie's heart rate monitor became weaker in the hospital. "We were outside the door and they were in there five or ten minutes and then the same nurse came out and apologised as there wasn't anything more she could do, and Natalie died."

She had been moved to a hospital in Corfu after her condition worsened overnight. Stewart says Natalie started throwing up in the hotel bathroom around 3 a.m. and was still sick at 11 a.m. the next day. "The second doctor said because she had been sick for so long she needed additional medical help so she was going to the medical centre a number of kilometres away from the hotel," Rawnsley said. Doctors allegedly wanted to fly Natalie to a hospital on the Greek mainland, which had better facilities, her condition worsened, making travel impossible.

There's no word on whether Rawnsley will take legal action against the hotel that served the raw chicken. But lawsuits can be filed to hold restaurants accountable after food poisoning incidents, including wrongful death claims if the incident proves fatal.

Related Resources:

• Find Wrongful Death Lawyers Near You (FindLaw's Lawyer Directory)
• Top 5 Legal Tips for Food Poisoning Lawsuits (FindLaw's Injured)
• The 3 Most Common Types of Food Poisoning (FindLaw's Injured)
• When Can You Sue a Restaurant for Food Poisoning? (FindLaw's Injured)

from Injured https://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2018/08/fatal-food-poisoning-english-mom-dies-after-eating-uncooked-chicken-in-greece.html

Can You Sue If Your Medical Device Is Hacked?

Once our medical devices became "smart," or even just dependent on embedded computer or radio components for communication, the possibility of hacking those devices became a reality. While much of the focus has been on hacking pacemakers, doctors writing in the Chicago Sun-Times point out that those aren't the only vulnerable medical devices. "Defibrillators, neurostimulators and implantable drug pumps, like insulin pumps, rely on the same embedded computers and software radios for their two-way communication, they noted, adding, "weak security features have left these devices potentially vulnerable to outside manipulation."

And if a medical implant is tampered with, what can you do about it? Here's what you can do if your medical device is hacked.

Keeping Pace With Hackers

The hacking possibility became all the more real when researchers Billy Rios and Jonathan Butt demonstrated a hack that compromised a CareLink 2090 pacemaker programmer this week. The pair had first warned Medtronic, the company that makes the CareLink, about the vulnerabilities in January 2017, according to Ars Technica, but Medtronic's response has left a lot to be desired. "The response from the manufacturer is so poor," Rios told Ars. "This is not some online video game where high scores can get dumped. This is patient safety."

For its part, Medtronic claims it addressed the issues already, releasing this statement:

In the accompanying Medtronic security bulletin, we communicated that our existing security controls mitigate the issue. Since that time, we also have made technical updates where these services are hosted to further strengthen security controls.
Medtronic recommends that customers continue to follow the security guidance detailed in the Medtronic 2090 CareLink Programmer reference manual

Hacking Liability

Of course, if a person's medical device is hacked, they are injured, and they can identify the hacker, they can file a personal injury lawsuit. (Beyond that, criminal prosecutors may file assault or cybercrime charges as well.) If the hacker is not found, however, a person may also have claims against the medical device manufacturer.

Medical device manufacturers have a duty to ensure their products are safe, and there are three main types of product liability claims for injured users:

• Defects in Design: The design of the medical device is flawed in a way that renders it unreasonably vulnerable to hackers.
• Defects in Manufacturing: The device is manufactured in a way that departs from the intended design, leaving it open for hacks.
• Defects in Warnings: The manufacturer failed to provide adequate instructions or warnings regarding the possibility for the device to be hacked.

An experienced personal injury attorney can help evaluate your case and file a claim if you or a loved one has had a medical device hacked.

Related Resources:

• Find Personal Injury Lawyers Near You (FindLaw's Lawyer Directory)
• Ask the Doctors: Hacking Into Medical Devices Is Theoretical Possibility (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Millions of Medical Devices Are Vulnerable to Hacking (FindLaw's Technologist)
• Have Your Medical Records Been Hacked? Probably. (FindLaw Injured)

from Injured https://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2018/08/can-you-sue-if-your-medical-device-is-hacked.html

SoCalGas Settles Largest Gas Leak in U.S. History for $119.5M

For three months in 2015 and 2016, 109,000 metric tons of methane spewed into the atmosphere over the Aliso Canyon north of Los Angeles. Thousands were evacuated from the Porter Ranch suburb. California declared a state of emergency.

The state charged the Southern California Gas Company, or SoCalGas, with violating state health and safety laws by failing to promptly report the leak, and creating a public nuisance, and several other entities -- the city attorney's office, the county, and the California Air Resources Board -- filed lawsuits against the company. SoCalGas settled those claims yesterday, agreeing to pay $119.5 million in damages.

No Excuse

"There is no excuse for what happened," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. "For over four months, this leak exposed our communities to natural gas emissions that resulted in adverse health impacts and disrupted the lives of tens of thousands of Californians -- displacing two area schools and driving residents from their homes." Along with repaying city, county, and state services for their immediate response to the leak, SoCalGas will be required to:

• Monitor methane at the Aliso Canyon facility and post data online in near real-time for eight years;
• Create a new internal safety committee which shall remain in place for eight years;
• Pay for a long-term health study to assess direct health impacts of the leak, a local air monitoring network in Porter Ranch, and a "Mitigation Fund," which will be invested in dairy biogas-collection infrastructure in order to fully mitigate the methane emitted by the leak; and
• Fund additional environmental programs in and around Los Angeles.

The settlement also bars SoCalGas from Refrain from shifting the cost of this settlement and actions taken to respond to the leak to SoCalGas' ratepayers.

Settling

Not everyone is pleased with the settlement. Matt Pakucko, who co-founded the group Save Porter Ranch, told KTLA "[California Attorney Xavier Becerra] should be investigating, not settling." Jason Tokoro, counsel for L.A. County, however, said the settlement was probably the best deal city, county, and state officials could hope for. "We litigated this case all the way to the California Supreme Court," he said, "and there were certain things we were asking that the court told us we just couldn't get. Everything else that we sought, we got as part of this settlement."

Related Resources:

• Find Personal Injury Lawyers Near You (FindLaw's Lawyer Directory)
• Officials Announce $119.5M Settlement With SoCalGas for 2015 Aliso Canyon Leak (KTLA 5)
• Lawsuits for SoCal Gas Leak? (FindLaw's Injured)
• CA Orders All Gas Lines Statewide Inspected (FindLaw's Injured)

from Injured https://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2018/08/socalgas-settles-largest-gas-leak-in-us-history-for-1195m.html

McDonald's Drinks Spiked With Opioids and Cleaning Products

If one were to pay attention to such things, they would know that drinking Coca-Cola (or any high-fructose corn syrup soda for that matter) is not good for you, even under the best of circumstances. And we're not sure if you've heard, but McDonald's doesn't have the greatest rep when it comes to its coffee.

But when the Diet Coke is laced with an opioid, and the latte is more cleaning solution than steamed milk, things get even worse. Just ask two McDonald's customers who got a lot more than they bargained for in their beverages.

Drive Thru Dangers

Trevor Walker ordered two McDonald's happy meals for his kids, and two chicken sandwich meals for he and his wife, including two Diet Cokes. One of those Diet Cokes, as Walker would later find out, was laced with buprenorphine -- a heroin substitute, an opioid to treat opioid addiction. Fortunately for Walker and his children, he was home, composing an email when the drugs took hold, and was able to put his 8-year-old in charge of his one-year-old and fire off two frantic texts to his wife before he finally collapsed:

"Something is vey [sic] wrong with me. I am having sensations in my arms and everything is moving slowly. I'm feeling scared. I don't know what to do."
"I'm so scared I'm trying to be calm. I need you."

Walker's wife found him on the floor, and neighbors helped get him to a hospital. Walker, is, for the most part, fine now, but still suffers from severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress following the incident, according to his lawsuit against McDonald's. Walker claims the fast food chain is liable for breach of implied warranty, negligence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress after tracing the tainted beverage to a particular employee whose social media posts suggest he was both a drug user and no stranger to "disrespecting McDonald's customers through the Drive-Thru window."

The employee and his manager-brother have since quit McDonald's, but not before destroying all the video surveillance from the day Walker was poisoned.

Caffeine and Cleaner

Sarah Douglas ordered a latte for herself, but knew something was wrong from the first sip. "It wasn't a latte at all," Douglas told the CBC. "I opened up the lid of the coffee and out pours this pungent smell of chemical." Douglas immediately returned to the McDonald's and confronted management about the drink, only to discover that two lines used to clean out the machine with an acid cleaning solution were still hooked up to the latte machine, and the milk supply line was connected to the cleaning solution.

Douglas was eight months pregnant at the time.

She contacted poison control and was checked out and cleared by her physician, thankfully. From her interactions with the staff it didn't sound like it was the first time such a mistake had occurred, and although Douglas hasn't filed a lawsuit like Walker (yet), she wants some positive repercussions to come from her experience. "This needs to be more than a slap on the wrist," she said. "We need to take it more seriously when we are dealing with food handling, I mean, to put a lid on something that doesn't look like a latte, that should be your first indication."

Related Resources:

• Find Personal Injury Lawyers Near You (FindLaw's Lawyer Directory)
• Man Sues McDonald's Over OJ With a Surprise Spear (FindLaw's Injured)
• McDonalds Sued: Glass in McChicken Worth $600K? (FindLaw's Injured)
• Can You Be Injured By Just One Drink? (FindLaw's Injured)

from Injured https://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2018/08/mcdonalds-drinks-spiked-with-opioids-and-cleaning-products.html

National Campfire Day: Camping and Wildfire Injury Roundup

Some of us celebrate campfires every day. For the rest of us that live a little further from the wilderness, we might need an annual reminder or excuse to get out, gather around a fire under the stars, and share our best scary stories. That's what this Saturday's National Campfire Day is for.

But, as experienced campers know, fires can be dangerous, even in the best of conditions. So here are some of our best answers to questions about camping, campfire, and wildfire injuries from our archives: how to prevent them, and what to do if they occur.

1. Putting the 'Wild' in 'Wilderness': Top 5 Camping Injury Questions

Whether in a national park or state campground, injuries can happen. So find out what to do if you're injured while camping, and who might be responsible.

2. Is It Legal to Have a Bonfire?

Most campsites will limit the size of fire you can construct, other locations may allow for larger bonfires. But always check with local ordinances and any specific park rules related to fires before igniting anything.

3. Can California Homeowners Sue for Wildfire Damage?

When a campfire gets out of control, the damage can be catastrophic. And if you let a campfire turn into a forest fire, you could be facing both civil and criminal liability.

4. Top 5 Summer Camp Injury Questions

Summer camps can be a safe place to get an introduction to the wilderness and instruction on how to commune with nature safely and responsibly. It doesn't always work out that way. So, what happens if you or a child are injured at summer camp?

5. FDA Campfire Stories: 3 Spooky Food Recalls

Smokey aromas, spooky stories, s'mores, and maybe even some smoked sausages. Make sure you're keeping that campfire menu safe.

And if you are injured around or by a campfire this weekend, talk to an experienced injury attorney about your legal options.

Related Resources:

• Find Personal Injury Lawyers Near You (FindLaw's Lawyer Directory)
• 3 Things to Know About Camp or Recreational Liability Waivers (FindLaw's Injured)
• Camping Injuries: Who to Sue if a Tree Falls on You (FindLaw's Injured)
• When to Sue for Loss or Damages From Wildfire (FindLaw's Injured)

from Injured https://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2018/08/national-campfire-day-camping-and-wildfire-injury-roundup.html