Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog

Forced arbitration in consumer contracts has become a way of life in the United States. Almost all consumer contracts and purchase agreements contain clauses requiring a person that has been the victim of fraud, negligence, or intentional harmful conduct by a large company to give up their rights to a jury trial and submit to arbitration.

For many years consumer and lawyer groups have complained that these arbitration panels are stacked against consumers and serve as nothing more than “bought” protectors of large companies.

Recently, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson sued the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) and reached a settlement that is a tremendous win for consumers.

For years, NAF has been the credit card industry’s go-to provider for credit card collection arbitrations. The Minnesota Attorney General’s lawsuit charged NAF with falsely claiming to be a neutral forum despite having corporate ties to large debt collection firms, treating major U.S. corporations as its clients and secretly collaborating with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to try to discredit reports on its bias, such as a Public Citizen’s 2007 report showing that big corporations win 95 percent of the time before NAF.

The problem is much bigger than NAF alone. The Minnesota lawsuit also forced the American Arbitration Association (AAA), to anounce it was suspending these arbitrations.

Federal legislation has been introduced to ensure that these events are not repeated and that another arbitration company does not step into the void left by NAF. The Arbitration Fairness Act (H.R. 1020 and S. 931) would do just that. In addition, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act (H.R. 3126) would create an agency empowered to protect consumers from forced arbitration in contracts for financial products such as credit cards.

These bills which ensure fairness to all have been and will continue to be opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its big business constituents. We urge everyone to call, email, or write their Senators and Representatives in Congress to support passage of these bills.

As a Georgia injury lawyer who drives into Atlanta every morning, I see numerous people everyday on the highway who are either talking away on a cell phone or, worse yet, texting on some handheld device. Many of the ones on a cellphone can barely turn their head enough to make sure that there is nothing in the lane next to them before changing lanes. I have personally witnessed many “near-misses” from people who are hunting for keys on a texting device rather than looking where they are going. Unfortunately some of these people are tractor trailer and commercial truck drivers. Although it is not yet against the law to drive with these devices, it is negligent to do so and if you cause an automobile accident or a tractor trailer truck accident while using such a device, you may pay for it. Your cellphone records can be subpoenaed from your carrier to determine when you were utilizing the device and to whom you were communicating. Many automobile accidents leave victims with serious, life-altering injuries, including brain injuries. Sadly many negligent drivers who are pre-occupied with cellphone conversations and texting cause the wrongful death of innocent victims.

The New York Times published an article last week about this issue. They reported that in 2003 researchers at a federal agency proposed a long-term study of 10,000 drivers to assess the safety risk posed by cellphone use behind the wheel. Unfortunately the study or data from the study was never made public because the researcher’s agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration apparently didn’t want to anger Congress.

If you or a loved one have been injured as a result of an automobile accident or tractor trailer truck accident, call the Georgia injury lawyers of Finch McCranie, LLP at (800) 228-9159. We have been standing up for the rights of injured people for over forty years.

The first scientific study of car and truck crashes which occur while drivers are texting has revealed surprisingly data that indicates the risks far exceed previous estimates. Furthermore the risk posed by texting drivers far surpasses the dangers of other driving distractions.

The new study, conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, involved outfitting the cabs of long-haul trucks with video cameras over 18 months. It found that when the drivers texted, their collision risk was 23 times greater than when not texting.

In the moments before a crash or near crash, drivers typically spent nearly five seconds looking at their devices. That is enough time at typical highway speeds to cover more than the length of a football field.

Even though trucks take longer to stop and are less maneuverable than cars, the findings generally applied to all drivers, who tend to exhibit the same behaviors as the more than 100 truckers studied, the researchers said. Truckers, they said, do not appear to text more or less than typical car drivers, but they said the study did not compare use patterns that way.

The trucks were equipped with video cameras and tracked for three million miles as they hauled goods across the country. Even as frightening as the results is the fact that the truck drivers knew they were being recorded and continued to text while driving.

Tom Dingus, director of the Virginia Tech institute, said the study’s message was clear. Texting should never be done while driving.

Thirty-six states do not ban texting while driving;

A Georgia truck accident has resulted in the death of four people. The truck accident occured on Saturday when the truck going the wrong way on Interstate 95 collided head on with a minivan travelling from New York to Florida. According to the Georgia State Patrol, the truck was headed north in the center southbound lane. The truck driver was killed as were three of the six occupants of the minivan. Fortunately three children in the minivan survived the crash.
Authorities believe that alcohol was involved given the fact that the truck was going the wrong way on the interstate and was found to contained bottles of alcohol.

If you have been in a Georgia automobile accident or truck accident, it is important to make sure you know your legal rights. Contact the experienced Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie.LLP for a free consultation at (800) 228-9159.

Our Atlanta car accident attorneys frequently review cases in which the negligent driver has been distracted while conversing on a cell phone. Recently, the consumer advocacy groups Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety obtained records showing that since 2003, the government has known that drivers talking on their cell phones experience the same potentially deadly distraction whether they are using a handheld device or hands-free technology.

In a press release the groups stated that by keeping this information secret from the public for the past six years, the government has endangered even more lives. Cities and states across the country have passed laws and ordinances requiring drivers to use hands-free phones, mistakenly believing those devices to be safe and encouraging drivers to use them.

According to Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety, bBy withholding this data, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) led consumers to believe that it was safe to talk on their cell phones while driving if they kept both hands on the wheel. But these documents show that it is the conversation itself, not the device used to hear it, that causes “inattention blindness,” a cognitive state that slows a driver’s reaction time and limits his ability to detect changes in road conditions.

Further, scientific research and driving simulations analyzed in the NHTSA documents found that drivers using hands-free technology talk on the phone with greater frequency and for longer intervals.

The Center for Auto Safety is petitioning NHTSA today to restrict the availability of two-way communication features through in-vehicle systems while the vehicle is in motion, relying in part on information revealed in the released records as a basis for the petition. The Center also is asking NHTSA to support state programs designed to limit use of cell phones – whether hands-free or handheld – by drivers.

The Center for Auto Safety tried in 2008 to obtain the records through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, but NHTSA refused to provide them. The agency claimed an exemption to the FOIA law that allows nondisclosure of deliberative documents that pre-date policy decisions.

Represented by lawyers at Public Citizen, the Center for Auto Safety then sued, arguing that the data in question were not deliberative, but consisted of factual accounts, statements and summaries expanding the risks of all cell phone use by drivers. In response to the lawsuit, the agency turned over hundreds of pages of documents.

Tractor trailer accidents on Georgia highways can result in serious injury or death to innocent motorists. Yesterday, a North Carolina truck driver slammed his vehicle into the back of a pickup truck on GA-2. The tractor trailer pushed the pickup truck across the centerline into the path of another pickup truck according to the Georgia State Patrol. Two women were injured and taken to a local hospital. The driver of the tractor trailer was charged with following too closely, driving too fast for conditions and driving without a drivers license on his person. This collision could have very easily resulted in the wrongful death of the two injured women as well as other innocent victims.

If you or your loved ones have been injured in a tractor trailer truck accident, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP who have represented injury victims for over forty years.

Many servicemembers and dependents reside in Georgia. While servicemembers can receive care at military hospitals they have no rights if they are the victim of malpractice, no matter how egregious. The Feres Doctrine, named after a 1950 Supreme Court decision, grants complete immunity to military health care professionals who commit malpractice upon service members. Service members who have sacrificed for their country and become victims of malpractice are left to suffer the consequences with no recourse.

This injustice has again come to light in the case of a 20-year-old Air Force serviceman who was reported to be in critical condition at the University of California Davis Medical Center on Monday, after losing both legs in what has been described as complications from routine gallbladder surgery.

The gall bladder surgery was performed at Travis Air Force Base. The Air Force would only comment that a "serious medical incident" occurred at its David Grant Medical Center on July 9 and is being investigated by the base, a national hospital accrediting commission and the U.S. Surgeon General.

The airman’s wife reported that he was supposed to get his gallbladder removed laparoscopically at the Travis hospital. Instead, a device being threaded into his belly nicked or punctured the aorta, the large artery that carries blood from the heart throughout the body.

Surgeons opened his abdomen and were able to repair the breach well enough to save his life, but in the process or afterward, something disrupted the blood supply to his legs. The airman’s wife said she was told the aorta was sewn together incompletely and began leaking.

According to reports, when the surgeons restored the blood supply to the iliac vessels, the legs were so badly swollen and damaged that blood circulated only down to the knees, leaving dead tissue below.

The Airman was then traansferred to the University of California Davis Medical Center where he underwent surgeries that removed first the lower-right leg, then the lower-left and more of the right.

The Airman’s wife also questions the over nine hours that passed from the initial surgical error until her husband was flown to UC Davis Medical Center. She wonders if his legs could have been saved had he been moved more quickly.

However, irrespective of any negligence on the part of the military surgeons or other healthcare professionals, this serviceman has no rights to seek recourse for his injuries.

According to news reports out of Memphis, Tennessee, on Monday, July 20, a suspect was on the run from the police when he ran a red light striking another vehicle and killing the innocent driver of that vehicle. The newspaper reports said the suspect was fleeing from the police in a stolen vehicle and that when he hit the other car he did so on the driver’s side killing the female driver instantly. The news report indicates that the innocent victim was a female in her early 20's.

This is yet another case where the police were pursuing a stolen vehicle at high speeds in an urban area where it was foreseeable that an innocent person might be caught up in the chase and seriously injured or killed. We ask the question again: “Was it worth it?” A member of the public wrote to the newspaper following this chase and made the following comments:

“It is really sad that the police are still having these chases. . .if the person is not a murder or something of the sort then why put other citizens in danger by chasing them? You have helicopters, radios and other means of catching them besides high speed chases that end like this one. . .I really wish that the police department would come up with a better way to handle these types of situations.”

We could not have said it any better ourselves. The dangers to the public caused by a high speed chase oftentimes is far more dangerous than is the suspect to the public at large. We continue to advocate that the police should not chase non-violent offenders in high speed pursuit situations. If the police are to obey proper police procedure and weigh the need to apprehend against the danger presented by the chase itself, the police hopefully one day will learn that the only chases that are justified, particularly in an urban setting, are those involving violent felons.

We read in the paper about a tragic death which occurred in Pittsburg, Kansas on July 17 of this year. According to news accounts, deputy Sheriffs in Cherokee County, Kansas were pursuing a driver who had committed traffic violations. During the high speed pursuit, the fleeing suspect rear-ended another vehicle on the road resulting in the death of a 13-year old innocent victim. The child’s mother was taken to a nearby hospital but the news accounts released thus far do not indicate the severity of her injuries although losing her daughter obviously is catastrophic.

This news account is typical of many we read these days concerning high speed pursuits. The police continue to chase suspects for minor non-violent offenses. It is foreseeable that during a high speed pursuit a fleeing suspect may run a red light, run out of control or otherwise crash into another vehicle on the road occupied by the innocent. The best way to prevent the death penalty to the innocent is simply to terminate the pursuit.

The only person who has control over the outcome of a high speed pursuit is the professional law enforcement official involved. The suspect is obviously unwilling to be apprehended and is willing to take risks and expose innocent members of the public to the risks they are willing to assume for themselves. The one in control (the police officer) should never let the idiot fleeing driver be in control of the situation. All the police officer has to do is terminate the pursuit if they cannot apprehend the suspect safely. If there are other vehicles on the road at the time of the pursuit and it is clear that the suspect is driving dangerously, the pursuit needs to be terminated so as to prevent serious injury or death to innocent members of the public.

Many people who review these cases continue to support the actions of the police and blame only the fleeing suspect. Clearly, the fleeing suspect is to blame. However, experience indicates over and over again that it is foreseeable during high speed pursuits that the suspect and/or the police officer may lose control of their vehicle. If they do, the end result is the death penalty and/or serious injury to innocent members of the public who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The question arises: Is it worth imposing the death penalty on the innocent in order to apprehend someone for a non-violent offense? The death penalty to the innocent could be prevented simply by terminating the pursuit even if it means allowing a non-violent offender to escape. Oftentimes, the offender can be apprehended at a later time through tag information, description of the vehicle, etc. The point to be made is that serious injuries and deaths during high speed pursuits are preventable if the professional officer involved controls the situation, exercises professional judgment and terminates the pursuit where the danger to the public presented by the chase itself is greater than the need to apprehend a non-violent suspect.

Accutane, a popular, but dangerous, acne drug has been pulled from the U.S. market by its manufacturer, Roche Holdings, a Swiss company. Currently, Accutane is the subject of about 700 lawsuits alleging that the drug caused inflammatory bowel disease. Most of the lawsuits have been consolidated in the courts of New Jersey, where the drug is manufactured by Hoffman -LaRoche, a U.S. subsidary of Roche Holdings.

Inflammatory bowel disease (which is not the same thing as irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS) refers to two diseases that cause inflammation of the intestines, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. The diseases have some features in common, but there are some important differences.

Ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory disease of the large intestine, also called the colon. In ulcerative colitis, the inner lining of the intestine becomes inflamed and develops ulcers. Ulcerative colitis is often the most severe in the rectal area, which can cause frequent diarrhea. Mucus and blood often appear in the stool if the lining of the colon is damaged.

Crohn's disease differs from ulcerative colitis in the areas of the bowel it involves. It most commonly affects the last part of the small intestine and parts of the large intestine. However, Crohn's disease can attack any part of the digestive tract. Crohn's disease causes inflammation that extends much deeper into the layers of the intestinal wall than ulcerative colitis. Crohn's disease generally tends to involve the entire bowel wall, whereas ulcerative colitis affects only the lining of the bowel.

By withdrawing the drug from the U.S. market Roche may be hoping to fuel settlements of the pending lawsuits. Roche has lost the six lawsuits that have gone to trial to date with damages totaling more than 33 million dollars.

The lawsuits allege that Roche failed to warn doctors and patients about the risks of developing inflammatory bowel disease.

Accutane has previously been linked to birth defects and has been removed from the market in 11 other countries.

Continue reading "Accutane Removed From Market" »

Georgia truck accident lawyers know that many times a tractor-trailer truck accident occurs as a result of defective equipment, including truck tires. Just this week, the executrix of the estate of a Tennessee man killed in a tractor-trailer accident filed a $10 million wrongful death suit against the employer of the man driving the a truck involved in the accident. It was reported that the victim was driving a southbound on Interstate 75 when a northbound tractor-trailer blew out a tire and collied with the center median wall. The collision sent the trailer flying over the median where the victim struck it head-on and was killed. The lawsuit alleges that the driver and his employer, the owner of the truck, had been negligent for not maintaining the truck and trailer, specifically inspecting and replacing the tires on the vehicle, including the tire that failed and caused the crash.

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations provide that no commercial vehicle may be operated on any tire that (1) has body ply or belt material exposed through the tread or sidewall, (2) has any tread or sidewall separation, (3) is flat or has an audible leak, or (4) has a cut to the extent that the ply or belt material is exposed. Any tire on the front wheels of a bus, truck or truck tractor must have a tread groove pattern depth of at least 4/32nd of an inch at any point in a major tread groove. All other tires must have a tread groove pattern depth of at least 2/32nd of an inch when measured in a major tread groove. Motor vehicles cannot be operated with loads that exceed a weight greater than the tire’s capacity.

If you have been in a Georgia truck accident, it is important to make sure that you understand your legal rights. You may be able to recover money for medical bills, lost wages, funeral costs, as well as compensation for wrongful death or permanent disability. Contact the experienced Georgia truck accident attorneys at Finch McCranie, LLP for a free evaluation of your case at 1-800-228-9159.

Georgia injury lawyers have long since known that driver fatigue may be the number one safety problem in the trucking industry today, and is a factor in nearly 40% of all crashes nationwide. Unfortunately, it is routine practice for many trucking companies to violate the hours of service and related FMCSR safety rules. In our investigation of tractor trailer truck accident cases involving serious injuries or even death that some truck drivers keep “dual” log books. Greedy, profit-driven motives have made driver fatigue in the trucking industry a vast, largely unchecked problem resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children each year.

Tractor trailer accident victims often sustain very severe injuries and incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills, not to mention thousands in lost wages. In these cases, it important to retain legal counsel as soon as possible so that a very thorough investigation can be done to discover and document crucial evidence.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a accident or wreck involving a truck, call one of the experienced truck accident lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP.

As a Georgia injury lawyer for over 20 years, I have represented the dependants of many workers who have died as a result of on-the-job accidents. These Georgia workers compensation claims for death benefits arise from every imaginable type of industrial accident. As an example, I read that a Macon, Georgia man died in a gravel truck accident that occurred on Monday afternoon in Dodge County. The man was reportedly unloading gravel for road construction on Georgia Highway 117. According to Georgia State Patrol, the dump truck trailer was parked on a slope and apparently fell over on him. There were apparently no witnesses to the accident; however, a customer at a nearby store noticed the overturned truck which led to the discovery of the worker’s body. If the deceased worker had dependants they may be entitled to benefits which are available under the Georgia Workers Compensation Act.

Since 1966, the Georgia Injury Lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have tried and won countless worker’s compensation claims for Georgia victims of on-the-job injuries. We always offer free, no obligation consultations. To speak to a Georgia worker’s compensation lawyer at Finch McCranie, LLP, call us today at 1-800-228-9159.

According to a report issued by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty jumped twenty percent (20%) during the first six months of 2009. The number of officers killed in traffic related incidents increased seventeen percent (17%) during the first six months of 2009 from 30 to 35 deaths. Of interest is the fact that more officers are killed in the line of duty in traffic related accidents than they are with incidents involving firearms.

We have blogged before about the dangers to the public caused by high speed police chases. Obviously, officers in the line of duty are endangered when they engage in these pursuits. While such pursuits are justified when the offender is dangerous to the public such as a carjacker, armed robber, suspected rapist or murderer, the same cannot be stated for situations involving minor traffic offenders and other non-violent offenses. In short, when the suspected offender has done nothing which is dangerous to the public and thereafter a high speed pursuit ensues at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour, not only is the innocent public endangered by such a pursuit, the officer himself can be endangered as he/she can lose control of their vehicle quite easily at such speeds.

We continue to advocate that high speed pursuits should be limited to those situations where the danger to the public caused by the chase itself is justified by the dangers to the public presented by the suspect. If the danger to the public caused by the chase itself is greater than the need to apprehend a non-violent offender as an example, the pursuit should be terminated. Research and statistics show that if pursuits are terminated, the suspect ceases to flee, shows down and deadly collisions are avoided. Of interest is that crime does not increase in those jurisdictions that have restrictive pursuit policies.

Georgia injury lawyers know that a medical providers failure to diagnose a condition or even mis-diagnose a condition can, and often does, result in the wrongful death of a patient.

A Tennessee state court jury has awarded nearly $24 million to a woman in what is one of the largest medical malpractice verdicts ever in the state of Tennessee. The lawsuit alleged her doctor failed to diagnose a lump that she complained about over the course of 18 months. The lump turned out to be breast cancer.

The Georgia medical malpractice lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have many years of experience in medical malpractice cases and we are committed to providing personal service and to obtaining fair compensation for all of our clients. Call us at 1-800-228-9159 for a free consultation.

Now that the Obama administration is proposing health care reform, big insurance companies and some doctors associations are attempting to graft so called "tort reform" into the legislation. Georgia residents are already faced with a very restrictive system which affords doctors, hospitals, and other health care professionals with extraordinary protections against lawsuits. Even in the worst cases of malpractice victims are restircted to a recovery for non economic damages of no more than $350,000.00.

The New York Times today ran an excellent guest editorial regarding medical malpractice reform by Tom Baker, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. It is posted below:

OUR medical liability system needs reform. But anyone who thinks that limiting liability would reduce health care costs is fooling himself. Preventable medical injuries, not patient compensation, are what ring up extra costs for additional treatment. This means taxpayers, employers and everyone else who buys health insurance — all of us — have a big stake in patient safety.

Eighty percent of malpractice claims involve significant disability or death, a 2006 analysis of medical malpractice claims conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health shows, and the amount of compensation patients receive strongly depends on the merits of their claims. Most people injured by medical malpractice do not bring legal claims, earlier studies by the same researchers have found.

On the other hand, medical liability has improved patient safety — by leading hospitals to hire risk managers, for example, and spurring anesthesiologists to improve their safety standards and practices. Even medical societies’ efforts to attack the liability system have helped, by inspiring the research that has documented the surprising extent of preventable injuries in hospitals. That research helped start the patient safety movement.

When it comes to rising medical costs, liability is a symptom, not the disease. Getting rid of liability might save money for hospitals and some high-risk specialists, but it would cost society more by taking away one of the few hard-wired patient safety incentives.

Besides, there’s a better answer for doctors worried about high malpractice insurance premiums.

Critics point to defensive medicine as the hidden burden that liability imposes on health care. Yet research shows that while the fear of liability changes doctors’ behavior, that isn’t necessarily a burden. Some defensive medicine is, like defensive driving, good practice. Too often, we can’t distinguish between treatments that are necessary and those that are wasteful. Better research on what works and what doesn’t — evidence-based medicine — will help. And it will address the more general challenge of avoiding costly but unnecessary care.

Just as we need evidence-based medicine, we also need evidence-based medical liability reform. The research shows, overwhelmingly, that the real problem is too much malpractice, not too many malpractice lawsuits. So medical providers should be required to disclose injuries, provide quicker compensation to deserving patients and — here’s the answer for doctors worried about their premiums — shift the responsibility for buying malpractice insurance to hospitals and other large medical institutions. Evidence-based liability reform would give these institutions the incentive they need to cut back on the most wasteful aspect of American health care: preventable medical injuries.

Our Georgia injury lawyers have represented clients who have suffered injuries or lost loved ones in boating accidents and collisions. Boating accidents usually occur in our area either on a privately owned vessel or on a personal watercraft (jet ski). Some of the causes include:

Boater error
Boater inexperience
Boating under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol
Equipment failure
Adverse weather and/or water conditions

A boat operator and the boats owner must exercise the highest degree of care to prevent injuries to passengers, swimmers and others in the nearby water and those in any boats around them. Failure to exercise the required care can result in serious injury or the wrongful death of innocent victims. In addition to the Atlantic Ocean, Georgia has numerous recreational bodies of water. In addition to the Chattahoochee and many other Georgia rivers, there are numerous lakes where boaters congregate: Lake Lanier, Lake Sinclair, Lake Oconee, West Point Lake and others. Our main office is located in Atlanta which is not far from any of these lakes. As a result, we have seen more than our share of boating accidents and fatalities. If you or a loved one have been injured in a boating accident, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP.

A study released by Public Citizen found that medical malpractice payments were at or near record lows in 2008, but suggests the decline almost certainly indicates that a lower percentage of injured patients received compensation, not that health safety has improved.

Medical malpractice is so common, and litigation over it so rare, that between three and seven Americans die from medical errors for every one who receives a payment for any malpractice claim, according to Public Citizen’s analysis of medical malpractice payment data and the best available patient safety estimates.

For the third straight year, 2008 saw the lowest number of medical malpractice payments since the federal government's National Practitioner Data Bank began tracking such data in 1990. The 11,037 payments in 2008 were 30.7 percent lower than the average number of payments recorded by the NPDB in all previous years.

Ratios of payments per capita and per physician have fallen even lower compared with historical norms. There were 13.5 payments per million physicians in 2006 (the most recent year for which the number of physicians is available), which is 29.2 percent lower than the average in previous years.

The cost of the medical malpractice liability system -- if measured broadly by adding all malpractice insurance premiums -- fell to less than 0.6 percent of the $2.1 trillion in total national health care costin 2006, the most recent year for which the necessary data to make such comparisons are available.

The cost of actual malpractice payments fell to 0.18 percent -- one-fifth of 1 percent -- of all health care costs in 2006. Annual malpractice payments have subsequently fallen from $3.9 billion in 2006 to $3.6 billion in 2008, but comparative data on total health care costs are not available.

"Any way you measure it, medical liability accounts for less than 1 percent of the country's health care costs, and the vast majority of victims receive no compensation whatsoever," said David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch division. "These are people who died or were left with serious permanent injuries -- out of work, with enormous medical costs for the rest of their lives -- and they and their families are getting nothing from the doctors and hospitals responsible."

The amount paid out for medical malpractice generally goes to patients with the most serious injuries. More than 80 percent of the money paid out for medical malpractice in 2008 was for cases involving "significant permanent injuries"; "major permanent injuries"; injuries resulting in quadriplegia, brain damage or the need for permanent care; or death, according to NPDB reporting.

Despite the hysteria surrounding debates over medical malpractice litigation, experts have repeatedly concluded that several times as many patients suffer avoidable injuries as those who sue.

The best known such finding was included in the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) 1999 study, "To Err Is Human," which concluded that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die every year because of avoidable medical errors.
Fewer than 15,000 people (including those with non-fatal outcomes) received compensation for medical malpractice that year, and in 2008, the number receiving compensation fell to just over 11,000.

There is no evidence that there are fewer errors today. The Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, learned about 116 occasions in which surgeons operated on the wrong part of a patient’s body in 2008 and 71 times in which foreign objects were left inside patients’ bodies. Health experts call these "never events," meaning that they simply should not happen at all.

A truck accident near Albany, Georgia has resulted in the wrongful death of a 17 year old Wisconsin teenager. His 16 year old sister was seriously injured and remains in critical condition in an Albany hospital. The boy died after his family's SUV was struck by a truck northeast of Albany, Georgia on Saturday afternoon. The family was returning to Wisconsin from a vacation. It is reported that the driver of the truck died in the crash.

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have been representing the survivors of automobile accidents and trucking accidents for over 40 years. If you have a loved one who has lost his or her life as a result of the negligence of another driver, consult the experienced injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP.

Many Atlanta residents trust the safety of their young children to playpens. However, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is expected today to announce a recall of one million Kolcraft play yards.

The recall of the portable playpens, some of which include changing tables or bassinets, follows hundreds of complaints of collapsing sides and reports of 21 injured children. The playpens were made in China and distributed by Kolcraft Enterprises Inc. of Chicago.
According to press reports, a Kolcraft spokeswoman, confirmed the recall.

Since September 2007, nearly seven million cribs, bassinets and play yards have been recalled due to hazardous defects primarily related to durability and hardware. This has prompted product-safety advocates to call for tougher standards and regulation for children’s products.

The recall was prompted by 347 reports to Kolcraft that the play yard’s side rail can fail to latch properly, posing a fall hazard when a child pushes against it. The 21 injuries included bumps, bruises and one concussion.

There has been some speculation that the CPSC action was delayed because Kolcraft was late in reporting the complaints to the CPSC, as required by law.

The recall involves dozens of models, including Kolcraft Travelin’ Tot play yards and similar play yards with other brand names Kolcraft has licensed, including Carter’s, Sesame Street, Jeep, Contours, Care Bear and Eric Carle. The products were sold at stores including Babies R Us, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Sears and Target, from January 2000 through January 2009, retailing for between $50 and $160.

The CPSC advises consumers to immediately stop using the play yards and contact Kolcraft or the agency for information on how to get a repair kit.

In September 2007 Kolcraft recalled about 425,000 infant play yards after a child was strangled on a play yard’s changing table’s restraint strap and died.

As part of a major product-safety law Congress approved in August, the CPSC must strengthen manufacturing standards for infant products, including cribs and playpens.

A Kolcraft spokeswoman tried to downplay the dangers involved by pointing out that of the one million units, the several hundred incidents of reported collapse “is really a small number and there were no serious injuries.” This would be small consolation to the parents of a child injured by the negligent actions of this large corporation.

A bone growth agent used in thousands of spinal fusion surgeries for neck pain has been linked to complications and higher cost, according to the first nationwide study of the product. Spinal fusion is one option for people with back and neck pain, although some researchers have questioned how well it works.

In a spinal fusion, a surgeon removes the disc between two vertebrae and replaces it with the patient’s own bone, BMP or another product. If successful, new bone grows and fuses the vertebrae into one piece, stabilizing the spine.

Safety questions arose last year about the protein product, BMP, when used in fusion surgeries in the neck region, a use not approved by federal regulators. Doctors are allowed to use products such as this for purposes for which they have not been approved. The lead author of the study which appears in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that some of these complications are life-threatening because the neck is such a sensitive area.

Smaller studies have shown BMP promotes better healing of the bone and fewer repeat surgeries to fix failed spinal fusions. The product also makes it unnecessary to surgically harvest the patient’s own bone from the shin or hip for a graft. However, the powerful protein can make bone grow in unwanted places if it’s incorrectly used. There are no official guidelines for its use.

For the new study, researchers looked at records of more than 325,000 spinal fusions from 2002 to 2006. When BMP was used in the front of the neck region of the spine, there were complications in 7 percent of patients before they left the hospital, a 50 percent higher rate compared to when the product wasn’t used.

Elsewhere in the spine, however, BMP led to no more complications than other spinal fusion treatments.

Surgeons have rapidly adopted BMP since the Food and Drug Administration approved it in 2002 for back surgeries. Doctors used it in 17,623 spinal fusions in 2006, nearly 1 in 4 cases, the researchers found.

Last year, the FDA warned doctors about 38 reports of complications when the treatment was used in the neck region of the spine. For unknown reasons, some patients had swelling after surgery, and that caused problems with breathing and swallowing.

Adverse prescription drug reactions are more common than most consumer are aware, and can have serious consequences, including death. Seeking to address these problems, a Food and Drug Administration panel has recommended new limits on acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol. Acetaminophen is the most commonly prescribed drug in the U.S., and commonly used in other drugs and remedies such as cough and cold medicines.

Acetaminophen overdoses are the main cause of liver failure in the U.S. Accidental acetaminophen overdoses kill about 100 people and send some 56,000 people to emergency rooms annually. The FDA said that while the drug is safe if taken at recommended levels, its prevalence in a variety of pain relievers, fever reducers and cough medicines means patients don't realize they are ingesting far more than they should. One study found that 19% of adults in the U.S. take the drug in a given week.

The FDA advisory panel consisting of 37 doctors, pharmacists and researchers voted on the recommendations yesterday after spending two days discussing steps the FDA should take to reduce the number of acetaminophen overdoses.

The FDA panel recommended a series of measures, including banning a number of well known and commonly prescribed prescription pain relief products, such as Vicodin, Ultracet and Percocet. These pain relievers combine acetaminophen with narcotic painkillers.
That recommendation could also affect 240 pending drug applications.

The panel recommended that prescription products containing acetaminophen should include strong warnings about potential liver damage. And they also strongly advised that only one concentration of over-the-counter cold medicines should be available, citing concerns about liver damage in children. That could affect products such as Theraflu and NyQuil.

The panel did not recommend banning over-the-counter cough and cold medicines and other products that combine acetaminophen with other ingredients. The panel cited data showing liver damage occurs most frequently in patients using prescription products.

If accepted by the FDA, which generally follows suggestions of its expert panels, the recommendations could result in major changes in labeling and packaging.