Posts Tagged ‘ Florida ’
Take the Wheel, I have to Shave! and other Tortelicious gems…
March 9th, 2010. By LucyC
Welcome to Totally Tortelicious—a review of some of the more bizarre legal items making news. Goodness knows there’s no shortage of them. 
This one was a real close shave (and a very bad pun). A young woman in Florida, who was driving through the Keys to meet her boyfriend, decided she need to shave her bikini line en-route. I mean who has time to pull over these days? Seriously. 
Not surprisingly, she caused a car crash.
Wait—it get’s weirder. (What is it about Florida?)
The 37-year old handed the wheel of the car to her ex husband—who was not in the driver’s seat—both figuratively and literally. After piling into some poor guy who had slowed down to make a turn, she keeps her foot on the gas—clearly focused on her destination—and drove another half mile down the road where she stopped and swapped seats with her ex-husband so it looked like he was the one who had been driving.
My question is why didn’t she just get her ex-husband to drive her all the way there? As it turns out, she should not have been driving in the first place. The day before the accident, she had been convicted and sentenced to nine months of probation for DUI and driving with a suspended license. Her license was revoked for five years and she was ordered to get her car impounded.
You know, you couldn’t make this stuff up, even if you wanted to.
Talk about getting off to a roaring start. According to New England police, newlywed 22-year-old Marissa
Week Adjourned: 2.12.10
February 12th, 2010. By LucyC
Top Class Actions 
Community Fights Cancer Cluster. What would you do if your neighborhood got the tag line ‘cancer cluster’? Well, several families living in West Palm Beach have filed a potential class action lawsuit against Pratt & Whitney over that very issue. Unfortunately, as the term denotes, the ramifications are serious and affect more than just property values—which is what the class action is about. As many as 10,000 homeowners who live near the Pratt & Whitney plant in The Acreage, Florida could be affected.
According to the complaint, on February 1, 2010 the Palm Beach County Health department confirmed that The Acreage has a cancer cluster—a higher than normal rate of brain tumors among children in The Acreage area, which is located very near the Pratt & Whitney plant.
The source of the illness and the resulting reduction in property values is—you guessed it—toxic chemicals—no surprise there. And it’s quite a list of poisons including oil, sodium cyanide, thorium dispersed nickel, construction debris, unknown solid waste (keyword: unknown), solvents, solvent sludges, asbestos, fuel, paints, pesticide and herbicide residue, benzontrite, mercury, and commercial laboratory chemicals.
Oh—let’s not forget the 1,4-dioxane, also among the contaminants on site, which the US Department of Health
You can sue Tobacco, but it may cost you
January 13th, 2010. By AbiK
If you’ve been keeping up with the news on smoking lawsuits, you’ll know that Florida is the hotbed for action right now. Ever since the Florida Supreme Court threw out a $145 billion judgement against Philip Morris et al in 2006, the road has been opened up for smokers to file individual lawsuits against the tobacco company.
And so they have. But there’s a twist here.
Just yesterday, we learned that ex-smoker Jerome Cohen dropped his lawsuit against Philip Morris. Any time someone—a former smoker—drops their lawsuit against a tobacco company you begin to wonder why. Well, in this instance, Cohen’s lawyer, Philip Gerson, was quoted in the Associated Press as saying that Cohen’s health was the issue—he has lung cancer.
But other reports bring up another little-known—or little publicized—issue: in Florida, if a plaintiff refuses a settlement offer, continues on with their case and loses—or, according to smokersinfo.net, wins a judgement of at least 25 percent less than the defendant’s original offer, the defendant may seek attorney fees and costs from the plaintiff.
And that can be mucho dinero. Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, said in a statement earlier in the week that two other Florida smokers recently had to cough up $100,000 and $30,000 respectively—to Philip Morris—upon losing their cases.
Hard to imagine, but true. And that may well give pause to some indivduals who might otherwise file a lawsuit against Philip Morris.
I tend to look at the consequences of smoking as a mixed responsibility thing—that is, if you started smoking prior to
Week Adjourned: 10.9.09
October 9th, 2009. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
Giving new meaning to Renaissance architecture? Hundreds more people in Florida may be onboard with a new Chinese Drywall class action filed this week. The suit names Coastal Condominiums and Precision Drywall as defendants, and alleges that the toxic drywall used in the construction of Renaissance Commons (at right) is emitting toxic gases into people’s homes.
During the Florida building boom hundreds of millions of pounds of drywall was shipped to ports around the United States from China. While 25 states have reported issues, problems were first noted in Florida, likely because the defective drywall seems to react strongly in humid conditions.
Apparently, some 600 Floridians in 30 counties have reported symptoms such as irritated eyes, bloody noses, rashes and insomnia. This certainly puts a new twist on that old expression— ‘there’s no place like home…’
Mario Aliano is one pissed off beer drinker (bad pun, I know). In fact he’s so angry
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