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Hospital fined for wrong-site surgery

November 4, 2009

The Health Department has fined Rhode Island Hospital $150,000, after determining that a surgical team violated safety policies when it operated on the wrong finger of a patient on Oct. 22.

 

The surgical team failed to properly mark the fingers and failed to follow the rules for “time out,” a pause before surgery to verify the patient, procedure and site, the department’s investigation found. Indeed, the report said, Rhode Island Hospital was not even following the much-ballyhooed error-prevention protocol that was adopted statewide on July 1.

 

“This pattern of surgical errors is completely unacceptable and must be corrected to protect the safety of all patients at the hospital,” said Health Director David R. Gifford.

 

Read Article: The Providence Journal  

Lawry’s will pay more than $1 million to settle discrimination suit

The Lawry’s chain of high-end steakhouses will pay more than $1 million to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit contending that for decades it hired only women as servers, the government said Monday.

The lawsuit, filed in 2006 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said that a company as large as Pasadena-based Lawry’s Restaurants Inc. should have known that the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited such a policy.

The case was based on a 2003 complaint by a busboy who said he was denied a higher-paid position as a waiter because of his gender.

The company, which dates its founding to the opening of the Tam O’Shanter Inn in Los Angeles in 1922, said it remedied its policy in 2004 and was glad to resolve the issue.

 

Read Article: LA Times  

Parties settle lawsuit in fatal raft accident

Grand Teton Lodge Co. has settled a lawsuit over a 2006 rafting accident on the Snake River that killed three people.

 

U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson of Cheyenne announced the settlement late last week to a jury that had been hearing evidence in the case for the previous two weeks.

 

“The matter has been settled to the satisfaction of all parties.  The terms are confidential,” Maryjo Falcone, a lawyer for the lodge company, said Monday.  The private company offers lodging, rafting and other services in Grand Teton National Park.

 

Read Article: Casper Star Tribune  

Justices tackle case on investment fees

Several Supreme Court justices on Monday seemed reluctant to make the courts arbiters of whether mutual fund investment advisers are charging excessive fees for their work on what has become an essential investment tool for Americans.

 

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia were most outspoken in saying that government regulators or even consumers were better equipped at monitoring the fees.

 

Technology has made it easy for investors to check the amounts charged by investment advisers, and consumers can move their money from those they think excessive, Roberts said.

 

“All you have to do is push a button and you find out exactly what the management fees are,” Roberts said, adding, “As an investor you can make whatever determination you’d like, including to take your money out.”

 

Read Article: The Washington Post

Jury sides with Texas cities in lawsuit against online hotel booking companies

A jury has awarded $20 million to Fort Worth, Dallas, Grapevine and more than 170 other Texas cities as part of a federal class-action lawsuit against online hotel booking companies accused of pocketing hotel occupancy taxes as profit.

 

Numerous North Texas cites participated in the lawsuit, first filed by San Antonio in 2006, to collect tourism tax revenue that they said was underpaid by Internet hotel room wholesalers.

 

According to the lawsuit, heard in San Antonio, booking companies such as Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Priceline.com and Southlake-based Travelocity have paid cities hotel occupancy taxes based only on the wholesale rates they had negotiated with the hotels rather than the retail rates customers paid when they booked online.

 

Read Article: Ft. Worth Star Telegram

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