My employment law professor started class with this case. Apparently the strip search prank is quite common.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky appeals court upheld a $6.1 million award to a former fast food worker who was forced to strip in a McDonald’s restaurant office after someone called posing as a police officer.

The appellate court on Friday ruled that Illinois-based McDonald’s Corp., knew about a series of hoax calls to restaurants around the country, but didn't warn employees before Louise Ogborn was strip searched and sexually assaulted as the result of such a call in 2004.

via The Associated Press.

For my employment law class we were assigned Meintsma v. Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc.

This case arises out of a “birthday spanking” given to appellant Jeremy Meintsma by five co-employees with a two-by-four fashioned into a paddle at his place of employment, Loram Maintenance of Way, on May 1, 2001.

Meintsma sued Loram and the co-employees individually, alleging claims of assault and battery, aiding and abetting assault and battery, respondeat superior, negligent hiring, negligent supervision, negligent retention, and constructive discharge, as well as a claim for punitive damages.

According to Meintsma, the birthday spanking resulted in injuries to his buttocks, wrists, and elbow. Loram and the employees moved for summary judgment, arguing that Meintsma’s exclusive remedy was under the Workers’ Compensation Act (WCA).

Apparently this “spanking” was more in the nature of a birthday-beatdown:

Some members of Loram’s management were aware of the spanking practice, and a manager participated in at least one spanking. Indeed, according to Meintsma, sometime before his spanking he approached a supervisor and asked what would happen “when these guys tr[y] to get me on my birthday if I defend myself.” Meintsma also claims that on the day he was spanked he approached a supervisor and indicated that he did not want to be spanked.

Meintsma’s spanking occurred a few days after his birthday when a group of his co-employees grabbed him from behind, wrestled him off his stool and onto the concrete floor, and then spanked him with a wooden paddle fashioned from a two-by-four. The manner and number of times Meintsma was spanked is disputed. According to Meintsma, after the spanking, he spit blood on the floor, got up and shook hands with the individuals who spanked him, went to the washroom, and cleaned up with the help of one of the co-employees.

That evening Meintsma went to the emergency room. There, the doctor found that Meintsma had contusions to his back, abrasions to his left arm, muscle spasms in his lower back, and a superficial cut on his left wrist. Upon discharge, Meintsma was given pain medication and told not to go to work for the rest of the week. The emergency room doctor reported the incident to the Wright County Sheriff. Meintsma also reported the incident to the police. Ultimately, the individuals who participated in the birthday spanking were charged with fifth-degree assault and disorderly conduct. They eventually pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and received a stay of imposition of sentence for one year.

Meintsma v. Loram Maint. of Way, Inc., 684 N.W.2d 434 (Minn. 2004) a review of the case is on Findlaw.

Someone is sooo getting fired over at Pepsi

What’s the cost of not showing up to court? For PepsiCo Inc., it’s a $1.26 billion default judgment. A Wisconsin state court socked the company with the monster award in a case alleging that PepsiCo stole the idea to bottle and sell purified water from two Wisconsin men.

Now the company is scrambling to salvage the situation. The damages award was handed down on Sept. 30. PepsiCo filed motions to vacate the order and dismiss the claims on Oct. 13, saying it wasn’t even aware of the lawsuit until Oct. 6.

In court papers, PepsiCo claims it first received a legal document related to the case from the North Carolina agent on Sept. 15 when a copy of a co-defendant’s letter was forwarded to Deputy General Counsel Tom Tamoney in PepsiCo’s law department. Tamoney’s secretary, Kathy Henry, put the letter aside and didn’t tell anyone about it because she was “so busy preparing for a board meeting,” PepsiCo said in its Oct. 13 motion to vacate.

via Price to PepsiCo for Not Being in Court: $1.26 Billion – Yahoo! Finance.

At least the jury has passion for the case?

 
The trial in New York is Mercks first out of some 1,280 plaintiff groups involving almost 900 U.S. lawsuits by patients who claim Fosamax caused the condition known as osteonecrosis of the jaw, or death of jawbone tissue.

Merck attorney Paul Strain, who made reference to an “unsubstantiated claim” of a chair being thrown in the jury room, told the judge that OBriens motion for a mistrial was not well founded.

via Reuters.

A Houston doctor was decapitated when the elevator doors pinned him in. The hospital sued its elevator maintenance company …unsuccessfully.

In August 2003, while the contract was in effect, Dr. Hitoshi Nikaidoh, a surgical resident, was decapitated when the doors closed on him as he entered an elevator at Christus St. Joseph Hospital. Immediately thereafter, Christus hired Persohn/Hahn Elevator Company to perform audits on all of its elevators that Kone serviced under the contract. According to Christus, these audits identified necessary maintenance work that Kone was obligated to perform under the contract which it had not done. Christus terminated the contract with Kone and hired ThyssenKrupp Elevator Company to replace Kone and to provide elevator-maintenance services at Christus St. Joseph Hospital and Christus St. John Hospital. (Opinion is here)

 More on Final Destination-like aspects of elevators:

Elevator number 14 on the second floor of Christus St. Joseph Hospitals George W. Strake building was closed for four days. Since the elevator was being repaired, physicians assistant Karin Leah Steinau took the stairs on Thursday and Friday. On a mid-August Saturday, around 9:30 a.m., the elevators out-of-order sign was gone, so Steinau pressed the call button.

via Houston News – Catching Elevators – page 1.

Testing the waters, without punative damages…

Merck & Co., facing more than 850 lawsuits over claims that its osteoporosis drug Fosamax may cause irreversible “jaw rot,” won’t face punitive damages in the first trial, a federal judge said.

U.S. District Judge John Keenan said at a hearing today in New York that he’ll release a decision as early as July 31 knocking out the possibility of punitive damages in the case. He’ll deny Merck’s request to rule in its favor on liability, which means the case will go to trial Aug. 11, he said.

“I am not granting summary judgment on anything else,” Keenan said.

via Bloomberg.com.

Pfizer Inc., the world’s biggest drugmaker, goes to trial next week on claims its epilepsy medication Neurontin increases the risk of suicide, in a case the judge called “very tough” for the plaintiffs to win.

The July 27 trial will be the first of what plaintiffs’ lawyers say are about 1,200 cases. It will show each side the other’s strategy and may help point the way to settlements. The lead attorney for the family of Susan Bulger, 39, who took the drug before hanging herself in 2004, is Mark Lanier, winner of the biggest verdict over Merck & Co.’s painkiller Vioxx.

via  Bloomberg.com.