Lawsuit Information Center

April 9, 2013

Slip and Fall Law: Atlanta Claim Dismissed by Georgia Court of Appeals

I’m amazed at how many smart, well-informed people are under the impression that if an accident occurs on a business’ property, the business is automatically liable for any and all damage. In the real world, slip and fall cases present much bigger hurdles to climb.

Georgia Slip and Fall Cases Never Sees Courtroom

Last week, the Georgia Court of Appeals upheld a trial court’s summary judgment order denying a plaintiff relief in the case of Warner v. Hobby Lobby, a case illustrative of these challenges, even in a comparative negligence state like Georgia.

April 1, 2013

Fresenius Granuflo and NaturaLyte Lawsuit Update

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Fresenius Granuflo and NaturaLyte lawsuits filed throughout the federal court system will now be consolidated before one Massachusetts’ judge for coordinated pretrial proceedings, as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL).

This affects all product liability lawsuits filed over heart attacks or sudden deaths allegedly caused by the use of GranuFlo or NaturaLyte dialysate products during hemodialysis – including at least 119 complaints filed throughout 16 different U.S. District Courts. These complaints all involve similar allegations that plaintiffs’ hearts suddenly stop during or shortly after dialysis treatment involving the use of Granuflo Acid Concentrate or NaturaLyte Liquid Acid Concentrate manufactured and sold by Fresenius Medical Care.

The lawsuits allege that Fresenius failed to adequately research the side effects of their dialysate products or warn about the potential risks including the importance of monitoring bicarbonate levels of patients receiving the products to avoid sudden cardiac arrest and death.

March 6, 2013

Georgia Slip and Fall Case Dismissed on Summary Judgment

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A federal judge in Georgia recently dismissed a slip-and-fall case against Walmart finding that the company owed the woman no duty to keep its store safe from water hazards.

In Chapman v. Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart’s Customer Service Manager began instituting rainy-day procedures. Employees were instructed to place carpeted mats in the inside vestibule, inspect the vestibule and front store area throughout the morning for dampness, dry off shopping carts, hand out umbrella bags, and use brightly colored cones to warn customers of possible water on the floor.

When the plaintiff entered the store, the rain had ceased, but the weather remained damp. She entered the vestibule to grab a shopping cart, not looking down at the ground while doing so. On her way to the carts, she slipped and fell. Upon falling, she noticed a puddle on the ground. Plaintiff brought a slip-and-fall case in federal district court, alleging Wal-Mart acted negligently by failing to keep the store free of puddles and for failing to adequately warn her of puddles.

February 6, 2013

New Malpractice Opinion from Tennessee

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

In medical malpractice cases, form triumphs over substance way too often. Tennessee has been largely immune from this problem because, for years, Tennessee malpractice law did not require plaintiffs’ lawyers to jump through the hoops required by many states. Now, Tennessee has added a certificate of merit requirement and other technical obligations to filing a medical malpractice case.

tennessee medical malpractice You know, I’m fine with these requirements. What I don’t like is when potentially worthy plaintiffs are denied justice permanently because their lawyers screw up the details.

This is what happened in Williams v. Mountain States Health Alliance. In Williams, a 68-year-old female patient was undergoing myocardial perfusion imaging (a nuclear stress test) when she fell off the table to which she had been strapped. During the procedure, the patient made a sudden movement, broke free of the table straps, and fell onto the floor hitting her right side. Prior to the fall, the patient had suffered a stroke and paralysis to the right side of her body. Additionally, she was morbidly obese. The technicians who strapped the patient to the table allegedly knew (or should have known) this.

January 15, 2013

Huge Asbestos Verdict Taken Away by Virginia High Court

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

You get a big verdict. Defendant’s big bone of contention on appeal is an evidentiary issue. When this happens, and it has happened to me a number of times, you are feeling pretty good about your chances. Particularly when the standard is – as it is for most evidentiary issues – an abuse of discretion.

There were some Virginia lawyers probably feeling the same way. That is until last week when the Virginia high court flipped their $18 million verdict against Exxon.

Plaintiff got a wrongful death verdict against Exxon in a lawsuit involving a man who developed mesothelioma while working on Exxon ships. Suffice to say, the jury was not happy with Exxon, awarding $12 million in compensatory damages, $12.5 million in punitive damages and nearly a half a million in medical damages. The punitive damage award was knocked back to $5 million, still leaving the plaintiff with a nearly $18 million verdict.

December 26, 2012

Pradaxa Lawsuit

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

We’ve known for some time that Pradaxa has problems—this drug, intended to replace the time-tested blood thinner Warfarin (Coumadin), has been shown to cause internal bleeding and hemorrhaging. Unlike Warfarin, the bleeding cannot be quickly countered, which can cause death in serious cases. There were at least 260 deaths of people on Pradaxa between October 2010 and November 2011, which were confirmed by the drug’s manufacturer.

But when a drug is not properly tested and evaluated for safety before it comes on the market, you often see more than one problem with the drug. Now, new information has come out showing that patients with artificial heart valves are particularly at risk for Pradaxa injuries.

The warning comes from the FDA, which advises that a European clinical trial called RE-ALIGN was stopped mid-study because people with mechanical heart valves were more likely to experience strokes, blood clots and heart attacks, as compared to Warfarin users. The FDA is going so far as to require a labeling change warning doctors and patients that Pradaxa is contraindicated for patients with prosthetic heart valves.

Importantly, the FDA is not recommending Pradaxa use in patients with other types of heart valves called bioprosthetic valves. Those are made with natural biological tissue, but the effects of Pradaxa have not been specifically studied for those patients.

December 20, 2012

Pre-Judgment Interest Medical Malpractice Case

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Indiana Supreme Court sent back to the trial court last week a wrongful death medical malpractice action involving the tragic death of a child after surgery for an undescended left testicle. The boy was just 13 months old. Just awful.

The issue in Alsheik v. Guerrero was something far less sad: prejudgment interest. This case went to trial and the jury awarded $1.165 million. The trial judge denied the plaintiff’s attorney’s request for pre-judgment interest. The plaintiff appealed this ruling.

In Indiana, for civil cases to qualify for prejudgment interest, the plaintiff must send a settlement letter. The purpose of the settlement letter is to give the defendant “notice of a claim and provide them with an opportunity to engage in meaningful settlement.”

December 19, 2012

Minnesota Wrongful Death Lawsuit Result in an Award of $591,000

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

After a week-long wrongful death trial in Minnesota, the family members of a twenty-two-year-old college student killed on a bicycle have said that while they are grateful for the jury award of $591,000. However, they would have preferred that the two men they blame for their son’s death be forced to spend time in prison. Felony murder and battery charges were dismissed against both defendants.

Sad details here. Apparently, the deceased disagreed with a member of a college hockey team. That member and several other players and recruits were said to have consumed 100 shots of alcohol that night. After the disagreement, the deceased apparently fled the bar on a bicycle, fleeing for his life while being chased by the boys. There were differing accounts of whether the boy was pushed, and by whom or whether his high level of intoxication caused him to crash. Regardless of fault, it is clear that the night was riddled with poor judgment and misconduct and that the death of this young man was absolutely senseless.

This garbage happens in college and usually does not end in death. Kids drink too much and do stupid things and, usually, no real harm is done. But sometimes things go really wrong, as they did in this case and this tragedy will impact this boy’s family for the rest of their lives.

October 15, 2012

A Product or a Service? Battle in Indiana

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Trying to tell the difference between a product and a service may not be harder than deciding if a glass is half full or half empty, or if a tomato is better characterized as a fruit than as a vegetable, but it is certainly not easy.”
Whitaker v. T.J. Snow Co., 151 F.3d 661, 664 (7th Cir. 1998).

Is it a good or is it a service? This argument has been fought ever since the distinction between products’ cases and service arose. This distinction really mattered in a burn injury case in Indiana that was decided last week because the Indiana Product Liability Act does not apply to transactions that involve wholly or predominantly the sale of a service rather than a product. Barely, it would seem, a lawsuit against a maker of work shirts for burn injuries, allegedly caused because of the failure of a cotton uniform shirt to serve as expected, survived summary judgment last week in Indiana.

Here are the facts. Plaintiff was a welder/plasma torch operator who was operating a Pro Cut 80 plasma cutter made by the defendant. The Pro Cut 80 plasma cutter is used to cut through metal and steel. As you would expect, the plasma cutter fires off sparks when cutting metal. While using the plasma cutter, the plaintiff’s shirt catches fire causing serious burns.

Plaintiff sued a number of folks, including the manufacturer of the shirts saying these shirts just shouldn’t catch fire like that because everyone knows what the people in these shirts are doing, and the defendant has an obligation to make them safe for the intended use. The plaintiff’s argument that the negligence claim is not subject to the product liability act in Indiana because the relationship between the defendant and plaintiff’s employer was for the laundry service rather than the providing of work shirts.

August 29, 2012

Diabetes and Statins

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Statins are a group of drugs used to lower cholesterol by inhibiting the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase. HMG-CoA reductase plays a role in the synthesis of cholesterol in the liver. Increased blood levels of cholesterol are associated with cardiovascular diseases. Statins have shown benefit in treating people with hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), and they are also now being used in people at low risk of cardiovascular disease as prevention.

The benefits of statins are quite clear. They work, and they help a lot of people. Any talk of the risk of statins has to be there. But there has been uncertainty regarding the safety of these drugs in recent years. The most common side effects reported with statins include increases in liver function tests, muscle aches, and rhabdomyolysis, a breakdown of muscle fibers. This would lead to questions of just what the drug companies should be telling doctors and end users about the risks of these drugs.

In recent years, there has been another concern: the possible relationship of the development of diabetes in patients taking statins. In 2008, a study on rosuvastatin (Crestor) to determine efficacy on vascular events suggested that statin use may result in the development of diabetes.

In 2010, an article published in The Lancet reviewed and analyzed 13 placebo-controlled trials to determine if the finding of the development of diabetes was consistent between trials. Results of this meta-analysis showed that there was a 9% increase in the risk of development of diabetes, mostly seen in patients over 60 years of age. Though this finding may seem odd, especially when statins have been shown to lower cholesterol in diabetic patients, other cardiovascular drugs such as thiazide diuretics, and beta-blockers have also been shown to lead to a higher risk of developing diabetes.

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