http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/ Tampa Personal Injury Attorney Blog en Copyright 2010 Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:33:57 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 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 pharmacist in Medco's Tampa mail order pharmacy filling plant until he was fired in 2005. He claims he was fired because of complaints about the company's prescription filling quota of up to 45 prescriptions an hour. The company says they fired him because of poor job performance. Bhat started the hunger strike in early July of 2010 after a trial court dismissed his lawsuit against the company. The lawsuit claimed damages as a result of his firing. Although Bhat has appealed the trial court's decision, the appellate process can be very slow. It may take years before an appellate court ultimately decides whether his lawsuit can move forward. Apparently, the United Steel Workers Union has taken up the cause because Medco pharmacists have joined their union. The Baltimore Sun articled quoted the Steelworkers Union as saying the company makes high demands on its professionals, requiring them to work at a pace they think is too fast. Pharmacists have complained for years that working at too fast a pace can lead to errors in judgment resulting in filling prescriptions with the wrong medicine or the wrong dose of medicine. For example, Daniel Hussar, a pharmacy professor at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia says "The large chains push their pharmacists to work 10, 12, 14 hours a day at a pace that is often a blur." Medco denies it has quotas. Instead, the company says "Our longtime operating policy is that we have performance standards to ensure we maximize the delivery of both quality of care and cost effectiveness." As a Florida pharmacy error lawyer, this statement sounds to me like corporate double speak. After all, any definition of performance standards that revolves around filling prescriptions would have to involve quotas. Especially in light of the number of former employees that have surfaced willing to say the company has quotas. Unfortunately, the Florida Board of Pharmacy does not believe it has the power to regulate the number of prescriptions a pharmacist fills in any given time period. Their rational is that no specific law states the board can set a specific limit on the number of prescriptions filled. However, it appears the board may be missing the point. They law does give the Board the power to protect the public health. Based the number of pharmacy error injuries that have been blamed on pharmacists moving too fast, it would seem to me that quotas do affect public health. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/07/do_florida_online_pharmacies_h.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/07/do_florida_online_pharmacies_h.html Medication Errors Pharmacy Mistakes Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:33:57 -0500 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 the gulf oil spill has on the tort reform argument. My experience as a personal injury attorney in Tampa lead me to conclude long ago that tort reformers have the personal responsibility argument backwards. They claim that caps on damages are necessary because personal injury victims do not want to take responsibility for what happened to them. Of course they don't. They did not cause the harm so why should they pay for it. The goal of personal injury law is to hold wrongdoers accountable for the damage they have caused. In truth, the goal of Tort reform and caps on damages is exactly the opposite. It is nothing more than an attempt to shelter the one that caused the harm from paying for the true cost of the harm they have caused. It is unfortunate that it took something like the BP oil spill to begin the process of waking the public. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/07/tort_reform_lessons_from_the_g.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/07/tort_reform_lessons_from_the_g.html Corporate Responsibility Personal Injury Tort Reform Myths Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:45:03 -0500
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 4 (I-4). ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/07/florida_has_two_of_the_top_fiv.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/07/florida_has_two_of_the_top_fiv.html Automobile Accidents I-4 Mon, 05 Jul 2010 12:29:45 -0500 an article in the St. Petersburg Times written by Alexandra Zayas and Letitia Stein, Dr. Mubang runs a pain management clinic in Tampa. He is accused of prescribing powerful pain medicines to anyone that was willing to pay regardless of whether they were in pain. If true, he was basically using his medical degree to legitimize acting as a drug dealer. At least one of his patients has died of an overdose. Society does not and should not blame the entire medical profession for the actions of doctors accused of things like Dr. Mubang. Of course, the same should hold true for all professions. In other words, no profession should be condemned as a whole just because some in the profession do bad things. Unfortunately, there are many in the medical profession, politics, and the corporate world that do not agree when it comes to personal injury lawyers. They condemn all personal injury attorneys for the bad things that some personal injury lawyers do. Many of them condemn us because it is our job to hold them accountable. They see themselves as doing no wrong. Therefore, in their eyes the problem must be that those that want to hold them accountable are bad people. In their eyes the answer is tort reform. The truth is that personal injury attorneys are not bad people. Our goal is to help society by holding wrongdoers financially accountable for the harm they cause. Sometimes, some of us fall short. Just like doctors, some lawyers may have lapses in judgment; some lawyers may not have the training or skill to be handling a particular case; and the profit motive may cause some lawyers to lose track of why they became personal injury lawyers in the first place. When this happens, the individual lawyers should be held accountable. But just like with doctors, the entire personal injury profession should not be blamed for the actions of a few. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/06/most_medical_doctors_do_great.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/06/most_medical_doctors_do_great.html Personal Injury Tort Reform Myths Sat, 19 Jun 2010 11:09:23 -0500 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 liability insurance industry is true, why would anyone want to become one? These entities portray us to be like the wicked witch of the west in the Wizard of Oz. Born of pure evil. We apparently swoop down on our broom to capture unsuspecting clients (Dorothy and Toto) and use them in their time of grief to blackmail productive members of society (the wizard and the community of Oz) into paying us exorbitant sums of money. If they refuse our extortion, we will force them to endure the torture of a jury trial where we con handpicked members of the general public that are selected as jurors (those same unsuspecting members of the community of OZ) into awarding even more money than we originally tried to extort. For those of you that have seen the play "Wicked", the analogy of the Wicked Witch may not actually be wrong. It turns out that the Wizard of Oz was the evil one. He was harming the animals of Oz and covering up his actions. The Wicked Witch was actually good. She resisted the corrupting power of the Wizard and was trying to save the animals. As a result, the Wizard used his power and influence to portray the Wicked Witch to the public as evil. Every once in a while, however, an event comes along that is so big the propaganda machine cannot cover it up. When this happens, the truth shines through and the public can see that many personal injury lawyers are actually helping society by exposing corporate wrongdoing and obtaining just compensation for their clients. The recent scandal surrounding the Toyota defective product recalls of their automobiles is one such event. For years, Toyota has been denying that their vehicles suffer from a defect that causes sudden acceleration. Undaunted, personal injury lawyers relentlessly pursued Toyota for just compensation for their injured clients. Like the Wizard of Oz, Toyota successfully branded itself as good while it branded plaintiffs' attorneys and their clients as evil. Slowly but surely, plaintiffs lawyers assembled expert testimony to uncover the cause of the problem and convinced courts to disclose evidence implicating Toyota. As a result, the momentum has shifted. Recent disclosures by a corporate insider, coupled with the media finally focusing its attention on recent episodes of Toyota vehicles involved in sudden acceleration causing injury and death, have brought the truth to light. It appears that Toyota may have been covering up the sudden acceleration problem to avoid a recall. If true, its actions in trying to protect its reputation and profits caused many unnecessary injuries and deaths. The Toyota example is just one of many that demonstrate the stereotype of personal injury attorneys is not accurate. The truth is that we are no different than any other profession. Most of us are motivated to help our clients and have a positive impact on society. A few are motivated by money and power. Political and corporate interests use the actions of the few to condemn the rest of us. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/02/personal_injury_lawyers_are_co.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/02/personal_injury_lawyers_are_co.html Defective Products Personal Injury Tort Reform Myths Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:48:30 -0500 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 be filled. The prescription misfill occurred when the Rite Aid pharmacy filled the prescription with a steroid called dexamethasone, a steroid used in cancer treatment. The medicine was given in a dose seven times the normal dose. Mrs. Josh took it for 28 days before the prescription misfill was discovered. The main issue at trial was whether Mrs. Josh's Cushing Syndrome, a disorder that caused her to have mental and physical problems was caused by the Rite Aid prescription misfill. The jury apparently believed that it did. The jury awarded Mrs. Josh 2 million dollars for her damages and awarded her husband $500,000.00 for loss of his wife's companionship. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/01/rite_aid_misfill_prescription.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/01/rite_aid_misfill_prescription.html Medication Errors Pharmacy Mistakes Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:40:23 -0500 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 Section 768.21 Florida Statutes. The Estate of the person that died is entitled to damages for the economic losses of the Estate. Those losses include funeral expenses, medical bills caused by the death, and the amount of net income the decedent would have saved over his or her lifetime. Certain survivors of the person involved in the fatal accident are also entitled to damages. For example, a surviving spouse may recover for loss of the decedent's companionship and protection and for mental pain and suffering. Minor children of the decedent, and all children of the decedent if there is no surviving spouse, may recover for lost parental companionship, instruction, and guidance and for mental pain and suffering. If the decedent was an adult without children or a spouse, then each parent of the adult child may recover for mental pain and suffering. If the decedent was a minor that was not married, the parents also may recover for mental pain and suffering. Not all of the above damages are available in every case. Therefore, a Florida wrongful death lawyer will interview the family and friends of the person that died. The attorney will then compare the information obtained from the interviews with the damages allowed under the wrongful death statute to determine what damages are recoverable in a particular case. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/01/a_wrongful_death_lawsuit_allow.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2010/01/a_wrongful_death_lawsuit_allow.html Wrongful Death Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:19:46 -0500 the New York Times, many of these work zone car accidents, motorcycle accidents, and truck accidents might have been avoided if better safety measures were utilized by the construction companies involved. The article does an excellent job of detailing the various types of hazards that pose a risk to drivers including failures to deploy warning signs, improper traffic lane markings, barriers placed in the wrong position, and drop offs between lanes. It also describes a lack of Uniform National Safety Standards that would definitely save lives if they were put into place. Personal injury lawsuits brought in the wake of highway and roadway work zone tragedies hold wrongdoers accountable, clarify the cause of the accidents, and compensate victims. They also play a role in encouraging contractors to implement safety measures so they can avoid personal injury lawsuits in the future. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/12/roadway_work_zones_are_dangero.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/12/roadway_work_zones_are_dangero.html Automobile Accidents Motorcycle Accidents Truck Accidents Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:28:35 -0500 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 mediation error problems and solutions to those problems. As part of the process the FDA will hold a series of public hearings over the next 12 months to seek input. As problems are identified appropriate interventions will be announced. To read more about the program, follow the link to an article written by Mathew Perrone of the Associated Press ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/11/fda_to_address_medication_erro.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/11/fda_to_address_medication_erro.html Medication Errors Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:49:16 -0500 Florida nursing home abuse lawyers selection process into an Achilles heal. The personal injury attorney selection process is based on two components. First, the attorney must determine if the case has merit. Second, the attorney must determine if the wrongdoer is judgment proof. In a previous post, I discussed the fact that Some Florida nursing home chains have figured out they can discourage Florida nursing home abuse attorneys from pursuing a case against them by making it very difficult to collect a personal injury judgment. In this post, I discuss how it is done. Although each Florida nursing home chain is set up somewhat differently, the basic concept is the same. The first step is to separate all the corporate assets into different companies. One company owns the license to operate the facility, one company owns the property, one company provides management services, and one company does the accounting. The next step is to ensure that only the company that owns the license provides patient care. This company will own nothing of value and have the obligation of paying all the employees. Payments for the provision of patient care are paid to this corporation. Any money left over each month after paying the employees is immediately siphoned off by the other corporations as charges for services. The process makes the company that holds the license unable to pay a judgment. If the corporations that do not hold the license are sued, their attorneys claim they are not responsible for nursing home neglect because they are not involved in patient care. Unfortunately, Florida judges often agree. The final step in the process is to purchase very little if any liability insurance. The lack of liability insurance means any payment for injuries or death caused by abuse or neglect must come out of the corporate assets. The complicated corporate structure makes it difficult to hold any of the companies other than the license holder responsible. The fact that the license holder has no real assets coupled with all of the above discourages most Florida personal injury attorneys from bringing claims. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/10/how_some_florida_nursing_homes.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/10/how_some_florida_nursing_homes.html Nursing Home Neglect And Abuse Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:34:44 -0500 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 top corporate family executives in one Florida nonprofit nursing home chain that has been cited by regulators for substandard nursing home care. Charles Elmore's article focuses on the Okeechobee Council on Aging Inc. and the Council on Aging of Florida Inc which apparently own nursing homes in Pahokee, Gainesville, and Bradenton Florida. Unfortunately, the type of corporate wrongdoing that he alleges occurred in this case is very common in Florida nursing homes. In this case, the vehicle used was the nonprofit corporation. In other cases, the vehicle used is the limited liability company or LLC. Regardless of the corporate form, the result is always the same. A complicated structure of interlocking corporations is used to siphon money away from nursing home patient care and into the hands of the individuals that are pulling the strings. The complicated corporate structure insulates the wrongdoers at the top from responsibility for the injury, neglect, abuse, and death that occurs in the nursing homes while simultaneously protecting the corporate assets from judgments and collection efforts by Florida nursing home neglect attorneys. In fact, the insulation is so complete that most of them do not even bother to obtain liability insurance. Often the wrongdoers are never held accountable for diverting money that should be used for nursing home patient care into their pockets. Accountability is avoided because of the way the law allows nursing home operators to layer interlocking corporations. I will discuss the interlocking structures in the next post. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/10/florida_has_become_a_heaven.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/10/florida_has_become_a_heaven.html Corporate Responsibility Nursing Home Neglect And Abuse Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:15:37 -0500 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.]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/10/when_to_give_a_recorded_statem.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/10/when_to_give_a_recorded_statem.html Personal Injury Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:36:19 -0500 lawyer that handles Lakeland car accident injury cases, I see first hand tragedies like the recent death of an improperly restrained 11 month old girl traveling on US 27 in Davenport. Gary White has done an excellent job of bringing attention to this important issue in an article posted in the Lakeland Ledger. In the article, he identifies the Lakeland and Polk county Florida area resources available to help parents learn how to properly use child seat restraints. He also does a very good job of pointing the statistics on the subject.]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/10/child_car_accident_safety_tips.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/10/child_car_accident_safety_tips.html Automobile Accidents Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:43:21 -0500 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 the Atlanta Constitution recently wrote an enlightening article on the subject. In the article she describes the personal stories of several consumers that recieved the wrong medicine or wrong dose of medicine. She pointed out that CVS, Rite Aid, Kmart and Kroger, the leading pharmacy chains in Georga, have issued statements saying that safety is their top priority and that they all have systems to ensure prescription accuracy. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/10/prescription_errors_continue_t.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/10/prescription_errors_continue_t.html Medication Errors Pharmacy Mistakes Sun, 04 Oct 2009 08:26:28 -0500 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 spent supporting the trucking industry's efforts to undermine policies and programs needed to protect the public from dangerous industry practices. Ms Ferro's nomination sparked a debate at the time over whether she was the right person for the job. Askthetrucker.com has done an excellent job of documenting the debate as it unfolded. Ms. Ferro's confirmation hearings began on September 23, 2009. The process has reignited the controvesy. For example, a recent New York Times Editorial column was very critical of the appointment. For the most recent discussion, go to William Cassidy's post at the Journal of Commerce. ]]> http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/09/president_obama_nominates_truc.html http://www.TampaInjuryLawBlog.com/2009/09/president_obama_nominates_truc.html Truck Accidents Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:22:14 -0500