Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog

December 14, 2009

New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton is Lead Plaintiff in Chinese Drywall Suit

Saints coach Sean Payton is the lead plaintiff in a 591-page class action lawsuit against Knauf Plasterboard Tainjin Co. Ltd., a Chinese company that manufactured drywall that is believed to be corroding homes and making people sick.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans on behalf of people with this particular brand of drywall, attempts to give some scope to the problem of defective drywall as both plaintiffs and defendants figure out how many people are affected and much it will cost to repair damage.

December 13, 2009

Columbia City Reaches Settlement With Man Injured by Taser

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The city has agreed to pay $300,000 to a man who was critically injured in July 2008 after being shocked with a Taser by Columbia police.

As part of a settlement agreement finalized last month, the city will pay $233,544.63 to Phillip Lee McDuffy and $66,455.37 to the Family Support Payment Center to cover McDuffy’s overdue child support payments, according to Sarah Perry, the city’s risk manager.

December 13, 2009

Dallas Fort Worth Texas Slip and Fall Premises Liability Attorney

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Premises liability cases cover a wide range of situations in which people are injured or suffer a wrongful death on a commercial or residential property. Slip and fall injuries such as back, hip or spine injuries when a customer slips on a wet floor that lacks signage to warn customers of slippery conditions at a store, club, salon, restaurant, etc.

Trip and fall injuries such as bone fractures when a hotel guest trips on cleaning supplies left in a hallway or a rug that is frayed or bunched up in front of a door.

Dog bites from a dog that is not adequately restrained on its owner’s property.

Head and body injuries by falling merchandise at a warehouse or store.

Suffering a bodily injury from a malfunctioning elevator or a door with a broken closing device.

Being sexually assaulted because a hotel did not provide adequate security.

Dram Shop liability because a restaurant or Bar served its customer drinks until he was intoxicated and then the customer drove and injured a person.

December 12, 2009

Daughter Awarded $3 M After Death of Mom Who Had Do-Not-Resuscitate Order

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Janie Vinson was apparently so ill with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that the 79-year-old woman’s family told the medical staff at Albany, Ga.’s Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital not to try to cure her, but to simply keep her comfortable until she died.

A Dougherty County jury awarded her daughter $3 million for medical malpractice claims resulting from Vinson’s death in March 2002 after she was given what a plaintiff’s expert said was too much morphine too quickly.

Vinson had been in the hospital for more than a week when she suffered respiratory arrest on March 18, 2002. Vinson had stopped breathing by the time a nurse arrived to her room. The nurse called a “code” and the emergency pulmonary team, led by Dr. Thomas Ungarino, responded, but by the time they arrived, Vinson was breathing again.

December 11, 2009

Miami Woman who Sued Employer Over Jury Duty is Awarded $150,K

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Miami-Dade jury, sworn to exercise its civic duty, awarded security guard Jackalyn Strachan $150,000 in damages — for exercising her same civic duty.

The six-person jury found that Miami security firm Hall Investigation Service wrongfully denied wages and fired Strachan for serving as a juror in a murder trial in April 2007.

December 10, 2009

Florida Man Paralyzed in Motor Veicle Accident Awarded $44.9 M

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Lee County jury awarded $44.9 million to a Cape Coral man who was paralyzed in a 2006 motor vehicle accident.

The verdict, one of the largest in the county’s history, was awarded to Gerald Aloia. Aloia was riding on his motorcycle on Oct. 22, 2006, when he was struck by a Chevrolet Corvette driven by Deborah Veilleux. Veilleux, 45 at the time, died in 2007.

December 9, 2009

Bayer Must Pay Farmers for Contaminated Rice Crop

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Bayer CropScience LP must pay about $2 million for losses sustained by two Missouri farmers when an experimental variety of rice the company was testing cross-bred with their crops, a federal jury ruled.

The verdict in St. Louis came in the first trial in what is intended to be a series of test cases against the unit of Leverkusen, Germany-based Bayer AG. The jury of four men and five women began deliberating on Dec. 2, about a month after it began hearing claims brought by Kenneth Bell and Johnny Hunter.

December 8, 2009

Man Hurt by Falling Tree Limb in NY Central Park

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A 33-year-old man who suffered brain and spinal injuries in July when a heavy limb fell from a tree in Central Park and struck him has sued the city and the Central Park Conservancy for negligence.

The man, Mr. Goldensohn, a computer scientist who works for Google, remains hospitalized from his injuries and has undergone several operations, said his lawyer, Nicholas Papain.

December 7, 2009

Fort Worth Texas Yaz Yasmin Birth Control Lawsuit Update

by Dr. Shezad Malik

After 13 hours of intensifying pain, two trips to the emergency room and two CT scans, doctors finally found what was ailing Lottie Green.

In her left lung, the pulmonologist told her, was the largest blood clot they had ever seen and there were others in her right lung as well, she said.

Soon after the 41-year-old Bethesda, Md., resident was released from a hospital last month, Ms. Green joined hundreds of other women in lawsuits against Germany’s Bayer AG, the maker of the popular oral contraceptive Yaz.

December 6, 2009

FDA Review Says MRI Imaging Drugs That Contain Gadolinium Riskier for Kidney Patients

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration is weighing further regulation of three drugs used to create high-contrast images on MRI scans, based on a new analysis that suggests they carry a higher risk of causing a rare, but potentially fatal disease.

The issue, marks a setback for GE Healthcare (GE), which contends that its product is no riskier than competing imaging drugs. FDA reviewers said GE’s drug, Omniscan, had a disproportionately high number of reports of the disease compared with its peers.