Second Quarter 2004 Personal Injury Law News & Recall Articles

Los Angeles Times, "Power window reforms sought in wake of deaths"

          At least seven children nationwide have died since March 30 from strangulation or asphyxiation after their necks were caught by power windows. The rash of deaths has prompted safety advocates to increase pressure on Congress to enact measures that would require vehicles to have safer power-window switches. "We are devastated by these fatalities," says Janette Fennell, president of Kids and Cars, a consumer advocate group that has strenuously pushed for tougher vehicle safety. "Congress can stop children from being needlessly killed by dangerous power windows." More...

Washington Post, "Car Window Deaths Anger Safety Groups"

          At least seven children have died nationwide in the past three months by getting strangled in automobile power windows, prompting safety advocates to charge the auto industry and the government with dragging their feet in making relatively simple changes to reduce the danger. More...

Associated Press, "Lawsuits could mount in popcorn factory lung problems"

         Several lawsuits have followed a federal study that found breathing problems among popcorn plant workers exposed to butter flavoring, and lawyers say more lawsuits may be on the way. Earlier this year, a jury ordered the company that makes the flavoring to pay a worker in Joplin, Mo., $20 million in damages. Eric Peoples, 32, of Carthage, Mo., claimed he had developed bronchial obliterans, more commonly called "popcorn packer's lung." More...

Good Morning America, "One Wrong Move: Car Window Switches Can Be Deadly for Children"

          Matthew Chappell was serving in the Middle East with the U.S. Air Force when he got the bad news. His 4-year-old daughter was killed in an accident involving a car. More...

CNN Money, "Behind the rollover ratings: NHTSA's SUV rating system doesn't say much"

          If you're shopping for a new sport utility vehicle and you want to buy one that's less likely to roll over in a crash, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's five-star rollover resistance ratings can be helpful. More...

The New York Times, "Providing Electricity When the Power Fails"

          June 1 was the official start of the hurricane season. And while for most people, the event probably passed unnoticed, it was the signal for home centers and hardware stores to roll out their supplies of emergency backup generators. More...

Newsday (New York), "GM's Stabilitrak"

          General Motors says the addition of its stability enhancement system to 15-passenger vans is preventing accidents. The assertions come at a time when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is restating its warning of the rollover risk of 15-passenger vans. More...

Associated Press, "Worker says breathing butter flavoring damaged lungs"

         A worker at the Sioux City factory that makes Jolly Time microwave popcorn has filed a lawsuit claiming that butter flavoring he breathed on the job damaged his lungs. Kevin Remmes, of Sioux City, claimed that the manufacturers of the flavoring didn't provide instructions for its handling and use. The flavoring contains diacetyl, a chemical linked to a rare respiratory disease known as bronchiolitis obliterans, commonly known as popcorn packer's lung. More...

Reuters, "Ford likely to hit speed bump with rollover suit"

          The $369 million in damages slapped on Ford Motor in an Explorer rollover case by plaintiff Benetta Buell-Wilson last week may expose it to more legal setbacks and highlight the automaker's inability to put one of the worst crises in its 100-year history behind it, experts said. More...

The New York Times, "Some Popular SUV's Fare Badly in Rollover Tests"

          The rear-wheel-drive version of the Ford Explorer, the nation's best-selling sport utility vehicle, tipped up on two wheels during a rollover test performed by the government, according to results released Monday. The news comes less than a week after a woman paralyzed in an Explorer rollover accident won a $369 million judgment against the Ford Motor Company. More...

The Detroit News, "Van rollovers spark driver training, fixes; Churches, schools abandon, modify 15-passenger vehicles"

          In Metro Detroit and across the country, fears about the stability and safety of 15-passenger vans have prompted owners churches, child-care centers and white-water rafting operators to rip out seats, arrange special driver training and even install dual rear wheels. Some owners have gone a step further, trading in the vans for small school buses and other vehicles. More...

The Daily News of Los Angeles, "Tire Failure Leads to Two Fatal Crashes"

          Three people from Tehachapi and Rosamond died in two separate weekend crashes on Highway 58 after tread came off tires on the vehicles in which they were riding, officials said Monday. More...

Daily Journal, "Rollover Case Yields Punitives of $246 Million"

          A San Diego, California jury added $246 million in punitive damages to the $122 million the panel had awarded in compensatory damages to a woman paralyzed by a rollover accident in her Ford Explorer. The plaintiff's lawyers in the case said the verdict against Ford Motor Co. was the first in which a jury decided that poor design of the Explorer caused injuries in rollover crashes. The combined monetary award totaling $368 million is the second-largest verdict against an automaker. More...

Free Press News Services, "Jury orders Ford to pay $122 million"

          A San Diego, California jury ordered Ford Motor Co. to pay at least $122 million to a woman paralyzed in an SUV rollover accident, the first setback in a string of lawsuits involving the Ford Explorer, the nation's best-selling sport-utility vehicle. The final award could be much higher. The award issued late Tuesday covered only compensatory damages. The jury began deliberations Wednesday on punitive damages. Ford said it will appeal. More...

The New York Times, "Regulators Question the Stability of Big Vans"

                    Federal regulators released a report yesterday that raised new questions about the stability of 15-passenger vans and how they are used. The report comes two days after three members of a Bronx church group were killed and nine were injured in the rollover of a large van at the Canadian border. More..

Associated Press, "Third trial set this month in popcorn flavoring lawsuits"

          The third trial involving claims that butter flavoring used at a popcorn factory caused disabling lung injuries to workers is scheduled to begin later this month. The lawsuits of four former employees, and a spouse of one of the employees, have been combined for a trial that is scheduled to begin June 14. More...

Palm Beach Post, "Firefighters Pull Woman From Burning Kia Sportage"

Two off-duty firefighters were being touted as heroes Saturday after pulling a trapped woman from a burning vehicle with just seconds to spare. More...

Associated Press, "Miami tenants settle lawsuits over carbon monoxide poisoning"

         A total of over $30 million was paid to seven former tenants of Terra Cotta Apartments near Miami Lakes, as well as two other family members who were not injured. More...

The Associated Press, "Bill requires boats to post carbon monoxide warnings"

          Boats would have to post a sticker warning of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning, under a bill approved Tuesday by the California State Assembly. More...

The Guardian, "Be on the lookout for carbon monoxide poisoning at home"

          We've all heard of depressed people using CO in a closed garage to commit suicide. But we forget that recreational vehicles, poorly ventilated cabins, malfunctioning kerosene space heaters, fire places and wood stoves also pose a potential threat. More...

Palm Beach Daily Business Review, "Summary of Bowden v. General Motors Corp."

          The estate of a 52-year-old truck driver who died from carbon monoxide poisoning while sleeping in his tractor was awarded $4.43 million by a jury on April 23. More...

Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT), "Portable Generators Linked to Rise in Carbon Monoxide Deaths"

          The number of reported carbon monoxide [CO] poisoning deaths in the United States caused by portable generators doubled in just two years, according to a new report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. More...

The Kansas City Star, "Generating danger"

          More people are using portable gas-powered generators at home, leading to more deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning and a government warning Thursday about the machines' proper use. More...

Palm Beach Post (Florida), "Officials Warn Generators Give Off Deadly Gas"

          Twice as many people died nationwide of carbon monoxide poisoning from misusing portable power generators in the last two years than in previous years, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday. More...

Associated Press, "U.S. Warns Consumers on Generator Dangers"

          More people are using portable gas-powered generators at home, leading to more deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning and a government warning Thursday about the machine's proper use. More...

 

Associated Press, "Texas judge affirms $1 billion award in diet drug case"

          A Texas judge has affirmed a jury's award of more than $1 billion in damages against drug maker Wyeth to the family of a woman who took Pondimin, part of the now-banned weight-loss combination fen-phen. A jury in Beaumont, Texas, granted the award to the family of Cynthia Cappel-Coffey, who died in 2003, a year after she was diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension, a condition her attorneys said resulted from taking the drug. More...

Salt Lake Tribune (Utah), "State Parks official warns of carbon monoxide threat"

          The dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning may not be obvious when sitting on an open air boat in the middle of a mountain lake. But that seemingly fresh air could contain a odorless fume that can kill. More...

Tampa Tribune, "Jury Awards Family $4.4 Million In Death Of Trucker At Roadside"

          For long-distance truck drivers, a sleeper cab is home, with air conditioning, computer links and a bed. But a month after Robert Bruce Nelson picked up a new 2000 Freightliner Century Class. More...

The New York Times, "Few SUVs Win Highest U.S. Safety Ratings"

          General Motors' sport utility vehicles generally have poor ratings in the government's frontal crash tests but perform well in side-impact crashes, according to results released Wednesday. The 2004 Chevrolet Trailblazer, Buick Rainier, GMC Envoy, GMC Envoy XUV and Oldsmobile Bravada each earned three out of five stars in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's frontal crash tests. But they earned five stars on the side-impact tests. Three stars means there is a 21 percent to 35 percent chance of serious injury in a similar real-world crash. NHTSA conducts the front-impact test at 35 mph and the side-impact test at 38.5 mph. More...

The New York Times, "In Door Safety Cases, Ford Settles and a Mother Struggles"

          Deborah Seliner says she does not remember the accident, just one moment when she was driving her used 1997 Ford pickup along Highway 6 near College Station and the next moment when she was in the dark carrying on a conversation with someone she decided was God. She was begging him, "God, please, if that is you, let me live for my babies." Her truck, she found later, had blown a rear tire, sending her off the road onto a grassy divider. The truck rolled over, ejecting her, even though she had apparently been wearing a seat belt, through the open driver's side door and hurling her 20 yards onto the pavement.
More...

Associated Press, "Settlement is reached in popcorn plant trial"

          Attorneys announced a confidential settlement Friday just moments before a jury was set to announce a verdict in the second of a series of suits from people who claim a butter flavoring used at the popcorn factory where they worked caused disabling lung injuries. Details of the settlement were not disclosed, but the attorney for sick worker Linda Redman said he was pleased. More...

The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia), "Death caves claim 3 more U.S. teens: Carbon monoxide poisoning from a smouldering fire is blamed for the deaths"

          A labyrinth of caves left by 1800s sandstone miners along the Mississippi River has long been a forbidden and sometimes deadly thrill for teenagers, who ignore the keep-out signs and thwart the city's best efforts to seal off the passages. More...

The Ledger (Lakeland, FL), "Jury Awards Man's Widow, Son $4.4 Million; Trucker Died of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning"

          The widow and son of a Bartow man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning while he slept in his semitrailer have been awarded about $ 4.4 million by a federal jury. More...

The New York Times, "Texas Jury Rules Against the Maker of Fen-Phen, a Diet Drug"

          A jury in a state court in Beaumont, Tex., ruled yesterday that the pharmaceutical company Wyeth should pay $1 billion to the family of a woman who died from lung disease that the plaintiff's lawyers said was caused by a diet drug the company made in the 1990's. More...

The Associated Press, "Family Awarded $1 Billion in Diet Drug Case"

          A jury awarded $1 billion to the family of a woman who once took the Wyeth-made diet drug Pondimin, part of the now-banned weight-loss combination fen-phen. The New Jersey-based drug company said Tuesday it would appeal the jury's huge award, which included $900 million in punitive damages. More...

Scripps Howard News Service, "California bill warns of lethal boating danger"

          Toxicology results confirmed the unimaginable: both children had died, in open air, from the simple act of breathing. In incidents separated by hundreds of miles and three years, 15-year-old Stacy Beckett, of Ontario, Calif., and 11-year-old Anthony Farr, of El Dorado Hills, Calif., drowned after inhaling extremely high levels of carbon monoxide while body surfing behind ski boats. More...

The Arizona Republic, "Boating's Deadly Secret; People Must Learn Dangers of Carbon Monoxide"

          Teak surfing, taking a ride by hanging onto the swim platform of a boat, looks like harmless fun. But there's a deadly and invisible danger: carbon monoxide. More...

Omaha World Herald (Nebraska), "Sarpy County death tied to carbon monoxide"

          Accidental carbon-monoxide poisoning claimed the life of a Sarpy County man who died in his home last week, authorities have ruled. More...

The Arizona Republic, "Gas Danger for Boaters, Swimmers"

          Boaters, beware. Despite multiple studies and strategies to reduce carbon monoxide emissions from recreational boats, swimmers and boaters still risk being poisoned by the odorless, colorless gas. More...

Monterey County Herald, "Danger for Popcorn Workers; Health Workers Try to Determine Extent of Illnesses"

          "We know that butter flavorings are very widely used," said Dr. Gregory Wagner, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Division of Respiratory Disease Studies. "What we don't know is how much injury has occurred." More...

Times-News (Twin Falls, Idaho), "Slender at a price... Diet Drugs Users Seek Compensation for Heart Damage"

          On July 8, 1997, the Food and Drug Administration issued a public health advisory that revealed some unnerving findings at the Mayo Clinic. Twenty-four of the clinic's patients had developed heart valve disease after taking Fen-Phen. Five of them ended up in open-heart surgery, and eight more ended up developing pulmonary hypertension, a sometimes fatal disease of the heart and lungs. More...

The Detroit News, "Thousands killed, hurt as auto roofs collapse"

          Penny Shipler remembers the Chevrolet Blazer rolling over and over, then the sound of the roof crashing down over her head. When it finally stopped, she tried to move. "I was thinking get out, I had to get out," she said. "I thought I was getting out." But the Nebraska woman was paralyzed, her spinal cord crushed on impact with the metal roof that caved in around her. More...

Patient Care Law Weekly, "Popcorn worker awarded $20 million in lawsuit over lung damage"

          Eric Peoples cradled his wife and wept after a jury agreed that vapors from butter flavoring at the microwave popcorn factory where he once worked had permanently ruined his lungs. Peoples said his tears didn't only come out of satisfaction with the $20 million verdict. He also was thinking of the 29 other former workers at the Gilster-Mary Lee plant in Jasper who have cases pending against the same butter-flavoring manufacturers. More...

New York Times, "Viagra may get a role as a lung medication"

          Viagra is only one of several drugs approved or being developed for the lung disease. Some doctors and insurance companies say that it has not been proven effective in rigorous clinical trials, whereas other drugs have. Pulmonary hypertension patients use the drug every day and in higher doses than men who use it before sex, they say, potentially raising new risks. More...

The Tribune (Port St. Lucie/Fort Pierce, FL), "Ohio man's lungs crippled by vapors at popcorn plant, doctors say"

          A coughing fit jerks Keith Campbell's body tight, as if he's being strangled by invisible demons. When the spasm passes, he leans his head back into his worn orange recliner and closes his eyes to let the dizziness pass. More...

The Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, UK), "Gassed to Death"

          A freak series of conditions combined to kill a retired teacher as he made marmalade, an inquest heard. Keith Turnbull, 61, was cooking up the preserve while his isolated cottage turned into a gas chamber. More...

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock), "Arkansas underdog bites big SUV makers in their bank accounts"

          In 1989, a co-worker's grief thrust Tab Turner into an area of trial law that changed his career. An attorney with Friday Eldredge & Clark in Little Rock, Turner was handed the case of Kelly Klemestrud of Memphis, brother of an employee at the law firm. Klemestrud suffered brain damage when his Ford Bronco II rolled over. Turner, 30 years old at the time, refused Ford's initial offer of a $100,000 settlement. More...

Medical Letter from the CDC & FDA, "EPA examines link between microwave popcorn and lung disease"

         The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is studying the chemicals released into the air when a bag of microwave popcorn is popped or opened. Exposure to vapors from butter flavoring in microwave popcorn has been linked to a rare lung disease contracted by factory workers in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has said it suspects the chemical diacetyl caused the illnesses. More...

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri), "Snack Food: Is It Hurting Workers Who Make It?"

WHAT'S KNOWN: Vapors from butter flavoring used in microwave popcorn put factory workers at risk for developing lung disease.

WHAT'S FEARED: These dangers could also affect workers who make candy, snack cakes and potato chips that use the flavoring. More...