David Brown, Author at Shepherd & Allen

Author Archive for David Brown – Page 73

Former NBA player Marcus Camby being sued for nephew’s death

Posted by David Brown

· July 4, 2017

Former NBA player Marcus Camby is subject to a wrongful death lawsuit filed Thursday, June 22, 2017. The suit was filed by Marcus Kendall McGhee in the U.S. District Court in Houston. McGhee is the father of Camby’s autistic nephew, 9-year-old Marcus Carter McGhee, who drowned in the manmade pond at Camby’s home in November. According to the suit, the child was son to Camby’s sister.

In the suit, McGhee claims the former NBA Houston Rocket player’s pond was not fenced in — offering no protection to keep the child away from the water — which led to his son’s death while visiting family at Camby’s Pearland home. The report also alleges Camby did not properly supervise the child despite knowing of his nephew’s limitations.

Local news sources report that search crews and law enforcement conducted a search when the child went missing last Thanksgiving afternoon. The search concluded the weekend after Thanksgiving, with searches getting more community support when he was missing more than 24 hours. Locals were asked to check their home security footage and volunteers looked in a six-mile radius around the property. The boy was said to be shy around strangers and non-verbal, leading search parties to play ‘Wheels on the Bus’ — his favorite song.

When the body was found, Camby even expressed his gratitude to those who helped look when speaking with local news outlets:

“My family and I would like to thank the Pearland police department, search and rescue and everyone from the community who assisted in the search for my nephew Marcus. Losing a child is every parent’s worst nightmare and we are heartbroken.” He then claimed that he and his family would be “front and center” to help before requesting privacy.

Marcus Camby played in the NBA for 17 seasons and was named Defensive Player of the Year in the 2006-07 season, having the most blocked shots per game on average. Starting his career on the Toronto Raptors, he made his longest stays with the New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets, playing for the Houston Rockets in 2012 and finally retiring from the Knicks in 2013.

Categories : News

Tags : wrongful death lawsuit

A Grand $100,000 Reward for Any Information about the Crash to Death of the Two Kvalvog Family Teenage Boys

Posted by David Brown

· June 29, 2017

It is unbelievable that two years have passed since the Kvalvog Family lost their two teenage sons. Their death was as a result of a crash on a journey to a baseball competition, in Wisconsin, along Interstate 94. During a radio interview on WDAY radio, Kvalvog recalled how he got the news an hour after he dropped the boys at the school parking lot.

Crash Report Analysis
Kvalvog confirmed that he is ready to pay a double price of $100,000 to anyone who might have a clue about his son’s cause of death. However, he narrated what happened at the incident when the two brothers crashed. Based on an accident report by Minnesota State Patrol, Zach Kvalvog who was aged 18 was behind the wheel with his brother Connor, 14 years aged, in the passenger seat. They were also with other teammates from Park Christian School. A Semi-truck driver is said to have infringed on the young men’s path before they perished on June 23, 2015, near Dalton, Minn. As a result, Zach Kvalvog was forced to swerve out of the lane.

The semi driver never stopped, then the Dodge Ram 2500 pickup truck that the two brothers were in, uncontrollably overturned. They rolled into the middle and wound up on the interstate’s westbound lanes. The two had no chance of surviving; they succumbed on the spot whereas the rest of the passengers Mark Schwandt and Jimmy Morton got hospital admission and later recovered.

Life After The Loss
As what almost every father would do, Kvalvog had to hold someone responsible. He moved to court and filed a death case against Park Christian, Josh Lee who was the basketball coach, the truck manufacturer and the insurance company. He affirmed that his stand was not to seek for financial compensation but to know what and how this happened to his boys. He expressed that it was so hard for him and his wife to move on when their sons meant so much to them. Moreover, the memories and imagination of their young one’s lives keep coming back.

In his view, it is necessary for schools to be careful on how the transportation of students is carried out. He also advocated for proper road marks to be put at the crash site, to keep drivers informed of the road bends.

Categories : News

Tags : wrongful death lawsuit

Austin Convention Center Sued by a Woman over Allegations of negligence after convention center fall

Posted by David Brown

· June 27, 2017

A lady is suing the Austin Convention Center and the city for $1 million. The complainant happened to have attended a meeting at the Austin Convention Center. She claims to have fallen off a flight of stairs she was using. The accident left her with bruises, personal damages, and severe injuries. She filed the suit against the center in Travis County district court.

As indicated by the claim, one of the pins came out as Julie Auslander, walked down the flight towards the end of the occasion, sending her tumbling to the floor. The impact of the fall resulted in multiple injuries and bruises on her body.

It is not the first time that conventions are being held at the Austin Convention Center. Such an incident however, has never happened before; preparations for such events involve great decorations and fitting of the decors that makes the place best suited for the members in attendance. However, proper pinning may not have happened in this event which may have led to the accident.

As a matter of fact, Julie Auslander felt infuriated when she moved to court in Travis County district court. She blames city representatives for neglecting to guarantee that stairs at the convention occasion were stuck appropriately to the stage. Julie argues that supervisions ought to have been done to ensure that all is safe and intact. She indicates that had there been due diligence from the defendants end she wouldn’t have fallen off the stairs.

The case additionally names as litigants the association that facilitated the conference that Auslander was attending. Other defendants are the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, and the firm that promoted it, Stovell Marketing and Public Relations. According to her, all the parties that were involved hold equal blames. In light of this, it is not yet known who will end up paying the fines that the court may decide.
Surprisingly, there was no available Austin city spokesperson to offer remarks about these allegations. The case has not been heard yet leaving the fate of all the parties involved unknown.

Categories : News

Tags : Personal injury

Worker Alleges Mistreatment for Undergoing Chemotherapy

Posted by David Brown

· June 22, 2017

A lawsuit filed last month has shined the spotlight on San Francisco State University after an employee claimed that she was being harassed in the workplace for undergoing chemotherapy.

Angela Sposito’s work life was okay until she had to undergo chemotherapy in 2014 to treat a cancerous tumor. When she got back to work, her supervisors started to alienate her slowly.

Angela began being locked out of meetings, which she had access to previously, without being offered any explanation.

Sposito had, earlier in the year, been granted permission to bring her emotional support dog to the workplace. The dog, named Frankie, was supposed to help her get through her anxiety disorder. However, the university’s president Leslie Wong took issue with the animal saying that she did not want to be around Frankie. She also questioned the need for Sposito to have the dog with her in the workplace in a manner suggesting that she leave Frankie at home.

In 2015, Sposito had a new supervisor, Troi Carleton. Sposito alleges that Carleton tried to convince her to quit her job since she feared that she could one day find Sposito dead in the workplace.

A few months after working with her new supervisor, Sposito was unwillingly placed on administrative leave.

The lawsuit also alleged that during Sposito’s time on leave, the human resource staff began making false utterances regarding her cancer treatment. The suit cited Ann Sherman, who was the then associate vice president of HR, whom it alleges, communicated to other staff members that she believed Sposito was ailing from “chemo brain”.

Sposito was subjected to several fit-for-duty exams, before she was finally allowed to return to work in December 2016. At her return, she was transferred to the human resource department and placed with the same people that were causing her misery.

The university, however, denied the allegations and claimed that it acted appropriately. Daniel Ojeda, the school’s lawyer, argued that Sposito’s claims lacked merit and the university would provide a complete account of the facts to disavow these allegations.

Markedly, Sposito’s suit is not the first complaint to be filed in the courts against the school as Linda Ellis, who is a professor at the school, had accused the University of performing unfair medical exams.

Categories : News

Tags : workplace lawsuit

A Major Relief as a Young Woman Is Awarded $1.8 Million in a Court Ruling

Posted by David Brown

· June 20, 2017

Alexis Mongiello received a major relief after winning a case that has been dragging in the court since 2012. Alexis, aged 24, was awarded $1.8 million by Sussex County jury for permanent spinal injury she suffered after being involved in a car accident at the age of 19.

The accident occurred on the night of November 9, 2012, while Alexis Mongiello of Sparta was driving in an unknown location to meet her boyfriend who was back home for leave. She was looking forward to reconnecting with her boyfriend, who serves as a marine, after a long time. Unfortunately, her joy was cut short by what was to happen.

According to her narration, Alexis Mongiello said that she was in the front seat of the car, which had made a stop at a red light on Route 23 in Butler. Then suddenly she heard a loud bang from behind that immediately sent her to neck pain. It was Gabrielle Gallagher who had rammed into the rear of Alexis’ car. Shortly after the accident, Alexis Mongiello, was rushed to hospital in an ambulance. Since suffering the accident, Alexis has continued to receive treatment and now the medical specialists are considering spinal fusion surgery as the better option to solve the problem that was inflicted on her by the unfortunate event.

The parties in the case had tried to reach for an out of court settlement but in vain, which forced the case to proceed to trial. In the out of court deal, Mercury Insurance, the defendant’s insurer, had offered to pay only $18,000 against $250,000 policy paid by Gabrielle Gallagher, who was behind the accident.

The complaint was demanding the insurance company to pay Gallagher’s policy amount in full, a demand that was fiercely resisted by the company. This is the disagreement that forced the case to go to trial.

During the trial, the defense team for the complainant who included Andrew Fraser, Esq. and William Thayer, Esq., both of Laddey, Clark and Ryan, LLP in Sparta, NJ, argued that a value should be awarded to Alexis on the basis of harms, losses and lifetime suffering that is as a result of the accident. Fortunately, the court sided with Alexis and ruled to her favor, awarding her $1.8m.

Categories : News

Tags : Insurance lawsuit

Corvettes May Be the Most Admired But Not Best In Performance

Posted by David Brown

· June 15, 2017

Everyone has his or her taste of a vehicle they admire and imagine themselves driving. One of the most admired is the Corvette. However, it may turn out not to be the best regarding performance.

Reasons Offered

According to some complaints tabled in a Florida federal court by a group of the vehicle owners, the makers failed to include a good cooling system. These drivers alleged that the Corvette Z06 would overheat and automatically get to what they referred as “Limp Mode.” Despite the fact that the vehicle is meant to operate on high race track performance capabilities, the condition ends up reducing the speeds dramatically in an unexpected way.

Based on their field tests, these racetrack enthusiasts, the Plaintiffs, they would no longer drive at their average speed of 125 Mph. Reasons being that in a short duration of 15 Minutes, the vehicle would heat up and get into the Limp Mode. As a result, Corvette Z06 would lose its stability of operation. What is most astonishing is that the vehicle speeds would drastically drop without even a single warning to the driver or other users. There exists a high chances of this overheating extending to the vehicle engine.
The racetrack enthusiasts blame GM for disregarding more than 117 numbers of different state and government laws, including just to highlight a few, false covering, rupture of guarantee and unreasonable enhancement.

Corvette Z06 Expectations

From the vehicle owner’s point, Corvette Z06 was something entirely different from GM’s promise of a track car. Based on the promise and the marketing done by GM, most of them had expectations of a technologically advanced track vehicle. Much to their surprise, their expectations are not what they received. The most astonishing part is that GM has already been informed of the many defects of the vehicle, but no solutions came with the 2017 model. Despite that the production was halted for some time in an attempt to get a solution, all the company did was make some beautifications. On top of that, GM went ahead and warned the clients of their automatic transmissions overheating, as it was the case with the 2015 and 2016 models.

Categories : News

Tags : Corvette, GM lawsuit

7 Figure Verdict Against Toyota Over 2006 Crash

Posted by David Brown

· June 13, 2017

Accelerator defect! Well, watch out giving this excuse to the US federal courts now. Yeah! Because there has been an interesting development on the ’06 car crash related case that proved fatal. On Friday, the court had reached a decision and it was, to the astonishment of many, against the winds and the court decided to go slightly in favor of the victims of the crash saying that Toyota Motor Corp will pay an amount of $11 million. This case has been in the news for quite some time now as the incident occurred some 11 years ago in Minnesota, USA. The court made the judgment that the accident’s primary cause was the defect in the accelerator.

A US federal court panel comprising of three judges further stated that although in their opinion the driver should be blamed for the accident, although 60% of the problem was with the defective accelerator of the 1996 Camry. The panel on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subtly stated that the jury from Minnesota had ample evidence and in the year 2015 to come to the verdict that this tragic incident happened due to the fault of both the driver and the manufacturer of the car. They stated that Mr. Lee was only 40% liable for the incident yet he was sentenced and was sent to prison but Toyota Motor Corp is 60% liable.

Robert Hilliard, Mr. Lee’s lawyer, presented the argument that his client spent nearly three years in prison for a crime which he hadn’t committed. He further stated that he was released only when there were several reports of unintended acceleration in the vehicles from the same manufacturers. The reason for his release was the motion that he won in 2010.

The auto in the mishap was not secured by Toyota’s review of more than 10 million vehicles in the vicinity of 2009 and 2010 over increasing speed issues. Hilliard stated after the decision that he was not only grateful to the 8th Circuit but also relieved for the family of his client. The other side of the story is pretty daunting as well as the manufacturers of the car are still firmly claiming that the vehicle which was driven by Mr. Lee was completely fine and well designed. They also said that as the court has made its decision so they will respect it.

Unfortunately, the lawyer for the other injured people of the incident was unavailable for a comment but it is quite clear that the trial basically stemmed from the lawsuit which was filed mainly on behalf of the injured or deceased passengers. Mr. Lee had, later on, joined the lawsuit and repeatedly stated that it was completely unintentional and he felt extremely sorry for the family he crashed into. Having made the verdict, the 8th Circuit stated that improper calculations were made for the damages for the mother of those children in that vehicle and recalculations were ordered.

Categories : News

Tags : 11 million Toyota Lawsuit

Lawsuit against McDonald’s by Transgender—What Makes This Case Unique

Posted by David Brown

· June 8, 2017

Although other people have sued McDonald’s over sexual harassment, La’Ray Reed, a 25-year-old crew-member at a Redford, Michigan Mickey D’s, is alleging things and exposing issues that are unique.

What Are the Allegations?

Miss Reed, a transgender, alleges that:

She was a victim of not just verbal harassment but “physical”—i.e., involving being “groped” and touched inappropriately;
Both managers and fellow employees harassed her;
She did complain, only to be ignored, ridiculed, and, ultimately, fired;
She was denied access to both male and female bathrooms—instead forced to use a separate alternate, nasty-looking “closet” she was, to boot, forced to keep clean;
Her hours were cut short, was often sent home early, was denied contact with customers (instead being relegated to backroom duties), and was treated differently than other employees;
Inappropriate comments were routinely made against her;
She may have been singled-out because of her involvement with “Fight for $15,” an organization working to enhance/improve fast-food restaurants;
Abuse/discrimination led to depression and thoughts of suicide.

Why This Case May Have Serious Repercussions

Interestingly, McDonald’s has professed to be supportive of LGBT rights and, supposedly, has a zero-tolerance policy regarding discrimination.

Some of the legal and corporate-governance questions promising to heat things up include:

Since this restaurant is a privately-owned franchise, to what extent can McDonald’s be held responsible?
Will a settlement offer be made and accepted by Miss Reed or will this go to trial?
Will the case go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary?
How will this case affect the highly-charged environment involving sexual-identity/orientation rights?
How will the Trump administration deal with cases like this?
Will the federal government continue to allow states almost complete leeway regarding laws and policies on name and birth certificate changes, parental rights, and the other issues still-unresolved or only-partially-addressed?
Will this case encourage more transgendered abuse victims to come forward?
How many of Miss Reed’s allegations are true and to what extent will McDonald’s side with its franchisee?

Conclusion

Even if only half of Miss Reed’s allegations are true, this is still a very disturbing case. At the very least, McDonald’s may be motivated to more strongly enforce its corporate policies; more importantly, Miss Reed will get the justice all citizens deserve.

Categories : News

Tags : McDonalds LGBT rights, workplace lawsuit

Adventist Church Hit with Lawsuit after Ignoring Teacher Abuse Claims

Posted by David Brown

· June 6, 2017

A lawsuit filed against the Seventh Day Adventist Church in the Seattle area claims the church ignored warnings for years about a teacher who was allegedly sexually abusing students and taught at the church’s schools in Washington and California.

The lawsuit was filed by the David Law Group of Seattle on behalf of victims of the abuse and says that the Seventh Day Adventists received a complaint about Douglas “John” Allison as early as December 2014 and the church ignored it.

The initial complaint followed an alleged incident in Crescent City, California, according to a document provided by the Del Norte Department of Health and Human Services. This incident involved Allison inappropriately touching a female student on multiple occasions and putting his hand down the front of her pants.

Allison was eventually arrested for sexual assault last year in a case separate from the incident in Crescent City. Allison, a principal and one of two teachers at Mountain View Christian School in Sequim, was accused of sexually assaulting two 10 year olds under his desk. According to police reports and the lawsuit, this happened when the other children in the class were distracted watching movies. He was convicted of the crime charged in the Sequim case and is now serving a 26-year prison sentence.

Also in the lawsuit filed in King County, church leaders in Washington and California are accused of having received reports from parents multiple times that showed concern for Allison’s inappropriate behavior of hugging and touching students at the schools. It is not clear what, if any, disciplinary actions or investigations of claims took place following any of the complaints or if any investigation followed the initial Crescent City complaint.

The church has not seen the lawsuit filing yet, which was filed on June 15, and is not making a comment at this time, according to Heidi Baumgartner, a spokesperson for the Western Corporation of the Seventh Day Adventists.

The victim’s family has asked for privacy and is not speaking publicly about the case, according to the Davis Law Group.

Parents are encouraged to communicate with their children about appropriate and inappropriate school behavior, and to report any incidents of abuse to the proper authorities.

Categories : News

Tags : child abuse, sexual abuse and misconduct lawsuit

The Festival of Broken Promises

Posted by David Brown

· May 30, 2017

Social media stars such as Kendell Jenner promoted the The Frye Festival which was said to be “the culture event of the decade.” Who wouldn’t want to be on a secluded island, stay in luxury accommodations, eat great food made by top chefs and hear music from bands for the standard fee. If a festival goer wanted to kick $250 more they could rent a boat or jet ski. For $2,500 partiers could dock a yacht, of course they had to bring their own yacht to do so. For an extra $25,000 Frye attendees could stay on a ship with a full staff. With the base ticket being $1,500 with each of the extras being per individual person it can add up quick.

Many tickets sold in the $250,000 range, making this Festival one of the most expensive in decades.

With everything being offered and the individuals willing to spend their money. Why are organizers, Ja Rule and Billy McFarland now being sued to the tune of $100 million dollars? The answer is that attendees were not met with luxury getaway promised. Festival goers found out in a short period of time that they did not get what they paid for and even worse many were unable to leave with limited shelter, food, medical care, water and organization in general on the island. Obviously this caused a panic. The promised remote island had a hotel on it. Their luxury lodging was explained by attendees as “FEMA tents” many of which were still not set up. The food meant for a king also did not meet the standard expected with Festival goers as they were served ham and cheese sandwiches with a side salad in Styrofoam. But wait they still had the band right? Nope, they all canceled as well.

What happens with the case remains to be seen with several willing to apologize, but nobody seems to be willing to take blame. It’s safe to say there will unlikely be another Frye Festival anytime soon if ever. It remains to be seen however if individuals no matter their financial status will take the time to research future events prior to committing to such an event.

Categories : News

Tags : Frye Festival, Ja Rule sued

Author Archive for David Brown – Page 73

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