Colorado Law Blog

Marvin Schur's neighbors found the World War II veteran's frozen body in his Bay City bedroom on January 17, four days after a device that regulates how much power he uses -- installed because of failure to pay -- shut off his power. A medical examiner said the temperature was 32 degrees in his house when Schur's body was found.

Utility officials said Schur owed at least $700, but Schur's nephew, William Wallworth, said his uncle told him he was worth at least a half-million dollars, and authorities say Schur had cash clipped to his utility bills on his kitchen table.

Local and state officials agree that Schur's death was avoidable. It's prompted a review of Bay City Electric Light & Power's rules and procedures for limiting or cutting off power. Unlike private utilities regulated by the state, Bay City runs and oversees its own utilities and therefore doesn't fall under Michigan's public service commission. By law, Michigan requires private companies to prohibit cutting off service to senior citizens between November and April. Seniors must register for the program.

It appears no one from the utility company had personal contact with Schur, in phone or in person. Selek says Schur's case is being reviewed and depending on the results, his death could prompt state laws to also require oversight of city-run utilities. The city has begun questioning whether its rules and procedures for limiting or cutting off power need a major overhaul. The utility has stopped its practice of cutting power to customers who don't pay their bills, the utility's acting director, Philip Newton, told CNN. Recently, that had been happening as often as 200 times a week.

The utility also has removed all "limiters"-- devices that cut power as a warning for people who've been ignoring their bills. Limiters can be reset to restore a lesser degree of power until a bill payment is worked out. In Schur's case, the limiter was never reset, and it's unclear whether he knew how to do that.

Bay City's Manager Robert Belleman admits seniors who may be confused or in no condition to venture outside to reset a limiter in freezing temperatures need extra supervision. At Bay City's request, the Michigan State Police are investigating Schur's death for possible criminal violations.

In Colorado, XcelEnergy customers can view information about help with their energy bills on the company website. State and local agencies, low-income advocates and Xcel Energy's personal accounts department work together to help customers with bill payment problems and gain access to weatherization services for their homes.

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A Kentucky high school football coach has been indicted by a grand jury for the death of a sophomore player at Louisville's Pleasure Ridge Park High School. It was his first year as head coach.

The prosecutor made stated that the grand jury found that the coach should have realized a player could collapse from heat stroke in the broiling weather during practice, in announcing reckless homicide charges in a youth's death on Aug. 20, 2008.

From 1960 through 2007, there were 114 heat stroke cases in all levels of football that resulted in death, according to a report compiled by Dr. Frederick Mueller at the University of North Carolina for the American Football Coaches Association in February 2008. Of those, 16 deaths were attributed to heat stroke from 2003 to 2007, with both cases from 2007 involving a high school player.

Heat exposure deaths happen occasionally in football from the sandlot to the pros, the most famous example being Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Korey Stringer in 2001. Lawsuits have been filed in many of those cases, but no evidence can be found that a coach has ever been charged in the deaths.

An assistant coach, Deacon, called 911 and told a dispatcher that Gilpin was semiconscious and that his father was nearby, according to a transcript of the call.

"He's just overheated ... and we've got water on him ... he's responsive and he's got a big rapid pulse but ..." Deacon said.

In the background, someone is urging the player: "Come on get them eyes open ... keep them eyes open ... there you go ... get them eyes all the way up ... get them eyes open ... there you go."

The reckless homicide charge means grand jurors didn't find that Stinson's actions were intentional or malicious, but that "a reasonable man should have realized something like this could have occurred."

Stinson surrendered yesterday at his arraignment and was released by the judge without bond at the courthouse.

Gilpin's parents sued Stinson and five assistant coaches in state court accusing them of negligence and "reckless disregard." The five assistants were not charged in the indictment, and Stengel said they didn't commit a crime.

The American College of Sports Medicine has guidelines to help coaches, parents and players tackle the heat safely.

• Ease into Play: It takes the body up to two weeks of activity in hot weather to undergo the physiological changes needed to exercise safely.
• Avoid Sideline Supplements: Many performance enhancing pills can deplete the body of water, experts say, especially ephedra.
• Educate Athletes: Players should be taught about the dangers of heat stroke and encourage them to speak up. Signs of heat stroke include lack of concentration, confusion, and fatigue.

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A Houston lawyer has taken a home equity loan to repay his law firm for $182,500 lost in a variation of what has become known as the Nigerian e-mail scam.

In the case of lawyer Richard Howell Jr., the scammer claimed to be a Japanese businessman who needed help collecting $3.6 million from four customers in the United States. Howell checked and found websites of the collecting company and the four U.S. debtors. His firm Buckley, White, Castaneda & Howell, would get a contingency fee of one-third for any money collected. Believing the contact to be a potentially lucrative client, he proceeded in the collections action.

But he's not the only lawyer to have fallen prey to the scam. Howell says he knows of another Texas lawyer who lost $300,000 in a similar check fraud. And an Atlanta lawyer, Gregory Bartko, lost $200,000 to a scammer who claimed to be from Tah Tong Textile Co., a real company that trades on the Taiwanese stock exchange, according to a report this summer. Bartko later concluded there is no connection between the company and the person who contacted him.

The latest version of the so-called Nigerian e-mail scam is that they're placing ads for apartments to rent in high rent districts, and then asking prospective tenants to do a money transfer to a friend or relative to prove the tenant has the money available. That seems legit -- and since it's to a friend or a relative, the prospective tenant knows that the money is safe. Except, once the tenant forwards on a scanned copy of the transfer payment receipt, the scammers go to the bank pretending to be the recipient and withdraw the money. It's a bit more complicated, but again, it's a scam where the victim is easily tricked because there doesn't seem to be any risk.

But not just consumers are duped. Take, for example, a group of Russian immigrants, who used their hacking skills to effectively run a trucking company that didn't exist. They hacked into a Department of Transportation website that listed licensed trucking firms to change the contact info (temporarily) on certain firms to their own address and phone number. Then, they would visit another online site that listed cargo in need of transportation. They'd pose as the firm whose contact info they'd replaced, get the deal, and then go find another trucking firm to actually deliver the cargo. The cargo itself would get delivered, and the scammers would contact the original cargo owners to get paid. Then, the company that actually delivered the cargo would contact the company these scammers pretended to be working for, and discover that it had no clue what they were talking about. Apparently, this scam was effective enough to net the scammers over a half-million dollars. Of course, it wasn't effective enough to keep them from getting busted.

If you receive an email from someone claiming to need your help getting money out of a foreign country, don't respond. Forward "Nigerian" scams - including all the email addressing information - to spam@uce.gov. If you've lost money to one of these schemes, call your local Secret Service field office. Local field offices are listed in the Blue Pages of your telephone directory.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) maintains OnGuardOnline.gov , A website that provides practical tips from the federal government and the technology industry to help you be on guard against Internet fraud, secure your computer, and protect your personal information.

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Forbes magazine recently ran an article asserting that American law students are "victims of an unfolding education hoax on the middle class"--the myth that college and advanced degrees translate to a life of economic privilege.

The average law grad has $100,000 in student debt, according to the magazine. An UCLA law professor says the problem can be worst for African-American students, who are lured into law school to improve diversity rankings without being told that less than half will pass the bar. Schools also "goose employment statistics by temporarily hiring new grads and spotlighting kids who land top-paying jobs, while glossing over far-lower average incomes," the story says.

Many educators tout the statistic that college graduates will earn $1 million more than high school grads. The magazine examines the claim and says the statistic doesn't account for some facts. But the Forbes story challenges this claim. First, the higher salary figure may reflect the fact that college graduates are smarter and work harder--characteristics that could boost salaries for such people even if they don't attend college. Second, the cost of a college degree has risen at twice the rate of inflation, coming to nearly $100,000 for a private school. Third, college students give up about $125,000 in pay for the four years they are in school. The story cites a College Board study that found one in four college grads earns considerably less than the top quartile of high school grads.

Registrations for the law school admissions test are flat or below the norm for this year, highly unusual for the depressed economic environment. Historically, when times are tough more people look to graduate school as a means to better their opportunities. But the salary numbers can still be alluring. According to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), 2008 Associate Salary Survey shows that the median salary for a fifth year associate ranges from $99,000 to $183,000 depending on firm size. Even the civil legal aid lawyers, the lowest paid positions in the profession, have a median entry-level salary for a legal services attorney of $40,000; at 11-15 years of experience, the median is $60,000.

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General Mills Inc. and grocers Kroger Co. and Safeway Inc. have joined the growing list of food companies and retailers pulling items made with peanut butter amid a salmonella outbreak.

The Food and Drug Administration has traced the recent salmonella outbreak to a Georgia plant owned by Peanut Corp. of America, which makes peanut butter and peanut paste and sells it to institutions and food companies. The FDA has advised consumers to avoid eating cookies, cakes, ice cream and other foods containing peanut butter until health officials learn more about the contamination. Peanut butter sold in jars to consumers is not included, officials said.

Kroger, the nation's largest traditional grocery chain has recalled Private Selection Peanut Butter Passion Ice Cream sold in stores named City Market, Fred Meyer, Fry's, King Scoopers, QFC and Smith's in 11 states, including Colorado. The company said the ice cream was not sold in its namesake Kroger stores or any other retailers it operates.

General Mills pulled two flavors of snack bars, LARABAR Peanut Butter Cookie and JamFrakas Peanut Butter Blisscrisp. Clif Bar & Co.has recalled some Clif branded bars, including some under Luna and Clif Mojo labels. And Abbott Nutrition has pulled their ZonePerfect Chocolate Peanut Butter bars, ZonePerfect Peanut Toffee bars and NutriPals Peanut Butter Chocolate nutrition bars.

So far, six people have died and more than 470 were sickened in 43 states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the bacteria behind the outbreak is common and not an unusually dangerous strain but that the elderly or those with weakened immune systems are more at risk. At least five of the six people who died were elderly. All had salmonella when they died, though their exact causes of death haven't been determined. The salmonella outbreak is the second in two years involving peanut butter. Salmonella is the nation's leading cause of food poisoning; common symptoms include diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps.

The FDA has created a searchable list of recalled products and brands on the agency's Web site.

The first lawsuit tied to the recent salmonella outbreak in certain brands of peanut butter was filed on Tuesday against a supplier to Kellogg Co., which has recalled several of its products in recent weeks. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, was filed by Gabrielle and Daryl Meunier, a Vermont couple whose 7-year-old son got sick on Nov. 25 with fever, vomiting and diarrhea.

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In a very troubling new trend spreading across the nation n, teens and pre-teens are sending nude or semi-nude pictures to one another on their mobile phones in a practice called "sexting".

Though the youngsters see the activity as tantalizing fun, for some it is starting to lead to serious consequences. Recently, teenagers have been arrested on child pornography charges and there have been reports of high-schoolers losing jobs or college scholarships as a result of being identified in sexually-suggestive pictures that have appeared on the internet.

Research conducted by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy last month revealed that 20 per cent of teens in the United States admit that they have sent or posted lewd photos or video of themselves. According to the national study, most teenagers were sending the explicit messages to friends.

On Monday, six high-school students in Greensburgh, Pennsylvania were arrested on child pornography charges. Three were girls who allegedly took pictures of themselves, and were charged with manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography. Three were boys from the same school who were found with the explicit photos on their mobile phones by police, and were charged with possession of child pornography.

Last year, in Goshen, Ohio a 19-year-old cheerleading coach was convicted of indecency charges after taking a topless photo of herself and a 15-year-old girl. And in Texas, a 13-year-old boy was arrested on child pornography charges in October, after receiving a nude photo of a fellow student on his mobile phone. In 2007 girls at Castle Rock Middle School in Colorado took naked pictures of themselves on their cellphones and then sent them to their boyfriends. The boys then forwarded the pictures to their friends. Dozens of students at the school, which includes seventh and eighth grades, receive d the photos. The Internet Crimes Against Children team of Castle Rock police investigated the incident but no charges were reported.

Though authorities have taken a dim view of the "sexting," in many cases seeking to charge and prosecute adolescents involved aggravates the circumstances that would encourage the risky behavior. Educating youngsters of the long-term consequences and dangers of such conduct would appear to better serve the public than filling our court dockets with these charges.

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A Long Island surgeon has a broken heart and only one kidney. Dr. Richard Batista donated one of his healthy kidneys to his wife in 2001 when, after she experienced two rejections, she was in dire straits. Batista claims his wife, Dawnell, callously repaid him by first having an affair with her physical therapist and then denying him access to their children in an increasingly bitter divorce.

Now the doctor wants his soon-to-be-ex to pay $1.5 million for the organ he gave on her eight years ago in a gift meant to save her life and their foundering marriage.

The case is apparently the first of its kind in New York State. A spokesperson for the New York Organ Donor Network said she has never heard of anything similar. Batista insisted his cash-for-kidney claim was a direct result of his wife's bad conduct.

For any disgruntled organ donors in Colorado, the donation of an organ is generally perceived as a completed gift for which no monetary compensation can be later sought.

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National Safety Council, a national safety group, recommends a total ban on cell phone use while driving, saying the practice is clearly dangerous and leads to fatalities. States should ban drivers from using hand-held and hands-free cell phones, and businesses should prohibit employees from using cell phones while driving on the job. The group's statement likened talking on cell phones to drunken driving.

No state currently bans all cell phone use while driving. Six states -- California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Utah and Washington -- and the District of Columbia ban the use of hand-held cell phones behind the wheel, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Also, 17 states and the district restrict or ban cell phone use by novice drivers.

What makes cell phone use distinct from other risky driving behaviors, is the magnitude of use -- there are 270 million cell phone users in the U.S. and 80 percent of them talk on the phone while driving. The National Safety Council claims to be the first major national safety group to call for a total cell phone ban for drivers. The National Transportation Safety Board has been urging states since 2003 to ban the use of cell phones or any wireless device by inexperienced drivers who have learner's permits or intermediate licenses. Last year, at least 23 states considered some form of legislation to restrict the use of cell phones or wireless devices, according to the board.

The Governors Highway Safety Association agreed that cell phone use while driving is dangerous, but said it would be difficult to enforce a ban. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which is funded by auto insurers, said banning all cell phone use "makes sense based on the research," but agreed that enforcement will be difficult. Whether our elected officials have the backbone to do what "will be difficult" remains to be seen.

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A Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who claims to have turned fat, extricated in liposuction, into biofuel for his car has skipped town after US officials raided his surgery in an investigation into his procedures.

Dr Craig Alan Bittner, who runs the Liposculpture clinic on Rodeo Drive, said that he had created "lipodiesel" with his patients' excess subcutaneous fat. Dr Bittner is under investigation by the California Department of Public Health because it is illegal in the state to use human medical waste to power vehicles.

Authorities report that he has not been located. In a letter posted on his clinic website, Bittner says he's now doing volunteer work in South America.
"After 10 years in practice, I have treated over 40,000 patients, including almost 7,000 liposculpture patients. I am proud to be able to tell you that the record of my liposculpture practice has been impeccable; not one single serious complication or infection," he writes.

The cosmetic surgeon told Forbes.com that he used the blubber to power two cars including his four-wheel-drive Ford. He also reportedly wrote about the practice on his website, lipodiesel.com, which has since been shut down. "The vast majority of my patients request that I use their fat for fuel - and I have more fat than I can use," he wrote.

"Not only do they get to lose their love handles or chubby belly but they get to take part in saving the earth."

Bittner's claimed fuel-saving technique came to light after patients filed lawsuits contending that Bittner allowed his assistant and his girlfriend to perform surgeries without a medical license, the news magazine writes. "Attorney Andrew Besser, who represents three patients, says the assistant and girlfriend removed too much fat from clients and left them disfigured."

The patients claim that they found Dr Bittner via the internet and arranged pre-operative consultations at his office, but instead of Dr Bittner conducting the consultation, it was his office manager Darcy, according the Beverly Hills Courier.

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Denver firefighters evacuated an apartment building primarily full of University of Denver graduate students yesterday afternoon after a graduate student had called for help. She was groggy when she answered her door. Another student, found in an adjacent apartment, was taken to a hospital after she was found unconscious on the top floor of the three-story, 42-unit Josephine Place building at 2035 Josephine St. just before 5 p.m., said a spokesman for the fire department. This student tragically died later in the night.

Though the apartment is adjacent to the university, it is not a campus facility. Investigators found the carbon monoxide had leaked from a flue from the boiler that had been repaired Monday after wind damage last week.

Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that is produced when any fuel is incompletely burned. Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are similar to flu-like illnesses and include dizziness, fatigue, headaches, nausea, and irregular breathing. Carbon monoxide can leak from faulty furnaces or fuel-fired heaters or can be trapped inside by a blocked chimney or flue. Burning charcoal inside the house or running an automobile engine in an attached garage also will produce carbon monoxide in the home.

The first line of defense against carbon monoxide is to make sure that all fuel-burning appliances operate properly. About 200 people die each year from carbon monoxide poisoning associated with home fuel-burning heating equipment. Consumers should have their home heating systems (including chimneys and flues) inspected each year for proper operations and leakage. Inspectors should check all heating appliances and their electrical and mechanical components, thermostat controls and automatic safety devices.

Properly working carbon monoxide detectors can provide an early warning to consumers before the deadly gas builds up to a dangerous level. Exposure to a low concentration over several hours can be as dangerous as exposure to high carbon monoxide levels for a few minutes - the new detectors will detect both conditions. Most of the devices cost under $100. Each home should have at least one carbon monoxide detector in the area outside individual bedrooms. CPSC believes that carbon monoxide detectors are as important to home safety as smoke detectors are.

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