News, Verdicts & Settlements

JURY AWARDS $6.5 MILLION TO FAMILY
A Tampa jury has found the director of St. Joseph’s Hospital pediatric intensive care unit and the hospital responsible for the brain damage of a Polk County toddler.

The jury last week awarded Cynthia and Joseph Cannon of Fort Meade $6.5 million in damages after finding that no one at the hospital noticed that their infant daughter Ashley’s blood sugar had fallen dangerously low after heart surgery in May 1993.

FLORIDA BAR CERTIFIES 85 ATTORNEYS AS SPECIALISTS IN AN AREA OF LAW
Eighty-five Florida lawyers have been "board certified" by the Florida Bar as having special knowledge, skills and proficiency in various areas of the law. Of the group, some 65 lawyers were board certified in civil trial, 13 in marital and family law, and seven in tax law.

Only lawyers who have achieved certification can identify themselves as a "specialist" or as "Florida Bar board certified" in telephone books or other forms of advertising.

WOMAN FACES LEGAL BATTLES
A 9-month-old child died in her care in August 1998.

WINTER HAVEN – Legal problems facing Eileen Jones, the Winter Haven babysitter who was caring for 9-month-old Bailey Harper when she was strangled by a high chair strap, continue to mount a year after the child’s death.

Jones is facing a civil lawsuit, filed by Bailey’s parents, and a final determination by the county to permanently revoke her privileges to ever baby-sit again.

SAUNDERS APPOINTED TO FLORIDA BAR CIVIL TRIAL COMMITTEE
Thomas C. Saunders, an attorney with the law firm of Frost & O’Toole, P.A., was appointed to the Florida Bar civil trial certification committee, announced John W. Frost, II, senior partner.

Saunders is a board certified civil trial lawyer, and was named to the certification committee by Patricia Seitz, current president of the Florida Bar Association.

Saunders was appointed to a three-year term on the committee, where he will recommend standards for civil trial law certification and review applicants for certification with eight other committee members. The certification committee also prepares the certification test questions, and administers and grades the examinations.

FIRED REHAB WORKER FILES SUIT
WINTER HAVEN – A top administrator at Polk County’s primary drug treatment program filed a federal discrimination complaint Friday saying she was fired because she’d had an affair with a boss who thought she was in the way of his promotion.

Audrey Rumble, director of special programs at Tri-County Addictions Rehabilitations Services in Winter Haven, filed the complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Tampa.

The complaint was filed against her two superiors – Robert Suggs, with whom she said she’d had the affair, and Patricia Furnival, the agency’s executive director.

‘HONKY TONK’ AGAIN FACING BARRAGE TO CLOSE PLACE DOWN
TAMPA – City officials are mounting a second campaign against Juanita’s Place, a bar police say is a haven for crime and a “drive-through supermarket for drugs.”

City Attorney Tom Saunders said police officials are compiling a second report about the bar that will include details not included in an original report delivered last month to the City Council.

The bar, at 4309 N. 34th St., is known to its patrons as the Honky Tonk.

MAN SUES GESSLER CLINIC
WINTER HAVEN – A Winter Haven man who lost his leg to infection after what he says was improper medical treatment will take his case to court Monday.

Lloyd Ramsey, a retired mobile-home inspector for the Department of Motor Vehicles, is suing Gessler Clinic and one of its doctors for negligence in treating an infection three years ago.

Ramsey, 64, contends in his lawsuit that his right leg had to be amputated because his physician, Dr. Ian Ajac, did not treat him properly.

ASSISTANT ATTORNEY RESIGNS
TAMPA – Assistant City Attorney Thomas Saunders has resigned effective Oct. 30 to join the Tampa law firm of former Sen. David McLain.

Saunders, 30, has been with the city nearly four years. He coordinated a city inquiry into last December’s traffic stop and arrest of New York Mets pitcher Dwight Gooden, and oversaw major litigation for the city.

FAMILY SETTLES FONDLING CASE
A lawsuit filed against a Winter Haven man who pleaded guilty last year to fondling a 15-year-old girl has been settled. Jerry Dale Tucker, 30, was sentenced in May 1996 to 30 days in jail and seven years of probation.

The girl and her parents filed a lawsuit against Tucker and his wife seeking more than $15,000 in damages. The family is not identified in court records to protect the girl’s identity.