South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

The family of a woman who was killed in a hit-and-run accident won a $1 million lawsuit against the driver and Rockland County.

The victim Stacy Gersten had a mild developmental disability and was 48 when a vehicle on a county road struck her on her way home from a pharmacy. She was in a coma for two weeks before she died.

The jurors were asked to consider how the curb cut’s location on the road might have contributed to Gersten’s death.

The jury found the driver of the vehicle, Duane Boos, 35 percent liable for the incident, and the county 65 percent liable.

The family’s lawyer, James Lynch, said he was pleased that the jury confirmed that Gersten did not do anything wrong when she was hit.

The Accident

On March 31, 2004, Gersten was walking home from the drugstore when she was struck by Boos’ Toyota. She had begun to cross the street when the light was red but had turned green by the time she was hit.

Boos left the scene without stopping and did not notify the police.

Gersten was hit as she neared the opposite side of the street. She was in a coma for two weeks before she died.

Lynch said that the jury agreed that the curb cut on the sidewalk was an “invitation” for pedestrians to cross the street in a dangerous area with no crosswalk, and no curb cut on the other side of the street.

“The concern was Stacey was invited to cross at a location that really was not safe,” Lynch said. “The hope of the Gerstens in the outcome of this case is that the county will take another look at this and try to make it safer so something like this doesn’t happen again.”

After the accident, the police investigated local body shops and found that Boos had replaced his windshield two days after the accident. The police said that if Boos had stopped, he would likely have not been arrested.

Boos pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident involving an injury, which is a felony. He served six months in county jail and was placed on probation for five years.

On Dec. 17, 2001, plaintiff James Rae, late 60s, underwent a transrectal ultrasound-guided biopsy, or prostate biopsy, due to an elevated prostate-specific antigen, or PSA. Urologist John W. Johnson III performed the procedure in his office. Afterward, Johnson left Rae to allow him to dress in private. While Johnson was gone, Rae fainted, fell and broke his jaw.Rae sued Johnson for negligence in leaving him alone, alleging that he complained to the doctor of dizziness and wooziness after the procedure. Rae testified that while he was being taken by wheelchair to an adjacent hospital after the fall, Johnson apologized for having left him alone in the room.Johnson denied that Rae complained about or showed symptoms of dizziness or wooziness after the procedure. It was undisputed that, absent such complaints or clinical symptoms, it was reasonable for the doctor to leave the room.

Johnson acknowledged that, if Rae did make such complaints or showed any sign of such symptoms, Johnson should not have left him alone.

Disputing Rae’s testimony that Johnson apologized while taking him to the hospital, the defense asserted that a staff member, not the doctor himself, escorted the plaintiff.

The fainting was not a result of anesthesia; none was used. According to the plaintiff’s attorneys, it resulted from the pain and anxiety of having the biopsy.

Defense counsel said the cause of the fainting was not clear, and that it may have resulted from Rae’s then-undiagnosed stenosis of the carotid artery.

The plaintiff’s attorneys said that stenosis was not in evidence.

The biopsy turned out to be negative.

Rae fell face-first off the examination table and sustained two fractures of the jaw, one on each side. He was wheeled to the ER, and a plastic surgeon performed an open reduction, internal fixation, placing a titanium plate into the mandible. The plate was removed in a later procedure. The past medical bills were $20,000 to $25,000.

Rae claimed permanent partial numbness of the lower lip, which causes slight impairment of speech. He sought $100,000 for past pain and suffering, $50,000 for disfigurement, $100,000 for past physical impairment and $100,000 for future physical impairment.

The jury found no negligence by Johnson. Deliberations were 3.5 hours, according to defense counsel, or five hours, according to the plaintiff’s counsel.

The city has joined several other Ohio communities in suing companies that once manufacturing lead paint, saying the companies knew they were selling a toxic product for years.A lawsuit filed Wednesday in Stark County Common Pleas Court lists as defendants Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams Co. and several other companies that years ago manufactured lead-based paint, which can cause neurological damage.

Paint makers already are being sued by Toledo, East Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Lancaster and Columbus.

The companies have said they should not be held responsible for practices that were legal at the time, and, to try to block litigation, Sherwin-Williams has filed a federal lawsuit against the cities and any others that might sue.

Canton’s lawsuit says the industry knew lead was toxic as early as 1900 but said it continued to add the metal to paint and even promoted the product as having health benefits.

Canton wants the companies to pay for the removal of lead paint and for public education about its dangers, as well as reimburse the city for lead-related spending.

The federal government banned lead paint in 1978 after studies showed that children who eat or breathe flaking paint or dust could suffer severe and potentially fatal health problems, including brain damage and behavioral disorders. The paint still turns up in many older buildings.

Earlier this year, a Rhode Island jury found Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries and Millennium Holdings liable for creating a public nuisance by manufacturing and selling a toxic product.

Shares of Sherwin-Williams stock were down 14 cents to $64.23 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday afternoon.

A man was killed when a speeding driver being chased by police spun out of control and crashed a car through his home’s walls and into his living room, authorities said.Neighborhood residents, who witnessed Thursday’s accident, said the car was traveling at about 90 mph (145 kph).

“The car was flying,” said Thomas Chiappone, who lives a block away. “All of a sudden, the car just veered across traffic. All of a sudden, we heard a big boom.”

The car went through several walls of the house before striking and killing homeowner William Calhoun, Suffolk County police Detective Sgt. Kenneth Williams said. Calhoun’s son was watching television in the basement of the one-story home at the time but was not injured.

The body of Calhoun, 59, was still pinned under the car hours after the crash because heavy equipment was needed to remove the vehicle without collapsing the house, police said. The sedan’s blinking lights could be seen through the home’s windows.

The driver was arrested at the scene and was being questioned, police said.

Officers approached him and another man at about 2:30 p.m. for their involvement in a possible drug deal, police said. He sped off in the car, and the other man took off on foot and was arrested shortly after, they said.

Officers chased the car for about four minutes before it crossed a median and slammed into the home, police said. The driver was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, they said.

Police said they were not sure when the equipment would arrive so Calhoun’s body could be removed.

A Peabody woman has filed a wrongful death suit against JetBlue Airways Corp., claiming the budget air carrier ignored her husband as he suffered a fatal heart attack during a flight nearly two years ago.

Robert Fossett Jr., 53, the former president of Revere-based Atlantic Vending Co., was a passenger on Boston-bound JetBlue Flight 468 on Feb. 16, 2005, when another passenger saw him go into “cardiac distress” and tried to alert the crew, according to court documents.

Karen Fossett, 51, claims in her suit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Boston that “After the plane landed, JetBlue’s employees or agents determined that Mr. Fossett was unresponsive, but nonetheless fully deplaned the aircraft before providing any assistance, calling for aid or attempting to resuscitate him.”

The airline’s legal department had not seen the complaint as of Tuesday, said Jenny Dervin, a spokeswoman for New York-based JetBlue.

“We can’t comment on pending litigation matters,” Dervin said.

JetBlue employees either failed to help Fossett or failed to arrange for others to help him, including having an ambulance waiting at Logan International Airport, the lawsuit says.

Only after other passengers were tended to and sent on their way did JetBlue try to resuscitate Fossett with oxygen and “some form of CPR,” according to the complaint.

Only after those measures failed did the flight crew alert Logan’s emergency services personnel, the suit alleges.

Fossett was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The lawsuit accuses JetBlue of negligence and of causing Fossett conscious pain and suffering. The suit does not name any individual members of the flight crew.

The U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited St. Marys Foundry Inc. St. Marys, Ohio, and proposed penalties totaling $253,350 for 31 alleged serious violations, three willful violations and two other-than-serious violations of federal workplace safety and health standards.

OSHA initiated the current safety and health inspections on June 28, 2006, as a result of the company being placed on the agency’s site specific target inspection list due to St. Marys Foundry’s high injury rates and as a result of the state of Ohio’s Primary Metals Industry Local Emphasis Program.

The willful citations, with a proposed penalty of $168,000, were issued against St. Marys Foundry for failing to ensure employees wore respiratory protection, thus exposing them to silica dust at up to 2,109 percent of the OSHA permissible exposure limits, not enforcing the required hearing protection program, and for allowing workers to use higher than the allowable compressed air pressure.

Serious citations, with a proposed penalty of $84,350, were issued for lack of personal protective equipment, lack of a medical surveillance program, lack of proper guardrails around casting pits, casting and molds, and for other violations. Two other-than-serious citations with a proposed penalty of $1,000 were issued for not labeling permit-required confined spaces and failing to record silicosis cases on the “OSHA 300″ log, which is used to record work-related injuries and illnesses

A South Dakota trucking company has been ordered to pay nearly $11 million to a central Kentucky couple after it failed to respond to a lawsuit over an auto wreck. 

U.S. District Judge Joseph Hood in Lexington admonished East West Motor Express of Black Hawk, S.D., for its failure to respond to the lawsuit and ordered the company to pay the unusual default judgment. Hood encouraged the company to settle before an appeals court could review the matter. 

“This is an extreme case,” Hood wrote in an opinion released Tuesday. “In case the court needs to spell it out again, it would be in East West’s best interest to make more than a token attempt to settle this matter.” 

Robert and Janet Orms of Danville, in central Kentucky, sued East West in August 2005 after a wreck on Interstate 64 near Owingsville, about 47 miles east of Lexington. 

Robert Orms, who was injured in the wreck, claimed an oversized commercial truck owned by East West contributed to the collision because the driver was negligent in the way he handled the vehicle. 

In motions filed after the default judgment was entered earlier this year, East West denied any liability and said the failure to file a response was a clerical error and that company general manager William Stevens never received a copy of the lawsuit. 

“Neither Mr. Stevens nor anyone else at East West learned of the default judgment entered against East West or the details of the incident in question until November 2006,” Charles Cassis, the attorney for East West, wrote in a court filing. 

Although court records show Stevens signed a letter acknowledging receipt of a notice that the company was being sued and received a copy of the suit, attorneys said the lawsuit was not attached to the letter and Stevens wasn’t aware of what he was signing. 

Hood, however, didn’t buy the company’s story and ordered it to pay the couple. 

East West said in court filings it will appeal the judgment.

Here is another reason for men to avoid packing on extra pounds (kilograms) over the holidays: A new study has found that losing weight reduces the risk of an aggressive form of prostate cancer.After tracking the weight of nearly 70,000 men between 1982 and 1992, researchers from the American Cancer Society and the Duke University Prostate Center found that men who lost more than 11 pounds (five kilograms) had a lower risk for aggressive prostate cancer than men whose weight remained the same over a decade.

Previous studies have found that obese men have a higher risk of developing aggressive prostate cancer. This study appears to be the first to indicate that recent weight loss can decrease that risk.

In the study reported this month in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers analyzed the height and weight of the men in 1982 and 1992 and every three years after that until 2003. At that time, more than 5,200 of the men - more than 7 percent - had prostate cancer.

Among those cases, about one in eight had a form of cancer that was aggressive but had not spread to other areas of the body. The study’s major finding focused on those aggressive cases, with researchers concluding that those who lost 11 or more pounds (five or more kilograms) were 42 percent less likely to develop that form of prostate cancer than those whose weight remained the same.

“Whether it’s exactly 40 percent, we don’t know, but they lower their risk when they lose 11-plus pounds. We feel confident, at least in this population, that was real,” said lead researcher Dr. Carmen Rodriguez.

More than seven times as many men whose weight remained the same developed aggressive prostate cancer compared to those who lost 11 or more pounds (five or more kilograms).

“No significant associations” were found regarding the effect of weight gain or loss on the most severe forms of prostate cancer, those that spread throughout the body, the study said.

The number studied was small, the researchers acknowledged, because fewer than 15,000 men lost weight over the time period, and only 1,000 of those developed some form of prostate cancer.

The 69,991 participants were part of a bigger cancer society study of 1.2 million Americans that began in 1982.

Rodriguez said men should avoid putting on extra weight as they get older.

“The main message for men is to not get overweight. If they are overweight, that’s another reason to try to lose weight, just to decrease the risk for prostate cancer,” said Rodriguez, who works for the Atlanta-based cancer society.

Other than skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer for men, and about one in six will get it during his lifetime. It is the second leading cause of cancer death for U.S. men.

The study is considered the first of its kind to examine the role of weight change in the development of prostate cancer, said Dr. Ronald Ennis, director of radiation oncology at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York, who was not involved in the study.

“This is one of the best studies” examining the role of weight on prostate cancer, Ennis said. “It does seem to be true that if you are overweight, you are at risk of getting more aggressive forms of prostate cancer and if you lose weight, you can decrease the risk.”

Flames shot from an airliner’s engine Tuesday as the plane was taxiing to a runway at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, officials said.None of the 138 people on the Airbus A320 was injured, said airport spokesman Steve Belleme.

The fire was put out by emergency workers, and the passengers stayed aboard the aircraft while it returned to a gate, Belleme said. He said the incident shut down the airport’s main runway for about 20 minutes.

The plane, operated by United Airlines’ discount carrier Ted, was headed to the runway for an 8:29 a.m. flight to Washington, D.C. Its passengers were being put on other flights, said Megan McCarthy, a spokeswoman for United Airlines, a unit of UAL Corp.

The problem was caused by a part of the engine called a compressor, she said.

“It’s similar to when a car backfires,” McCarthy said.

Similar incidents have occurred before, she said. Maintenance work was scheduled for the engine, she said.

The families of five people who were killed last month when their southwest Missouri group home caught fire filed wrongful death lawsuits Friday against the home and its operators, claiming they were negligent for not maintaining key safety equipment.

Three former residents who were injured in the Nov. 27 blaze also filed negligence suits against Joplin River of Life Ministries Inc., owners Robert and Laverne Dupont, and administrator Shirley Brannon.

The suits, filed in McDonald County Circuit Court, allege that River of Life Ministries failed to fix known maintenance problems in the building, should have maintained a properly working fire alarm and installed a sprinkler system.

The fire killed 11 people and injured two dozen others. Investigators have not determined an exact cause but have said improper wiring in the attic may be to blame.

The suits were filed by the families of Nathan Fisher, Isaiah Joyce, Patricia Henson, Mark Ober and Amy Brown, who were killed in the fire.

Former residents Charles Davis, Earl Story and William Gandy filed their own suits, claiming the fire caused extensive injuries and destroyed their personal property.

The lawsuits seek unspecified damages.

Robert Dupont said he and his wife hadn’t yet seen the lawsuits and couldn’t comment. Brannon, who lives in Wyandotte, Okla., couldn’t be reached for comment.

In the past, Robert Dupont has disagreed with investigators’ theory of faulty wiring causing the fire, saying past state inspections of the attic did not detect any problems.

The Anderson home was exempt from sprinkler requirements, as are 61 percent of Missouri’s 626 residential care facilities, the state Department of Health and Senior Services said.

But Aaron Smith, who is representing all the plaintiffs, said operators should have taken more care because many of the group home’s residents had physical or mental disabilities.

“You have to look at these things with common sense,” Smith said. “You have people in this facility who can’t react to an emergency as normal people would. Any reasonable person is going to have a sprinkler system in that facility.”

At least one other civil lawsuit has been filed against the home and the Duponts about the fire. The parents and wife of 19-year-old staff member Glen Taff, who died in the fire, filed a wrongful death suit on Dec. 5, also alleging negligence over faulty wiring and lack of a sprinkler system.

The office of Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon also has filed suit, claiming the owners and operators illegally concealed Robert Dupont’s involvement with the business. That suit also alleges violations of Missouri’s false claims law, breach of contract and unjust enrichment.

State law barred Dupont from running long-term care facilities and participating in the Medicaid program because of a 2003 federal sentence in a Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme.

The lawsuit seeks to recoup $689,491 in Medicaid payments made to River of Life Ministries, plus damages of about $2.1 million and an unspecified civil penalty for each Medicaid billing the state considers fraudulent.