Wrongful Death

December 8, 2014

Honda Recalls Another 2.6 Million Cars with Takata Air Bags in the U.S.

Honda Motor Co. said that it is expanding its U.S. recall of vehicles with Takata air bags to include another 2.6 million autos. The action, which had only applied to certain areas of the country with high humidity, has now gone national. The automaker says it will replace the air bag inflators on the vehicles.

The air bags, made by the Japanese supplier, are at risk of inflating too forcefully. Should this happen, an air bag explosion might occur, causing shrapnel from the safety device to shoot out in the vehicle, potentially causing debilitating even fatal injuries. At least five fatalities have been blamed on the faulty air bags. All of the vehicles involved with these fatalities were Hondas.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been calling on automakers with vehicles that have Takata air bags to make needed fixes to the safety devices. Honda is the only one to comply with the regulator’s demand so far. Ford, BMW, and Mazda haven’t decided whether to call for a national recall, while Chrysler has refused, as has Takata.

October 30, 2014

Mechanical Failure May Have Caused Deadly Halloween Hayride Crash

by Altman & Altman

According to officials, a mechanical issue may have caused the Jeep serving as the Gauntlet Haunted Night hayride vehicle at Harvest Hill Farms to go down a hill at rapid speed, strike a tree, and overturn earlier this month in Maine. 17-year-old Cassidy Charette sustained fatal injuries in the crash. 22 others were injured.

Charette was with seven other students from her high school for their annual hayride when the tragic vehicle crash happened. Among the injured were two with critical injuries, including 16-year-old Connor Garland and David Brown, 54, who was driving the Jeep. Garland was transported to Boston Children’s Hospital. According to Fox News, Brown was hauling a flatbed trailer as part of the ride.

Following the hayride accident, State Police impounded the 1979 Jeep CJ5a. A safety probe was conducted.

October 21, 2014

Massachusetts Suspends ET-Plus Guardrail Use Because of Traffic Injury Risks

by Altman & Altman

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has decided to stop the use of a guardrail-end terminal over concerns that there may be safety issues. The rail-end guardrail pieces, known as the ET-Plus, are made by Trinity Industries of Texas. The manufacturer has already have been the subject of products liability lawsuits by motorists claiming they lost their legs in traffic crashes.

This week, a federal jury ruled that Trinity should pay $175 million in a whistleblower lawsuit that exposed the hazards involved with using the guardrail end caps. It was guardrail installer Josh Harman who accused Trinity of making the ET-Plus unsafe when the company redesigned it.

He sued Trinity under the False Claims Act’s qui tam provisions. As the whistleblower, Harman is entitled to a percentage of what is recovered. Because of statutory mandate, the $175 million figure is expected to triple.

October 11, 2014

CPSC Votes to Make Mandatory Standards for Window Covering Cords

by Altman & Altman

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has voted to start a rulemaking process that would protect kids from the strangulation hazard that comes with window coverings with exposed or dangling cords. October is Window Covering Safety Month.

A child’s neck can get caught and tangled up cord, resulting in strangulation or suffocation. Some children that are lucky enough to survive such an incident are left with permanent brain injuries.

According to the CPSC, between ’96 and ’12 approximately 184 young children and babies died from window cord strangulation. There were over 100 non-fatal strangulation accidents involving the cords of window shades and blinds during that time period, with 1,590 kids needing medical care because of incidents involving these products.

October 6, 2014

Families of Two Victims Involving GM Ignition Defect Accept Compensation Fund’s Wrongful Death Settlement Offers

by Altman & Altman

The families of Amy Rademaker, 15, and Natasha Weigel, 18, have agreed to take the wrongful death settlement offers made to them by General Motors from its victim compensation fund. Weigel and Rademaker were killed following a 2006 car crash involving a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt that appears to have been caused by an ignition defect. The air bags did not deploy. Megan Ungars-Kerns, who was 17 at the time and the one driving the vehicle, sustained serious brain damage.

GM established its victim compensation fund for the injury victims and the families of people killed in motor vehicle crashes caused by its faulty ignition switches. Some 2.6 million autos have been recalled because of the safety issue.

How much GM will decide to offer to each party will depend on the victim’s age, earning potential, family duties, and medical costs. According to The Washington Post, one 10-year-old who became a paraplegic in a GM car crash involving ignition problems was offered $7.8 million.

September 30, 2014

Two Killed In Cape Cod Skydiving Accident

by Altman & Altman

Two men were tragically killed on Sunday afternoon while doing a tandem skydive at a Cape Cod Airfield in Marstons Mills.

The maneuver, which is generally considered very safe, involves an experienced skydiving instructor strapped behind a novice skydiving student. Together the pair will jump from an aircraft and descend under a large parachute.

On Sunday, around 5 p.m., this routine jump turned horribly wrong when the men performing the maneuver missed their landing spot on the airfield and crashed into a shed in the backyard of a residence across the street. The student, a 29-year-old from Nantucket, and the instructor, 48, of West Lynnwood, Washington, suffered fatal injuries during the fall.

The cause of the accident has been attributed to complications with the parachute. According to reports by the Boston Globe, the student’s friend, who had also jumped, said witnesses told her that the pair’s parachute had in fact opened, but had become tangled. Officials believe the pair eventually lost control before hitting the shed. The woman also reported that while up to altitude, “both instructors were complaining how this was their 16th jump of the day, and both of them were saying they were tired but had two more to go,” according to The Boston Globe.

Investigators are hoping that some footage shot from the sports camera of one of the men will provide some evidence as to exactly what happened. D.A. for the Cape & Islands Michael O’Keefe said he believes that this was just a tragic accident. The FAA is currently in the process of leading the investigation to determine how the jumpers veered off course and crashed.
Continue reading

September 26, 2014

Framingham, MA Wrongful Death Case Seeks Damage Over Inmate’s Fatal Drug Overdose

by Altman & Altman

The estate of Monique Miller is suing the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Department, unnamed deputies, and a corrections officer for her Framingham, MA wrongful death. Miller, a 42-year-old woman with five children, died of a drug overdose while at the MCI-Framingham correctional facility. She was imprisoned over drug and shoplifting charges.

According to her family, Miller snorted heroin while in custody. She was then allowed to remain facedown on the floor of her cell for hours even though she obviously needed medical help. The plaintiffs are accusing corrections officer Nancy Padvaiskas and the other defendants of “deliberate indifference” and violating the prohibition related to unusual and cruel punishment. Their Massachusetts wrongful death case also accuses the sheriff’s deputies of not supervising the prisoners under their care, failing to stop drug use by inmates, and not noticing that there were inmates under the influence of drugs.

During transport for a court appearance last year, Miller and other prisoners snorted heroin while in Cambridge. The drug came from another prisoner, who was also concealing the sedative Seroquel.

September 16, 2014

Man Expected to File Medical Malpractice, Wrongful Death Case After Wife, Twins Die During Childbirth

by Altman & Altman

A man whose common-law wife and twin daughters died during their delivery says he intends to sue the doctors involved for birthing malpractice. Tafari Brathwaite says they tried to deliver the babies naturally even though Victoria Rexach told them she needed a C-section.

At the time of the delivery, Rexach, 30, was 5 ½ months pregnant with the girls. The three of them died on August 28, 2014.

Rexach previously had two cesarean sections. Her doctor, a high-risk specialist, had said she should have the procedure again this time around. However, when Rexach went into labor prematurely, doctors at Richmond University Medical Center chose natural childbirth even though, contends her family, the hospital knew that she couldn’t deliver naturally. The believe Rexach would still be alive today if they had performed the surgery.

September 8, 2014

Medical Facility Where Joan Rivers Underwent Vocal Procedure Now Under Investigation

by Altman & Altman

Even as friends, family, and the entertainment industry laid comedian Joan Rivers to rest, police are continuing to look into her death. The 81-year-old suffered cardiac arrest while undergoing routine surgery at the Yorkville Endoscopy medical center. She was then rushed to the hospital where she was placed on life support. Rivers died on Thursday.

Also probing her death is the New York State Department of Health. Investigators are trying to determine whether the facility violated any state rules. The medical examiners that conducted an autopsy on the late comedian could not determine her cause of death.

Ambulatory surgery centers have grown in popularity as insurers and patients seek out less expensive, more convenient treatments than what they can get at traditional hospitals. The cost is less due to less overhead and shorter wait times.

September 5, 2014

$13M Boston Medical Malpractice Verdict Awarded to Widow of Man Who Died Following Throat Surgery

by Altman & Altman

The Boston Herald reports that a decade after Cynthia Price-Brown’s husband died following a routine tonsil procedure, their family has been awarded a $13 million Boston medical malpractice verdict against the surgeon, Dr. Peter Ambrus. Eric Price was 38 when he underwent the surgery to correct a mild case of sleep apnea at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth.

Ambrus performed a palate production, a turbinate reduction, a tonsillectomy, and fixed Price’s deviated septum. According to to Price-Brown, two days after the procedures, he started to bleed profusely and died within minutes. She filed her Boston wrongful death case in 2007.

Price-Brown’s Boston tonsil malpractice lawyer says that considering that Price only had a mild case of sleep apnea, it was poor advice to recommend that he undergo the surgical procedure. An attorney for Ambrus, however, said that heavy bleeding is known to be a tonsillectomy-related complication, and, although rare, death is also a risk. The verdict only requires a $1 million payout that Ambrus’s insurance will cover.