Boston Injury Lawyer Blog

December 26, 2012

$6.7M Massachusetts Wrongful Death Award Over Northeastern University’s 2007 Boston Fall Accident in Bar Goes to State’s Supreme Judicial Court

On January 7, oral arguments are scheduled to begin in the appeal of Our House East bar and its owners over a $6.7M Boston stairwell accident death award granted to the family of Northeastern University student Jacob Freeman. The 21-year-old died in 2007 two days after he fell down the stairs leading to the basement of the popular pub and restaurant and sustained a serious head injury. The case is before Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court.

Although the jury found the defendants not liable in Freeman’s fatal Boston fall accident, Judge Elizabeth Fahey ordered the bar and its owners to pay $6.7M in damages. She said that the pub’s failure to get the necessary permit for the stairs was a violation of Massachusett’s consumer protection laws and that there had been a lack of compliance with state building code.

The defendants, however, are appealing the award. They contend that seeing as jury did not find them liable for Freeman’s fatal fall, Fahey’s decision to impose damages was a mistake. They also maintain that customers were not allowed on the stairs. Meantime, the Massachusetts premises liability lawyers of Freeman’s family remain adamant that the judge’s decision to issue the award was a well-thought-out ruling.

December 22, 2012

Whistleblower Lawsuit Accuses Dialysis Company DaVita Inc. of Overbilling Medicare and Medicaid by Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

by Altman & Altman

Two men have filed a whistleblower case in what may be one of the largest incidents of Medicare fraud in the country’s history. The plaintiffs are Dr. Alon Vainer, a dialysis clinics medical director, and nurse Daniel Barbir. They contend that their employer, dialysis company DaVita Inc., overbilled Medicaid and Medicare by hundreds of millions of dollars between 2003 and 2010 for the purpose of making a profit.

According to Vainer and Barbir, the Medicare/Medicaid billing fraud took place at over 1,800 clinics that treated tens of thousands of patients. Per CNN, Vainer said that for example, with the drug Venofor only part of a 100 milligram vial would be administered to a patient, while the rest of it would be disposed of (while the company billed the government based on use of the entire vial) and the same would be done with other100-milligram vials of Venofor. The more vials that were used, the more money DaVita was able to make off its alleged scam.

Barbir and Vainer claim that they attempted to get this practice stopped but were told to back off and keep following protocols. Barbir eventually left the company while Vainer, who stayed on, said his medical directorship wasn’t renewed as punishment.

December 19, 2012

Massachusetts Wrongful Death/Personal Injury Lawsuit Blaming Lax Supervision at Gillette Stadium for Drunken Driving Crash Will Go to Trial

by Altman & Altman

Nearly four and a half years after a Massachusetts car crash killed two friends and injured a third on the night of the 2008 New England County Music Festival, a Norfolk Superior Court judge says that the families’ Foxborough, MA persona injury/wrongful death lawsuit can go to trial. The defendants had sought to have the case dismissed.

The catastrophic crash occurred after the three women, 24-year-old Norton resident Nina Houlihan, 19-year-old Mansfield resident Alexa Latteo, and 20-year-old Milton resident Debra Davis drank alcohol at the Gillette Stadium parking lot during the music event. They later crashed their car into a tree about a mile away from the site.

Latteo, who had been driving, died from her Foxborough, Massachusetts motor vehicle accident injuries, as did Milton. Houlihan survived with injuries. She and the Davis family later filed a civil case against Kraft Group, which owns the stadium, as well as several affiliated entities, including security firm TeamOps LLC, NPS LLC, and FXP LLC. The friends reportedly were tailgating “all day” at the Stadium even though they didn’t have tickets to the event.

December 17, 2012

A Decrease in Massachusetts Highway Deaths Doesn’t Mean Boston Car Drivers Get to Be Less Vigilant

by Altman & Altman

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the number of US highway deaths in 2011 went down to their lowest level since 1949 at 32,367 fatalities-a 1.9% drop from last year. The 2011 decline is a continuing trend over the last six years, which has lead to a 26% drop in traffic deaths since 2005.

In this state last year, Massachusetts traffic fatalities went down from 347 deaths in 2010 to 337. Nationwide, other significant 2011 statistics included:

• A 4.6% drop in the number of light truck and passenger car occupant deaths.

December 15, 2012

Whistleblower Lawsuit Accuses Deutsche Bank of Securities Violations

by Altman & Altman

Ex-Deutsche Bank quantitative risk analyst Dr. Ben-Artzi has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the financial firm. He claims that the bank accurately report its credit derivatives portfolio’s value and that he made his concerns known internally. Ben Artzi is one of three whistleblowers accusing Deutsche Bank of improper reporting to hide $12B in losses. He says that that he decided to notify enforcement authorities because the problem was not addressed or corrected by the firm.

Per his claims, between 2007 and 2010 Deutche Bank, the biggest holder of LSS trades at the time, did not give proper value to the gap option part of its Leveraged Super Senior tranches of credit derivatives portfolio and, as a result, who knows how many investors were hurt. Failure to give proper value to the trades, Ben-Artzi contends, caused the bank to continue projecting the image that it was doing a better job of handling the global economic crisis than other financial firms.

In addition to notifying the Securities and Exchange Commission of these alleged violations through its Whistleblower Program, Ben-Artzi has filed a retaliation complaint with the Labor Department claiming violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s whistleblower protection provisions. Ben-Artzi says that as he made his way up the chain of command at the bank to try to get the valuation problems remedied, he began to experience isolation and hostility on the job, was not allowed to access records he needed to perform his duties, and lost certain responsibilities as well as a degree of autonomy. He also claims that when he came back from paternity leave last year, Deutsche Bank told him that is position had been transferred to Europe, and he was laid off without being offered the offered the opportunity to transfer or find a new position within the company.

December 14, 2012

Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre Leaves At Least 27 Dead

by Altman & Altman

A tragic shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut has claimed the lives of at least 20 kids between the ages of 5 and 10, and seven adults, including shooter Adam Lanza, 20. One other victim was hurt. According to the media, Lanza shot at his victims in two rooms before firing on himself. He had multiple fire arms with him.

Lanza’s mother is among the deceased. Her body was found at the home she shared with him. At Altman & Altman, LLP the thoughts of our Boston injury lawyers are with the with the victims, their families, and the rest of the community there at this time during what is being called the second deadliest school shootings in our nation’s history. The campus shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007 had 32 fatalities. 15 were killed, including the two shooters, at the The Columbine High School shooting.

Massachusetts School Accidents and Crimes

December 13, 2012

Fungal Meningitis Outbreak Update: Framingham, Massachusetts-Based Compound Pharmaceutical Company Now a Defendant in Dozens of Federal Drug Injury Lawsuits

by Altman & Altman

At least 50 federal lawsuits have been filed in nine states seeking products liability compensation from the New England Compounding Center, the Framingham, Massachusetts pharmaceutical company that is the identified source of a tainted steroid injection that has made nearly 600 people ill with fungal meningitis, spinal infections, and/or other complications, including joint infections and stroke. At least 37 people have died. More drug injury cases against NECC are also being submitted in state court.

According to the drug defect lawsuits, the compound pharmacy made a dangerous and flawed product. Millions of dollars are being sought by the plaintiffs for their personal injuries, mental anguish, emotional trauma, lost wages, costly medical bills, and other related damages, as well as the wrongful deaths of loved ones. In Massachusetts, please contact our Boston fungal meningitis law firm to request your free case evaluation.

Because so many dangerous drug cases are in progress, attorneys are seeking to have one judge hear the pretrial and discovery portions of all the federal lawsuits via multidistrict litigation. The complaints would then go to a judge in the original district for trial.

December 12, 2012

Consumer Watchdog Asks FDA to Inspect Pharmacies after Meningitis Outbreak from Framingham, MA Pharmacy

by Altman & Altman

We blogged last month about the nationwide outbreak of meningitis that originated in a Framingham, MA compounding pharmacy.

A consumer watchdog organization, Public Citizen, is now asking the Food and Drug Administration to re-inspect over a dozen specialty pharmacies with records of violations. Public Citizen sent a letter to the FDA on Thursday calling for the agency to re-examine 16 compounding pharmacies that received warnings from the FDA between 2003 and 2012.

Public Citizen decried what it says is the FDA’s recurring failure to follow up on warning letters to pharmacies. “By not fully investigating what could potentially be deadly violations of the law, the FDA is disregarding its primary purpose, which is to protect the lives of citizens,” said Dr. Michael Carome, Deputy Director of Public Citizen’s health unit.

The fungal meningitis outbreak that has killed 36 people and made ill more than 500 has been linked to contaminated pain injections from the New England Compounding Center of Framingham, MA.

The FDA inspected the New England Compounding Center three times before the outbreak and issued a warning letter in 2006, according to Congressional investigators. The letter addressed numerous violations, such as repackaging FDA-approved drugs into smaller doses and mass producing drugs without prescriptions.

Public Citizen wants the FDA to look into warning letters sent to pharmacies in 15 states for a number of violations, including: producing drugs from non-FDA approved ingredients, making copies of already approved drugs, and making compounds without a prescription from a doctor.
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December 10, 2012

MBTA Fires “Inattentive” Driver Involved in Boston Train Crash

by Altman & Altman

The MBTA has fired the driver of a Green Line train that recently collided with another train, sending numerous riders to the hospital.

The reason for the termination is that the driver was “inattentive” at the time of the crash, said MBTA General Manager Jonathan R. Davis.

Davis said the driver was “solely responsible” for the accident. The driver had worked another, non-MBTA job from midnight to 8:00 a.m. before starting his MBTA job at 11:00 a.m., approximately an hour before the crash. The MBTA has not released the name of the driver or a description of the second job.

MBTA rules do not specifically prohibit employees from working additional jobs, but by not having sufficient rest before reporting to work, the driver was unfit for duty, violating MBTA policy, said Davis.

“Because of his alarming disregard for customer and employee safety in performing his duty as a Green Line operator, today he was fired,” Davis said at a news conference prior to a regularly scheduled meeting of the state transportation board. “The conclusion is he was inattentive to his duties as a Green Line operator, resulting in a collision with the other vehicle.”

The driver reported to investigators that he did not fall asleep while operating the train, said Davis. Investigators were unable to determine if that was in fact the case, said Davis.

The collision between two Green Line trains at the Boylston Street station occurred just before noon on Thursday, injuring tens of people. The train was entering the station when it rear-ended another train that had stopped on the platform.

37 people were taken to area hospitals with minor injuries. “People went flying, got their knees banged up. It was pretty hectic,” said one rider.

None of the trolleys were damaged in the crash and the station opened in time for the evening commute.
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December 6, 2012

Boston Carbon Monoxide Exposure in Mattapan Homes Sickens Seven

by Altman & Altman

According to a local fire official, seven people fell ill after they were exposed to a carbon monoxide leak in a Mattapan home on Wednesday afternoon. Two of the victims were reportedly children. As of yesterday evening, reports The Boston Globe, all of the victims except for one woman, who was being treated for an unrelated condition, had been released from the hospital.

Boston EMS said that the CO exposure was likely triggered while a worker was fixing the triple-decker residence’s heating unit. Also, there were a couple of carbon monoxide detectors missing from the building while another one didn’t have batteries. Following the evacuation of the residents, the company that had been working on the unit tightened a lose duct that may have been the source of the gas leak.

CO Poisoning
Too much exposure to carbon monoxide can be fatal, and with the cold weather now here, this is the time of year when the number of leaks rises. While CO is emitted any time something is burned and this generally isn’t a problem as long as ventilation isn’t an issue, danger can occur should the gas build up in an enclosed space and/or when ventilation is poor. The reason that the winter months is a time when CO poisoning incidents go up is that this is when many Americans use fireplaces, furnaces, water heaters, gas cooking stoves, and space heaters-appliances that emit carbon monoxide.

CO is a gas that has no smell or color so victims usually don’t know when they’ve been exposed. Carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms can also be deceptive: headache, a feverless flu, nausea, breath shortness, dizziness, and fatigue. Exposure to a high concentration of CO can render a person unconscious, and may even prove fatal. The elderly, infants, and people whose red blood counts are low or who are suffering from respiratory or heart conditions are at greater risk of serious effects from CO poisoning.

Depending on what happened, you may have grounds for Boston personal injury case against the owner of the property where the CO poisoning occurred, the manufacturer of the appliance that leaked the gas, or a maintenance company that played a role in allowing the leak to happen. Failure by a property owner to install working CO detectors that are supposed to warn when a leak has happened can also be a reason to file a Massachusetts premises liability lawsuit if serious injuries or a death occurred.

Winter Heating Safety Alert: Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention, American Red Cross
Seven people sickened after carbon monoxide exposure, The Boston Globe, December 5, 2012

More Blog Posts:
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Sends Boston Mother and Kids to Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Injury Lawyer Blog, January 23, 2012

Boston Family Suffers Carbon Monoxide Exposure, Boston Injury Lawyer Blog, January 23, 2012

Massachusetts Manufacturer Cited by OSHA for 34 Safety Violations, Massachusetts Workers’ Compensation Lawyer Blog, May 21, 2009 Continue reading