| | Early Bird Pricing Ends Today for the Annual President’s Meeting & Advanced PI CLE! | | Early Bird Pricing Ends Today for our year-end conference, featuring an innovative and interactive Advanced PI CLE (Dec 4th) and our Annual Board & Membership Meeting (Dec 5th). Register now to attend at the Sheraton Hotel in Austin. Other events include the Advocates Annual Meeting, Awards Reception, and PAC event. Click on the link above to learn more and register. Watch for updates on Twitter @ttla_ #ttlaannual. |
| Advanced PI Seminar Agenda Released! This course has been approved by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization for 6.75 hrs. | | Check out the agenda for our innovative new Advanced PI CLE seminar. This year's program includes new topics, new speakers, and interactive break-out sessions. This course has been approved by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization for 6.75 hrs certification and recertification continuing legal education requirements for attorneys and legal assistants in the following specialty fields: civil appellate law, civil trial law and personal injury trial law.December 4 in Austin. Click on the headline to access the agenda. |
| Texas Tribune Daily Brief
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| DuPont Says Plant Leaked 23,000 Pounds of Toxic Gas | | 
| | About 23,000 pounds of a flammable, foul-smelling toxic gas leaked from the DuPont chemical plant in La Porte where four workers died earlier this month, the company said Saturday. That’s significantly more than the 100 pounds of methyl mercaptan that DuPont estimated had escaped the plant in its initial report, and was enough to asphyxiate the four workers and hospitalize another. Methyl mercaptan can cause nausea, vomiting and fluid buildup in the lungs. Its rotten-egg smell wafted over La Porte for at least 24 hours after the accident, but county health officials said the leak posed little risk to the community because the gas rapidly degrades once released into the air. Even trace amounts carry the smell.
Jim Malewitz, Texas Tribune 12/01/2014    | | Read Article: Texas Tribune |
| Sex Abuse Lawsuit Names Houston's Catholic Charities | |
| | The family of a victim in a sex abuse case has filed a lawsuit against one of the largest charities in Houston, Texas. The lawsuit, filed against the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston contends that the charity put itself before the well-being of its patrons. According to the lawsuit, the charity's negligence led to the sexual abuse of the plaintiff when he was just a boy. The case has also revealed past abuse by the defendant of another boy. The employee of the charity was sentenced earlier this year to seven years in prison. The lawsuit seeks over $1 million in damages and seeks a jury trial.
Staff Report, KTRK-TV 11/23/2014 | | Read Article: KTRK-TV |
| Honda Admits it Failed to Report Injury, Crash Claims | |
| | Honda Motor Co. has admitted that it had failed to notify U.S. safety regulators about nearly 2,000 claims of injuries and deaths in connection with the company's vehicles since 2003. The company made the announcement on Monday and stated that the unreported claims were counted by a third-party audit. After making the admission, the company said that the missed reports were due to "various errors related to data entry." The carmaker has been in the middle of an investigation of recalled airbags made by Takata Corp.
Paul Lienert and Jessica Dye, Bangor Daily News 11/24/2014 | | Read Article: Bangor Daily News |
| High School Football Head Injury Lawsuit Filed | |
| | A former high school quarterback filed suit against the Illinois High School Association — saying it didn't do enough to protect him from concussions when he played and still doesn't do enough to protect current players. The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Cook on the same day Illinois wrapped up its last high school football championship games, is the first instance in which legal action has been taken for former high school players as a whole against a group responsible for prep sports in a state.
MICHAEL TARM, AP , Charlotte Observer 12/01/2014 | | Read Article: Charlotte Observer |
| Lawsuit: Jury's $8.3M Award is Likely Kendall County Record | |
| | A Kendall County jury awarded $8.3 million to Drilling Risk Management Inc. in the drilling contractor's suit, over an unpaid insurance claim on an oil well in Lousiana, against Gemini Insurance Co. and Berkley Specialty Co. The award, which included $4 million in punitive damages, should make other insurance industry officials think twice before short-changing policy holders, said the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Drilling Risk Management Inc.
Zeke MacCormack, San Antonio Express News 12/01/2014 | | Read Article: San Antonio Express News |
| Inside Takata Little Sense of Crisis Over Air Bags | |
| | Shigehisa Takada, the head of Takata Corp, shows little sense of the crisis engulfing the Japanese air bag maker at the center of one of the auto industry's biggest safety recalls, according to three people who have met him recently. "He acts like this recall is going to blow by in due time and harbours little sense of crisis," said one of the associates. Takata's handling of the massive safety recall has frustrated U.S. politicians and regulators and has confused drivers as to whether their cars need fixing or not. The scale of the recalls looks certain to escalate after U.S. safety regulators ordered Takata last Wednesday to expand piecemeal regional recalls of driver-side air bags to cover the entire United States, not just hot and humid areas where the inflators are thought to become more volatile.
Norihiko Shirouzu, Reuters 12/01/2014 | | Read Article: Reuters |
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