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THE DAILY HERALD
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FRIDAY, 08.22.2014
Court rules against state in health benefits case By Rachel La Corte Associated Press
OLYMPIA — The state Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously upheld a lower court’s ruling that
says that damages to be paid to part-time state employees who were wrongfully denied health benefits must take into account more than actual out-of-pocket costs. The high court’s unanimous ruling sided with a class-action group’s stance on such damages, and it rejected the Washington Health Care Authority’s argument that the state
should only pay for actual costs paid by class members during the time they were denied benefits. “People without health benefits are less likely to seek and obtain medical treatment, especially preventive care,” the opinion, written by Justice Susan Owens, reads. “The State would use this fact as a reason to use a lower estimate of the
damage it caused to the employees to whom it improperly denied health benefits. But those lower short-term medical costs have significant longterm consequences, both medical and financial, to uninsured individuals.” The employees proposed three options to measure the damages due to them: what the state should have paid in health
Convicts get more access to DNA testing
Associated Press
LARRY STEAGALL / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Fairly friendly Little cowpoke Reuben Bond, 5, of Poulsbo, pets 9-day-old pygmy goat Ryder held by Susan Drinnon, of Brownsville, at the Kitsap County Fair and Stampede in Bremerton on Wednesday. The other goat is Daisy.
Parks may bring back grizzlies Associated Press
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SEATTLE — The National Park Service said Thursday it will consider moving grizzly bears into the North Cascade Mountains of Washington state to aid their recovery. The agency is launching a three-year process to study a variety of options for helping their
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See HEALTH, Page A7
Several counties are splitting a bounty of humvees, grenade launchers and armored trucks.
By Gene Johnson Josh O’Connor, Publisher Neal Pattison, Executive Editor Peter Jackson, Editorial Page Editor Pilar Linares, Advertising Director
court held off on ruling on an award because of questions that remained, including about the size of the class. The case now heads back to King County. The high court noted that while they affirmed the King County’s court’s decision to reject the state’s method to measure
Military gear goes to Oregon law officers
Associated Press OLYMPIA — Washington’s Supreme Court is expanding convicts’ access to DNA testing that could prove their innocence. In a 6-3 ruling Thursday, the justices ordered DNA testing for Lindsey Crumpton, who was convicted of repeatedly raping a 75-year-old Bremerton woman in 1993. Crumpton was arrested running near the woman’s house, carrying bedding smeared with blood and jewelry the woman identified as hers. State law says that postconviction DNA tests can be ordered when a convict shows that DNA evidence would more probably than not demonstrate innocence. The question in Crumpton’s case was whether judges should presume that DNA evidence would be favorable to the defendant. The majority reversed two lower courts in saying they should. The three dissenting justices said the law includes no such presumption.
benefits per employee as part of overall compensation; the amount the state saved by failing to provide benefits to the employees; and the amount the state would have paid in healthcare costs for employees as a group had they been covered. The King County Superior Court ruling found in favor of the plaintiffs in December 2012, but the
population. Director Jonathan B. Jarvis said the process is required under federal law but no decision had been made. Native American tribes and conservation groups have pressed for years for the federal government to do more to bring back the bears. “It marks the potential turning point in the decades-long decline of the last grizzly bears
remaining on the U.S. West Coast,” Joe Scott, international conservation director of Conservation Northwest, said in a written statement. “Without recovery efforts, these bears may soon be gone forever.” Federal authorities listed the grizzly bear as threatened in the lower 48 states in 1975 and See BEARS, Page A7
Congratulations August Employee Of The
C D
Month
ongratulations to Dan Frye, Bickford Motors’ August employee of the month.
an has been with Bickford Ford for over 3 years. In his role as one of our lot attendants, he takes care of organizing, displaying and merchandising all of our new and used vehicle inventory.
W
hen Dan is not at work he enjoys spending time with his friends and playing his guitar.
Thank you, Dan! Our People Make the Bickford Difference
SALEM — Oregon law enforcement officers have gotten $10.7 million worth of military gear from the federal government in a program that’s gained prominence as a result of the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. The program donates or lends armored vehicles, rifles, body armor and other equipment to local authorities, The Bulletin newspaper of Bend reported. The weapons are no longer needed for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other international conflicts that increasingly rely on automated warfare. The Deschutes County sheriff’s department has gotten an armored truck, four grenade launchers, night vision scopes, rifles and magazine cartridges, and body armor, said Capt. Erik Utter. Much of
the gear, valued at nearly $385,000, is used for a tactical unit formed five years ago, he said. “We know for a fact that the weapons we carry in our vehicles, that citizens in the community have access to those same kinds of weapons,” Utter said. The grenade launchers, he said, are used for smoke and tear gas, not live grenades. The newspaper said a review of the distributions shows the Lane County sheriff’s office has gotten, or gotten approval for, more free equipment than any other agency in the state — $2.2 million worth. Sgt. Carrie Carver, a spokeswoman in Lane County, said there are regular situations in which the department uses its five Humvees, but most of the equipment isn’t used on See GEAR, Page A7
Oregon teen sentenced for torturing his friend By Steven Dubois Associated Press
PORTLAND — An Oregon teenager who carved a swastika into another teen’s forehead as he and others tortured the boy has been sentenced to 11 years in prison. In a Portland courtroom Thursday, 16-year-old Blue Kalmbach told the victim in a barely audible voice that he was “very sincerely sorry.” Kalmbach was the last of four teenagers to be sentenced in the case. “It’s almost impossible to imagine this could happen between friends, but it did,” Multnomah County Judge Jean Kerr Maurer said when accepting Kalmbach’s guilty pleas on kidnapping, robbery and assault charges. Police and prosecutors said the teens spent the evening before the February attack sketching out ideas for torturing the victim. Before Kalmbach carved the swastika with a box-cutter style of knife, they shot the victim with a BB gun, forced him to eat cat feces and hit with him a crow bar and cricket-type bat. The victim, bangs covering his forehead, sat with his mother and girlfriend in court. He did not make a statement or speak with reporters. His mother said
the scar has mostly healed, but her son, who turned 17 on Wednesday, has nightmares. She said he plans to attend an alternative high school this fall and study to become an auto mechanic. “The biggest question I have is: How can anyone do this to another human being?” she said in court. Later, she told reporters her son has yet to forgive Kalmbach, who once was his best friend. “(He’s) still very angry, as I am,” she said. The Associated Press is withholding the mother’s name to avoid identifying the victim. Public defender Casey Kovacic said the case is more complex than what has been reported. He described Kalmbach as a “deeply, deeply depressed kid” who has never fit in. A statement from Kalmbach’s parents said there’s no excuse for what happened, but their son was in and out of therapy before the attack. The victim’s mother, however, has said the bad blood began when a girl broke up with Kalmbach and started dating her son. The violence began when 15-year-old Jenna Montgomery invited the victim to hang out with her. After See TEEN, Page A7
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Thousands of employees are eligible for damages, attorney says.