The severity of gap-related New York train accidents has been detailed here in the past, and an incident last week was just another example of the concern with the gaps between loading platforms and Long Island Rail Road trains. A woman boarding a train after attending a Rod Stewart concert luckily avoided potentially fatal personal injuries when getting stuck in a gap right before a train departed. This incident occurred just hours after a Senate hearing grilled LIRR and its parent company, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, on both company’s lack of action in preventing gap train accidents which had been occurring for more than 30 years. Just last summer, a Minnesota teen was killed in a train accident in which she fell into a gap and was hit by an oncoming train.

The latest gap train accident occurred at New York’s Penn Station. 47-year-old Lisa Ehrlich and her husband Richard had just attended the concert at Madison Square Garden when they went to board a train. Lisa Ehrlich said in a Newsday story that she went to step on the train with her left foot. While saying that she thought she stepped wide enough to get on the train, Ehrlich added that before she knew it, her hand was touching the bottom of the train floor and her left leg was in the gap. Ehrlich admitted that she thought she was “done.” Luckily, her husband, who was already on the train, came to her rescue before the train began to move.

Mrs. Ehrlich said that she was confused immediately after the incident, but did complain in the story that LIRR train conductors did not know how to handle the situation. According to a LIRR spokeswoman quoted in the story, the conductors handled the situation correctly by offering her medical attention and giving her an accident report to fill out. Ehrlich said that she declined medical attention on the scene but did suffer bruises on her left shin and hip. It is unknown whether Mrs. Ehrlich will take any legal action in the future.

Eleven women from states throughout the U.S. filed a defective drugs lawsuit last week in a Los Angeles Court against Johnson & Johnson and two other companies who made, marketed and distributed the prescribed Ortho Evra birth control patch. Specifically, these women claim that the defendants waited four years after this product’s release to disclose some serious side effects of using Ortho Evra, including blood clots and strokes. All eleven women, ranging from ages 19 to 42, experienced blood clots after using Ortho Evra. Six of the women suffered a pulmonary embolism, while one woman experienced a stroke. The eleven women claiming personal injuries from this product are from California, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, New York, Georgia and Indiana.

The personal injury attorneys of the women claim that the defendants have described Ortho Evra side effects for years as merely including minor symptoms like nausea, headaches and a skin reaction where the patch is placed. They further allege that the defendants downplayed the risks of Ortho Evra, especially the assertion that the product delivers nearly 60 percent more estrogen than oral birth control tablets and consequently increases the risk factors of blood clots and strokes.

More than 4 million women have used Ortho Evra since it became commercially available in 2002. According to the personal injury lawsuit, Ortho Evra is one of the most commonly prescribed birth control patches today and the first and only one marketed as the once-a-week patch. Like oral birth control pills, Ortho Evra prevents pregnancies by preventing ovulation, thickening cervical mucus and altering the endometrium to reduce the likelihood of implantation.

After her mother was killed four year ago when a speeding, off-duty Baton Rouge Police officer crashed into their car, a 11-year-old Louisiana girl was awarded a $1.6 million car accident settlement earlier this week. Jonqualya Benton was sitting in the back seat of her mother Melissa Benton’s Nissan Sentra in February 2003 when a speeding police cruiser driven by off-duty officer Paul Rhea broadsided the vehicle. Seven-year old Jonqualya was left with personal injuries which included a fractured vertebra while an accompanying friend of the deceased Melissa, Jimmy Thomas, suffered a broken leg and separated shoulder in the crash, according to a story on the Louisiana television station WBRZ website.

After seven hours of deliberation, a Louisiana jury found Rhea 20% liable for the accident, and a Scenic Chevron and its insurance company 80% liable because of posted signs which obstructed Melissa Benton’s view of oncoming traffic and consequently violated a city-parish ordinance. Specifically, the jury found that signs on the Chevron property prohibited Melissa Benton from seeing the speeding Rhea, who was traveling between 70 and 88 mph in a 45 mph zone, as she tried to get across the Scenic Highway.

The insurance company’s attorney, Dave Kimmel, had argued that Rhea was 100% liable for the accident and expressed his disappointment with the decision. The Louisiana personal injury attorney of Jonqualya Benton said that he thought the jury came to its verdict finding the Scenic Chevron more liable because Rhea had a "momentary lapse" in judgment.

The jury verdict form lists this Louisiana car accident settlement as $2 million. However, since Jonqualya Benton settled with the city-parish and Rhea for $325,00 before the start of the trial, she is entitled to 80% of the jury verdict. Jimmy Thomas and his son were also awarded $800,000 by the jury. Rhea is still on the police force.

After years of litigation, a New York mother and daughter were recently awarded a combined $975,000 car accident settlement for personal injuries they sustained six years ago when a stolen truck slammed into their van.

Lisa Yeager and her 12-year-old daughter Chelsea were driving to visit a sick relative at a Brooklyn hospital in June 2001 when a speeding, stolen pickup truck being chased by its owner in another truck ran a red light and broadsided their van. According to the story in the Staten Island Advance, Mrs. Yeager entered an intersection after a red light turned green when Robert Thompson slammed into her with a pickup truck from Power House Construction Inc. Thompson had stolen the truck less than a mile before at a construction site, and was being chased by Samuel Benitez, the President of the construction company.

In addition to sustaining serious back injuries, Mrs. Yeager suffered hip injuries requiring surgery and was hospitalized for four days. Chelsea Yeager suffered a lacerate spleen and concussion, and was in the hospital for 30 days. The family later filed a personal injury lawsuit against Thompson, Benitez and Power House. Benitez denied liability and stated that the pickup truck was stolen.

However, the family’s personal injury attorneys successfully showed that Benitez had left the keys in the stolen truck while it was parked on a public street, and then argued that Thompson was speeding and driving recklessly because Benitez was chasing him. The case was later settled, with Chelsea Yeager receiving $575,000 and her mother $400,000 in the New York car accident settlement.

An interesting article on CNN.com last week detailed how insurance companies like to play hardball with personal injury victims during minor car crash claims and further reveals the importance of having an experienced personal injury attorney on your side to stand up for your rights. CNN conducted an 18-month investigation into minor-impact soft-tissue injury crashes, or instances in which there is little damage to the vehicle and sustained personal injuries are not easily seen by the naked eye or even X-rays, and revealed some disturbing details about insurance companies.

Specifically, the CNN investigation detailed how Allstate and State Farm worked with consulting giant McKinsey & Co. in the mid-1990s and determined that soft-tissue injuries would be a great avenue for profits. According to a former Allstate and State Farm employee in the story, both companies developed a strategy focusing on three D’s – denying a soft-tissue injury claim, delaying settlement of the claim and defending against the claim in court.

Another former Allstate employer detailed in the CNN story how the company encouraged claims agents to get rid of claims quickly by offering victims as little as $50. If a victim didn’t accept this take-it-or-leave-it offer, these insurance companies were more than happy to use their massive resources to drag out cases in court. The story also detailed how these insurance companies stressed the importance of dragging out personal injury lawsuits to the point where they would become too time-consuming, frustrating and fruitless for personal injury attorneys and victims. According to the story, insurance companies have made billions off similar strategies while many plaintiffs have been left with little if anything at all.

Both Allstate and State Farm declined interviews for the story. A State Farm spokesman did send CNN an email saying that the company did work with McKinsey to improve claims handling but stopped using the program in 1999. This story is a good example of the true colors of insurance companies and further demonstrates why insurance companies are not your friends during personal injury cases.  

A federal jury ordered two U-Haul companies to pay $2.6 million in damages for  personal injuries that occurred nearly five years ago when a trailer pulling an Ohio couple’s SUV swerved and flipped over in Tennessee.

According to their personal injury lawsuit as detailed in a story in Cincinnati’s The Enquirer, Christian and Mindy Strong rented a U-Haul trailer in 2002 to pull a motorcycle from Ohio to Florida. A friend, Brian Hunzicker, also attended the couple. While driving back through Tennessee, the Strongs’ Ford Explorer swerved and rolled, leaving Christian with two broken wrists, Hunzicker with minor injuries, and Mindy with serious injuries. Mindy suffered a broken back, lacerated liver and brain trauma resulting in cognitive and memory problems.

The couple claimed that U-Haul failed to properly instruct them how to use the trailer and to stay within a 45-mph speed limit. They also alleged that the U-Haul trailer was defective, a claim which was thrown out by the eight-person jury. However, the jury agreed that U-Haul failed to properly warn of the dangers of pulling the trailer. The subsequent U-Haul car accident settlement awarded $1.98 million to Mindy Strong, $111,399 to Christian Strong and $40,916 to Hunzicker. U-Haul International and U-Haul Co. of Massachusetts and Ohio Inc., were also ordered to pay $220,800 each in punitive damages.

While the weekend is often a great time to take ATV vehicles off-road to have a fun time, a recent Massachusetts ATV accident teaches an important lesson about knowing the riding and safety laws in your state, especially for children!

Just last Super Bowl Sunday, a nine-year-old boy who shouldn’t even have been riding an ATV was involved in an extremely dangerous Massachusetts ATV accident, according to a recent story in The Salem News. The boy had been riding with a party including an 8-year-old boy and that friend’s father. While trying to cross a road, the boy’s ATV was struck by a minivan. Somehow the boy, who was thankfully wearing a helmet, avoided a serious personal injury after the collision caused his ATV to burst into flames. Since the boy is a juvenile, his name was not released by police.

Massachusetts police officer Gayle Haley described in the story how the boy was not supposed to be on an ATV. Haley said that eight and nine year olds are not allowed to ride ATVs under any circumstances in the state. Massachusetts law requires a child to be 10 years old to ride an ATV and 16½  years old in order to cross a road.

The adult supervising the nine-year-old boy is now facing some very serious charges following this Massachusetts ATV accident. 47-year-old Ronnie G. Ouellette was specifically charged with:

• "3 counts of allowing the operation of unregistered recreational vehicles, and the unsafe operation of them;

• 2 counts of allowing a child under 161/2 to cross a highway on the ATV; and

• trespassing on the power line right of way."

Ouellette would not comment on the incident, but did say that he was extremely upset about what happened. Preventing these types of ATV accidents has become a major source of concern lately, as evident by the various ATV bills in state legislatures throughout the country.

Concerned Senators and advocacy groups seriously questioned the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Long Island Rail Road about the problem with gap-related New York train accidents this week, and some interesting details were learned.

Long Island Rail Road officials described the extent of gap train accidents for the first time on Thursday. According to a Newsday story, company officials said that there are 32 platforms at 22 LIRR stations with gaps exceeding 10 inches. Metro-North Railroad president Peter Cannito confirmed that his railroad has 26 similar gaps at 17 stations. LIRR officials said that they have already begun fixing some of the gaps and also plan to spend more than $13 million to continue to do so. LIRR officials said that the company will have a specific safety plan to address the gap issues by the end of the month.

According to an Associated Press story in the New York Daily News, LIRR officials said that the company is launching a public relations campaign about the gap dangers and redesigning “Watch the Gap” decals which will be placed on their trains. One advocacy group wondered whether such signs would be enough for train passengers, while Senators justifiably asked what took LIRR so long to do more about these past and recent train accidents!

A grisly incident this summer involving a Minnesota teen who fell into a gap at a New York subway station and was killed when a train ran her over prompted a 5-month investigative study by Newsday on the history of these types of train accidents. A recent Newsday story revealed that New York gap-train accidents and personal injuries had been occurring for more than 30 years, and that instead of fixing the problem, LIRR and its parent company, MTA, decided to settle most of the resulting personal injury lawsuits over the years. MTA and LIRR are no longer able to hide from this problem as the Senate hearing on Thursday revealed!

The severe injuries and consequences from ATV accidents have been detailed here in the past, and West Virginia has recently joined the growing list of states seriously addressing ATV safety concerns. Three ATV bills have been introduced in the West Virginia House of Delegates to bolster safety regulations and try to curb West Virginia ATV accidents.

According to a story in the Charleston Daily Mail, there were 54 West Virginia ATV deaths last year. The West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles says that nearly half of those fatalities involved ATV accidents on paved roads. Two of the three bills would ban ATV use on paved roads, require all riders to wear helmets, and ban any additional passengers unless allowed by the specific vehicle manufacturer.

• West Virginia delegate Corey Palumbo has introduced a bill which would essentially eliminate ATV use on open roads with the exception of riders on trails, who could drive an ATV vehicle on the berm of the road for up to one mile. Current West Virginia law allows ATV riders on trails to do so for ten miles. Palumbo said that the number of West Virginia ATV accidents and deaths on open, paved roads is an extremely important issue because their tires are not designed for pavement. Palumbo admitted that he does not think his bill will get passed but hoped that it would spark more discussion.

• Delegate Kenneth Tucker has introduced a similar ATV bill which would require state agencies to develop an incident form describing all known West Virginia ATV accidents. The West Virginia Division of Highway would then have to include these forms in its annual traffic accident analysis. This bill would exempt the restrictions on riders legally operating their vehicles in areas managed by the Hatfield McCoy Regional Recreation Authority, according to the story. Both Tucker’s and Palumbo’s bills would also take into account recommendations from ATV manufacturers and West Virginia State Police.

In addition to these ATV bills, delegate Sam Argento has introduced a bill that would require ATV owners and operators to get off-road driving permit cards and display this identification on the vehicle. According to Argento, only 150,000 of the near half-million ATV vehicles in West Virginia are registered! All three bills are pending in committees, according to the Charleston Daily Mail story.

Earlier this week, a Rhode Island jury awarded the family of a mother who died after receiving negligent care from an emergency room doctor a $21.5 million verdict for personal injuries. Irish immigrant Mary O’Sullivan visited Newark Hospital three times in four days for flu-like symptoms back in 1999 before dying from complications of streptococcus pneumonia some 3½ weeks later, according to the family’s personal injury attorney, Mark B. Decof, in a story in The Providence Journal.

The family’s personal injury lawsuit claimed that the doctor who saw O’Sullivan on the second visit, Dr. Charles L. Stengel, failed to notice and respond to signs of bacterial infection, including toxins which were eating away at her lungs. Stengel sent the 34-year-old O’Sullivan home without antibiotics and told her to see a doctor in five days. According to the story, O’Sullivan had to return to the hospital in less than two days. Another doctor immediately recognized her pneumonia and severe sepsis. Decof said that a hole “the size of a softball” developed in a lung of O’Sullivan, who unfortunately died on March 1, 1999.

The personal injury lawsuit against Stengel and Newport Emergency Physicians Inc., a corporation which contracts emergency doctors to Newark Hospital, alleged that O’Sullivan would have had a full recovery in three to five days if Stengel had noticed and responded to the symptoms of pneumonia. The jury agreed, awarding the family a verdict which could eventually reach up to $28.63 million with interest, according to Decof. Specifically, O’Sullivan’s husband Noel was awarded $9 million for loss of consortium while her three children were given $4 million each for “loss of parental society.” $500,000 also went to O’Sullivan’s estate for pain and suffering. The award did not include economic damages like medical bills or lost wages.

This $21.5 million verdict is the largest jury award in the state since 1999 and surpasses that period’s previous high $18.9 million Pawtucket car accident settlement in 2002, according to Jason M. Scally, a Managing Editor of a weekly Rhode Island law publication that tracks such information. Decof said in the story that he is nearly certain that the jury award is the largest medical malpractice verdict and personal injury verdict in the history of the state.