Lawsuit

The owners of Wildcat Ford on U.S. 27 have filed a lawsuit against a former manager of the dealership, alleging he defrauded the company, causing net operating losses and receiving kickbacks from advertising during his four and a half years with the dealership. In the lawsuit filed in Jessamine Circuit Court in September, the plaintiffs — Collins Ford of Lexington, LLC, which is now doing business as Wildcat Ford, and The Walters Group — alleged Kevin Collins had used Wildcat Ford to procure vehicles for a Louisville dealership while leaving the Nicholasville business with less-desirable vehicles, among other claims.

A Danville man has filed a lawsuit against Boyle County Emergency Medical Services, alleging he was seriously injured when medical technicians dropped him as they were taking him from his apartment. Harvey Goforth of 502 Latimer Heights filed the complaint in Boyle Circuit Court earlier this month. Along with Boyle EMS, the complaint names Boyle County as a defendant. The lawsuit alleges EMS was called after Goforth had a minor fall in his apartment on Feb. 18, 2010. As EMTs were transporting him from his residence on a gurney, they dropped it, causing Goforth to fall onto the concrete steps and walkway leading to his apartment, where he remained for “a considerable period of time,” the complaint states.

LANCASTER - A lawsuit blaming two city police officers for the death of a man during a police chase in 2009 has been dismissed. Garrard Circuit Judge Hunter Daugherty sided with officers William Lake and Tim Royce in granting a summary judgment dismissing a lawsuit filed by Carol and Kenneth Plummer, whose son, Brandon Plummer, died a head-on collision on Fall Lick Road. Brandon Plummer, 21, was killed when Carlos Cunningham - who was being pursued by the officers at a high rate of speed - crashed into his pickup truck.

Heritage Hospice has asked that a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former employee be dismissed, saying it is without merit. In response to a lawsuit filed in February by Dawn Summerville of Harrodsburg, Hospice denies allegations that Summerville was fired in November 2010 in retaliation for applying for worker’s compensation benefits. Hospice contends Summerville, who had worked at the Danville agency for five months, was fired after she verbally threatened to assault a co-worker.

HARRODSBURG — A Burgin woman whose daughter was badly burned in a gas explosion last year has filed a lawsuit against a gas company, a hot water heater manufacturer and her former landlords. Carla Washington filed the lawsuit last week in Mercer Circuit Court on behalf of her daughter, Kaylee Freeland, who was 7 when the explosion occurred last November.  Kaylee was engulfed in flames and suffered burns over 50 percent of her body, according to the lawsuit. The complaint names Atmos Energy, Rheem Manufacturing and Glenn and Marsha Hurst as defendants, alleging they each acted with gross negligence that contributed to the explosion.

A former employee who won a discrimination settlement from the Danville Housing Authority has filed another complaint against the agency. Richard Meaux of Danville alleges the housing authority has denied renting an apartment to him in retaliation for a racial discrimination lawsuit he filed against the agency in 2007. Along with the housing authority, director Rachel White and housing manager Susan Smock are named as defendants. The lawsuit was filed April 1 in Boyle Circuit Court.

A former employee for Alltech, Inc., a company that primarily promotes animal health and nutrition, has filed a lawsuit in Jessamine County Circuit Court alleging sexual harassment and retalliation. Amanda Jo Wester, who served as Alltech’s U.S. Controller, issued complaints against her supervisor and director of the Americas at the time, Eric Lanz, and officials at the company in the lawsuit filed May 20 in Jessamine Circuit Court. Wester alleges that her former boss harassed her through e-mails and calls for about three years, and when she reported the incidents, she claims the reports were initially dismissed, then used in retalliation against her by founder and president of Alltech, Dr. Thomas Pearse Lyons and director and vice president of finance/secretary and treasurer of Alltech Nathan H. Hohman.

A lawsuit against the city of Danville and one of its police officers has been moved to federal court at the request of the defendants. John Kinley of 120 Bold Venture filed a complaint last month in Boyle Circuit Court alleging Officer Pedro Lemos harassed and falsely arrested him during a dispute in the parking lot of an apartment complex in 2011, in violation of his constitutional and civil rights. The lawsuit also claims the city failed to properly train Lemos. The defendants have not yet responded to allegations made in the complaint, but have transferred the case successfully from Boyle Circuit Court to U.S. District Court in Lexington, arguing the lawsuit raises issues involving the U.S. Constitution and Civil Rights Act of 1964, which are matters of federal jurisdiction.

We are very fortunate to have Dr. Carmen Coleman serve as superintendent of the Danville school system. I have served on the Danville School Education Foundation for almost two years, and that experience has allowed me significant first hand knowledge of Dr. Coleman's outstanding abilities, intelligence and enthusiasm. She is an excellent superintendent. As an attorney, I hope all of The Advocate-Messenger's readers understand that the recent article regarding litigation involving the Danville school board and Dr. Coleman only reports one side of a dispute.

LIBERTY - The widow of the man gunned down in September as he worked at Tarter Gate Co. has filed a lawsuit against three of the men charged in the killing along with the gate manufacturer and 11 other Tarter-owned enterprises. Tina Pyles filed the complaint Tuesday in Casey Circuit Court alleging that William Rigdon of Lebanon, David Salyers of Campbellsville and Anthony Byrd of Dunnville acted intentionally, wantonly and recklessly in causing the death of Wendell Gleason Pyles on Sept.

STANFORD - The Lincoln County Board of Education is the target of two lawsuits filed recently in Lincoln Circuit Court. One alleges a former teacher who suffered from migraines was fired wrongfully because she took time off work under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. The other claims the board and a bus driver are responsible for the injuries a woman suffered when her vehicle collided with a school bus. Superintendent Karen Hatter said...

A former employee at a Danville nursing home is alleging she was fired to cover up her bosses' mistakes in a lawsuit filed recently in Boyle Circuit Court. Amy Cosby of Mercer County claims in the lawsuit her employment as a weekend nurse at Danville Center for Health and Rehabilitation (now Kindred Nursing and Rehab Danville Center) was terminated last July after the facility was cited by the state for failing to report the theft of a patient's property in a timely manner.  The lawsuit names Kindred Nursing Centers, former director Deborah Gibson and former nursing supervisor Cindy Osbourne as defendants.

The city of Danville's insurance carrier paid to settle a lawsuit filed by former city commissioner Ryan Owens, a settlement the insurance company attempted to keep secret. According to the settlement agreement, which The Advocate-Messenger obtained Tuesday through an open records request to Danville City Clerk Donna Peek, Kentucky League of Cities Insurance Services paid Owens $52,500 to avoid further litigation of a lawsuit Owens filed in 2010. The lawsuit claimed the city, City Engineer Earl Coffey and former city manager Paul Stanbury caused Owens to lose his job with a Lexington engineering firm because of Owens' decision to run for Boyle County judge-executive.

STANFORD - A former Lincoln County Regional Jail inmate who was injured in a 2011 traffic incident has settled a lawsuit against county officials for more than $1 million. Ricky Keathly was a jail inmate when he was injured in the crash on Ky. 78 while riding in a large van used by Garrard-Lincoln Solid Waste Management to collect recyclable material. The van was not equipped with a seat belt, and Keathly was ejected from a side door and a struck a fence post. Seriously injured, Keathly was taken to the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center in Lexington for treatment.

STANFORD - The estate of a Garrard County teenager who died last year is suing a Stanford medical clinic, doctor and nurse, alleging the girl was negligently prescribed birth control pills that caused her death. Named as defendants in the lawsuit, filed in Lincoln Circuit Court by the estate of Brenda Sue Shepherd, are Dr. Naren James, nurse Crystal Brown and Bluegrass Clinic. The complaint alleges that Shepherd, who was 16 at the time with a history of chest pains and blood clots, went to the clinic in January 2012, where she was treated by James and Brown, and was prescribed birth control pills.

A lawsuit filed in 2010 by former Danville city commissioner Ryan Owens that alleged meddling by city officials cost him his job at an engineering firm has been dismissed. Boyle Circuit Judge Darren Peckler entered an agreed order Wednesday in which both parties signed off on the dismissal of the lawsuit with prejudice, which means it cannot be relitigated in the future. Both sides are responsible for their own legal fees and costs, according to the agreed order. The case had been scheduled Monday for a four-day trial in Boyle Circuit Court, but the trial was canceled.

“Woe unto you, lawyers,” Jesus Christ himself once said. Fast forward 20 centuries and Christ could have had the personal-injury, ambulance-chasing kind of lawyer in mind. You've seen these law-benders' brand of advertising: targeting doctors doing their best to alleviate patients' pain through joint replacements or soliciting victims of diseases you've never heard of. It matters not whether the physicians give it their God's-honest best shot after conferring the risks with their patients.

The estate of a Lincoln County woman who died last year has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center and a Danville doctor. The complaint, filed in Boyle Circuit Court by Frank Paul Gregor III, administrator of the estate of Mary Singleton, alleges the hospital and Dr. John H. Lacy did not meet the appropriate standard of care in failing to properly diagnose Singleton's medical condition, and that such negligence led to her death on Feb. 22, 2012.

The conflict over the Westgate subdivision has made it to a federal courthouse with the filing of a lawsuit by R. J. Corman Real Estate alleging the city of Nicholasville has violated the federal “Clean Water Act” in allowing storm water discharge from the development to enter Jessamine Creek. The lawsuit, filed Jan. 30 in U.S. District Court, alleges that the city failed to comply with mandatory application procedures in approving the building permits for the development, and that the design plans approved fail to meet requirements set forth in the city's storm water ordinance.