Punitive Damages

7-Eleven clerk files suit over his lost job Staff and wire services MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - The attorney for a clerk who was fired after foiling an armed robbery at a 7-Eleven said Wednesday the world believes his client is a hero, even if the company does not. Paul Taylor of Martinsburg represents Antonio Feliciano in a lawsuit filed this week seeking $105,000. Lloyd Scott, loss prevention manager at 7-Eleven's Chesapeake division, said Feliciano was fired for violating store policy and was "overly aggressive.

tarar@herald-mail.com Washington County Commissioners Vice President Paul Swartz asked The Herald-Mail last week to sue the county to force disclosure of the amount it paid former Economic Development Commission Director John Howard, becoming the second commissioner to ask the newspaper to take legal action over the issue. "I would suggest that the paper sue," Swartz said. On Wednesday, Commissioner William Wivell said the paper should ask the court for a legal opinion on the matter.

By JULIE E. GREENE / Staff Writer photo: JOE CROCETTA / staff photographer City officials said they might consider selling the Hagerstown Ice & Sports Complex if the skating rink's financial picture does not improve over the winter. A group of investors has offered to buy the financially troubled rink. The group includes Walter Dill, a former executive director at the rink who spearheaded its construction and now is suing the nonprofit Washington County Sports Foundation that operates it. The mayor and City Council decided behind closed doors on Tuesday not to accept a $1.8 million offer for the $2.3 million rink at the Hagerstown Fairgrounds.

Grapes. So now it's grapes. Hagerstown administrators say they will try spraying downtown trees with some sort of grape extract to discourage thousands upon thousands of crows from roosting downtown at night and making the city look and smell like the inside of a chicken coop. They say crows don't like grapes, and that the spray will make the crows "nauseous. " Beautiful. Now we won't just be flooded with crow droppings, we'll be flooded with crow puke. I've heard of Grapes of Wrath, but this is ridiculous.

Oh that I should be so broke as O.J. Simpson. His attorney was in court on Thursday, saying the criminally innocent but monetarily liable Simpson doesn't have a penny to his name, and so he can't afford to pay any punitive damages in the death of his ex-wife and her friend. In fact, the attorney said Simpson is $9.3 million in debt. I don't get it. How can people who drive Bentleys and live in mansions be broke? And no matter how many millions they assess against this guy, it won't matter.

A Hagerstown man was sentenced Thursday in Berkeley County Circuit Court to at least one year in prison after he pleaded guilty to fleeing the scene of a fatal motorcycle crash in April 2011. Steven Edward Thompson, 47, was fined $500 by 23rd Judicial Circuit Judge John C. Yoder and ordered to report to Eastern Regional Jail by 5 p.m. Friday to begin serving the sentence, which requires him to spend not less than one year nor more than five years in prison. Yoder denied the defendant's plea for home confinement Thursday after Thompson pleaded guilty to one felony count of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence resulting in the April 12, 2011, death of Lorena Beth “Lori” Roberts of Bunker Hill, W.Va.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - A Berkeley County woman has filed a $1.3 million wrongful termination suit against the Veterans Canteen Service at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Martinsburg, claiming she was never trained how to do her job. Patricia Britton claims in documents filed in Berkeley County Circuit Court that she was fired from her job in September 1998 after an internal audit revealed improper and erroneous cash register transactions....

A Hagerstown woman who sued The Herald-Mail, claiming the newspaper revealed private information about her and her child in a 1996 Mother's Day story, has settled for $500. "I think both sides were satisfied with the settlement," said Mary R. Craig of Baltimore, the newspaper's lawyer. The lawsuit alleged that the story contained false information and was published without the woman's consent. The story, published May 12, 1996, implied that the woman was incapable of taking care of her child, incompetent and immoral, she alleged in the suit, filed in Washington County Circuit Court.

By LAURA ERNDE Staff Writer A Hagerstown woman is suing The Herald-Mail Co., alleging the newspaper revealed private information about her and her child in a Mother's Day story the newspaper published last year. The woman accuses the newspaper of publishing the story without her consent, according to the lawsuit filed this month in Washington County Circuit Court. The lawsuit alleges that the story contained false information. The woman accuses the newspaper of defamation, invasion of privacy and injurious falsehood, the suit says.

A jury on Friday found the national Elks organization negligent in the death of a man who was shot in the parking lot at John Brown Elks Lodge No. 841 south of Charles Town in 1999. The jury awarded $100,000 in compensatory damages and $400,000 in punitive damages to the family of Kim Flynn, deputy circuit clerk Shayna Funkhouser said. Flynn was shot in the chest and right shoulder as he left the parking lot with friends. Flynn's father, John G. Flynn, filed a civil suit against the National Association of the International Benevolent Protective Order of the Elks alleging the organization was "negligent and reckless," resulting in the shooting.