California Injury Blog

Published on: October 10, 2007

Speeding, Alcohol and Street Racing Cause Fatal Costa Mesa Auto Accident

By Brian Chase

A 21-year-old Huntington Beach woman, said to be one of the best softball pitchers in Orange County at one time, died in a tragic car crash in Costa Mesa over the weekend. Police now believe the single-vehicle crash was caused by what turned out to be a deadly combination of speed, alcohol and street-racing. According to an article in the Daily Pilot, Sara Noel Harris’ boyfriend told Costa Mesa police that the two were racing after drinking Sunday morning in a Newport Beach bar.

The article said Harris was drinking beers while the boyfriend had a few Mai Tais, a rum-based drink. Both then drove in separate cars apparently racing on the streets of Costa Mesa. Several witnesses told police that both the Audis were cutting and weaving in and out of traffic. At some point the boyfriend lost sight of Harris. Police say Harris may have lost control of her car and overturned on a curve and then over-corrected and crashed into a pole.

Harris was wearing her seatbelt, but it didn’t save her life. The Pilot report says she died of multiple traumatic injuries. This kind of a terrible tragedy is a no-win situation for everybody involved.
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Published on: October 9, 2007

Fiery Big Rig Accident In Orange County Leaves One Man Seriously Burned

By Brian Chase

The driver of a big-rig was burned badly when his truck crashed into another big rig on the northbound 5 Freeway in Santa Ana Tuesday afternoon. According to a news report in The Orange County Register, the 36-year-old truck driver, who has not yet been identified, was trapped in the burning big-rig.

It took five rescuers to free the man as the blaze got bigger and bigger, the newspaper reported. The burning big-rig was on gear and slowly moving down the freeway even as the rescuers were trying to free the driver and put out the fire using a fire extinguisher, the article said. The driver was taken to the hospital with severe burns to his lower body.

Traffic was reportedly backed up for 10 miles Tuesday afternoon for hours on the northbound lanes. According to California Highway Patrol officers, the truck that caught on fire was carrying leather work gloves.
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Published on: October 8, 2007

Safety Recalls – Food Borne Illnesses Hit an All-Time High

By Brian Chase

The last two weeks have been like a rollercoaster ride for our federal food safety agencies, some large retailers and wholesalers and most importantly for some, food manufacturers. It all started last week with the second largest beef recall in the history of the United States. Topps Meat Co. recalled close to 22 million pounds of its ground beef patties because they were contaminated with E. Coli. Later last week, Cargill Inc. recalled about 850,000 ground beef patties distributed through the wholesale chain, Sam’s Club, again because of E. Coli contamination.

On Tuesday, ConAgra Foods, the company you may remember from last year’s recall of salmonella-tainted peanut butter that sickened hundreds and killed several across the nation, announced that it is now recalling Banquet brand chicken pot pies – again, for salmonella contamination. This contamination is being linked to 139 cases of salmonella poisoning in 30 states. ConAgra has now stopped production in its Missouri plant that makes these pot pies.
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Published on: October 6, 2007

Big Rig Accidents Snag Southern California Freeways

By Brian Chase

Talk about a bad day for big rigs and freeways. Wednesday was one of them! There were three separate incidents involving big rigs on different Los Angeles freeways before noon, one of them fatal, which happened about 6 a.m. when a big rig collided with a tractor trailer on the 210 Freeway. According to a news report in The Los Angeles Times, officials who responded to the scene found both trucks on fire.

One of the truck drivers was pronounced dead on the scene and another was transported to a local hospital with burns. A resident who lives near the freeway and who was interviewed by several media outlets, said he heard a loud explosion when the trucks slammed into one another. The Times article also reports that another big rig was blocking three lanes of traffic on the northbound 405 Freeway close to the 118. Traffic was apparently stalled.

But the incident everyone was talking about Wednesday morning was the “watermelon spill” in Sylmar. A big rig reportedly overturned on the southbound 5 Freeway spilling 50,000 pounds of watermelons on the roadway. Two lanes and an off ramp were closed and traffic was backed up for more than three miles, according to a news report posted on the local CBS Web site. It’s truly a miracle that no one got injured in this accident, given the nature of the spill and the product that was spilled.
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Published on: October 5, 2007

Jury Awards $4 Million in Country Club Swimming Pool Downing

By Brian Chase

Swimming pool accidents are a common occurrence in California. In fact, in California and here in Orange County, it is the most common cause of death among children younger than 5 years of age. Most of it happens in backyard pools when an adult who is supposed to be watching looks away for just a moment. But many of these incidents also happen at community and private club pools where lifeguards are supposed to be watching over these kids.

Last week, a jury in Maryland which heard five days of heart-breaking testimony about the June 22, 2006 drowning death of a 5-year-old boy at a country club awarded the boy’s parents $4 million in damages. According to an article in The Baltimore Sun, jurors found the pool management company negligent for not providing appropriate training for its lifeguards and not sufficiently staffing their facility. The jurors awarded each of Connor Freed’s parents $2 million and $76 to symbolize Connor’s birthday – July 6.
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Published on: October 5, 2007

Bisnar Chase Files Lawsuit Against State Supreme Court

By Brian Chase

Yesterday, we filed a lawsuit against the California Supreme Court and one of its appellate districts. Our suit contends that the courts violated our client’s constitutional rights of due process and equal protection rights.

We filed this lawsuit in connection with a recent Appellate Court decision that went against our client Joshua Hild, a young teenager, who was blinded in his right eye. The injury occurred when a Southern California Edison employee on duty, on Edison property fired a paintball gun at him. She played a very cruel and irresponsible trick on an unsuspecting child.

We contended that the employee was acting in her capacity as an Edison employee when she fired paintballs at Joshua and maintained that Edison was liable for Joshua’s serious injury. He was permanently blinded in the right eye as a result of that injury. A Los Angeles County jury ruled Edison is indeed liable and awarded Joshua $704,633.

But Edison appealed and on June 25, 2007, the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, issued its unpublished opinion, rejecting the jury’s verdict. Our problem is primarily with the court’s “unpublished verdict.” Why? Let me explain.
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Published on: October 4, 2007

City of San Dimas Settles Auto Accident Case for $ 9 Million

By Brian Chase

The city of San Dimas has settled a lawsuit brought by a former teen beauty queen in connection with a 2005 auto accident that left her with severe brain injuries. According to an article in the Whittier Daily News, the city and Samantha Palumbo’s attorneys agreed to a $9 million settlement Thursday. Palumbo filed a personal injury lawsuit against the city more than a year ago alleging that a wooden equestrian fence Palumbo crashed into was a dangerous condition, which led to her traumatic brain injury.

According to the newspaper article, the accident occurred in March 2005 when Palumbo, then only 16 years old, careened off the road and clipped the fence causing the wooden poles to separate and crash into the vehicle. Palumbo was struck by one of the heavy wooden poles on the head. At the time of the accident she was Miss California Junior National Teenager. According to news reports, she underwent skull surgery, suffered brain damage and a broken jawbone. She is still undergoing treatment and had a surgery last week “to fill a hole in her head” left by the log that hit her during the accident.
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Published on: October 3, 2007

NURSING HOME INVESTORS AVOID LIABILITY FOR NEGLIGENCE!

By Brian Chase

By: Carol J. Gibbons, J.D.

They take the profits and duck liability.

We have all have heard it said, “Follow the Money”, but according to the New York Times, poor Vivian Hewitt is finding it a hard row to hoe after her mom died because of the negligence of Habana Health Care Center in Tampa, Florida.

Vivian’s mom developed Alzheimer’s disease and Vivian placed her mom in the care of Habana Health Care. But, little did Vivian know that Habana switched hands and was under the new ownership of a prominent investment firm – Warburg Pincus. Investors are in business to make profits, and it seems that there is a growing trend – private equity investors buy up nursing homes, cutting staff and shielding themselves from liability by spreading out the ownership in an ever-growing corporate web, the Times described as a ‘rat’s maze’.

What a concept! Assets and shares of ownership are purposely obscured and difficult to determine – discouraging lawsuits that are costly and almost impossible for grieving families to endure. It is hard to believe that a business model that was created for such a positive purpose could be bastardized in a way that works to protect a corporate structure that sanctions the worst forms of neglect! Neglect of our own parents and grandparents!
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/09/28/Opinion/As_profits_grow__so_d.shtml Continue reading →

Published on: October 2, 2007

Funeral Homes That Bilk Consumers Must Be Made to Pay

By Brian Chase

Funeral home abuse is something you hear about rarely. A lot of people don’t even want to talk about it. Can you blame them? Their loved one dies and then they are given more grief by insensitive, irresponsible and immoral funeral homes and cemeteries, who tend to forget they are providing a humanitarian service in addition to running a business. They tend to forget they are dealing with people who are in a fragile state of mind and who are grieving the loss of a loved one.

How can they forget that, you ask? Aren’t they supposed to be caring people who deal with the situation with sensitivity? Maybe, in a perfect world. The reality is that a lot of funeral homes don’t operate like that. At Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys, we’ve been appalled and disgusted by the some of the things our clients have told us. These are clients who have had horrible experiences while trying to bid their loved one a final farewell. These are clients who come to us because they are people who believe they’ve been wronged and they deserve better. And guess what? They’re absolutely right.

Take the example of this son whose father passed away on Jan. 3. The hearse picked up the body and took it to a funeral home in Orange County. The next time the family saw their loved one, his face was bloody. There was a cut on his forehead and he was bleeding! They learned later that the people who transported the deceased dropped him as they were carrying his body into the funeral home. Neither those people nor the funeral home managers bothered to clean up the wound or tell the family about it. Can you imagine how they must’ve felt? The hearse company who contracted with the funeral home said they fired the men who dropped the body, but does that make it OK? Not really.
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Published on: October 1, 2007

Porter Ranch Motorcycle Accident

By Brian Chase

A 24-year old Northridge man crashed his motorcycle into a left turning Honda Accord Sunday, September 30, 2007 at approximately 2 p.m. at the intersection of Tampa and Atlanta avenues in Porter Ranch according to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division as reported on DaileyNews.com.

The motorcycle was traveling north on Tampa Avenue when the Honda Accord turned left from south bound Tampa onto Atlanta, immediately in front of the motorcycle. The motorcycle crashed into the Honda Accord. The accident threw the motorcyclist from his bike and critically injured him, according to the LAPD Valley Traffic Division. Atlanta Avenue is a side street south of the Simi-Valley San Fernando Valley Freeway (118) and north of Devonshire Street.
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