Los Angeles Injury Lawyer Blog

The Los Angeles Times reported on a serious car accident that left two women paralyzed from the neck down after a hit and run car accident in 2006. The two women, Carol Daniel and Stacy Neria, were jogging with friends on the Pacific Coast Highway in Dana Point, California when they were hit. Both are now quadriplegics as a result of the accident. At the time of the incident, Neria fractured her skull and broke her pelvis, legs, nose and cheek. Daniel was thrown sixty feet into the air and received a broken neck and pelvis, in addition to nearly severing one of her legs. Both women reached a settlement on Tuesday with the city of Dana Point for $49 million, one of the largest settlements in Orange County history.

Carol Daniel, age 42, and Stacy Neria, age 35, are mothers of three children who live in San Clemente, California. The women were struck by William Todd Bradshaw on April 8, 2006, who fled the scene at the time. Bradshaw was eventually arrested several days after the accident, and it was discovered that he had three previous drunk-driving convictions. He was later convicted of the hit and run accident and sentenced to four years in prison.

The lawsuit against Dana Point alleged that road design defects contributed to the accident and that the stretch of Pacific Coast Highway where the accident occurred was unsafe because the bike lane was wider than the city’s master plan for bike lanes and improperly marked. The city’s master plan stated that a bike line should be no more than eight feet wide, but this section of highway varied from nine to twelve feet and was not marked as a bike lane. The city has since added concrete barriers to protect pedestrians, joggers and bicyclists.

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Posted In: BRAIN & SPINAL CORD INJURY , CAR ACCIDENT , MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENT

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Our personal injury firm has three serious burn cases arising from burns to clients that occurred from negligence of restaurant staff. Second degree burns and third degree burns can leave permanent scarring and disfigurement caused by hot liquid spills. Most people have heard of the McDonalds case where a customer received third degree burns to her lap from spilling scalding coffee. Restaurants should not be serving liquids so hot that they are scalding and can cause burns to the mouth or other parts of the body. Spill accidents of scalding hot liquids can cause serious burn injuries that leave permanent scars and are no laughing matter. These accidents should be taken seriously, and if you or a loved one suffers a serious spill burn injury, you should contact a personal injury lawyer.

One of our cases involves a little girl that was at a Chinese restaurant with her family. The waitress brought hot tea to the table and placed it on the lazy Susan in the middle of the table. The hot tea was placed near the edge of the lazy Susan and as one of the people at the table turned the lazy Susan, the waitress hit the hot tea with the menus, spilling the scalding tea on the little girl’s lap. The waitress was negligent in hitting the hot tea with the menu, and she was negligent in placing the hot tea near the edge of the lazy Susan, but the most serious negligence was on the part of the restaurant owner who made the tea so hot that even when the tea pot was brought out to the table, the tea was so hot that it caused third degree burns to the little girl's legs, lap and stomach. Our client was taken to the Grossman Burn Center where she was hospitalized for many days. Her medical bills are well in excess of $100,000. She has had to undergo skin grafts, operations and will have to undergo further operations and skin grafts as she grows and gets older. There is no reason why tea should be boiled at such a high temperature that even after it has been brought to the customer's table, it can cause third degree burns to a customer.

We have another case where the waitress negligently spilled hot soup on our client, causing third degree burn injuries. Once again, the waitress was negligent in spilling the hot soup on our client, but the more serious negligence was that the restaurant owner boiled the soup to such a high temperature that when the soup was being brought to the table, it was still so hot that it could cause third degree burns.

In both cases, the liquid was so hot that even though it was spilled on clothing and not bare skin, the hot liquid caused third degree burns. It doesn't make sense that liquid this hot should be served to customers as it would be too hot to drink at temperatures that could cause third degree burns.

In a third case, the second degree burns were caused by the hotel and pool maintenance company not checking the automatic chlorinator which caused the spa to have so much chlorine in the spa that the chlorine not only turned out client's bathing suit from blue to white, it caused her entire body from the waist down to suffer second degree burns.

Burns are one of the most painful injuries a person can suffer. Even if there is no scarring, the after effects can cause sensitivity to the sun light which may cause the person to not be able to sit out in the sun with the burned areas exposed to the sun. Even though these are difficult cases, our personal injury attorneys have over 50 years experience handling accident cases, and have been successful in recovering just compensation for our clients. Please call us at the Law Offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP if you have been a victim of a liquid burn injury.

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Posted In: BURN INJURY

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Insurance bad faith refers to a claim by an Insured person against their insurance company for a claim that is wrongfully denied by the Insurer. In plain terms, this means that an insurance company must act in “good faith” toward a policy holder, and if they violate that obligation, many states allow the policyholder to sue the insurance company for insurance bad faith. If you are in this situation, you will need an insurance bad faith lawyer to represent you. Most states have specific laws that that regulate the insurance industry. In the 1970’s, California courts decided that policyholders could sue their insurance companies for bad faith, and several other states followed. Injury attorneys and accident lawyers are all too familiar with insurance companies trying to deny claims for any reason they can get away with. That is why it is important to have a lawyer on YOUR side, fighting for your rights, and to understand what your rights are. Your insurance company has lawyers and experts on their side defending them, and so should you.

According to California law, an insurance company must deal fairly (in good faith) with policyholders or Insureds. They must defend a claim or lawsuit against the policyholders, even if some or most of the lawsuit is not directly covered by the policy. And they have a requirement of indemnification, which means they must pay a judgment against the Insured, up to the policy limit, if the judgment is for an act covered by the policy. There are many examples of how an insurance company can commit bad faith insurance. One example would be if an Insurer fails to promptly and thoroughly investigate a claim. Other examples of bad faith would be an unreasonable delay of payment or an unreasonable denial of benefits to a claim. A policy holder is also protected against their Insurer using unreasonable interpretations in translating policy language or refusing to settle a case or reimburse a policyholder for the entirety of a loss. One prime example of bad faith occurs when an insurance company refuses to make a reasonable settlement offer in a case where the Insured is being sued, thereby putting the Insured at risk for a judgment that is in excess of the policy limits. If this happens to you, you can sue your insurance company for bad faith.

To prove bad faith, you need to show that your insurance company failed to honor your contract. If you feel that your insurance company is not acting fairly and in good faith toward you, you have the right to contact a lawyer. If you are located in the State of California, please contact us at the Law Offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP for a free consultation.

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Posted In: INSURANCE BAD FAITH

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Bayer AG has halted worldwide sales of the drug Trasylol (also known as Aprotinin) due to a request for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take the drug off of the U.S. market for safety reasons. Trasylol is a clotting drug that is used during open heart surgery to reduce bleeding. However studies have found that Aprotinin can increase the risk of kidney failure, heart failure, stroke, brain damage and death compared with alternative drugs. Past studies have linked the drug to a higher risk of in-hospital death to patients having cardiac bypass surgery, and two studies conducted this year found that use of Trasylol during surgery also increases the long-term death rate of patients who underwent bypass surgery. A Canadian study was halted when they saw that their patients receiving Trasylol during surgery had a 50 percent increased risk of death compared with their patients who received other drugs during heart surgery.

Bayer has decided that they will slowly phase out Trasylol from the market so that alternate drugs can be manufactured to replace its void. Bayer has also stated that they would supply the drug to physicians who specifically request it and feel it could be beneficial to their patient. Some trials have shown that Trasylol can control bleeding during surgery better than some alternatives; however, the FDA has stated that it cannot identify a group of patients where the benefits of the use of Trasylol outweigh the risk they put themselves in by using it. Many surgeons have already reportedly stopped using the drug, and few were surprised by the drug’s suspension. In fact a study by Bayer showed that the drug increased the risk of congestive heart failure, stroke, kidney damage and death.

Trasylol was first approved for use in the U.S. market by the FDA in 1993. Concerns about the drug mounted over the years and a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that patients who had been given Trasylol were at an increased risk of dying over a five year period than those given other drugs. Their study tracked 3,900 heart patients who had coronary artery bypass surgery at 62 hospitals around the world. Researchers found that the five year death rate for Trasylol patients was 20.8%, compared to 15.8 percent for those given an alternative drug, aminocaproic acide, and 14.7 percent for those given tranexamic acid.

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Posted In: BRAIN & SPINAL CORD INJURY , PHARMACEUTICAL , PRODUCT LIABILITY , WRONGFUL DEATH

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Dog bites are serious problem, whether just a nip or an all out attack. Most people are bitten by their own dogs or dogs that they know. Tragically on average twelve people die each year due to a dog bite. A famous wrongful death case occurred in 2001 in San Francisco, California when Diane Whipple was mauled to death by two dogs in her apartment building. The number of dog attack victims that require medical attention in the United States is a staggering 800,000 each year on average. Undoubtedly there are many more bites that go unreported and untreated in the U.S. Some people suffer unprovoked attacks by dogs, but unfortunately there are some owners who actually breed and encourage aggression in their dogs.

Certain groups of people need to be especially careful when they are around dogs. Children are statistically more at risk from being bitten by dogs than are adults. In addition, the elderly and home service providers (such as a mailman or meter reader) are also high on the list of recorded dog bites. If you are bitten or attacked by a dog, you should immediately seek medical attention. In addition, you should retain counsel of a personal injury attorney. The Law Offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP is here to fight for you. If you are located in California, please call us for a free consultation.

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Posted In: DOG BITE , WRONGFUL DEATH

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