The BBC reports that studies show that the interactive overhead projectors may be harmful to students and teachers. Documents obtained by an industry whistleblower from the British Health and Safety Executive, through a Freedom of Information Act request, say users “should make sure that direct beam viewing of the optical output from this equipment is both controlled and restricted to no more than a few tens of seconds at a time.”

The government documents say that while few people could stand to look directly at a projector’s lamp for enough time to cause harm, the light beam could damage a viewer’s peripheral retina. A straw poll of teaching representatives in Wiltshire, England shows only a few have been told how to use whiteboards safely.

Activists are seeking, at least, a warning label.

Popular Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway Contains Highly Toxic Lead Paint!

A Chicago parent recently filed a proposed class-action personal injury lawsuit against "Thomas the Train" manufacturer RC2 for children’s toys featuring red and yellow surface paint containing lead. Plaintiff Channing House claimed in her personal injury lawsuit that she is worried about the possible effects on her children from the defective toys, which include the popular Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway, as lead is highly toxic when ingested. The suit states that children often put toys in their mouth and then claims that children under six will absorb about 50 percent of the lead they ingest, with IQ deficits, behavioral problems, learning disabilities, stunted growth and impaired hearing just some of the possible side effects from ingestion.

On June 14th, the Consumer Product Commission ordered a voluntary recall of the toys. However, House has claimed that RC2 has not properly responded to this potentially serious health hazard. The company has agreed to exchange the dangerous toys with new and safer ones but will not be offering a reimbursement program. RC2 markets its kids products under popular brands like Thomas & Friends, Bob the Builder, John Deere, Nickelodeon, Winnie the Pooh and Sesame Street.

With that said, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Wednesday night that two more lawsuits have been filed against RC2 concerning these toys. Also aspiring for class-action status, these lawsuits are seeking more than $5 million in damages combined.

The President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology recently held a public meeting in Washington on the safety of nanotechnologies. According to MSNBC, a report by Terry Davies says that it’s time to start discussing safety laws to protect the public from risks that may develop in the future.

Nanotechnologies involve materials and devices, some of which are hundreds of times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Nano materials are measured in nanometers, a billionth of a meter. Some uses of nanotechnology already includes stain-resistant pants and suntan lotions. The particles in these products a less than 100 nanometers in diameter. “A sheet of paper, in comparison, is a whopping 100,000 nanonmeters thick.”

What worries some experts are unpredictable behaviours of nano-scale materials. MSNBC reports that even subtle changes in the size of particles can precipitate wildly different changes in the basic properties of those materials, including their toxicity.

Davies said that “We’ve learned with biotech and nuclear power, if there are not adequate safeguards, the public is going to resist the technology and it won’t meet its potential.”

$942,000 Personal Injury Verdict Awarded to Man Working for Union Pacific

A 56-year-old Nebraska man who suffered serious slip and fall injuries outside of a motel that he was paid to stay at by his employer, Union Pacific, was recently awarded a $942,000 personal injury verdict. Terry Sigler worked as a Union Pacific railroad conductor for nearly 40 years when he was stationed to stay at a Super 8 Motel in Missouri Valley on March 7, 2002. While returning from dinner that night, Sigler slipped on a patch of ice and suffered torn knee ligaments that eventually progressed to profound arthritis. This case fell under the Federal Employers Liability Act, which holds employers liable for even the slightest negligence in the workplace. Union Pacific naturally claimed that it was Sigler’s fault for not paying attention to the ice, but his personal injury attorney was able to show that the Super 8 parking lot and sidewalk were not adequately lit and that the motel in question failed do anything about earlier reports that the lightning needed to be changed.

An Omaha World-Herald story detailed that Union Pacific’s bottom line would not be affected in this case because the railroad requires contract hotels to have insurance for such costs and the $942,000 personal injury verdict falls under the company’s $2 million maximum on its insurance policy.

The Boy’s Parents Supported the Lawsuit to Get a Refusing Insurance Company to Pay a $100,000 Claim!

On Thursday, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that a boy who suffered brain injuries as a toddler during an SUV car accident can file a personal injury lawsuit against his parents for improperly installing and maintaining his car seat. Now nine years old, Teddy Harrison suffered a serious brain injury that left him permanently disabled six years ago when he flew from his mother’s SUV during an accident caused by an uninsured driver. A  Pioneer Press story detailed how Harrison initially sued the car seat manufacturer Century Products Co. on the claim that the seat was defective since its buckle could click as locked while having a penny lodged in it. Century Products Co. claimed that the boy should have sued his parents in part for failing to install and maintain the seat. After reaching a confidential settlement with the company, the boy filed suit against his parents, whom fully supported the legal action in an effort to get Progressive insurance company to pay for a $100,000 claim.

It turns out that Progressive refused to pay the insurance claim for the boy’s injuries and cited a 1963 "gag rule" barring evidence about the lack of use of seat belts and child-restraint seats in personal injury cases. Progressive told the family that it would pay for the claim if the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of Teddy, and now must do so after yesterday’s decision. Teddy Harrison’s personal injury attorney Robert King expressed satisfaction with the decision and reaffirmed that the lawsuit was not about a boy suing his parents but rather making an insurance company do the right thing.

Congratulations to King and the Harrison Family for not backing down to Progressive, which once again showed how insurance companies operate with their bottom lines ahead of everything else during personal injury cases.

Ex-Supreme Court Nominee Robert Bork Suing Yale Club for Personal Injuries

Robert Bork, a tort reform advocate who once criticized juries for handing out "lottery-like windfalls" in personal injury cases, has found himself on the other side of the fence recently. Bork has been severely criticized and even called hypocritical by some for his recent $1 million personal injury lawsuit against the Yale Club. Bork was set to give a speech at the Yale Club of New York last June when he allegedly fell backward while trying to mount a platform. Bork’s personal injury lawsuit claimed that the Yale Club failed to provide stairs between the floor and the dais and that he suffered personal injuries which required surgery and physical therapy. The 80-year-old Bork also claimed that he now walks with a cane and a limp because of the fall, and sued for unspecified punitive damages and actual damages for pain and suffering, medical treatment, and losing income and time at work.

Bork’s personal injury lawsuit especially drew the ire in this editorial in The New York Times. Of further interest, Bork was a federal appeals judge in Washington from 1982 to 1988. He was once nominated to the Supreme Court by late President Ronald Reagan in 1987, but the Senate denied this request.

And We Thought the Cicadas Were Bad in Chicago!

In one of the more "bugging" personal injury cases to be seen in the last 17 years, a railroad worker is suing the Kansas City Southern Railway Co. for damages sustained from an insect sting on the job three years ago. Michael Aguillard claims it was the responsibility of the railway to inform him about the dangers of bug bites and stings and thus negligently failed to provide him with a safe workplace when it did not warn him of this information, spray for bugs and give him the proper working equipment. Aguillard was stung on June 20, 2004 while working with track materials and has claimed that he suffered injuries to the soft tissues, ligaments, tendons, muscles and blood vessels of his hands, arms, back and heart, including a mitral valve prolapse. Aguillard also claims in his personal injury lawsuit that he has suffered severe pain and suffering and is suing for lost wages, earnity capacity and benefits.

As the song goes, it’s a hard knock life for bugs. Oh wait. That’s us, not bugs.

A House subcommittee has approved legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) greater power to oversee drug safety. The changes would improve drug labels and force pharmaceutical companies to conduct studies of products already on the market.

The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health voted to improve the FDA’s ability to detect harmful side effects once medication are sold. Lawmakers said the changes were needed following drugs being pulled from the market, including Merck’s Vioxx and GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia. Personal injury lawsuits regarding Vioxx have been working their way through the courts.

The full committee will consider the legislation soon. The Senate has already approved a similar measure. The House and the Senate will need to iron out any differences in their bills after they’ve passed both houses of Congress.

A West Palm Beach, Florida personal injury jury found Ford Motor Company responsible for a woman’s crippling injuries and awarded her $10.4 million. 66-year old Donna Grimes of Boca Raton was left a quadriplegic when her Ford Explorer was struck from behind.

The jury found that her injuries occurred when the reclining mechanism in her seat failed, throwing her backward and snapping her neck when her head struck the back seat.

Ford said it will appeal the personal injury award. A spokesman said the crash was so severe that Ford’s seat design could not be held responsible for Ms. Grimes’ injuries.

An 11-year-old girl gets bitten by a Rottweiler back in 1999 and is left with serious injuries to her face. As a 19-year-old woman, she files a personal injury lawsuit against the owners of the animal. How is she able to do this? Hasn’t the statute of limitations long run out on her filing a personal injury claim?

Not so in this case. Laura Haidet was attacked eight years ago by a dog owned by Gregory and Nancy Kovalchick while she was playing video games with other children at the home of the defendants in Bristolville, Pennsylvania. A Vindy.com story explains that while the statute of limitations for filing for bodily damages in Pennsylvania is two years, this does not apply to a minor under normal circumstances. Haidet’s personal injury attorney, Rick Bush, elaborated in the story that the statute of limitations for a case involving a minor begins from the date of the person’s 18^th birthday. In other words, Haidet had two years from the day she turned 18 to file her Pennsylvania personal injury lawsuit for bodily damages; which thus makes her claim as a 19-year-old acceptable.

Haidet suffered deep wounds to the face during the dog attack, which was described in the personal injury lawsuit as being “without warning or provocation.” She needed 150 stitches to close the wounds and required surgery for scar revision. Haidet now claims that she needs surgery to improve the positioning of her nose cartilage and a noticeable difference between both sides of her nose. She is thus seeking more than $25,000 from the Kovalchick family, who was not available for comment in the story.

This personal injury case once again reveals the importance of talking to an experienced lawyer as soon as possible after suffering a personal injury. Statutes of limitations vary from state-to-state and sometimes even by the type of claim, and thus may not be as clear cut as you think. With that said, a local personal injury attorney can fill you in on the statute of limitations in your state and provide the clarity that you may need.