Nebraska Widower Files Wrongful-Death Lawsuit in Crash
A Palmer widower has filed a Nebraska wrongful-death lawsuit against the man who drove the tractor involved in the crash that killed his wife.
Donald McClellan filed the Nebraska lawsuit Friday in Hall County District Court.
In it, he says James Ostermeier was negligent in the April 23 crash because he was intoxicated and failed to turn on the tractor's lights and warning devices. He's seeking unspecified damages.
McClellan's 82-year-old wife, Delores, was killed when their car collided with the back of the tractor, which was hauling a corn planter. McClellan was injured.
Earlier this month, Ostermeier pleaded no contest to felony manslaughter. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 15.
Tami Reay family members want summary judgment
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) Family members of a woman whose husband is serving life in prison for killing her have asked a judge to forgo a trial and rule in their favor in a $5.3 million lawsuit filed against Brad Reay.
Tami Burns Reay's family members filed their original wrongful death lawsuit in October 2007. Those listed as plaintiffs are Haylee Reay, daughter of Brad and Tami Reay; Tami's parents, Don and Bonnie Burns, and sisters Holly Givens and Raquel Pendergast.
They live in Lander, Wyoming.
Tami Reay was stabbed and killed in 2006, and Brad Reay was charged with murder. During his 2007 trial, Reay testified that the couple's 12-year-old daughter actually killed Tami.
Reay, of Pierre, has appealed his conviction to the South Dakota Supreme Court, which has yet to rule.
Parents file wrongful death suit on 4-year-old
A Wisconsin wrongful death lawsuit was filed last month in Sauk County Circuit Court by the parents of a 4-year-old who drowned last year at the Wilderness Hotel and Golf Resort.
The suit, filed by the parents of the victim, Tyler Houtakker, of the Asbury, Iowa, claims Wilderness Hotel employees were negligent by failing to take notice of Tyler's distress in a wave pool that was not active, and for failing to enter the pool to perform a rescue.
According to a Lake Delton Police Department incident report, in June of 2007, after Houtakker was seen floating face down in the pool by a lifeguard, a citizen was asked to take action a minute or two later to bring Houtakker out of the water where lifeguards and security personnel tried to resuscitate him.
The report said the lifeguard who originally noticed Houtakker face down in the water asked a supervisor twice if it was okay to help the boy and was told not to by a supervisor. The supervisor later told police that "guests get angry when lifeguards enter the pool for non-emergency situations."
Prior to noticing the boy face down, reports state the lifeguard saw the boy in the not-so-crowded pool, "swimming" underwater before she spoke to her manager for about 15 - 30 seconds. Parents admitted in a police interview their son probably did not know how to swim.
In a follow-up investigation of the incident two-months later, a Lake Delton detective, Kurt Doodreau, noted there was no cause for criminal negligence charges in the death, and no criminal charges were ever filed by Sauk County District Attorney Patricia Barrett.
But while Doodreau found the actions of the lifeguards commendable after the four-year-old was removed from the water, he thought "mistakes were made," and also thought statements about not jumping into the water when Tyler was first seen facedown were "troublesome."
A Wisconsin lawyer for the Wilderness Hotel, Jay Starrett, said in an interview that based upon his preliminary investigation, the statements in the police report by the manager and lifeguard were inaccurate.
He specifically questioned the statement allegedly said by lifeguard supervisor Devin Mallo, about guests getting angry when lifeguards enter the pool.
"I think that is an out-of-context comment, and I don't know if it has anything to do with these circumstances," Starrett said. "I'm not denying the police report, I'm denying that the conversation was in the context it was in."
In a response to the lawsuit, the Wilderness Hotel alleged that Houtakker's parents, "negligently failed to properly supervise Tyler Houtakker", "failed to adhere to the water safety notice provided at check-in" and also "failed to adhere to the rules posted on signs in the water park."
In Doodreau's follow-up investigation, he said an employee of the Department of Health and Family Services reported the Wilderness lifeguard staffing plan was appropriate and signs clearly stated: children under 48 inches should be accompanied by an adult; weak swimmers should stay in shallow waters; and it is recommended small children wear a life jacket.
Locked up, under watch, he still overdosed
Debora Laugerude was scanning a newspaper two weeks ago when she came across the story of Jeff Berg, a jail inmate whose family is suing Hennepin County over his death behind bars. The cause of death: drug overdose.
Laugerude jumped to call the reporter. The case might as well have been her own son's.
"It's like, oh, God, no, it happened again," the Lakeville woman said.
On Jan. 25, while on suicide watch at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Rush City, her son David Laugerude, 28, died from an overdose of prescription and over-the-counter pills. The former school bus driver had been serving prison time since 2001 for a string of sexual assaults on young children, at least two of them disabled. He claimed several of them had been on his bus.
An autopsy report noted heavy doses of aspirin and anti-allergy medicines in his bloodstream. His family believes he force-fed himself dozens, if not hundreds, of pills — enough, his mother suspects, to fill the three empty, 100-count bottles she said were found in his cell.
Additional bottles containing 400 pills were found with him, she said, and mailed to her with his personal effects.
Now, she wants answers.
"Yeah, he did wrong. He was answering for it," Laugerude said. "You don't let someone die alone. (They) put him on suicide watch. What the hell was he doing with 700 pills in his cell?"
She said she believes he lingered on life support for several hours before dying. She was alerted afterward. David Laugerude survived a suicide attempt in 2003. He had been diagnosed with depression and a psychiatric disorder and had a history of chemical dependency, according to the report his mother received from the Minnesota regional medical examiner's office in Hastings. Traces of sedatives and antidepressants were found in his bloodstream.
The manner of death was listed as suicide.
"He was where he belonged," said his father, Jerry Laugerude. "He belonged in prison, serving his time. It wasn't right that they murdered him, and that's my opinion. They murdered our son."
The Laugerudes have hired an attorney, Richard Hechter, to sue the state and the Minnesota Department of Corrections for wrongful death. Hechter said the lawsuit, which was served in mid-November, will be filed in Ramsey County. It seeks damages in excess of $50,000.
4 years later, prison guard faces murder charges
Nichole Riley-Lemcke told her parents in the months leading up to her 2004 death that "if anything ever happens to me, you know where to look."
Her marriage had crumbled and she suspected her husband, Andrew Gordon Lemcke, was committing insurance fraud. The morning of her death, she told a male friend that she didn't want to go home because she knew something was going to happen.
Just a few hours later, Riley-Lemcke was dead from a gunshot wound to the head.
A Minnesota grand jury determined Lemcke, 34, now a Florence resident and prison corrections officer, will be charged in his wife's death at the couple's home in Appleton, Minn., on Sept. 12, 2004, according to Lemcke's attorney, Brian Wojtalewicz.
Lemcke turned himself in Sunday at the Johnson Ranch substation of the Pinal County Sheriff's Office on a Minnesota warrant issued Nov. 14.
Lemcke has dodged charges in the killing after telling police the shooting was accidental.
"It's a tragedy that happened 4 1/2 years ago," Wojtalewicz said. "We gave a complete account to the police about what happened."
That account, he says, includes details about a combative and drunken Riley-Lemcke threatening her husband with a revolver early that morning.
Lemcke said he awoke to a gunshot and saw his wife standing above him with the firearm in her hand, Wojtalewicz said.
The night before, Riley-Lemcke drank heavily and physically fought with one of her friends, he claims.
Following the gunshot, she screamed the name of an ex-boyfriend, and according to Wojtalewicz, Lemcke assumed she thought he was the same man. He said he attempted to wrestle the gun away from her when it fired. Riley-Lemcke, 26, died at an Appleton hospital from a wound that pierced the bottom of her chin.
She left behind three children and her parents, Gary and Kim Riley, said theWest Central Tribune paper in Willmar, Minn.
A wrongful death lawsuit, filed by her parents in September 2007, claims Riley-Lemcke was inexperienced with firearms and did not like having Lemcke's gun in the home. She also ran a licensed day care center through the home, which outlaws the storage of an unprotected loaded gun, according to Minnesota law.
Over the past four years, few details have been released about the incident. A grand jury listened to testimony for the case in 2005, but didn't indict Lemcke.
Police haven't confirmed the amount of evidence stacked for or against Lemcke. Even his attorney doesn't know about any new evidence that may warrant murder charges.
The Swift County Attorney's Office and the Rileys' attorney did not return messages for comment Friday.
"It's very frustrating, I can't tell you all of the emotions," Kim Riley told the West Central Tribune in 2006. "You go to bed with it. You wake up with it."
A Pinal County sheriff's jail cell holds Lemcke until his extradition to Minnesota on charges of first and second degree murder, said sheriff's spokeswoman Vanessa White. His transfer date will not be released for security reasons, she said.
Lemcke has since been placed on administrative leave from his position with the Correction Corporation of America, company spokesman Scott Owen said.
As a corrections officer, Lemcke was responsible for the "safety and security of the inmates, public and staff" at the 1,824-cell medium-security Florence Correctional Center, said spokeswoman Bertha Montano.
"I believe he revealed (the incident), but I'm not sure what went on by allowing him stay on," Montano said of the company which hired Lemcke in July 2006. "Because he had not been indicted and there was no charges pending, he was hired on."
Lawsuits Filed Over 2007 Minnesota Bridge Collapse
The first personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits were filed last week in Minnesota as a result of a bridge collapse that occurred on August 1, 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 150.
The lawsuits were filed in the District Court of Hennepin County on behalf of the family of one person who was killed and another three people who were seriously injured when the Interstate 35W Bridge collapsed into the Mississippi river.
These are expected to be the first of many cases that will be filed on behalf of those who were injured or killed by the bridge collapse.
The lawsuits allege that buckling and bulging signs were observed in the 40 year old bridge in the photographs taken as early as 2003, but that URS Corp, a San Francisco consulting firm responsible for evaluating the bridge during the years before the collapse, either did not attach the appropriate significance to the signs or negligently failed to observe the buckling and bulging.
The complaint also names Progressive Contractors, Inc., a Minnesota company who was performing work on the bridge at the time of the collapse. According to the cases, the contractor had about 587 tons of equipment stored at the weakest point of the bridge.
The State of Minnesota has established a $38 million compensation fund for individuals injured in the bridge collapse. Victims who participate in the compensation program, which is expected to pay settlements in February, are required to give up their right to sue the state, the city of Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota However, they are not precluded from filing lawsuits against other parties, including the inspectors and contractors who have been implicated in the bridge collapse.
Groups ask ND Supreme Court to dismiss charge
Bismarck, N.D. (AP) Women's health advocates and other groups are asking the North Dakota Supreme Court to overturn the child endangerment conviction of a McLean County woman whose unborn child died after a drug overdose.
Michelle Behles (BAY'-les) is serving a five-year prison sentence. She pleaded guilty in February to drug charges and entered a conditional plea to child endangerment, meaning she reserves her right to appeal that charge.
Lawyers for the 33-year-old Behles, who also is known as Michelle Geiser (GY'-sur), contend in the appeal that an unborn child is not legally a child under the state's child endangerment law.
South Central District Judge Thomas Schneider ruled earlier that North Dakota courts have recognized viable, unborn children to be human beings in wrongful death cases.
Court documents say a doctor in September 2007 found Behles had taken toxic levels of drugs and said her child, which was more than 29 weeks along, did not survive the overdose.
The case is to be argued before the North Dakota Supreme Court on December 4th.
Groups that have filed a brief urging dismissal of the charges include psychiatric, addiction treatment, nurses and women's groups, organized by National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
Wrongful death lawsuit filed in inmate’s suicide
The Lakeville mother of a state prisoner who committed suicide is suing the state of Minnesota, alleging wrongful death.
David A. Laugerude, 28, died Jan. 25 while on a suicide watch and in a locked-down security area at the state prison in Rush City after taking an overdose of prescription and over-the-counter drugs, according to a suit filed against the state.
Deb Laugerude said her son had been diagnosed with bipolar and schizophrenic disorders and was known to be suicidal, yet he had about 700 pills of various kinds, administered by the prison, in his cell when he died. The suit, filed last month, alleges that David Laugerude died as a result of negligence, which included prison employees allowing him to have so much mixed medication.
The suit seeks at least $50,000 in damages for Laugerude's survivors.
David Laugerude was a convicted sex offender who had pleaded guilty to fondling an 8-year-old developmentally disabled Apple Valley boy while driving him to school during the 1999-2000 school year, when Laugerude drove a school bus for the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School District. Laugerude had no criminal record at the time. Laugerude also went to prison for three other sex crimes.
Deb Laugerude said she understood that her son needed to be held accountable for the crimes, yet the prison staff should have prevented his suicide.
"He was still my son," she said Friday.