Free Republic

WASHINGTON, July 29 - The Senate agreed to shield gun manufacturers and dealers from liability lawsuits on Friday, as Congress broke for a monthlong recess after sending President Bush energy and transportation bills that had been years in the making. Long sought by the gun lobby, the Senate measure - approved 65 to 31 - would prohibit lawsuits against gun makers and distributors for misuse of their products during the commission of a crime. Senate supporters said the plan was needed to protect the domestic firearms industry from a rash of lawsuits that threatened its economic future. "This bill is...

The nation's gun lobby is close to realizing a long-sought goal of protecting firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held legally responsible for violent crimes committed with their handguns and automatic weapons. Supporters believe they have the votes in the Senate to pass as early as today a bill making it virtually impossible for victims of gun violence to file civil suits against the industry -- a testimony to the political clout of gun manufacturers, which have become increasingly vulnerable to civil lawsuits in the District and several states. Twelve Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), are...

Los Angeles (Reuters) A California woman is suing a hospital for wrongful death because her husband fainted and suffered a fatal injury after helping delivery room staff give her a pain-killing injection. Jeanette Passalaqua, 32, filed the suit against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Southern California Permanente Medical Group Inc. in San Bernardino County state court last week. In June 2004, Passalaqua's husband, Steven Passalaqua, was asked by Kaiser staff to hold and steady his wife while an employee inserted an epidural needle into her back, court papers said. The sight of the needle caused Steven Passalaqua, 33, to faint and...

The California Supreme Court issued two rulings Thursday making it easier for victims of violent crime to recover damages from the owners of the businesses where the crimes occurred. The rulings mark a departure from a recent trend in the law and are likely to have significant ramifications, according to legal experts. "I think it is highly significant," said Sharon Arkin, president of the Consumer Attorneys of California, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in one of the cases and applauded the decisions. "I think the pendulum is swinging back a little" in favor of victims after a number of adverse...

News item: The Chicago City Council initiated efforts to cancel contracts with the Wachovia Savings Bank after the bank apologized for its ties with the slave trade. An investigation, required by the bank’s participation in a public housing project, revealed that of the more than a hundred banks North Carolina-based Wachovia has acquired, one of them once put hundreds of African-American slaves to work on railroads and another accepted slaves as collateral for loans that defaulted in the early 1800s. Members of the City Council are also discussing seeking reparations from the bank. An Address to the Chicago City Council...

Experian Abandons Thousands of Consumer Data Records Paper, Computerized Records Left Behind in Office Move By Martin H. Bosworth ConsumerAffairs.Com June 16, 2005 Identity theft doesn't always happen through sophisticated online scams or because of high-tech criminal rings. Sometimes it can be as simple as leaving boxes of documents and computers unattended for months on end. That's what Augie Bogina of Kansas City found when he bought a building formerly occupied by the Topeka Credit Bureau and the Experian credit reporting agency. Inside the building, Bogina found the previous tenants had left "thousands and thousands" of printed documents and many...

Denise Jack and other car owners thought they had it bad when a 75-foot retaining wall in Washington Heights in northern Manhattan collapsed on May 12, burying their parked vehicles beneath untold tons of debris. But their ordeal was actually just beginning. Their cars remain buried there today, and none are expected to be unearthed until the rest of the wall is stabilized and the rubble removed - up to a year from now. Until then, they are caught in the world of insurance limbo. Mrs. Jack's policy, for example, has liability coverage that does not cover landslides. For her...

A Massachusetts court has recently had to resolve the question, as a matter of tort law, what duty of care a pair of non-married adults owe to each other for injuries resulting from consensual sex between them. I'll leave the details of the case for those with strong stomachs who are willing to read the opinion found in the preceding link. In summary, however, the plaintiff (male) was injured when the defendant (female) changed her position during the middle of intercourse. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant, finding that, as a matter of law, there...

SEATTLE - Should the people who make and sell "violent video" games be held accountable if someone commits a crime because of playing them? That's something our state lawmakers are considering, to open game makers up to more liability. House Bill 2178 proposes to hold the makers and sellers of violent video games liable if someone under 17 years old commits a crime, due in any part, to playing the game. Supporters of the bill, like Bill Hanson with the Washington Police and Sheriff's Association, say "kids" are getting the games, and they're becoming desensitized. "If you sit up and...

$17 million verdict has many concerned Worries arise about impact on churches fearful of liability By DERRICK NUNNALLY dnunnally@journalsentinel.com Posted: Feb. 23, 2005 Last week's jury verdict that said the Archdiocese of Milwaukee should pay $17 million to the 84-year-old victim of a car wreck caused by a parish group volunteer has some observers worried about the decision's impact on religious institutions fearful of liability issues. That one parishioner's accident could have such an economic consequence for an entire archdiocese alarmed Philip K. Howard, the New York-based chairman of Common Good, a group critical of what he has called "America's...

Lawsuits filed over the crash of a commuter plane en route from St. Louis to Kirksville, Mo., last October claim two airline companies failed to provide the plane with proper safety equipment. The wife of Paul Tilley, one of 11 passengers who died in the crash along with both pilots, filed a suit in Texas claiming Corporate Airlines and American Airlines acted negligently by operating the craft without an enhanced device to warn pilots how close the ground was. Tilley's wife, Alicia Tilley, also claims that members of the flight crew had been on duty for nearly 15 hours at...

City officials plan to pursue "every legal remedy available" after a jury sided Tuesday with two former Inglewood police officers in a case stemming from the 2002 arrest of a teenager. Jurors agreed with former officers Jeremy Morse and Bijan Darvish, who claimed they had been discriminated against by the city when they were not allowed to return to their jobs. The ruling results in a $2.4 million award. Morse, 26, who is white, was shown on the tape slamming a black teen, Donovan Jackson, to the trunk of a police car at an Inglewood gas station and punching him...

   http://www.news.com/ State bill could cripple P2P By John Borlandhttp://news.com.com/State+bill+could+cripple+P2P/2100-1028_3-5540937.html Story last modified Tue Jan 18 17:55:00 PST 2005 A bill introduced in California's Legislature last week has raised the possibility of jail time for developers of file-swapping software who don't stop trades of copyrighted movies and songs online.The proposal, introduced by Los Angeles Sen. Kevin Murray, takes direct aim at companies that distribute software such as Kazaa, eDonkey or Morpheus. If passed and signed into law, it could expose file-swapping software developers to fines of up to $2,500 per charge, or a year in jail, if they don't take...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

Bush Social Security Revolution? The Social Security Act was the signature accomplishment of Franklin Roosevelt's newly created American welfare state in 1935. It switched the American ethos from individual and community reliance to national government responsibility for personal security and welfare. Its early and apparently costless success provided the legitimacy for all of the expert-directed federal social programs that have followed to this very day. Yet, today, it and its entire supporting apparatus stand near bankruptcy.President George W. Bush has now raised a challenge to the whole justification of this historic substitution of bureaucratic for personal responsibility for the general...

Onstage Murder Could've Been Prevented, Security Experts Say Concert venues need trained staff and metal detectors, they insist. The onstage murder of "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott leaves not just Damageplan fans, but concertgoers everywhere, with many troubling concerns. Chief among them was that the tragedy might have been prevented for less than $50, the price of a handheld metal detector. "It should have been a common practice. It should have been something they had," said Paul Wertheimer of Crowd Management Strategies, a consulting firm specializing in concert safety. "If it was used right, it would have caught the gun and you...

The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com Supreme Court in Illinois frees gun makers of liabilityBy Audrey HudsonTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished November 19, 2004 The Illinois Supreme Court yesterday refused to hold firearms manufacturers responsible for Chicago street violence or of knowingly supplying guns to criminals -- a decision that could affect the filing of future lawsuits.     The city of Chicago sued 18 gun manufacturers, four distributors and 11 dealers -- asserting the firearms industry is liable for causing a "public nuisance" -- and demanded $433 million for health care costs and city emergency expenses.     Writing for the court, Justice Rita Garman said...

Associated Press SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Nov. 18 -- The Illinois Supreme Court threw out two lawsuits accusing gunmakers of knowingly letting weapons fall into the hands of gang members and other criminals, in a ruling Thursday that the manufacturers cannot legally be blamed for street violence. Both rulings were unanimous, but five of the seven justices were so disturbed by allegations raised in the case that they wrote a separate opinion urging the state legislature to create tougher gun regulations. The lawsuits, filed by the city of Chicago and victims of shootings, claimed the defendants created a public nuisance by pouring...

...President Bush has won a clear mandate for his big second-term agenda, including the giants of Social Security reform and tax overhaul. Yet his ability to do anything still rests with the Senate.... Republicans [picked] up Democratic seats in both Carolinas and Georgia, as well as Louisiana and Florida. They weathered storms in Kentucky and Oklahoma, and even held Alaska. But the big daddy came with the overthrow of Mr. Daschle. That ouster... was as much a repudiation of obstructionism as it was Mr. Daschle's own record. [C]onsider not just the Republicans' numerical gains, but their ideological ones. With the...

DENVER: A woman assaulted by a Mexican national at a Denver pro-immigration forum sponsored by First Data/Western Union filed a civil lawsuit today in Denver District Court. The lawsuit includes claims for ethnic intimidation, civil conspiracy, assault and battery, robbery, personal injury, and property damage against Colorado-based First Data Corporation, its subsidiary Western Union, the First Data/Western Union Foundation, the attacker and her former employer, Hep C Connection.