Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

March 29, 2011

Baseball Joins the Anti-Traumatic Brain Injury Trend in Professional Sports

In terms of violence and physical contact baseball is a far cry from football or hockey, but today’s news brought word that the National Pastime is following in the footsteps of higher-impact competitions in seeking to address concussions and other traumatic brain injuries.

According to an analysis published by Bloomberg News, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has announced new procedures for dealing with head injuries in baseball. The measures, which take effect on Thursday when the 2011 season officially begins, include changes to the manner in which “concussions are diagnosed and the determination on when players or umpires can return to the field.”

The news agency notes that each team will be required to designate a brain injury specialist as part of the medical team based in its home city. It also establishes a new, head-injury-specific seven day disabled list and establishes consistent “protocols for evaluating players for a possible concussion after high-risk incidents, such as being hit in the head by a pitched, batted or thrown ball, or colliding with another player or fixed object.”

March 28, 2011

Washington Train Accident Trial Raises Wrongful Death Questions

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A trial now underway in Washington is raising serious questions about railway safety. According to TV station KGW, the Longview, Washington trial focuses not only on safety policies at the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company, but on how carefully those policies are enforced.

The Washington rail crash trial stems from “a collision between a train and a shuttle van in which three people were killed and a forth was critically injured,” the station reports. At issue is a BNSF policy of parking all stationary trains at least 250 feet from a rail crossing. The victims in this particular case died after being struck by a train that apparently could not see their van as it crossed the tracks because another train was parked only 50 feet from the crossing, blocking the engineer’s view.

One complication facing the victims’ families, however, is the fact that the incident took place on the railway company’s property, where laws designed to protect the public at public crossings do not have effect. Private crossings, such as those on company property, have “no requirements for lights or a crossing arm,” the paper reports.

March 26, 2011

Portland Bicycle Crash Leads to Charges Against Driver

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A Portland man faces the serious charge of second-degree assault after an alleged attack on a Portland bike rider that resulted in an Oregon bicycle accident, according to The Oregonian.

The incident took place early Tuesday morning as Joe Santos, a Portland police sergeant, was riding his bike to work along Northwest Cornell Road. Santos told investigating officers after the incident that an SUV nearly hit him, then, inexplicably, “about a block later, the driver stopped so suddenly that Santos had to veer into oncoming traffic.” Santos “slapped” the SUV to try to alert it to his presence, and was rewarded with the car abruptly stopping, going into reverse and trying to hit him. When Santos tried go grab his bike and flee to the safety of the sidewalk the SUV allegedly went after him yet again – hitting the bike, but missing the rider.

Fortunately Santos, though shaken, was able to get the license plate of the SUV. Later that day police took a suspect into custody, the newspaper reports, citing police sources.

March 24, 2011

Tragic Oregon Bike Accident Leads to Changes on Dangerous Road

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The state department of transportation plans to address issues raised by the death of a cyclist in a Portland bicycle accident last December on a notoriously dangerous stretch of SW Barbur in Southwest Portland.

As I noted in a post last December, the issue most recently came to public attention with the death of 26-year-old Angela Burke. Burke was struck by an allegedly drunk and stoned driver as she rode along a section of SW Barbur that is notorious among local cyclists as one of the scarier stretches of road in Greater Portland. According to media reports at the time the driver who hit Burke was traveling at approximately 75 mph in a 35 mph zone.

According to Bike Portland, the ODOT plans to install four beacons along the most dangerous stretch of road: the crossing points near the Rasmussen apartments where a crosswalk straddles the road very close to a potentially dangerous bend. The website quotes an ODOT spokesman who notes that “the speed of the vehicles and the curve” make the crossing “a real challenge.”

March 21, 2011

Oregon Truck Accident Hospitalizes Two

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An Oregon truck accident on Interstate 84 closed the road for several hours last week and sent two people to the hospital, though its most notable feature may have been that it was not even worse than accident reports indicate.

According to the Associated Press the Oregon semi-truck accident began when a driver fell asleep at the wheel around 1 am while traveling west on I-84. The news agency reports that the truck then “rear-ended a tow truck with a car in tow” on the dark road.

The truck driver and the owner of the car (who was riding in the tow truck) required hospitalization following the accident. The driver of the tow truck was not injured. According to the AP, the driver of the semi received a citation for “careless driving.”

March 18, 2011

Serious Medical Malpractice Questions Raised by Report on State Medical Boards

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A report released this week by the consumer watchdog organization Public Citizen raises serious questions about the conduct of state medical boards, according to an analysis published by the Los Angeles Times. The charges, in turn, raise broader questions about the conduct of hospitals and doctors and the prevalence in our health care system of doctors who are problematic at best. Here in Oregon it must make conscientious citizens wonder whether instances of medical malpractice or even wrongful deaths have been allowed to occur as a result of insufficient professional oversight.

As outlined by Public Citizen on the group’s website (see link below) the study examined 20 years of data (1990-2009) regarding doctors who have had “one or more clinical privilege actions,” meaning that they have had some or all of their hospital or emergency privileges withdrawn because of misconduct, incompetence or some other professional infraction. It then compared these numbers with the numbers of physicians sanctioned over the same period by state medical boards. The analysis yields a shocking result: nationwide, 55% of doctors disciplined by their hospitals suffered no further punishment from their state licensing board.

When thinking about the possible implications of this information for Oregon medical malpractice we can take some comfort from the fact that our state had one of the better records on this score. In Oregon, 41.48% of doctors who had some or all of their hospital privileges revoked over the study period suffered no state-imposed sanction. That number is obviously far too high, though it is better than what one finds in most other states (for comparative purposes: Colorado had the lowest rate of unsanctioned doctors at 31.63%; Hawaii was worst with a truly shocking 77.08%).

March 16, 2011

Helmet Manufacturers Address Risks of Traumatic Brain Injuries

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An important article published in the New York Times last week indicates that the manufacturers of football helmets are moving to address problems in the way their products are used – a move that could benefit many young athletes in a time when traumatic brain injuries stemming from football and other rough sports are an issue of increasing concern.

According to the newspaper, “the National Athletic Equipment Reconditioners Association (Naera) announced (last) Thursday that is would no longer accept helmets more than 10 years old.” As the paper notes, many schools regularly send football helmets in for reconditioning, but concerns have been rising that as the products age it can become difficult if not impossible to bring the gear back to a point where it meets appropriate safety standards. Under current standards, the paper notes, so long as the equipment met applicable safety standards when it was new “helmets of any age and condition can be worn, despite concerns over how the stiffening of foam and the degrading of the polycarbonate shell can leave a player more susceptible to concussions.”

Though the article does not say this, it appears that football helmet manufacturers and reconditioners may be taking a cue from the ski industry. For several decades the manufacturers of ski bindings have indemnified their products for a finite period of years (usually 10 or 12). Once that period expires, skiers quickly discover that few ski techs will agree to make even minor adjustments to the bindings. A cynic might say the companies are forcing skiers to purchase new equipment on a regular basis, but the policy also ensures that the vast majority of skiers are using relatively up-to-date equipment – an important consideration in such a potentially dangerous sport.

March 11, 2011

Fatal Oregon Truck Accident Kills Driver

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A truck driver from California died last week in an Oregon truck accident on I-84 near Rufus, east of Portland, according to The Oregonian.

The victim, identified by police as Lino Domingo Lopez-Hernandez, died as a result of an unusual chain of events that began with a blowout on his own vehicle. Sorting out any resulting Oregon personal injury or wrongful death claims that may eventually arise from the accident is likely to be a complex business.

According to the newspaper, the accident began to unfold shortly after midnight last Thursday as Lopez-Hernandez was driving his big-rig west on I-84. The truck lost two tires and an axel for reasons that remain unclear. Lopez-Hernandez immediately pulled over. He was walking along the side of the road looking for the missing pieces of his truck when a pick-up, also traveling in the westbound lane, hit the truck debris, hurling it into Lopez-Hernandez. “The flying debris sent him over a guardrail and about 200 feet down an embankment, where authorities found his body,” The Oregonian reports.

March 9, 2011

Oregon Drunk Driving Case Raises Dram Shop Questions

by Matthew D. Kaplan

As reported by The Oregonian, the circumstances surrounding a recent two-car Coastal Oregon car accident on Highway 101 raise a number of potential legal issues, including whether the victims may be in a position to press an Oregon dram shop case.

The newspaper, quoting police sources, reports that the accident took place when an Oldsmobile traveling north on US-101 crossed the center line and hit a southbound pick-up truck. “The impact of the crash tore the Oldsmobile in half, with the two sections coming to rest on opposite sides of the highway,” the paper notes. All three people involved in the crash – the driver of the Oldsmobile and the driver and a passenger in the pick-up – were seriously injured.

Police told The Oregonian that alcohol was a factor in the crash, though the exact nature of its involvement is still under investigation.

March 6, 2011

Southern Oregon Dog Attack Seriously Injures Boy

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A Central Point boy is hospitalized with dire injuries following an Oregon dog attack late last month, according to an area newspaper and television station. The Columbian reports that the nine year old “was attacked by three large pit bulls at his father’s home in Central Point.” He is reported to be in “fair” condition at the Rogue Valley Medical Center.

The exact circumstances of the attack are unclear from the available media accounts. Area TV station KPTV reports, however, that the animals were captured in the wake of the Oregon dog attack and “will be held in quarantine by animal control officers… to check for rabies and other problems that might have led to the attack.”

Because the incident involves a serious Oregon child injury the authorities are expected to take special care with their investigation. According to KPTV the “pit bulls appeared to have torn off a large chunk of the nine year old boy’s scalp.”