The Injury Lawyer Blog

Illinois is trying to take the characteristic injury of the Iraq war, traumatic brain injury, head on, as it launched a new program designed to give special assistance to veterans who have suffered the injury or have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This comes after a recent study which suggests that the memory loss, irritability, difficulty sleeping, and other problems suggests that these are related to the psychological, rather than the physical injury suffered during war. The study also showed that soldiers who lost consciousness were most likely to suffer PTSD, about 44% of soliders who lost consciousness during time at the front suffered PTSD, as compared to 16 % of soldiers who never lost consciousness.

The US Army estimates that as many as 20% of soldiers sustain traumatic brain injury during their deployment.

The Illinois Warriors Assistance Program offers a PTSD help line and free phone screening for traumatic brain injury for all Illinois veterans. It also mandates that all returning Illinois National Guard soldiers returning from overseas undergo brain injury screening.

The army studies and the state acknowledgement that these people need assistance does much to validate the severity of even mild traumatic brain injuries, which many insurance companies try to diminish. If you have suffered a brain injury in Chicago as a result of an auto accident or other cause, you need an experienced Chicago brain injury lawyer. Don't suffer in silence, please contact The Law Offices of Barry G. Doyle, P.C. today for a free consultation.

Labels: brain injury, Illinois, military

A man who was injured by chlorine gas released in one of seven derailments of Union Pacific trains in Bexar County, Texas, near San Antonio in 2004 is suing Union Pacific for as-yet-undisclosed damages. We can only hope that the damages will be sufficient to make Union Pacific sit up and take notice, hopefully even put its house in order in terms of the safety of the people who live near the rail lines on which it operates. Apparently, this is a case where no one seems to be willing or able to regulate the industry to improve safety.

In 2005, federal regulators began an 18-month study of railroad traffic in the county, and the regulators have passed on more fines to Union Pacific than to any other railroad. However, the work by the Federal Railroad Administration, a branch of the National Transportation Safety Board, was unsuccessful, as evidenced by the 58 railroad accidents in Bexar County in 2006, including the derailment of 17 cars in a populous San Antonio neighborhood on October 17, 2006, which sparked a personal appeal from the city to their Senator.

Labels: Texas, train accident

As a result of an Ohio Supreme Court decision last year, doctors and other private practitioners can be granted immunity from lawsuits such as medical malpractice if they are employed by the state even on a part-time basis. Now, the family of a man who choked on his vomit, suffering brain damage and eventual death as a result of oxygen deprivation, must sue the state if they wish to recover damages for medical bills, funeral expenses, and mental suffering. The wrongful death claim is very modest, just $25,000, considering what the family has gone through.

The two doctors who were responsible for the man's post-surgical care were "careless" and "negligent," according to the suit, but because of their employment by the state as teachers of general surgery at the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine, they may not be liable for the suffering caused as a result. Instead, the Ohio Court of Claims must first make a decision on their immunity status. If the doctors are granted immunity status, the suit will fall on Ohio University. The family has also filed a case against the doctors' private practice to be pursued if the Court of Claims decides they are not immune.

If you have lost someone you love as a result of medical malpractice in Ohio, contact the experienced medical malpractice attorneys at Robert W. Kerpsack CO, LPA, for a free, personal consultation.

Labels: medical malpractice, Ohio

A report by the Ohio Department of Insurance says that medical malpractice claims in Ohio dropped by 20 percent in 2006 from 2005. The report says that there were 4,006 medical malpractice claims filed in the state in 2006, down from over 5,000 the year before. Lawmakers are cautious, but hope that the drop is the beginning of a pattern of results from a set of laws passed in 2003 by the Ohio legislature to cap the amount of money allowed to be paid for pain and suffering and to restrict frivolous lawsuits against doctors.

The effect does not seem tied to the cause cited, however. The cap did not reduce the amount paid on claims, which increased from $269,000 to $288,000 from one year to the next, nor did restrictions on frivolous claims change the settlement rate, which did not change, since in both years four out of five claims ended without payment.

No one knows what the cause of the deviation is, but the restrictions definitely seem geared to protecting doctors and insurance companies at the expense of people suffering as a result of doctors' mistakes. If you or someone you love has been injured by the negligence of a doctor, you need the help of an experienced medical malpractice lawyer. In Columbus, contact Robert W. Kerpsack for help in your uphill fight against the big companies and the legislature.

Labels: medical malpractice, Ohio

To help victims of the I-35W bridge collapse, Minnesota state legislators have decided to set up a fund that circumvents the state's law limiting its liability to $1 million in an incident. However, the lawmakers cannot decide whether to put a cap on the amounts awarded to victims or allow a mediator to decide what constitutes a reasonable payment for victims. Lawmakers have stated their desire to put money in the hands of victims, not subsidize the insurance companies. One plan proposes that the state caps awards at $400,000, with awards for the maximum amount being paid to the survivors of the 13 people who suffered wrongful deaths in the collapse. This means that the fund would cost the state at least $5.2 million, and this is cause for concern for lawmakers, who want to balance the fund against other state priorities, including maintenance of other bridges to prevent their collapse.

For their part, victims are trying to decide whether to opt for the fund, which carries with it a renunciation of the right to sue the state, or to choose a personal injury lawyer and take their chances in court. With many victims' medical bills for their severe injuries reaching six figures already, a cap might leave them with significant out-of-pocket expenses above and beyond the state payout. In addition, it is unclear whether attorneys will have access to records regarding the collapse or be able to independently inspect bridge parts with their own experts. Currently, a judge has banned law firms from seeing the data or parts, but that decision is being appealed.

If you or someone you love has been injured as a result of an auto accident, whether as a result of a dangerous roadway collapse or the negligence of another driver or state entity, contact the experienced Chicago auto accident attorney at the Law Offices of Barry G. Doyle, P.C. for a free consultation.

Labels: auto accident, dangerous roadway

The same official who led the inquiry into the 2005 explosion at a BP plant that led to an admission of federal environmental standards will be investigating a recent death at the company's Texas City refinery. The US Chemical Safety Board team will investigate the on-the-job death of a veteran operations supervisor who suffered fatal head injuries while the team he supervised was installing a water filtration vessel. The company has reported that a chemical explosion may have been involved, while earlier reports suggested only that the death was the result of high water pressure and did not mention the presence of burns or scorching on the body or at the scene. However, lawyers for the family suggest that the worker's body was badly burned.

If you have lost a loved one as a result of an on-the-job accident, contact the experienced Workers' Compensation lawyers at Marc Whitehead & Associates today for a free consultation.

Labels: Texas, workers' compensation, wrongful death

The Federal Government accepted a $750,000 settlement in the medical malpractice case of a woman who died after receiving eight surgeries at the Jacksonville Naval Hospital in just over a month in 2005. In the wrongful death suit, the woman's family accused the Navy of doctor error and failure to transfer her to another facility. The woman arrived at the hospital complaining of stomach pain, then died of a blood infection.

This is only the latest case to be settled at the facility with one of the highest per capita malpractice rates of any hospital in the country. This case follows over $70 million in payouts from the hospital in 2005 for a half-dozen cases, including several wrongful deaths, and precedes five more pending malpractice cases against the military hospital.

If you or someone you love has suffered as a result of the substandard care at this or any other US government institution, contact Fuller & Fuller, a family of lawyers with years of experience.

Labels: hospital misconduct, medical malpractice, military, wrongful death

On January 18, a jury convicted a 9-1-1 operator of willful neglect of duty after she blew off a boy's call for help when his mother passed out. The boy was six at the time, and when his mother passed out as a result of her heart condition, he called for help. The operator, according to his testimony, accused him of playing a prank and hung up on him. When his mother did not get up, he called back, three hours later, reaching a second operator, who, instead of sending paramedics for the boy's mom, sent police to the scene. The police discovered the woman dead.

The first operator was convicted of willful neglect, despite her testimony that she could not hear the boy on the line. The second operator had charges dismissed, because she had dispatched some form of aid to the scene. Currently, a wrongful death case is proceeding against the city for its failure to respond adequately to the boy's calls for help.

If the negligence of a police operator, emergency room technician, or first-responder has led to the death of a loved one in Phoenix, Arizona, contact the experienced wrongful death attorneys at Snyder & Wenner P.C.

Labels: wrongful death

A Cook County jury has awarded the largest ever medical malpractice verdict for the wrongful death of a woman to the family of a 34-year-old woman who died in 2003 from complications at a Chicago-area hospital, St. Francis Hospital in Evanston. The jury awarded $22 million dollars in support of the claim by the woman's family the woman suffered a massive brain hemorrhage as a result of the staff's negligence in improperly treating her high blood pressure during labor. The woman was placed on a ventilator and died four days later. The baby was delivered by Caesarean section and survived, fortunately without birth injury.

According to arguments by their attorney, the condition could have been controlled with proper medication, and the failure resulted from hospital personnel's failure to follow their own procedures. The finding was against the hospital and the doctor. The hospital, refusing to acknowledge responsibility, said it would pursue an appeal.

If you have lost someone you love as a result of the negligence of the staff at a Chicago-area hospital, contact experienced medical malpractice attorney Barry G. Doyle at the Law Offices of Barry G. Doyle, P.C.

Labels: chicago, hospital misconduct, medical malpractice, medical negligence

FDA statistics indicate that more than one person per day dies in the US as a result of a medication error. Whether the prescription error is giving the wrong dose of a medication or giving the wrong drug entirely, the results can be equally lethal. ValiMed is a new tool developed by the CDEX corporation in Kansas City to prevent just such errors. The machine works by shining an ultraviolet light on the drug, then reading the fluorescent glow given off by the drug in response to the light. The fluorescence is dependent on the chemical structure of the drug, so it is 100 % distinct for every drug, and the machine can identify the drug in question in 30 seconds.

For now, the technology is in its development stage, and has only been programmed to recognize high-risk IV medications, but the hope is that it can be expanded to work with all drugs, and then used at bedside to reduce prescription errors taking place in hospitals. According to a University of Utah pharmacist who is testing the machine said, "The goal is zero patient errors for all of this."

Unfortunately, the technology is in place in only 12 hospitals nationwide, and therefore cannot protect most people from deadly prescription errors. If you have lost a loved one as a result of a prescription error in Pheonix, contact the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Snyder & Wenner, P.C. who will listen to your case and take up your cause.

Labels: medical malpractice, prescription error

On May 15, 2006, a Texas woman was riding in a 2000 Mazda half-ton pickup driven by a friend when one of the tires suffered a catastrophic tread separation, sending the truck into a spinning flip. She later died from injuries sustained in the auto accident. Now her husband, acting on behalf of himself, his children, and the estate of his wife, filed a product liability suit against the tire manufacturer, Cooper Tire and Rubber Company. His Wrongful Death suit asks for $100 million in actual and punitive damages against the firm for what the complaint described as "wanton and willful recklessness."

The product liability complaint alleges that the tire was defective in design and manufacture, making it "unreasonably dangerous," even when used as intended. Furthermore, the complaint alleges that Cooper Tire failed to adequately test the tires before marketing them, and that there existed reasonable economic alternatives that would have made the tire safer, if they had been pursued by Cooper. Even worse, the complaint alleges that Cooper knew of the defects but concealed or failed to disclose these facts.

If someone you love has been killed or seriously injured as a result of a defective product in Texas, contact the experienced product liability lawyers at Kennedy Hodges, LLP for a free case evaluation.

Labels: auto accident, defective product, Texas, Tire Blowout, truck accident

On January 8, a truck hauling a modular trailer at night in violation of its permit to keep its unrealistic delivery schedule, led to a fatal crash that killed two passengers of a Kia Sephia. The truck, owned by Davidson Industries of Commerce City, CO, was hauling a portable office for use during the filming of the ESPN Winter X-Games. While the truck was waiting to make its left turn onto eastbound Highway 82 the oversize trailer blocked both lanes of westbound traffic. Because the trailer was unlit, a car traveling westbound at the posted speed limit, 65 mph, hit the trailer without ever seeing it. The driver and passenger in the front seat of the car were both killed on the scene of the underride accident, while the passenger in the rear seat survived with serious injuries.

Unfortunately, this fatal truck crash alone is not enough to revoke this company's permit to haul these dangerous loads. In order for the permit to be revoked, someone must take action to get hearings held to consider the revocation. If you or someone you love has been injured or killed in an accident with a trucking company that failed to comply with the law, you cannot let them back on the road to endanger and possibly kill other people. Contact an experienced truck injury lawyer at The Injury Lawyers, P.C. to get compensation for your injuries and keep dangerous truckers off the road.

Labels: auto accident, overloaded truck, truck accident

I have written before about not all complications as a result of surgery being malpractice. However, one sad feature of our current medical system is that it often doesn't matter whether a person's suffering is caused by medical malpractice or not, it is sometimes impossible to recover damages. Consider the case of an Atlanta woman who had a hysterectomy, a laparoscopic procedure that normally takes about a week to recover from. However, as a result of complications from the procedure, she is still recovering four months later, having spent thousands of dollars out-of-pocket and lost thousands more in wages.

The complications are as a result of an expected complication of the surgery, a routine surgical error, the nicking of the ureter, the tube that carries urine from the kidney to the bladder, during the surgery. In many countries, the national health care system takes care of people even when complications arise during surgery. In New Zealand, Sweden, or Canada, the woman's expenses would be covered, both those incurred as a result of the surgery and as a result of the unforeseen complications. However, in the United States, where every medical expense comes out of pocket even when you are insured, the woman's only viable option is filing a lawsuit for compensation. In malpractice and defective drug cases, the legal tort portion of the system is often the only one that seems to work consistently.

But not always. When this woman consulted with personal injury lawyers, she found that she had fallen into an unfortunate gap in the only thing we have resembling a safety net. Lawyers refused to take her case because her damages were too low. To personal injury lawyers, $50,000 is a pittance, not worth pursuing. Unfortunately, for most people $50,000 is an unbearable expense. It can wipe out savings, forcing a person to get an additional mortgage, if they don't already have one in this bad mortgage market. If we are seriously considering tort reform, one portion of the reform must work to close this gap, the gap between what most people can afford to pay in the event of medical complications, and what personal injury lawyers are willing to pursue. In the absence of a true safety net, let's at least make the holes in this one a little smaller.

Labels: medical malpractice, personal injury, surgical malpractice

The army technology that was developed to track traumatic brain injuries suffered by troops in the field as a result of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) is ready for deployment and will soon see service in Afghanistan.

Soldiers equipped with this device, which we have discussed here in some detail, will be deployed to Afghanistan this spring, even as calls for greater NATO involvement in the area seem to be falling on deaf ears and Taliban-aligned insurgents are gaining in strength.

The new head impact monitoring system, which was developed by New Hampshire company Simbex, is similar to helmets used to monitor impacts suffered by college and high school football players on the field.

IEDs are responsible for almost 80% of all casualties and 60% of all fatalities suffered by US troops in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters. It is hoped that the helmets will help Army commanders determine exactly how IEDs cause traumatic brain injury. This program precedes a new $ 150 million TBI study authorized by Congress as part of the most recent appropriations bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As we have discussed in previous posts, concussions can be far more dangerous when suffered in succession. Soldiers who return to combat after suffering a minor concussion may be setting themselves up for more serious injury next time. It is hoped that the new helmet monitors will be able to inform medics when to keep soldiers off patrol for a couple weeks.

If you have suffered a TBI, chances are you were not wearing a specially-equipped helmet that can measure the level of trauma you suffered. In that case, you need an experienced brain injury lawyer to prove to your insurance company the level of your suffering and help you receive the compensation you deserve. If you are in Texas, contact Jim Adler & Associates to get the representation you need.

Labels: brain injury, military

The Army is dispatching support specialists to counsel injured servicemen and –women who are applying for benefits under the Traumatic Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance. Although every injured servicemember who cannot perform the normal tasks of daily life for a period of at least 30 days is eligible for up to $100,000 dollars. However, currently only about 40% of the claims for this benefit are approved, not because the claims are not valid, but because they do not have the level of documentation the army requires for proof. Some cases are easy to prove, such as the loss of a limb, severe burns, traumatic brain injury, or spinal-cord injuries. However, servicemembers who suffer severe wounds to limbs that are saved, or that suffer more mild forms of brain injury but are still dependent on others for dressing, bathing, toileting, or eating, often do not provide the level of documentation necessary for approval.

The counseling specialists have been dispatched to Walter Reed Army Medical Center (AMC), Brooke AMC, William Beaumont AMC, Womack AMC, and Eisenhower AMC, and will soon be in place in almost another half-dozen AMCs across the country.

This move is an attempt to help the large number of wounded, especially the number of troops with head injuries, to get the help they need to adjust back after their injuries.

The Army feels a responsibility for those who are injured on duty, but unfortunately for most of us when we are injured, no one steps forward to help. If you have suffered a life-impairing injury, consult the personal injury lawyers at the Glick Law Firm, P.A, who are prepared to stand up against the powerful interests that hurt you.

Labels: brain injury, military

The Israeli heart association encouraged the Ministerial Committee on Legislation to vote in favor of a law requiring the installation of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in public places. Cardiovascular disease kills more people in the Western World than any other cause, and cardiac arrest (heart attack) is its most common condition leading to death. Once a person suffers a heart attack and blood flow to the brain ceases, a person will suffer immediate brain damage and die within a few minutes. But if a person receives an electric shock to the heart within the first seven minutes, as many as 90% of cardiac arrest victims will survive the incident.

In the US, it is already the law that AEDs be installed in all public places. Laws requiring AED installation have been passed in all 50 states, including Florida, but the AEDs are often missing. If you or someone you love suffered a heart attack but there was no AED nearby, the loss you suffered as a result, whether it is the death of a loved one, brain injury, or emotional trauma is a result of the negligence of the property owners. You not only have a right to bring a lawsuit, you have a responsibility to sue to get an AED in place, to save someone else from the same or greater loss. To learn more about your options, contact the Florida heart attack injury lawyer at the Law Offices of Craig Goldenfarb, P.A. to discuss the merits of your possible case.

Labels: heart attack, heart damage, premises liability

The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld a law limiting non-economic damages in tort lawsuits, including pain, suffering, loss of consortium, etc. The 2004 law, known as Senate Bill 80, does not limit easily calculated damages, such as lost wages or medical costs, but it does limit the noneconomic portions of damages to $250,000 or three times the economic damages (up to $500,000), whichever is greater. The law also limits punitive damages for dangerous drugs and hazardous products to only twice the actual economic damages, which is a boon for pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers, who regularly factor catastrophic injury or death to a few individuals against millions or billions of dollars worth of sales. The limitation of punitive damages means that companies will never have to worry about the ramifications of maliciously concealing or manipulating data to put an unsafe product on the market as long as the wrongful deaths caused are quick and cheap, no matter how painful or tragic.

The specific case that initiated the ruling was a multi-state mass tort action against Johnson and Johnson, over the Ortho Evra birth control patch, which led to fatal and potentially fatal blood clots in thousands of women.

The limitations on the awards in each case make it more imperative than ever that each person who receives an injury as a result of a defective product or drug comes forward to punish the manufacturer and show them they cannot profit off the misery of others. If you or someone you love has suffered as a result of the negligence or wanton misconduct of a manufacturer, contact product liability lawyer Robert W. Kerpsack at Robert W. Kerpsack Co, LPA, to put your lawsuit in motion.

Labels: defective pharmaceutical, defective product, noneconomic damages, Ohio, personal injury, wrongful death