July 2011 Archives

A federal judge found that the family of September 11 victim Mark Bavis will be able to pursue damages for Bavis's pain and suffering prior to his death.

According to The New York Times, Bavis was a passenger on United Flight 175, the second plane to strike the World Trade Center on September 11th. In their wrongful death lawsuit against United Airlines, Bavis's family sought to pursue damages for the "21 minutes of terror" Bavis must have felt when hijackers took over the plane, murdered the pilots, and flew the plane into the New York City skyscraper.

In a routine contract dispute with her mom, New York gossip girl Leighton Meester included some pretty scandalous allegations against her mother, Constance Meester.

The two Meesters are battling over whether Leighton is required to continue paying about $7,500 to her mother to care for her sick brother, Lex. In the lawsuit, Leighton is arguing that she voluntarily gave her mother the money every month and could withhold the payments if she wanted. However, Constance is arguing that her daughter made an oral contract promising to make the payments, so the Gossip Girl star could not just stop payments whenever she wanted.

A New City teen was involved in a grisly bear mauling in Alaska over the weekend. Seventeen-year old Joshua Berg was a student at Wyoming-based National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) when he reportedly was attacked by the bear. He suffered serious, but non-life threatening, injuries, and this is the second serious incident in two weeks involving a Wyoming-based outdoor adventure company.

According to ABC, seven teens from around the country were hiking along a river in the Alaskan wilderness as part of a 30-day NOLS wilderness survival course. The teens were on the 24th day of their course and were hiking unsupervised by NOLS staff.

The Lamar Odom car accident in Queens resulted in the death of a 15-year old boy. And according to reports, onlookers were more interested in the Los Angeles Lakers' forward than they were in helping the dying teenager, Awsaf Islam.

The New York Daily News reports that a motorcycle hit the front bumper of a Cadillac Escalade carrying Odom. The motorcycle then spun out of control and struck Islam who was riding a scooter. Islam died shortly thereafter.

In another deadly New York tour bus accident, a bus headed from Washington D.C. to Niagara Falls crashed, killing two passengers and injuring 35 others.

According to the Associated Press, the tour bus reportedly blew out a tire shortly before veering off Interstate 390 and overturning about 50 miles south of Rochester. Officials are still investigating the accident to determine the exact cause of the crash. It has not been reported if anyone is at fault in the accident.

A second swimming pool death occurred at Lyons Pool in Staten Island. Twenty-one-year-old Jonathon Proce is the second person to die after practicing a breath holding exercise in the shallow-end of the pool.

According to the New York Daily News, Proce was a city lifeguard in another Staten Island pool and was practicing the breath holding exercises as part of training to join a pararescue unit.

Proce was doing the exercises with his friend Bohdan Vitenko, reports the Daily News. The breath holding exercises were similar to those used in military training, and Vitenko was reportedly doing the exercises as a Navy SEAL trainee.

Chinese gymnast Sang Lan reached a $10 million settlement with several insurance companies thirteen years after her gymnastics accident at the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York.

According to the Examiner, Lan was paralyzed during warm-ups as she propelled herself off a vault. Apparently, Lan had run up to the vault where she performed some routine maneuvers. But Lan misjudged her timing on the landing and fell on her head.

Ten IHOP diners and restaurant workers lifted a pickup truck off of a woman after the woman was struck as she rode her bicycle in North Plainfield, NJ.

This act by the Good Samaritans prompts one to ask: what would have happened had this accident occurred across the Hudson in New York?

Previous incidents like the infamous Kitty Genovese murder and the New York Good Samaritan who was left to die after coming to the aid of a mugging victim suggest that New Yorkers may have done nothing.

The hotel housekeeper in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case is now suing the New York Post for libel, claiming that the Post's articles suggesting that she was a prostitute were false.

Over the July 4th weekend, the Post published a series of articles with headlines that claimed the housekeeper was a prostitute, reports The New York Times. In the articles, it was written that the housekeeper did double duty as a prostitute at the hotel where she worked, charging male guests for sexual acts and even being assigned to the hotel because the union knew that she would generate a lot of money.

A sad headline: a mom sues school after her son killed himself due to bullying by classmates.

According to the New York Daily News, Bergouhi Elissa claims that her son, 12-year old Elijah Mendez, hung himself in the family home after suffering relentless bullying and torment by his classmates who thought he was gay.

In her lawsuit, Elissa alleges that the student's bullying suicide could have been prevented had the school took proper action reports the Daily News. The mother said that she made numerous complaints about the bullying to officials at Public School 84, but that the school failed to stop the abuse. Accordingly, the mom said, "I believe that the school's inaction brought about the death of my son."

Bergouhi Elissa is now seeking funeral expenses for her son and other damages.

A Bronx school teacher, Rachel Wolff, filed a complaint blaming her elementary school principal for the stillbirth of her child.

According to the New York Post, Wolff complains that the principal of PS 246, Beverly Miller, assigned her tasks that were too arduous given her "high risk" pregnancy.

The complained about tasks involved climbing stairs, hauling heavy furniture, and cleaning the library. By assigning these tasks, Wolff says that Miller, "contributed to an environment where having a successful pregnancy became exceedingly difficult," reports the Post.