The city of San Diego has agreed to a $500,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed over an off-duty police shooting of a young boy in 2008. The boy was shot once in the leg during a “road rage” altercation between his mother, who had been driving drunk, and an off-duty officer. The lawsuit was filed by the boy’s father, who was stationed in Iraq at the time of the incident.

A Pennsylvania jury has awarded $500,000 to a Middleton, Penn., woman after a nurse at Lower Bucks Hospital left a sponge in her abdomen during a cesarean-section delivery. The plaintiff experienced abdominal pain after her procedure, which was initially thought to be simply post-procedure discomfort. It was not until two months after the surgery, the suit claims, that the sponge was discovered when the woman was forced back into the hospital with severe stomach pain.

Hotel heir Barron Hilton will pay $4.9 million to a former gas station attendant in California who was hit by Hilton’s car during a drunk driving accident in 2008. When Hilton was arrested, he had a blood-alcohol-content level of 0.14 and was 18 years old. The attorney for the man injured said he suffered permanent disabilities because of the incident.

Medical device manufacturer Miltex Inc. will pay $4.6 million to a California family for its involvement in a botched circumcision in 2003. The lawsuit claimed the clamp made by Miltex used in the procedure was defective and caused the accident. The procedure on the week-old baby was preformed at a Los Angeles clinic by a doctor without malpractice insurance.

A New York woman will receive $125,000 from the city of New York after she accused a New York City police officer of denying her insulin. According to the suit, the woman was arrested and jailed for 19 hours for smoking marijuana. While jailed, the officer refused to give the plaintiff her insulin, causing her blood sugar to reach dangerously high levels and nearly killing her.

The Viking Range Corporation has agreed to pay $450,000 in civil penalties for failing to report defects in one of its refrigerator lines that led to consumer injuries. The company recalled the products in June 2009, but an investigation discovered that injuries had been reported to Viking several years before the recall was issued. Federal law requires manufacturers, distributors and retailers to report information supporting potential injury risks within 24 hours.

Two Austin, Texas, residents have filed a lawsuit against the W Hotel and its operator after panels of glass fell 20 stories into the pool area, injuring the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs claim that weeks later they are “still removing glass from their bodies.” According to the lawsuit, the hotel was aware of potential problems with the glass before the incident, but had done nothing to ensure safety of its guests.

A Massachusetts family has filed a lawsuit against the companies that installed and maintained an escalator at Auburn Mall over the death of the family’s four-year-old boy. In March, the boy was pulled into a gap between the escalator and a plexiglass barrier, and he fell a story down to the ground below. The suit alleges the companies involved failed to install a small barrier to close the gap in 2009, despite it being called for in the plans and permits issued by the city. The lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages.

A Houston, Texas, woman has filed a lawsuit against CenterPoint Energy, claiming the company and others are responsible for a two-car accident that killed her eight-month-old daughter in May. According to the lawsuit, the stoplight at the intersection where the accident occurred was not working due to maintenance by the company, which led to the accident. “The sole reason this accident happened was because they didn’t advise anyone nor did they take steps to control the traffic once they turned out the lights,” the plaintiff’s lawyer told the Houston Chronicle. The suit is seeking unspecified damages.

An Iowa family has filed a lawsuit against Mercy Medical Center and two local doctors for failing to notice the signs of abuse in their adopted son. The boy was brought into the hospital in July 2009 by his biological parents with “a bleeding brain and at least 15 old and new rib fractures” caused by abuse. Just three weeks earlier, the boy was in the same hospital with a broken arm, and the suit alleges doctors declined to look for any additional injuries or probe into the true cause of the injury. The brain bleed left the child severely brain damaged.