Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

October 15, 2015

Oregon Car Accident Deaths Are Rising

The number of deaths statewide in Oregon car crashes has jumped by 31 percent over the last year – a worrying statistic that, according to The Oregonian, state officials are unsure how to explain.

A recent article in the newspaper reported that “in the year that ended September 23, the state tallied 312 traffic fatalities, up from 238 for the same time period the year before… Pedestrian deaths soared by 64 percent to 54.”

Exactly why this is happening is not clear. The newspaper reports that in presenting the figures to a state senate committee in Salem, officials from the Oregon Department of Transportation called the numbers “pretty sobering” and “said at the hearing that the usual factors – speeding, no seatbelts, drunken and distracted driving – had something to do with the increase, but (the officials) said they’re still looking for solutions.” The Oregonian quotes one ODOT official telling the committee: “There’s no single factor, which means there’s no silver bullet.”

October 11, 2015

Injuries to Children Prompt Examination of Foster Care

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Problems at a Portland-area foster care facility have brought wider issues surrounding the state’s child care system to public attention, including making it the focus of a recent state senate committee hearing. According to a recent article in The Oregonian “the issue flared… when the Senate’s human services committee confronted the Department of Human Services over accusations that a publicly-funded foster care agency abused or neglected children with little apparent oversight from state officials.”

Charges included the withholding of food, use of force with the children and unclean and unsafe conditions in some facilities. The newspaper notes that state officials stopped sending children to one particular facility in North Portland last month, but also raised broader questions about the system as a whole. More legislative hearings are expected in the coming months and several investigations are now underway. In addition, a former employee of the facility accused colleagues of altering reports and other data to conceal the wrongdoing. The director of the facility also appeared before the committee, where she denied all of the accusations.

According to the newspaper, state officials claim that 83 percent of the children in foster care receive a visit from a state worker each month. As this case demonstrates, however, that simply is not good enough. Injuries to children in the Oregon foster care system are far more likely to occur, and will be far more difficult to prevent, as long as both public and private foster homes are able to operate with so little supervision.

October 7, 2015

Columbia County Industrial Accident Highlights Timber Industry Dangers

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A logging fatality last month in Chapman, in Columbia County, is a reminder of the ever-present dangers of Oregon industrial accidents. Pamplin Media, citing local law enforcement officials, reports that a 54-year-old Scappoose woman died while she “and another person were felling large fir trees.”

Logging has been an important part of our state’s economy for over a century, and it provides a livelihood for thousands of Oregonians. It also, however, remains one of the most dangerous professions in America and fatalities like this are tragic reminders of why the timber industry still needs to be closely regulated.

Pamplin reports that the Columbia County Sheriff’s office “conducted an investigation and ruled the death an accident,” but adds that the incident “is also being investigated by Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Division as an industrial accident.” This is appropriate because, as I have noted frequently on this blog, “industrial accident” is a term that has a very specific meaning in Oregon law.

October 5, 2015

Injuries to Children and the Risk of Laundry Pods

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Laundry ‘pods’ – essentially pre-packaged detergent that can be thrown in the machine with no need to measure it – have only been around for a few years but have quickly become popular here in Oregon and across the country. As a recent story on MyCentralOregon.com details, however, they also pose a significant risk of Oregon injuries to children – a risk critical enough that the industry is being forced to take note.

According to the website “after tens of thousands of calls from frightened caregivers to poison control centers across the country” the products are being remade. The site reports that according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers there were nearly 12,000 incidents involving laundry pods and children age six or younger last year. This year there were 7,184 such incidents through July – a figure that puts the country on pace to surpass that shocking 2014 number.

As a result Consumer Reports is recommending that people with young children in the house not use liquid laundry pods. When swallowed, the liquid detergent can “sometimes cause children to experience excessive vomiting and difficulty breathing,” MyCentralOregon reports.

September 22, 2015

Chamber’s ‘Survey’ Misses the Point of Our Justice System

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Last week the United States Chamber of Commerce released its annual “Lawsuit Climate Survey” – a report the Chamber has published since 2002. The Survey is worth examining because its conclusions can tell us a lot about both the Chamber as an organization and about big business’ priorities and views of our justice system.

According to the website Public Justice, the Chamber’s “report summarizes the answers of a ‘nationally representative sample of 1,203 in-house general counsel, senior litigators or attorneys, and other senior executives who are knowledgeable about litigation matters at companies with annual revenues over $100 million.’” It is, in short, a survey designed to gauge the views of big business toward our courts, and to rank those courts in terms of their favorability toward large companies and their legal agendas.

According to Public Justice, the Chamber finds that state courts are generally more favorable toward companies than federal courts, and that they have become steadily more business-friendly over the last decade, albeit at a slow pace. “In 2003, Corporate America’s lawyers gave the state courts a score of 50.7; in 2015 they gave them a score of 61.7,” the website reports. In assigning letter-grades to states based on the ‘business-friendly’ record of their courts 52% of all state courts were awarded either an ‘A’ or a ‘B’.

September 10, 2015

Portland Ranks Low for Driver Safety

by Matthew D. Kaplan

No one likes to believe that he or she is a bad driver. So it has to come as a surprise to many of us here in Portland that collectively we are some of the most collision-prone drivers in the country, according to a study by the Allstate Insurance Company recently analyzed by The Oregonian.

According to the newspaper “claims filed with the company found Portlanders are involved in a collision on average every 6.9 years – about 45 percent more than the national average of 10 years.” The paper adds: “That puts Portland squarely in the hall of shame, with a rank of 183 out of the 200 largest US cities.”

To make matters worse: “As recently as 2006, Portland stacked up reasonably… well, ranking at No. 89 on the list of 200 cities.” The newspaper adds that the news is a bit better for the metro area as a whole. Vancouver’s rating, while still below the national average, is significantly better than Portland’s with crashes coming, on average, every 8.8 years. Eugene, where drivers average 10.3 years between collisions, ranked No. 26 in the study.

September 7, 2015

Pause on Labor Day to think about Oregon Workplace Deaths

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An article published recently by The Oregonian on workplace deaths makes sober reading on this Labor Day Monday. It notes that “altogether 41 men and 5 women died from workplace accidents and injuries” in our state last year. “The number includes both Oregon and out-of-state residents who perished within the state’s borders, but excludes at least 28 others who died on the job from suicide, heart attack, stroke or other natural causes unrelated to their work.”

As the newspaper notes, the rate of workplace deaths both in Oregon and in the country as a whole has declined dramatically over the last three decades. Moreover, while Oregon’s workplace death rate of 2.9 per 100,000 workers is lower than the national average of 3.3 per 100,000 it is noticeably higher than the rates in neighboring California (2.4) and Washington State (1.7).

One can speculate why this might be the case. As I have often documented on this blog, Oregon has an unusually large number of people who work in relatively dangerous occupations – such as logging and truck driving. Whatever its cause, the fact that our state’s workplace fatality rate is unusually high by regional standards is a clear cause for concern.

September 4, 2015

A Labor Day Reminder: Boating Safety

by Matthew D. Kaplan

As many of us prepare to head out of town for the long holiday weekend, the Oregon Marine Board is doing its best to issue essential reminders about the importance of boating safety during what The Oregonian describes as “one of the top three boating weekends of the year.”

As the Marine Board notes, according to The Oregonian, many of its suggestions might easily be characterized s simple common sense. Yet when one considers that “so far this year, 12 people have lost their lives in recreational boating incidents, half of which involve drugs and alcohol” it can be argued that seemingly obvious reminders remain very important. Citing the Marine Board the article notes that Boating Under the Influence of Intoxicants (BUII) is a crime in Oregon and that “violators have been fined up to $7500, can lose boating privileges for up to three years and even serve jail time.”

Many of the other suggestions offered in the article are equally crucial, and too often ignored: know as much as you can about the lake, river or stream where you plan to have fun. “Water levels in the state are very low,” the Marine Board notes, and that means vacationers this long weekend need to be especially careful and look out for rocks and other potential obstacles. It is also important to be aware of safety rules regarding things like life jackets and having a sound-making device (such as a whistle) on board at all times (the Marine Board suggests attaching it to your life jacket) and the need for “all boaters operating boats over 10 horsepower” to have a valid Boater Education Card in their possession.

August 31, 2015

New CDC Report Focuses Attention on Oregon Bicycle Safety

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A report released earlier this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights both the health benefits of cycling and the potential risks. As the report notes, “only about 1% of trips across all modes of transportation” are made by bicycle here in the United States, but the number of deaths associated with cycling remains disproportionately high – and in some places much higher than in others.

The report examines nearly 30,000 cyclist deaths on American roads over a 38 year period – 1975 to 2012 – and leads with some good news: “annual cyclist fatalities declined from a high of 955 in 1975 to 717 in 2012” with the proportion of cyclist deaths among all motor vehicle-involved fatalities dropping from 2.3 to 1.4 percent from 1975 to 2003. In the decade since, however, the figure has risen back to 2.2 percent – meaning that proportionately we are pretty much where we started 40 years ago.

A table accompanying the CDC news release shows that over the period measured by the study fatal Oregon bicycle and car accidents have fallen by 45.9% – a figure that places our state 35^th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The greatest improvement was shown by Vermont, where fatalities dropped by more than 82%. Florida (9.7%) and Wyoming (6.7%) had the worst improvement rates.

August 29, 2015

Oregon Distracted Driving Case Leads to Criminal Conviction

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The Oregonian this week reported on a guilty plea by a 24-year-old Gresham woman in an Oregon distracted driving case that encapsulates everything that is wrong with this growing problem.

According to the newspaper, the defendant admitted to “taking cellphone video of her child when she crashed into three teens outside their high school in January.” The three 14 and 15-year-old girls “sustained skull, pelvis and knee fractures” according to the paper, as well as “a broken nose, concussion and a lost tooth, and… a torn ACL and a concussion, court documents said.”

“Investigators found a 19-second clip on (the driver’s) phone that showed her hands off the wheel just before she plowed into the teens in the crosswalk, court documents said. She appeared to be holding the phone in her left hand and making gestures with her right hand at her son sitting in the back seat. Phone records show she had also been texting before the crash,” the Oregonian writes.