Chicago Company Refused to Permit a Qualified Employee With A Disability to Return to His Position Following Medical Leave, Federal Agency Charged...
Continue readingBy Christy Gutowski Tribune reporter 6:40 p.m. CDT, July 24, 2014 It was supposed to be a workplace exercise to build mutual respect, understanding and empathy between co-workers of an Addison fire safety company. Instead, according to a DuPage County lawsuit, one employee experienced “pain and suffering in body and mind” when he fell to the floor after being “propelled” into the air during what was supposed to be a team-building event. Antonio Gonzalez filed the suit earlier this month against Guardian Quest, an Aurora business management consulting firm that held the “diversity inclusion” training workshop two summers ago in an Oakbrook Terrace...
Continue readingA suburban mother has filed a lawsuit claiming an elementary-school student bullied and beat up her son, a third-grader at the same Mount Prospect school. In the lawsuit, which also identifies the boy as a plaintiff, Deveri Del Core, claims there was "continuous" bullying of her son throughout the 2013-14 school year. The lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court Tuesday said the boy was hit, punched, choked, elbowed, kicked, pushed, tripped and spat on on a weekly basis by another student. Both were third-grade students at Robert Frost Elementary School in Mount Prospect, although the two boys were in different classes. The...
Continue readingAttorney Represents Women Across America in Yaz Injury Lawsuits Against Bayer NEW YORK, Sep 26, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a statement today that the FDA remains concerned, but has not yet reached a conclusion, about the potential increased risk of blood clots from Drospirenone-containing birth control pills such as YAZ, YASMIN, BEYAZ, and OCELLA, among others. Preliminary results from an FDA-sponsored study of 800,000 women taking birth control pills shows that there is a 1.5 increased risk among Drospirenone-containing pill users. To address these concerns, the FDA has scheduled an important meeting for December 8, 2011....
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An $1.5 million settlement is proposed for sex assault lawsuits brought by two special education students at Bogan High School in Chicago A special education student allegedly assaulted two classmates on separate dates in a bathroom at a southwest side high school, according to two lawsuits filed against the Chicago Board of Education. Bogan Computer Technical High School's special education student reported in June 2016 that another special education student attacked him twice in a bathroom. The special education plans for both boys required supervision in the restroom. In court, a CPS attorney argued that while the boys were supervised on trips...
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By Mike Stunson April 15, 2022
A Kentucky jury awarded $450,000 to a man who suffered panic attacks following an unwanted birthday celebration by his employer.
In August 2019, an employee at a Kentucky-based laboratory asked his office manager not to arrange a celebration for his birthday.
According to court records, it wasn’t his fear of growing older, but rather an anxiety disorder that causes panic attacks in stressful situations. According to company documents, the employee, who was hired in October 2018, did not want a celebration because “being the center of attention” could trigger his disorder.
His panic attack was triggered when his company threw him a lunchtime party against his wishes, and he left abruptly to spend his break in his car. After his office managers confronted him about his reaction, he was fired from the Northern Kentucky company four days later, according to court records.
The man sued Gravity Diagnostics, and this week, a jury awarded him $450,000 in damages for his lost wages and emotional distress.
In a statement, FedEx confirmed that it was aware of the lawsuit and was reviewing the allegations. Families of five of the eight people who were killed by a former FedEx employee at an Indianapolis warehouse last year have sued the shipping company and a security company, alleging negligence and failure to ensure a safe workplace. It claims that Brandon Scott Hole, 19, had "exhibited emotional and mental instability on multiple occasions" before the April 15, 2021, shooting. The lawsuit names FedEx Corporation, three of its operating units, and Securitas Security Services USA as defendants. According to the lawsuit, defendants "knew or should...
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A Cole County jury on Saturday awarded $2.02 million in damages to a former state employee with disabilities who was wrongfully terminated....
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A former bartender has filed a lawsuit accusing the hotel chain of underpaying overtime wages and withholding tips. The suit could affect as many as 1,000 employees....
Continue readingOn August 26, 2021, Illinois Governor Pritzker issued an Executive Order which mandates COVID-19 vaccinations for certain professionals in healthcare and education, as well as for students and state employees, subject to certain limited exemptions which require regular COVID-19 testing. The Order became effective immediately. The Order also mandates that all individuals in Illinois who are at least two years old and who are medically able must wear face coverings indoors and in other specified settings. The Order requires all Health Care Workers, School Personnel, Higher Education Personnel and Higher Education Students to receive at least the first dose of a...
Continue readingSenator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas have introduced legislation in their respective chambers that would allow American citizens to sue China in federal court to recover damages for death, injury, and economic harm caused by the novel Coronavirus pandemic. The bill would amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to create an exception where a private citizen can sue for damages caused by COVID-19 and China’s negligent handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Senator Cotton said the goal of this legislation would be to hold China accountable for their actions in silencing whistleblowers regarding the...
Continue readingThe Boy Scouts of America, an iconic national institution, has filed for bankruptcy in Delaware as a result of growing litigation regarding multiple reports of sexual assault and sexual abuse by Scout leaders, Scoutmasters, and other Boy Scout authority figures. The bankruptcy filing is the organization’s attempt to quell extensive litigation that is being prepared against the Boy Scout organization. This bankruptcy filing could also potentially create a deadline for former scouts that want to bring a claim against the Boy Scouts of America. This isn’t the first time the Boy Scouts have come under fire in the past...
Continue readingJimmy’s Charhouse of Elgin, an Elgin, Ill., steakhouse, will pay $205,000 to resolve a sex discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced Wednesday. The EEOC sued Jimmy’s Charhouse on behalf of female employees who charged that they were sexually harassed by restaurant employees, including managers. The case, EEOC v. Jimmy’s Charhouse of Elgin, Inc. (10 C 6181), was filed on September 27, 2010. According to the suit, employees of Jimmy’s Charhouse, including former managers, harassed several hostesses and waitresses at the restaurant. The alleged harassment included sexual propositions, crude sexual comments and groping. One of...
Continue readingWhen someone experiences discrimination at work – whether on the basis of his race, gender, age, sexual orientation – the victim should go to the company’s leadership to address and remedy the discrimination. But what happens when the discrimination originates with the very leadership who is supposed to make sure it doesn’t happen in the first place? According to a recent Chicago Tribune article, the Tribune had obtained copies of over 1,300 emails from the Chicago Water Department and found that many of those emails contained highly offensive, derogatory and discriminatory content and language that was not only entirely inappropriate for...
Continue readingMany state and federal laws are intended to regulate businesses and places of employment, in order to promote consumer and employee safety. However, certain employers nonetheless violate these laws, and it is only because courageous employees expose this activity that this conduct is brought to light. These Good Samaritan employees who decide to “blow the whistle” on their employers take great risks in coming forward. Illinois law protects employee whistleblowers when they reasonably believe that their employers are violating a state or federal law, and has enacted the Illinois Whistleblower Act (“IWA”), 740 ILCS 174/ to afford certain protections to...
Continue readingBy ROBERT JABLON Associated Press Associated Press An insurance company settled a lawsuit with a Los Angeles man by dropping off buckets full of thousands of quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies, his attorney said Wednesday. Andres Carrasco, 76, filed a lawsuit in 2012 against Adriana's Insurance Services, a Rancho Cucamonga-based company. The East Los Angeles man alleged that during an argument over why the company had cancelled his auto insurance, an agent assaulted him by physically removing him from the office. The company reached a settlement in June and last week delivered partial payment in the form of a check, but also tried to leave...
Continue readingBy Debra Cassens Weiss A Connecticut lawyer has been suspended for four months and barred from representing female clients for the rest of his career after he was accused of representing women in family law and domestic-violence cases in violation of a 2010 court order. The disciplinary counsel had initially sought disbarment for lawyer Ira Mayo, alleging he had violated the court order at least 11 times, the Connecticut Law Tribune reports. Mayo agreed to the suspension and ban on representing women to resolve the disciplinary complaint. Mayo was accused in two prior ethics cases, according to the Connecticut Law Tribune. In the...
Continue readingBy Lina Khan Late last year a massive data hack at Target exposed as many as 110 million consumers around the country to identity theft and fraud. As details of its lax computer security oversight came to light, customers whose passwords and credit card numbers had been stolen banded together to file dozens of class-action lawsuits against the mega-chain-store company. A judge presiding over a consolidated suit will now sort out how much damage was done and how much Target may owe the victims of its negligence. As the case proceeds, documents and testimony pertaining to how the breach occurred will...
Continue readingBy Adam Sege, Tribune reporter The mother of a Southern Illinois University student found dead in February alleges in a lawsuit that the 19-year-old was beaten to death by someone who had given him a ride after a party. Pravin Varughese was found dead in a wooded area near Carbondale on Feb. 18, six days after he was last seen leaving the party about three miles away, according to authorities. An autopsy by the Jackson County coroner’s office concluded that Varughese died of hypothermia, with no evidence of foul play. But in a second autopsy commissioned by the student's family, an independent forensic...
Continue readingMount Prospect has agreed to a $6.5 million settlement that will end an unusual lawsuit filed by a restaurant owner who sued the village using a federal law more commonly used to bust organized crime. 1928 The village board on Tuesday night approved the settlement with the owner of Ye Olde Town Inn, Tod Curtis, who has run the pizzeria for more than 40 years, said one of his lawyers, Riccardo DiMonte. Under the agreement, the village and its insurer will pay $6.5 million, $2 million of which will go toward attorney fees and legal costs. The village will pay $439,002 and...
Continue readingThe woman seen on a now-viral video being repeatedly punched by a California Highway Patrol officer said her dress was violently ripped to expose her bare buttocks as she told the officer “I didn’t do anything to you,” according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed last week and amended Friday. Marlene Pinnock, 51, said in the lawsuit that she had dealt with the officer in the past, and that he called her by name as she walked in the area of the 10 Freeway west of downtown Los Angeles July 1. When she began to leave the area the lawsuit...
Continue readingPublic health advocates are fuming over a new court ruling that they say could hasten the coming of the next pandemic. In a 2-1 decision released Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration need not consider banning the use of antibiotics in healthy food-producing animals. "We believe that this decision allows dangerous practices known to threaten human health to continue," said Avinash Kar, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Adding antibiotics to farm animals' feed, day after day, is not what we should be doing. It's not what the...
Continue readingMichael Muskal Los Angeles Times 1:35 p.m. CDT, July 25, 2014 In the second recent scandal to cloud a nationally acclaimed marching band, the director of the Ohio State University band has been dismissed after investigators found a sexualized culture of rituals in the group that bills itself as the “Best Damn Band in the Land.” Band director Jonathan Waters was fired by the school after an investigation prompted by a parental complaint found the band’s “culture facilitated acts of sexual harassment, creating a hostile environment for students.” The lawyer representing Waters said the band leader will fight to clear his name. According...
Continue readingBy David Ovalle dovalle@MiamiHerald.com During a Hialeah Gardens school “Spirit Day,” a teen girl dressed in an inflatable sumo wrestler suit for what was supposed to be a goofy match with a classmate. But a lawsuit claims the sumo fun went horribly wrong, leaving the teen with severe brain damage after her head repeatedly struck the floor. The girl, 15-year-old freshman Celaida Lissabet, and her mother late last week sued charter school Mater Academy and Mega Party Events, the company that supplied the inflatable suits, which the lawsuit contends are designed for use in “violent recreational sumo wrestling games.” Adrian De La Rosa, owner of...
Continue readingTyler Kingkade The University of Connecticut will pay nearly $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit brought forward by five sexual assault victims, the school and the women's attorney announced Friday, but it will not admit to wrongdoing in the cases. The lawsuit, filed against UConn on Nov. 1 by high-profile attorney Gloria Allred and co-counsel Nina Pirrotti, came days after four of the women filed two federal complaints to the Department of Education. UConn was accused of mishandling rape cases and refusing to condemn or intervene on reported harassment of female students, in violation of the gender equity law Title IX. UConn is...
Continue readingSTATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- One of the two civil rights lawsuits against Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who put Eric Garner in a chokehold Thursday, ended up costing taxpayers $30,000 in settlement money, according to the plaintiffs' attorney. The suit, which was settled in January, accuses Pantaleo and another officer of strip-searching two men on a New Brighton street, pulling down their pants and underwear in broad daylight, in March 2012. It alleges that Pantaleo and several other officers -- Joseph Torres, Ignazio Conca, and Steven Lopez -- "unlawfully stopped" a vehicle on Jersey Street in New Brighton. Another officer, Christian Cataldo,...
Continue readingMike Parker (CBS) – Brian Davidson is a homeless man who panhandles on the streets of Joliet. Because of that, he says police have harassed, ticketed him and intimidated him time after time. He recalls one night in December when he had a run-in with two police officers downtown. “Next thing I know, they’re handcuffing me,they throw me in the back of the car and said they’re taking me for a ride,” Davidson tells CBS 2’s Mike Parker. Homeless Man’s Lawsuit: Joliet Cops Drove Him To Small Town, Dumped Him During Winter Freeze...
Continue readingBy Barbara Liston ORLANDO Fla. Sat Jul 19, 2014 6:32pm EDT (Reuters) - A Florida jury has awarded the widow of a chain smoker who died of lung cancer punitive damages of more than $23 billion in her lawsuit against the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the nation's second-biggest cigarette maker. The judgment, returned on Friday night, was the largest in Florida history in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by a single plaintiff, according to Ryan Julison, a spokesman for the woman's lawyer, Chris Chestnut. Cynthia Robinson of Florida Panhandle city of Pensacola sued the cigarette maker in 2008 over the death of her...
Continue readingUpdated by Susannah Locke on July 16, 2014, 2:40 p.m. ET Sexual harassment and assault are problems that no one should have to deal with in the workplace. And according to one new study, even science isn't immune to such problems. "The study is the most in-depth look yet at sexual harassment in science" The paper, published in PLOS ONE, surveyed more than 600 anthropologists, archaeologists, biologists, zoologists, and other scientists about their experiences while doing fieldwork away from the university. And the picture was disturbing — there were many experiences of sexual harassment and assault, as well as little awareness of how to...
Continue readingBy Riley Snyder A former Twitter employee is suing the company, alleging that the social media giant fired him for being too old. The lawsuit was filed by former Twitter employee Peter Taylor, who alleged he was fired last year with no warning and a month after the then-57-year-old underwent surgery to remove kidney stones. The suit says Taylor saved Twitter millions of dollars during its data center expansion and met all performance review standards before he was fired and replaced by workers in their 20s and 30s. Taylor, who worked as Twitter’s manager of data center deployment, said in the suit that his...
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