In Winter Park, Fla., a family has pressed charges against a dentist for allegedly dropping dental tools down the throat of their 90-year-old family member - twice.
According to a Chicago Tribune article, Dr. Wesley Meyers dropped an implant screwdriver down Charles Geal Jr.’s throat in 2006 and a mini-wrench in 2007. After several invasive surgeries to remove the tools, Geal never fully recovered. He died in 2007, but there is no known direct correlation with the dental mishaps.
Meyers was fined by the state for his mistakes, and was found negligent - but now the family is seeking more compensation. To drop anything down a patient’s throat beyond the point of recovering it is awful - but to do it twice is even worse.
An injury lawyer is representing Geal’s family in this personal injury lawsuit.
According to state laws in four states and the District of Columbia, if you play any role in your own personal injury, you cannot collect compensation from a personal injury lawsuit against other parties involved.
One of these states is North Carolina, and for the first time after repeated attempts, a bill to change this law has passed the State House of Representatives and is in the State Senate.
According to the Winston-Salem Journal, N.C. resident Lisa Vogel will never receive compensation for her son’s death - because he knowingly got in a car with his friend’s roommate, who was convicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter and DWI.
The driver was able to defend himself because he was able to prove that Vogel’s son was negligent in getting in the car in the first place. Even an injury lawyer can’t help that case.
Fortunately for victims of personal injury and injury lawyers, a change is in process. The Winston-Salem Journal reported that the bill in the Senate would also make a major change to the current state law by taknig away a rule that says that if a plaintiff wins a lawsuit against several defendants, each defendant can be held responsible both for paying their share of the damages and the shares of the other defendants.
Check out the full article at the Winston-Salem Journal.
Prison inmates have their rights, too. In the Dallas County jail, two different inmates and their families filed injury lawsuits against the county, claiming they were neglected and denied much-needed medical treatment.
According to a report from the Dallas Morning News, the county paid out nearly $500,000 in damages for the two cases. The first suit was filed as a wrongful death in 2005, when a schizophrenic inmate died of pneumonia and the prison guards did not take her to the infirmary for medical treatment after she was found in her cell lying in her own waste. Her family will be awarded $250,000 in compensation.
The second lawsuit involved an inmate who was punched in the eye by another inmate, and clearly needed medical attention after losing his vision because of the blow. Guards refused to send him to doctors, and he never received the surgery he needed to properly fix his severely bruised eye. He will receive $190,000 for compensation.
An injury lawyer helped with the injury settlements in both of these cases.
The Dallas Morning News article also cited other cases of neglect of inmates needing medical treatment in the Dallas County jail in the past decade.
Moral of this story? If you ever find yourself inprisoned in Dallas, don’t get hurt, or you may never receive treatment.