Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

by

Any fatal auto accident is a tragedy. A death that occurs because one or more people engaged in reckless driving is particularly disheartening. When people engage in street racing, stunts, aggressive driving, or impaired driving, they may have done more than engage in mere negligence. When misconduct behind the wheel rises to the level of recklessness, it may significantly impact an injured person’s pursuit of justice. If a reckless driver has hurt you, the law presents many options. To enhance your case, ensure you have retained an Oregon auto accident lawyer who has experience in these cases.

Reckless driving resulted in the death of a teenage boy in Northeast Portland in late November, according to police. Authorities believe that an 18-year-old driver performed “donuts” in his car when the vehicle rolled over onto its right side. The man’s passenger died in the accident.

Police also believe that the driver’s stunt driving was part of a street racing/street “takeover” event on North Marine Drive. (Street takeovers are events where people block off an area of roadway where people race, perform stunts like donuts and burnouts, and engage in other “exhibition driving” maneuvers.) These events frequently involve reckless driving. (Authorities charged the Northeast Portland driver with reckless driving and negligent homicide.)

Continue reading

by

Whether a person behind bars is a detainee or has already been convicted of a crime, they are constitutionally entitled to appropriate health care, including mental health care. Incarceration is incredibly stressful, and that stress can lead people to deep emotional depths, including suicidality. Too often, however, jail staff members do not do their jobs (such as skipping mandatory checks), and they miss clear signs of mental health distress. When a person behind bars harms themselves because the staff at their jail failed, that failure may represent a civil rights violation. If you suspect that has happened to a loved one, an experienced Oregon jail neglect lawyer can provide knowledgeable answers about your options.

A jail death to our south is one of the latest examples of these stresses and these kinds of jail staff failures.

A.A. was inside the Riverside County Jail in Southern California. According to the Desert Sun, he “had an extensive history of mental illness” and was housed in the jail’s mental health unit.

Continue reading

by

The death of 27-year-old S.B. was the tragic final chapter of a man allowed to “fall through the cracks” repeatedly. The man’s situation included many institutional failures, but one of the biggest was the inadequate mental health care he allegedly received while behind bars in Douglas County. Inmates and detainees are constitutionally entitled to appropriate health care while incarcerated, and a failure to receive that care can represent a violation of that person’s civil rights. If you have lost a loved one in this way or have questions about appropriate standards of care and jail inmates and detainees, be sure you get the reliable information you need by talking to an experienced Oregon jail neglect lawyer.

S.B. died seven weeks after he entered the Roseburg jail. On February 28, 2024, law enforcement officers encountered the man at a coffee shop repeatedly “asking customers if they wanted to ‘box’ and acting strangely.” A day later, police found the man wandering in traffic on a Douglas County highway. Despite the man’s mental health crisis, police arrested him for disorderly conduct.

When the man entered the Roseburg jail, he weighed 235 pounds. By the time deputies entered the man’s cell on April 18 to transport him to his court-ordered psychiatric treatment, he was down to 139 pounds, having lost more than 40% of his body weight.

Continue reading

by

Any worker dying in a workplace accident is a tragedy. What makes many of these tragedies so profoundly frustrating is that after-the-fact investigations reveal that the worker’s death was entirely preventable. Many workers lose their lives on the job when, with better training, better supervision, and better safety protections, their accidents could have been avoided entirely. Sometimes, these cases involve failures not only by the employer but by third parties, as well. When that happens, the worker’s family may be entitled to seek justice using an industrial accident lawsuit. For answers to your questions about this type of civil action, you should speak to an Oregon industrial accident lawyer experienced in litigating these sorts of cases.

A recent worker death was the latest example of a preventable accident, according to a state agency investigation. In early March 2024, a 32-year-old employee working at a paper mill in Camas, Washington died when a machine crushed him. A police report filed after the man died revealed that the worker “was working alone on a machine that had reportedly been having issues earlier in the day when the incident occurred.”

Not only had the machine had problems earlier in the day, but it also experienced issues during the man’s shift. According to a news release from the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, the man “called four times in one hour to ask for help troubleshooting” the machine. Still, he was left alone with the machine. Other employees only checked the station after boxes began backing up on the conveyor belt. By then, the machine’s metal arms had already crushed the man to death.

Continue reading

by

Construction workers face many hazards on the job. Some are inevitable, but too many dangers – and serious or fatal accidents – arise because someone (or some entity) failed to do what they were required to do. Because major construction projects typically involve a variety of entities, including general contractors, subcontractors, and more, the blame for your construction accident may fall on someone other than your employer. That means that, with the advice and counsel of an experienced Oregon industrial accident lawyer, you can potentially recover vital compensation through the civil justice system.

When it comes to construction dangers, four areas stand out: falls, electrocution, cave-ins during trenching or excavation, and “struck-by” accidents. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, roughly ¾ of “struck-by” injuries involve heavy equipment like trucks and cranes. OSHA’s data also shows that approximately 25% of fatal “struck by vehicle” accidents involve construction workers, more than any other profession.

A local accident from late May was yet another example of those dangers. On May 30, a forklift rolled on top of S.D., an ironworker working on the massive “modernization” project at a century-old high school in Northeast Portland, pinning and crushing her. The worker died two days later.

Continue reading

by

The laws of physics tell us, among other things, that the force an object exerts equals its mass times its acceleration. That equation reminds us that faster-moving vehicles (and large, heavy vehicles) exert the most force in collisions. Those crashes often are the most damaging. If you’ve lost a loved one in a highway crash, your family likely has many needs that potentially involve the justice system. As you seek to hold wrongdoers accountable and obtain vital compensation that your family needs, an experienced Oregon auto accident lawyer can provide crucial advice and representation as you seek to accomplish these essential objectives.

In the past two weeks, Interstate Highway 5 in Oregon has been the site of multiple fatal crashes. The more recent of the pair illustrates some important truths about highway crashes.

Last week, a stretch of I-5 located about 25 miles south of Portland was the site of a multi-vehicle collision. According to the state police, the driver of a Volkswagen compact sedan slammed into the rear of a Dodge pickup truck “at highway speeds.” The driver of a Nissan sedan then hit the truck, as well. This pair of high-speed crashes sent the northbound truck spinning into the southbound lanes, hitting a Ford pickup truck.

Continue reading

by

Workers today utilize machines to perform (or facilitate) a broad spectrum of tasks. Machines are essential to the success of many industrial and manufacturing operations. For the human workers in those facilities, their safety hinges in large part on those machines being in proper condition. An unsafe machine can pose all manner of risks that can disfigure, maim, or kill workers. If the entities who were responsible for that machine’s manufacturing, installation, maintenance, and repair were not the injured worker’s employer, then the worker has the opportunity, with the aid of an experienced Oregon industrial accident lawyer, to sue that third party (or parties) for their negligent acts (or inaction) and recoup essential compensation through the civil justice system.

The National Institutes of Health found that, from 1992-2010, an average of 770 workers died each year in “occupational fatalities involving machinery.” One cause of these accidents is substandard equipment. A machine that was defectively manufactured, installed improperly, or not maintained or repaired correctly is a machine that has the potential to kill workers.

Allegedly, that was the basis of a tragic workplace death just outside Medford. The deceased man, F.E., was a contractor hired by a company that allegedly was in the business of extracting hash oil from marijuana. The process required using an extraction machine system and butane as a solvent, and the company hired F.E. to install the system. F.E. and others spotted a leak during the installation process, according to the estate’s lawsuit. Everyone evacuated but when the contractor and one other man re-entered the warehouse, a massive explosion allegedly ensued. The contractor suffered widespread burn injuries that proved fatal.

Continue reading

by

A fatal accident west of Corvallis is a tragic yet important illustration that not all fatal vehicle accidents are created equal from a legal standpoint. All wrongful death cases arising from vehicle crashes can benefit from the services of a skilled Oregon wrongful death lawyer but some are especially complex, requiring extra steps and faster action.

The crash occurred in Yachats (a small coastal city about three hours southwest of Portland) and involved a 25-year-old woman driving her compact SUV northbound on Highway 101.

At the same time, an ambulance was turning left from a fire station driveway to enter the highway’s southbound lanes and respond to a high-priority call at a nearby assisted living facility. The two vehicles collided and the impact killed K.S., the mother-of-two who was driving the SUV.

Continue reading

by

Ten people died while in custody at the Multnomah County Jail in 2022 and 2023, as compared to zero deaths in the preceding two years. Too many times, preventable deaths – whether here locally or elsewhere – are the result of protocols not being followed or people otherwise not doing their jobs. When that kind of failure leads to an inmate or detainee’s death, that could represent a federal civil rights violation. For the families of those inmates/detainees, restorative justice may be available by pursuing legal action, aided by representation from an experienced Oregon civil rights lawyer.

One of those detainees who died in the Multnomah County Jail in 2022 was Stephen Murphy, who was awaiting trial on federal drug charges. At the time a fellow inmate found him unresponsive, the man was suffering from severe internal bleeding. A coroner’s autopsy discovered that the detainee had a tumor in his liver that had burst.

The sheriff’s department initially listed Murphy’s cause of death as “natural causes,” but later changed it to “overdose.” Willamette Week reported that Murphy had 7.4 ng/ml of fentanyl in his blood when he died. (The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Chief Medical Examiner considers 3 ng/ml or more enough to list overdose as a patient’s cause of death, in the absence of any other diseases.)

Continue reading

by

Insufficient medical treatment inside detention facilities is a significant issue around the country, including in Oregon’s jails and prisons. One major problem, a byproduct of the nationwide opioid epidemic, is an ever-increasing number of people entering lockup amid addiction. Whether as a result of a lack of diligence or a lack of knowledge, too many staff at lockups are failing to meet the needs of these detainees/inmates, and inmate deaths often are the result. The failure to treat conditions promptly and properly may constitute a violation of an inmate/detainee’s civil rights, in which case swiftly consulting an Oregon civil rights lawyer is an essential move.

Another area of substantial concern is mental health. Not only are substance withdrawal and mental health both major areas of concern, but they are also frequently interconnected. Medical researchers, including those with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the British Medical Association, have published significant research reporting on the link between the sudden disuse of opioids and suicide, as well as suicide as a symptom of alcohol withdrawal.

A case from Deschutes County focuses on those issues and, allegedly, a jail’s failure to provide appropriate treatment to an inmate with them.

Continue reading

50 SW Pine St 3rd Floor Portland, OR 97204 Telephone: (503) 226-3844 Fax: (503) 943-6670 Email: matthew@mdkaplanlaw.com
map image