The state of Washington, Monsanto and Monroe School District have been charged over a high level of toxic chemicals found in a learning center. The lawsuit has been filed by over forty females constituting of parents and teachers. They are blaming these three institutions for the contamination and its resulting poisoning at the Sky Valley Education Centre.

Children and teachers poisoned

The petitioners cite conditions such as skin peeling, seizure, and respiratory problems, among others as the effect of a chemical poison in the school. Some parents explain that their children always became sick in the school and felt better when they left. Some explain that their children developed asthma from a result of such poisoning.

Monsanto blamed

Monsanto appears as a defendant because it is the manufacture of the chemical in question, Polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs. The firm produced these products without warning the public of its harmful nature. The compound was outlawed in 1970 but remains in use to date.

State of Washington and Monroe School District‘s failure

The lawsuit points out that the state and the School district allowed continued use of the building an education facility despite their knowledge that it had PCB. It refers to a study by the state in 2006 and 2007 that revealed a high level of contamination in the building. Despite the requirements of the state law on safety, the school did not close its door.

A plethora of health issues

Several health issues are alleged to have resulted from this neglect. Some of them include breathing and cardiac problems, autoimmune, skin problems, thyroid and endocrine disorders and stunted development in children. Others include early onset of puberty, asthma, liver damage, stomach pain, vision impairment, and reproductive disorders.

A good school

The only reason why most parents had kept their children in the school is that it felt like a second home to the students. Such is because parents are required to take part in the daily lives of their children.

Defendants’’ response

In response to the lawsuit, the attorney of the Monroe School District provided an elaborate statement of the steps it has taken to ensure the safety of students in the facility. Monsanto on the other end only pointed out to the fact that when it produced PCBs, they were legal and so has no question to answer in the matter.

Royal Palm Beach — On the night of January 25, 2016, at 8:13 p.m.,16-year-old Yessica Angel-Moreno was riding her bicycle home from her first night of English language class at Royal Palm Beach High School, near Okeechobee Boulevard. At the same time, 36-year-old Jorge Manuel Pires was in his 2005 BMW 330I, driving through a shopping center on the same road.

As Angel-Moreno rode her bicycle onto the driveway of the shopping center, Mr. Pires drove onto it in his vehicle. Striking his driver’s side door, she suffered devastating injuries requiring emergency airlifting to St. Mary’s Medical Center. Six days later, she died.

On October 13, 2017, the attorney of Angel-Moreno’s mother, Jason Cornell, filed a lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court against two firms: Timothy J. Messler Inc., the civil engineering firm responsible for Okeechobee Boulevard’s lane expansion, and Royal Arnav, LLC, the company that owns Village Shoppes Plaza.

The suit claims the Jupiter, Florida-based firms’ negligence is to blame for the teen’s death and seeks an unspecified amount in damages.

Mr. Cornell alleges that on the night of January 25, 2016, Mr. Pires could not possibly have seen Angel-Moreno riding past him on her bicycle because of the shopping center driveway’s design. He asserts Royal Arnav should have been aware that the driveway, constructed in 1983 when Okeechobee Boulevard was a two-lane road, was intended only for temporary access to the shopping center and further use was not permitted.

Furthermore, Mr. Cornell alleges Timothy Messler, Inc. should have corrected safety issues with the driveway when it expanded Okeechobee Boulevard from two to six lanes, in 2013. He notes how a sign, trees, and shrubs obstruct motorists’ view of the sidewalk. The civil engineering firm was not available for comment.

Avani Patel, the in-house attorney for Village Shoppes Plaza owner Royal Arnav LLC, said Mr. Cornell is mistaken about the crash site — that it occurred in another shopping center nearby, not in front of Village Shoppes Plaza. “It seems it’s the wrong plaza,” Mrs. Patel said.

On Thursday, August 10th, a Jefferson, Kentucky Circuit Court jury reached a verdict in the case of O’Bryan vs Primal Vantage Co., finding in favor of the plaintiff, Kevin O’Bryan. Mr. O’Bryan was awarded $18.5 million in damages stemming from the injuries he sustained five years earlier while using a product manufactured by the company.

Mr. O’Bryan was out turkey hunting on May 3, 2012, in a tree stand made by Primal Vantage Co. which he had purchased at Dick’s Sporting Goods five years earlier. Polypropylene straps securing the tree stand to the tree failed, the tree stand collapsed, and Mr. O’Bryan was seriously injured after falling to the ground. Following the incident, he suffered from chronic pain and paralysis and endured a divorce.

The legal basis for O’Bryan’s suit against the product manufacturer was founded in negligence and product liability theories that hold a manufacturer or seller liable for placing a dangerous or defective product in the hands of a consumer. In this case, though the product itself was not defective, the product’s marketing was defective in that the labeling did not warn him of the dangers. The civil case presided over by Justice McKay Chuvin ended in the jury’s unanimous ruling that Primal Vantage Co. had not provided Mr. O’Bryan reasonable warning that the tree stand’s securing apparatus — polypropylene straps — were at risk of failure.

Per the verdict form, the jury awarded Mr. O’Bryan $869,975 for past medical expenses, $1.2 million for lost wages, and $13 million for pain and suffering. Sante O’Bryan, his ex-wife, was awarded $80,000 for loss of consortium. Court records state that O’Bryan did not use a safety harness or take other precautions (such as inspecting the tree stand’s stability) which may have prevented his fall; though the jury sided with Mr. O’Bryan’s claims, they found him 50% at fault for his injuries, which reduced the damages awarded to him by half.

Ann Oldfather, Sean Deskins and Michael Hasken represented Kevin O’Bryan; Sante O’Bryan was represented by Jeff Adamson and Paul Casi III.

The allegation of negligence plays the central role in a recent lawsuit brought against Pan Am Railways. Matthew Larson brought the suit against his former employer, Pan Am Railways, claiming that their negligence is directly responsible for him losing his arm.

On the night of December 15, Larson was signaling a countdown of cars so that the engineer would know when to stop. The process involved Larson holding a lantern with his left arm while maintaining contact with the locomotive. As the train came around a slight curve, an unidentified object knocked Larson from the train, causing him to fall in such a way that his arm fell across the tracks. The train, which was traveling roughly seven miles per hour, amputated Larson’s arm just below the shoulder.

The suit alleges that Pan Am failed to clear objects that could pull an individual from a train out of the area of the train’s path—such as tree limbs, which is what purportedly knocked Larson from the train. Additionally, Pan Am is accused of failing to warn Larson of the dangerous conditions and of not suspending work due to those conditions, which included darkness and heavy snowfall that resulted in extremely poor visibility, reads the suit.

Larson was transported to a hospital for emergency care, but will have to undergo more surgeries, be outfitted with a prosthetic left arm, and receive training to use the arm. The suit describes Larson as a “strong able-bodied man” who is 22 years of age. The suit also states that “by reason of his injures, [Larson] lost considerable time from his regular occupation” and will likely not be able to return to employment with Pan Am. Larson is seeking unspecified monetary compensation. So far, Pan Am has not released a statement, citing a company policy against commenting on current litigation.

The accident happened in Glenville, New York, near the Glenville Industrial Park off Route 5. The Glenville police reported that the Pan Am police would be handling the investigation. The initial police report stated that Larson had slipped on ice rather than having been knocked from the train.