The New York Personal Injury Law Blog presents the weeks that were:
Before the lawsuits, let’s look at risks and pre-litigation issues:
We start with the Accident Prevention Department: Less speeding means fewer accidents, and Dr. Wes brings us a rather unique method of reducing speeding. Trust me, you haven’t seen an ad campaign quite like this before;
In the Risk Management Department, a person vents anger at a doctor on a blog (via Kevin, M.D.). Yet another good reason for all professionals to be on their best behavior;
And in a related matter (sort of), Tony Caggiano at the Orlando Injury Lawyer Blog discusses the secrecy surrounding disciplinary actions against doctors;
Ben Glass has a post that touches on personal injury law: How one health insurer not only wastes his premium money, but is violating the law as it does so; While another health insurer refuses to pay surgical bills because it claims its insured was 56 cents short in his payments; (via The Medical Quack);
Perlumtter & Shuelke have a copy of the Baylor Law School study: Straight From the Horse’s Mouth: Judicial Observations of Jury Behavior and the Need for Tort Reform. Ted Frank at Overlawyered thinks the real problem is corrupt Texas judges (“in the pocket of the plaintiffs’ bar,” is the phrase Frank uses);
The New York Sun rips trials lawyers over a medical malpractice commission being formed after a 14% malpractice rate hike (see my prior post, Why New York Medical Malpractice Insurance Jumped 14%), and the New York State Trial Lawyers Association sets them straight in a response.
As we move into litigation:
With dangerous products filling the front pages of the papers — mostly as a result of Chinese manufacturing and the use of lead paing on toys and, perhaps, American importers turning a blind eye to what is going on — NPR does an interview with the Chair of the Consumer Products Safety Commission; And class actions have been filed against Mattel seeking medical monitoring;
Mark R. McKenna has more on the Minneapolis bridge collapse, including pre-collapse warnings; The first suit has already been reported. In addition, Minneapolis firms are teaming up for pro bono representation for the bridge collapse victims.
Who says the law is a boring subject? Not John Day, who reports on whether a husband is liable for injuries his wife inflicts on his girlfriend. Ouch.
Howard Erichson at the Mass Torts Litigation Blog reports on a unique effort to have four simultaneous trials in the Atlantic City courthouse, where Judge Carol Higbee has been overseeing the action;
Oddly, Vioxx litigation also landed on the front page of the New York Times with a story saying Merck hadn’t settled a single suit. Why this was front page news is beyond me since there doesn’t seem to be anything surprising about it. Taking a hard stand was, from a litigation perspective, the only rational thing Merck could have done. In fact, in New York medical malpractice cases the exact same thing occurs. It’s standard operating procedure;
Also in the defense arena, Beck/Herrmann has a blog on how to defend a case if you believe that the plaintiff has used prescription drugs in an illegal manner;
The Cerebral Palsy Blog writes about the $70M verdict in New Jersey that was recently upheld by an appellate court. The blog follows up on this article from the New Jersey Law Journal;
This verdict was for the defense, as Bary Barnett at Blawgletter tells us, where a court refused to ask jury panel members on their feelings about personal injury lawsuits in a personal injury lawsuit (via Point of Law);
And an Illinois lawsuit against Philip Morris over “light” cigarettes, that at one time had been subject to a $10B verdict, has been snuffed out.
And finally:
Enjoy the weekend.
(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)
Sometimes the issue of “assumption of risk” is easy. A person voluntarily does something with a bit of danger and gets hurt. The photo at right is an example. The official legalese, however, looks like this:
