Grand jury reform is shaking up the legislature once again this week. The grand jury legislation, inserted into House Bill 2105, passed the House, but it contains an amendment that would still exempt counties with a population of less than 500,000 from having to use random selection systems if officials did not want to. In…
Read More
On Monday, May 18, 2015, four passengers of Train 188 sued Amtrak in federal court in Philadelphia for injuries suffered from the crash that occurred while the train was in route from Washington D.C. to New York City. Additionally, two other suits were filed Monday, one in federal court in Manhattan and the other in…
Read More
Last week, this blog discussed some past elevator accidents in Houston and beyond. This post reports on more recent elevator accidents and describes staps the state has taken to reduce elevator accidents. In December, 2011, a housekeeper fell to her death down an elevator shaft at a hotel in San Antonio. In 2009, a woman…
Read More
On May 15, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion regarding the validity of a settlement agreement between BP and a man who sustained injuries as a result of the blast that caused Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. BP had appealed the District Court’s decision finding that the…
Read More
Most of the attention to the horrific May 12 Amtrak derailment has focused on what could have been done to prevent it (delays in implementing an automatic speed control system) and the carnage it caused (eight dead and 200 injured, many seriously). Yet the wounded passengers and their loved ones can’t dwell on the crash;…
Read More
Houston has continued its attempt to innovate in the area of urban living. Begun last year, the city hosted the final Sunday Streets of the season this past week on May 17. The route ran along Navigation in Houston’s East End. Prior Sunday Streets have been in Houston’s Montrose and Heights neighborhoods. For each Sunday…
Read More
An older article in the Houston Press focused on elevator accidents in Houston, in Texas, and around the United States. It’s a lengthy, detailed and sobering story. Not much has changed since the story was originally written, so this post will summarize it. Our next post will discuss the steps the state has taken to…
Read More
One of the deadliest train derailments since 2000 happened in Philadelphia on May 12, 2015. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Amtrak train was traveling over twice the speed limit allowed for that portion of the track. The engineer lost consciousness after the crash and has no memory of any events whatsoever…
Read More