South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

Can somebody out there please tell me what is with these people going crazy on flights?

The Associated Press report reported another incident yesterday involving a passenger who got a little too hopped up on booze and proceded to grab a flight attendant’s buttocks after throwing a bunch of ice at his fellow travelers.

The passenger’s name is Jacob Kline, and he was traveling on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Charlotte on Tuesday. Kline started drinking rum and cokes and quickly became disruptive. (After three. Kind of a light weight, huh?)

After flight attendants refused to top him up for a fourth time, Kline allegedly took his cup of ice and started throwing cubes around the cabin. He then got up, started swearing and tussled with a flight attendant until someone the AP describes as “very large in size” subdued him.

And get this: Klines was travelling with his wife and two children.

The pilot reportedly requested a rapid descent landing. Kline was arrested and charged with being intoxicated and a whole host of other things.

This happened about a week after a JetBlue passenger punched a flight attendant after she lit up a cigarette during a flight.

This latest incident will no doubt bolster the zany idea of a Denver group that is trying to petition the nation’s airports to install special smoking sections for marijuana enthusiasts, thinking that if you allow passengers to get high there will be less of a chance that they will become disruptive on a flight.

A helicopter ferrying a patient with a medical emergency from the Grand Canyon collided into another chopper carrying a patient near a northern Arizona hospital, leaving six people dead and critically injuring a nurse.

The collision Sunday east of Flagstaff Medical Center was a few hundred yards away from a neighborhood that was spared the falling debris. Officials said they were unable to provide an account of what preceded the crash.

Lawrence Garduno, who lives about a half mile from the crash, said he heard a loud boom that rattled the windows. He drove toward the hospital and stopped to see the burning wreckage. “It kind of scares me,” Garduno said. “If this had happened a half mile closer, it could have fallen on our house.”

An explosion on one of the aircraft after the crash injured two emergency workers who arrived with a ground ambulance company. They suffered minor burns and were spending the night at the hospital, but their injuries were not life-threatening. The crash, about 130 miles north of Phoenix, also sparked a 10-acre brush fire that was contained.

One of the helicopters was operated by Air Methods from Englewood, Colo., and the other was from Classic Helicopters of Woods Cross, Utah. Both aircraft were Bell 407 models, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Three people on the Air Methods aircraft, including the patient, died. On the Classic helicopter, the pilot, paramedic and patient died. A flight nurse on the Classic helicopter suffered extensive injuries and was in critical condition at the hospital.

Matt Stein, a program director and lead pilot with Classic Helicopters subsidiary Classic Lifeguard Aeromedical Services in Page, Ariz., said his company’s crew was landing at Flagstaff Medical Center carrying a patient with a medical emergency from the Grand Canyon’s South Rim.

“We’ve been in business 20 years, and these are the first fatalities we’ve experienced,” Stein said. “They were all heroes. They were out doing a great service for their communities.”

Stein didn’t tell The Associated Press the names of the crash victims, except to say that the pilot for Classic was experienced with more than 10,000 hours of flight time. He added that it’s rare for two medical helicopters to attempt to land at a hospital at the same time.

Flagstaff Medical Center doesn’t have flight controllers, he said, and it’s up to the pilots to watch each other as they approach.

Air Methods officials didn’t return calls from the AP on Sunday night.

The helicopters spread debris across the scene. “They’re not recognizable as helicopters,” said Capt. Mark Johnson, a spokesman for the Flagstaff Fire Department.

The FAA is sending inspectors to investigate.

Hospital officials declined requests to interview the hospital president and the two burn victims.

It was the largest loss of life involving helicopters in Arizona since two news helicopters collided last summer while covering an auto chase near Phoenix, killing all four people on board.

Four dollar a gallon gasoline has stolen a beach vacation in South Carolina from Julie Jacobs’ family and exotic bath washes from Angela Crawford.

Phil English had to sell his beloved but fuel-guzzling red pickup.

Like a plague that does not discriminate by economic class, race or age, soaring fuel prices are inflicting pain throughout the U.S. Nine in 10 are expecting the ballooning costs to squeeze them financially over the next half-year, an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Monday says.

Nearly half think that hardship will be serious. To cope, most are driving less, easing off the air conditioning and heating at home and cutting corners elsewhere. Half are curtailing vacation plans; nearly as many are considering buying cars that burn less gas.

As the price has spiraled upward so, too, has the public’s ire.

Two-thirds consider gas prices an extremely important issue, edging the economy and outpacing health care and Iraq as the country’s most distressing problem. In November, when gas cost about $1 a gallon less than today, just under half rated it extremely important.

“Do you think there’s an end in sight? I don’t,” the 33 year old Crawford, a Dallas homemaker, said in an interview.

She said switching to bar soap from a favored lotion is one of many “little small luxuries” she has given up, along with fewer restaurant meals and new clothes. She also has talked with her husband, a flooring contractor, about finding a job involving less long-distance driving with his heavy van.

“It’s depressing and it makes you nervous,” she said.

The AP-Yahoo News poll, conducted by Knowledge Networks, has tracked the same 2,000 people since last fall to see how their views change during the presidential campaign. The latest survey shows how the price of gasoline has caught or eclipsed every other issue, not just as a political topic but as a problem in peoples’ lives.

“You’re saddened prices are going up and you can’t do the extra things you would have done,” said Amy Pysarenko, 35, of San Antonio, whose concern about gas prices has grown since November. She says while her family has cut back on amusement park visits and saving for their children, “I feel fortunate because maybe someone else eats beans instead of hamburgers.”

The 47 percent in the most recent survey who expect higher gas costs to cause serious hardship is about the same as in last year’s poll, but an increase from the 30 percent who said so in an AP-Ipsos poll in June 2004. Then, regular gas averaged $1.97 a gallon nationally, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

Lower-income people, of course, are bearing the brunt of it. As higher prices push grocery, pizza delivery and other costs upward, just over half of those without college degrees, and about the same number earning less than $50,000 a year, are expecting serious personal financial problems to result.

“We just don’t do as much,” said William Fisk, 39, a former dishwasher in Freeport, Maine. “We used to go out to have dinner, but we’re cutting way back on that.”

Yet significant numbers of the better-off are feeling pain, too. Four in 10 people in families earning $50,000 to $100,000 annually, and one in six earning more than that, expect serious financial hardships from rising gas costs, as do one in three college graduates.

Many lower earning families are responding by easing their use of air conditioning and heating, trimming vacation plans and cutting other spending. But higher-income people are not far behind.

Two thirds earning under $25,000 a year are cooling and heating their homes less, as are nearly six in 10 people earning more than $100,000. Just over four in 10 of the lowest earners are cutting vacation spending, only slightly likelier than those earning at least six figures to do so.

Rich or poor, black or white, young or old, nearly everyone is looking to drive less: A nearly uniform seven in 10 say they are reducing driving. That compares with six in 10 who said so in an April 2005 AP-AOL survey.

Jacobs, a homemaker and mother of three in Baltimore, said gas costs forced her to turn down two summer trips, a cousin’s wedding in North Carolina and a vacation with her parents in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

“My parents said, ‘Come down, spend a week with us,”‘ said Jacobs, 35. “But when you add on the expense of gas, it’s just not worth it.”

Ironically, Jacobs plans to begin taking lessons this week for her first driver’s license. “Just as prices go through the roof,” she said. Four in 10 are considering buying a vehicle that gets better gas mileage than their current one. That is about the same number who said so three years ago.

Some have already taken that step. English of Papillion, Neb., sold his 1998 Ford pickup, which got about 13 miles per gallon, for a more fuel-efficient convertible.

“It was a nice truck,” said English, 43, an aircraft mechanic. “It didn’t feel good” to get rid of it “and it still doesn’t,” he said.

Midwesterners are among the likeliest to think rising gas costs will cause them serious personal hardship; Southerners are among the more willing to reduce driving.

As a political issue in the presidential campaign, gas prices provide a slight edge to Democrat Barack Obama. More prefer him over Republican John McCain to handle the problem, 28 percent to 20 percent, while an additional 18 percent trust both equally.

There also is a strong sense of powerlessness. One-third do not think either candidate can deal with the problem. That includes half of independents, one-third of Republicans and one quarter of Democrats.

The AP-Yahoo News survey of 1,759 adults was conducted from June 13-23 and had an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. Included were interviews with 844 Democrats and 637 Republicans, for whom the margins of sampling error were plus or minus 3.4 points and 3.9 points, respectively.

The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it for free.

Hewlett Packard, in cooperation with CPSC, is recalling Fax 1010 and 1010xi Fax Machines due to an internal electrical component failure that can cause the machines to overheat, posing a potential burn or fire risk.

The company has received three reports of the machine overheating, including two in the U.S. that resulted in minor property damage. To date, no injuries have been reported.

The recall involves only the HP Fax 1010 and HP Fax 1010xi models that were made from November 2002 – September 2004. The model name, number and HP logo are displayed on the front of the machine.

Consumers are advised to disconnect power and discontinue use of the the recalled fax machine. HP is offering consumers a full-rebate.

For more information, consumers can contact HP directly at (888) 654-9296 between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. MT Monday through Friday.

The Georgia Court of Appeals has ruled that the family of the county court reporter killed in the March 11, 2005, courthouse shootings may sue the Fulton County sheriff for negligence.

In a nine-page opinion released Thursday, the three-judge appellate panel overturned a lower court finding that Fulton County Sheriff Myron E. Freeman is a county employee. Instead, he is “an elected constitutional county officer,” the appellate panel found, noting that Georgia’s Constitution “has made the sheriff independent from the county, notwithstanding the sheriff’s designation as a county officer.”

The distinction could be critical in the litigation against Freeman.

Fulton County staff lawyers defending Freeman have argued that the sheriff couldn’t be sued by the family of slain court reporter Julie Ann Brandau because such litigation is barred by the federal Workers Compensation Act, which generally bars all claims by an injured employee against a co-employee or employer.

The appellate ruling by Judge Herbert E. Phipps (who authored the opinion), Presiding Judge Edward H. Johnson and Chief Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes will allow Brandau’s daughter and sole heir, Christina E. Scholte, and her estate’s executrix, Gertrude Brandau, to seek a monetary judgment from a jury rather than have their remedies limited to potentially far smaller workers’ compensation benefits.

Andrew M. Scherffius III, who represents the Brandau family, couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.

Senior Fulton County attorney R. David Ware, one of the county attorneys defending Freeman, also could not be reached for comment.

Brandau and Judge Rowland W. Barnes (no relation to Court of Appeals Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes) were gunned down in Barnes’ courtroom during a civil hearing. The suspect in the slayings, Brian G. Nichols, was a rape defendant in a trial before Barnes. Nichols, who was in the sheriff’s custody, allegedly overpowered a deputy, took her gun and then shot Brandau, Barnes, sheriff’s deputy Hoyt Teasley, and later that day, federal agent David Wilhelm. Nichols’ trial for those slayings is slated to resume July 10.

The shootings have generated civil litigation against the county sheriff by the families of the four slaying victims and Barnes’ former case managers Susan R. Christy and Gina Clarke, who were among those held hostage in the judge’s chambers just prior to the shootings. Deputy Cynthia Hall, who was badly injured when Nichols escaped from her custody, also has sued the sheriff.

Brandau’s daughter has sued Freeman and eight deputies, claiming that their negligence led to the slayings.

Scherffius, the Brandau estate’s attorney, also has argued that Brandau was not acting as a county employee the day she was killed because she was performing independent contract work commissioned by a lawyer in private practice. County court reporters may be retained by private parties to transcribe hearings in civil matters. Payment for those private transcripts supplements a court reporter’s county salary.

Last year, DeKalb County State Court Judge J. Antonio DelCampo concluded that Brandau and Freeman were county employees. DelCampo also rejected arguments that Brandau was a contract worker, deciding that although she had been paid as a contractor to transcribe the hearing, she was a county employee because she received a county salary for her time spent at the courthouse during regular working hours.

DelCampo relied on a 2006 opinion by the state appellate court in a companion case brought by Judge Barnes’ widow, Claudia Barnes. In that earlier decision, a different appellate panel found that while Freeman was a county employee, the judge was an elected official.

Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes wrote the opinion and was the only jurist to serve on both panels. Judges Debra Bernes and Gary B. Andrews also deliberated on the Claudia Barnes appeal.

In Thursday’s ruling, the appellate panel drew a technical distinction between the 2006 ruling in the Barnes litigation and its current stance in the Brandau case. The 2006 appellate ruling “did not directly address whether Freeman was a Fulton County employee,” Phipps wrote in his opinion. The earlier appellate panel had found that Freeman was not a state employee “for workers’ compensation purposes.” Wrote Phipps: “Inclusion in the civil service system does not necessarily establish employee status for workers’ compensation purposes.”

Thursday’s appellate opinion also found that local legislation “does not define elected officers as county employees. … Nor does the Fulton County Code’s civil service article define elected officers as county employees for workers’ compensation purposes. In fact, the only definition of ‘county employee’ found in that article specifically excludes ‘elected officials.’ Further, Georgia courts previously have held that public officers subject to civil service rules were not eligible for workers’ compensation benefits.”

That ruling will allow the Brandau suit to go forward.

The state appellate panel didn’t address directly another issue that could be pivotal in the litigation. DelCampo had ruled that the sheriff could be sued because he “owed a unique duty to protect superior court judges and their staffs, including court reporters, and that he could be held liable for breaching that duty,” regardless of workers’ compensation strictures.

The panel affirmed the lower court judgment only, rather than the reasoning behind it, stating, “We need not decide whether the trial court correctly ruled.”

The appellate panel also declined to address whether Brandau was a county employee or an independent contractor while she was transcribing the hearing when she was killed. “Because we conclude that Freeman was not a county employee, we do not reach this issue,” the opinion stated.

The case is Freeman V. Brandau, No. A08A0339; Brandau v. Freeman, No. A08A0340.

An environmental watchdog group in New Jersey recently issued a warning regarding excessive amounts of lead in artificial turf.

The warning has reportedly been issued to some of the largest manufacturers and sellers of artificial turf throughout the country.

The group, the Center for Environmental Health, has warned the companies that they will file suits unless the products are recalled and reformulated.

The group issued the warning after New Jersey officials found high levels of lead in some synthetic surfaces.

After the findings, federal authorities suggested leading testing be done on all sports fields.

A lab hired to do the testing went beyond sports fields and also tested indoor and outdoor carpeting, artificial lawns and playground grass.

Excessive  amounts of lead were found in all the areas that were tested.

The group reported that the amount of lead exceeded 600 parts per million, which is the maximum amount of lead permitted in paint.

A teenager was decapitated by a roller coaster after he hopped a pair of fences and entered a restricted area Saturday at Six Flags Over Georgia, authorities said.

Six Flags officials are uncertain why the unidentified 17-year-old from Columbia, S.C. scaled two six-foot fences and passed signs that said the restricted area was both off-limits and dangerous to visitors, spokeswoman Hela Sheth said in a news release.

Authorities were investigating reports from witnesses who said the teenager jumped the fences to retrieve a hat he lost while riding the Batman roller coaster, said Cobb County police Sgt. Dana Pierce. Police have declined to release the teenager’s name until an autopsy is completed.

Six Flags said it closed the roller coaster after the Saturday afternoon accident out of respect for the teen’s family. The ride was expected to reopen on Sunday, according to a Six Flags news release.

Police said the ride was going full-speed when the teen was struck. The ride’s top speed is 50 mph, according to the park’s Web site.

No one riding on the roller coaster was injured, Sheth said. The teen was with another boy who also entered the restricted area but was not injured, Pierce said.

The teen and his parents were at the park with a group from the Oakey Spring Baptist Church near Springfield, S.C., police said.

In May 2002, 58-year-old groundskeeper Samuel Milton Guyton of Atlanta was killed after he wandered in a restricted area under the Batman roller coaster’s path and was struck in the head by the dangling leg of one of the ride’s passengers. The ride was closed for a day to allow the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to inspect the ride. It was deemed safe for passengers.

In June 2007, a teenager’s legs were severed when cables snapped on the Superman Tower of Power ride at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville, Ky. Doctors were able to reattach Kaitlyn Lasitter’s right foot, but she had to have some of her left leg amputated and subsequent surgeries.

State officials blame a faulty cable and slow response by an amusement park ride operator in the accident. Her family is suing Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, claiming the park failed to maintain the ride and equipment and ensure riders’ safety. The amusement park has denied liability in court filings.

It’s now official: Texas is the tainted tomato capital of America. At least, that’s the conclusion easily reached by reading the latest on the sticky topic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Washington, D.C.

The CDC, like the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), is investigating the PTS, the poison tomato scare. And what it’s found so far is that 707 persons have been infected with the bacterium known as salmonella in 34 states and the District of Columbia. That’s 707 persons who won’t be enjoying a cheeseburger with fries, or any other food, for a while.

Now, this CDC SOS doesn’t mean bad tomatoes were grown or harvested in those 34 states or in D.C. – though it might be argued plenty of rotten vegetables reside in the latter. It just means that bad tomatoes were sold and consumed in those states.

But where did they come from? So far, says the FDA, it appears that one place where the poisonous tomatoes may have originated is Mexico, from which they were shipped to the U.S.

Let’s see, which state has the biggest border with Mexico?

Bingo! It’s Texas. And Texas, wouldn’t you know, has more salmonella cases that any other state. In fact, says the CDC, Texas has had 293 cases, or almost half of the national total. And the Texas Department of State Health Services says it’s even more: 330 food poisoning cases.

Either way, that’s a lot of marathon running between bedrooms and bathrooms. Well, at least our state’s citizens are losing weight.

How bad of an outbreak is this? Pretty bad. The CDC says only three persons had reported salmonella poisoning in the same period a year ago, barely a blip on the tomato radar.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that no one should eat any tomato in any state for the time being. For the record, the FDA is most leery of raw red plum, red Roma and round red tomatoes – and you should be, too.

But beyond that, and given the price you might pay, it seems to me you’re still taking a chance when you chomp down on any old tomato – or fresh one, these days. And of course, if you’re a Texan, you just might want to stick to an all-jalapeno diet. After all, anything goes down better than tainted tomatoes.

A 65-year-old couple needs $85,000 on average to cover insurance costs for long-term care such as nursing home stays in retirement, according to a study to be released Thursday by Fidelity Investments.

The finding underscores the need to financially prepare for the possibility of eventually needing assistance to get by - a burden that often falls on elders’ adult children, who can jeopardize their own finances by caring for an ailing parent while finding they must cut their work hours.

Setting aside adequate savings heading into retirement can help defuse family tensions should physical or mental illness hit parents who slowly realize they can no longer perform tasks such as household chores, or bathe or dress on their own.

“If you plan adequately and you have the ability to pay for assistance in whatever form that might be, it makes it easier on everybody if you can do that,” said Kathleen Kelly, executive director of the Family Caregiver Alliance, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that helps families cope with adults’ disabilities. “Families really want to do the right thing, but there are so many pressures on them.”

Fidelity, a Boston-based financial services firm whose mainstay is mutual funds, surveyed insurers offering long-term care policies to come up with the estimate that a couple aged 65 this year can expect to need $85,000 to cover annual premiums for long-term care coverage throughout retirement.

It’s the first year Fidelity has conducted the study, which supplements a survey the company completed in March estimating a couple retiring this year would need $225,000 in savings to cover medical costs in retirement. That estimate covers expenses associated with Medicare premium payments, as well as co-payments and deductibles, plus out-of-pocket prescription drug costs.

The $85,000 for long-term care insurance - which can cover costs for everything from regular visits to a home by a caregiver, to living in a nursing home - is in addition to the $225,000 for other health care needs.

The study’s goal is to get people thinking about long-term care - an unpleasant topic made more difficult by rising costs, and the growing demand for such care as baby boomers enter retirement and eventually need help caring for themselves.

“A lot of people shy away from thinking about it,” said Joan Bloom, senior vice president for Fidelity’s life insurance group, which distributes long-term care insurance issued by an unaffiliated firm, Genworth Financial.

About 5 million Americans are covered by long-term care policies, a number that has remained largely flat over the last 10 years, Bloom said. While some employers provide benefit programs offering long-term care coverage, the cost generally isn’t subsidized by employers.

Bloom recommends people consider buying long-term care insurance when they’re in their 50s. Policies generally cost less the earlier in life they’re purchased.

While someone may never end up needing long-term care, the financial hit can be hard if it is needed, with the average cost of a one-year stay in a private room at a nursing home now at more than $76,000, Bloom said.

In part because of those high costs, about three-quarters of all long-term care is provided by a family member, Fidelity says. The company’s research found about 29 million Americans informally provide long-term care to family members, spending an average 34 hours per week - or nearly a full work week.

Such a commitment can take a toll on a caregiver’s finances. A 50-year-old earning $50,000 per year who provides four years of long-term care to a family member could lose more than $140,000 in wages, retirement savings and Social Security over their lifetime, Fidelity estimates.

Such scenarios are becoming more common. By 2050, the number of Americans using paid long-term care services in any setting - at home, in assisted living, or a nursing home - is expected to double from the 13 million who used such services in 2000, to 27 million people, according to a federal estimate.

“Almost everybody I see now who is over the age of 40 or 45 has a story involving caregiving for their parents,” said Kelly, of the Family Caregiver Alliance. “If they don’t have one already, they will.”