Poisoning Kills More People Than Car Wrecks

National Center for Health Sciences reports that opioid painkillers such as morphine and oxycodone were involved more than forty percent of drug poisonings.

Appellate Decision in Civil Rights Action

Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Affirms Judgement for Attorney's Fees and Cost in West Virginia Civil Rights Police Case Filed by Waddell Law Office

Court Allows Discovery of Deleted Facebook and MySpace Pages

Millions of people are currently using social networking websites such as Facebook.  Along with this usage, people post pictures, thoughts, and a slew of other personal information.  Such information, even once deleted, may now be available to opposing parties through discovery requests.  In a recent New York trial court a judged entered an order granting the defendant’s request for access to the plaintiff’s “current and historical Facebook and MySpace pages and accounts, including all deleted pages and related information.”

Most interesting about this ruling is that the judge ruled that a privacy setting on a social networking site does not mean that an individual has a guarenteed right to privacy for their information.  Because neither Facebook nor MySpace “guarantee complete privacy,” the court determined that the plaintiff had no “legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy” in the information she posted on those websites.

Taser Death Prompts Lawsuit

The family of a 45-year-old psychiatric patient who died after being shocked with a Taser while restrained in the hospital filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court Monday, alleging University of Cincinnati police used excessive force on Kelly Brinson and University Hospital was negligent caring for him.

Jury awards $2 million to family of Maryland inmate

A civil jury in Prince George's County determined Thursday that Maryland state corrections and highway officials and a private dump truck driver were liable in an accident in which a prison inmate was killed by the truck while he was on a work detail. The jury awarded his relatives more than $2 million.

After a trial that lasted nearly two weeks, the jury awarded $2.025 million to relatives of Rodney Jennings, who was 28 when he was fatally injured Aug. 23, 2007, while picking up trash on the Capital Beltway in the Landover area.