Tag: personal injury

Is that Bed your Child is sleeping in Safe Enough?

Products get recalled everyday due to broken or breaking pieces, but we trust the products that we buy to keep us safe and to protect us. As parents we also expect the bed we tuck our kids into to be safe and to protect them. The sad truth is that may not always be the case.

On Wednesday September 23, 2009, the U.S. Product Safety Commission recalled Bunk Beds due to collapse and fall hazards.  They are wooden bunk beds and about 20,000 of them are being recalled due to these hazards.  The bunk bed mattress support slats can break possibly causing the bed to collapse and the consumer to fall. Big Lots Inc received fourteen reports of the supports cracking or breaking and four reported minor injuries. The defective products being recalled are wooden bunk beds with a three step ladder.  Their model numbers are: WP 91081 and WP 91082. These were sold at Big Lots stores from May 2008 until February 2009. The defective product should stop being used immediately and be reported to Big Lots for a free repair kit.

For more information on these bunk beds you may visit: www.biglots.com

If you feel that you or a loved one has been injured due to a defective consumer product, please contact a defective product attorney right away. They will help you advocate for your rights as a consumer.

ATV Safety Tips that may Save Your Life

These days ATVs have become very popular especially among young teens and young adults. Unfortunately, if you do not know how to properly operate one or drive one, injuries can and will happen. Many people get injured in ATV accidents every day. It is important to have the proper training and know how to drive an ATV before using it to help you and your loved ones avoid serious injuries or accidents.

Here are some safety tips for riding and driving ATVs from U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

  • Wear a helmet and protective gear and clothing
  • Do not ride tandem (or two on one ATV)
  • Do not ride on the payment
  • Do not let children ride on adult ATVs
  • Do not drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs

Many injuries caused on ATVs are head injuries. Wearing a helmet that is certified by the U.S. Department of Transportation may help prevent serious head or other injuries. Wearing protective gear and clothing will help protect against burns or abrasions to the skin.  Most ATVs were only made for one rider. Having more than one rider causes the weight to be off balance which makes it harder to control an ATV. It is best to ride with no passengers for overall safety. Other injuries and even deaths have occurred when riders drive ATVs on paved roads, they were not designed for this kind of pavement and they can collide with other vehicles easily.  Children have been involved in many deaths and injuries when riding on adult ATVs and more likely to get injured on an adult ATV if they are less than sixteen years of age, than on an ATV made for youth.  As with driving any vehicle or operating machinery, ATVs should not be driven while under the influence of alcohol or drugs because timing and judgment can be impaired causing more injuries and accidents.

For these reasons and for the safety of yourself, your loved ones and other drivers, it is important to follow these ATV safety tips. They really just might save your life.

If you or a loved one has been injured in ATV accident and would like your rights heard for your medical needs and other expenses, please contact a personal injury attorney right away. They will help you advocate for the rights of you and your loved one.

For additional information on ATV safety, you may visit: this link.

Is Your Computer Chair Really Safe?

Each day millions of people sit down on their computer chair to check their email, have conversations with people and even to do business. We also let our children sit at the computer to play computer games, learn or do homework. We all assume that our trusty computer chair in our home is safe; we never consider that to could possibly injury or harm us.  This assumption is wrong.  Each day, millions of products are recalled because they are unsafe and may cause injury. One of these recent product recalls was on the OfficeMax Office Chairs which was found to cause serious injuries to user because it was a fall hazard.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission the chairs were recalled on September 1, 2009 because the back and base were defective and could break during routine use causing a serious personal injury.  The OfficeMax Company has received thirty-six reports of these chairs bases or backs breaking while in use, resulting in fifteen reported personal injuries including lacerations, muscle strains, contusions, and concussions.

The specific office chairs being recalled are the OfficeMax Task Chairs with the model number OM182 and OM96614. The chairs are also charcoal in color and have plastic arms and a plastic and metal base.

If you have one of these office chairs, you should stop using it right away and go to an OfficeMax location for a full refund or a gift card.

If you have been injured or hurt by a defective product like this office chairs or know someone that may have been, you should contact a defective products lawyer right away. They can help you fight for your consumer product safety rights and be your advocate to make sure your rights are protected the way they should be.

For additional information regarding Consumer Safety Product Recalls you may go to the U.S. Product Safety Commission  located here: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prerelsep09.html  and for additional information concerning this specific product recall you may visit: www.officemax.com

You and Your Car: Control Your Surroundings Around Your Children

Close calls on the road can be a scary thing, especially when they involve children. This morning, while dropping my children off at school, I had one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. After my youngest son got out of the car, he turned to wave, and ran off towards the building at full speed, anxious to meet up with his friends. He wasn’t paying attention, and ran quickly around the back of another car dropping off their own children. He ran right through their blind spot right as they began to back out, coming very close to getting hit by the rear end of the car. I could only look on in horror, and thankfully, he was fine. While I know my son is very aware of the danger of vehicles, and how to act around them, there are still many uncontrollable factors that lead to terrible accidents involving children. However, there are also many factors which are controllable, which if addressed, can prevent thousand of accidents each year. Below is a list of safety ideas to help keep your young children safe in and around vehicles.

Please follow the following recommendations to keep children safe:

1. Walk around and behind a vehicle prior to moving it.

2. Know where your kids are. Make children move away from your vehicle to a place where they are in full view before moving the car and know that another adult is properly supervising children before moving your vehicle.

3. Teach children that “parked” vehicles might move. Let them know that they can see the vehicle; but the driver might not be able to see them.

4. Consider installing cross view mirrors, audible collision detectors, rear view video camera and/or some type of back up detection device.

5. Measure the size of your blind zone (area) behind the vehicle(s) you drive. A 5-foot-1-inch driver in a pickup truck can have a rear blind zone of approximately 8 feet wide by 50 feet long.

6. Be aware that steep inclines and large SUV’s, vans and trucks add to the difficulty of seeing behind a vehicle.

7. Hold the child’s hand firmly when leaving the vehicle.

8. Teach your children to never play in, around or behind a vehicle and always set the emergency brake.

9. Keep toys and other sports equipment off the driveway.

10. Homeowners should trim landscaping around the driveway to ensure they can see the sidewalk, street and pedestrians clearly when backing out of their driveway. Pedestrians also need to be able to see a vehicle pulling out of the driveway.

11. Never leave children alone in or around cars; not even for a minute.

12. Keep vehicles locked at all times; even in the garage or driveway and always set your parking brake.

13. Keys and/or remote openers should never be left within reach of children.

14. Make sure all child passengers have left the car after it is parked.

15. Be especially careful about keeping children safe in and around cars during busy times, schedule changes and periods of crisis or holidays.

These precautions can save lives.

Medical Malpractice Attorney in New Jersey

Medical Research Continues to Lose Integrity

Senator Charles E. Grassley has raised some serious concern over a recent article published in the Elsevier Medical Journal. The Senator has asked the publisher to investigate an article written on hormone replacement therapy, believing that it was improperly “ghostwritten” by a drug company promoting their products. The article was part of an editor’s choice section in Elsevier’s Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

In an article signed by Dr. John Eden of Australia, Senator Grassley has found unethical promotions lacking scientific evidence. At the heart of the controversy is the drug company Wyeth. Mr. Grassley, a member of the Senate Finance Committee who is investigating drug company influence on doctors, contends that Wyeth commissioned the articles and had them ghostwritten by a medical writing firm. Only after the articles were conceived and under way did the firm line up doctors to put their names on them, Mr. Grassley contends.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Drug companies have been forcing their will on medical research results for decades now, and the influence of corporate profit is on the rise. By 2006, Drug companies were spending nearly twice as much on advertising and marketing as they were on the research and testing needed to ensure the safety of a new product.

Mr. Grassley’s investigation shows how results of this corporate policy can be catastrophic. A landmark federal study has linked Wyeth’s Prempro hormone product to breast cancer in women. What does the expert testimony sponsored by Wyeth say about that taxpayer funded study? Dr. Eden’s controversial article states that, “there was no definitive evidence that the [Wyeth] hormones caused breast cancer.”

It seems the Wyeth Corporation and Dr. Eden have forgotten the meaning of the Hippocratic oath.

Contact a Medical Malpractice Attorney in PA

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Medical Malpractice Caps Favor Insurance Companies Instead Of Protecting Injury Victims

BusinessReport.com ran a story this morning about two medical malpractice lawyers in Louisiana. The lawyers are trying to fight the medical malpractice cap adopted by the State of Louisiana, one of twenty-five states to adopt such legislation. At simplest, these caps put a roof on the possible rewards for victims of medical malpractice. In Louisiana, and some other states, the cap is $500,000. In the case in which these two Louisiana lawyers are fighting the cap, a thirteen year-old girl, who had to have her leg amputated because of malpractice, was awarded by a jury of her peers around $3.5 million dollars. She cannot and will not receive this award, because of the cap.

It reminds me of the way in which politicians have tied the hands of judges in mandatory minimum sentencing legislation. Just as a judge, whose been appointed or voted to the bench by us, cannot use his or her expertise to sentence and rule on criminal trials, so too are juries of our peers prevented from making determinations based on their own humanity and understanding of medical malpractice cases, such as this one. So, inevitably, we ask why?

This article from BusinessReport explains quite accurately that the caps exist to prevent medical malpractice insurance providers from raising insurance premiums to the extent that doctors will avoid practicing medicine in states with high premiums. This would lower the quality of health care in certain states. This logic is upsetting in two ways. First, the discussion of whether or not the health care quality has increased in those states seems a bit undercut by way of its context: a thirteen year old girl who’s missing a leg, because of malpractice in a state with a cap. Second, its an example of politicians trying to legislatively control our legal system (to the detriment of the average American) by tying the hands of juries, rather than trying to legislatively control the big-business insurance companies, who are hiking up doctors’ medical malpractice insurance rates. To this day, the purchase and regulation of car insurance has been legislatively mandated by our federal government. Why not control the medical insurance companies rather than risk a fall-out of quality health care and the deprivation of reasonable rewards to children who have suffered from medical malpractice? They have shown no reason why they cannot regulate the insurance premiums, rather than the victim’s rewards.

If you or a loved one has been harmed by medical malpractice, you may have a claim for damages. For more information, please go to the New Jersey Medical Malpractice Attorney page.

John R. Mininno, Esq. is a New Jersey and Pennsylvania trial lawyer representing clients in medical malpractice, defective products and other serious injury claims. He also writes about issues concerning patient safety. His offices are in Collingswood, NJ and Philadelphia, PA.

John Mininno Featured in South Jersey Magazine’s 2008 Awesome Attorneys

On behalf of the legal staff at Mininno Law Office, we are excited to report that John Mininno, Esq. will be featured in the 2008 edition of South Jersey Magazine’s Awesome Attorneys!

To all of our friends and family, please show your appreciation for all of John’s hard work and dedicated service by voting for him in the areas of medical malpractice, personal injury and products liablity.

Click here to vote for John Mininno as South Jersey’s 2008 Awesome Attorney!

Hungry? Coffee, Bagel and Salmonella poisoning for breakfast anyone?

The Center for Disease and FDA announced a defective product the recall of two breakfast cereals manufactured by Malt-O-Meal. The cereals “Puffed Rice’ and “Puffed Wheat’ were found to be contaminated by salmonella.

Salmonella is bacteria that can cause diarrheal illness in humans. These microscopic living creatures pass from the feces of people or animals, to other people or other animals. Salmonella has been known to cause illness for over 100 years. People with Salmonella develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after infection. Salmonella infection may spread from the intestines to the blood stream, and then to other body sites and can cause death unless the person is treated promptly with antibiotics. The elderly, infants, and those with impaired immune systems are more likely to have a severe illness and other personal injury.

A hard working and serious, American scientist named Salmon, for whom the nasty little microbe is named, discovered the bacterium. Why such a learned man of science would want to give his name to this illness which comes from feces is another story. For more tid bits regarding salmonella click on the CDC website.

The defective products were distributed nationally under the Malt-O-Meal brand name, as well as private labels including Acme, America’s Choice, Food Club, Giant, Pathmark, Shaw’s, ShopRite, Tops and Weis Quality. The cereal bags have “best if used by” dates from April 8, 2008 (coded as APR0808), through March 18, 2009 (coded as MAR1809). If you have purchased such a box, you are advised to throw them out, and retailers have been told to remove the cereals from their shelves.

If you or someone you loved have become ill from salmonella and believe it may have been caused by this cereal, click here for further information. We will continue to post information on the illness , so check back regularly for any new developments.

More Defective Products From China Being Recalled

On St. Patricks’day, 2008, Mega Brands Inc. recalled about 2.4 million Chinese-made defective product/toys, because small magnets could fall out and cause personal injury such as internal damage. A week later, the same defective product manufacturer recalled 1 million Magtastik and Magnetix Jr. preschool toys. These toys also contained magnets in the small flexible parts of the animals, vehicles and building sets can detach. Since magnets attract, if more than one magnet is swallowed, the magnets can attach to one another and cause personal injury such as additional intestinal perforations or blockages, which can be fatal. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has received 19 reports of magnets falling out of these toys. In one case a 3-year-old boy needed medical treatment to remove a magnet from his nasal cavity.

Click here for the complete list of defective product recalls.
In order to prevent other defective product personal injuries go to our defective products website.

John R. Mininno, Esq. is a New Jersey and Pennsylvania trial lawyer representing clients in medical malpractice, defective products and other serious injury claims. He also writes about issues concerning children’s safety. His offices are in Collingswood, NJ and Philadelphia, PA.

Why New Jersey Should Extend the Time Limits of Its Statutes of Limitations

A statute of limitations is a law that effectively places a time limit on suing another party. While there are some important reasons for having statutes of limitations, there are also some good reasons why these time limits in New Jersey are too short. In New Jersey, the limitations on suits for Personal Injury, Negligence, Wrongful Death and Medical Malpractice are all two years after the discovery of the injury. The date of the discovery of the injury is included in the two year period. While at first two years may seem like a reasonable amount of time for some injuries, it certainly is not for many others.

Consider a hypothetical situation where a patient, with no family to act on his/her behalf, suffers from some kind of substantial medical malpractice that makes a short hospital visit into one taking months. This incapacitated patient discovered the malpractice as soon as it occurred, leaving him two years to bring a suit against the doctor or hospital. Because of the hospital stay and because this patient has no family to act on his/her behalf, s/he is left with very little time to bring a lawsuit, for which preparations can be time-consuming. Choosing the right lawyer in itself can be a difficult task and is the most important part of bringing a successful lawsuit. A victim, such as the one in this hypothetical, is left with little time to act, because of this short time period from the New Jersey statute of limitations.

In some states, these statutes of limitations are even shorter for medical malpractice than other types of professional malpractice suits, such as suing lawyers or financial advisors. New Jersey ought to do two things for its citizens. First, they must disseminate these laws to the public. Many people in New Jersey have no idea that a time limit exists on these types of law suits and, therefore, fail to bring them within a timely fashion. Second, the politicians should reconsider the time limits that these laws create. While total abolishment of the Statutes of Limitations would not be a perfect solution to this problem, extending the time limits to a more reasonable amount of time for a victimized party is necessary. It appears as though these limitations protect the party who has caused harm to another, rather than the other way around.

Free Legal Advice: Medical Malpractice