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As the Tennessee grows, tragic accidents between cars and people have dramatically risen.  In fact, there have been one hundred and twenty pedestrians and bicyclists killed as of December 29, 2015.  Six  other pedestrians died in Nashville in November and December raising alarm among advocates and a new round of questions about why some people continue to be injured or killed on infamously dangerous streets, like Harding Place.  Mary-Pat Teague, chairwoman of Metro’s Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee was surprised by the high numbers and stated that, “A couple of these recent fatalities, people were crossing the street mid-block, out of a crosswalk , always very dangerous  but they were crossing because that’s where the bus stop was.”

Nashville’s Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee or BPAC and the on-profit Walk Bike Nashville, has been considering a move toward a “Vision Zero,” program that strives for zero fatalities. Teague stated that he program, as adopted in other cities, typically includes an education campaign about safe crossings, an analysis of speed limits in known danger areas, and engineering changes that try to anticipate driver errors. Mary-Pat Teague also went on to say that the “Police are doing everything they can to investigate and look at these issues, but they need help with policy changes, I believe.” Metro continues to examine crosswalks and police enforcement while the Tennessee Highway Patrol is also making pedestrian safety a priority in 2016. Lt. Bill Miller said he worries about distraction and not just for drivers. He asks, “Is there something that we can do to better educate the public as to the dangers that are involved with walking and being distracted at the same time?” Miller also went on to state that, “It’s an urgent challenge because 10 percent of roadway fatalities now involve people outside of vehicles. We are, unfortunately, being hit very hard with non-motorized and pedestrian fatalities. That is going to be one of our primary areas of focus in 2016.”

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According to a recent story from the AP, the state of Tennessee has stopped taking new inmates at its newest facility in Hartsville, TN after only 4 months of operation. “We’re holding off on sending more prisoners until CCA has an opportunity to increase its recruiting efforts and staffing,” Tennessee Department of Correction Assistant Commissioner Tony Parker told the AP.

This is certainly not the first time CCA has been in trouble for overworking its employees; in 2014, CCA paid 8 million ($8,000,000.00) to settle a lawsuit for back wages for employees at its facility in California City, CA. The company also paid $260,000 to settle overtime claims in November, 2013 for shift managers at its facilities in Kentucky. The settlement was unsealed – over CCA’s objections – after Prison Legal News (PLN), a project of the Human Rights Defense Center, intervened in the case to make the settlement public.

Also, in August 2009 the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas unsealed a $7 million settlement agreement in a nationwide class-action wage and hour lawsuit against CCA. The suit, brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act, alleged that CCA had required some employees to perform work duties “without compensating them for all such hours worked.” Specifically, the company was accused of not paying correctional officers and other employees for pre- and post-shift work that included roll calls, obtaining weapons and equipment, attending meetings and job assignment briefings, and completing paperwork.

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To help combat the epidemic of elder abuse, on March 30th of 2016, the Department of Justice  made an announcement about the formal launch of 10 regional Elder Justice Task Forces designed to identify nursing homes and other long-term care  facilities that provide “grossly substandard care” to residents. This is similar to a team previously launched by the Department of Justice known as the Medicare Fraud Strike Force and Health Care Fraud Prevention & Enforcement Action Team or HEAT initiative, the newly created Elder Justice Task Forces will focus on coordination and information sharing among federal, state and local enforcement agencies to combat suspected cases of physical abuse and financial fraud of the elderly.

Every task force in this new Elder Justice Task Force  will consist of representatives from the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, state Medicaid Fraud Control Units, state and local prosecutors’ offices, the Department of Health and Human Services, state Adult Protective Services agencies, Long-Term Care Ombudsman programs and other law enforcement officials. These task forces will also have a national footprint with locations in the following districts: Northern District of California, Northern District of Georgia, District of Kansas, Western District of Kentucky, Northern District of Iowa, District of Maryland, Southern District of Ohio, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Middle District of Tennessee and the Western District of Washington.

These new Elder Justice Task forces mean that there is increased interest and attention being focused on the Long Term Care industry, maybe due in part to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ proposed rule, last summer, to overhaul requirements for participation by Long Term Care facilities in federal health care programs.

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Gloria Ristesund used Johnson & Johnson’s talc powder products on her genitals for years and she was later diagnosed with ovarian cancer as a result. She had to have a hysterectomy and several other surgeries because of the cancer. The cancer is now in remission. Ristesund was awarded awarded $5 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages for Johnson & Johnson’s failure to properly warn consumers about the cancer risks associated with talc powder.

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It is hard not to love Uber living in a city like Nashville. So many of us have used this service to get around town. It is a very popular service and company. However, it may be one of many companies trying to pay their workers as independent contractors instead of employees so they do not have to pay them the benefits and wages they are entitled to. If you or someone you work with feel that you have been misclassified and are not receiving the wages, overtime pay or benefits you deserve, then you should speak to a employment and overtime pay lawyer with the Higgins Firm. We will listen to your claim and help you get the compensation you are entitled to for the work that you have done.

According to this lawsuit filed last year by up to 385,000 drivers that were seeking  employee status and the associated benefits to which they would be entitled, the law requires that businesses must reimburse their employees for work-related expenses, which if drivers were classified as employees would include outlays for gas and parking that Uber and Lyft currently do not cover.

In the settlement Uber will pay $84 million to the plaintiffs, with a second payment of $16 million if its valuation increases a certain amount within a year after a public offering. The company’s latest round of venture capital financing disclosed in December valued it at $62.5 billion. Uber will also make changes to its policies, including giving more information on how and why the company bars drivers, and creating drivers associations in California and Massachusetts as appeals venues for workers who disagree with the company’s decisions.

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Virgil Hood handled paints and paint thinners manufactured by E.I. DuPont de Nemours daily while working as a painter between 1973 and 1996 for Timpte Trailers, a manufacturer of semi-trailers. He also worked for Continental Airlines. Hood was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndromes also known as acute myeloid leukemia in 2012. The lawsuit states that he received chemotherapy treatments and after having a bone marrow transplant, he experienced “horrific complications” that included his having pneumonia three times as well as temporary blindness and significant weight loss. The lawsuit also stated that, Hood was battling graft-versus-host disease, in which his body and the new bone marrow are literally attacking one another and experiencing side effects caused by the drugs he took to prevent his body from rejecting the new bone marrow. Although he still worked while undergoing chemotherapy treatments, he had to retire after the transplant.

During the trial, evidence showed that DuPont, the manufacturer of the paints that Hood worked with, that from 1938, DuPont knew that benzene exposure causes bone marrow disease and by 1954, DuPont had warned others to remove benzene from paints. By the late 1960s, it was well established that benzene causes leukemia. Hood representation stated that, “DuPont chose not to take the benzene out of its products or to warn workers like Mr. Hood about the hazards. Instead in 1975 DuPont marched one of its executives before OSHA to deceive the government about cancer hazards of its paint products.”

Another member of Hood’s legal representation during the trial, stated that, “When DuPont learned that the government was considering a safety standard, it thought only of costs to its business. Rather than simply place a cancer warning on its paints, DuPont’s expert presented shoddy test results to OSHA that were nowhere near real-world conditions. DuPont’s whitewashed testing was designed to create the appearance that workers exposed to benzene levels 5 to 10 times above the proposed standard would still be safe.”

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Truck drivers are required by federal law to pass health tests before they drive, but many of these drivers keep certain medical conditions and problems a secret which could mean that they should not be on the road because it could be dangerous and lead to accidents. In one recent case, Ruthie Allen was one of thirty-five passengers that was injured when a Greyhound bus drove off an interstate. The driver allegedly blacked out. Allen stated that, “I started yelling at the driver but I didn’t get a response. The bus started to tumble. I looked down and I saw the bone in my thigh protruding through my clothing.”

The bus accident is still under investigation, however, according to the accident report the driver, Dwayne Garrett – told police he was drinking coffee, started coughing and lost consciousness. However, no coughing is heard on the dash camera video. A few weeks before the accident occurred, a Department of Transportation medical examiner suspected Garrett might have sleep apnea , a breathing condition that disrupts sleep and leads to fatigue. If untreated, it disqualifies a driver from operating a commercial vehicle like a bus. Garrett got a ninety day waiver and was told to get tested. When Garrett was questioned about what the doctor said, Garrett said that, “He claimed that I had one of the markers for sleep apnea, which was he could not see the back of my throat.”

According to reports, Garrett saw his his personal physician, Dr. Robert Kunkel, also a Department of Transportation examiner. He acknowledged the Department of Transportation’s suspicion about sleep apnea, but Kunkel claims Garret failed to disclose some key symptoms and a referral to get a sleep test, which he says prevented further evaluation. A court-ordered sleep test ultimately diagnosed Garrett with sleep apnea. He is now disqualified from driving commercially.

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Leading stars of the United States women’s national team have filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against U.S. Soccer, claiming wage discrimination relative to the men’s national team. Carli Lloyd told Matt Lauer on the “Today” show, “I think that we’ve proven our worth over the years. Just coming off of a 2015 Women’s World Cup win, the pay disparity between the men and women is just too large. And we want to continue to fight.”

The four other players that filed the complaint are goalkeeper Hope Solo, striker Alex Morgan, playmaker Megan Rapinoe and central defender and co-captain Becky Sauerbrunn. They feel that he women’s national team, which enjoys a national popularity that often exceeds the men’s in the mainstream, drives far more revenue to the U.S. Soccer Federation than they are compensated for. According to an investigation by the New York Daily News, the financial constructions that channel those incomes are so tousled that there’s no telling what money is brought in by the women and how much of it by the men. The women feel though that they have been stonewalled by the federation in their attempts to see the financial statements for themselves.

The women point to the vast disparity in performance bonuses.  The men’s team received more, a shared $2.5 million just for reaching the World Cup, than the women did for winning the entire thing, $1.8 million. A similar gap exists in all other bonuses as well. The men sometimes collect ten times more for winning a friendly than the women do. However, the women and not the men, , also receive a full-time salary from the federation of up to $72,000, not including up to hundreds of thousands in bonuses they typically collect, a baseline guarantee the men don’t enjoy. They are also compensated by the federation for participating in the National Women’s Soccer League.

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When we go to the doctor and get medication for an illness or medical condition, we expect these medications to be safe and to help us feel better. Unfortunately, sometimes medications have dangerous side effects that can cause more problems and even end up making us worse than before we received the medication.   According to a recent lawsuit filed on December 15th of 2015, the plaintiff claims that they did not know about the seriousness and particulars of the dangerous side effects of Invokana when she was prescribed the medication. She began taking the medication in December of 2014, when it had been on the market for about a year. She claims that soon after taking the medication, she developed diabetic ketoacidosis, alleged to be a serious, life-threatening condition about which the health care community has become increasingly aware as an emerging Invokana side effect among the many adverse events of Invokana.

The plaintiff, while alleging that she did not previously know about the seriousness of the Invokana side effects, has also claimed that Janssen, a unit of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, failed to properly warn consumers about the possible risks and drawbacks of Invokana. The lawsuit claims that the Johnson &Johnson company failed to properly study and vet the type 2 diabetes drug before bringing it to market in 2013.

The lawsuit’s final claim is that Janssen improperly promoted Invokana off label for treatment of type 1 diabetes, as well as for the treatment of hypertension. Doctors have always carried the blessing of the US Food and Drug Administration  in prescribing drugs for indications not necessarily approved by the FDA. The thinking being that doctors have the capacity to study and understand the formulation of drugs, and thus are in a position to undertake a medical judgment call on behalf of their patients. The FDA, in this way, defers to the doctor. However, it is illegal for pharmaceuticals and manufacturers to market a drug off label, for uses and indications not specifically approved by the FDA.

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After a string of business friendly rulings, the Supreme Court has handed a victory out to the working men and women.  In this case, employees at the meat processing facility, Tyson Foods, filed a lawsuit in 2007 claiming that they were entitled to overtime pay and damages because they were not paid for their time spent putting on and taking off protective equipment and walking to their work stations. Tyson Foods challenged this almost 5.8million class action lawsuit and on March 22, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the employees in a six to two ruling by Justice Anthony Kennedy. Thus ruling upheld a 2014 appeals court decision in favor of the employees.

This was one of three  closely watched class action cases to come before the court during its current term. In January, the court ruled six to three against advertising firm Campbell-Ewald, saying a lawsuit could proceed over claims the company violated a federal consumer law by sending unsolicited text messages on behalf of the U.S. Navy.   In the Tyson case, the court was considering an objection to the use of statistics to determine liability and damages. Critics in the business community have described such use of statistics as “trial by formula” that violates defendants’ due process rights, instead of assessing each claim individually for the more than 3,000 current and former employees who are suing.

This ruling was also decided in part because of a 1946 Supreme Court precedent that said plaintiffs can rely on averages in such situations to determine claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Justice Kennedy stated that, “While corporate defendants may urge adoption of broad and categorical rules governing the use of representative and statistical evidence in class actions, this case provides no occasion to do so.”  He also stated that, “The ruling does not undercut the court’s major 2011 ruling in favor of Wal Mart Stores Inc., which made it harder to bring class action cases.

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