Accident and Injury Lawyer Blog

Dogs are people too. Pretty much. For many of us.

So we report here on Proctor & Gamble Company has retrieved a single production lot of dry dog food as aflatoxin levels, above the acceptable limit, have been detected. This product has already been retrieved from store shelves.

Aflatoxin is a naturally occurring by-product from the growth of Aspergillus flavus and can be harmful to pets if consumed in significant quantities. Pets who have consumed this product and exhibit symptoms of illness including sluggishness or lethargy combined with a reluctance to eat, vomiting, yellowish tint to the eyes or gums, or diarrhea should be seen by a veterinarian.

The affected dog food is as follows:

• Product Name: Iams ProActive Health Smart Puppy dry dog food with Use By/Expiration Dates of February 5 or February 6, 2013
• Version: 7.0 lb bag; Code Date: 12784177I6; UPC Code: 1901402305
• Version: 8.0 lb bag; Code Date: 12794177D2 and 12794177D3; UPC Code: 1901410208
• Version: 17.5 lb bag; Code Date: 12794177K1 and 12794177K2; UPC Code: 1901401848

The affected product lot was distributed to a limited number of retailers located in the eastern United States: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. These retailers have already removed this product from store shelves.

While no health effects related to this product have been reported, P&G retrieved this product from the shelves as a precautionary measure. Consumers who purchased the affected dog food should stop using it, discard it, and contact Iams a replacement voucher.

No other dry dog food, dry cat food, dog or cat canned food, biscuits/treats or supplements are affected by this announcement.

Dogs matter. I'm glad Proctor is doing the right thing by making sure our animals are safe.

Nygala will recall approximately 10,000 Halloween Projection Flashlights, as the flashlights can overhead, blister and melt, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers. Better late than never. I guess.

These Chinese made flashlights are black and orange plastic, and the flashlight is 6 ½ inches long with pumpkins, bats, witches, haunted houses and cats on the handle. The flashlights came with six different plastic lenses that attach to the flashlight to project various images, including a pumpkin, bat, witch, haunted house and cat. The flashlights packaging is imprinted with “Flomo,” “HW189” and UPC 677916518266 on the packaging.

The recalled Halloween flashlights were sold at discount stores in California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Utah from August 2010 through October 2011 for about $1.

The firm has received one reported incident involving a flashlight that overheated, blistered and melted.

The average personal injury verdict at trial in Connecticut is $2,519,637, according to Jury Verdict Research.

This is great ammo if you are a personal injury lawyer trying to trump up the value of your case or if you are a tort reform advocate trying to show that juries are going wild. But this is unbelievably misleading.

The median personal injury verdict in Connecticut is $22,499, less than 10% of the average. Only 4% of verdicts exceed $1 million and I would love to see how many of these verdicts are actually collected. My guess? Less than half. Someone got a $326 million verdict in this study. I didn't look up the verdict but somehow I doubt someone wrote a $326 million check.

Average verdict statistics are often worthless yet people are always throwing average numbers out there. I'm as guilty as anyone. We put up a lot of average verdicts statistics because they are of great interest to other lawyers and potential plaintiffs. But these Connecticut statistics underscore that the information is for entertainment purposes only.

My two volume treatise Insurance Settlements is now available from James Publishing. The book discusses how to position a lawyer's car accident, truck accident, medical malpractice or product liability case to the best possible settlement at every step along the way (until the state's high court affirms the judgment).

Click on the James Publishing link. If you have any comments on the book, please email me at ronmiller@millerandzois.com under the subject "Insurance Settlements Comments."

Our lawyers are reviewing Byetta claims after the FDA announced this week that the diabetes drug has been linked to severe pancreatic problems in dozens of patients. On Monday, the FDA warned patients taking Byetta to discontinue use if they develop symptoms of the disorder. Further the FDA said that doctor prescribing Byetta should consider other prescription options for patients with a history of pancreas problems.

Since Byetta was introduced into the United States in 2005, more than 700,000 patients have used the Byetta.

Our lawyers are now exploring potential Byetta lawsuits. If you would like to discuss your case with a Byetta lawyer, call 800-553-8082 or click here for a free consulation/case evaluation (or even to answer any question you may have). For more information on Byetta and the concerns with Byetta, click here.

The Connecticut Supreme Court reached an interesting decision this week on the question of recovery for emotional damages in car accident cases. You can find the Connecticut Supreme Court opinion and analysis of the opinion here.

Thanks. - Ron Miller

http://www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/2008/08/connecticut_supreme_courts_rul.html

Last week, Digitek manufacturer Actavis Totowa recalled over 65 different drugs made at their New Jersey manufacturing plant. The list of recalled drugs (in some form or another) includes such generic drugs as Bellamine, Buspirone, Carisoprodol, Oxycodone Meperidine, and Rifampin. This strengthens the conclusion that the New Jersey plant that made these drugs may be the cause of irregularities in Actavis medications.

In April 2008, Actavis recalled Digitek, a drug prescribed to treat heart failure and irregular heartbeat because it was discovered that Digitek tablets appeared to have double the thickness – and likely double the active ingredient – listed on the label. When Digitek is given in abnormally high doses it can lead to digitalis toxicity which, paradoxically, worsens the problems Digitek is intended to treat, causing nausea or lower blood pressure and other side effects from the Digitek overdose that can lead to the increased risk of stroke or a heart attack.

If you would like to speak to a Digitek recall lawyer about a potential Digitek lawsuit, call 1-800-553-8000. For more information on the Digitek overdose recall or a free consultation on your potential Digitek case, click here.

Zimmer's Durom Cup hip implants are likely to be the subject of a good number of lawsuits from patients with the Zimmer implants. But they will not be the only ones. Apparently, Zimmer’s own shareholders may agree that Zimmer left its hip implant on the market way too long. Last week, shareholders of Zimmer stock filed a class action in Indiana. Interestingly, the lawsuit seeks damages for shareholders who purchased stock between January 28, 2008 and July 21, 2008. This tells our Zimmer hip implant recall lawyers that these shareholders believe that Zimmer knew or should have known and issued a recall on or before January 28, 2008.

If your Zimmer Durom hip resurfacing cup was defective, call our Zimmer hip implant lawyers at 1-800-553-8082 or click here for a free consultation.

More information on the Zimmer Hip Implant Recall
History of the Zimmer Durom Cup Hip Implant Recall
More information on the Zimmer hip implant recall lawsuits

Jury Verdict Research(r) study reports that rotator cuff injuries reached a 7-year high in 2006 with a compensatory award median of $72,667. This is almost 50% higher than previous reported settlements and verdicts in rotator cuff injury cases.

Our lawyers have never understood while the national data in these cases was so low. Washington D.C. rotator cuff injuries have averaged well over $100,000 for rotator cuff settlements and verdicts so we have never understood why the national average was as low as it has been. In any event, for whatever reason, rotator cuff verdicts are on the rise.

Our lawyers handle rotator cuff injury cases throughout the United States. Our lawyers have handled scores of rotator cuff injuries in car and truck accidents, typically in side collision or "T-bone" accidents. Our lawyers believe that insurance companies do not give fair value in most rotator cuff injury cases and our lawyers will fight to get you the financial compensation you deserve. Call a rotator cuff lawyer to protect you at 800-553-8082 or click here for a free consultation and case evaulation.

Related Posts

What Is the Value of Your Personal Injury Claim? (how the value of rotator cuff and other person injury settlements are calculated)

Sample Demand Letter (sample letter demanding settlement in a personal injury case)

Handling Your Claim Without a Lawyer (tips and pratfalls)

Lawyers representing Digitek overdose victims have filed nine lawsuits in New Jersey against Actavis Totowa LLL and its parent company Actavis Group, alleging a manufacturing defect in Digitek, namely that some Digitek tablets have contained twice the active ingredient of the drug. Digitek recall lawsuits have also been filed in West Virginia and California.

Our Digitek recall lawyers are reviewing these Digitek overdose cases in all 50 states expecting that a consolidated class action lawsuit will be appropriate (as opposed to this scatting of individual cases). If you want to discuss your case with one of our Digitek lawyers call us at 800-553-8082 for a free consultation or click here for a free Internet consultation.

The Connecticut Supreme Court issued an opinion last week in Monti v. Wenkert, a medical malpractice case involving a seventeen year-old girl whose fatal viral infection was dismissed as psychological by her doctors. The case involved a high-low agreement that was not disclosed the court or the other medical malpractice defendant.

The Connecticut Supreme Court found that such agreements must be disclosed but called teh failure to disclose in this case was harmless error because the agreement came after the Plaintiffs’ had rested their case and because the agreement did not change the adversarial alignment of the parties.

You can find the full opinion of the Connecticut Supreme Court in Monti v. Wenkert here and a more indepth blog post on this medical malpractice case here.

In litgation that is a byproduct of the Ford Explorer rollover lawsuits, Ford Explorer owners will be "compensated" in a settlement because of the loss of value of the Explorer because of the perceived rollover danger. This settlement covers about 800,000 people who purchased Explorers in California, Connecticut, Illinois and Texas.

Unfortunately, the only people who will get a significant recovery will be the lawyers who brought these claims. Explorer owners will only be eligible for vouchers for $300 to purchase new vehicles Ford or Lincoln Mercury vehicles (or $500 off the Ford Explorer). Practically, the car dealers will just negotiate a higher sales price on the car the sale of the car, reducing the list price less than they otherwise would.

Accordingly, this settlement is worthless to everyone except for the lawyers bringing these claims. The frustrating thing about this is that 800,000 people see this settlement and think, "Geez, what a scam, the only people that really profit from this are the lawyers." For personal injury victims and their lawyers, this does not help when one of these 800,000 people shows up on a jury.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, anti-psychotic drugs were prescribed to 26% of nursing home residents without a diagnosed psychotic or related condition, in other words, off label prescriptions to sedate patients that may or may not need it. Connecticut was second only to Louisiana in dispensing such medications.

Nursing homes in Connecticut and elsewhere are prohibited by federal law from dispensing medications for the purposes of discipline or convenience of the nursing home. (I don't know about you but it depresses me that anyone would think to give an anti-psychotic drug as as discipline.) This has not stopped a lot of nursing homes from dispensing these drugs for reasons that having nothing to do with the patient's best interests.

In Connecticut, I would keep a close eye on Chelsea Place Care Center in Hartford and Wethersfield Health Care Center in Wethersfield two facilities that have had problems but are beginning to improve, according to the federal government.

A recently released federal report shows that

The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog yesterday was discussing an article about Voir Dire in Maryland and how quick and expedited the Maryland voir dire is. Voir dire is the procedure by which a jurors are question by the parties' lawyers and/or the trial judge.

Connecticut is the exact opposite of Maryland. Connecticut is one of a small minority of states that questions jurors in voir dire individually rather than in a group. Neither the federal government nor any of our sister states employ Connecticut's individual voir dire selection for juries. Voir dire in places like Maryland and South Carolina can take less than an hour. According to a National Law Journal article, voir dire in Connecticut typically takes 16 hours.

A recent study conducted by Jury Verdict Research found the median compensation in personal injury trials in Connecticut is $17,391 and injury victims obtain a financial recovery in 58% of cases that go to trial. This is less than half the national average.

One reason why the personal injury verdicts in Connecticut are particularly low is that the small claims limit maximum in personal injury cases is $5,000. Accordingly, Connecticut personal injury lawyers are required to seek jury trials for smaller cases that would not warrant a jury trial in other jurisdictions. So the number, while disconcerting for Connecticut injury victims and their lawyers, may be someone misleading.

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