Missouri Injury Lawyer Blog

The Alton Telegraph reported March 20 that a ten-year-old girl was killed in an ATV accident in New Douglas, IL. As a southern Illinois ATV accident lawyer, I was saddened to read that another child has lost her life on one of these vehicles. Montana Niccole Garner of Livingston, Ill., was a passenger on the four-wheel adult-size ATV, driven by her friend, a twelve-year-old girl. As the girls drove the ATV around on private farmland owned by Montana's friend's family, close to Montana's own home, they tried to make a turn. The ATV flipped and landed on Montana. Montana was aided by emergency personnel, who took her to Community Memorial Hospital in Staunton and then flew her to a St. Louis area hospital. Sadly, she was pronounced dead at the second hospital. Montana's friend suffered minor injuries as well.

This was not the first fatal ATV accident to occur in this area. There have been several in the last few years, according to local police. Captain Brad Wells of the Madison County Sheriff's department said, "This appears to be strictly an accident." Nevertheless, he suggested that accidents could be reduced if people followed the warning stickers on ATVs that give the recommended ages for drivers. Wells also said that ATV riders should wear safety gear. But even with safety gear, tragic accidents can happen on ATVs. As I wrote last August, a seven-year-old boy died in an ATV accident even though he was wearing a full-face helmet. In that case, investigators suspected that the ATV's throttle was stuck, causing the ATV to speed out of control, ultimately hitting a curb and throwing the boy from the vehicle as his father ran after him to try to save him.

In Montana's case, the ATV's throttle was not suspected of malfunction, but as a St. Louis ATV accident lawyer, I wonder whether the ATV that Montana and her friend were riding was one with a defective design that makes rollovers very likely. ATVs have many of the features known to make vehicles likely to roll over, including a high center of gravity, high-speed capability and intended use on uneven ground. A rollover-prone vehicle that weighs up to 700 pounds strikes me as a prime candidate for carefully-thought-out safety features put in place by the manufacturer, and tight government safety regulation. Unfortunately, the federal government regulates ATVs as toys, not vehicles, so they don’t get the benefit of more stringent vehicle safety requirements. And few manufacturers include these types of safety features voluntarily. Dangerous ATV designs and manufacturing defects have resulted in brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, amputations, and death for children and adults. And children under 16 account for nearly 25% of ATV-related deaths and 33% of injuries.

ATV accidents shot up by almost 180% between 1995 and 2004. Certainly, this is due in part to the increasing popularity of ATVs. But how much of this increase is also due to ATV manufacturers' failure to ensure that their products are safe for riders and passengers? The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and state laws regulate ATVs and handle recalls of defective ATVs, but they are evidently unable to slow the rate of ATV accidents. In fact, since Montana and her friend were riding their ATV on her friend's family's land, it may have been perfectly legal for a twelve-year-old and a ten-year-old to operate the ATV, even if the ATV's manufacturer did not recommend it. Knowing that state laws allow for situations like this, ATV manufacturers have an extremely important responsibility to make sure that their products are safe for all conditions under which they can legally be operated. Missouri and Illinois law require that manufacturers ensure that their products are safe when they offer them for sale, in order to avoid hurting innocent people who use them, like Montana and her friend. When manufacturers fail to meet that obligation and consumers are hurt through no fault of their own by the defective product, state law allows victims to demand accountability.

Continue reading "Ten-Year-Old Southern Illinois Girl Dies in ATV Rollover Accident" »

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Posted In: ATV Accidents

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As a St. Louis automotive product liability lawyer, I was interested in a recent article in the Los Angeles Times that said lawsuits have spurred some of the most important automotive safety innovations that exist. Many of us are thinking about auto safety lawsuits, given the recent Toyota recalls. But lawsuits against automakers are not new at all. As far back as 1916, a New York man sued Buick when a defective rear wheel on his car caused an accident that lacerated his eye and broke his wrist. In the 1916 case, the New York Court of Appeals established an important legal precedent by ruling that automakers have a "duty of care" to ensure that their products are safe. Their award to the plaintiff showed that negligence would be punished.

Since then, legal and auto safety experts agree, lawsuits over automakers' duty of care have pushed car companies to develop better and better safety technologies. For example, designs for steering columns and dashboards had to be altered so that they would absorb impact. This was also true for other design elements that could cause injury during crashes, like gear shifts that impaled drivers or shattered glass that lacerated occupants. All of these improvements came after a 1968 ruling that held an automaker responsible for injuries suffered in a collision -- even if the design features in question did not actually cause the crash. That is, this ruling allowed injured motorists to sue over features that worsened an accident, creating injuries that might otherwise never have existed.

Consumers who sued automakers over their unsafe vehicles or parts have not just recovered financial damages. They also helped to send automakers a message that they could not ignore product safety and get away with it. An especially important lawsuit, Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., concerned Ford's liability in the Ford Pinto's gas tank's propensity to explode rear-end collisions. Evidence showed that Ford was aware that the gas tanks were defective and prone to explosion, and that repair of the problem would have cost about $11 per car. Yet Ford declined to recall the Pinto. In light of this evidence, a California appeals court ordered Ford to pay victims of these explosions $125 million in punitive damages, later reduced to $3.5 million. As a Missouri automotive defect attorney, I am glad that the courts provide this avenue for holding negligent companies responsible for the damage they do.

The article goes on to cite many more examples of automakers' reluctance to address safety problems with their products over the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first with Toyota's current problems. As a southern Illinois defective car parts attorney, I’m disappointed that some companies continue to place convenience and higher profits over customers' health and lives. History has shown that this problem will not go away on its own. Drivers who have been hurt because of flaws in their vehicle's design can work with an experienced products liability attorney to determine whether the automaker is liable.

Continue reading "History of Automotive Safety Shows Lawsuits Play Important Regulatory Role" »

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Posted In: Auto Accidents , Product Liability

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As a Missouri medical malpractice attorney, I was interested in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article about a system for preventing "retained objects" in surgery. "Retained objects" is another way of saying tools, sponges, or other items used in surgery and left inside the patient's body. Hospital staff should account for all such items before completing a surgery and sewing up a patient's incision, but for various reasons, they sometimes fail to do so successfully. While good data are hard to come by on this topic, researchers published in the New England Journal of Medicine say that there is about one case of "retained objects" per year per large hospital, though the real figure may be higher. These retained objects can cause blockages, pain, infections, and even death.

The Post-Dispatch article describes a new system in which all items used in surgery -- including gauze, sponges, and instruments -- are implanted with an RF seed that can be detected with a scanning wand. At the conclusion of surgery, before closing the patient up, hospital staff can wave the scanning wand over the patient to find out if any surgical items have inadvertently been left inside the patient's body. If so, the wand beeps an alert and the staff members have to find the missing item before they can complete the operation. This method adds a cost of about $15 per surgery, but it provides a firewall against retained objects that other methods lack. For example, nurses count all surgical items before closing up a patient to ensure that no items were left inside the patient's body. But according to Kim Stache, the administrative director of surgical services at the Naperville, Ill., Edward Hospital, in the large majority of cases of sponges being left inside patients, nurses' counts showed that all surgical items had been accounted for. The retained objects in these cases would go unnoticed until the patient began experiencing complications.

Edward Hospital is one of over 100 hospitals currently using the RF system. Among these hospitals, there have been no cases of retained objects over the past two years. As a southern Illinois medical malpractice attorney, I am glad to know that some hospitals are choosing to take extra precautions against retained objects. Surgical errors such as retained objects have serious consequences for patients, who may suffer debilitating pain and infections for years. A hospital staff's surgical error may result in a patient's having countless medical appointments and high medical costs, which may not be covered by health insurance, to treat the problems caused by retained objects or other negligence.

The St. Louis medical malpractice lawyers at Carey, Danis & Lowe help victims of surgical errors and health care provider negligence to recover these costs from those who caused them. We can help victims claim all of their costs, including lost income from not working and all future medical costs. Victims may also claim damages for personal losses, such as a permanent disability or the loss of a loved one.

Carey, Danis & Lowe offers free, confidential case evaluations to all potential clients. To set one up, please contact us through our site or call 1-877-678-3400 today.

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Posted In: Medical Malpractice

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As a Missouri auto accident lawyer, I work with people who sustained very serious injuries in car wrecks. That gives me a sobering, but often inspiring, look at the obstacles they face as they work toward a full medical and personal recovery from the accident. On March 1, the Quincy Herald-Whig published a story about one accident victim who is working hard to get back his mobility and start working toward the dreams that were put on hold when he was injured by a wrong-way driver. Dustin Morris, 26, was hit by a driver who crossed the center divide and ran head-on into his pickup truck. He suffered a broken pelvis, compound left-leg fracture and broken femur and was in a coma for 40 days before waking.

Morris spent six years in the Air Force, including time in Iraq, after finishing high school in Quincy in 2002. Last October, he was living in Mascoutah and attending community college in St. Louis when the accident happened. He had just dropped his girlfriend off at her car and was following her home when the other driver crossed the center lane. He doesn’t remember the accident, but emergency workers had to airlift him to St. Louis University Hospital, where his parents kept a vigil by his bedside. He awoke in mid-November and was discharged in January, after he showed hospital staff that he could cross the room using a walker. Now, he’s continuing his recovery from his father’s house in Quincy, where he’s taking speech and physical therapy sessions. He’s still determined to finish school and meet his obligations as part of the Air Force Reserves. In fact, he drove for the first time since the accident in late February.

As a St. Louis car crash attorney, I suspect that the coma and the speech therapy mean Morris sustained injuries beyond the broken bones. That makes it all the more impressive that this young man is working so hard to overcome his injuries and live his life. I frequently work with auto accident victims with injuries like these, or worse. Like Morris, they have months or even years of work to do in order to relearn tasks of daily life, like walking or holding a toothbrush. Sometimes, they have injuries they can’t ever fully recover from, such as paralysis from spinal damage or permanent damage to the brain. These are physically and emotionally devastating injuries, and it’s not hard to imagine that victims might sink into depression instead of fighting to regain their abilities.

Continue reading "Article Chronicles Struggle of Car Accident Victim to Return to Normal Life" »

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Posted In: Auto Accidents

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