Archive for December, 2011
Breaking news AP IMPACT: When your criminal past isn’t yours
Posted by Lawyer in Auto Accident Lawyer on December 22, 2011
We Asked Are Background Checking Companies Subject to Lawsuits?
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A clerical error landed Kathleen Casey on the streets.
Out of work two years, her unemployment benefits exhausted, in danger of losing her apartment, Casey applied for a job in the pharmacy of a Boston drugstore. She was offered $11 an hour. All she had to do was pass a background check.
It turned up a 14-count criminal indictment. Kathleen Casey had been charged with larceny in a scam against an elderly man and woman that involved forged checks and fake credit cards.
There was one technicality: The company that ran the background check, First Advantage, had the wrong woman. The rap sheet belonged to Kathleen A. Casey, who lived in another town nearby and was 18 years younger. Does Kathleen have a lawsuit ? We suggest reading a personal injury attorney web site
Kathleen Ann Casey, would-be pharmacy technician, was clean.
“It knocked my legs out from under me,” she says.
The business of background checks is booming. Employers spend at least $2 billion a year to look into the pasts of their prospective employees. They want to make sure they’re not hiring a thief, or worse.
But it is a system weakened by the conversion to digital files and compromised by the welter of private companies that profit by amassing public records and selling them to employers. These flaws have devastating consequences.
It is a system in which the most sensitive information from people’s pasts is bought and sold as a commodity.
A system in which computers scrape the public files of court systems around the country to retrieve personal data. But a system in which what they retrieve isn’t checked for errors that would be obvious to human eyes.
A system that can damage reputations and, in a time of precious few job opportunities, rob honest workers of a chance at a new start. And a system that can leave the Kathleen Caseys of the world – the innocent ones – living in a car.
Those are the results of an investigation by The Associated Press that included a review of thousands of pages of court filings and interviews with dozens of court officials, data providers, lawyers, victims and regulators.
Law Wire News What you should know about the Penn State child sexual abuse case
Posted by Lawyer in Auto Accident Lawyer on December 16, 2011
Child sexual abuse ranks among the most horrific of all crimes. When allegations of child sexual assault surfaced at Penn State University, many in Pennsylvania were shocked. Jerry Sandusky, an once revered assistant football coach, was charged with abusing eight boys over a 15-year time period. Sandusky denied the charges, but said he did shower with the boys.
While Sandusky is innocent until proven guilty, in general child predators who are convicted tend to receive lengthy prison sentences. For the victims, the assault may cause deep psychological trauma in addition to physical injuries. While no amount of money can truly undo the damage of a sexual assault, victims may need compensation for real financial losses. The only recourse for many victims of sexual assault is to retain a personal injury lawyer. By pursuing compensation through the civil courts, or a child sexual abuse lawsuit, victims may be able to receive compensation to cover the costs of psychiatric care or psychological care. Sadly, many victims may require a lifetime of therapy in addition to needing to address physical injuries.
Breaking News Parents Sue After Teen Dies During Wisdom Tooth Surgery
Posted by Lawyer in Car Accident Lawyers on December 15, 2011
The parents of a Maryland teen who died earlier this year during wisdom tooth surgery have sued the oral surgeon and the anesthetist for medical malpractice.
Jenny Olenick, a 17-year-old junior at Marriotts Ridge High School in Woodstock, Md., died in April from complications during the outpatient procedure performed on 5 million Americans each year.
“It’s so hard,” Cathy Garger, Olenick’s mother, told ABCNews.com. “She was the only one we had.”
The civil suit, filed in Howard Country Circuit Court, claims the oral surgeon, Dr. Domenick Coletti, and the anesthiologist, Dr. Krista Michelle Isaacs, were negligent and failed to resuscitate Olenick after her heart rate and blood oxygen level dropped.
Legal News New York Texting behind wheel data puts spotlight on safety
Posted by Lawyer in Buffalo Lawyers on December 14, 2011
A recent survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that, despite increased legislation forbidding it, texting while driving Click Here is on the rise. The survey estimated that roughly 1 in every 100 drivers on the road at a given moment was texting, e-mailing, surfing the web or using some other feature of their portable handheld devices in 2010: a year that amassed nearly 3100 deaths in automobile accidents due to distracted driving.
The results of the survey are cause for alarm. At the Law Offices of James Morris, our Niagara legal claim have seen first-hand the devastation of distracted driving crashes in New York. Our attorneys have represented clients who were seriously injured in auto accidents due to the negligence of other drivers.
The data unveiled a drastic dissonance between driver beliefs and behavior. According to the NHTSA survey, those polled acknowledged very few circumstances where they would NOT talk or text on their cell phone while behind the wheel, despite supporting greater restrictions on both behaviors (seventy-one percent of survey participants supported bans on using handheld devices behind the wheel, while a whopping 94% supported bans on texting while driving). Seventy-five of those same drivers polled said they would answer their ringing phone while driving, without regard to driving conditions at the time of the phone call.
