Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog

Every year Georgia citizens purchase and take millions of dollars worth of prescription medication, thinking that it is safe to do so. Georgia injury lawyers know that unfortunately, many of these medications are dangerous drugs, notwithstanding the fact that the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has “approved” them. As we have seen, many of these dangerous drugs cause serious injuries and sometimes result in the wrongful death of the consumer. An example of such a drug is Vioxx. Fortunately, some victims and their families are getting justice. The Philadelphia Inquirer just reported that New Jersey’s highest court has upheld $4.5 million in Vioxx-related damages against drug maker Merck & Co. The lawsuit was filed by the widow of John McDarby who developed heart problems after taking the drug and ultimately died of a heart attack. The original $13.9 million award in the case was later reduced to $4.5 million. Read Article: Philadelphia Inquirer

If you or a loved one has been seriously injured as a result of taking a dangerous drug, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP for a free consultation. We have been representing victims of serious injuries and wrongful death for over 40 years.

Big drug makers and medical device makers spend millions of dollars every year promoting their products to doctors and healthcare providers. Less known is the fact that they also spend millions lobbying Congress and agencies to push approval of their products. This was especially true in the last administration which had a reputation of bowing to the requests of big business, many times at the expense of patients.

The FDA released a report last Thursday that said four New Jersey congressmen and its own former commissioner unduly influenced the process that led to its decision last year to approve a patch for injured knees.

FDA reviewers had determined that ReGen Biologics Inc.'s Menaflex device was "unsafe" because it often failed, forcing patients to get another operation. Still, in response to 'extreme' 'unusual' and persistent pressure," agency managers approved the device for sale, the report indicated.

Joshua Sharfstein, the agency's principal deputy commissioner, said the report shows there were 'definite threats' to the integrity of the FDA's medical-device review process, and as a result, the agency is now reconsidering its decision on the device.

The report offered several recommendations to insulate FDA staff from outside pressures, all of which," Sharfstein said will be adopted.

In fact, the report said that after the FDA twice rejected the company's request for fast-track approval, ReGen enlisted the support of New Jersey lawmakers, who called then-FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach on the company's behalf. Eschenbach then "became involved in the case and pressed reviewers to issue a decision quickly

Georgia injury lawyers know that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is hardly the consumer safety “watchdog” that it was in prior years. In fact, just because a product has been approved by the FDA does not mean that it is a safe product! The influence drug manufacturers have over regulators, politicians and Congress is enormous. The Washington Post recently reported in an article (The Washington Post) that the FDA approved a controversial knee-surgery device after receiving pressure from lawmakers and lobbyists. According to a report released last week by the FDA, regulators seem to have buckled under political pressure from four New Jersey lawmakers with financial ties to ReGen Biologics. The report noted that FDA staff had previously opposed approval of the device.

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have been representing the victims of dangerous drugs and medical devices and other dangerous products for many years. If you or a loved one have been injured as a result of a dangerous products, call us for a free consultation at (800) 228-9159.

Amid the debate over so called medical malpractice reform, the rights of patients seem to be getting sacrificed for the profit of large insurance companies. A recent report from California demonstrates why the right of patients to redress in courts cannot be curtailed.

According to published reports the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) recently issued administrative penalties to 11 California hospitals, each of which has been "fined $25,000 for alleged regulation violations that caused injury or death to patients. The violations included failures in care, such as leaving sponges or other surgical tools inside patients and failures in communication between hospital departments or inadequate nurse training.

All of the hospitals must submit a plan of correction to the state, which outlines how the violations would be avoided in the future. The hospitals also have the right to appeal the citations within 10 days.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune since state health officials started assessing the penalties in 2007, they have found that medication mixups and surgical objects left in patients' bodies are the most common errors. Those two categories account for more than half of all 'immediate jeopardy' mistakes reported by hospitals in California.

The Los Angeles Times reported that USC University Hospital was fined after mixing up two patients' test results, mistakenly telling a patient with a broken leg that he had cancer in August 2007 and unnecessarily amputating his leg. The hospital was also fined $30,300 for failing to report the incident, but hospital officials have appealed that fine. Tenet Health Corp. sold the hospital to the university in April, and state officials emphasized that the fine was against Tenet, not the university.

According to the San Francisco Business Times, Sutter Health's Alta Bates/Summit Medical Center in the East Bay was fined because staff left a ring sizer in a patient's heart during surgery late last year. The ring sizer was left in the patient's heart on Dec. 11, 2008 and discovered until Dec. 22 when the patient received a CT scan to determine why he had breathing problems. The ring was removed Dec. 25, but the patient suffered more complications following that procedure, including kidney failure.

A surgery technician told state investigators he noticed the ring sizer was missing from its handle before he was relieved for a lunch break. Nothing was said about it when he returned from lunch, so he assumed it had been found.

Georgia nursing homes have been the subject of many investigations finding negligence and abuse in the care of the elderly and infirm. A new report has disclosed troubling information. A government program that brings extra scrutiny to poorly performing nursing homes leaves out hundreds of troubled facilities.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services identifies up to 136 nursing homes as "special focus facilities" subject to more frequent inspections because of their living conditions. In every state except Alaska, there are between one and six such facilities. But investigators have found that four times as many homes, or 580, could be considered among the nation's worst.

The report from the Government Accountability Office does not identify the homes.
The GAO recommended that the program be expanded two years ago. But, federal officials while agreeing with the concept, said they didn't have the resources to do so.

The GAO report which is being released Monday, also recommends adjusting the methods used to identify the worst performing nursing homes. The homes now under special attention are the worst performing in their state. But not all states are equal when it comes to nursing home quality. Comparing the homes nationally, as recommended, would ensure that scarce resources go to inspecting the nursing homes that truly need the most attention, according to the report.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told the GAO they disagreed with relying solely on a national comparison. The agency said it would consider an approach that allows for a national comparison to have more weight.

Some states have far more poorly performing nursing homes than are designated as special focus facilities. For example, Indiana had 52 nursing homes listed as among the worst performing, but only four are on the special list; California has 40 considered among the worst performing, but only four are on the list.

Ohio has five nursing homes on the special focus list but only three that investigators considered among the nation's worst.

Investigators also found that the worst-performing ones tend to be for-profit facilities affiliated with a chain of nursing homes. They are more likely to be a larger facility, averaging 102 residents, while other nursing homes not identified as among the worst had 89 residents on average

U.S. Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa is continuing his probe of improper relationships between big pharmaceutical manufacturers and physicians. He is now investigating the financial ties between the head of spine surgery at the University of Minnesota and device giant Medtronic Inc.

Sen. Grassley sent letters Tuesday to the chief executive of Minnesota’s Fairview Health Services, and the director of Team Spine-Minnesota Inc., requesting information regarding their relationship with Dr. David Polly of the University of Minnesota's Medical School.

An internationally known spine surgeon, Polly has been a Medtronic consultant since leaving the military in 2003. Between 2003 and 2007, Medtronic paid him $1.2 million for consulting, expenses and honoraria -- details that were unearthed in Grassley's ongoing investigation of conflicts of interest in medicine.

Grassley also sent letters to University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks requesting communications sent or received by Polly. Citing state laws on privacy, the University said it will release those documents only if Polly consents.

Consulting relationships are not uncommon in medical technology, but critics allege that the monetary nature of these relationships could skew doctors' preferences and create conflicts of interest in the types of devices they use on patients. Many such instances have been recently revealed by Grassley, leading many medical institutions to revise their policies.

Grassley's letter to Fairview's Eustis asks for a monthly accounting of all devices used by Polly in surgery since January 2008, as well as an explanation regarding Polly's role in Fairview's choice of devices used in spine procedures. The senator also asked whether Polly disclosed his relationship with Medtronic to Fairview.

In Tuesday's letter, Grassley highlights several comments Polly made during an interview with Minnesota Public Radio and to a university conflict-of-interest committee in 2006 regarding his government-funded research on a Medtronic bone-growth product.
The comments "appear to be false or misleading both to your review committee back in 2006 and in a recent radio interview," Grassley wrote.

In 2006, Polly agreed to a conflict-management plan after a university committee determined that his relationship with Medtronic represented a potential conflict of interest.

Many employment lawyers are confronted with hostile environment claims where managers exploit their positions to seek sexual favors from employees working underneath them. Such an employment case obviously involves sexual harassment but is entirely different and generally far less devastating to a victim when a sexual predator is hired by an employer and is allowed to gain access to vulnerable victims through their jobs. As an example, if a mental health facility hires someone unsuitable for a position and that person takes sexual advantage of a mentally ill patient, it can readily be seen that such an occurrence could be extremely devastating to the victim and his or her family. The question is how to best deal with such a situation from a legal standpoint when such a case is brought to the attention of an attorney.

Here at Finch McCranie we have seen many unfortunate cases where patients have been raped and sodomized at health care facilities. We have had cases where patients have been raped by other patients who were not properly supervised and/or situations where patients were raped by employees of the staff of the health care provider. In the latter situation, one of the best legal remedies available to the innocent victim is to file a claim against the employer for negligent hiring and retention of the sexual predator/employee.

An employer has a duty to exercise ordinary care not to hire or retain an employee the employer knew or should have known poses a risk of harm to others where it is reasonably foreseeable from the employee’s “tendencies” or “propensities” that the employee could cause the type of harm sustained by the victim. Thus, if an employer knew or in the exercise of ordinary care should have known that an employee hired and retained to perform duties involving personal contact with medicated or vulnerable patients was unsuitable for that position because he or she posed a reasonably foreseeable risk of personal harm to patients then, in that event, the employer can be held legally liable for having negligently hired and retained the unsuitable employee.

Sexual predators are criminals and because they are criminals and predators they can be very devious. By embedding themselves in jobs where they can gain access to helpless and vulnerable victims, the predators are more likely to be able to commit their heinous crimes without being detected and/or apprehended. Many times the victims cannot even identify their assailants. In other situations, the employee merely has to deny that the crime occurred and point out that the victim is mentally ill and/or heavily medicated and/or otherwise unreliable as a witness. Thus, these predators should never be given access to the most vulnerable amongst us and yet if an employer does not conduct a proper background check, such predators can be given unlimited access to an unlimited number of unsuspecting victims.

Any family that becomes aware that a helpless loved one has been sexually assaulted at a mental health facility, nursing home, assisted living facility or hospital should consider exploring whether the employee predator was negligently hired or retained by a negligent employer. If the predator is prosecuted and goes to jail, they are not going to have any assets to provide for compensation to what the victim is forced to endure. Oftentimes, medical expenses are incurred, counseling expenses are needed and other damages are imposed upon the victim and yet there is no available relief from the predator. In such a context, the law has long been that an employer is legally responsible for the acts of the employee if it should have reasonably been foreseen that the offending employee could pose a risk of harm to those entrusted to their care.

From newspaper accounts it appears that the Board of Commissioners of Clayton County may conduct an independent investigation into a police chase which resulted in the wrongful death of two innocent women who were returning from bible study when a pickup truck fleeing from a Clayton County police officer slammed into their vehicle on Old National Highway in Atlanta. The deadly pursuit began when the police noticed a suspect allegedly soliciting a prostitute. Even though this is a misdemeanor and a minor offense, Clayton County police officers began a high speed pursuit of the suspect which ended with deadly results. Even though the Clayton County Police Department policy does not allow for high speed pursuits of misdemeanor offenders, nonetheless, the Police Department has publicly come out in defense of its officers claiming that the pursuit was justified under the circumstances.

There is a way that the Clayton County Board of Commissioners can protect its tax payers and save lives at the same time. The Board of Commissioners should restrict police pursuits to cases involving violent crimes. Unless the fleeing suspect is known to be violent or known to have committed a violent felony, it hardly makes sense to pursue non-violent suspects at high speeds particularly when it is foreseeable that innocent third parties can be killed. If the Board of Commissioners investigates this incident, it should find that a restrictive policy would have protected these women and that there would be no unnecessary loss of life caused by a restrictive policy.

It simply is not worth taking a human life to capture someone for soliciting a prostitute. The need to immediately apprehend the suspect in this case was clearly outweighed by the danger of the chase to the public. And yet, as long as the police department allows its officers to chase under circumstances whenever they individually deem it appropriate, the public will be at risk. Rather than relying upon the judgment of an officer involved in a high speed pursuit, where his adrenalin is pumping and where his judgment may be altered by the natural desire to apprehend a suspect, the Clayton County Police Department should adopt a restrictive police policy which does not allow the public to be exposed to risk of serious injury or death unless a potentially dangerous chase is justified. In our judgment, the only chase that is ever warranted is where the police are pursuing someone for a violent felony. Under such circumstances, the danger to the public posed by the suspect is equal to the danger caused by the chase itself. For non-violent offenses, the dangers presented by the chase will typically always exceed the danger presented by non-violent suspect. We hope the Board of Commissioners will save lives and adopt a restrictive policy. If not the public is at risk, the officer chasing the suspect is a risk and yes, even the non-violent suspect is at risk. Again, the death penalty to the innocent is not worth capturing a “John” in a solicitation case. This may very will happen again if the policy is not changed.

Dangerous Toyota vehicles that may cause serious injury or death are on the roads of Georgia. Yesterday, Toyota announced it will order all dealers to inspect their cars for mismatched floor mats after a mat was suspected of causing a fatal accident in California. The mat caught the gas pedal on a Lexus causing it to runaway leading to a fiery crash that killed four family members in San Diego County.

California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor, 45, and three others were killed Aug. 28 on State Route 125 in a town near San Diego. The Lexus was doing more than 120 mph when it hit a sport-utility vehicle, launched off an embankment, rolled several times and burst into flames.

In addition to Saylor, who was a 19-year CHP veteran, the crash killed his wife, Cleofe, 45; their daughter, Mahala, 13; and Saylor's brother-in-law, Chris Lastrella, 38.

Lastrella called police about a minute before the crash to say the vehicle had no brakes and the accelerator was stuck.The 911 call ends with someone telling people in the car to hold on and pray, followed by a woman's scream.

The family was in a 2009 Lexus ES 350 that was loaned by a dealer while their own vehicle was being serviced.

Investigators with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have determined that a rubber all-weather floor mat found in the wreckage was slightly longer than the mat that belonged in the vehicle. They theorize that the long mat could have snared or covered the accelerator pedal.

In 2007, Toyota recalled all-weather mats from some of its Lexus ES 350s and Toyota Camrys after complaints that they could slip and trap the accelerator.

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have handled many wrongful death lawsuits where alcohol was a factor in causing or contributing to our client’s death. Some of these cases have involved our representation of a guest passenger who was killed as a result of the negligence of the host driver. Such could have been the case on Friday evening when an Augusta, Georgia man, Earl Clark, died in an accident on Mike Padgett Highway. Clark was the passenger of a 1988 Toyota Camry traveling north on Mike Padgett Highway. The host driver of the Toyota apparently attempted to turn left onto Clark Road and was struck by two vehicles traveling southbound. The southbound vehicles struck the passenger side of Toyota, trapping Clark in the vehicle. After he was extricated by emergency workers, he was taken to the Medical College of Georgia where he was pronounced dead. According to authorities, alcohol could have been a factor in the accident.

Under Georgia law, a host driver may be liable to the estate of a guest passenger, if the host driver’s negligence caused the death. Unfortunately, most people driving around Georgia’s roads do not have sufficient coverage to satisfy a judgment in a wrongful death case. For that reason, it is important to look to see if a third party may be liable. For instance, if the host driver of Clark’s car had been drinking it would be important to determine who provided alcohol to the driver. Until 1988, Georgia had no statute imposing liability upon bars or other commercial providers of alcoholic beverages for injuries or damages which resulted from the drunk driving of the person served. In fact, the Georgia courts had consistently held that the provider of alcohol could not be liable for the drunk driver’s misdeeds. In other words, they were insulated from liability. However, in 1985, the Georgia Supreme Court, in Sutter v. Hutchings, imposed, for the first time, liability upon the provider of alcoholic beverages for the consequences of the consumer’s drunk driving. Now, a commercial vendor of alcohol, such as a bar, who serves adult guests who are “noticeably intoxicated” at the time they are served may be liable to innocent third parties who are seriously injured or killed in an automobile accident. The Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 51-1-40(b) states that a provider of alcohol may be liable where he 1) willfully, knowingly, and unlawfully sells, furnishes, or serves alcoholic beverages to a person not of lawful drinking age, knowing that such a person will soon be driving a motor vehicle, or 2) knowingly sells, furnishes, or serves alcoholic beverages to a person who is in a state of noticeable intoxication, knowing that such person will soon be driving a motor vehicle.

If your loved one has died as a result of the negligence of a drunk or impaired driver, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP for a free consultation. We have over forty years experience handling wrongful death cases.

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have sued a number of police departments around the State of Georgia for the wrongful death of innocent citizens caused by police chases. Our experience has shown that following a high speed pursuit, the police begin immediately to plan their defense. We have already seen this in last week's outrageous police chase in Clayton County. The police have told reporters that the officer had already slowed down "hoping that the fleeing suspect would slow down". In other words, the police will say, as they always do, that they were not "in pursuit" at the time of the collision. Oh yes, they often contend they had "terminated the pursuit" by the time of the fatal crash. Trying now to put as much distance between the pursuing officer and the crash, they say the officer didn't even see the collision! I wonder whether the police videotape will bear this out or whether it will mysteriously disappear as it does in so many police chase cases. We see the same lame excuses for bad police conduct over and over. Where was the pursuing police officers supervisor in all of this. Did he radio the speeding officer and tell him to back off or terminate the chase or did he not hear such commands, if made.Will this be another case where the radio was not working properly? In handling many of these police chase cases, we discovered a woman whose own innocent daughter was killed as a result of a police chase case. She has a website which every citizen should check out. http://pursuitsafety.org/index.html She posts the photograph of every innocent victim of police chases. When you see the faces of some of the thousands of innocent victims who have lost their livesas a result of "cowboy" police chases over misdemeanor criminal offenses and traffic offenses, you can see why the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP feel passionate about these cases.

If you have a loved one that has been killed as a result of a police chase, the experienced Georgia police chase lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP would be more than happy to discuss the rights you have to pursue justice. Call us at (404) 658-9070 or toll free at (800) 228-9159.

Our Atlanta product liability attorneys have represented parents of children killed and seriously injured by dangerous products.

Drawstrings in hooded sweatshirts have been long recognized as a danger to small children. There have been many reports of children strangled after the drawstrings have been accidently caught in various devices. Some of these incidents have resulted in death.
In November 2008, a 3-year-old boy died in Fresno, Calif., when the drawstring on his Hill Sportswear hooded sweatshirt became stuck on a playground set strangling him. Hill Sportswear and the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall of the sweatshirts in February of this year.

The CPSC issued guidelines in 1996 to help prevent children from strangling or getting entangled in the neck or waist drawstrings in jackets and sweatshirts. In 1997, the clothing industry adopted a voluntary standard for drawstrings that incorporated the CPSC guidelines.
In May 2006, the CPSC ruled that children's sweatshirts or jackets with drawstrings at the hood or neck would be regarded as defective and presenting a substantial risk of injury to young children.

Federal law requires manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to report to the agency within 24 hours that a product contains a defect that causes a safety hazard or doesn't comply with consumer product safety rules.

The CPSC announced Tuesday that it had levied fines against four companies for improperly selling hooded sweatshirts or jackets that have drawstrings at the neck.

The CPSC fined the following companies for selling these dangerous products.

Kohl's Department Stores Inc. of Menomonee Falls, Wis., which has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $425,000. In 2008, Kohl's paid a $35,000 civil penalty for failing to report drawstrings in children's sweatshirts.

Maran Inc. of North Bergen, N.J. and K.S. Trading Corp. of Moonachie, N.J., which agreed to pay a total of $85,000 in civil penalties.

Hill Sportswear Inc. of Paramount, Calif., which agreed to pay a civil penalty of $100,000.
About 120,000 Hill Sportswear sweatshirts with drawstring were sold at various small retailers in California and Texas from 2003 through December 2008 for approximately $8 apiece.

This is a serious hazard. If your children have any garments with drawstrings in the hoods you should immediately remove the drawstrings from the sweatshirts or return the garments to either the place of purchase or to manufacturer.

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have several wrongful death lawsuits pending against various police departments throughout the state. They all involve police chases.They all involve police officers violating their own department policy with respect to police chases. They all involve the wrongful death of innocent victims and several involve the Clayton County Police. Will they ever get the message? Yesterday, Clayton County Police officers saw two men in a pickup truck appear to solicit a known prostitute. When they attempted to detain them, the men took off and the police took off in hot pursuit putting innocent citizens at risk of serious injury or death. During the course of the police chase which began in Clayton County and ended in Fulton County, two innocent women were killed when the fleeing suspects slammed head-on into the women’s car. Is it worth imposing the death sentence on innocent citizens to catch two men who have allegedly propositioned a prostitute? I am sure that the families of the two innocent victims don’t think so and most rational people don’t either. Maybe when the counties employing these officers get hit with large enough verdicts, they will either change their chase/pursuit policies or enforce the ones on the books.

If you have lost loved ones as a result of police officers negligently chasing fleeing suspects over minor offenses such as soliciting a prostitute, traffic offenses or misdemeanor criminal offenses, call the Atlanta Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP. We have been representing the families of innocent police chase victims in wrongful death lawsuits for years and have substantial experience handling such cases. For a free consultation call us at 800 228-9159.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is again launching an attempt to protect its mega business members at the expense of ordinary U.S. citizens. The Chamber has been at the forefront in attempts to mislead Americans about a multitude of issues which affect millions of people, all to protect the profits of its controlling members. Now, the Chamber is rolling out an advertising campaign of at least $2 million aimed at defeating a central plank of the Obama administration's financial-regulation overhaul.

But there won't be any mention of banks, Wall Street groups, and insurance companies whose interests the Chamber is seeking to protect.

The ads are aimed at the administration's proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would regulate consumer products including mortgages and credit cards, some of the areas which were unregulated for years and led directly to the economic disaster the country is now facing. It would have the power to ban certain practices and require financial firms to offer loans with simple terms and clear disclosure.

The Chamber's goal is twofold: move the spotlight off the unpopular commercial banks and mortgage lenders that are the target of the legislation and try to show more sympathetic opponents.

The first ads running in Washington-area newspapers feature a picture of a butcher with the line: "Virtually every business that extends credit to American consumers would be affected -- even the local butcher and the credit he extends to his customers."

The business lobby intends to expand its campaign to include nationwide TV and radio ads later this month. Its lobbying push could feature other small-business owners, such as accountants, landlords and event planners.