Bronson Ganka was a maintenance worker for Apartments Downtown Inc., a private company that builds apartments in Iowa City, Iowa. Iowa City is a college town where the University of Iowa is located. Ganka was 40 at the time.
While he was drilling holes into a building he was working on, he fell off a ladder and hit the ground 12 feet below.
Ganka suffered head injuries and died several days later. He was survived by his wife, a minor child and two adult children.
Margarita Martinez was crossing a city street in a crosswalk when Robert Lane, driving a van for the defendant Premium Laundry Corp., began turning left into the intersection. The van hit Martinez, 79, and dragged her several car lengths.
Martinez sustained multiple severe injuries, including fractures to her ribs, spine, pelvis, and left tibia and fibula. She also suffered a lung contusion and a facial laceration.
She was rushed to a hospital emergency room, but she unfortunately died of respiratory and cardiac arrest within an hour of her arrival. She is survived by her husband, Mario Martinez.
F&H Coatings LLC is a commercial and industrial painting contractor that contracted with Boardman LLC, a manufacturer of steel pressure vessels and tanks. F&H was contracted to sandblast and paint a number of vessels at Boardman’s manufacturing facility. During the contract work, a fatal incident at the Boardman facility killed Tony Losey, an employee of F&H.
At the time of this of this fatal accident, Losey and his F&H supervisor were preparing a 12,000 -pound vessel for sandblasting when the vessel slipped from its supporting racks and crushed Losey.
F & H characterized this event as a “freakish, unforeseeable, and still-unexplained accident.”
In 1959 George Lucas started working as a longshore laborer and clerk at various San Francisco Bay-area piers where ships were loaded and unloaded with cargo.
Reportedly during his breaks, he would venture into the ship’s engine rooms to stay warm. Often, employees of shipyard contractor Triple A Machine Shop Inc. were in the same engine rooms removing and replacing asbestos-containing insulation, gaskets and packing.
The work that he was doing exposed him to substantial amounts of asbestos dust. His bystander exposure from Triple A employees’ work continued until 1986.
The plaintiff in this lawsuit, Roscoe Giles, was the representative and administrator of the estate of his brother, Morris Giles. Giles filed suit two years and one day after the death of his brother who was hit by a tow truck while walking through a cross-walk. When there is a sudden traumatic injurious event, the cause of action accrues, and the statute of limitations begins to run on the date the injury occurs.
As the original lawsuit complaint was not timely filed, no subsequent pleading can relate back to it. Any legal disability on the part of the decedent, and any negligence by the Giles’ attorney, cannot extend the statute of limitations.
Roscoe Giles, Morris’s brother, retained an attorney to sue Robert Parks, the tow truck’s owner and operator. On Dec. 23, 2014, exactly two years after Morris’s death, counsel for Roscoe filed the lawsuit, a survival claim. Survival claims have a statute of limitations of two years.
Brian Squire hit a bicycle rider while driving his car. The bicyclist died from injuries six months later.
GEICO, Squire’s automobile insurer, never offered the bicyclist or his estate Squire’s $300,000 policy limits or attempted to settle with the decedent’s estate and family.
In addition, the insurer, GEICO, allowed several settlement offers by the estate and family of the bicyclist to expire.
Atinderpal “Gavan” Singh, a commercial truck driver, was driving his tractor-trailer eastbound on Interstate 80 in Nebraska when this tragic crash occurred.
Freddie Galloway, a trucker for Ecklund Logistics Inc., was also driving eastbound on the same interstate. He was some distance ahead of the Singh truck. This incident occurred in late summer. A grass fire had started on the highway median, which created a smoke cover that affected visibility on the highway. Local fire and sheriff personnel were on the scene trying to contain the fire and control traffic at the same time.
Galloway heard about the fire on his CB radio while still several miles away and slowed his truck to 5 mph in a 75-mph zone. He was driving at that speed for 5-10 minutes as he approached the area of the fire.
Nathaniel Cooper, 24, was working in the packing area of a United Parcel Services (UPS) facility when he suffered heat exhaustion that led to his fatal cardiac event. He is survived by his fiancé and a minor child.
His fiancé, on behalf of the couple’s child, sued UPS claiming it was negligent in that it directed Cooper to work in unsafe conditions despite knowing that he had cardiac problems.
The lawsuit also claimed that UPS was grossly negligent for choosing not to install an adequate ventilation system, establish mandatory rest schedules and monitor workers for heat stress. Apparently the UPS facility where Cooper was working was an enclosed area that held heat at high temperatures. Continue reading
Lisa Tam Chung, a Texas high school senior, bought a vacation package through the defendant, StudentCity.com Inc., for a trip to Cancun, Mexico. She added an optional snorkeling excursion as part of her package.
This unfortunate trip had a tragic ending when the snorkeling catamaran hit a coral reef and began to take on water. The crew of the boat was not able to help passengers who were on the boat. Lisa and her friend put on life preservers and tried to reach safety by grabbing a rope that extended between the catamaran and a small private vessel. Their efforts to reach safety failed when they were pulled under water. Lisa suffered heart failure and died. Her friend, Loren, suffered serious injuries, but she survived.
StudentCity is a Delaware corporation that has its principal place of business in Massachusetts. It sells vacation packages to students, including those traveling for spring break or to celebrate graduations.
Gilbert Gail Gerth was riding his lawnmower down a street when he was rear-ended by a pickup truck. The incident killed Gerth. At the time of the collision, the defendant pickup owner and driver, Gary Sachau, was insured under an automobile insurance policy with a $30,000 liability limit.
Gerth had an automobile insurance policy as well with an underinsured-motorist liability limit of $100,000 per person. In addition, Gerth had an umbrella insurance policy with Grinnell Select Insurance Co. with an underinsured-motorist liability limit of $1 million per accident.
Dawn Goldstein, the executor of the estate for Gilbert Gerth, settled the claim against Sachau for $30,000, and her underinsured claim against Hartford for $100,000 minus $30,000 recovered from the settlement with Sachau.
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