Lawsuit

DETROIT (AP) - After hearing arguments, the Michigan Supreme Court won't intervene in a lawsuit that blames two 911 operators for the death of a Detroit woman. The court in a brief order Thursday says a decision by the state appeals court will stand. It means a lawsuit can go forward in Wayne County court. In 2006, a 5-year-old boy called 911, saying his mother had collapsed. The operator thought it was a prank. Another operator sent police three hours later but also scolded young Robert Turner.

MOTTVILLE, Mich. - A southwest Michigan woman says she is in fear every day that she will come down with fungal meningitis. She is one of the first people to file suit against the New England pharmaceutical company linked to the nationwide outbreak of the disease. When Lori Cavanaugh pushed play on her answering machine a few weeks ago, she wasn't expecting to hear a message from her doctor at OSMC in Elkhart letting her know an injection she received on July 31 for her chronic back pain was tainted and could cause her to come down with fungal meningitis.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge is sending Charlie Sheen's $100 million lawsuit over his firing from "Two and a Half Men" to a private arbitrator to decide how the case will proceed. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Allan Goodman ruled Wednesday that Sheen's contract with Warner Bros. Television has a valid arbitration clause. The judge's ruling says the arbitrator should decide whether the case will be handled publicly or privately. The ruling is likely to dampen publicity about the case, which Sheen filed on March 10 — days after he was fired from his starring role on television's top-rated comedy.

SHELBYVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A jury has been selected in a civil trial over a suit brought by a man who says a Kentucky surgeon amputated his penis during surgery without consulting him. The jurors were chosen Thursday in Shelbyville in the lawsuit filed by Phillip Seaton of Waddy and his wife, Deborah. They say Dr. John Patterson of Louisville did not consult them before removing Seaton's penis during what was supposed to be a circumcision. Patterson maintains the removal was necessary because he found cancer during the surgery.

DETROIT (AP) — A Michigan man who once worked on the Soo Locks is suing his former employers, alleging that he suffered a debilitating illness from on-the-job exposure to pigeon droppings. The Detroit News reports that 54-year-old Bruce Harrison sued Grand Trunk Western Railroad Co. and Canadian National/Illinois Central Railroad in federal court on Monday. His suit alleges that the companies failed to protect him from hazardous work conditions. Harrison says he developed symptoms consistent with histoplasmosis — a respiratory disease that can be spread by spores in bird droppings — that have left him unable to work.

A former Walgreens employee fired after he shot at two men trying to rob the Benton Township store last year has lost his lawsuit.

The company involved in a bucket truck accident that sent two people to the hospital, including a young boy, will face a lawsuit. Rick Franklin of Wayne's Tree Service and his 8-year-old nephew Nate were hurt when the bucket they were in fell to the ground. A homeowner on Cedar Street in South Bend hired the company to trim some trees. The problem is the company does not have a license to operate in the city because of an ongoing police investigation into possible fraud.  South Bend's deputy city attorney tells WSBT she will file a lawsuit against the company this week.

FISHERS, Ind. (AP) — Three Indiana school districts are dropping a lawsuit against the state that claimed the method for distributing school funding treated growing districts unfairly. Hamilton Southeastern schools Superintendent Brian Smith said at a news conference Thursday that the lawsuit was no longer needed because of changes made to the school funding formula as part of the new state budget approved by legislators last month. The Hamilton Southeastern and Franklin Township districts in suburban Indianapolis and Middlebury Community Schools in Elkhart County filed the lawsuit last year.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A group of female Wal-Mart employees in California have filed a new lawsuit alleging that the company pays and promotes them at lower rates than their male counterparts. The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court Thursday is a scaled-back version of a much larger class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out earlier this year. The high court had said that lawsuit, which represented female employees nationwide, was too broad.

DETROIT (AP) — The state of Michigan has agreed to pay $115,000 to settle a lawsuit over the death of a 9-year-old boy who was in a Detroit foster home. Attorney Ernie Essad says the settlement is in addition to a $475,000 deal reached with Wayne County, medical providers and the foster home. Johnny Dragomir was severely handicapped and had epilepsy and cerebral palsy. He was placed in a foster home in 2006 when his mother was unable to care for him. The medical examiner says the boy likely died from malnutrition in 2007, although he was diagnosed with pneumonia three days earlier.

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY-- Convenience stores in Indiana are going to court over the right to sell cold beer.  It's a federal lawsuit against the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission.  Store owners are accusing the commission of violating their constitutional rights with a rule that allows the sale of warm beer but not cold beer. In addition to convenience stores, the suit also specifies that grocery stores and pharmacies should be allowed to sell cold beer in Indiana.

SOUTH BEND -- A clerk at a local convenience store has filed a civil lawsuit against three South Bend police officers alleging "intentional and/or negligent infliction of emotional distress" and violation of his civil rights, among other claims. The lawsuit names officers Eric Mentz, Michael Stuk and Aaron Knepper along with former interim police chief Charles Hurley, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and the city as defendants. The complaint was filed Friday in St. Joseph Circuit Court on behalf of Jonathan Ferguson, a clerk at 7-Eleven, 1827 Miami St. According to court documents, Ferguson began working at the store last summer.

SOUTH BEND -- A popular 24-hour restaurant must change the way it treats its employees, especially women, after a discrimination lawsuit. Nick's Patio recently agreed to pay a former employee thousands of dollars to make up for what happened when her managers found out she was going to have a baby. “It just kind of got around the restaurant that I was pregnant and then my hours got cut,” said Tiffany Williams, who worked at Nick's as a hostess in 2010. Williams said her paycheck was cut in half, and then she was fired.

    CLYDE, Ohio (AP) - Lawyers in Ohio filed a $750 million class action lawsuit Thursday against Whirlpool Corp. that's related to a child cancer cluster between Toledo and Cleveland.     The lawsuit attempts to link Whirlpool and others to the cancer cluster, though the families of the children who've been diagnosed with cancer aren't involved.     Three families filed the suit, including a man whose wife died at age 23 a year after she was diagnosed with cancer.

SOUTH BEND - Will an ongoing flooding issue in South Bend lead to lawsuits? An attorney plans to hold a meeting next week with homeowners who live on Calvert Street. Last week, Charlette James had more than a foot of water in her basement. James has lived in the home for almost 13 years. Like others in the neighborhood, she never had flooding problems until the nearby New Energy Ethanol plant shut down in November. The ethanol plant pumped gallons of water out of the ground for the decades it was in operation.

COPEMISH, Mich. (AP) - The family of a teenager who was killed while driving to perform at a high school graduation can't sue a northern Michigan road agency over dust blamed for the fatal crash, the state Supreme Court said Thursday. The justices, 6-0, overturned a decision by the Michigan appeals court and directed a judge to dismiss the case against the Manistee County Road Commission. In 2010, Debra Hagerty-Kraemer, 17, was driving to a Mesick High School graduation to perform with the band when she was killed.

A former Walgreens employee fired after he shot at two men trying to rob the Benton Township store last year has lost his lawsuit.

An elected leader is ready to file a lawsuit over the meningitis outbreak blamed for at least 32 deaths across the country -- including four locally. Terri Rethlake is the St. Joseph County clerk. She received an injection of the tainted shot behind the outbreak and tested positive for the fungus that causes meningitis - but doctors caught hers early. Rethlake tells WSBT News test results came back Wednesday showing she never actually developed the meningitis. She's thankful to be getting better, but is planning to sue. "I'm upset that it happened,” she said.

GOSHEN - The family of an Elkhart County man believed to have died from fungal meningitis has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a New England company. 68-year-old Daniel Rohrer of Bristol died October 23 at Elkhart General Hospital from what his family claims were complications of fungal meningitis caused by a contaminated steroid injection. It's believed to be the first meningitis-related wrongful death lawsuit filed in Indiana. Rohrer's death was considered the 25 th death nationwide and the 3 rd death related to the recent meningitis outbreak in the state of Indiana.

ELKHART - Six victims of the fungal meningitis outbreak in Elkhart County have filed lawsuits against Massachusetts-based New England Compounding Center, which produced, marketed and sold the now-recalled steroid medication linked to the outbreak. The victims, represented separately by the Law Offices of David Holub of Merrillville and Foley & Small of South Bend, are seeking unspecified damages in the suits filed in Elkhart Superior Court. They claim to have suffered adverse health effects as well as mental and physical pain and other injuries and losses as a result of having received the medication for treatment of back pain.