The Injury Lawyer Directory Blog

A San Diego jury recently awarded $5.7 million to a man whose doctor failed to diagnose his skin cancer, but the amount will be reduced to $1.9 million because of California's medical malpractice award cap. Most states do not have medical malpractice caps, and the entire award would have been paid to the plaintiff in those states.

There is much debate over whether or not medical malpractice caps serve their intended purpose of lowering doctors' insurance premiums. In the last few years, rising insurance premiums on medical malpractice insurance have emerged as a crisis of sorts among the medical community, invading the practice of medicine, and threatening the availability of medical care. Some doctors in high risk specialties may receive insurance renewal notices announcing their premiums increased as much as 100 to 200% over the previous year. Other physicians are dropped from their insurance carriers causing them to practice medicine without medical malpractice insurance or to stop practicing altogether.

The insurance industry, has, in the past, placed the blame for these outrageous premiums on the huge monetary settlements that victims of medical malpractice are awarded in court. However, GE Medical Protective, the United States largest medical malpractice insurer admits that caps have done nothing to lower medical insurance premiums and will not do anything to lower them in the future. The consensus seems to be that the cap laws only serve to reward the doctors who committed the malpractice and their insurance companies because there is a limit in some states to what victims can win.

While the implementation of caps has certainly resulted in lower claim payouts for insurers in many states, the intended result of lowering doctors' insurance premiums has clearly not happened and will not be happening anytime soon.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, on May 30, 2007, there was a recall of the Fisher-Price Open Top Take-Along Swings. Infants can shift to one side of the swing and become trapped between the frame and the seat of the swing. To date, Fisher-Price has received at least 60 reports of infants getting trapped in the swing, and reported injuries have included cuts, bruises and red marks.

The recall includes the following Fisher-Price models: swings with a palm tree mobile and two hanging plush toys with model numbers K7203, K7192 and K7195. Consumers can find the model number under the right handle of the swing.

The swings were manufactured in China and have been sold in stores for about $65 since November 2006. Owners of the recalled swings should stop using it immediately and contact Fisher-Price for instructions on how to return it and get reimbursed or have the swing replaced.

If you or a loved one has been injured due to a faulty or defective product, please visit the website of Philadelphia Pennsylvania's experienced product liability attorneys Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis LLP.

Unbelievably so, according to Florida law, adult children over 25 years of age cannot file lawsuits for the wrongful death of their parent caused by medical malpractice. Only spouses and adult children under 25 can seek damages caused by medical malpractice. Even Florida trial attorneys are outraged by this law and have sought to fight it for years but to no avail.

In 2000, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision; however, Justice Barbara Pariente claimed that the age restriction was unjustified and likened the decision to limiting the rights of survivors with blue eyes over brown. Pariente asked the legislature to reconsider the decision, but her request was ignored.

Trial attorneys have found one possible way to get around the law, but it's not easy. In order to pursue a medical malpractice claim on behalf of adult children older than 25, the attorneys must first prove the conduct of the healthcare professional was so outrageous that "it goes beyond all bounds of decency." There is only one case on record where the outrageous conduct argument was used successfully. That case involved siblings suing after their mother died during routine eye surgery and was eventually settled out of court.

How can the value of someone's life be measured by the age of her children? How can a court tell a 26-year-old man that his father's death due to medical malpractice is not legally worth fighting for?

If you or a loved one has been injured due to the negligence of a healthcare professional, please click here to visit the website of experienced medical malpractice attorneys Colling, Gilbert, Wright & Carter.

An Ohio woman has filed a lawsuit against Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals of Wayne, New Jersey claiming the drug Magnevist, a contrast agent containing the heavy metal gadolinium, caused her 24-year-old son's death in August 2004. Trevor Drake of Norwalk, Ohio was injected with Magnevist at the Cleveland Clinic prior to a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedure for his advanced kidney disease. Contrast agents like Magnevist are injected into patients prior to some tests to help diagnosticians visualize the body's internal organs and blood vessels.

Drake's mother, Beverly Rockwell, is seeking compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of her son. The lawsuit specifically claims that Magnevist caused Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis (NSF), a skin and joint disease which proved to be fatal to the young man. NSF, also known as Nephrogenic Fibrosing Dermopathy (NFD), is a condition that only develops in patients with kidney disease. Patients with NSF/NFD have swelling and tightening of the skin, usually only involving the extremities but sometimes affecting the torso. The thickening and swelling of the skin inhibits flexion and extension of the arms and legs, and severely affected patients may even be unable to walk.

In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that there were 200 reports worldwide of NSF/NSD cases that had developed following patient exposure to gadolinium-based contrast agents; many of these cases were fatal. In mid-May 2007, the FDA advised the makers of gadolinium-based contrast agents to place a Boxed Warning about the risks of developing NSF/NFD after being injected with Magnevist. A boxed warning is also referred to as a black label warning and means that medical studies indicate the drug carries a significant risk of serious and even life-threatening side effects. A black label warning is the strongest warning the FDA issues prescription drugs.

If you or a loved one has developed symptoms of NSF/NFD or any other complications following an injection of Magnevist or any other contrast agent, please contact the experienced NSF/NFD claims attorneys at Burg Simpson, Attorneys & Counselors at Law.

Roche Holding AG, a Swiss drug manufacturer with U.S. operations in Nutley, New Jersey, has been ordered to pay $2.5 million in damages to a 36-year-old man who developed severe Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) after taking the acne medication Accutane.

IBD refers to chronic diseases that cause inflammation in the form of painful swelling and diarrhea. Other common symptoms of IBD are abdominal cramps, blocked bowels, bloody stool, fever, dehydration, and extreme weight loss. IBD is also considered to be a major risk factor for developing colon and/or rectal cancer. Once you have IBD, symptoms can flare up without warning leaving sufferers constantly worried about when the next episode of pain and diarrhea will strike.

Accutane is a very powerful acne medication that Andrew McCarrell took in 1995. After taking the drug, he developed chronic diarrhea and incontinence, and, after multiple surgeries, finally had to have his colon removed. McCarrell was awarded $2.5 million and an additional $119,000 to cover his medical expenses. To date, there have been approximately 400 lawsuits in the United States involving Accutane, which has been on the market since 1982.

If you or a loved one has taken Accutane and suffered the symptoms of IBD, please contact experienced Accutane attorney Robert W. Kerpsack CO., L.P.A.

Treating Brain Injuries with Progesterone

A recent study has shown that the hormone progesterone can save lives and improve recovery for brain injury victims. The study, funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, involved administering progesterone or a placebo to brain injury patients shortly after their injuries were incurred. In the patients who received progesterone, the death rate decreased by 50%.

The study evaluated both the safety and effectiveness of the drug in treating brain injuries. In addition to saving lives, the drug appears to foster significant improvement in function and reduce disability. As for the safety of the hormone, there were no adverse events associated with the use of progesterone during the study.

If you would like to learn more about traumatic brain injuries, please visit the website of experienced brain injury attorneys Chaikin & Sherman, P.C.

Under a bill now being considered by the North Carolina General Assembly, plaintiffs and defendants involved in a patient negligence/malpractice lawsuit against a hospital or doctor could agree to have their case settled under binding arbitration. A court would select the arbitrator or the two sides could agree on one arbitrator.

After agreeing to enter the procedure, hearings would begin no later than ten months after the agreement, and a decision would have to be issued within two weeks of the hearing's close. Also, the number of appeals would be limited. Obviously, this new system will allow cases to be heard and resolved much more quickly.

This legislation is an attempt to hold hospitals and doctors accountable and to allow victims of malpractice to seek justice for injuries suffered more quickly. The proposed legislations caps damages at medical malpractice cases at $1 million.

The impetus for this legislation is the simple fact that many people injured or killed by the malpractice of physicians or hospitals cannot find a lawyer to take their case because the cost to litigate such a case is way too high.

If you or a loved one has suffered due to the medical malpractice of a doctor or hospital, please contact the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at the Law Offices of Michael DeMayo, L.L.P. today.

Avandia (generic rosiglitazone) was approved by the FDA in 1999 to treat type 2 diabetes. On May 23, 2007, an article was published in the New England Journal of Medicine stating that Avandia significantly increases the risk of heart attack in diabetes patients. Though the drug has not been recalled to date, the FDA did issue a public safety alert advising those taking the drug to consult their doctors regarding the serious cardiovascular risks associated with taking the drug.

These potential life-threatening effects of Avandia are not new, however. In 2000, Dr. John B. Buse, Chief of Endocrinology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, warned the FDA that Avandia showed "a worrisome trend in cardiovascular death and severe adverse events" among patients taking the drug.

Both the FDA and the maker of Avandia (GlaxoSmithKline) have known about the risks associated with the drug for seven years but have not adequately warned prescribing doctors and consumers about the deadly effects of the drug.

In 2006, worldwide sales of Avandia exceeded $3 billion, making it one of GlaxoSmithKlines best-selling drugs ever. Clearly, the maker of Avandia will lose quite a bit of money each year if and when Avandia is recalled.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) occurs when a sudden trauma to the head causes damage to the brain. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), there are approximately 1.5 million TBI incidents reported each year.

TBI can be as simple as a minor blow to the head or a concussion, or it can be as serious as a fracture to the skull. Trauma to the head can also cause the brain to bleed or bruise, with no outward appearance of injury at all.

Motor vehicle accidents are the most common cause of TBI; other causes are falls, violence, sports-related incidents, and child abuse. The milder types of TBI can manifest themselves in the form of dizziness and headaches, and more serious injuries to the brain may include symptoms of vomiting, convulsions, slurred speech, loss of coordination, and numbness in the extremities.

People who have suffered a TBI often continue to work, and now there are many ways employees with TBI can be accommodated in the workplace. The Job Accommodation Network, which is a service of the U.S. Department of Labor, has composed a fact sheet entitled, Employees with Brain Injuries, describing a variety of ways employees with TBI can be accommodated in the workplace.

Better lighting, vision aids for the computers, and large print materials are just some examples of how TBI sufferers with vision problems can be accommodated. Reducing the number of distractions and the amount of clutter in their work area can aid in concentration, and tape recording meetings can certainly help with memory.

If you or a loved one has suffered a traumatic brain injury and would like to learn more about how to be accommodated in the workplace to better succeed on the job, please click here to visit the website of Chaikin and Sherman, P.C.

A lawsuit has been filed in Montana against the insurance company AFLAC (American Family Life Assurance Company) on behalf of two medical workers killed in a plane crash while going to pick up a patient. The lawsuit alleges that AFLAC denied accidental death benefits to the victims families after their deaths.

AFLAC explained the denial of benefits was based on the type of flight it was and stated that the insurance company does not pay benefits for “accidents or sickness as a result of a covered person participating in any form of flight aviation other than as a fare-paying passenger in a fully licensed, passenger-carrying aircraft.”

The lawsuit contends that Benefits Healthcare paid Metro Aviation, the planes owner, to carry its employees and patients and that the plane is a fully licensed, passenger-carrying vehicle. The families of the victims claim that they met the requirements for the accidental death benefit of $40,000. The suit also seeks punitive damages, attorney fees, and court costs.

If you or a loved one has been killed in a plane crash and the family was then denied payment of death benefits by an insurance company, please contact the experienced attorneys at Bob Kerpsack Co., L.P.A.

Several lawsuits have been filed recently claiming that victims of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) are not being provided the community-based care that would allow them to leave their institutions and nursing homes and live in a more integrated setting.

A class-action lawsuit in Boston accuses the governor and several of his officials of breaking federal law by failing to provide adequate services to hundreds of patients with brain injuries. According to the lawsuit, the Americans with Disabilities Act is being violated as this law entitles disabled Americans to live in the most integrated living environment possible. The lawsuit alleges that Massachusetts state- and federally-funded programs exclude people with TBI and deny them access to community programs. The Brain Injury Association of America and four named plaintiffs filed this most recent lawsuit.

If you or a loved one has suffered a traumatic brain injury and is being denied the living rights you are entitled to based on the Americans with Disabilities Act, please contact the brain injury and nursing home lawyers at Chaikin and Sherman, P.C.

People donate organs, tissue, and blood to help others and sometimes to be stored for later use in case of personal medical needs. Human tissue from certain demographic groups, usually people with very specific ethnic backgrounds, can be used for life-saving research which would not otherwise be possible.

Most donors have altruist motives, believing that their tissue will be used for the purposes they agreed to, but donors have little or no control over what really happens once they give a part of themselves away, turning what was once an act of charity into a property and privacy issue.

Human tissue carries very revealing and very personal DNA. Anything that is learned from a tissue sample can be traced back to the donor. A donor may give samples for the purpose of researching a cure for a life-threatening disease and later find that studies conducted on the tissue included mental illness or certain behaviors, all of which can be traced back to the donor.

To read about surgical errors on the Personal Injury Directory, click here.

Under Kentucky's law, an employee can only successfully sue an employer for an injury that happened in the workplace if the employee can prove the employer deliberately intended for him to be harmed. To date, no employee in Kentucky has ever been able to prove that his employer intended to harm him.

In January 2007, an employee at a machine manufacturing company in Jeffersontown, Kentucky lost both of his arms while attempting to clean a drywall shredder while it was running. Thirty-nine-year-old Billy Parker claims an engineer at Six Sigma, Inc. handed him a screwdriver and told him to clean the machine while it was running, obviously a direct violation of OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) rules. A lawyer for the company states that Parker was not told to clean the machine with a screwdriver while it was running. Parker's lawyers contend that the company was in a hurry to fix the machine and get it delivered to a customer; they also contend that the machine had malfunctioned several times prior to the day Parker lost his arms.

Parker, a single parent, now faces life as a double amputee with the additional burden of having to decide whether to accept the paltry benefits made available from Kentucky's Workers' Compensation or reject Workers' Comp and sue his employer in an attempt to recover compensation for his catastrophic injuries.

Currently, only twelve states allow injured workers to sue employers if there is credible evidence that the employer made them perform a task knowing it would harm them. In 2004, the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed that knowingly putting an employee in harms way isnt enough to win a lawsuit, even if the death of the worker was a possibility. Considering this, it is not surprising at all that no employee has successfully sued an employer after suffering an injury in the workplace.

In most states, Workers' Compensation law is designed to quickly provide injured employees compensation for medical bills and lost wages, even if the employee was at fault. In exchange for these often modest benefits, employees give up the right to sue their employer.

In addition to having to learn a whole new way of life, Billy Parker must wrestle with the dilemma of accepting approximately $550.00 a week from workers' comp that would end when he is eligible for Social Security or to risk it all and sue his employer.

If you or a loved one has been injured on the job and you feel you are entitled to more than what Workers' Compensation provides, click here to visit the website of experienced Michigan Workers' Compensation attorney Jay Trucks & Associates, P.C.

In the early 1980s, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) began analyzing data on ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) to provide statistics on the numbers of ATV-related injuries and deaths each year. According to a report by the CPSC, there were 251 ATV-related deaths in 1985; 398 in 1999; and 467 in 2005. Of those deaths in 1999, 90 victims were younger than 16 years of age, and of the 467 deaths in 2005, 120 were under 16 years old.

Since 1982, over seven thousand people have died as a direct result of an ATV-related accident, and of those deaths, over two thousand victims were under 16 years of age. Clearly, the number of ATV-related deaths is a serious problem that affects thousands of consumers each year.

What may be even more shocking than the statistics regarding ATV deaths, is the fact that victims of ATV accidents rarely win the lawsuits brought against the manufacturers of these dangerous and often deadly vehicles. ATV manufacturing companies spend a great deal of time and money to defend cases against them, and many lawyers are simply reluctant to sue the manufacturers because it is so difficult to win the case for the victim. In court, the manufacturers’ lawyers blame the riders of the ATVs, and jurors often side with the defense because of the large number of government-sanctioned safety warnings issued by the manufacturer of the ATV.

For 20 years, healthcare professionals and consumer advocates have been pushing the CPSC to pass meaningful regulations regarding ATVs to help reduce the number of injuries and deaths each year, yet the numbers still rise. In April 2007, a proposed Oregon law that would have banned any child under 12 from riding ATVs was tabled. This Oregon bill would have also put restrictions on the size of engines in ATVs ridden by children ages 12-15.

Oklahoma, however, has made some progress on proposed legislation. A bill to require children under 18 years of age to wear helmets while riding on or operating an ATV was approved in early April. If passed and signed into law, the legislation would require a $25 fine for anyone violating the helmet law.

While small strides are being made to regulate ATV use and reduce the number of ATV-related injuries and deaths, the numbers continue to rise, and the manufacturers often escape liability.

A Virginia jury awarded Annette Ritzmann over $12 million for a brain injury she sustained after falling outside of a gas station, possible the largest slip and fall award ever granted in Virginia. Stephen M. Smtih, Brain Injury Attorney and founder of the Brain Injury Law Center, won the largest mild traumatic brain injury verdict ever awarded and is recognized as an international expert in brain injury litigation.

Ritzmann was walking into a Miller Mart to buy gas and a newspaper, when she slipped on a puddle that had been neglected for so long it had grown slimy and slippery with algae. Miller Mart officials admitted to having known about the danger before her accident. Immediately after falling and landing on her chest and chin, Ritzmann was not aware of the severity of her injuries.

When she returned to work a few days later, symptoms began to surface. She was unable to concentrate and perform her usual tasks. Now she has seizures and there is little hope that she will ever be well enough to return to work.

If you or a loved one has been injured by a slip and fall and would like to speak to a personal injury lawyer, please click here to visit the website of Chaikin and Sherman, P.C.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning that the use of oral sodium phosphate (OSP) products for bowel cleansing has, in some patients, caused a rare but serious and potentially fatal form of kidney failure (renal insufficiency) referred to as acute phosphate nephropathy. Three over-the-counter OSP products used for bowel cleansing prior to colonoscopies, radiographic procedures, and surgeries are Fleet Phospho-soda solution, Fleet Accu-Prep solution, and Visicol tablets.

Serious side effects of Fleet Phospho-soda solution, Fleet Accu-Prep solution, and Visicol tablets include severe electrolyte abnormalities, cardiac arrhythmias, and renal (kidney) failure. Users of these products who already have renal insufficiency and bowel perforation are at an even greater risk for suffering these serious side effects, and patients who have misused or overdosed on sodium phosphate are also at a greater risk for serious side effects. Patients of advanced age and those taking diuretics, ACE inhibitors, ARBs (angiotensin receptor blockers), and NSAIDS (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) are also at-risk groups and are more prone to developing the above-mentioned side effects.

In mid-May, 2007, a woman filed a $10 million personal injury lawsuit against the C.B. Fleet Company, maker of Fleet Phospho-soda Bowel Prep Solution. The lawsuit alleges that the Fleet solution interacted with her medication prescribed for hypertension (high blood pressure) and caused kidney damage and failure. The suit further alleges that Fleet was well aware of the potential life-threatening danger of their OSP products but did nothing to protect users of these products. Currently, there are 21 documented cases of patients diagnosed with acute phosphate nephropathy following use of an OSP solution for bowel cleansing prior to a colonoscopy, radiographic procedure, or surgery.

On April 28, 2007, World Day for Safety and Health at Work, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for several measures to help prevent work-related cancer. Among these measures was to "introduce benzene-free organic solvents and technologies that convert the carcinogenic chromium into a non-carcinogenic form."

Benzene is a known carcinogen which causes many health problems including:

• Leukemia
• Blood disorders
• Respiratory problems
• Skin problems
• Hodgkin's disease
• Other cancers

Among its many applications, benzene is used in:

• Pesticides
• Rubber
• Detergents
• Solvents
• Cigarettes
• Denture adhesives
• Dyes
• Paint
• Synthetic fibers
• Resins
• Plastics
• Other petroleum products

Inhalation of vapors and absorption through the skin are the most common methods of exposure, which often leads to workplace injuries. Workers who are at high risk for benzene exposure include:

• Rubber workers
• Refinery workers
• Diamond workers
• Printers
• Painters
• Leather workers
• Gasoline distributors
• Chemical workers

Benzene can cause immediate poisoning, or slow, long-term harm.

For more information about harmful workplace conditions, click here to visit the website of Texas injury attorneys Bush Lewis P.L.L.C.

On Thursday, May 10, 2007, U.S. Attorney John Brownlee announced that Purdue Pharma L.P. executives and former executives pleaded guilty to a "felony charge of illegally misbranding OxyContin in an effort to mislead and defraud physicians and consumers."

Commonly referred to as "hillbilly heroin," OxyContin contains a high dose of oxycodone - a synthetic opiate and powerful painkiller. It is prescribed in a time-release pill form to people with severe pain. Abusers of the drug circumvent the time-release mechanism by crushing the pill prior to snorting or injecting it.

According to Brownlee, the makers of OxyContin lied to the public, marketing the drug as being "less addictive, less subject to abuse and diversion, and less likely to cause withdrawal symptoms than other pain medications." The plea agreement will require Purdue and its top executives to pay $634.5 million in fines, penalties, and forfeitures.

If you or someone you know has been injured by a defective drug, please feel free to contact The Personal Injury Directory for information on what you can do by clicking here.