Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog

As a Georgia injury lawyer, I am always amazed at the number of deck collapse cases I read and hear about. Many of these decks are built high off the ground and do not meet any acceptable or recognized building code. Unfortunately the deficiencies of the construction do not become apparent until the decks are loaded up with people and the deck pulls away from the house and falls. In recent years there have been a number of death cases related to deck collapses.

Some of the deck collapses simply result from the deck material rotting over time. This should be readily apparent to anyone doing a reasonable inspection. A failure to inspect is negligence. It has also been my experience that many deck collapses result from the ledger board not being secured to the home properly. In some cases the ledger board is secured to the side of the house using nails. This is always insufficient to secure the deck to the house and should never be done. Instead, the ledger board should be securely attached with lag screws or if possible, lag bolts.

Just this week, a Roswell, Georgia woman was injured when the deck on her townhome collapsed and fell. As a result she sustained a broken leg.

If you or a loved one have been injured as a result of a deck collapse, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP. We have over 45 years experience representing victims in personal injury and wrongful death cases. Call us for a free consultation at (800) 228-9159.

Georgia injury lawyers are well aware that just because a prescription drug is an FDA approved drug is , does not mean that it is safe. There was a time when the American public believed that to be the case but we have come to the realization that money talks. Yes, “it is always all about the money” when it comes to business relationships and the drug business is BIG business. It is common knowledge that many former FDA employees end up being hired by big pharmaceutical companies after leaving the agency that supposedly regulates them. In addition, the industry spends an enormous amount of money on lobbyist to influence politicians.

This week a Philadelphia jury awarded $9.45 million to an Alabama woman who claimed that Pfizer’s Wyeth unit hormone-replacement drug, Prempro caused her to develop breast cancer. $6 million dollars of the award was for punitive damages. More than six million women took the drug until a 2002 study indicated that the drug was linked to cancer. Including this verdict, Pfizer has lost seven of the ten cases that have gone to jury trials.

Dangerous drugs are prevalent in our country. Everyday we learn about others, including Yaz, Yasmin, Avandia and many others. If you have been injured as a result of taking a dangerous drug, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP for a free consultation

Chrysler Group LLC announced on yesterday it will replace a front airbag crash sensor in more than 355,000 minivans. Careful not to call it a “recall”, Chrysler says it’s “safety improvement campaign” covers its 2005 -2006 Chrysler Town and Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans sold in the United State and Canada.

Chrysler’s “safety improvement campaign” came about because they discovered that under certain environmental conditions one of the front airbag sensors could crack allowing water to enter the sensor potentially rendering it inoperable. In a carefully worded document Chrysler sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to notify them of the “safety improvement campaign”, Chrysler said inter alia, “Until the vehicle is repaired, the airbags may not provide the enhanced protection in the event of a crash.”

As Georgia injury lawyers, we have seen and litigated many product liability cases. It is clear that, at present, in the event of an automobile accident involving Chrysler’s 2005 -2006 Chrysler Town and Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans potentially the front seat passengers of those vehicles would have no protection and might be subjected to serious injuries and possibly death in the event of a head-on collision.

If you or a loved one have been seriously injured as a result of a defective and dangerous product of any kind, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP to discuss your legal rights.

Radiation overdoses are a serious and dangerous problem facing cancer patients throughout the United States. We recently wrote about a New York Times investigation of fatal radiation overdoses at a Florida hospital. Now, a hospital in Missouri has admitted that it overradiated 76 patients over a five year period. The vast majority of the overradiated patients were suffering from brain cancer.

The hospital, CoxHealth in Springfield, Missouri, blamed the errors on powerful new radiation equipment which had been calibrated incorrectly even with a representative of the manufacturer watching as it was done.

According to the hospital, half of all patients undergoing stereotactic radiation therapy were overdosed by about 50 percent after a physicist at the hospital miscalibrated the new equipment and routine checks over the next five years failed to catch the error.

Stereotactic therapy delivers radiation in such high doses that usually only one treatment is required. It is commonly used to treat small tumors in the head.

The overradiations were discovered in September 2009 after a second physicist received training on the equipment and the hospital began questioning whether the machine had been installed correctly in 2004.

In Missouri, like many states, there is little or no government oversight of radiation therapy. However, The FDA has recently announced plans to increase its oversight of medical radiation. Predictably, this proposal is being opposed by many hospitals and manufacturers of radiation equipment.

Notably, the president of the Missouri hospital where these errors occurred urged the FDA to go even further in regulating radiation therapy. His statement was as follows:

“The initiative should be broadened to include regulation of medical radiation therapy as well. We have also learned that the incident here at CoxHealth is, unfortunately, not an isolated occurrence. Rather, similar instances of medical overradiation have occurred at other hospitals throughout the country. Without increased regulation and oversight, these instances of medical overradiation will likely continue.”

When Georgia injury lawyers hear about single car automobile accidents or single vehicle truck accidents, we always wonder whether the cause of the accident may have been related to a product defect, such as a defective tire or front end part. Today for instance, the White County News today reported that a Cleveland, Georgia resident, Marcus Carl Chambers, age 30, was killed early Friday morning when his pickup truck veered off Ga. 115 west of Cleveland. According to the article the 1999 GMC Sonoma truck was traveling westbound on Ga. 115 when it ran off the road and overturned, ejecting the driver. Chambers, who had not been wearing a seat belt, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police are reportedly continuing their investigation.

While the cause of this crash may have been something as simple as the driver falling asleep, it is always prudent to look for other causes when investigating automobile accidents and truck accidents. The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have represented many families in wrongful death cases which involved defective products. If you or a loved one have been seriously injured in an accident involving a potential products liability case, call us for a free consultation.

Recently, the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP got a call from a former client who advised us that her 21 year old daughter had been having gall bladder problems that led to her having her gall bladder removed. It turned out that she had been taking one of two related dangerous drugs that have become associated with such health problems, Yaz. Yasmin became a very popular seller for Bayer Corp. almost immediately upon release to the public in 2001 (Yaz was approved in 2006). Both are oral contraceptives that combine progestin with estrogen to prevent pregnancy. Bayer’s earlier commercials for Yaz claimed it was not only an effective birth control, but that it also provided relief from PMS and acne. Although the side effects were played down in the original commercials, the FDA demanded new spots be aired that were more forthcoming about potential risks. Yasmin and Yaz share an ingredient; drospirenone, which is a component of progestin. Drospirenone has been associated with health risks that are not present in other forms of progestin. It may increase potassium levels in the bloodstream which could result in serious health issues, such as cardiac arrhythmias. This becomes a serious problem for people who suffer from obesity, diabetes or high blood pressure. Symptoms to be noted are: a sudden numbness, confusion, vision problems, speech or balance difficulties, chest pain, nausea, migraine headaches, jaundice, insomnia, depression and behavioral changes, as well as changes in the woman’s menstrual cycle.

If you or a loved one have taken these drugs and been injured as a result, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP.

Defective and dangerous infant cribs have become a major problem across the United States. Since September 2007 the Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC, has recalled more than 6 million cribs due to dangerous designs and defects. These problems include failures related to drop sides, hardware and wooden slats.

Consumer advocates and health professionals have long complained that federal safety requirements governing cribs do not address the durability of drop-sides on cribs and related hardware, as well as wood strength and quality and other issues.

Wednesday, the chairman of the CPSC, warned crib makers that her agency is cracking down on defective equipment and will push through tougher federal requirements for cribs.

"Now is the time to create a state-of-the-art crib standard and not let special interests hijack the process," Inez Tenenbaum told industry executives, regulators and consumer advocates at the annual meeting of the International Consumer Product Health and Safety Organization.

Tenenbaum said. "I say no more to the tired tactic of blaming parents in the press when CPSC announces a recall that involves a death. Take responsibility and show respect to the grieving family, yes, even if they are pursuing litigation. Those who tread into this arena when CPSC has found your product to be defective will be called out."

Tenenbaum announced her agency will issue a new safety standard for cribs this year and that the CPSC is launching a new "SafeSleep" initiative for babies and toddlers to speed recalls and more quickly alert the public about defective products.

The CPSC is also overhauling its computer systems. Under legislation passed by Congress in 2008, the CPSC is required to create a database to make consumer complaints regarding products available to the public for the first time.

The database is expected to be active next year and according to the CPSC will allow consumers to report product incidents, to search for incident reports on products they own, and to stay apprised of safety warnings from CPSC.

Dangerous products seem to be everywhere these days. This is particularly true when it comes to pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter drugs. This week the New York Daily News reported that a Manhattan man has filed suit against the manufacturer of Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Spray that he used from 2006 to 2009. The man claims that as a result of using the product, he has lost both his dense of taste and smell. The lawsuit claims that the manufacturer knew or should have known that studies dating back to 1937 have shown that topical applications containing zinc ions can cause a loss of taste and smell. The lawsuit further claims that the manufacturers representations that the product was safe and effective were false. According to the article, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a public health warning last summer warning consumers to stop using all Zicam nasal products that contained zinc because they had received over 130 reports from people who claimed to have lost their sense of smell and taste after using the product.

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have represent victims of dangerous products ranging from electrical appliances to deer stands for over 45 years. If you or a loved on have been seriously injured as a result of using or coming in contact with a dangerous product, call us today at (800) 228-9159.

Dangerous products seem to be everywhere these days. This is particularly true when it comes to pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter drugs. This week the New York Daily News reported that a Manhattan man has filed suit against the manufacturer of Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Spray that he used from 2006 to 2009. The man claims that as a result of using the product, he has lost both his dense of taste and smell. The lawsuit claims that the manufacturer knew or should have known that studies dating back to 1937 have shown that topical applications containing zinc ions can cause a loss of taste and smell. The lawsuit further claims that the manufacturers representations that the product was safe and effective were false. According to the article, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a public health warning last summer warning consumers to stop using all Zicam nasal products that contained zinc because they had received over 130 reports from people who claimed to have lost their sense of smell and taste after using the product.

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have represent victims of dangerous products ranging from electrical appliances to deer stands for over 45 years. If you or a loved on have been seriously injured as a result of using or coming in contact with a dangerous product, call us today at (800) 228-9159.

This week the Transportation Department served Toyota with legal documents demanding that they produce certain documents related to the recent massive Toyota product recall in the United States. The government wants to know when and how Toyota learned of the safety defects in millions of its vehicles involving the entrapment of gas pedals by floor mats and "sticky" gas pedals. Toyota has 30 -60 days to respond to the government's request for the production of the documents.

Although Toyota has denied any electronic defect which would cause sudden engine acceleration, many believe that neither the floor mat issue or "sticky" gas pedals would cause a vehicle to accelerate to high speeds. Many Toyota owners have testified that the gas pedal did not stick but rather that there was a sudden, sustained and unexplained acceleration of the vehicle. It has been estimated that since 2000, there have been in excess of 30 automobile accidents resulting in death as a result of this problem.

If you or a loved one has been injured as a result of being involved in an automobile accident or truck accident involving a Toyota product, call one of the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP.

Compared with automobile accidents, motorcycle accidents or pedestrian accidents, trucking accidents can be significantly more complicated. One of the biggest mistakes a lawyer can make is treating a trucking case like a typical automobile accident case. First, the number of parties involved is generally more than two in case of truck accident. These parties involved in the case of a truck accident may include the drivers, the owners of the truck, the truck manufacturing company, the brake maker, etc.

Second, commercial vehicles are heavily regulated by both federal and state governments and determining fault in a truck accident requires the parties to not only be aware of all the applicable regulations, but the ability to effectively determine if any were not followed. A competent Georgia injury lawyer will be familiar with the regulations imposed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Many rules and states have differing statutes of limitations that only an expert attorney can deal with. It is very important to choose a lawyer who knows in and out of truck law.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, one of the leading causes of truck accidents is driver fatigue, coupled with alcohol and/or drug use. However, how can you determine if the trucker was speeding or fatigued? An experienced attorney will know who to question, how evidence needs to be immediately preserved and gathered, and have access to experts who can piece together what happened and why.

If you or a loved one has been seriously injured as a result of being involved in a truck accident, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP. We have over 45 years experience representing people who have been seriously injured and families of those whose injuries have lead to the wrongful death of their loved ones.

Federal officials say 225 people in 44 states, including Georgia, have been sickened by salmonella in imported black pepper used in the preparation of salami and other types of Italian sausage.

Salmonella is a bacteria that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy people infected with salmonella can have fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, salmonella infection can spread to the bloodstream and result in severe illnesses such as arterial infections and arthritis.

Daniele International, a Rhode Island company recalled 1.2 million pounds of ready-to-eat salami Jan. 22, after state health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked the outbreak to the company's products. Daniele expanded the recall Feb. 4 to include 23,754 additional pounds of salami products.

Of those sickened by the product, officials say about 26 percent had to be hospitalized. No deaths have been reported. Victims of the outbreak are up to 93 years old, with a median age of 39.
This is the second time in less than a year that an outbreak of salmonella illness has been linked to pepper. Last March, 42 people fell ill after eating tainted white and black pepper sold by Union International Food of California.

The salami, sopressata and other products were packaged under Daniele as well as the Boar's Head and Black Bear of the Black Woods brands and were sold by several national chains, including Costco and Wal-mart and online through Amazon.com.

Health officials say anyone who experiences sickness after eating an Italian sausage should seek medical help.

Our product liability lawyers have previously written about the advantages of AED,, automated external defibrillators. Last week a major manufacturer of these devices issued a recall.

Cardiac Science Corp. on Feb. 3 announced a voluntary recall after
determining approximately 12,200 of its automated external
defibrillators may not deliver an electric shock during resuscitation
attempts.

A company press release said Cardiac Science found the problem through
its internal quality systems and has not received any complaints. The
affected AEDs were manufactured or serviced between Oct. 19, 2009, and
Jan. 15, 2010, and include the following models:

* Powerheart 9300A, 9300E, 9300P, 9390A, 9390E
* CardioVive 92532
* CardioLife 9200G and 9231

According to a press release, AEDs manufactured between August 2003 and August 2009 may have resistors that fail and go undetected by periodic self-tests.

Each affected AED should immediately be removed from service since it may not deliver the expected therapy.
Cardiac Science announced that all affected AEDs will be replaced at no charge to the customer. Cardiac Science will contact customers and will send replacement AEDs as soon as they are available

Toyota may have fended off earlier attempts by government agencies to investigate the deadly sudden acceleration problems which led to the recent recall. Bloomberg news is reporting that former federal regulators hired by Toyota helped end at least four U.S. investigations of unintended acceleration by company vehicles in the last decade.

According to the report, Christopher Tinto, vice president of regulatory affairs in Toyota’s Washington office, and Christopher Santucci, who works for Tinto, helped persuade the NHTSA to end probes including those of 2002-2003 Toyota Camrys and Solaras. Both men joined Toyota directly from NHTSA, Tinto in 1994 and Santucci in 2003.

While all automakers have employees who handle NHTSA issues, Toyota seems to be alone among the major companies in employing former agency staffers to do so.

Possible links between Toyota and NHTSA may fuel mounting criticism of their handling of defects in Toyota and Lexus models tied to 19 deaths between 2004 and 2009. Three congressional committees have scheduled hearings on the recalls.

In one example given of the Toyota aides’ role, Santucci testified in a Michigan lawsuit that the company and NHTSA discussed limiting an examination of unintended acceleration complaints to incidents lasting less than a second.

Toyota recently recalled 2.3 million U.S. cars and trucks with a potentially defective accelerator pedals. That followed Toyota’s decision in November to recall 4.48 million vehicles in the U.S. and Canada because floor mats might trap gas pedals while they were depressed.

Combined worldwide recalls for pedals, floor mats and a software fix to adjust brakes on the Prius and other hybrid models rose to more than 8 million vehicles as of Feb. 8.

All four of the probes the Toyota aides helped end were into complaints that the unintended acceleration was caused by flaws in the vehicles’ electronic throttle systems. Toyota has denied that the system is a problem.

Patients have been receiving sometimes fatal radiation overdoses during medical treatments. Our Atlanta medical malpractice attorneys have been aware of this problem for years. The issue was recently highlighted by the news media in several articles. Now, federal regulators are taking note and proposing regulations which will begin requiring manufacturers of high-grade medical imaging machines to include safety controls that prevent patients from receiving excessive radiation doses.

The Food and Drug Administration action will focus on high-tech machines such as CT scanners, which allow doctors to make lifesaving diagnoses, but also expose patients to high doses of cancer-causing radiation. The proposed new regulations are part of a multipronged effort to address reports of acute injuries as well as reduce lifetime exposure to radiation, which has nearly doubled since 1980.

One new proposal will require manufacturers to install safeguards on machines that automatically notify operators if they are using a higher-than-recommended dose. The FDA is also developing best-practice measures that hospitals and imaging centers will have to meet to retain their scanning accreditation.

According to the FDA, the average American's total radiation exposure has nearly doubled in the last three decades, largely due to CT scans and other imaging tests. Medical radiation now accounts for more than half of the population's total radiation exposure.

The FDA action follows investigations of reports of acute overdoses from CT scanning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. More than 250 patients there were exposed to excessive radiation, with many reporting losing hair and skin redness. Since then the FDA has launched investigations into similar problems at two other California hospitals.

CT scans offer a quick, relatively cheap way to get three-dimensional pictures that give an almost surgical view of the body. Doctors use them to evaluate trauma, belly pain, seizures, chronic headaches and other ailments.

However, CT scans carry a higher risk than older scans. One CT chest scan carries as much radiation as nearly 400 chest X-rays.

The FDA's effort will also be directed at excessive radiation exposure from two other types of imaging: nuclear medicine and fluoroscopy. Nuclear medicine involves injecting nuclear particles into the body to diagnose problems with organs. Fluoroscopy uses a continuous X-ray beam to view body parts in real time, such as when giving epidural injections..

Toyota on Tuesday announced another global recall for defective automobiles. This time, more than 400,000 Prius and other hybrid cars are being recalled due to braking problems. The recall comes on the heels of the massive recall of Toyota vehicles for sudden acceleration problems.
Toyota has been criticized for attempting to grow sales while sacrificing quality and for being slow to recall vehicles with dangerous and deadly defects.

The recall will address what Toyota describes as a software glitch in the brakes of the Prius and three other hybrid models. The problem has been reported as causing a brief and sometimes frightening delay in perceived braking capacity on icy or bumpy roads.

Toyota says the problem can be fixed by dealers in about 40 minutes. The recall will apply to 223,000 hybrids sold in Japan, along with 133,000 Prius cars, 14,500 Lexus HS250h vehicles in the United States, and about 53,000 Prius cars in Europe. It begins in Japan on Wednesday and in the United States according to Toyaota in the United states as soon as possible.

The latest model of the Prius, which was rolled out last May, was the best-selling car in Japan last year and has also sold well in the United States. The car is bigger, more powerful and gets better mileage than earlier Prius models.

The 2010 model of the car uses a two-stage braking system that includes regenerative braking to capture energy from the wheels, as well as conventional hydraulic brakes. On snowy or icy roads the brakes can seem to soften for a split second when an anti-lock braking system kicks in, according to the company.

Toyota claims the delay is not the same as brake failure, and there have been no reported accidents or injuries because of the problem.

Toyota has come under pressure from the Japanese government, which said last week that it was looking into customer complaints about the brakes. The chief of the recall department at the Ministry of Transport said Toyota should have taken action sooner.

Toyota is being taken to task for delaying the recall of vehicles subject to sudden acceleration. Amid reports that Toyota is going to recall its highly successful hybrid, the Prius, for brake problems, there are serious questions being raised as whether the automaker and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration responded quickly enough to reports of sudden acceleration in some of its other models.

Insurer State Farm has revealed that it notified NHTSA in late 2007 that it was seeing an increase in sudden acceleration trends with other Toyota and Lexus automobiles. State Farm said it received numerous inquiries about alleged unwanted acceleration problems in Toyota and Lexus vehicles in recent years.

Toyota has undergone several investigations about such concerns starting in 2004, when complaints were lodged about sudden acceleration in the 2002 and 2003 Toyota Camry and Lexus ES models. NHTSA opened a file on Toyota in 2007 to look into acceleration issues on Lexus models, but closed it seven months later.

It wasn't until after the death of a California state policeman and his family in a Lexus incident that that Toyota issued recalls. The incident was recorded on a very disturbing 911 tape. If you have not heard the call, it can be located by Googling.

Since the incident, Toyota has recalled 5.2 million Toyota and Lexus models in the U.S. for floor mat issues, and 2.5 million in January over sticky gas pedals.

Congress is also studying Toyota's and NHTSA's reactions. On Wednesday, the House committee on Oversight and Government Reform is holding a hearing on the gas pedal issues. On Feb. 25, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee is holding a hearing on whether Toyota and NHTSA acted swiftly enough.

Japanese newspapers reported Sunday that Toyota would soon announce a recall to deal with Prius brake problems. In a letter to U.S. dealers over the weekend, Toyota said it will inform them of the fix to the Prius problem this week.

Medical malpractice victims in Georgia are not only injured and killed by negligent health care, but are also victimized by the state via caps on so called non-economic damages. In Georgia, the cap limits these damages to $350,00.00.

Many people have pointed out that this is inherently unfair, especially since the most grievously injured victims are penalized to a greater extent. In effect, the legislature, with help of the governor, decreed that if you, or a loved one is retired or too young to have an earning capacity, the value of your life or that of a loved one, is $350,000.00. Of course thiose who are high wage earners, such as many doctors, would be entitled to a higher recovery in the form of lost income.

This grossly unfair law is currently before the Georgia Supreme Court awaiting an opinion. Yesterday, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down a similar law passed by the Illinois legislature 4 years ago.

The court ruled that the caps on pain and suffering and other non-economic damages, $500,000 per case for doctors and $1 million for hospitals are unconstitutional.

The Illinois Supreme Court’s opinion upheld a 2007 ruling by lower court determining that the law violated the Illinois Constitution’s “separation of powers” clause, essentially finding that lawmakers interfered with the right of juries to determine fair damages.

This ruling was the third time the Illinois Supreme Court has quashed limits on medical malpractice awards, having tossed out similar laws in 1976 and 1997.

The case arose from a malpractice lawsuit filed in 2006 by the family of a girl who suffered brain damage during her delivery at an Illinois hospital.