Virginia Injury Lawyer Blog

According to Consumer Reports, car seats for infants (the rear-facing seats for infants up to about one year in age) usually fail in broadside crashes -- 10 of 12 models tested failed, some "disastrously" (the seat often separated completely from its base). One popular model -- the Evenflo Discovery -- failed not just in broadside collisions but also in head-on collisions.

One possible explanation for the failures: the manufacturers are only required to test infant seats in head-on collisions, despite that about 30 infants in the United States die each year in broadside collisions.

Parents are cautioned, however, that holding an infant in your arms during car travel is not a safe alternative.

While it appears that some work is being done to improve these infant seats, we need quick action -- including legislation or regulation requiring that these infant seats withstand side-impact collisions -- if we want to save our precious children from death, brain injury and other unspeakable tragedies .

If you -- like many personal-injury victims -- are taking over-the-counter (OTC) pain medications, you need to be aware of new proposed FDA (Food and Drug Administration) warnings.

On January 2, 2007, the Washington Post reported that the FDA has proposed stronger warning labels on over-the-counter "painkiller" medications, especially because of the risk of liver and stomach damage. These warnings would apply to all OTC medicines containing acetaminophen and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including aspirin, naproxen and ibuprofen (in popular products such as Tylenol, Aleve, Motrin, Advil and Tylenol Arthritis Pain).

These medications -- often used to treat headaches and muscle pain/discomfort -- should be taken at the lowest dose possible for the shortest time possible, especially if one is taking any other medicine(s). There are additional known hazards when mixing alcohol with any of these medicines.

One "take-away" from these proposed warnings, then, is to rid yourself of the common misconception that "over-the-counter" medications are "harmless" and without risk.

In another post to this Blog, I lamented both the bias against any plaintiff and the especial bias against any plaintiff suing a doctor or hospital for medical negligence:

Virginia's not being on this list of "judicial hellholes" is no surprise to Virginia judges or the trial lawyers for the plaintiff and defense. Each of them knows that an injured plaintiff in Virginia has one hand tied behind his back and two strikes against him when he first comes to bat in court. Candidly, this does not apply to victims of medical malpractice in Virginia, who have two hands and two feet tied-up, and who can be seen limping-up to the plate and then simply heading back to the dugout without taking a swing.

In the January 2, 2007 issue of The New York Times , Jane Brody recounts the extent of the problem of medication errors in America:

Medication errors are among the most common medical mistakes, injuring or killing at least 1.5 million people a year and incurring at least $3.5 billion a year in extra hospital costs alone, according to a report issued in July by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. This was the institute’s second report on the subject, and the committee that compiled it stated that insufficient progress had been made since its first report, “To Err Is Human,” was issued in 1999.

If there are 1.5 million Americans every year being injured or killed by medication errors, logic tells us that this fate befalls many thousands of Virginians every year. Despite the plaintive cries of the insurers of doctors and hospitals that medical-malpractice verdicts are won and "won big" too often by injured plaintiffs, there are few medical-malpractice verdicts for patients in Virginia, and fewer still based upon medication errors.

This begs the facetious question in the title above, "Why are there no medication errors in Virginia?" The answer lies in the simple but stark difference between the frequent reality of medication errors and the infrequent reality of a jury's holding a medical professional accountable.

The author of this New York Times article cited her own personal experience:

A similar error befell my father at a leading New York hospital. After weeks of intensive care following a massive heart attack, he was sent home with medication from the hospital pharmacy to prevent his body from rejecting his damaged heart. He was about to take the first pill when my mother noticed that the name on the vial was Mrs. Rosenberg, not Sidney Brody, and that it contained estrogen, not the prednisone my father needed.

If we want to make headway in making careless medication errors like this unacceptable, our jurors must be prepared to let go of the iconic worship of those who save us or make us feel better. Our jurors must simply be willing to hold these doctors and hospitals, like everyone else, to a standard of reasonable care. We expect our doctors and hospitals to treat us and our loved ones with reasonable care, and to be accountable for doing so. Should we accept anything less for our "brothers and sisters" in the community?

Traffic deaths in the United States in 2005 -- 43,443 -- reached their highest levels since 1990, according to government statistics cited by the Insurance Journal, The increase was more than 1 percent compared to 2004.

This increase was attributed in part to increased deaths from motorcycle and pedestrian accidents. One possible explanation for the spike in this particular segment of the population is that -- as our urban/suburban populations rise, and our roads and highways become more crowded -- we as drivers focus most on what endangers us -- the bigger, looming objects on the roads like trucks and SUV's -- and we don't look for or just don't see the smaller figures on the roads like motorcyclists and pedestrians.

The lessons to all of us? Driving is not just about protecting ourselves; it's also about looking for and protecting others, especially those who most need our protection -- like the elderly pedestrian who is not alert or the child running mindlessly across a neighborhood street.

Here's a novel idea for the Bush Administration: the next time a Virginia jury considers the proper amount to award a Virginia citizen severely injured by the carelessness of another, the jury should consider ... the facts of the specific case ... rather than the Bush Administration's talking points for the insurance industry that are meant to prejudice a jury and keep it from its solemn duty to ... yes, consider the facts of the specific case before the jury.

The Bush administration recently has added to its growing stockpile another claim based on false data. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulsen Jr. stated that "the broken tort system is an Achilles heel for our economy." Paulsen based his opinion on a "study" by an insurance industry consulting firm.

It seems that the study includes the cost of the insurance industry itself - multimillion dollar salaries for insurance CEOs, rent on office buildings, and administration overhead - in the "cost" of the legal system. Business Week called the study "a wild exaggeration," and The Wall Street Journal stated that the study "includes payments that don't involve the legal system at all." The Journal concluded that payments from a careless driver to somebody who has been legitimately wronged is not evidence of a "system run amok,"

Even the organization conducting the study admitted that "the costs tabulated in this study are not a reflection of litigated claims or of the legal system," and the primary author of the study has said that tort-reform advocates' use of the data has been "misleading."

In May of 2005 the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank in Washington D.C. found that this report:

was one-sided, exaggerating the impact of the tort system and ignoring its benefits, and that evidence supporting them is shaky or nonexistent. Claims that the tort system harms the U.S. economy do not square with the data. In fact, there is a good deal of evidence to the contrary.

To be sure, there are frivolous claims, and frivolous defenses, in lawsuits of all varieties. But the Bush Administration has suggested that our tort system is fraught with frivolous claims. Perhaps the Administration should hold-up a mirror before accusing others of making repeated claims based upon false information.

No, Virginia, your jury verdicts for injured men, women and children are not excessive or "out-of-control."

The American Tort Reform Association -- "ATRA" -- has published its list of "Judicial Hellholes" of 2006 ... and, Virginia, you are not on its list. You are not even an "Honorable Mention," and you are not even on the "Watch List." One sure way to get on the list? Allow runaway jury verdicts.

No doubt Virginia's absence from this list will come as a great surprise to Virginia jurors who long have been besieged with the cries of ATRA and the insurance companies and corporations to the effect that jury awards for the injured are "everywhere" out-of-control.

The insurance companies have dropped tons of propaganda over the landscape of America: propaganda that tells prospective jurors that every plaintiff is a malingering fraud and that every plaintiff's lawyer is an "ambulance-chaser" ... propaganda that does not tell prospective jurors that the insurance companies' media blitz over the past twenty (20) or so years has saved them untold millions of dollars that under the law should have gone to compensate millions of victims of serious injury and wrongful death.

Virginia jurors still believe -- against all the evidence -- that runaway verdicts for the injured are rampant in Virginia and that they must take corrective action to even the scales of justice. Yet jurors understandably have no knowledge of actual jury verdicts in Virginia because the insurance companies that tell them of the horror stories of isolated runaway verdicts do not tell them the rest of the truth -- of the flood of inadequate verdicts.

How do we know that jurors still believe that runaway verdicts are rampant? First, jurors tell us so after their verdicts. Second, ask a juror how many times he has heard of an inadequate verdict. His response: "never."

Virginia jurors still believe that plaintiff's lawyers are the promulgators of all of the lawsuit abuse. Yet Virginia judges and trial lawyers know that frivolous defenses in Virginia are at least as common as frivolous lawsuits. Ask a juror how many times he has heard of a frivolous defense. His response: "never."

Virginia's not being on this list of "judicial hellholes" is no surprise to Virginia judges or the trial lawyers for the plaintiff and defense. Each of them knows that an injured plaintiff in Virginia has one hand tied behind his back and two strikes against him when he first comes to bat in court. Candidly, this does not apply to victims of medical malpractice in Virginia, who have two hands and two feet tied-up, and who can be seen limping-up to the plate and then simply heading back to the dugout without taking a swing.

What can the Virginia juror do about this? Simple: rid yourself -- honestly rid yourself -- of the insurance companies' propaganda ... and simply listen to the facts of each case and follow the law in that case. This guarantees favor to no one ... except "Lady Justice." The law does not provide for your allegiance to the insurance companies' self-interested propaganda. The law provides -- no, demands -- your allegiance to Lady Justice.