Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Woman Dying from Father's Job Gets Settlement for Her Children - Thursday, November 15, 2007

A woman in Devon, England recently won her claim for damages after developing a case of incurable asbestos-related cancer from hugging her father when he came home from work at the Devonport Shipyard. In this poignant case, the woman was a little girl in the 1960s when her father worked laying asbestos in the shipyard, and when he came home exhausted from the day's work, she would hug him. In the process, she was exposed to dangerous asbestos fibers, which lodged in her lungs.

In 1994, she began experiencing breathing difficulties, and last year, the same year her father died of asbestos-related mesothelioma, she was diagnosed with the same disease. Now the Ministry of Defense has acknowledged its liability in the case and offered her a six-figure settlement. The woman said that the settlement has given her some peace of mind for her family.

This case shows how far-reaching can be the effects of a toxic workplace. If you are working in an environment where you are exposed to harsh chemicals, you could be bringing home more than a paycheck. Protect your family and your future. Contact PersonalInjury.com today to get in touch with an area lawyer who can bring financial pressure to bear on negligent employers.

Labels: asbestos, toxic tort, workers compensation, wrongful death

Defibrillator Leads Can Puncture Heart - Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Yet another problem has arisen with implanted defibrillators. In 2005, problems were found with two major brands of implantable defibrillators. First several Medtronic defibrillators were found to suffer battery short-outs. Then Guidant corporation (now a subsidiary of Boston Scientific Corporation) announced a recall of 20 models of its implantable defibrillators. Earlier this year, Medtronic also announced problems with several models of its Sprint Fidelis leads that could lead to painful shocks or even death for patients, problems of which it was apparently aware for seven months before its "voluntary suspension of sale" of the leads.

Now an entirely different brand of defibrillator leads is apparently causing an entirely different brand of problems. According to the journal of Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology, the Riata leads manufactured by St. Jude Medical, Inc can actually puncture the heart of patients. The report is based on only four cases, two in the Czech Republic, and two in the United States, and, according to St. Jude's data based on 121,000 cases, the perforation rate is only 0.086 percent, or approximately 86 cases per 100,000 patients.

Apparently, perforation by leads is not a new thing, but is pandemic with implanted defibrillators, dependent on a physician's technique or characteristics of the patient, meaning this may be less a case of defective product and more of medical malpractice. Or is it? These devices are purported to be consistent with the highest level of medical care available, but with the incidence of all these problems, one wonders whether they are worth the cost or whether the medical supply corporations are profiteering on the tendency of the human heart to hope.

If you or someone you love pinned your hope on one of these devices, only to find that the device itself was as much a threat as the disease, please contact PersonalInjury.com today to get in touch with a local lawyer who is ready to take up your case.

Labels: defective product, implanted defibrillators, medical malpractice

Changing Tire with Shotgun: not a good an idea - Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A man suffered from a different kind of tire blowout accident when he attempted to loosen a stiff wheel-nut with a shotgun. The 66-year-old man from South Kitsap, 10 miles southwest of Seattle, Washington, had been working on his Lincoln Continental for two weeks. He had managed to loosen all the nuts but one. When it refused to budge, the man got his 12-gauge shotgun, stood about an arm's length from the vehicle, and fired a buckshot round. Of course, the man was sprayed with buckshot and debris from his feet to his chin, although he only suffered injuries as high as his abdomen.

Remarkably, alcohol was not a factor in this firearm "accident," only extreme frustration. I would recommend the following steps to remove a stuck wheel nut:

WD-40 is a great start
Get leverage with an extension for your tire iron. I have a 2 ½ foot pipe I use.
An impact wrench or other specialized tool is handy.
Call someone to come out, AAA or a mobile mechanic.
Never use a firearm under any circumstances.

While I would not advocate that guns should have labels, "Warning: Not to be used as tire-iron," firearms are inherently dangerous products, subject to many forms of liability. Also, there are questions about the man's attempt to change his tire, such as whether the nuts had been over-tightened by the service technician who put the tire on the car in the first place.

If you have been injured as a result of someone else's negligence (unlike this fellow, who has no-one to blame but himself), contact PersonalInjury.com today to get in touch with a product liability lawyer in your area.

What a tangled web in DUI case - Monday, November 12, 2007

The twists and turns of a Wetzel County, West Virginia, DUI suit are instructive about the way personal injury cases can be exacerbated by the practices of insurance companies. When Prudential issued an auto insurance policy to Robert Gaiser, the man had already been arrested five times for driving under the influence. The company had to be prepared for the inevitable, which occurred in 2003 when Gaiser, driving around with a half-gallon bottle of vodka, crossed the centerline of a rural highway and struck a pickup head-on, killing the driver, 53-year-old Charles Clegg.

However, when this occurred, Prudential used its usual tactics of deny, delay, defend, and waited three months before approaching Clegg's family with a settlement in the automobile accident case for $50,000, technically the liability limit of Gaiser's policy. By that time, the family had been hurt by mounting bills and severely felt the loss, so they turned down the offer, and brought two lawsuits. First, they sued Prudential and its new owner Liberty Mutual for bad faith insurance practices. Second, they sued Gaiser for damages over the wrongful death, since they cannot sue the insurance companies directly for damages. While the first suit is still pending, the second suit was found in favor of Clegg's family for a settlement of $8.3 million.

Since Gaiser cannot pay the $8.3 million, he must file suit to sue his own insurance company for the money. He will charge that the insurance company's failure to act exposed him to this liability. Once he files the suit, however, he will assign the claim to the Clegg family, allowing them to prosecute the case and reap the award, which could be up to the full amount of the jury award, and with the bad faith insurance practices trial still pending, the Clegg family could easily receive more than the jury award.

If you have been victimized by bad faith insurance practices, whether as a policy-holder or as someone injured by a policyholder then insulted by their insurance company, contact PersonalInjury.com today to get in touch with a bad-faith insurance attorney in your area.

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