Tag Archives: new york

Two Recent Negligence Settlements from Public Service Mistakes

Justice

Everyone makes mistakes, even those whose sworn mission is to protect and serve or to do no harm.  Two settlements were announced this week that demonstrate exactly that.  In Brooklyn, New York, a woman whose doctors’ negligence resulted in the amputation of her arms and legs was awarded $17.1 million.  In Tallahassee, Florida, the negligence of the police concerning a woman who was murdered during a botched drug sting operation led to a $2.4 million settlement for her family.  In both these cases, the professionals in charge, the ones whose judgement is awarded a certain amount of trust, made bad decisions that led to unfortunate consequences.  Everyone makes mistakes, but the law in general isn’t there to prevent that.  Rather, the law and the court system are intended to pursue justice among an otherwise ambivalent world.  And so, the silver lining: in Florida, a new regulation, called “Rachel’s Law” after the woman in question, was enacted to train policemen better and set up new guidelines in the use of criminal informants.

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Goldman Sachs Settles Million Dollar Overtime Pay Case

Store employees benefit

Goldman Sachs IT employees who worked up to 70-hour weeks without overtime pay have won a settlement against their employer for the sum of $993,841, according to Bloomberg.  More than a hundred contracted computer technicians worked for the banking giant without overtime pay, according to a complaint filed May 2010.  Today, a US District Court judge approved the terms of the settlement, ending a two-year legal dispute.  $262,787 of that will go to the workers’ lawyers.

Workers in Information Technology typically experience a lack of overtime due to it being relatively new field of expertise.  IT work has become increasingly specialized over the last 30 years, and yet employers often do not recognize the vital importance of the job.  Though labor laws vary between states, it is generally illegal for a contracted employee to endure more than 40 hours of labor per week without overtime pay.  However, overtime infractions often go unreported — the threat of total unemployment is more terrifying to workers than the loss of a few hours of overtime pay.  In this case, the extent to which the IT professionals worked overtime was certainly egregious.  Hopefully this settlement will encourage other maligned employees to come forward and claim their rightful pay.