A long-standing legal right in this country is under attack.
Class action lawsuits provide an effective legal remedy to those who have suffered similar harm due to the wrongful conduct of others. In many instances, the size of the damages may preclude individuals from pursuing justice on their own. But when pursued collectively by a group of hundreds if not thousands of wronged plaintiffs, the damages in total are significant and legal action becomes feasible.
Class Actions Level the Playing Field
In ...
Trucks and buses are involved in over 100,000 accidents each year and the federal government recently confirmed it knows how to identify the most likely offenders. The criteria the government uses in determining the most dangerous trucking and bus companies is worth reviewing.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which is responsible for overseeing the nation's commercial vehicle safety, uses what is called the Safety Measurement System to evaluate the safety of truck and bus ...
When something goes horribly wrong with patient care, do hospitals adequately review their catastrophic medical errors?
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, a non-partisan agency that investigates how federal money is spent, recently looked into this question and came up with a troubling answer.
Hospital Errors Rise While Investigations of the Errors Fall
The GAO researched the records of VA hospitals and found that preventable medical mistakes at the hospitals increased 7 ...
Does the day you are admitted into a hospital raise the chances of you suffering a catastrophic medical error?
For years, medical researchers have studied what's called the hospital "weekend effect," to determine whether or not this long-suspected phenomenon actually exists. Studies indicate that those who enter a hospital on the weekend indeed do run a greater risk of receiving poorer care than patients admitted on weekdays.
This has been found especially true for cardiac, stroke ...
Heart surgeons are extremely skilled. However, evidence indicates a lack of communication and teamwork within operating teams, rather than skill, is responsible for most preventable surgical errors.
Numerous Studies Say Bad Teamwork Leads to Bad Surgical Outcomes
In 2013, the American Heart Association published a "scientific statement" in its publication titled, Circulation, with this conclusion. It cites several other studies, including:
• A 2006 study that found 17.4 ...
In 2013, the most recent reporting year from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 3,600 people died in accidents caused by large commercial trucks. More than two-thirds of those killed in deadly tractor-trailer accidents were occupants of other vehicles. Another 15 percent who died in crashes caused by trucks were either on foot, on bikes, or riding motorcycles.
So the number of bicyclists and pedestrians killed in trucking accidents is significant.
What can be done to prevent walkers and ...
Some lawmakers are attempting to limit to the point of practical extinction a very important legal right we Americans enjoy: the right to file a class action lawsuit.
What is a Class Action Lawsuit?
What is a class action lawsuit? It's an efficient method for a court to resolve similar claims of a large number of persons who have suffered damages due to the wrongful conduct of others, usually corporations. In many cases, the damages suffered by any one individual are too small to litigate individually, but ...
The Missouri Highway Patrol reports that 10 people were killed in fatal motor vehicle accidents in Missouri over the recent Fourth of July holiday weekend. It also reports arresting 127 people for drunk driving during this same time period.
Unfortunately, the dangers of drunk driving in Missouri are not restricted to a three-day holiday weekend. A look at the most recent motor vehicle accident reports reveal just how prevalent driving while intoxicated and other reckless driver behaviors ...
Surgeons make mistakes in the operating room. And when they do, patients can be severely hurt.
Now there's a new tool that allows patients to see for themselves how often a doctor makes surgical errors before deciding whether or not to entrust him or her with their lives.
ProPublica, an independent and not-for-profit group of journalists, recently investigated the rate of surgical mistakes made in the United States by reviewing Medicare patient data from 2009 to 2013. The group examined errors ...
Among trucking accidents, rear-end collisions can be the most dangerous. The National Transportation Safety Board recently reviewed nine catastrophic rear-end crashes that occurred in the last three years and found 28 people were killed in them.
The agency now says it has an answer to preventing fatal rear-end collisions involving large trucks and passenger cars, which killed 2,700 people in 2011 and 2012 alone, and wants to take action.
Tractor Trailer Rear-End Collisions
In five of the nine ...
RSS Feed