Boston Injury Lawyer Blog

One year after the US Supreme Court ruled that medical device makers cannot be sued for personal injury, products liability, or wrongful death if the Food and Drug Administration had previously approved the device, US lawmakers are taking steps to give back to defective medical device victims and their families the right to sue for damages. In the US Senate, Senators Patrick Leahy and Ted Kennedy intend to reintroduce a bill that they presented last year, while in the US House, Representatives Frank Pallone and Henry Waxman say they will introduce their own bill.

In the US Supreme Court case, Charles Riegel, who was injured during angioplasty surgery when a balloon catheter burst as it was being inserted in his body, had sued medical device maker Medtronic for products liability. His case, Riegel v. Medtronic, went all the way to the US Supreme Court, and in 2008, the Court affirmed a ruling by a lower court to throw out the lawsuit.

Following the Supreme Court decision, hundreds of people who were injured by defective medical devices are finding that they may have no legal recourse to recover damages. Earlier this month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said that a man who had to have his Medtronic defibrillator removed because it could fail was not allowed to sue the medical device maker for products liability. Other plaintiffs whose defective medical device lawsuits have been thrown out include a man who says he was hurt by a prostate treatment device and a woman who sustained burn injuries from a device she was using to decrease menstrual bleeding.

Now, two cardiac specialists are warning that Medtronic's Sprint fidelis lead, an electrical cable that allows a defibrillator to connect to a patient’s heart, may be failing in patients at a faster rate than what was previously thought and that this rate could increase as time goes by. Over 235,000 people were administered the medical device prior to a product recall and many of these patients are still using them. The problem with the Medtronic device is that it may fail to deliver a necessary, life-saving shock to a patient’s heart or unnecessarily send these jolts to the patient. Findings from this newest study will be published on the medical journal Web site Heart Rhythm next week.

Study Finds More Failure of Heart Device, New York Times, February 23, 2009

Effort Underway to Overturn Medical Device Lawsuit Ban, NewsInferno.com, February 20, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Estate of Riegel v Medtronic, Cornell University Law School

Medtronic

Continue reading "Restoring to Injured Patients the Right to Sue Medical Device Makers" »

In Boston, an 82-year-old woman was pronounced dead today at Massachusetts General Hospital after falling on an escalator at the MBTA’s State Street Station. Her clothing reportedly got caught in the escalator.

According to Boston EMS spokesperson Jennifer Mehigan, a “cardiac incident” and the “escalator accident” were both factors in the elderly Boston woman’s death. As of early this afternoon, it was still unclear whether the cardiac incident occurred before or as a result of the escalator accident. Meantime, the Suffolk district attorney’s office, MBTA Transit Police, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety are trying to determine what caused the incident.

This is not the first accident involving an MBTA escalator. Four years ago, a 34-year-old East Boston man died at the Porter Square station when his sweatshirt hood got caught in an opening in the machinery of the escalator. The movement of the escalator caused the opening of his sweatshirt to wrap more tightly around his neck.

In 1995, a 3-year-old Cambridge boy sustained a severe gash to his leg on an MBTA escalator. In 1996, a Beacon Hill man had have his arm amputated after his coat got stuck in the State Street Station escalator.

According to the Executive Office of Public Safety, the escalator involved in today’s deadly accident underwent its last inspection last May and no problems were detected at the time. There have been no reports since then of problems with the escalator.

Escalator Accident Facts
• Thousands of people a year are treated in US emergency rooms because of escalator accidents.
• Examples of potential hazards that can lead to elevator accidents include missing teeth at the top of the escalator and screws coming out of an escalator’s side.
• Common kinds of escalator accidents include fall accidents and entrapment accidents.
• Among the elderly, slip and fall accidents and trip and fall accident are the most common kinds of injury accidents to occur on an escalator.
• Young children is another group that is at high risk of getting hurt on an escalator.

There are many reasons why escalator accidents occur. Defective or malfunctioning escalators is just one reason that escalator accidents happen.

Woman dies in MBTA escalator accident, Boston.com, February 24, 2009

Rate Of Escalator Injuries To Older Adults Has Doubled, Science Daily, March 14, 2008

Related Web Resources:
Danger On The Escalator, CBS News, February 17, 2005

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority

Continue reading "82-Year-Old Boston Woman Dies in MBTA Escalator Accident" »

In Massachusetts, a former Breed Middle School student is suing the city of Lynn for personal injury. Ralph Ozual’s slip and fall lawsuit, filed in Salem Superior Court, is seeking $100,000 in damages.

Ozual’s complaint contends that on January 14, 2002, he sustained serious personal injuries when he slipped an fell on ice and snow in the Breed Middle School yard while walking from the bus to the school entrance. As a result of the Massachusetts slip and fall accident, Ozual says he sustained permanent injuries, including traumatic injuries to his right ankle and growth plate.

The plaintiff, who was a minor at the time, says that he continues to require costly medical attention and treatment for his injuries. His Essex County slip and fall complaint claims the city of Lynn acted carelessly and negligently and was in breech of a warranty agreement when it allowed such a dangerous condition to exist on the school’s premise.

Slip and Fall Accidents
Each year, thousands of people are injured in slip and fall accidents on other people’s premises. Different categories of slip and fall accident include:

Slip and Fall Accidents: A person slips on a floor surface and slides to the ground.

Step and Fall Accidents: Because there is a hole or another type of opening in the ground, someone steps into the gap and falls.

Trip and Fall Accidents: An object or crack or unevenness on the ground causes a person to trip and fall to the ground.

Stump and Fall Accidents: A person stumbles over an object on the ground and falls.

Slip and fall injuries can be excruciatingly painful and take months to recover from. Sometimes, the injuries may be permanent, such as is often the cause with spinal cord injuries or head injuries. Elderly people involved in slip and fall injuries are prone to breaking a hip bone, which could take awhile to recover from or cause their health to deteriorate. If you or someone you love got hurt in a slip and fall accident, you may have grounds for filing a Massachusetts premises liability lawsuit.

Former Breed student sues Lynn, Itemlive.com, February 18, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Proving Fault in Slip and Fall Accidents, Nolo

Preventing Injuries from Slips, Trips and Falls, CDC.gov

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration are trying to determine the cause of last Thursday’s deadly plane crash that killed all 49 people onboard the plane and another victim on the ground. Continental Connection Flight 3407 crashed into a Buffalo, New York home before bursting into flames. This is the first deadly aviation accident involving a commercial airliner in the United States in over two years.

Two areas of focus for investigators appear to be the icing on the plane and the aircraft’s autopilot. Right before Thursday’s plane crash, other aircrafts in the area reported icing problems. Now, some people are questioning whether the plane should have been on autopilot in such icy conditions, especially as some experts believe that activating a plane’s autopilot can make it hard for pilots to gauge the seriousness of icing conditions.

Just this December, the NTSB talked about how ice, as little as ¼ inches, can have a deadly effect on a pilot’s ability to handle the plane. The NTSB also explained that while activating the plane’s autopilot can minimize the impact of the plane’s icing, it could cause pilots to becoming too confident. The agency suggests activating the plane’s de-icing systems as soon as icing occurs. Also, according to CBS News, turboprop planes are involved in the majority of ice-related accidents. However, on Monday, an NTSB member cautioned about assuming that icing is what caused the plane crash until the investigation was complete.

Another factor that is under investigation is the pilot experience of Capt. Marvin D. Renslow, who had just completed training on a Dash 8 less than three months before. Renslow had accrued 110 hours in the turboprop’s cockpit—compared to Capt. Cesley Sullenberger, the pilot who was able to land US Airways Flight 1949 on the Hudson River in January, who had logged in some 20,000 hours.

Commercial Airline Accidents
Any kind of deadly aviation accident is always a catastrophe—and one that is further magnified when there are multiple victims. The more deaths there are, the greater the numbers of family and friends that will undoubtedly be impacted by the losses. If you’ve lost a family member in a plane crash, you may be entitled to wrongful death compensation.

Pilot Experience Eyed In Flight 3407 Probe, CBS News, February 17, 2009

Continental Flight 3407 reported 'significant icing' before crash that killed 50, The Buffalo News, February 17, 2009

Icing Played Down in Buffalo Crash, New York Times, February 19, 2009

50 Dead in Plane Crash Near Buffalo, N.Y., The Street, February 13, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Continental Airlines

National Transportation Safety Board

Continue reading "Federal Investigators Probe Cause of Continental Plane Crash That Killed 50 People" »

In the US District Court in Worcester, a state trooper is suing Taser International, the makers of the Taser stun gun, for $1 million. James Foley, a Grafton resident, says that when the weapon was used on him during a law enforcement seminar on Tasers, the electric currents that went through his body bent a surgical screw that was in his leg. Foley contends that because of exposure to the Taser, he experienced severe pain and suffering, loss of wages, and a diminished earning capacity.

According to Foley’s Massachusetts personal injury lawsuit:
At the Taser X-26 seminar in 2006, attendees were offered the opportunity to have the stun gun used on them so that they could understand how the weapon affects the human body. Foley says he told a Taser employee that he had surgical hardware in his left femur and the worker said use of the device on him would not impact the hardware or cause injury.

Foley’s personal injury lawsuit claims that the moment the Taser was used on him, he experienced pain in his left leg. At the hospital, he was told that the surgical screw that he’d had in his leg since 2004 was “seriously bent” and he now had a new fracture. His wife, who is also named as a plaintiff in Foley’s lawsuit, is claiming loss of consortium. Following the incident, Foley took time off work to recover from his injuries.

Tasers
Taser stun guns send 50,000 volts into their target for five seconds each time. The experience can be very painful for the person who is being Tasered and usually results in instant collapse.

Tasers are used by many law enforcement officers throughout the US to apprehend suspects. However, numerous personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits have been filed against Taser International by the victims and the families of people who died after a Taser was used on them. Their products liability lawsuits have contended that Tasers are inherently too dangerous.

Over the years, a number of personal injury lawsuits have also been filed by police officers who say they sustained serious injuries when the device was used to shock them during training sessions.

One police chief says that after he volunteered to have a Taser used on him in 2004, he had two strokes, suffered heart damage, experienced hearing loss, and sustained neurological damage.

State trooper from Grafton suing over Taser injury, Worcester Telegram & Gazette News, February 9, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Taser International

Man dies after Taser jolt from S.J. police, February 12, 2009

Judge awards $1.4M to lawyers in Taser lawsuit, SignonSanDiego.com, February 5, 2009

Public health officials in Massachusetts say 48 residents have been afflicted by the same strain of Salmonella that has made over 600 people in the United States sick. The Salmonella Typhimurium originated from a peanut plant in Georgia that is owned by the Peanut Corporation of America.

Those affected in Massachusetts include a 1-year-old and a 91-year-old. There are also 13 reported cases of salmonella in Middlesex County, 4 in Bristol County, 3 in Barnstable County, 6 in Essex County, 4 in Norfolk County, 9 in Hampden County, 1 in Suffolk County, 4 in Plymouth County, and 4 in Worcester County. Fortunately, no one in the state has died from the illness.

Elsewhere in the United States, however, several fatalities are being linked to this particular strain of salmonella, which is being spread because numerous food items contain the tainted peanut products. The family of one woman is suing PCA for her wrongful death. Their lawsuit contends that the 72-year-old died because she ate Salmonella-tainted peanut butter while she was staying at a nursing home. The peanut butter was made at the company’s contaminated Georgia plant.

Meantime, hundreds of companies that are clients of PCA are recalling their products beause of concerns that they may be contaminated with Salmonella Typhimurium. More than 1,700 food products are being pulled off store shelves in an effort to keep consumers from getting sick.

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration said that PCA had knowingly shipped out some products that had tested positive for Salmonella and that contrary to previous claims by the company that it only shipped out products after follow up tests came back negative, this was in fact only the case for some of the products that were sent out.

Late last month, the US Justice Department announced a criminal probe to determine if any charges need to be filed.

Products Liability
If you or someone you love got sick because you purchased or were served and ate a contaminated or spoiled food products, you may have grounds to file a products liability lawsuit against a negligent food manufacturer or distributor. You also may be entitled to file a Massachusetts personal injury lawsuit against a party that served you the food.

48 in state stricken with salmonella illness, Boston.com, February 10, 2009

FDA: Peanut plant knew product was tainted with salmonella, CNN, February 6, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Recall of Peanut-Containing Products: Salmonella Typhimurium, FDA, February 11, 2009

Peanut Corporation of America

Continue reading "Some 48 Massachusetts Residents Affected by Salmonella Illness that Has Spurred Mass Peanut Product Recall" »

In Boston, one worker has died and another suffered serious injuries when a crane fell at Suffolk University on Saturday morning. The crane was being used to inspect the roof of a seven-story dorm building when it tipped over, causing its 110-foot arm to crash into a building and barely miss a number of shoppers who were browsing books at the Brattle Book Shop’s outdoor display.

The two workers who were involved in the deadly Massachusetts work accident were in the crane’s basket when it fell onto a paved lot. They are James Williamson, who died from his work injuries, and Greg Johnson.

Occupational Health and Safety Administration officials, police, and firefighters were at the scene all day to examine the crane and determine determine what caused the accident. According to the Boston Fire Department's spokesperson, the force of the fall bent the crane and caused it to split apart.

Crane Accidents
Hundreds of thousands of workers suffer serious, if not fatal injuries in crane accidents each year. OSHA cites causes of crane accidents to include:

• Improper assembly
• Improper disassembly
• Boom buckling
• Failed rigging
• Falls
• Outrigger use
• Improperly trained workers
• Inadequate safety gear
• Improper safety procedures

Suffolk University says it contracted Tremco Inc to inspect several of its buildings’ roofs. Sheet Metal of Framingham and Reliable Roofing were subcontracted to do the work, and the latter had rented the crane equipment from Height 4 Hire. Last March, OSHA slapped Reliable Roofing with a $4,500 fine because the company neglected to provide workers with safety net systems, guardrail systems, and personal fall arrest systems at a Newburyport job site.

Workers injured at job sites do not have to prove that another party was at fault in order to receive Massachusetts workers' compensation benefits, which they are owed under state law. They do, however, have to prove liability by a third party in order to receive personal injury compensation. While workers' compensation benefits do provide some relief, the injuries and losses sustained in a construction accident may incur expenses that far surpass the financial compensation your employer is required to provide. This is why it is important that you consider all of your legal options.

Crane accident in Downtown Crossing leaves two injured, Boston Herald, February 9, 2009

Crane falls down, killing worker, Boston.com, February 8, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Crane Accidents

Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Continue reading "Boston Crane Collapse Kills One Massachusetts Construction Worker and Injures Another" »

In Brockton Superior Court, Judge Carroll Ball sentenced former Massachusetts nursing home assistant Steven Laroche to a two-year suspended jail sentence for sexually assaulting an elderly person. Laroche had pleaded guilty to the charges of assault and battery.

He was indicted nearly a year ago after another St. Joseph’s Manor Nursing Home assistant reported witnessing him sexually assault a 93-year-old male resident. The patient, who had been diagnosed with dementia and Parkinson’s, is now deceased.

As part of Laroche’s sentencing, he is required to register as a Massachusetts sexual offender and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet. He is not allowed to work as a caregiver for the duration of his probation.

Six months after the assault incident occurred at the nursing home, the victim’s family filed a Massachusetts nursing home abuse lawsuit, which is still pending.

St. Joseph’s Manor Nursing Home, however, claims that it did not break procedures and protocol when performing a background check before hiring Laroche. The state fined the Massachusetts nursing home for failing to report the assault incident to a social worker, the doctor, or the elderly resident’s family. A CNA at the nursing home who reported the attack to the state was fired.

The nursing home administrator says new processes were implemented to address the problems.

Examples of physical abuse by US nursing home workers:

• Rape
• Molestation
• Hitting, pushing, slapping, shaking, or pinching a patient
• Inflicting burn injuries
• Physically forcing a patient to eat

Nursing homes are supposed to make sure that they take the necessary steps to prevent any kind of abuse from happening. Failure or negligence to do so can be grounds for a Massachusetts nursing home abuse lawsuit.

Brockton nurse convicted of sexually assaulting patient, Boston Herald, February 2, 2009

Civil case still pending in Brockton nursing home assault, Wicked Local, February 4, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Nursing Homes in Massachusetts

Nursing Homes, Medicare.gov

A $350,000 wrongful death settlement has been reached between the federal government and the family of a US marine reserve corporal who was refused care at the Veterans Administration hospital in Leeds, Massachusetts. Marine Reserve Corporal Jeffrey Lucey hanged himself in June 2004.

According to his family, the 23-year-old soldier was drinking heavily, severely depressed, and having trouble sleeping after he returned from Iraq in 2004. He was treated at the Massachusetts VA hospital’s psychiatric ward.

Two days after Lucey was released from the medical facility, he tried to kill himself by crashing the family car. It was at this point that the VA hospital refused to readmit him. A nurse reportedly made this decision without having a psychiatrist evaluate Lucey. According to his parents’ wrongful death lawsuit, the VA wouldn’t treat Lucey for post-traumatic stress disorder because he needed to become sober first.

In the last few years, the US government has made changes to how VA facilities treat returning veterans. 100 adjustment counsels have joined 207 of the VA’s Vet Centers. 100 new medical center employees now work as advocates for those who have suffered serious injuries. The VA Office of the Inspector General has also said that sustained sobriety will no longer be a requirement for US veterans to receive inpatient treatment for PTSD.

Lucey's father, Kevin, has accused the government of killing his son by sending him into war and then denying him the “basic health care” he needed upon his return. There have been several wrongful death lawsuits filed against the US government alleging negligence that led to veterans killing themselves.

By agreeing to settle, the Assistant US Attorney in charge of the case says the VA is not admitting it was responsible for Lucey’s suicide.

Family of Iraq vet gets settlement after his suicide, Stars and Stripes, January 16, 2009

VA Settles Suicide Lawsuit, Military.com, January 15, 2009

Related Web Resources:
US Department of Veterans Affairs

The Federal Tort Claims Act (PDF)