Boston Injury Lawyer Blog

December 10, 2014

Ex- Fessenden School Students to File Newton, MA Child Sex Abuse Case

A number of ex-students of Fessenden School reportedly intend to file a Massachusetts child sex abuse case against several teacher and their supervisors. The Newton sex abuse incidents allegedly occurred at the all boys boarding school between 1968 and 1976 and involved male victims who were ages 10 to 14 at the time.

It was in 2011 that David B. Stettler, the headmaster of school, sent a letter to faculty, alumni, and parents disclosing that over the past few years, there had been two legal complaints accusing assistant headmaster Arthur Clarridge and his friend of child sex abuse. The plaintiffs said they were ages 10 and 13 respectively when they were sexually violated. One of them settled his case with the school.

In a recent internal probe, the school found out about at least two other alumni who had submitted Massachusetts child sexual abuse complaints involving allegations that would have occurred in the ’70s and 60’s. Other students also made claims that were never officially reported.

December 8, 2014

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

by Altman & Altman

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.

December 4, 2014

Massachusetts Medical Mistakes Impact Almost 25% of State’s Residents, Reports Poll

by Altman & Altman

According to a recently released survey, almost one-quarter of Massachusetts residents or someone close to them has experienced a medical mistake in the last five years. About 50% of those who reported the error said that serious health consequences resulted.

The poll, conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, surveyed 1,224 residents. The researchers said that a lot of people chose not to report a medical mistake either because they didn’t think it would make a difference or they did not know how to report the incident.

According to the Boston Globe, the survey is one of a number of reports commissioned by the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety and Medical Error Reduction. Lehman, a 39-year-old mother, died twenty years ago after she was administered a massive overdose of an anticancer drug.

December 2, 2014

NHTSA Probes Graco Car Seat Recall

by Altman & Altman

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating whether Graco Children’s Products Inc. waited too long to recall 6.1 million child safety seats. If the manufacturer did delay the recall of its car seats, it could be subject to a fine of up to $35 million, although now reportedly the White House is trying to get Congress to raise the maximum for that type of violation to $300 million for each incident.

Graco succumbed to government pressure last July, recalling around 1.9 million infant car seats made between 7/10 and 5/13. The safety issue involved buckles that could prove hard to open. This can be dangerous if a child needs to be removed from the child safety device immediately, especially in an emergency situation. That announcement expanded the company’s callback to over 6.1 million car seats.

Earlier in the year, Graco had recalled 3.7 million booster seats and toddler seats that were constructed between ’09- ’13 in the wake of NHTSA pressure. The agency had wanted Graco to recall 5.6 million child safety seats. A month later, Graco recalled another 400,000 car seats. Those were manufactured prior to 2009.

November 28, 2014

It’s The Most Dangerous Time of the Year: Preventing Slip and Fall Accidents this Winter

by Altman & Altman

Slip and fall injuries are one of the most common types of personal injury lawsuits. During wintertime, unsurprisingly, there seems to be a hike in these types of accidents, caused by icy or snowy conditions.

Slip and fall accidents are often considered relatively straightforward in terms of liability: the finger can usually be pointed at the owner or possessor of the building or land. Victims who have slipped, tripped and fallen as the result of the property owner’s negligence to heed certain precautions that would have prevented such an accident from occurring, may be entitled to financial compensation for their injuries. Below, we’ve outlined some of the common scenarios which often lead to slip and fall accidents, as well as rules regarding property owners’ rights and responsibilities to ensure their premise(s) are free of slip and fall hazards.

Ice or Snow Outside a Building

Generally, the Massachusetts law doesn’t require a property owner or property possessor to remove ice or snow that accumulates outside his or her building as the result of inclement weather. However, if conditions on the property cause an unnatural accumulation of ice or snow, the property owner may be liable for slip and fall accidents, including when:

– Ice accumulates on the roof and then melts and drips off because of a clogged drain, then refreezes on the ground,
– The surface of a parking lot causes melting ice to form puddles, and then refreeze into ice patches, resulting in slippery surfaces that may cause individuals to fall.
– If a property owner/possessor elects to provide snow or ice removal, he must not do so negligently.

Inadequate Outdoor Lighting

Failing to adequately light an outdoor area may also lead to slip and fall accidents, especially slip and falls in parking lots, trips over curbing, falls on a step or stairs from a parking lot to a store, and trips and falls due to holes, cracks, and uneven surfaces. When these types of situations occur, the property owner may be found liable if he or she knew or should have known of the poor lighting and failed to fix the problem.

Parking Lots

Parking lot and parking garage owners are responsible for maintaining the property so that it is reasonably safe for people to access it. This includes filling and patching cracks and holes and ensuring that differences in height from one section of the lot to another are gradual rather than abrupt.

Sidewalks

Generally speaking, a property owner is not liable for injuries sustained as the result of a slip and fall on a public sidewalk located outside his or her property (property that is owned and maintained by a city or town). In some cases however, an owner may be responsible if a victim sustained an injury on a private sidewalk used only by customers coming to and from the business.
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November 26, 2014

MBTA Subway Trolleys Collide in Dorchester: Passengers Injured

by Altman & Altman

An Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority subway trolley collision this morning, injured a reported seven passengers according to WCVB.com and Boston.com.

The accident occurred around 6:40 Wednesday morning on the Mattapan line in Dorchester just outside of the Butler Street station, as the trolleys were en route toward Ashmont. An out-of-service trolley car, luckily carrying no passengers at the time, apparently hit another trolley, which was carrying passengers, an MBTA spokesperson told reporters.

The spokesman also stated that there were at least seven people who were injured in the collision; several reported experiencing some back pain, as well as minor bumps and bruises. Two of the injured individuals included trolley operators.
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November 26, 2014

Startling News for Minivan Owners

by Altman & Altman

According to a report issued by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety three popular models have received poor reviews in the IIHS’s front-end collision test.

The tests simulate what happens to a driver in a front-end collision. The ever-popular Chrysler Town and Country Minivan is one car that failed this IIHS test. According to reports by CBS, when the experts ran the Town and Country into a barrier, drivers side only, at 40 mph, the air bag deployed, but the front of the car collapsed. In this situation, the driver would be thrown off the bag and suffer a blow to the head. And this was not the worst collision: IIHS also tested the Nissan Quest, which when the model hit the barrier, its engine compartment was pushed two feet backward pinning the test dummy so completely that research technicians had to dismantle the front seat to recover it.

In a statement obtained by CBS, Executive Vice President Dave Zuby said that the Nissan Quest “is one of the worst vehicles we’ve tested in this particular test. The forces that we measured on the dummy’s left leg suggest that a person would be lucky to recover from the leg injuries and be able to walk normally again,” he said.

These new overlap tests are relatively new-they were initiated because a significant number of drivers were being killed in off-center collisions. The misperception, as Zuby puts it, is that people assume that cars are safer than ever, yet people are still dying and being seriously injured during front-end collisions.

In addition to Chrysler’s Town and Country, Dodge’s Caravan, and Nissan’s Quest being tested-all of which were rated as poor, the IIHS tested the Toyota Sienna (rated acceptable) and the Honda Odyssey (good).
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November 26, 2014

$18.5M Transvaginal Mesh Verdict Awarded to Four Women

by Altman & Altman

Boston Scientific has lost another transvaginal mesh injury lawsuit, this one over the Obtryx mesh sling. The defective medical device verdict awards $18.5 million, includes punitive damages, to four women. The jurors found that the company acted with “gross negligence.”

This is the medical device maker’s second pelvic mesh injury lawsuit loss in weeks. Earlier this month, another civil jury awarded four other women $26.7 million over injuries they sustained related to Boston Scientific’s Pinnacle mesh device.

In this Obtrxy mesh sling lawsuit, the plaintiffs said that the device, used to treat stress urinary incontinence, caused them to sustain serious infections and nerve damage, as well s experience serious pain during intercourse. They also said that the mesh implant device caused tissue erosion, organ damage, and severe pain. They had to undergo multiple surgeries because of the faulty implant.

November 24, 2014

$139M School District’s Sex Abuse Settlement, UVA’s Suspension of Fraternities Over Gang Rape Allegations Shine Yet Another Spotlight on Sexual Violence in Schools

by Altman & Altman

A school district in California has agreed to pay $139 million to resolve the remaining sex abuse lawsuits involving an elementary school teacher. Mark Berndt, a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, was convicted of numerous counts of lewd conduct.

Some 82 students are involved in the settlement, which was arrived at during jury selection of the trial.

According to plaintiffs, Berndt blindfolded the kids and fed them his sperm on cookies. If the child sex abuse trial had gone through, the alleged victims’ lawyers had intended to show evidence suggesting that the district knew of sexual misconduct allegations involving Berndt three decades ago but did not nothing until a pharmacy photo processor notified the authorities that there was film showing the kids blindfolded while eating an unknown substance.

November 21, 2014

Massachusetts is Still Behind in Elevator Inspections

by Altman & Altman

According to a report by Massachusetts auditor Suzanne Bump, the state’s Department of Public Safety is running behind on elevator inspections, which are supposed to be conducted on registered elevators every year. As of October 2012, over 14,200 of the approximately 39,000 registered elevators are running despite an expired inspection certificate. Over 1,700 have certificates that expired more than four years ago. Bump says elevators that go uninspected are a safety risk. This is especially true when there is an elevator defect or malfunction that goes unchecked and is not repaired.

Also according to the report, most elevator owners applied to have their elevators inspected on time but got stuck in the backlog. A Public Safety Department spokesperson noted that since the audit, the agency has been taking “significant’ steps to catch up with inspections and compliance is now beyond 80%. The report, however, claims that the department’s database isn’t accurate, which makes it hard to get a sense of how much progress has really been made in getting caught up on inspections.

The report comes more than ten years after another state audit reported similar issues with elevators undergoing timely inspections. Back then, elevator owners were identified as part of the problem for the delays because of their failure to apply for inspections.