Personal Injury Law News & Recall Articles - Second Quarter 2008

Nashville Post, "Local attorney takes on Ford over vehicle fires"

The big cases that plaintiff's lawyer Mark Chalos is pursuing right now are all about switches and ashes. Chalos, a partner at the local office of the national litigation firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, has filed suit against Ford Motor Co. on behalf of Nicole and Duanisha Mathews, who narrowly escaped from a burning Goodlettsville home one morning in June of last year. The lawsuit, filed in Davidson County Circuit Court on June 13, claims that a 2000 Ford Expedition - parked in the home's garage with its engine off - started the fire. More...

Fulton County Daily Report, "Federal Jury Awards $3.5 Million for Fatal Rollover of General Motors Chevy Blazer SUV"

A federal jury on Tuesday found General Motors at fault in a rollover accident that killed a 14-year-old boy, awarding his parents $3.5 million following a two-week trial. There was never an offer to settle and GM's attorneys have announced their intention to ask the judge to set aside the verdict. More...

Portfolio Media, "Heparin-Related Deaths Continue To Climb"

The number of heparin-related deaths continues to rise, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently reporting that another 11 people have perished in connection with medical devices either coated or infused with the blood thinner, which has been at the heart of an international contamination crisis. On Tuesday, the FDA revealed that nearly a dozen more patients have died while another 86 nonfatal adverse events have been reported in relation to various heparin-laced medical devices. More...

Portfolio Media, "Jury: Bad Brakes To Cost Kia $6M"

A New Jersey jury has handed consumers a $6 million victory in a product liability class action alleging that certain models of Kia Motors America Inc.'s Sephia had defective brakes. The verdict, rendered Friday in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Union County, N.J., came after a month-long trial in which jurors found that a class of New Jersey consumers was entitled to receive $6,029,250 in damages due to a defect design in the brake system of the 1995-2001 Kia Sephia. More...

Daily Green, "Is Golf Causing Diabetes? NIH Says Pesticides Commonly Used on Golf Courses Linked to Disease"

A pesticide commonly used on the turf at golf courses was linked to a whopping 250% increase in diabetes risk to the workers who apply the pesticides, according to one of the largest studies of its kind, by the National Institutes of Health. The chemical, trichlorfon, was associated with an 85% increase in risk of diabetes for even infrequent users, and a 250% increase in risk for those who had applied it more than 10 times. Of those who used the chemical frequently, 8.5% developed diabetes, versus 3.5% of those who had never used it. The pesticides main current use is on turf, such as at golf courses. More...

Detroit Free Press, "Rules on car roofs need to be better, senators warn"

Key U.S. senators warned federal auto safety regulators today that Congress would act if regulators produce unacceptable and ineffective rules for strengthening vehicle roofs to protect people in rollover crashes. The debate over the exact cause of deaths in rollover accidents, which claimed 9,362 lives in 2006, and how much blame rests with a vehicle's roof strength has raged for years among safety advocates and automakers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been working on a new plan for boosting roof-crush standards ahead of a July 1 deadline, since its first proposal issued in August 2005 faced sharp criticism from automakers and safety groups. More...

Southeast Texas Record, "Suit alleges Yamaha 'Rhino' ATV unreasonably dangerous"

While riding as a passenger in a Yamaha Rhino on a relatively flat terrain, Bossier City resident Ryan Rogers was injured when the ATV rolled toward the passenger side. Alleging the ATV was unreasonably dangerous, Ryan and Janison Rogers filed suit against Yamaha USA, Yamaha Manufacturing and Yamaha Motor on May 27 in the Marshall division of the Eastern District of Texas. More...

Medical Devices Today, "Physician-initiated Alert Sparks Zimmer Investigation Of Durom Hip Failures"

Zimmer is investigating failures of its Durom hip implants after a prominent joint reconstruction surgeon sent a letter reporting a series of problems with the device to the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. More...

Detroit News, "NHTSA to investigate 1.7 million Ford Windstar vans for cruise control defect"

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary defect investigation into 1.7 million Ford Windstar vans. The vehicles have a cruise control deactivation switch that's been recalled in nearly 10 million other Ford vehicles. NHTSA said they've received 130 complaints of fires in the vans, with 36 complaints in the last year. Two of the fires caused structural damage to homes, NHTSA said. More...

3TV (Phoenix, AZ), "Teen dies in Yamaha Rhino ATV rollover accident"

A 15-year-old boy has died of injuries he suffered during an off-road-vehicle rollover Friday afternoon in the far Northwest Valley. Maricopa County Sheriff's Investigators said the boy was among four teens riding on the small four-wheeled Yamaha vehicle called a Rhino when it overturned near 102nd Avenue and Jomax Road at about 4:00pm. The teen was taken to a local hospital where he died of his injuries. The other three teenage boys were not seriously hurt.

To learn more about Yamaha Rhino rollover injuries and lawsuits, please visit www.yamaharhinorolloverandrecall.com.

FOXNews.com, "Quaid testifies of Heparin overdose peril to newborn twins"

Actor Dennis Quaid told Congress today of a harrowing, near-fatal drug mixup in which his newborn twins were administered 1,000 times the normal dose of a blood thinner

Actor Dennis Quaid told Congress Wednesday that the near-fatal overdose of Heparin given to his newborn twins last November underscores the need to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable through lawsuits, a remedy that is becoming increasingly problematic for injured consumers. At issue before the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee is a move by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to step in and defend the pharmaceutical companies against such lawsuits. More...

Sacramento Bee, Settlement to aid injured boy; Magnetix toy pieces were swallowed by 4-year-old, severly injuring intestine

William Finley, a 4-year-old then living in the Shasta County city of Anderson, began vomiting on Aug. 2, 2005. When it didn't stop after three days, he was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where doctors were unable to diagnose his ailment. The surgeon found the large intestine had been punctured and discovered a "pair of button magnets stuck together within the pelvis." William's parents identified the magnets as coming from a "Magnetix" toy he received the previous Christmas. William would have died within hours if not for the surgery. More...

Reuters, "Death Rate Rises on Trasylol: Bayer pulls Trasylol supplies after study"

Bayer AG is removing remaining supplies of its heart-surgery drug Trasylol from the U.S. market after a long-awaited study found it raised the risk of death compared to two alternatives, U.S. regulators said on Wednesday. The announcement followed publication earlier on Wednesday of a Canadian study by the New England Journal of Medicine that showed patients given Trasylol had a more than 50 percent higher death rate than patients who got other, cheaper drugs. More...

New York Times, "Defective Ceramic Hip Implant Latest News: Squeaking Artificial Ceramic Hips"

Hundreds of patients have become guinea pigs in an unfolding medical mystery. Their artificial hips are made of ceramic materials that were promoted as being much more durable than older models. But for reasons not yet fully understood, their hips started to squeak, raising questions about whether the noises herald more serious malfunctions. More than 250,000 Americans get total hip implants each year, a procedure that generally costs close to $45,000. Hip replacements have a success rate of more than 90 percent, based on patients’ achieving relatively pain-free mobility after recovery periods that range from a few months to a year. More...

Associated Press, "Families of contaminated heparin victims tell stories of deaths"

The widow of a man who died after receiving contaminated heparin told a congressional subcommittee Tuesday "we have a false sense of security" in a land where people expect to be protected and safe. More...

LA Times , "Contaminated Blood Thinner Heparin Called a Worldwide Problem"

A contaminated blood thinner from China suspected in dozens of U.S. deaths has become a worldwide public health problem, with 10 other countries detecting the often-toxic ingredient, federal investigators said Monday. More...

International Herald-Tribune, "Merck wrote drug studies for doctors"

          The drug maker Merck drafted dozens of research studies for a best-selling drug, then lined up prestigious doctors to put their names on the reports before publication, according to an article to be published Wednesday in a leading medical journal. The article, based on documents unearthed in lawsuits over the pain drug Vioxx, provides a rare, detailed look in the industry practice of ghostwriting medical research studies that are then published in academic journals. More...

New York Times, "Faulty Ford cruise control switch has been blamed for 1,500 fires"

          After six recalls to correct problems with millions of Ford Motor Company cruise-control switches blamed for almost 1,500 fires, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration took an unusual step. In February, it issued a consumer advisory urging owners whose vehicles had not yet been fixed to have the switches disconnected immediately. More...