Archive for October 2009
UPDATE: WOMAN CONVICTED OF NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE AFTER BEING DISTRACTED BY TALKING ON HER CELL PHONE | Dallas, Texas Personal Injury Attorney Blog
Following the October 8, 2009 guilty verdict and sentencing of Jeri Montgomery (24) a Humble, Texas woman for negligent homicide in connection with the deadly accident she caused in which she was accused of being distracted by talking on her cell phone, the Harris County District Attorney calls the actions of a Humble woman accused of causing an accident after getting off of her cell phone selfish and narcissistic. The jury convicted Jeri Montgomery of negligent homicide, and she is serving a 30 day jail sentence for causing the accident that killed Chance Wilcox. She was also sentenced to ten years probation.
The Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos commented, “She’s talking on her darn phone and then she misses her entrance to the freeway,” said. “Big deal. Just drive down to the next one. Why endanger everybody on the road? Part of that is selfishness.” While driving and talking on a cell phone is not against the law in Harris County, unless you are in a school zone, Texas law allows prosecutors to press charges for Negligent Homicide in the event they believe a driver of a motor vehicle was negligent for any reason. In this case, the negligence involves driving while being distracted because of the use of a cell phone. As a result, the District Attorney’s warning is clear to drivers in Harris County that if you are driving in Harris County, you should consider yourself warned. If people are driving while being distracted, regardless of what the distraction is, and engage in another reckless act and cause an accident,” they may be charged with a crime.
Interestingly, the convicted driver, Jeri Montgomery, reportedly told a CBS Reporter that she doesn’t think she got a fair shot, and her attorney has filed for an appeal.
This case is important not only to drivers in Harris County, but to all Texans because it highlights that while the law in Texas does not specifically make it illegal to use a cellular telephone while driving in all situations, in an appropriate case, criminal charges can be brought against drivers who drive recklessly because of being distracted by using the phone. See our blog for a summary of the current Texas laws that make it illegal to drive while using a cellular telephone, but beware that some cities have enacted ordinances that may also limit the use of a telephone while driving
Crime-Infested Apartments Targeted By Irving | Dallas, Texas Personal Injury Attorney Blog
The City of Irving has enacted a new law that goes into effect on January 1, 2010 that allows police to target crime-infested apartment complexes. The new ordinance puts pressure on landlords to clean up their properties or risk being shut down. Under this new law a threshold is established for individual apartment complexes. If the crime rates surpass it, the landlords must take part in a mandatory crime reduction program that costs $250. Police work with the landlords to improve overall security including lighting, fencing and landscaping. Tenants will also have to undergo background checks by the Department of Public Safety.
A similar law has been enacted in both Houston and in Dallas. In Houston, 30 apartment communities have been forced to implement a mandatory crime reduction program. Since that time, those apartment communities have seen a 26% decrease in crimes at those communities.
Part of the reason for this new law is that Irving Police say:
- 62% of all robberies of individuals in Irving take place in apartment complexes
- 48% of all auto thefts in the city take place in apartment parking lots and
- 41% of aggravated assaults in Irving take place in apartment complexes.
While this new law is a good step towards cleaning up our neighborhoods and hopefully reducing crime by requiring landlords to be actively involved in steps to decrease crime at the risk of having the complex shut down, the law does not specify whether an apartment complex that is required to develop a mandatory crime reduction program, but negligently fails to either implement the program or to comply with it, can be held liable for such conduct. More importantly, often the apartment complexes that are located in the highest crime zones, do not carry liability insurance. As more and more cities begin to implement these laws, it will be interesting to see how the Texas Courts handle these cases particularly since these communities are still expected to be located in areas of high concentration of violent crimes.
Currently, Texas law is very difficult to overcome the legal hurdles to hold a landlord liable for the criminal conduct of others, but in the Texas Supreme Court cases addressing the issue, none of those cases have involved an apartment complex that had a crime rate that mandated the complex enact a crime reduction program. For example, it would be interesting to see how the opinion of the Texas Supreme Court might differ in the case of Timberwalk Apartments v. Cain, 972 S.W.2d 749 (Tex. 1998) if the apartment complex at issue had been under a legal duty to implement a crime reduction program but failed to do so. In Timberwalk, the tenant sued landlord after she was raped in her apartment. The Court held that the incident was not foreseeable as a matter of law. The Court noted that “Crime may be visited upon virtually anyone at any time or place,” but criminal conduct of a specific nature at a particular location is never foreseeable merely because crime is increasingly random and violent and may possibly occur almost anywhere, especially in a large city. In deciding whether the crime was foreseeable, Courts must consider whether any criminal conduct previously occurred on or near the property, how recently it occurred, how often it occurred, how similar the conduct was to the conduct on the property, and what publicity was given the occurrences to indicate that the landowner knew or should have known about them.
Dallas High School Girls Being Hazed in Big Sis-Lil Sis Program | Dallas, Texas, Personal Injury Attorney Blog
High school girls attending Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas report being hazed as part of the “Big Sis – Lil Sis” program at the school. The program is designed to help freshmen girls be mentored by junior girls and to encourage the girls to get to know the school and each other better. Recently, however, one of the freshmen girls involved in the program has reported that she and the other freshmen girls were forced for several hours (under the guise of “tradition”) into uncomfortable situations that included the following:
- Underage drinking
- Smoking marijuana
- Pole-dancing on street signs
- Being photographed while giving lap dances to boys
- Yelling obscenities at fast-food drive-through windows
- Being covered with eggs, flour, mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise
- Being forced to take off their bras and wear them around their necks while running through sprinkler systems in their pajamas.
- Simulating oral sex, at time with older high school boys watching
The Dallas Independent School District said that the information has been reported to the proper authorities and that an investigation is being conducted.
Being “tradition” does not make hazing actions right or legal. If these events truly are a tradition of this “Big Sis – Lil Sis” program, many other young girls have been subjected to this hazing. Not only is hazing a crime in Texas and in most other states, but it is also a violation of the Code of Conduct of most schools and universities. As a result, the girls who participate in this behavior are risking both criminal prosecution and disciplinary action from the school.
If you or a family member have lost a loved one due to a hazing incident or a suspected hazing incident, we encourage you to take prompt action by reporting the incident to the appropriate legal and school authorities, investigating the matter with the assistance of an experienced attorney familiar with hazing cases, and knowing your rights.
Very few law firms have experience with handling these cases. Rachel Montes has represented families in the area that are victims of hazing. Although we are located in Irving, Texas (Dallas/ Fort Worth area), our team accepts hazing cases from any state, including California.
The Media’s Impact on the Public’s Perception of Health Issues | Dallas, Texas Personal Injury Attorney Blog
According to American College of Emergency Physicians, the publicity surrounding the death of actress Natasha Richardson, who died suddenly from a head injury after a fall has triggered a 73 percent increase in emergency room visits for head trauma. In the month following her death, the number of patients seen by doctors in 19 urban, suburban, and rural emergency rooms in New York and New Jersey in March 2009 rose dramatically. However, when the media stories regarding the actress’ death began to wane, the number of emergency room visits for head trauma returned to the pre-March 2009 levels.
“The study quantified what we already knew: when the media make people more aware of a disease process, they get scared and come to the emergency room,” Brian Walsh of Morristown Memorial Hospital said. In this case, “the media played up the ‘sudden death syndrome’ aspect – the idea that you can have a minor fall, look great afterwards, and suddenly die.” Likewise, media campaigns that increase knowledge by encouraging people to go to an emergency room if, for example, they show signs of a stroke or heart attack, can be helpful. However, in the case of of patients who visited the emergency room concerned about head trauma, only 2 or 3 percent of those had a significant injury. Mr. Walsh also reflected on the current reports of the swine flu. “Every time someone dies, we get a bump in visits. But most people aren’t dying from it, and everyone is paranoid. The extra knowledge is making them scared.”