Dear Chevy, Check out my HHR Key Stuck in Ignition Video!

May 6th, 2011. By LucyC

Dear Chevy,

Here’s an HHR Chevy Key Stuck in Ignition video from one of our readers, Melvin. Check it out—you can even see his fingers going white in areas from the amount of pressure he’s applying to try to get the blessed key out of the ignition. What gives?

Thanks for sharing this Melvin!

ps—if you find yourself stuck in your Chevy HHR with a problem, just grab your phone, videotape it and send it to us at …we’ll be sure to post it!

 

Asbestos News Roundup: 5.6.11

May 6th, 2011. By LucyC

A roundup of recent asbestos-related news and information that you should be aware of. An ongoing list of asbestos hot spots from the Asbestos News Roundup archive appears on our asbestos map.

Asbestos Lawsuits

Jefferson County, TX: Leroy Brown, from Jefferson County, has filed an asbestos suit naming 23 companies as defendants. In his suit, Brown alleges that during his working life he was regularly in contact with a variety of asbestos-containing products manufactured by these companies, and as a result he has developed a malignant asbestos-related disease. Leroy Brown’s wife, Marjorie Brown, is also a plaintiff.

According to his complaint, Brown maintains he was exposed to the asbestos products during his career as a laborer, helper, iron worker, boilermaker and supervisor at Texaco from October 1969 until his retirement in 2007. He and his wife further allege the defendant companies caused Brown’s disease because they failed to adequately test their products and failed to warn of the dangers of asbestos exposure.

The defending companies named in the complaint are: Able Supply Co., AMF, B&B Engineering and Supply Co., Chevron, Cleaver Brooks, Crown Cork and Seal Co., Deltak, Flint Hills Resources, Flint Hills Resources LLC, Foster Wheeler Energy Corp., Guardline Inc., Huntsman LLC, Huntsman Petrochemical Corp., Koch Industries, Met Life Group, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co., Motiva Co., Motiva Enterprises, Riley Power, Texaco, Triplex, Weil-McClain Boilers and Zurn Industries. (SETexasrecord.com)

Asbestos Settlements

Buffalo, NY: A retired Buffalo City police officer could receive a settlement of $1.7 million from the city as compensation for his medical condition—he is suffering from a rare type of asbestos-related cancer.

This settlement, if finalized, would not only be the largest personal injury claim against the city in recent years, but could represent the tip of the iceberg in terms of asbestos-related lawsuits and settlements against the city.

“With the age of the buildings in the municipality and the potential exposure to these types Read the rest of this entry »

Pissed off Canadian Tells Sony ‘Game On’ with PlayStation Class Action

May 5th, 2011. By Hunter West

Natasha Maksimovic is mad as hell and she deserves to be. 

Natasha is the 21-year-old resident of Mississauga, a city in the Greater Toronto corridor in Canada, serving as the lead plaintiff of a proposed class action lawsuit against Sony over the potential theft of personal information. 

There are some 77 million people worldwide who may agree with her. 

At issue is personal information belonging to gamers and users of Sony PlayStation and Oriocity systems. Such information includes, but may not be limited to names, street addresses, birthdates, passwords, security answers, logins, billing information, and so on. 

Sony has reportedly apologized for the breach and offered a 30, or 60-day free membership for users on its PlayStation network. 

Maksimovic says that’s not good enough. “If you can’t trust a huge multi-national corporation like Sony to protect your private information, who can you trust?” she asks. 

Exactly. 

It appears that Sony has done two things wrong. First, the electronics juggernaut appears to have dropped the ball in protecting its system sufficiently from hackers who constantly cruise the Internet looking for portals to plunder. Second, they appear to have taken the potential theft of 77 million sets of personal information worldwide—about a million in Canada—somewhat lightly. 

The lawsuit alleges that Sony was aware of the breach, but failed to advise clients in a Read the rest of this entry »

Should Doctors Tell Patients the Truth to Avoid Malpractice? You Decide

May 3rd, 2011. By AbiK

We get a lot of interesting comments and emails at LawyersandSettlements.com. Why, just yesterday we received an email from someone who claimed to be the “real” Dolly—yes, as in the cloned sheep from 1996, who—I might add—is widely reported to have passed on to that great pasture in the sky in 2003, and apparently on view in all her taxodermic glory at the Museum of Scotland. But no, we have an actual human who’s emailed us and claims to be Dolly incarnate. Who knew?

Be that as it may, we do also receive some more thought-provoking comments—like this one that came in today from Steven.

Honesty may not always be best in a potential malpractice case. Check out this 2 minute video on YouTube showing an actual case history.

Steven claims that honesty may not be the best policy for doctors to follow when the potential for a medical malpractice case is at hand. Steven was responding to an article that appeared on LawyersandSettlements recently titled, “Doctor Says Honesty Is the Key to Expert Witness Testimony“.

I’ve saved you the trek over to youtube, so his video clip is above. Let us know what you think.

Philadelphia Attorney Recognized for Work with Transgender Community

May 3rd, 2011. By BrendaC

Lawyers Giving Back looks at a side of lawyers you don’t hear too much about—the side that gives back…pays it forward..and shares the love. We’ve found quite a number of attorneys who log non-billable hours helping others—simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Their stories are inspiring, and hey, who knew lawyers were so…good? If you’ve got a story to share about an attorney who’s doing the right thing, let us know—we’d love to let others know, too. Today, we’re talking with Philadelphia attorney Natalie Hrubos of Greenberg Traurig…

Attorney Natalie Hrubos: “You can imagine how difficult life is when you are carrying around a piece of identification…that doesn’t match how you look to the world.” 

Attorney Natalie Hrubos

Attorney Natalie Hrubos may be young, but her compassion and understanding of an often marginalized and ostracized group makes her seem wise beyond her years. And her many hours of pro bono work with low-income members of the transgender community, combined with her efforts to educate other lawyers about the legal issues affecting this community, was recently recognized with a Young Lawyers Division community service award from the Philadelphia Bar Association.

“Lawyers don’t necessarily express an interest in working with transgender clients because they don’t understand the community in general or the type of legal issues that are unique to transgender people,” she says. “The result is a lack of legal services available to trans folks,” says Hrubos who is an associate in the Philadelphia office of the international firm of Greenberg Traurig. 

“In fact, the community in general doesn’t understand this community,” adds Hrubos, “it is not just the legal community.” 

At Temple University Law School in Philadelphia, Hrubos was a law student volunteer at the only lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender free legal clinic in the state. Answering phones, taking messages she learned a lot.

“Many of the calls came from transgender individuals who needed to change their names to better match their identity and their everyday presentation. They were trying to get help with correcting their documents to match their new legal name and correct their gender marker,” says Hrubos. 

By gender marker, she means that little box on your driver’s license or credit card application that asks if you are male or female. 

“You can imagine how difficult life is when you are carrying around a piece of identification, you have to keep showing it and it says a name and gender that doesn’t match how you look to the world.” 

And when that information doesn’t match what people see, it is more than inconvenient—it can be downright dangerous. 

 “I have one client who was presenting ID with his credit card in line at the grocery store and two people behind him followed him out and hit him in the face several times and he came to our meeting with a black eye,” says Hrubos. 

Hrubos is currently working on document changes for a teen that was so badly harassed he had to move to a new high school. “People in his new school don’t know he is transgender. He can’t really present identity documentation so he is always worried, for example, that his car might be pulled over and he’ll be ‘outted’ in front of new his friends.” 

At Greenberg Traurig, Hrubos represents employers in all in aspects of employment and labor law. Gender identity issues, particularly in the workplace are a burgeoning area of law. Aware of that, many employers want to be proactive. “I am in a good position to help and counsel employers on how to address some of the employee relations issues that come within the context of a gender transition at work and to proactively eliminate bias against transgender workers,” says Hrubos. 

In June, Hrubos is doing a continuing legal education workshop for lawyers at the 10th annual Trans-Health Conference in Philadelphia. 

“It will provide an issues overview and some information on how to become more ‘culturally competent’,” says Hrubos. 

“There are lot of people who can represent people doing a name change, it is more difficult to find someone who is culturally competent,” Hrubos says.  “I had to learn to be ‘cultural competent’ and that’s why it’s important for me to continue doing it, because there aren’t a lot of other lawyers that can do it.” 

Natalie Hrubos is an associate with the large international law firm of Greenberg Traurig. She represents and counsels management clients in all aspects of labor and employment law. She is also a member of the Legal Advisory Board for the Legal Services Department at the Mazzoni Center, the only agency in Philadelphia that provides direct legal services to low-income LGBT individuals facing legal obstacles related to sexual orientation and/or gender identity.