Of all things, a corn mash spill could make it easier to sue your Nebraska fire department

The corn mash is in the foreground.

Pick it up, clean it up, do it right and keep it safe. Local governments in Nebraska… from city hall to your volunteer fire department… will need to make sure hazards on roads and public spaces get taken care of completely.   

In a ruling issued today the Nebraska Supreme Court narrowed the protection of immunity local government has against personal injury lawsuits.

I covered the story of Kaelynn Kimminau of Hastings this spring for NET News. The Adams County District Court threw out her lawsuit against the City of Hastings fire department and its rural volunteer counterpart. She claimed they hadn’t properly cleaned corn mash spilled from an open truck picking up the sloppy leftovers from a local ethanol plant. Firefighters on the scene had pushed the corn mash off to the shoulder. The accident occurred a full day after the original spill.

Did the fire department act negligently? In its opinion the Supreme Court says at the very least the judge in Adams County should not have dismissed the case even before hearing the evidence. The court ruled local governments do not have immunity from lawsuits when an emergency scene clean up may have been responsible for later injuries or harm. 

As the justices wrote in today's opinion, they don’t read state statute covering these matters “as provid­ing immunity to a political subdivision with respect to a claim alleging it took inadequate measures to repair a spot or localized defect of which it had notice.” 

In this case, the firefighters had been told of the problem the day before the accident. The possibility they didn’t clean the corn mash mess at the time takes away automatic protection from lawsuits. The implications? Attorneys NET spoke with before today’s ruling wondered if a ruling against the City of Hastings would mean in the future it could apply to emergency crews not picking up debris from a traffic accident or not making full repairs on a public building.

The case has been sent back to Adams County District Court where Kaelynn Kimminau will have the opportunity to argue the City of Hastings was the blame for the accident. That has not been resolved.  In fact the Supreme Court justices made the point of adding:

We do not comment on the merits of the Kimminaus’ claims against the political subdivisions, includ­ing questions with respect to duty, as those issues have not yet been addressed by the district court.

Read the court’s full opinion HERE.

KEYSTONE BACK TO COURT: Nebraska landowners file new lawsuits to block pipeline

Landowners in two Nebraska counties opposed to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline have filed lawsuits challenging the right of the project’s developer, TransCanada from taking their land using eminent domain. 

Holt County Nebraska

This is a new a separate action taken in the courts in the wake of the Nebraska Supreme Court’s review of state law which left unanswered the question of whether the state had improperly given the authority to choose the pipelines route to then Governor Dave Heineman.

The lawsuits, filed in Hold and York Counties, cover much of the same ground covered in the case of Thompsen V. Heineman dismissed last week. The landowners claim LB1161, the law passed by the Nebraska State Legislature is in conflict with the state’s Constitution.  As a result the lawsuits claim “TransCanada is without eminent domain authority or an approved pipeline route across Nebraska because … the Governor’s actions are TransCanada’s sole basis for claiming an approved route or power of eminent domain.” 

In both the Holt and York County cases a total of seven landowners filed the lawsuits. They claim, in nearly identically related briefs, their property is along the pipeline route. Four of the seven have already received written notice from TransCanada that they intend to proceed with condemnation proceedings against their land to advance the pipeline project.

In the matching legal briefs the landowners who have been served notice state they have declined and refused to “declines and refuses to voluntarily convey ownership rights” to TransCanada.

York County Nebraska

No date has been set yet for follow up hearings in either county.

President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have yet to state whether the United States government will object to the Canadian-based project from crossing the northern border.

BOLD Nebraska, leading the state’s opposition to the project announced the filing on its website late Friday, adding “it is only the President who can provide peace of mind to farmers and ranchers along the route. Our fight will continue even if the President rejects the pipeline.”

Representatives of TransCanada and the State of Nebraska were not available for comment at this writing.

Salty Sunflower Seed Suit Fails For Snacker

Are sunflower seeds worth going to court over? Apparently.

Well, for one California woman at least.

Nebraska’s ConAgra Foods, Inc., was sued by an angry sunflower seed eater from California named Aleta Lilly. The federally-required food nutrition label on the package of “David” brand seeds was a fraud, in her opinion. Here’s how the opinion from United States Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit summarized her case:

“…the plaintiff alleges that the tasty coating placed on sunflower seed shells is intended to be ingested – and is ingested – before the inedible shell is spat out and the kernel eaten; that is what is expected before expectoration. Therefore, the sodium content in a “serving” of sunflower seeds, as stated on the package, must include the sodium contained in the edible coating.”

Lilly felt California state consumer laws should be applied. ConAgra disagreed.  The three-judge panel sided with Lilly, stating nothing in federal law should block the lawsuit from proceeding. The ruling came down last month.(Read it here)The issue of whether the labels were misleading was not resolved and will be debated at trial.

There might have been a bit of exasperation expressed in the ruling, authored by Judge Barry G. Silverman:

“Some days we are called upon to consider such profound issues as eleventh-hour death penalty appeals, catastrophic threats to the environment, intense and existential questions of civil and human rights, and the most complicated, controversial problems in civil, criminal and administrative law. Today we consider the coating on sunflower seeds.”

 Another agriculture law case made the news in Nebraska this week.  Read about it here:  

Egg Battle Lands In Court. High Stakes for Farmers and Animal Welfare Group