27 December

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Lead in Toy Jewelry Prompts Lawsuit Against Target, Walmart and Importer

Two of the nation’s largest retailers and a third company are named in a New York lawsuit claiming the companies imported and sold children’s toys with lead levels up to 10 times higher than federal limits. New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood said in the lawsuit filed in an Albany court Thursday that Walmart, Target and Randolph, New Jersey-based LaRose Industries, importer of the “Cra-Z-Jewelz” jewelry-making kits, “committed thousands of violations” of state laws regulating the safety of children’s toys sold in New York. Underwood, a Democrat, said tests the attorney general’s office conducted on kits purchased across the state in 2015 and ’16 found that...

25 December

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Driverless Industry Surges Forward While Hill Hiccups on Regulation

Posted by orincohenlaw

in Accidents, Car Accidents, Injuries, Insurance, Wrongful Death

Sen. John Thune was test-driving a car of the future when he ran into a very 20th-century problem: traffic. In 2016, Washington’s local laws forced Thune’s autonomous-capable Chrysler sedan to motor into neighboring Virginia before it could show off the no-hands navigation. That’s where the South Dakota Republican got stuck in a tide of commuters. “Evidently driverless cars are not going to help our traffic jams,” he said. Thune was an early advocate for autonomous vehicles, but his experience among a fleet giving Congress test rides that day is a good example of why Capitol Hill needs to set uniform standards for driverless cars before the technology...

20 December

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5 Convicted, 1 Acquitted in Nationwide Meningitis Outbreak Case

Posted by orincohenlaw

in Accidents, Injuries, Insurance

Four former employees and an owner of the Massachusetts facility responsible for a nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak that has killed more than 100 people and sickened hundreds were convicted Thursday of fraud and other offenses. A Boston jury acquitted another employee, pharmacist Joseph Evanosky, of all charges after several days of deliberations. The defendants were among 14 people charged in 2014 following an investigation into the outbreak, which sickened almost 800 people. The CDC put the death toll at 64 as of October 2013. Federal prosecutors say more than 100 people have now died. The outbreak was blamed on contaminated injections of medical steroids made at...

18 December

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J&J Starts Settling Suits Over Pinnacle Hip Defect Claims

Posted by orincohenlaw

in Accidents, Injuries, Insurance

Johnson & Johnson has begun settling consumers’ claims that it sold artificial hips knowing they were defective, marking the first settlements in the seven-year-old litigation. A federal judge in Texas overseeing the cases said about 3,300 of 10,000 “have settled or are in the process of settling,’’ according to a Dec. 9 court filing. Terms of the accords weren’t made public. Johnson & Johnson has begun settling consumers’ claims that it sold artificial hips knowing they were defective, marking the first settlements in the seven-year-old litigation. A federal judge in Texas overseeing the cases said about 3,300 of 10,000 “have settled or are in the...

13 December

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Lawsuit Alleges Saks Guilty of Race, Age Discrimination

Posted by orincohenlaw

in Insurance, Premises Liability

Eight former employees at the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store filed a race and age discrimination lawsuit Tuesday against the high-end store and its corporate parent, alleging they were subjected to a hostile work environment and unfairly fired. The suit, filed in New York, said the men “were each forced to endure a pervasive pattern of discrimination and retaliation … their respective managers deliberately targeted them because of their race and/or age.” Attorney Derek Sells said managers for the four black, two white and two Hispanic men engaged in a range of actions including making it difficult to get customers from store foot traffic,...

11 December

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Companies Settle With Paralyzed Oilfield Worker for $44M

Posted by orincohenlaw

in Accidents, Injuries, Insurance, Premises Liability

An oilfield worker who was rendered quadriplegic after a light fixture improperly attached to an oil derrick fell more than 100 feet onto his head has settled his claims against five companies for a total of $44 million. The multimillion-dollar award is meant to compensate the injured plaintiff, James Burgess, and his wife, Kay Sharon Burgess, who live in rural Texas. The case, which was filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, came to a settlement after two days of mediation before retired federal magistrate Judge Diane Welsh. “Mrs. Burgess’s loss of consortium claim was probably the most significant consortium claim...

06 December

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Taking Multiple Medications Could Raise Crash Risk for Older Drivers

Posted by orincohenlaw

in Accidents, Car Accidents, Injuries, Insurance

Nearly 50 percent of older adults report using seven or more medications while remaining active drivers, according to new research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. An evaluation of the medications people are taking found that nearly 20 percent of older drivers are using medications that generally should be avoided because they have very limited therapeutic benefit, pose excess harm, or both. Drugs like these are called potentially inappropriate medications, or PIMs. Most of these potentially inappropriate medications, such as benzodiazepines and first-generation antihistamines, are known to cause impairing effects such as blurred vision, confusion, fatigue or incoordination, and can...

04 December

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Trial Win in Wrongful Death Case Against Distracted Driver

Posted by orincohenlaw

in Accidents, Car Accidents, Wrongful Death

Distracted drivers caused 54,302 crashes, injuries, and wrongful deaths in North Carolina in 2016. If you travel on the streets or highways, you are at risk for being injured or killed by someone who is more interested in their phone than their driving. On the morning of May 10, 2016, Russell Rutledge was driving his Chevrolet Silverado from a business meeting in Garner to meet a colleague in Durham. As he drove, Rutledge was using his cell phone to text, email, and make and receive phone calls. The evidence showed that Rutledge drifted onto the shoulder of Highway 98 in Durham...

December 2018