The Legislature's Business and Labor Committee agreed Monday to settle a lawsuit filed by an FBI agent injured in a 1997 explosion that occurred while Nebraska State Patrol officers detonated blasting caps near Grand Island. Special Agent Brett Schanck would receive $293,612. The claims measure (LB 849), which includes $1.475 million in payments for several cases, now heads to the full Legislature for consideration. The bill also asks the state to pay $159,211 in attorneys' fees incurred by Dr. LeRoy Carhart, a Bellevue doctor who successfully challenged the state's ban on "partial-birth" abortions, which was overturned last year by the U.S. Supreme Court. The fees were awarded to Carhart by the U.S. District Court, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. Each year the state is presented with claims against it for debts such as lawsuit settlements, attorney fees and other outstanding bills.
