Orlando Injury Lawyer Blog

Schools must supervise their students. That includes protecting children from a playground bully and from playing dangerous games. As Orlando injury lawyers, we find the circumstances surrounding a recent case troubling.

A 12 year boy was knocked down by a bully at a central Florida school. Of course that can happen, but when the boy tried to stand, the bully attacked him again. This time the bully jumped on the other student and broke his arm and caused injury to his forearm. The resulting damage to the boy’s radial nerve left him unable to open his left hand.

As concerned parents learning about the incident to their son, the boys mother and father demanded an apology from the school and an explanation of why there were no teachers around to prevent the attack. Amazingly, the school refused! Having no recourse, the parents sought legal advice and eventually filed a lawsuit against the school.

The defense to the action focused on children being children. That boys have always played around, wrestling and bonding together. However, this defense illustrated the need to more closely supervise children on the playground.

In this case, the students were playing a game which called for the boy with the ball to be tackled and stripped of the ball. This very game had previously been banned as dangerous by the school. This time no body from the school was watching. The injured boy, who had refused to play this inappropriate game was simply standing around during recess. He was jumped by the bully as recess was ending.

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Another tragic case of a pharmacy injury struck a central Florida woman and a Walgreens customer. Unfortunately, a young teenage pharmacy technician gave the woman a dosage of blood thinner that was 10 times higher than prescribed. As a result of this pharmacy malpractice she suffered a stroke and became paralyzed.

If this was not injury enough, the woman had been undergoing chemotherapy at the time of the pharmacy injury. The stroke required her to stop her chemotherapy and led to the spread of her breast cancer to her lungs and killed her.

A pharmacy malpractice jury found against Walgreens and awarded significant compensation. However, after the trial, Walgreens’ lawyers disagreed as to the amount of the award, but did not appear to deny the improper filling of the prescription.

The importance of this injury and death case is to remind consumers that a pharmacy can make fatal mistakes. That is especially true, where a young pharmacy technician is involved. So next time you go to a Walgreens Pharmacy or a CVS Pharmacy, double check the information on your prescription with what you are given by the pharmacy. By taking a few minutes to check and, if necessary, to question those at the pharmacy, you may prevent a similar tragedy from happening to you or your family.

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A judge has upheld a $5 million jury award in a product liability lawsuit over a 1-year-old's death from liver failure after taking an overdose of Infants' Tylenol. The case involved a child who received Infants' Tylenol for three days to treat his cold symptoms and developed acetaminophen toxicity. While Acetaminophen, Tylenol's active ingredient, can lead to liver toxicity, the parents claimed that without proper warning labels and clear directions on the Infants' Tylenol label they had no way of understanding the significance of giving too much to their ill child.

In its defense, the giant pharmaceutical company, McNeil-PPC Inc., owned by Johnson & Johnson, countered that the infant’s injury and death resulted from an unrelated viral hepatic injury and that the parents had failed to follow the medicine's instructions and warnings.
This case brings home the importance of parents understanding the dangers involved with over the counter medicines. Simply because no prescription is necessary for such drugs does not mean that parents can let their guard down. It is very important to understand all of the side effects and whether your child has any contraindications to taking the medicine.

In this case the parents proved that the Infants' Tylenol warning labels were defective and contributed to the child’s death. They testified they would not have given the medicine to their son if it included a warning that it could cause liver damage or death.

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Finding a dangerous product involved, a jury awarded $3.2 million to six Nicaraguan farmworkers who had sued Dole Food Co. Inc., after becoming sterile. The workers proved that the giant food corporation had used the banned pesticide and thereby exposed them to harm.

The chemical DBCP has been banned virtually worldwide. The chemical fights pests that attack the roots of fruit trees, but also stops rabbits from procreating, and allegedly rendered sterile the workers who produced it. DBCP was suspended for most uses in the United States in 1977 after workers at a plant in Lathrop, Calif., were found to have low or zero sperm counts after working with the compound.

Other lawsuits are pending in which thousands of workers allege that they, too, were injured from the use of DBCP on plantations. This case was widely seen as a test of how the U.S. legal system responds to injury inflicted through globalization. Because the harm occurred in Central America, the defendants had argued for years that the trials should take place there, rather than in the United States. Both sides considered the case a bellwether that would determine what sorts of claims would be pursued in the future.

In closing argument it was reported that one defense lawyer argued that the jury should consider the damages of the foreign farm workers by focusing on “their society and where they live" to compensate "in the context of their world and their society." Obviously, this argument appears to place a lesser value on the lives of persons who are not citizens of the United States. Fortunately, the trial judge appropriately instructed the jury not to discriminate against the workers. Overall it appears that these hardworking individuals received a just trial and were not run over by corporate giants.

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Vioxx product liability trials have caused Merck & Company to announce that it will pay $4.85 billion to settle about 27,000 claims over injuries linked to its Vioxx painkiller. Merck said in a statement that the company will pay the money into a settlement fund for qualifying claims that enter into the resolution process and that claims will be evaluated on an individual basis. The company said the agreement was not a class-action settlement.

The agreement represents a change in stance for the pharmaceutical giant, Merck, which earlier had insisted it would fight each Vioxx case. The settlement - one of the biggest ever in civil litigation - comes after almost 20 Vioxx civil trials were held over the last two years.

The amount plaintiffs will receive from the settlement will depend on how long they took the pain medication and the severity of their injuries. The agreement is intended to provide a significant degree of certainty toward resolving the majority of the outstanding Vioxx product liability claims in the United States for a fixed amount according to Merck representatives.

Of course, it is important for victims of Vioxx to timely present their claims and ensure that offers are consistent with their injuries. Vioxx users should be aware that Vioxx became a popular pain medication after it was approved for sale in 1999. From that time forward until Merck pulled the drug from the market in September 2004 due to safety concerns, it was available as a prescription pain reliever.

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Medical malpractice happens often enough, but the circumstances surrounding some malpractice cases demonstrates the lack of any concern for human life. Here, a 43 year old woman died of a perforated bowel after writhing in pain on the floor in an emergency department for 45 minutes as hospital employees refused to help her. Rather than try to assist her, this patient was discharged and left on a bench outside the hospital screaming in pain.

County officers who were called to respond took the woman back inside and tried to get a nurse to help, but according to the police report, the nurse did not show any concern. Officers then made a computer check and found that the patient was wanted for a parole violation. As the officers put her in a wheelchair to handle the outstanding violation, the woman became unresponsive and died in the emergency room.

The woman’s family appears justified in claiming that their mother was not treated like a human being-that she was treated like an animal. Obviously, more folks need to understand that all of us must hold these hospitals accountable for such disregard for human life. Otherwise, there is no deterrent to such reckless conduct. As a footnote, the hospital is being downsized into an urgent care center after failing to meet federal standards for patient care.

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Orlando injury lawyers must be on constant vigil in toy injury claims involving young children. Recently, the federal safety officials have recalled about 4.2 million Chinese-made Aqua Dots bead toys that contain a chemical that has caused some children to vomit and become comatose after swallowing them.

Scientists have found the popular toy's coating contains a chemical that, once metabolized, converts into the toxic "date rape" drug GHB, or gamma-hydroxy butyrate, according to a statement by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.The arts and craft beads, aimed at children 4 years and older, have been selling since April at major U.S. retail stores as "Aqua Dots" and elsewhere under the name "Bindeez Beads."

Anyone with Aqua Dots at home should throw them out, as instructed by the CPSC. The toy was named toy of the year in Australia and recently made Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s list of top 12 Christmas toys.However, Wal-Mart moved to list Aqua Dots on its Web site as "out of stock online" and removed them from its top toy list.

Toronto-based toy distributor Spin Master Ltd. stopped shipping Aqua Dots and asked retailers to pull them off their shelves, where they had sold for $17 to $30. Melbourne-based Moose Enterprise Pty. Ltd. recalled Bindeez Beads on Tuesday after three children in Australia swallowed large quantities of the beads and were hospitalized.

The recall is the latest to target Chinese-made toys. Last month, U.S. government safety officials and retailers recalled at least 69,000 Chinese-made toys over concerns of excessive amounts of lead paint, which can cause lead poisoning.

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Posted In: Consumer Products

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