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Traveling this summer outside of the US? Be careful what you sign when you check in.

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:41:00 GMT

If you’ve ever been to an athletic event, you know that when two teams compete, often one is “home” and one is “away”. You prefer for your team to be home, not just because it makes it easier for you to get to the game, but also because it tends to increase the chances of victory. This is referred to as “home court advantage”. The home team has the advantage of higher attendance by fans, comfort and familiarity in the arena, and time to prepare for the traveling team’s arrival. To a certain extent, the same can be said for the current status of resort litigation. When you’re involved in any law suit, it is beneficial to be in your own state or country where you can easily travel, understand the system, and communicate with a local attorney who is familiar with local laws. This is particularly true of the United States legal court system.

However, if you travel and find yourself injured, it can now be difficult to get the home court advantage. Actually, it can be difficult to even bring a case at all.

Take a common vacation scenario for example. Many people choose to vacation at large Caribbean resorts. It's become almost an extension of Florida. As with most agreements, your reservation at a resort is considered a contract. As with all contracts, it’s important to read the fine print.

At the time of your reservation, you are asked to agree to the resort’s policies for booking and visiting, but when you’re traveling outside the U.S., it’s imperative that you be careful before signing your guest registration card. For example, the reservation request for a major resort in St. Lucia includes the clause that “all rates and conditions are subject to change without notice”.

While the above is considered a relatively common policy, contracts also include more serious conditions that may make it hard for you to protect your rights if you have an accident. Under the forum selection clause, if you choose to bring a law suit, many vacation destinations claim that you must do so in their country (outside the US). This implies more than just traveling back to a given island paradise for a court date. It also means that you must follow, not U.S. laws and procedures, but the other country’s. Sometimes, these laws prohibit contingency fee contracts (a good example is the Bahamas where contingency contracts are not allowed), and some require significant bonds to be posted in order to bring a personal injury claim. Many countries make it very complicated to bring personal injury suits in the first place.

In some instances the traveler does not even see this forum selection clause until they have already traveled thousand country. Other resorts, have reservation websites that when travel is booked, send s a link to their website, and somewhere buried in its multi-page website is a Terms and Condition section with language similar to the following (which was taken from the Atlantis Terms & Conditions section of their internet site):

During guest registration ... you will be asked to sign a form agreeing to the following terms related to any claims you may have as a result of your stay at the resort: "I agree that any claim I may have against Atlantis, Ocean Club, or any of their officers, directors, employees or related or affiliated companies,....... resulting from any events occurring in The Bahamas shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, and further, irrevocably agree to the Supreme Court of The Bahamas as the exclusive venue for any such proceedings whatsoever. The foregoing shall apply to all persons accompanying me, and I represent that I have the authority to sign this document on their behalf.

So why sign away your rights? Why not just avoid the issue altogether? If only it were so simple. The problem with the forum selection clause is that it is often not shown to travelers before they arrive at the destination. Once you are at the resort, you must agree to their terms in order to stay there. Therefore, unless you want to be stranded in paradise looking for a Super 8 Motel equivalent so you don’t have to pitch a tent on the beach, you’ll probably agree to sign what the resort asks you to sign. To avoid this kind of problem, find out the resort’s policies before you leave home. Find out if there is a forum selection clause, and if so, ask where the agreed forum is. If there are legal problems during your visit, this location will be the site of any necessary litigation.

If you are planning to travel, be careful that you know what you are signing. Actually, be careful because in some instances, you don't even have to sign- the person who checks you in obligates everyone within his/her travel group (see the last sentence in the forum selection clause from Atlantis). If you need help and want to be advised of your rights, consult an attorney who is familiar with forum selection and can help you understand the agreement you are making with the resort. It would be great not to have to worry about this because the likelihood of injury is so remote, but unfortunately accidents and injuries can happen to people while they are traveling. It would be a shame if someone was seriously injured because of a resort's negligence, but they couldn't recover simply because they had to litigate outside the US and they either couldn't afford the bond, couldn't find a contingency lawyer, or could not withstand the traveling back to the country where they were hurt.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte

Florida teen dies because he was not wearing seatbelt

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:46:03 GMT

Matthew Kornya's Nov. 7 car accident didn’t have to be tragic. He was not supposed to be driving a car because, as a minor, he only held a learner’s permit. He may have also been speeding, reports have said. By all accounts, “Matthew was a good kid, an honor student at Wellington High School, who loved to fish and hang out with friends.”

But Kornya’s life was jeopardized. Purposefully. Intentionally. And not because he was only 15 and should not have been behind the wheel. While the 15-year-old Kornya died from injuries sustained when he was tossed from the Nissan 350Z after it rolled off the road, his passenger, Michael McMahon, walked away from the accident. The difference? McMahon was wearing his seatbelt. Kornya was not.

Florida law requires drivers with learners’ permits to be accompanied at all times by someone 21 or older and prohibits them from driving later than 10 p.m., the Palm Beach Post reports. But a basic facet of driving or riding in a car, buckling up, that ultimately could have saved Kornya’s life.

None of that matters now, as Kornya’s classmates, friends and family must deal with the aftermath of a life taken too soon and for no good purpose. So the Kornya family members are sending the message out, hoping to make a difference once and for all. "Please wear your seatbelts, just drive carefully, there is no need to rush for anything," said Paul Kornya, Matthew's young cousin.

"Classmates planned on wearing red nail polish and beads to school on Monday, while the boys were to don red shirts in honor of their fallen peer and his favorite color. The Post also reported that students were also planning to wear T-shirts made by Guy Harvey, a popular fishing and sportswear line that Kornya loved, to school Monday. A local store confirmed that the shirts have been flying off the shelves since the accident."

Kornya was affectionately known as “Korndog,” according to one of the many comments on the “We Love Matthew Kornya” Facebook group page, which had more than 900 members as of Monday evening.

Other classmates and friends recalled school projects, giving Kornya workout tips to get girls while others lamented an opportunity missed to get to know a teenager taken too young.

Hopefully by buckling up when they get in the car, many of these same classmates and friends can take something from Kornya in death in addition to the joy he brought them in life.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte

Mandatory Cystic Fibrosis Testing for Florida Newborns

Alison Young — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:02:29 GMT

On September 17, 2007 the State of Florida began newborn screening for Cystic Fibrosis. CF affects approximately 30,000 Americans and people diagnosed with the disease live, on average, to 37. While great strides have been made in the treatment and diagnosis of CF, there is still no known cure.

By screening newborns for elevated IRT levels (Immunoreactive Trypsinogen), it is hoped that early diagnosis will allow for aggressive treatment in the first years of life which will ultimately lead to greater life expectancy as the child matures. Newborns with elevated IRT levels will then be screened for 43 DNA mutations commonly known to be associated with CF. If two of these mutations are detected, the child is presumed to have cystic fibrosis. If only one is detected, the child still may have CF, but will need a specialized sweat test to confirm or rule out a diagnosis. The sweat test measures the levels of sodium and chloride in the infant's sweat, a key marker in patients with cystic fibrosis.

While the tests are for the most part painless, the emotional toll taken on otherwise unsuspecting parents can be enormous. The national Cystic Fibrosis Foundation provides support resources as well as a large database of information for parents and patients alike to arm themselves with the latest information on CF detection, diagnosis and treatment.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Alison Young

Four Negligent Security Lawsuits Filed Against Blue Lakes Villas

Staff Writer — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:54:50 GMT

The families of four victims filed negligent security lawsuits against the owners of the Blue Lakes Villas apartment complex yesterday.

15-year-old Rashad Bosfield was assaulted on January 15, 2007 and died after being shot in a corridor between apartments at the Blue Lakes Villas Complex. Rashad dreamed of becoming a firefighter and enjoyed helping people.

Less than one month later 30-year-old Walter Jackson was also fatally wounded by a gunshot on February 8, 2007 and found dead in front of the same apartment complex. Walter was parent to a 10-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son and worked two jobs (one at a local barber shop and also part-time selling sneakers) so that he could provide for them.

On April 6, 2007, within a time span of two months, 19-year-old Sheila Nieves and her 20-year-old boyfriend Jesse Reyes were shot while innocently sitting in their car in the parking lot of the Blue Lakes Villas apartments. The attacker approached the car as Mr. Reyes was on the phone and shot them point blank. Ms. Nieves suffered a gunshot to the head and died as a result of her injuries. Mr. Reyes was critically wounded by a shot to the head, but survived the attack and has since identified the assailant as Jason Stone. Stone has since been arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder. Stone's girlfriend Lashonda Wilson has also been charged as an accessory to the crime.

Like many apartment complexes across South Florida there are no security guards or perimeter fences at Blue Lakes, and residents say what lights are they never seem to work.
The law firm representing the plaintiffs in the Blue Lakes Villas suits earlier this month won a $2 million settlement for a family of University of Miami football star Bryan Patta was shot and killed at his apartment complex in Kendall.

The Haggard Law Firm understands that crime is at the forefront of national and local media, and it is unfortunate that the behavior of landlords at such apartment complexes must be corrected through civil lawsuits. By filing these lawsuits today, The Haggard Law Firm is taking action to ensure that the community at large is protected.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Staff Writer

Crane probe puts blame on steel base, source says

Staff Writer — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:31:17 GMT

An unusual steel base probably caused a 210-foot tower crane to collapse in Bellevue last fall, killing a man, according to a source familiar with the state investigation. Investigators have determined that operator error was not a factor.

The Seatle Times reported today that the state Department of Labor and Industries examined several other possible factors in the Nov. 16 accident including high winds and ice, which were determined not to be primary factors.

"We looked at pretty much everything," the source said Monday. "Everything's coming back to the base."

The state will not release its final report for several weeks, but some department officials were briefed late last week about the preliminary findings.

The state's early conclusions came just as lawmakers in Olympia introduced legislation that would transform the state's crane-safety laws into some of the nation's strictest. The bills would require third-party certification for cranes and operators beginning in 2010.

Currently, the state relies largely on federal standards that allow companies to gauge the safety of their own equipment and employees.

The crane that collapsed in downtown Bellevue was secured to four steel beams, configured in an H-pattern and built above the ground in a parking garage. Most cranes are bolted to a concrete foundation, according to crane experts.

The steel base was not strong enough to support the crane, the source close to the investigation said.

L&I Department spokeswoman Elaine Fischer said the state would have no comment on the cause of the accident until the final report is released.

The crane collapsed at Tower 333, a 20-story office tower under construction at 108th Avenue Northeast and Northeast Fourth Street. It damaged three buildings and killed a Microsoft attorney in his apartment.

Lease Crutcher Lewis, the Seattle-based contractor, designed the steel base with the help of Magnusson Klemencic Associates (MKA), a Seattle structural-engineering firm. Northwest Tower Crane Service, based in Tukwila, erected the crane.

The operator of the fallen crane, Warren Taylor Yeakey, is an employee of Ness Crane Services. Yeakey was in the crane's cab the night it fell. As part of its standard procedures, the company gave Yeakey a drug test after the accident, and he passed.

Until last summer, construction at the site of the fallen crane had been on hold for a few years, with just the parking garage partially completed. Hines, an international real-estate firm, and Washington Capital Management restarted construction and renamed the project Tower 333.

The project had a concrete base left over from an earlier crane, but Lease Crutcher had the base with the steel-beam design installed elsewhere because the building's design had changed, said Mike Brennan, the city's deputy director of development services.

Bill Lewis, Lease Crutcher's president, said he doesn't know why his company decided on the steel-beam base design. "The property-management team made that decision, and I'm not part of that team," he said.

Lewis had no comment on the state's preliminary findings.

When Lease Crutcher installed a replacement tower crane at Tower 333 last month, it went with the more common concrete foundation. The new foundation was also designed by MKA.

"We thought everybody would be more comfortable with that new base," Lewis said.

MKA CEO Jon Magnusson did not return calls seeking comment.

Lease Crutcher and MKA have been involved in a long list of high-profile construction projects, both locally and nationally. Lease Crutcher built Pacific Place and the Second and Seneca building in downtown Seattle, as well as the new Bellevue and Redmond city halls.

MKA worked on Qwest Field, the Seattle Central Library and Seattle Justice Center, as well as large projects in China and Singapore.

The sponsor of the crane bill in Olympia, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, said the legislation takes aim at the apparent cause of the Bellevue collapse.

Tower cranes would require inspections before and after each setup and crane owners would need an engineer's approval before using nonstandard bases.

Some employers and unions already require operators to be certified, but the state does not.

To get certified under the bill, operators would have to take practical and written exams, pass drug tests and have at least 2,000 hours of experience.

Their equipment would also have to pass annual load tests and inspections and additional examinations after major repairs or modifications.

The bill already has strong support, with 30 sponsors in the Senate, 52 in the House and hearings scheduled in each.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Staff Writer

Is 2009 is becoming a record year for Airplane/Airliner crashes?

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:21:25 GMT

As 2009 has unfolded, we have read about several high-profile airline crashes, many of which resulted in fatalities and serious injuries. While accidents are nothing new, the combination of the Internet, the 24-hour news cycle and an insatiable desire by the media, and consumers, for front-page news has brought them to the public consciousness.

And the public is not the only one listening.

Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt recently called for the need to “step up professionalism” in citing crashes that occurred due to preventable negligence. “The biggest factor I think for all of aviation is the need to step up professionalism in the workplace,” Mr. Babbitt said in prepared remarks. “It’s definitely there in the vast majority of the aviation workforce, but it’s not uniform throughout the industry.” ¹

There are few professions where the consequences of lack of professionalism on human life are greater than with flying an airplane. Throw in bad weather, long commutes, inexperience, low wages, sleep deprivation and antiquated rules, and you have a recipe that is sure to produce some disasters.

That’s why Randy Babbitt has it right. Professionalism, in all aspects of a flight – from mechanics to air traffic control to pilots – is crucial to maintaining air travel’s excellent safety record and reputation.

This isn’t the first time that the air travel industry has needed to step up the accountability. In 1996, following two crashes that killed more than 300 people, a White House commission told the airline industry and its regulators to slice the domestic rate of fatal accidents 80 percent over 10 years. ²

In 2007, after cutting the domestic fatal accident rate by nearly 65%, former administrator of the FAA Marion C. Blakey proclaimed, “This is the golden age of safety, the safest period, in the safest mode, in the history of the world.”² To get to that point, adjustments were made, including to the alarm system that warned, too often falsely, of an imminent collision with a mountain; and changing the approach system at a major domestic airport.

It was put best by John Cox, an Air Line Pilots Association safety representative for 20 years, who told the New York Times in 2007: “It’s not one thing. It’s a series of small things.” Meaning the biggest changes weren’t rocket science, just small issues found in everyday operations, he said, which were corrected before an accident could occur. ²

In 2009 and beyond, the call for professionalism should be heeded by doing the little things right, and there are a few areas that can be looked at to bring the vast minority of aviation industry personnel up to snuff.

Checking the Weather

Could professionalism be as simple as checking the weather? Recent reports show that literally throwing caution into the wind is not the best policy.

Earlier this year, an ATR-72 turboprop plane carrying 68 passengers and four crew members slid off the runway at Koh Samui airport in Thailand. The aircraft slammed into an old air traffic control tower, killing Captain Chartchai Punsuwan while his co-pilot remains in a critical condition in hospital. Seven passengers were injured. According to early reports, the plane was attempting to land in a storm, and heavy rain and strong winds may have played a role in the accident. ³

It was just one of a string of weather-related airplane emergencies this year. Two people were hurt when a Detroit-bound Delta Air Lines plane was “hammered” with severe weather, a spokesman said, and was forced to land in Kentucky. And at least 28 passengers aboard Continental Flight 128 were injured as the plane flew from Rio de Janeiro to Houston. The flight made an emergency landing in Miami. ⁴

Between 1994 and 2003, there were 4,167 weather-related accidents, according to a report by the Federal Aviation Administration’s National Aviation Safety Data Analysis Center. Of those accidents, 1,717 show no record of a weather briefing. ⁵

If the weather is monitored than maybe fewer risks should be taken if a flight is potentially going to land during a thunderstorm.

Sleep Deprivation

In a National Transportation Safety Board safety study of US major carrier accidents involving flight crew from 1978 to 1990, one finding stated: “Half the captains for whom data were available had been awake for more than 12 hours prior to their accidents. Half the first officers had been awake for more than 11 hours.” ⁶

This may seem like a tired argument since the study’s last subjects were analyzed nearly 20 years ago. But consider that many of the current rules for pilots’ work schedules haven’t changed in nearly 50 years. ⁷

And commuter flight rules may need the most attention. Passengers probably have no awareness that the pilot and crew of their plane may be on their sixth flight of the day, and that before the first of those six flights, the pilots and crew weren’t tucked in a comfortable bed but packed into a dark “crash” house with several other commuter airline crew members trying to sneak in a couple hours of shut-eye. ⁸

There could be as many as 1,000 such houses in the United States in cities like Pittsburgh, Newark, Houston and Chicago. Joe Williams, a spokesman for Pinnacle Airlines, parent company of Manassas-based regional carrier Colgan Air, said that Pinnacle supports "the right of our pilots to live where they choose. . . . Some pilots choose crash pads, and some choose to move to the area where they are based." ⁸

Airplane crew members bemoan low pay as a reason for the need to use a crash house, and some industry people agree.

According to a Washington Post story, "The sad truth of this industry is that [air travel] has been and remains one of the great bargains for the consumer," said Bill Swelbar, a researcher at the International Center for Air Transportation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "When adjusted for inflation over the last 30 years, fares are down some 50-plus percent. And that just does not make for a sustainable business model. It doesn't make a model that allows them to compensate their people well, like they have in the past." ⁸

Mr. Babbitt told the Wall Street Journal that "It's absolutely unsafe to think" that commuter cockpit crews can fly as many hours as long as pilots who may fly one long-range route during the same day. 9

The results of this sleep deprivation can be fatal. Studies show exhaustion can impair a pilot's judgment in much the same way alcohol does. Overtired pilots can focus on a conversation or a single chore and miss other things going on around them, including critical flight information. ⁷

Additionally, studies show that the average adult needs seven to eight hours of sleep to function at maximum capacity. Without this sleep, doctors say, accidents, depression, anxiety and cardiovascular problems can occur. ¹⁰

But there is hope on this point. An advisory committee on pilot fatigue delivered its recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration in late summer, though the FAA asked for them not to be made public. Though to counter that point, it has been reported that since 2002, the National Transportation Safety Board has made 16 safety-related recommendations of the on-demand flight industry, but that the FAA has not implemented any of them. ¹¹

Time will tell if this go-round will produce results.

Follow the rules

On Aug. 8, a small airplane and a tourist-carrying helicopter collided over the Hudson River in New York killing all nine people aboard both vessels.

On Sept. 16, it was reported that the mid-air crash could have and should have been prevented.

The pilot of the plane read back the wrong radio frequency to an air traffic controller but wasn’t corrected by the controller, a federal safety official said. The air traffic controllers tried to warn the plane’s pilot that he was approaching the helicopter but couldn’t reach him because they were on two different radio frequencies. ¹²

It was reported earlier that the air traffic controller was on the telephone at the time of the crash and that the controller’s supervisor also wasn’t in the building, as required, at the time of the Aug. 8 crash, the FAA said in a statement in mid-August. The FAA placed the employees on administrative leave. ¹³

In his remarks on professionalism, the FAA’s Mr. Babbitt cited specifically the February crash of a Pinnacle Airlines Corp. Colgan unit plane near Buffalo, N.Y., which killed 50 people, and a 2006 accident in Lexington involving Comair with 49 fatalities as examples of inexperienced pilots who didn't follow basic operating standards. The captain in the Colgan crash had failed three in-cockpit exams, called “check rides,” before he came to the airline. ¹⁴

“Whether you have a wrench in your hand, whether you sit at a yoke or carry a clipboard, wear a headset or work in the galley, I'm not seeing consistent professionalism," Mr. Babbitt said. ¹⁵

Merriam Webster defines a professional as someone who is “characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession.” Which means something as basic as recognizing an incorrect code could have saved nine lives.

Risky Business

Even the most prepared pilots face risk when they take to the skies.

South Florida resident Bruce Barber was meticulous when it came to flying. His business partner, Eric Elliott, described him as “always ahead of the activity. Every possible piece of gear you could have on a plane, he had,'' including three GPS systems and a storm scope. ¹⁶

Another friend said of Mr. Barber: “He was a very safe pilot -- very cautious. If there was going to be bad weather, we left earlier or we didn't go. In the last six months, he got a new radar system. He was very fussy about that plane.'' ¹⁶

Yet on Sept. 20, flying his small personal aircraft, Mr. Barber, his wife, son and friend perished in a crash that still doesn’t have a cause.

The industry does have tools for helping pilots become more aware of For the 13^th year in a row this fall, Bombardier’s safety seminar, Safety Standdown, challenged “pilots and crew to expand their understanding of the human factors involved in aviation accidents. Knowledge Ace refers to the concept of using the acquired information to minimize the possibility of human error,” said Rick Rowe, chief pilot of Learjet, in BART International magazine. “Knowledge-based training integrated with skill-based training is our greatest defense against error, bridging the gap between what the industry gets and what it needs. New for this year’s event were a Smart Pilot workshop and Mind and Body Wellness - a workshop examining cardiovascular risk factors among pilots and crew. ¹⁷

In the end, the responsibility to maintain professionalism will fall on many shoulders. Flight crews know their work schedules and it is ultimately their responsibility, like anybody with a job, to come to work ready to go. The FAA needs to put modern, relevant rules in place that jibe with what science and research has shown are the most tiring or non-tiring flights. The airlines have to make tough choices with an eye on their bottom lines of hiring more crews or risk over-taxing existing crews. And the passengers, ultimately, may face the choice of paying higher fares to fund the extra crews that may end up saving their lives.

Citations

1. www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=ajzpzsoVMJfU

2. www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/business/01safety.html

3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8182962.stm

4. www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-08-04-turbulence_N.htm

5. www.asias.faa.gov/aviation_studies/weather_study/wbrief.html

6. http://aeromedical.org/Articles/Pilot_Fatigue.html

7. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32648418/ns/travel-news/

8. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/03/AR2009080302837.html

9. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124950069377208687.html

10. www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/04/sleep.stress.economy/index.html

11. http://mobile.wsvn.com/news/articles/national/MI129871/

12. www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i7snJnN8kUVlX69sAmaPg4IPi6aQD9AOJVA02

13. www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=anrLkbMmv5qc

14. www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/nyregion/16colgan.html

15. www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-09-14-faa-buffalo-crash_N.htm

16. www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/story/1245084.html

17. www.bartintl.com/content/faa’s-randy-babbitt-ntsb-chairman-and-nbaa-president-slated-open-safety-standown

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte

Air Traffic Controller On A Personal Phone Call Just Before the Hudson Crash

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:37:00 GMT

Quoting from the the Daily Record, the Chairman of the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) Deborah Hersman, "...told a congressional committee Wednesday that shortly after the single-engine Piper took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, a Teterboro controller handed off the plane to nearby Newark Liberty International. During the handoff, the controller instructed the Piper pilot to contact Newark and gave him the radio frequency.

Less than a minute after the incorrect readback, the plane collided with an air tour helicopter, sending both aircraft hurtling into the river. All three people aboard the plane and a pilot and five Italian tourists aboard the helicopter were killed."

While recent scruntiy has come over pilot fatigue (especially since the commuter plane crash this summer Buffalo, little has been suggested about air traffic controllers' role in recent crashes. Until now that is.

On Sept. 16, it was reported that the mid-air crash between a small plane and a tourist-toting helicopter over the Hudson River that killed nine could have and should have been prevented. The pilot of the plane read back the wrong radio frequency to an air traffic controller but wasn’t corrected by the controller, a federal safety official said. Meanwhile, other air traffic controllers tried to warn the plane’s pilot that he was approaching the helicopter but couldn’t reach him because they were on different radio frequencies.

Meanwhile, FAA chief Randy Babbitt recently called for the need to “step up professionalism.” He cited the February crash of a Pinnacle Airlines Corp. Colgan unit plane near Buffalo, N.Y., which killed 50 people, and a 2006 accident in Lexington involving Comair with 49 fatalities as examples of inexperienced pilots who didn't follow basic operating standards. “The biggest factor I think for all of aviation is the need to step up professionalism in the workplace,” Mr. Babbitt said in prepared remarks. “It’s definitely there in the vast majority of the aviation workforce, but it’s not uniform throughout the industry.”

What’s clear is that whether its inclement weather, physical damage to the plane, tired pilots, miscommunication with air traffic control or inexperienced pilots, flying is loaded with inherent dangers. One can only hope officials are doing everything to can to make sure every pilot steps up “professionalism” to make sure accidents happen as infrequently as possible.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte

Psychiatrist Charged in Woman's Overdose Death

Jenny Albano — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:25:56 GMT

Last week Miami-Dade prosecutors charged psychologist Adam Feder with manslaughter in connection with a the death of a woman who overdosed on painkillers. Feder was also charged with one count of trafficking illegal drugs and seven counts of obtaining a controlled substance.

Rachel Finzi began seeing Feder after she became depressed over the health of her boyfriend who had been severley injured in a car accident. Two years after Finzi started attending sessions with Feder, she overdosed from painkillers that were given to her by psychologist. The two had also begun dating; Feder was almost 40 and Finzi was 20.

On Monday, Finzi's family announced they were filing a lawsuit against Feder and the clinic he worked at, Compass Health Systems, with negligence. The lawsuit alleges that Feder used his sexual relationship with Finzi "to exert dominion and control over her." The suit also claims that the clinic was negligent because they failed to supervise Feder and let him have access to other doctor's prescription pads that he used to write Finzi prescriptions.

According to the State Attorney's Office, Feder was illegally writing prescriptions to supply Finzi with oxycodone. She died May 24, 2006, at his Miami apartment after swallowing several pills "at the conclusion of a heated argument" over a breakup. Feder told Miami-Dade police that Finzi vomited, complained of hearing problems and slept for much of the next 24 hours, but that he did not call for medical help because "she asked me not to," according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

When police asked Feder why he was illegally writing prescriptions, he claimed to not have a good answer to that. Police also recovered 27 grams of oxycodone and prescriptions in other names in his apartment.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jenny Albano

Americans should look at Insurance Reform Before Espousing Tort Reform

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:39:30 GMT

There is a lot of energy about the various Health Care Bills that are being prepared and proposed by Congress. One issue on lots of minds is tort reform. Some elected officials are for tort reform, but those are the same politicians that accept big checks from insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and corporations who have a vested interest in "reform" (i.e. elimination of access to court by victims of medical negligence).

Sadly, the tort reformist politicians who have an agenda separate and apart from protecting their own constituencies, are propped up by Fox News and other "journalists". But the reporters are not being completely honest with the public. Either that or they simply don't do their homework and research the issue. Either option is irresponsible because the American public is actually buying into what is being reported. Now there is an entire group of tort reform supporters, which based on the information they believe to be accurate, are claiming tort reform is necessary in order to drastically reduce the cost of healthcare for Americans. “Enacting a typical set of proposals would reduce federal budget deficits by roughly $54 billion over the next 10 years,” wrote Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf in his blog.

Others, like former Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley, have said that tort reform should be bundled with a healthcare package to attract Republican support for universal coverage. But while lowering costs may sound nice, it’s not reality. And in the case of Bradley, nobody wins with a pork-laden bill.

“Liability isn’t even the tail on the cost dog. It’s the hair on the end of the tail,” Tom Baker, a professor of law and health sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, told the New York Times in a recent interview.

Baker said medical malpractice tort costs in 2007 were $30.4 billion out of a more than a $2 trillion health care system, meaning litigation costs and malpractice insurance constituted about 1 to 1.5 percent of total medical costs. In fact, he argued that since there have been about the same number of claims today as 20 years ago, the cost of health care has doubled in that time frame, the number of medical encounters between doctors and patients has gone up and research shows a more or less constant rate of errors per hospitalizations, there actually is a declining rate of lawsuits relative to numbers of injuries.

But medical costs still have skyrocketed. Baker says to consider that the American population is aging, we’ve had expensive advances in technology, the US is a rich nation, and the richer you get, the more money you spend on health care, and compared to other countries, the US has heavy administrative costs from the private-insurance system.

And in some parts of the country, notably Florida, doctors aren’t even required to carry insurance. Interestingly, Florida doctors are doing some of the loudest complaining, but a considerable number of them,particularly ones who perform surgery, don't pay a single dollar in premiums. A state physician database showed that one in eight doctors statewide in Florida opt out of malpractice insurance under a state law that lets them go without coverage. The law says doctors can go uninsured if they post signs in their offices and promise to pay up to $250,000 per malpractice award, with a maximum of $750,000 per year.

This policy has negative consequences. First, the patient is left with little discourse in the case of legitimate medical malpractice. Second, the insurance companies raise premiums to make up for all the doctors who aren’t insured. According to the South Florida. More responsible reporting, such as the Sun-Sentinel, has disclosed that premiums since 2003 have gone down yearly by less than 10 percent as insurer profits climbed to an average of 20 percent in 2006.

Instead of focusing energy on tort reform, the focus would be better on reducing premiums and reforming insurance companies. And there is no doubt that uninsured doctors should not be allowed to practice. Period. Anywhere. Unless of course they will agree to submit that all acquisitions in their name, their wife's or husband's name, and the companies created as shell corporations are jointly and several liable for monies awarded by a jury in a negligence case.

In the cases where those doctors who are uninsured . That starts with helping insure doctors are compensated in a way they deem fair, which includes making premiums affordable. And should someone be injured through negligence, and there not be either assets or insurance to recover from, unless that person is independently wealthy, guess who pays for the ongoing needs and medical care they require going forward? That's right- the taxpayers.

Medical malpractice litigation isn’t the problem; it’s time to focus on some solutions.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte

A Family's Liability- when a family is negligent, does the liability extend down the family chain?

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:24:03 GMT

On July 26^th 2009, Diane Schuler loaded her 2 children and three nieces into her car and hit the road, returning home to Long Island after a weekend of camping. This was 9:30 in the morning. By 1:30 in the afternoon, Schuler, her nieces, one of her children, and three men from another vehicle were dead; killed in a head-on collision after Schuler drove for almost two miles the wrong way down the Taconic Parkway. The most recent toxicology reports from Schuler’s autopsy suggest that at the time of her death she had extremely high blood alcohol levels and had recently smoked marijuana. At this time, prosecutors have declined to file criminal charges, saying that “Diane Schuler died in the crash and the charges died with her.”

In the wake of this tragedy, the families of the three men killed are considering filing a variety of civil suits. They have publically, through the media, condemned her and her family members and said the civil suits are the only way to enforce justice is served. This piece is just a brief examination of what sort of wrongful death suits might be filed, and under what legal theories. The following discussion will assume that Ms. Schuler was in fact drunk at the time of the accident.

Most wrongful death suits are filed under a negligence theory, and this matter will probably not be an exception. Simply put, negligence means that the defendant had a duty toward the plaintiffs to take reasonable precautions to avoid causing injury, defendant failed to take those precautions, and the plaintiffs were actually injured as a result. In the current matter, it seems fairly clear that Diane Schuler was negligent. We all know that driving while drunk is dangerous. Reasonable people, therefore avoid doing it. The more interesting question is who can be sued.

If Schuler was negligent, her estate can be sued. Potentially the company insuring the car she was driving can be sued. The car was actually owned by, Warren Hance, Schuler’s brother, so he might potentially have been liable. This last theory is known as the doctrine of negligent entrustment. It means that if the plaintiff can show that Hance knew, or should have known that his sister was drunk, that Hance may have been negligent in allowing her to drive his car. At this time it does not appear that Schuler had begun drinking before she began driving, so this last theory is unlikely to be a winner.

Schuler’s autopsy indicated that she had ingested at least 10 shots of vodka and had high levels of THC, a metabolite of marijuana, in her bloodstream. This sort of binge drinking is often indicative of a long-term substance abuse problem and attorneys for the families of the three men killed have suggested that Schuler’s family must surely have known of any such problem. If this is so, the question becomes, were those family members negligent in allowing Schuler to drive that day, and should the families of those killed be allowed to recover from them?

This is a question that doesn’t appear to have been previously litigated, and ultimately the answer will come down to how far we, as a society, think duty should be extended. We have laws that hold sellers of liquor responsible for harm caused by their customers, but we don’t generally hold social hosts responsible for damage done by their drunken guests.

If Diane Schuler did have a substance abuse problem, which her family denies, how closely related would a family member need to be in order to be held legally responsible for her behavior? Her husband, surely, but who else? Three completely innocent people are dead here, and their families should receive restitution, to the extent that is possible. However, as a society we need to decide just how comfortable we would be if we personally were held responsible for the actions of our families.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte