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Matthew D. Kaplan

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Yamaha’s Rhino off-road vehicle is emerging as a target of significant personal injury lawsuits here in Oregon and elsewhere around the country, according to a recent article in The Oregonian. The paper notes that the Rhino, first introduced in 2003, is the subject of “about 700 injury and wrongful death claims” nationwide, including several in Oregon.

Only five such cases have gone to trial so far, and the company has won four of those (the exception was in Georgia), but, the paper notes, “Yamaha has quietly paid settlements in at least 40 Rhino cases, some on the eve of trial.” The paper’s reporting, which was compiled by the consumer watchdog organization FairWarning.org, also says the federal government’s Consumer Product Safety Commission “has received reports of 70 deaths in Rhino crashes.” An August 2009 CPSC news release notes that several models of the Rhino were recalled for repairs “in order to enhance stability and reduce the potential for rollover.” At the time of the recall the company also gave Rhino owners free helmets.

The company says the vehicles are safe, and that its winning record at trial proves it. Consumer advocates, according to The Oregonian, counter that the company has, until now, successfully cherry-picked cases it was likely to win: instances in which reckless driving appeared to have played a role in the injuries or deaths resulting from accidents involving Rhinos. A March 2009 CPSC report noted, however, that many of the more recent accident reports “appear to involve turns at relatively low speeds on level terrain,” according to The Oregonian.

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A Portland traffic accident last week that resulted in the death of a 54-year-old pedestrian is still under investigation by Oregon law enforcement authorities, according to The Oregonian and other local media. Though the police are reported to have issued no citations at the site of the accident, the incident raises the possibility of a Portland wrongful death claim.

According to The Oregonian, “Christopher Berard, of Southwest Portland, was crossing SW Barbur at SW Capitol Highway from east to west around 8:45 p.m. against the “Don’t Walk” signal” last Thursday when he was struck by a car headed south on SW Barbur.

Berard was transported to a nearby hospital following the Portland traffic accident, but subsequently died of his injuries, according to television station KPTV. Though the precise circumstances of the fatal Oregon car accident remain under investigation the driver of the car that struck Berard is cooperating with law enforcement, KPTV reports.

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An alleged hazing incident involving football players at a Florida high school has rapidly escalated into mutual recriminations between the alleged victim’s parents on the one hand, and school officials and their attorney on the other. The parents are now threatening to sue the school, while a former attorney for the school district has criticized his successor’s handling of the case. Here in Oregon, we can see the case as an example of the sort of behavior schools, teachers and coaches need to be on the lookout for. Oregon bullying can lead to Oregon child injuries. When there is a danger of that happening, parents need to be vigilant, and assure that educators are doing their jobs.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the parents allege that their 15-year-old son was “beaten, choked unconscious and thrown in a garbage can.” Their attorney – who until recently was the school district’s chief counsel – told reporters he believes the school district downplayed the incident because the high school athletes involved are among the top-rated football players in the state. He also criticized the current attorney for the school district for comparing the accused players to the Duke University lacrosse players who were falsely accused of rape several years ago.

The school, for its part, says the family has not cooperated with its investigation, and claims the parents have not produced medical records to substantiate their allegations. The parents, in turn, allege that by publicizing the case the school has violated their son’s privacy.

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A driver who allegedly hit two Portland cyclists in the space of a minute is being sought by police, according to an account of the incidents in The Oregonian. The Portland car and bicycle accidents took place “shortly before 8 a.m. Tuesday”, the paper reports. In both instances police describe the bikers as lucky to be alive, and say that officers were shocked by the apparent circumstances of the incidents.

Citing law enforcement sources as well as eye-witnesses, the newspaper describes a young (age 18 to 20) and erratic man driving a Subaru with no license plates. The first victim, a 47 year old man, was struck as he signaled to change lanes. He describes the driver as “clearly mad that I was in his way” and said the car sped around him, knocking him off of his bike in the process. The second incident took place barely a minute later near the Rose Garden. In that incident a 27-year old woman was struck and hurled through the air. She required hospitalization, though her injuries were described as not being life-threatening.

The incidents are a reminder that even in this – often cited as one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in America – things can go desperately wrong. If you have been hit by a car as part of an Oregon bicycle accident you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to make contact with a Portland bicycle injury lawyer as soon as possible.

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An August 2009 head-on car crash that left two dead in Bethany, near Beaverton, is the subject of a suit brought under Oregon’s dram shop laws, according to an article published last week in The Oregonian.

The Oregon dram shop suit has been brought by the family of Thai Hoang-Williams, who died as a result of a head-on collision with Belinda Lopez, who also died in the Oregon car crash. Lopez’s car crossed the centerline to strike Hoang-Williams’ vehicle. At the time, police blamed speed for the accident, but a private investigator hired by Hoang-Williams’ family also found that Lopez had been drinking heavily at a nearby restaurant, Chen’s Dynasty, shortly before the accident.

According to the newspaper, the Oregon wrongful death lawsuit alleges that Chen’s Dynasty shares responsibility for the accident with Lopez herself because it allegedly continued to serve her alcohol after she was drunk. This claim, according to the newspaper, is based on toxicology reports that were not released publicly at the time of the crash, but which show Lopez to have been significantly over the legal limit for blood alcohol at the time of the accident.

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After a spring and summer spent, in part, answering claims that the league may not take brain and spinal cord injuries seriously enough, NFL officials cannot have been pleased that the new season’s first week brought all of these questions back into play. During last Sunday’s season opener, as the New York Times reports, Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Stewart Bradley lay motionless on the field for several minutes. Though taken off the field for medical reasons he returned to the game, the paper reports, “less than four minutes later.” At halftime team doctors diagnosed him with a concussion.

As the Times notes, however, the real question is what example all of this is setting for younger players. NFL teams are well-positioned to offer their players immediate and on-going medical care. At the high school level, in particular, that is far less likely to be the case. As the Times notes, “only 42 percent of high schools in the United States have access to a certified athletic trainer, let alone a physician.”

The danger is that youngsters inspired by dreams of NFL glory are taking and giving sharper hits than they should, and that many schools are ill-equipped to deal with the consequences.

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In a sign of the ever-growing concern with distracted driving, a San Antonio bus driver has been convicted of reckless driving for texting while behind the wheel. His city bus, moving at 34 miles per hour according to police testimony, rear-ended an SUV in rush hour traffic, according to a report in the San Antonio Express-News. After watching footage from an on-board surveillance camera that showed the driver checking and sending texts on his cellphone for a full six minutes leading up to the June 2008 accident, Jurors returned a guilty verdict in just 10 minutes.

Prosecutors are requesting jail time for the driver (he could face up to 30 days), saying he should be made an example of the dangers of how reckless distracted driving is. Sentencing is scheduled to take place in November.

The conviction is significant, in part, because texting while behind the wheel is not, in and of itself, illegal in Texas, as it is here in Oregon. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety bus drivers are, legally speaking, perfectly free to text while they drive in Texas so long as no passengers age 17 or younger are on board (which presumably rules out texting by school bus operators, but leaves municipal bus drivers in the clear). Prosecutors, however, argued successfully that texting is so obviously dangerous an activity that doing so while driving fits any reasonable standard of reckless driving, according to the Express-News.

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The Oregonian reports that the 6-year-old survivor of a Labor Day weekend Oregon car crash is still hospitalized in serious condition, even as the operator of the car that caused the accident has been charged with a series of vehicular offenses by the district attorney in Klamath Falls.

The boy was seriously injured, and his great-grandparents killed, when 22-year-old Carrie Ames allegedly slammed into them in a head-on Oregon car crash. Ames and an 18-year old passenger in her car suffered only minor injuries.

According to The Oregonian, Ames has been charged “with two counts of first-degree manslaughter, driving under the influence of intoxicants, second-degree assault in connection with the 6-year-old’s injuries, and third-degree assault in connection with injuries “ to the teenage passenger in her own car.

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Have you ever been to a carnival, or even a child’s birthday party and wondered just how safe those moonwalks, bouncy castles and other portable ‘rides’ are? According to a recent article in the Wichita Eagle, a Kansas court case looks set to bring those issues into focus.

According to the newspaper, the civil lawsuit was filed last month by the parents of a five-year-old boy who died after being thrown from an inflatable ride called King of the Hill. The newspaper describes this as being “designed like a large mattress – flat except for a bulge in the middle – and… surrounded by a 2-foot-high inflatable barrier.” Parents were allegedly told to place a child in the center of the ‘mattress’ and then to jump up and down themselves on the inflatable’s sides, causing the child to fly into the air. Having done this a few days earlier for the boy’s birthday party the five-year-old’s family returned to the same amusement park a few days later, using free passes they had received during the birthday celebration. On this second visit, however, the child was launched over the inflatable barrier. He landed head-first on the facility’s concrete floor, resulting in his death.

The parents also charge that the ride was “underinflated and unsupervised” and that the operator ignored the manufacturer’s recommendation that the ride was for children ages 8 and up.

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A fascinating analysis published last week in the online Portland newspaper Enzyme PDX looks at the question of road fatalities – an issue as ever-present here in Portland as it is anywhere else. Specifically, the article compares Portland’s approach to road safety the approach used in Sweden. As the article notes, Portland’s population is just over one-third that of Sweden. But even though Sweden has a lot more people, it and Portland recorded around the same number of traffic fatalities in 2009 (355 for Sweden, 331 for Portland). This year, Portland’s streets have been deadlier – 198 fatalities so far in 2010 versus only 162 in Sweden. Again, that’s not Stockholm – it is all of Sweden.

Why, Enzyme PDX asks, do Sweden’s roads seem to be so much safer? The difference, the news site suggests, is essentially philosophical. Since 1997 Sweden’s traffic planners have worked on the assumption that they – the planners – are responsible for constantly modifying the traffic system in an effort to reduce or eliminate serious injuries and deaths while keeping traffic moving. This does not, they stress, relieve drivers of responsibility in any way. It does mean that the people who manage the transport system see lowering fatalities as just as much of a daily task as keeping the traffic moving.

Some of Sweden’s methods are well-known. The country has famously tough drunk driving laws and is equally famous for the zeal with which it enforces them. Less well known, and explored at length by Enzyme PDX is the effort the Swedes put into figuring out how best to help bikes, cars and pedestrians co-exist on the country’s streets and roads. Much of the time, that means forcing cars to slow down in areas where bikes and foot traffic are present. According to the website, speed limits in Swedish cities are a mere 18.6 miles per hour (30 km per hour) – because years of data analysis has shown that to be the optimal speed for overall safety in mixed-use areas.

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