Boston Injury Lawyer Blog

April 27, 2008

Appeals Court Reduces Actor Robert Blake’s $30 Million Wrongful Death Judgment

The Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles has reduced the $30 million wrongful death judgment against actor Robert Blake to $15 million. Blake,74, had lost the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the estate of his murdered wife Bonny Lee Bakley, but filed an appeal.

Blake said that the jury that awarded the judgment had engaged in misconduct and that the court made procedural mistakes. The appeals court, however, said that it did not find any evidence of jury misconduct or that the trial court had made errors. It did, however, find that the $30 million award was “excessive” and cut the judgment in half.

If Bakley’s estate does not agree to the new award amount, there will be a new trial to determine wrongful death damages.

April 24, 2008

Boston-Area Psychiatrist is Sued for Prescription Overdose Death of 4-Year-Old Massachusetts Girl

by Altman & Altman

In Massachusetts, Boston-area psychiatrist Dr. Kayoko Kifuji is being sued for the wrongful death of 4-year-old Rebecca Riley. Rebecca died in 2006 following an overdose of psychiatric drugs.

The lawsuit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, alleges that Rebecca was mostly prescribed drugs over the phone, using “slipshod diagnosis.”

Kifuji had diagnosed Rebecca with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder. She prescribed Seroquel, Clonidine, and Depakote.

April 21, 2008

MBTA Files Lawsuit Over Canton, Massachusetts Train Accident that Injured 150 and Caused Property Damage

by Altman & Altman

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is suing CSX Transportation and Cohenno Inc, a Stoughton lumber company, and is accusing them of negligence, for allegedly causing a 112-ton freight car to crash into a commuter train in Canton on March 25. The MBTA wants CSX and Cohenno to pay for repairs to the damaged train and cover overtime costs incurred by the MBTA and any other expenses as a result of the train collision. Damages are estimated at up to $1 million.

The freight car had escaped from a lumber yard in Stoughton, where it flew down three miles of train track before striking an MBTA commuter train and injuring 150 people. 120 people have already filed injury claims with the MBTA.

The lawsuit accuses both companies of failing to execute several basic security measures that would have prevented the Massachusetts train accident from happening. The MBTA is accusing CSX workers of failing to set the hand brake on the freight car and not putting a choking device next to its wheels-that would have prevented it from rolling-after delivering the car to the lumber company and storing it on a side rail.

April 17, 2008

Massachusetts Widow Sues PetSmart After Husband Dies From Rodent Virus Infection

by Altman & Altman

Nancy Magee, a Whitman, Massachusetts woman, is suing pet store chain PetSmart for the death of her husband. Her wrongful lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston, alleges that Thomas Magee and two other people became infected with a rodent virus during their transplant surgeries. All three people had received their organs from the same woman, who is believed to have contracted the virus from her pet hamster, which she had purchased at a PetSmart in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Thomas Magee, 54, underwent a successful liver transplant surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital on April 10, 2005. The hospital delayed his release after he developed high blood pressure and a fever. On May 5, his wife Nancy was notified that he would need another kidney and liver transplant. Thomas died on May 7, 2005.

Later that month, the Rhode Island Health Department announced that Magee, and two other transplant patients-a double lung recipient from Massachusetts and a kidney transplant patient in Rhode Island-had died after becoming infected with the rodent virus.

April 15, 2008

Sleepy Boston “Big Dig” Construction Workers Not Eligible For Workers’ Compensation

by Altman & Altman

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court says that Michael Haslam, a construction worker on Boston’s “Big Dig” freeway project, is not eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits for injuries he sustained when he fell asleep at the wheel while driving home after working for 27 hours straight. The court’s ruling reverses an earlier decision by the Industrial Accident Board.

The state’s highest court says that Haslam failed to prove that he needed to work as many hours as he did and that the circumstances surrounding his injury accident did not exempt him from the “going and coming rule,” which does not cover injuries sustained by workers when they are going to or coming from a job.

On August 3, 2001, Haslam started work at 5am. His shift was supposed to end at 3:30pm. Due to numerous work delays, however, the pouring of concrete did not take place until 1am the following day, and Haslam chose to stay because he needed to make sure that the job was done. He testified that if he hadn’t stayed, “I probably wouldn’t have had a job.”

March 31, 2008

Former Children’s Hospital Boston Pediatrician Is Sued For Sexual Abuse And Medical Malpractice

by Altman & Altman

In Suffolk County Superior Court in Massachusetts, an unnamed plaintiff has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit suing pediatrician doctor Melvin D. Levine for sexual assault, battery, and abuse from 1980 to 1985. This is not the first time that Dr. Levine has been accused of sexual abuse by a former patient.

Several men have stepped forward claiming that the doctor sexually abused them at Children’s Hospital Boston when they were boys. At least four of the men are suing him in court. All of the men describe similar incidents of being abused by the doctor during medical examinations.

In this latest lawsuit, John Doe No. 5 says that Levine conducted unnecessary physical exams on him when he was a boy and engaged in acts of sexual assault, including masturbation and genital touching. He is also accusing Dr. Levine of making threats to assault him and trying to engage in other acts of sexual assault. The plaintiff says that he repressed the sex abuse memories for years until he took his own son to the doctor for the exam.

March 25, 2008

Raynham, Massachusetts Drunk Driver Involved In Injury Accident While Driving The Wrong Way

by Altman & Altman

Anne Ferreira, the Raynham, Massachusetts woman who drover her 1996 Toyota Camry sedan the wrong way on the Route 25 freeway on March 11, is being charged with DUI.

She crashed her sedan into a 1997 Buick LeSabre sedan. Both Ferreira and the driver of the sedan, 65-year-old New Bedford resident David McGowan, had to be pried from their motor vehicles. McGowan suffered serious injuries in the car accident and was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Massachusetts State Police said that a preliminary investigation found that Ferreira was driving under the influence of alcohol.

Drunk driving is considered reckless or negligent behavior and can lead to a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit if another person is injured in a motor vehicle collision as a result.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that drunk drivers can experience problems in maintaining the proper lane position (including weaving, drifting, swerving, turning with a wide radius, difficulty braking, speeding problems), vigilance problems (including driving into opposing or crossing traffic, signaling that is inconsistent with driving actions) and judgment problems, such as deciding to turn illegally and driving the wrong way down a road.

The consequences of drunk driving on the driver, his or her passengers, people in other cars, and pedestrians can be catastrophic. Of the 442 traffic fatalities that occurred in Massachusetts in 2005, 171 of them were alcohol-related.

Woman in wrong-way charged with DUI, Wickedlocal.com, March 20, 2008
The Visual Detection of DWI motorists, NHTSA

Related Web Resources:

Impaired Driving, CDC
Massachusetts Drunk Driving Statistics, AlcoholAlert.com Continue reading

March 24, 2008

Oprah Winfrey Show Audience Member Sues Harpo Productions For Fall Accident

by Altman & Altman

Orit Greenberg, an audience member at a taping of the “Oprah Winfrey Show” on December 5, 2006, is suing Harpo Studios for personal injury.

Greenberg says that she suffered serious and permanent injuries when she fell down a flight of stairs during a mad rush by audience members to secure the best seats.

Greenberg is asking for $50,000 in damages. She says that Harpo Studios neglected to control audience members, who were told that they could sit wherever they wanted. The patrons, who had been in a waiting area, “rushed the gate” and pushed and shoved inro each other as they entered the studio.

March 23, 2008

Massachusetts Gynecologist Is Sued For Wrongful Death

by Altman & Altman

Dr. Rapin Osathanondh, the Massachusetts gynecologist whose patient died last September at his Women’s Health Center in Hyannis, is being sued for wrongful death. The wrongful death plaintiff is Eileen Smith, the mother of 22-year-old Laura Hope Smith, who died during an abortion procedure. Smith is asking for punitive damages for the gross negligence that she says caused her daughter’s death.

The wrongful death lawsuit was filed on March 10 in Barnstable Superior Court. Smith’s defense team says that Osathanondh failed to properly monitor Laura’s vital signs while she was under anesthesia. Osathanondh and a receptionist were the only ones present during the abortion.

The receptionist called 911 after Smith stopped breathing. Cause of death was “cardiac pulmonary arrest during anesthesia during a voluntary termination of pregnancy.”

March 20, 2008

New York Crane Construction Accident Leaves Seven People Dead

by Altman & Altman

Six construction workers and a Florida tourist died in a construction accident on Saturday after a crane collapsed at a construction site in New York. 10 other people were injured.

The construction site was at a 43-year-old building that had already received multiple safety violations. On Tuesday, investigators were trying to determine whether the nylon webbing, worth $50, broke while lifting a large piece of steel.

The 200-foot crane fell while construction workers tried to attach a large, 12,000-pound square steel collar around the tower of the crane at the 18th floor of the building, located on East 51st Street. They were applying manual winches that seemed to be hanging from nylon slings that were hanging from a higher part of the tower.

The collar, winches, and slings fell, crashed into another collar at the ninth floor, and landed on a third collar located close to the bottom of the construction site. The tower then collapsed, leveling a nearby building and damaging other nearby properties.

According to Paul S. Zorich, chairman of the committee on crane and sling safety standards of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, photographs of the sling show that it could have been “grossly overloaded.”

Construction safety experts say that these slings usually can carry loads as heavy as several tons unless they are worn or damaged.

Steven R. Dewey, president of All-Lifts, a company that makes construction slings, says sling failures only occurs if they are damaged or cut. He also said that slings are manufactured to carry five times the indicated weight.

Joy Contractors is the company overseeing the crane work at the site.

Construction accidents can often lead to catastrophic if not deadly injuries. Construction workers injured on the job cannot sue their employers for recovery. They are, however, eligible for workers’ compensation benefits and they may be able to claim damages from third parties, such as the manufacturer of a defective product or another party that is found liable for the injury accident.

Even if your employer guarantees you workers’ compensation benefits, one of our Boston, Massachusetts workers’ compensation attorneys can make sure that you receive all of the benefits you are eligible for in a timely manner.

Failure of Strap Is Suspected in Crane Collapse, New York Times, March 18, 2008
Seven dead in New York crane accident, BBC News, March 16, 2008

Related Web Resource:

A Review of Crane Safety in the Construction Industry
Continue reading