Louisiana Injury Lawyers Blog

October 29, 2013

St. Bernard Parish Family Achieves Settlement in Water-Borne Amoeba Death Case

A St. Bernard Parish man almost certainly had no idea the peril that awaited him when he decided to use a common device to clear his sinuses. In the wake of the man’s death from a rare, brain-eating amoeba, the makers of the medical device and the home water heater the man used have settled a wrongful death claim initiated by the man’s parents, the Washington Post reports.

In 2011, Jeffrey Cusimano decided to use a “neti pot” to clear his sinuses. Neti pots work by thinning mucus and flushing it from the user’s sinus passages. After using the device, a parasitic amoeba entered the man’s system and he developed meningioencephalitis. The amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, enters the body through the nose. Cusimano died on June 7, 2011.

The man’s parents sued both the neti pot manufacturer, NeilMed Pharmaceuticals Inc., and the maker of his home water heater, Rheem Manufacturing Co., in federal court. The family alleged that both devices contributed to the fatal case of meningitis. The water heater was defective and unreasonably dangerous, the parents maintained, because it failed to heat the home’s water to a temperature high enough to kill the amoeba. The neti pot was also defective and unreasonable dangerous because its construction or material makeup allowed the amoeba build up and flourish, according to the complaint.

October 15, 2013

Improperly Lit Truck Leads Jury to Award $2.8M Judgment

by Cardone Law Firm

An early morning wreck left a young man dead after crashing into the rear of a slow-moving logging truck. After investigators determined that the truck was improperly lit, the driver received a six-month prison sentence. Now, a jury has resolved the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the young driver’s family by awarding them $2.8 million in damages, according to mlive.com
22-year-old Christopher J. Groulx was on his way to work when his Pontiac car slammed into the back of a logging truck at around 6:20 a.m. He died at the scene. While most typical rear-end collisions involve a rear driver at fault, this was not a typical collision. Police investigators determined that the logging truck lacked the required lighting needed to make it sufficiently visible. The logging truck was also moving at an extremely slow rate of speed (around 15 mph.)

Based upon the improper lighting, prosecutors charged the truck driver with a moving violation causing death, and the driver served a six month jail sentence. Subsequently, Groulx’s family sued the driver and the trucking company for wrongful death. The family argued that, because of the improper lighting, Groulx could not see the truck. The attorney for the driver and the trucking company contended that the young driver was speeding or was inattentive either due to sleep deprivation (from having attended a music concert until 1 a.m. the previous evening) or a cell phone distraction. The family countered by asserting that the man’s cell phone was in his pocket at the time of the impact.

September 25, 2013

Nursing Homes Suffer Massive Defeats in Negligence Cases

by Cardone Law Firm

Nursing homes are tasked with a great responsibility: the care and treatment of those who can least care for themselves, usually the disabled or the elderly. While most facilities undertake this task with the utmost care, some fall short of providing even a basic level of care. That is what two juries, one in Florida and one in West Virginia, concluded as they handed down massive damages awards against nursing homes whose negligent care hastened the deaths of a pair of patients.

In Charleston, West Virginia, Dorothy Douglas stayed at the Heartland of Charleston nursing home for three weeks in 2009. By the time Douglas’s son moved her to another nursing home, she had lost 15 pounds and was near death from dehydration. She passed away shortly thereafter.

Lawyers for Douglas’s son argued at trial that the facility prioritized maximizing patient numbers while minimizing the number of staff, which led to the negligent level of care that ultimately killed Dorothy. A Kanawha County jury agreed, and handed down a $91.5 million judgment. Of that amount, $80 million constituted punitive damages. Earlier this year, a Kanawha County judge rejected the nursing home’s request for a new trial.

September 17, 2013

Overlooked Surgical Sponge Leads to Injury, Lawsuit in Louisiana

by Cardone Law Firm

Patients are often fearful of many things when they enter a hospital for surgery. One thing they likely don’t think about, and shouldn’t need to, is having surgical implements or materials forgotten and left in their bodies after the procedure’s conclusion. One Louisiana man claims he recently suffered such a fate at the West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero. According to the patient, the hospital staff failed to account for all of the surgical sponges it used during his colon cancer surgery and left one behind, leading to fever, drainage, bloating and swelling.

Charles Anderson initially faced the stressful news, following a colonoscopy, that he had colon cancer. In the spring of 2010, Anderson underwent surgery to treat his cancer. Anderson’s problems worsened after the surgery. He began experiencing high fevers shortly after the procedure and later noticed heavy abdominal bloating and swelling in his right abdomen. That fall, doctors performed a body scan on Anderson, whereupon they discovered a surgical sponge inside his body. The forgotten sponge required Anderson to undergo another surgery to remove it.

The patient filed a medical malpractice suit against the hospital and his surgeon for his injuries. Anderson contended that the hospital and the surgeon failed to maintain a proper count of the surgical sponges used on (and removed from) his body, failed to have proper safety procedures in place, failed to ensure competence among the staff, and failed to monitor the post-operative infection he developed to a proper extent. Anderson is seeking an unspecified amount of damages for his pain and suffering, medical expenses, emotional distress, mental anguish, loss of earning capacity, impairment and disfigurement.

August 28, 2013

Louisiana Dog Bites: News & Important Laws to Know

by Cardone Law Firm

The call for tougher laws regulating potentially vicious dogs is being made in Louisiana. The vicious attack of a Westwego, LA woman has thrown a new light on the discussion. Linda Henry, a former pitbull lover and owner, was mauled by 3 of her own pitbulls, losing both arms, an eyelid and part of her scalp in the attack. She is thankful she survived the attack but she has since, understandably, changed her tune on pitbull regulation.

City Council member Glenn Green is one of the public advocates on her side, hoping to pass a proposal that would levy strict regulations against pit bull owners. One of his aims is to impose a one hundred thousand dollar liability insurance policy on owners of the breed. Opponents of the proposal claim that focusing solely on pit bulls is not a solution to the problem and in fact unfairly singles out pit bull owners without addressing problems involving other breeds.
Louisiana is a “strict liability state,” which means the victim of a dog bite needs to prove the attack was something the owner of the dog could have reasonably prevented. Provided this can be done, the dog’s owner will be held responsible for damages and, in addition, may be fined for failure to properly follow current regulations governing the restraint of their pet.

August 7, 2013

Exercising Errors: When Injury Occurs in the Gym

by Cardone Law Firm

The Cardone legal team has discussed on this blog the risks of medical malpractice and the possible methods of recovery. The potential to be injured by a trained professional, however, is not limited to the medical field, we put our body’s safety in the hands of “trained” professionals on a daily basis and may need remedies if something goes wrong.

Back in 2010, a negligence lawsuit was filed in Orleans Parish District Court against a Louisiana personal trainer who was accused of causing the injuries of a New Orleans woman. The woman, Ms. Wallace, participated in a weight-training program under the supervision and guidance of the personal trainer.

July 27, 2013

Louisiana Robot Surgeries – Human-Error Still a Major Concern

by Cardone Law Firm

Pulled from the pages of a science fiction novel, the future of medicine has a new technological twist. As the old fashioned human surgeon takes a step away from the patient and a step towards the computer, robotic-assisted surgery has been sweeping the world by storm and revolutionizing the method operations are performed. However, like many technological innovations, robotic surgery is not human-proof and the errors can be deadly.

The prominent system for robotic surgery is the Da Vinci Robotic System. This system has been designed to facilitate typically complex surgery with computer assisted precision. The surgeon controls the device from a computer console and the robot arm can go beyond human physical capabilities in delicate procedures. Intuitive Surgical is the company responsible for the system, getting FDA approval in 2000. Since approval, the system gained ground and it is estimated that over 200,000 surgeries were performed by the Da Vinci system in 2012 alone.

July 16, 2013

What Louisiana Residents Should Know About Nursing Home Abuses

by Cardone Law Firm

It is common for nursing homes to take steps to shield themselves from litigation involving the care of their residents. There are currently heated arguments concerning the courts’ willingness to honor “arbitration clauses” in residents’ contracts. “Arbitration clauses” are often included in the living agreements signed when someone becomes a resident of a nursing home. They basically state that claims against the home will not be solved through the courts, but will instead be handled by an outside, professional arbitrator that the nursing home hires. The US Supreme Court recently decided not to hear an appeal concerning an elder abuse case wherein a lower court ordered a home to pay damages to the residents, despite the fact that the resident signed a contract with an “arbitration clause”.

While “arbitration clauses” are generally taken into consideration, they can be treated with suspicion, due to the fact that an arbitrator may be biased towards the institution (in this case, the nursing home) that hires him and may want to hire him again in the future. In Beverly Enterprises, Inc. vs. Ping, there may have been negligence so severe that it resulted in a resident’s death. The resident’s estate would potentially have the right to file a “wrongful death” suit against the nursing home, citing egregious actions or abuse that led to the patient’s death

June 25, 2013

Tips to Ensure a Safe Louisiana Fourth of July

by Cardone Law Firm

The Louisiana attorneys at Cardone Law would like to wish you a fun and safe Fourth of July this year.

The tradition of fireworks goes back to 1777 for the first anniversary of our nation’s independence. Fireworks have had a long and controversial history, with their sale and use being completely legal in some states while other states impose a spectrum of laws restricting their sale.

June 16, 2013

Getting it Wrong – Louisiana Med Mal Cases, Often Result of Misdiagnosis

by Cardone Law Firm

Those suffering from medical ailments make appointments, pay copays, and sit in waiting rooms to hear from doctors about what is or is not wrong with them. Doctors, professionals trained and trusted to diagnose patient symptoms, are still capable of mistakes – but what happens when a diagnosis is incorrect? Or late?

A Pennsylvania woman was awarded $3 million dollars after her unfortunate misdiagnosis. The woman visited her doctor’s office with sinus complaints. With neither practicing physicians onsite during the visit, a physician’s assistant attended to the woman, and upon examination recommended a steroid treatment. This treatment masked the ailing patient’s condition and, without antibiotics, allowed the infection to evolve to a brain abscess. This led to emergency surgery, two months of hospitalization, rehab, and continuing emotional and cognitive issues. The whole medical malpractice claim could have been prevented on that first visit.

According to a recent study released out of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, wrong or missed diagnoses comprised the lion’s share of medical malpractice claims in the U.S. over the past 25 years. The study, authored by Dr. David Newman-Toker, looked at over 350,000 medical malpractice claims and estimated that approximately 160,000 claims a year involve either death or permanent damage as a result of a misdiagnosis.

Medicine is understandably a difficult field, and studies have shown that up to a quarter of the population will receive an incorrect diagnosis. Fortunately, many of these misdiagnoses are harmless but one can never be quite too careful. The Journal of Clinical Oncology estimates the misdiagnoses rate for certain cancers around 44%.

And although rare, misdiagnosis can be good news. A Maine man won his malpractice suit against his physician who diagnosed him with aggressive stage 4 cancer that was certainly terminal. Upon further examination, doctors informed this patient that despite being told he had months to live, his original diagnosis was incorrect and he had a highly treatable cancer. A suit ensued for “tremendous emotional distress” and the court ruled in favor of the misdiagnosed man awarding him $200,000 in damages.

Medical malpractice, a $3.6 billion per year field, is a costly and dangerous warning sign to patients to always be cautious of professional opinions. Some basic suggestions:

1) Ask questions. When visiting a physician, ask follow up questions. Lay your symptoms on the table, and if a diagnosis doesn’t seem right to you, communicate these thoughts. Doctors are not mind-readers and cannot know other causes for symptoms they’re not told about.
2) Get a second opinion. If you feel treatment is not working, or if the treatment seems overly invasive, it is not an insult to seek a consultation with another doctor. Doctors wish to avoid any and all claims and if they missed something, they are more than happy that it is found early, even by someone else, before expenses build up.
3) Medical malpractice can be committed by those other than medical doctors. Understand that therapists, nurses, assistants, and other attendants can commit medical malpractice errors in your treatment.
4) Seek a knowledgeable attorney. Ninety-three percent of medical malpractice cases are settled, and an individual who has a claim must be aware of all the intricacies of a settlement agreement and must have keen negotiators on their side in order to better their chances at success.