Most Threatening Verdict: Oklahoma Tea Party Bigwig in Hot Water
An Oklahoma County judge agreed with a jury’s verdict that Al Gerhart, a Tea Party bigwig and a carpenter by trade, be ordered to pay a fine in lieu of prison time for his felony convictions of blackmail and computer crimes. So reports the SFGate.com.
On August 19, the judge ordered Gerhart to pay a $1,000 fine plus $90 to a crime victims’ fund. He had faced up to ten years in prison and fines of up to $15,000. Gerhart, co-founder of the Oklahoma Tea Party, will appeal the convictions.
The charges stem from an email Gerhart sent state Sen. Cliff Branan last year demanding passage of a Bill in a Senate committee. Branan was chair of that committee, where the Bill died. Meanwhile, Branan reported the blackmail to the local police.
In the email, Gerhart wrote, “’Branan, Get that bill heard or I will make sure you regret not doing it. I will make you the laughing stock of the Senate if I don’t hear that this bill will be heard and passed. We will dig into your past, yoru(sic) family, your associates and once we start on you there will be no end to it. This is a promise.’”
In court, Gerhart’s lawyer argued the May, 2014 guilty verdict should be thrown out because the grounds stated in the convictions did not amount to public offenses. Judge Ray Elliott disagreed and imposed sentence on Gerhart.
Although Gerhart avoided time in jail, he plans to appeal the convictions because now he is tagged as a felon. He argued the email was a free expression of speech protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Read the full article from the SFGate.
Most Uncharacteristic Verdict: Jury Awards $1.8M in Surgery Death
Even though Columbus, Ohio is the fifteenth largest city in the nation, civil juries there tend to be stingy when it comes to awarding damages to injured parties. However, a recent jury award of $1.8 million to the family of a 30-year-old man who died after surgery in 2010 contradicted the status quo. So reports the Columbus Dispatch.
Earlier this month, jurors in Franklin County found Dr. Adam M. Zuchowski and his medical group, Central Ohio Surgical Associates Inc., were negligent in assessing the medical condition of patient Carl Whitmer. Zuchowski, a trauma-services physician, had cleared Whitmer for surgery despite Whitmer’s complaints of severe headaches as a result of the accident.
According to Columbus lawyer Stephen Chappelear, who tracks jury verdicts in the county, the amount is noteworthy. In an article published in the Columbus Dispatch, Chappelear said Franklin County juries rarely award more than $1 million to an injured party.
Whitmer had undergone facial surgery at a Columbus hospital on May 22, 2010, two weeks after being injured in a traffic accident. Whitmer never woke up from the operation and died seven days later.
Evidence submitted at trial indicated the subdural hematoma Whitmer suffered during the crash had expanded, and the operation increased pressure on his skull. Those factors lead to brain death.
David Shroyer, the attorney for Whitmer’s estate, argued that had a CT scan been performed on the patient’s brain prior to surgery, the hematoma would have discovered and treated.
Although Whitmer’s nurses and the surgeon who performed the operation were also named defendants in the case, the jury did not find them liable in Whitmer’s death.
Although evidence at trial showed Whitmer’s nurses had documented Whitmer’s headache complaints, doctors did not check the record. According to Shroyer, poor communication among those who attended to Whitmer was tantamount to negligence.
Whitmer was single and had no children. The jury awarded his estate $900,000 for loss of companionship and another $900,000 for his family’s mental anguish. His survivors include his parents and two sisters.
Read the full article from the Columbus Dispatch.
Most Invasive Verdict: Ex-College B-Ball Coach Awarded Buckets of Money
Jackson State University was recently ordered to pay buckets of money to Denise Taylor-Travis, its former women’s basketball coach. So reports the Clarion-Ledger. On August 1, a Mississippi District Judge awarded Taylor-Travis $200,000 for an invasion of privacy claim she had leveled against the school. That amount is on top of the $182,000 jury verdict she won in December 2013 based on allegations of breach of contract of her employment agreement and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
While the jury ruled in her favor on those two counts, they sided with JSU on three other allegations raised in her complaint. JSU was successful in defending itself against claims of gender discrimination, retaliation under Title VII and retaliation under Title IX.
Taylor-Travis coached at JSU for ten years, from 2001 to 2011. In 2008, she led her team to the 2008 SWAC Tournament title. An important aspect of her lawsuit involved a coach’s convention she was not permitted to attend and included allegations of unfair treatment of JSU’s female athletic programs.
The parties agreed to a bench trial on the former’s coach’s invasion of privacy claim. In its ruling, the Court found that JSU’s release of Taylor-Travis’s personnel records to a local newspaper violated her privacy. In those files, the former coach was wrongly accused of misconduct on several matters that otherwise would have justified her termination. In fact, it appears she was fired because her team’s poor performances on the basketball court.
The $200,000 verdict is to compensate the one-time JSU coach for the mental distress she suffered due to the invasion of her privacy.
Read the full article from Clarion-Ledger.
Tami Kamin Meyer is an Ohio attorney and freelance writer. She may be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..