Jamie Hill-Spotswood told a supervisor that she felt unsafe less than a week before she was stabbed repeatedly in the face and hand, her lawsuit says.

A mental health worker at the state’s Riverview Psychiatric Center who was pregnant when she was stabbed repeatedly by a patient last year has filed a federal lawsuit claiming the state failed to protect her.

Less than a week before the attack on March 16, 2013, Jamie Hill-Spotswood told Roland Pushard, assistant director of nursing at the hospital in Augusta, that she was 18 weeks pregnant and felt unsafe because there was no security on the floor where she worked, she said in the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Bangor.

The attack prompted state officials to bring in corrections officers to monitor patients, and triggered an audit that cost the state millions of dollars in federal funding when federal authorities objected to the new security measures.

Hill-Spotswood said in the lawsuit, filed against Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew, that the floor was populated by patients known to be “very, very violent” and known to have threatened or attacked workers and patients many times.

The state did nothing after Hill-Spotswood told staffers at the Augusta hospital that she felt unsafe, and she was never informed that her attacker, Mark Murphy, had a “prolific history of violence,” her attorney, Michael Waxman, said in the six-page complaint.

“So, predictably, when…

Minutes later, she was being rushed to Mount Sinai Medical Center, landing in intensive care.

Kaufman, 61, of Miami Beach, had ingested a cocktail laced with liquid nitrogen while attending a January fundraising event in Miami Beach.

As soon as Kaufman swallowed the cocktail, the pain was instantaneous. She said she had no idea that the drink was toxic.

“I had a horrible pain,” said Kaufman, who spent five days in the hospital and is still recovering. “I thought I was going to pass out.”

The toxic cocktail burned her insides, creating holes in her esophagus and stomach. As the liquid changed to a gas inside her body, it needed to expand. Doctors quickly rushed the grandmother of four into surgery.

The incident happened in January during the Taste of the Garden event at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden. A bartender from Haven lounge on Lincoln Road served her the cocktail, but did not tell her to wait until the liquid had evaporated, she said.

For added drama, some bartenders chill the cocktail glasses with the liquid nitrogen so that curls of white smoke appear when liquid is added. However, only a little is needed and it should evaporate before it is served. It should never be ingested in its liquid form.

Kaufman, who owns a wholesale jewelry business with her husband, is suing Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Haven Hospitality Concepts…

A long-running legal battle over the rights of people with intellectual disabilities that has so far cost Tennessee taxpayers more than $40 million is one step closer to resolution.

State officials and lawyers representing people with intellectual disabilities have agreed to finalize the lawsuit involving conditions at three state institutions within 120 days.

The legal battle dates back to 1995 when disability advocates sued the state over dangerous and neglectful conditions at three state institutions: Clover Bottom Developmental Center and Harold Jordan Center, both in Nashville, and Greene Valley Developmental Center in Greeneville.

At the time, the state agreed to improve conditions for residents and to give them a choice in whether to move out of institutions into home-like settings. The state also agreed to standards of care set by the court and independently reviewed by court-appointed overseers.

While reviews have found more humane conditions for remaining residents, reviewers also identified serious problems that remain, including the slow pace in moving residents out of institutions.

Officials with the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities plan to close Clover Bottom permanently in 2015, five years behind their original schedule. The state has no plans to close Greene Valley, where dozens of residents were deemed fit to move back into their communities years ago, but continue to live at the institution.

Thus far, state officials have spent $11.4…

Read the lawsuit in full here. 

Cameron Redus, 23, was shot five times at close range by UIW Corporal Christopher Carter, following a traffic stop a few blocks north of campus December 6. Cameron Redus died at the scene.

When asked why the family filed a wrongful death lawsuit Cameron’s mother, Valerie said:

“Because it’s been five months yesterday, yesterday was the 6th. We’ve been trying to meet with them and come to an agreement and its like it hasn’t worked out.”

Carter told investigators Cameron Redus became combative after pulling over and he was forced to shoot him five times at close range following a six-minute physical confrontation.

The lawsuit details the fact that neither Carter nor Cameron Redus were on the UIW campus at any time during the events leading  to Cameron’s death. The lawsuit also states that the events were not consistent with the duties Carter was assigned by UIW.

“In any job, whether it’s a teacher or a banker, or a police officer, there is going to be some bad apples in the bunch, okay. I think in any job there should always be an accountability,” Valerie Redus said. 

Carter did not attempt to stop Cameron Redus on…

A class-action lawsuit was filed this week against the Maricopa County Community College District over a computer security breach last year that exposed the personal information of more than 2.4 million people.

The lawsuit names as plaintiffs Chad Roberts, a former student at one of the 10 colleges, and Mark McKee, who took dual-enrollment courses through the district while a student at Brophy College Preparatory.

The Republic previously reported that the district didn’t fully address a system hack that happened in January 2011, which directly led to the wider security breach that was discovered in April 2013.

The district didn’t notify those affected, which included current and former students, staff and vendors going back more than 30 years, until November 2013. The information that was exposed included staff members’ banking information and social security numbers and students’ academic information.

MORE: MCCCD refusing to release records on security breach

MORE: College board extends legal contract in data breach

The lawsuit, filed by the Phoenix firm of Gallagher & Kennedy, seeks $2,500 on behalf of each plaintiff. It says the district was negligent by not protecting the personal information of people in the system.

By filing as a class-action, the suit could potentially seek damages for any person whose information was exposed.

In March, the firm filed a lawsuit compelling the district to turn over records related to the breach.

Several other former students and faculty…