Milwaukee Personal Injury Lawyer - Wrongful Death

Insurance Co. Says Smoke Inhalation Death is "Pollution" - Not Covered

Paul Jacquart — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:42:00 GMT

The Houston Chronicle has reported that Great American Insurance Company is relying on a pollution exclusion in order to deny paying death claims from a building fire that occured in that city: www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6168688.html The defense reportedly is that the deaths, caused by smoke inhalation, were the result of "pollution", for which there is a policy exclusion. Hopefully the court will reject this ridiculous defense and hold "Great American" accountable.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Jacquart

Fatal Auto-Bicycle Collision Under Investigation In Shawano

David Lowe — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:59:29 GMT

Authorities in northern Wisconsin Shawano County are investigating a fatal bicycle-auto accident that occurred just before 6:00 a.m. Tuesday morning when two bicyclists were struck by a car driven by a Shawano County man at State Highway 22, near Shady Road, in the Town of Washington.

WFRV TV is reporting that the identity of the driver of the 2001 Monte Carlo that struck the cyclists is 25 year old Todd Giese, of Shawano.

Shawano County Sheriff's officials have said that Chester Coblentz, 18, of Clare, Michigan was pronounced dead at the scene following the collision, and that the second bicyclist, Dennis Beechy, 19, of Trenton, Missouri, was transported to Shawano Community Hospital and later flown out to another hospital for further treatment. The victims were reportedly members of the Amish community and were together in Shawano for Beechy's wedding, according to a news report from Saginaw, Michigan near Coblentz's home town, Clare, Mchigan.

The accident remains under investigation by the Shawano County Sheriff's Department and the Wisconsin State Patrol.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Car and Motorcycle Accidents.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Operator Error Blamed For Amusement Ride Death

David Lowe — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:45:27 GMT

Error by the amusement ride operator, rather than ride malfunction, is being suggested as the cause of the tragic amusement ride death of a 16 year old Neenah girl according to by an investigative report issued by the Wisconsin Department of Commerce.

Sixteen year old Elizabeth Mohl died on Juy 14, 2007 after falling 40 feet from an amusement ride called Air Glory at a Christian Music Festival icalled Lifest in Oshkosh Wisconsin.

It appears that inexperience of an employee running the ride may have been a factor, according to the report. The ride was being operated by the owner and one other employee, who had been working for the ride's operator only two weeks when the accident occurred. A story in the Green Bay Press Gazette quotes the report as making the following explanation of the operator error:

"Mr. Ross also said Mr. (Derek) Armelin also had a tendency not to lock the carabineer after attaching the rider to the ride. Mr. Ross said he always worked on the left side when working with Mr. Armelin so that he (Mr. Ross) could check the carabineer before attaching the safety rope. Mr. Ross stated if the carabineer was locked, there would be no way it could come loose when a person was attached to it," said the report.

A carabiner, is a metal piece that clips the rider to a safety rope that should prevent the rider from coming loose, as apparently occurred here.

From the owner's comment, it seems that this employee was either improperly trained in the first place, or improperly supervised by the ride's owner. With the amusement ride industry being seasonal and itinerant by nature, too often it is operator error when these accidents occur because employees come and go. Maybe a case like this will focus attention on this problem.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Wrongful Death.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Criminal Charges Unlikely in Amusement Ride Accident

David Lowe — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 13:29:20 GMT

Last weekend I wrote about an amusement ride accident in which a 16 year old girl from Menasha, Wisconsin died when she fell more than 40 feet from a ride called Air Glory while attending a Christian music festival in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Journal Sentinel website reports this afternoon that the local district attorney is saying that criminal charges against the amusement ride operator are unlikely, based on the preliminary results of an investigation being conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Commerce, which has jurisdiction over amusement ride accidents. Winnebago District Attorney Christian Gossett commented that: "Criminal negligence is an entirely different animal than simple negligence."

Inspectors are focusing on the ride's crane structure and the safety harness, according to an internal department e-mail forwarded to the Appleton Post Crescent pursuant to an open records law request.

Criminal charges are unlikely in this scenario because of the requirement that the accused have an awareness of the likelihood of danger to the victim. Under Wisconsin Statute section 939.25, "criminal negligence" means "ordinary negligence to a high degree, consisting of conduct that the actor should realize creates substantial and unreasonable risk of death of great bodily harm to another." This requires something less than wilful and wanton conduct which, under Wisconsin law, is the virtual equivalent of intentional wrong. See, State v. Schaefer, 266 Wis.2d 719, 668 N.W.2d 760 (Wis.App.,2003).

The surviving family will likely have remedies under state tort law, where the standard is ordinary negligence. This lower standard requires proof that the defendant failed to exercise "reasonable care", often defined as the degree of care that the average person would exercise under the same or similar circumstances. And if the amusement ride operator is considered a "common carrier", which provides transportation for hire (a possible characterization of what the operator of this ride does), the standard is the "highest degree of care that can be reasonably exercised by persons of vigilance and foresight when acting under the same or similar circumstances, taking into consideration the type of transportation used and the practical operation of its business as a common carrier."

Regardless of whether criminal charges or a civil case is brought, this tragic event should hopefully cause the authorities to look carefully at the safety of these amusement rides.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Wrongful Death.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Investigators Look For Cause of Girl's Death on Air Glory Ride

David Lowe — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 17:45:22 GMT

A 16 year old girl from Neenah, Wisconsin, Elizabeth K. Mohl, fell to her death Saturday when an amusement ride called Air Glory malfunctioned at a Christian Music Festival called "Lifest".

Here is a photo of the Air Gloryride.

A blog account by a woman in attendance at the event reveals the heart breaking shock experienced by those who came to this family oriented festival:

I've just spent the the last 4 days at Lifest. We brought our girls, ages 5 through 10, to see some of their favorite bands, and to have them hear a few others that mom and dad listened to when they were too young to know.
Then, yesterday at about 4:40 p.m. the fun was interrupted by sirens. The first vehicle to arrive was a fire truck. My wife and I compared notes later and we both thought, "hey, carnival food, maybe a deep fryer caught fire"... and then we realized the truck was heading up toward the artist merchandise barn. Shortly after that, an ambulance arrived, and we knew something was terribly wrong. The obvious conclusion was that something had happened with the Air Glory ride near the barn.
I'm very, very upset by this tragedy. My heart grieves for the loss of this young woman; if the rumors are true, she wasn't much older than my eldest. I can only imagine the pain that her family is suffering now, and I'm sure it's worse than I can dream.

How did this occur? It could have been negligent application of the restraints that are supposed to hold the occupants in place, poor maintenance that could have led to failure of a part of the mechanism, or poor design of the amusement ride that rendered it unreasonably dangerous. One witness who was waiting in line said that he heard a snapping sound just before the girl fell. Another witness noted that the girl fell on the ground, away from the protective mats, although whether the mats are designed to protect participants falling from any substantial height is unclear.

Many attendees at the Christian event have reportedly already forgiven the ride operator. But, OSHA is investigating the scene of the tragedy.

Hopefully, the safety agency will shed light on the cause of this tragedy.

On a personal note, what causes me to shiver about this tragedy is that it falls on the eighth anniversary--to the very hour--of another tragedy: the Miller Park crane collapse of July 14, 1999, in which three ironworkers, Jeff Wischer, Bill DeGrave, and Jerry Starr, died under similar circumstances: Like the young woman here, they plunged to their deaths while suspended from a tower crane. I represented Jerry Starr's widow in the Miller Park crane collapse lawsuit that resulted from that tragedy.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on defective products.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Defective Seatbelt Leads to Wrongful Death Verdict

David Lowe — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 10:10:00 GMT

A Texas jury has awarded $24 million to the family of an 18 year old woman who died in a roll-over accident after being ejected from the vehicle, allegedly due to a defective seatbelt.

The manufacturer of the seatbelt, Honeywell International, Inc., plans to appeal the verdict. Honeywell contends that the woman was not wearing her seatbelt at the time of the accident, but the family argued that bruising and other injuries show that she had to have been wearing her seatbelt when the rollover occurred.

Honeywell is a diversified manufacturer and worldwide conglomerate that makes airplane controls and a variety of automobile parts, including seat belts.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

FDA Asked to Ban Antibiotic Tequin

David Lowe — Mon, 01 May 2006 21:12:11 GMT

The watchdog group Public Citizen petitioned the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today to ban Bristol-Myers Squibb's drug Tequin (gatifloxacin) because it is believed to be linked to 400 blood sugar abnormalities resulting in over 150 hospitalizations and 20 deaths.

According to Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group:

More than half a dozen other antibiotics exist to treat these conditions and all are safer than Tequin. Bristol-Myers Squibb's quiet announcement last Friday that it would no longer manufacture Tequin for economic reasons is similarly inadequate to protect the public's health since the company apparently has no intention, absent FDA action to ban the drug, to stop selling the large amount of Tequin already in the channels of commerce. Thus, without an FDA ban, thousands of additional patients will be prescribed this unacceptably dangerous drug.

ABC News reported in March about a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that provided evidence that the drug may pose special risks for diabetics. An editorial accompanying the study said that "Tequin should carry the most serious type of label a black-box warning in light of the study," noting that there are "safer, equally effective and less costly alternatives" to Tequin.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Ortho McNeil Reportedly Settling Ortho Evra Suits

David Lowe — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 19:25:07 GMT

According to a report in The NY Post, Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ortho McNeil has begun settling Ortho Evra Birth Control Patch claims and estimates that there are approximately 500 serious injury victims, compared to less than 100 such victims with oral contraceptives. The report states that "Ortho McNeil has settled a dozen lawsuits for millions of dollars in the last few months."

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Democrats Question Asbestos Fund

Staff Writer — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:25:08 GMT

The Senate began debating legislation yesterday which would end asbestos lawsuits and award victims $25,000 to $1.1 million, depending on how sick the toxic substance has made them. Fortunately Senate Democrats such as Kent Conrad from North Dakota are questioning the $140 billion fund

and claiming it would run out of money after approximately 10 years and be about $150 billion short of enough money to last the 50 year life of the trust.

According to Bloomberg.com:

``This trust fund will go bust in the second 10-year period,'' Conrad told reporters in Washington. ``The federal government would be turned to for even more payments,'' and ``victims would get much less than promised.''
Conrad released a study by the Democratic staff of the Budget Committee that predicted the fund would be forced to borrow $40 billion in the first 20 years of operation to make up the shortfall, the report said.

Peter Lattman at the WSJ Law Blog has more about the asbestos hearings and the White House weighing in with (of course) a little jab at trial lawyers.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Staff Writer