NURSING HOME ACQUITTAL In a case dating from 2017, a judge has granted an acquittal of a nursing home administrator for the manslaughter of nine residents. During Hurricane Irma, the nursing home lost power and temperatures rose to 99 degrees over the space of 62 hours. It was determined that the excessive heat was the cause of death.
TIKTOK VIDEO Four Manatee County high schoolers were arrested by the sheriff’s department after they posted videos that depicted them shooting classmates with a virtual Nerf gun using a Tiktok filter. They were charged with a second-degree felony of making electronic threats to kill, injure or conduct a mass shooting. A judge ruled that while insensitive, they did not imply an actual threat of harm. He released them after three days in a juvenile detention center.
MEDICAL MARIJUANA LICENSE A Florida administrative law judge ruled that the family of a deceased black farmer was not entitled to the pending medical marijuana license. The farmer had received the top score from the Florida Department of Health, but the department rejected the application once the man died.
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION HEATH CARE An administrative law judge has rejected a challenge by workers’ compensation insurance companies to a state proposal that would set payment amounts for inpatient care at hospitals. The case centered, at least in part, on what are known as “maximum reimbursement allowances,” or MRAs, that would help determine how much workers’ compensation insurers pay to hospitals for inpatient care. The judge wrote that the proposed rule was “supported by logic, the necessary facts, was adopted with thought and reason and is rational.”