Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog

June 2, 2009

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

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.

June 1, 2009

Texas Malpractice Case Alleges Surgeon Left Needle Inside Body

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Beaumont Texas man has filed a medical malpractice suit against a local doctor, alleging a needle negligently left inside his body during surgery perforated his bladder.

Ronald Williams claims he underwent surgery performed by Dr. Stuart Scott Kacy of Southeast Texas Surgical Associates on March 12, 2007.

Court papers say that during the procedure, one of the used needles popped off the needle holder into Williams’s body.

Ronald Williams and his wife, Erica, filed a medical malpractice suit against Dr. Kacy and Southeast Texas Surgical Associates on May 26 in Jefferson County District Court.

May 31, 2009

R.J. Reynolds Must Pay Widow $30 M

by Dr. Shezad Malik

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the second-biggest U.S. cigarette maker, was told by a Florida jury to pay $30 million to a woman whose husband died of lung cancer after years of smoking, according to a lawyer.

A six-person jury today in state court in Pensacola, Florida, ordered R.J. Reynolds to pay Hilda Martin $25 million in punitive damages to punish the cigarette maker for the death of her husband, Benny Martin, according to the company’s lawyer, Mark Belasic. The jury awarded Martin $5 million in compensation. Belasic said he would appeal.

May 30, 2009

Witness Settles Lawsuit Over Jail Injuries

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Harrison County MS, has settled a civil rights lawsuit with a man whose kidneys failed in 2006 after he was left tightly strapped in a restraint chair for about eight hours at the Harrison County jail.

Kasey D. Alves testified against former Sheriff’s Sgt. Ryan Teel in August 2007, when Teel was convicted in a “color of law” case for the fatal beating of inmate Jessie Lee Williams Jr. and a conspiracy to abuse inmates and cover it up.

Alves’ testimony in the criminal case helped corroborate a pattern of abuse at the jail. Terms of the settlement in his suit are confidential.

May 29, 2009

Bausch & Lomb Settles 600 Fungus Law Suits

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Some eye doctors are still hoping that some of the lawsuits over a lens cleaner made by Bausch & Lomb will end up in court, so that the events that led to hundreds of fungal infection lawsuits will be aired publicly.

That has not happened. Over the past year, the company has quietly settled nearly 600 lawsuits, with dozens of individual claims still to be resolved. The cost so far is about $250 million.

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 28, 2009

Quadriplegic Musician Wins $18 M Verdict Against Ford Motor Co.

by Dr. Shezad Malik

An Oakland musician who was made a quadriplegic in a rollover crash four years ago won an $18.3 million verdict against Ford Motor Co. in federal court.

Dax Pierson, 38, suffered severe spinal injuries when a Ford passenger van that the band was traveling in ran off an icy highway in Iowa and rolled over in a ditch on Feb. 24, 2005.

Pierson sued Ford for creating a defective seat-latching mechanism that caused his seat to come loose, resulting in his head hitting the roof of the rolled-over van.

The $18.3 million jury award came after three weeks of trial in the court of U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton. It includes $12.3 million for past and future medical expenses and lost earnings plus $6 million for pain and suffering.

May 27, 2009

Iowa State Pays Woman Who Blinded Herself in Prison

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Iowa authorities have reached a legal settlement with Shayne Eggen, a mentally ill woman who used her finger to blind herself while she was in prison.

The state paid $141,533 last month to Eggen. The money settles allegations that instead of giving Eggen proper treatment, prison authorities repeatedly locked her in solitary confinement for behaviors caused by schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Advocates for the mentally ill say Eggen’s case illustrates how the United States misuses prisons to warehouse people who need psychiatric care. Her family says that when she blinded herself in 2002, she was confined alone at the state women’s prison in Mitchellville.

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.