Accident and Injury Lawyer Blog

One frustrating issue personal injury lawyers must deal with is assignments and authorizations which often require clients to sign away substantial rights to get the medical treatment they need.

This is a sample assignment and authorization from Florida that really cuts off substantive rights to the client. But the problem is that the client who signs an assignment and authorization placing a lien on their recovery typically does not have health insurance to get the needed medical treatment. So what choice does the client really have?

I am not, by the way, suggesting that doctors should not have a right to get placed in line ahead of personal injury plaintiffs in exchange for medical treatment (or to delay filing a lawsuit for payment). I just object to the one-sided unbalanced nature of most assignments and authorizations that my clients are required to sign.

There is a Poligrip recall in Japan for all of their denture cream products containing zinc. In the United States, there has not been a Poligrip recall per se but Glaxo has "discontinued" selling Super Poligrip. I'm not sure what the difference is between a Poligrip recall and discontinuing selling Poligrip except that it allows a lawyer to eventually ask the judge in a lawsuit that plaintiffs' lawyer not refer to any Poligrip recall because there was no recall.

Not everyone who has used Poligrip is necessarily going to be entitled to money damages in a lawsuit. Our law firm is accepting inquires only from patients who have suffered a meaningful injury from excessive zinc. Symptoms of zinc poisoning include lack of coordination or difficult maintaining balance, numbness, tingling or weakness in the hands or feet, difficulty walking, pain or loss of sensation, and/or paralysis.

If you are considering filing a Super Poligrip lawsuit because of the injuries you have suffered as the result of excessive zinc, call 800-553-8082 or get a free on line consultation.

Target is a defendant lawsuit in Pennsylvania with unimaginable facts: a wicker trunk bought at Target and used as a toy chest trapped a child's neck, cutting off her causing spastic quadriplegia, severe psychomotor mental retardation. If you are parent reading this and you did not swallow hard, you don't have a pulse. Just beyond awful.

The lawsuit claims Target should have warned about the risk and that the design of the product was defective: it should have had a lid support on the chest.

Strong allegations from Florida: a class action nursing home lawsuit claims a Lake Worth nursing home that a engaged in scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid and "prey on vulnerable adults."

The lead plaintiff seeks a class action after injuries frequently the subject of nursing home lawsuits: disfiguring ulcers on her heels. The nursing home denies liability but has asked a law firm to investigate the allegations. The ole "I didn't do it but let me investigate whether I did it" plan of attack.

Lake Worth Manor has been a troubled nursing home. It has the lowest possible rating from Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration and has spent 31 days on Florida's watch list. The nursing home's co-medical director, who just stepped down from his position, has a history that, well, let's say it makes you think he should not be running a nursing home.

The lesson, as always: we have to many inadequate nursing home in Florida and throughout the country.

Allergan won a defense verdict in California in a Botox wrongful death lawsuit. The jury found that the warning on Botox adequately advises health care providers of the risks of Botox.

Botox is well known for its ability to provide relief - albeit short term relief - for those of us who suffer from wrinkles. You might expect the Plaintiff to be middle aged and probably a woman. But this case involved the off label use of Botox in the treatment of a seven year-old girl with cerebral palsy. Some believe that Botox helps fight limb spasticity that sometimes comes with cerebral palsy.

Plaintiffs' Botox lawsuit alleged that their daughter died as a result of an overdose of Botox, which led to respiratory failure and pneumonia. This is a classic product liability claim: Plaintiffs claimed that Allergan failed to adequately warn their daughter's pediatrician of the risks of Botox.

I do not know enough about these cases to give any sort of informed opinion. I fear off label uses of any drug, including Botox, but I also wonder whether the risks are small relative to the upside of providing an effective means of treating an awful cerebral palsy side effect.

Allergan gets just a brief rest: it faces another Botox lawsuit that is going to trial in Oklahoma City next month.

From experience, I can tell you that it is an odd feeling for a trial lawyer to settle a wrongful death case in the middle of a trial. It is a simultaneous feeling of joy for resolving the case and sadness from not letting the jury render a final judgment on why the victim died. This feeling was surely felt by a nursing home lawyer in Missoula, Montana who, after nearly a full week of trial, settled a wrongful death case out of court this week.

The details of this nursing home lawsuit were, sadly, not atypical. The family of an 87 year-old man alleged that two nursing homes acted negligently when they failed to provide adequate health care for the victim. The decedent fell and fractured his neck during a transfer from his wheelchair. This accident made him unable to walk which led to severe pressure ulcers which ultimately resulted in a fatal case of gangrene in his leg.

Peter Orszag, Director of the Office of Management & Budget, in a Q&A with Business Week:

Q: One of the things Republicans always say is, why doesn't the White House want to make a deal about tort law? The President says he's open to every idea, so why is it a big thing to say "I'm open to medical malpractice reform"?

A: I guess I'd push back and say, if that's the deciding issue, then let's see a comprehensive plan that says, with this additional piece, we now sign on.

Thankfully, he falls short of saying what "reform" means. Is he talking about caps (ridiculous), requiring certificates of merit in every state (arguably not unreasonable), or using Comparative Effectiveness Research guidelines to create presumptions (a bad idea but I get the argument).

• The Theory That President Obama Will Flip on Medical Malpractice Tort Reform (and why I don't believe it)
• Post Obama's Malpractice Tort Reform Speech in June (President Obama on malpractice reform - his big speech addressing malpractice before health care legislation failed)


• President Obama's Views as an Illinois Senator (insight into where President Obama may be on malpractice caps)


• A Federal Malpractice Cap (yet another reason why it is a bad idea)

The Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog provides interesting data on knee injury settlements. But it is important to underscore the obvious: every case and every jurisdiction is different and knee injury settlement data does not tell you what your cases is worth. Still, if you have no idea of what the value of your case is, verdict data can be one of the puzzle pieces you can add to equation.

The manufacturer of Poligrip denture cream will change its formula to take out zinc. Denture cream products Super Poligrip Original, Ultra Fresh and Extra Care will be removed from shelves and replaced with zinc-free denture cream.

This is a great example of lawsuits making a difference. But for the hundreds of denture cream lawsuits that have been filed, Poligrip would certainly continue to contain zinc without any warning of the hazards of zinc poisoning. Of course, for those who have suffered zinc poisoning, this is of little consolation.

Glaxo is taking Poligrip with zinc off the shelves. Why not just call it a recall?

If you have a Poligrip lawsuit, call 800-553-8082 or get a free online consultation.

LawyersUSA provides a status on what will likely be the first Seroquel lawsuit to go to a jury. Opening statements will be given today in a New Jersey Superior Court.

The lawyers defending the Seroquel lawsuits have certainly made it a point to publicly mock the merits of the well over 10,000 lawsuits that have been filed around the country. Certainly, many of the Seroquel lawsuits are not going to a jury because causation cannot be proved in some individual cases. And, give credit where credit is due - defense lawyers have done a good job defending these Seroquel lawsuits. Maybe this should be expected give the zillion dollars being spent to defend these cases. Still. I give these lawyers some credit.

Still, the arc of mass tort cases tends to be long. Defendants have a long history of winning the early battles even in cases that eventually turn towards plaintiffs. Could this be the Seroquel lawsuit that turn the tide? Stay tuned...

The Pittsburgh Injury and Disability Lawyer Blog has a good post on Westmoreland, Pennsylvania verdicts in 2007, providing a full list of verdicts.

Our lawyers are reviewing both Zimmer and Stryker hip implant lawsuits. If you believe you have a potential product liability lawsuit because of a defective replacement, call our law firm at 800-553-8082 or get a free online hip replacement lawsuit case evaluation.