South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

On Oct. 25, 2003, plaintiffs Margaret Showalter, 35, and Nancy Vasil, 39, each with an approximate mental age of third-graders, were attending a Special Olympics bowling practice when they were each lured out at separate times by James McDonald a 79-year-old volunteer for the Special Olympics. McDonald first brought Showalter out to his car and began fondling her breasts and had her perform oral sex on him before returning to the Colonial Bowling alley in Orlando. Pat Webb, a Special Olympics co-county coordinator, witnessed the daytime assault in the parking lot and watched McDonald and Showalter go back to the bowling alley. Webb then went inside and called police. Meanwhile, McDonald was able to lure Vasil out to his car and fondled her breasts.Showalter and Vasil sued the Special Olympics Florida for the for the sexual assaults committed by McDonald.Plaintiffs’ counsel argued that the Special Olympics were negligent in failing to take reasonable precautions by allowing McDonald to volunteer for the Special Olympics. Similar allegations had been raised against him in the late ’90s but were dropped after McDonald got a number of continuations on the trial, and the accuser became stressed and unable to continue pursuing the case.

Webb and other witnesses acknowledged that they were aware of the past charges against McDonald.

As a result of their assaults neither of the women has returned to the Special Olympics, which is considered the primary social network for the developmentally challenged.

Vasil was permanently traumatized by the incident and has been suffering from reoccurring nightmares. She has additionally been diagnosed by four specialists with post-traumatic stress disorder and has developed a fear of public situations.

Showalter suffered from mild depression prior to incident and it was significantly increased as a result of the assault.

A jury found the Special Olympics liable for the assaults and awarded the plaintiff’s $2.1 million.

County authorities have agreed to pay $2.4 million to the family of a teenager who died after being roughed up by guards at a state-supervised boot camp, an attorney for the family said Tuesday.Added to a $5 million claim being fast-tracked through the Legislature, the deal brings the total settlement over the death last year of Martin Lee Anderson to $7.4 million, said the family’s attorney, Ben Crump. The family had sued for $40 million.

“The parents did not want to go through two lengthy trials and reliving the traumatic events that surrounded the death of their son,” Crump said.

The Legislature dismantled military-style youth boot camps last year after the 14-year-old’s death.

A report said seven guards at the sheriff’s boot camp in Panama City, in Bay County, engaged in “abusive and inhumane” behavior when they struck Anderson with fists and knees, knocked him to the ground and held ammonia capsules under his nose.

The guards and a nurse who watched have been charged with manslaughter. All pleaded not guilty last month. They face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

The limit on claims is $200,000, and any amount over that must be approved by the Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist.

The Bay County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately return a phone message.

Several baby bottle manufacturers were slapped with a billion dollar class-action lawsuit that claimed their bottles leaked a dangerous substance into their contents under certain conditions.

The suit was filed by attorney Robert Weiss on the behalf of Californian babies who may have been injured as a result of drinking out of plastic bottles containing Bisphenol-A, a toxic chemical.

Bisphenol-A

This chemical, also known as BPA, used in making plastic food and drink packaging, is known to cause hormonal and neurological damage to lab animals.

Gerber, Evenflo, Avent, Dr. Brown’s and Playtex use the chemical in the manufacturing of their plastic sippy cups and baby bottles.

The Hazard

Scientists discovered that BPA leaked off of the hard plastic and into the liquid contained inside when the bottles were heated – as parents often do when feeding their babies formula or breast milk – or cleaned with harsh detergents.

Environmental experts continue to question whether there is a link between BPA, cancer, autism, diabetes, obesity and early puberty.

Rachel Gibson, Environment California, recommend that consumers use bottles made of glass or other types of plastic. She also advised that consumers don’t heat drinks or food in plastic containers or clean them with hot water and harsh dishwashing detergents because these practices can increase the rate of BPA leeching, according to Gibson.

“Currently manufacturers do not have to label their products contain BPA,” said Weiss. “We are going to change that. Parents should know what they are putting in their baby’s mouth. This is disgraceful and we are going to force these manufacturers to be held to a higher standard.”

Attorneys for a widower who claims the painkiller Vioxx contributed to his wife’s death in 2003 urged jurors today to punish the maker of the once-blockbuster drug for what the lawyers said was failure to give adequate warnings about potentially deadly side-effects.

In closing arguments, Mikal Watts argued that Merck & Co. ignored or stifled credible warnings that Vioxx could cause cardiovascular problems, including warnings that came well before Patty Schwaller collapsed and died of a heart attack after taking Vioxx for about 20 months.

Merck pulled the drug off the market in 2004 after its research showed it increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Schwaller — who died suddenly Aug. 8, 2003 after returning home with groceries — “shall not have died in vain,” Watts told the Madison County jury in the Midwest’s first trial involving Vioxx.

Citing the company’s own internal e-mails, Watts said Merck failed to adequately study Vioxx’s possible side-effects on people at risk of heart disease and publicly downplayed worries by outside researchers that Vioxx could put users at greater risk of heart attacks or strokes.

“These people kept cutting the data until it told them what they wanted it to say,” Watts said of top Merck executives.

Vioxx, once Merck’s No. 2 drug, generated sales exceeding $11 billion from May 1999 through September 2004, according to Merck regulatory filings and other information.

Schwaller’s family has claimed that the 5-foot-2 Granite City woman — whose weight fluctuated between 250 and 300 pounds for at least two decades — had no heart attacks, strokes or symptoms of congestive heart disease before her fatal collapse on Aug. 8, 2003.

Merck, Watts insisted, pushed consumers like Schwaller “over the cliff” by putting profits over patient safety.

Attorneys for Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., were expected to summarize their cases later Monday before jurors began deliberating.

They already have argued that the company followed federal regulations and acted swiftly to warn doctors that Vioxx carried possibly dangerous side-effects. They also have said that Schwaller’s obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and sedentary lifestyle might have posed risks that better explain her collapse and sudden death.

On Monday, Watts rejected that as a diversion.

“The fact she was near the cliff in the first place does not get them off the hook, folks,” he told jurors. “They’re trying to turn what is white into black.”

The trial has been closely watched in Madison County, which has gained national notoriety as a place where lawyers from across the country file cases involving everything from asbestos exposure to medical malpractice, hoping for big payouts.

Merck has been deluged with more than 27,000 personal injury lawsuits and another 265 potential class-action lawsuits alleging harm from Vioxx. The company has reserved $1.64 billion in its Vioxx legal defense fund, saying it plans to fight each lawsuit.

On March 12, jurors in Atlantic City, N.J., found that Vioxx contributed to Idaho postal worker Frederick “Mike” Humeston’s 2001 heart attack, reversing the verdict in the man’s first trial and hitting Merck with a total of $47.5 million in damages.

If the verdict and damage amounts are upheld, it could be the biggest hit to Merck so far.

In the only Vioxx case with a larger verdict — $51 million awarded last August to Gerald Barnett of Myrtle Beach, S.C. — U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon in New Orleans ordered a new trial on the amount of damages, calling the total “grossly excessive.”

A New Jersey Supreme Court panel also is considering whether to allow health insurers and union health plans to sue Merck jointly to recover money they paid for Vioxx prescriptions — a lawsuit potentially worth more than $15 billion. A New Jersey state judge granted that lawsuit class-action status in mid-2005, and a state appellate court ruled last year that the nationwide suit could go forward. Merck is appealing.

State officials have fined San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital $100,000 for the death last October of an 82-year-old woman suffering from dementia.

Hui Su was found collapsed in front of the convalescent and long-term care hospital on Oct. 30, 2006. According to the San Francisco medical examiner, Su died from blunt force injuries, but an autopsy failed to determine if she fell from an upper floor at the hospital or from some shorter distance.

According to a statement issued Monday by the California Department of Health Services, the staff at Laguna Honda “failed to review, evaluate, update and implement the care plan” for Su, “who was at high risk for falling and wandering.”

Eileen Shields, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Public Health, said the $100,000 fine will be appealed.

“We take some exceptions to their findings, so we are going to appeal,” she said. “What we know is that she fell. How far she fell is still a matter of dispute or disagreement. We’re very, very sorry about this. Our condolences go to the family.”

Supervisor Ed Jew said he will call today for a hearing into Su’s death. Jew said he has been in touch with Su’s family, whom he described as distraught.

Jew said police reports suggest Su fell from the window of the third-story room she shared at the hospital with her husband, who remains at the facility.

“She was found outside below her window with her broken jade bracelet nearby,” Jew said. “They found part of her bracelet on the windowsill.”

Jew said a hospital staffer was supposed to sit in Su’s room to monitor her but did not get there in time.

“I want to make sure that no one, no family, goes through this ordeal again,” he added.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, whose district includes Laguna Honda, called Su’s death a “horrible tragedy.”

“You can’t put a dollar figure on any patient’s life,” he said. “We need to keep striving to give patients the greatest level of care possible.”

State officials said Su was an alert patient but suffered from dementia and needed assistance with all activities. She had a history of falling and wandering out of the hospital.

In 1999, voters approved Proposition A, a $299 million bond measure to rebuild Laguna Honda and increase its skilled nursing capacity by 135 beds, from 1,065 to a total of 1,200. The project has yet to be carried out.

The hospital, which serves as a nursing home and rehabilitation center on a 62-acre site in the city’s Forest Hill neighborhood, has been deemed seismically unsafe and outdated.

U.S. investigators found “flagrant violations” at a Pennsylvania mine where a worker died in a methane gas explosion last year, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration said in a report released Monday.R&D Coal Co. became the first operator cited for flagrant violations under new U.S. mine-safety rules that boost fines to as much as $220,000. Congress approved the harsher fines last year after several mine fatalities, including the deaths of 12 men at West Virginia’s Sago mine.

The miners conducting the blasting that day were not qualified to handle explosives, and set them off before miners could get to a safe area, investigators found.

R&D also lacked adequate ventilation, safe blasting practices and proper pre-shift safety checks at its Buck Mountain Slope Mine, directly contributing to the Oct. 23 death of Dale Reightler, 43, federal officials said.

“R&D Coal Co. Inc. failed to observe basic mine safety practices and violated critical safety standards. As a result, a miner tragically lost his life,” said Richard E. Stickler, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health.

State regulators have revoked R&D’s permit to operate the Buck Mountain site. They said the company’s alleged cover-up of a similar 2004 blast that injured four workers might have contributed to Reightler’s death.

A listed phone number for the company was not in operation Monday, and R&D officers did not immediately return messages left at their homes.

Reightler’s wife did not immediately return a message on Monday.

On Oct 13, 2003, plaintiff Vaughn Hollon, 53, a school teacher, was admitted to Brookwood Medical Center, a psychiatric institution in Birmingham, because he suffered from depression after losing his job.On Oct. 15, a mental health assistant brought him, along with nine other psychiatric patients, to an outdoor patio enclosed with a 12-foot-high iron fence. Hollon climbed from a cast-iron planter onto the fence, scaled the fence and fell 25 feet to an open parking deck. Both legs broken, he dragged himself 100 feet to the deck’s edge and plummeted 80 feet to his death. One nurse ran to Hollon as he dragged himself to the far side of the parking deck, but only reached him after he was over the rail.On behalf of Hollon’s estate, his family sued Brookwood, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare Corp., for institutional negligence, seeking wrongful death damages. Plaintiff’s counsel alleged that the center had a non-existent or insufficient emergency response plan, insufficient supervision, untrained staff and did not meet safety codes.

Plaintiff’s counsel questioned about 10 Brookwood employees who testified during the trial, revealing that the employees contradicted one another about institutional rules.

For the plaintiff, Heidi Lennartz, chief executive officer of Mission Community Hospital in Panorama City, Calif., testified that Brookwood’s patio fence breached the standard of care.

Plaintiff’s counsel argued that the patio area did not comply with the standard of care. The fence that Hollon scaled had 5-inch deep horizontal cross bars and loops that could be used as toe holds, which, along with the 31-inch tall planter, provided leverage for him to climb the fence. Security expert Mike Cummings testified that the fence and planter created a dangerous situation and that patients should not have been allowed near a fatal drop-off.

Plaintiff’s counsel alleged that Brookwood did nothing to stop Hollon from dragging himself across the parking deck. Security cameras in the vicinity had been inoperative for years. Plaintiff’s counsel argued that the dispatcher didn’t know how to respond to the situation, and the entire staff lacked adequate training. For example, the security officer, who worked a second job as a fry cook, got in his truck and drove away from the hospital to the area where he usually caught escaped patients.

Plaintiff’s counsel called Dr. Tonia Werner, a professor at the University of Florida-Gainesville, who testified that Brookwood’s staff was inadequately trained to deal with a fence that negligently allowed patients access to a fatal drop-off. She agreed that one worker per 10 patients is inadequate, and also agreed that it should have prepared an emergency response plan even after previous patients escaped.

Brookwood Medical Center denied liability, though admitted that a standard of care was breached. Defense called on Nancy Jo Sandy, the director of a psychiatric unit in Tuscaloosa, who testified that the fence did not breach the standard of care.

Hollon died instantly from the fall. In Alabama, all awarded damages are punitive. Plaintiff’s counsel asked the jury to award no less than $5 million to serve as an example to deter future wrongdoing.

The jury found Brookwood Medical Center negligent in their care and awarded the Estate of Vaughn Hollon $12 million. The defense has appealed the decision.

The family of a 73-year-old man who died after receiving the wrong drug during surgery will receive $1.775 million in the settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit, according to court documents.

According to attorneys for Martha Cogan, widow of Herbert Cogan, Piedmont Medical Center will pay the bulk of the settlement - about $1.275 million. The remainder will be paid by an insurer for the doctors and other medical personnel involved in the case.

According to the lawsuit, anesthesiologist Dr. Suzanne Lupo and Adam Darden, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, accidentally gave Herbert Cogan the wrong drug during his heart surgery in 2002. The suit also contends that surgeon Dr. Steven Chapman failed to tell the family how Cogan died.

The original death certificate said Cogan died of natural causes, but that was changed after the body was exhumed, according to the suit. The autopsy found that Cogan died of a heart attack after receiving the wrong drug from a health care provider, according to the York County coroner’s office.

The likely source of an E. coli outbreak in spinach that killed three people and sickened more than 200 was a small cattle ranch about 30 miles from California’s central coastline, state and federal officials said Friday as they concluded their investigation.Authorities for the first time said they had isolated the deadly E. coli strain on Paicines Ranch in San Benito County near a field the ranch leased to Mission Organics, a spinach grower.

They found E. coli “indistinguishable from the outbreak strain” in river water, cattle feces, and wild pig feces on the ranch within a mile a from the spinach fields, the California Department of Health Services and U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a joint report.

Investigators said they could not make a “definitive determination” as to how the E. coli contaminated the spinach that reached market.

“We’ll never be able to make a definitive link, but this shows the inherent risk in the area,” said Patti Roberts, a spokeswoman for the health department. “Hopefully that’s what good agricultural practices can address to reduce the risk in the future.”

The Paicines Ranch, which breeds Angus cattle and quarter horses, said in a statement on its Web site that it leases land to crop growers and was not under investigation in the outbreak. The ranch could not immediately be reached by phone for further comment.

Otto Kramm, the head of Mission Organics, told The Californian newspaper in Salinas that no pig tracks had been found near spinach fields, although the wild animals are present on the ranch. He said the pigs go through the area to feed on grapes in neighboring vineyards. Kramm also said he plans to build an $80,000 fence the 450 acres he leases from Paicines Ranch.

Since the spinach outbreak in September, lawmakers in Congress have pushed for regular inspection of processing plants. The FDA announced voluntary guidelines earlier this month for preventing food poisoning in fresh-cut produce.

A woman accused of rendering a friend a paraplegic by pulling her out of a wrecked car “like a rag doll” may not be protected by California’s good Samaritan law, an appellate court ruled.The 2nd District Court of Appeal wrote in a decision Wednesday that the Good Samaritan law only protects people from liability if they are administering emergency medical care. The perceived danger of remaining in the wrecked car was not “medical,” the court ruled.

Attorney Robert Hutchinson who represents plaintiff Alexandra Van Horn, said the state’s Samaritan law doesn’t require people to render aid. But if they do, he said, they must act reasonably.

Van Horn was in the front passenger seat of a car that slammed into a light pole at 45 mph (70 kph) on Nov. 1, 2004, according to the negligence lawsuit filed against Lisa Torti.

Torti was a passenger in a car that was following behind the vehicle and stopped after the crash. Torti testified she placed one arm under Van Horn’s legs and the other behind her neck to lift her out of the car.

Van Horn, who testified Torti grabbed her by the arm and pulled her from the car “like a rag doll,” suffered injury to a vertebrae and a lacerated liver. Court documents said that the question of whether she was paralyzed during the crash or when she was pulled out of the car has been disputed.

Torti lawyer Jody Steinberg said he will appeal, saying the Samaritan law should protect everybody.

“There was no evidence that our client was doing anything but trying to rescue a person in need,” Steinberg said. “This is a public policy issue that needs to be re-examined by the Legislature.”