California Injury Blog

Published on: July 16, 2008

Modesto ATV Rollover Accident Claims Teen’s Life

By Brian Chase

Seventeen-year-old Justin James Wolff of Modesto died from being thrown off his all-terrain vehicle (ATV) west of Modesto, according to a recent article in The Modesto Bee.

Wolff was riding with his friends in an orchard he was familiar with near Paradise Road when the ATV accident happened. California Highway Patrol officials said Wolff was doing 50 mph on a three-wheeled 1985 Honda ATV on a dirt embankment west of Illinois Avenue in west Modesto. He lost control of the three-wheeler as he jumped from the embankment over an access road. The ATV reportedly rolled over many times and threw Wolff on Illinois’ northbound lane. The teen suffered serious injuries and brain damage and died later at the Memorial Medical Center in Modesto.

I offer my deepest condolences to the Wolff family. Please keep this teenage boy in your prayers. According to the article Wolff hadn’t worn his helmet in the ATV crash. In Stanislaus County helmet use is not required on private property. In fact, that is the law in most states and counties across the nation. Hundreds of young people, especially teenagers, are injured, maimed or killed every year in the United States because they don’t wear helmets and other protective gear.
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Published on: July 15, 2008

Top 10 Worst Insurance Companies – New Report From the American Association for Justice

By Brian Chase

Insurance giant Allstate leads the top 10 list of worst insurers in the country, according to a comprehensive investigation of thousands of legal documents and financial filings by the American Association for Justice (AAJ), a national trial lawyers group. According to this article, the group based this top 10 list on what it calls “a distinct pattern of industry greed” among these insurance companies that do what they can to avoid paying claims, play hardball with consumers and put profits over the welfare of their policy holders.

According to AAJ’s chief executive officer Jon Haber, Allstate “publicly touts its ‘good hands’ approach” but has privately instructed its agents to adopt more of a “boxing gloves” strategy against policyholders, making it near impossible for them to get claims paid. As for Allstate, the strategy is a gold mine – to increase profits, expand salaries for their executives — all at the expense of its suffering policy holders. The other top 10 worst insurers include: Unum, AIG, State Farm, Conesco, WellPoint Health, Farmers, Torchmark and Liberty Mutual – in that order from 2 to 10.
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Published on: July 15, 2008

Oregon Tort Reform Initiatives Fail To Make Ballot

By Brian Chase

Two proposed ballot initiatives aimed at making personal injury attorneys unavailable in Oregon did not receive the signatures required to qualify for the ballot, according to a LegalNewsLine.com report. Initiative 51, which would have limited attorneys’ contingency fees to 25 percent of the first $25,000 recovered in civil lawsuits and 10 percent of any amount greater than $25,000. The second initiative (No. 53) would have called for attorneys to be punished for filing frivolous lawsuits or court motions.

The proposals were sponsored by Russ Walker of Keizer, Ore., vice chairman of the Oregon Republican Party. This type of tort deform initiative is mostly sponsored by insurance companies, giant corporations and the Chamber of Commerce to block the common man’s access to lawyers. Take away a persons access to lawyers and you take away their rights and their ability to hold wrongdoers accountable for the harm they cause.

Interestingly enough, Initiative 51 does not cap how much defense attorneys can charge. The whole idea is for the best attorneys to work for the insurance companies and big business, while the common man gets the attorneys who can’t find any other work. If such a law limiting contingent fees had passed we certainly would not do any work in Oregon and neither would any of the other truly gifted attorneys around the country. The best personal injury lawyers in Oregon would either move to another state or do other types of work, which is exactly what Walker and his backers were hoping to have happen. Where does that leave the people of Oregon?
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Published on: July 15, 2008

Ventura Train Accident Kills Teen

By Brian Chase

Jack Mabee, 17, of Oxnard, died in a train accident in Ventura when an Amtrak Surfliner train hit the car in which he was riding. According to an article in the Ventura County Star, Mabee was riding in the front passenger seat of a sedan traveling on a farm road near Victoria Avenue and Olivas Park Drive when the driver, 18-year-old Jordan Hernandez of Oxnard, drove onto a railroad crossing and into the path of the Amtrak train.

California Highway Patrol officials said the train sheared the car in two. Mabee died at the scene and Hernandez was admitted to an area hospital with major injuries to his head and torso. The railway crossing apparently had signs, but did not have a mechanical cross arm or flashing lights.

My heart goes out to the families of both Mabee and Hernandez. Please keep them in your prayers.
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Published on: July 15, 2008

PRI’s Report On Tort System Is Debunked By Panel Of Experts

By Brian Chase

A team of three leading scholars from top U.S. universities has discredited a study done by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) titled “Jackpot Justice: The True Cost of America’s Tort”, which calculated that the nation’s tort system imposes an annual “tort tax” of $9,827 for a family of four in the United States and also raises healthcare spending in the country by $124 billion. Now, a team of reputed scholars comprising Tom Baker of the Pennsylvania Law School, Herbert Kritzer of William Mitchell College of Law and Neil Vidmar of Duke Law School, has countered the PRI study debunking the figures that appear in PRI’s annual “state tort index and rankings.”

These three scholars say in their work, “Jackpot Justice and the American Tort System: Thinking Beyond Junk Science,” that PRI’s claims are not only “highly dubious,” but are without scientific merit and present a highly misleading picture of the American tort system and the costs associated with it.

These three law professors have also revealed that the source of PRI’s so-called calculation is a discredited study by insurance consultant Tillinghast Towers Perrin. The professors note that not one of PRI’s numbers in terms of tort costs comes from prestigious academic publications or reports that are subject to peer review by independent experts. On the other hand, these experts’ critical report on the PRI study was critiqued by a blind peer review.

I agree with our friends at the American Association for Justice’s President Kathleen Flynn Peterson that PRI’s report highlights claims that are hopelessly skewed and inaccurate. These claims have been used by industry giants and insurance companies over several decades to undermine the importance of the civil justice system. To read AAJ’s complete press release, please visit http://www.justice.org.
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Published on: July 14, 2008

Six Teenagers Injured in Fresno Rollover Crash

By Brian Chase

Six teenagers between ages 13 and 17 were injured when a stolen Dodge Durango they were in rolled over and caught fire west of Porterville at Avenue 152 east of Road 192. Jasmine Mejia, 16, and 14-year-old Crystal Rosales suffered major injuries while 13-year-old Juana Pena, suffered moderate injuries, the Fresno Bee reports.

California Highway Patrol officials say four occupants tried to run away, but three of them – two 17-year-old boys and one 16-year-old boy – were arrested on suspicion of hit-and-run driving resulting in bodily injury as well as vehicle theft. They were treated for minor to moderate injuries. Their names were not released because they are minors.

It is very fortunate for the young people in the stolen vehicle and their families that none of the teenagers were killed in this fiery rollover crash. This is obviously a criminal case and the young people involved were acting in a reckless and negligent manner. But it does highlight the issue of teen driving and how dangerous it can be every time our young people get behind the wheel.
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Published on: July 13, 2008

Fatal Anaheim On-The-Job Accident

By Brian Chase

Arturo Gonzalez, 34, died in an Anaheim construction accident after a forklift tipped over and crushed him. According to a news report in The Orange County Register, Gonzalez, working for subcontractor Padilla Construction, was plastering stucco on a new condo complex at the time of the accident.

Another worker who saw a 75-foot tall machine called the “boom” fall on Gonzalez, said he was completely crushed on impact. Officials are interviewing site workers and supervisors to determine what went wrong with the equipment and what caused the accident, according to Maria Sabol, spokeswoman for the Anaheim Fire Department.

I offer my condolences to the Gonzalez family and Arturos friends. The man is at work, earning a living and someone else’s negligence costs him his life. Heartbreaking!

Officials are still investigating what caused the Anaheim fatal construction accident. However, from the news accounts it appears to me that the scoop may have been over loaded and the forklift inadequately secured to the ground.

Clearly, the Gonzalez family is entitled to receive workers’ compensation benefits through the employer, Padilla Construction. Workers’ compensation benefits in California are embarrassingly inadequate to compensate a family for the loss of income from a primary breadwinner, much less the loss of spouse and parent. I believe there is a “third party” claim here.
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Published on: July 11, 2008

Stockton Dog Attack Injures Two County Animal Control Officers

By Brian Chase

Two Stockton animal control officers were bitten by a pit-bull that jumped out of the open window and attacked them even as they were investigating a report of the same dog attacking and biting a girl, the Stockton Record reports .

The unprovoked dog attack happened when the two county officers, who have not been identified, arrived at the home on the 200 block of South Walker Lane in unincorporated east Stockton. The California dog bite happened after the canine jumped out of an open window and attacked the workers causing deep puncture wounds in the arm and midsection of one of the officers. Ernest Molieri, manager at the San Joaquin County Animal Control Division called this the worst dog attack on county animal control officers in recent memory. Both officers were treated and released from a local hospital.

The San Joaquin County has begun proceedings to designate this pit-bull as a “dangerous dog” and it has been quarantined in the animal shelter as required by California law.
This pit-bull should clearly have been restrained by the dog’s owner. Both times, the dog jumped out of an open window and attacked its victims unprovoked.

Under Stockton’s “Vicious Dog Regulation Ordinance any dog which, when unprovoked, on two separate occasions within the prior thirty-six (36) month period, engages in any behavior that requires a defensive action by any person to prevent bodily injury … can be labeled as a potentially dangerous dog. This process includes a public hearing for evidence after which the city determines if a dog is dangerous. It’ll be interesting to know if the pit bull that attacked the Stockton animal control officers had been determined to be potentially dangerous by another jurisdiction. Then, owning or even keeping this dog in Stockton becomes illegal.
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Published on: July 10, 2008

Lawsuit Filed In Illinois Nursing Home Fatal Fire

By Brian Chase

Mundelein resident, Alla Mavlyanova, 43-years-old and her twin brother, Alex Yadgarov, of Wauconda recently filed a lawsuit against Hampton Plaza Health Care Centre at 9777 Greenwood Ave., according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

The siblings allege in their wrongful-death lawsuit that the Niles, Illinois nursing home’s employees were not adequately trained to handle a fire in May that killed their father, 67-year-old Igor Shteyn. Niles Police Sgt. Tom Davis said the fire reportedly began in a closet in Shteyn’s room on the third floor of the nursing home and may have been caused by smoldering smoking materials. Shteyn had shared the room with Naum Berdichevsky, 76, who also died in the fire.

After nursing home fires killed 31 residents Congress passed “The Nursing Home Fire Safety Act” (NHFSA) in 2004 requiring automatic fire sprinkler systems in all nursing facilities participating in the Medicare or Medicaid Programs. I’m certain that Niles and the Cook County Fire Code require working sprinklers at every floor in a nursing home.
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Published on: July 9, 2008

Fatal Lake Havasu Boating Accident Kills Two

By Brian Chase

A fatal boating accident at Lake Havasu during the July 4th holiday weekend claimed two lives, according to a news report in the Havasu News. Tiffany Breslin, 14, of Murrieta and another unidentified 19-year-old woman died in the collision between a boat and a personal watercraft near the Needles Bridge. Officials are still looking into what caused the boating accident.

My condolences to the families of these two young women. Out on the river to have a good time and a horrible accident like this happens. If the families want to know their rights and options or just want the wrongdoers held accountable, they would be well served consulting with California boating accident lawyers with a history of boating accident cases.

My family often takes our personal watercraft, SeaDoos, to this very spot to spin, jump and skid across the water in this less trafficked, calmer water area. Usually the area up and down river from the Needles Bridge is a much safer area than down river around Lake Havasu City or up river in the Laughlin/Bullhead City area.
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