Louisville, Kentucky wrongful death attorney to argue before Kentucky Court of Appeals
Bahe Cook Cantley & Jones PLC wrongful death lawyer, Brian D. Cook, will be in the state’s capitol on February 2, 2010 to argue in front of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. The case, Danielle Johnson, Individually, et al. v. United Parcel Service, Inc., Case No. 2009-CA-000404, involves the shooting of a young man, Mr. Johnson. Brian and other attorneys are representing the family of the young man who was killed by his co-worker when he was shot, point-blank, with a handgun in the parking lot of a local fast food restaurant, while on lunch break at work. The Court's calendar can be seen here.
The co-worker who shot Mr. Johnson, Raymal Rivers, was previously employed at UPS where it is alleged that he was disciplined for threatening and harassing co-workers. He was ordered to attend anger management classes and moved to a different location. It is alleged that he never completed the anger management classes. Rivers was eventually fired from UPS. He was subsequently hired at the employer where he shot and killed Mr. Johnson after an altercation in the break room.
The Plaintiffs, represented by Brian and others, have alleged that UPS had a duty, when contacted for a reference check by future employers, to warn the future employer about Rivers’ violent and threatening behavior while employed at their business to prevent him causing harm to others at the new employer. The trial court that the case was filed in (Jefferson County) dismissed the Plaintiffs’ case stating that Kentucky law did not recognize such a claim. Brian and his colleagues will go before the Court of Appeals and argue that UPS should be held accountable for allowing this dangerous person to be hired by another employer without saying anything about his violent past at their company when they were asked for a reference check. As Brian puts it “people have a right to go to work without having to worry that the person working next to them has a violent and threatening past at a previous place of employment that could lead to violence in the current one.”
While any case decided in one of Kentucky’s Circuit Courts (the trial court level in Kentucky) has the right to appeal to the Court of Appeals, most of the cases are ruled on by the Court of Appeals using only the written briefs filed by the parties and the record from the trial court. Lawyers in only roughly one in ten of those cases are given the privilege of making their arguments in person in front of the Court of Appeals.
If your family has been the victim of a needless death caused by someone else’s negligence and if you want to know what your rights are, both at the trial court level and in Kentucky’s higher courts, contact wrongful death attorney Brian D. Cook, or the other attorneys at Bahe Cook Cantley & Jones PLC.
