Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

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Lennox Hinckson, 65, was working as an elevator maintenance and repair person for Alimak Elevator Co.  He was scheduled to perform standby services at the Holcim cement plant while senior executives toured the plant.

On the second day of Hinckson’s standby service, a Holcim employee allegedly asked Hinckson to repair the preheater towers’ outside elevator, which was landing short of the fourth floor of the tower.

Hinckson began to adjust the limit switch on top of the elevator cab. Unexpectedly, a Holcim employee called the elevator from a lower floor, which caused the elevator to descend.

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Ciara Smith, 13, was riding her bike with her friend in Redondo Beach, Cal. When Ciara came to the Pacific Coast Highway, she intended to use the crosswalk to cross the roadway. Ciara left the curb ramp and her handlebar came in contact with the right side of a bus.

Ciara was thrown from her bike, fell under the rear tires of the bus and suffered fatal injuries. She was survived by her parents.

The Smith family sued MV Transportation Inc., alleging liability for the negligence of its bus driver for choosing not to yield the right-of-way and avoiding a collision with Ciara. The lawsuit also alleged MV Transportation failed to properly train the bus driver.

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After turning right onto a northbound roadway, Victoria Waits Cofer’s vehicle was struck on the driver’s side by a fully loaded tractor-trailer that had just changed lanes.

Cofer, 56, suffered a brain bleed, abdominal injuries and multiple fractures. She died approximately 2½  months later. Cofer’s medical expenses totaled $500,000. She was survived by her husband and two adult children.

Cofer’s estate sued ABF Freight Systems Inc., which owned the tractor-trailer, alleging that the truck’s driver made an ill-timed and unsafe lane change, was speeding and chose not to keep a proper lookout or yield the right-of-way. There was no claim for lost income in this lawsuit.

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Yijing Chen, 26, was walking with his mother, Hong Fen Shen, 53, along a public sidewalk near a freeway on-ramp.

When the traffic signal turned green, Chen and his mother walked across the on-ramp. A pickup truck driven by Nicole Herschel turned right onto the ramp, hitting both mother and son. Shen suffered traumatic injuries and later died. Chen suffered a fractured leg and required surgery.

He sued Herschel, alleging she had chosen not to yield the right-of-way.

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Michelle Anderson, 36, was driving in the southbound lane of the highway when Calvin Adams, traveling in the opposite direction, attempted to pass a line of traffic in a no-passing zone.

Adams crossed the centerline and struck Anderson’s car head-on.

Both drivers were killed in the crash. Anderson was survived by her husband and three minor children.

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Hunter Brown, 25, was traveling to California on a Greyhound bus late at night. The bus stopped at a rest stop and Brown left the bus to use the facilities. When the bus driver, Arthur Coley, began to pull away from the rest stop before Brown had re-boarded, Brown tried to get his attention. The driver drove the bus forward and ran over Brown’s foot and back.

Brown died from his injuries. He was survived by his parents.

The Brown family individually and on behalf of his estate sued Greyhound Lines, alleging negligent hiring and training and vicarious liability. The Brown family asserted that the driver, Coley, chose not to take a headcount before leaving the stop in violation of company’s policy.

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While driving a Schnitzer Steel Industries tractor-trailer on an interstate highway, Kenneth Cathey crossed the center line and collided head-on with an SUV driven by Carrie Jones. There were five occupants of the Jones’ SUV, which included Jones, her two minor children, her mother, Judy Madere, and Madere’s twin sister who died in the crash.

Madere’s husband, individually, and on behalf of her estate, sued Schnitzer Southeast LLC, Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. and Kenneth Cathey.

The plaintiffs claimed that Cathey was driving while fatigued and had slept only 4-5 hours the night before the crash.

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Doe, age 26, was driving on a highway when a wheel detached from a truck driven by a trade school student on the opposite side of the road. The detached wheel crashed through Doe’s windshield killing him. Doe was survived by his parents.

Doe’s parents sued the trade school and the truck driver, alleging that the driver and her classmate had improperly secured this wheel to the truck. The truck belonged to the driver but was used at the trade school four days before the incident. It was also claimed that the students’ work had been unsupervised and was not inspected.

The Doe family claimed that the torque wrench used to do the work had been improperly calibrated and that the wheel had been under-torqued before its separation.

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David Ford’s wife and son (the plaintiffs) filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. after David Ford died as a result of injuries he suffered while working as a contractor at Ford Motor’s Kansas City, Mo., assembly plant.  He was delivering vehicle seats to the plant when he was crushed between a stationary guard rail and a moving piece of machinery.

The Ford family alleged that Ford Motor was negligent for choosing not to remove a barricade with a dangerous pinch point, or to effectively warn visitors of its existence.

After an 8-day jury trial in the Circuit Court of Clay County, Mo., the jury found Ford Motor to have 95% comparative fault for Ford’s injuries and death. The jury signed a verdict in favor of the Ford family, the plaintiffs, in the amount of $38 million in compensatory damages. In addition, the jury awarded the plaintiffs an additional $38 million in aggravating circumstances damages, amounting to punitive damages.

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In the wrongful death case for Lee Lindemann, filed on behalf of the Estate of Sue Ann Lindemann, the U.S. District Court ruled that estoppel blocked National Fire & Marine Insurance Co. from invoking a “declining balance” provision in its insurance policy. This was done to reduce its $1 million liability limit to $600,000, by subtracting the $400,000 National paid to the defense expenses during the two years of litigation.

National’s policy covered Dr. Erick Falconer in this wrongful death case and another defendant, Western Healthcare. In May 2013, the answer that Falconer’s attorney submitted to “Interrogatory 9,” said he was insured under a National policy that had a $1 million liability limit.

But when responding to her request for a copy of the insurance policy, Dr. Falconer’s attorneys reportedly took a shortcut: they referred back to this interrogatory answer. This maneuver meant the litigants didn’t see the policy provision that ordinarily would have reduced the liability limit by the amount of defense expenditures.

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