Child Dies After Attack by Pit Bull

DALLAS, Texas -- A 3-month-old baby boy died Monday night after being mauled by the family's pit bull.

After about an hour on the scene, officers were outside of the home talking with family members. One of those family members was holding 3-month-old Rayden Bruce, who had fallen asleep.

The child was taken inside and placed on a bed, where, apparently, the dog attacked.

A few moments later, officers heard screams coming from inside the home followed by a man running outside and carrying the little boy.

The child was rushed to Cook Children's Hospital in critical condition. After arriving at the hospital, the infant was pronounced dead.

The dog was quarantined and euthanized by Burleson Animal Control.

Family members have not spoken publicly, but friends of the family told NBC 5 the dog had not previously shown any sign of aggression toward the child.

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Source:11Alive (9/25)

Victims of uninsured motorist accidents have options

AUSTIN -- A 36-year-old Austin man is recovering from his injuries after he said a hit-and-run driver left him for dead last week.

“I can't work right now. I can't stand for long periods of time and stuff like that so it's really eating into my pocketbook,” said Joe Montgomery.

On Monday, Sept. 2, Montgomery was on his bicycle at Oltorf and I-35 heading to work when witnesses said a pickup cut him off, hit him, dragged him for a distance and kept going.

“I just don't understand what their thought process was like. I mean, were they intoxicated? Did they know they didn't have insurance?,” asked Montgomery, who doesn’t have medical insurance.

He said when he called the driver’s insurance company, as directed by Austin police, an insurance employee told him the driver in question was not covered at the time of the accident.

“She was like 'When were you hit?' and I told them Sept. 3, and she said, 'Well that person doesn't have, they didn't have a policy, they don't have insurance on that date,' said Montgomery, who now has a broken vertebrae in his back and several broken chips out of his legs.

Victims of uninsured drivers do have more options than they think.

Victims can take legal action against an uninsured driver’s blood relatives or spouse if they live together.

It is a myth that personal injury attorneys won’t take a case without money up front.

“Most people don't pursue uninsured motorist coverage because they think it's going to count against their insurance rates and it's not supposed to,” a lawyer said.

He added that an uninsured driver with a judgment against them can lose their license if they don’t pay.

“The DPS has a long-standing policy of not allowing that person to renew their license without having satisfied that debt,” said the lawyer.

Austin police confirmed a detective has been assigned to the case. Witnesses turned in his license plate number. However the driver has not been arrested as of yet.

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Source: WFAA (Green, 9/12)

Ford recalls new Escape again, citing fire risk

"Ford Motor Co is recalling its newly launched 2013 Escape sport utility vehicle for a third time, citing an improperly installed part that could trigger a fire in the engine compartment."

This recall affects about 7,600 Escapes, mostly in the United States, equipped with a 1.6-liter EcoBoost engine, Ford said on Wednesday. The models were built between October 5, 2011, and August 31, 2012. Ford is the No. 2 U.S. automaker by sales.

In a small number of these models, the cup plug on the engine cylinder head may come loose. This would lead to loss of engine coolant, causing the engine to overheat. In some cases, the ethylene glycol in the coolant may combust.

Fewer than 0.4 percent of the Escape models recalled in the United States have this issue, Ford said in a document filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In July, Ford recalled 11,500 Escape SUVs for a fuel line defect that could cause an engine fire. The issue led Ford to take the rare step of telling owners to stop driving immediately.

The latest recall is less severe and is unrelated to the fuel line problem, Ford said. About 6,150 of the SUVs covered by the action are in the United States and 1,300 are in Canada.

"Because of the facts from our investigation, we really felt that the extraordinary actions required by the previous instance aren't required here," Ford spokeswoman Marcey Zwiebel said.

The 1.6-liter EcoBoost engine is made at Ford's Bridgend Engine Plant in England. In its investigation, Ford found that the cup plugs prone to problems were manually installed.

It had been common practice at the plant to install these components by hand if there was a problem with the automated systems. That is no longer the case, Zwiebel said.

"The plant is now only using automated machinery for this installation," she said. "There will be no more manual installation of that particular part."

ESCAPE SALES STILL STRONG

The problem came to light last month after an Escape caught fire on a dealer lot in Nashville, Tennessee, due to a dislodged plug. Ford later found that an Escape fire reported by a Ford employee on July 11 had also been caused by a missing plug.

Ford said that in some cases, the water in the coolant could vaporize once it leaked, increasing the concentration of ethylene glycol to the point where it could combust.

Ford said in the filing that it was unaware of any fires in Escapes sold to customers. Replacement parts are available at dealerships.

The Escape SUV, one of Ford's best selling models, was completely redesigned for the 2013 model year. It is one of two crucial launches for Ford this year. The other is the 2013 Fusion mid-size sedan, which is due to go on sale this fall.

Also in July, Ford recalled more than 8,000 Escape SUVs to fix a carpeting issue that interfered with drivers' ability to apply the brakes.

The Escape is Ford's fastest selling vehicle on dealer lots, Ford's marketing chief Ken Czubay said on Tuesday. Two weeks ago, Ford added a third shift at its Escape plant in Louisville, Kentucky, to keep up with demand.

Through August, Ford has sold about 177,000 Escape SUVs this year, up 5.5 percent from 2011. About 90 percent of the Escape SUVs sold have either a 1.6-liter or 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine.

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Source: Reuters (Seetharaman, 9/5)

Workers claim fast-food restaurant sold spoiled chicken to public

CONROE, Texas – A fast food restaurant in Conroe has re-opened after a week-long closure to retrain workers about food safety.

It comes after the KHOU 11 News I-Team uncovered allegations from ex-employees who said the restaurant was selling spoiled food to customers.

One of those former workers is Toisha Corpuz. She was grateful when the KFC on North Loop 336 West in Conroe hired her despite her criminal record. But Corpuz said one day she noticed something.

“It stinks really bad,” Corpuz recalled. She said the stench came from the restaurant’s kitchen and especially its walk-in cooler.

“It just smelled. When you walked in there, it took your breath away,” Corpuz said. She said the smell came from the raw chicken stored in boxes inside the restaurant’s cooler. She also claims things got worse when workers took the chicken out.

“I almost threw up back there when the cooks opened the bags,” Corpuz said.

She says the poultry was spoiled, but that it was still fried and made available for sale to the public.

“You’re a mother, would you want your kids eating that stuff?” the 11 News I-Team asked Corpuz.

“Absolutely not,” she replied.

Corpuz and other workers said despite a KFC policy that raw poultry must be used within 10 days of being killed, chicken as old as 16 days was still cooked and served.

“I had no choice,” explained Corpuz. “I had to take care of my children. I had to have a job.”

Eventually, she said she had her husband call in a complaint to Montgomery County Environment Health Services that the KFC was selling spoiled chicken. Records show it took five days before a health inspector showed up at the Conroe KFC.

“We had just sold the last two cases of spoiled chicken,” said Corpuz.

However, the inspector did confirm a “foul odor in back of kitchen and walk-in cooler.”

The 11 News I-Team spoke to other current and former workers at the KFC, including Robert Garrett.

“You knew it was unsafe?” asked the I-Team.

“I knew it was unsafe,” admitted Garrett.

Like Corpuz, he remembered the smell of the expired chicken, comparing it to “expired trash that hasn’t been taken out for awhile.”

Garrett also claimed that raw chicken 16 days past its kill date was cooked and sold anyway.

“There would be times I would know that food that was going out the window or to the public sitting down, that it wasn’t any good and it just makes you sick to your stomach,” said Garrett.

Food safety expert Sarah Klein with the Center for Science in the Public Interest reviewed the allegations.

”We rarely hear this kind of really egregious and deliberate misuse of product and putting public health at such risk,” said Klein.

She said there’s a good reason for KFC’s 10-day limit.

“Things like E. coli, salmonella, and campylobacter are very common in poultry,” explained Klein. “So the longer it sits in a refrigerator, the more the bacteria have time to grow and multiply.”

Klein said then not even cooking may make the expired meat safe to eat. She also pointed out something else.

“Whether or not you kill the bacteria through cooking, that meat is still rotting,” said Klein. “So consumers are basically eating fried, rotted meat.”

We took the workers’ allegations to Michael Batts, manager of the Conroe KFC. Batts referred our questions to the restaurant’s owner.

But did he know his restaurant was allegedly serving expired chicken? Corpuz claimed she taped a phone conversation with Batts, her manager, last March.

Manager: Yes?

Corpuz: Sorry to bother you. Hey, we got 22 cases of bad chicken back there.

Manager: Why?

Corpuz: Um, because they’re out of date. Some of them, I think nine of them, went out today and five of them went out yesterday.

Manager: Okay, well cook what you can of it. Change the date on it where it will all go out tomorrow or something, OK?

Corpuz: OK...Just cook as much as possible.

Manager: Cook as much as possible of it.

Corpuz: And change the dates on the rest, OK.

Manager: Don’t cook it OK?

Corpuz: Don’t cook too much, is what you’re saying?

Manager: Do what?

Corpuz: What did you just say?

Manager: I said of course if it’s bad, don’t cook it.

Corpuz: OK.

Manager: But if you can cook it...

Corpuz: OK, bye. Yes sir.

Manager: Don’t cook a whole bunch extra, but you can cook a little extra.

Tem-Kil, Inc. owns the Conroe KFC along with 33 other restaurants in Texas. An executive there declined an on-camera interview. In a statement, the company insisted they are committed to the highest standards of food safety and said Tem-Kil has taken action to ensure high quality and safety at the restaurant.

The national headquarters of KFC also declined to speak on-camera. But a spokesman said in a statement that nothing is more important to KFC than food safety. KFC also said that because of our report, the company started an investigation of the Conroe restaurant and shut down the restaurant for a week so the entire staff could receive additional food safety training.

The director of the Montgomery County Consumer Health Department also declined our repeated requests for an interview. In a statement, Michael Lindsey insisted that his department responded to the March complaint about the sale of spoiled chicken in a timely manner.

Health inspectors visited the restaurant last week after it reopened. They did not find any food safety violations.

Corpuz was fired from the KFC in June for not performing work to her employer’s standards. She contends the restaurant’s claim about her was unfounded, as was her dismissal.

As for Robert Garrett, he left his job at the KFC in late May. He said one of the reasons he quit was because of concerns about food safety.

The I-Team is not aware of any similar allegations against any other KFC in the Houston area.

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Source: WFAA (Noll, 9/11)

Texas high court hands victory to Austin architect in liability case

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday handed a legal victory to Austin architect Sinclair Black as the high court declined to hear the appeal of a McKinney woman who was partially paralyzed in a 2004 balcony collapse that she had alleged was partly Black's fault.

By declining to hear the case, the high court allowed to stand a July 2011 ruling by the 3rd Court of Appeals. That court had thrown out a jury's $410,000 verdict against Black, ruling that Black and his firm, Black + Vernooy, were not partially to blame for the balcony collapse at an Inks Lake home that left Lou Ann Smith paralyzed from the waist down.

Black and others in the architectural industry had argued that allowing the original jury's verdict to stand could have a chilling effect on the architectural profession.

Black's attorney, Bruce Bennett, declined to comment Friday. Attorneys for Smith and her family could not be reached for comment.

Smith's attorneys could ask the high court to reconsider its decision not to hear the case.

The original jury's verdict was issued in favor of Smith, who suffered spinal damage when she and a friend stepped onto the third-story balcony of an Inks Lake home they were visiting. The balcony broke away from the house and sent the women to the ground.

A subcontractor had attached the balcony using 3¼-inch nails, not the bolts specified by the architect's design, and deviated from other design specifications, photos and court testimony showed.

Black and his firm designed the house and had a contract with homeowners Robert and Katherine Maxfield that required the firm provide "administration of the construction contract." It also required that he "visit the site at intervals" and "endeavor to guard the owner against defects and deficiencies."

Black visited the construction site several times and took photos. He testified that he didn't report any problems with the balcony because he didn't notice any issues.

In 2010, a Travis County jury ruled that the general contractor, Nash Builders, was 70 percent to blame for the balcony collapse, that a subcontractor was 20 percent responsible and that Black and his firm were 10 percent liable.

Black and his lawyers had argued in their appeal that Black could not be held liable for the contractor's negligence, and that while he had a duty to report any defects and deficiencies of which he was aware, he had no duty to identify any and all defects. Black also argued that while he had a duty to the Maxfields, he had no duty to visitors to the home.

In reversing the original jury's decision, the 3rd Court of Appeals agreed with that argument.

Writing the opinion for the majority, Justice David Puryear said Smith and her family had asked the court "to do something that has never been done in the history of Texas jurisprudence; they request this court to transform and extend the contractual duty owed to the Maxfields into a common law duty owed to the Smiths as visitors to the Maxfields' home."

"Although our sympathies extend to the Smiths for the suffering they have unjustly been forced to endure, this court simply cannot create a new common law duty in order to uphold the relief that they sought against the architects," he wrote.

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Source: Statesman (Harrel, 8/31)