NURSING HOMES AND MANDATORY ARBITRATION

From Philly.com:

Patients hoping to get into nursing homes increasingly are signing away their rights to sue over poor care.

That's a problem, say lawmakers who are pushing legislation to make such agreements unenforceable.

The nursing homes argue that arbitration arrangements to which many families agree actually lead to dispute resolutions that are fairer than court cases. But legislators, supported by consumer-advocacy groups and trial lawyers, say families should not be giving away their ability to hold the homes accountable for poor care.

A Senate committee will hear today from the family of William Kurth, who fractured his hip and leg and contracted numerous pressure ulcers during his final months of life in a Wisconsin nursing home. When his family attempted to sue for negligence, a judge dismissed the case because Kurth's wife had agreed, as part of her husband's admission, to have all complaints go through an arbitrator.

The Senate panel, which is investigating the growing use of binding arbitration by nursing homes, says more than 100 lawsuits have been filed in the last five years challenging such agreements.

Arbitrators take into account federal, state and county laws when resolving legal disputes. Often, the parties are free to negotiate some of the ground rules for their case. The process has the advantage of being faster and less expensive for both parties. It also is confidential.

Few families are even thinking about the possibility that they might want to go to court when they admit their loved ones to nursing homes.

Kurth's wife, Elaine, was under extreme duress and on medication when she signed the papers that allowed her husband, a stroke victim, to stay at the nursing home, the family's attorney said.

Family members who will appear before Congress say the World War II veteran died at age 84 from infections that occurred because excrement and urine were not cleansed from his bedsores for days at a time. David Kurth of Burlington, Wis., says arbitration has become a shield for large corporations to hide behind and decrease the quality of care.

"It is economically more profitable to let people like my father suffer than to provide proper care," Kurth said in written testimony prepared in advance. "And now that our family is trying to hold the nursing-home corporation accountable for its actions, Kindred Care is trying to bury our case by forcing us into a mandatory, secret, and binding-arbitration process that they chose."

Federal Court Jury Awards 6.2 Million Dollars in TASER-Related Death

From PRWeb.com:

San Jose, CA (PRWEB) June 8, 2008 -- A Federal Jury returned a verdict late Friday afternoon in the amount of $6,221,000.00 against TASER International Inc., for the wrongful death of a 40-year-old Salinas, California, man, who died following repeated shocks from three TASER electronic control devices ("ECDs").
    
The jury of five women and two men found that TASER International knew or should have known that its M26 model ECD was dangerous because prolonged exposures to the device pose a substantial risk of cardiac arrest to persons against whom the device is deployed. The jury also found that TASER International failed to adequately warn purchasers of its device of the risks associated with its use. It awarded the parents of Robert Heston $1,000,000 in compensatory damages and $5,000,000.00 in punitive damages. The jury also awarded Heston's estate $21,000.00 in compensatory damages and another $200,000.00 in punitive damages. However, it also found Robert Heston 85% comparatively negligent for the incident which ultimately resulted in his death. Only the compensatory damage award will be reduced by his percentage of comparative negligence.
    
On February 19, 2005, Robert C. Heston began acting erratically inside his family's Salinas, California home. Believing his son might be under the influence of drugs, Heston's father called the police reporting his son's bizarre behavior and asked them for help in removing his son from the home. Officers from the Salinas Police Department responded to the Heston home and confronted Mr. Heston. Three police officers used their TASER ECDs repeatedly subjecting Mr. Heston to nearly 75 seconds of continuous TASER discharges as other officers attempted to handcuff Heston on the living room floor. While being subjected to the TASER discharges, Heston suffered a cardiac arrest causing irreversible brain damage. He was removed from life support the following day and died shortly thereafter.
    
In their lawsuit, Heston v. City of Salinas, et al., N.D. Cal. Case No. C 05-03658 JW, Heston's parents alleged that TASER ECDs are unreasonably dangerous and defective for use on human beings because they are sold without adequate testing and without sufficient warning about the effect of multiple shocks for extended durations, particularly on people who are under the influence of drugs. They further claimed that the weapon, when used repeatedly, causes cardiac arrests and unnecessary deaths.

Dough machine maker settles with baker for arm and hand injuries

Torres v. Lucca's Bakery

To get the full report on this, go to VerdictSearch.com.

Another Step in Stopping Court Secrecy

 The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is working on the Sunshine in Litigation Act—a bill that  seeks to restore public accountability in the judicial system by restricting court secrecy on matters that affect public health and safety. Secrecy provisions are often part of legal settlements and they prevent people from finding out about dangerous products.

According to the American Association for Justice Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Linda Lipsen  "From tires that are defective to cribs that collapse on sleeping babies, secrecy agreements have been used to keep safety information away from people. Stopping secrecy in our civil justice system is necessary to ensure that defective products do not injure or kill more people."

Playtex Sued Over Chemical's Use in Manufacture of Baby Bottles

From Law.com:

An Arkansas woman has filed a federal lawsuit accusing a Connecticut company of making plastic baby bottles with a dangerous chemical linked to serious health problems.

The lawsuit by Ashley Campbell against Playtex Products Inc. of Westport is the latest challenge involving the industrial chemical bisphenol A. The lawsuit seeks nationwide class action status to represent what it says are thousands of people who bought plastic bottles containing the chemical from Playtex or other companies.

Canada said last month the chemical, found in hard plastic water bottles, DVDs, CDs and hundreds of other common items, is potentially harmful and may ban its use in baby bottles. A growing number of parents are turning to glass bottles amid the concerns over bisphenol A.

The U.S. government's National Toxicology Program said last month that there is "some concern" about BPA from experiments on rats that linked the chemical to changes in behavior and the brain, early puberty and possibly precancerous changes in the prostate and breast. While such animal studies only provide "limited evidence" of risk, the draft report said a possible effect on humans "cannot be dismissed."

With more than 6 million pounds produced in the United States each year, bisphenol A is found in dental sealants, baby bottles, the liners of food cans, CDs and DVDs, eyeglasses and hundreds of household goods.

***This is another example of how lawsuits are making our country safer.  Doesn't anyone remember the Pinto and Ford's conduct in relation to the safety of that car?

Concierge gets $3.78M for fall at hotel

A jury awarded $3.78 million to a woman who severely aggravated a back injury when she fell down a staircase at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel. Greimar Ruiz, who was a concierge at the hotel, claimed that her fall in 2004 aggravated a four-year-old lumbar fusion surgery. As a result, Ruiz is on morphine daily and she can no longer engage in activities such as basketball, waterskiing, jogging and in-line skating. The staircase lacked a handrail. The hotel conceded liability, but argued her fall wasn't related to her present condition. Of the award, she received $900,000 for future pain and suffering.

Ruiz v. Loews Miami Beach Hotel Operating Co. Inc.

New Case Law on stacking of underinsurance by employees in company owned vehicles

In State Auto Property & Casualty insurance Co. v. Pro Design, P.C. today the District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania (Munley, J.) held that a corporation can avail itself of stacked underinsured motorist benefits even if it waived stacking on a single vehicle policy where it subsequently added two vehicles to the policy and never signed a new waiver of stacking for those additional vehicles. 

The court finds that Sackett II does not apply to a single car policy which is what the Supreme Court says in footnote 5 of Sackett II.  The Court also notes that under Sackett II "the degree that coverage under an after-acquired vehicle provision continues in effect throughout the existing period.  Once that policy period comes to an end, the insurer must obtain a new waiver if an additional vehicle was added during that period."  The fact is that when the single vehicle policy became a multiple vehicle policy the insured was not supposed to be given a chance to "purchase" intra-policy stacking and it did not get a chance to do so.  Thus, the 3 car policy provides stacking.

Family awarded $5.1 for man killed by drunk driver at work site

A jury awarded $5.1 million to the family of a man who was struck and killed by a drunk driver while working at a road construction site. Donald Lee Fincher Jr. hit Frank Claborn as he was providing security for a construction company that was renovating the West Sam Houston Toll Road. His counsel argued that Fincher was nearly three times over the legal blood-alcohol limit. The family claimed that Claborn was conscious and in pain for about an hour before he died. Fincher stipulated to liability. He offered a consent judgment, but Claborn's wife wouldn't make a counter offer and wouldn't consider a settlement without a trial.

Claborn v. Fincher

Jury awards boy for hand degloving in crash

Buonaiuto v. Stroud

To get the full report on this case, go to VerdictSearch.com.