Lawsuit Information Center

October 17, 2011

Alabama man awarded $1.5 million for electrical shock

An Alabama jury awarded $1.5 million to a man shocked by low-hanging power lines. The Plaintiff was paving a road in Alabama when his vehicle struck Black Warrior Electric power lines, sending 7,600 volts of electricity through his right arm.

Suffice to say, that is a lot of electricity, although voltage alone is cause for injury, it is the voltage multiplied by the current. Obviously, his insulation in the vehicle would be important. Still, it has to affect a jury to learn that the guy got shocked by an amount of voltage that is substantially less than the voltage given in the electric chair (about 2000 volts).

Plaintiff’s successfully argued at trial that this accident would not have happened if the power company had complied with national codes require that power lines that carry that amount of voltage be placed a certain height above the ground. The jury apparently agreed.

October 11, 2011

Tamoxifen and Diabetes

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Researchers have uncovered a link between breast cancer treatment and type 2 diabetes. According to a study conducted by The University of Toronto, it has been discovered that therapy with the drug Tamoxifen has been linked to a significant increase in the development of diabetes in older survivors of breast cancer.

Tamoxifen, an oral medication used in women with breast cancer, is one of the most widely prescribed drugs to prevent a recurrence in women who have been treated for the condition. Tamoxifen disrupts the female body’s production of estrogen, which promotes breast cancer in women. Research now suggests that the drug may contribute to an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Researchers state that no one taking Tamoxifen should discontinue their use of the medication, but they and their doctors should know the association.

For the study, the researchers examined the medical records of 14,360 women over the age of 65 who had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, and had survived. The results, which were published in the journal “Cancer”, showed that Tamoxifen patients are 25 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

October 4, 2011

Multiple Bone Fractures

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Stating the obvious, multiple fracture personal injury claims tend to be serious cases. Jury Verdict Research did a study looking at multiple fracture cases

Premises Liability: 17%
Pedestrian Accidents: 15%

September 8, 2011

Tort Reform in Pennsylvania: More Proposed Anti-Victim Legislation

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Max Kennerly writes about a lot of new bills being proposed in Pennsylvania. Any legislature can propose a bill and there is always someone in every legislature – on both sides of the aisle – who likes to put out radical bills so they can brag to their constituents about how crazy they are. Still, these proposed bills do not give you a warm fuzzy feeling about the political climate right now for injury victims.

Ultimately, I think the problem is that people want jobs or more stability in their jobs and that fear distracts them from thinking about the unlikely possibility that they will be seriously injured and want to be compensated for those injuries. Politicians love blaming personal injury lawyers because they are an easy target. Often, the people throwing the punches don’t really feel like oppressing tort victims is going to solve anything but they can’t resist grabbing the low hanging fruit of blaming lawyers. To make matters worse, we have a minority of personal injury lawyers who are more than willing to live up to the stereotype.

August 29, 2011

Indiana Personal Injury Verdict Statistics

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Jury Verdict Research has come out with some new data that underscores how hard it is to rely on verdict statistics in a particular jurisdiction to prove how that venue values cases.

JVR found that the median compensatory award for personal injury trials in Indiana is $25,036 and injured plaintiffs recover damages in 57 percent of cases that go to verdict. This is different – in opposite ways – from the national data. The national median is approximately $40,000 and the nationwide plaintiff recovery probability is 9% less. To be sure, the differences are statistically significant. Are we to believe that juries in Indiana are trusting people who take plaintiffs at their word but just don’t think their claims are worth as much? (Actually, this is possible when you think about it.)
But the statistics get even crazier. Indiana awards twice as much for head injuries ($30,000 v. $15,000) as the rest of the country, but then awards only half of the national median for shoulder injuries ($25,000 v. $49,418). It makes no sense, really.

August 8, 2011

How Much Are California Juries Awarding in Personal Injury Cases?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A Jury Verdict Research study found that the average personal injury verdict in California is 1,635,327. The median, which takes out huge verdicts like one in the study for over $100 million, is California.

California juries are tougher on liability: plaintiffs receive damages in 45 percent of cases that go to trial.

July 26, 2011

Aluminum Bat Wrongful Death Verdict Affirmed

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Montana Supreme Court affirmed an $850,000 award to the parents of a baseball player who tragically died after being struck by a ball hit with an aluminum baseball bat.

If your kids are playing baseball – particularly if they are pitching – you have thought about these facts. An 18-year-old boy is pitching in an American Legion baseball game and gets hit in the head. Just an awful case that makes you question whether or not your kids should be playing any sport. There is no completely safe game.

July 18, 2011

Hepatitis C Trial

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A medical malpractice lawsuit on behalf of a Florida veteran will begin this week against the Miami Veterans’ Administration hospital. In the lawsuit, the plaintiff claims he contracted hepatitis C from an unclean medical device used in a 2007 colonoscopy. This may be the bellwether trial on this issue: there are a dozen similar lawsuits that have been filed in Florida and more have been filed in Tennessee. (Certainly, Tennessee – even with their new malpractice restrictions – is a more hospitable place than Florida for medical malpractice lawsuits.)

June 27, 2011

State Farm Holds Back Settlement Pending Medicare Lien

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

In Wilson v. State Farm, a U.S. District Court in Kentucky found that an insurance carrier did not act in “bad faith” by delaying payment of the settlement in a car accident case pending plaintiff’s lawyer squaring away a Medicare lien.

In Wilson, the plaintiff brought an uninsured motorist claim and the insured tendered the policy of $50,000. Plaintiff said, “Okay, we settled the case, pay me.” State Farm withheld payment, worried that it would be responsible for the Plaintiff’s Medicare lien. Plaintiffs’ lawyers deal with this issue every day.

Plaintiff’s lawyer understood State Farm’s position and tried to marry the two, demanding that State Farm put the settlement in an escrow account from which Medicare’s conditional payment amount would be payable. The plaintiff (and probably his lawyer, I don’t know) also promised to hold the insurer harmless regarding any potential claim asserted by Medicare.

June 8, 2011

Haro v. Sebelius: Medicare Liens

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

I’ve written a lot about how personal injury lawyers have to and should deal with medical and other liens. When I go back and look at the web traffic generated by these posts, it typically gets low page views, probably from the same 20 lawyers that read all of our nitty-gritty details on handling personal injury cases stuff.

Not so with Haro v. Sebelius, a new opinion from Arizona that may dramatically alter the relationship between Medicare (and Medicaid, but I lump Medicaid into Medicare for grammatical ease). I think the big difference in the impact of Haro v. Sebelius is something car accident and medical malpractice lawyers are feeling right now.

Here’s the deal in a nutshell. Haro v. Sebelius is a lawsuit filed by two Medicare beneficiaries for whom Medicare benefits were paid for treatment that was ostensibly needed as the result of a car accident. Interestingly, the car accident lawyer in this underlying case is also a named plaintiff.