According to Daily News and Analysis, in London, Jennifer Lopez and her husband Marc Anthony are facing a 3-million-pound lawsuit launched by an airhostess who claims she was bitten by Anthony’s guard dog, Floyd. Lisa Wilson, a flight attendant for NetJets, claims that the couple’s military-trained German Shepherd attacked her while she was working on a private jet on July 3, 2006 while flying from Republic Airport in Farmingdale, Long Island, to Burbank, California.

Wilson claims that the “personal protection” dog growled at her as she walked past, before biting the leg of her trousers and causing her to fall over. Wilson alleges that she injured her back so badly she can no longer work and is now suing the couple in New York’s Brooklyn Federal Court for 3 million pounds. She claims that she had been warned to be careful around Floyd, suggesting the couple knew he was a threat. She also indicated that Anthony told her not to make eye contact with the dog and to call Floyd by his name if she needed to pass.

It has emerged that a vet who examined Floyd concluded that the singer and her husband were responsible for the alleged attack. Wilson was carrying silverware at the time of the alleged attack and the vet found that the couple’s personal chef had also been targeted by the dog when he carried sharp objects.

Wilson’s lawyer William Cafaro was quoted by the Daily Express as saying, “The dog was obviously dangerous and we will prove at tirla that it was only a matter of time before he hurt someone.” He also stated that Floyd should have had a muzzle or leash on and Lopez and Anthony should have warned Wilson “to stay completely away from the dog.”

Lopez and Anthony’s lawyer responded in court papers that the pair had hired their own animal-behavior expert to evaluate Floyd.

Destined to Increase in the Future?

According to a recent report, the number of slip-and-fall injuries that occur each year at businesses and commercial properties is expected to rise significantly in the near future because the population of aging baby boomers will lead to an increase in the number of seniors. Seniors are statistically the most likely to fall, and when they do, they tend to require more medical care and more time to recover from their injuries.

Contrary to this report, some suggest that the number of slip-and-fall cases is likely to grow not because of America’s aging population but because commercial property owners and managers are taking money-saving shortcuts that result in more property defects and more falls.

Whatever the cause, the report has a number of suggestions for reducing the chances of falling, most of which are just good common sense. Among its suggestions for reducing the number of slip-and-fall injuries at places of business:

Use high-traction flooring materials and low-slip cleaning products;

Limit the difference in height between mats and floors to one-half inch or less;

Regularly inspect floors and floor coverings for wear, spills, and other dangers; and

Train employees how to deal with spills.

            Maintenance on a vehicle can be expensive. As U-Haul recently found out, lack of maintenance on a vehicle can be even more expensive.

            A suit was brought by a renter of a U-Haul truck who was severely injured when the parking brake did not hold and the truck rolled over him. The man’s pelvis and spine were crushed, his bladder was ruptured, and he suffered a number of other injuries. Treating him required numerous surgeries, and he is partially paralyzed and bedridden. The cost of treating him for the rest of his life has been estimated to be $25 million.

            The renter sued U-Haul for negligence, and the evidence showed that U-Haul failed to properly maintain the brakes and transmissions of many of the trucks in its fleet. The renter presented evidence showing that almost a third of the trucks that U-Haul rents had brakes that did not work properly, and that the truck which had rolled over the renter was 18 years old and had been banned from being rented in Canada because of poor maintenance. Rather than fixing the problems, U-Haul chose to ship the truck to the United States for use as a rental.

            Although U-Haul argued that it could not reasonably be expected to know that the parking brake was faulty and that the accident was the renter’s fault, the jury did not agree. It awarded the renter over $84 million in damages, including $63 million in punitive damages, although the law required that this amount be reduced to a judgment of $46 million.

According to the Press Association, Brad Pitt was involved in a minor accident while biking through Hollywood.  It seems that the Pitt was riding his motorbike when it clipped a parked car.  He walked away seemingly unhurt.

The incident occurred as the 45-year-old attempted to make his way through a line of cars.  He brushed one vehicle and was forced to swerve to avoid hitting another at the lights.  As he did so, he fell off the two-wheeler.  Although he was uninjured, the bike was damaged and needed to be towed away.

According to Sign on San Diego News, 20-year-old Reyes Miranda pleaded not guilty in a Vista Superior Court to felony charges of gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence causing great bodily harm in the death of his 17-year-old passenger, Gerardo Chacon, a junior at Vista High School.

Miranda was driving a 1990 Ford Mustang on East Vista Way near Mason Road, just north of Vista at about 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 8.  According to authorities, he was drunk.  The CHP said he hit a guardrail and bus-stop shelter before rolling several times.

Gerardo was not wearing a seat belt and was partially ejected from the car.  According to the Medical Examiner’s Office, he died at the scene of the wreck from multiple blunt-force injuries to his upper body.

Miranda suffered moderate injuries and was treated at the Palomar Medical Center in Escondido where he was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.  He appeared in a courtroom Thursday in a wheelchair with a brace on his neck and back.  Miranda’s bail was set at $200,000.

According to the Huffington Post, actor James Woods, along with his nephew Peyton, is suing a hospital for the wrongful death of his brother, Michael Woods, 49, who died from heart disease at Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island, on July 26, 2006, after going into cardiac arrest on a gurney.  At the wrongful death trial, James Woods’ lawyer told jurors that the hospital did not do enough to care for Michael Woods when he went to the emergency room complaining of a sore throat and vomiting in 2006.  

According to the attorney, Michael Woods wasn’t seen by a doctor until an hour after he arrived and was initally treated in a section of the emergency room generally reserved for less-urgent cases.  The results of an EKG came back abnormal but he was not given oxygen, aspirin or hooked up to heart monitoring to track further deterioration.  These procedures are all part of the standard of care in treating someone in Woods’ condition, according to Mark Decof, James Woods’ attorney.

Michael Woods was instead taken for additional X-rays and afterward was left on a gurney in a hallway near a nurse’s station because no room was available.  He went into cardiac arrest and died nearly three hours after his arrival at the hospital.

The hospital’s lawyers said that Michael’s symptoms were inconsistent with someone having a heart attack.  They said that he tried to downplay his illness by assuring her that he was fine and didn’t need so much attention.  Further, the lawyers said that he denied to the nurse that he was having more typical symptoms like chest pain. 

Decof said the death could have been prevented had hospital staff recognized Woods’ condition early enough, but lawyers for the hospital say that his heart and arteries were already so diseased that there ws no way to save him and that he died before any potentially lifesaving measures could even have been taken.  Woods was overweight, had high blood pressure, an artery severely narrowed by plaque, and also suffered from myocardial ischemia, a condition caused by lack of blood flow to the heart.  According to the hospital, they ordered tests and “didn’t rule anything in and didn’t rule anything out.” 

Michael Woods, a businessman who lived in Warwick, was also an actor who appeared in several of his brother’s movies and ran twice unsuccessfully for mayor of the city, which is several miles south of Providence.

According to ConsumerAffairs.com, Zero Motorcycles Inc. is recalling about 200 off-road motorcycles.  The recall involves model year 2009 Zero X and Zero MX electric motorcycles.  The motorcycles were sold by Zero Motorcycles dealers nationwide from December 2008 through August 2009 for between $7,500 and $8,300.

The throttle can become stuck in the open position or become disconnected. In the “Easy” or the “0-25” mode, this can unexpectedly lead to full power, resulting in a loss of control and serious injury to the rider.  Zero Motorcycles has received three reports of unexpected acceleration, one including report of minor injuries.

According to KTVU.com, San Jose residents, Lorenzo Garcia, 27, and Jesus Guzman, 29, were arrested in connection with the attack on an animal care officer on November 3.  They were arrested under a California law that applies to owners or caretakers who let their dogs out of custody, resulting in great harm or death.  The dog owners are facing charges stemming from a law enacted a few years ago after a San Francisco woman was killed by two dogs running loose.

According to police spokesman Sgt. Ronnie Lopez, the attack happened at about 7 a.m., after the dogs broke out of a nearby home and made their way to a house in the 2300 block of Pentland Way.  The homeowner called police to report a vicious animal and police responded, along with a city animal care officer.  As the animal care officer entered the home’s backyard to try and contain the dogs, according to police, both dogs attacked her.  A police officer shot and killed one dog and wounded the other while attempting to rescue her.  San Jose fire Captain Barry Stallard said the dogs were extremely aggressive and officers had to fire 11 rounds before they were incapacitated.

Julie St. Gregory, a San Jose animal care spokeswoman said that the second dog was euthanized later on November 3.  The dogs, named Chief and Sharkey, were a mix of pitbull and American bulldog.  Neither of the dogs were neutered.  St. Gregory blames the owners.  She said, “If you’re going to get these dogs you need to neuter them, you need to train them and you need to keep them confined.  They can be dangerous.”

St. Gregory also stated that last year the dogs’ owner was cited five times before the incident occurred after the city received six complaints about the dogs.

The animal service officer suffered nine bites, some of them very severe.  She was released after receiving many stitches.  The officer was bit in the arms, legs, buttocks and hips before the dogs were controlled.  The officer was taken to a hospital and will require surgery.  Fire Captain Stallard said that the dogs took a sizeable chunk of flesh out of the officer’s right arm but he was relieved that the dogs did not bite her face or neck.  “She was fighting them, kicking them, trying to fight them with her baton,” he said.

The dogs bit the officer in the arms, legs, buttocks and hips before they were controlled, Stallard said. The officer was taken to a hospital and will require surgery, he said. While the dogs took a sizeable chunk of flesh out of the officer’s right arm, Stallard was relieved that the dogs did not bite her face or neck.

The homeowner told officers he usually keeps the sliding door to the backyard open in the mornings, but it happened to be closed Tuesday, Stallard said.  The homeowner also stated that he was about to feed his 6- and 8-year-old kids breakfast and those dogs were jumping against the sliding door.  Stallard stated “”Those kids would have been torn to pieces.”

According to ContactMusic.com, Stacy Rowles, 54, a celebrated jazz musician, passed away on October 27, 2009 at her home in Burbank, California following a car accident. Rowles died from complications follwing the collision that occurred on October 13, 2009.

Rowles was a jazz trumpeter, fluegelhorn player and singer. She played regularly in several all-female jazz groups, including the Jazz Birds and Maiden Voyage. She was the daugher of jazz legend Jimmy Rowles and gained prominence on the Los Angeles jazz scene in the 1980s.

Stacy and her father recorded her 1984 album Tell It Like It Is and their 1992 duet album, Looking Back, among others. They also played together often until shortly before his death in 1996. Stacy is survived by her sister Stephanie Rowles and her brother Gary.

According to the Press Democrat, Eunice Peterson, a 91-year-old Burnside Road resident will most likely have no criminal charges pressed against her after she apparently struck and injured Sally Wong, a 43-year-old cyclist on Friday, October 16, and kept on driving.  Wong was struck from behind, knocked off her bike and sustained moderate injuries.  Her bike helmet was reportedly cracked in the mishap.  She was taken to the hospital, treated and released.

According to the CHP, it seems as though there was no intent on her part to flee the scene intentionally.  Peterson read about the incident in The Press Democrat and then contacted the CHP on Saturday stating that she thought she was the one who hit Wong.  Investigators said that it did not appear Peterson knew she hit someone.  Peterson’s driver’s license could be revoked if it appears she has eyesight or hearing issues, or cannot drive safely any longer.

According to the CHP, the front right corner of Peterson’s Corolla hit the rear wheel of Wong’s bicycle.  There was only minor damage to the Corolla.  The CHP said that it is possible that Peterson drove by, clipped Wong’s bicycle, sent the cyclist tumbling and wasn’t aware.  It is uncertain how fast the car was going when it struck the cyclist.