Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

August 20, 2012

Insurance Dispute Settled With Accident Victim’s Family

A case that reached a resolution last week in Maryland offers a cautionary tale about dealing with insurance companies, as well as a lesson in the important role media sometimes play in helping victims obtain justice.

According to both Yahoo! News and CNN the story begins in June 2010 when a 24-year-old Maryland woman died in a car accident caused by another driver’s failure to stop at a red light. The driver who caused the crash was either uninsured or underinsured (media accounts vary on this point), but that ought not to have been a problem, since the victim carried uninsured motorist’s coverage as part of her auto insurance package with Progressive, one of the country’s best known car insurance companies.

Under Maryland law a trial was required to establish responsibility for the crash. To the fury of the victim’s family, Progressive’s attorneys helped the driver who caused the crash throughout the proceeding in an effort to establish that the victim was partly at fault – a circumstance that would have allowed the company to refuse to pay on its policy. The company has issued a statement pointing out that it did not formally represent the defendant, but the victim’s brother, quoted by Yahoo! News, said that the insurer’s lawyers repeatedly conferred with and assisted the defendant during the trial. They also made a closing statement claiming that his sister was at fault for the accident. “I am comfortable characterizing this as a legal defense,” he wrote last week, according to Yahoo! News.

August 15, 2012

Washington child safety lawsuit highlights school safety issues

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A Washington child safety lawsuit filed against the Bremerton school district, near Seattle, offers a stark reminder of the importance of ensuring that our children are safe in school.

According to an Associated Press report posted on the New York Times website, the victim was an 8-year old girl who suffered serious injuries “when a gun in a classmate’s backpack went off.” The news agency notes that the family is suing the school district alleging that “it failed to heed clues the boy was dangerous.”

The AP reports that the law suit claims “that the boy who brought the gun to school was acting out and fighting. It also says the boy had told several other children his intention to bring a gun to school.” The victim “required numerous surgeries and suffered lifelong injuries when the bullet pierced her internal organs and lodged in her spine.”

August 10, 2012

Oregon Child Injuries May Be Averted by CPSC Penalty

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A recent announcement by the Consumer Product Safety Commission that Burlington Coat Factory has agreed to a civil penalty totaling $1.5 million is a victory for everyone concerned about injuries to Oregon children.

According to a CPSC news release: “The settlement resolves CPSC staff allegations that from 2003 to 2010, Burlington knowingly failed to report immediately to CPSC, as required by federal law, that it had sold many different children’s sweatshirts and jackets with drawstrings at the neck.” It adds that drawstrings at neck level can cause strangulation “that can result in serious injury or death.” The government has recommended against them for many years and they have been formally banned since 2006.

Even more disturbingly, the CPSC alleges that between 2008 and 2012 Burlington “knowingly sold or had in its store inventories many of these garments after they had been recalled.” The resulting $1.5 million civil penalty is the largest that the commission has ever assessed for a violation of this type.

July 31, 2012

Oregon Wrongful Death Charged by Inmate’s Family

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A lawsuit recently filed in Salem charges both doctors and prison officials with the Oregon wrongful death of a Salem man in 2010. The suit was filed by the alleged victim’s mother, according to a report in the Salem Statesman-Journal.

According to the newspaper, her son, Robert Haws, was a pre-trial detainee two years ago this month “when he got into an argument with another inmate.” The other inmate attacked Haws “hitting his head on concrete and knocking him unconscious. He died at the hospital after undergoing brain surgery and lingering for days on life support.”

At issue are “the hours following the fight and the lengthy delay in treatment for Haws’ injuries,” according to the Statesman-Journal. Haws’ mother believes that the jail staff did not give her son the attention he needed in the minutes and hours immediately after the fight. It also alleges that once Haws reached the hospital doctors treated him as if he were a patient coming down from a drug overdose despite significant evidence that he needed urgent treatment for an Oregon head trauma.

July 29, 2012

Child Injury Risk Leads to Massive Stroller Recall

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The death of a six month old baby eight years ago, and another closely-averted tragedy two years later, set in motion a chain of events leading to the recall this month of hundreds of thousands of potentially dangerous strollers, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The strollers were finally recalled a few days ago “because children can become trapped and strangled between trays on them,” the news agency reports. The manufacturer, Peg Perego USA, issued a recall effecting “approximately 223,000 strollers, which include Venezia and Pliko-P3 strollers in various colors, made between January 2004 and September 2007.” The recall affects strollers with “a child tray and one cup holder.” Models with differing designs are not subject to the recall.

The article also notes the announcement of a much smaller recall (5,600 units) of strollers from another manufacturer: Kolcraft Enterprises. These are being pulled off of the market “due to potential falling and choking hazards,” the AP reports. The action stemmed from six reports of broken front caster wheels “and two reports of the basket’s support screws and nuts detaching.”

July 25, 2012

Oregon Cyclists Can Benefit from New Technology

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A recent article in the New York Times highlighted innovative ways that cyclists are putting technology to use to improve safety. The piece focuses on small cameras that can be mounted on a rider’s helmet. The newspaper describes these as “the cycling equivalent of the black box on an airplane… providing high-tech evidence in what is sometimes an ugly contest between people who ride the roads on two wheels and those who use four.”

Though originally designed for recreational use (the cameras have long been popular with snowboarders and mountain bikers seeking to capture memories of their rides) they are proving useful in urban environments as a way for bike riders to help police pursue and prosecute reckless drivers and to enforce the law in the wake of cycling accidents involving cars. The newspaper notes that use of the cameras has increased markedly as the cost of the cameras has dropped. A good helmet camera can now be purchased for under $200.

“Video from these cameras has begun to play an invaluable role in police investigations of a small number of hit-and-runs and other incidents around the country,” the paper notes, citing local law enforcement. It profiles one New York City rider who was able to help police track down a hit-and-run using video from his helmet camera which captured an image of the driver’s license plate.

July 18, 2012

Fatal Canby Accident Points Toward Drunk Driving

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The death of a highway worker in Canby last week turns a spotlight both on the dangers roadside workers ensure and, once again, on the problem of Oregon drunk driving.

According to The Oregonian, a 48-year-old man who was “placing warning signs about road construction near South New Era Road near South Haines Road” died last week after he was hit by a car believed to have been driven by a drunk driver. The paper reports that the driver was taken into police custody and an investigation is under way.

This incident is a sad reminder of the importance of exercising caution around highway workers. All too often, too many drivers fail to heed warnings to slow down in construction zones or other places where road workers are present. Many drivers also fail to give roadside workers a sufficiently wide berth when passing them.

July 12, 2012

$3 Billion Healthcare Fraud Settlement Spotlights Oversight Importance

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Earlier this month news broke of a head-spinningly large fraud settlement involving the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. According to ABC News the company “agreed to an unprecedented $3 billion settlement with the US government over allegations that the company advertised drugs for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.”

Over the years we have all become a bit numb to horror stories about the health care industry. One of the few things both sides in the debate surrounding the Affordable Care Act appear to agree on is that the US healthcare system is in need of significant reform (exactly what sort of reform is a subject of far more debate).

Cases like this are the sort of thing that not only give an entire industry a bad name, but make reasonable people wonder how much deeper, and broader, corporate fraud is in the health care and pharmaceutical industry. To what extent are other companies putting their own profits ahead of patient and consumer safety?

July 8, 2012

Another Window Fall Highlights Importance of the Issue Here in Oregon

by Matthew D. Kaplan

This is not the first time this summer that I have written about the danger of window falls. With the news, however, that another Oregon child has been injured falling from a window it is important to reemphasize the subject. As a recent article in The Oregonian notes, the latest incident “marked the fourth time a young child had fallen

The most recent incident took place in Portland and was serious enough that a LifeFlight helicopter was required to get the young victim to a hospital for emergency treatment. The Oregonian reports that the child, who is only five years old, was “critically injured.”

“It appears he opened the window by himself and somehow fell out,” a Portland Fire Bureau spokesman told the paper. Coming as this does at a moment when SafeKids Oregon’s ‘Stop at 4’ campaign is in full swing, this is a timely reminder of the window safety precautions that are essential for almost anyone – but especially for people who will have small children in their homes at any point this summer.

June 30, 2012

Washington Plane Crash Raises Defective Product Concerns

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The crash of a small aircraft near Vancouver this week is a reminder that Oregon and Washington product safety concerns can apply to large items, like an airplane.

According to The Oregonian a passenger on the small plane died and the pilot was critically injured in the Washington small aircraft accident. Quoting witnesses, the paper reports that the “plane possibly had engine trouble soon after takeoff.” The plane was attempting to return to Fort Vancouver’s Pearson Air Field when it crashed.

As is the case with all air crashes a careful investigation is now under way. The reports of possible engine trouble, however, are an indication that investigators should consider whether the airplane itself was defective. Airplanes, of course, are complicated machines and one must also consider the possibility that there was a maintenance issue involved, or even pilot error. None of this, however, precludes consideration of the aircraft itself.