A preliminary hearing will be held in Orange County, Florida Thursday afternoon in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a Disney monorail driver who was killed on the job.

The wrongful death lawsuit, filed against the Disney Corporation, was brought by family members on behalf of 21 year-old Austin Wuenenberg, who was killed in a crash involving two monorail trains at Walt Disney World in July 2009. According to the lawsuit, Disney has not been forthcoming with information surrounding the incident. A lawyer for the Wunnenberg’s family said Thursday’s hearing involves a motion by the plaintiff to get more access to records that Disney claims are confidential.

An investigation into the incident by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office revealed the supervisor in charge of switching the two monorail trains was at an off-property restaurant at the time of the crash, and could not see the trains he was directing.

If you need assistance with a wrongful death case, contact knowledgeable Pennsylvania wrongful death lawyer of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C., at 610-667-7511.

The parents of two Hungarian students killed in a duck boat accident on the Delaware River last month filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Pennsylvania Tuesday against the tour operator, the city of Philadelphia, and others.

According to court documents, the lawsuit contends that the tour company was negligent in allowing the captain of the vessel to turn off the overheated engine with 35 passengers aboard and drop anchor in a busy shipping channel. The lawsuit also accuses the city of running a dangerous waterway shared by large commercial vessels and small pleasure-craft alike.

The tug company, which pushed a 290-foot barge upriver into the duck boat, is charged with recklessness for failing to post a lookout despite significant blind spots.

“At the time of the incident, the tugboat was pushing a 290-foot barge upriver both blind and deaf, without caring what or whom they would run over or kill,” the lawsuit says.

The families are seeking more than $50,000 a piece in damages, claiming the deaths were senseless and preventable.

A man with severe autism died after he was left inside a van for over five hours Saturday.

According to officials with Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, 20 year-old Brian Nevins died of hyperthermia after he was left in a van for five hours following a trip to the Sesame Place theme park. Nevins was a resident at the Woods Services facility, which provides educational and vocational supports for children and adults with special needs.

According to Bucks County Coroner Dr. Joseph Campbell, the intense heat inside the minivan caused Nevins death. Saturday was the hottest day on record for the year. “This is a horrible tragedy,” Campbell said. “I really feel for his family… He was probably dead within an hour at those temperatures.”

The Middletown Police Department is investigating the incident. There is no word on whether a wrongful death lawsuit will be filed.

The body of a young female was recovered near the site of a boat accident in the Delaware River in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania police say.

According to officials with the Philadelphia Police Department, the unidentified remains are currently being transported to the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office. The Coast Guard will not say definitively that the person was the victim of the accident until the body can be positively identified by the medical examiner.

Officer Christine O’Brien said two passengers, a 16 year-old girl and a 20 year-old man went missing in that area of the Delaware River after a tour boat collided with a barge Wednesday.

Rescuers saved 35 people were on the tour boat at the time of the crash. Information on the nature or extent of their injuries was not immediately available.

The Dubuque Community School District in Pennsylvania has agreed to pay $170,000 to the family of a student who died in a traffic accident in front of Hempstead High School.

The parents of 15 year-old Lauren Schmidt filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the school district after their daughter was struck and killed by a vehicle driven by a classmate in front of the school in September 2007. Schmidt passed in front of a school bus that partially pulled on to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Most details of the settlement are confidential, but the impact to public funds has been released. The school district agreed to pay $115,000 and the city agreed to pay $55,000. The settlement will be payed by a third party insurance carrier.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim’s family and friends.

A report released by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police determined that the death of a Polish man in a Vancouver airport was due to unnecessary police response.

The man arrived from Poland in October of 2007. On arrival, he was parted from his mother, who is was traveling with at the time, and found himself in a Vancouver terminal without the ability to speak English or find anyone who could help him translate his worries. After 10 hours working through customs officials, the man realized that he was without any help in the international terminal. He began to throw furniture after not getting any assistance.

Police arrived expecting a routine call of a drunken man causing trouble. Before sufficiently trying to dissuade the man from further destructive actions, one of the officers fired his taser. Video footage reveals that the current in the device was fired through the man five times, several being after he had collapsed to the ground.

Although acquitted from criminal charges, the police involved were not free of blame in the incident.

After meeting with Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion victims, President Obama was pressured from legislators to campaign harder against caps that protect BP from paying full compensatory funds for injuries and damages.

One major piece of legislation that President Obama was pressed to reconsider was the 1920 Death on the High Seas Act. That particular law was passed to protect off-shore vessels from liability. According to the law, compensatory liability for wrongful death suits is markedly lighter for ships found at least three miles from the shoreline.

The families of the victims expressed their desire to see justice meted out while, more importantly, seeing that an accident of this proportion and tragic consequence would not happen again. Both relatives and legislators noted that they were worried about fair treatment due to the circumstances of long-dated laws that were passed prior to the rise of off-shore drilling practices.

The Obama administration has repeatedly claimed that they will do their best to ensure that the proper consequences were taken against the parties at blame.

The largest contractor for the U.S. military in Iraq, KBR Inc., has lost a $24.1 million bonus removed from their paycheck following court proceedings that charges the company with negligence leading to a wrongful death.

The company was acquitted of criminal charges filed against them by the deceased’s family, but the case was appealed to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.

According to the plaintiff, the electric pump in a shower that was used by the Special Forces member was not properly grounded. When the current came into the open, the soldier was electrocuted and killed. This happened on January 2, 2008. The Pentagon’s inspector general released a report on July 27, 2009, that firmly stated death was the culmination of multiple failures.

The Army has ordered more services from the company, adding an order to the amount of roughly $568 million to the $35.7 billion already spent on the company.

A jury recently ruled that the majority share of negligence rested on a bar’s shoulders in a drunk driving wrongful death case.

According to the jury, the standards that were put in place to get the bar’s license to serve liquor in the state of Pennsylvania were ignored by the bar’s staff. The bartenders continued to serve the now-deceased woman on November 5, 2006, even though she was clearly intoxicated. As a result, she left the bar with a blood alcohol toxicity roughly three times over the legal limit. Following her exit from the bar, she got in her car and proceeded to try to drive home. She crashed around Delaware Avenue, suffering fatal injuries.

While the bar was in its rights to serve alcohol, limitations put in place in Pennsylvania makes it a violation to serve alcohol to someone who is visibly over-intoxicated. The message of the jury’s decision was that all bars and restaurants will be held accountable for their social responsibility to carefully monitor their patrons. As a result, the jury placed 51% blame on the bar and 49% blame on the woman, discounting the appropriate amount of judgment from the total claim against the bar. Many hope this case will instill moral accountability alongside profitability in any mistaken club and bar owners’ priorities.

The Food & Drug Administration is currently investigating facilities in connection to a rash of drug recalls.

Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit was the center of federal scrutiny after at least a dozen recalls were issued from the over-the-counter medical giant. A PediaCare recall, the medicine being recently sold by Johnson & Johnson to Blacksmith Brands, has especially stoked the flames of a Congressional investigation.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has intensified their current campaigns, checking more facilities than just the highly-suspect Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, plant. That factory had previously received over 20 citations from FDA agents after recalls. In order to bring it back to code, the plant was closed for a small period of time following the citations for these violations.

According to the new investigation, the House intends on looking at not only the Fort Washington location, but investigating the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, facility and a plant located in Puerto Rico.

Drug recalls can cause injuries and even death, leaving families that believed they were getting help without a clear plan through the future. For piece of mind, there may be compensation for those families. Contact the Pennsylvania wrongful death attorneys of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C., by calling 610-667-7511, and let legal professionals help you discover your rights and options today.