A West Virginia jury has ordered DuPont Co. to pay approximately $55 million to clean up an industrial waste site. The jurors’ decision came in the third part of a trial that accuses the company of exposing the residents of Spelter to toxic heavy metals. The jury began deliberating on the merits of punitive damages against the company on Tuesday. AP, Yahoo News 10/15/2007
A Manhattan photo and electronics store will pay $4.3 million to settle claims that it discriminated against Hispanic employees. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint, the B&H store based promotion, pay and healthcare policies on employee’s nationalities. The settlement will affect B&H employees who were paid less, not promoted or denied benefits based on their nationality. AP, The New York Times 10/17/2007
A company that supplies natural gas to New England residents has been accused of illegally storing mercury and failing to report a spill. A Rhode Island grand jury charged Southern Union Co. Tuesday with three violations stemming from alleged mishandling of the chemical. If found guilty, the company could face fines in excess of $66 million. Jim Polson and Jim Kennett, Bloomberg 10/16/2007
A California appeals court has ruled that the victims of a 2003 farmers market traffic tragedy can go forward with a lawsuit against the city of Santa Monicaand others. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim that the city failed to follow national, state or city guidelines for diverting traffic from the market. The tragedy left 10 people dead and 63 injured after an elderly man drove his car through sawhorse barricades and into the crowded market. John Spano, LA Times 10/17/2007
A federal judge has certified class action status for a lawsuit against FedEx Corp. that seeks full-time employment benefits for the company’s contract drivers. According to the lawsuit, the package delivery company has wrongly denied contract workers pay and benefits provided to full-time workers. The class is expected to cover approximately 20,000 current and former contract drivers. Laurence Viele Davidson, Bloomberg 10/16/2007
A federal jury in Chicago ruled Tuesday that police used excessive force and unreasonably searched a man during a drug arrest three years ago. Attorneys had previously negotiated a $4 million award if jurors found police liable. The verdict comes as Chicago police face various other allegations of misconduct. Mike Robinson, Chicago Tribune 10/16/2007
A jury ruled last week that Walgreen Co. was negligent in the death of anArizona man who died from a toxic drug interaction. In the lawsuit, the family claimed that Walgreen’s employees failed to follow procedures that should have alerted them of the dangerous interaction. Jurors awarded a total of $6 million in damages to the family. Larry Hendricks, Arizona Daily Sun 10/17/2007
The results of a new study suggest that virulent drug-resistant infections in hospitals may be twice as common as previously thought. According to the study, to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, mortality rates resulting from such infections exceed those of HIV, Parkinson’s disease, emphysema or homicide. Researchers cautioned that it is unclear whether the most virulent bacteria, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, caused these deaths or simply accelerated them. Kevin Sack, TheNew York Times 10/17/2007