Philadelphia Injury Attorney Blog

The Pennsylvania product liability lawyers at Reiff & Bily salute the FDA’s warning to consumers on Tuesday not to use bodybuilding products that are sold as nutritional supplements as they may contain steroids or steroid-like substances. The FDA cited reports of acute liver injury and kidney failure.

There have been increased reports of medical problems in men who have used such bodybuilding supplements and the FDA alert named 8 specific supplements sold by a single company. However, it did not provide clear guidance to consumers on what other products to avoid. The FDA noted that buyers of these products should be aware of bodybuilding products that claim to enhance or diminish the effects of hormones such as testosterone, estrogen or progestin. The FDA cited 8 popular products from American Cellular Labs, including Mass Xtreme and Tren Xtreme. The agency found them to contain hidden and potentially hazardous steroids.

According to news sources last week federal agents in San Francisco executed search warrants on the company’s San Francisco outlet of Max Muscle, a chain of sports nutrition stores, some of which sold the products cited by the FDA.

If you or a loved one has sustained injuries as a result of consuming nutritional supplements, please feel free to contact the experienced Pennsylvania product liability lawyers at Reiff & Bily for a no obligation consultation at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.

As an experienced amusement and carnival accident injury lawyer, I receive many inquiries throughout the spring and summer season from parents whose children were injured as a result of an amusement park or carnival ride failure.

Recently, I read an article published by child safety examiner Susan Carney expressing concern for children injured in carnival amusement accidents this summer. According to Susan Carney’s blog and a story that appeared in the Roanoke Times, on July 4th a carnival accident in Virginia left a 14-year old young man injured when a ride dropped nearly 20 feet into a loading dock after the ride had been inspected the previous week. In another incident on June 27th at Goldman Park in Middletown, Ohio, an inflatable slide ride became airborne and trapped an 11-year old boy.

Continue reading " Unimaginable Danger May Lie In Carnival Amusement Rides " »

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit a New Jersey amusement park and was surprised and dismayed to learn that the operator of the ride was a minimally trained summer participant in a summer exchange work program who barely spoke English. This individual seemed more interested in listening to the blaring park music than paying attention to the ride operation. It should be noted that even the most safely designed ride can turn into a dangerous event when operated by an inexperienced person who is unregulated by federal or state law and is not required to undergo any mandatory training program. When I questioned the operator, he told me that he viewed his job as a vacation and a way to see America while paying his bills. He seemed more interested in flirting with women in the line or in the crowd than keeping an eye on the children. A situation such as this increases the likelihood of a tragic and catastrophic amusement park accident.

As an experienced amusement accident lawyer, I am quite concerned with the amount of undertrained and inexperienced ride operators in addition to commonplace poor maintenance of amusement rides.

If you or a loved one had been injured as a result of an amusement park accident, please contact one of our experienced product liability lawyers at the law firm Reiff & Bily for a free consultation at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.

It’s summertime and inevitably many boat accidents and jet ski accidents will occur. Many individuals will suffer catastrophic injuries or wrongful death as a result of being struck by a watercraft’s propeller. For minimal costs, marine engine manufacturers can place a safety ring around propeller blades. It is estimated that this safety fix would cost approximately $5 to $10 per boat to add. Boating accidents and propeller injuries are foreseeable.

The experienced product liability lawyers at Reiff & Bily believe that boating engine manufacturers have a duty to place safety over profits and have a duty to minimize injury and prevent deaths. Recently, Lawrence Thibault, an expert witness in automobile product liability matters and the owner of Biomechanics Inc., a Pennsylvania consulting firm, told a jury in Florida how lap belts prompted a series of changes that improved safety in the auto industry leading to harness belts, padded dashboards, airbags, side airbags, and other changes. However, the boating industry is not following the auto industry in increasing safety features and is fighting a push to equip boats with inexpensive ring guards.

If you or a loved one has been involved in a boating accident or jet ski accident, it is important to have an experienced boating and product liability lawyer evaluate your claim. For a free no obligation consultation, please contact the experienced product liability lawyers at Reiff & Bily at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.

Medical malpractice verdicts and settlements are “a drop in the bucket” in the scheme of healthcare cost containment. In the last few weeks, the bankruptcy of Chrysler and GM compromised the safety of the American public by providing legal loopholes in the bankruptcy plan that will shield Chrysler and GM from being held accountable for defective products that are ticking time bombs for families.

On June 15th, President Obama again vowed to remove the protection of the courts by telling an American Medical Association meeting in Chicago that his efforts to cut healthcare costs and increase coverage could not succeed without freeing doctors from the fear of lawsuits. The President stated that making U.S. healthcare more efficient will be harder if “doctors feel like they are constantly looking over their shoulder for fear of lawsuits.” While the medical community and the insurance community have consistently stated that malpractice awards and settlements are driving costs through the ceiling and making the system inefficient, Health Point, the largest malpractice insurer, has indicated that medical malpractice is “not a major driver of spending trends in recent years.” Studies indicate that medical malpractice reform would not have a huge impact on healthcare costs.

Continue reading " United States Spends $2.3 Trillion Dollars Annually On Healthcare " »

The Philadelphia lawn mower injury lawyers at Reiff & Bily wish to advise you that although many of us like to delegate lawn mowing duties to our children or teenagers or have them earn some extra money by mowing other peoples lawns, mowing the lawn can be a serious accident waiting to happen if proper safety precautions are not taken.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission nearly 16,200 children and teenagers under 19 were treated for lawn mower related injuries last year. Please follow the following safety tips regarding children and lawn mower usage:

1. Children should be at least 12 years old before they operate a lawn mower and at least 16 years old before operating a riding lawn mower.

2. Children should never be passengers on riding lawn mowers.

3. Sturdy shoes should be worn while mowing not sandals.

4. Young children should be at a safe distance from the area being mowed.

5. Eye and hearing protection should be worn.

6. A lawn mower should be used with a control that stops it from moving forward if the handle is released.

7. Mowers should be started and refilled outdoors and not in a garage to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.

8. Motors should be turned off to cool before fueling.

9. Blades should be completely still before removing the grass catcher, unclogging the discharge shooter, or crossing gravel roads.

Reiff & Bily is a catastrophic personal injury and products liability law firm committed to promoting consumer safety. If you or a loved one has been injured or killed due to a lawn mower injury, please contact us online for a free consultation or contact us toll free at 1-800-421-9595.

According to the Chrysler bankruptcy plan, families driving any Chrysler now on the road (approximately 10,000,000 vehicles), whose occupants are severely injured in a collision or because the car was not made safely, will have no recourse for damages against the old bankrupt Chrysler or the new successor company. The GM bankruptcy proposes the same result. There are approximately 30,000,000 GM vehicles on the road.

The Center For Justice and Democracy has stated that these results represent a cruel abandonment of catastrophically injured victims and that they are completely avoidable during any bankruptcy and also that in bankruptcy most injured victims are not regularly discarded especially when there are known products on the market that will continue to severely harm or kill people.

The Philadelphia automotive product liability lawyers at Reiff & Bily strongly feel that the actions of the government in allowing this situation to exist will deprive hundreds of thousands of people who have been injured and have lost their sole means of support the opportunity to have their day in court. Consumers in pending suits are not the only people who will be affected if the companies are shielded against product liability. Future liability lawsuits will also be barred against Chrysler and GM for vehicles sold before the companies’ reorganization.

If the automobile manufacturers are not held liable for the known defects, which have catastrophically injured as well as killed many innocent victims, they will literally be getting away with murder.

The experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Reiff & Bily salute Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s signing House Bill 84 which prohibits healthcare providers from seeking reimbursement for a serious preventable medical error often called “never events.” According to sources, approximately 140 patients who experienced an adverse medical event that might be both serious and preventable die each year in Pennsylvania hospitals. The total charge of the hospital stays in which these deaths occur amounts to approximately $21.8 million dollars and approximately 3,500 patients a year survive an adverse event for which charges are an additional $316,000,000 a year.

In January 2008 The Department of Public Welfare implemented a policy to prohibit hospitals to bill Medicaid for 27 “never events” such as operating on the wrong patient, medication errors that result in death or disability, and bad blood transfusions.

Continue reading " Philadelphia Medical Malpractice Lawyer Applauds Pennsylvania Governor’s Signing Healthcare Bill Prohibiting Healthcare Providers Seeking Reimbursement For A Serious Preventable Medical Error " »

According to news sources, a 72-year old man, Art Shiver, was killed when the lawn mower he was riding flipped over pinning him underneath. The catastrophic fatality occurred at the Sands Baron Golf Club on Route 9 when Mr. Shivers came close to a sand trap causing the lawn mower to flip over on top of the operator.

As an experienced product liability lawyer familiar with lawn mower defects, I am all too familiar with heart wrenching catastrophic injuries and wrongful deaths that occur as a result of lawn mower accidents. Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of Art Shivers and we will keep them in our prayers. Although the investigation is incomplete, the family of Art Shivers would be well advised to retain the services of an experienced Pennsylvania product liability lawyer to commence an investigation about their legal rights and options. Depending on who and what was responsible for this fatal tragedy, Mr. Shiver’s family would be able to receive compensation for their loss.

If you or a loved one has been injured as a result of a defective product, please contact one of our experienced product liability lawyers at Reiff & Bily for a free consultation at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.

In the last few weeks, two major U.S. automobile manufacturers filed for bankruptcy protection, namely GM and Chrysler. Last week Federal Bankruptcy Court stated that product liability suits against the “old Chrysler” be wiped out as the new company would have no further responsibility for injury and wrongful death claims linked to automotive defects and product liability on cars sold by the “old Chrysler.”

Since 1979, the Philadelphia product liability lawyers of Reiff & Bily have represented individuals and the families of individuals who have been killed and catastrophically injured as a result of design defects of automobiles produced by these manufacturers. I had first hand experiences with families who have lost their sole means of support or with individuals who require life time medical treatment who now potentially have the inability to collect monetary compensation and are unable to sustain themselves or pay for necessary medical treatment. We have been able to successfully prove in the past that all of the major automobile manufacturers were aware of various and numerous risks associated with these design defects and although a cheap fix was available many times the manufacturers put profits over consumer safety. We have interviewed ex-employees from the manufacturers who have come forward to express the knowledge that many of the vehicles on the road today are unsafe for real world conditions. It is estimated that the Chrysler Corporation currently faces approximately $600,000,000 in liability claims which are in jeopardy. My understanding is that the new corporation has agreed to honor consumer rights such as warranty and lemon law claims. They will have no further responsibility for injury and wrongful death claims linked to product liability defects in cars sold by the old company.

The consumer safety and product liability lawyers of Reiff & Bily join with other trial lawyers in the United States to fight for the rights of injured consumers and seek compensation for the victims who deserve it the most.

The Pennsylvania Superior Court in a 6 to 3 majority decision stated that there is no reason to differentiate between general practitioners and a psychiatrist when rendering psychological care. The court ruled that both doctors maintain the same degree of trust. The doctor in the case before the Court prescribed psychiatric medicine, namely anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications, and engaged in a sexual relationship with his patient while treating that patient for anxiety, depression or other psychological issues. The treating physician should not exhibit behavior leading to an extra-marital affair. The opinion stated “because of a patient’s often inferior knowledge about medicine and related conditions, a health care professional often has a position of superiority over his client.” As such, it is very common that the patient is in a vulnerable position and as a result, puts a high degree of trust and confidence in his/her doctor. In a prominent case that gained national attention many years ago, the experienced medical malpractice lawyers of the Philadelphia law firm of Reiff & Bily successfully recovered in excess of $1.4 million dollars for a client who was sexually assaulted by her treating psychiatrist.

If you believe that your doctor acted improperly by engaging in illicit sexual behavior or an extramarital affair while you were being treated for a psychological problem, anxiety, depression, or marital discord, you would be well advised to seek the advice of an experienced medical malpractice attorney. For a free no obligation consultation, please contact one of our experienced medical malpractice attorneys at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.

Unfortunately every year over 1,000 children will drown in a swimming pool accident. Most of these accidents or drownings are easily to preventable. Beside the 1,000 deaths, it is estimated that almost 60,000 people last year required emergency room treatment for injuries sustained with swimming pools, swimming pool slides and diving boards. A person can drown in under 2 inches of water and die or sustain brain damage with submersion for a mere few minutes. Last year a new federal law went into effect requiring swimming pools to have covers over drainage systems to prevent drain suction from trapping swimmers under water or from sucking their innards out, a strange but true phenomena. Though the law took effect six months ago, I’m betting many pools have not brought themselves up to code in the current economic environment. Some experts and other sources informed me that many municipal pools are “still working on the problem” and have not yet complied with the federally mandated requirement. There is no excuse to allow anything other than a safe swimming pool environment to exist. Most state and local officials affirm they will check pools but stress they do not have the power to close pools. Unfortunately, there is still not a formal system or requirement for state or local officials to send information to Washington to ensure that pools are in conformance with the new regulations set forth by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a swimming pool or water park accident, please contact the experienced swimming pool and amusement injury lawyers at the Philadelphia personal injury law firm of Reiff & Bily at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com for a free no obligation consultation. We have been committed to representing consumers’ rights successfully since 1979.