News & Editorials from Merlin

Four people were killed in a September 29, 2008 night jet crash in West Columbia, S.C. According to reports by the Lexington County Coroner, and aircraft accident attorneys, the jet crashed while taking off at the Columbia S.C. airport. The pilot and co-pilot died from smoke inhalation and burns and two passengers were killed on impact.

Travis Barker, the former Blink-82 drummer and a celebrity disc jockey DJ AM were also severely injured in the crash but are recovering after being taken to the hospital.

Sarah Lemmon, the pilot and James Bland, the co pilot were killed as well as Chris Baker and Charles Still, both were working with the musicians. Federal officials said that the crew was trying to abort the take off because they heard a loud noise they took to be a tire blow out. All four casualties were from California.

The National Transportation Safety board reported that the cockpit voice recording indicated that the crew was trying to abort the takeoff at the time of the crash. The jet crashed at the end of the runway and exploded into flames. The plane was traveling at least 92 mph at the time the crew thought they heard the tire blow out and try to stop.

An expert on aviation said that a Lear-jet needs a minimum of 5,000 feet of runway space for takeoff and they were almost out of runway at the time they tried to abort. The musicians were heading for Van Nuys, California and were passengers on the Lear jet that was owned by Global Exec Aviation. The California based company had been in operation since last year.

Barker and DJ AM Goldstein were found near the wreckage as they tried to put out the fire that was burning their clothes. Barker suffered burns to his torso and lower body and DJ AM, Adam Goldstein was burned on his scalp and upper arm. Burn injuries can take a year or more to fully heal. Barker and Goldstein had both performed at the MTV music video awards earlier this month.

   Boston business consultant John B. Callahan was murdered in 1982 and according to his wife in their last telephone conversation the said he was going to Washington D.C.  This is one of the more shocking criminal cases I have covered in quite some time, it is very tragic.

  The victim’s body was eventuallydiscovered at Miami International Airport parking lot stuffed into the trunk of his wife’s vehicle. All in all, he had been shot more than once before being stuffed in the trunk of the said vehicle.

   His wife apparently thinks that his reason for going to the nation’s capital was to give information to the FBI concerning a major criminal case: the murder of an Oklahoma man which apparently involved James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephen “the Rifleman” Flemmi.  He was doing this with the help of an FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. Incidentially should you require the assistance of an expert Miami Criminal Attorney then I would like to wholeheartedly recommend the Law offices of Mr. David Garvin. He is an excellent Miami Criminal Attorney and he covers many different types of cases includes those involving taxes and other criminal type cases.

  The prosecution also believes that, it would appear. Connolly is now serving a sentence for a 2002 racketeering conviction and three years ago he was indicted on first degree murder charges and conspiracy to commit murder.

  Jury selection has statred in that case that could convict him of a life sentence for first degree murder and a thirty year sentence for conspiracy to commit murder.

  Bulger who is now age 79 fled the east Coast before his case for racketeering in 1995 and is on the FBI’s most wanted list for this charge and also in connection with 19 murders.

   The witnesses in this case are Flemmi now age 74 and serving a life sentence for some ten murders, John Martorano age 67 who served 12 years for 20 murders, Kevin J. Weeks age 52 assisted Bulger with 5 murders. These men along with John Morris age 63 a former FBI agent that took bribes from several of the other men.  Talk about someone needing a great attorney.

Below is one of the coolest, most amazing stories by a former U.S. Marine who worked as a paralegal for several top trial lawyers, and who actually became a lawyer with no college degree on the California State Bar Law Office Study Program. This guy is so good, he was admitted into law school and became a member of the State Bar (practicing lawyer) before graduating law school!

I am republishing the below article with his permission and it is a conviction of most lawyers and a good read for anyone who is concerned about legal ethics and public commuter safety.
I realize a title like “spam attacks and the Chatsworth Metrolink accident” is a weird title, but it is fitting as you will read. I have been been writing a lot of new releases about the Chatsworth Metrolink accident of September 12, 2008, which was the deadliest light rail accident in California State history.

Within hours of the crash, it seemed every law firm in California started issuing press releases on PR web, and had their webmasters launched spam attacks against me and my website due to the high Google rankings I had regarding the “Chatsworth Metro-link accident”.

I had high Google rankings for “train accident”, because of all the educational materials I had published months previously. Prior to that, I had litigated train accident cases, first as a paralegal doing all the grunt work for other law firms, and then, as a full fledged lawyer.

During this whole period, I had been warning against the dangers of Metrolink accidents, and been an advocate for safety. I even posted a video on Youtube about Metrolink accidents, almost a year previously, which discussed the dangers of Metrolink, Metrorail, trains in general, as well as the statute of limitations in lawsuits against government entities involved in public transportation.

Almost immediately, my Youtube video shot to number one in Google search results for “Chatsworth Metrolink accident”. This is when the troubles started. My video started to be “spam attacked”, by what was clear to me, were other lawyers, and their webmasters, calling me an “ambulance chaser”, telling me I was “capitalizing” on the train crash in Chatsworth, and oh yeah, that I don’t have enough experience and to hire another attorney with more experience.

Then I started seeing other law firms blatantly posting their law firm’s links on my blogs, and DIGGs. I personally found this behavior tasteless, and insulting. But I don’t put it past most scumbag personal injury lawyers to pay people to try and destroy other honest lawyers.

This fits right in the liberal elitist mentality many trial lawyers have. The “you send your kids to public school, while I send mine to private, and you drive an electric ‘green’ death trap, while I drive an SUV” mentality so prevalent with public figures like Al Gore for example.

Before the Metrolink wreck, there was little if any concern by these elitists about Metrolink safety, but now every law firm seems to “care” with their spam attacks against me, and their press releases about how much they care about your money.

In all events, I hope you enjoyed my little blurb about Press Releases, Spam Attacks and The Chatsworth Metrolink Accident. If you were hurt in a train crash, feel free to contact me at 888-400-9721.

NowPublic

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September 19, 2008 (by Otto Smyth)

There was a funeral held yesterday after the Chatsworth Metrolink wreck, for LAPD Officer Spree Desha one of the fatally injured passengers of the Metrolink 111 crash, at the downtown cathedral Our Lady of the Angels. Officer Desha was on the police force for seven years and had recently transferred to Parker Center Headquarters and began riding the Metrolink train.

Relatives, friends and colleagues were present; a horse without rider was escorted in a procession along with four mounted officers followed by a white hearse. Officers in full dress uniforms were present at the doorway.

In the never ending saga of California light rail accidents, today, September 19, 2008, there was Metro-Rail light train wreck that occurred when a Metro Blue line of Los Angeles County, rammed a Metro bus close to downtown when undergoing today’s commute. 13 people are known to be injured according to fire officials on the scene.

This time it was a crash between a Metro Blue Line train locomotive on its way to Long Beach. It had an unknown number of passengers aboard, and the Metro bus was “out of service.” At least two dozen people were injured, but at this time, there is no evidence that the injuries appeared are life-threatening. This is according to Fire Department spokesperson, Brian Humphrey.

“We had an out-of-service bus turn in front of the train,” according to Mr. Marc Littman, who is a spokes-person for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). The MTA actually operated the bus and the metro-train that collided. He went on to say: “We don’t know who had the right of way.”

The collision caused a derailment of the electric locomotive lead train, as well, so clean up efforts are underway as the investigation proceeds. The passenger cars reportedly remained on the train tracks.

The crash comes exactly one week after the deadliest Metro-Link accident in California history. That accident occurred when a Metrolink commuter train collided head on with a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth, about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The death toll so far in that train crash is 25 passengers, with at least 130 people injured. Injuries include amputation, broken bones and soft tissue injuries.

The Metro Blue Line is situated on 22 miles of train track. It runs from downtown to Long Beach and there are also other routes in the County of Los Angeles. If you were hurt in the most recent Long Beach train crash, contact Long Beach Metro-Rail accident attorney, Michael Ehline at 888-400-9721.

I have been following the recent deadly Chatsworth Metrolink accident and been reading the injury lawyer blog by Mike Ehline. I received permission to republish some of his news stories. Many of you may not even know that railroads are actually allowed to weigh the costs of human life over making things safe, since they are only liable to pay $200,000,000 dollars under federal law. I wanted to give a shout out to Ehline and give you a chance to read below as follows:

Ever since the September 12, 2008 Chatsworth train crash, public transportation attorney, Michael Ehline, has been questioning the constitutional validity and fairness of the $200,000,000 single train crash damages cap ever since the Metrolink spokeswoman accepted fault.

After all says Ehline, “this was the deadliest train crash in Metrolink’s short history”. Readers will recall that this federal damages cap was passed into law back in the 90’s and there has never been any consideration as to inflation, or costs of living increases.

Ehline said that: “All this does is give train companies a chance to weight whether or not to spend the money to make things safe, or rest comforted and assured that if they do nothing, all they have to pay is $200 million dollars, no matter how many people are killed”

And since this recent Chatsworth train crash will likely be the costliest and deadliest and most avoidable train crash in recent memory, Ehline said he will challenge legality of a $200 million cap Congress imposed on a railroad’s liability for single train collisions.

Metrolink accident lawyers representing victims and families alleging negligence in the Chatsworth Metrolink crash are warning that the general, special and punitive damagesarising from this current crash, will more likely than not, exhaust the small pittance of $200 million dollars.

This is especially true when considering that many people aboard the train were professionals who lived in the Valley with incomes that exceeded six figures. This means those well to do people who suffered wrongful death could have come close to or exceeded that figure over their lifetimes in expected contributions to their families left behind.

Typical awards for wrongful death and catastrophic injuries would include economic support of the decedents. Ehlne believes that this may be one instance in which greedy insurance companies and special interest bought and paid for congressmen and senators will have to reverse themselves in the face of the public outcry in the avoidable Chatsworth train crash of September 12, 2008. “It may be the only time in U.S. history where a damages cap would be increased, or at least be made to conform with the costs of living and inflation, unlike medical malpractice damages caps which make it much easier for unscrupulous doctors to get away with malpractice today” Ehline said.

In all events, a constitutional challenge to the damages cap will be likely challenged.

“BREAKING NEWS IN METROLINK TRAIN CRASH”

September 16, 2008-

Ever since the news that teenage train enthusiasts were text messaging the train engineer at the time of the train crash in Chatsworth, the NTSB has sought an order banning the use of cell phones by train operators on Metrolink trains.

The question frequently being asked, is did the train operator see the red light, or was he text messaging? Did he see fog, was the view obscured, or was he text messaging?

The US National Transport Safety Board (NTSB), which is investigating the train crash, said it is seeking a court order demanding that Verizon Wireless release the phone records of the engineer’s cell phone, including the text messages. Since the engineer died during the collision, the only way to resolve the question is to get the cell phone records.

NTSB board member, Katy Higgins, stated that she was trying to determines if the engineer properly reacted to the red light, but later stated that the signals all worked properly at the time of impact.

“The question is, did he see it as red? Did he see it as something else? Did he see it at all?”, according to the official Associated Press release.

The NTSB is not taking any chances, and they are leading the effort to increase rail safety by banning rail employees using mobile phones while they are working on the train.

Even though Metrolink already bans engineers from using mobile phones while operating trains, no federal law exists at this time. This begs the question as to whether a law could have stopped this most recent Metrolink crash, since the train operator was not supposed to be using his phone to begin with.

Although NTSB investigators have warned it was too early to determine the cause of the Metrolink Train crash, they want a court order banning cell phones by train operators, until a new law is passed.

Other causes of the Chatsworth train accident could be computer, or equipment failures, or that the engineer suffered some physical ailments that incapacitated him, but the facts seem to indicate the operator was texting and simply not paying attention. If you were one of the victims injured in the train crash, or someone you love was injured in this accident, which was the worst train accident in California history, or simply wants to donate blood, contact Chatsworth train crash lawyers at 888-400-9721.

September 13, 2008 (by Otto Smyth)

According to reports by Metrolink accident lawyers, the police have opened what they are calling a unification center at local Chatsworth high school in order to help families find out information about loved ones that were riding on the Metrolink when it crashed.

As of the latest report eight families have been notified that their family member was fatally injured in the Chatsworth Metrolink crash. There have also stated that two women have been pronounced dead at local hospitals and have not been identified yet according to Ed Winter Assistant Chief of the coroner’s office.

Friends and family members are gathered at Chatsworth High School awaiting word, while firefighters are rotating teams in the wreckage area to avoid emotional exhaustion.

September 13, 2008 (by Otto Smyth)

In the latest news in the September 12, 2008 Metrolink Accident, It was reported that fourteen of the Chatsworth train crash victims from Friday’s Metrolink crash were taken to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center.

The conditions of the crash victims are being reported as seven patients are in stable condition and five are in reportedly serious condition. There is also one of the injured victims in critical condition at last report.

The Providence Holy Cross Medical Center planned a blood drive for Saturday afternoon to assist in the care of the Metrolink injured crash victims. This will be held from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the medical center at 15031 Rinaldi Street, Mission Hills.