South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

After a New York Times article published in July 2004 said Union Pacific fails to properly report fatal accidents along its tracks, the railroad company said it would develop a camera system. The digital cameras and microphones attached to its locomotives would record each trip and any accident that might happen along the way.

Union Pacific will be adding its name to the growing list of railroad companies implementing the use of video cameras, which have been used to challenge lawsuits. Norfolk Southern has had video cameras since 1999 and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, as well as other companies, has recently announced its plans to also install video cameras.

The installation of cameras on 6,700 Union Pacific locomotives that cross over roads as they pull trains between cities is projected was to have been completed by the end of 2005.

NORMAN, Okla. — State Farm acted “intentionally and with malice” in handling the insurance claims of dozens of families whose homes were damaged in the May 3, 1999, tornado outbreak in south central Oklahoma, a Grady County jury decided.

After five weeks of testimony, jurors awarded $12.9 million in damages to the lead plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, comprising $3 million in actual damages and $9.9 million in punitive damages.

Donald L. Watkins Jr. and Bridget Watkins alleged in July 2001 the insurance company “engaged in a wrongful scheme to delay, deny or underpay claims” by engaging the services of Haag Engineering Co. to inspect brick and other structural damage to policyholders’ homes, knowing Haag was predetermined to disagree with the policyholder as to the nature and extent of the covered losses.

The punitive damages included $6 million for the Watkinses’ individual claims and $3.9 million for their “share of class claims.”

Jeff Marr, the attorney representing the 71 families in the class action lawsuit, said he believes the jury’s intent is to award “each and every class member $3.9 million, or more than $280 million.”

“On Friday I filed a motion to obtain a new scheduling order for resolution of the remaining class members’ claims,” Marr said.

State Farm spokesman Phil Supple said the company was disappointed with the verdict and plans to appeal.

“State Farm treated the claims of its Oklahoma policyholders fairly and properly. We are disappointed that we were not allowed to present evidence in this case that would have shown that we helped our policyholders settle their damage claims in a timely manner, by paying what we owed based on the customer’s insurance policy,” he said.

The jury ruled that State Farm “recklessly disregarded” its duty to deal fairly and act in good faith with the Watkinses and that it “intentionally and with malice” breached its duties as the couple’s insurance company.

The jury further found “clear and convincing evidence” that State Farm recklessly disregarded its duty to act fairly and in good faith with members of the class action by employing Haag Engineering and its independent adjusters from E.A. Renfro Co. It also said State Farm acted intentionally and with malice in dealing with customers in the use of these two companies.

Marr said the verdict could have repercussions on another lawsuit in the Gulf Coast states, where 669 Gulf Coast homeowners allege State Farm used a “one-size-fits-all” engineering report from Haag as the reason for refusing to cover damage to thousands of homes and businesses destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

“I hope it has an effect. I don’t see how it couldn’t,” Marr said.

In Ohio, where non-economic damages are capped in civil suits, an upcoming Ortho Evra lawsuit is forcing a fast review of the law. According to the Toledo Blade, U.S. District Court Judge David Katz has requested the Supreme Court review the constitutionality of the law, which was passed in 2004. That law gives no restrictions on economic damages including medical bills and lost wages. However, non-economic damages including pain and suffering are capped at just $500,000.

Judge Katz would like to see a ruling soon because he has an Ortho Evra lawsuit in his court right now, and the Supreme Court’s decision could affect the outcome. Both sides of the constitutional issue have 20 days to file documents outlining their positions, but there is no time limit on how long the Supreme has to decide whether it will consider the request or actually make a ruling.

Award caps are nothing new in the United States, and many states have laws capping the non-economic damages in many areas, including personal injury cases like the mounting Ortho Evra lawsuits and especially medical malpractice. The powerful insurance lobby backed by physicians threatening to leave their jobs have pressured governments to put these laws in place to “reduce medical malpractice insurance.” However time and again the theory does not work.

In California, for example, lawmakers reacted to doctors’ demands by instituting a cap. Insurance premiums kept rising though, and despite the threats very few doctors actually left practice. It wasn’t until the cap was repealed and insurance industry reforms were put into place that medical malpractice insurance rates started to level out in that state.

All across the country, Ortho Evra lawsuits are starting to enter the courts. But there are signs that its manufacturer Ortho-McNeil and its parent company Johnson & Johnson are not willing to put up much of a fight. Already, there have been dozens of suits settled out of court, the company quietly paying claimants undisclosed amounts. However in states like Ohio that have a damage cap, the companies may be more likely to fight their cases since the penalties are not that stiff.

California, home to over 2,000 lawsuits against drug maker Merck for its pain reliever, saw its first Vioxx trial get under way on June 27, 2006. The case involves a man who had a heart attack at age 66, two years after he started taking Vioxx. His is not unique, and in fact Judge Victoria Chaney, who will be hearing the case, has decided to group a number of similar cases together with the results providing a guideline for future trials and possible out of court settlements in that state.

In outlining its case, defense lawyers stated that Merck intentionally hid facts from consumers and healthcare workers. One example was the fact that in the testing stages, those with heart conditions were excluded from clinical trials “clouding” the results. The lawyers also stated that internal memos dating back to 1996 proved that the company was already aware of potential cardiovascular side effects - and yet Merck did nothing to address this problem before the drug went to market.

“Merck knew of these potential side effects and never told a soul,” said the plaintiff’s attorney.

Not surprisingly, Merck’s own lawyers claimed in court that it was the patient’s health condition that ultimately caused the heart attack, and had nothing to do with his prolonged Vioxx use. It is on this basis that Merck apparently plans to fight in every Vioxx trial brought against the company. The truth is, although research can prove a connection between Vioxx and increased risk of heart attack and stroke in a big enough group of people, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause in individual cases.

However, mounting evidence points to the fact that Merck knew about the heart attack risk of Vioxx, and subsequently chose not to include patients with heart problems in their testing (which could trigger heart attacks within their own research trials). Not only did Merck not warn patients about the risks, especially those who had heart conditions, but the company hired 3,000 professional marketers to actually downplay the risks to inquisitive doctors. In another Vioxx trial, it was revealed that some doctors who asked too many questions were “neutralized” through various bribe methods.

It is this negligence that lawyers working on behalf of plaintiffs in at least 13,000 Vioxx trials nationwide believe will sway juries.

Late last week, the U.S. Senate passed an amendment calling for an almost immediate investigation into past water contamination at the Camp Lejeune Marine base in North Carolina.

The amendment, proposed by Senators Elizabeth Dole and Jim Jeffords, calls for a “comprehensive review and evaluation” of scientific evidence about the associated health risks of trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE).

Both chemicals, which have been linked to a number of birth defects and other serious illnesses such as cancer, seeped into Camp Lejeune drinking water in the late 1950s. The water remained contaminated with TCE and PCE until 1985 when the affected wells were capped.

If the bill receives presidential approval, the National Academy of Sciences will be required to work together with the Department of the Navy to study the health effects of the volatile organic compounds and provide a report to Congress within 18 months.

The Academy will also be required to take under review all relevant studies, including those conducted by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

The ATSDR has conducted several studies on the ill effects of the contaminated water since the early 1990s and has particularly focused on “adverse pregnancy outcomes,” including the incidence of specific birth defects.

Dole and Jeffords both released statements saying they hope this legislation will help families affected by the tainted water.

“I have heard from constituents and other Marine families whose children have suffered birth defects and even fatal illnesses, and these families believe that their tragedies were caused by water contamination at Camp Lejeune,” Dole said.

“We must uncover and evaluate the facts about this incident – and I am hopeful that this provision will help those families who are seeking answers,” she added.

Jeffords echoed this sentiment by saying that he was “hopeful that this study will provide the information these families need to answer questions that have lingered for far too long.”

He added, “This is the minimum that our government should be doing to address the grievous failure on the part of the Marine Corps to adequately protect its service members and their families.”

As part of the amendment, the Marine Corps will be compelled to authorize a mass notification through newspapers, television, and the Internet to inform the public of the possible risks of the TCE/PCE tainted water.

Transcripts of cockpit conversations of a Southwest Airlines plane that crashed in December killing a 6-year-old boy went public yesterday at a hearing conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Investigators are hoping that the cockpit conversations will provide insight into the flight crew’s decision to land at Midway instead of an airport where the weather was better and the runways longer.

The Boeing 737-700 crashed into a car on a street outside the airport after sliding beyond the barriers at the end of a snowy runway during a landing attempt. Joshua Woods, who was in the car with his parents to visit his grandmother in Chicago, died as a result of the impact.

Leroy and Lisa Woods, Joshua’s parents, have filed a lawsuit against Southwest and other parties but have decided not to attend the NTSB hearings.

“The Woods family has been traumatized in a way that is unique. This is a car and airplane crash at Central Avenue and 55 th Street. They had no right to be operating an airplane on the public roads of this city,” said Robert Clifford, the family’s attorney.

The two-day hearings will focus how Chicago aviation officials managed the airport during the snowstorm as well as the information provided to the pilots by the city, the airline’s dispatch center, and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Greg Feith, a former NTSB accident investigator and aviation consultant said the hearing “will look at how the city goes out and evaluates the runway condition in bad weather and how the city reported that the runway was in good condition when it really was fair to nil.”

The safety board will also address how Midway filed to protect planes against runway over-runs. NTSB investigators have determined that the pilots needed an additional 800 feet for a safe landing.

Neither the captain of the plane nor the first officer will be called to testify at the hearings.

“We did interview the captain and the first officer, and there wasn’t a need for them to participate in the hearing. We are addressing other issues with people who are more appropriate for the areas about which we are still trying to gain information,” said

Keith Holloway, NTSB spokesman.

They were originally designed to simply make phone calls without tying callers to one location. But today’s cell phones can do so much more, from snapping digital photos to sending text messages to playing video.

You can add one more feature to the list: a sobriety test.

That’s right, cell phones with built-in Breathalyzers are set to hit the U.S. market. So after a night of too much to drink, you can pull out the device to see if you’re fit to get behind the wheel.

South Korean manufacturer LG will introduce the LP4100 this year. The company placed several models on the market in that country last year and already has sold more than 200,000 units.

The phones were previewed at the annual Consumer Electronics Show — CES — in Las Vegas earlier this year.

Here’s how it works: Users blow into a small spot on the phone, and if they’ve had too much to drink the phone issues a warning and shows a weaving car hitting traffic cones.

“So they test it and it says don’t drive so they leave their car or call the taxi,” explained Sung Mee Cho of Seju Engineering Inc.

The company also sells plug-in Breathalyzer adapters for some phones. None of the models tell you exactly how much you may be over or under the legal limit, but it can keep you from making other alcohol-related mistakes.

The LP4100 also allows users to set up the phone so on certain nights and after a certain time they do not call certain people in their phone book. Think ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend.

If you have a blood alcohol level over .08, the phone will not let you dial that person. So it not only promotes sobriety, but chastity — and probably your dignity, as well.

A federal jury has returned a defense verdict in the first welding fumes exposure case among approximately 3,800 pending before U.S. District Judge Kathleen O’Malley of the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, in Cleveland.

On Tuesday, after deliberating for approximately 25 hours over a five-day period, the jury in Ernest Solis v. Lincoln Electric Co., et al. — a case that originated in Texas — found that the defendants did not distribute a product with a marketing defect.

Defendants in the case are past and current makers of welding rods: Lincoln Electric Holdings Inc., Hobart Brothers Co., TDY Industries Inc. and the ESAB Group Inc.

Richard Crews, one of the defense lawyers in Solis, says he’s pleased with the verdict. Solis is the first case to be tried in federal court as part of the multidistrict litigation proceeding over which O’Malley presides. Crews, of counsel at Hartline, Dacus, Barger, Dreyer & Kern in Corpus Christi, Texas, says discovery in the MDL welding fumes cases is ongoing.

“I certainly don’t think it’s going to be an end to it,” Crews says of the verdict in Solis. “But it certainly gives everybody some indication of what one jury thought of the issues involved in the marketing of the product.”

Brandy Bergman, spokeswoman for the welding industry, says juries have returned defense verdicts in 11 of the 12 welding fume cases that have gone to trial. The other cases were tried in state courts, Bergman says.

Larry Elam, a retired welder from Collinsville, Ill., received a $1 million judgment in Elam v. Lincoln Electric, tried in a state court in Madison County, Ill., in 2003. The Illinois Appellate Court, 5th District, affirmed the judgment in Elam in December 2005.

Although there has been only one plaintiffs verdict, the welding rod industry has settled numerous cases with brain-damaged welders, says Eric Wetzel, spokesman for the welding fume plaintiffs.

Wetzel says two welding manufacturers settled Ruth v. A.O. Smith Corp., the first MDL suit that was scheduled for trial. The confidential settlement came on the eve of trial in 2005, he says.

Drew Ranier, a partner in the Louisiana-based firm Ranier, Gayle and Elliott and a member of the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in the MDL consolidation, says, “[W]e believe that this trial [in Solis] firmly established the very real danger of manganese-laced welding fumes.”

Mikal Watts, the principal in the Watts Law Firm in Corpus Christi, originally filed Solis, which was joined with another case, in 2003 in Nueces County Court-at-Law No. 1. Watts did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

Solis, a former welder at the U.S. Naval base in Corpus Christi, alleged in his original petition that exposure to welding fumes at his job caused him to develop manganese poisoning, also known as Parkinson’s disease, a neurological illness that diminishes movement and speech. Solis further alleged in the petition that the defendants failed to provide him with adequate warnings about the dangers of welding rods.

The defendants transferred Solis’ case to the multidistrict litigation court, over which O’Malley presides, in 2004.

Scott Bickford, an attorney representing Solis and a partner in Martzell & Bickford, says, “The defendants hand-picked this case out of the thousands currently filed against the welding industry, mainly because Mr. Solis is in the early stages of what is unfortunately a progressive illness. He has not yet developed many of the symptoms that afflict thousands of this nation’s welders.”

Crews says both sides have had input in determining which cases would go to trial. “I wouldn’t say it was a hand-picked case,” Crews says of Solis.