| Announcements | | 
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| | 2011 Reel Justice Fishing Tournament, Sep 30 - Oct 1 in Port Aransas | |
| | Join the TTLA Advocates for our first Annual Reel Justice Fishing Tournament, and see who gets bragging rights as TTLA's fishing champion! The fun starts Friday evening with a Welcome dinner, where you'll meet your guide and pick up your tournament materials. Saturday morning at first light, it's ON! Registration fee includes boat, guide, Welcome dinner on Friday, breakfast, lunch & snacks on Saturday, tournament t-shirt, and other goodies! | | Products | |
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| | Cargill Recalls Additional Pounds of Ground Turkey | |
| | Cargill Inc. has recalled an additional 185,000 pounds of ground turkey from its Arkansas plant after already recalling 36 million pounds of meat last month that had been linked to a salmonella outbreak. Health officials reported more than 100 cases of salmonella in 31 states, including one death in California last month. Cargill officials said the latest recall was not the result of additional illnesses, but as a result of Cargill's own testing. Hugo Martín, LA Times 09/12/2011 | | Read Article: LA Times | | Seat Belt Defects Prompts Honda Pilot Recall | |
| | Honda Motors has issued a recall of 310,773 Pilot SUVs to fix a defect in the seat belts. The company said that the stitching in the seat belts may not have been properly sewn and can detach suddenly, increasing the risk of injury in the event of a crash. Honda has received two complaints of seat belts detaching in the last 18 months. Jonathan Welsh, WSJ Blogs 09/10/2011 | | Read Article: WSJ Blogs | | Laws/Cases | |
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| | Malpractice Suit in Georgia to Proceed | |
| | The Georgia Supreme Court has approved a malpractice lawsuit filed by a Georgia man against a local psychiatrist. His suit claims that the discontinuation of his 38-year-old son's medication by the psychiatrist resulted in the son murdering his mother in a psychotic rage. The woman died after being brutally attacked and stabbed 72 times. The suit accuses the psychiatrist of negligence. Bill Rankin , Atlanta Journal-Constitution 09/12/2011 | | Read Article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | | Employees File Suit Against Groupon | |
| | Sales employees at Groupon have filed a class-action lawsuit against their employer, claiming the company failed to pay overtime wages to its employees. The lawsuit demands three years of back wages as well as punitive damages. Groupon has yet to respond to the suit, which was filed last month in Chicago. Staff Report, Chicago Tribune 09/09/2011 | | Read Article: Chicago Tribune | | Arizona Deputy Files Suit over False Rape Charges | |
| | A deputy in Pima County, Ariz., has filed a lawsuit against the sheriff's department and other county officials after being acquitted of rape charges. The suit alleges defamation and malicious prosecution and the plaintiff says his reputation was severely damaged over the false charges. According to the suit, prosecutors decided to pursue charges even though the Tuscon Police Department declared that there was no probable cause in the case. The suit is seeking $5.2 million in damages. Kim Smith, Arizona Daily Star 09/10/2011 | | Read Article: Arizona Daily Star | | City of Chicago Settles $1.3 Million Lawsuit | |
| | The City of Chicago has agreed to a $1.3 million settlement in a lawsuit filed over the death of a man who swallowed a bag of drugs during an arrest. Video surveillance shows the man in physical distress and captures the police officers ignoring his struggles until it was too late. The lawyer for the plaintiff, the man's mother, said the officers were required by law to call for medical assistance when they witnessed the man's physical struggles, but failed to do so. Hal Dardick, Chicago Tribune 09/08/2011 | | Read Article: Chicago Tribune | | Convicted DFW Child Molester is No Longer a Priest | |
| | More than two years after a Texas jury convicted Thomas Teczar of molesting an 11-year-old Texas boy, and decades after his first accusers came forward, Teczar is a priest no more. Bishop Kevin Vann, leader of the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese, announced Friday that he had learned that Pope Benedict XVI decreed that Teczar has been "dismissed from the clerical state." Teczar, 70, is appealing a 50-year prison sentence on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child in the 1990s. The Fort Worth Diocese's first settlement, with two victims in 2005, was for $4.15 million. Another suit was settled in 2007. Delaney said in 2005 that the decision to settle the lawsuits was a financial one. The diocese admitted no wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement. Darren Barbee, Fort Worth Star-Telegram 09/12/2011 | | Read Article: Fort Worth Star-Telegram | | Issues | |
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| | New Docs Detail How Feds Downplayed Ground Zero Health Risks | |
| | New documents have emerged showing that federal officials in Washington and New York went further than was previously known to downplay concerns about health risks, misrepresenting or concealing information that ultimately might have protected thousands of people from the contaminated air at ground zero. The documents do not reveal how—or whether—federal officials explicitly weighed the competing goals of ensuring New Yorkers' safety and projecting an image of a city and nation unbowed. But taken as a whole, the records—which include email messages from the White House's Council on Environmental Quality to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as well as interagency correspondence—give the most detailed account yet of how officials kept potentially disturbing data about health risks from the public. Anthony DePalma, ProPublica 09/12/2011 | | Read Article: ProPublica | | Pipeline Spills Put Safeguards Under Scrutiny | |
| | Pipeline spills have drawn attention to oversight of the 167,000-mile system of hazardous liquid pipelines crisscrossing the nation. The little-known federal agency charged with monitoring the system and enforcing safety measures — the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — is chronically short of inspectors and lacks the resources needed to hire more, leaving too much of the regulatory control in the hands of pipeline operators themselves, according to federal reports, an examination of agency data and interviews with safety experts. DAN FROSCH and JANET ROBERTS, The New York Times 09/12/2011 | | Read Article: The New York Times | | Healthcare | |
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| | Houston Pain Clinics Shut Down; More Docs Disciplined by TMB | |
| | Two Houston medical practices run as pain clinics by Dr. Donnie Evans have been shut down by the Texas Medical Board. Evans’ previous board discipline makes him ineligible to hold pain clinic certificates. In late August, the board disciplined Evans among 108 physicians, including 44 actions involving standard-of-care violations. Pain clinics, controlled substances and prescribing issues continue to dominate the most serious Houston-area sanctions handed down. Cindy George, Houston Chronicle 09/12/2011 | | Read Article: Houston Chronicle | | Insurance | |
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| | Irene Storm Damage Led Insurers to Apply Prohibited Deductible | |
| | Hurricane Irene caught schoolteacher Judi Nowottnick by surprise. Although there was no hurricane warning for her neighborhood, the power blinked off at her two-story colonial in Odenton on Aug. 27 and didn’t come back for eight long days. Four dozen crabs and $1,000 of other food in her two refrigerators spoiled, and Nowottnick spent an additional $400 on fast food for her two adult children living at home. But a bigger surprise arrived when she submitted the bill to her insurance company, with which she had taken out a deluxe policy to cover such losses. Her agent invoked a “tropical cyclone” clause and increased her out-of-pocket deductible from $500 to $10,530. That’s a 2,000 percent increase. Other Maryland homeowners said their agents gave them the same painful news. Joe Stephens, The Washington Post 09/12/2011 | | Read Article: The Washington Post | |
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