Brianna Smith is a freelance writer and editor in Southwest Michigan. A graduate of Grand Valley State University, Brianna has a passion for politics, social issues, education, science, and more. When she’s not writing, she enjoys the simple life with her husband, daughter, and son.
Last year on August 14, 2017, the home of Jeanne Jasa exploded, claiming her life. Now, her children have decided to file a tort claim against the city of “Lincoln, Lancaster County, and natural gas provider Black Hills Energy” for negligently causing the death of their mother. The home explosion is still under investigation and Lincoln police have not ruled out foul play. According to Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister, “his investigators need more time to follow up leads in the case.”
Are you planning a big Labor Day cookout? You may want to double check the label on your ground beef. According to a recent recall notice, Cargill Meat Solutions recalled more than 25,000 pounds of ground beef products due to “possible contamination with E. coli.” According to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the Cargill beef was transported to warehouses throughout Colorado and California from a “Cargill plant in Fort Morgan, Colorado.”
Earlier this year on February 27, 73-year-old Nancy Gillett drowned in a retention pond after leaving Bridgewater Healthcare Center on Carey Road in Carmel, Indiana. As a result, her family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Hamilton County court “against a grocery store, developer, and healthcare center.” How did she drown, though?
In a recent lawsuit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, a former Butler University athlete alleges the university and a campus fraternity “failed to protect her from a dangerous student who had a history of sexual assault.” According to the suit, the woman’s attacker, who was also an athlete at the school, pinned her down in a room in the Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity house and “raped her in December 2016 when she was 18 years old.
Late last week, President Trump and his administration agreed to protect a humpback whale habitat in the Pacific Ocean. The agreement was announced after American Indian and conservation groups sued the government for leaving the whales vulnerable to “ship strikes, oil spills and entanglements in fishing gear.” The groups that filed the suit in federal court included the “Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and the Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation, a nonprofit that represents American Indian tribes.”
As any parent knows, the baby aisle at any grocery or retail store is overwhelming for even the most seasoned among us. With endless brands to choose from and varieties of products to sift through, dashing to the store for a replacement sippy cup or bottle of lotion can turn into an hour-long ordeal in no time. This is especially true of product labels are confusing or misleading. In fact, when this happens, some parents just opt to file lawsuits. That’s exactly what happened earlier this week. A group of parents filed a “class-action lawsuit alleging that the language used on Babyganics packaging, such as the name ‘Babyganics’ and terms like ‘mineral-based’ and ‘natural’ violated marketing laws.”
Rylie Wagner, a 13-year-old student in the Hallsville R-IV School District recently took her own life. According to a wrongful death lawsuit recently filed by her mother, Elizabeth Overstreet, Wagner “took her own life because of the bullying” she was experiencing at school.
A federal lawsuit was recently filed against a pair of business owners in Oklahoma, alleging that they lured “immigrants to the US on work visas then paid them substandard wages.” This latest suit was filed back in June by three “Jamaican immigrants who came to the US under student work visas between 2008 and 2012.” It’s the second lawsuit of it’s kind. Last year another suit was filed by “three Filipino immigrants who came into the country on temporary work visas in 2012” and experienced similar conditions the three Jamaican immigrants allegedly did.
Earlier this week, King Bio issued a recall of “almost a year’s worth of 32 homeopathic children’s medicines that claim to treat everything from stomachaches to bed wetting.” According to the recall notice posted on the FDA’s website, the company said, “a small percentage of our products produced between 08/01/2017 and 04/2018 have tested positive for microbial contamination.”
The U.S. Coast Guard is at the center of a new lawsuit filed by two environmental groups, the National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Law & Policy Center. According to the two groups, their decision to sue came in response to the U.S. Coast Guards “admitted inability to respond adequately to a Great Lakes oil spill.” As a result, the lawsuit seeks to “invalidate the response plans for facilities such as Enbridge, which operates Line 5 beneath the Straits of Mackinac.”
