Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

January 11, 2014

Ski Helmets and Winter Safety

When the news broke right before New Year’s that Michael Schumacher, arguably the world’s most famous race car driver, had been seriously injured in a skiing accident it immediately focused public attention on safety and winter sports.

According to numerous media reports Schumacher was skiing ‘off piste’ (a common term at European resorts referring to terrain which is open to recreational skiers but is not groomed or marked specifically as a trail) with his son at the French resort of Meribel on December 29 when he lost control, fell and struck his head on a rock. Schumacher suffered a traumatic brain injury and has been in a medically-induced coma ever since. He has undergone two surgeries and, according to CNN, doctors describe his condition as “stable but critical.”

That same CNN article (see link below) contains an especially important point regarding the accident. According to CNN “a French prosecutor investigating the ski accident… said that speed was not an important factor.” CNN reports French officials telling the media that Schumacher was traveling at “the speed of a very good skier on a slope which was not very steep” and also ruled out a fault with the race car driver’s skis. It has been widely reported that Schumacher was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident.

December 31, 2013

Happy New Year – Drive Carefully

by Matthew D. Kaplan

As we enter the New Year’s holiday period let me add my voice to the many out there reminding everyone to be safe and act responsibly tonight and tomorrow.

Throughout the country – perhaps even the world – New Year’s Eve and the days surrounding it have a reputation for being a particularly dangerous time to be on the roads. People overindulge and then get behind the wheel – sometimes consciously, more often simply without thinking clearly. The results are a danger not only to themselves and their passengers but also to everyone else on the road.

According to the Oregon State Police, during last year’s 102-hour ‘holiday reporting period’ (6pm on December 28 through midnight on January 1) “12 people died in four separate fatal traffic crashes on Oregon roads… The 12 fatalities, including 9 deaths in (a) December 30 bush crash, equals the highest number reported previously two different years – 1998 and 1999, during this holiday period since 1970 when ODOT began to gather these statistics.” The fatal bus crash on Deadman’s Pass in the east of the state led to a federal investigation and, as I noted at the time, raised significant Oregon wrongful death issues.

December 30, 2013

New Year, New Laws

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A new year begins on Wednesday and, with it, a collection of new laws take effect. From my perspective as Portland distracted driving lawyer one of the most important new measures involves the tightening of our state’s laws concerning texting and the use of cellphones while driving.

Concerning distracted driving, the big news is that fines for the offense are about to rise significantly. When the law went into effect four years ago the fines were modest, topping out at only $90. Starting January 1, however, “texting or talking on a cell phone while driving will fetch higher fines – at least $142 and up to $500” according to The Oregonian. The higher fines are good news for all of us who are concerned with the issue of Oregon distracted driving and want to see more done about it. Simply put, a potential $500 fine is a much more significant deterrent than $90. Oregon has long been one of the nation’s leaders on this issue, and it is good to see our state leading again.

Some of the other notable measures that take effect this week include a statewide ban on the use of tanning beds by minors without parental permission, a measure allowing landlords to require tenants to maintain renter’s liability insurance and a law preventing employers from requiring access to the social media accounts of employees and job applicants.

December 26, 2013

Washington moves to close Longview care center

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Following up a story I wrote about earlier this month, the Associated Press reports that Washington State officials “are revoking the operating license of a Washington retirement facility after an 88-year-old woman froze to death in its courtyard earlier this month.”

In the weeks since the incident new details have emerged regarding this tragedy, none of which reflect well on the retirement home and care center and all of which reinforce the idea that what happened may qualify, legally speaking, as a wrongful death under Washington law. This terrible state of affairs is made worse by the emotional harm to the victim’s family the retirement home reportedly caused by issuing misleading information to them in the hours after the woman’s body was discovered (the family was initially told only that she died of a heart attack and the role of exposure in her death was not mentioned, according to the reports cited in my earlier post).

We now know, according to AP, that the victim’s body “was found in an enclosed, open-air courtyard after staff missed a required hourly bed check at midnight. The news agency cites officials from the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services saying that “staff mistakes and ineffective security measures… are to blame” for the death. With its license now revoked the center “can continue to care for its current 57 residents while an appeal takes place, but it can’t accept new patients,” AP reports. It adds: “officials said some safety hazards remained uncorrected three days after” the woman died.

December 24, 2013

Arbitration and Consumer Rights

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A recent issue of Inside Higher Education calls attention to a little-known battle that American consumers have been losing more and more frequently. Few of us realize the extent to which we are signing away hard-won consumer protections. Worse still, even people who are aware of the situation often find that they have no real option. Choice, if one can call it that, often comes down to surrendering rights or doing without some crucial good or service.

The article focuses specifically on for-profit colleges, describing how Career Education Corporation defrauded both investors and its own students. In 2011 it emerged that the company “cooked the books on the job placement rates they were disclosing to prospective students and regulators.” A settlement was eventually reached but, as the magazine details, the $27.5 million in relief it offered went entirely to CECO’s investors. The students who wasted their money on degrees of little value and for which they paid under false pretenses did not get their money back and, indeed, remained on the hook for student loans (student loans are often the primary revenue stream at for-profit colleges and universities).

As Inside Higher Education explains: “What accounts for this disparity? The answer is that investors in for-profit colleges have access to the courts for filing their grievances, while most of the sector’s students do not.” This, in turn, is because the small print legalese those students had sign off on to attend CECO’s colleges included a clause in which students surrendered their right to sue the schools and their parent company and, instead, required them to submit to binding arbitration.

December 18, 2013

The surprising problem with a new concussion prevention technology

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A story published last week in the Los Angeles Times spotlights both the help technology can offer in the fight against traumatic brain injuries, and the surprising resistance that such technology can, and does, encounter.

The paper reported on a “wireless alert system” that can be placed in football helmets. Sensors placed inside the helmet trigger an alert on a smartphone or a similar device carried by a coach or trainer on the sidelines if the wearer suffers a potentially concussion-inducing blow to the head. The system, according to the paper, “gains data from five sensors placed on a plastic-like, paper-thin lining placed on top of helmet padding. The sensors measure linear and rotational acceleration as well as the duration and location of a hit. A computer chip in the helmet transfers data to a hand-held alert monitor – typically carried by a trainer – via a low power signal similar to Bluetooth.” The system can be adjusted according to the level of play (middle school v high school v college).

One might have imagined that the main problem this raised for high schools was financial – the systems cost about $150 per unit. When one LA area high school offered the sensors to all 120 of its football players earlier this year, however, only 20 stepped up to purchase them. What surprised even the school’s head athletic trainer, however, was the reason: according to the LA Times “parents worried about sons being pulled from games and missing playing time. Several said they dropped the sensor topic after their sons declined to wear one.” The trainer told the paper, “In the society we live in, the knowledge is there but the parents, I don’t know – it confused me.”

December 13, 2013

Washington Wrongful Death Claims Follow Longview Tragedy

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The death of an 88-year-old Longview woman last week has raised Washington wrongful death questions and serves as a tragic reminder of the high level of responsibility we rightly expect when placing loved ones in a professional care facility.

According to the (Longview) Daily News, the elderly woman “froze to death in the outdoor courtyard of her Alzheimer’s care center.” The paper quotes the woman’s daughter saying that the doors to the facility’s courtyard were unlocked late at night, despite the obvious danger this posed to patients. Washington State’s Department of Health and Human Services is reported to be investigating the incident.

The paper reports that a spokesperson for the facility “could not comment on policies… regarding access to the enclosed courtyard at night or in cold weather.” It is notable, however, that the victim’s daughter says her mother “had fallen out in the courtyard twice before and also was known to move around a lot at night.” Equally troubling are claims that the family was initially led about the cause of the woman’s death – being told she died of a heart attack without her exposure to the cold weather being mentioned.

November 30, 2013

Oregon Industrial Accidents and the Christmas Tree Industry

by Matthew D. Kaplan

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.

November 29, 2013

Distracted Driving Underreported, According to National Safety Council Study

by Matthew D. Kaplan

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.

November 26, 2013

Teen Safety Tips For Winter Offered by National Safety Council

by Matthew D. Kaplan

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.