Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Daycare Owners Sued for Hiring Negligence After Child's Death

"As parents, we trust that our children are safe while they are under the supervision of organizations like Community Nursery & Preschool, and that those individuals taking care of our children are responsible, qualified, and professional care providers. When organizations and individuals betray that trust, the consequences can be tragic and heart-breaking."

That sounds like some of the openings we've had to write in response to children being injured or killed while at daycare. In fact they're the words of David S. Cain Jr., an attorney representing the family of 5-year-old Kamden Johnson, whose body discovered in the driveway in Mobile, Alabama last week.

The family is suing the daycare Kamden was supposed to be attending on the day he was found, claiming the company was negligent in screening and hiring Valarie Rena Patterson, who has also been charged with multiple crimes relating to the boy's death.

An Avoidable Tragedy

Though all the details are not yet known, it sounds like Kamden was another tragic victim of being left in a hot van for too long. Kenya Anderson, the Director of the Community Nursery & Preschool Academy, told AL.com that Patterson was in charge of shuttling children between daycare facilities. Kamden was a passenger in the morning, but Patterson allegedly told Anderson she didn't pick him up for the afternoon rounds.

Anderson, along with Community Church Ministries, Inc. and owners Carl and Angela Coker, are named in the lawsuit, which claims the daycare failed to conduct a background check on Patterson before her hiring.

A Knowable Past

According to law enforcement, that background check would've been revealing. AoL.com reports:

Mobile County jail records show Patterson's arrest history dating back to November 1991 for three counts of second-degree theft of property charges, two counts of first-degree theft of property, two counts of third-degree theft of property, no driver's license and failure to appear in court charges.
She was arrested a second time in August 1999 in Florida on first-degree theft of property, giving a false name to police and fugitive from justice charges. Court documents show that Patterson used an alias name of Valarie Hardy during that arrest.
She was arrested a third time in October of 2007 on a fugitive from justice charge.

In this case, Patterson has been charged with corpse abuse and manslaughter. Whether the Community Church daycare performed its due diligence in hiring Patterson may be a question left to another jury.

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from Injured http://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2017/08/daycare-owners-sued-for-hiring-negligence-after-childs-death.html
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Thursday, August 24, 2017

Opioid Lawsuits: What You Need to Know

As more and more people fall victim to opioid addiction, more and more lawsuits are being filed. States are suing drug companies, addicts are suing doctors, and the federal government is starting its own investigation into the crisis.

But who's liable for opioid addiction? The addict? Doctors? Drug manufacturers? All three? Here's what you need to know about opioid lawsuits and addiction liability.

1. Can I Sue My Doctor for Opiate Addiction?

Physicians owe their patients a duty of care, and can be liable for medical malpractice if their prescription of opioids -- either the dosage, the type of drug, or the failure to notice your developing addiction -- constituted a breach of this duty.

2. Can Doctors Be Liable for Patient Overdoses?

As noted above, normally patient overdoses are dealt with in a medical malpractice claim, or, unfortunately, in a wrongful death claim. But in rare instances, doctors also have been charged with and convicted of murder in overdose cases.

3. Can You Sue a Drug Company for Opioid Addiction?

Successful lawsuits blaming a drug manufacturer for addiction are rare; courts often find addicts liable for their own addiction and the drug companies too far removed from the use to be liable. But that could be changing in the opioid context.

4. Are Drug Companies Liable for Side Effects?

Drug companies have a duty to warn of known dangers. So if you're claiming that a drug manufacturer knew how addictive an opioid was and failed to warn either doctors or patients, you may have a better shot at proving the manufacturer's liability.

5. Liability for Drug Overdoses

Tragically, some addictions end in overdoses, and many of those can be fatal. Wrongful death lawsuits can look a little different than a standard medical malpractice or product liability claim, so it's important to know how liability may be different as well.

If you or someone you know is dealing with an addiction to opioids, get help now. Then consider contacting an experienced personal injury attorney.

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from Injured http://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2017/08/opioid-lawsuits-what-you-need-to-know.html
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Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Teen Dies After Gym Teacher Refuses Asthma Inhaler Request

'When a child is in the school district, from the time they get there, the school is responsible for their safety.' So said attorney Jay Dorsey, who is representing the family of a 14-year-old girl who collapsed and died after a gym teacher refused repeated requests to retrieve her inhaler from her locker.

The family has filed a federal lawsuit against the county board of education, the high school where it happened, and the unnamed gym teacher, charging them with civil rights violations, wrongful death, gross negligence, and negligence in hiring and supervising employees.

Asthma Attack

The incident happened in Montgomery County, Maryland, and Washington's NBC4 first reported on the lawsuit. According to the suit, Taylor Walton began having an asthma attack during gym class in November 2015, and asked the teacher twice to leave class and get her inhaler:

A third time, Taylor again approached the John Doe Gym Teacher and stated that she was still having severe problems breathing and that she (was) leaving class to get her inhaler ... Thereafter, Taylor left the gym class. As Taylor was observed leaving the gymnasium, there were no efforts by Defendant Gym Teacher or other members of the gym staff to accompany her to her locker to help her get her inhaler or to secure her safety.

Taylor was found by another school employee, collapsed on the steps outside the gym. Efforts to revive her by school staff and emergency responders were unsuccessful.

School Board Breach

According to the lawsuit, Taylor had suffered a prior asthma attack in the same gym teacher's class before, school officials we aware she suffered from asthma, and were required to distribute an "emergency treatment plan" to her teachers. Taylor's family is seeking $10 million from the Montgomery County Public School district.

"The actions or omissions of the Defendant Board and its staff ... breached the duty owed Taylor," the lawsuit alleges. "Each individual breach by the Board and staff, or in concert with each other, was a substantial factor in proximately causing injury and then death of Taylor."

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from Injured http://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2017/08/teen-dies-after-gym-teacher-refuses-asthma-inhaler-request.html
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Tuesday, August 22, 2017

$417M Judgment Against Johnson & Johnson in Latest Talc-Cancer Verdict

At this point, there have been so many lawsuits filed against Johnson & Johnson over its talc and baby powder products, and judgments against the company based on cancer caused by those products, it's becoming hard to keep track of them all. Luckily, Bloomberg did the work for us: J&J is facing "5,500 claims in U.S. courts, [and] has lost four previous jury verdicts in St. Louis for a total of $300 million."

And you can add another verdict to that list, this one coming in California. A Los Angeles jury awarded Eva Echeverria $417 million after finding J&J liable for not warning about the cancer risk in its baby powder products.

Problem All Over the Country

"J&J needs to see they not only have verdicts against them in St. Louis, they now also have them in Los Angeles," Echeverria's attorney Mark Robinson said. "There's a problem all over the country with women using talcum powder on daily basis for 10, 20, 30, 40 years." The 62-year-old woman began using the talcum powder products when she was 11 and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007. Of the total award, the jury charged Johnson & Johnson with $347 million in punitive damages.

While J&J has and continues to defend the safety of its Baby Powder and Shower to Shower talc-based products, various lawsuits have cited studies linking talc to ovarian cancer and accused the company of failing to adequately warn customers of the risk.

Denying the Obvious

Most damning of the allegations against J&J revolve around what the company knew and when. According to one lawsuit, the Cancer Prevention Coalition notified Johnson & Johnson's CEO in 1994 that studies showed using talcum powder in the genital area posed "a serious risk of ovarian cancer." And the AP has reported on an internal memo in 1997 from a Johnson & Johnson medical consultant said "anybody who denies" the risk of using hygienic talc and ovarian cancer is "denying the obvious in the face of all evidence to the contrary."

The latest judgment against J&J may be the latest and one of the largest, but it's far from the first and likely far from the last as well.

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from Injured http://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2017/08/417m-judgment-against-johnson-johnson-in-latest-talc-cancer-verdict.html
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Monday, August 21, 2017

ACLU Settles Lawsuit Against CIA Torture Psychologists

Much was made of the 'enhanced interrogation techniques' employed by the U.S. military and contractors in terrorism investigations. Often considered torture, the interrogation program was at the center of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit filed against the alleged architects of that program, on behalf two men subjected to those techniques and the family of one man who froze to death in a CIA prison.

In what the ACLU says is a first for lawsuits involving CIA torture, the two defendants in the case, psychologists James Mitchell and John "Bruce" Jessen, have agreed to settle the lawsuit, for an undisclosed amount.

Enhanced Interrogation

"Government officials and contractors are on notice that they cannot hide from accountability for torture," said director of the ACLU National Security Project Hina Shamsi in the wake of the settlement. "Our clients' groundbreaking case has changed the legal landscape. It showed that the courts are fully capable of handling lawsuits involving abuses committed in the name of national security." Due to issues of immunity and fears of classified information being made public, the case was set to be the first of its kind to go to trial, perhaps because the Justice Department did not try to block it.

Although both Mitchell and Jessen continue to claim that the abuse suffered by Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, and Gul Rahman, and Rahman's death, all occurred without their knowledge. But in an earlier ruling in the case, the court found "The evidence would support a finding Defendants designed the [enhanced interrogation techniques] to be used on detainees, and thus they clearly had knowledge they would be so used."

Brutal and Ineffective

Those techniques embodied an effort to a state of "learned helplessness" in captives that would remove any resistance to interrogation. According to Dr. Jessen's deposition in the case, he and Dr. Mitchell were tasked with coming up with those techniques, which included sensory and sleep deprivation, shackling for hours in uncomfortable positions, and waterboarding. "Jim and I went into a cubicle," he said. "He sat down at a typewriter and together we wrote out a list."

The interrogation techniques developed by the doctors were ultimately found to be brutal and ineffective, but caused lasting pain and suffering to those subjected to them.

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from Injured http://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2017/08/aclu-settles-lawsuit-against-cia-torture-psychologists.html
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Can You Sue a Drug Company for Opioid Addiction?

As the opioid crisis spins out of control, people are looking for ways to rein in the epidemic and for ways to hold accountable those responsible. Individuals are suing their doctors for contributing to an opiate addiction, and cities, counties, and states are suing drug manufacturers for creating a flood of opiates.

But can a single person or class of individuals hold a drug company legally responsible for an opioid addiction?

Pharmaceutical Liability

Suing a drug manufacturer for a drug's danger or its addictive properties will generally take the shape of a product liability lawsuit, whereby a manufacturer can be held liable for a dangerous or defective product. There are three ways to hold a drug manufacturer liable based on pharmaceutical drug liability:

  1. Defects in Design: Alleging a drug poses an unreasonable risk to consumers even if it is manufactured and used as intended. These include only foreseeable risks, and a drug company could be held liable if it knew about and ignored those risks. These lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies are rare, because as long as some safe use of the drug exists, the manufacturer generally can't be held liable.
  2. Defects in Manufacturing: Alleging a mistake in the production of a drug that renders it a danger to consumers. These lawsuits generally arise when medication is contaminated at a processing facility, like when GlaxoSmithKline had to pay $41 million to settle lawsuits about drugs manufactured at its former factory in Puerto Rico. These also may not apply in opiate addiction cases, if the drugs involved were properly manufactured.
  3. Defects in Warnings: Alleging a drug company's failure to properly warn consumers of known risks in using its medications. Drug companies could be held liable for providing inadequate warnings, inaccurate warnings, or no warnings at all. This is most commonly cited in pharmaceutical company lawsuits when consumers sue for prescription drug side effects. But may also be applicable to cases where consumers have not been adequately warned about a drug's addictive properties.

Pharmaceutical Lawyers

If you or someone you know is addicted to an opioid or other prescription medication, you can contact an experienced personal injury attorney to review your case.

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from Injured http://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2017/08/can-you-sue-a-drug-company-for-opioid-addiction.html
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Monday, August 14, 2017

Injured by Electric Shock -- Can You Sue?

According to the most recent data from Consumer Product Safety Commission, there are around 70 electrocution fatalities every year from consumer products. And while you might think children are the most vulnerable to electrocution, there were twice as many victims who were 40 to 59 years old, compared to the number of victims who were 19 years old and younger.

Electrocutions are also one of the most common workplace injuries, accounting for around 9 percent of all fatal workplace accidents. Electric shock injuries can be scary, and whether you can sue for those injuries may depend on who injured you and where.

Who Shocked You?

The vast majority of injury lawsuits are based on negligence liability, meaning that another person's negligence led to your injury. And there are four elements to a standard negligence claim:

  1. Duty: Someone owed you a legal duty to use reasonable care with electric wiring or equipment under the circumstances;
  2. Breach: The person breached that legal duty by acting or failing to act responsibly with the wiring or equipment;
  3. Causation: It was this breach that actually caused your injuries; and
  4. Damages: Your injury is real and compensable.

In order to be compensated for your electric shock injuries, you will need t be able to prove all four of these elements, as well as an accurate estimate of the amount of cost of your injuries.

Where Were You Shocked?

Electric shock injuries could also be a property owner's fault. There are three main ways you can sue someone owning the property on which you were injured:

If you were electrocuted on the job, you may need to file a worker's compensation claim before a civil lawsuit. Legal theories involving personal injuries can be complex and could overlap in dealing with your electric shock injury case. An experienced personal injury attorney can explain how each may apply to you.

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from Injured http://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2017/08/injured-by-electric-shock----can-you-sue.html
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