Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

June 12, 2013

Study Seeks to Broaden Definition of Distracted Driving

Perhaps we should have seen this coming. Even as consumer groups and public awareness campaigns have worked to raise awareness of distracted driving here in Oregon and elsewhere, the distractions in our cars have evolved.

That conclusion comes from a study released today by researchers at the University of Utah and reported in the Salt Lake City Tribune. As the newspaper reports, the study concludes that “these latest ‘infotainment’ features may be more fun than safe… (and) talking to your car while driving may be more distracting than chatting on a cellphone.”

According to the Tribune, the study involved monitoring the brainwaves of volunteers as they attempted a series of tasks “ranging from listening to the radio to solving a math problem to operating a speech-to-text device while staring at a cross on a blank computer screen.” Later stages of the study involved asking the same volunteers to perform the same tasks in both an auto simulator and while driving a real car. The results challenge the idea that in-car distractions are not a big problem so long as the driver can keep his or her hands on the steering wheel.

June 7, 2013

Chrysler’s Refusal to Recall Jeeps Raises Serious Issues

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Last week I wrote about the shocking and indefensible position of some car companies and car dealers that rental vehicles should be allowed to remain on the road, and even resold, while they are subject to recall notices but not yet repaired. This week has brought more surprising and disappointing auto recall news for all of us who care about consumer safety.

According to Bloomberg News, Chrysler has taken the highly “unusual decision to buck what would be one of the largest US auto recalls.” The company rejected a request by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) “to recall 2.7 million Jeep Grand Cherokee and Liberty sport-utility vehicles made over 15 model years.” NHSTA has linked the vehicles, reported by Autoweek as the 1993-2004 Grand Cherokee and the 2002-07 Liberty, to “51 deaths in fires after rear-end collisions,” according to Bloomberg.

Chrysler’s move is an unsettling reminder of something that is often forgotten when recalls are discussed: while the government does have the authority to order product recalls in the name of consumer safety is almost never uses it. Virtually all recalls, whether of vehicles through the NHSTA or of consumer products via the Consumer Product Safety Commission, are, legally speaking, voluntary in nature and are negotiated by the government with manufacturers.

May 31, 2013

Car Makers, Dealers Oppose Safeguards for Recalled Vehicles

by Matthew D. Kaplan

It would be fair to say that when renting a car most of us assume the car is safe. Car rental companies make you sign a document acknowledging any visible damage to the vehicle and are known to check returned vehicles carefully before sending them back out with new renters.

Did you know, however, that if the car or truck you’re renting is subject to a recall notice no law prevents a rental company from sending you out on the road in that vehicle? As a basic measure of consumer protection it sounds amazing, but, according to a recent article in the trade publication Automotive News, it is true.

Not only that, but major figures in the industry are fighting to retain their right to send customers out in unsafe vehicles. Automotive News reports that earlier this month “major automakers and auto dealers told a Senate panel… that they remain opposed to legislation that would prohibit rental car companies from renting or selling vehicles that are subject to a federal safety recall.” (car rental companies generally sell their vehicles after a year or two of use)

May 27, 2013

Summer Arrives: A Reminder to Beware of Oregon Window Falls

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Here in Oregon the Memorial Day holiday weekend began with an incident that is a sad reminder of one of summer’s perils: Oregon injuries to children resulting from window falls. According to The Oregonian “a four-year-old Oregon City girl was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries on Saturday after falling out of a third story window.”

Citing Clackamas fire district officials the newspaper reports that the girl is in good condition, but with the weather warming up this is a sad reminder of the danger window falls can pose to children during the summer months. Regular readers will recall that the Portland area experienced a spate of window falls last year during late June and early July. Hopefully this summer will not see a repeat of these easily preventable accidents.

As a Portland child injury attorney I have long supported, and used this blog to help publicize, SafeKids Oregon’s “Stop at 4” campaign (see link below or this post from last April). As SafeKids Oregon notes, nationwide approximately 3300 children under the age of six fall from windows every year. Many of these falls are from the second or third floor and while we can all be relieved that the Oregon City girl is now described as being in good condition it is also useful to take a moment to remember some of the key facts connected to window falls.

May 21, 2013

New Studies Shed Light on Distracted Driving

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Two new studies receiving media attention this month indicate that the problem of distracted driving in Oregon and elsewhere around the country may be even worse than many people think.

According to the Associated Press the first study, released earlier this month by the safety-advocacy group the National Safety Council found that “crash deaths in cases where drivers were on the phone were seriously underreported… The underreporting makes the problem of distracted driving appear less significant than it actually is and impedes efforts to win passage of tougher laws.” The group examined car crash data for 2009 through 2011.

Perhaps the most surprising finding of the study was that “even when drivers admitted to authorities that they were using a phone during an accident in which someone was killed, about half the cases weren’t recorded that way in the database, the council said” referring to the highway safety database maintained by the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

May 17, 2013

Portland Wrongful Death Issues Emerge in Niteclub Shooting

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Even as police investigate the death last week of a 33-year-old man outside a Northeast Portland strip club the circumstances surrounding the incident have raised serious questions about how well the club was handling its security arrangements – questions that could eventually expose the club to an Oregon wrongful death claim.

As The Oregonian reported last week, the man “collapsed on the sidewalk outside the club and died from a single gunshot wound to the head.” A 21-year-old woman was also injured in the Portland shooting incident and was treated at an area hospital.

“The homicide marked the second fatal shooting at the location in two years. An inspector from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission has launched an investigation with Portland police to see if alcohol service played any role in the shooting,” the newspaper notes, citing a spokeswoman for the commission.

May 9, 2013

Oregon Product Recall: BMW acknowledges air bag issues

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The really surprising thing about the BMW recall announced this week is not the fact that some older models in the German carmaker’s line had what USA Today describes as “potentially shrapnel-producing airbags.” Rather, it is that the recall has taken this long to be initiated granted everything else we know about the airbags in question. According to the newspaper, in the recalled vehicles “the passenger airbag could explode too forcefully and send metal or plastic shrapnel flying at the passenger.”

As the newspaper reported on Tuesday, BMW has recalled its 2002 and 2003 3-Series cars because of the airbag issue. The recall order is thought to effect about 42,000 vehicles here in the United States and 220,000 worldwide. According to USA Today the air bags and related assemblies for these vehicles “were supplied by Takata, which also supplied potentially shrapnel-producing passenger bags that forced Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda and General Motors to recall some 3.4 million vehicles worldwide last month.” This raises a basic question: if five other automakers using the same company’s products recalled them for this issue why did BMW – or any other manufacturer who may have used the air bags in question – wait at all to participate in the recall?

Even more troublingly, as the newspaper makes clear, this critical unsafe products issue has been on the auto industry’s radar screen for quite some time. According to USA Today, Takata air bags “were blamed for two deaths in Hondas in 2009.” Moreover, the paper reports: “Takata has had problems going back to the 1990s. It supplied faulty safety belts that triggered a recall of more than 9 million vehicles in the U.S. in 1995, a near-record at the time.”

May 6, 2013

Police Search for Oregon Hit-and-Run Driver

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An Associated Press dispatch republished this morning in The Oregonian recounts a Salem hit-and-run car accident last night that that left a tow-truck driver injured.

According to the news agency a tow truck was parked Sunday evening on a Salem street where “police say the driver was loading (his) vehicle and had emergency lights activated when he was knocked down. Medics took him to Salem Hospital with injuries described as non-life-threatening.” If the news agency report is accurate the driver is potentially in big trouble: under Oregon law a hit-and-run that involves an injury is a felony.

The driver of the car that allegedly caused this Oregon injury car accident is still at large, but the AP reports that police have a significant piece of evidence in hand: one of the hit-and-run driver’s outside mirrors. “The passenger-side mirror broke off, and police believe the car likely has scrapes and possible body damage on the right side,” the news agency notes.

May 1, 2013

Potentially Unsafe Conditions At Meat Plant Cause Fatal Oregon Industrial Accident

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Late Friday night a Southeast Portland man working as a cleaner at a meat processing plant in Clackamas died after falling into a piece of machinery, according to The Oregonian. The details of this Oregon Industrial Accident case are disturbing and will merit close scrutiny in the months to come.

According to the newspaper, paramedics and the Clackamas County sheriff’s office were called just before midnight on Friday and arrived at the facility to find the victim “entangled in a blender, which regulates the fat content of ground meat. The following day firefighters returned to help dismantle the machinery” and to remove the 41-yesr-old man’s body.

From a legal perspective there are two key elements to this sad story. First, the long and unsettling safety record of the factory in question. The Oregonian reports that this facility “was the target of a consumer alert in 2007, when potentially deadly E. Coli bacteria was traced” to ground beef processed at the plant. More recently – last October, to be precise – the plant was cited by the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division after inspectors found “that machinery in the meat-grinding room wasn’t properly locked down during cleaning. (The) inspector said an ‘unexpected start-up of the machine ‘ could cause injuries.” Oregon Occupational Safety and Health regulations are both clear and strict where situations like this are concerned. State regulations require what are known as “Lockout/Tagout” procedures around dangerous machinery to insure worker safety. According to an OSHA document “the standard requires that physical lockout be utilized for equipment or machines which have energy isolating devices capable of being locked out, except when the employer can demonstrate that utilization of a physical tagout system provides full employee protection.” In plain English: the potentially dangerous machine must either be locked-up in a manner that keeps workers from getting to it, or the workers have to be working in teams that allow them to keep track of one another. It will be up to investigators and the courts to decide whether the employer met that standard in this case.

April 27, 2013

Fertilizer Plant Explosion Leaves Behind Many Unanswered Questions

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Last week’s huge explosion at a fertilizer plant in the small town of West, Texas killed 14 people and devastated a huge area. As a lengthy account in The New York Times earlier this week shows, it also raises serious questions about corporate responsibility, government oversight and the safety standards at dangerous facilities throughout the United States.

As the Times reports, the explosion at the plant “was so powerful it leveled homes and left a crater 93 feet wide and 10 feet deep.” The paper said the explosion appeared to have been more powerful than the 1995 bombing at the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Oklahoma blast provides a useful point of comparison because the bomb involved used the same chemical – ammonium nitrate – that was being manufactured and stored in the Texas plant.

The paper reports that while some state and local groups in both the private and public sectors received an annual report on ammonium nitrate and other chemicals being manufactured and stored in the plant others did not. The reporting requirements are designed to help local, state and federal authorities plan for exactly this sort of emergency, but the building’s owners apparently had not filed a report with the Department of Homeland Security. A federal law passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks mandates that “plants that use or store explosives or high-risk chemicals” file a federal report if they exceed certain limits. For ammonium nitrate a report is required if stocks exceed 400 pounds. According to the Times a 2012 report filed with the state listed the plant having 540,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate on hand.