Philadelphia Injury Attorney Blog

Over the last three decades, our law firm has investigated many claims involving a tire failure. Many times a tire defect may exist in a new tire but also hazards are often presented when a tire fails and is improperly repaired.

Believe it or not, many well-known tire stores, as well as local gas stations, do not understand how to properly and safely repair and patch a failed tire. In a recent case that our tire defect lawyers successfully resolved, a catastrophic accident occurred just 15 minutes after a tire repair. The Rubber Manufacturers Association, other industry groups, and tire manufacturers publish a set of standards for inspecting and repairing tires. Unfortunately, many repair shops patch or plug tires when a puncture or defect has occurred in an area of the tire that should have never been repaired in the first place. Typically a puncture should only be repaired if it is in the tread area of the tire rather than a sidewall or bead area. In most tires, the repairable puncture cannot exceed a ¼ “.

Continue reading " A Low Cost Tire Repair Involving a Patch or a Plug May Be More Harmful than You Think, Advises Experienced Tire Defect Lawyer " »

As an experienced Philadelphia car accident lawyer who handles a wide range of cases, including those involving airbag defects, one of the first steps we take in the investigation of many our cases is to download the crash data recording/event data recording instrument on the subject vehicle. We typically photograph and video each step. We follow a protocol assuming that the data retrieved from the CDR/EDR can be read via a standard diagnostic connector. Unfortunately, many times it is impossible to retrieve accurate data due to vehicle damage or due to the fact that there was a circuit or electrical defect. Many times a download will reveal a lack of fault code due to a communication failure or defective sensor circuit.

Commonly automobile manufacturers attempt to hide the record of EDR failures and in some cases automobile manufacturers have been known to perform an unauthorized inspection and analysis of a vehicle involved in an accident using tools to access and interrogate and event recorder without plaintiffs’ consent and outside of the presence of plaintiffs’ counsel.

Sometimes an inexperienced expert or counsel may not be aware of EDR read out tools that have admitted software problems or may be improperly connected to a vehicle at the time of the download. On more than one occasion, I have become familiar with alteration and loss of electronic data that occurred during or after the inspection and download.

Continue reading " Does the Download of a Black Box or a Vehicle Event Data Recorder after a Car Accident Always Provide Accurate Information? " »

Many times when I visit department stores, hotels, arenas, and stadiums, it seems rather obvious to me that the presence of an escalator in an open area creates a potentially dangerous situation.

On a recent visit to the Revel Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, I traveled what I considered to be an extensive distance on an escalator placed over a high atrium near the entrance. The escalator was seemingly suspended in air. I hate to admit it but I experienced a sense of spatial disorientation and vertigo while riding the same.

Open space, fall research has revealed that the balustrade of a standard escalator is not always high enough to act as a protective guardrail, and many times, escalator falls over the sides have occurred in stadiums, shopping malls, or hotels.

If we examine stadium or hotel environments, many times people may have had a drink or two and become disoriented and can plunge over the balustrade or moving rail onto the floor below. In stadiums or sports arenas, escalators are often crowded with people not exhibiting the safest of behavior. In one sports stadium fatal fall from an escalator, a gentleman was traveling to the upper level of the stadium with several friends when he stumbled and fell over the side 18 to 25 feet onto another person sustaining a fatal head injury.

Continue reading " Falls Over the Sides of Escalators Onto Adjacent Open Spaces Are Occurring with Increasing Frequency - An Easy Fix is Available " »

As slip and fall lawyers in Pennsylvania for the last 33 years, we have recovered many six and seven figure settlements and verdicts for premises liability accidents. The issue always remains who may be held liable for injuries and what constitutes a defect significant enough to raise a proper claim.

There is not a week that goes by where a call is not forwarded and the victim claims that he or she has slipped and fell as a result of someone’s negligence. In Pennsylvania, the owner of a property has a duty to maintain and repair the sidewalk and keep it in a reasonably safe condition.

However, there is a long standing principle that although property owners have a duty to maintain their sidewalks in a safe condition, property owners are not responsible for trivial or de-minimis defects that exist in the sidewalk. Of course, that leaves the question to be answered as to what constitutes a de-minimis or trivial defect.

The defense will almost always argue that all defects are trivial. If the defect is so large, defense will typically argue on the other side of the coin that it is an open and obvious defect and any reasonable person should have observed the same and exercised caution to avoid a slip and fall accident and injury. The size of the defect is a matter that has been litigated for decades before the Pennsylvania Courts.

Continue reading " I Slipped and Fell Walking Down the Sidewalk in Front of a Property - Is There Liability? " »

Most vehicles on the road today are designed with gas tanks over the rear axle. Unfortunately, there are still many cars on the road that have the gas tank positioned behind the rear axle and below the rear bumper, therefore exposing occupants to an extraordinary risk of fire and explosion in a rear impact collision.

Many Ford vehicles were built with a “panther platform”. The Ford Motor Company has known for a long time that a number of police officers operating Crown Victoria police cars and operators of Ford Lincoln Towncars were sustaining serious burn injuries or being burned alive in these vehicles when the vehicle burst into flames in rear impact collisions.

Many Crown Victoria’s and Lincoln Continental’s manufactured by the Ford Motor Company were designed with the fuel tank located in a crush zone between the rear axle and the rear bumper.

A behind the axle fuel tank has a proportionally higher rate of rear impact fatalities from fuel fed fires than the risk incurred in other full sized vehicles where the tank is moved in front of the axle or in an otherwise protected area or shielded. From 1965 to 1972, Ford documented 428 rear impact collisions involving fuel fed fires in its vehicles using fuel tanks located behind the rear axle in which occupants suffered burn injuries or death involving a total of 394 deaths and 368 burn injuries. In at least three lawsuits, jury verdicts later affirmed on appeal revealed that Ford Motor Company acted with gross negligence in locating fuel tanks behind the rear axle without taking other needed precautions such as providing shields, bladders, or other devices needed to protect against fuel leakage.

Continue reading " Any Car or Vehicle with a Rear Mounted Gas Tank behind the Rear Axle and Below the Rear Bumper Exposes Occupants to Extraordinary Risks " »

Recently, a jury awarded $1.18 million dollars to a victim who was visiting a condominium and fell down a poorly lit staircase. The condominium had an exterior stairwell with a mid-level landing and as the victim was descending the staircase, she missed or slipped on the first step down from the landing and fell five more steps to the ground.

She suffered a fracture to her left tibial plateau, requiring open reduction surgery and, eventually, a total knee replacement.

Continue reading " If You Fall Down a Poorly Lit Staircase and Suffer Injuries, the Owner or Landlord Could Be Held Liable " »

Recently, an elderly victim was shopping at a supermarket and as she was heading to the front of the store, an employee pushing an overloaded hand cart collided with her, knocking her to the ground causing her to sustain serious injuries, including but not limited to, a fractured right hip. The previously independent victim required surgery and thereafter was forced to use a wheelchair or walker and required assistance with daily living activities.

A lawsuit was filed against the owner of the market alleging negligence due to the fact that the employee was operating an overloaded hand cart so as to obstruct his view. The employee operating the cart was also using the front entrance rather than another entrance to load and remove goods.

Continue reading " Sometimes Visits to Warehouse Stores and Supermarkets Are Comparable to Traversing an Obstacle Course as Patrons Struck by Overloaded Carts May Sue for Injuries " »

As an experienced catastrophic injury and wrongful death lawyer for over 33 years, some of the most emotional and difficult situations for a family to deal with involves the death or injury to a parent or child. One can only imagine the anxiety, confusion, and emotional loss suffered by parents and caregivers, not to mention the victim. The loss of one’s hopes and dreams can become reality in an instant. One child injured is one too many.

Many times a catastrophic injury sustained by a child, elderly parent, or loved one will require permanent medical attention and life care and a skilled and experienced catastrophic injury lawyer should immediately preserve and avoid spoliation of any potential evidence and conduct a comprehensive client screening and investigation necessary to uncover all pertinent details about the causes of the injury or death, diagnosis, medical course of treatment, as well as potential defendants. A crucial part of this inquiry should involve family relationships between the victim and other family members as well as a consideration of “land mines” that might arise in the investigation and prosecution of the case.

Continue reading " There is Nothing More Distressing than When a Catastrophic Injury or Death is Sustained by Vulnerable Children or Elders " »

Many times I am contacted by clients who have sustained horrific injuries entering or exiting buses, trains, and planes, otherwise known as common carriers. The law maintains that the common carrier has a duty to warn passengers of dangers which it knows or ought to know and of which the passenger is ignorant, especially a danger which existed at a place other than a regular stopping place. For example, if there is ice on the steps of the vehicle or obstructions or defects in the street where the bus has stopped, or if there is a danger from passing vehicles from the approach of another vehicle, or if the ground is slippery where the passenger is about to exit, the carrier may be held responsible.

Additionally, if a train stops at a train station where there is an abnormal gap or space between the train and the platform, the carrier may be held responsible if a passenger slips and falls. The duty of the carrier may even be increased if, in fact, a passenger requests special attention due to special needs when boarding or exiting the vehicle when an employee or agent of the carrier fails to provide assistance. The carrier’s duty is not absolute unless the carrier knows or has reason to know of dangers.

Continue reading " Common Carriers Such as Airlines, Buses, and Train Operators Have a Duty to Warn Boarding and Exiting Passengers of Dangers When They Are Known to the Carrier and Not Known to Passengers " »

The DePuy ASR hip replacement system was described in marketing literature as “high performance metal upon metal bearings” which touted reduced wear as one of the product’s main benefits over competing products. Unfortunately, many individuals who received implants of the DePuy ASR hip replacement device suffered significant injury and problems when the acetabular components failed to properly affix to the patient’s bones and the implants generated excessive metal debris resulting oftentimes in pain and burning in the hips and surrounding areas of recipients.

Many of the defective DePuy ASR implant patients were required to have a secondary revision surgery to remove the implants due to immune reactions to metal debris or shavings in the body resulting from the metal upon metal bearings. Some of the symptoms experienced by DePuy implant patients included abnormal fluid and necrotic tissue as well as infected bones secondary to matalosis, a disease that destroys tissue surrounding the artificial joint. Many individuals sustained foreign body reactions reducing an extraordinary amount of pain.

Continue reading " DePuy Now Settling Claims and Lawsuits for Those Who Sustained Injuries as a Result of Metal Upon Metal Hip System Implants " »

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports 105 cases of patient who contracted a rare form of meningitis as of October 8, 2012. The widening outbreak has affected patients in nine different states who contracted the deadly type of meningitis after being injected in their spine with a preservative-free steroid named methylprednisolone acetate, a steroid used to treat pain and inflammation, which was contaminated by a fungus. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked clinics, doctors, and consumers to stop use of any products that have come from the New England Compounding Center (NECC), which is the Massachusetts-based company that made the contaminated injections.

Facilities in Pennsylvania that were given the potentially contaminated products are Allegheny Pain Management in Altoona, PA and South Hills Pain & Rehab Association in Jefferson Hills, PA.

The NECC issued a voluntary recall of the three lots of the steroid as well as any of its other products, though presently there has been no indication that any other products have been contaminated. The company shipped 17,676 vials of the steroid to 76 facilities in 23 states from July through September, according to the Massachusetts Health Department, and thousands of patients may have been injected. A list of the effected medical facilities can be found here: www.cdc.gov/hai/outbreaks/meningitis-facilities-map.html.

Continue reading " Tainted Steroid Injections Causing Fungal Meningitis Distributed to Pennsylvania, 22 Other States " »