Thai club owner sentenced for deadly New Year fire
Legal World
A Thai court sentenced a nightclub owner and a lighting effects company executive Tuesday to three years' imprisonment each for a fire that killed 67 people in Bangkok on New Year's Day in 2009.
The Bangkok Criminal Court found Santika nightclub owner Wisuk Sejsawat and company executive Boonchu Laosinart guilty of causing the deaths of other persons without intent.
More than 1,000 revelers were inside the club when an indoor fireworks display set off after the countdown to New Year ignited the blaze. The fire raced through the two-story building, sending panicked guests running for the main entrance.
Victims — including three Singapore, one Japanese and one Myanmar national — died of burns, smoke inhalation and from being crushed in the stampede to get out. More than 100 people were injured.
Dozens of the injured victims and relatives of the dead were in the courtroom Tuesday to hear the verdict. Fifty plaintiffs jointly filed the case against the defendants.
"I feel better now that justice is served," said Taworn Promtong, whose 24-year-old daughter died from injuries sustained in the fire. "But my family was never the same without our eldest daughter. There's a void that could never be filled."
The verdict did not deal with allegations made soon after the fire that police had turned a blind eye to safety violations at the club prior to the fire.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.