South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

They were giddy after a weekend of high school graduation parties, still reminiscing about their triumph at a national cheerleading contest, and were lining up a farewell summer of pool parties and sleep-overs before heading off to college.

Five teens, on their way to a vacation home Tuesday night, were in a sport utility vehicle that had just passed a van on a two-lane highway when it swerved back into oncoming traffic and hit a tractor-trailer. All were killed in the fiery crash, which four friends traveling in another car witnessed.

“We cheerleaded together and we were all best friends,” said Keisha Koneski, 18. “In our car, we could see the truck coming, and we all started screaming.”

The tragedy in western New York’s Finger Lakes region happened just five days after the teens graduated from Fairport High School, triggering an outpouring of emotion in this Erie Canal village of 6,000 near Rochester.

“It could be any five that were lost; we would grieve the same,” said Debra Tandoi, a town official who works in the village’s schools. “Our hearts just explode.”

Killed were Bailey Goodman and Meredith McClure, both 17, and 18-year-olds Sara Monnat, Hannah Congdon and Katherine “Katie” Shirley. All five were cheerleaders on Fairport High’s varsity team, but Shirley left the squad in her freshman year.

In March, the cheerleading team took first place in its category at the American Open National Cheer and Dance Championship in Orlando, Fla. McClure placed second in solo cheering in the 16-to-18-year-old bracket. The team also placed in several regional and state competitions this year.

Ontario County Sheriff Phil Povero said the driver of the SUV may have overcorrected after going too far to the right.

The SUV and the truck careered into a roadside fence next to a bed-and-breakfast outside the village of East Bloomfield and caught fire, shooting flames at least 20 feet into the air. The SUV ended up crushed and charred in a shallow ditch partially underneath the truck.

An overhanging maple tree was scorched, and blackened debris littered the road Wednesday morning. The crash knocked down a utility line and cut phone service in the western half of Ontario County. The truck driver, Dave Laverty, 50, was not injured.

“It’s a community nightmare,” school Principal Dave Paddock said. “Our hearts are broken. We love our kids and are crying.”

Scores of students, teachers and parents, many of them hugging and weeping, gathered on a grassy hillside overlooking the school on Wednesday morning. A giant “‘07″ had been painted on the hill by senior pranksters two weeks ago.

The nine women were planning a sleep-over at a cottage along Keuka Lake owned by Bailey Goodman’s parents, said Koneski, who befriended her when she moved to Fairport from a nearby suburb four years ago.

“She made me her best friend in eighth grade when I moved to Fairport High,” Koneski said. “She helped me make friends and she was always there for me, no matter what. All of us have just been best friends since then.

“We took pictures of each other; we used to just hang out in other people’s houses,” she said. “Especially when it’s warm, we always have pool parties and stuff and have all our friends over.”

Goodman, who was driving the SUV, had been trying for a few minutes to pass a van that was going only about 40 mph, Koneski said. “When Bailey started passing, it looked like the van was speeding up because she was next to the van for a really long time,” she said.

The cause of the crash remained under investigation, but Povero said no witnesses had given any indication the van sped up “to avoid being passed.”

“We’ll certainly take this into consideration and follow this up,” he said. The van driver was interviewed, and no one was ticketed, police said.

Autopsies were being conducted, including routine tests for the presence of drugs or alcohol, Povero said.

An injunction entered yesterday in the U.S. District Court forbids the Union, N.J. company Shelhigh from distributing the medical devices it manufactures until the company’s facilities, manufacturing methods, and quality control processes meet relevant FDA standards.

Concerns about Lack of Sterile Conditions

Shelhigh agreed to the injunction. The company’s main products are implantable pediatric heart valves and conduits, annuloplasty rings, surgical patches, dural patches, and arterial grafts. Federal agents seized all of the finished products at Shelhigh’s manufacturing facility in April 2007, based on concerns about non-sterility conditions at the facility.

As Daniel Schultz, the director of the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health, noted, “It is critical that companies comply with FDA’s manufacturing rules so that medical devices, especially the kind of implantable devices made by Shelhigh, are safe and effective.”

Outside Inspectors to Suggest Changes

The injunction includes a consent order requiring that Shelhigh hire independent expert consultants as a next step. The consultants’ job is to inspect the Shelhigh facility and indicate changes that need to be made to bring the company into compliance with the FDA’s CGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Practice) and QS (Quality Systems) regulations for medical devices and MDR (Medical Device Reporting) requirements.

When the changes have been made and the outside consultants have certified that the company is in compliance, Shelhigh may resume manufacturing, but not distributing, its medical device products, according to the court order. The manufacturing will resume in phases. Shelhigh must then have independent auditors inspect its facilities at least once a year, with the results of the inspections to be given to the FDA.

No Recall of Products on the Market

However, the FDA has not invoked the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to require Shelhigh to recall the medical devices already on the market and in the possession of hospitals and clinics. Shelhigh has not implemented a recall on its own.

On August 22, 2003, plaintiff Penina Meisels, a 56-year-old photographer and jeweler, was driving a golf cart from the men’s tee to the women’s tee at the 12th hole at San Geronimo Golf Course, in San Geronimo, when the left wheels of the golf cart left the paved path. The cart tilted and Meisels was thrown from the cabin, down a 15-foot cliff and into a ravine.Claiming injuries, Meisels sued the entities responsible for operating and maintaining the golf course, San Geronimo Golf Course; National Golf Properties, Inc.; National Golf Operating Partners and Evergreen Alliance Golf Limited, Dallas, for negligent maintenance of the golf cart paths.Plaintiff’s counsel argued that Meisels drove the golf cart to the left of the eight-foot wide path in order to allow for another cart, coming from the opposite direction, to pass. Counsel asserted that, once the left wheels of Meisel’s cart left the paved path, they were not supported because the shoulder of the path was not level with the rest of the path. Counsel argued the discrepancy, that Meisels was unable to see because the shoulder was camouflaged by leaves, caused the cart to tip and eject Meisels from the cabin. Counsel further maintained that, once she was ejected from the cart, Meisels fell through bushes that obscured a fifteen foot cliff that led into a ravine. Meisels ended up landing flat on her back on a boulder that was resting under water in the ravine.

Plaintiff’s counsel called golf course design expert, Gerald Pirkl, to testify that, without an appropriate barrier guarding golf cart drivers from the 15-foot drop into the ravine, an accident was bound to eventually occur at San Geronimo Golf Course.

Counsel for the defense contested plaintiffs counsel’s assertions by arguing that Meisels wasn’t paying attention to where she was driving the cart and that caused the accident. Furthermore, counsel maintained that there was no second golf cart that forced Meisels to drive the cart from the path.

Meisels was taken to the hospital where it was determined that she had separated her shoulder blade and misplaced a rib that had rotated out of her spine. Following surgery to repair the dislocated bones, Meisels still had to contend with residual pain in the affected areas. Consequently, plaintiff’s counsel argued that she would not be able to continue her work as a photographer or as a jeweler.

Plaintiff’s counsel sought to recover $202,168 for Meisels’ past medical bills, $256,651 for past lost earnings, $1,359,106 for future lost earnings and unspecified damages for past and future pain and suffering.

Counsel for the defense contended that Meisels did not have any past lost earnings because she had transitioned from a career as a photographer to a career as a jeweler, where she had yet to establish any steady income. Counsel further asserted that Meisels was able to work full time at the time of trial. Therefore, counsel suggested that Meisels was not entitled to any past or future lost earnings.

The jury found that San Geronimo Golf Course and Evergreen Alliance Golf Limited were jointly and severally liable for Meisels’ injuries and they awarded Meisels $4,317,925 in damages.

About 450,000 tires made in China for light pickup trucks, vans, and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are the subject of a request for a recall by their U.S. distributor. The tires have an insufficient or entirely missing gum strip, which is a required safety feature that helps keep tires from separating. Tire Separation is the flaw that led to a recall of 6.5 million Firestone tires in 2000, after hundreds of deaths and injuries due to tire separation were documented.

Telluride Compass, Westlake, and YKS Tires

The tire distributor, Foreign Tire Sales, is based in New Jersey. They got the tires from a Chinese manufacturer, Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co., which apparently has sold similar tires to at least six more U.S. distributors. The tires have been sold in the United States under the brand names Telluride Compass, Westlake, and YKS.

Foreign Tire Sales has requested that the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) help with a recall of the tires, which have been blamed for at least one fatal van accident already. However, importers are themselves responsible for the costs of a recall of defective foreign products that they sell.

Delay in Reporting the Defects

A spokeswoman for the NHTSA, Heather Hopkins, said that top officials at the NHTSA were “outraged” that executives at Foreign Tire Sales waited for more than two years to convey their concerns about the Chinese tires to the NHTSA. She added that the NHTSA wants a full tire recall to be performed by the company.

Officials for Foreign Tire Sales said that they began getting customer complaints about the Chinese tires in late 2005, and when they investigated the complaints, they began to suspect that the manufacturer Hangzhou Zhongce was supplying tires that did not have the gum strip or tires with an inadequate gum strip. Tests by an outside firm confirmed their suspicions.

Unsafe Tires Already on Many Vehicles

Foreign Tire Sales stopped buying the tires from Hangzhou Zhongce in June 2006. In September 2006, Hangzhou Zhongce admitted that it had decided to omit the gum strips. However, hundreds of thousands of the tires had already been released to the market by then.

In March 2002, plaintiff Marguene St. Juste, 30s, exited her car, when she was attacked by two Rottweilers in Delray Beach. The Rottweilers dragged St. Juste across a street and bit her. People in the neighborhood threw sticks and rocks in an effort to repel them. The Rottweilers ceased their attack momentarily, but dragged St. Just again, biting her numerous other times.St. Juste sued dog owner Keli Nowling, who did not appear at trial. An attorney she had retained did not appear as she was no longer paying him. St. Juste also named Delray Beach in the suit, claiming it was negligent in enforcing its ordinances. Local ordinances state that a dog must be taken to the pound if they are seen running at large.Plaintiff’s counsel presented the testimony of a code enforcement supervisor who stated that he had previously found the Rottweilers running loose. Plaintiff’s counsel also entered into evidence, six complaints of local residents who complained about the dogs running at large. Four other witnesses testified that they had called the animal control board about the Rottweilers running free.

Plaintiff’s counsel argued that the animal control officers assumed a duty when they repaired Nowling’s fence. The repair was negligent because the officers merely propped up a part of the fence with a cinderblock.

Defense counsel conceded that the injuries St. Juste suffered were horrible. However, the injuries were the fault of Nowling and not Delray Beach.

Defense counsel claimed that none of the complaints that were received actually involved the dogs biting people.

Defense counsel also raised defenses under sovereign immunity.

St. Juste suffered bites to her right forearm, severing the muscles from her arm as well as a nerve. She also suffered a compound right wrist fracture. St. Juste is right-hand dominant. She had surgery on her arm to repair the fracture and nerve damage. St. Juste claimed around $55,000 in medical expenses, as she did not have health insurance at the time of the accident.

St. Juste has permanent scarring on her arm. Prior to the accident, she had been a housekeeper at a local Marriott. She is permanently unable to work.

St. Juste has limited use of her arm. Her treating physician stated that she has lost the motor nerve in her right arm. She has trouble with fine motor skills, such as lifting objects. She frequently wears an arm splint.

The jury returned a verdict for St. Juste. She was awarded $3,760,500 in damages. Delray Beach was found 60% liable, and Nowling was found 40% liable.

Emily Rae Rice suffered a 7-inch gash to her liver, a lacerated spleen and three broken ribs in a car accident but was told to “stop being dramatic” and incarcerated at Denver Jail, where she died, according to a lawsuit filed Monday. Rice’s family filed suit in Denver District Court against the city and county of Denver, Denver Health Medical Center, and nearly 50 deputies, jail guards, doctors and nurses who they say ignored Rice’s pleas.

Rice, 24, was jailed Feb. 18, 2006, on outstanding traffic warrants and also was suspected of being intoxicated. According to the lawsuit, a nurse told Rice to “sleep it off.” Later, other inmates began screaming and banging in their cell to get the guards’ attention, but Rice wasn’t evaluated.

“That’s a terrible way to go — in a cold, stinking jail cell and you’re bleeding out,” said her father, Roy Rice.

The Denver District Attorney’s office last fall decided not to file criminal charges in the case, based on an investigation by Denver police.

An internal investigation by the sheriff’s department remains under administrative review to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted, independent monitor Richard Rosenthal said.

“People should not die when they are sent to jail in Denver, Colorado,” attorney Darold Killmer said during a news conference in front of the City and County Building. “It’s outrageous the city is sweeping this under the rug and whitewashing this investigation.”

An evaluation at Denver Health, where Rice was taken to after the accident, found only a shoulder contusion, and she was given ibuprofen before being released to sheriff’s custody, according to the lawsuit.

Hours before her death, Rice had called her mother and complained she was freezing and couldn’t feel her feet. She wasn’t given another blanket even though she asked for one, according to the suit.

Fourteen persons with heart conditions filed a 39-count product liability lawsuit against the makers and distributors of defibrillators/pacemakers they claim were defective and required them to be hospitalized.

Represented by Seth Sharrock Webb and John Driscoll of Brown & Crouppen in St. Louis, the plaintiffs are suing Guidant Corp. of Indiana, Cardiac Pacemakers of Minnesota and Boston Scientific Corp. of Delaware for injuries and economic damages.

The suit claims Guidant recalled a number of its pacemaker models between February 2002 and June 2006 because of short-circuiting and sealant deterioration.

The plaintiffs claim the defendants actively concealed product defects in order to prevent adverse publicity. They also claim they were unaware of the dangerous propensities of their pacemakers/defibrillator until well after they used them.

From Illinois, plaintiffs include Harold Allen, Joe Ellis, Gloria Craig, Irene Finklea, Leterious Hall, Mary Lanham and Raymond Tavison, Sr. Other plaintiffs include Ronald Pearce and Frederick Sheely of Indiana, Verle Kuehn, Diosdado Nebres and Randall Roscamp of Washington, Marcus Browning of Alabama and Jerry Stamp of New Mexico.

The suit filed June 15 in St. Clair County, is at least the third such complaint filed by the Brown & Crouppen firm against these corporations which make products that treat cardiac arrhythmia, heart failure and coronary disease.

According to the suit, Boston Scientific acquired Guidant and its subsidiaries in January 2006, assuming Guidant’s liabilities in this litigation.

An implantable cardioverter defibrillator corrects abnormal heart rhythms by sending small electric signals if the heart beats too slowly (bradycardia). Implantable defibrillator/pacemaker systems also detect and treat abnormally fast heart rhythms (tachycardia).

The plaintiffs claim the products used were defective in design and unreasonably dangerous, did not conform to federal requirements subjecting users to risks of heart attacks, death and other illnesses which exceeded the benefits of the products, and for which other safer products were available.

They also claim the devices were not safe or fit for their intended use because they were unreasonably dangerous “and incapable of satisfying the ordinary purpose for which they were intended, because they caused serious injury to plaintiffs…”

Plaintiffs are seeking damages for pain, suffering, mental anguish, emotional distress, loss of capacity to enjoy life, lost past and future income and incurred expense.

A fiery head-on collision killed five women in a sport utility vehicle less than a week after they graduated from a suburban Rochester high school, the principal said Wednesday.Their Chevrolet Trail Blazer had just passed a vehicle late Tuesday when it swerved back across the two-lane road into oncoming traffic and hit a tractor-trailer, the Ontario County Sheriff’s Office said. Both vehicles caught fire.

The crash knocked down utility lines and cut phone service in the western half of Ontario County. The truck driver, David Laverty, 50, wasn’t injured.

The victims were pronounced dead at the scene, deputies said.

Fairport High School Principal David Paddock said four of the women were members of the cheerleading squad - Bailey Goodman, Hannah Congdon, Meredith McLure and Sara Monnat - and he identified the fifth as Katie Shirley. All five graduated Thursday.

“It is with overwhelming sadness that I inform all of you that five of our children, all of whom just graduated from FHS last Thursday evening, lost their lives earlier tonight in a car accident,” Paddock wrote in an e-mail sent to parents early Wednesday.

Four friends were following in another car when the SUV crashed, Paddock said. He didn’t know where they had been heading.

Dozens of students, teachers and parents, some hugging and weeping, gathered Wednesday morning on a hillside overlooking the school, located in an Erie Canal village of about 6,000, about 10 miles southeast of Rochester.

The woman who led the top U.S. environmental agency during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks confronted critics in Congress on Monday about her assurances that the air around the destroyed World Trade Center was safe to breathe.Christie Whitman, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, denounced what she called “misinformation, innuendo, and outright falsehoods” leveled against her and the agency.

“There are people to blame. They are the terrorists that attacked the United States, not the men and women of all levels of government,” Whitman said.

Whitman has insisted her public assurances about safe air were aimed at those living and working near ground zero, not those actually working on the toxic pile of debris. She claims her agency repeatedly warned those workers and top city officials that rescue and recovery workers needed to wear protective gear.

Since the attacks, independent government reviews have faulted the EPA’s handling of the immediate aftermath and the agency’s long-term cleanup program for nearby buildings. The 9/11 commission found no evidence that the EPA was pressured to say the air was safe to permit the city’s financial markets to reopen.

U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes the trade center site, called the hearing after years of criticizing federal officials over the cleanup effort.

“The administration has continued to make false, misleading and inaccurate statements, and refused to take remedial actions, even in the face of overwhelming evidence,” Nadler said.

More than five years after the attacks, researchers are developing evidence of the long-term health effects.

A study of more than 20,000 people by Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York concluded that since the attacks, 70 percent of ground zero workers suffered some sort of respiratory illness.

A separate medical study released last month found that rescue workers and firefighters contracted sarcoidosis, a serious lung-scarring disease, at a rate more than five times higher than in the years before the attacks.

A delegation of activists and Sept. 11 rescue workers boarded a bus in Manhattan early Monday to be present for the hearing.

“We are stunned that she’s sticking to her story,” said community activist Kimberly Flynn.

A company that allegedly distributed asbestos products is requesting that a recent civil suit be moved out of Jefferson County.

Lula Delafosse, the wife of the deceased Louis Delafosse, filed suit against A.O. Smith Corporation and 42 other companies on May 2 in Jefferson County District Court. The suit alleges that Delafosse’s exposure to asbestos caused his death from lung cancer. Attorney Bryan Blevins of Provost Umphrey is representing the plaintiff.

The suit names corporations from aerospace giant Lockheed Martin to iron supplier Zurn Industries for manufacturing and distributing asbestos-laced products.

A motion to transfer venue was filed June 8 on behalf of one of the defendants, A.W. Chesterton Company, which manufactures gaskets and packaging materials.

“Plaintiffs petition does not allege sufficient facts to establish proper venue in Jefferson County,” Melody Wilkinson of Cooley Manion Jones LLP in Fort Worth, attorney for defendant Chesterton wrote. “There is no statutory or factual basis for maintaining this lawsuit in Jefferson County.”

Chesterton further denies that venue is proper in Jefferson County because:
-Jefferson County is not the county in which all or a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to this claim occurred
-Jefferson County is not the county of any defendants’ principal office in this state
-Plaintiff or plaintiff’s decedent did not reside in Jefferson County at the time of the accrual of this cause of action
-Finally, no mandatory or permissive venue provision authorizes maintenance of this action in Jefferson County

Chesterton claims that venue is proper in Harris County because one or more of the defendants has its principal office in that county.

A lung cancer patient, Louis Delafosse was around 87 years of age when he passed away, the plaintiff’s original petition said.

Medical records attached to his lawsuit state Delafosse, a WWII veteran, had occupational exposure to asbestos, probably while working at John Dallinger Steel, Inc. from 1941 to 1942 and 1955 to 1983. The document also says Louis was an avid cigar smoker.

The original petition says the 43 defendants entangled in his lawsuit were negligent, failing to adequately test their asbestos-laced products before flooding the market with dangerous goods.

Lula Delafosse is suing for physical pain and suffering in the past and future, mental anguish in the past and future, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, disfigurement in the past and future, physical impairment in the past and future, and past and future medical expenses.