The following article describes the complexities lawyers experienced in these cases are required to navigate through to fight and win on behalf of their clients.

01/31 - National Legal News

A mother and father from Honolulu filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Tripler Army Medical Center earlier this month for actions that they claim resulted in their daughter’s bilateral cerebral palsy.

Bilateral cerebral palsy is a heartbreaking and very debilitation result to a doctors mistake.  It typically involves countless years of struggle for both the family and the child victimized both physically, emotionally and economically.

David and Celia McCraw allege that while Celia was in labor with their daughter, Kayla, a fetal heart monitor revealed that the child began to experience severe heart rate decelerations. The parents claim in their lawsuit that these symptoms indicated that Kayla was suffering from a severe lack of oxygen, and that a Caesarian section birth should have been performed.

It always blows my mind how a doctor, in this day and age, would not simply perform a Caesarian section birth at the first sign of heart rate abnormalities.

Celia McCraw stayed in labor a total of 10 hours before giving birth, at which point it was discovered that Kayla’s umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around her neck, the McCraws allege. In an effort to resuscitate Kayla, a breathing tube was placed down her throat; however, the lawsuit alleges that the tube was placed into Kayla’s esophagus instead of her trachea. It was roughly 30 minutes before the mistake was discovered.

Complacency is the plague of our society.  There should never be a time when a doctor should put his or her guard down during a delivery or during a woman’s pregnancy for that matter.

The McCraws are suing for unspecified damages. Kayla suffers from bilateral cerebral palsy and requires physical, occupational, and speech therapy.

My heart goes out to the McCraws.  There is nothing that we can do to reverse the heartache they have undergone.  But what lawyers can do is make our clients lives easier by vigorously litigating birthing injury cases like this.  The monetary compensation they receive will pay for the exorbitant life time expenses they will incur in medical costs and care for their child who has been victimized by this horrific medical malpractice.

Tripler Army Medical Center has not commented on the lawsuit.

If you or anyone you know has a child suffering from cerebral palsy, bilateral cerebral palsy, erbs palsy or any type of palsy please contact the aggressive, caring lawyers at 1(800)WE-FIGHT for a free consultation or email us for a free confidential consultation right away.  Do not delay, the law limits the amount of time you have to file a claim.  Please feel free to visit the resources of our website if you have questions on what cerebral palsy, erbs palsy or any type of palsy is or what causes cerebral or erbs palsy.

A jury in New Mexico recently awarded $54 million to the family of a nursing home resident who died of untreated internal bleeding. 

This huge verdict is a message and testament to the grossly negligent care that one typically gets in American nursing home facilities.

The award is the state’s largest ever in a case involving nursing home neglect, say attorneys in Albuquerque.

According to the lawsuit, in 2004 78-year-old Barbara Barber died of internal bleeding at a nursing home owned by ManorCare Inc. Attorneys for Barber’s family argued that employees at the Albuquerque nursing home failed to seek treatment for Barber, who bled to death over several days.

The lawsuit also accused ManorCare employees of attempting to cover up the manner of Barber’s death. The family’s attorneys said employees at the facility disposed of blood-stained pillows and sheets in Barber’s room without notifying the health department.

Following the trial, ManorCare issued a statement expressing sympathy for Barber’s family. The company, however, denied any wrongdoing and said it stands behind the care Barber was provided.

Barber’s daughter, Lori Keith, said the verdict will allow her to begin the process of grieving the loss of her mother.

What we should all be thinking about in this case is this: you work hard your whole life, raise a family and try and do the right thing only to have your remaining days composed of pain and anguish, and, in this case, neglect tantamount to torture simply because a nursing home looks to cut corners and not hire the proper skilled staff.  Capitalism does not work here and needs to be put in check. 

Thank god for nursing home neglect/abuse lawyers.  If you have any questions please call a nursing home neglect lawyer today for free at 1(800)WE-FIGHT or email us for a free online consultation.

After surviving a 47-story fall, a Manhattan window washer has filed suit against the companies responsible for the scaffolding that gave way and caused the accident.

Mr. Moreno is truly blessed that he survived a 47 floor fall.  His brother wasn’t so lucky.  In addition to obtaining the money he needs to survive from the egregious injuries he has sustained he has a duty to sue the company responsible on behalf of his brother and all others who may be put in harms way in the future by the alleged careless and negligent actions of the company.  Besides giving the injured party economic and non-economic monetary awards, a personal injury lawsuit is vital in keeping the negligent party from ever acting negligent again or forcing them to put measures in place to prevent accidents.

In December, Alcides Moreno, 37, and his brother, Edgar, attempted to access an East 66th Street building’s window washing scaffold. When the scaffolding gave way, both brothers fell 47 stories to the plaza below.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, but claims that the recklessness and negligence demonstrated by the companies responsible for the management and construction of the scaffolding was the major contributing factor to the accident. Currently, the management company’s insurance company is looking into the suit.

Labor law cases are very complex and one should choose a lawyer that is experienced in these types of cases.  Contact us for a free consultation today or call us at 1(800)WE-FIGHT.

Edgar was pronounced dead at the scene. Alcides survived and is undergoing treatment at a physical rehabilitation center.

Physical rehabilitation is a long and arduous road.  Our prayers and blessings go out to Alcides who survived this horrific accident and his family for their loss. 

The publics general misunderstanding that large verdicts such as this are a windfall and essentially a lottery ticket are misplaced when one reviews the conservative estimates of the lifetime earning capacity of an individual and his current inability to work and support his family who depend on him to survive.  After all, this is what insurance is for.  We should all remember that tort reform takes away the rights of injured persons.  Notably, there have been various instances where a politician has caved to the special interests of insurance companies and passed tort reform laws to limit the rights of injured persons only to reverse their positions.  They reversed their positions and the law because they or a family member have personally experienced injuries and were not afforded fairness under the current law.

The article reviewed below is an example of our judicial system operating just and fairly for the injured.  My hat is off to the jury.  Well done. 

01/18 - National Legal News

A Los Angeles County jury has awarded $15.7 million to a man who was hit by a dump truck while riding his motorcycle in the San Fernando Valley.

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Jurors awarded plaintiff Barry Bowman, a 62-year-old security guard and former Los Angeles police officer, $11 million for his pain and emotional distress caused by the accident, which occurred in October 2004. They also awarded him $4.7 million for his medical expenses and lost income.

Bowman’s attorney, Michael Alder, says that Bowman suffered brain damage as a reult of the accident and now requires round-the-clock care.

According to Bowman’s lawsuit, the dump truck involved in the accident was operated by Tommie Wyatt Trucking, a company that had been hired by the city to transport asphalt.

During the trial, city attorneys disputed the city’s liability in the accident by arguing that the vehicle’s driver had finished working for the day and was not on a job site when the incident occurred. They also contended that the truck was traveling at 2 mph when it struck Bowman. Alder, however, claimed that it was moving at 14 mph.

The case went to trial after attorneys for both sides could not reach an agreement, Alder said, adding that city lawyers were unwilling to offer more than $50,000 to settle the case.

The city is currently deciding whether to appeal the verdict.

The fact that the city is currently contemplating whether to appeal is telling.  I suspect that they will not appeal as they are taking a huge risk in my opinion. 

Call the aggressive, caring lawyers toll free at 1(800)WE-FIGHT and visit us on the web at www.1800WeFight.com or use our free “Ask an Attorney” email service.

The headline in the Sun reads: N.Y. Doctors Could See $50,000 Fee: ‘Surcharge’ Would Rescue Malpractice Insurers.

The scary headline comes from an interview with Superintendent Eric Dinallo, who is running a task force to address the insurance “crisis” that hit when New York jumped its medical malpractice premiums 14% this year. The reasons for the jump are an issue I addressed earlier, and are a function of state mis-management during the George Pataki years (see: Why New York Medical Malpractice Insurance Jumped 14%.) Among the many reasons were artificially low rates (set by the state) and Governor Pataki taking (with legislative approval) about $700 million from a malpractice rainy day fund to help balance the state budget.

The screaming headline in the paper (front page, above the fold) it should be noted, had nothing whatsoever to do with rising malpractice claims or payouts. Those have remained stable for many years. No, the reason for the headline is the state-created shortfall, and the ways they are trying to fix the system they broke.

One method of trying to “fix” the system, of course, is to break it further by trying to blame lawsuits for the problem. We see these types of complaints all the time. If only the health care workers would be given some form of immunity for negligence, it is argued, all would be well with our health care system. Because, as everyone knows, nothing forces a person to act responsibly better than grants of various forms of immunity or protection.

Public Citizen recently put out a report on the faux crisis. It is a devastating indictment of the state’s mismanagement and puts to bed the phony claims that problems are related to lawyers and lawsuits. It also points the finger where it belongs and makes its own suggestions on how to remedy the problems.

Some more facts from the Public Citizen report:

• There have been fewer medical malpractice payments in the past five years than in any five-year period on record;
• Amounts paid out, when adjusted for inflation and population, have either risen slightly in the past five years or declined slightly, depending on the measure used;
• Only about 1 percent of New York’s doctors are enrolled in the state’s program for physicians deemed too risky by commercial insurance providers. Yet these doctors’ payments have been so massive that they and other losses have drowned the program in more than $500 million in red ink this decade;
• A sliver of doctors are responsible for nearly half of the dollars paid out for medical
  malpractice in New York. Physicians who made three or more malpractice payments
  between 1990 and 2006 — accounting for no more than 4 percent of New York’s
  doctors — were responsible for nearly half (49.6 percent) of medical malpractice
  dollars paid out on behalf of doctors in the time period.
• Costs for cases involving brain damage, blamed by some for rising insurance rates,
  are in fact modest in comparison with other types of cases. The category for injuries
  including brain damage ranks 5th of 10 in total amounts paid out. This fact exposes
  the lunacy of the radical proposal to deprive newborn babies of their legal rights and
  cede their care to a state-run fund.
• Researchers have found that premiums consistently make up only a small percentage
  of doctors’ total expenses and that rising premiums have not, historically, depressed
  physicians’ incomes.

The state’s Department of Health’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct has been notoriously lax when it comes to doctor discipline. Just last month it was revealed that it waited three years to alert the public that a doctor was using dirty siringes of multi dose vials thereby contaminating the vials and exposing hundreds of people to infections. According to the Public Citizen study, New York’s comptroller found that the Office of Professional Medical Conduct failed to investigate about 175 doctors for whom investigations should have been triggered based on the agency’s existing criteria.

Frankly, if we have an insurance crisis because the state took $700 million to balance the budget in tough years, and we have a small percentage of doctors responsible for so much of the damage, then it is a no-brainer on how to equitably fix the problem. It isn’t by a $50K surcharge on doctors, a scare tactic if ever I saw one. And it isn’t be restricting access to the courts for those that have been injured by negligence.

It’s by doing two basic things: Taking the money back from the general fund where it had disappeared to and investigating the few bad doctors that do so much of the damage and putting them out of business. It means a responsible government engaging in good health policy by policing the medical force and using sound budgetary policy instead of shell games.

Fault here lies not with the vast majority of doctors, nor with the patients that were injured or their representatives. It lies with former governor and the legislature. The problems have been identified and the proper solutions offered. The state should do the right thing and fix the problem appropriately, without injuring those that are most involved.

If you have been injured by medical malpractice contact the aggressive, caring lawyers at 1(800)WE-FIGHT today.