Uber sued over driver data breach, adding to legal woes

Today’s post was shared by The Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group and comes from www.nydailynews.com

Uber Technologies Inc has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit over a recently disclosed data breach involving the personal information of about 50,000 drivers, the latest in a series of legal woes to hit the Internet car service.

The suit, filed Thursday in federal court in San Francisco by Sasha Antman, an Uber driver in Portland, Oregon, says the company did not do enough to prevent the 2014 breach and waited too long — about five months — to disclose it.

Antman says Uber violated a California law requiring companies to safeguard employee’s personal information.

Last month, Uber said it had discovered in September that an unknown person had gained access to a database containing the names and driver’s license numbers of thousands of drivers.

The suit, which seeks more than $5 million in damages, says Antman and other drivers “now face years of constant surveillance of their financial and personal records…and loss of rights.”

A spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Uber did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday. When the company announced the breach, it said there had been no reports of drivers’ information being misused.

While Uber has been growing in popularity and is now among the most valuable U.S. startups, it is also facing mounting legal challenges from drivers,…

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Lawsuit against Frankfort health care company alleges discrimination

Today’s post was shared by The Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group and comes from www.kentucky.com

A former caregiver for Community Choice Unlimited alleges he was fired after he reported that a coworker sexually assaulted a patient, and he is suing the company for discrimination, lost wages and damage to his vehicle.

The lawsuit, filed in Franklin Circuit Court Wednesday, names Eric Acha as plantiff and Louis and Stacey Milligan as defendants. It accuses the health care facility of forcing Acha to quit after he reported that Damon Heath had sexually abused a male patient numerous times, including making the patient perform oral sex in a Wal-Mart restroom. Community Choice Unlimited manages facilities that provide care for intellectually disabled adults in the Frankfort area.

According to the lawsuit, Stacey Milligan is the owner of Community Choice Unlimited and Louis Milligan is the director and oversees the supervisory staff.

Acha, whose primary duties were to oversee and assist patients at the residential health facility with cooking, cleaning, giving medications and other daily activities, was told about the sexual abuse by a patient identified as John Doe on Aug. 14, 2014.

The next day, Acha told CCU Residential Director Randy Drivers about the reported abuse, including Acha witnessing Heath go into the patient’s room late at night, but was told “to keep his mouth shut,” the lawsuit said.

An investigation was opened, but Heath was allowed to work at the facility where John Doe and another man, identified as James Doe, lived.

An attorney for Acha, Joe Childers,…

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Lawsuit seeks damages from Eastside Rail Corridor

Today’s post was shared by The Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group and comes from www.king5.com

BELLEVUE, Wash. — A group of residents and business owners have filed a new suit seeking damages from King County’s stalled Eastside Rail Corridor.

The corridor was purchased from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad in 2008 in a complicated deal concocted among King County, the Port of Seattle, Puget Sound Energy and other agencies.

Plans included converting the tracks to a pedestrian/bike path that could be shared with a light rail line. There was also a proposal for a possible major power line in the corridor.

The suit contends the plans have already damaged property values and once the rail line ceased to be a rail line, it could not be sold or developed.

Tom Stewart, one of the lawyers for the landowners said, “Washington law and federal law plainly establish that an easement for railroad use is only a surface easement and the railroad, which only had an interest in the surface, can’t transfer or sell to the Port or any of the other Defendants anything more than what it owned.”

Attorneys say the proposed class suit will consist of hundreds of potential class members.

King County officials said Wednesday they are aware of the lawsuit, but are unable to discuss until it is fully reviewed.

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Lawsuit over quarter horse’s clone may redefine animal breeding

Today’s post was shared by The Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group and comes from www.latimes.com

Lynx Melody Too, a clone of a renowned quarter horse, is at the center of a lawsuit that could change the world of animal breeding and competition.

Texas horse breeder Jason Abraham and veterinarian Gregg Veneklasen sued the American Quarter Horse Assn., claiming that Lynx Melody Too should be allowed to register as an official quarter horse.

A Texas jury decided in their favor in 2013, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling in January, saying there was “insufficient” evidence of wrongdoing by the association.

Abraham and Veneklasen are now seeking a rehearing before the full 15-judge circuit panel.

Scientists use cloning to make stem cells matched to two adults

The suit is among the first to deal with the status of clones in breeding and competition, and its outcome could impact a number of fields, including thoroughbred horse racing and dog breeding.

The quarter horse association is adamant that clones and their offspring have no place in its registry.

“It’s what AQHA was founded on — tracking and preserving the pedigrees of these American quarter horses,” said Tom Persechino, executive director of marketing for the association. “When a person buys an American quarter horse, they want to know that my quarter horse has the blood of these horses running through it, not copies of it.”

But Abraham and Veneklasen say that cloning follows a long tradition of using the latest technology to improve and maintain the breed.

Scientists report another embryonic cloning success

Cloning “is nothing more than an assisted…

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Family of canal drowning victim files $30 million lawsuit against Pittsburg

Today’s post was shared by The Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group and comes from www.mercurynews.com

Updated:   03/16/2015 05:40:39 AM PDT

PITTSBURG — The family of a 56-year-old man who drowned after his car crashed into the Contra Costa Canal last year has sued the city of Pittsburg, seeking $30 million in damages.

The suit alleges the city did not do enough to prevent Dennis Sandoval’s car from falling into the canal and that there should have been a barrier in place, better warning signs and other safeguards.

Sandoval, of Pittsburg, was driving home from work after 6 p.m. on April 1, 2014, when his eastbound car failed to negotiate a left curve on West Leland Road. His car went over a curb, through a chain-link fence and into the canal, landing upside down in 5½ feet of water.

The lawsuit says the city should have installed a barrier that extended out into the region where Sandoval’s car crashed. There is such a barrier directly above the canal, but where Sandoval’s car broke through, there is only a single chain-link fence.

“Our main position is that for a very little amount of money, they could have erected a regular guard rail or sunken wooden post,” Robert Abel, the attorney representing the family, said.

“That would have stopped this vehicle from leaving the roadway and entering the water. It wasn’t the crash that killed him, it was the drowning.”

Sandoval’s widow, Loretta, said Friday her motivation for suing was to force the city to install a barrier to prevent a future tragedy from happening.

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Sandoval’s body was not…

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Colorado prisoners’ lawsuit seeks millions for being held ‘too long’

Today’s post was shared by The Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group and comes from www.denverpost.com

Denver and the West

Updated:   03/14/2015 01:31:07 AM MDT

A class-action lawsuit has been filed in federal court on behalf of 154 Colorado prisoners seeking millions of dollars in compensation on a claim that they were cheated out of good time and held too long.

The lawsuit was filed Friday on behalf of Arlene Rosetta-Rangel and numerous other current and former inmates who accuse the Department of Corrections of failing to credit them for good behavior.

The lawsuit, which seeks attorney’s fees and compensatory and punitive damages, is very similar to a class-action suit filed more than a year ago in federal court by the law firm of Killmer, Lane and Newman.

Attorney David Lane said their case, Ankeney versus Colorado, has been appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court and once it is decided, thousands of inmates encompassed by the lawsuit could be immediately released from prison or parole.

The Rosetta-Rangel lawsuit filed by attorney Blake Embry is different because it seeks to include the names of scores of inmates who have already been released from prison, Embry said.

But Randal Ankeney, a former attorney named as lead plaintiff in the Lane lawsuit, was released from prison in 2013.

Embry said he intends to file a motion consolidating his case with the Ankeney case.

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His lead plaintiff, Rosetta-Rangel, should have been released on May 5, 1999, but wasn’t released until 839 days later, in part because a judge didn’t credit her for serving 180 days in jail before…

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