South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

Dismayed by reports of millions of tainted toys, the House neared a vote Wednesday to ban lead and other dangerous chemicals from toys and other products that could wind up in kids’ mouths.

The legislation also would toughen rules for testing children’s products and take steps to give more muscle to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which was criticized last year for its feeble handling of a flood of goods from China deemed hazardous to children.

“Congress is about to sign off on the most comprehensive product safety legislation in decades,” said Dr. Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women & Families.

The bill, a product of House-Senate negotiations, would ban lead in products for children 12 or younger, and would ban - either permanently or pending further study - six types of phthalates, which are chemicals that are found in plastics and suspected of posing health risks.

House passage would send the measure to the Senate, which could approve it before Congress leaves for its August recess at the end of this week. The White House has voiced opposition to parts of the legislation but has not threatened a veto.

The bill would require third-party testing for many children’s products, a key change in monitoring practices following a year in which 45 million toys and children’s products - 30 million from China - were recalled.

Those included lead-contaminated children’s jewelry, “Spider-Man 3″ flashing rings and Halloween pails.

“Third-party testing is a centerpiece of the new law” and a victory for consumers, said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director of U.S. PIRG, a grass-roots environmental organization.

The bill would double the budget of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to $136 million by 2014, and give it new authority to impose civil penalties on violators. The CPSC was founded in 1973 with a staff of about 800. It now employs about half that number, while imports have vastly increased.

It also would boost whistleblower protections to encourage people to report hazards to the CPSC and would direct the agency to set up a database where consumers, government agencies, child care providers or doctors could report incidents of injury, illness, death or risk related to products.

One of the more controversial provisions is the ban on six types of phthalates, chemicals used in a wide range of products, including toys, to make vinyl soft and flexible. Tests on rats have found links to possible reproductive system problems for males and the onset of early puberty for females, and the European Union has banned the six.

Ami Gadhia of Consumers Union said infants are exposed to phthalates through toys, teethers and health care products. While there is no conclusive evidence that the chemical causes health problems in humans, she said a recent study found that mothers reported use of infant lotion, infant powder and shampoo was significantly associated with phthalate urinary concentrations.

But phthalates, said Sharon Kneiss of the American Chemistry Council, “are an important part of our everyday lives. There is no scientific basis for Congress to restrict phthalates from toys and children’s products.”

Under the new third-party testing regimen, a standards organization would set up and run a mandatory protocol that testing labs would have to meet to certify a product. No covered children’s product or toy could be imported without a certification mark. The CPSC has authority to approve and audit the certifications.

The negotiators also resolved to make more products now covered by voluntary industry standards subject to mandatory standards. That step added several potential toy hazards, including goods containing small magnets that were included in products recalled last year, subject to third-party testing requirements.

Among other provisions, the bill requires the CPSC to adopt safety standards on all-terrain vehicles and close a loophole where cribs sold secondhand were not subject to the same standards as new cribs.

On Feb. 19, 2005, plaintiffs’ decedent Robert C. Heston, 40, a worker in his father’s concrete business, was shocked by Salinas Police Department officers with TASER electronic control devices (stun-guns). Heston’s father had previously called the police to his home because he thought his son was acting strangely, and was concerned he might be under the influence of drugs.

When police arrived, Heston was behaving violently, so they used TASER stun-guns to subdue him. By the end of the last stun-gun cycle, Heston’s head began turning blue, he lost consciousness, and entered into cardiac arrest. Paramedics transported him to a local hospital, where he later died.

Heston’s parents, individually, and Misty Kastner, as the executor of Heston’s estate, sued the city, the police department, Sgt. Michael Dominici, Officer Juan Ruiz, Officer Lek Livingston, Officer James Godwin and TASER International Inc. for excessive force in a violation of Heston’s civil rights.

The plaintiffs claimed that cops shocked Heston 25 times over a period of 74 seconds. They also alleged that TASER International failed to adequately test the subject stun-gun model, and failed to warn of the potential risks caused by prolonged stun-gun discharges.

The plaintiffs further asserted that TASER International should have warned the police that using the stun-guns could cause death.

The defense disputed liability.

The police claimed that they were never provided any information through their TASER International training that the subject stun-guns could cause injury. Specifically, they claimed that they were not told of the potentially fatal danger of repeated shocks.

TASER International contended that its product was safe.

Defense emergency medicine expert Jeffrey Ho testified that tests done on human volunteers show that prolonged stun-gun applications do not cause any clinically significant changes to blood acidity. He argued that Heston’s death was probably due to methamphetamine intoxication and agitated delirium.

An unconscious Heston was rushed to Natividad Medical Center, where he died the next day without regaining consciousness.

Forensic pathologist Terri Haddix performed an autopsy, and found that Heston died from a combination of methamphetamine intoxication, an enlarged heart due to long-term drug abuse and shocks from stun-guns. It was found that Heston had a recreational amount of methamphetamine in his system when he died. The pathologist listed Heston’s official cause of death as multiple organ system failure due to cardiopulmonary arrest resulting from an agitated state associated with methamphetamine intoxication and applications of TASER stun-guns.

The plaintiffs–Betty Lou Heston, 65, and Robert Heston Sr., 69–sought recovery for funeral costs, loss of care, comfort and society, and punitive damages.

TASER claimed that Heston died as a result of his methamphetamine intoxication, enlarged heart and Excited Delirium Syndrome. EDS is a term coined to describe deaths that occur while a person in a state of extreme agitation is being restrained by police or medical professionals. These deaths often involve drugs, such as cocaine or methamphetamine, and generally involve cardiac arrest. The syndrome is not accepted by the American Medical Association or the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

The defense’s expert on the effects of drugs testified that an analysis of Heston’s brain clearly showed EDS.

TASER argued that Heston would have lost his previous tolerance to methamphetamines because he was in prison for the year prior to the incident, and it was assumed that he did not have access to the drug during that time. TASER claimed that the dose of methamphetamine Heston took on the day of the incident could have resulted in an overdose, even though Heston might have tolerated that amount of the drug when he was using it regularly.

TASER International has indicated it intends to move for a new trial, JNOV and to set aside the punitive damages portion of the verdict.

Major automakers have decided to stop joint efforts aimed at reducing risks when cars and trucks collide and have dropped plans to help draft a federal rule, as requested by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

More than 5,000 lives are lost a year in car-truck crashes, which is why NHTSA has made so-called compatibility between cars and trucks a top priority since 2002, says agency chief Nicole Nason.

Automakers have already committed to design changes by September 2009 to help prevent cars from sliding under trucks. That’s expected to reduce the risk of death to occupants of cars hit by trucks by about 20 percent when all new vehicles comply. More than 80 percent of vehicles do now.

NHTSA has been concerned that reducing injuries and deaths in collisions between cars and SUVs or pickups is too important for it to rely solely on automakers’ words. So it asked automakers to agree on a federal crash test.

“This is a very significant safety issue and is likely to gain in significance as you see more smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles on the road with the larger SUVs,” Nason says. Rob Strassburger, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers’ vice president of safety, says the companies couldn’t come up with a test that produced “the same or better” results than the current voluntary method. Nason, who is leaving her post this week after two years, says NHTSA will continue research on its own crash tests.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety President Adrian Lund, who headed the group working on the crash research, says automakers also believed compatibility isn’t the priority at NHTSA that it once was and considered Nason’s departure in its decision not to move forward.

Automakers “sensed NHTSA had no interest,” Lund says. “That took a lot of the energy out of it.”

Given the economy and anemic auto sales, former IIHS president Brian O’Neill says, the industry’s move is not surprising but is likely unwarranted. “I don’t think those efforts should have been resource-intensive, and I don’t think the engineering changes were that profound,” O’Neill says.

The industry has also decided to stop working together on how to regulate the stiffness of vehicles’ front ends. If vehicles — especially large ones — have overly stiff front ends, more of the crash forces are transferred to the people in the other vehicle. A softer front end absorbs crash forces and reduces the risk of injury and death to the other drivers and passengers. The industry has studied the complex issue for years but can’t agree on how to measure it.

“It is a really difficult problem, but you don’t solve it by walking away from it,” Nason says.

A man was thrown from his vehicle and killed in a two-vehicle crash Wednesday afternoon on Interstate 95.

The fatal crash occurred in the northbound lanes of I-95 just north of Copans Road.

Pompano Beach fire-rescue spokeswoman Sandra King said the man ejected from his vehicle was dead at the scene. His body was covered by a yellow tarp on the side of the interstate.

A father and 5-year-old in the same vehicle were taken by ambulance to Broward General Medical Center. A person in the other vehicle was taken to North Broward Medical Center.

The warning came too late for Barack Obama’s adviser: Don’t walk and text at the same time.Obama aide Valerie Jarrett fell off a Chicago curb several weeks ago while her thumbs were flying on her Blackberry.

Nearly $1.5 billion could be saved every year by preventing surgical errors, revealed a new study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

The study examined insurance data from more than 161,000 patients enrolled in health plans through their employer and who had a surgical procedure between 2001 and 2002. According to the study findings, insurers paid an additional (per patient):

• $19,480 for post-operative infections
• $28,218 for acute respiratory failure
• $12,196 for nursing care associated with medical errors
• $11,797 metabolic problems linked to medical errors
• $7,838 for blood clots and related problems linked to medical errors
• $1,426 for wound openings associated with medical errors

The study also revealed that preventable medical errors were responsible for 10 percent of patient deaths occurring within three months of the surgical procedure.

“Like the physical and emotional harm caused by medical errors, the financial consequences don’t stop at the hospital door. Eliminating medical errors and their after-effects must continue to be top priority for our health care system,” said Dr. Carolyn M. Clancy, director of the AHRQ.

Delta flight attendants found the body of a 61-year-old woman in the restroom of a plane that landed in Atlanta early Wednesday morning, a spokeswoman for the company said.

will not be able to review the cockpit voice recording of a Qantas jet’s mid-air crisis because it was overwritten as the crew made a harrowing emergency landing, an official said Tuesday.

The focus into what caused a hole in the 747-400’s fuselage last Friday continues to narrow on a missing oxygen tank that appears to have burst while the plane was flying at 29,000 feet over the South China Sea last Friday, Neville Blyth, a senior investigator from the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau, told a news conference.

“The explanation regarding the loss of the cylinder is the most probable,” Blyth said, adding that the 44-pound green tank was stored adjacent to the car-sized hole in the plane’s metal skin and close to where a valve was found in the passenger cabin, likely blown through a hole in the floor.

While tests still must be conducted on the valve and other fragments at an Australian laboratory, “It’s safe to say that those components are from the missing cylinder,” he said.

With air rushing out of the hole, the pilots made a rapid descent, then an emergency landing in Manila last week. Flight QF 30 had been en route from London to Melbourne and had just made a stopover in Hong Kong.

The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder arrived Monday in Canberra, where officials discovered that the period when the crew was dealing with massive depressurization had been recorded over, Blyth said. The device operates on a two-hour loop.

A full search of the plane has yielded no trace of the missing cylinder, leading officials to conclude that it probably exited the plane through the fuselage.

Blyth showed reporters another tank that was stored next to the missing No. 4 cylinder. It was still in place and showed no signs of damage. The cylinders are used to provide oxygen to the passengers and crew during a high-altitude emergency.

At about 1 p.m. on Oct. 10, 2004, plaintiff Juan Santa Barbara, 33, a laborer, tripped on the threshold of the entryway of his home, which was located at 168 E. 140th St., in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx. He fell over a parapet wall, plummeted about 9 feet and landed on a stairway that led to the building’s cellar. He sustained a paralyzing injury.

Santa Barbara sued the building’s landlord, Migdol Realty Management, LLC. He alleged that the entryway constituted a dangerous condition.

Santa Barbara claimed that he tripped on a metal door saddle. His expert engineer contended that the saddle’s surface was elevated 1.25 inches above the surrounding floor. He opined that the differential created a hazard. The building’s manager acknowledged that the saddle could have snared a person’s foot.

Santa Barbara’s expert engineer also opined that the parapet wall’s low height did not sufficiently shield the opening that led to the stairway. He contended that the area was particularly hazardous.

The defense’s expert engineer contended that the saddle’s surface was elevated 0.5 inches above the surrounding floor. He claimed that relevant architectural standards allow such a differential, and he opined that the entryway did not constitute a hazard.

Defense counsel contended that the building’s landlord had not received any prior complaints that addressed the saddle, and he also claimed that the landlord had not received any indication that the saddle had caused any other accidents. Thus, defense counsel argued that the landlord did not have prior notice of the condition that caused Santa Barbara’s fall.

Defense counsel also contended that Santa Barbara’s fall was a result of impairment that was caused by intoxication. He noted that Santa Barbara admitted that his previous evening’s activity included the consumption of 15 servings of beer and 12 shots of liquor. Santa Barbara also admitted that his imbibing continued during the following morning, when he consumed three additional servings of beer.

The defense’s expert toxicologist noted that Santa Barbara was hospitalized during the immediate aftermath of the accident. He also noted that the hospital’s records indicated that Santa Barbara’s blood’s serum ethanol level measured 0.324. The expert extrapolated that finding, and he concluded that Santa Barbara’s fall occurred while his blood’s alcohol concentration measured about 0.28. Such a concentration is about 3.5 times greater than the concentration that would result in a New York motorist’s arrest. The expert concluded that Santa Barbara’s impaired condition greatly increased his susceptibility to an accident. However, Santa Barbara’s counsel argued that the expert’s conclusion was based on the impairment that a typical person would experience after having consumed the amount of alcohol that Santa Barbara had consumed. He suggested that Santa Barbara may have had a greater tolerance to alcohol, and he noted that Santa Barbara was able to in-line skate after he consumed the first of the three alcoholic beverages that he consumed during the morning of the accident.

Santa Barbara sustained a fracture of his spine’s C6-7 level. He was transported to the emergency room of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, in Manhattan, but doctors could not reverse the damage that was caused by his injury. As a result, Santa Barbara suffers permanent paraplegia. He also suffers incontinence. He is confined to a wheelchair, and he resides in a rehabilitation facility: Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility, on Roosevelt Island.

Santa Barbara sought recovery of his past and future medical expenses and damages for his past and future pain and suffering.

The jury found that Migdol Realty Management was liable for Santa Barbara’s fall, but Santa Barbara was assigned 30-percent comparative negligence. The jury determined that Santa Barbara’s damages totaled $24,162,000, but the comparative-negligence reduction produced a net recovery of $16,913,400.

Juan Santa Barbara

$912,000 Personal Injury: Past Medical Cost

$14,250,000 Personal Injury: Future Medical Cost

$4,000,000 Personal Injury: Past Pain And Suffering

$5,000,000 Personal Injury: Future Pain And Suffering

An executive at Imperial Sugar Co. says he found conditions so bad at a Georgia sugar refinery prior to an explosion that killed 13 people that he recommended immediately firing the plant manager.

Safety plates were missing on electrical gear and piles of discarded sugar and other materials littered the Port Wentworth, Ga., plant, Imperial’s vice president of operations, Graham H. Graham, said in written testimony for a Senate hearing Tuesday.

A Senate subcommittee on workplace safety is reviewing the February accident after a federal investigation found Imperial violated safety standards. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed nearly $9 million in fines, saying the blast was fueled by an excessive buildup of sugar dust.