|
Helpful
Articles
Reprinted
from the pages of the "Covington Leader"
Would
you like to receive Wilson Wages' newsletter? Send
us your name and mailing address!
Lawsuit
Crisis!
March
25, 2003
No
wonder our insurance rates are so high!
Have
you heard the case about the man who put his RV on cruise control, had a
wreck, and then he sued? The jury awarded him over $1 million because
the manufacturer should have warned him that cruise control did not mean
the same thing as "automatic pilot."
Or,
how about the one where the lady in Texas was awarded $780,000 by a jury
after breaking her ankle when she tripped over a "toddler" in
a furniture store? The owners of the store were shocked at the verdict
considering that the misbehaving toddler was the Plaintiff's son!
These
stories are really eye-catching. Unfortunately, they are all lies.
Many
people have searched and no one has ever found any such case.
Apparently, this rumor started when a guy named Chuck Kirman in Los
Angeles was interviewed on an investigative television show several
years ago. He made up a story about a "stupid" Japanese
business man who bought a Cadillac and tried to cruise out of the
dealership and crashed into several other vehicles in the process.
Apparently, the folks that make this stuff up thought it was tacky to
use the derogatory term "stupid Japanese," seeing as how we
are doing so much business with the Japanese and they are anything but
stupid.
There
really was a Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, and she really was
awarded $780,000 by a jury. The rest of the story is that it was not a
little boy that tripped her, it was a Rottweiler that was owned by the
business that she had entered during the daytime during regular work
hours. The Rottweiler was not chained or restrained in any way and
attacked here. She suffered severe injuries to both arms, including the
loss of two fingers, which were later recovered from the dog's stomach
after it was put to sleep. She also received severe lacerations to most
of her face, the damage being so great that several plastic surgeons
testified that surgery would have little beneficial effect. The Rottweiler's
name: "Toddler."
These
two cases are part of what you may have heard of as the annual
"Stella Awards." Stella refers to Stella Liebeck, the lady who
recovered a judgment against McDonald's over the spilled coffee. To make
the annual "Stella Awards" look good, they use the law firm of
Hogelman, Hogelman & Thomas of Dayton, Ohio, as the source. There is
no law firm by that name in Dayton, Ohio. Once these stories get
started, they get picked up on talk radio (guess which ones) and
circulated as if they were "truth."
Medical
Malpractice
February
14, 2003
Three
years ago, the Institute of Medicine issued an assessment of medical
errors that concluded that as many as 98,000 hospitalized Americans die
every year, and one million more are injured as a result of preventable
medical errors, all of which costs the nation an estimated $29 billion.
As
a response, Congress held hearings and earmarked $50 million for
research to help solve the problem. A key recommendation, borrowed from
the aviation industry, was the mandatory reporting of serious errors.
You would think that the medical field and all concerned would be
interested in doing whatever was reasonably necessary to prevent this
tragedy, which according to the Institute of Medicine kills more
Americans than breast cancer, traffic accidents or AIDS. Not
surprisingly, these bills met with fierce resistance by doctors and
hospitals, which opposed mandatory reporting of mistakes.
Maybe
there is more malpractice today because the nation's most exhausted and
inexperienced doctors — more than 100,000 interns and residents who
staff teaching hospitals — continue to work as many as 130 hour a week
with little or no supervision. Further, hospital acquired infections,
which kill about 90,000 patients annually, have increased 36% since
1980.
My
guess for the most likely culprit is the urgency by which insurance
companies are tossing people out of the hospital, for one-day surgeries,
for things that used to require one week in the hospital.
Congress
is considering a law pushed by the insurance companies and the medical
industry and their friends in government to limit damages to $250,000
for pain and suffering. But is it fair for some old white men in a
smoke-filled room to decide that the fates of:
-
Linda
McDougal, a 16-year Navy veteran, accountant, wife and mother, who
had both breasts removed due to a mix-up where her pathology slides
got negligently switched with the slides of the lady who did have
cancer.
-
Arthur
Tucker, Jr., who lost a very important organ — unique to males —
when a heat element slipped. When he complained, the nurse said,
"Hang in there and be tough." When the doctor returned to
the room an hour later, it was too late. After a month of
indescribable pain, this male organ had to be surgically removed.
-
Amanda
Davis, a 5-year-old, checked in to Nashville's Parkside Surgery
Center for a routine tonsillectomy and died when she was
accidentally given the wrong drugs.
You
are only entitled to $250,000 damages for anything other than lost
salary and medical bills? Or, should a jury decide?
By
comparison:
-
In
1999, former Enron CEO and Presidential friend Ken Law sent an
otherwise empty Enron jet to France to fetch his daughter home.
Cost: $125,000 to Enron.
-
The
Administration's latest tax-cut proposal would cut $220,000 off V.P.
Cheney's taxes, the last year he was the CEO of Halliburton
Corporation, which did over $19 million in business with Iraq the
same year.
-
The
pharmaceutical industry gave $17.5 million to one political party
(guess which one) in the 2002 elections.
-
Finally,
the $97.9 million dividend the Microsoft gave Bill Gates will be tax
free if the Administration's tax proposal are made law.
The
Innocuous Tree: Final Chapter
January
10, 2003
Your
neighbor has a line of huge trees. The trunks of all the trees is
clearly on your neighbor's property. The trees look healthy. The limbs
of these huge trees hang over your septic line, roof, attic. The roots
of the trees crawl into your septic lines, clogging them. Limbs fall
onto your roof, damaging it.
Can
you force the neighbor to trim back his trees or tree limbs and pay
damages for the repair of the roof or septic line?
Yes.
But this was not the law until the Tennessee Supreme Court said so on
December 19, 2002. Previously, the Plaintiff had to show that the
neighbor's trees were dead or dying, legally called "noxious."
This decision makes a lot of practical "horse sense" to me and
will allow the landowner to present to the Trial Court proof as to her
damages for the fact that she had to take a bath at her neighbor's house
for two years and had no running water for two years. And, the Trial
Courts are now able to make a neighbor cut his trees or tree limbs
before more damage is done.
Workers
Comp Deaths
July
25, 2002
An
employee is working for a construction company, and part of his job is
to work in a ditch.
OSHA
Regulations, which in Tennessee are called "TOSHA" (Tennessee
Occupational Safety and Health Act) require that when you are in a ditch
and for the protection of the worker, the company has to put trench
boxes along the sides to keep the trench or ditch from collapsing and
hurting the worker.
In
this particular case, the company had previously been cited by TOSHA for
not having these trench boxes. In spite of that, the company did not
install the trench boxes and the trench collapses, killing the worker.
The
issue in the case was whether or not the worker could collect anything
more than workers compensation benefits. The answer from the Court of
Appeals was, "No, he could not." The reason for this is the
"exclusive remedy" rule of our workers comp law which says
that if you are injured or killed on the job, the only remedy you have
against the employer is workers compensation benefits, and you cannot
sue for negligence, which in this case was, at a minimum, negligence and
perhaps gross negligence.
During
the time period that this worker died, the benefits could have been as
low as $77.25 per week, which would have meant that the family would
have been paid $30,900 for his death. This is if he had a family. If he
did not have a wife and children, then at that time the worker's family
got nothing.
A
lot of employers feel that workers' comp is a rip-off and that workers
do not deserve the benefits they get from the workers comp system. The
result in this case seems pretty tough.
Prom
Night
May
6, 2002
Having
experienced three prom nights with my kids so far, the topic is
obviously on our mind. If your kids are not motivated by staying alive,
keeping all their bodily parts, etc., so as not to drink and drive on
prom night, maybe the costs will mean something to them. I have asked
around, and the average costs of a DUI defense is going to begin
somewhere around $300-$500 and stop somewhere around $10,000.
Assuming
your teenager lives at home and you own your own home or are purchasing
it and/or one or both parents are employed, the Court will not appoint a
public defender to represent you, nor will the Court let you represent
yourself, even though you may want to plead guilty.
The
likelihood of getting stopped on prom night is probably as good or
better than any other night. Now that law enforcement has the extra
added advantage of being able to stop you to see if you have your
seatbelts on, this obviously will be used as an excuse to stop and see
if there is underage drinking. While law enforcement may be a little
more flexible with adults, who while drinking appear to be in full
possession of their faculties, I feel comfortable that law enforcement
will have no discretion whatsoever with teenagers. Given the reduced
blood alcohol content percentages that set the maximum for all drivers
in general and teenager drivers in particular, one or two 12-oz. beers
within two hours of the time of the test in all likelihood would be
sufficient to constitute an abnormal amount and be grounds for a
conviction for driving under the influence.
Insurance
is expensive and difficult to obtain for teenagers under the best of
circumstances. Good grades can and will reduce these premiums. If your
teenager gets a DUI charge, then insurance will be nearly impossible to
obtain, when or if they get their license back..
Jeeps,
Broncos, Explorers, Durangos and other types of sports utility vehicles
can and will roll over as manufactured. They are much more likely to
roll over with oversized tires and the other crazy modifications made by
our teenagers. In our rural area, we have a lot of roads that do not
have adequate shoulders, are too narrow, and the boundaries are not
marked. When you combine teenager drivers, drinking, SUVs that tip over,
roads with too high shoulders that are unmarked, you have a recipe for
disaster. I can think of about five teenage deaths in the last couple of
years where all these factors were involved. Teenage drivers believe
that there is an "Angel of Mercy" following them around, or at
least they act like it, or else they would not drive as crazy as they
all do and we probably did as well. However, maybe attending a funeral,
sitting in Criminal Court for a while, stopping a jail to see young
people like themselves caged like animals, can help them realize the
reality of what they are doing when they get behind a 3000 pound vehicle
filled with alcohol.
|
