April 20, 2017 Wanda Holbrook, a Grand Rapids resident and 12-year veteran of an automotive factory, died when a robot’s arm malfunctioned and pressed her head into a fixture on July 7, 2015. The Ventra Ionia Plant used robots to weld plates onto truck bumpers, and one robotic arm swung into the 57-year-old woman’s area, resulting…
March 31, 2017 In February 2017, a 26-yr.-old man received $56.5 million in a jury lawsuit award from the California Department of Transportation after he was paralyzed while working construction by Highway 101 in Eureka on Aug. 30, 2011. A 1997 Acura plowed into the worker who was partially hidden in a hole off the…
February 28, 2017 At the end of a lengthy trial in the Compton Superior Court, a California family received a $26 million award in damages for the wrongful death of their teenage son, Mason Zisette. The deliberating jury handed down the largest verdict in California concerning a minor’s death. Mason Zisette received an invitation to…
February 20, 2017 In a lawsuit filed in late December 2016, two former Microsoft employees allege the development of post-traumatic stress disorder from reviewing and reporting content such as child pornography, bestiality and murder. While Microsoft concedes the work is difficult, the company contends the position safeguards the internet experience of users. As such, Microsoft…
January 31, 2017 A year after a mentally ill prisoner was beaten to death in a Santa Clara correctional facility, the victim’s family settled the case out of court for $3.6 million. The family of Michael Tyree, 31, includes his 7-year-old daughter and his two sisters. However, the family lawyer reported that the award from…
December 20, 2016 Mere days before a scheduled workers’ compensation price increase, a Florida judge halted the increase because of reported legal violations. Another state agency vowed to appeal. Earlier in 2016, the state determined that some parts of Florida’s workers’ compensation laws were unconstitutional. The National Council on Compensation Insurance, which handles rates proposals,…
December 13, 2016 A Los Angeles County jury awarded $3.7 million to a motorcyclist who suffered multiple injuries in a 2014 vehicular accident in a case that demonstrates how comparative negligence functions in the state. The case involved lane splitting and applied recently passed legislation in California, which affected the compensation amount. The defendant drove…
In August 2016, a jury awarded a man’s family nearly $27 million in a workers’ compensation case after he lost his life when he fell 30 feet while at work and suffered a head injury after part of a wall collapsed. The case highlighted the importance of shared liability, workers’ compensation involvement and responsibility in…
November 23, 2016 In September 2016, a South Carolina jury ruled to give a woman more than $4.6 million after a needle pricked her outside a Target. Prior to the civil lawsuit, the woman’s attorney had submitted a settlement offer for $12,000, which was rejected by Target. In May 2014, Carla Denise Anderson parked in…
November 9, 2016 In September 2016, parties agreed to a $1.9 million settlement in the case of Sandra Bland, a woman who lost her life after incarceration in a Texas jail during the summer of 2015. The courts awarded the money to her mother, Geneva Reed-Veal. While officials are questioning the finality of the agreement,…