Saturday, December 12, 2009

By Katherine Sayre, www.al.com

 A Mobile County jury awarded $20 million this week to the family of a woman who plaintiffs’ lawyers said died after receiving improper anesthesia care.

The jury returned the wrongful death verdict against medical group Coastal Anesthesia, Dr. Randall Boudreaux and Don Ortego, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, court records show.

Paulett Pettaway Hall, a 32-year-old wife and mother of two, died Jan. 16, 2006, after receiving anesthesia prior to exploratory surgery, according to Cunningham Bounds, the law firm that represented Hall’s estate.

Hall, who had been suffering from severe abdominal pain, breathed bile from her stomach into her lungs, the lawyers stated in a news release. She died at Springhill Medical Center.

Coastal Anesthesia, Boudreaux and Ortego denied the claims in the lawsuit, according to court records.

Defense lawyer Wesley Pipes, speaking on behalf of his clients, said, “We were disappointed in the jury’s verdict, and we’re disappointed that they did not seem to understand the evidence we tried to present.”

Pipes declined further comment.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that Boudreaux and Ortego did not examine Hall’s abdomen or look at her medical records prior to the exploratory surgery, which would have identified her risk factors for breathing fluid into her lungs, according to the Cunningham Bounds news release.

Posted November 13, 2009

By Jessie-Lynne Kerr, jacksonville.com

A Circuit Court jury in Flagler County Thursday returned a $5.1 million verdict in a wrongful death case stemming from a 2006 fatal collision between a fully loaded tractor-trailer and a Honda minivan.

Ingrid Falkenstein, 67, who had just retired to Palm Coast with her husband, David Falkenstein, was killed instantly in the wreck. Her husband suffered a pelvic fracture among other injuries.

Falkenstein’s attorney, Steve Pajcic of Jacksonville, presented evidence that showed trucker Christopher Angland of Palatka, driving for McMaster Sod LLC of Bunnell, ran a stop sign at Cody’s Corner. The accident occurred about 6:30 p.m. May 18 at the well-known but isolated intersection in the southwest part of the county.

The defendants argued that the county was at fault because of poor signage at the intersection and a failure to replace worn rumble strips approaching the stop sign.

But the jury placed 60 percent of the blame on the driver, 40 percent on McMaster and none on the county. Pajcic said some of his most compelling evidence was a Valentine’s card that Falkenstein gave his wife in the first year of their 33-year marriage that pledged, “Our happiness is our wealth.”

Pajcic urged the jury to place the same value on their long marriage as the couple had themselves. He argued that reckless driving by a tired trucker had robbed the couple of their golden years of retirement.

Posted on October 22, 2009

By Greg Tuttle, Billings Gazette

The family of a Billings nurse killed by a drunken teenager who was fleeing from police has filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit, claiming city officers and county deputies violated their own pursuit policies.

The lawsuit also claims that after the crash that killed 27-year-old Lillian Stahl, city and county law enforcement agencies lied to the public by stating that the sheriff’s deputy leading the pursuit called off the chase several blocks before the fatal collision.

Arnie Stahl, a brother of Lillian Stahl, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Yellowstone County District Court as the personal representative of the Stahl family. The suit, filed on behalf of the family by the Billings law firm of Edwards, Frickle & Culver, seeks unspecified damages from Yellowstone County and the city of Billings.

“We recognize the Billings Police Department and Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office have a difficult job,” said Chris Edwards, a lawyer representing the Stahls. “That is precisely why they have policies and procedures in place that are designed to protect the public while they carry out that job. Unfortunately, on the day that Lilly Stahl was killed, those policies and procedures were violated numerous times, resulting in a completely preventable loss of life.”

Allegations against the law enforcement agencies in the lawsuit include: the first city officer involved in the incident was driving an unmarked police car; the chase was unwarranted because the driver was suspected of committing only misdemeanor offenses and had been partially identified; that numerous patrol cars from both agencies converged on the area and joined in the chase; and that a city officer’s written report and patrol car video “don’t match up.”

Sheriff Jay Bell and Police Chief Rich St. John declined to comment on the lawsuit Thursday. Bell referred questions to Deputy County Attorney Kevin Gillen, who also declined to comment. City Administrator Tina Volek and City Attorney Brent Brooks did not return messages.

Stahl died shortly before 7 a.m. on April 18, 2008, when her car was hit broadside by a GMC Jimmy driven by 17-year-old Brian Houston. The collision happened when the Jimmy went through a stop sign on Sixth Street West and hit Stahl’s car headed east on Grand Avenue.

Stahl was on her way to work as an operating-room nurse at Billings Clinic. Houston was fleeing from city and county officers after a night of drinking. Stahl died at the scene from internal injuries. Houston and another teenager in the Jimmy survived the crash with minor injuries.

Houston was charged as an adult with negligent vehicular homicide and other felonies. He eventually pleaded guilty to the charges, and in October 2008 Judge Susan Watters sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

The lawsuit filed this week alleges that the chase that ended Stahl’s life and sent Houston to prison should never have taken place. It also alleges that the two law enforcement agencies recognized the policy violations and provided a “blatantly false” account of the events to the public.

A different picture of the chase surfaced through a review of patrol car audio and video recordings and interviews and statements by the officers involved in the fatal incident, according to the lawsuit.

“Based on the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office and Billings Police Department’s repeated attempts to change the facts of this horrific event, it is clear they knew the chase should have never occurred,” the lawsuit states.

The 27-page complaint details several alleged violations of both the Sheriff’s Office and Police Department policies on pursuits. The first officer to encounter Houston, and the first officer to violate department policy, was police Sgt. Mark Kirkpatrick, according to the lawsuit.

Kirkpatrick was in an unmarked patrol car when he saw what he believed to be an accident caused when an SUV hit a pickup truck or a garbage can, which then hit the pickup truck. Kirkpatrick pulled up to the scene of the accident and saw the SUV driving away down an alley. Kirkpatrick followed the SUV.

The Police Department’s policy prohibits unmarked cars from “engaging in pursuits because of the high possibility that people will flee when an unknown vehicle is chasing them,” the lawsuit states. The policy also states that an unmarked patrol car is not authorized to chase a suspect “except in extreme circumstances when there is immediate danger to life.”

Kirkpatrick also violated department policy by “failing to consider risks created by initiating a pursuit” and that a pursuit should not “needlessly endanger other persons.”

The fleeing vehicle was involved in only misdemeanor offenses, the lawsuit continues. Later, when the SUV stopped, Kirkpatrick radioed in the vehicle license number and a description of the driver, which could have been used to locate him later without a chase, according to the lawsuit.

Instead, Kirkpatrick “pursued a suspected misdemeanor traffic offender, which he had already identified, in an unmarked car, when there was no immediate danger to life,” the lawsuit states.

Sheriff’s Capt. Bill Michaelis was in the first marked patrol car to join the pursuit. He overheard Kirkpatrick’s radio reports, and joined the chase as the SUV was passing Central High on Broadwater Avenue, the lawsuit states.

As the chase evolved, officers and deputies began to “swarm” to the area, some from several miles away and traveling at high speeds through morning traffic. Pursuit policies state that only two patrol cars will be involved in a chase at any time. When the crash happened, seven city and county patrol cars had converged in the area, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit contends that after the crash, the Police Department issued a press release that “materially misrepresented the facts and circumstances leading up to the death of Lilly Stahl.” Specifically, the press release “was particularly misleading in regard to when the deputies and officers called off the chase.”

Houston was fleeing north on Sixth Street West until his SUV entered Grand Avenue and hit Stahl’s car. Michaelis said he reported to a dispatcher that he stopped the pursuit several blocks before the crash. The lawsuit contends that he told the dispatcher that he was “backing off” the pursuit at about the same time Houston’s SUV slammed into Stahl’s car.

The press release from the Police Department stated that “it became evident that the suspect was not going to stop and the deputies called off the pursuit, shut off their emergency equipment, and pulled over at Sixth and Clark.”

The lawsuit alleges the press release was “blatantly false” because the deputies and officers continued to chase Houston’s SUV into the intersection of Sixth Street West and Grand Avenue.

“As a result, they chased (the fleeing SUV) into its deadly intersect with Lilly Stahl,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also seeks unspecified damages for negligent infliction of emotional distress on Stahl’s surviving family members, who have suffered “shame, humiliation, degradation, embarrassment, anger, disappointment and worry,” the lawsuit states.

District Judge Ingrid Gustafson has been assigned to preside over the civil lawsuit.

Posted October 29, 2009

By Dave Altimari, The Hartford Courant

Atwilda Brown died trying to pour herself a cup of hot chocolate.

As the 80-year-old woman reached across the electric stove to grab a teapot full of hot water in her East Windsor kitchen on a Saturday night in February 2005, the sleeve of her chenille robe brushed against the burner and caught fire.

She ran to her bedroom furiously trying to put out the flames engulfing her robe as her disabled husband looked on. But by the time she threw the robe to the floor it was too late. More than 35 percent of her arms and back were burned and she died a few weeks later after being transferred to the Bridgeport Burn Center.

Brown is one of at least nine people across the country to die of burns suffered when their robes, sold by the Blair Corp. of Warren, Pa., caught fire, according to federal officials.

Brown’s daughter filed a wrongful death lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Hartford this week, blaming the company for making robes made of flammable material from Pakistan without doing the proper testing, and designing a garment that turned into a fire trap when ignited.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission, which already has recalled Blair’s chenille full-length robes like the one Brown was wearing, expanded the recall late last week to include any chenille tops and jackets made by the same Pakistani manufacturer and sold by Blair. In all, more than 300,000 garments have now been recalled.

“This robe is highly flammable, flames travel quickly up the robe,” CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson said last week. “It is a deadly risk to women.”

Blair Corp. refused comment on the lawsuit.

Atwilda Brown’s robe, with a matching pair of slippers, arrived in late January 2005 and was the latest in a long line of garments she had purchased from Blair, a company known to market clothing to older women.

She stayed home the night of the fire to care for her husband rather than go to their daughter Sharon’s 60th birthday party in Beacon Falls.  

“For years I carried around this guilt because we didn’t have the party closer to where my mother lived,” Sharon Davis said in an interview Wednesday.

The fire puzzled the family from the beginning.

“We never could figure out what happened,” Davis said. “It was an electric stove and my mother was a vibrant woman who could take care of herself.”

It wasn’t until four years later that Davis got a clue to what happened — courtesy of the Blair Corp. The company sent a recall letter, dated in April of this year, to Atwilda Brown, warning her that the robe she bought in January 2005 was highly flammable.

“I was so angry to learn what had really happened and to discover that it really shouldn’t have happened,” Davis said. “You trust when you buy a piece of clothing from someplace that it is safe. Unfortunately, my mother ordered the wrong item from Blair’s and she died because of it.”

There have been two other Blair recalls of chenille products since that one in April. Glastonbury attorney Bruce Raymond of Raymond and Bennett, who is representing Davis, said that number of recalls strung together so quickly, particularly for clothing, is highly unusual.

Raymond said that not only is the material highly flammable, which he said the company already knew, but also the design of the robe was faulty.

“They picked one of the most flammable materials, there was lax quality control on all these garments being tested as required, they had wide cuffs which easily could catch on fire and there were seven buttons down the front that needed to be unbuttoned before a person could take it off over their heads,” Raymond said.

The lawsuit seeks $30 million. A representative of a New York public relations firm hired by Blair Corp. to represent it during the recall said Wednesday that the company would not comment on the Connecticut lawsuit.

Following the latest recall announcement, Blair CEO Shelley Nandkeolyar issued a statement: “We strongly encourage anyone still in possession of a recalled robe to call our consumer hot line at (877) 392-7095 and return it immediately. In addition to our outreach to get these robes out of the hands of consumers, we are redoubling our efforts to ensure the products we sell are safe.”

Davis said she hopes the lawsuit also will warn others.

“No amount of money can ever bring back the loved ones that people have lost but it is the only recourse we have,” Davis said. “Our absolute goal is awareness. We don’t know how many people may not be aware that these clothes are dangerous and that there is a real problem here.”

Posted October 28, 2009

By Mark Millican, the Daily Citizen

An alleged “history” of gas leaks and problems associated with galvanized piping at the Dalton Housing Authority complex on Underwood Street may form the basis of a wrongful death lawsuit following two deaths in an explosion and fire there, an attorney said Tuesday.

Jeffery Chad Nations, 34, of apartment 410, Underwood Court, died two days after the Aug. 22 explosion that rocked the residential neighborhood in east Dalton. His mother, Martha Sue Nations, 56, of the same address, died on Sept. 27. Both were in the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta when they died.

Since the explosion, several investigators have scoured the scene, including from the DHA’s insurance company, local and state fire agencies, and an examiner hired by Nations family attorney Genevieve Frazier.

Frazier said she has interviewed neighbors of the family at Underwood Court and two former employees in the city maintenance department and found there is a history of complaints about gas leaks and “problems” with the piping.

“Witnesses say the fire department came in and said there were problems with the galvanized piping, problems with rusting,” she said. “The rusting also affects the smell of the gas, and can pull in chemicals (with the gas). My understanding is that the fire department recommended the piping be replaced and it was not.”

Dalton Fire Chief Bruce Satterfield said he is “familiar” with some of the statements coming from Frazier and witnesses she’s interviewed since he has received two Open Records Act requests for information.

“I’ve looked back and found one instance — it was sometime between 2004 and 2006, I can’t remember exactly because I don’t have the records right in front of me — where there was a gas leak (at the housing complex), but it was not in that same (apartment) facility,” he said. “We shut the gas off at the facility, contacted Dalton Utilities, which locks the gas out, and turned it over to the housing authority maintenance crew for repair. Dalton Utilities must see that (the piping) is fixed before they’ll turn the gas back on.”

Satterfield disputed the statement that the fire department had recommended that gas pipes be replaced.

“We have found no evidence or knowledge where this department — through our records management system, nor through our two code enforcement officers — ever told the housing authority that pipes needed to be replaced in the entire facility,” he said.

Satterfield said he believed Frazier was “testing the waters” with the records requests to get at the veracity of the witness statements.

“We have shut other apartments down before due to gas or electric problems,” he added. “It’s all documented, and we always check to see they’re back up to code before the gas or electricity is turned back on.”

The department is still waiting on “expert documentation” as to the cause of the explosion from James Dido, a mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer Joe Nemeth, he said.

Satterfield asked the members of the Public Safety Commission on Tuesday whether legal fees would be paid by the city or come out of his fire department budget. City attorney Jim Bisson said an “ad litem notice” — which state law requires before a government entity can be sued — has been filed, and that the city had responded.

“I have no idea what the fees are at this point, or who will bear the charges,” he said. “We do have an insurance carrier and they have been notified.”

Satterfield said the legal fees were around $500, stemming largely from the records requests, and that the invoice had been mistakenly sent to his department.

“They sent me the bill, but the city is named in the (ad litem filing of the) lawsuit,” he said.

City finance director Cindy Jackson said the legal bill would likely go through the administrative budget.

By Diana Hefley, Herald writer

October 16, 2009

EVERETT — An Everett nursing home is being accused of neglecting a 97-year-old man and allowing his penis to slowly rot off.

A lawsuit was filed against the Everett Rehabilitation and Care Center earlier this week. The lawsuit alleges that nursing home staff failed to adequately care for a patient who had developed penile cancer. The man died March 31, 2008, about two weeks after he was rushed to the emergency room and doctors made the grim discovery.

They were the first to report that the man’s penis had disintegrated, Seattle attorney James Gooding said Thursday.

“They were shocked and didn’t know what had happened. They had never seen anything like that,” Gooding said. “No one at Everett Rehab did anything or told anybody about his condition. We believe it was negligence. They didn’t care.”

The state Department of Social and Health Services later cited the home for failing to provide adequate care to the man.

An administrator at the care center on Thursday declined to discuss the allegations. She cited federal privacy laws about health care.

“I assure you however, quality care of our residents is our utmost priority. We deliver care as ordered by (the) residents’ physicians, in accordance with the care plan designated for each resident,” facility administrator Elizabeth Loyet said in a written statement. “I want to assure the Everett community that our team of caring staff remains committed to providing ethical care and quality of life for residents we proudly serve.”

The man went to the nursing home in 2004. His wife had become sick and needed around-the-clock care. He moved into the center to be with his wife, Gooding said. She died a short time later but the man decided to remain at the home.

He was lucid and spoke with his son during weekly visits, Gooding said.

A nurse on Nov. 7, 2007, told the home’s residential care manager that the man had a wound on his penis, records show. The manager went on a three-week vacation and when she returned she forgot about the nurse’s report, according to an investigation conducted by the state Department of Social and Health Services.

She said she didn’t hear anything more about the man’s wound until a doctor at the hospital called on March 14, 2008 — four months later — to report that the man’s penis was gone and instead he had a gaping wound, records show.

Nursing home records document that staff changed the man’s diaper daily and provided him weekly baths between November 2007 and March 13, 2008, according to the lawsuit.

Before he died, the elderly man spoke with state investigators. He recounted telling nursing home staff about a wound to his genitals two months before he was rushed to the hospital.

“They definitely should have seen it. There was no documentation that his penis was beginning to fall off,” Gooding said. “We believe they chose not to put it in the records.”

The man lost 20 pounds and his son finally insisted that he be taken to the emergency room at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett.

“He was definitely in pain. We don’t know if he complained. They never documented it. We believe he didn’t think that they were going to do anything about it,” Gooding said. “He didn’t just go from having a healthy penis to it falling off one day.”

Nursing home staff told state investigators that the man had a history of refusing baths and assistance with using the toilet. They also said he didn’t allow them to inspect his skin for wounds. He generally only allowed one particular aide on the care center’s staff provide him with intimate assistance, according to state documents.

That aide told investigators he reported the wound to a nurse. The nurse said she saw a 1-centimeter wound about two weeks before the man was hospitalized. She said she told the resident care manager, records show.

The center’s director of nursing concluded that the man’s wound developed because he wouldn’t allow staff to conduct periodic skin assessments, state records show.

Patients have a right to refuse care but nursing homes have an obligation to care for their residents, said Linda Moss, a regional administrator for Residential Care Services, part of DSHS.

“It’s a delicate balance,” she said.

If a patient continues to refuse care, making it impossible for a nursing home to provide adequate care, the home can discharge the patient from the facility, Moss said.

The state determined that the home failed to meet a federal standard for care. The man didn’t receive timely medical attention and the facility failed to notify his family or his doctor of changes in his health, the state determined. The care center also should have reported that the man was refusing to allow staff to inspect his genitals.

Administrators at the facility were required to submit a plan to make sure those problems weren’t repeated. State investigators followed up, and did not find any additional violations, Moss said.

“The intent of the citations is to correct the problem and ensure proper care,” Moss said.

If a care center has repeated citations or fails to correct problems, the state can take enforcement action, such as revoking a home’s license or not allowing new residents, Moss said.

The state has never taken those steps against the Everett Rehabilitation and Care Center, she added.

Published on September 24, 2009 by the Associated Press

NEW YORK — The bankruptcy court judge overseeing certain Chrysler assets has approved a $24 million settlement in the death of a California longshoreman run over by a Dodge pickup.

The settlement comes more than two years after a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded damages of more than $55 million to the family of Richard Mraz. The family argued the automaker had failed to fix and adequately warn consumers about a transmission defect that made it appear trucks were in park position, when they actually were between gears.

An appeal of the jury verdict by the former DaimlerChrysler was delayed by Chrysler’s Chapter 11 bankrupcty filing in April, leading to negotiations that resulted in a settlement, attorneys for the Mraz family said Thursday.

U.S. Judge Arthur Gonzalez in Manhattan approved the settlement, said attorneys from the firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein.

Mraz, 38, suffered fatal head injuries when he was run over by a 1992 Dodge Dakota at the Port of Los Angeles on April 13, 2004. Both sides in the lawsuit said he had left the truck running without setting the parking brake, but they differed on who was to blame for the accident.

Attorneys for the Mraz family argued that the truck slipped into reverse after Mraz got out. Those attorneys said DaimlerChrysler had received more than 1,000 “park-to-reverse” complaints involving 1988 through 2003 model Dakotas. The company issued a recall in 2000 but it was for repairs that failed to fix the problem, the family’s attorneys argued.

DaimlerChrysler denied there was a defect and argued that Mraz failed to follow proper safety procedures.

Jurors found in March 2007 that DaimlerChrysler was negligent in the truck’s design, and for failing to warn consumers or adequately recall the vehicle.

Charles Naylor, an attorney for the family, said his demand that Chrysler post bond while the case was under appeal proved crucial when the bankruptcy case threw the status of the jury’s damages award into doubt. The bankruptcy case halted the appeal, but the stay order was lifted over the summer.

Naylor said that led to negotiations with the appeal bond issuer, Safeco Insurance Co., that focused in part on how compensation to the family would affect Chrysler’s creditors based on how the appeal bond was structured.

Safeco posted an $81 million bond to guarantee payment of the judgment and interest after the judgment, Naylor said.

“Ultimately, the $24 million settlement offered a substantial return to Chrysler’s creditors while providing fair compensation to the Mraz family, our ultimate goal,” said Naylor.

BY SCOTT FITZGERALD
LEE NEWSPAPERS
09/16/2009

MARION, Ill. — A 65-year-old Southern Illinois woman died days after she was burned in a fire in an operating room, a lawyer for her family says.

Attorney Robert Howerton of Marion says a state of Tennessee death certificate shows that Janice Diane McCall of Energy, Ill., died from thermal burns. Howerton said the death certificate has not been officially stamped and entered into a state ledger.

McCall was transferred to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., for treatment of the burns she suffered while she was a patient in the operating room at Heartland Regional Medical Center in Marion on Sept. 2. She died six days later.

A news release issued by Heartland Regional on Tuesday said the accidental fire was immediately extinguished by operating room personnel. No other injuries were reported.

Marion Fire Chief Jack Reed said he visited with hospital administrators on Wednesday morning after he got word of the fire through news reports.

The chief said he and hospital administrators will “try to ascertain the origin of the fire and what fueled it.”
“It may have involved a hospital gown she had on. We don’t know what may have flashed the fire on or within the patient,” Reed said.

Reed said early reports indicate the fire lasted 10 to 15 seconds in a very small area. Flash fires are brief and not sustained, consuming whatever fuels them very quickly, Reed said.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, which accredits 17,000 hospitals nationwide, estimates that 100 to 200 fires ignite each year in hospital operating rooms.

Calls to Heartland Regional on Tuesday and Wednesday seeking comment were not returned.

Howerton said the McCall family was grief stricken over Janice McCall’s death.

“She was the center post for that family,” Howerton said.

Scott Fitzgerald is a reporter at the Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale.

Published September 4, 2009 by William Lee, Chicago Tribune

A Cook County judge on Thursday approved a $15 million settlement for the family of a restaurateur killed in a small airplane crash near a Wheeling airport in 2006.

Michael Waugh, 37, and three others were killed when the twin-engine Cessna 421B they were riding in crashed into a storage yard as it approached Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling in January 2006.

Waugh of Algonquin was general manager and chief operating partner of Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab in Chicago.

The settlement, approved by Circuit Judge John Ward, awards $6 million to Waugh’s widow, with the rest being divided among the couple’s three young sons.

The wrongful death suit alleged that the Morgan Stanley financial firm improperly allowed employees to fly personal planes to conduct business.

The suit also blamed pilot Mark Turek, 59, a senior vice president in Morgan Stanley’s Riverwoods office, with negligence.

“We think that was improper because … every single other financial institution prohibits that,” said attorney Gary Robb, who represented Waugh’s widow, Lisa.

Also killed in the crash was Kenneth Knudson, 61, founder of Sybaris, and Scott Garland, 40, of Chicago, another financial adviser at Morgan Stanley.

Published August 13, 2009 by zeenews.com

New York: The family of the first fatal swine flu victim in New York has filed papers in court with the intention of suing the local government for $40 million, news reports said on Wednesday.

Assistant principal Mitch Wiener at a Queens school succumbed to the influenza virus H1N1 in May, the first death, while several schools in New York City were ordered closed to prevent a further spread of the disease that struck mostly young children.

The CBS television network said Wiener’s wife and three sons plan to sue City Hall and its health and education departments for not taking faster steps in closing more schools.

CBS said the lawsuit claimed City Hall was negligent in failing to quickly report the influenza outbreak and failing to warn Wiener that he had been exposed to the H1N1 virus.

“The city didn’t do anything wrong,” CBS quoted Mayor Michael Bloomberg as saying. Bloomberg said the city had the obligation to keep schools open and he was sorry that Wiener died.