A stop at local Wendy’s resulted in serious injury for a Williston Park, NY mother and daughter, who have filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit.
Theresa DiMilia and her 11-year-old daughter Samantha walked out of the Wendy’s restaurant on December 4, 2012, when a car being driven by an elderly woman jumped the curb and pinned them against the wall.
“The pain was so unbearable. I remember my daughter Samantha asking me if she was dead,” Theresa DiMilia told 1010 WINS’ Mona Rivera.
A New York man whose morbidly obese, wheelchair-bound wife died last year after she was denied a seat on three different flights home from Hungary sued the airlines on Monday for $6 million.
Vilma Soltesz, who was reported to have weighed 425 pounds, suffered from diabetes and had an amputated leg, news media said. She died at her vacation home in Hungary in October, 2012 after several airline crews repeatedly failed to accommodate her size despite initially telling her they could do so, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan. The suit accused the three airlines of wrongful death and gross negligence.
The couple flew from Manhattan in September on a Delta Air Lines plane, having purchased two seats for Vilma, and arrived safely in Budapest for a vacation, according to the lawsuit.
Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was ordered by a jury to pay $17.3 million to Robyn Cohen, an actress who lived in a building owned by him that caught fire. Cohen, who has had roles in “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” and “Burned,” claimed the fire in the West Hollywood apartment caused emotional trauma that hurt her acting career.
The September 2012 fire was reportedly caused by an electrical problem. Cohen says she was in her apartment reading scripts for the cable series “Gravity” when she heard a noise. She then went into the hallway where she discovered smoke and called 911. Cohen’s attorney Melissa Yoon blamed Sterling, who owns 130 buildings in Los Angeles.
The lawsuit for breach of contract, breach of warranty of habitability and intentional infliction of emotional distress alleged that Sterling failed to properly maintain smoke detectors in the building. Sterling’s attorney, Guy Gruppie, said Sterling delegated those operations to his staff. He also expressed doubt about Cohen’s claim that the fire damaged her career. “She is able to work, and she is doing well. The truth is Ms. Cohen’s career is thriving,” Gruppie said.
Angelica Keller was on a Southwest flight to Houston last December when she ordered a cup of tea from the attendant.
Since she was in the front row, Keller, 43, did not have a drop-down tray, and spilled the steaming hot water on her lap.
Keller, a construction worker from Georgia, suffered second-degree burns and blisters, according to her attorney Rob Anderson, who filed an $800,000 negligence lawsuit against Southwest Airlines.
A Massachusetts woman has sued the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire for $750,000, claiming that she suffered a severe ankle injury when she stepped into a hole in a city park. Mary Reed and her husband Richard filed the federal suit in the New Hampshire District Court. Reed alleged that as she was walking across the park on June 15, 2011, she stepped into a “deep, grass-covered hole” causing “serious and permanent” injuries, according to her attorney, Peter Hutchins. Her husband is seeking damages for the loss of consortium.
The City asked the federal court to dismiss the suit through William Scott, an attorney for its insurance provider. Mr. Scott cited state law, which grants immunity from liability to landowners who make their property available to the public free of charge. Scott argued that if the court awards her damages, they should be “proportionately reduced in accordance with her comparative negligence.” Reed describes the hole as at least a foot deep and 2 1/2 feet wide, and covered by grass, rendering it unnoticeable. The city, according to Scott, believes the “depression” was at most an inch or two deep and a foot wide.
Reed claims that as a result of her fall, she has suffered “prolonged and continued pain and suffering, severe emotional distress and mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, prolonged and repeated medical procedures, medical expenses and permanenet impairment.” Her husband claims that as a result of the accident, he has suffered the loss of “society, companionship, services and consortum of his injured wife.” Scott contends that Richard Reed is not entitled to any compensation.
With National Teen Driver Safety Week just behind us, the Department of Transportation has launched a new initiative to get parents and teens to talk about safe driving. Parents also should model safe-driving habits for their teens if they want to make a real impression, safety officials said.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (as cited in the Los Angeles Times article by Jerry Hirsch, October 15, 2012) 1,963 drivers age 15 to 20 died and an additional 187,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes in 2010. One out of 10 drivers involved in a fatal crash were between the ages of 15 and 20. “Immaturity, inexperience, and a penchant for risk-taking are the major reasons for high crash and fatality rates among teen drivers,” said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland. “In addition to comprehensive state graduated driver licensing systems and strong bans on teen cellphone use and texting while driving, parents who are involved throughout the learning-to-drive process are vital in creating safe and prepared young drivers.”
As part of Safety Week, NHTSA gave these tips for parents of teen drivers.
Nobody walks in L.A. – and maybe for good reason.
According to a study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, cited by the Los Angeles Times, pedestrians and bicyclists in Los Angeles are killed at a significantly higher rate than in other states.
In Los Angeles, pedestrians accounted for about a third of all traffic fatalities, or nearly triple the national average of 11.4%. About 3% of the fatalities were bicyclists, compared with 1.7% nationally.
When you rent a car from a major rental agency, you assume that it has been inspected and is safe to drive. Unfortunately, this may not be the case. Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both D-Calif., are leading the fight in Congress to require rental agencies to repair vehicles that are under manufacturer’s recall before renting or selling them. Hertz has agreed to this policy, but other large companies, such as Enterprise, Avis and Dollar Thrifty, are resisting.
“Our families deserve a permanent commitment to safety,” said Boxer, who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “Until they sign the pledge, tell your families not to go to those companies.”
As reported in USA Today, the proposed legislation stems from a 2004 accident in which Cally Houk’s two daughters were killed when the Chrysler PT Cruised they rented from Enterprise crashed into a tractor-trailer. About a month earlier, Enterprise had received a recall notice warning that a fault with the power steering hose could cause a fire, and that it would be repaired by Chrysler free of charge. Despite the notice, Enterprise did not get the vehicle repaired and rented it out to three other customers before the Houk sisters. “My daughters died instantly in a fireball,” said Houk. “We’re going to keep fighting.”
