According to a nationwide survey of medical professionals, patient misdiagnosis happens relatively frequently. QuantiaMD, the largest mobile and online physician community, last year surveyed 6,400 medical providers, and 47 percent of those said they encounter diagnosis errors at least monthly; 3 percent said they see such errors most days
Continue reading Medical Misdiagnosis is a Common Occurrence
The recent snowfall and cold weather is a reminder that there is still a winter in
Missouri and Illinois. While it is nice to watch kids making snowmen, there are
hazards that accompany snow and ice. One of the most common is for a pedestrian to slip on ice.
Continue reading Weather Conditions Make Walking Hazardous
Consumer fraud can take many forms, but in general it involves false or misleading claims in the marketing or selling of a product or service. Simply, the product or service does not perform as advertised. Hidden fees, overcharging, and all sorts of other "scams" and "rip-offs" reported on the local news are examples of consumer fraud.
Continue reading Class Action Lawsuits Used to Address Complex Consumer Fraud
Among the most serious medical negligence cases are those involving allegations that a baby was not delivered in a timely manner. In that setting, the claim is that because the delivery did not occur in a timely manner, the baby experienced hypoxia, or lack of oxygen, and suffered brain injury.
Continue reading Birth Injury Litigation
On January 5, the Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention, a federal panel, voted to recommend that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lower its threshold for lead poisoning in children, from 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood to 5 micrograms.
Lead can harm a child's brain, kidneys and other organs. It has been shown that even low levels in the blood can lower IQ, impair hearing, and cause behavioral problems. High levels in the blood can cause death. Children under 6 years old are especially at risk for lead poisoning as they are growing and developing so rapidly at that age.
Continue reading Lead Poisoning Thresholds in Children May Be Lowered
Each year millions of children's products are recalled because of safety defects. A new federal law now requires companies that make "durable infant and toddler products" include a postage-paid post card, with every crib, play pen, stroller, and many other kinds of baby products they sell that are made after June 2010, to help recall notifications become more effective.
Defective Products Recall Notification
Parents fill in their contact information and mail the card. They can also go the manufacturer's website and register online. If there's ever a recall, the company can notify them directly. Companies can only use the information from this registration process to send out recall notifications, not for any other purpose, such as marketing.
Class action lawsuits enable large groups of people, who were all harmed by the same conduct, to bring a single action against the wrongdoer. Class actions are particularly useful when the amount of damages to a single person is not high enough to justify the filing of an individual lawsuit. For example, a bank customer may be harmed when the bank reorders his or her debit transactions to maximize the number of overdraft fees the bank can charge. If the bank's reordering caused the customer to incur two overdraft fees instead of one, the customer's damages would be the amount of one overdraft fee, which is usually around $30, depending on the bank. It would not make economic sense to file a lawsuit over $30, but if you group together all of the bank customers who were charged an additional overdraft fee, the total damages at issue is much larger and a lawsuit is more economically viable.
Continue reading Class Action Lawsuits: Why and When to File One
Quick, pick up a can of hair spray in your bathroom cabinet. Or, pull that aluminum ladder out of your garage. What you will quickly note is that these items have written, explicit warnings - in the case of the ladder, probably many warnings.
Shockingly, this same abundance of warnings often is absent from the workplace. Large industrial machines capable of causing much greater injuries than hair spray often are completely devoid of warnings.
Manufacturers of such industrial equipment have a duty to design it in such a way that it is not unreasonably dangerous. If there are hazards in a machine that cannot be designed out of it without destroying its utility, the manufacturer has a duty to give clear, effective warnings. Many manufacturers blindly assume about industrial workers, "everyone knows the hazard." Often, hazards that are well known by a manufacturer may be much less appreciated by an hourly worker charged with operating a dangerous piece of equipment.
Continue reading Importance of Warnings on Dangerous Products
Settlements or judgments in personal injury claims may be subject to various liens or claims by third parties such as hospitals, governmental agencies or entities that have paid for medical expenses or services on behalf of the injured party. Insurers paying benefits to insureds as a result of injuries caused by third persons often claim an interest in recovering those costs if the insured obtains a settlement or collects upon a judgment against a third party. A medical lien is a claim that requires you to pay for your treatment when you settle your claim. This can be created by statute, by policy or even by something you do. Insurers frequently attempt to draft policy provisions or establish requirements that allow them to seek reimbursement from the insured in such situations.
Continue Reading Be Warned: Others May Lay Claim to Your Personal Injury Lawsuit Compensation
In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued a report which concluded that up to 98,000 people die annually due to errors in hospital treatment. In follow up, over the last decade, Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, has concluded that little has changed. Their research indicates that preventable medical errors cause more than 100,000 deaths each year. Likewise, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that almost 100,000 people die from hospital acquired infections alone, most of which are preventable.
According to a study published in November 2010 by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of Inspector General, one in seven Medicare patients experience an adverse event, including "never events" (events that the National Quality Forum (NQF) has determined should never happen, such as surgery performed on the wrong patient). Up to 15,000 Medicare patients per month may experience an adverse event that contributes to their death.
Continue reading "Caps" or Consequences: An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of "Cure"
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