Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

January 15, 2015

Distracted and Drunk Driving Tragedy Has an Unusual Twist

The New York Times reported last week on an incident in Maryland that combines distracted driving and drunk driving but has a particularly eyebrow-raising aspect to it: the alleged culprit is reported to be “an Episcopal bishop (who) got into her car, her blood-alcohol level far above the legal limit” and, while texting behind the wheel, is reported to have struck and killed a cyclist.

According to the newspaper, citing the State’s Attorney’s office in Baltimore, where the incident took place, the bishop allegedly left the scene of the accident, though she did return approximately half an hour later. “The state’s attorney for Baltimore City announced charges… including criminal negligent manslaughter, driving while impaired and texting, and leaving the scene of an accident,” the New York Times reported. Perhaps even more surprising is the revelation that the bishop had “a history of driving while intoxicated,” according to the newspaper.

As is always the case in situations like this, so many details concerning this fatal DUI bike accident are simply tragic. According to the Times, the alleged drunk driver had pled “guilty to driving under the influence in 2010.” As one might also expect there have been accusations that the case has received special treatment because of the prominent public position of the accused drunk driver, who is the number two official in the Episcopal Church in Maryland.

January 9, 2015

Important Findings in New Concussion Study

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Raised awareness of the frequency of concussions among young people, particularly athletes, and the importance of treating them properly has led to a growing amount of scientific research on the subject. A particular focus of attention has been the best way to treat people in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic brain injury. Athletes, of course, should be removed from a game immediately, but the longer-term question of treatment during the days following an accident has received less attention.

According to a recent article in the New York Times new research is questioning one commonly recommended post-TBI treatment technique. Known as “cocoon therapy” the procedure, according to the newspaper, “entails mostly lying in a dark room for multiple days.” The Times reports that a new study suggests that among children “resting for longer than 24 to 48 hours is not beneficial for most young patients.”

“More isn’t always better,” the paper quotes a doctor at UCLA saying. “There was no advantage to prolonged rest.” It adds that this was not the conclusion the researchers expected to find when they set up the clinical trial. Instead, the study “found that the patients advised to rest for five days reported more physical symptoms like headache and nausea in the first few days, and more often experienced emotional symptoms like irritability and sadness over 10 days… The available evidence suggests that young patients with a concussion should rest away from school and work for the first 24 to 48 hours, experts said.”

December 31, 2014

Oregon Court Access Issues Brought into Focus by GM Case

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An article that appeared this week in the New York Times detailed the legal struggles of some of the victims of General Motors’ corporate negligence – struggles made worse by misguided laws designed to protect corporate bottom lines at the expense of public health and safety.

As I have written about many times this year, the giant auto maker is in serious legal trouble as evidence has emerged that it knew for years about defects in its cars’ ignition switches but did little to fix them. As the Times notes, “Today, at least 42 people are known to have died in crashes linked to the defective ignition switch, and both GM and federal safety regulators have come under fire for allowing the danger to linger for more than a decade.”

What could make a situation like this even worse? A legal system that limits the damages a bereaved family can collect. The Times article details the struggle of two Wisconsin families. Both lost loved ones to the GM defect, but neither was able to get any Wisconsin attorney to take their case because of a state law capping damage awards at $350,000. Every law firm approached by both families eventually decided that the limit on potential damages made it impossible for them to fight a huge company like GM without ultimately losing money.

December 29, 2014

Combat Oregon Drunk Driving With Free Tri-Met New Year’s Eve

by Matthew D. Kaplan

With the New Year’s holiday fast approaching this is a good time to remind everyone of the importance of avoiding Oregon drunk driving. As I have written about in previous years, New Year’s Eve is often a time when people over-indulge, including people who would never think of drinking and driving at other times of the year. The good news is that here in Portland Tri-Met is doing its part to help cut down on holiday drunk driving.

According to a news release from Tri-Met “all service is free after 8 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.” Buses will be on their regular weekday schedules as will Blue, Green and Yellow MAX trains. Late night service will continue at 30 minute intervals until shortly after 3 a.m. MAX Red Line trains will be on a normal schedule, with shuttle buses to the airport picking up after train service stops for the night. The Portland Streetcar will also operate a normal weekday schedule.

As a recent article in The Oregonian noted, an analysis by the newspaper found that on New Year’s Eve 2011 and New Year’s Day 2012 “there were 82 fatal accidents involving at least one drunken driver, one of them in Oregon… More than half of the deaths on New Year’s Days from 2008 to 2012 involved at least one drunken driver, more than any other holiday, an analysis by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found.”

December 27, 2014

Oregon State Hospital Death Leads to Lawsuit

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The death of a patient at the Oregon State Hospital one year ago next week has led to the filing of a lawsuit, according to a recent article in the Salem Statesman-Journal. The case raises noteworthy Oregon wrongful death issues, and is worth exploring here.

According to the newspaper, the man’s family alleges that his “death was the direct result of hospital staff retaliating when he alerted police and the media to patient sexual abuse in the hospital.” The 48-year-old man died last January “after telling friends and family he feared for his life.”

The newspaper reports that in August 2013 the man had alerted hospital officials to an alleged case of sexual abuse involving a nurse and a patient. When the man felt the hospital did not react appropriately he “told the Oregon State Police, the Statesman-Journal and The Oregonian.” Shortly afterwards the man was allegedly moved to a different ward, put under round-the-clock watch by the hospital staff and given medications that “put him in a state of near-constant sedation.” The lawsuit filed by his family alleges that all of this was unnecessary and significantly contributed to the man’s death.

December 17, 2014

Little Noticed Provision in Spending Bill Spells Danger on Our Roads

by Matthew D. Kaplan

As members of Congress worked through the weekend to agree on a spending bill to keep the federal government operating a fair of amount of media attention focused on an unrelated provision that would weaken the regulations imposed on banks in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis. Another, less noticed, amendment to the bill, however, is likely to have a more immediate effect on a much larger number of Americans.

According to NJ.com, language slipped into the federal spending bill at the last minute “suspends two rest rules for drivers” of semi-trucks. In other words, it makes it legal for trucking companies to demand more hours behind the wheel from already overstretched truck drivers.

Specifically, the website reports, “under federal law, truck drivers can be behind the wheel 11 hours a day, up to a maximum of 60 hours in a seven-day period. But if a trucker takes a 34-hour rest period, that seven-day calendar starts all over and he or she can drive another 60 hours during the next seven days.” The Hill, a magazine that tracks congress, notes that the new rule will “suspend a current requirement that truck drivers take breaks between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on consecutive nights before they can work again. The measure would also remove a limit on the number of times they can declare the start of a new workday.”

December 11, 2014

Oregon Study Unlocks Important TBI Secrets

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An OHSU study just published in a medical journal may have uncovered key evidence linking Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injuries and, more importantly, hinted at a way both can be addressed medically according to a recent article in The Oregonian.

According to the newspaper, a scientific paper prepared by OHSU and a university in New York “discovered that a traumatic brain injury fouls up the brain’s waste removal system, causing toxic proteins to build up among the cells. A similar phenomenon exists with Alzheimer’s.” The article goes on to note that if TBI and Alzheimer’s do, indeed, stem from similar chemical causes then there is “hope that scientists will find a drug one day to slow the development of Alzheimer’s or neurodegeneration after a brain injury.”

According to The Oregonian’s account of the study, the breakthrough lies in the discovery of “the brain’s waste removal system.” It continues: “Scientists had long suspected that the brain, which is separated from the body by a protective blood-brain barrier, had a mechanism for flushing out waste. But they did not have a clue about the process.” Now, they do. Another important feature of the study is its identification of the failure of this waste-flushing process as the core cause of both Alzheimer’s and of many traumatic brain injuries – a link between the two conditions that has long been suspected but has been difficult to prove scientifically.

December 5, 2014

Lower Speed Limit Targets Cyclists

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The New York Times reported this week on a decision targeting cyclists that might surprise some: “In the wake of two pedestrian deaths caused by collisions with bicycles, Central Park has lowered the speed limit for cars and bicycles to 20 miles per hour from 25, while reconfiguring intersections with especially heavy foot traffic.” Though the announcement mentioned cars it was mainly focused on bikes since large sections of the park are closed to motor vehicles at any given time (on weekends the entire park is off-limits to cars except for a couple of car-only passages that are largely below ground level and mostly invisible to other park users).

The speed limit change is part of “Vision Zero,” a program of safety improvements touted by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio with the goal of eliminating pedestrian deaths citywide. Earlier this year the Times reported that as part of Vision Zero police had stepped up speed limit enforcement in the park, at one point issuing “tickets to 103 bicyclists” in a single weekend, though that level of enforcement is not the norm. The program’s most visible element has been the lowering of the speed limit on most of New York’s streets from 30 mph to 25 mph.

In both fatal accidents congestion appears to have been a major issue, according to the Times. One victim was struck by a cyclist who “said he had swerved to avoid other pedestrians.” The other involved “a 17-year old bicyclist dodging a pedicab.” The paper quotes the head of the Central Park Conservancy, the non-profit group that handles day-to-day operations of the park, saying “There’s no question: Slower traffic will mean a safer park.”

November 30, 2014

Fatal Oregon DUI Crash Raises Dram Shop, Social Host Liability Questions

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Oregon DUI stories often, sadly, seem to be an inevitable part of every holiday weekend. Here in Oregon Thanksgiving week began with a DUI story that may raise broader issues.

“Police say a Salem woman was under the influence of alcohol early Tuesday when she drove her car the wrong way down Interstate 5 and crashed into another car, killing a passenger inside,” according to a report this week in The Oregonian. The newspaper reports that the 49-year-old woman “was driving northbound in the southbound lanes of I-5 for several miles, police said, before her 2003 Volkswagen Jetta collided head-on with a southbound BMW near mile marker 266.5, near Keizer.”

A 49-year-old Nyssa woman riding in the BMW “was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash,” while that car’s driver and a second passenger were injured. The driver was treated at Salem Memorial Hospital while the second passenger was transported to the Portland area for treatment. The wrong-way driver was also treated at a Salem hospital for crash-related injuries and, once released, was charged “with second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, driving under the influence of intoxicants, assault, reckless endangerment and reckless driving.”

November 29, 2014

Possible Oregon Industrial Accident Mars Holiday Weekend

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Investigators from Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration are looking into a possible Oregon industrial accident that claimed the life of a Scappoose woman on Thanksgiving Day.

According to a report in The Oregonian the 43-year-old woman “died Thursday afternoon in an explosion that investigators believe was started by sparks from a metal grinder at an industrial work site.” The fact that, according to the local sheriff’s office, the site of the accident was being leased by a trucking company from a third party may prove to be significant in determining whether this incident meets the legal definition of an Oregon industrial accident.

Third-party liability is often overlooked in reporting on incidents like this, but is important nonetheless. Under Oregon law a company or a property owner’s duty to provide a safe workplace extends to sub-contractors as well as its employees. While we obviously cannot draw any firm conclusions based solely on the short piece in The Oregonian, it will be important for OOSHA investigators and, in turn, the courts to consider where ultimate responsibility for this fatal accident may lie.