You can understand the anguish that Joe De La Garza’s family feels – the decorated Vietnam veteran survived three days in the Vietnamese jungle without a scratch, but in 2006, the retired Marine was killed from a parrot fever infection just days after he purchased a parrot from a pet store.

63-year-old De la Garza was exposed to the infection when his daughter Amanda, purchased a small Australian parrot called a cockatiel from Corpus Christi’s PetSmart Store on September 30, 2006.

Unknown to the family, the bird had come to their house infected with a strain of parrot fever that is believed to be caused by a bacterium called Chlamydia psittaci. The parrot fever is also known as Psittacosis, and it is highly transmissible diseases that can, on occasion, be fatal.

According to Amanda, they had no reason to suspect the bird when both she and her father became ill, approximately 16 days after bringing the bird home. While Amanda had to be hospitalized and treated for her injuries, only barely managing to make a recovery, her father died soon after. The family insists that they had no reason to suspect anything until they received Joe’s autopsy report, which showed the presence of the Psittacosis bacterium.

The bird, which had also died, had to be taken for a necropsy, and it was found to be infected with Psittacosis. Now Joe’s family, including Amanda, Joe Jr., and Joe Sr.’s brother Michael are suing PetSmart to raise awareness about the disease and the possibility of bird-to-human transmission. Not too many people know of this disease and the possibility of cross-species infection, and it is this that is driving the family’s wrongful death lawsuit, they say. They have not considered monetary compensation at this point in time.

The wrongful death lawsuit urges PetSmart to stop selling cockatiels and other similar exotic birds because of the risk of infection and transmission. An animal supplier, Rainbow Exotics Inc., has also been named in the lawsuit. A recent PETA undercover exposé of Rainbow Exotics showed despicably filthy and inhumane conditions in which the animals and birds were kept. PETA officials also found another parrot, which had wasted away to death a week before.

PetSmart continues to deny any wrongdoing on their part, and insist that they will fight the wrongful death lawsuit. So far, they have not acted to remove cockatiels and other similar parrots from their shelves. One wonders why the pet store chain is so reluctant to admit that there may be hygiene problems and infection control issues in its supply and delivery chain. As recently as March, the company had to suspend bird sales after a psittacosis outbreak. In 2006, there had been an epidemic of psittacosis, and a number of birds had to pulled off the company’s stores in Texas. Could it be that the company knows it could very well be held liable for compensation to the De La Garza family if proved that they have had infection problems with their bird species? And although PetSmart continues to insist that they have never heard of bird-to-human infections, it’s hard to believe that people involved in selling birds and animals for a living had no idea of such cross-infection possibilities.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including families of victims of wrongful death. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

It’s a settlement that Macy Morano would gladly trade in exchange from her mother, killed while offering comfort to an accident victim.

Macy’s mother, Rebecka Storer, a resident of Newton, New Jersey, was struck and killed by a vehicle on July 5, 2004 on interstate 78 in Springfield Township. On the day of accident, Rebecka Storer was on her way to a fishing trip. Three other people were with her, including her fiancé. They came upon a woman who had been injured in a hit and run accident. Storer and her friends pulled over to help the woman who was in distress. As the man in the party looked over the car, Storer attended to the 20-year-old woman. Just then a 2002 Nissan Pathfinder raced into the women’s path. Storer was killed instantly. She was 25 at that time. Macy, who was just three, was taken by her grandmother before custody was granted to her father, Marc Morano.

After the accident, the driver of the truck, Glen Luzzi, was found to be careless, but not reckless enough for criminal charges to be filed against him. Macy’s father, Marc Morano, filled a wrongful death lawsuit against Glen Luzzi and the company that owned the Nissan Pathfinder, Richards Manufacturing. At the time the lawsuit was filed in 2006, Morano’s lawyers were confident that the insurance companies would settle because of the sympathy factor for a little girl whose mother had been killed. The judge has now approved a $1.5 million settlement.

Storer’s family is said to be satisfied with the settlement, which will be used to secure the girl’s future. Her college education will be taken care of.

Rebecka Storer, her family says, was irreplaceable. Her courage in being a Good Samaritan was honored at the First Annual Sussex County Human Spirit Awards for her selfless contribution to the community.

It’s tragic that a woman was so horribly mowed down while in the line of being a helpful citizen. There is something particularly poignant about being killed while in the act of helping another in need. While this settlement won’t give Macy her mother back, we are glad that her future will now be secure.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including families of victims of wrongful death. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

The family of a woman who died in the bathtub of a hospital has been awarded $5 million in damages by a jury. The settlement has been awarded against Gwinnett Medical Center, located in Gwinnett County, near Atlanta, GA.

Wendy Wyckstandt, a 34-year-old woman, who had just given birth at the hospital after Thanksgiving Day in 2000, had returned after complications brought on by high blood pressure. She was extremely weak, and definitely not in a position to take care of herself. Strangely enough, Wendy was left to shower on her own, and while doing so, collapsed in the tub. Her mother found her drowning in the tub, but it was too late. A day later, she died.

Her mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Gwinnett Health System, the company that owned Gwinnett Medical Center in 2002, alleging that Wendy was left alone, despite being in a very poor health. After a long and arduous six-year-old battle with the hospital, Wendy’s parents have finally received justice. A jury has awarded a $5 million settlement.

It’s been a long wait for Wendy’s parents. The first trial, that began after the lawsuit was filed in 2002, was hampered by plenty of shenanigans by the hospital authorities. The attorney for Wendy’s parents was denied access to hospital medical records and tapes that would have conclusively proven that no nurses had checked up on Wendy. The hospital had insisted all along that its nurses did check in on Wendy regularly, and as scheduled. The first trial ended with a hung jury.

When the second trial began, the judge held the hospital responsible for not handing over all hospital policy records. He has yet to decide on how much to compensate Wendy’s attorneys for the unnecessary research they had to undertake after they were denied access to hospital records. The attorneys had wanted all tapes that captured the last 24 hours of footage from outside Wendy’s room, and were only given access to two tapes. On these tapes, there was a 30 minute period of footage that was blank. According to the hospital, the blank 30 minutes was caused by the change of the tapes, which is a normal occurrence. By a stroke of fantastic coincidence, the nurses who were supposed to check up on Wendy apparently, the hospital says, arrived to check up on her room in that 30-minute period when the tape goes blank.

To Wendy’s attorneys, it seemed like too much of a coincidence that the tape went blank at the exact time that the nurses arrived to do their duty. Luckily, the jury too thought the coincidence was too much to stomach, and has slapped a $5 million settlement on the hospital.

If you have lost a loved one in a fatal accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

The mother of Jessica and Kelly Uhl, two girls who were killed when their car collided with a vehicle being driven by an Illinois state trooper, says that the wrongful death lawsuit that she has now filed against Trooper Matt Mitchell, the Illinois State Police and the state of Illinois is not about the money, but justice for her daughters.

Kimberley Dorsey has filed a lawsuit claiming $24 million in damages from the trooper accusing him of negligence in the accident.

The accident took place east of St Louis in November of last year. 18-year-old Jessica and 13-year-old Kelly were in a car returning from a holiday photo shoot. On Interstate 64, Mitchell lost control of his cruiser and slammed into the car carrying the girls. They died at the scene.

In the days that followed, a coroner’s jury held that this was a case of reckless homicide. Mitchell at the time of the accident was driving at a speed of 126 miles per hour. Accident reconstruction confirms that the trooper was driving recklessly. The impact of the accident was so severe that Mitchell’s cruiser simply bored through the girls’ car. The engine of the car was found crushed several hundred feet away from where the car finally stopped. The girl’s car at the time of the accident was going at 65 miles per hour.

From the severity of the accident and the instant fatalities, it’s safe to assume that Mitchell will be held accountable for his reckless driving. You don’t cause an accident that manages to sever a car and crush its engine by driving at a reasonable speed. Plus, this isn’t the first time the Illinois state trooper has been involved in a crash. He was involved in two accidents, and in one of these, the state received a $1.7 million judgment against it.

In the days following the accident, it became crystal clear to the Illinois State Police that Mitchell had been driving recklessly at high speeds, and yet they hid this fact from the girls’ parents. Every time they asked for answers about the accident that killed their children, they were stonewalled, their attorney says. Mitchell has claimed that he was on his way to help at an accident scene, and holes have been found with that story too. The accident was under control by other police, and there was no need for him to be driving at the speed he was.

For now, Mitchell is free on bond but has been relived of his duties.

To lose one child would be heartbreaking enough; to lose two in the exact same instant is more than any parent should have to bear. We hope that the family of the Uhl girls gets the compensation that they deserve. Like they stress, it wouldn’t be about the money, but about holding the state troopers responsible for their actions.

The mother of a 7-year-old girl who died after collapsing at school has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the school.

Destinie Martinez was studying at Dona Ana Elementary School. She suffered from truncus arteriosus, a heart condition in which a single large blood vessel carries blood to the body and the lungs. It is characterized by shortness of breath, and the patients can suffer from high blood pressure. In many instances, heart failure can be seen. Destinie had undergone surgery for her condition, and her mother Candi Martinez, who filed the wrongful death lawsuit, had informed the authorities at the school about her daughter’s delicate medical condition.

On the morning of November 5, 2007, Destinie had been feeling unwell. Her mother sent her to school with a note asking that she be excused from physical education class. It’s not clear why the school allowed Destinie to participate in a physical activity, when the parents had made it known that she was ill, but they made her participate in physical education. Within minutes, the girl had begun to vomit, and had to be excused from the class. She was made to sit down and a few moments later she collapsed.

The school was apparently not yet done bungling. The situation called for emergency medical care, and instead of approaching it like the serious matter it was, school authorities continued with their ineptitude. They called the wrong parents to ask for permission to transfer Destinie to hospital. By the time they finally managed to get their act together and call Destinie’s parents, valuable time had been lost. She was taken to Mountain View Regional Medical Center. All efforts proved unsuccessful, and Destinie died at the hospital.

The lawsuit alleges that many errors we made in the kind of emergency response that Destinie received from the school. It also claims that she should have not been participating in physical activity.

Obviously, the school was tawdry in its response to Destinie’s condition. For now, the school has not yet responded to the lawsuit, but answers will be expected as to why the girl was allowed to be in the sun taking part in physical education class, when her mother had informed the teacher about her condition on that day.

How could precious time have been lost calling the wrong parents? How difficult can it be to have on emergency file the contact information about a child at your school who has a rare heart disorder? How many kids at the school had that disorder? Presumably not many. The authorities must have known that with a sick child in their school, there might be need for emergency medical attention some day, and they were ill-prepared. There was enough incentive for the school authorities to have been extra careful in this case. Instead, they seem to have been profoundly negligent, and a little girl has paid for it with her life.

There’s not going to be a way for Chaka Khan to sing her way out of this. The 10-time Grammy winner might have been able to see her 29-year-old son, Damien Holland, out of jail for the murder of a teenager in her home, but it’s time for her to loosen the purse strings, and shell out $1.3 million to the boy’s family.

Christopher Bailey was just 17 years old at the time of his murder. He had moved into Chaka Khan’s home to be able to work with Khan and her son in their studio. Damien admitted to suspecting Christopher of having an affair with his girlfriend, and on the 24th of September, 2004 Damien shot Bailey.

As it later turned out, Damien took great care to make sure that everything looked and seemed like an accident or a fight gone wrong. He told his friends to rough him up a bit, so he could look as if he had been in a fight, and he told cops that he had no intention of killing Bailey, and that the gun “accidentally” went off. That’s right. A shoulder weapon used by the US military “accidentally” went off when he was confronting the boy who he just happened to suspect of stealing his girlfriend. And when he was accidentally poking Bailey with the butt of the rifle, he didn’t really mean to kill him at all.

For Bailey’s family, Damien’s acquittal in May 2006 only added to the shock of losing their son. Their son had his face blown out with a M-16 assault rifle, and the murderer walked free. There was no poetic justice here, just a washed up singer trying everything she could to keep Damien out of jail. After the acquittal, Bailey’s father, Glen Newton, said that he believed that witnesses had not come forward to testify for fear of repercussion from the singer. He also believed that Khan herself lied about the circumstances surrounding Bailey’s death. Khan continued to maintain that the shooting was an accident, which only helped to deepen Newton’s anger and hurt. It’s easy to imagine Newton’s hurt, and his frustration at the lack of justice for his son.

Thankfully for victims in this country like Bailey, there are still civil lawsuits to turn to. Bailey’s parents sued Chaka Khan, her son and her company for wrongful death and negligence. Now a judge in Torrance has passed the right verdict. As a person in whose house a murder was committed, Chaka Khan stands financially responsible for the murder of Christopher Bailey. There’s no scope now for explanations and excuses.

Chaka Kahn won’t exactly be running off to the studios to record another hit to be able to pay off the million dollars, although this is probably not a verdict that will break her financially, but at least it sends out a clear message about her liability in the murder.

In an ideal world, Stephen R. Catalano would be facing the prospect of many years in a jail cell. Instead, the man who caused the death of a 14-year-old girl and injured at least 10 others faces the prospect of having his prison time reduced, if he is convicted.

This week, an indictment against the West Babylon driver dismissed three indictments against him, related to driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. With this, the potential time that Catalano could serve in prison will be reduced from 2 1/3 to 7 years, to 1 1/3 to 4 years.

So, one teenager is dead, others were injured, and the man gets to walk home with as low a 1 1/3 years if he is convicted.

The accident, which killed Angelic Nappi, happened on February 16. Angelica, her sister Nicollete along with three friends, Rachel Williams, Tanisha Combs and Brittany Combs were headed to the movies in a Saturn. Catalan, who was driving with two other passengers, ran a red light at County 101 and slammed into the Saturn. Angelica was severely injured and died three days later. Catalano and his passengers also suffered severe injuries.

After the crash it was revealed that Catalano had 11 suspensions on his driving record. He had a long history of driving offenses, and the day of the crash he had been scheduled to appear in court on another aggravated driving charge. In short, this was a man who treated the streets like his own private fiefdom with not a thought for others sharing space with him. 11 suspensions is not a laughing matter. We are not talking about a random speeding ticket here. We’re talking about a history of reckless driving, and a man who had no business being behind the wheel at all.

And now comes this. An indictment has actually lowered the charges against Catalano. Toxicology reports have now come back showing that there was no alcohol involved in the crash. The new indictment lists homicide, a felony, third-degree assault, reckless driving, second-degree aggravated unlicensed operation, failing to stop and two counts of speeding. The only punishment, if you can call it that, is that his bail amount has now been increased from $25,000 to $75,000.

We can expect some legal maneuvering from Catalano’s legal team to get him off with as low a sentence as possible. The Saturn had a total of six persons in it, and this might well be taken as a case of overcrowding and failure to wear seat belts. We wouldn’t be surprised if there are “blame the victim” tactics used here too.

We hope Angelica’s family is considering a civil lawsuit against Catalona. If the courts can’t give him what he deserves, maybe a wrongful death verdict will.

More than 24 hours after a crane collapsed in Brooklyn, killing 4 people, citizens are still shocked at the outrageousness of it all. No matter how everybody involved tries to explain away what happened, and no matter whose fault it was, this kind of thing happening in one of our nation’s largest cities is simply unacceptable. To make things worse for those in charge, a retired engineer has come forward claiming that he warned the city about the hazards of having a large portion of the crane unsecured, and that he feared it would collapse. His concerns were ignored, and now we have four construction workers dead, 24 injured, and at least 3 people still missing in the wreckage.

The 22-story crane came down at around 2 pm on Saturday, when the 3-ton collar that it was secured to supposedly came loose. The resulting course of events was enough to send the crane toppling across two blocks. Several buildings were demolished by the massive machinery. For now, several buildings are still covered in rubble and hopes are fading about the survival of those people considered missing. Several streets are still closed off to residents as worker try to clear the huge amounts of rubble and the parts of the crane that are still lodged in a couple of buildings.

As those who witnessed the ghastly incident say, the collar, that it now appears was inadequately secured to the crane, broke off and managed to dislodge another collar situated further down. It didn’t come to a stop there – it crashed into another collar at the third floor. The crane became almost completely unbalanced and toppled over. It would seem like something out of a really bad summer movie flick, except for those who were unfortunate enough to be in the crane’s path that day. One witness described the scene as resembling Baghdad. Others said it bought back memories of 9/11. There are no foreigners to blame here – this was all due to the negligence of engineers and others involved, who were negligent about securing the bracing properly.

According to Bruce Silberblatt, a retired engineer who became concerned about the stability of the crane on March 4th, he made a call to the city voicing his concerns about the lack of bracing. The crane, he claims, had at least 100 feet unsecured – too much by any standards. You don’t need an engineer to tell you that something as heavy as a crane needs solid securing and connecting to prevent a mishap of this magnitude. Even a neon sign falling down from this height has potential to injure and kill. We’re talking about a crane here.

As expected, the finger pointing has begun in earnest – Reliance Construction Group, the company that was in charge of construction at the site, emphasized that the crane became loose from the collar after “a piece of steel fell and severed one of its ties.” Where was steel falling from, in the first place? Don’t these people have any sort of safety precautions to deal with such eventualities? Isn’t there ever a Plan B in case something begins to go wrong up there?

The state of Washington has agreed to pay the families of five children who were victims of a shooting spree at a Jewish community center in California, the sum of $2.25 million.

The assailant, Buford Furrow Jr., is currently serving a life sentence in prison after he rampaged through the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Grenada Hills, California in 1999. He shot dead a 16-year-old counselor, a 68-year-old receptionist and injured three other teenagers. Then, Furrow shot dead a Filipino American postman. At the time of the slayings, Furrow was on parole and was under the supervision of Washington law enforcement agencies.

Nine months before he raised mayhem at the center, Furrow had threatened staff members at Fairfax Hospital with a knife. He claimed to Fairfax staff that he had a pistol in his car, and admitted that the previous night he had a strong desire to shoot people at a mall. When he threatened a staff member with a knife, a deputy got him to calm down at gunpoint, and he was booked into Kings County Jail.

He served 5½ months of his sentence, before being let out on parole. Throughout the period between his arrest at the hospital and his rampage in California, he was either in custody or under the supervision of law enforcement agencies. His mental health was repeatedly evaluated while he was in custody, but once he was let out on parole, supervision became increasingly lax.

The Washington Department of Corrections, for instance, made no surprise visits to his home as it is empowered to do. In fact from his release from the prison in May of that year to the deadly shooting, a community service officer met him a total of 5 times. All meetings were held by prior appointment in the agency’s office.

It’s a mystery as to why supervision was allowed to be so lax of a man so rabidly racist and dangerous he openly confessed to having fantasies of mass slayings. He was an open member of the Aryan Brotherhood, and was known to harbor rabid notions on Jews and African Americans. Racism by itself is not a crime, and a person has the right to have any such beliefs, but when a man who carried an Aryan Brotherhood membership card on his person, has self-inflicted hatred marks on his body and who has openly and repeatedly talking about killing his wife, surely you begin to see that the problem is more than just his beliefs.

How difficult was it to see that the man was a walking and ticking time bomb waiting to go off. In fact in the days leading up to the slayings, Furrow reportedly was showing all the signs of a man about to embark on a dangerous journey – he was drinking and buying weapons. Yet, his supervision officer saw it fit to conduct exactly one urinalysis in the months that he was on parole, and absolutely no searches of his belongings or his home were conducted.

According to the terms of his parole, Furrow was not to drink, possess weapons, or use drugs. These are not the sorts of things you can keep an eye on by calling the man to your office by prior appointment. To find out whether he’s keeping to the terms of parole, you need to check up on his home, and question those who know him. Sadly none of these precautions were taken and a man who should have been under lock and key was set loose on an unsuspecting community. If anything, the Washington DOC owed more than the personal injury settlement they have been handed down.

The family and friends of a San Francisco girl who was killed when a Municipal Railway maintenance truck struck her will receive a total of $21 million in settlement, the SF Gate is reporting. It’s the largest such settlement of its kind in San Francisco city’s history.

Elizabeth Dominquez was just 4 years old on February 11, 2003 when the fatal accident took place. Elizabeth was making her way back from her preschool with her mother, Sylvia Lopez, her friend Monica Valencia, and Monica’s grandmother Candelaria Valencia. She was standing on the sidewalk near Potrero Avenue and 24th Street in the Mission District.

Just then, a MUNI truck, driven by 58-year-old Sebastian Garcia, drove through the intersection and collided with a car. The impact of the collision was severe enough for Garcia to veer his truck sideways and over the curb, into the standing child. The truck struck the little girl, pinning her against a building. Elizabeth suffered severe head injuries. She died instantly. Of the others, Candelaria Valencia suffered multiple leg fractures while Monica had minor injuries. Sylvia had been carrying her then 2-month-old son and Elizabeth’s brother Michael. He was not injured. Sylvia watched as her daughter’s head was crushed between the truck and concrete.

Garcia, investigations later revealed, had run a red light prior to striking Elizabeth. He was charged with reckless driving and fined the grand sum of $1,000 and sentenced to a mere 6 months in jail. He no longer works for MUNI.

In 2003, the Dominguez and the Valencias filed a governmental claim against the city of San Francisco, but that claim was denied. They then sued the city on a variety of grounds – personal injury, wrongful death, pain and suffering, economic damages, etc.

In 2005, a jury awarded them $27.4 million. That amount was later reduced to $22.4 million, but still the city council decided to appeal. Before the appeal went though however the City in a closed session, voted 6-1 to award the two families a record amount of $21 million. That payment will be made in a series of three installments of $7 million each, the first one expected within 30 days of the announcement of the settlement. The remaining payments are expected to come through 2009.

The money from the payout will come from the budget of the Municipal Transportation Agency, whose truck Garcia was driving when he plowed it into Elizabeth.

Representatives of the agency admit that the payout would impact them greatly, but also recognized that “ no amount of money can erase this terrible tragedy.”

While the payout as large as this won’t bring back Elizabeth, or erase the memories of her horrific death, we hope that this payout will at least lead to some form of closure for the Dominguez family. To those who think settlements this large are unwarranted and a huge drain on tax resources, it is certain that the Dominguez would gladly trade the money to have their daughter back again.