Missouri Injury Lawyer Blog

As a Missouri ATV accident lawyer, I’m accustomed to reading about devastating single-vehicle accidents with ATVs that have serious safety flaws by design. But a story out of Lincoln County, Missouri, shows that ATVs are also not a safe place to be when hit by a car. According to a May 22 article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a couple in their early 80s were killed over the weekend after their ATV was rear-ended by a Pontiac driven by a teenager. Victor Harrell, 81, died at the scene; his wife, 82-year-old Virginia Harrell, was taken to the hospital but died there. The teen and his passenger were also treated at the hospital for serious injuries. The Missouri Highway Patrol is investigating whether charges are appropriate.

According to the article, the Harrells were going west on the paved Brevator Road outside Moscow Mills, Mo., northwest of St. Charles County. It was unclear what they were doing, but reports said they own a farm in the area. They were on top of a hill at 9:24 a.m. when Zacheriah Cain, 16, came up the hill behind them, westbound in the same lane, and hit the ATV. In addition to the fatal injuries to both Harrells, the crash caused serious injuries to Cain and his male passenger, who the Post-Dispatch said had the same last name. No charges have been filed, but the Missouri Highway Patrol is investigating each vehicle’s speed and the cause of the accident.

No matter what conclusion the Highway Patrol reaches, this story saddens me as a St. Louis auto accident attorney. ATVs are frequently used for recreation and sometimes for getting around unpaved land, but they are not intended to substitute for cars. For that reason, they lack many of the basic safety features required by law for passenger cars, such as seatbelts, airbags and a crush-resistant roof. That means that whenever a car (or truck) and an ATV crash, the people in the ATV usually sustain far worse injuries. In fact, the lack of seatbelts or even sides or a roof in many ATVs makes them a great deal more like motorcycles from an injury standpoint — it’s very easy to be thrown from the vehicle. That can lead to head injuries, broken bones and other serious injuries, regardless of who caused the crash.

Continue reading "Elderly Northeast Missouri Couple Dies After Their ATV Was Rear-Ended by a Car" »

Tulare County, California, has agreed to settle a wrongful death claim made against one of its detectives for one and a half million dollars.

Zachary Allen Atkinson was shot on September 12, 2008, around 3 p.m. by Detective William Seymour. Seymour had stopped Atkinson while driving an unmarked patrol car, and was not in uniform at the time of the stop. Seymour said that he had pulled Atkinson over because the motorcycle Atkinson was driving matched the description of a vehicle that had been stolen.

Seymour filed reports that Atkinson had begun to struggle with him shortly after being pulled over. The detective testified that he shot Atkinson out of fear for his personal safety.

However, this account was disputed by an attorney for Atkinson's family, who said that eyewitnesses and several others were prepared to dispute this case.

Specifically, the attorney for the plaintiffs stated that Atkinson had been shot in the back, making it difficult to believe that he had been actively threatening the officer. Further, no weapon whatsoever was found on Atkinson, who was shot twice - once in the buttock, once in the middle of the back, the second shot proving fatal.

The Sheriff's department that employs Seymour produced a report saying that Atkinson and Seymour were stopped at the same red light, and that Atkinson abruptly ran the red light, which prompted the chase. This seems to conflict with Seymour's claim that it was seeing the vehicle corresponded to a stolen motorcycle that prompted him to pull Atkinson over.

Witnesses to the event dispute these findings completely. Specifically, eyewitness testimony stated that Atkinson and Seymour were having a casual conversation at the light, and that Seymour only attacked Atkinson when the latter reached into his pocket in order to produce ID when asked. Further, there was testimony that Seymour was actively choking Atkinson at one point, and that the latter got free to run, and was 15 feet away when Seymour shot him, rather than in the middle of a struggle.

With findings such as these, it isn't much of a surprise that the department chose to settle rather than continue to defend the indefensible.

The parents of a young boy killed on I-380 in Iowa have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the state's Department of Human Services and the social workers transporting the boy at the time. The lawsuit alleges that the social workers in question were ignoring the department's policy in transporting youth who are considered to be a danger to themselves.

Angela Barton and David Parvin, the parents of Denver Parvin, and are asking for a jury trial in order to receive compensation for Denver's death. The suit has specifically named social worker Steve Henderson and the Iowa Department of Human Services as defendants in the case.

Earlier in the day, Henderson picked up Denver from Barton's home in order to transport him to a shelter called Four Oaks, as part of a court-ordered move. Barton warned Henderson when he picked Denver up that he would have to transport Denver in a police vehicle for safety's sake, because previously Denver had made attempts to escape and threatened to jump out of moving vehicles. Further, Denver made overt claims that he intended to kill himself, and even attempted to grab a knife. Henderson acknowledged this and said he would take Denver in a law enforcement vehicle.

This apparently did not happen, and during the trip Denver began making threats to jump into northbound traffic. Henderson pulled over to try to avoid this, at which point Denver got out of the car and walked into the southbound lanes, where he was hit and killed by a vehicle.

What makes the case all the more baffling is that Henderson called for police backup to help him pick Denver up, but did not abide by his promise to transport Denver in a secured vehicle.

The lawsuit is claiming that the DHS were in essence derelict in their responsibilities, and demands recompense for the costs of funeral expenses, as well as losses to his estate due to a premature death. DHS itself has made no official comment on the case.

As a St. Louis motor vehicle accident attorney, I know roadway design is not often the cause of crashes. So I was interested to see that St. Charles County officials have approved funding to repair an apparent safety flaw on a road in that county. According to a May 17 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, county officials authorized almost $24,000 to put guardrails on both sides of Augusta Bottom Road, which will protect motorists from going off the road and into a roadside pond. Two people died in such accidents last fall, setting off a local dispute over which government agency had the authority to improve the road. Fighting continues over another section that connects St. Charles County to Warren County.

Augusta Bottom Road is paved in the area where the guardrails will go in, in St. Charles County, but a gravel road as it approaches Warren County. Last October, 16-year-old Ella Neier of Washington died when her car went off the road above the pond, sending her into deep water. About a month later, Joseph Volmert, also of Washington, had a similar fatal accident.

The accidents triggered discussions about improving the entire length of road, but authorities quickly realized it wasn’t clear who owned the gravel section. The city of Washington has been maintaining it, but records show it belongs to the city of Augusta. Officials from both cities and both counties have agreed to seek a MoDOT grant to study the issue, but Warren County has refused to authorize paving or moving the road, regardless of the study’s results. The Neier family has collected donations for road improvements, but cannot use them until ownership is cleared up.

Ownership is an important question when government funds are low, but as a Missouri auto accident lawyer, I’m disappointed that this dispute is holding up potential safety improvements. Regardless of who owns the road, it’s not hard for visitors to see that it could use guardrails — it runs along the top of a levee with a steep drop-off to deep water below. The section in Warren County is gravel, which may even increase the risk of a crash. Interestingly, a commenter in a previous Post-Dispatch article suggests Warren County doesn’t want to take responsibility for the road because it doesn’t want to be sued. However, it’s unclear how the county will prevent lawsuits by refusing to improve the road even after these two crashes — which make the need for improvements clear.

Continue reading "St. Charles Authorities Approve Guardrails for Road With at Least Two Fatal Crashes" »

I’ve been writing here recently about the issue of guard cables on the Kansas side of Kansas City, which are under consideration after an accident that killed a five-year-old boy and a young man. Now, as a southern Illinois auto accident lawyer, I was interested to read that our neighbors in Illinois are going ahead with median cables on a stretch of Interstate 74 that saw its own fatal accident. According to a May 9 article from the Bloomington Pantagraph, the families of two teenagers who died in a crossover crash in January have succeeded in their push for cables along the interchange between the interstate and County Highway 39. The work will be completed by 2012.

The accident that triggered the push for guard cables killed Michael Honan II and Celene Estes. Honan was driving a pickup along Interstate 74 when he crossed the median, clipped a semi and ran into a school bus carrying the girls’ basketball team from Tremont High School. The accident also injured Briana Estes and Brittany Fair, who were both in the pickup; nine people from the bus were treated at a hospital and released. State troopers said ice on the road contributed to the accident, although Honan also had amphetamines and marijuana in his bloodstream. The campaign got a boost from locals, including friends of the families as well as a woman who lost her father in a crossover accident in the same spot. Local politicians backed it as well.

As a St. Louis car crash attorney, I’m pleased that the campaign for guard cables was successful, although it’s sad that an unnecessary tragedy caused it. After observing Missouri’s experience with guard cables for several years, I believe they are an important safeguard against deadly crossover accidents. Crossovers are especially dangerous because they create head-on crashes, which have a higher death rate than rear-end or sideswipe crashes. That means that even if a driver bounces off a median barrier and hits other cars, the probability of a bad accident is lower. Missouri’s experience has borne this out. In 2010, after our state added guard cables to many roads, we had 7 deaths in crossover accidents. Before their installation in 2003, that number was 53.

Continue reading "Illinois Highway to Get Guard Cables After Teens Die in Crossover Car Accident" »

People are used to hearing bad news about the controversial birth control medication Yaz. A variation of Yasmin, Yaz is one of the flagship medications of medical giant Bayer. Now, a family is filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Bayer, claiming that Yaz was responsible for the death of their daughter.

On her way to classes one morning at Elon University in North Carolina, Michelle Pfleger collapsed without warning. An emergency team arrived and rushed her to a nearby hospital, but all efforts to revive her proved futile, and she died the same day. The subsequent autopsy revealed that the cause of death was due to cardiac arrest caused by a pulmonary embolism — a blood clot that ends up in the lungs, leading to exceptionally low blood pressure, which frequently is fatal.

Joan Cummins, Pfleger's mother, said of her daughter, "One day she was a freshman at college so full of hope and promise and the next she was gone."

"Yaz is a dangerous prescription drug sold without adequate warnings about the risks of serious and fatal injuries," Cummins' attorney said in a release. "Bayer failed to warn doctors and patients that Yaz poses a greater risk of serious side effects than previous generations of oral contraceptives."

This filing comes on the heels of two recent studies published in the British Medical Journal which linked drugs based on drospirenone to a double or even triple risk of developing blood clots, specifically clots of the type that killed Pfleger. Yaz and Yasmin are based on drospirenone.

The wrongful death lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, May 10th. There is as yet no word on when first hearings are scheduled to occur. Bayer had not released a comment on the case as of the time of this writing.

As a Missouri auto accident attorney, I wrote about two months ago in this space about the call for median guard cables in Kansas. Guard cables, which are thick metal cables strung between opposing lanes of traffic on highways, are in wider use on the Missouri side of the state line, and the Missouri Department of Transportation believes they have saved lives by preventing crossover accidents. Kansas transportation authorities have not used the cables as much, however, in part because of the cost and the different highway widths in the two states. Unfortunately, the issue was revived April 16 when a crossover crash on the K-10 highway killed five-year-old Cainan Schutt and 24-year-old Ryan Pittman.

Schutt and his two-year-old sister were on their way to an Easter egg hunt with their grandmother and her husband when Pittman crossed the center median of K-10. The ensuing crash killed both and seriously injured Schutt's sister and grandmother. Blood tests later showed that Pittman had several incapacitating drugs in his body. The mayor of the town where they lived, Eudora, responded with a campaign for guard cables along K-10, and Kansas governor Sam Brownbeck has asked the state Department of Transportation to study the matter.

However, KDOT has said it doesn't believe the cables are necessarily the best choice. Using a cost-benefit analysis, the agency had previously concluded that K-10 didn't qualify for the expensive cables, due to relatively low traffic and wide medians. Highway medians are generally wider in Kansas than in Missouri, they note, so drivers who swerve off the road have more time to recover. As a result, the state sees about five crossover accidents per year, far fewer than Missouri's pre-cable rate. Cables could actually cause a few accidents among drivers who would otherwise be able to get back in their lanes. And guard cables would prevent emergency vehicles from turning around easily, they said.

As a St. Louis car crash lawyer, I hope KDOT officials make this decision with safety in mind. Missouri is being used as a comparison not just because we're neighbors, but also because Missouri has seen a dramatic drop in its crossover accident fatalities since installing the cables. Last year, we had seven crossover deaths; in 2003, before installation started, we had 53. MoDOT acknowledges that cables can bounce cars back into traffic, as KDOT suggested, but says the sideswipe or rear-end accidents this causes are less likely to be deadly than a head-on crossover crash. And the other arguments cited in the article can easily be raised against the medians on interstates and other divided highways, where emergency vehicles are still doing their jobs.

Continue reading "Crossover Accident Outside Kansas City Renews Call for Missouri-Like Guard Cables" »

Pharma company Glaxo Smith Kline is facing a new lawsuit regarding its troubled diabetes medication, Avandia. The family and estate of Michael James Knight of Texas have filed a wrongful death suit against GSK and several of its related organizations on behalf of Knight. The lawsuit states that GSK and its affiliates had full knowledge of the substantial health risks that Avandia poses to its patients, yet did not take sufficient steps to warn patients of these dangers.

The suit also brings charges of negligence and liability for failing to ensure it was a reasonably safe design, failure to test the drug to ensure it was safe and failure to label it in accordance with its risks. Damages sought by the plaintiffs include wrongful death damages, survivor damages and exemplary damages.

The lawsuit was filed in the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of the State of Texas.

Avandia, like other thiazolidinediones or TZDs, is intended to regulate the blood sugar of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, when used in conjunction with diet and exercise changes.

The drug's effects on heart health have been under scrutiny since 2007, when the FDA ordered GSK to label Avandia with black-box warnings on all packaging. Black-boxing is the FDA's highest level of safety warning that can be applied. Still, a number of patients who took Avandia before and since have brought suits against the company for the heart damage that the pill has been alleged to cause. Common complaints include charges that the black box warning is far too little labeling for such a serious threat from the medicine, and that the company needs to either stop marketing the drug or label its warnings in a much clearer fashion.

No word has been filed on when proceedings in the Knight case will begin.