California Man Dies After Being Tasered by Police

Police in San Jose, California, say a man who died after being stunned got into a "violent struggle" with officers trying to take him into custody.

The man, described as being in his 20s, was the sixth person to die in the city after a Taser or electronic stun gun was used on them, according to police reports.

The officers were responding to a call about an intruder in a backyard, police said. Enrique Garcia, a police spokesman, said the man "resisted and got into a violent struggle with our officers."

Police hit the man with batons and then one officer used his Taser. After the man collapsed, officers tried CPR to no avail.

Garcia said some of the officers were injured in the struggle. The homicide squad is investigating the death.

San Jose issued Tasers to all police officers in 2004 after a woman was shot and killed when an officer mistook her vegetable peeler for a large knife.

Ex-girlfriend Sues Former Met Alomar for AIDS Exposure

Ex-Met second baseman Roberto Alomar found his sex life made public after his former girlfriend sued him, saying he had unprotected sex with her while he was exposed to HIV and AIDS.

Ilya Dall, 31, said in her lawsuit that she lived for over three years with Alomar while he knew or should have known he was HIV-positive or suffering from AIDS. Dall, who has two children, said in court papers she had unprotected sex with Alomar repeatedly after they met in 2002 through 2005.

Dall initially filed her lawsuit last month in State Supreme Court in Queens. On Tuesday, her attorneys filed papers to move the case to federal court in Brooklyn. She is asking for $15 million in damages for what she said were the emotional and mental affects of AIDS phobia.

According to her court papers, Dall said that over the years she noticed Alomar suffer from various ailments, including oral cold sores, low platelet counts, vision problems and fatigue.

While she was with Alomar, Dall said in her court papers that he maintained that he was HIV-negative. However, in February 2006, Alomar learned he was suffering from AIDS, Dall's court papers alleged.

Dall, who lives in Whitestone, said that after learning about the AIDS diagnosis she "experienced terror and severe emotional distress" because there is no known cure for AIDS, her court papers stated.

Alomar's attorney declined to comment about the lawsuit or the health of his client.

Alomar, 41, considered one of the top second basemen in baseball history, came to the Mets in 2002 and played into 2003, when he was traded to the Chicago White Sox. He retired before the 2005 season.

Peanut Company President Refuses to Testify

The head of the company linked to a massive salmonella outbreak in peanut products refused to testify at a congressional hearing Wednesday as lawmakers accused him of caring more about profits than food safety.

Peanut Corp. of America President Stewart Parnell invoked his constitutional right not to testify, as did his Blakely, Ga., plant manager, during the hearing before a House subcommittee. Both also refused to eat recalled products that a lawmaker offered them from a jar.

The Food and Drug Administration has said that PCA distributed products in 2007 and 2008 that had tested positive for salmonella. The products should not have been shipped, the FDA said.

The outbreak has sickened more than 600 people and may have contributed to nine deaths. More than 1,900 products have been recalled, making it one of the biggest recalls ever. A criminal probe is underway.

"We are shocked at what's been going on in this company," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., at the hearing.

The hearing revealed company e-mails indicating frustration over costs and repeated testing.

In September, according to one e-mail, Parnell was told by the Blakely plant manager that a product had been shipped that tested positive for salmonella. The product would be retested, Parnell was told. The plant manager also told Parnell that customers receiving the product should put it on hold, meaning not use or sell it. A week later, an e-mail from Parnell said, "We need to discuss this ... the time lapse ... is costing us huge $$$$$."

Just days after PCA's recall began last month, Parnell pleaded with FDA officials to let the company "at least ... turn the Raw Peanuts on our floor into money," according to a document released at the hearing.

The hearing also revealed that as far back as 2006, the plant had a salmonella finding, potentially linked to Chinese-supplied organic peanuts, according to a November 2006 letter to the company.

JLA USA, which PCA had hired to investigate the incident, told PCA in the letter that its roasting step -- a kill step for salmonella -- hadn't been adequately checked for efficiency and noted that improvements were underway. After an inspection last month, the FDA said the plant failed to show that its roasting was an effective kill step.

JLA President Darlene Cowart also told lawmakers that it appeared that PCA largely dropped JLA as a lab because the lab found higher bacterial counts than others did.

Albuquerque Personal Injury Attorney Mark Caruso in the News

Are Texas Judgments Bigger?

Albuquerque Accident Attorney

By David Roybal
For the Journal
Was it by happenstance or design that Texas was the setting for the first jury trial against the makers of painkiller Vioxx, a trial that ended earlier this month with a $253 million judgment against pharmaceutical giant Merck?
We're told the award likely will be reduced, but even then it would stand at tens of millions of dollars should the case survive on appeal.
It raises a second question: Might the huge award affect an entirely different set of drug liability cases nearing trial or under settlement negotiation in New Mexico and elsewhere?
The Vioxx award was to the widow of a 59-year-old Angleton man who had taken Vioxx for eight months and died after a heart attack.
For a while now, Texas has been among states widely considered to be generous toward plaintiffs in civil suits.
"Bunk!" replied researcher Stephen Daniels while working for the American Bar Foundation. Daniels' work was reported on by the magazine Texas Lawyer.
"Everything is thought to be bigger in Texas," the magazine reported, and people across the country have come to relate Texas with "mega verdicts." The article acknowledged that jurors in some counties, like Jefferson and Matagorda, have been quite generous. But mostly Texas jurors have been stingy, it asserted.
Daniels concluded that "swashbuckling" lawyers and others had convinced Texas lawmakers that jurors there are out of control.
Maybe so. Still, big product liability cases have a way of showing up early in Texas courts. In 2003, A Brownsville jury awarded an $18 million judgment after finding that the Ford F-150 Super Cab had a defective roof structure. A Laredo jury in 2004 awarded $9.4 million after saying Sears, Roebuck & Co. was guilty of malice in a tire service case. Earlier this year, a Zavala County jury found the 2000 Ford Explorer to be defective and awarded $31 million.
Mississippi jurors have a similar reputation for generosity.
Substantial jury awards can spur companies to settle other related suits without trial, whereas lawsuits that are rejected outright or lead to only small jury awards tend to get remaining plaintiffs to think twice about the rigors of court.
Diet drugs Fen-Phen and Redux were much in the news only a few years ago after a study by the Mayo Clinic linked the drugs to potentially fatal heart-valve damage. The drugs were recalled and thousands of lawsuits were filed across the country.
In 1998, one of the first cases went to trial in Texas, where a jury awarded the plaintiff $23.4 million.
Mississippi got another one of the early cases. That one ended in 1999 with $150 million awarded to five women.
Seeing substantial judgments going against it early, the drug manufacturer now known as Wyeth Pharmaceuticals offered $3.75 billion to settle a nationwide class action lawsuit. Many took the offer; many did not and continued pressing for their day in court.
New Mexico was to be another early battleground against the diet drug maker. But settlements and a 2003 defeat in a Santa Fe district court sent high-profile publicity elsewhere.
Lawyer Mark Caruso was among those representing Albuquerque resident Josie Garcia in that case. "We confused the jury because we sued for every cause of action under the sun," said Caruso, who remains one of the busiest New Mexico lawyers in the diet drug cases. "All we have to do under New Mexico law is compare the risks of the drug to the benefit of the drug."
Garcia is appealing her case and is among plaintiffs nationwide involved in an ongoing settlement negotiation.
Caruso since has had two diet drug cases settled in Rio Arriba County for amounts that remain sealed. The cases were settled after having already gone to trial. Caruso has three multi-plaintiff lawsuits scheduled in Santa Fe during coming months, the first to begin in November. He has two more in Tierra Amarilla and one in Grants.
Vioxx cases will keep New Mexico lawyers busy, too. Caruso said he has 15 Vioxx cases that he considers to be strong from among about 250 inquiries received by his office since concerns about the drug first became known.
"It's good to see a big win come off the block," he said of the Texas case. But he said he's not aware of any grand design by lawyers to try to use Texas for boosting chances of other cases involving Vioxx.
"The first big breast implant case in the country was based in Texas. The first Vioxx case was in Texas. ... But I think in Texas, it just depends which county you file in."
Will the Texas Vioxx award affect how lawyers approach unrelated diet drug cases?
No, says Doug Petkus, a Wyeth Pharmaceuticals spokesman. "We want to resolve cases but we will try cases when we think it's appropriate," he said.
Caruso said he had urged clients even before the Vioxx judgment not to move toward settlements hastily.

David Roybal is a longtime journalist who now owns a public relations business. His column appears Sundays in the Journal Santa Fe and Journal North and Tuesdays in the Albuquerque Journal.

There's More to the Story on Kayenta

By D'Val Westphal
Of the Journal
CATCHING UP ON KAYENTA: The recent column that had the city saying there were few wrecks at Irving and Kayenta has a few readers begging to differ.
Laura Downey e-mails that her “home backs into Kayenta, and there is a serious problem regarding speeding on this road. I have been in touch with the West Side command center, and at times there has been more police presence, however we still have a bad problem. In the article ... it was mentioned that there had only been two reported accidents. What was not mentioned was that one of those accidents was fatal and was caused because of excessive speed, which resulted in losing control of the vehicle. Shortly before the accident happened, I called the police to report this vehicle that was traveling at a high rate of speed, he had been going back and forth, using this road like a race track for over an hour, had there been a quicker response it is possible that this accident could have been avoided.
“Every day and night I hear motorcycles — what we call pocket rockets — using excessive speed 60-plus miles per hour. Many cars speed as well. It is very dangerous, there are blind curves on this road, and it is just a matter of time before we have another bad accident. I don't know what the answer is; I think that speed bumps would help and a lower speed limit.”
And Bill Kelly e-mails that “the count of accidents at a given location does not necessarily include all incidents. I learned 18 months ago that accident reports can disappear into the ether.
“My vehicle, which was parked in a parking lot, was struck by a car that came off the roadway. All the sheriff's deputies in area were there for hours. The first responding officer gave me an accident report number so that I could deal with my insurance, and the driver's, if he had any.
“To make a long story short, after much checking by both myself and my insurance adjuster, no such report was ever filed. I did finally find the officer that had given me the number, and he referred me to the clerk he thought might help me. She was able to find his initial report — in a very deep pile on a desk — but no entry into the computer was ever made. My point is, if they don't follow their own process, they don't have the information to refer back to.”
And Andrew Hewes of Rio Rancho took the time to ask his State Farm insurance agent about the cost of repairing walls after a car plows into them.
“They say uninsured motorist coverage on my vehicle would pay for house and yard structures damaged by a vehicle. I had previously assumed uninsured motorist only covered vehicles. The nice thing about uninsured motorist coverage is (a) there is no deductible and (b) it doesn't 'count against you' if people keep driving into your yard. In general, landscaping is not covered.”
CHECKING IN ON THE RIO GRANDE STOPS: The three new stop signs on Rio Grande continue to draw mixed reviews.
Diane Albert says via e-mail that “my fiance and I live on Ranchitos just east of Rio Grande. We are happy that the stop signs were installed on Rio Grande at El Pueblo and Ranchitos. We are hoping that commuters refrain from using residential streets and use Alameda, Paseo del Norte and Second Street for their daily commute. ...We enjoy the rural atmosphere in the village and do not appreciate the speeders roaring down Ranchitos at 40 to 50 mph.”
But Joe Barela of Rio Rancho isn't as pleased.
He says “I have lived here all my life and have always enjoyed Rio Grande Boulevard. I drove through this on Sunday. It really sucks with the stop signs. You can no longer take a nice, leisurely drive down Rio Grande. That was part of the appeal. They already have the speed to 1 inch/second on Rio Grande. I think the mayor is wrong in his opinion about the road being used for commuter traffic. I guess all of us from the West bank that wanted to go down to the Flying Circus, Old Town and Central and Pro Markets to spend money just won't go there anymore.” At least not via Rio Grande.
Assistant editorial page editor D'Val Westphal tackles commuter issues for the Metro area on Mondays and West Siders and Rio Ranchoans on Thursdays. Reach her at 823-3858 (phone), 823-3994 (fax), road@abqjournal.com (e-mail) or P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103. Check out previous columns at abqjournal.com/traffic.