Accident and Injury Lawyer Blog

One historic hassle for lawyers serving defendant in car accident cases is when the Defendant lives out-of-state. Mississippi provides a bad door that makes this process a lot easier for Mississippi car accident lawyers. Under Mississippi accident law, the Mississippi Secretary of State can accept service of process for accident defendants who live outside of Mississippi.

You can read about the nuances of exactly how to effectuate service in a Mississippi car accident case here.

If you are looking for a car accident lawyer to handle your auto accident injury case in Mississippi, call our lawyers at 800-553-8082 or click here for a free no obligation consultation of your accident claim.

A Seroquel lawsuit that was set to go to trial before the next Seroquel MDL trial was dismissed yesterday by a Delaware state court judge. The move was not unexpected. The judge had previously excluded medical expert testimony linking diabetes and Seroquel. Without an expert, a product liability lawyer cannot pursue a Seroquel verdict.The irony of it all is that no one seriously questions that Seroquel can cause diabetes. But I believe the problem here is the same as the problem in the Florida Seroquel MDL case that was set for trial: the expert - in this case an endocrinologist - could not sufficiently rule out alternative causes for the diabetes. It did not help that AstraZeneca's lawyers were able to state in their motion for summary judgment that "until recently, her diet consisted of slurpies and donuts, fish and fries from McDonald's, Burger King and '(a) lot of Chinese food.'" Not exactly the best "Seroquel caused my diabetes" case.

The Plaintiff in this case had the type of lawsuit Seroquel lawyers prefer: diabetes from off-label use of Seroquel for insomnia.

"The plaintiffs want to try these cases in the press," said Mike Kelly, a Wilmington attorney with the law firm McCarter & English who represents AstraZeneca in the Delaware cases. "But what is happening in the courts tells it all ... So far, the plaintiffs can't get a case to trial."

Continue reading " Seroquel Lawsuit: Another Loss, This Time in Delaware " »

Fiat has asked a federal bankruptcy judge to shield the automaker from "unknowable, but potentially vast" tort claims against further partner Chrysler. Fiat lawyers argued that Fiat should not be responsible for injuries caused by cars it did not manufacturer.

File this under "I Could See This Coming." When you buy a company, you buy its assets and its debts. Consumer groups and plaintiff attorneys naturally disagree with this effort to buy Chrysler immunity from injuries caused by its negligence.

A new AMA study reports that some acid reflux drugs routinely given to hospital patients may increase the risk of pneumonia. The study found that patients who received proton pump inhibitors were more than twice as likely to develop pneumonia. Proton pump inhibitors include the drugs Nexium, Prilosec and Prevacid.

The Orlando Sentinel (via Overlawyered) has an interesting article taking a detailed look at statistics surrounding theme park lawsuits. This is not your garden variety media article of a legal trend. It has detailed breakdown of the lawsuits filed against theme parks, and through statistics and interviews, sets the game plan of Disney theme parks, and I think to a similar but lesser extent, its brethren when facing a lawsuit: wage elongated war, make discovery brutal for accident lawyers and their clients, and settle the cases you think you might not win - particularly those cases you might prolifically not win.

Jury Verdict Research reported this month on Florida personal injury lawsuit verdicts. The median - not be confused with average which is much higher - money recover in Florida personal injury lawsuits that go to trial is $185,000. Florida personal injury lawyers can expect to receive a verdict for their clients in 60 percent of lawsuits that go to trial.

Putting these number in context, the national median personal injury verdict is $35,000, and personal injury victims recover about half of the time. In other words, you can drive a truck through the difference between Florida and the rest of the nation. Florida voters may go for caps at the ballot box but when faced with live human beings, they have a very different approach.

If you have been injury by a defective product or medical malpractice or in a car or truck accident in Florida in Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Tallahessee or anywhere in Florida, call our lawyers at 800-553-8082 or click here for a free consultation.

Physicians' Reciprocal Insurers, a Long Island medical malpractice insurance carrier than insures nearly 25% of New York state's physicians, is insolvent. It has a "negative surplus" of more than $43 million.

The problem? New York medical malpractice lawyers and their frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits? Hardly. Eliot Spitzer thought freezing medical malpractice premium hikes was a good idea. Shocker. Has Slate fired him yet?

The learned intermediary doctrine provides that makers of prescription drugs and medical devices discharge their obligation to consumers by providing warnings to the prescribing doctor. In other words, drug and device companies have no obligation to directly warn patients about the risks associated with their drugs or medical devices.

The historic rationale for this rule is that prescription drugs are often complex and prescribing doctors can take into account the propensities of the drug, as well as the susceptibilities of his patient and properly weigh the risk against the benefits. But, arguably, all of this is premised on the notion that drug companies are talking to doctors and not consumers.

Today, drug companies talk to us about their drugs every time we pick up a paper or turn on the television. Does this make the learned intermediary doctrine obsolete? Apparently, some New York legislatures do, proposing a bill to eliminate the learned intermediary doctrine. I first read about this from the Drug and Device Law Blog, a defense oriented blog that naturally opposes the bill.

Patients suing over injuries from using PoliGrip and Fixodent denture cream to consolidate their cases in a MDL this month. Denture cream lawyers argue that the plaintiffs' lawsuits contending that the plaintiffs suffered neurological damage from zinc in the products should be consolidated as a class action for the purpose of core discovery against the manufacturers of PolyGrip and Fixodent.

The problem with zinc that has lead to these denture cream lawsuits - that may be soon be consolidated in an MDL (class action for discovery) is that excessive amounts of zinc can cause injury. The denture cream lawsuits argue that the manufacturers have known for years yet added zinc even after it was well known hat excess zinc causes copper depletion or “hypocupremia. ” Excessive zinc reduces the level of copper because the body's receptors for copper fail when a person uses excessive zinc causes the body's receptors to stop accepting copper because they are fully loaded with zinc.

If you believe you may have a denture cream lawsuit that should be a part of this MDL discovery class action, call a Denture Cream lawyer at 800-553-8082 or click here for a free internet consultation about your potential denture cream class action lawsuit.

A six person jury in Providence, Rhode Island awarded a former truck driver $4 million, agreeing with Plaintiff's lawsuit claiming medical malpractice by his orthopedic surgeon caused him injury. The award was $1.5 million for physical pain, $1.5 million for mental suffering, $500,000 for disfigurement and $500,000 for lost wages, according to Plaintiff's Rhode Island medical malpractice lawyer.

Plaintiff worked as a truck driver for The Providence Journal for nearly twenty years when began experiencing intense pain in his arm in 1999. His doctor operated to improve his movement and in the process removed a benign tumor. But Plaintiff shortly began having problems with his hand, changing color, temperature and sweating. Another doctor diagnosed him as having Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome, a chronic neurological disorder that causes severe pain. During the operation to resolve that condition, the subsequent doctor found that another nerve had been sliced. According to his lawyer, Plaintiff's hand has been in a claw ever since and he has nonstop pain to this day.

You can read more about the Rhode Island medical malpractice verdict here.

A Chicago nursing home tried to cover up the sexual assault of a 69-year-old resident by another mentally ill resident, a lawsuit filed by family members claims. According to the lawsuit, the Elgin, Illinois nursing home failed to properly monitor young and potentially dangerous residents and tried to pass off the alleged assault as consensual sex. A nursing home lawyer for the family called the incident the most egregious case of nursing home negligence he had seen.

AOL today puts up tips on how to avoid a speeding ticket. Is offering any advice other than "drive the speed limit" responsible?

The reality is simple: the faster a car or truck is moving, the less time the driver has to react avoid car accident. A speeding car requires more time and distance to stop, is harder to control, and caused more property damage and damage to the car's occupants. Speed is reported to factor in 30% of fatal vehicle accidents and 12% of all crashes.

A Fayettesville woman filed a lawsuit in an auto accident case against a Springdale, Arkansas on her own behalf and on behalf of her one year old daughter. The lawsuit alleges that the unborn child had accident-related complications before and after her birth including a Grade 1 intraventricular hemorrhage and that the child had periods in which she stopped breathing.

As a parent, I can only imagine the fear of harm to your child when you are 35 weeks pregnant and involved in a serious car accident causing these complications. Thankfully, I have to think the child did not have any long term injury or the lawsuit - for a one year old - would be incredibly premature because injuries to a small child are rarely discernable in scope until the child is older.

If you are victim of a personal injury car accident in Fayettesville or anywhere in Arkansas, call 800-553-8082 or click here for a free consultation.

John Bratt's Baltimore Accident Lawyer Blog has a good post on cross examining IME doctors.

Our lawyers handle shoulder pain pump lawsuits. This blog provides an overview of the facts that gave rise to the shoulder pain pump lawsuits. If you have been injured by a shoulder pain pump or are a lawyer with a client who has a potential shoulder pain pump lawsuit, please contact our shoulder pain pump lawyers at 800-553-8082 or click here for a free should pain pump lawsuit Internet consultation.

Shoulder pain pumps are small, portable medical devices used to manage post-operative pain. They are used after surgery by surgeons to deliver, through a catheter, continuous doses of anesthetic drugs directly into the incision site. These shoulder pain pumps are manufactured and distributed by I-Flow, DJO/DonJoy, Stryker, Breg, Sgarlatto, Curlin, Moog and McKinley Medical, among others.

Shoulder pain pump litigation began in late 2007 after publication of an article by Brent Hansen and Charles Beck in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, which identified a “concerning and strong association between postarthroscopic chondrolysis [cartilage loss] and intra-articular pain pump catheter use with bupivicaine and epinephrine.” (Hansen B., Beck C. (2007) Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis. Am. J. Sports Med. 35: 1628-1634). Those lawsuits alleged that shoulder pain pump manufacturers encouraged orthopedic surgeons to use the pumps for patient pain relief following shoulder surgery without conducting the necessary research to determine whether the procedure was safe. As a result, the anesthetic drugs in the pump destroyed the shoulder cartilage, leaving the patient with a lifetime of pain and necessitating future surgeries.

By May, 2008, approximately 13 federal shoulder pain pump lawsuits had been filed. Plaintiffs sought consolidation and/or coordination of those cases (and any future filed federal cases) by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) in mid-2008; however, those petitions were denied in August, 2008. The litigation thereafter proceeded on an individual basis, though pockets of quasi-consolidation have occurred in federal and state courts in Oregon, Minnesota, New York, Kentucky and California, among others. There are now over 100 pain pump lawsuits filed, many of them including not only the pain pump manufacturers and distributors, but also the manufacturers of the anesthetic drugs used in the pumps.

Plaintiffs

Plaintiffs in these cases are frequently young and athletic—many of them are high school or college athletes who initially sought routine orthopedic surgery for a sports-related injury. However, three months to about 16 months after using the pump, the shoulder cartilage erodes away, leaving the patient with limited range of motion and constant shoulder pain, sometimes even while at rest. The prognosis is likewise devastating—frequently the only option is shoulder replacement surgery at the point where the pain becomes unbearable. These surgeries are designed to address the pain, but oftentimes do not improve the patient’s range of motion. Furthermore, the surgeries themselves have a limited lifespan of about ten to fifteen years.

Case Evaluation

In order to confirm that cartilage loss was caused by a pain pump, attorneys must (1) exclude other causes; (2) confirm placement and use of a shoulder pain pump; and (3) identify defendants.

Other causes of cartilage damage must be excluded. These include infection, significant arthritis, gentian violet and improper use of thermal radiofrequency energy. Ideally, a patient’s x-rays and MRIs (pre-surgical and post-surgical), as well as their operative reports will be available for evidence of their cartilage condition. If the cartilage along the glenohumeral joint was fine before surgery, but was largely absent within 16 months after the insertion of the pain pump, the patient likely has a cause of action.

Pump catheters placed in the intra-articular joint space have the highest probability of affecting the cartilage; however, there have been some reports that anesthetic introduced into the subacromial space may likewise cause cartilage loss.

Potential defendants should include the manufacturers and distributors of the pump and the anesthetic used in the pump. Since publication of the Hansen article, other studies have revealed that anesthetic (including bupivicaine, marcaine, ropivicaine, lidocaine and others) without epinephrine can cause cartilage damage.

The FDA announced today the the recall of Hydroxycut (also spelled/misspelled Hydroxecut and Hydroxycutt), a weight loss drug, after reports of liver damage and other health problems. Specifically, the FDA has received 23 serious reports of health complications associated with Hydroxycut, including and the death in a 19-year-old boy. The primary complications with Hydroxycut are liver failure and jaundice. Accordingly, Hydroxycut is issuing a recall of 14 of these always controversial weight loss products. Hydroxycut products with different active ingredients, such as Hydroxycut Cleanse and Hydroxycut Hoodia, will not be recalled.

Hydroxycut is a very lucrative product selling over one million bottles a year, making up 90 percent of the market for weight loss supplements. The problem our lawyers see with these supplements like Hydroxycut is that the standards to get them on the market make drug and medical devices seem like an act of Congress by comparison. Hydroxycut never had to show that it was both safe and effective and the post-marketing review of these products is incredibly insufficient.

No one knows for certain why Hydroxycut would cause liver failure or jaundice. But the suspicion has long rested with hydroxycitric acid, which is derived from a tropical fruit. While harmless in the fruit, it could be that Hydroxycut causes a hydroxycitric acid overdose, causing liver damage.

The crazy thing about these Hydroxycut claims is how long the concerns have been out there. The death of this teenager was three years ago but was just reported to the FDA in March.

Our lawyers are investigating Hydroxycut injury claims subject to this recall for patients with liver failure or jaundice. If you want to speak with a Hydroxycut lawyer about potential lawsuits involving Hydroxycut, call 800-553-8082 or click here for a free Hydrroxycut lawsuit case evaluation.

A Georgia woman who filed a lawsuit alleging a car accident as the result of a a transmission defect in her Ford Explorer led to her paralysis was awarded $40 million in damages by a Lamar County jury late Wednesday. The jury's award includes $30 million in punitive damages, $9 million in compensatory damages to her and $1 million to her husband.

You can find the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article here and the Maryland Auto Accident Lawyer blog post on this tragic car accident case.