The Nebraska Injury Law Report

The Lincoln Journal Star had a recent story on being a good witness:

Lincoln Police Capt. Jon Sundermeier said bank tellers and cashiers are more likely than average citizens to witness a crime at some point. People with those jobs especially, he said, should be prepared. Still, average citizens could also benefit from a lesson on being good witnesses. A few tips:

– Physical descriptions like height, weight, hair color and eye color of the suspect are helpful to police. In particular, look for and take note of identifying marks like tattoos and deformities.
– Clothing descriptions can be helpful, especially right after a crime is committed. Also, remember if the suspect’s clothing was expensive-looking or torn and ragged.
– If the suspect drops anything at the scene, remember it and tell police. Try to picture if the suspect was carrying anything, too.
– The suspect’s speech patterns can be a big help for police.
– If you see the suspect drive away, remember the license plate number and a description of the vehicle. Also, try to remember which direction he or she headed and watch the person until he or she is out of view.
– If the suspect reminds you of anyone you know, remember this. Similar characteristics can be helpful in a lineup or when talking to police about the incident.
– Search your memory: You might remember seeing the suspect somewhere before the crime.
– Don’t discuss what you saw with other witnesses. “If you talk to other people, then you’re gonna be influenced by what they say,” Sundermeier said.
– If possible, write down what you saw without taking into account news reports on the incident and other eyewitnesses.
– If you don’t know something, admit it.“It tends to, in my mind, lend some credibility to them (the witness),” Sundermeier said.

In short, try to remember as much as possible, but don’t fill in the blanks. The best way to do that is to be calm and prepared. “Essentially, the real trick to being a good witness is recognizing during the event that you’re going to be a witness,” Sundermeier said. “Most people don’t come to that realization until it’s too late.”

While the article is written about witnesses to crimes, the same principles hold true if you are likely to be called as a witness to an automobile accident that leads to an injury lawsuit.

A voluntary recall of about 20,000 Off-Road Motorcycles was announced Wednesday by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. The bikes, made in Austria, and distributed by KTM, have a seal around the fuel tank that can loosen allowing fuel to leak, posing a fire hazard to consumers.

KTM has received 5,114 reports of leaking fuel tanks. CPSC has received one report of a minor chemical burn due to fuel coming into contact with a consumer’s skin. The dealer said the bikes were sold from November 2004 through April 2007 for between $5,400 and $7,800.

KTM is printed on the side of the orange and black motorcycles along with the model. Model numbers included in the recall are:
–Model Year 2005 250SX-F
–Model Year 2006 200XC, 200XC-W, 250XC-W, 250SX-F, 250XCF-W, 300XC, 300XC-W, 400EXC-G, 450XC-G, 450EXC-G, and 525EXC-G
–Model Year 2007 125SX, 144SX, 250SX, 250SX-F, 450SX-F, 505SX-F, 200XC, 250XC, 300XC, 450XC, 200XCW, 250XCW, 300XCW, 400XCW, 450XCW, 525XCW, 250XC-F, and 250XCF-W

Consumers should stop using these vehicles immediately and contact their local KTM dealer to schedule an appointment for a free repair.

For more information, contact KTM at (888) 985-6090 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to a dangerous product, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.

A San Diego jury awarded a man and his wife $5.7 million in damages this week for his doctor’s failure to timely diagnose skin cancer. But the couple won’t collect anywhere near that amount. Under California law, the verdict will be reduced to $1.9 million.

That is because California, like Nebraska, has a cap on medical malpractice damages. Nebraska Revised Statute Section 44-2825 limits a plaintiff’s right to medical malpractice damages to a statutory total of $1.75 million. The cap has been challenged several times but, to date, the Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled that the cap is constitutional.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to medical malpractice, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.

With all of the privacy concerns swirling about over patient medical records, you would think that disclosures in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) would mean millions in verdicts for people who have suffered damages. You would be wrong.

In Diering v. Regional West Medical Center, the Nebraska Federal District Court found that HIPAA does not provide a private right of action. The case involved an ER Director who informed a potential employer about the physician’s voluntary drug/alcohol treatment.  After the disclosure, the physician was not hired for the job he was seeking which would have provided him with salary, benefits and partnership package in excess of $300,000 per year.

Despite the significant losses the plaintiff suffered, the Court ruled that Congress did not intend to allow people to sue for damages for HIPAA violations.

For more information on HIPAA go here.

The Journal Star reports today on the shocking case of a 5 year old who was struck walking to the school bus in a Lincoln residential neighborhood. The shocking part of the case is that the offending driver fled the scene and then, apparently, filed a false report claiming his car had been stolen.

A 5-year-old girl was hit by a car and critically injured walking to the school bus Wednesday morning at 19th and Harwood streets. A witness said the girl’s mother and about 10 children getting onto the school bus saw the car hit the girl and the car drive away.

* * *

A woman who lives in the neighborhood said she was on her porch when she saw the Taurus speed by, going maybe 40. And she saw the little girl take three steps out in front of a van parked against the curb.

“And the next thing I see her flying in the air and everything in her hands is everywhere,” the woman said. “And he just kept driving.” She said it was the most horrific sound she’s ever heard.

Rattled, she rushed inside to call 911 and said she’d just seen a speeding car hit a little girl.

About 10 kids had been waiting for the school bus at the corner saw it happen, she said. One little boy came up to her and said “He just kept going.”

“I will never forget that, ever,” she said.

Rescue workers took the girl to BryanLGH Medical Center West. She later was taken by helicopter to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, where she was listed in critical condition.

By late morning, the backpack, blanket and shoes sat on the pavement with markers around them, as police documented the scene.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to the negligence of another, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.

In today’s Journal Star there is the moving account of Shannon Malloy who suffered an atlantooccipital dislocation or “internal decapitation” in an automobile accident.

As [Shannon’s] head hit the dashboard, the force separated the skull from the spine. It’s not an uncommon injury, but it’s usually found during an autopsy. It’s similar to what Christopher Reeve suffered, only his was more severe.

Surviving a dislocated head, while still rare, has become more common due to quicker airway protection and better spinal isolation at accident scenes. More than 100 “decapitated” people may be walking around, according to medical literature.

What is Spinal Cord Injury?

A spinal cord injury usually begins with a sudden, traumatic blow to the spine that fractures or dislocates vertebrae. The damage begins at the moment of injury when displaced bone fragments, disc material, or ligaments bruise or tear into spinal cord tissue. Most injuries to the spinal cord don’t completely sever it. Instead, an injury is more likely to cause fractures and compression of the vertebrae, which then crush and destroy the axons, extensions of nerve cells that carry signals up and down the spinal cord between the brain and the rest of the body. An injury to the spinal cord can damage a few, many, or almost all of these axons. Some injuries will allow almost complete recovery. Others will result in complete paralysis.

Is there any treatment?

Improved emergency care for people with spinal cord injuries and aggressive treatment and rehabilitation can minimize damage to the nervous system and even restore limited abilities. Respiratory complications are often an indication of the severity of spinal cord injury About one-third of those with injury to the neck area will need help with breathing and require respiratory support. The steroid drug methylprednisolone appears to reduce the damage to nerve cells if it is given within the first 8 hours after injury. Rehabilitation programs combine physical therapies with skill-building activities and counseling to provide social and emotional support.

Reference: The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke website.

If you or a loved one have suffered a spinal cord injury due to the negligence of another, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.

The Washington Post reports that:

The companies that grew, processed and marketed contaminated spinach that led to a nationwide E. coli outbreak last year have settled lawsuits in the deaths of three women.

The lawyer for the families of Ruby Trautz, 81, of Bellevue, Neb.; Betty Howard, 83, of Richland, Wash.; and June Dunning, 86, of Hagerstown, said the women died after eating fresh spinach bagged under the Dole label.

“They just didn’t die immediately after eating it, but they got sick,” said Bill Marler. “But there’s no question that it came from Dole baby spinach, or else there wouldn’t have been a settlement.”

Federal officials announced a recall of bagged fresh spinach last September, as nearly 200 people were sickened after eating the leafy greens processed by Natural Selections LLC under a number of labels, including Dole.

Inspectors eventually traced the E. coli strain to cattle or wild pig feces found in the San Benito County spinach fields of Mission Organics, which grew the spinach.

Terms of the settlements were not disclosed.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to a dangerous product, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.

From USA Today:

Only about one-third of hospitals provide emergency care to heart attack patients quickly enough to meet scientific guidelines for saving lives . . . Even top performers meet American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology (ACC) guidelines for care in only half their cases, researchers say.

“Even among the better hospitals, only a few hospitals routinely meet the recommended guidelines,” says Yale cardiologist Harlan Krumholz, a leader of the research team and an architect of a national campaign launched Sunday to help hospitals improve their performance. “By next year, we’re going to change that.”

About 200,000 people a year have heart attacks caused by blockages in crucial arteries supplying the heart with blood. About 10,000 patients die of these heart attacks in hospitals each year.

Read the full article here.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to medical negligence, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.

From CNN.com:

If you are injured in a minor car crash, chances are good that you will be in the fight of your life to get the insurance company to pay all the medical costs you incur — even if the accident was no fault of your own. That’s what CNN discovered in an 18-month investigation into minor-impact soft-tissue injury crashes around the country. Those are accidents in which there is little damage to the vehicle and the injuries to people are not easy to see by the naked eye or conventional medical tools like X-rays.

Since the mid-1990s, most of the major insurance companies — led by the two largest, Allstate and State Farm — have adopted a tough take-it-or-leave-it strategy when dealing with such cases. The result has been billions in profits for insurance companies and little, if anything, for the public, according to University of Nevada insurance law professor Jeff Stempel.

Read the full article here.
If you have a dispute with your insurance company, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free.

Though it almost goes without saying, medication errors can have serious consequences for patients. A study entitled “Drug Complications in Outpatients” revealed a dramatic increase in medication errors that cost patients their lives.

By reviewing death certificates from over a ten year timeframe, researchers found that there had been a 2.5 fold increase in medication errors that led to patient deaths. The study found:

Over 100,000 fatal adverse drug events (ADEs) were estimated to have occurred in 1994, placing it high among leading causes of death. One million outpatients in the United States are hospitalized with ADEs and 4.7% of hospital admissions are attributed to ADEs. Of all ADEs, 28% are considered preventable.”.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to a medication error, please call Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter at 888/234-0621 or fill out the contact form on this site. Your first consultation is free and we handle cases on a contingency fee basis.