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Originally reported by David Smith in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

RUSSELLVILLE - A crane lifting a 525-ton generator stator - a large stationary enclosure where electricity is generated - collapsed March 31, leading to the death of a worker and shutting down Arkansas Nuclear One for four weeks, a team of federal officials reported Thursday.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's "augmented inspection team" has studied the accident for weeks but has not issued a final report about the accident and the response to it by Entergy Arkansas, which owns the state's only nuclear facility.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration also is conducting an investigation and has yet to release a final report, said Geoffrey Miller, a commission branch chief in Arlington, Texas.

The plant's Unit 2 nuclear reactor returned to service April 28, but Unit 1 has been offline since March 24, when a scheduled refueling shutdown began.
Miller spoke to a crowd of about 90 people Thurs- day afternoon at a training center near the plant.

The accident killed Wade Walters, 24, an employee with a contracting firm helping to move the generator stator, and injured eight other workers.

Nine members of Walters' family attended Thursday's meeting, along with two attorneys from the Bailey & Oliver Law Firm of Rogers, which is representing the family.

The family is still in "complete shock," said Sach Oliver, the lead attorney representing the Walters family.

"And they don't even know it," Oliver said. "It's almost like Wade is on another job and hasn't come home yet, it hasn't hit them yet."

Walters "lived life to the fullest" and enjoyed the outdoors, said his mother, Susan Allen, in an interview after the meeting. A graduate of Pottsville High School, Walters had worked as an ironworker for the contractor and enjoyed his work, Allen said.

Workers were moving the stator with the crane at 7:49 a.m. on Easter Sunday when the crane "physically collapsed" and the stator fell to the floor in a nonnuclear area of the plant, Miller said in an interview after the meeting.

"It was over within seconds," said Miller, who said the commission is unsure why the crane failed. It should have been able to handle the weight, he said.

Immediately, workers at the plant called ambulances and other emergency vehicles, Miller said.

With the collapse, offsite power was stopped and Unit 2 was shut down, he said.
Damage caused by the stator's fall allowed water to get into an electric breaker box, causing a small explosion at 9:23 a.m., Miller said.

The explosion caused workers at the plant to report an "unusual event," the lowest level of danger, at 10:33 a.m.

But at all times, the commission's inspectors determined, Arkansas Nuclear One's plant safety systems responded as designed after the accident and Entergy Arkansas workers responded as they should have, Miller said.

Questions about what caused the crane's collapse, whether the accident could have been prevented and the chronology of events are still being considered by the two federal agencies, Miller said.

The agencies will release more reports on the accident at later dates, Miller said.
There are at least 10 items the commission will address in further inspections, Miller said. The commission was required to issue a written report of the inspection in 30 days.

This entry was posted on June 10, 2013

It’s been more than a year now that Danny and Tammy Cox have sat at their table, watered the flowers in the yard or simply chilled out in their favorite sitting spot.

It’s been more than a year that their home caught fire and burned, leaving a blackened, charred shell.

Now, the Coxes are suing their insurance company, who says the home wasn’t totally destroyed and could be remodeled.

Danny and Tammy Cox disagree.

Their attorney, Scott Davidson of Davidson Law Firm of Batesville, filed a “bad faith” and breach of insurance contract lawsuit against the Automobile Insurance Company of Hartford, Conn., saying it “has broken its promise” to them. Their mortgage holder, Citibank, required the owners to carry and pay for homeowners insurance on their home, and the Coxes ended up paying “thousands of dollars in insurance premiums” to the insurance company, referred to as “Hartford” in the lawsuit.

The Coxes’ home at 990 College St. caught fire on Nov. 11, 2011 from flammable solvents that “were being used by workers who were doing a construction project on a part of the house,” the lawsuit states, going on to add that the house was gutted and was a total loss.

The Coxes are also being represented by Sach Oliver, trial lawyer with Bailey & Oliver Law Firm in Rogers.

The Coxes bought the College Street home in 1998. Since the fire, they have been living in their cabin located outside of Cushman.

Though the cabin is smaller than what they are used to, they do feel blessed they’d built it. “If they didn’t have that, they would be in a real bind,” Oliver said.

The couple are empty nesters and had discussed selling the College Street house and downsizing.

“They hadn’t gotten to that point yet but that was their long-term goal,” Oliver continued.

But even more than being out of their home for a year and a half now, Oliver said, “The worst part is going through this process, paying premiums for years ... and now the insurance company doesn’t want to pay.

“They are having to deal with this by no fault of their own. ... They feel awful about that eyesore — they are doing everything they can to get this moved.”

The insurance company — which lists assets on its website in the billions of dollars — is “dragging out, I call it doomsday, where they have to pay.”

Meanwhile, the Coxes have worked with the city to put safety measures, Oliver said, adding, “They don’t want any children to get hurt. ... That thing looks like it could collapse at any time, it’s unsafe and it’s an eyesore.”

The lawsuit states that at the time of the loss, Arkansas homeowners, including the Coxes, were protected by a “‘Valued Policy Law,’ which provided that when a house is a total loss, an insurance company is required to pay the full amount stated in the policy or the full amount upon which the company charges, collects, or receives a premium.” Hartford refused.

The Coxes are seeking judgement for the loss, valued at $318,903, as well as attorney’s fees.

Furthermore, at the time of the fire the Coxes were renting a portion of their house to Brad and Paige Barham for $500 a month. “Following the fire the portion of the house that was being rented was not fit to live in,” the suit states, so the Coxes feel they are entitled to the loss of the use and fair rental damages under the policy amount of $500 a month since the date of the fire, up to the policy limit of $31,900.

Under Arkansas law, the suit states, the Coxes are entitled to recover an additional 12 percent upon the amount of loss.

The lawsuit also states that Hartford:

• violated the law by attempting to invoke language that had been deleted from the Coxes’ original policy.
• tried to collect premiums on property destroyed by fire and turned the Coxes over to collections when they refused to pay.
• ignored proof that the house was a total loss and refused to consider whether it would be more cost-effective to tear down and rebuild the house rather than attempt repairs.
• misrepresented facts of insurance policy revisions relating to coverage in violation of the law.
• engaged in unfair claims practices by refusing to pay claims without conducting a reasonable investigation based upon all available information.
• did not attempt in good faith to settle claims “in which liability has become reasonably clear” in a prompt, fair and equitable manner.
• dealt dishonestly with the Coxes in the valuation of loss.
• failed to provide requested documents necessary to make bad claims.
• failed to hire competent employees, agents, adjusters and/or staff, and failed to properly train and supervise them.
• put in place personnel policies and procedures, compensation programs and bonus incentive programs for its claims employees based on improper goals.
• failed to keep its policies and procedures up to industry standards. “Instead, for the purposes of increasing profits, Defendant Hartford and its parent companies put in place claims manuals, systems operating manuals, agents’ manuals, and training manuals and materials designed to oppress and teach unfair claims practices in order to increase profits,” the suit states.

Because Hartford “intentionally and maliciously pursued a course of conduct in bad faith for the purpose of avoiding liability for a claim properly owed the plaintiffs,” the Coxes are seeking punitive damages as well.

Hartford denies the allegations.

A jury trial is sought and is tentatively scheduled for federal court in Batesville, beginning Nov. 4.

“I think they’re very frustrated. They feel cheated — it’s not just a house they lost but a home of memories, where their children played on Christmas morning, photographs on the wall, where they had some of their favorite memories, taken from them. Then to have this fight, it’s made it a very frustrating, unfair situation,” Oliver said.

“It’s one of the reasons why the Coxes feel it is necessary to move forward with litigation. They feel if big insurance can do it to them, they can do it to anyone and they don’t want that to happen.”

This entry was posted on May 29, 2013

This entry was posted on May 17, 2013

For years lawyers did not advertise.  Lawyers thought it was below their dignity to advertise their services.  Doctors didn’t advertise, so why should lawyers.  In fact, many states had ethical rules against advertising.

Then came Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, a United States Supreme Court case, which upheld the right of lawyers to advertise.  The Court upset the tradition against advertising by lawyers, rejecting it as an antiquated rule of etiquette.  That was in 1977.

A few law firms began to advertise, but the vast majority of law firms believed it was still beneath their dignity to advertise.  The firms that did advertise began to take business away from the firms that were rooted in the past.  As things changed more and more lawyers found it was not only beneficial to the public for the lawyer to advertise their expertise and experience, but it was also beneficial to the law firm to allow it to concentrate on a particular area of the law.

At Bailey and Oliver we were slow to join the law firms that advertise.  At first we had a small ad in the phone book…then we had a webpage, then we had a billboard with our pictures on it.  It wasn’t until early last year that we saw the light.

My law partner, Sach Oliver, was speaking to a group of lawyers in California about how to take depositions.  During a break, Sach stumbled onto a book by John Morgan, You Can’t Teach Hungry.  Apparently, someone had left it at a table.  Sach thumbed through a couple of chapters and immediately called me and said we had to get a copy.

That is how we found out about a fantastic marketing firm, PMP.  We learned that John Morgan had been so successful that he started his own marketing firm, Practice Made Perfect, or PMP.  We contacted PMP and set up a meeting with Kaci Bloemers, PMP’s managing partner.

In the past we had worked with a few companies on our website and thought we had a pretty good site.  We were shocked when Kaci told us about numerous problems with our site.  We asked for references and Kaci gave us the name of other PMP clients.  Each one sang the praises of PMP.  Sach and I decided to make a commitment to air 10 televisions spots in our local market.

Sach went to Florida to shoot the spots.  We all loved the natural way the spots, which are currently airing in our local market, looked.  Just as PMP told us, the spots and our new web site are generating so many new clients we have brought in additional staff to handle the clients.

As a side note, a couple of weeks ago, Sach and I were having lunch at a local restaurant.  The server looked at Sach and then went back into the kitchen.  A few minutes later the server came back and said, “The girls in the kitchen want to know if you are Sach Oliver”.  I can’t wait until someone asks Sach for his autograph.  Thanks, PMP.

This entry was posted on March 8, 2013

Lawyers who handle trucking cases have known for years that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is underfunded and understaffed. As citizens, we rely on the government to protect us from the carnage of a truck reeling out of control on the highway.  But, the sad truth is, the government is basically powerless when it comes to controlling trucking companies who operate with impunity.  We, at the Bailey and Oliver Law Firm, believe the only way to make our highways safer, is for juries to return a fair verdict to compensate those injured by unsafe trucks and send a message to trucking companies that it is more cost effective to run safe rigs than to pay for the carnage created by unsafe trucks.

Just this last Saturday in Kentucky six people were killed when a Highway Star, Inc. eighteen wheeler rammed into the rear of a SUV driven by James Gollnow. The trucking company had received 17 traffic violations over the two years before the wreck, but still had a slightly better record of passing safety inspections and traffic stops then the national average. 

The violations were for speeding, improper lane change, failure to wear a seatbelt, and following too closely to another vehicle, the cause of the fatal crash in Kentucky.  During the preceding two year period, 12 of 59 inspections of Highway Star’s trucks resulted in the truck being taken out of service.  That means that one out of every five Highway Star, Inc. trucks was unsafe and should not have been on the highway.  But, the astonishing thing about that is that is below the national average of inspections that result in vehicles being taken out of service during an inspection.

Highway Star, Inc. is not a small trucking company.  It owned or leased 29 trucks with 32 power units.  It owned 19 tractors and 31 trailers.  Highway Star, Inc. employed 31 drivers according to information posted on quicktransportsolutions.com.

Everyone at the Bailey and Oliver Law Firm regrets the tragic deaths in Kentucky.  We are committed to making our highways safer for families like those killed in Kentucky.

This entry was posted on March 6, 2013