Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

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The Oregon Supreme Court sided with cigarette giant Philip Morris last week in refusing to reinstate a $100 million punitive damage ruling issued by a lower court in 2002. That earlier ruling was overturned by a state appellate court in 2006.

It is important to note that one part of the Oregon product liability and wrongful death case still stands: the original Oregon jury award of more than $164,500 in “economic losses, pain and suffering” is not affected by the ruling regarding punitive damages, according to The Oregonian. Moreover, the Supreme Court ruling does not mean that the case is finished or that punitive damages have been disallowed: merely that the issue of Oregon punitive damages must be reargued before a lower court.

The case concerns a Salem woman who died in 1999 after decades of regular smoking. According to The Oregonian, she switched to low-tar cigarettes in 1976, after a dozen years of smoking, believing that low tar cigarettes would be less problematic for her health. Oregon personal injury attorneys representing the woman’s family argued that Philip Morris possessed study data showing that smokers of low-tar cigarettes tended to inhale longer and more deeply, thus negating the alleged benefits of the product. The company, however, did not disclose this information to consumers.

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The death last year of a patient at the Oregon State Hospital has led to reprimands for five hospital employees. According to the Salem Statesman-Journal a state official and “hospital leaders” decided that reprimands were a sufficient punishment for the five employees. The legal system, however, has yet to have its final say on this serious situation. Oregon wrongful death and Oregon medical neglect lawsuits remain a possibility.

The reprimands were occasioned by the death last fall of 42 year old Moises Perez. Perez died of coronary artery disease, according to The Oregonian, but “lay in his room across from the nurses station for several hours before his body was discovered.”

The paper reports that three nurses and two aides have now had letters of reprimand placed in their personnel files following an investigation by the OSH’s human resources department. The reprimands are not accompanied by any loss of pay or suspension from work. The Oregonian reports that one of the nurses failed to make monthly nursing summaries on Perez’s chart from June until the patient’s death in October. One of the aides was disciplined for failing to alert nurses when Perez did not “show up to take his 3:30pm medications” on the day of his death. A separate investigation of a doctor, being carried out by a medical board, is still under way.

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A Portland fatal shooting late last week led to an Oregon death that police describe as accidental, according to The Oregonian. Despite that description, the paper also reports that one person was taken into custody at the scene of the shooting, in Northwest Portland, raising the possibility that an Oregon wrongful death may have occurred.

The newspaper, quoting police sources, reports that police received a 911 call on June 10 indicating that a man had been shot. Arriving at the scene they found the man to be wounded in the chest, but still breathing. He was transported to an area hospital, where he later died. A neighbor told the paper that “she saw the police remove two or three guns” from the house where the shooting took place. The paper reported that homicide detectives has closed off the scene of the shooting and were investigating the precise circumstances of the incident.

One man was reportedly detained at the scene of the incident.

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Alcohol-related Oregon fatal car accidents and holiday weekends seem to have a grim connection. As the Daily Astorian notes, Memorial Day has long been the holiday weekend in Oregon most closely associated with alcohol-related fatalities. This year is no exception. According to the newspaper an Oregon drunk driver strayed over the center line of Highway 30 just east of Astoria Sunday night, striking a motorcyclist nearly head-on.

The motorcycle rider, who was wearing a helmet, was thrown from his bike and killed. Both the alleged drunk driver and his 13-year old daughter who was riding in the truck with him were uninjured. The Oregonian, quoting Oregon State Police, reported that the truck driver was arrested and charged with drunk driving, reckless driving, manslaughter and recklessly endangering another person (this is presumably a reference to the child in the truck).

Unmentioned by the media, but also worth considering as we think through the legal implications of this tragic Oregon fatal motorcycle accident, is where the alleged driver obtained his alcohol. If a bartender continued to serve the suspect or a store clerk sold him alcohol after he was obviously drunk that person too could be subject to legal action.

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A recent investigative report in The Oregonian has raised new questions about the murder-suicide rampage of an off-duty Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy earlier this year. According to the paper, its revelations may expose the county to an Oregon wrongful death lawsuit.

The paper looked into the circumstances leading up to the deadly evening last February when Jeffrey Grahn stormed into a Portland nightclub where he killed his wife and shot two of her friends before turning the gun on himself. The potential of a Portland wrongful death claim now arises because of memos obtained by the paper using a public records request.

According to the paper, these show that the Clackamas County sheriff’s office departed from its normal protocol in urging the Portland police to ““hold off” on contacting the district attorney’s office” last year after an investigation raised troubling questions about Grahn and his behavior. When allegations of domestic violence and other troubling behavior by Grahn first emerged in 2009, the paper reports, the Sheriff’s office brought in the Portland police – a standard procedure when the law enforcement agency needs to investigate one of its own. According to the paper, however, the newly released memos show that the Sheriff’s office later intervened to stop the Portland police from taking their concerns about Grahn to prosecutors.

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As a recent report in The Oregonian details, Adventist Medical Center has witnessed a dramatic drop in Portland hospital deaths from bloodstream infections in the three-plus years since it instituted a new set of simple, but effective, safety procedures. The development is obviously good for patients, but it also has implications for Oregon wrongful death and medical malpractice claims related to our state’s hospitals.

The paper explains that in 2006 Adventist began implementing a set of relatively simple procedures developed at Maryland’s Johns Hopkins University. These involve medical professionals carefully checking each other to ensure thorough hand-washing before care-givers have contact with patients, greater attention to the use of antiseptics to clean patients skin and more extensive use of “full surgical regalia”.

As the paper reports, data collected by the state shows a dramatic drop in mortality and infection rates once the new procedures went into effect – especially when compared with other Portland area hospitals that do not follow the Johns Hopkins guidelines. The newspaper, citing Adventist’s director of quality resources, reports that there have been no ICU infections at the hospital since the spring of 2007.

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Relatives of an elderly Canby couple who died after their vacation home caught fire are seeking $3 million in damages as part of a Multnomah County wrongful death lawsuit, according to an article published earlier this week in The Oregonian.

The newspaper reports that the suit targets the companies that installed a propane stove and its accompanying gas lines in Clinton and Kenda Schultz’s vacation house in Sumpter, near Baker City in Eastern Oregon. The couple died in September 2008 when their cabin caught fire.

According to the newspaper, the suit alleges that the companies that installed the stove and its related piping failed “to obtain permits, notify building inspectors… or have the work inspected for its integrity. The suit claims that the Valley Metal employee who installed the stove and interior piping was 18 and didn’t have a required license from the Oregon State Fire Marshal.”

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An Oregon wrongful death lawsuit has been filed in federal court in the wake of last year’s death of a 30 year old Salem man who had been subdued by police officers using tasers. The family of Gregory Rold is seeking $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $4.5 million in punitive damages from the City of Salem, four of its police officers and 10 other municipal employees, according to the Salem Statesman-Journal.

According to the Statesman-Journal, Rold died last May after being taken into custody by the Salem police following a trespassing complaint. When he resisted arrest, police subdued Rold with batons and the taser, according to the newspaper. Shortly after being taken into custody, however, Rold stopped breathing. Paramedics took him to a Salem hospital where he was pronounced dead. A Marion County Grand Jury later cleared the officers involved of wrongdoing, ruling that “police officers were justified in using physical force to arrest Rold,” the newspaper reported. A state medical examiner ruled the death accidental.

In an article distributed by Courthouse News Service, Rold’s mother says her son was schizophrenic, and that officers used the tasers on him for a full 2 minutes and later knelt on him as he lay face-down. According to the Statesman-Journal, the family’s Oregon wrongful death lawsuit “claims that Rold’s civil rights were violated, that police officers were negligent in causing Rold’s death and excessive force was used against Rold.”

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Oregon State Police are working with officials from the Marion County Medical Examiner’s office to investigate an Oregon accidental death in Silver Falls State Park, near Silverton and Salem.

According to the Salem-News, a 22 year old man died last week when he “fell Saturday afternoon from an edge overlooking the Drake Falls area” of the park. The paper quotes the OSP saying state troopers and EMTs were summoned to the park immediately after the accident, but the victim was pronounced dead at the scene. Police are also looking for what the paper describes as “an unknown hiker” who may have witnessed the Oregon fatal accident.

Any Oregon fatal accident raises questions about liability. Just because a death is an accident does not mean that, as a matter of law, no one is legally responsible. Indeed, seeking legal advice is always a good idea in the wake of a Portland accidental death. An Oregon personal injury lawyer can advise accident victims and their families on the details of Oregon’s wrongful death laws, and help determine whether a particular accident leaves justice waiting to be served.

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Clackamas County officials have reached a settlement in the Sandy wrongful death suit filed by the family of Fouad Kaady, who was shot by Clackamas County police in 2005 while “unarmed, naked, burned and bleeding” according to The Oregonian.

According to the newspaper, settlement of the high profile Oregon wrongful death case involved no admission of wrongdoing on the part of police. County officials are quoted describing their decision to settle as “a purely business decision made by the insurance carrier”. Local media reports indicate Kaady’s family settled out-of-court for $1 million in an effort to spare themselves the trauma of a trial.

The events leading to Kaady’s September 2005 death began when a gas can exploded in his car, causing him to suffer severe burns over much of his body. He may also have sustained a traumatic head injury as a result of the car accident tied to the gas can’s explosion. Officers responding to reports of a naked man in the Sandy area tried to subdue Kaady when they found him. They are reported to have hit him with two taser blasts to little effect. He was shot seven times after climbing onto the roof of a police car. Witnesses described him as unarmed and non-life threatening, but police and county officials have steadfastly defended their actions.

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