Mistrial declared in BBT wrongful death civil trial

GREENSBORO A judge declared a mistrial Tuesday in a wrongful death civil trial involving BBT.

The ruling came after jurors in Guilford County Superior Court announced they were deadlocked at 7 5 and had no hope of reaching a verdict.

Attorneys for Leslie Page Gill who filed suit against BBT Insurance Services and the estate of her ex husband a BBT executive did not say if they planned on a retrial.

At issue was whether Gill s ex husband Stuart Thomas was to blame for an August 2011 car accident that killed him and their 16 year old daughter Emma Thomas.

Gill s attorneys allege that Stuart Thomas was talking business on his cellphone at the time of the accident and that BBT wiped his phone to avoid liability.

Lawyers for BBT deny that Thomas was talking on his cellphone when he crashed into the back of a tractor trailer on Interstate 40 near Mocksville.

They said Thomas phone was wiped eight days after the accident but said the practice is customary at BBT for employees who leave the company.

Jurors deliberated for about an hour Monday and two hours Tuesday morning before sending Judge Ronald E. Spivey a note saying they were deadlocked. They asked to see a transcript of the deposition or testimony of truck driver Daniel Billings whose tractor trailer Thomas crashed into hoping it might help them break the deadlock.

Billings testified last week the crash occurred after he merged into the left lane of Interstate 40 as he was approaching a construction zone. He said he did not see Thomas SUV in his mirrors.

Defense attorneys in their closing statements Monday called his account into question and showed pictures of the rear of the tractor trailer sticking into the right lane. Gill s attorney Robert J. King III said the force of the impact caused the trailer to shift.

Spivey declined the jury s request to see the deposition since it was not introduced into evidence. He also said they could not view the transcript as the court reporter who took down Billings testimony last week was out of town tending to her sick grandmother. Spivey gave the jurors additional instructions and told them to continue their deliberation.

About 3 20 p.m. jurors sent another note saying they were deadlocked. The foreman said the jury was split 7 5 but did not say which way it was leaning.

Spivey asked attorneys if they wanted to try to reach a deal. They spoke for about a half hour but did not come to an agreement.

King mentioned that the attorneys had spoken during the lunch recess but that they were not anywhere close together.

Spivey called the jury back in.

Do you consider this deadlock to be a hopeless deadlock that will never end the judge asked the jury foreman.

The foreman said yes and Spivey declared a mistrial.

I just hate it for the families on both sides of the aisle on this Spivey said. But I appreciated the way you (the attorneys) conducted yourselves. And obviously you did a good job because it almost came to a straight up tie.

Lawyers after Tuesday s proceedings declined to comment on the case or its future.

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Notre Dames Skylar Diggins gets one last shot at elusive title

Skylar Diggins has been to the Final Four twice before. She's even played in the championship game two times. But the Notre Dame senior has never hoisted the NCAA women's basketball trophy.

Diggins will get her final shot this weekend. The Fighting Irish advanced to the Final Four for a third straight year by defeating Duke 87 76 Tuesday night.

It's an opportunity the two time All American relishes.

I want to win a championship for Coach Muffet McGraw bad Diggins said of her coach who has led the Irish to one national title (2001) in 25 seasons. When you have a coach who believes in you so much I'd do anything for her.

The first thing she had to do was help dig Notre Dame out of a major deficit. The Irish trailed by as many as nine in the first half with Diggins on the bench much of the time after picking up two early fouls.

She returned to the floor with about eight minutes left in the half and hit three three pointers in just over two minutes to trim the Duke lead to just one. But the Blue Devils finished the half on a 5 0 run which didn't sit well with the Irish leader.

I think they were outworking us said Diggins who finished with 24 points. I've never seen that from my team. ... I couldn't wait to get in that locker room. We had to light a fire.

Diggins did her part hitting another three pointer early in the second half to spark a 15 2 run that put Notre Dame in control for good and ready for yet another showdown with rival Connecticut in the national semifinals.

Notre Dame has defeated the Huskies the previous two years in the same round and swept their three game series this season. But a high stakes game against one of the most storied teams in women's basketball is never easy.

We're enjoying the moment right now Diggins said when asked about the looming showdown with UConn. We'll talk about that later.

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Alan Ashby apologizes (kind of) for Yu Darvish remark on Astros broadcast

(AP)

No matter what Houston Astros broadcaster Alan Ashby meant to say he should have known better.

Ashby issued a conditional apology Wednesday a day after he jokingly suggested that Yu Darvish losing a perfect game with two outs in the ninth inning should force a guy to learn some of the language here in America. Probably as in $ % I just lost a perfect game

Watch the broadcast here to get a better idea of the context.

Darvish was raised in Japan and while teammates say his English is conversationally excellent (he tries to speak Spanish too) he prefers to do interviews in Japanese with a translator. His understandable choice also can give an unfortunate impression to some that he doesn't care to learn English. And misconceptions like that can set off all sorts of ugly populist alarms.

Even if Ashby is ignorant of Darvish's linguistic agility what he said was silly and colleague Geoff Blum even said as much in the booth at the time. Here's a transcript of the relevant part of the broadcast via the Four DVRs blog in the Houston Chronicle

Blum Man. Gosh that has got to be a tough pill to swallow.

Ashby That ll force a guy to learn some of the language here in America.

Blum Some of the more inappropriate language. I m loving it. They probably learn that instantly coming over here. But that was a fantastic performance.

Of course Japanese ballplayers playing in North America know how to swear in English. Profanity (can be) one of the first thing anyone learning a new language picks up. Ichiro's famous (NSFW) Two rats in a sock quote is a good example of this.

The Astros must have heard people complaining about Ashby's joke because they made him apologize. Here's his official statement which reads like a monologue that hostages are encouraged to announce at gunpoint

I'd like to apologize if my comments last night were misinterpreted or construed as insensitive. I have the highest respect for Yu Darvish he's a great player and his performance last night was outstanding. He showed a great deal of poise in the face of a difficult moment last night which speaks to the strength of his character.

That's a new low for the I apologize if I offended anyone brand of apology and it probably won't help Ashby with the crowd that will be mad at him no matter what. Regardless Ashby is one of the more popular players in Astros history and this is going to be no more than a dubious anecdote in his TV career. And there should be little doubt he means those platitudes about Darvish's character.

Doing live TV is tough and coming up with entertaining and pertinent remarks off the cuff is tough. As anyone who hangs out on Twitter knows it's easy to be offensive on the spot. Ashby should have said something like Is Yu swearing to himself in Japanese right now That would have been OK politically funny enough and wouldn't have painted Darvish as the ignorant foreigner.

And it should be mentioned There have been far more offensive things said about foreign ballplayers than this. Heck you should see the scroll of ignorant tweets that Public Shaming on Tumblr compiled about Darvish just from Tuesday night. That'll really give people something to complain about.

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