Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

With the holiday season now in full swing, a recent Associated Press article, republished in The Oregonian, highlighted both the importance of the Christmas tree industry to our local economy and the importance of workplace safety.

The Salem-datelined piece begins with the image of 50,000 freshly cut Christmas trees stacked in a Polk County loading area near Dallas, Oregon. “Some 200 workers are busy at the site,” the news agency notes. “Tree after tree is placed on mechanical shakers to remove loose needles, run through bailing machines and wrapped with twine, tossed on a conveyer belt and, finally, loaded into trucks.”

Oregon is the country’s top grower of Christmas Trees, producing a stunning 6.4 million during last year’s holiday season. While Christmas tree harvesting is significantly different from the larger, year-round lumber industry it is still dangerous work – involving, as the article indicates, potentially dangerous machinery operated in the open, including chainsaws.

More troubling, the Christmas tree industry also relies heavily on short-term, seasonal workers. These workers not only deserve but are legally entitled to a safe work environment, appropriate training and the use of properly maintained equipment. One of the most significant causes of Oregon industrial accidents is a form of employer negligence: failure to provide workers with the right gear and the necessary training, often combined with a tendency to cut corners when it comes to maintenance. This can be a problem in any industry, but in an acknowledged dangerous job, a category that includes the timber industry, it is especially worrisome. Add to that a workforce swelled with short-term seasonal employees and a commercial incentive to move as much product as possible during the short holiday season and the potential for trouble is obvious.

As an Oregon industrial accidents attorney I do everything I can to help workers and their families guard against negligence and corner-cutting by employers. When you stop somewhere to buy a Christmas Tree during this holiday season pause for a moment to think about the men and women who work so hard to bring it to you, often laboring in potentially dangerous conditions.

AP via The Oregonian: Christmas tree harvest keeps Oregon farms busy, growers optimistic for strong sales

As we move through this holiday weekend here is a sobering thought about Oregon distracted driving: at any given moment during daylight hours nine percent of all drivers on the road nationwide are using cellphones, according to the National Safety Council.

The Council has just released its annual analysis of driving and cellphone usage and while the figures are for 2011 – the latest year for which full data sets are available – the numbers can be chilling to read. For example: a driver using a cellphone – even with a hands-free device as required by law here in Oregon and elsewhere – is four times more likely to be involved in a crash. More than one-in-five of all “fatal, injury and property-damage only crashes are likely attributable to talking on cellphones.” That added up to 1.1 million traffic crashes, according to the Council’s analysis.

The Council survey draws together data from a number of government, academic and non-profit sources. Two sections of the report stand out as particularly striking. First, its conclusion that using a hand-free device such as a headset, or the increasingly popular Bluetooth speakerphones built into many newer cars, does not lower the risk of a distracted driving crash nearly as much as one might think. Second, that the distracted driving problem is more widespread than originally thought because cellphone-related crash data is under reported almost everywhere in the country.

“In jurisdictions where police attempt to collect this data, they must rely almost entirely on driver self-reports or witness reports of cell phone use at the time of the crash, resulting in significant under reporting,” the Council declares at the top of the report’s first page.

In a country where there are more than 5.3 million car crashes each year and well over 30,000 deaths this report is a reminder of the facts about distracted driving about which I have written so often and which, in many respects, our society seems determined to ignore. As a Portland distracted driving attorney I am pleased that I am often able to help the victims of Oregon and Washington distracted driving obtain the justice they and their families deserve, but I am also all too aware of the factors that make this such a problem across America. Looking at the cases that come through my office I cannot help but wonder when people will realize that driving safely is not only good for them, but good for everyone else on and off the road.

National Safety Council: Annual Estimate of Cellphone Crashes 2011

The non-profit National Safety Council has published an excellent tip sheet to help parents prepare teen drivers for the special challenges that come with winter.

Oregon car accidents can happen any time of the year, of course, but winter is different. As the website notes: “Winter conditions can challenge even the most experienced drivers. It is incumbent upon a parent to prepare a teen as best as possible for driving under those difficult circumstances that adverse weather brings.”

Many of these recommendations are so basic that one might overlook them, but they bear repeating: slow down, factor in more travel time to get from point A to point B so you don’t unconsciously feel a need to rush; gently test a moving car’s brakes when ice and snow are present to get a sense of road conditions; don’t use high beams when it is snowing. Don’t use the cruise control in the snow either. Keep a greater distance between vehicles than one does in easier driving conditions.

Some of the other recommendations are good, common sense, strategies for drivers of any age: “Pack a small first aid kit and keep it in the trunk in case the car becomes stuck,” for example. “The kit should include a flare, flashlight, blanket and a few energy bars,” the Council notes. It also recommends double-checking the contents of one’s tool kit and carrying a bag of sand or cat litter to help with traction on slippery surfaces.

At a more basic level the council suggests that parents limit teens’ winter driving to daylight hours. This is, perhaps, the most important recommendation of the lot and while it may not always be possible to enforce it might be the one with the greatest potential to cut down on accidents. As a Portland car accident lawyer with a special focus on injuries to children I recommend the Council’s full list to every parent – and every teen – as the weather turns colder and the holiday season approaches.

National Safety Council: How to prepare your teen for safe winter driving

Northwest Cable News reported earlier this month on a tragic Washington dog attack story. “A week after she was attacked by pit bulls, a 65-year-old woman has died at a local hospital,” according to the cable news channel. The victim’s husband told the station he believes “the injuries from the attack triggered an underlying heart condition.”

According to NWCN, citing a report from Seattle TV station KING, the woman was attacked by two pit bulls while taking a walk near her home. The channel reports that bystanders helped pull the dogs off her and called for medical care. The animals were later destroyed.

Though the Pierce County, Washington Medical Examiner lists the cause of the woman’s death as “heart attack, injuries to the body and dog bites” the woman’s husband may be correct in believing that the dog attack was the key event triggering her subsequent heart attack. In my opinion, as a Washington and Oregon wrongful death attorney, legal questions surrounding this incident are likely to turn on the professional opinions of the doctors who treated the victim.

If medical doctors agree that the dog attack injuries weakened this elderly woman to the extent that they became a substantial factor in her heart attack then the owners of the dogs may be subject to a wrongful death suit under Washington law.

All that said, the essential, indeed the most basic, fact here remains the responsibility of the dog owners. NWCN reports that the owners of the pit bulls involved in this incident face possible criminal charges. Whether they are held responsible in criminal or civil court, however, what is essential is that they and other pet owners always remember that owning an animal not only entails a responsibility for the animal’s welfare but a broader responsibility to the community at large. Pets need to be kept under control. This is especially true for pets with a reputation for violent attacks on people, such as pit bulls.

KING Seattle via NWCN: Husband: Dog Attack Caused Wife’s Heart to Fail

Last week the New York Times carried an op-ed piece on the subject of urban cycling, particularly bike commuting, that managed to be thoughtful, funny and harrowing all at the same time. Topped by the provocative headline: “Is it OK to kill cyclists?” the article cites numerous recent instances of fatal bike accidents from around the country in which bike riders were killed by drivers who then were subject to only the lightest of punishments.

A 24-year-old riding inside a bike lane in San Francisco was killed by a truck making a right turn and police issued no citation. A Seattle area teenager who ran over and killed a cyclist in 2011 was “issued only a $42 ticket for an ‘unsafe lane change’ because the kid hadn’t been drunk and, as (the police) saw it, had not been driving recklessly.” As the article rightly points out: “Laws in most states do give bicyclists full access to the road, but very few roads are designed to accommodate bicycles, and the speed and mass differentials – bikes sometimes slow traffic, only cyclists have much to fear from a crash – make sharing the road difficult to absorb at an emotional level.”

The writer cites a friend who advised him that the best survival strategy was to assume “that every driver was ‘a mouth-breathing drug addict with a murderous hatred for cyclists.’” On one level that is not necessarily bad advice, but the tragedy is that in this day and age it is even necessary. With cycling now, as the article notes, $6 billion industry and an outdoor activity whose popularity is surpassed only by running this is a subject that resonates far beyond the our own streets in legendarily bike-friendly Portland – a fact made clear that even here we suffer several fatal Oregon bike and car crashes every year.

If, as the author notes, we all agree that serious car crashes require law enforcement officials to investigate and determine responsibility, why do we not insist on the same standards for bike riders? The article quotes the head of the large, and long-established, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition saying that “We do not know of a single case of a cyclist fatality in which the driver was prosecuted except for D.U.I. or hit-and-run.”

As a Portland bike accident attorney I find this both too common and simply unacceptable. Something seems to be wrong with our very idea of justice if a system like this is allowed to persist anywhere in the country, but the fact is that in many places it represents the norm rather than the exception. Remember, the Times article focuses on San Francisco, a city that, like Portland, has worked hard for decades to make itself more bike-friendly. One of the few bright spots in the article is the praise it has for our state’s laws, in which a driver held to be at fault in a crash with a cyclist may lose his or her license and be subject to a fine of $12,500 or 200 hours of community service. Still, one has to ask whether even these penalties go far enough, especially when what we are discussing is the loss of a human life.

We can all be happy that Oregon is a leader in this regard, and that civil courts like the ones in which I practice play a key role in helping victims and their families obtain justice after Oregon bike accidents, but the fact remains that it is our criminal courts where the government needs to hold drivers accountable.

New York Times: Is it OK to kill cyclists?

The Oregonian highlights an initiative by Beaverton’s police that is good for the public, and could serve as a model for other communities across Oregon. According to the newspaper as part of a pedestrian safety initiative “more than 30 citations were issued and one arrest made” yesterday alone in Beaverton.

“Beaverton police patrolled Southwest Hall Boulevard and Broadway Street between 11 am and 1 pm to raise awareness and enforce pedestrian right of way laws… There were 25 crosswalk-related citations issued Wednesday and another seven for other traffic-related violations,” the paper reports, citing a Beaverton police spokesperson.

Let’s pause and think about that for a moment: more than 30 violations observed and ticketed by police in and around a single intersection over a period of just two hours on a weekday. The newspaper notes that two similar patrols elsewhere in the city during September resulted in “69 crosswalk-related citations and 23 citations for other traffic-related violations,” so it is fair to say that this week’s experience can be called typical. Many Oregon car accidents are avoidable – this kind of activity often leads to the most avoidable accidents of all.

Stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks is one of the most basic rules of the road pretty much anywhere in the world. As we all learned in Driver’s Ed, if not earlier, anyone getting behind the wheel has a responsibility to watch for, and yield to, pedestrians waiting to cross. With the end of daylight savings time and the coming of winter seeing people waiting to cross – or, worse, people crossing in less than ideal light – will be more difficult, but this is something that every one of us lives with every year. It is not, in the end, an excuse for irresponsible conduct.

As a Portland traffic accident attorney these are issues I deal with every day. Since all of us who drive are also, at one time or another, pedestrians it is difficult to understand why this problem never quite seems to go away. Perhaps we all need periodic reminders, like the ones offered in Beaverton this week, to ensure that we do the right thing.

The Oregonian: Beaverton pedestrian safety enforcement operation yields citations, arrest

The 2009 death of an Oregon-bound family on a California freeway led this week to an important wrongful death ruling by a court in our neighbor to the south. As reported by the Los Angeles Times a 13-year-old girl is now the only survivor of her family’s SUV accident. The family car hit the rear of an illegally parked truck near La Crescenta, California while on its way to Oregon for a Thanksgiving vacation.

According to the newspaper the truck’s driver was parked “in an area designated for emergencies only without his trailer lights or emergency reflectors on… (the driver’s) attorney argued at trial that his client had pulled over to the side of the road to take medication for a severe headache, which constituted an emergency.” The victim’s attorney, however, pointed out that the driver had given conflicting versions of the incident at different times, “including stopping to urinate and pulling over to sleep,” the Times reports.

When the family SUV burst into flames the teenage girl and her elder brother managed to reach safety but their parents and another brother were not able to get away from the burning car. The newspaper notes that the surviving brother “committed suicide in June, four days before his mother’s birthday,” a fact that highlights in the worst way imaginable the intense psychological trauma these two children have gone through.

When we focus on the immediate damage from a car crash, or even the physical injuries to children that may result, we sometimes miss the deeper psychological scars an incident like this can leave. Indeed, whatever physical injuries the surviving girl may still be struggling with it is easy to believe that the mental trauma of that night will prove to be its most enduring scar.

As a Portland personal injury lawyer with a special interest in injuries to children I look at this case and take some small comfort from the fact that our legal system offers the victim some remedy. Because the truck was a commercial vehicle and the driver’s reckless action took place while he was on duty – operating within the course and scope of his employment, to use the legal terminology – it is easier than it might otherwise be for the victim to obtain some measure of justice. This is an aspect of our legal system for which we can all be grateful, even as we mourn these senseless deaths – and resolve more vigilance on the roads as the holidays approach.

Los Angeles Times: Jury awards $150 million to girl whose family died in crash

A mini-documentary and accompanying article posted on the New York Times’ website last week are a timely reminder of the importance of both accurate reporting and of the role our courts play in helping ordinary Americans get the justice they deserve, even when facing off against large, deep-pocketed corporations.

The piece, part of the Times’ “Retro Report” series examining older stories people may only half-remember, focuses on the famous McDonald’s coffee case from the early 1990s. Note that I wrote “famous” not “well known”, because, as the documentary outlines, most of what people think they know about this case is wrong.

In the popular imagination the McDonald’s case is evidence of a personal injury law system run amok: an elderly woman collecting a lottery-sized settlement from McDonald’s after spilling coffee on herself. In many popular versions of the tale she suffered the burns while also driving the car with the coffee cup between her legs. As the documentary outlines the car was parked, the victim was in the passenger’s seat and her burns were severe enough to be life-threatening. The large settlement awarded in the initial trial was reduced by more than 80 percent on appeal. Perhaps most shocking, as the newspaper notes, “she was not one isolated case of scalding, there were hundreds – which amazingly did not move McDonald’s to change their policy on the temperature at which to keep the coffee.”

Some of this ground has been covered before, most notably in the 2011 documentary film Hot Coffee. The victim in the incident passed away in 2004, but the Times quotes her daughter welcoming the renewed attention the story is receiving. “She said this week that she felt a sense of relief to know that more people were getting to know the full story,” the paper notes.

As a Portland personal injury lawyer I heartily commend the Times for this piece of journalism and hope it reminds my readers of the important role our courts play in leveling the playing field between ordinary Americans and large, deep-pocketed companies. Even today these fights are often terribly one-sided, but the legal system offers the best – in some cases the only – chance many people have to obtain justice, enforce accountability and, when the system truly works as it should, ensure that large companies act responsibly.

The New York Times: Storm Still Brews Over Scalding Coffee

Regular readers know that I am a strong supporter of SafeKids Oregon, so I’m pleased to share the fact that SafeKids Oregon has joined with other SafeKids organizations across America and overseas to promote Teen Driver Safety Week.

As SafeKids Oregon announces on their website (see link below), “although SafeKids primarily focuses on children ages 0 – 14, we believe that teaching safety to pre-drivers will help all children and youth be safer now and in the future.” This week’s activities are focused on social media as a way of making young soon-to-be drivers aware of the importance of safety and the responsibility that comes whenever they, or anyone else, sits down behind the wheel.

A key component of the Safety Week initiative is Teen Driver Source, an information-sharing program run by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. As the SafeKids website outlines, the initiative brings together “a team of researchers, educators and communicators from the Center for Injury Research and Prevention. The Teen Driver Safety Research Team takes a multidisciplinary approach to study the causes of teen driver-related crashes and then provides information, tools and other resources to help prevent these crashes.” Put another way, it offers tools that allow the lessons learned across the United States to be applied everywhere, rather than in just a particular city or state.

Oregon car accidents involving teens are far too common, and these Oregon child injuries are best addressed through education – the earlier the better. As a Portland child injury attorney I see far too many cases where tragedy could have been prevented through better and earlier education. That is why I support this important initiative by SafeKids and hope everyone will take a few minutes to browse the resources the organization is making available.

SafeKids Oregon: Teen Driver Safety Week October 20-26, 2013

Oregon DOT: Driver Education Parent-Teen Resource Page

With barely two weeks to go until election day voters in Washington won a victory this week even before they go to the polls to decide the fate of Initiative 522. According to an article published Friday in The Oregonian a major opponent of the GMO-labeling initiative bowed to pressure from the Washington State attorney general and agreed to disclose the names and contributions of major donors to an anti-522 campaign.

Washington State Initiative 522 would require the labeling of foods produced using genetically modified organisms, also known as GMOs. A similar ballot initiative in California failed in 2012 after a strong ‘vote no’ campaign funded by the food industry. With Washington voters scheduled to go to the polls on November 5 the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a trade group, “agreed to make public a long list of donors to its anti-labeling campaign after being sued this week by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. He charged that the Association violated the state’s disclosure laws by setting up an internal fund that solicited money from its members to fight the initiative,” the newspaper reports.

According to The Oregonian, the GMA has put over $7 million into the anti-522 campaign, with almost half of that coming just from Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestle.

However you feel about GMO labeling, every voter should applaud the Washington AG’s efforts in this case. Transparency and accountability go hand in hand in our democracy. Just as voters need to know who backs both sides of a ballot measure if they are going to make an informed choice all of us have an interest in knowing how companies that affect our everyday lives are going about their business. When a company’s political activities help it to hide negligence or other conduct that has the potential to harm its customers we all, as a society, have a right to know. Transparency also enables consumer choice – another concept that most would agree lies at the heart of the American experience. When Washingtonians and Oregonians know what the companies that make our food are trying to do politically they can vote with their wallets as well as at the ballot box, supporting or opposing companies whose business practices match, or fail to match, their beliefs.

As a Washington and Oregon victims’ rights attorney this is an issue I deal with every day. Companies that put profits ahead of the public good need to know that they can be held to account for their reckless and negligent conduct in our courts. That accounting can only take place when we, as citizens, are fighting corporate greed and irresponsibility on a level playing field.

The Oregonian: Grocery manufacturers disclose big donors to anti-GMO labeling campaign in Washington

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Pepsi, Coke, Nestle top multi-million dollar campaign against I-522

The death of a Portland bike rider on Barbur Boulevard last August has given new urgency to proposals to change the balance of cars and bikes along this important commuting artery.

As a recent article in The Oregonian outlines, an advocacy group, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, is urging the ODOT “to put a harrowing section of the high-speed boulevard on a “road diet.” Essentially the group wants a northbound auto lane removed to make space for about two miles of buffered bike lanes and pedestrian paths in both directions of the critical north-south corridor.”

As one might expect many drivers are unhappy with this plan, citing the fact that, according to The Oregonian, ODOT relies on Barbur to relieve rush-hour traffic pressure on I-5. What is different about this dispute is the fact that commuting has emerged as the focus for both sides in this debate. Unusually for these sort of debates, the question is not one of balancing roadways against recreational bikeways but, rather, of balancing the needs of different types of commuters in a city that prides itself on its bike-friendly attitude. The paper reports that “nearly 800 bicycle commuters a day” travel along the route. For the cycling community Barbur is especially important as it offers a relatively flat route through hilly Southwest Portland.

Equally important, however, are the safety concerns prompting the proposed changes. The Oregonian quotes the head of the BTA noting that “There have been a number of pretty serious crashes involving both pedestrians and bicyclists in that area.” The proposed changes are backed by a number of important local groups, including Lewis & Clark College and the City Club of Portland, according to the newspaper.

From my perspective as a Portland bicycle accident lawyer this is exactly the sort of project in which both Oregon and the City of Portland ought to be investing. The issue is not just August’s fatal Portland bike accident on Barbur, but rather the role that mixed-transportation must play in our future if fatal bike accidents are to be avoided. ‘Share the Road’ has to become something more than a slogan. It needs to be emblematic of an approach that both bike riders and drivers bring to all of our streets. The issue is not whether dedicating one lane of Barbur to bikes and pedestrians might slow down some people’s commute by car, but rather how much safer this initiative will make the commute along Barbur for everyone, regardless of the form of transportation they choose.

The Oregonian: Portland bicycle advocates, ODOT spar over removing a traffic lane on Southwest Barbur Boulevard

Amid all the discussion surrounding this week’s government shutdown a lot of attention has been paid both to large budget issues and to the daily inconveniences – and, in some cases serious troubles – the suspension of government services involves for many Americans.

One of the most potentially hazardous areas of the shut down may prove to be consumer safety. As an article this week at Boston.com (the website of the Boston Globe) explains, as part of the broader shut down the Consumer Product Safety Commission “is only announcing recalls that pose an imminent risk to the public.”

As though to demonstrate what exactly that might mean, on Thursday the CPSC recalled “some 15 million surge protectors sold for a decade at some of the nation’s largest retailers… after more than 700 reports of the strips overheating.” It is, of course, very good to see the CPSC still at work, even in a much diminished form, but one also must ask whether this is the bar that product recalls must cross for as long as the current government funding crisis continues.

The surge protectors in question have not been sold ‘new’ for a decade, but according to Boston.com it is thought that many are still in use. The newspaper reports that the recall follows evidence that the ageing devices can melt or even catch fire.

The children’s safety website Kids in Danger notes that the CPSC “is one of the first lines of defense separating children from dangerous products in the marketplace.” It goes on to note that “in addition to reduced recall notices, CPSC will be accepting reports through saferproducts.gov, but will not be able to publish any reports for the public.”

All of this is a reminder of the important, but often unseen, roles government fills in our everyday lives. As a Portland child injury attorney I, along with many Oregon and Washington parents rely on the detailed and careful work the CPSC puts into examining and recalling dangerous and defective products. This is not the first thing many of us think of when we think of the federal government, and the scaling back of the CPSC may not have the TV news value that closing the Grand Canyon has. Still, it is important, and it is a reminder of the real damage the current budget crisis has the potential to do to all of us here in Oregon, Washington and around the United States.

Boston.com: 15 million surge protectors recalled

Kidsindanger.org: What does the government shutdown mean for product safety?