Oregon updates in category: Wrongful Death

A smoldering fire 1000 ft. inside a tunnel at a hydro-electric plant outside of Georgetown, Colorado, developed late Tuesday, killing five contract workers of the company as they tried in vain to escape. The five who perished in the chemical fire were from a group of nine contract maintenance workers at Xcel Energy. The workers had crawled 1,000 feet inside an empty 4,000 foot long underground...

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Chadd Mitchell died on Saturday at a wind farm that is under construction in Oregon. Mitchell was killed when a 242-foot-tall tower he was working on fell over.Mitchell, of Goldendale, Washington, was working at the top of the tower -- essentially a hollow tube -- when it buckled. A second worker in the tube was injured and a third worker on the ground was not hurt, according to The Oregonian...

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A Portland police sniper that killed a man in 2005 is now being sued his sister that has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the officer and the city.The lawsuit alleges the officer of excessive force in the death of her brother, whom the officer shot in the back with an M-16 rifle. She further accuses the city of wrongful death for their role in what the lawsuit describes is the...

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A wrongful death claim filed against Ohio state contends a police officer killed when responding to a call should have been notified the man being pursued could possibly be armed and dangerous.The officer's widow has filed suit against the Ohio Department of Public Safety and the state patrol. JuWanna Taylor's case will go before the Ohio Court of Claims on Monday, January 23rd. Taylor was...

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A wrongful death lawsuit has been settled with a Mother whose son was killed when a state representative's son hit him in a fatal drunken car crash. After pleading guilty last year to a felony charge of leaving the scene of the accident that resulted in death and a misdemeanor count of drunk driving, Andrew Saunders, has been ordered to serve four years in prison. Saunders was driving a car...

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A wrongful death lawsuit in Texas began Tuesday, involving a woman who was convicted of running over her husband with her Mercedes-Benz in 2002 after finding him at a hotel with his mistress.The wife was sentenced to 20 years of prison time in the murder of her husband. The victim's parents are now suing their daughter-in-law for monetary damages in the wrongful death of their son, according to...

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In an Oregon Court case, Philip Morris complained that the non-parties in the case were never identified, their individual circumstances were not presented in court, and there was no way for a defendant to respond to allegations of widespread harm.Philip Morris argues that individual smokers should have to prove their own cases.In my opinion, this illustrates a larger issue of personal...

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I was reading the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog today when a post by Peter Lattman caught my eye. Lawyers Banter Over Punitive Damages, while highlighting WSJ's new Legal Banter column, also notes that the US Supreme Court will once again address the issue of punitive damages in Philip Morris v. Williams next term.The case is on appeal from the Oregon's Supreme Court, which ruled that a $79.5...

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In another wrongful death case against cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris, the Oregon Court of Appeals threw out a $150 million verdict for the estate of Oregon woman Michelle Schwarz, who died of cancer at age 53 after smoking low-tar cigarettes. Attorneys for Schwarz claimed that the company had marketed its low-tar cigarettes as a safer alternative to regular cigarettes. Multnomah County...

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A wrongful death case against Philip Morris USA that was upheld in the Oregon Supreme Court earlier in 2006 will go to the U.S. Supreme Court this fall. The case involved the family of Jesse D. Williams, who died of lung cancer in 1997 after smoking cigarettes since the 1950s. Williams was a janitor and smoked three packs of Marlboros a day. An Oregon jury awarded the Williams family $80...

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The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that the Oregon state Constitution does not give a family the right to sue a company for negligence after there is a death in the workplace.Our court decided the case against two adult children and the mother of Felix Juarez. Juarez was fatally injured in 2000 when a backhoe bucket struck him at Windsor Island Mine, near Keizer. To read the entire story, see...

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In a case involving the family of Felix Juarez, a worker at the Windsor Island Mine who died from head injuries after being struck by a backhoe bucket, the Oregon Supreme Court rejected the workers' comp suit. The justices made a unanimous decision that the Oregon Constitution did not automatically give the family the right to sue a company for negligence that resulted in its worker's death....

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The family of an Alabama woman who died as a result of injuries suffered during an incident at an Alabama group home has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the facility. Martha Sue Hall had been transferred from a different home to Grand Haven Group Home only three days before her death. She suffered "significant and catastrophic injuries leading to her death," the suit alleges. The Mental...

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