Wrongful Death

June 12, 2009

SC Jury Awards $9M Settlement Wrongful Death Case

A Darlington County SC jury returned a verdict of $9 million after finding Progress Energy responsible in the wrongful death of 21-year-old Allen Toney of Hartsville.

According to a press release, the jury awarded Mary Washington, the victim’s mother, $3.5 million in actual damages and $5.5 million in punitive damages. Toney died as the result of being electrocuted by a downed power line.

According to testimony, on May 2, 2003, a storm in the Hartsville area caused a utility pole, owned and maintained by Progress Energy, to fail. The pole, fell at approximately 6:30 p.m., leaving a live power line carrying 13200 volts hanging chest high across the driveway. According to witnesses, at around 9:20 p.m. Toney arrived at the home where he came into contact with the energized power line.

June 8, 2009

Texas Hurricane Rita Bus Fire Settlement

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Nearly four years after 23 Bellaire nursing home residents died in a fiery bus while evacuating from Hurricane Rita, their families have reached a settlement awarding them $80 million.

In the chaotic week leading up to Hurricane Rita, Brighton Gardens, a Bellaire nursing home owned by Sunrise Senior Living Services of McLean, Va., quickly ordered buses for its residents and staff so they could evacuate to a sister facility in Dallas. As Rita churned through the Gulf of Mexico on Sept. 23, 2005, nursing home residents and staff boarded two buses provided by Global Limo Inc. of Pharr, Texas.

June 6, 2009

Lawsuit Filed in I-15 Wrongful Death of Stranded Honeymooners

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Two trucking companies and their drivers are being sued over a 2008 accident on I-15 in Las Vegas in which two honeymooners outside their stranded vehicle were struck and killed.

Attorneys for the parents of one of the victims, Lisa Lynn Prock-Hills, filed a negligence suit in Clark County District Court against truck driver Stanislaw Masalski of Clearwater, Fla., and his company, Stan Trucking Inc.

Also sued were driver Sam Montalvo Martinez and his employer at the time of the accident, J.B. Hunt Transport Inc. of Lowell, Ark.

The Nevada Highway Patrol said Kevin Edward Hills, 38, and Prock-Hills, 41, were killed on Interstate 15 just south of Silverado Ranch Boulevard on March 13, 2008.

June 5, 2009

Lawsuit Links Psychiatric Drugs to Florida Child’s Death

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Florida mother sued Fort Lauderdale Hospital and a psychiatrist who worked there, saying they overmedicated her teenage son with a cocktail of mental health drugs — some of which have not been approved for the treatment of children.

The boy, Emilio Villamar, died of a sudden heart attack. He was 16.

Emilio, a swimmer and water polo player, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder by Dr. Sohail Punjwani in March 2002. Within the next year, the teen was given 16 different psychiatric drugs, six of which were still being administered when he died, said Michael S. Freedland, who is representing Emilio’s mother, Norma L. Tringali.

Punjwani had also been treating 7-year-old Gabriel Myers, a foster child who had been prescribed several psychiatric drugs before he hanged himself in April. In the wake of Gabriel’s death, the Department of Children & Families has launched a wide-ranging investigation into the agency’s dispensing of mental health drugs.

June 3, 2009

Defective Product: Kugel® Mesh Hernia Patch Recall

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The Bard® Composix® Kugel® Mesh Hernia Patch has been linked to serious, life-threatening side effects and has been voluntarily recalled by its manufacturer and in association with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

On January 8, 2008, a Federal Court judge expanded the scope of current hernia patch lawsuits to include all Davol/Bard Marlex/Teflon patches, with or without “memory recoil rings.”
In August 2001, Davol began receiving reports of complications and failures of its hernia mesh patch. These reports advise of bowel obstructions, adhesions, constipation, and fistula resulting from implantation of Composix® Kugel® Mesh Patches. The reports also contain descriptions of problems other then memory recoil ring breakage including, “buckled mesh,” “patch shriveling” and “edges curled up,” as well as descriptions of the mesh as being “crumpled,” “wrinkled,” “rolled up,” “delaminated” and “folded.”

June 2, 2009

Texas Mesothelioma Lawyers, How to File an Asbestos Lawsuit in Texas

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Asbestos is a naturally occurring fiber that, when released into the air, can be inhaled or swallowed. Asbestos fibers are so small that they are not visible to the naked eye. Once they are inhaled, asbestos fibers stay in the body and, over the course of decades, lead to the development of asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma is rare form of cancer caused by asbestos exposure. An estimated 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year, and because the disease takes decades to develop, the rate of new diagnoses is still climbing. The peak incidence of mesothelioma is predicted to occur around 2020.

June 2, 2009

PA Woman Gets $1.88 M in Medical Malpractice Case

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Pennslyvania jury awarded a woman $1.88 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit filed on behalf of her husband, who died of cancer in 2008.

Christine Golden sued urologist Milan J. Smolko, pathologist Lillian Longendorfer and Wayne Memorial Hospital for failing to diagnose her husband’s bladder cancer despite several consultations and examinations between Sept. 18, 2002, and January 2004.

Before the verdict was returned last month, however, Dr. Longendorfer and the hospital reached a confidential settlement with Mrs. Golden.

Mrs. Golden’s lawyer, said Terrence Golden saw Dr. Smolko multiple times in those 16 months, each time complaining of urinary problems. Dr. Smolko said he had an inflamed and enlarged prostate, but did not investigate further until July 2003. Then, he did a bladder biopsy and sent the information to Dr. Longendorfer, who worked at Wayne Memorial Hospital.

May 29, 2009

March 2009 Drug Safety Update Newsletter Raises Emerging Safety Issue Of Kidney-Related Side Effects From Byetta Use

by Dr. Shezad Malik

We reported on Byetta (exenatide) in August 2008, when the FDA issued a MedWatch email alert about six new cases of hemorrhagic pancreatitis and necrotizing pancreatitis that had been reported to FDA since an October 2007 “Dear Doctor” letter about Byetta and acute pancreatitis was sent to doctors in the U.S.

The March 2009 Drug Safety Update newsletter — from drug regulators in the United Kingdom (UK) — included this article, “Exenatide (Byetta): risk of severe pancreatitis and renal failure”. We get some new information about two types of serious side effects associated with Byetta, pancreatitis and renal, or kidney, impairment.

May 26, 2009

More Florida Foster Kids Are Given Mental-Health Drugs

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Nearly three of 10 teenage Florida foster children have been prescribed a mental-health drug, and 73 foster kids younger than 6 are taking mind-altering drugs, according to a recent study released in response to the death of a Broward foster child who was taking such medications.

In all, 2,669 children — or 13 percent of Florida foster children — are being given powerful psychiatric drugs, said the study, commissioned last month by Department of Children & Families Secretary George Sheldon. The largest group, almost 60 percent, are teens ages 13 to 17.

The 2,669 children represent about one-third more kids than a DCF database had reported as taking mental-health drugs — meaning electronic state records had significantly underestimated the use of mind-altering drugs.

Child-welfare administrators are investigating the use of mental-health drugs by children in state care in the wake of the April 16 death of Gabriel Myers, a troubled 7-year-old boy who hanged himself in the shower of his Margate foster home.

May 24, 2009

New York City to Pay $2 M in Death After Hospital Wait

by Dr. Shezad Malik

New York City has agreed to pay $2 million to the family of a woman who died last year on the floor of the psychiatric emergency room at Kings County Hospital Center after waiting more than 24 hours to be treated.

A video showed the woman on the floor for more than an hour while workers at the city-run hospital did nothing to help her.

The city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation accepted full responsibility for the death of the woman, Esmin Elizabeth Green, 49, and said it had taken steps to relieve crowding and increase the size of the staff to provide mental health services at the hospital.