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Woman’s death raises questions about nursing home medical records

Sep 19th, 2011 by admin

Don Esco first laid eyes on his future bride, Johnnie, when they were both 14, a chance meeting aboard a streetcar bound for Santa Monica beach.

It was the summer of 1944, and Esco was about to fall hard for the spirited, 5-foot-4-inch girl with blond hair and blue eyes, the youngest of 15 kids.

“The minute I saw her, I said to myself, ‘That’s the gal for me,’ ” said Esco, now 81.

“I’ve never looked at another woman.”

After nearly 61 years of marriage, Esco’s Texas-born dream girl – nicknamed “Sunshine” – died after a 13-day stay at the El Dorado Care Center in Placerville. Recuperating from a bout with pneumonia, Johnnie Esco, 77, was expected to return home with her husband after some rest and skilled-nursing care.

Don Esco buried his wife instead.

The nursing home and its former owner, Horizon West Healthcare Inc. – a Rocklin-based company with a history of licensing violations and run-ins with regulators – would soon be at the center of another legal storm.

Johnnie Esco’s death on March 7, 2008, led to a contentious civil lawsuit, investigations by California’s Department of Justice and Department of Public Health – and the exhumation of her body from Arlington National Cemetery.

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Lawsuits Aplenty After Deadly California Off-Road Racing Accident Claims Eight Lives

Sep 17th, 2011 by admin

Multiple personal injury lawsuits are pending as a result of the horrifying accident at the California 200, a popular off-road race in the Mojave Desert about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. During the race in the summer of 2010, one driver’s truck went off the track and flew into spectators, sending bodies flying on a section of track that had no guardrails or appropriate safety measures to protect the crowds.

Six people died almost immediately on or near the track and two others died after being taken to a hospital.

Numerous lawsuits have stemmed from the now infamous California 200 accident and some have now reached federal court. Among the litany of legal claims are wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits which allege that the federal government, the organizers and promoter of the race and the driver of the truck were all negligent in the deaths and the injuries. Lawyers have already filed several other lawsuits stemming from the California 200 accident. Those have been filed in California state courts, although lawyers believe that all pending cases could be consolidated into one federal case. At issue in the suits are to what extent the promoters, driver and the owners of the land, the federal government, are negligent and responsible for the accidents, fatalities and injuries.

The plaintiffs contend the agency negligently and recklessly managed and supervised the race. It is expected that the lawsuits will attempt to hold the parties responsible for the financial, medical, emotional and psychological pain inflicted on those that lost loved ones and for medical bills incurred by the injured.

Thousands of race fans were packed along the 50-mile track. The exact location of the crash, a streth of track called the “rockpile,” is a fan favorite due to the close proximity to the vehicles themselves. “You could touch it if you wanted to. It’s part of the excitement,” said 19-year-old Niky Carmikle, whose boyfriend, 24-year-old Zachary Freeman of Ventura, was killed in the crash. Due to the remote location of the race, it took rescue vehicles and helicopters nearly an hour to get medical assistance to the injured.

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Traditional end of the pool season brings attention to indoor water safety

Sep 9th, 2011 by admin

CPSC Warns of Drowning Dangers in Bathtubs, Bath Seats and Buckets
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The danger of drowning for young children is a real one, all year long. Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death among children ages 1 to 4. With Labor Day representing the traditional end of the pool season, parents and caregivers need to know that drowning risks inside the home are ever present.

In fact, bathtubs are the second leading location, after pools, where young children drown. Buckets, other containers, and even landscaping features, also can present a danger of drowning.

A new report from CPSC on submersions related to non-pool and non-spa products indicates that from 2005 to 2009, there were 660 submersion incidents involving children younger than five years old. There were 431 fatalities, 212 injuries and 17 incidents with unknown injuries. The majority of the victims were younger than the age of two and most of the incidents involved bath or bath related products. CPSC’s analysis of the fatalities found that 92 percent occurred in residential settings.

“Young children can drown in just a few inches of water,” said Chairman Inez Tenenbaum. “I urge parents and caregivers to constantly supervise young children around bathtubs, bath seats and buckets. There are simple steps that every family can take to prevent drownings in the home.”

Many of the reported incidents involved a lapse in supervision, such as a parent or caregiver leaving the bathroom while the child was in the bathtub to answer the phone or door, or to retrieve a towel. In other incidents, an older sibling was left to watch a younger sibling.

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United States and Two California State Agencies File Civil Lawsuit Against Greka Oil & Gas Inc. for Oil Spills in Santa Barbara County

Jun 25th, 2011 by admin

WASHINGTON – The United States, the California Department of Fish and Game and the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Central Coast Region, filed a civil complaint today in federal court against Greka Oil & Gas Inc. (now known as HVI Cat Canyon Inc.) alleging that the company violated federal and state water laws.

According to the complaint, announced today by the Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Central Coast Region and the California Department of Fish and Game, Greka illegally discharged crude oil and produced water from its oil and gas production facilities in Santa Barbara County during 21 spills between June 2005 and December 2010. The spills resulted from ruptured storage tanks, corroded pipelines and overflowing injection ponds. Oil from each of the spills flowed into nearby waterways.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, also alleges that at 12 facilities, Greka failed to prepare plans and implement measures required by the Clean Water Act to prevent, contain, and respond to spills.

The lawsuit asks the court to order Greka to take all appropriate action to prevent future spills, and to fully implement the oil pollution prevention requirements of the Clean Water Act. The United States and the two California state agencies also seek civil penalties up to the maximum amount authorized by law.

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Supreme Court case involving Wal-Mart could help determine how big one lawsuit can get

Mar 24th, 2011 by admin

Brad Seligman is a determined civil rights lawyer with a small office and a powerful idea for turning a single lawsuit into a nationwide class action claim against America’s largest employer.

Armed with stories from several women who said they were passed over for promotions at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Seligman is at the helm of what could be the largest job-discrimination case in U.S. history, affecting as many as two million women and putting at risk tens of billions of dollars of the company’s money.

This U.S. Supreme Court case, a decade in the making, has been described as the battle of Berkeley versus Bentonville, in which crusading liberal lawyers take on the conservative, male-dominated culture of the Arkansas-based retail giant.

The court’s ruling could be the most far-reaching decision on job bias in more than a decade, according to experts on both sides. A win for Seligman’s clients could open the door for the broader use of statistics to prove job discrimination — and not just on behalf of women, but also for minorities or persons with disabilities.

However, a win for Wal-Mart could deal a death blow to nationwide job-bias suits by ruling that employees who work in different stores and hold different jobs do not have enough in common to be a class.

U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, in a dissent to a ruling for the workers last year, said the million-plus women who have worked at Wal-Mart “have little in common but their sex and this lawsuit.”

But proving a single worker was a victim of illegal discrimination is slow, hard and costly. In its defense, the employer can often point to good reasons for promoting one person over another.

In a class action, by contrast, the numbers can speak for themselves — and they do so loudly. Given a computer and a court order, a statistician can paint a damning portrait of a company.

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$430k settlement reached in Love Twitter lawsuit

Mar 8th, 2011 by admin

Courtney Love’s 140 character Twitter rants against a fashion designer are costing her more than $430,000, an attorney says.

The singer has settled a lawsuit filed by Dawn Simorangkir, who sued the Hole frontwoman in March 2009 accusing her of making false statements about the designer and her past in a series of postings on the microblogging site Twitter and Love’s Myspace blog.

The settlement was confirmed by Simorangkir’s attorney, Bryan J. Freedman. The designer’s label is called Boudoir Queen, and according to her lawsuit, she first came in contact with Love in 2008 and they met in February 2009 in Los Angeles to discuss some custom clothing.

The lawsuit contained several postings written under Love’s former Twitter account, courtneylover79, that accused Simorangkir of theft and of having a criminal background.

The widow of grunge rocker Kurt Cobain, Love has gained a reputation on the microblogging service Twitter, posting occasionally profane and sometimes nonsensical messages on a variety of topics. Several posts have lashed out at attorneys and other individuals who have drawn the musician’s ire, with her Tweets coming in rapid succession and using every bit of the site’s 140 character maximum per post.

The case had been scheduled to go to trial in February, and was expected to be the first trial in which a jury decided whether a celebrity’s Twitter posts could be considered libel.

Freedman confirmed that a settlement had been reached, and said Love’s attorneys had hoped to keep it confidential.

“In order to show the world the comments were derogatory and completely illegal, it was imperative to my client to have the settlement be public,” Freedman said.

The attorney said a public statement will be issued next week, but the nearly $430,000, plus interest, that Love is required to pay, reflects the seriousness of the case.

“Personally I think $430,000 is an appropriate way to say she’s sorry,” Freedman said.

The settlement was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Love’s attorney, Michael Niborski, did not immediately return an after-hours phone message.

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Immigrants custody death prompts lawsuit

Feb 17th, 2011 by admin

A lawsuit has been filed against the federal government over the death of a suspected illegal immigrant who was in custody. Family members claim his life could have been saved.

Do suspected illegal immigrants receive substandard medical care? That is the claim of the lawsuit. Family members announced the lawsuit Monday in downtown Los Angeles.

Are illegal immigrants treated differently than other prison while in custody? The case in question centers around a man who was in an Orange County jail facility under the authority of the federal immigration service. His family claims he received substandard medical care that led to his death.

The family of Jose Aguilar-Espinoza came to federal court Monday to blame the government for their father’s death.

“I feel a lot of pain for what happened to my dad,” said Aguilar-Espinoza’s daughter, Nora Espinoza, through an interpreter. “We’re trying to speak so this type of injustice will not happen to other people.”

Aguilar-Espinoza was in custody awaiting deportation proceedings. On January 31, he was at the Orange County Theo Lacy Facility jail when he went into cardiac arrest. He was transferred next door to UCI Medical Center, where he died a short time later. Attorneys for the family say it shouldn’t have happened.

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When cars and SUVs crash-Needlessly big costs

Jan 27th, 2011 by admin

Cars and SUVs don’t stand bumper-to-bumper. That mismatch can turn what would have been minor rear-enders into massive repair bills for both vehicles if they crash, according to a new report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The Insurance Institute, a private group financed by insurance companies, blames the divergence on what it calls a “long-standing gap” in federal auto safety regulations.

“SUVs and cars share the road,” said Joe Nolan, the Institute’s chief administrative officer. “The problem is they don’t share the same bumper rules, and consumers end up paying the price.”

Federal rules require cars to have bumpers that protect an area between 16 and 20 inches from the ground. That means when cars crash into each other, they at least tend to hit bumper-to-bumper.

But there are no such rules for trucks and SUVs. Bumpers for SUVs, even car-based crossover SUVs, are often high in the air where car bumpers can pass underneath them. That leads to expensive damage.

To see how bad the damage could be, the Institute conducted low-speed crash tests, running SUVs and small cars into each other at 10 miles per hour. Seven pairs of vehicles — one SUV and one small car from each of seven manufacturers — were bumped into each other. In each case, the SUV was driven into the back of the car at 10 miles per hour, then the opposite was done and the car was banged into the back of the SUV.

“We picked vehicles from the same manufacturer because we think automakers should at least pay attention to bumper compatibility across their own fleets,” Nolan said in an announcement. “The results show many don’t.”

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Why Do Some Accident Lawyer Clients Get Under-Compensated?

Jan 3rd, 2011 by admin

Did you know that for various reasons a substantial percentage of the people involved in accidents go uncompensated and even those who get accident lawyers may still end up under-compensated?

This can have a great impact on victims of car accidents as they may have sustained injuries that need expensive medical attention. It becomes really painful if in such a case the person who is to be blamed for the accident goes scot-free. It means the unfortunate injured person has to cover their own medical and related bills-a cost which the injured person probably never budgeted for.

A large part of the solution here is to get an accident lawyer. Accident lawyers are always ready to see that your voice is heard and that justice is served.

Accident cases can be complex. There are several reasons that may have led to the car accident;

- Over speeding

- Driving under the influence of alcohol

- Poor road signs

- Bad weather

- Careless driving

And indeed each accident case is bound to be very difficult to solve by just looking at what may have happened. For instance if the accident scene was manipulated soon after the crash, it could be very difficult to discover what really happened.

An accident lawyer uses their experience to carefully study the accident scene until they begin to piece together what could have really happened and the truth is unearthed.

One way to get a good accident lawyer is through referrals from the attorney’s office. Lawyers’ work hand in hand with the Attorneys office. The reason why it is best to get an accident lawyer through referral is that not all lawyers who advertise themselves will guarantee that you get the best possible hearing of your case.

There exists other governmental organizations that can also refer you to a good lawyer. What you should do is to get to know more about the accident lawyer, for example the success of their cases and whether the lawyer will be with your case until the end.

Searching Online for lawyers can be one of the easiest ways to get a good accident lawyer.

What ever method you may decide to use, just make sure you call up your prospective accident lawyer and if possible arrange for a meeting to get well acquainted.

personalinjurylawyerslosangeles.blogsml.com

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Auto safety bill prompted by Toyota incidents is in doubt

Dec 17th, 2010 by admin

Senate legislation that would create major new safety standards and increase fines for automakers in violation of federal rules is running into Republican opposition and may never be put to a vote.

The most comprehensive overhaul of motor vehicle safety laws in a decade, which once seemed certain in the wake of Toyota’s sudden-acceleration problems, may never reach a vote in Congress.

“It is hanging on by a thread,” said Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate who became deeply involved in pushing for the overhaul. “It is a once-in-20-year opportunity. A bill like this is not going to come by again.”

The legislation, S.3302, has 23 major provisions that would create new safety standards, increase fines against automakers for violating federal rules and put an emphasis for the first time on safeguarding the electronic systems now ubiquitous in motor vehicles.

The legislation evolved out of three congressional investigations into reports of fatal accidents involving Toyota and Lexus vehicles that suddenly accelerated. The company was forced to temporarily stop sales, recall millions of vehicles and eventually pay a fine of $16.4 million for not promptly notifying the federal government about defects.

The main obstacle to passing the legislation, auto safety advocates say, is Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who has carved out a niche as a fiscal hard-liner.

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