Damage Suits Research Articles

Bullying in School: It Doesn't Have To Happen

Being bullied in school is not of growing or just a rite of passage. Some children who endure bullying never get over the fear and the humiliation, according Mr. Barone. By working together, schools and parents can make going school an experience that students will enjoy, not dread. Almost everybody can tell a story or two about having once been victimized in school by a bully. Many people can discuss in detail the incidents surrounding the experience and can even remember the name of the bully and the grade level at which the trauma occurred. Few of us go through all the years of schooling unscathed. And while most of us get over the fear and the humiliation, some do not. Nathan Feris, a seventh-grader at DeKalb High School in DeKalb, Missouri, decided that enduring four years of taunting by other children, who called him chubby and walking dictionary, was more than enough. On 2 March 1987 Feris brought a gun school and fatally shot another student before turning the gun on himself in class. Classmates said that nobody really had anything against Nathan. He was just someone pick on, they said.(1) A set of parents in Japan have filed a 22-million-yen damage suit against the Tokyo metropolitan government and the parents of two alleged bullies, claiming that their 13-year-old son's suicide was caused by ijimi (bullying). The parents also claim that the school principal and several teachers not only failed intervene stop the harassment, but actually assisted the bullies in their activities. The boy hanged himself in a railway rest room and left a note naming two classmates as the cause of his anguish.(2) It seems that bullying has been a problem in schools for as long as there have been schools. Why is this so? Although not encouraged, bullying continues be a problem for many children because it is widely tolerated. Teachers, school officials, parents, and other students too often seem by as children are degraded, humiliated, beaten, and ridiculed. Left unchecked, bullying in school can lead tragic consequences akin the two cases mentioned above. Even when suicide or murder is not the outcome, bullying can leave lasting emotional and psychological scars on children. Furthermore, research has shown that bullying can extend across the generations: the children of bullies often become bullies themselves. Why, then, do school officials, teachers, and parents often appear take so little notice? One reason may be because many adults consider bullying be a normal part of growing up. Confronting a bully is considered one of the rites of passage for a boy. Unfortunately for the victim, the age-old advice stand up to the bully and fight back usually leads more violent bullying. Rarely does the bully back down. A second reason why bullying continues unabated might be that educators have become desensitized bullying and do not even see it. Thus they seldom report it. A third reason could be that the schools are overwhelmed by other issues and problems outside of education with which they must deal. And finally, schools may not want identify bullying as a problem because they do not have the resources address it. Scope of the Problem Students who are the victims of bullies and school officials who hold the power stop them have very different perceptions of the problem. This difference has hindered effective prevention efforts. I developed a survey that was administered in spring and summer of 1993 two groups in upstate New York. The first group consisted of 847 eighth-graders; the second group consisted of 110 counselors, teachers, and administrators in the same schools as the students. The survey contained the following definition of bullying: is a situation when a student or group of students is mean you over a long period of time (weeks or even months). Bullying can either be physical (hitting, kicking, and so on) or it can be verbal (threats, name calling, gossiping, or ignoring). …

Suit charges fraud in fudging of Benlate data

Plant growers have upped the ante from claims that DuPont's Benlate fungicide caused crop damage. Five Texas growers have filed a lawsuit charging three DuPont executives, DuPont's Atlanta law firm of Alston & Bird, Alta Analytical Laboratory (an independent lab), and two Alta chemists with fraud and conspiracy for manipulating Benlate test data. The growers base the charges on Alta phone logs and notes released recently in connection with a Benlate trial in Hawaii. DuPont is the target of hundreds of Benlate crop damage suits and 17 claims of health damages. But an amended petition, filed Nov. 30 in a Texas state court in Houston, is the first to claim DuPont's attorneys convinced an outside laboratory to misrepresent data. The growers allege Alston & Bird manipulated research data by the El Dorado Hills, Calif.-based lab. The legal team hired the lab to analyze soil samples from nurseries and farms claiming Benlate damage, to check for ...

Fetal Exclusion Policies and Gendered Constructions of Suitable Work

This paper offers evidence to contradict employers' claims that scientific research supports their definition of unacceptable risk used to exclude women from jobs requiring exposure to toxic substances. Definitions of acceptable risk in fetal exclusion policies are not scientific or value-neutral, but are in fact socially constructed, and therefore reflect gender stratification, corporate control, and the culturally privileged position of the fetus. This is evident in three of these policies' effects: (1) they exclude only certain fertile women, not all workers at risk; (2) they give priority to fetal rights, at the expense of workers'rights; and (3) corporations see them as the least costly defense against damage suits. In addition, the paper examines problematic free choice rhetoric pervading the important U.S. Supreme Court case regarding the Johnson Controls Corporation's fetal exclusion policy. Finally, it examines conceptions and power relationships that underlie fetal exclusion, and suggests how issues of reproduction and risk in the workplace might be reframed.

The prevention of psychotherapist sexual misconduct: avoiding the slippery slope.

Therapist sexual misconduct has its genesis in the therapeutic relationship. The mental health professions have long recognized the delicacy with which the therapist must handle the therapeutic relationship, with its power imbalance, inherent vulnerability of the patient, and transference and countertransference reactions. The prevention of sexual contact starts with the careful attention to boundary violations, which, though themselves perhaps not harmful, may escalate into sexualized behavior. Methods of preventing this behavior include the establishment of clear guidelines for practitioners and the expansion of the educational process for therapists, therapists' employers, patients, and other professionals. Last resorts lie in the legal and quasi-legal proceedings available to victims, such as civil suits for damages, criminal complaints, board of licensing complaints, and actions before professional associations. The best method of preventing sexual contact with patients involves respecting the boundaries of the professional relationship and avoidance of the slippery slope.

General Liability Insurers Not Liable for “Sudden and Accidental” Pollution Damage

This suit arose from complex litigation involving damage to the environment from disposal of a radioactive substance into the sewer lines, sewage treatment facility, and landfill of the town of Tonawanda, N.Y. The substance was produced in a facility owned by EAD Metallurgical Inc. In 1985, the state of New York sued EAD and the owner of the property on which the facility was located, alleging violation of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. The landowner, in turn, sued EAD and its officers. EAD was covered under general liability policies issued by Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., North River Insurance Co., and American Nuclear Insurers. EAD brought suit in federal court seeking a declaration that Aetna and North River were obligated to defend and indemnify it in the pollution damage suits. The trial court ruled for the insurers.

Court-Ordered Arbitration in North Carolina: Case Outcomes and Litigant Satisfaction

North Carolina’s pilot program of court-ordered arbitration of civil cases involved an informal adversarial hearing in a courtroom before an arbitrator (an experienced attorney), held within sixty days of the last responsive pleading. The program was limited to suits for damages not exceeding $15,000 (most were based on a contract theory). Most cases that went to arbitration hearings ended in judgment on the arbitrator’s award. Trial de novo occurred in only nine percent of the cases that went to hearings. The program reduced the disposition time in eligible contested cases by one-third or more and cut the trial rate from 20 percent to seven percent. Evidently, arbitration hearings replaced out-of-court settlements more often than they replaced trials. Litigants assigned to the arbitration program were more satisfied with their experience than were litigants in a comparison group. These differences persisted in multivariate models that controlled for whether the litigant won, settled, or lost, and other factors associated with satisfaction. Attorneys were as satisfied with the program as with standard procedure, and strongly favored continuing the program.

John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible , and A "Confederacy" of Friends and Relatives

John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible, and A "Confederacy" of Friends and Relatives Pat Carr (bio) In 1969, near Biloxi, Mississippi, John Kennedy Toole, found dead in his ancient Chevrolet, whose exhaust he had pumped into the back seat with a garden hose, left a suicide note beside him on the front seat and two novel manuscripts back home in New Orleans. One of those novels, A Confederacy of Dunces, won its author a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1981, and the other, on the twentieth anniversary of its author's death, has just been published by Grove Press. This slim novel, Toole's first, written for a high school contest when Toole was only sixteen, neither won the competition nor was ever submitted again, but it became the center of a bitter family feud and publishing controversy that is ultimately more intriguing than the novel itself. The story, told in loose first-person narrative, concerns a poor Mississippi boy named Dave from a poor, unnamed Mississippi town dominated by the Baptist Church. Dave, his mother, father, and sixty-year-old Aunt Mae (arriving in town with bleached Jean Harlow hair and a trunkful of old burlesque gowns) scrape out an existence on a slope above the town from which Dave gazes down on the gaudy neon Bible atop the church roof. The narrative has moments of charm, and the style shows a fine sense of irony, but the novel exhibits none of the gleeful humor that made Confederacy so captivating. And although the characters are convincing and the World War Two town is well depicted, the objective reader can [End Page 716] understand from the singularly gory and unmotivated ending why the novel did not win a high school prize. Most of those connected with this juvenile novel were not objective readers, however, and that made all the difference. When Toole committed suicide, his mother and father inherited his estate, but when the elder Toole died a few years later, Louisiana's Napoleonic code gave Mr. Toole's relatives—a brother, nephew, and three nieces—half of the two novel manuscripts young Toole left. Toole's mother, Thelma, with keen foresight and a modest $2,065, got her in-laws to sign away their rights to Confederacy before it was published, but when the novel made its tremendous splash, the Tooles (by then reduced to four cousins) were less willing to relinquish their half of The Neon Bible, and Thelma vowed never to let them benefit from her son's talent. She first tried to get the Napoleonic inheritance laws changed, but when she realized that she was going to die before that change occurred, she decided to leave the manuscript to a college professor friend, Kenneth Holditch, from whom she exacted a promise that he would never allow the manuscript to be published. Pressure mounted for her to publish the book, and even such an august literary figure as Walker Percy commented, "I would hope that she would not deprive the readers of the pleasure of something written by her son" (Feeney, Times Picayune A4). But Thelma, who had worked for ten years to get Confederacy into print and who firmly believed that the Tooles had slighted her genius son, resisted and renounced any tentative commitments she had made for publication. Thus, in 1984, a New Orleans publisher brought a $250,000 damage suit against Mrs. Toole for breach of an oral contract to publish The Neon Bible. A week later Thelma died of cancer, and the manuscript was duly bequeathed to Kenneth Holditch. The law suit was immediately transferred to him as the new half-owner of the book, and more critics lined up to lament that the misguided Mrs. Toole, and now the misguided English professor, were keeping a beautiful book by a dead genius from the public. Obligated by his promise to Mrs. Toole, the gallant Mississippi-born professor had no recourse but to fight the publication suit ("It's a matter of honor to me. Most people don't seem to understand that," he said at one point), and it dragged on for two more years before the judge finally decided that the oral contract...

Robins nears end of Dalkon Shield case

One of the largest product liability cases-that surrounding the Dalkon Shield intrauterine device made by A. H. Robins-is finally nearing an end. The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal last week to hear appeals regarding the Robins' bankruptcy reorganization plan is expected to enable American Home Products to complete the acquisition of the company. American outbid Rorer Group and the French company Sanofi in late 1987 to purchase the firm. Damage suits against Robins date back to 1974 when the company stopped distribution of the Dalkon Shield. Nearly 200,000 women originally sought damages, citing problems of infection and infertility. To protect itself financially, Robins filed for bankruptcy in 1985. In 1987, Robins was ordered by U.S. Federal District Court in Richmond, Va., to provide a settlement totaling nearly $2.5 billion, and in 1988 the same court gave approval to the Robins reorganization plan. The plan included establishing a trust fund and also prevented future lawsuits against company ...

Regulation of Wastes From the Metals Mining Industry: The Shape of Things to Come

The metals mining industry generates enormous quantities of waste materials. In the past these waste materials were not regulated. In some instances, inadequate management practices regarding these wastes resulted in significant environmental damage. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) contain provisions affecting the management of waste materials from mining. This paper reviews the amounts and types of waste material generated during the mining and beneliciation stages. The provisions of RCRA and CERCLA affecting the disposition of these wastes are discussed. Special attention then is given to natural resources damage suits under CERCLA aimed at old mining sites and the recently announced EPA program for regulating newly generated mining wastes.

Karst Development In Coastal Plain Sands: A "New" Problem in Foundation Engineering

Settling of a home located on clayey sands of the Plio-Pleistocene Citronelle Formation in Mobile, Alabama was identified as being caused by the incongruent dissolution of kaolinite to form gibbsite. On a molal basis, the transformation causes a volume loss amounting to nearly 35 percent. Sufficient kaolinite is present in the formation to account for small sinkholes in a homeowner9s yard and the settlement of his home. A damage suit was successfully filed by the homeowner against his insurance company for breach of contract because it was shown that he was entitled to compensation under a clause of the contract covering damage caused when “settlement or collapse results from subterranean voids created by the action of water on limestone or similar rock formations.” Arguments are presented to show that the clayey sands are, in fact, undergoing dissolution and, therefore, are behaving similar to limestone by the fact that water was dissolving a mineral and causing the formation of void spaces.

The Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986: Statutory Provisions and EPA Implementation

The recently enacted Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act ("SARA") establishes a complex and detailed statutory scheme designed by Congress to expedite the cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act ("CERCLA", or "Superfund"). Whether this legislative goal will be accoplished, however, is problematic at best. For although SARA erects an unusually specific framework for both the administrative approach to site cleanups and the settlement of liability claims, ambiguities and other uncertainties throughout the statute suggest that the interpretative problems posed by its predecessor, CERCLA, may pale in comparison. Indeed, conflicts have already arisen between Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") over the intended meaning of SARA's cleanup standards, and the courts have thrown a few early curve balls at new provisions governing the scope and standard of judicial review of Agency decisionmaking. Unfortunately, the extensive legislative history of this legislation, replete as it is with something for everyone, is unlikely to shed much meaningful light on a number of fundamental issues. As a result, it is likely to be some time before one can discern whether Congress will have achieved its objective. A few conclusions would appear, nonetheless, inescapable. It is clear, for example, that although EPA's discretion has been curtailed in several significant respects, the Agency's cleanup and enforcement authorities have been enhanced considerably. It is also inevitable that the costs of cleaning up hazardous waste sites will rise dramati- cally, thereby creating powerful incentives for potentially liable parties to involve themselves early in the decisionmaking process. Perhaps somewhat less clear, but inevitably impacted, is the extent to which citizen groups will have been provided effective tools to be examine and influence the handling of hazardous substances by industry, and to bring suit for personal and property damages when releases of such substances occur. ("SARA") establishes a complex and detailed statutory scheme designed by Congress to expedite the cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act ("CERCLA", or "Superfund"). Whether this legislative goal will be accomplished, however, is problematic at best. For although SARA erects an unusually specific framework for both the administrative approach to site cleanups and the settlement of liability claims, ambiguities and other uncertainties throughout the statute suggest that the interpretative problems posed by its predecessor, CERCLA, may pale in comparison. Indeed, conflicts have already arisen between Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") over the intended meaning of SARA's cleanup standards, and the courts have thrown a few early curve balls at new provisions governing the scope and standard of judicial review of Agency decisionmaking. Unfortunately, the extensive legislative history of this legislation, replete as it is with something for everyone, is unlikely to shed much meaningful light on a number of fundamental issues. As a result, it is likely to be some time before one can discern whether Congress will have achieved its objective. A few conclusions would appear, nonetheless, inescapable. It is clear, for example, that although EPA's discretion has been curtailed in several significant respects, the Agency's cleanup and enforcement authorities have been enhanced considerably. It is also inevitable that the costs of cleaning up hazardous waste sites will rise dramati- cally, thereby creating powerful incentives for potentially liable parties to involve themselves early in the decisionmaking process. Perhaps somewhat less clear, but inevitably impacted, is the extent to which citizen groups will have been provided effective tools to examine and influence the handling of hazardous substances by industry, and to bring suit for personal and property damages when releases of such substances occur.

Criminal conspiracy, injunctions and damage suits in labor law

Criminal conspiracy, injunctions and damage suits in labor law

THE SESQUICENTENNIAL OF PRIESTLY V. FOWLER AND THE CONFLICT OVER WORK AND HEALTH

Generally industrialists are interested only in the net product of their operations and aim to maximise this product by turning the private costs of doing business into social costs, to be borne by others, usually the employees in the form of hazards. The objective of protective labour legislation has been abatement of this avoidance of private costs at the expense of third parties. But the goal of minimising enterprise costs is at odds with this goal of public policy. 1986 marks the 150th anniversary of the case of Priestly v. Fowler in which a suit for damages was brought against an employer by an employee. The present examination of class conflict over work and health begins with this case. The Union Carbide (India) Ltd disaster in Bhopal is also examined. Although laws are enacted, conflict between employers and employees is simply transferred to the courts or enforcement agencies. Workers' compensation and the implications of deregulation in the 1980s is examined.

Wrongful Life and Wrongful Birth: New Concepts for the Pediatrician

Over the past two decades, numerous suits for damages have been brought against physicians for the injury of wrongful life, or wrongful birth. Within the past 5 years, several precedents have been set that broaden the physician's legal obligation to recognize and act upon foreseeable or potentially recurrent genetic, teratogenic, or chromosomal disorders. These precedents may be expected to affect all physicians, but particularly pediatricians, because of the increased frequency of such disorders in the pediatric population.

ITT mini‐trial settles long‐pending expensive damage suit for market share loss

ITT mini‐trial settles long‐pending expensive damage suit for market share loss

Private Damage Suits for Breach of Community Law

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MANVILLE: The ethics of economic efficiency?

On Thursday, August 26, 1982 the Manville Corporation (formerly Johns-Manville) and its principle American and Canadian affiliates filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Manville's unexpected bankruptcy petition stunned the financial community, surprised Congress, shocked their creditors, suppliers and customers, totally outraged those who have filled damage suits against them and raised a complex tangle of legal, political and ethical issues that will have far reaching implications for millions of Americans. The drama of the Manville announcement stems from the fact that this is the same Manville Corporation which last year earned $60.3 million on sales exceeding $2 billion with an uncumbered net worth of $1.1 billion. This is the same Manville which ranks 181st on the ‘Fortune 500’ list of American corporations. And this is the same Manville which has been traditionally included in the 30 companies used to calculate the prestigious Dow Jones industrial average, the most watched indicator of prices on the New York Stock Exchange. While there are many factors in the equation that resulted in Manville's final decision, Manville Chairman John A. McKinney angerly announced that his company could no longer sustain or survive the blitz of ‘toxic torts’ that it was now facing.

State Antitrust Enforcement: Its’ Evolution and Future Direction

State antitrust enforcement went through several dramatic changes from 1974 to 1982. This article charts its growth and decline during this period by measuring the number of actions filed by state antitrust programs, their funding and staffing. These measures indicate that state antitrust activity rapidly increased from 1974 to 1980 but has declined during the eighties because state antitrust programs lost federal funding and political support. This article also considers the changing focus of state antitrust enforcement by examining the type of defendant and substantive violation prosecuted, client represented, and relief sought in state antitrust actions. This examination shows that state antitrust enforcement shifted from multidistrict, treble damage suits against large, out-of-state enterprises to actions against small, in-state businesses. To explain the political and fiscal forces that have shaped state antitrust enforcement, this article compares antitrust enforcement in states with appointed attorneys general to that in states with elected ones, and among states with different funding sources for their programs. Based on these comparisons, it is argued that state attorneys general can overcome state antitrust's present political and fiscal crisis by bringing more consumer damage (parens patriae) suits and using revolving funds to finance enforcement. It is argued that state antitrust programs will make their greatest contribution to society by maximizing consumer welfare. They can do this by bringing actions against local price-fixers and bid-riggers, policing anticompetitive state regulation, and educating small businessmen and consumers about antitrust. This article offers suggestions for ensuring the long-term fiscal stability of state antitrust, including cooperative efforts designed to increase enforcement efficiency and modifications in revolving funds. The article concludes with the observation that state antitrust programs have provided a unique brand of locally oriented enforcement and this contribution will be lost unless state attorneys general act to achieve political and fiscal stability for these programs.

Damage Suits against Public Officers

Damage Suits against Public Officers

Contractor found to act in good faith

A conflict in construction caused a contractor to cease operations when no change order was issued by a sewer and water district whose sewer line was being relocated, and the district won its suit for damages. The Supreme Court of Utah overturned this decision, ruling that the absence of a change order allowed the contractor to proceed outside the terms or to shut down and declare the contract breached.