Massachusetts man awarded $13 million judgment after being jailed 26 years for murder he didn’t commit

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Michael Sullivan was convicted of the murder and armed robbery of Wilfred McGrath in 1987 when Michael was only twenty-six (26) years old. Michael remained in prison until 2013 when he was granted a new trial based on newly discovered evidence – that the clothing Mr. Pino claimed had blood on them had tested negative for blood and DNA proved that Mr. McGrath, the victim, was excluded as the source of any DNA on the jacket. The Middlesex County District Attorney’s office waited nearly six years before dropping the case against Michael in 2019. This civil suit followed and was aggressively prosecuted by Heinlein Beeler Mingace & Heineman, P.C. with the assistance of Attorney Lisa Parlagreco.

At this civil trial, Mr. Sullivan bore the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that he was actually innocent of the crimes. Over three weeks, the plaintiff’s team presented all of the evidence from the 1987 criminal trial as well as the new evidence showing that there was no blood on Mr. Sullivan’s clothing in an effort to prove his innocence. The jury, in a resounding verdict, declared that Michael had been erroneously convicted in 1987 and had proven by clear and convincing evidence that he was innocent of the crimes.

The post Law With Impact – HBMH Law Secures $13 Million Verdict and Jury Finding of Innocence in Wrongful Conviction Case appeared first on Boston Injury Attorney Blog.

The Chronicle is not alone in noting the impact of the Nguyen decision on student safety and the operations of Institutions of Higher Education [IHEs] in relation to the risk of student suicide. In Nguyen, many Massachusetts IHEs advocated – by way of an Amicus brief — that they should owe no duty of care to students at risk of suicide. The signatory IHEs included: Amherst College, Bentley University, Berklee College of Music, Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, College of the Holy Cross, Emerson College, Endicott College, Harvard University, Northeastern University, Simmons College, Smith College, Stonehill College, Suffolk University, Tufts University, Williams College and Worcester Polytechnic University. The Supreme Judicial Court [SJC], in large part, rejected the deplorable position taken by the IHEs in Nguyen. Revealingly, after the issuance of Nguyen, the author of the IHE’s Nguyen Amicus brief addressed Nguyen’s impact and was quoted as stating that: “all colleges and universities are aware of the SJC’s Nguyen standard, [and] they all either have adopted or are in the process of adopting suicide protocols, not just to meet the SJC’s standards, but because they want to try to prevent student suicides to the extent possible.” Eric T. Berkman, Harvard Facing Liability for Student’s Suicide, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly at 1 (Sept. 19, 2019).

That belated action by IHEs is cold comfort to victims’ families and much work remains to be done in further defining the law with an eye toward saving student lives.

The post Law With Impact – 4 Years Later – Student Suicide Prevention: Nguyen v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 479 Mass. 436 (2018) and its Progeny appeared first on Boston Injury Attorney Blog.

Joint pain can be debilitating whether from a #personalinjury, #caraccident, #slipandfall, #work injury, sports injury or just plain aging. How we deal with it can be the most important decision we make. I found the cure for me.

Typically, after suffering joint pain, traditional medicine would suggest we have an x-ray and do some physical therapy or chiropractic care and quite possibly surgery. Our younger selves or coaches might say “walk it off.”

I was faced with this decision after an injury (#MCLtear) that I suffered in August 2018 training my daughters for a 7-minute mile so they could make the varsity field hockey team. That injury only got worse overtime causing arthritis to develop. I began walking with a pronounced limp and a tremendous amount of frustration that limited my ability to ride a bike, run or even walk. I was waking up several times a night, something I had never done before.

I needed to address this injury. I spoke to a friend that is an orthopedic surgeon who I respect and he told me that he would not touch me without an MRI but that surgery might be an option based on my symptoms. Living with the pain until August 2020, I finally threw up my hands and resigned myself to surgery when I could barely walk down stairs.

I turned to my PCP, who evaluated me and ordered an MRI. The MRI was promptly denied by the insurance company (in 3 days). They wanted me to have an x-ray and undergo physical therapy before considering me for an MRI. I knew that was just a six month delay that I could not accept. My PCP said they would appeal the decision of the insurance company.  I don’t know how long that usually takes, but,  but I have yet to hear from them (7 weeks later).

In frustration, as I was driving home listening to WBZ radio 1030 am and a commercial came on –  #Prolotherapy and #DrAlbertFranchi, were on the radio along with #TedJohnson promoting this relatively non-invasive injection. I jotted the phone number down and the next day I was on the phone with Dr. Franchi, not his office but the doctor himself! He told me to come to his office in Stoneham a few days later and have a consult.

Based on the pain I would have went anywhere. I drove to Stoneham and met with #DrFranchi and  agreed to start the process. The injections that I received were not steroids nor would they cause any further damage to the knee. I went into this hopeful, however, but without an expectation of a miracle cure. – within 24 hours of the first injection, I lost my limp and the pain subsided. I was golfing the very next day!! Over the course of the next 5 weeks I progressively got better to the point where I began running again. I am now pain free.

If anyone asks me and even if they don’t, #Prolotherapy and #DrFranchi are worth the chance that you can live free from pain. I am told that this therapy works for just about every joint whether it is a shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee, ankle, or foot. Give it a “shot” what have you got to lose but a little pain.

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These issues can be exacerbated when responding police leap to factual conclusions by accepting the factual position of one party at the scene or inferences that can be drawn from the point of impact on the roadway. This is exactly what happened to one of our recent clients. He was involved in a head on collision with another car. The collision occurred in the other car’s lane. When the police arrived, based on their conversations with the operators, and their determination that the collision occurred in the woman’s lane of travel, they immediately began to focus on our client as the cause of the collision.

This changed, however, when our client was able to recover enough from the collision to point the police in the direction of his dash cam video. This shows that as the vehicles approached each other head on, the woman strayed into the oncoming lane as she was rounding a curve to her right. With about 3 seconds to respond, the other inexperienced driver instinctively tried to evade to the left. When the woman corrected back into her lane, the collision occurred causing our client’s car to spin off the road. The police determined the woman was at fault. Ultimately, we were able to recover fair monetary damages for our client.

The post Machines Have No Motive to Lie – Dash Cam Video appeared first on Boston Injury Attorney Blog.

There can be little dispute about the fact that many college and university students are under 25 years of age. While, as a society, U.S. jurisdictions typically set the age of adulthood at 18 years old, modern brain science has confirmed what the auto-rental industry has long known. Major brain development ends around age 25, well after the age of “adulthood.” Our IHEs concentrate these still-developing, young adults in environments that are fraught with risks that are in many ways unique to colleges and universities due to their mission of serving this concentrated population. These students “neurocircuitry remains structurally and functionally vulnerable to impulsive sex, food, and sleep habits” and are “highly vulnerable to driving under the influence of alcohol and social maladjustments due to an immature limbic system and prefrontal cortex.” As noted by the authors of Maturation of the adolescent brain “[a]dolescents may become involved with offensive crimes, irresponsible behavior, unprotected sex, juvenile courts, or even prison. According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the major cause of death among the teenage population is due to injury and violence related to sex and substance abuse.”

The recent case of Doe v. Boston University, raises these issues in the context of the sexual assault of a young female student in her dorm room. As set forth in that case, during the Head of the Charles weekend in 2015, two unescorted MIT students entered 11 unlocked rooms in Boston University’s Student Village 2 dormitory, before they encountered Jane Doe, who was asleep in her bed. One the intruders sexually assaulted Doe. He reportedly pled guilty and was sentenced to five years of probation.

The post Heinlein Beeler Mingace & Heineman, P.C. on College and University Negligence and Liability – 1A on National Public Radio and the Boston Globe appeared first on Boston Injury Attorney Blog.

At the time of the collision, the three injured teens were passengers in a car operated by their teenaged friend. The collision occurred at a curve on a two-lane road less than 1/2 mile from their high school in Kingston, Massachusetts. Evidence from the trial suggested that the car was traveling at about 30 m.p.h. prior to the collision; the school bus, which was not carrying children at the time, was traveling at about 34 m.p.h.

Following the collision, both the bus and car ended up in the school bus’s southbound lane.  Due to their extensive injuries, none of the occupants of the car ever recovered their memories of the events leading up to the collision or the collision itself. At the scene of the collision, responding law enforcement officers had access to the bus driver who sustained minor injuries, and two eye witnesses, who also worked for the bus company. In fact, every “eye witness,” whose perspectives were a function of where they were on the curve and traffic in front of them, claimed that the car left its lane, entered the oncoming lane, and hit the bus. Criminal authorities quickly concluded that the car driver was at fault for the collision. The car driver, who never had a memory of events, was prosecuted and eventually accepted responsibility for her car being in the wrong lane.

The post Largest Personal Injury Verdict in Massachusetts for the Years 2019-2021 appeared first on Boston Injury Attorney Blog.

This simple motto can save so many people from so much harm.  I heard the Boston Police Commissioner say it on the news last night in reference to the two young women who were recently abducted after leaving two local bars in Boston.  It applies in so many areas of life, however. An example of a recent case handled by HBMH Law comes to mind.

In a recent case in Worcester County a female parishioner at the St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church sought marital and spiritual counseling from the parish priest, Father Charles Michael Abdelahad (Fr. Michael).  Over the course of the treatment Fr. Michael, abusing his position of authority and dominance over the parishioner, convinced her that she was possessed by demons and that she was repressing memories of having been sexually abused by her father.

The post See Something, Say Something! appeared first on Boston Injury Attorney Blog.

Given the Supreme Judicial Court’s recent ruling in Nguyen v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 479 Mass. 436 (2018), (another case handled by HBMHlaw), the attorneys at HBMHlaw believe the evidence will show that Harvard and its employees failed to take reasonable and appropriate steps to prevent this tragedy.  In the Nguyen decision, the SJC held that where a university or its employees have actual knowledge of a student’s prior suicide attempt while enrolled at the college, the college and employees have a special relationship with the student and a corresponding duty to take reasonable measures to protect the student from self-harm. Luke Tang attempted suicide at Harvard during his freshman year and the lawsuit filed alleges that Harvard and its employees failed to obey the requirements set forth in the Nguyen decision.

For most people involved in lawsuits, the thought of litigation is daunting and viewed as the great unknown.  Lawsuits are complicated, time consuming and have many twists and turns.   It is the intention of HBMHlaw in the coming days to launch a new webpage designed to provide a real-world example of such litigation to educate those who might be considering bringing such a claim as to what to expect and what such a lawsuit involves.  People interested in learning about the process will have real-time access to all public filings and all discovery conducted in the case from interrogatories (written questions) and documents exchanged to deposition testimony.  Further, there are often times when the lawyers disagree about how the case should proceed or what they need to disclose to the other side.  These disputes typically result in one party filing a motion with the court to have the court order the other party to do, or stop them from doing something they want to occur.  HBMHlaw will provide access to all phases of the litigation process in an attempt to share with people what actually occurs during the time their case is in the court system.

The post Preventing Student Suicide: The Anatomy of a Lawsuit appeared first on Boston Injury Attorney Blog.

Natural gas is marketed as cleaner, more efficient and often less costly for the consumer than alternatives like oil.Natural gas is delivered to these homes and businesses through an infrastructure of pipelines, many of them aging, and leaks are not uncommon. It is the flammability of the gas that makes it a useful fuel source. That same flammability and explosiveness, however, is what can lead to explosions, fires, death, injury and property damage.

It appears that such an event happened in the Massachusetts communities of Andover, North Andover and Lawrence on September 13, 2018. Reportedly more than 80 homes and businesses were impacted and many were seriously damaged by the 60 resultant fires. More tragically, one person is reported dead after debris from a chimney hit the car he was in when a building exploded. At least 25 others were injured in the fires. While it will no doubt take some time to determine the cause and origin of the fires and explosions, reports indicate that federal safety experts will be investigating and that state officials have been looking into the gas supply system operated by Columbia Gas which may have pushed high-pressured natural gas into a low-pressure section of the network. Columbia Gas has been working to address its 8,600 customers in the area. As a result of the incident, 18,000 customers are without electricity and as of the morning of September 14, 2018 road access to the City of Lawrence had been cut off by officials. Many institutions, including schools and the state Courts have been closed.

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