Jacksonville Personal Injury Blog

In September of 2010, Public Citizen, a non-profit, non-partisan group that advocates on behalf of the American people, filed a petition with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, also referred to as OSHA, asking them to regulate the hours resident physicians are allowed to work.

As doctors in training, residents work intensely long hours. In the United States, residents are allowed to work 80 hours in one week alone; double what most Americans typically work. They are allowed to work 30 consecutive hours in a shift, with only 8 hours as the minimum rest hours required between shifts. Residents in other parts of the world aren’t subjected to such working conditions. New Zealand compares the closest to the U.S., with their residents allowed to work 72 hours a week but only 16 consecutive hours in a shift. They also permit 8 hours as the minimum rest hours between shifts. The European Union and the United Kingdom tie at 48 hours as the maximum number of hours residents are allowed to work per week, the closest to New Zealand.

Exhausted residents means a decrease in the quality of care patients receive. Researchers from Harvard found that residents who worked a traditional schedule of 24 hours or more made 36 percent more serious medical errors than those interns who worked 16 hours. In another study, researchers discovered that residents who worked five or more 24 hour shifts a month reported 7.5 times as many fatigue-related errors injuring patients and four times as many errors related to fatigue that led to patient death than those who worked shorter shifts.

While the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) is supposed to regulate resident’s work hours, a study in 2006 found that 83 percent of residents reported work-hour violations.

If you believe you were injured by a fatigued resident while receiving treatment at a hospital, contact the Florida medical malpractice attorneys at Farah & Farah to find out your options in pursuing a medical malpractice claim.

Elly Kausner was a 24-year-old law student at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, when she and 48 other passengers perished last year aboard a Continental Connection flight that crashed near Buffalo.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting a two-day hearing, beginning Tuesday, October 26, on just what happens when a major airline, such as Continental, partners with a smaller commuter airline, such as Colgan Air in this case. It was a Colgan-operated flight that crashed when an exhausted pilot and co-pilot who were not adequately trained, failed to maneuver the plane in icy conditions.

The partnering agreement between Continental and Colgan is called “code sharing” and the implication is that the larger airline is assuring the safety of the regional airline. Smaller, regional airlines account for half of domestic flights in the U.S. and in hundreds of communities, regional airlines provide the only scheduled service.

The last six domestic plane crashes involved the smaller airlines.

Continental’s chief has told Congress that the airline cannot oversee partners such as Colgan; that responsibility belongs to the Federal aviation Administration. The remarks angered the father of Kausner, who said in an interview with ABC News that his daughter thought she was flying with Continental and would have no way of determining whether Colgan Air had a good safety record.

The FAA plans on reviewing whether it has the authority to review code sharing, although an FAA spokeswoman said all carriers are held to the same minimum safety standards. The FAA has put pressure on the major carriers to take on pilot and crew training and airplane maintenance and the results have been successful, says the agency. The airline pilots’ union spokesman is quoted in this article as say, “I think they might be talking the talk, but there is no evidence they are walking the walk.”

The Florida plane accident lawyers at Farah & Farah offer complimentary and comprehensive consultations to any traveler or their loved one who has suffered an injury or a wrongful death in an airline accident that could have been prevented.

There seems to be a rash of automobile recalls this year from all manufacturers ranging from Toyota to Ford. Rarely do we see a recall from Mercedes-Benz, but the luxury automaker is recalling 85,078 vehicles model year 2010 and 2011 C-Class and E-Class sedans, along with the 2010-11 E-Class coupe and cabriolet automobiles because of questions about the safety of its power steering system, according to The New York Times.

The company says in a press release that there may be a failure of the power steering line that might not be tight enough to stop a power steering fluid leak.

In that case, drivers may lose control of the vehicle, especially in tight quarters where power steering is most needed such as a parking lot “increasing the risk of a vehicle crash,” says Mercedes. Consumers are asked to bring the vehicle back to the dealer who will check the power steering and retorque the connection that seems to be the source of the problem.

Mercedes states it learned of the problem from consumer complaints, though the article does not say whether or not there have been any accidents.

Product liability law provides a remedy to consumers who are injured by a defective product that fails due to an improper design or from the shoddy materials used in construction. The liability can extend to the manufacturer, supplier, and retailer or distributor of the product.

Farah & Farah’s Florida auto product liability attorneys have the experience it takes to determine if you or a loved one has been harmed by a defective product.

For drivers in the market for a safe vehicle, the government has just released the results of the updated 5-Star Safety Ratings System for crashworthiness, and the BMW 5 Series and the Hyundai Sonata, built after July 2, topped the list, according to Consumer Reports.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) looked at 55 vehicles altogether, though only the ratings for 33 cars have been released so far. Among the other vehicles tested, 28 earned 4-Stars.

This new stricter system for testing crashworthiness differs from the system used in the past, where nearly all models received five stars. Under the new system, the Toyota Camry slipped from five stars to three stars in crash tests and rollover.

NHTSA took a tougher look at the front and side crash resistance as well as how the vehicles responded in a rollover. Crash test dummies were used in the new test as were the results of crashing into a pole.

Farah & Farah recommend if you are in the market for a new vehicle, look into the newer crash avoidance technologies which include a forward collision warning system, electronic stability control or ESC, and a lane departure warning. By the 2012 model year, all vehicles will be equipped with electronic stability control.

Check out the list of cars at this website, www.safercar.gov.

Crashworthiness
A vehicle with added safety features may mean the difference between a passenger who stays safe inside a vehicle involved in a Florida car crash or someone who is ejected from the car or suffers injuries from hitting the dashboard or the roof.

Farah & Farah’s Florida personal injury attorneys understand how to present a case when the vehicle is not crashworthy. Defects in the vehicle that could lead to serious injury and death may include a design defect, a manufacturing defect, or a failure to warn.

On Saturday, October 9, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recalled about 160,000 trampolines made by Bravo Sports due to a danger from improper assembly that can cause the faulty trampoline to collapse and injure users.

Consumers were advised to stop using the trampolines after Bravo Sports, of Santa Fe Springs, California, received 247 complaints. The trampolines come in 12-foot, 13-foot, and 14-foot sizes with model names of AirZone and Variflex. The trampolines were sold between January 2007 and September 2010 and they cost between $200 - $400.

The agency says if the trampolines are assembled improperly, they do not offer adequate support for the jumper using the trampoline and the legs can break when they are in use sending the person onto the ground.

Bravo Sports will supply consumers with instructions on how to reassemble the faulty trampolines and will provide replacement parts. Consumers can call 877-500-2459 for more information.

Trampoline Warning
The American Academy of Pediatrics estimated about 100,000 people, mostly young children under the age of 14, were injured on trampolines in 1999. Every year, about 75,000 kids end up in hospital emergency rooms due to broken bones and head injuries. Many of those injuries occur when more than one child jumps on the trampoline at the same time and the two collide.

The Florida product liability lawyers at Farah & Farah reminds parents that no child under the age of 6 should jump on a trampoline. If parents have a trampoline in their yard, they have a duty to warn other children of the dangers otherwise, the injured person may have a claim against the homeowner.

A two-vehicle accident on Interstate-10 Tuesday morning, October 12, injured a woman driving a passenger vehicle that suddenly overturned three times near the Scenic Highway exit over the Escambia County Bay, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

Cynthia Ware, 45, was eastbound on an I-10 bridge when an unidentified vehicle suddenly changed lanes, pulling in front of Ware’s vehicle and forcing her to make a sharp right turn to avoid a collision. Ware then overcorrected the turn, causing her vehicle, an SUV, to overturn three times. It landed on its roof and blocked the inside lanes of the bridge, according to the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP). Rescuers were called to the scene and Ware was taken to Sacred Heart Hospital. This article says she suffered only minor injuries.

We wish her a speedy recovery from this terrifying accident.

SUV Rollover Dangers
Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) declined revisiting the issue of roof-crush standards for vehicles weighing more than 6,000 pounds. Consumer safety advocates suggested the agency gauge the strength of a roof based on a dynamic or moving standard, which more closely replicates real-world rollover crashes.

NHTSA did upgrade the government safety standard for roof crush resistance in May 2009, which was the first improvement in 39 years. The 2009 revision requires a roof strength 3 times the vehicle weight for cars under 6,000 pounds, however, vehicles that weigh between 6,000 and 10,000 pounds are only required to have a roof strength 1.5 times the vehicle’s weight.
Roof crush resistance is important to minimize head injuries in a rollover accident.

If you or a loved one has been involved in a rollover accident and suffered any injury, the experienced Florida auto accident attorneys at Farah & Farah would like to help you recover all of the compensation to which you are entitled. Call our office for a complimentary consultation on your case.

A Toyota Camry reportedly turned in front of an oncoming Jeep on Anniston Road at Beach Boulevard in Jacksonville Friday morning, October 8, leaving two people with life-threatening injuries following a collision, according to News4Jax.com.

The vehicle accident occurred around 9 a.m. when the Camry turned into the Salvation Army Store on Beach Boulevard and right into the path of the Jeep. The Jeep then T-boned the Camry which left the car’s occupants trapped underneath the vehicle. Rescue crews extricated them from the scene and they were taken to Shands Jacksonville Medical Center. The driver of the Jeep suffered only minor injuries.

There is no information as to whether or not the driver and passenger of the Camry were wearing seat belts.

Car Accident Statistics
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration predicted when Florida initiated its new seat belt law last June, 124 lives would be saved and more than 1,700 injuries would be prevented. According to the State Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, 2,983 people were killed in motor vehicle related crashes in 2008 and of those deaths, 60 percent of people in cars equipped with seat belts, but who were not wearing them, were killed.

Liability Issues
Auto accidents often result from careless driving or a failure to yield the right-of-way. Improper lane change and driving under the influence also contribute to car crashes in Florida.

The reputable Florida car accident attorneys at Farah & Farah would want to explore all of the possible causes of this auto accident including the condition of the roadway, the ability of the driver, the possibility another vehicle was involved, the safety of both vehicles, including a check of the brakes and whether speeding or driving under the influence might have contributed in some way in order to determine the at-fault party.

This morning Evenflo Company, Inc., along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation (NHTSA) announced the voluntary recall of over 13,000 Maestro Combination Booster Seats. This is a direct response to a crack that occurred in some of the child restraint systems during high-impact frontal collision laboratory tests in late September. The crack could cause the child product to not properly retrain the child within the seat, increasing the possibility of injury or death.

There have been no reports of the crack occurring to consumers and no injuries have been reported. Nevertheless, Evenflo has removed all Maestro Combination Booster seats from store shelves.

The recall involves Maestro Combination Booster Seats built between November 2009 through April 2010 whose model numbers begin with 310. To find the model number, look behind the seat and above the shoulder belt slot. The white label there will list the number.

In response to the defective child product, Evenflo will give owners of the Maestro Combination Booster Seats a bracket that is easy to install to reinforce the seat. It will be free of charge.

If you have purchased a Maestro Combination Booster Seat and think your model may be affected by the recall, please visit the Evenflo website or call 800-233-5921 for more information.

The Jacksonville child safety lawyers at Farah & Farah have the skills and experience to help you recover damages if your child has been injured by a recalled product.

This is a dubious distinction for Jacksonville.

Insurance.com has listed Jacksonville as 10th among the top 20 U.S. cities for drunk driving arrests. The group, which calls itself the largest independent online auto insurance agency in the U.S., states that a top ranking does not just mean there are more drunk driving arrests and presumably more auto accidents – there may also be better enforcement of DUI laws.

In a city that is as spread out as Jacksonville, there is also a higher probability that a person will get behind the wheel to drive, even if they are intoxicated, rather than try to rely on public transportation.

The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) tracks drunk driving arrests. FHP spokesman Lt. Bill Leeper is quoted in a recent News4Jax.com story, saying that the number of people driving while intoxicated has actually declined in recent years.

The FHP is known to set up unannounced DUI checkpoints from time to time in order to catch people driving intoxicated and to discourage drunk driving. Despite the state’s efforts, over 4,000 people were caught driving under the influence in Florida last year. Estimates are that one in 12 of all drivers will be a drunk driver.

If you have been injured in a Florida auto accident with a drunk driver, the experienced Jacksonville drunk driving accident attorneys at Farah & Farah will work hard to ensure the negligent party is found liable in your case so you can be compensated for your injuries or a loved one’s wrongful death.

The driver of a pickup truck is lucky to be alive after he drove off County Road 208 in St. Johns County early Saturday morning, October 9, and the vehicle erupted into flames, according to the St. Augustine Record. Luckily St. Johns County Sheriff's Deputy Sgt. Ronnie Lester was passing on the road after a long night shift.

Deputy Lester called in the incident that was burning in the woods a quarter mile from Pacetti Road. He was informed by nearby witnesses that the driver was still inside the truck. Those gathered broke the glass and the driver began to respond. By this time the flames were beginning to get out of control. Deputy Lester and another man tried to pull the driver out of the vehicle but the flames forced them back.

That’s when St. Johns County Fire Rescue units arrived and were able to extract the driver from the truck. Badly injured from the crash and burns, he was airlifted to Shands Gainesville Medical Center.

The Florida Highway Patrol will investigate the cause of the pickup truck crash.

If you or a loved one is injured in a pickup truck crash or auto accident, you can only hope that a Good Samaritan such as Deputy Lester arrives on the scene to aid in your rescue. The Florida truck accident attorneys at Farah & Farah can help if there is another party involved that may be responsible for your vehicle crash and personal injury.

On Monday, October 4, a new policy went into effect that bans the use of hand-held cell phones by Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) troopers while they are driving. The measure is designed to keep roads safer, as cell phone use contributes to distracted driving. The ban affects Florida’s 1,650 troopers, and will still be allowed to use a hands-free device.

The Florida Sun-Sentinel quotes a criminal justice professor as saying that personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits, filed against police agencies after fatal car chases, have also encouraged the emphasis on safety.

Florida still has no ban on the use of cell phones by drivers of passenger vehicles. Eight states, including New York, and California, do have bans on cell phone use while behind the wheel.

The GPS device must also be in voice mode only, or troopers must pull over to program a GPS.
Local police agencies in both Broward and Palm Beach counties are considering enacting a ban similar to the one enacted by the FHP.

Distracted Driving in Florida
Virginia Tech’s Transportation Institute studied distracted driving and found for passenger vehicles:

• Dialing a cell phone made the risk of crash or near-crash event 2.8 times as high as non-distracted driving;
• Talking or listening to a cell phone made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.3 times as high as non-distracted driving; and
• Reaching for an object such as an electronic device made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.4 times as high as non-distracted driving.

Farah & Farah remind readers that sending a text message increases the risk of distracted driving over 20 times. VTTI found the driver of a passenger vehicle texting a message an average of 4.6 seconds while driving at 55 mph can cover the length of a football field without looking.

Almost every week we report on drivers who run into the rear of another vehicle without applying the brakes. One of the first things a Florida car accident attorney will look into is whether a driver was using his or her cell phone at the time of the crash. If so, they could be named the at-fault party who is responsible for the cost of injuries, hospitalization, lost wages, and pain and suffering.

Survivors of a fatal church van crash that killed 4 and injured 15 on Route 27 in South Blakely, Georgia, are blaming an exploding tire for the accident that happened Sunday, October 3. The group was heading to a church revival meeting in Quincy, Florida in a 1987 Dodge Ram Wagon.

A survivor tells WTVM that he heard the right rear tire explode on the 15-passenger van carrying 19 people.

That’s when the driver, Kenasha Seldon, 29, made a left turn and then a sharp right turn causing the van to flip over several times. James Valles tells the television station that a bank of seats went out the exit and bodies were ejected from the back door of the van and through the windows.

Nineteen people were ejected from the passenger van and none were wearing their seat belts. Included among the injured in the Florida 15-passenger van rollover accident were a small child and a senior citizen, the pastor of the church from Columbus, Georgia, and passengers ages 13, 19, and 20.

Those injured were taken to the Southeast Alabama Medical Center in Dothan.

Aging Tires
Over time, the structure of a tire can degrade, making it more prone to catastrophic failure. The normal aging of a tire can be accelerated by heat and sunlight. The Florida personal injury lawyers at Farah & Farah recommend no tire older than six years be used on any vehicle.

15-Passenger Vans
Our law firm finds these are the most dangerous vehicles on the road. Unfortunately, they are widely used by church groups and for sports outings, often carrying children. The National Transportation Safety Board states these vans rollover more than half the time they are involved in a single-vehicle crash and 81% of fatalities in 15-passenger vans occur in single-vehicle rollover accidents.

If you can find an alternative to these rollover-prone vehicles that also have a weak roof, please do so. Our Jacksonville auto accident attorneys are prepared to discuss your case if you have been injured in one of these dangerous vehicles.

Federal accident investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a report Thursday, September 25, that stated cockpit fatigue led to a near mishap at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport last October, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Delta Boeing 767, a wide-body jet, landed on a 75-foot taxiway instead of the 150-foot wide parallel runway typically used for jumbo jets at the airport. None of the 182 passengers aboard was injured.

The NTSB report highlights the insidious problem of pilot fatigue.

In this case, the pilot of Delta Flight 60 had departed Rio de Janeiro, Brazil after being awake for 11 hours. During the 10-hour flight, he was unable to get up and stretch because a crew member became ill.

The federal agency concluded that the captain working into a 22nd hour appeared to be a big factor in the landing error.

Top make matters worse, some of the runway lights were not operating at the Atlanta airport. Delta Airlines concluded it would use the incident to retrain the pilots so they could return to their jobs.

Accidents involving airliners often result in catastrophic injury or death. If you or a loved one has been involved in any personal injury involving the airline industry, the Jacksonville aviation accident attorneys of Farah & Farah are always willing to consult on your case and explore the many options for recovery.

The announcement from these two federal agencies is quite clear – consumers should stop using infant sleep positioner following the deaths of a dozen infants over 13 years. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued the warning after the positioners caused the babies to become trapped and suffocate between the device and the side of the bassinet or crib.

The positioner is a cloth with two bolsters at either end. It is supposed to keep babies on their back during sleep, considered the safest position to avoid Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS. But the positioners failed to do the job for which they were intended and most of the fatalities occurred when the infants rolled on their stomachs.

In a FDA announcement issued Wednesday, September 29, the agency seems to be distancing itself from the devices reminding parents that it has never approved any infant positioner as a life-saving device. The statement also says there has been no scientific evidence that has confirmed the claims by manufacturers that sleep positioners improve conditions ranging from gastric upset to flat head syndrome in infants.

The Florida product liability attorneys at Farah & Farah want to remind parents to immediately stop using any type of sleep positioner in a child’s crib or bassinet. Additionally, do not put any pillow or comforter in the crib with the baby to keep him or her in place.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends infants be put to sleep on their backs, even during a nap, and the group does not endorse the use of any sleep positioner.

A Florida couple has been awarded $10.2 million for the negligent care they received during the birth of their son at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Jacksonville, according to an article on Law.com.

On June 11, 2003, Kevin Bravo Rodriguez, the son of Oscar Rodriguez and Raiza Bravo, was deprived of oxygen during his birth which resulted in severe brain damage.

Five years ago, U.S. District Senior Judge Jose Gonzalez Jr. awarded the family more than $60 million, which at the time was the largest federal tort claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows private citizens to sue the federal government if one of its employees is negligent. The money was intended to cover a lifetime of care for Kevin who had the brain functioning of a one-month-old.

But after the government appealed, the judge reduced the award to $40.5 million. When the boy died at the age of three from a brain seizure, the medical malpractice award for a lifetime of care became moot.

The couple refiled their case earlier this year as a Florida wrongful death claim. Judge Gonzales handed down his verdict after a two-day bench trial in Fort Lauderdale. Each parent is to receive $5 million along with $153,695 for medical and funeral expenses.

Legislation passed in Florida in 2003 capped pain and suffering damages in a wrongful death at $1 million. Judge Gonzalez predicted the award will be appealed.

The Jacksonville wrongful death attorneys at Farah & Farah are always available to discuss your negligent care case.

Healthcare insurers and providers are working on beginning programs based on previous medical malpractice lawsuits to help prevent missed, delayed, and incorrect diagnoses, according to The Wall Street Journal. The need for additional ways to help prevent patient injury and death due to diagnostic errors cannot be stressed enough, especially since this form of medical negligence accounts for nearly 40% of cases, costs insurers about $300,000 per case to settle, and is the chief cause of malpractice lawsuits. Patient-safety research conducted at John Hopkins University revealed that on average, diagnostic errors lead to the death of 40,000 to 80,000 patients annually.

In studying previously filed malpractice claims, data shows that diagnostic errors usually do not have a solitary cause. Instead, there are frequently at least three mistakes, or “breakdowns” that cause missed or delayed diagnoses. Cancer misdiagnosis has been identified as the most common form of diagnostic error, with breast cancer being the most frequently delayed or missed diagnosis.

While some worry that using data from malpractice lawsuits will make doctors recommend unnecessary tests and procedures in order to protect themselves against potential lawsuits, others believe that these malpractice cases have already helped teach physicians new ways of ensuring accurate and timely diagnoses.

As patients, we expect physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals to provide a high standard of care to ensure our well-being and provide proper treatment for accurate and timely diagnoses. Unfortunately, as the article emphasizes, medical malpractice and hospital negligence occur far too often, thus jeopardizing the health of patients. Individuals who have been injured and family members of those wrongfully killed because of physician error or hospital negligence have valid legal rights that a Florida medical malpractice lawyers can help protect. You should not have to go through such a challenging time alone, and you do not have to.

The result of a recent survey is startling – teens do not see texting while driving as a big deal.

State Farm Insurance surveyed 697 teens nationwide. It finds that many teen drivers, inexperienced behind the wheel, do not think texting while driving is as dangerous as drinking and driving. The survey finds just over half of teen drivers, ages 14 through 17, strongly agree they could be killed if driving under the influence. Only 36 percent believe that can happen if they text while driving.

We’ve reported these statistics previously:

• Car crashes are the leading cause of death for teen drivers both in Florida and across the country. In 2007, 306 teenagers died in Florida distracted driving car crashes.
• Teens face the greatest risk of being in an auto accident during their first year of driving. About 20 percent – one in five teens will be in a car crash.
• Teens are not experienced behind the wheel. Their brains are still in the developmental stage.

Studies show that distractions of any kind, from arguing to texting, changing the radio, eating, and reaching for something in the back seat, increases distracted driving and increases auto accidents.

According to the Florida Times Union, Lt. Bill Leeper of the FHP says he goes out and talks to schools about the dangers of texting and driving. He says when he talks about texting, “They’re looking at each other and grinning like, ‘I do that.’” He says drinking and driving is not as common as texting while driving.

However, overall crashes involving teens have been on the decline for three years.

While teens don’t think texting while driving is as big a deal as drinking and driving, our state legislators don’t either. This year our lawmakers again failed to vote to create any laws against texting or cell phone use by teens or any other drivers while driving.

Florida car crash attorneys are available to answer any questions that auto accident injury victims may have regarding distracted driving.