Judge clears 'Housewives' firing lawsuit for trial

Headline Legal News

A jury should decide whether Nicollette Sheridan's character was unfairly written out of the hit show "Desperate Housewives," a judge ruled Tuesday.

With the actress looking on, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White tossed a couple of Sheridan's claims but said there was enough of a dispute about what led to her ouster for the case to go to trial next month.

Sheridan sued ABC and "Housewives" creator and executive producer Marc Cherry in April 2010, claiming he struck her during a fight in September 2008 and subjected her to sexual and other harassment.

Adam Levin, an attorney for the network and Cherry, argued Tuesday that the decision to kill off Sheridan's character, Edie Britt, was made months before her argument with the show executive. He said the decision was made by Cherry and a small group in May 2008 and kept from others on the show to avoid ruining the surprise.

Sheridan's attorney, Mark Baute, disagreed and said the network's justification that it was a cost-cutting move didn't make sense since Sheridan's character was killed off in a car accident in the middle of the season and she was still owed hundreds of thousands of dollars on her contract.

Related listings

  • Polygamous church dispute may head to Utah court

    Polygamous church dispute may head to Utah court

    Headline Legal News 05/02/2011

    An internal tug-of-war over control of jailed polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs' southern Utah-based church may force Utah courts to walk a constitutional tightrope that experts say could tread a little too close to separation of church and state. ...

  • Insurer settles suit with former USU frat members

    Insurer settles suit with former USU frat members

    Headline Legal News 05/02/2011

    A Georgia insurance company that paid a wrongful death claim on behalf of a former Utah State University fraternity has settled the lawsuit it brought against four of the fraternity's members. The Herald Journal of Logan reports that attorneys for RS...

  • Iowa court reverses child endangerment conviction

    Iowa court reverses child endangerment conviction

    Headline Legal News 04/28/2011

    The Iowa Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a mother who has been imprisoned for nearly four years after being found guilty of injuring her young son, basing its decision on the boy's newfound ability to speak and claim he was...

Does a car or truck accident count as a work injury?

If an employee is injured in a car crash while on the job, they are eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits. “On the job” injuries are not limited to accidents and injuries that happen inside the workplace, they may also include injuries suffered away from an employee’s place of work while performing a job-related task, such as making a delivery or traveling to a client meeting.

Regular commutes to and from work don’t usually count. If you get into an accident on your way in on a regular workday, it’s probably not considered a work injury for the purposes of workers’ compensation.

If you drive around as part of your job, an injury on the road or loading/unloading accident is likely a work injury. If you don’t typically drive around for work but are required to drive for the benefit of your employer, that would be a work injury in many cases. If you are out of town for work, pretty much any driving would count as work related. For traveling employees, any accidents or injuries that happen on a work trip, even while not technically working, can be considered a work injury. The reason is because you wouldn’t be in that town in the first place, had you not been on a work trip.

Workers’ compensation claims for truck drivers, traveling employees and work-related injuries that occur away from the job site can be challenging and complex. At Krol, Bongiorno & Given, we understand that many families depend on the income of an injured worker, and we are proud of our record protecting the injured and disabled. We have handled well over 30,000 claims for injured workers throughout the state of Illinois.

Business News