In the NEWS

The Oregonian | By Kristine de Leon | May 5, 2023 Safeway has agreed to pay up to $8.75 million to settle a class action lawsuit over allegations that the grocer improperly passed a Portland clean energy tax on to shoppers. Two Safeway customers sued last year, accusing the grocer of adding a surcharge to Portland patrons’ total. The added line item was apparently in response to 1% city tax on certain large retailers tied to the Portland Clean Energy

Willamette Week | By Lucas Manfield | May 3, 2023 Sometimes, Portland apartment complexes become such dumps that the city has no choice but to intervene. Such was the case last year at the cluster of single-story duplexes on the banks of Johnson Creek in the Lents neighborhood in Southeast Portland. After two years of neglect, the property’s septic system backed up, flooding the surrounding property and—a lawsuit alleges—soiling the neighboring watershed with sewage. “I couldn’t even open my windows

Fox 12 News | By Soyoung Kim | May 1, 2023 A target employee is facing charges for invasion of privacy after allegedly filming a mom and her four-year-old son inside the bathroom at a local store. The mom said she feels compelled to share their experience to keep others safe. The family said it happened at the Target on Southeast Sunnyside Road in Clackamas. They said they don’t feel enough was done to help protect them. The mom said

Portland Tribune | By Anna Del Savio | February 27, 2023 A judge has refused Mercy Corps’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the international relief charity by the daughter of its co-founder. Tania Culver Humphrey said that her father, Ellsworth Culver, sexually abused her for years, and that Mercy Corps leaders were informed of the abuse but allowed Culver to remain in his role at the nonprofit. Humphrey’s allegations were first made public in a 2019 Oregonian investigation,

The Oregonian | By Mike Rogoway | February 22, 2023 Marijuana giant Curaleaf has agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit over a 2021 manufacturing blunder in which the company sold CBD wellness drops in Oregon that contained THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Several people reported alarming symptoms after taking the drops, sold under Curaleaf’s Select brand. CBD isn’t supposed to contain significant levels of any mind-altering substance, but the drops sold last year had a jumbo

Willamette Week | By Lucas Manfield | February 09, 2023 What began as a civil stalking lawsuit has become a $10 million accusation of wrongful death after Kenneth Fandrich, 56, was found dead Jan. 31 in a parking garage on the Intel campus where he worked. The defendant, Steve Milner, 55, was arrested by Hillsboro police and charged with Fandrich’s murder last week. Fandrich was killed by “blunt trauma to the neck,” according to the legal complaint. Milner pleaded not

The Oregonian | By Zane Sparling | February 01, 2023 A retired veterinarian accused of obsessively stalking the husband of a woman with whom he had an affair was arrested Tuesday on charges of killing the man. Steven N. Milner, 55, was already facing charges for allegedly violating a stalking order to keep away from Kenneth C. Fandrich when Fandrich was found dead last Friday in his car at Intel’s Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro, according to police and court

Central Oregonian | By Joe Siess | January 5, 2023 The estate of Nick Rodin, the man shot and killed by a Crook County sheriff’s deputy last year, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court Sunday. The complaint names the county and sheriff’s deputy Steven Hatcher, who shot and killed Rodin on Maphet Road south of Prineville, according to attorney Michael Fuller, of the Underdog Law Office in Portland, who is representing Rodin’s estate. On Feb. 4, 2022, Hatcher

Portland Business Journal | By Elizabeth Hayes | December 8, 2022 For Michael Fuller, one verdict stands out among his five cases that went to trial in 2022. It wasn’t an eye-popping dollar amount, nor was the client high profile or the judgment precedent setting. But Rebekkah Krech vs. PacifiCap Management Inc. goes to the heart of the “underdog law” for which Fuller named his practice. Krech, a single mom on a fixed income, alleged that her former landlord violated

Willamette Week | By Lucas Manfield | September 18, 2022 The harassment began five years ago with a piece of hate mail, sent to Kenneth Fandrich’s Oregon City home. It was disguised as a letter from his union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Then, someone broke into Fandrich’s truck and left a condom wrapper under a pair of his wife’s work gloves. By the time the Clackamas County bomb squad arrived to remove a large suspicious device from underneath