2,682 product liability lawsuits were filed against Medtronic Inc. due to failures in their Marquis line of implanted cardiac defibrillators. The company has recently reached a $114.1 million settlement agreement in response to the legal cases.
Wrongful death charges are being brought against a school district by the parents of a 5th grader who committed suicide after enduring bullying at the school. The lawsuit claims that the school failed in its duty to care for students when teachers and administrators did not stop the bullying. The 12-year-old boy left signs of his unhappiness including a note discussing his plan and a picture he drew with a rope around his neck along with other signs clear to his classmates and teachers. The drawing, in fact, was found by another student and shown to a teacher. Cases like this are on the rise. A 13-year-old girl committed suicide recently after cruel messages were posted on her MySpace page. Whether the school is liable for the boy's suicide will be found in the results of the lawsuit.
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Levin and Perconti has been honored in Chicago Magazine's 2008 Illinois Super Lawyers Edition. Both John Perconti and Steve Levin were named Super Lawyers as Plaintiff's Personal Injury Lawyers. The pair have been honored for the last four years as two of Chicago's best Injury Lawyers.
Personal injury attorneys recently filed a $110 million personal injury lawsuit on behalf of an Illinois farm worker injured by a meniscal transplant surgery. CryoLife Inc., a major corporation that supplies human tissue for transplants, is being accused of providing contaminated cadaver material for the operation. Upon his return to Illinois, the farm equipment operator will no longer be able to work and will need to regularly take medication for pain for the rest of his life. CryoLife recently settled a different lawsuit with a man that died three days after he was implanted with the company's tissue. The personal injury lawyers in this more recent suit allege that the two mens' infections resulted from the "same deadly organism." The company plans to fight the product liability accusations "vigorously" based on the inevitable safety problems when human tissue is used in surgeries.
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Slip and fall accidents kill over 16,000 Americans each year, 11,000 of which are elderly people 75-years and older. Falls involving elderly people are much more dangerous. There are many ways to minimize the risks of serious slips and falls. Individuals must consider the materials and textures of their shoe bottoms as well as pedestrian walking gait. Businesses and property owners, however, also have a responsibility to ensure safety against slips and falls. Premises liability is one of the major factors in many of these injuries and deaths. It is easy for businesses to control floor maintenance and condidtions, but most falls leading to injury are caused by slips on a wet area. In instances like these, it is the land owner's responsibility to ensure the safety of floor surfaces.
Accidents at construction sites are dangerous and can often be fatal. The Illinois Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA) is designed to inspect construction sites in order to ensure safety for employees and reduce construction site injuries. In the Midwest, Illinois is the worst state in the region regarding efficiency and number of OHSA inspections. Because there are so many more construction sites that OSHA can inspect, it would take an estimated 121 years for OSHA to inspect all of Illinois's jobsites. All employees should be aware of their employer's workers' compensation insurance and should learn their rights in the case of a construction injury or accident.
The Home Shopping Network (HSN) ignored allegations of product liability when burn injuries resulted from the sale of pressure cookers on the channel. The cable shopping network, received at least 25 reports of a malfunctioning pressure cooker sold on the channel beginning in 2001. The network, however, failed to report the injuries to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) thus breaking a US Federal law requiring manufacturers, distributors and retailers to report claims of dangerous products. HSN eventually reported the incidents and claims in 2005, four years after the first complaints. The lids on the Welbilt pressure cookers opened prematurely, inflicting burn injuries on at least 37 customers. HSN has been fined $875,000 and has issued a recall of the product.
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Recently, news regarding anemia drugs such as Aranesp, Epogen and Procrit has caused concern among patients and their families. Patients have learned that the drugs could increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes as well as increasing the progression rate of tumors in certain cancers. With the emergence of this news, family members have been left wondering whether the death of their loved ones came too soon. The FDA's safety warnings of the anemia drugs have been recently strengthened, cautioning that heart attack, death, and cancer progression could be side effects. A newer study has also linked the anemia drugs to an increased risk for patients with myelofibrosis of developing leukemia. Doctors have been warned to use the lowest doses possible of these drugs.
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The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) puts out an annual report. In 2007, the American Tort Reform Association's (ATRA) report called "Judicial Hellholes" cost $1.5 million to produce and distribute. However, no more than 10 newspapers referenced the report and those that did pointed out the report's flaws. The report was intended to expose a lawsuit crisis in the United States but in reality, it was just a message paid for by corporations that would benefit from restricting the civil justice process. The New York Times responded by stating:
The question is whether the report's arguments make sense, are supported by evidence and are applied evenhandedly. Here the report often falls short. It is, for starters, a collection of anecdotes based largely on newspaper accounts. It has no apparent methodology.Other research ventures also identified factual errors in the report. Here stands another example of the influence corporations have on the issue of tort reform because the real, fact-based information supports the maintenance of the civil justice system.
The purpose of this blog is to deliver news and information that is relevant to our areas of practice. The news and information reported on this blog represent the legal actions of attorneys throughout the United States. Our firm does not claim to represent plaintiffs in all of the lawsuits, settlements, and jury verdicts reported, only those noted as Levin & Perconti cases.
