Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
Good Samaritans Save Children After Tire Blowout - Friday, October 19, 2007
In keeping with our attempt to convey a little lighter side to news, we'll focus today on the heroic efforts of good Samaritans who saved two children from drowning.
The children were riding in a minivan near Disney World when the vehicle suffered a tire blowout. The driver lost control, and the van rolled over and plunged into a retaining pond where it quickly submerged.
Motorists who witnessed the event took a knife and cut the two children, aged 3 and 1 from their seatbelt and car seat, as their mother screamed for help. In the murky water, the rescuers plunged in without a second thought to save the children, and when they couldn't get the belts unfastened, they felt carefully to avoid cutting the children as they cut them free. The children were taken to the hospital where they remained in critical condition but likely to recover.
Although these children survived the automobile accident, they have probably suffered serious injuries as a result. If you or someone you know has been hurt in a motor vehicle accident, contact PersonalInjury.com today to get in touch with a local lawyer who can help you.
Police Sluggish in Stopping Sleeping Motorist - Thursday, October 18, 2007
I feel we've been too serious here for a little while, so how's about a lighter story for a change?
In Denver, a driver was videotaped as she slept in her car while driving on the highway at speeds up to 70 MPH. The woman had her head back as she went down the highway, swerving from lane to lane, nearly sideswiping the taper's car. The tapers immediately contacted the police, who attempted to mount a response.
More than five minutes later, with no police in sight, the tapers called the police again.
Almost ten minutes later, the police were called again. By this time, the car has left one jurisdiction and entered a second one.
Fifteen minutes later, the police finally respond and pull over the sleepy/sleeping driver.
Half an hour after the first call, 30 miles, and a county later, the police finally responded. Fortunately, the driver avoided an automobile accident, more through the alertness of other drivers than anything.
If you were not so lucky while waiting for police to respond, please contact PersonalInjury.com today to get in touch with a local lawyer who can handle your motor vehicle accident case.
Prempro Breast Cancer Trial Ends in $135 million Verdict - Wednesday, October 17, 2007
At the conclusion of a month-long trial, three women who say their breast cancers were linked with their use of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) drugs Prempro and Premarin from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, were rewarded a total of $134.5 million by a jury.
The jury was responding obviously not only to the women's claims, but, by handing out almost $100 million in punitive damages, showing that Wyeth acted maliciously in its aggressive marketing of the drug, which included claims that the drug protected against osteoporosis (a benefit which Wyeth's lawyers heavily touted mid-trial), cardiovascular disease, and heart attacks. The drug was later shown to increase risks for cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots (similar to those seen in studies relating to the Ortho Evra birth control patch) in addition to breast cancer.
After listening to testimony that the company saw red flags relating to the drugs as early as 1975, while encouraging its sales force to play down risks and play up benefits, the jury saw the company's pattern as deliberately risking the health of patients for the sake of profits.
For their part, Wyeth company lawyers argued that there was no proof of the link between the women's cancers and their drugs, taking a familiar corporate tack similar to that taken in toxic tort cases such as cancers related to the Mission, Texas pesticide plant. They claimed the women had other risk factors, such as age, a strategy they have used before and no doubt plan to use again.
But the jury refused to believe this, and they were even more upset by the company's refusal to apologize even after the compensatory damages phase of the trial. They were also upset by the company's refusal to send corporate representatives to the trial.
Lawyers for Wyeth called the verdict, "an extreme aberration," saying "It is inconsistent with every other hormone therapy case to be tried to date and it is inconsistent with the evidence." However, this may be fear talking, for Wyeth has 5300 such cases still pending.
In this case, lawyers successfully put the fear of repercussions into pharmaceutical companies, which is just as it should be. If you or someone you love has suffered an adverse side effect as a result of a defective pharmaceutical drug, contact PersonalInjury.com today to get in touch with a local lawyer who can help you get justice.
Blog Action Day - Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Yesterday was blog action day, when all bloggers were supposed to unite in discussing environmental issues. According to organizers, about 15800 blogs registered to participate in exchanging tips on how to preserve the environment. Organizers claim the exercise is part of a growing global concern about environmental issues, also partly manifested in the new UN summit on climate change and the handing of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore for his work on the issue. Organizers said the goal of the day was "talking towards a better future."
Unfortunately, that's about all it amounts to. For all the supposed power of blogs that you hear about in the news media, who are mostly responding to the threat blogs pose to their own privileged place in the power structure, blogs can't help you if you've received a critical injury as a result of an automobile accident or medical malpractice, and they certainly can't help you if your community has been affected by a toxic spill or if the global atmosphere is being polluted. In at least three of these situations, lawyers can help. Perhaps lawyers are the only force powerful enough to stop the unholy alliance between big business and government that has allied the US, ostensibly a democratic country, with China, the world's biggest totalitarian state.
If you'd like to see if this would work, contact PersonalInjury.com today to see if any lawyer is willing to take on this highly courageous stand for all of us.
Test Case to go Forward in Texas Toxic Tort - Monday, October 15, 2007
Although hundreds of Mission, Texas residents are suing numerous manufacturers who used the Hayes-Sammons plant decades ago to produce pesticides and other chemicals, only one woman will get her chance to argue her case—for now. With insurance companies and their huge corporate clients fighting tooth and nail over every case, lawyers are becoming more tentative in the battles they fight.
In this case, the lawyer, Linda Laurent Thomas, who represents nearly 2000 plaintiffs in this case, has selected Guadalupe Garza to take her case forward to fight for damages in this case. She argues that Garza's case is the most clear-cut, the easiest to prove, and therefore should be allowed to go forward to set a precedent for others to follow. Or perhaps the suit will convince the lawyers from the chemical companies to settle.
Although this case is much more clear-cut than some others, such as the Fallon, NV leukemia cluster, judges are still pushing for harder evidence. So far, judges have stalled the case, arguing that clients must link their illnesses to specific chemicals before the case can go forward, and, since there were many, many chemicals in use at the plant and present as pollution, this makes great difficulties for the plaintiffs.
Hence Garza's case. Doctors have identified four specific chemicals—DDT, Benzene Hexachloride (BHC), toxophene, and dieldrin—as the agents responsible for causing her cancer.
However, the ever-cagey corporation lawyers have argued further that the case should not be allowed to go ahead until she can show which company’s products caused her illness. Since many manufacturers supplied DDT, they hope this dodge will allow them to escape punishment, since it would be impossible to track the specific molecules responsible for the cancer.
The judge seems to have not bought this argument, and is allowing the case to go forward, although a trial date has not yet been set.
The arguments in this case show the lengths that chemical companies will go to avoid taking responsibility for the toxic pollution they cause. If your community has been hurt by a toxic event of this nature, you need an experienced lawyer to help you step forward and hold the polluters responsible. Contact PersonalInjury.com today to get in touch with a lawyer in your area who can put the fire to corporate polluters.
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