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Fresno Fire Dept. loses discrimination suit

November 18, 2009

A federal court jury on Friday awarded nearly $2.5 million to a woman who was forced out of the Fresno Fire Department’s training academy in 2005, finding she was the victim of gender discrimination.

 

Michelle Maher, 39, flashed a broad grin to her two children after the verdict was read in U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger’s courtroom. She later hugged jurors, who said they thought Maher got a raw deal from the department.

 

“If this isn’t a wake-up call [to the Fire Department], I don’t know what would be,” Maher said outside of court.

 

The verdict marks another gender-discrimination win for Oakland-based attorney Dan Siegel, who has represented or helped represent several women in gender-discrimination suits against California State University, Fresno. Among them are former Fresno State volleyball coach Lindy Vivas and former women’s basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein.

 

Read Article: Fresno Bee

 

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Chambliss, Graham propose lawsuit reform as part of health care overhaul

Addressing what he says is a major shortfall in congressional Democrats’ plans for a health care overhaul, Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia is co-sponsoring legislation he says would cut down on frivolous malpractice lawsuits that are often blamed for helping drive up health care costs.

 

Inclusion of such a proposal in any health care legislation could potentially win over Republican votes in Congress. Many Republicans have said they won’t vote for a health care overhaul unless it addresses tort reform.

 

President Barack Obama and other top Democrats agree that medical malpractice litigation is part of the problem behind high health care costs, but they have suggested that it should be up to individual states to experiment with how to deal with the issue. The proposal by Chambliss and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, would reach much further and as a result isn’t expected to get much support from Democrats.

 

Read Article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

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Jury awards $12M in Verizon toxic waste lawsuit

Two men who became seriously ill after working at a Hicksville magazine distributor located atop a former nuclear fuel plant have been awarded $12 million in a federal negligence lawsuit against Verizon Communications Inc.

 

Gerard DePascale, of Lake Ronkonkoma, and Liam Neville, of Woodside, each were awarded $5 million, and DePascale’s wife, Joanne, $2 million, after their lawyers successfully argued the men were sickened by toxins that remained at the site years after operations ceased in 1967. The eight-person jury ruled unanimously last week in the case, and U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Wexler has until the end of this week to affirm or overturn the verdict.

 

Verizon, which took ownership of the site after the 2000 merger of Bell Atlantic with GTE, said it was “disappointed” by the ruling and will appeal.

 

“The verdict is completely contrary to the evidence,” spokesman John Bonomo said in an e-mail. “Verizon presented overwhelming evidence that these two men were not made ill by the Hicksville site and that all actions taken at the site were appropriate.”

 

Read Article: Newsday

 

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Lead in red wine vinegars could hurt kids

Balsamic and other red wine vinegars often contain lead, a potent neurotoxin, and could pose a risk to children who consume it regularly, according to a new analysis by Environmental Health News.

 

Eating just one tablespoon a day of some vinegars can raise a young child’s lead level by more than 30 percent, modeling requested by the news service shows.

 

Lead can damage people’s neurological systems, particularly children’s developing brains. Even low levels can reduce a child’s IQ or trigger learning and behavioral disorders, scientific studies show. In adults, it has been linked to cardiovascular, kidney and immune system effects.

 

The heavy metal is so toxic and persistent in the body that there is no known threshold below which adverse effects do not occur, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

Read Article: San Francisco Chronicle

 

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It isn’t often that a study involving a couple of hundred people shakes up medical science.

 

That’s what happened Monday, when doctors formally reported that lowly niacin, a B vitamin, did a significantly better job of shrinking artery plaque than a billion-dollar blockbuster called ezetimibe, the active ingredient in the cholesterol drugs Zetia and Vytorin.

 

“The results are very clear,” says lead investigator Allen Taylor of the Medstar Research Institute. “Niacin was superior.”

 

Read Article: USA Today

 

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