First Lawsuit Surfaces In Wake Of PHI S-76 Crash
Wrongful Death Suit Accuses Company Of Negligence
Although the accident investigation is far from over, the widow of a victim of last week's crash of a PHI Sikorsky S-76 helicopter is suing helo operator PHI.
Britain Boudreaux, the estranged wife of the late Allen Boudreaux, is proceeding with a wrongful death suit against PHI, Inc., accusing the company of negligence, the Lafayette, LA Daily Advertiser reported.
Boudreaux's attorney, William Dodd, said, "All reports and information I have, the weather was not a factor," Dodd said. "It's got to be something mechanical or it's got to be pilot error."
As ANN reported, at approximately 2:09 pm (CST) on January 4, a Sikorsky S-76C helicopter operated by PHI, Inc., crashed into swampy terrain just north of the Gulf of Mexico coastline near Morgan City, LA.
The aircraft was on a Part 135 revenue flight to oil platform number 301B. It had taken off from Amelie, Louisiana about 7 minutes before the crash. There were no radio reports of problems from the crew before the crash. Weather at the time is reported to have been visual flight rule conditions, with scattered clouds at 1,000 feet and 10 miles visibility.
An Emergency Locating Transmitter (ELT) emitted a signal following the crash and helped search and rescue personnel find the wreckage. Eight of the nine persons aboard perished, with the lone survivor listed in critical condition.
Wrongful Death Lawyer
NEWARK -- The attorney for the sole uninjured participant in a deadly June crash said his side has proof the other driver was to blame.
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Edwin Hollern, attorney for Steve Neale Jr., declined to elaborate on what that evidence might be but stressed it would exonerate his client, who also is the subject of a criminal probe.
"Our position is clear," he said. "The driver of the other car was absolutely at fault. Steve Neale did not do anything wrong."
Early June 15, 38-year-old Neale, of Westerville, was driving a Chevrolet Avalanche northbound on Ohio 310 when he collided with a Saturn coupe driven by Gabrielle Mayabb, 18, who was eastbound on Morse Road.
Mayabb and two of her passengers, Kevin Miller, 25, and Nicole Swigert-Moats, 18, died of injuries sustained in the crash. Paul Davis Jr., 20, was hospitalized for more than a month. All were from Newark.
Blood testing determined Neale was above the legal limit for blood-alcohol content at the time of the crash, but he told responding Ohio Highway Patrol troopers he had the right-of-way.
Hollern said they "will be able to establish that my client had the green light."
Licking County Assistant Prosecutor Dan Huston has said in the seven months since the crash that investigators had to prove who disobeyed the traffic signal before any charges can be filed related to the deaths.
Since then, crash reconstructionists and car manufacturers have not been able to shed any light on the situation. Huston said the criminal investigation likely will conclude, with or without charges, by the end of the week.
"My understanding is there are no independent witnesses available," Huston said, "and if one of the parties is representing they have proof of who ran the red light, I would be very interested in having the opportunity to evaluate that evidence."
Bill Moats, father of Nicole Swigert-Moats, said he was unaware of any proof one way or the other, which is why he named Mayabb's estate as one of the defendants in a civil suit.
"I'll believe when I see it," he said Friday.
All the players involved in the civil and criminal actions said the cases are mutually exclusive and that with or without an indictment the wrongful-death lawsuit will move forward.
Wrongful Death Lawsuit Case
In the wake of a wrongful death lawsuit that claims the city of Cincinnati's procedures were at fault for the death of a 20-month-old child whose mentally ill father kidnapped and killed her in 2005, The Enquirer examined hundreds of pages of public records related to the case.
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The girl, Aliyah Myrick, would have turned 5 on Monday.
Lanetta Myrick was frantic as she chased her estranged husband, who had snatched their daughter and was running away.
Darius Myrick had been acting strange lately. She suspected mental illness.
Lanetta Myrick was certain that Aliyah, almost 21 months old, was in danger.
"He's got my baby; he running with my baby. Please, help me ...," she begged a Cincinnati Police Department 911 operator.
Lanetta Myrick lost the connection. She called 911 again.
The instructions she got didn't make sense to her.
Operator Valencia Wells told her to stop chasing her husband and go home to her Over-the-Rhine apartment to make a proper complaint.
"I'm not going to know where he's at," Lanetta Myrick told Wells. "I'm not going to be able to tell the police where he's at."
Reluctantly, she listened to the dispatcher. Her last glimpse of her daughter was of Aliyah crying, fear in her eyes as her dad carried her out of sight.
Aliyah was found 11 hours later, dead in Inwood Park in Mount Auburn.
If Lanetta Myrick hadn't obeyed the 911 operator, would Aliyah be alive today?
More than three years after the tragic death of Aliyah in October 2005, the question lingers.
"My gut instinct was to follow him," Myrick said. "(I think) all the time, if I had just not listened to them, if I had just not went back..."
After three doctors did more than a dozen evaluations, three Hamilton County judges last fall found Darius Myrick not guilty by reason of insanity on a charge of aggravated murder.
While Lanetta Myrick is haunted by thoughts of giving up the chase, she's frustrated the police department concluded the operators followed proper procedures. No policy changes were made.
The dispatcher who told her to stop, Wells, wasn't disciplined. She still answers the phones.
"This should never happen again," Myrick said. "When somebody is saying they are in trouble or something is going on, they should be taken seriously, immediately, as if it were their own family."
Cincinnati police would not respond to questions about how Lanetta Myrick's calls were handled.
Two reports, one written by Lt. Jeff Butler, the other by former City Manager David Rager, say the dispatchers did nothing wrong.
Wrongful Death Lawyer
I've got the title for a biopic about Wall Street's Bernard L. Madoff: Bleak End at Bernie's.
French aristocrat Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet killed himself after putting his family, friends and clients in a "catastrophic" financial situation by investing with Madoff, who was charged last month in a $50 billion securities-fraud scheme. De la Villehuchet was found in his Manhattan office two days before Christmas, his feet up on his desk and a trash can positioned nearby to catch the blood from his lacerated biceps and wrists.
De la Villehuchet, the chief executive officer of Access International Advisors L.L.C., believed he had lost all of about $1.4 billion he had invested with Madoff. "He felt responsible and he felt guilty," his brother said.
So de la Villehuchet took action. It was "a positive act of honor," his brother told Bloomberg News.
That might be a stretch. But it certainly demonstrates more accountability than Madoff, who is charged with putting his investors on this perilous path. Madoff posted $10 million bail and is confined to house arrest in his Park Avenue apartment.
Before his arrest, Madoff told his two sons he was "finished," his business insolvent and its founder left with "absolutely nothing," according to news accounts. After his arrest he told the FBI he was "broke." His scheme? "It could not go on," he explained to investigators.
I've been thinking about the different ways in which Madoff and de la Villehuchet handled their respective predicaments. And the lawyer in me has an idea.
I think de la Villehuchet's estate has a meritorious civil action against Madoff for wrongful death. At the least, a jury should consider whether Madoff is legally responsible for de la Villehuchet's death, even if Madoff has no assets.
Here is the legal foundation of the claim:
The scope of the alleged fraud made it likely, if not certain, that there would be many investors whose losses would be enormous. History tells us that investors who lose everything manifest a propensity toward suicide (either out of guilt or because they cannot bear to live in a world without opulence).
Iowa Wrongful Death Lawyer
The family of a 17-year-old leukemia patient in California has sued health-insurance giant Cigna Corp. of Philadelphia for her death, after the company initially refused to pay for a liver transplant. The Los Angeles family accuses Cigna of delaying and rejecting valid claims, which resulted in the Iowa wrongful death of Nataline Sarkisyan, said the family's attorney, Mark Geragos. Cigna had approved the transplant after a public protest but just hours before the girl died. Cigna spokesman Chris Curran said that the company empathizes with the family but added that the lawsuit is without merit. - AP
Wisconsin Wrongful Death Case
WISCONSIN RAPIDS -- A 53-year-old Marshfield man was in critical condition Tuesday after he attempted to kill himself in the Wood County Jail.
The man was taken to Riverview Hospital, then transferred to Saint Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield, Shroda said.
The man's identity is being withheld, pending notification of family.
Although the incident remains under investigation, preliminary indications are authorities followed proper procedures, said Shroda, who added common checks of inmates were being done in a timely manner.
On July 9, Richard A. Lordson killed himself in the Wood County Jail two day after he was sentenced to a year in jail for possession of child pornography. Attorney David Skoglind of Mequon, representing Lordson's family, has taken the first steps required to file a Wisconsin wrongful death lawsuit against the county in connection with the 28-year-old man's death.
Iowa wrongful death lawyer
In Nebraska, a state that doesn't have such compensation laws, White will get nothing, barring a successful lawsuit or change of heart by the state.
A survey of lawmakers on the eve of the 2009 legislative session found some sympathy but plenty of indecision for White and five co-defendants who were cleared in the 1985 murder of an elderly Beatrice, Neb., woman.
When asked if people wrongly convicted of crimes in Nebraska deserve financial compensation from the state for their time in prison, 12 lawmakers said yes and seven no. Twenty-one were undecided, and nine did not respond to the question.
"Thank God they weren't put to death,'' State Sen. Kent Rogert of Tekamah said of White and the others. Rogert is among those who believes White and the others should be compensated.
"I believe they at least have the right to be back in the financial position they were in before they went to prison,'' Rogert said.
The federal government, the District of Columbia and 25 states (including Iowa) have enacted laws entitling the exonerated to receive compensation from the government, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based group that helps win reversals of wrongful convictions.
Some states also provide help with college tuition, health insurance and job training.
In Nebraska, there is no law and the issue hasn't been debated in years.
It was revived because of the case of the "Beatrice 6,'' in which DNA tests not available in 1985 showed that another man committed the rape and murder. But it's unclear whether a bill will be introduced to compensate them.
Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha, chairman of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee, said that he supports the idea but that he'll be too busy with other bills. Ashford said he didn't know of another lawmaker working on the issue.
His office, however, has been researching compensation, aided by the recently revived Nebraska chapter of the Innocence Project.
Omaha attorney Jeanne Burke, a board member of the Innocence Project, said her group favors $50,000 a year for each year spent behind bars -- twice that amount if the time was spent on death row. That is the standard of the federal government and three states, including tough-on-crime Texas.
The Innocence Project's model legislation also proposes 10 years of health insurance, aid for tuition or job training and temporary help with housing and transportation bills as a former inmate reintegrates into society.
"You certainly need some money to get up and going,'' Burke said.
Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln said compensation is "the right thing to do,'' but he was weighing if it should be money or in the form of job training or college.
White, now living in Alabama, said he would like to see both.