South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

A woman accidentally stabbed herself in the foot with a 3-foot-long sword while performing a Wiccan good luck ritual at a central Indiana cemetery.

Katherine Gunther, 36, of Lebanon, pierced her left foot with the sword while performing the rite at Oak Hill Cemetery, police said.

Gunther said she was performing the ceremony to give thanks for a recent run of good luck. The ceremony involves the use of candles, incense and driving swords into the ground during the full moon.

Gunther said was aiming to put the sword in the ground, but hit her foot instead.

“It wasn’t the first time I performed the ritual, but it was the first time I put a sword through my foot,” she said.

Gunther immediately pulled the sword out of her foot, and her companions took her to Witham Memorial Hospital, where she was kept a couple days for treatment.

No charges were filed, police said. The Wiccans were warned that being in the cemetery in the city about 20 miles northwest of Indianapolis after posted visiting hours constitutes trespassing.

Wicca is a nature-based religion based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons.

 Viagra’s effect in women has been disappointing, but a new small study finds those on antidepressants may benefit from taking the little blue pills.

The research involving 98 premenopausal women found Viagra helped with orgasm. But the benefits did not extend to other aspects of sex such as desire, researchers report in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

“For women on antidepressants with orgasm problems, this may provide some wonderful relief,” said psychologist Stanley Althof, director of the Center for Marital and Sexual Health of South Florida in West Palm Beach, who was not involved in the study. “But it will not improve their desire or arousal.”

Antidepressants can interfere with sex drive and performance even as the drugs help lift crippling depression. Switching drugs or reducing the dose can help. But many people, men and women, stop taking them because of their sexual side effects.

The complaints are common. More than half the people who take antidepressants develop sexual problems, prior studies have found, especially for people taking Prozac, Paxil, Celexa and other drugs that work by increasing the chemical serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is thought to slow down orgasm, perhaps by diminishing the release of another brain chemical, dopamine. Viagra increases blood flow to sex organs.

Pfizer Inc. spokeswoman Sally Beatty said the company currently has no plans to pursue FDA approval for using its drug Viagra as a treatment for female sexual dysfunction. The company ended its internal research on Viagra for women in 2004. While Viagra was found to be safe, the results were inconclusive, Beatty said in an e-mail.

The search for a Viagra equivalent for women has been disheartening. A testosterone patch was sent back for more safety study by the Food and Drug Administration. A handheld vacuum device that increases blood flow to the clitoris does have FDA approval, and BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc. is testing a testosterone gel called LibiGel.

The new Viagra findings are based on an eight-week experiment. The 98 women were using antidepressants successfully but were having sexual problems. Their average age was 37.

The women agreed to attempt sexual activity at least once each week. Each time, they took a pill, not knowing whether it was Viagra or a matching dummy pill.

While 72 percent of the women taking Viagra reported improvement on an overall scale, only 27 percent of the women taking the placebo reported improvement.

Althof said it’s “worrisome” that 43 percent of the women on Viagra experienced headaches, compared to 27 percent of the women on dummy pills. Indigestion and reddening of skin (flushing) also were reported more often by the women taking Viagra.

Psychologist Leonore Tiefer of New York University School of Medicine said industry-funded research has oversimplified women’s sexual experience. She noted the new study, funded by a Pfizer grant, found more side effects than benefits.

“Where’s the question to the women: Is it worth it?” Tiefer said.

An earlier study in men taking antidepressants found more pronounced sexual benefits with Viagra than the benefits found for women, said lead author Dr. George Nurnberg, a psychiatrist at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in Albuquerque.

But the message for men and women who need antidepressants is that Viagra may help them stay on the drugs, he said.

“We’re not talking about a lifestyle issue. We’re talking about a medical necessity issue,” Nurnberg said.

Pfizer had no influence on the design, findings or manuscript, Nurnberg said. He and several of the other authors disclosed financial ties to Pfizer and other drugmakers.

A woman who was recently charged with a DUI has taken action and filed a lawsuit against city of Gulfport and the police officer who arrested her.

The woman claims she was accused of drunk driving after blowing a 0.0 twice on a breath test and passing a urine test.

Woman Aims to Prove Innocence

Paulette Bourke has reportedly been dining at the Backfin Blue before her and her sister were pulled over by the police.

Bourke claims she had taken two sips of wine at dinner, before giving the rest to her sister, Lynn Frevert, since she was driving them home.

According to court documents, Officer Joshua D. Stone pulled Bourke over for driving under the speed limit and making too wide of a turn.

Bourke was forced to perform a sobriety test, which made her “nervous” and Stone claims she failed the test.

Victim Files Lawsuit

When Bourke took a breathalyzer test and was submitted for a urine tests, reports showed she passed them all.

“Stone was not willing to accept the fact that the plaintiff was not intoxicated,” explains the lawsuit filed by Bourke.

However, two months after the arrest was made, and after the suit had been filed, all charges against Bourke were dropped.

Orange markers were installed Tuesday night on the entrance and exit of the new northbound express lanes on Interstate-95.

Fifty orange delineators were positioned to better alert drivers to the “hot lanes.” In addition, more white dividers will be installed next week to narrow the existing gap between markers.

Several accidents have been reported since the debut of the express lanes on July 10. Confused drivers traveling for the first time on the lanes drove in and out of them causing multiple crashes.

In addition to the orange markers, the Florida Department of Transportation installed more signs and message boards providing information and guidance to motorists.

Tolls on the express lanes are scheduled to begin soon.

General Motors is looking down the road to solve potential problems for the electric cars it plans to roll out in about two years.

GM has joined with more than 30 utility companies to address potential issues from tax incentives for the vehicles to where and when they can be plugged in for recharging.

GM hopes to bring the Chevrolet Volt rechargeable car to showrooms in late 2010. It’s being designed to run on an electric motor powered by lithium-ion batteries, which is already a fixture in personal electronic devices. When fully charged, it will be able to go 40 miles on battery power. For longer trips, a small internal combustion engine will recharge the batteries to keep the Volt moving.

GM and the utilities planned to announcement the partnership Tuesday at a conference on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles under way in San Jose.

Panelists at the Plug-In 2008 conference predict the lithium-ion batteries will soon become the answer to high oil prices and environmental concerns as it bulks up to power rechargeable electric vehicles.

Lithium-ions can be charged by plugging them into a conventional home outlet and also carry a small conventional motor to recharge the batteries and extend their range. Plug-ins generally can get up to 100 miles per gallon of gasoline.

There have been problems reported with lithium-ions batteries in the form of overheating that can cause fires. But one panelist said there have been only a few incidents out of the millions of lithium-ion batteries now in use in laptop computers and other devices.

Pittsburgh attorneys are seeking a new trial in a medical malpractice case in which a jury found a hospital negligent in a patient’s death but awarded $0 survival damages because the jury said “no amount of damages will adequately punish” the hospital.

The case was tried in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court before a 12-member jury in May.

Michael Rettger, 24, died after his brain abscess allegedly was not treated in time by the staff at the Pittsburgh hospital he was admitted to, according to the plaintiffs’ pretrial statement.

The jury found in its May 23 verdict that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center at Shadyside’s care of Rettger fell below the standard of medical care and was a factual cause of harm to Rettger, according to the jury statement attached to the verdict form. The jury awarded $2.5 million in Wrongful Death Act damages, but awarded zero dollars in Survival Act damages.

“After eight days of testimony in the case of Rettger v. UPMC Shadyside, it is the unanimous opinion of the jury that no amount of damages will adequately punish UPMC,” the jury statement said. “It is our belief that UPMC Shadyside’s policies, culture, and lack of competent supervision resulted in the death of Michael Rettger.”

In a motion brought by plaintiffs attorneys Paul A. Lagnese and David M. Paul, Esq.s in Pittsburgh, the attorneys are seeking a new trial limited to damages under the Survival Act because they believe the $0 survival damages the jury awarded is against the weight of the evidence.

Plaintiffs’ experts Thomas Claassen, a certified public accountant, and David Hopkins, an actuary, said that Rettger’s lost earning capacity was between $4 million and $15 million, according to the motion.

Lagnese said he was very surprised that the jury awarded $0 for Survival Act damages.

“For whatever reason, the jury decided to disregard the judge’s instructions and to disregard the overwhelming evidence we presented to the loss of earning capacity,” he said.

Lagnese said they were not able to talk to the 12-member jury after the verdict.

Allegheny Common Pleas Judge Timothy Patrick O’Reilly presided over the case.

The Rettger v. UPMC Shadyside medical negligence case was brought by Rettger’s brothers Erik and Kirk against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center at Shadyside and neurosurgeon Eugene Bonaroti, as well as other defendants that were dismissed before trial.

Rettger, an accountant with Ernst & Young, was in West Virginia in November 2003 to conduct an audit of Cabell Huntington Hospital when he began vomiting and reporting a headache, according to the plaintiffs’ pretrial statement. Rettger was admitted to the hospital, and a computerized topography scan and magnetic resonance imaging of his brain revealed a large, swelling mass in his brain.

Rettger was transferred to UPMC Shadyside Nov. 15, 2003, in order to be closer to home, the plaintiffs’ statement said. According to the plaintiffs’ statement, a number of medical personnel at UPMC failed to take adequate care of Rettger during his admittance there. Most significantly, three days after Rettger’s admittance to UPMC Shadyside and when he had signs of potentially deadly brain herniation, the plaintiffs attorneys argued either a night nurse or Bonaroti failed to intervene in time to prevent Rettger’s death, according to the plaintiffs’ statement.

At 1:05 a.m. Nov. 19, 2003, Rettger’s night nurse, Kirsten Stalder, documented in Rettger’s chart that Rettger’s right pupil was fixed and dilated, a sign of impending brain herniation, the plaintiffs’ statement said.

Stalder said she called Bonaroti about the fixed and dilated pupil, but Bonaroti said that Stalder only reported Rettger’s sluggish left pupil, the plaintiffs’ statement said. Bonaroti argued he would have come to the hospital immediately if Stalder had reported the dilated pupil to him.

Stalder also failed to report Rettger’s fixed and dilated pupil to anyone else in UPMC Shadyside, failed to invoke the nursing chain of command or to call an emergency “Condition C,” the plaintiffs argued in court papers.

Rettger underwent surgery the next day, including a partial lobectomy, but “because the necessary medical and surgery measure came too late … herniation was not prevented, and could not be reversed,” the plaintiffs’ statements said. Rettger was pronounced dead at 9:03 a.m. on Nov. 20, 2003.

Because Bonaroti’s and Stalder’s stories conflicted, the jury had to choose one or the other in rendering their verdict, Lagnese said.

“It really was a case of black and white,” Lagnese said. “Both the nurse and the doctor testified unequivocally to their position.”

The plaintiffs attorneys also argued that UPMC had a significant systemic failure: the lack of a chain of command policy for nurses caring for neurosurgical patients.

UPMC argued in its defense pretrial statement that the nurses at UPMC evaluated Rettger appropriately and communicated information to his physician.

“During the overnight hours, Ms. Stalder conscientiously attended to the patient, in accordance with hospital policy, she called Dr. Bonaroti upon detection of a changed condition, then she appropriately continued with her attentive care, again contacting Dr. Bonaroti, as the need arose,” the defense statement said.

The defense also argued in court papers that survival damages were uncertain because it was unclear what path Rettger’s career would have taken and if he would have earned as much as the plaintiffs’ experts hypothesized.

Lagnese said that when the jury went out for deliberations, the defendants had made an offer for $3 million.

In a post-trial motion, UPMC is seeking a new trial on all issues, arguing that they were restricted from explaining Rettger’s medical history prior to 1 a.m. Nov. 19, 2003, to the jury and restricted from using alleged statements by Dr. Bonaroti that he didn’t respond appropriately to Stalder’s call.

Delay damages of $232,345.88 have been added to the verdict, the plaintiffs attorneys said.

David R. Johnson, Esq. in Pittsburgh and the hospital’s attorney, said he didn’t think it was appropriate to comment with new motions for a trial pending.

On Nov. 19, 2002, plaintiff Rachelle Jackson, 40s, a caregiver, was arrested when she attempted to pull a female Chicago police officer from a burning car that had crashed.

Jackson sued the city, several police officers and officials for wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She claimed that she was attempting to act as a Good Samaritan in pulling the officer out of the crashed automobile as it was catching fire. She stated she then went to the police station voluntarily as a witness. She claimed that while at the police station she was subjected to coercive questioning including denial of the restroom. The officer that Jackson claimed she attempted to help stated that the plaintiff attempted to steal her gun and her shield. Jackson was imprisoned for 10 months awaiting trial. The trial eventually ended with a pre-jury dismissal by the judge. Jackson further stated that it is out of her character to be accused of wrongdoing and she had never been in jail before this.

Defense counsel maintained that Jackson attempted to steal the gun and shield. Defense counsel relied upon the officer’s testimony as well as the findings of the detectives who investigated the case. Defense counsel also posited that a prosecution was reasonable based upon the evidence gathered.

Defense counsel presented a signed confession by the plaintiff in which she admitted to placing the officer in a wrestling hold known as the “full nelson.” This testimony was corroborated by the plaintiff herself.

Defense counsel also pointed out that bail was only $4,000 cash and the plaintiff did not post bail.

Plaintiff’s counsel noted that Jackson never spent a day in prison in her life, much less 10 months. Her lack of experience in an incarcerated setting made her live in constant fear. Jackson stated that she has anxiety related to confined spaces, trust issues with authority figures and anxiety when she passes by the spot of the accident.

The jury found in favor of Jackson and awarded her $7.9 million.

Rachelle Jackson

$1,000,000 Personal Injury: length of confinement

$150,000 Personal Injury: false arrest

$2,000,000 Personal Injury: malicious prosecution

$250,000 Personal Injury: state false arrest

$4,000,000 Personal Injury: intentional infliction of emotional distress

$500,000 Personal Injury: cooercive questioning

Post trial motions have been filed by the defendants, A brifeing schedule has been set by Judge Castillo.

A lawsuit was recently filed against Norfolk Southern Railway by a former employer who believes they violated the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA).

The man states in his suit that his employer didn’t provide him with a safe working environment and as a result he has suffered.

Former Employee Takes Action

Lynn Whittaker says that in 2007 he was seriously injured while working at the A.O. Smith Yard in Granite City.

Whittaker says he suffered neck injuries along with knee and shoulder injuries due to a time when he was walking along the train during an ice storm.

He reportedly slipped and fell on ballasts that were frozen.

Lawsuit Details

The suit accuses Norfolk of being negligent because of their failure to provide safe work conditions for their employees.

As a result of his injuries, Whittaker has reportedly suffered from a great deal of pain and has accrued medical expenses, lost wages and his ability to enjoy the normality’s of life has been lost.

Whittaker is seeking a sum compensation for his injuries in excess of $25,000.

Miami-Dade Public Works is actively solving a problem that should ease traffic in the county.

Loops, or traffic detection sensors, are those black oval lines at an intersection. As cars approach an intersection and roll over the lines, the loops tell the traffic signal when to go red and when to stay green.

When they’re operating, the busiest street at an intersection will only go red when the cross intersection has a car waiting. When they’re broken, the light goes red about every minute, whether there’s a car waiting or not. This, officials said, is one of the main causes of traffic congestion.

In Miami-Dade County, 20 percent of the loops are broken. While that’s not bad compared to the rest of Florida, which has a 40 percent loop failure, Miami Dade Public Works’ Bob Williams said it’s a problem that needs to be solved.

“Twenty percent is more than we want. It’s causing a decrease in the quality of our traffic flow and we’ve set out to attack this problem,” Williams told Local10’s Rob Schmitt.

Williams said the county gave him about $1,000,000 to fix all 2,000 broken loops. He said the project should be completed in one to two years.

Miami Beach Vice Mayor Richard Steinberg discovered the problem. Sick of sitting at red lights for no reason at all, he asked Public Works why this is happening.

That’s when the county discovered that many more loops were broken than it had originally thought.

Steinberg said he’s excited to see what kind of progress fixing the loops makes for traffic in the county.

“All of us drive on the roads and we sit at those lights. If we can just get through them a little more quickly, we’ll all be a lot happier,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of tractor-trailer and bus drivers in the United States carry commercial driver’s licenses despite also qualifying for full federal disability payments, and some of those drivers have suffered seizures, heart attacks or unconscious spells, according to a new U.S. safety study obtained by The Associated Press.