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Matthew D. Kaplan

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As a parent, ensuring your small child is safe whenever you hit the road is often a primary concern. To accomplish that goal, it is important to make sure that the car seat you’re using is completely safe and appropriate for your child’s size. Sometimes, though, the safety hazard comes not from your car seat but from your vehicle itself. If your child has been seriously injured (or worse) in a vehicle crash, it’s possible that an improper restraint was part of the problem. If that’s the case, then your situation may entitle you to seek justice through legal action. An experienced Portland child injury lawyer can provide you with crucial answers to your questions and advise you about possible next steps.

Currently, the industry standard for attaching car seats to vehicles is the LATCH (a/k/a Lower, Anchors & Tethers for Children) system. The system involves connecting the car seat to a set of metal anchors (built into the vehicle’s seats and seat backs) using tethers and clips attached to the car seat.

LATCH has now been in existence for more than two decades (dating back to the latter half of 2002,) yet issues with LATCH car seats remain. In late May, a product recall targeted some of Baby Trend’s hybrid child seats. According to the recall, the LATCH “assembly webbing that secures the child restraint system to the lower anchorages may fray, which can reduce the strength of the webbing and fail to properly restrain a child in a crash.” Due to that lack of strength, the seats failed to meet the requirements of two Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards: “Child Restraint Systems” (number 213) and “Seat Belt Assemblies” (number 209).

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Incarcerated people ingesting contraband (such as drugs) or other dangerous items is a legitimate problem. Like every other problem that correction workers face, there’s a right way and a wrong way to address it. Sometimes, the use of a so-called “dry cell” represents the wrong way, and the misuse of this type of confinement can be damaging or even lethal. If a loved one has died while incarcerated in a “dry cell,” then you should contact an Oregon civil rights lawyer to learn more about your legal situation and options.

“Dry cells” are cells where the inmate lacks any plumbing facilities. There is no shower, no sink, and the toilet has no water. The idea is that the contraband or dangerous item will eventually pass through the inmate’s body and prison officials can recover it after it does so.

Properly used, these cells can potentially serve some benefit. Improperly used, these cells can cause lasting physical damage… including death. That is what, according to one deceased inmate’s family, may have happened recently at Two Rivers Correctional Institute.

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People whose sole (or primary) source of information about the civil justice system is courtroom drama TV shows likely presume that cases are 100% won or lost at trial. In reality, what leads to success in your major injury case often happens well before the trial even begins. That’s because developing the strongest possible case involves many facets, including proper pretrial procedural steps, and that’s why the odds of getting justice are enhanced by retaining a knowledgeable Oregon injury lawyer.

A recent injury case from the federal District Court in Eugene is a good example. The huge “win” the injured plaintiff received was not regarding some factual or legal issue, but rather the use of expert witnesses.

Expert witnesses can be a major element of a successful case. Say, for example, you suffered a catastrophic injury with permanent paralysis at work due to the negligence of a third party (i.e., not your employer.) Your injuries mean a lifetime of medical treatment, rehab, pain, anguish, mental distress, and never being able to work again.

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When workplaces lack appropriate worker safety protections, serious and sometimes life-changing (or even fatal) accidents are too often the result. Sometimes, you, as an injured worker, may be entitled to restorative relief through an industrial accident lawsuit. These cases can be highly complex, making representation from a knowledgeable Oregon industrial accident lawyer especially valuable.

One factor that can help workers to receive safer workplaces is the threat of OSHA fines from the state. The fines the State of Oregon hands out to employers operating unsafe workplaces have historically been among the lowest in the country, even when the safety violations were obvious and substantial. For example, one construction worker in West Linn died in an accident caused by a heavy-duty loader with no working brakes or horn. Despite finding that the safety violations carried a “high probability of death and that ‘with reasonable diligence, (the) employer could have known that the loader’s brakes and horn were not operating properly’,” Oregon OSHA fined the excavation company only $5,400.

Those fines will be increasing going forward. Earlier this month, the Oregon legislature passed a bill that forces Oregon OSHA to lift its minimum fine amounts to mirror the minimum fines federal OSHA requires. According to The Oregonian, that means raising minimum fines by more than 1,000% in some circumstances.

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A commercial truck can weigh anywhere from 17.5-40 tons (35,000-80,000 pounds.) When you compare that to passenger vehicles, which weigh only about 1-3 tons (2,000-6,000 pounds,) it is easy to see how an accident involving a big rig can do massive — and often fatal — damage. If you’re hurt — or a loved one killed — in a commercial truck accident, there may be multiple parties with potential liability, ranging from truck drivers to trucking companies to a host of insurance companies. Complex civil cases like these often are ones where a skilled Oregon truck accident lawyer can be especially helpful.

A Willamette Valley crash was one of the most recent examples of just how devastating the results can be when a trucker operates his vehicle unsafely. Due to the complexities and amount (and severity) of the injuries involved, this case will likely take years to conclude and for families to get closure.

The trucker was traveling on Interstate 5 between Albany and Salem and, according to prosecutors, “had been weaving on and off the road” as he headed northbound. As he approached the Santiam River Rest Area, he allegedly veered onto the east shoulder of the highway and slammed into a Ford Econoline passenger van, crushing it between the trucker’s rig and a parked semi. The Oregonian reported that seven van passengers died. In addition, four more van passengers were transported to a hospital via ambulance.

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Even as legislative bodies strengthen laws and police ramp up enforcement, people behind the wheel dividing their attention between driving and text messages, phone calls, email, social media, and so forth remain a very real problem in Oregon and across the country. Too often, the results are serious injuries or deaths. When you or your family is harmed by someone driving while insufficiently attentive, you owe it to yourself to contact an experienced Oregon distracted driving lawyer to discuss your circumstances.

Sometimes, no one is hurt as a result of drivers’ inattention and the stories can seem a bit ridiculous — like the Washington County driver who was sufficiently distracted by a cell phone last fall that they left the road, crashed their pickup truck into a silo, and pushed that silo into a nearby barn, or the driver spotted by the Oregon State Police on Interstate 84 with not one but two hands on their cell phone while they drove.

Too many times, though, the outcome is tragic rather than absurd. Distracted driving crashes resulted in 3,500+ deaths nationwide in 2021. Here in Oregon, the state logged more than 15,500 crashes with more than 24,000 injuries from 2016-2020, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation.

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Auto insurance coverage can be a huge benefit when your insurer performs as it should. Unfortunately, court dockets and opinions are full of instances where insurance companies refused to do what they should, either in violation of the contract they signed or in violation of the law. When you have suffered severe or catastrophic harm in a motorcycle accident, getting the full benefit of your insurance coverage can be crucial. When your insurance company isn’t performing as it should, an experienced Oregon motorcycle accident lawyer can provide invaluable aid.

Auto insurers can violate the law in several ways. Two common ones involve refusing to pay a claim that the policy required them to cover and writing a policy that violates state law. A recent motorcycle accident case from our local area is an example of the latter, and how the legal system was able to help.

S.C. was a Portland man who had just acquired a motorcycle. Eight days after making that purchase, S.C. fell victim to a circumstance that occurs to many motorcyclists: a vehicle driver negligently making a left turn into his path. The accident left the motorcyclist with severe injuries. As is often the case in serious motorcycle accidents, the totality of the harm S.C. suffered was greater than the liability limits of the other driver’s auto insurance policy.

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WellPath, the Tennessee company with a trail of numerous civil actions regarding inmates who died while in its care, appears not to be slowed by the cloud of that litigation. Earlier this month, Oregon Public Radio reported that WellPath and Clark County had agreed to a three-year contract for services at the county jail and the youth detention facility in Vancouver. Whether inmate care is provided by an outside entity or by a local government, whenever those providing that care put dollars over people, harm (and, too often, death) will inevitably result. If your family has been touched by this kind of loss due to provider negligence, don’t delay in reaching out to an experienced jail medical neglect lawyer to discuss what options your family has.

According to the OPB report, the agreement called for WellPath to receive $5.87 million in the first year of the deal, with increases of 4-8% in each of the next two years.

WellPath provides care in jails and prisons in 36 states, including seven in Oregon. Currently, the company is facing four separate civil lawsuits in Oregon alleging that it was liable for the wrongful death of inmates under its care.

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The month of March 2023 has brought with it yet another fire and explosion at an Oregon industrial/manufacturing facility. Fortunately, no one was gravely injured or killed. Sometimes, these sorts of incidents happen despite the best efforts of all those responsible for worker safety. Too often, though, these events involve a degree of negligence, sometimes by multiple parties. When you’re one of the workers injured in this way, you may have several legal options. If someone other than your employer acted (or failed to act) in a way that meets Oregon’s legal standards for negligence, then you can pursue an industrial accident case. With representation from an experienced Oregon industrial accident lawyer, you can obtain much-needed compensation from that third party for your injuries.

The most recent explosive incident took place at a wood railroad tie treatment facility in The Dalles, which is about 80 miles east of Portland. It left two people injured, according to a KPIC report. Both of those individuals were firefighters responding to the emergency. The local Sheriff’s Office indicated that both firefighters were in good condition. No workers were hurt in the fire or the explosion.

The tank where the incident occurred contained QNAP copper naphthenate, which is a substitute for creosote, a substance used in treating wood railroad ties, according to Columbia Community Connection. The Sheriff’s Office told KPIC that the tank in question had been taken offline earlier that day to be cleaned.

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A motorcycle ride offers many benefits, including the release of endorphins (a/k/a “happy” hormones.) Unfortunately, riding a motorcycle carries some drawbacks, including a substantially higher risk of severe injury or death if you’re involved in a crash. That means that the harm your crash inflicts may permanently alter the trajectory of your life and/or those of your loved ones. If you have been seriously hurt (or a loved one killed) while aboard a motorcycle, you need the services of a knowledgeable Oregon motorcycle accident lawyer to ensure you receive restorative justice.

Less than a week into 2023, a motorcyclist in neighboring Clark County, Washington, lost their life. According to a KOIN report, investigators believed that the driver of a sedan in Vancouver “was turning southbound… from a parking lot when it collided with the motorcycle.”

A few weeks later, another motorcyclist died near Portland. This time, the site was Washington County. The crash involved a motorcycle and one other vehicle on an overpass to Highway 26 in Beaverton.

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50 SW Pine St 3rd Floor Portland, OR 97204 Telephone: (503) 226-3844 Fax: (503) 943-6670 Email: matthew@mdkaplanlaw.com
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