Long Beach Personal Injury Lawyer - Miscellaneous

Stay Safe from Burns on Halloween

Shannon Weidemann — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:38:40 GMT

Halloween is on Wednedsay October 31st this year. Emergency rooms often see patients that have been burned on Halloween. Costumes may be made from a flammable material and candles in pumpkins and luminaries are found all over on Halloween. Here are some tips to help keep you and your family safe while Trick or Treating.

When purchasing costumes, masks, beards and wigs, look for flame-resistant fabrics such as nylon or polyester, or look for the label "Flame Resistant." Flame-resistant fabrics will resist burning and should extinguish quickly. To minimize the risk of contact with candles and other fire sources, avoid costumes made with flimsy materials and outfits with big, baggy sleeves or billowing skirts.
Keep candles and Jack O' Lanterns away from landings and doorsteps where costumes could brush against the flame.

It is always important to never leave an open flame unattended. Remember to have fun and keep these safety tips in mind in order to have an enjoyable holiday.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Natural Gas Explosion Burns Two Men

Shannon Weidemann — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:36:49 GMT

A drilling accident in Richland, New York caused two men to suffer burn injuries this morning. They were drilling a well looking for water when they hit a pocket of natural gas. One man suffered second and third-degree burns on his arms.

The two men

were drilling a well at 377 Canning Factory Road in Richland at 11:15 a.m. when their drill hit gas 120 feet below the surface, said state Trooper Thomas Guarasce.
When the gas ignited it caused a massive explosion, Guarasce said.

The second man suffered first degree burns. They were both taken to University Hospital to be treated for their injuries. They are both expected to recover. The well has been capped to contain the natural gas.

If you would like to read more about burn injuries, please visit InjuryBoard's Burns information page.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Pools at Foreclosed Homes Increase Risk of West Nile

Shannon Weidemann — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:13:46 GMT

The state of California is asking banks and lenders to drain the pools at foreclosed homes. Standing water attracts mosquitos and that can contribute to the spread of West Nile virus.

Hundreds of vacant homes with standing water have been reported to authorities in Sacramento and Yolo counties as potential mosquito breeding grounds.
The volume of abandoned homes has grown with the drop in real estate prices and the credit pinch on Wall Street, just as West Nile virus is spreading among mosquitoes. Five people have died from the virus this summer, and the state has had 80 cases.

West Nile Virus has hit the counties of Kern, San Joaquin, and Colusa very hard. Two deaths have been attributed to the virus in Kern county.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Is This The Basis For A Lawsuit?

IB Contributor — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 13:52:10 GMT

The following is an email I received regarding the basis of a lawsuit and my reply.

Question submitted: I prepared a packaged food product in a steel bowl. When I ate it I found glass in my mouth. I found a splinter of glass and a glass chip. I slightly cut the inside of my mouth. Is this the basis for a lawsuit?

This was my answer: Any harm done can be the basis for a lawsuit. A violation of your right to "free speech" by a governmental agency can be the basis for a lawsuit, even though you have suffered no personal injury or economic harm. An injury inflected upon you by someone's negligence can be the basis for a lawsuit. A trespass to your property can be the basis of a lawsuit.

I am going to assume that your real questions is either, "What can I do about a piece of glass in the food product I purchased?" or "Can I sue and recover money for suffering a slight cut in my mouth from a piece of glass in a food product?"

What can you do? Write to maker of the food product and send them the glass. Let them know what happened so they can do something about it on their end. Write a press release describing your experience in order to warn others. Write a blog article and broadcast your experience on the internet. Go to the manager of the store where you purchased the food product and let them know about your experience so they can investigate the matter.

Keep this thought in mind, if you want to leave your option open to actually sue the manufacturer of the food product, you need to keep the pieces of glass. The glass is your evidence. It is crucial evidence. Without it, you turn a difficult case into a nearly impossible case. Preservation of evidence is paramount in any lawsuit.

Can I sue and recover money? Ask yourself, realistically, "what was the harm done to me?" Not what could have happened. You could have been killed in a traffic accident yesterday, fortunately you were not. You can not sue all the drivers in the world who "might have" injured you yesterday.

You experienced a slight cut in your mouth. Ask yourself, if you had been summoned for jury duty, spent three days at the court house and heard a guy tell your story of finding class in food product, experienced a slight cut in his mouth and now was asking for money for the experience, would you have an attitude about the mandatory use of your three days of time to sit on jury duty? Would you have an attitude about the costs to our judicial system for the court house, the court employees, the judges time, the time of the rest of the jurors? What would you award the man with the slight cut in his mouth?

If you had an attorney representing you in such a case, I would be wondering if this was the most meaningful cause the attorney had to take up. I would wonder why would an educated professional person be pursuing such a trivial matter and why didn't he/she bring some sense and economic reality to the situation. I would be embarrassed for the attorney. I be appalled that someone in my profession would waste taxpayer's resources on such a trivial matter. There are much better causes to pursue. My license says "Attorney and Counselor at Law". This is a situation for the "Counselor" part.

Now, if I knew thousands of people who were having similar experience as you and the manufacturer of the food product was callously allowing glass to be packed into their products, I would want to represent every injured person in a class action lawsuit and teach manufacturer and the food processing industry a lesson that you can not get away with that kind of negligence. I'd make them pay. Many times a lawsuit is the most efficient way to get the attention of big business.

Bottom line from an economic point of view, the costs of time, money and emotion to pursue such a case is not justified by the expected outcome, in my opinion.

If something inside you just has to file a lawsuit about this situation, go to small claims court. There are a number of websites that provide really good guides on how to file and present a small claims case.

Keep in mind that all legal claims have time limits within which specific action must be taken to preserve your rights. Preservation of evidence is crucial to any properly processed legal claim. Further, every attorney you consult with will have a different opinion, a different approach and a different criteria for the causes they pursue. I always suggest getting a second opinion.

As I wrote this response, something dawned on me. If the person asking this question is my first year of law school Torts professor checking up on me or my first year of law school daughter testing her dad, let me give a law school exam type answer......

A food product manufacturer has a duty to present their product in a reasonably safe manner for the purpose intended. Since the product is designed to be ingested by human beings, the duty to keep foreign and/or dangerous objects out of the product is very high. A splinter of glass and/or a glass chip in the food product, I conclude, is a breach of that duty. The food product manufacturer's duty runs to any reasonably foreseeable user of the product, who uses the product in any reasonably foreseeable manner. Thus the manufacturer has breached his duty to provide a safe product to this end user. Since the end user actually suffered injury, a slight cut, he/she is entitled to recover for the damages suffered. Technically, there is a basis for a lawsuit.

My law school, Pepperdine and my daughter's law school, NYU, do not teach classes in common sense or basic economics. They presume their students posses such knowledge prior to starting law school.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by IB Contributor

Fireworks and Sparklers Can Cause Severe Burns

Shannon Weidemann — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 09:03:08 GMT

July 4th is almost upon us and it is a good time for some firework safety tips. Sparklers are often believed to be safe for young children but they burn at very high temperatures. A much safer alternative is a glow in the dark stick, necklace or toy. Here are some other firework safety tips:

- Light fireworks outdoors in a clear area away from houses, dry leaves or grass and flammable materials.
- Keep a bucket of water nearby for emergencies and for pouring on fireworks that don't go off.
- Do not try to re-light or handle malfunctioning fireworks. Douse and soak them with water and throw them away.

The safest way to enjoy fireworks is to go to a public fireworks display that your city or local municipality is hosting. Leave it to the professionals and keep burn injuries to a minimum.

For more information on this subject matter, please refer to our section detailing Defective and Dangerous Products.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Victims of Clergy Abuse Can Seek Punitive Damages

Shannon Weidemann — Sun, 27 May 2007 15:02:39 GMT

A judge in Los Angeles has ruled that four people that claim to have been abused by a Catholic Priest and were not properly protected by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese can seek punitive damages. The four were sexually abused by a member of the clergy.

The ruling by Judge Haley Fromholz could open the archdiocese to tens of millions of dollars in payouts if punitive damages are permitted in more than 500 other pending clergy abuse lawsuits. The judge also ordered the archdiocese to submit to extensive interrogation and disclosure about its finances.

The case is set to start on June 11th. Punitive damages are awarded to help right a wrong and can be larger than a pain and suffering award.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Los Angeles Child Plays With Lighter and Gets Burned

Shannon Weidemann — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:43:10 GMT

A 6-year-old girl in Los Angeles was playing with a lighter at her home when her clothes caught on fire. She ran out of her house and caught the attention of a 17-year-old neighbor by her screams. He was able to wrap her in a towel to extinguish the fire.

Firefighters and Paramedics arrived at a single-family residence to find a severely burned 6 year-old female, conscious and alert, however, in excruciating pain. The child had suffered severe second and third degree burns to her back, chest, and arms and was in critical condition. She was immediately assessed, provided Advanced Life Support treatment and transported Code-3 to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in critical condition.

The fire department credits the quick thinking teenager with saving her life and her home. Arson investigators have investigated and determined that the fire was an accident with no negligence involved.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Appallingly unsanitary conditions at produce market

IB Contributor — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 21:52:30 GMT

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is demanding that the county's public health director come up with a long-term plan to ensure the sanitary operation of the Seventh Street Produce Market.

The market, where thousands of Southern California restaurants get their fruits and vegetables from, was the subject of a lengthy hidden-camera investigation by NBC4's reporters Joel Grover and Matt Goldberg. Their report, which was aired in early February, revealed the most shocking truths.

The hidden camera footage showed rats scampering through the market, vendors urinating near the produce cartons, raw sewage gushing from an open pipe and splashing on to produce and workers leaving a restroom with no soap or hot water and then handling produce.

Several large restaurants, including International House of Pancakes (IHOP) and the Johnny Rockets chain, use produce from this market. An analysis of the produce from the market done by NBC found that it contained high levels of E. Coli, fecal bacteria and listeria.

This produce also goes to trendier restaurants such as Sushi of Naples in Pasadena and Long Beach as well as smaller eateries such as Pita Pita, also in Pasadena. Both restaurants have said they've stopped purchasing their produce from this market.

Johnny Rockets issued a statement right away that the company would no longer buy any of its fruits or vegetables from that market, but IHOP told the television station that workers thoroughly wash all produce before using it.

The investigation also found that health officials with the Los Angeles County Health Department, started cleaning up this mess only after they found out that NBC was out there looking into this matter. Health Department records show a history of violations at the market, but officials did nothing about it, Grover says in his report.

Here are some interesting words that came out of the health inspector's mouth, which were captured by the hidden cameras.

"Inspector: We're diligently enforcing, what we we've supposed to been doing all along.
Grover: The fact that NBC is coming kind of gave us a heads up, huh?" another person asked.
Inspector: Yeah.
Grover: Would you want to eat food from this place?" Grover asked Powell.
Inspector: I would have a definite concern about food emanating from this facility," Powell replied."

To put it mildly, this is appalling. I applaud the NBC4 affiliate for exposing these horrible conditions for everyone in Southern California to see. It only proves that if only we're all able to see where our fruits and vegetables come from and how our food is prepared, we would hesitate to eat out at all and most if not all restaurants will have to shut down.

This report also makes me question the grades the county health department bestows on a restaurant. Sure, their kitchen may be clean and their restaurant may have earned the highest "A" grade from health inspectors. But where is their produce coming from? The health department has clearly dropped the ball when it comes to protecting the people who pay their salaries. And some of them have openly demonstrated through that television show that they don't care.

So here's to those backyard gardeners who grow some of their own. Anyone can grow tomatoes if you have some sunlight and a little room. Cucumbers, basil and snow peas are easy as well.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by IB Contributor

Younger Workers Face Higher Risk Of On-the-job Injuries

IB Contributor — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:31:23 GMT

Exposure to workplace dangers and a frenetic job pace increases the likelihood of injuries among adolescent and young adult workers, according to an article by the Center of The Advancement of Health. The article is based on a review that appears in the latest issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

No surprises here. Food service and construction industry jobs top the list of hazardous employment in this age group. Minorities face a significantly higher risk. In one study, the prevalence of work injuies among Hispanic, black and other minorities was 67 percent higher than among young white workers. In another, the prevalence of on-the-job injuries were 60 percent higher in Hispanic teens, compared to white teens, the article says.

Scientists analyzed nine studies between 1997 and 2005, which examined nonfatal injuries among 12- to 24-year-old workers. Six studies took place in the United States and three were conducted in Canada and Australia.

Common on-the-job hazards included using knives, climbing ladders or scaffolding and operating fryer machines, grills and ovens. Not surprisingly, the more hazards workers were exposed to, the greater their likelihood of injury.

In 2004, almost 180,000 U.S. teens were severely injured at work and between 15 percent and 26 percent of injured teen workers report permanent health problems as the result of on-the-job injuries.

This is quite an alarming statistic. We at Bisnar|Chase have noticed that certain negligent employers make the situation worse by not maintaining safe work areas or working their young employees to the point of exhaustion.

It is important that parents talk with their children about their work. Most kids are new to the idea of working. Parents should also discuss such issues as supervision and training and the types of tasks or equipment there youngsters are involved with and the hazards they might face while using such equipment.

One of the researchers for this article also suggests that parents meet their children's supervisors to see if the supervisor is managing them in a responsible way. Be careful of employers who take advantage of young employees by exposing them to dangerous working conditions, inadequate training and a lack of emergence response procedures.

I have a real attitude about employers who demonstrate callous disregard for their employees' welfare, especially young, low paid employees.

For some great information about youth work laws by state, visit the U.S. Department of Labor website at http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by IB Contributor

Scientist Wins Award for Research in Artificial Skin & Other Advancements

Christina Cole — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 20:19:53 GMT

A Scientist, who pioneered work in artificial skin and various other bioengineering advances, has won a prestigious prize for his research.

Yuan-Cheng "Bert" Fung, professor emeritus at the University of California San Diego, is the receiver of the 2007 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize.

Fung's research has led to more effective treatments for the millions of burn victims and other trauma patients. Fung's studies of the human anatomy have also helped car companies to improve safety and led to more effective body armor for soldiers.

Fung's studies of small blood vessels contributed to the development of artificial skin - not only for burn victims but also diabetic patients who can suffer from foot ulcers.

Fung, 87, immigrated from China in 1945. He is considered the father of bioengineering and a founder of bio-mechanics studies.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Christina Cole