Negligence

After a fatal accident in July at the All Good Festival in West Virginia, Walther Productions, the festival's Maryland-based promoter, has moved the jam band music festival to Ohio, the company has said. The accident, which left a 20-year-old woman dead and two others injured, has resulted in three lawsuits , as first reported by The Baltimore Sun, accusing the company,  as well as several of the festival's vendors, like a security company, of negligence. Earlier this month, Walther Productions moved to dismiss the lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

A third person involved in a car accident at this year's All Good Music Festival has sued the organizers, Maryland-based Walther Productions. The jam band festival, which takes place in July in West Virginia, was accused of negligence in a pair of lawsuits filed earlier this month by two other victims, a young woman who was injured and the father of a young woman who died as a result of the car accident. In an interview last week, an attorney for the organizers defended the festival's safety record.

A car accident that left a young woman dead at the All Good music festival in July was caused by the “wanton, reckless, grossly negligent" acts of the organizers, Maryland-based Walther Productions, the woman's father alleges in a recently filed wrongful-death lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in West Virginia's Northern District Court, is one of two against the festival, which celebrated its 15 th year in July and is known for its jam band line-ups. Another woman injured as a result of the accident has also filed a separate lawsuit.

Advocates for Maryland's bicyclists expressed delight Tuesday that the General Assembly passed a bill creating a new misdemeanor offense for drivers who kill people as a result of serious negligence, giving prosecutors an alternative that lies between traffic charges and felony manslaughter. The long-sought legislation passed both houses in the waning hours of the 2011 session Monday night after the House accepted a Senate amendment crafted to lessen the chance that a driver would serve time in jail for a death caused by routine driving errors.

The mother of a victim in the September 2008 Maryland State Police helicopter crash that killed four people near Andrews Air Force base filed suit against the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday, contending that the agency's air traffic controllers gave the pilot inaccurate weather information. The suit filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt by Stephanie D. Younger of Waldorf, mother of crash victim Ashley Younger, is expected to be the last of several filed against the FAA, according to the law firm representing the plaintiff.

A Carroll County woman whose car crashed into the back of a stopped motorcycle on U.S. 40 last summer pleaded guilty Friday to negligent manslaughter. The prosecution is seeking a 5-year sentence for Alison Walsh, 23, of Hampstead, after her plea in Howard County Circuit Court. Police said that Walsh had a blood-alcohol level of .17 percent, more than double the legal limit. The July 11 accident killed 68-year-old Cecilia Amato of Pennsylvania, who, with her 74-year-old husband, Antonio, was on the way to Gettysburg, Pa. Antonio Amato told police that he was stopped about 15 feet from the intersection of U.S. 40 and Marriottsville Road at a light red when his motorcycle was struck by Walsh's Honda Civic.

Maryland officials allege in a $4 million federal lawsuit against the U.S. government that performance failures by air-traffic controllers were a "substantial cause" of a 2008 medevac helicopter crash that killed four people near Andrews Air Force Base. In the lawsuit, the state and the helicopter's insurer allege that controllers employed by the Federal Aviation Administration failed to pay proper attention to the aircraft in heavy fog, disregarded requests for assistance from its pilot and provided outdated weather information.

The family of a Baltimore cyclist killed last year in a collision with a tanker truck on Maryland Avenue has settled a $5 million lawsuit against the driver and his employer, the family's attorney said. John R. "Jack" Yates, 67, was riding behind the truck Aug. 4, 2009, when the vehicle made a right turn onto Lafayette Avenue in the Charles North neighborhood and Yates got caught in its rear wheels, according to city police. The Yates family settled last week with the tanker's driver and his employer, Potts & Callahan Inc., days before the lawsuit was set to go to trial on Monday, said the Yates' attorney, Steven D. Silverman.

An attorney says negotiations with St. Joseph Medical Center over patients who received cardiac stents they might not have needed have collapsed and that he plans to file malpractice claims on behalf of 104 clients. The lawyer, Jay D. Miller, has scheduled a news conference for Tuesday. The lawsuits against the hospital and Dr. Mark G. Midei, who ran the cardiac catheterization lab, would be the largest number filed against the Towson hospital since problems with stents first surfaced last year after federal authorities subpoenaed records for an investigation into suspected Medicare fraud.