The general public thinks medical malpractice lawyers bring too many cases. The truth is that at least in Florida, the overwhelming majority of medical malpractice cases are never brought. The reason is that the medical profession gets special treatment under the law. The special treatment makes it very hard to pursue a medical malpractice case. One example of special treatment involves medical malpractice cases involving death. As I discussed in a previous post about wrongful death, in most wrongful death cases, if a person dies with no spouse, their children are entitled to pain and suffering damages. Furthermore, if they...
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In a recent post I highlighted the hunger strike of Tampa pharmacist Raj Bhat RPH. He started his hunger strike on July 5, 2010 to protest what he believes are dangerously high quotas required of pharmacists working for online pharmacy company Medco. According to Bhat the quotas required online pharmacists to fill upwards 45 prescriptions per hour, a pace he says leads to life threatening prescription errors. As a pharmacy malpractice attorney, I have often criticized large pharmacy chains for high quotas that put profits over patient safety. Quotas increase profits because the more prescriptions that are filled, the more...
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In a previous post, I questioned whether personal injury protection benefits (PIP) that are part of all automobile accident insurance policies in Florida should be eliminated. The reason I am critical of personal injury protection is that it is so susceptible to fraud. Over the years, the Florida Legislature has attempted to put in place restrictions to eliminate the fraud. However, the restrictions have not really helped. According to Mike Salinero in an article posted on TBO.com, the Hillsborough County commissioners are attempting their version of PIP regulation. The commissioners have requested the county attorney to write an ordinance that...
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Personal Injury Protection is a part of all automobile accident insurance policies in Florida. It has been a mandatory for all car drivers since 1972. It pays for up to $10,000.00 of medical care or lost wages after a car accident regardless of whether or not you were at fault in the accident. The idea behind personal injury protection is a good one. It was meant to make sure that people with an injury after an auto accident get the medical care and wages they need. However, in practice, it has not lived up to its ideals. The main problem...
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According to an article by John Thomas, published at abcactionnew.com, Tampa city council is reconsidering ways to charge those responsible for causing Tampa automobile accidents with the costs associated with the accident. Apparently they tried to do the same thing in 2007 but decided not to do so. Since then a state law was passed to address the issue. According to City Attorney Chip Fletcher, "...in 2009 the legislature significantly limited the ability of cities to access fees for responses to car accidents." Given the current economy, it makes sense for Tampa to try and reduce its overhead by passing...
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Tort reformers always try to blame the innocent injured party for causing unacceptable costs to society. Personal injury lawyers know the person causing the harm is not the injured person. The harm is caused by the negligent person. Eliminating personal injury lawsuits will not eliminate the costs. It will simply require the injured person and or society to pay the costs instead of the negligent person that caused the harm. Efforts by some state and federal governments to try and eliminate a patient's right to bring a medical malpractice claim provides a perfect example. Tort reformers have convinced many state...
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I have written many posts on the topic of electronic prescriptions. Up until now, my review of the literature has suggested that it reduces the number of medication errors whether the result of a pharmacy, hospital, doctor, or nurse. However, at least some researchers are now concluding that the practice of using computer software to enter the prescription, order the prescription, and fill the prescription with the proper medicine at the proper dose and frequency can create errors unique to the electronic format. Lynn Peoples recently wrote on the subject for Anesthesiology News. Her article quotes statistics provided by anesthesia...
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Online pharmacies continue to grow rapidly. The growth is largely based on their claims of cost savings and convenience of doorstep delivery of prescriptions. The industry claims that cost savings are achieved based on the elimination of the brick and mortar store. However, according to an article in the Baltimoresun.com, pharmacists working for Medco Health Systems are claiming that cost savings are also coming from quotas that may lead to medication errors. A former Medco pharmacist in Tampa Florida is so concerned about the quotas causing mistakes in filling prescriptions that he began a hunger strike. Raj Bhat was a...
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Scott Stroud recently wrote an interesting post about the effects the Gulf Oil Spill may have on tort reform. He discusses the fact that the current cap on damages caused by Oil drillers will not cover the damages caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. He then points out that many of the same politicians that have used the mantra of personal responsibility to pass caps on damages are now claiming that the caps on damages in this case should be removed because BP has to be held personally accountable. Hopefully Mr. Stoud is right about the effect of...
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CBS news Travel Editor Peter Greenberg recently spoke about the deadliest roads in America. Play the video below to view the report. Watch CBS News Videos Online While doing backround research for the report, CBS news discovered a report from the Daily Beast that identified the 100 most dangerous roads in America. The report is based on fatal car accidents throughout the country. Florida had two roads in the top 5. In fact, Interstate 95 (I-95) in Florida is apparently considered the number one deadliest road. The number 3 most deadly road ends right hear in Tampa. It is Interstate...
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Most medical doctors do great things. Whether they are saving peoples' lives or proscribing medicine for the common cold. Either way, they are helping people. However, like all professions, there are some that do not do the right thing. Sometimes doctors have lapses in judgment. Sometimes they do not have the training or skill to be providing the kind of care they have chosen to provide, and sometimes the profit motive causes them to lose track of why they became doctors in the first place. A perfect example involves the arrest of Tampa medical Doctor John Mubang in 2008 for...
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Personal injury lawyers are considered by a large segment of the population to be causing harm to society. No matter where you look, it is hard not to find some sort of criticism of the personal injury profession. Some call us ambulance chasers. Others call us parasites. The Republican Party blames us for the high cost of health care. Big business blames us for the high cost of consumer products. The liability insurance industry has labeled us domestic terrorists. If the portrayal of personal injury attorneys that has been spun by Republicans, the health care industry, big business, and the...
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A pharmacy prescription misfill occurs when the pharmacist fills a prescription with the wrong medicine. Sometimes the misfill can cause personal injury or death. When this occurs, the victim and or the victim's family should consult a personal injury attorney to decide whether it makes sense to file a personal injury lawsuit. Recently, A Pharmacy misfill attorney brought suit on behalf of Reva Tosh and her husband, Gerald Tosh, against Rite Aid pharmacy in Montgomery, Alabama. According an article published January 27, 2010 in the Montgomery Advertiser Riva Tosh took her prescription for pain medicine to the Rite Aid to...
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A wrongful death lawsuit allows a family to hold a wrongdoer financially accountable for causing a loved ones death. Florida wrongful death lawsuits are controlled by The 2009->Ch0768->Section%2016#0768.16">Florida Wrongful Death Act. Under the Florida statute, when a person dies as a result of someone else's negligence, the pain and suffering of the person involved in the fatal accident is not recoverable. Instead, the Wrongful Death Statute creates a claim on behalf of the Estate of the person that died and the person's survivors. The damages recoverable are described in 2009->Ch0768->Section%2021#0768.21">Section 768.21 Florida Statutes. The Estate of the person that died...
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$27 billion of the federal economic stimulus package has been set aside for Highway construction. Large states like Florida will get their fare share. There is no doubt the money will fund a much needed increase in new roads as well as repairs to old ones. Unfortunately, The Federal Highway Administration has predicted the increase in Highway construction will also cause an increase in work zone related driver personal injuries and death. According to an article written by Mike McIntire and published in the New York Times, many of these work zone car accidents, motorcycle accidents, and truck accidents might...
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The Institute of Medicine estimates that as many as 1.5 million preventable medication errors occur each year. As a medication error lawyer, I have seen first hand how these mistakes cause injury. Apparently, the new FDA Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg M.D. has decided to try and do something about. On November 4, 2009, she announced the "FDA's Safe Use Initiative" to reduce preventable harm from medications. Details of the initiative are outlined in a special FDA report. Highlights of the initiative include the agency seeking input form the healthcare community, patient groups, and other interested stakeholders to identify the most serious...
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The overwhelming majority of personal injury plaintiff's could not possibly afford to pay their attorneys if they had to pay up front, win or lose. The contingency fee contract illuminates much of the financial risk to the client by shifting the risk of loss to the lawyer. As a result, clients are much more willing to prosecute wrongs done to them. On the other hand, shifting the risk of loss to the attorney makes the lawyer much more selective about which cases to prosecute because losing means the lawyer will not get paid. Some nursing homes have figured out a...
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Florida has become a haven for corrupt nursing home operators that use the corporate form to hide their assets from Florida nursing home abuse lawyers attempting to hold them accountable for injury, neglect, abuse and death that occurs in their nursing home facilities. Charles Elmore, a writer for the Palm Beach Post has done an excellent job at exposing one form of the corporate shell game that goes on involving nonprofit corporations. In his article entitled "Post investigation: Nursing home CEO pulls in hefty pay, patients' families frustrated", he details what appears to be the extravagant siphoning of money by...
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Insurance companies often ask people involved in Florida personal injury accidents to give a recorded statement. There are times when it makes sense to do so. There are also times when a recorded statement should not be given. Click on this link regarding giving a recorded statement in a Florida personal injury case to watch a video I prepared discussing the subject....
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The leading cause of death for children in the United States is automobile accidents. As a result, all states, including Florida have very detailed child car seat restraint laws. Although the overwelming majority of parents follow the laws and use child car seats, the death statistics remain high. One of the main reasons appears to be the fact that parents have difficulty following the car seat manufacturer's instructions on how to properly install and use the them. As a lawyer that handles Lakeland car accident injury cases, I see first hand tragedies like the recent death of an improperly restrained...
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Walgreens recently announced its third quarter results. According to an Associated Press Article published in the New York Times, Walgreens pharmacy sales were up 4.5 percent for the quarter over last year. There was no mention in the article about whether pharmacy errors were also up. That is because there is no National requirement to report them. Only the pharmacies themselves really know the statistics on how many prescriptions are misfilled and how many lead to injuries. Some have suggested the error rate is about 3 percent. However, one thing is clear, prescription mistakes continue to happen. Alison Young of...
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In June of 2009, President Obama nominated Anne Ferro to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Her record on automobile safety issues is mixed. While head of Maryland's motor vehicle agency from 1997 to 2003 she was involved in implementing a graduated licensing system for new drivers and an ignition interlock program for drunk drivers. On the other hand, from 2003 until her nomination, she was President of the Maryland affiliate of the American Trucking Association where she spent her time lobbying on behalf of the trucking Industry. Some say her time tenure with the American trucking Association was...
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Most people do not think to check the medicine they have received from a pharmacy. They rely on the fact that pharmacist's are professionals. It never crosses their mind that the pharmacist may have made a mistake. Unfortunately, their is a very real possiblity that the pharmacist has filled your prescription with the wrong medicine or the wrong dose of medicine. According to the FDA, as many as 1.3 million people are injured as a result of medication errors each year. With statistics like this, it does not make sense to blindly trust that your pharmacist has properly filled your...
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One of the most common questions a personal injury attorney hears is "How long will it take to resolve my personal inury case?" I answer this question in a video on my law firm website. To view the video, click on this personal injury resolution video link. The video describes the various factors a personal injury lawyer takes into consideration to answer this question....
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Truck drivers are the backbone of the economic distribution system in the United States. Most of them are hard working Americans that are making an honest living. However, the pressure to deliver the load on time can sometimes lead to avoidable truck accidents. One of the greatest pressures on some truck drivers comes in the form of driving without sufficient rest. When such conduct leads to an avoidable accident that causes personal inury, the injured person is entitled to compensation. In a recent video, I discussed the fact that state and federal regulations are in place to try and avoid...
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When a car is damaged in an auto accident as a result of someone else's negligence, there are usually two ways to handle getting compensation for the damages. You can make a claim with your own auto insurance. When you do so, your recovery is limited by the contract you signed with your insurance company. Usually, you will have a deductable. In addition, if you did not purchase rental coverage, you may have to pay out of your own pocket for transportation while your car is getting repaired. Furthermore, your own insurance company usually makes sure their contract with you...
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When an insurance company or defendant in a personal injury case has questions about the cause or extent of a personal injury client's injuries, they have the right under the law to send the person to the doctor of their choosing for examination. The exam is commonly referred to as an independent medical exam or "IME. The name became popular because the Doctor is supposed to provide an independent opinion about the person's injuries. The truth is there is nothing independent about the opinion. In fact, in an effort to show the clear bias of the opinions, personal injury lawyers...
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The number of pharmacy mistakes continues to rise with the ever increasing number of prescriptions filled in the United States each year. Sometimes pharmacy malpractice occurs because the pharmacy has too few qualified employees for the number of prescriptions it is filling. Other times pharmacy negligence occurs because some pharmacists may not be paying attention to what they are doing. It is hard to know whether any real discipline occurs when a pharmacist makes multiple errors because there are really no mandatory error reporting requirements. However, state Pharmacy Boards do receive voluntary complaints from time to time. It is good...
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When a jury awards a substantial verdict to someone injured as the result of someone else's negligence, tort reformers refer to the outcome as jackpot justice. The reference is a purposefully demeaning comparison between the juries attempt to make up for the injured persons losses and winning a jackpot in a game of chance. Personal injury attorneys know there are two types of people that promote this crude comparison. The first are those with a political agenda to increase corporate profits by eliminating personal injury lawsuits altogether. These people create false and misleading statistics to support their conclusions. The second...
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Tort Reformers claim that our country's economy is crumbling because of out of control personal injury settlements and jury verdicts that include a recovery for pain and suffering damages. If you listen to many politicians discussing the subject, you will come away believing that it is very easy to receive pain and suffering damages. At least in car accident cases in Florida, the truth is just the opposite. As a Tampa car accident lawyer I am familiar with the Florida laws that govern car accident cases. One of those laws, section 627.737 Florida Statutes, bars a plaintiff in most car...
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According to a study posted at the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, an important factor in some hospital medication errors involves using inaccurate weights. The study was based on approximately 480 event reports submitted to the Authority that involved medication mistakes in Pennsylvania hospitals as a result of breakdowns during the process of obtaining, documenting, and/or communicating patient weights. Apparently, the errors occurred because the doses of the particular medicines involved are calculated based on body weight. When the person mixing or compounding the medicine uses the wrong body weight, the patient will receive the wrong dose of medicine. The study...
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According to an article posted on TBO.com, the Florida Highway Patrol recently held a news conference on car accidents and seat belt safety. The conference comes on the heels of a new law in Florida that allows law enforcement to pull people over and ticket them for not wearing their seat belt. Prior to the law change, law enforcement could only ticket someone not wearing their seatbelt in an automobile if the car had been pulled over for another reason. As a Tampa car accident attorney, I always consider whether a client was wearing their seatbelt when deciding whether a...
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82 year old Gordon Murphy from Saftey Harbor died on May 19, 2009 when his 1986 Oldsmobile crashed into a power pole on State Road 580 near Countryside Boulevard in Clearwater Florida. No other vehicles were involved in the car accident. No one may ever know what caused Mr. Murphy to crash. Scott Distasio Clearwater Auto Accident Attorney DISTASIO LAW FIRM HELPING INJURED PEOPLE OFFICES: TAMPA 888-595-0022...
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In a previous post about a pharmacist from England that was charged criminally for dispensing the wrong medication, I boldly stated: "In the United States it is highly unlikely that this type of pharmacy mistake would lead to such an extreme reaction. Simply put, such negligent conduct does not warrant criminal charges." Technically, I was not wrong because I stated it was "highly unlikely". However, such criminal prosecutions do in fact occur in the United States. For example, Eric Cropp, a Hospital Pharmacist, was recently charged criminally for his role in the overdose death of 2 year-old Emily Jerry. According...
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21 Polo horses died in Wellington Florida on April 19, 2009 just before a Polo tournament that was to be held at the International Polo Club Palm Beach. All of the horses were owned by Venezuelan Banker Victor Vargas and were part of the same Venezuelan Polo team. On April 23, 2009, Franck's Pharmacy in Ocala Florida publically admitted the horses died as a result of one of their pharmacists committing a medication error. According to grrlscientist, the pharmacy error occurred because a Franck's Pharmacy employee compounding a vitamin mixture for the horses accidently mixed 10 times the normal dose...
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