The wildfire near the 60 Freeway may have been caused by sparks that flew from a defective catalytic converter of a pickup, authorities said.
The wildfire caused a big traffic jam on the 60 and 57 Freeways, as commuters were advised to take alternative routes to their destination.
Several fires started almost at the same time at about 11:45 a.m. and spread to about 50 acres.
It gave a lot of people a scare as most believed that this is another case of arson.
Fire officials announced that the fire was mostly out by 2 pm.
The fire caused 4 smoke inhalation injuries, plus one firefighter being treated for heat exhaustion.
Fire officials later said that an overheated catalytic converter – a device that converts exhaust before it exits the tail pipe- may have triggered the fire.
If that is the case, the manufacturer of the catalytic converter may be held liable for the property damage and personal injuries that the fire caused.
Under the product liability law, if a product is proven to have a safety defect that caused injury or death, the manufacturer of the product will assume responsibility despite the lack of negligence.
Besides, a cataclysmic converter is a device that is supposed to help the environment.
Once it becomes defective, it ceases to serve its purpose and may even cause an environmental accident.
A Mountain View Whisman School district superintendent admitted to having romantic relations with a district principal.
Maurice Ghysels did not disclose though, how long his relationship with Carmen Mizell has been going on, claiming that it’s “a personal matter.”
Carmen Mizell is the principal of Edith Landels Elementary.Both Ghysels and Mizell are going through divorces with their current spouses.
They informed the school board last July; Ghysels through a phone call and Mizell thorugh a letter.
The board then discussed the implications of the relationship including possible conflicts of interest.
The district’s action was to change the administrative structure by removing Mizell under the direct supervision of Ghysels. Her new supervisor would be Superintendent Mary Lairon, who incidentally is reporting directly to Ghysels.
There is no policy concerning personal relationships but the board admitted to at least avoiding it in practice.
Here is an example of what we can use to differentiate sexual harassment from sexual misconduct.
There is no basis for a sexual harassment in this case since Ghysels never created a hostile working environment and Mizell never claimed to have received unwelcome sexual acts.
However, since Ghysels engaged in a sexual relationship with a subordinate, there may be cause for sexual misconduct.
Sexual misconduct though is not illegal in nature, but it is often against professional codes of ethics.
If the board had a policy for this, then it could have caused him his job.
But since the board admitted that there is none, they will just have to be content in frowning upon the act and make moves to avoid conflict of interests.
Otherwise, if they fire Ghysels, it may be a cause for a wrongful termination lawsuit.
Accidents involving big rigs can cause bigger damages because of the vehicle’s weight and size. In addition, it can also inflict graver injuries to the occupants of a smaller vehicle in the occurrence of accidents.
True enough, a big rig accident recently caused Interstate 5 in Burbank to be closed for five hours, also resulting to jammed rush-hour traffic. In addition, the incident also caused harm to one person.
According to authorities, the big rig smashed through a center divider and caught fire. Five other vehicles were also involved in the accident, and several crashed under the truck.
One person was shortly trapped in the ruins. Police said one person sustained injuries that were described as minor to moderate.
Employers are required to carefully choose the people who will operate a big rig if a work requires it because they may also be liable if the driver’s negligence causes an accident. Implementing stricter screening processes will ensure that every person operating this vehicle has the right skills to do it.
Labor advocates are pushing for a local ordinance that will make wage-theft a criminal charge.
In most states and cities, penalties for wage-theft are usually given through civil unpaid wage claim procedures.
If the bill passes into law, Los Angeles will join the handful of cities that criminally prosecutes employers who do not follow wage laws for misdemeanor charges.
City councilman Richard Alarcon plans to introduce a motion that would direct the city attorney’s office to write an ordinance that would criminalize wage non-payment.
Alarcon said that he was alarmed by a recent study that a lot of workers from New York Chicago and Los Angeles do not receive minimum wage or overtime pay.
The study showed that 26% are paid below the minimum wage and 76% are not paid the correct overtime rate.
The numbers are taken from the answers of 4,300 respondents
Alarcon said that if criminal penalties are what is needed then there is no reason not to try that.
Most workers would agree, given the high number of cases of unpaid minimum wages and overtime.
It would seem that civil penalties do not discourage the practice and are still rampant to this day.
Hopefully, the ordinance will give the law more teeth and significantly reduce the number of wage theft.
However, there is some opposition to the law, especially from the business community.
The president of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce said that there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the law. He questions what would be the trigger for an arrest and if it would cause additional backlogs in the courts.
Their concern is understandable, as they would like to protect their interests as well.
As the ordinance want to protect employees from unscrupulous employers, the employers in turn want to be assured that they will not be receiving unscrupulous claims as well.
It is a two-way street and the law should also consider the rights of the employer, or it may discourage companies from creating jobs for fear of being sued in the future.
Hopefully both sides can reach an understanding that would benefit each side.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating why Northwest flight 188 overshot the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles without radio contact before it turned around.
According to the National Transportation Board (NTSB), the jet carried 144 passengers and 5 crews.
None was injured because of the incident.
According to NTSB reports, the jet, an Airbus A320, lost radio contact at about 7:00 pm CDT while flying from San Diego to Minneapolis.
The jet flew over the airport before 8:00 pm and reestablished communication at 8:14 pm. They’ve overshot the airport by that time.
According to the FAA, the crew claimed that they became distracted over a heated discussion over airline policy and lost track of where they were.
However, the NTSB is also looking at other possible factors that may have caused the incident.
One of those is fatigue.
Authorities are looking into the possibility that the crew may have fallen asleep during the flight.
They will be examining the cockpit voice recorder and will be interviewing the pilots.
The two pilots have been suspended from flying while the airline performs its own investigation.
It does not sound too serious, but signs that pilots fall asleep at a crucial time while operating a giant vehicle 30,000 feet in the air with 144 passengers can be pretty disturbing.
Air traffic is very different from road traffic as it needs constant coordination with ground control.
When ground control cannot establish communication with a plane they may assume that there is trouble.
And now the pilots claim that they overshot the airport because they were in a heated discussion.
That must have been a pretty interesting discussion.
It is difficult to understand how a discussion over airline policy could prevent the pilots from establishing radio contact for more than an hour when both Denver and Minneapolis controllers are trying to communicate with them the entire time.
Hopefully the suspicion that they were asleep is not true.
Driver fatigue can cause major damages in a truck collision; it will be catastrophic in a plane accident.
