California has laws preventing the use of cellular phones while driving. One prohibits all drivers from using handheld cellular phones. Another other prohibit drivers under 18 from using hands-free cellular phones. And all texting while driving is banned.

Most people understand that holding a cell phone and talking while driving is dangerous and we probably all know from personal experience that any time we are driving we can be distracted by our phones —even a hands free phone.

With the foregoing in mind, the $22 Million Dollar Cell Phone Call case involved a collision involving a Coca Cola Truck crashing into another vehicle. The employee of Coca Cola was talking on her cell phone at the time. Under the law and consistent with Coca Cola policy she was using a hands free device. The evidence showed that employee was so distracted by her conversation; she failed to notice that she did not have a green arrow and turned across traffic and slammed into an occupied passenger car hitting the driver’s side. The driver of the other car suffered a bad spinal injury and suffered permanent disabilities.

Studies have shown that driving while using a cell phone is as dangerous as driving while drunk1. Talking on the phone distracts the driver, and distracted driving causes over 5,000 deaths and almost 450,000 injuries every year in car accidents. The evidenced showed that Coca Cola knew this but had a policy allowing employees to talk on the phone while driving if they used a hands free device.

The case went to trial and the jury found the employee of Coca Cola and Coca Cola responsible and returned a verdict of more than $22 million for the injured driver.

1. Strayer, D.L., Drews, F.A., and Crouch, D.L. A comparison of the cell phone driver and the drunk driver. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2006 (Summer), 381-391; Collet, C., et al. Phoning while driving I: a review of epidemiological, psychological, behavioural and physiological studies. Ergonomics, 2010, 53(5), 589-601.

Having been a personal injury attorney and medical malpractice lawyer for more than 34 years, I have some insights I would like to share with you.

Whether your personal injury claim was caused by a car accident, a slip and fall or doctor’s negligence there are some universal do’s and don’ts that will help you keep you calm and sane. While no one looks forward to being involved in a personal injury claim or lawsuit, these tips should help to make your case as simple as possible.

1. DON’T- Discuss your case with anyone: except personnel of your attorney’s office. Refer any person making any inquiry to your attorney and inform him or her of all such inquiries. And write down the name and telephone of anyone attempting to contact you in regard your personal injury claim and give the information to your attorney
2. DO – keep all of your appointments, if your personal injury matter involves seeing a doctor for treatments or further care. It is very important that you follow your doctors’ advice and keep all follow up appointments. If referred to another healthcare provider, go! If you are unable to keep an appointment, call and arrange for a new time.
3. DON’T keep any information about your injuries from either your lawyer or your doctor, even if you think this information is obvious.
4. DO keep all appointments with your lawyer and respond promptly to all correspondence from your attorney. If you are unable to be at an appointment cancel the appointment and arrange for a new date. If you receive calls or letters from your lawyer, reply at once; delay may be detrimental to your case.
5. DO keep a record of all expenses connected with your matter. Save explanation of benefit forms received from your insurance company (showing what they paid), bills and receipts for doctors, prescription drugs, hospital, appliances, repair estimates and other bills, your attorney will ask for them, it is best to keep them in one location, i.e. file folder or large envelope in chronological order.
6. DON’T get angry. Keep a calm head. Personal injury cases can take a long time to resolve.
7. DON’T forget that the defendant’s insurance company is on the other side of your case. It does not represent you and it does not have your best interests in mind.
8. DO maintain contact with your lawyer, ask about anything you do not understand, and communicate your thoughts and concerns. Remember that your lawyer’s paralegal can answer many questions.
9. DON’T listen to legal advice from friends, family, and other amateurs. Everyone has “heard of case just like yours” this is impossible. Every case is unique and no two injuries are the same. You hired your lawyer because you trust him or her. Accept their advice, they have your best interests in mind. Listening to others can drive your crazy.
10. DON’T discuss your case with strangers, remember “Loose Lips Sink Ships.”
11. DO keep a positive attitude, this is another challenge in your life and it too shall pass.

Preventable medical malpractice, which are caused when a healthcare provider fails to act as reasonable careful healthcare provider in the same or similar circumstances. For instance a healthcare provide selects an improper treatment for your condition. Another example is a healthcare provider misdiagnosed your condition. Another example is failing to do proper studies. The list can go on and on. It is conservatively estimated that 1.5 million people are injured every year because of medical malpractice and it costs $19.5 billion in additional treatment. In addition, errors related to medications harm 1.5 million people a year and cost another $3.5 billion to treat.

So what can you do to reduce the chances that you will be the victim of such an error?

Communicate
The most important thing you can do is to talk with your doctor and to take a proactive role in your own health care. A good idea is to write questions down, so you can ask them when you see your healthcare professional. Don’t be afraid to ask your doctor how familiar he or she is with the treatment or surgery recommended or the medicine prescribed.

If medications are prescribed make sure you are given specific instructions how often and whether with or without food or water, and what the possible side effects are. Also be sure to take all your medication if so ordered and if you seem to be having adverse effects call your doctor or go to the emergency room.

Be sure you provide the doctor with a list of all your symptoms, whether you believe they are related to the reason for your visit or not. Let your doctor know everything you are taking including, other prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, vitamins, supplements herbal or otherwise and even illegal drugs. Doctors need to have all of this information to determine what is the best course of treatment for you.

Be Sure
Do not be afraid to discuss matters candidly with your doctor. After all it is your health and life. For example, if your doctor writes out a prescription, make sure you can read it. We have all heard the jokes about doctors’ bad handwriting, but it is not funny when you get the wrong medication. Remember, if you cannot read the prescription what makes you think the pharmacist can. There are many medications that have similar sounding names or spells that are very different, likewise dosage is very important. Do not be shy.

Before you leave your healthcare provider be sure to review the treatment plan and make sure you understand. Studies show that doctors tend to assume that patients understand a lot more of what they have been told than they actually do. Do not be embarrassed make sure you understand what is proposed and what the plan of treatment is.

Pro Active
Do not be docile in your medical care. Be active in coordinating your health care. Put someone (usually your family physician or primary care physician) in charge of your overall care. This is especially important if you have multiple health-care issues, which may affect one another in ways that are not fully understood.

If more than one provider is involved, make sure that they all have the same understanding of your treatment plan and request that they forward medical records to one another. If surgery is involved, it is very important that your doctor and your surgeon are “on the same page” about your condition and the procedure to be performed.

Lastly, doctor or hospital visits for serious or potentially serious conditions can be very stressful. Writing down questions and a “punch list” is a good idea. If you are overly nervous asking a family member or trusted friend to be there with you to assist is good idea.

The truth is that most of the time doctors, nurses, and pharmacists provide excellent medical care and indeed want to. However, all humans make mistakes.

The tips I have given you can help you avoid being a victim of medical malpractice.

Remember the proverb “Measure twice, and cut once.”

Preventable medical malpractice happens every day, in every state. Medical malpractice happens when a healthcare provider either chooses an inappropriate treatment or chooses the appropriate treatment but does it incorrectly.

Conservatively it is estimated that 160,000 patients are permanently injured killed every year, according to researchers at the John Hopkins University. The most common medical mistakes according to the John Hopkins University study diagnostic errors account fo 35% of nearly $39 billion in compensatory payments between 1986 and 2010 in 2011 dollars.

Now comes a new study from the Journal of Patient Safety that between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffers some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death, the study states.

That would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in the United States, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.

However, that is not all, surgical errors that should never have happened are also common. There are believed to be more than 4,000 such events in the United States each year. More specifically, according to one study a surgeon in the United States leaves a foreign object such as a sponge or a towel inside a patient’s body after an operation thirty-nine times a week, performs the wrong procedure on a patient twenty times a week and operates on the wrong body site twenty times a week.

Daniel R. Levinson, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services in a recent report said that hospital employees recognized and reported only one out of seven errors, accidents and other events that harm MediCare patients while they are hospitalized. Some believe this is true for most events, i.e., non-MediCare patients. Yet even after hospitals investigate preventable injuries and infections that have been reported, they rarely change their practices to prevent repetition of the “adverse events,” according to the study, from Department of Health and Human Services.

Although healthcare providers injure thousands upon thousands of patients every year because of medical malpractice less than 2 percent of these adverse events caused by medical negligence resulted in a claim being made. In fact in all 50 states in recent years, medical malpractice payouts have been dropping.

In their article Five Myths of Medical MalpracticeDavid A. Hyman, MD, JD and Charles Silver, JD explores five common held beliefs that are simply untrue. They are (1) Malpractice crises are caused by spikes in medical malpractice litigation (ie, sudden rises in payouts and claim frequency), (2) the tort system delivers “jackpot justice,” (3) physicians are one malpractice verdict away from bankruptcy, (4) physicians move to states that adopt damages caps, and (5) tort reform will lower healthcare spending dramatically. Each assertion is “common knowledge” and wrong. I encourage to read the article Five Myths of Medical Malpractice researched and written by David A. Hyman, MD, JD and Charles Silver, JD.

Do not be afraid or intimidated, if you or a loved one has been a victim of medical malpractice the law allows you to be compensated. Contact an attorney to discuss your situation and learn your rights. Medical malpractice unfortunately happens every day be vigilant.

Interesting reading:

Briefing Book Medical Malpractice By the Numbers, Center for Justice and Democracy.
Five Myths of Medical Malpractice researched and written by David A. Hyman , MD , JD and Charles Silver, JD.
Wall Street Journal Article “The Biggest Mistakes Doctors Make” published November 18, 2013.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, four out of the six most deadly prescription medications given to Americans are members of a class of powerful painkillers known as opioids.

Opioids are related to opium, long known for its painkilling effects. Modern opioids, however, are up to 100 times more potent and are therefore relatively much more dangerous. Although all of these drugs, which include oxycodone (also known as OxiContin), fentanyl, morphine, and methadone, have legitimate medical uses, they also have all proven to be very deadly.

As powerful painkillers, these drugs are used to treat those suffering from great pain, including patients recovering from surgery and those with severe long-term pain, such as some cancer patients.

However, opioids are often overprescribed by doctors, leading to patient addiction. Even if properly prescribed, accidental misuse of these drugs is common and can result in a deadly overdose.

Overuse of or overdosing on any of these drugs can cause respiratory arrest or respiratory depression, both of which can lead to death. The drugs also have other side effects, which can get worse the longer their use is continued.

If you or someone you know has used these opioids and suffered a bad outcome from using them, contact us. You may be eligible to file a lawsuit and be compensated for your loss.

Please call the Law Offices of Richard M. Katz, an experienced Personal Injury Lawyer and Medical Malpractice Lawyer, handling case in Los Angeles, Pasadena and throughout California. Call 626-796-6333

What do the following accident and injury scenarios have in common?

* Automobile Driver Collides with a Pedestrian

* Medical Doctor Botches a Surgery

* Poorly Designed SUV Rolls Over on the Interstate

* Customer Is Assaulted in a Poorly Lit Parking Lot

The answer is that any one of these can result in a fatal injury for the victim due to someone else’s negligence. When someone dies as a result of another party’s negligence, legally it is known as a “wrongful death.”

Obviously, losing a family member can be emotionally devastating. But when the death is related to carelessness on the part of another person, then the loss becomes much harder to accept. The death of a person has an IMMEDIATE impact on the family members left behind. In an instant, lives are changed forever. That’s why the law provides a legal remedy for surviving family members in the form of a wrongful death claim. If successful, the family members may be rewarded compensation for:

* Medical Expenses

* Funeral Expenses

* Loss of Future Wages

* Mental Suffering

It is important to remember that just because a person dies in an accident, the death may not be “wrongful.” Instead, a wrongful death suit is valid only where someone else causes the person’s death through a wrongful act, neglect, or carelessness. In other words, a suit for a wrongful death should be filed only if the death is caused by the intentional acts or negligence of someone else.

While nothing can replace a lost loved one, a successful wrongful death lawsuit can provide some level of comfort and assurance in the face of uncertainty and grief. No one would trade the life of a family member for a check, no matter how large. However, there are some kinds of losses the law cannot fix, such as death. The damages that can be recovered in a wrongful death suit are intended to make the loss more bearable by compensating the family.

A wrongful death lawsuit is complex, so you need the Law Offices of Richard M. Katz on your side to help you. And remember: If a family waits too long to file a wrongful death suit it may lose the right to file suit at all.

LET US HELP YOU

The last thing most people think of after the death of a family member is calling a personal lawyer or medical malpractice lawyer, but there are many important reasons to do so. The sooner you contact our firm, the sooner we can work to preserve valuable evidence that will help us win your case.

We can help you negotiate the often complex legal world and arrange for the necessary expert witnesses and others essential to proving your claim. We can work out an arrangement that means you do not have to pay for this expert advice and assistance by the hour.

Remember, the stronger your claim, the more likely that an insurance company representative will contact you offering a fraction of what you are entitled to and deserve.

Please call our offices for a free consultation. 626-796-6333

Jaundice is a common occurrence in newborns. According to the CDC about 60% of newborns are affected by the yellow skin coloring called jaundice. During pregnancy the mother’s liver removes a pigment common in blood and bile, called bilirubin. When the baby is born, its own liver should take care of monitoring bilirubin levels. When too much bilirubin builds up, due probably to an underdeveloped liver, yellowing the skin and eyes can occur. High levels of bilirubin can be detected with a simple, small blood test or light meter and should be tested for if signs and symptoms start to appear. Jaundice can be taken care of in most cases, simply by laying the baby under a special and safe light.

In cases left untreated, high bilirubin can result in kernicterus, a severe type of brain damage that can cause athetoid cerebral palsy, hearing loss, as well as problems with teeth and vision.

Jaundice is usually a priority for pediatric doctors and obstetricians because of its commonality. But, while the cases may be common, the long-term consequences should not be common. When you feel that your child’s wellbeing is compromised due to negligence or medical malpractice, you need to contact a trained and experienced attorney. The attorneys of The Law Offices of Richard M. Katz are your Los Angeles medical malpractice experts. If your child was misdiagnosed or not properly treated for jaundice and now suffers from life-long problems, call us today. By bringing your case to the front of legal concern, you help create awareness and stop this from happening to other families. Our attorneys fluent in California medical malpractice are part of the community and maintain the knowledge and courage it takes to protect their fellow community members. Click here or call us today at (626) 796-6333 to get the compensation you need to live life to the fullest.