Tag: LAWSUITS
Oregon doctor claims sperm was improperly used to father at least 17 kids
An Oregon doctor got a big surprise when he submitted his DNA to Ancestry.com — the test revealed he had 17 children he’d known nothing about.
It turned out a fertility clinic may have used his sperm without his permission to father the children — and now he worries he could have even more rugrats running around without his knowledge, he claims in a $5.25 lawsuit reported by The Oregonian.
Bryce Cleary, now 53, donated his sperm to the Oregon Health & Science University 30 years ago as a medical school student, under an agreement that only allowed for it to be used to conceive five children, he claims in his suit.
“I wanted to help people struggling with infertility and I had faith that OSHU would act in a responsible manner and honor their promises,” Cleary told reporters.
After graduating, Cleary married and had three sons of his own and adopted a daughter. But in March 2018, two sisters contacted Clearly looking for information about their biological dad.
After submitting his DNA to the genealogical website Ancestry.com, Clearly says he discovered he was the father to those girls — as well as to 15 other people.
But “there could be a huge number of kids out there,” he said.
At least two of the offspring conceived through OSHU went to the same schools, church or social activities as the children he had with his wife, Cleary claims.
That means the clinic breached another promise: that Cleary’s sperm be used only for couples living outside Oregon, in order to lessen the chances the offspring would meet or become romantically involved, states the lawsuit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
“The idea that you can produce that many children from one donor and throw them all in the same region?” Cleary asked. “There has got to be some reforms.”
Also, Cleary says the clinic was supposed to keep his information private, but didn’t.
All of the promises OSHU allegedly made, “were a lie,” Cleary said, adding that his donation was “distributed locally and in a largely irresponsible manner.”
The lawsuit claims that Cleary “incurred extreme mental and emotional pain, anguish and suffering, which have all had a significant and negative impact on his personal, parental and marital relationships.”
OSHU said it couldn’t comment on the case for confidentiality reasons.
Photo Credit: AP
United Airlines employee allegedly called actress a ‘shining monkey’
A United Airlines employee repeatedly shouted racial slurs at an actress in view of other customers, calling her a “shining monkey,” according to the woman’s attorneys and court documents.
The actress, Cacilie Hughes, was returning home to Houston on Feb. 26 after a speaking engagement on women’s empowerment at a university in Michigan when she encountered a United Airlines employee named Carmella Davano while waiting for her luggage to arrive, according to attorneys Benjamin Crump and Jasmine Rand.
Hughes, 31, then asked Davano for a “refund code,” prompting the woman to erupt at United’s terminal inside George Bush Intercontinental Airport and call her a “monkey” and a “shining monkey,” Hughes told the New York Times.
“I was humiliated,” Hughes told the newspaper. “I was crying and I was the only black woman in the area.”
Crump and Rand, who are holding a press conference Tuesday on the alleged incident, said in a news release Monday that Davano also told Hughes to stop looking at her with her “monkey face.” Other passengers at the terminal witnessed the exchange and tried to intervene, but were unsuccessful.
Hughes then asked another United employee to call police, a request that was denied, leading her to contact authorities herself. Davano was later criminally charged with disorderly conduct for using a racial slur, Crump and Rand said.
Court documents obtained by the New York Times show that the misdemeanor charge was filed against Davano, who could not be reached for comment, one month after Houston police issued her a citation for profane and abusive language in a public space.
The outlet reports that two witnesses also told responding officers that they heard Davano direct the slurs toward Hughes, who appeared in 2015’s “Focus” alongside actor Will Smith. She’s also the vice president of the Big Sister Little Sister Mentoring Program, according to the nonprofit group’s website.
Davano could not be reached for comment Tuesday. She has not returned to work for United since the alleged incident, according to a statement from the airline obtained by The Post.
“At United, we proudly hold ourselves to the highest standards of professionalism and have zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind,” the statement reads. “We have withheld the employee from service since the night of the incident pending an internal investigation. Upon conclusion of the investigation, we will take any and all appropriate corrective action up to and including termination.”
Crump and Rand said the incident is the latest example of a “companywide pattern of racial discrimination” by United Airlines, citing a Nigerian woman’s lawsuit alleging that she was kicked off a flight last year after a white passenger said she smelled.
The attorneys also referenced Eric Murdock, a former NBA point guard who sued the airline for $10 million in December for kicking him out of an exit row before allowing a white passenger to take his seat.
“Racial slurs like ‘shining monkey’ should be relics of history, not resurrected to fuel the fire of racism faced by so many African Americans in today’s society and condoned on United Airlines flights,” Crump and Rand’s joint statement read.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/04/23/united-airlines-employee-allegedly-called-actress-a-shining-monkey/
Upscale eatery boss treated her like property, forcing her to call him “boss man,’’ sleep in the pool shed and even unclog the family’s toilet: Nanny Lawsuit
A manager at the tony Upper East Side eatery Scarpetta treated his kid’s nanny like a slave — forcing her to call him “boss man,’’ sleep in the pool shed and even unclog the family’s toilet, a new lawsuit alleges.
Cindy Carter lived in “modern-day indentured servitude’’ and was “treated like property” by assistant manager James Ragonese and his wife, Nicole, according to the Brooklyn federal-court suit.
“It hurt so bad I cried,’’ Carter told The Post. “I didn’t know what to do.’’
The 44-year-old was paid a pittance — about $300 a week while toiling 71 to 120 hours weekly between March 2016 and this past February, when she was fired, according to the complaint and her lawyer, Justin Marino.
While James Ragonese works at the high-end eatery — which features such dishes as Wagyu strip with truffled spinach — Carter “was typically offered only leftovers,’’ the suit says.
She also “was prohibited from cooking food when Defendants’ were home (because, as Nicole Ragonese stated, “Caribbean food is disgusting”),” the papers state.
Meanwhile, Carter was required “to perform duties completely unrelated to being a nanny, such as plunging a toilet,” the suit says.
The nanny “spent her entire day either taking care of Defendants’ child (cleaning, feeding, monitoring, entertaining, etc.), cleaning the house, weeding the lawn and flower beds, watering the lawn during the Summer (as Defendants did not have a sprinkler system), doing laundry, or otherwise responding to Defendants’ every whim,” the 16-page document states.
Carter first lived in the family’s attic and then in the basement of their home in Williston Park, LI, she says.
The family moved to a new home in Port Washington in October 2018, where Carter was given a bedroom on the second floor — though the lawsuit claims they began constructing yet another basement room just for her.
When her bosses went to the Hamptons to have fun in the summer, she was taken along — only to be stashed in an unventilated storage room where pool chemicals were kept, she says.
“Nicole Ragonese said she could ‘leave the door open,’ ” the suit reads.
The Ragoneses’s lawyer, Dustin Levine, said Carter’s lawsuit is in retaliation for the couple having her arrested for keying their car. She’s now facing misconduct charges for the incident.
“I think they’re completely exaggerated and unfounded,” Levine said of the lawsuit’s claims, adding that his clients paid for Carter’s hotel stay after her arrest because they didn’t want her to be homeless.
“She lived in their home, they treated her as family.”
Carter’s lawyer, Marino, said that before his client’s arrest, Carter had called the police herself after a male Ragonese relative allegedly made inappropriate comments to her.
Carter — who is currently in a homeless shelter — is suing for alleged violations of state and federal wage provisions and noncompliance with notice/record-keeping requirements, among other things.
She’s requesting various damages, plus an award of unpaid wages for overtime with interest.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/04/07/upscale-eatery-boss-treated-me-like-property-nanny-lawsuit/
I was sexually harassed by 3 professors who docked my grades
A former psychology student at The College of New Rochelle claims three professors there sexually harassed her, including one who sent her a selfie of his penis, but school officials took no action.
Instead, she got thrown off campus, she alleges.
Yvonne Taylor, 43, filed suit in Brooklyn Supreme Court, saying the three instructors made sexual demands in and outside the classroom, saying her grades suffered when she refused.
Taylor, a divorced mother of three, says the alleged abuse began in the fall of 2016 in professor Bryan Boatswain’s digital literacy course, according to court papers.
In a text message on April 11, 2017, Boatswain allegedly told her: “I’m thinking about you naked,” according to Taylor.
Boatswain denied the allegations.
Another professor, Hassan Shabazz, told Taylor he was attracted to her and that “he wanted to take me on vacation,” Taylor claims.
She got a B+ in his forensic psychology course, and Shabazz told her later that had she allowed him to perform oral sex on her, “I would have gotten an A,” Taylor told The Post.
Shabazz admitted to “flirting” with Taylor but denied the claim that he docked her grade.
The third professor, Jeffrey Davis, once said, “if there weren’t surveillance cameras pointing directly at him he would ‘bend her over’ and ‘take her,’” Taylor’s suit alleges.
He also texted Taylor photos of his penis, she alleges.
Davis could not be reached.
She says she stopped attending Davis’s classes in December and complained to another professor she trusted, Timothy Rodgers.
She says Rodgers agreed to let Taylor finish her courses online, then called security and had her escorted off the campus.
Not being able to attend classes in person hurt her grade point average, and she barely missed graduating with honors, Taylor said.
College spokeswoman Lenore Carpinelli declined to comment.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/02/09/i-was-sexually-harassed-by-3-professors-who-docked-my-grades-suit/
I was beat up in McDonald’s — and the employees just watched
She went in for a cheeseburger and fries and ended up McPummeled at a Manhattan fast-food joint owned by polo-playing scion Bruce Colley.
Elizabeth Storelli says in a new lawsuit that workers at Colley’s McDonald’s at West 71st Street and Broadway failed to help her when she accidentally bumped into a woman in the crowded eatery and was severely beaten.
“I thought I was going to die,’’ Storelli, a 49-year-old nurse, told The Post.
Storelli said she was headed home from a bar, where she’d had a couple of glasses of wine with girlfriends, around 10:30 p.m. July 24, 2015, when she stopped at the Mickey D’s.
The Upper West Side joint is owned by the man who famously broke up Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s marriage to Kerry Kennedy and whose elderly mother was found murdered at his family’s Westchester County estate in November 2015.
“I hadn’t eaten a lot, so I went in there and ordered some fries and a cheeseburger,” Storelli recalled.
“There were a lot of people in there, and a girl bumped into me and things just escalated from there. She called me a ‘white b—h,’ and that’s when a guy came over and poured the soda over my head,” Storelli said.
“I was in shock. I did swear. I was like, ‘What the f–k?’
“The next thing I know, I saw a group of people coming toward me.”
Storelli said she fled the restaurant, but an unruly group of customers followed her outside, and the next thing she knew, “Once I got out of the McDonald’s, they had me down on the sidewalk, and guys and girls were just surrounding me and punching me on the head and kicking me.”
Not a single McDonald’s employee came to her aid, the woman said.
“There were probably three [McDonald’s workers] at the registers. I remember seeing a manager on the floor walking around,’’ Storelli said. “Nobody got involved at all. They were just watching.’’
Even a Manhattan Supreme Court justice who recently green lighted the woman’s 2016 suit said, “Once soda was poured on her head, defendants had a duty to take protective action.’’
A good Samaritan finally came to Storelli’s rescue and cradled her head until cops arrived.
Storelli suffered a concussion and broken rib in the attack.
Two women, Joselin Santos, 16, and Annie Figueros, 33, were charged with assault and harassment in the case. But they ended up with no criminal records, and their cases are sealed.
Storelli is suing franchise owner Colley for unspecified damages.
Her lawyer, Joseph Napoli, said the eatery had security protocols in place instructing employees on how to deal with violent incidents, but they weren’t followed.
Napoli said there is surveillance video from inside the eatery but that McDonald’s told him the cops took it, and he can’t get it from them.
Colley told The Post in an email, “Our biggest priority is always the safety and well-being of our customers and employees. Due to pending litigation it would be inappropriate for me to comment further.’’
via: https://nypost.com/2018/12/17/i-was-beat-up-in-mcdonalds-and-the-employees-just-watched-suit/
Professor offered me good grades to sleep with him
CUNY just can’t seem to keep pervy profs off the payroll.
In a shocking Brooklyn federal court lawsuit, a female undergraduate claims her human-anatomy professor at LaGuardia Community College, Hany Fam, offered her good grades for sex.
The case comes on the heels of bombshell allegations that professors at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice raped and tried to pimp out students and used and sold drugs on campus. The widening scandal, now being probed by the Manhattan D.A.’s office and the state Inspector General, was first revealed last month by The Post.
In the lawsuit, the 40-something student, going by the pseudonym Jane Doe, claims she asked Fam for a meeting in October 2017 to discuss grades. The prof, 60, insisted they meet at her apartment, court papers say.
“Fearing that she would offend her professor and perhaps jeopardize her grade in his class, [she] finally relented,” the suit says.
Fam arrived at her Brooklyn apartment and gave her a bottle of wine and a kiss on the cheek, court papers say. He sat on the couch and told her he was “lonely” and had “problems in his marriage,” the suit claims.
He “unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a scar and claimed to have a heart condition that left him with just a few years to live,” the suit says.
The student “got up and went to the kitchen, but Professor Fam followed her, leaned in to hug her, and told her to relax,” court papers say.
After pouring two glasses of wine — which the woman claims she refused to drink — Fam “said that he could make things much easier for her, and repeatedly asked if she would be his ‘friend,’” court papers say.
When the woman asked if “friend” was code for “sex,” he confirmed it was, according to the lawsuit.
“He suggested they meet once a week and told [her] it wouldn’t be ‘that hard’ for her because of his heart condition,” court papers say.
Taking his pitch one step further, Fam said other professors have similar arrangements with students, according to the lawsuit.
When the student made “unambiguous . . . expressions of disinterest,” the prof “became aggravated and told Plaintiff that she was too uptight,” the lawsuit says.
On his way out, Fam handed her “what appeared to be questions and answers for the following day’s scheduled quiz and told [her] to think about his offer.”
The woman did not return to Fam’s class and reported him to the college’s Title IX office, which handles sexual harassment complaints.
The college concluded that Fam “offered [her] a good grade … in exchange for sexual favors,” according to the lawsuit.
A LaGuardia spokeswoman told the Post the professors’s last day in the classroom was the day the student’s complaint was filed, Nov. 7, 2017, and that he was terminated on Jan. 11, 2018. He is “not eligible to work at LaGuardia any time in the future,” said spokeswoman Elizabeth Streich.
The public college located in Long Island City, which offers two-year associates degrees, also agreed to provide counseling for the woman, cover the costs of her course materials and re-enrollment in the class, but did not remove her “withdrawal” from the class on her transcript.
The woman — who is being represented by Carrie Goldberg, the Brooklyn lawyer backing at least two Harvey Weinstein accusers — claims her life has taken a dark turn because of the “emotional stress” of the ordeal. She “has even felt unsafe in her own home because Professor Fam knows where she lives,” the suit says.
The plaintiff told the Post she wants to maintain her anonymity because she is “scared of the repercussions.
“He’s obviously not a nice person, so I don’t know what lengths he might go to. It’s scary for a single woman who lives alone.”
She is seeking unspecified damages and a jury trial.
Court papers also claim Fam was part of a “wider culture of similar behavior by LaGuardia professors.”
In a review for Fam on the Rate My Professor website, a student wrote in October 2017 that he “wastes time on dirty jokes . . . I don’t know how to respect a professor who cracks dirty jokes all the time.”
Fam has been a lecturer at LaGuardia Community College and an adjunct associate professor at CUNY’s York College in Queens since at least 2012, according to SeeThroughNY. He earned $35,000 last year from LaGuardia and $14,000 from York.
Fam could not be reached for comment.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/10/13/professor-offered-me-good-grades-to-sleep-with-him-suit/
Mom files federal lawsuit after son doesn’t make high school soccer team
A St. Louis mom is making a federal case over the fact that her son didn’t make the high school soccer team.
The unnamed woman, whose son is a junior at Ladue Horton Watkins High School– located in the most affluent section of the city– filed a lawsuit in federal court this week, claiming the coach’s decision discriminates against her child.
The boy, called John Doe in the Wednesday filing at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, played on the junior varsity team last year, and the suit claims he’s good enough to do so again
“[John] was right on the bubble of making the team this year and has some impressive attributes,” soccer coach Dave Aronberg told the family in an email, court papers show. “However, there were a few holes in his game including technical ability and game decision making that put him behind a number of kids.”
The school said players who don’t make varsity cannot go back to J.V., in order to allow younger students a chance to develop their skills.
In courtroom testimony, the coach said seven juniors cut from varsity weren’t good enough to play J.V. ball.
But the family claims both age and sex discrimination are at play, because those rules doesn’t apply to girl’s teams. “Female juniors get to play on the female junior varsity team, but male juniors don’t get to play on the male junior varsity,” said the family’s lawyer, who asked not to be named.
The junior varsity squad only has 18 active players, rather than the usual 25, the lawyer noted. So even if John Doe doesn’t get to start, he should be allowed on the team — because there is plenty of room, he told the Post.
“This was devastating to this kid. All he cares about is soccer.”
The family appealed to the school’s athletic director, and then to the superintendent, but both backed Aronberg, who could not immediately be reached for comment.
John Doe’s lawyer offered player performance ratings from other coaches that show that his client is better than some of the boys who made varsity, ranking 19th of the 36 players who tried out.
The suit aims to have the boy put back on the J.V. team. The judge will announce his decision Monday.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/09/29/mom-files-federal-lawsuit-after-son-doesnt-make-varsity-soccer-team/
Model who unwittingly became the face of HIV can sue for defamation of character
A Brooklyn model who unwittingly became the face of HIV when a state agency used her stock photo in one of its ads can sue for defamation, a Manhattan appeals court says.
Like it or not, HIV is still considered “loathsome” by a “significant segment of society” — so model Avril Nolan, who does not have the virus, has every right to pursue her $1.5 million claim against the Division of Human Rights, the panel said in a unanimous ruling issued Tuesday.
The agency had used Nolan’s face in ads along with the words, “I am positive ()’’ and “I have rights,’’ in 2013 to promote the rights of HIV-positive New Yorkers.
The Court of Claims had previously ruled in 2015 that the virus still had enough stigma to allow Nolan’s suit to proceed. The agency appealed, arguing that “HIV is no longer a shameful condition” but lost again with Tuesday’s ruling.
“The very fact that DHR highlighted the need for people with AIDS to not feel stigmatized is recognition that they do,” Appellate Justice Angela Mazzarelli wrote in the new decision.
“This is not to imply that we in any way regard HIV or any other disease to be ‘loathsome,’ ” Mazzarelli added in her opinion on behalf of the panel.
But “a significant segment of society has been too slow in understanding that those who have the disease are entitled to equal treatment under the law and the full embrace of society.”
Nolan– who learned about the ads from her Pilates instructor– can now sue for emotional distress because the panel determined that people with HIV are “unfortunate targets of outmoded attitudes and discrimination.”
Nolan’s suit says she “became instantly upset” that “relatives, potential romantic partners and clients” would see the quarter-page, color ads featuring her in an image with the words “I am positive ().”
She had posed for a photographer friend who was shooting for an online music publication. The photographer later sold the shot to Getty Images, which settled with Nolan in 2015.
A lower court found that the DHR staffer responsible for the ad ignored the license agreement, which stated that Nolan’s image couldn’t be used in an “unflattering or controversial” campaign.
A spokeswoman with state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who is defending the claim on behalf of the agency, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Nolan told The Post, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
via: https://nypost.com/2018/01/16/model-who-unwittingly-became-the-face-of-hiv-can-sue-court/
Ex-teacher claims she was fired for calling cops after student sexually assaulted her
A former Westchester County schoolteacher claims she was fired for calling the cops on a student who sexually assaulted her, according to a federal lawsuit.
Judy Sugar is suing the Greenburgh Eleven school district and Elton Thompson, the principal of Mary McLeod Bethune Junior and Senior High School in Dobbs Ferry, where she worked until her dismissal in 2015.
On May 14, 2015, she claims a student “accosted” her, touching her legs and backside with his exposed penis as she bent over a microscope, according to the complaint filed Thursday in US District Court in White Plains.
Sugar said she immediately reported the incident to Thompson but claims he did nothing.
She also said she had complained previously about the student but her concerns were ignored.
The head teacher at the school reportedly told Sugar that if she wanted to file a report, she could stop by Dobbs Ferry police headquarters on her way home instead of calling officers to the school.
But Sugar said she was worried about the safety of other students and of other teachers, particularly the recently hired “young, attractive” music instructor with whom the student was in class.
So she called the cops who said they would respond to the school immediately.
Upon hearing this, the complaint states, Thompson reportedly said, “You called the police?”
Almost immediately after that, Thompson allegedly told the teacher to leave school grounds and that insinuated job was in jeopardy.
Later that day, Sugar reported the assault to cops, who told her they had been turned away from the school earlier in the day.
The student was arrested the next day and an order of protection was issued barring him from having any contact with his former teacher.
Four days later, Sugar said she was summoned to the principal’s office and fired.
The school district claimed she’d violated their policy barring teachers from calling the police to report a crime on school grounds, but Sugar said she was unaware of any such policy.
The former teacher is asking for her job back, along with back pay, bonuses and benefits and for the school district to pay her legal fees.
Schools Superintendent Anthony Gyetua-Danquah said Tuesday that he was not made aware of any lawsuit and therefore could not comment.
Thompson could not be reached Tuesday.
‘Worst nightmare’: Parents sue hotel after 5-year-old boy’s skull gets crushed in rotating restaurant
The family of a 5-year-old boy whose skull was crushed in the rotating wall of a hotel restaurant has sued the Atlanta hotel, accusing it of negligence in his death.
Attorney Joseph Fried filed suit Wednesday for Rebecca and Michael Holt of Charlotte, North Carolina, whose son Charlie died April 14.
“What started out as the best family trip, turned into the worst nightmare,” Rebecca Holt said in a statement emailed by Fried.
They had chosen the Sun Dial restaurant “because it was recommended as a fun place for families with kids to see the Atlanta skyline and enjoy a meal,” Charlie’s father, Michael Holt, said in the statement.
Marriott International, the hotel’s owner, didn’t immediately respond to an email and phone call requesting comment.
Police had said the boy wandered away from his family’s window table at the restaurant atop the Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel and got his head stuck between tables. They also said the rotating floor shut off automatically when he was struck.
The lawsuit disagrees with police statements.
It said the family left along a path that various members had used without problems to go to and from the bathroom. But this time, it said, a booth rotating near a stationary wall blocked their path.
Charlie, a few steps ahead of his parents, “was too short to see past the booth and did not appreciate the danger until it was too late,” and was trapped in the “pinch point” between booth and wall, according to the lawsuit.
“To Michael’s and Rebecca’s horror, the rotation did not automatically stop when Charlie got trapped,” the lawsuit states, and there was no emergency button to stop it.
Rebecca Holt tried to pull her son free and Michael Holt “threw his body against the booth,” but both actions were futile, it said.
It said Michael Holt heard his son’s skull crack before someone finally stopped the rotation.
“The family has filed this law suit to set the record straight about what happened and to make sure, to the best of their abilities, that no other family ever has to suffer the same fate,” Fried’s statement said.
Defendants include Marriott, as well as the chain that previously owned the Peachtree before Marriott bought the chain. Also named are other former owners and operators, and the architects, interior designer and contractor in charge of renovations to the restaurant in 2012 and 2013.
The hotel reopened the restaurant in June.
“After Charlie’s death, Marriott has said that it won’t allow the restaurant to revolve again until it has addressed the dangerous pinch points,” Fried’s statement said. “Marriott should not have waited for this tragedy before acting to correct this hazard, especially while it held itself out as a safe place for kids.”