At a Glance

 Dog reunited with girl who sued to get it back

FARMINGTON HILLS (AP) — A 10-year-old girl who sued her mom’s ex-boyfriend for the return of her poodle has been reunited with the animal.

Hannah Wise said Mitchell Rechter wouldn’t return Mystery after she and her mother moved out of his home last spring.

The Farmington Hills girl filed suit last month in Oakland County with the consent of her mother, Adrienne Lenhoff. The suit also claims Rechter won’t return other items belonging to Lenhoff including jewelry, golf shoes and a Cuisinart toaster.

Hannah tells The Detroit News that she “started crying” when she got the miniature white poodle back last Friday.

Rechter’s lawyer has said the girl left the dog with him and that he’d grown attached to it.

 

Plant worker awarded $28M for lung damage

LEBANON, Mo. (AP) — A Laclede County jury has ordered a Missouri company to pay $28 million to a worker who claimed his lungs were damaged at a compressor plant in south-central Missouri.

In the lawsuit, Philip Berger, 56, claimed he developed inflammation of the lung after breathing contaminants from a chemical used to cool cutting tools at Copeland Scroll Compressors, a firm owned by Ferguson-based Emerson Climate Technologies. Emerson plans to appeal the verdict.

The trial in Laclede County Circuit Court lasted two weeks. The jury deliberated two hours on Friday before awarding $5 million in actual damages and $23 million in punitive damages.

 

Driver with untied bikini top cleared 

 
NEW YORK (AP) — An appeals court has cleared a New York City driver in a fatal crash after agreeing she faced an “unforeseen emergency” when a back-seat passenger untied her bikini top.
The July 2008 crash occurred on the New York Thruway. The Daily News reports Brittany Lahm briefly took her hands off the wheel when her bikini top came off.
Lahm and a group of friends were returning to Rockland County after a day at the shore. Brandon Berman, who allegedly pulled the bikini strings, was killed.
The Brooklyn Appellate Division upheld the conclusion of a Rockland jury, which found Lahm’s bikini top problem constituted “a sudden and unforeseen emergency not of her own making.”
 

Group says state lax  on key gun records

 
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A national group that fights gun violence says South Dakota is one of the worst states in terms of sharing mental health records for use in background checks.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns issued a report this month that said South Dakota has shared only one mental health record in 20 years with the federal government’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, according to the Argus Leader newspaper. 
The background database was created to enable gun dealers to check buyers for firearms restrictions — a requirement since the passage of the Brady Bill in 1993.
States are expected to submit records on people with a mental illness that might disqualify them from owning a gun, but many states are failing to help keep the database up to date, according to the mayors’ group.

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