Wrongful Death

July 12, 2012

$3 Billion Healthcare Fraud Settlement Spotlights Oversight Importance

Earlier this month news broke of a head-spinningly large fraud settlement involving the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. According to ABC News the company “agreed to an unprecedented $3 billion settlement with the US government over allegations that the company advertised drugs for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.”

Over the years we have all become a bit numb to horror stories about the health care industry. One of the few things both sides in the debate surrounding the Affordable Care Act appear to agree on is that the US healthcare system is in need of significant reform (exactly what sort of reform is a subject of far more debate).

Cases like this are the sort of thing that not only give an entire industry a bad name, but make reasonable people wonder how much deeper, and broader, corporate fraud is in the health care and pharmaceutical industry. To what extent are other companies putting their own profits ahead of patient and consumer safety?

June 25, 2012

Oregon Child Injury Highlights Importance of Window Safety

by Matthew D. Kaplan

I have written in the past about the importance of window safety. Too many people forget at this time of year that screens are designed to keep bugs out, not to keep children in, and fail to take essential precautions.

This reminder is prompted by a recent report in The Oregonian about a Cedar Mill toddler who “was taken to a local hospital after she punched through a screen and fell from a second-storey window.” Even more frighteningly: “the girl reportedly fell from the window and first landed on a slanted roof. She then rolled off the roof and hit a mix of pavement and bark dust” the paper adds citing local Tualatin Valley first responders.

The child was taken to an area hospital and her injuries are reported not to be life-threatening.

May 23, 2012

Wrongful Death Suit Targets Oregon Company for Alaska Fatalities

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A lawsuit filed in Alaska by the grieving families of five fishermen targets an Oregon company for alleged wrongful death according to a report published yesterday in the Anchorage Daily News. Two of the five victims were also from Oregon, according to the newspaper.

The newspaper, quoting Alaska state troopers, reports that the five men drowned earlier this month when their “overloaded skiff swamped… in rough seas” near Cook Inlet, Alaska. The men were harvesting clams for the company. The suit says that the company “failed to train the men to pilot their aluminum skiff and neglected to provide proper safety equipment such as survival suits and two-way radios.” Notably, the newspaper says that when the men’s bodies were recovered only one of the five was wearing a life jacket. It adds that “the wrongful death suit claims the workers needed survival suits, not life vests, to survive in the Inlet,” referring to the cold seas off Alaska’s coast.

Tellingly, the paper reports that another worker told investigating troopers that he believed the boat was overloaded, particularly granted the windy conditions prevalent in the area, and refused to get aboard. Among the charges made in the suit is the claim that Clackamas-based Pacific Seafood did not give its workers sufficient training in “water-safety rules, emergency life-saving lessons or how many pounds of clams the skiff could safely carry.”

March 24, 2012

Oregon Marks Poison Prevention Week

by Matthew D. Kaplan

I could not let this week come to an end without taking note of the fact that it has been National Poison Prevention Week. The March 18-24 period was marked by events here in Oregon and across the country designed to raise awareness of the dangers poisons pose to children. Safe Kids Oregon and the Oregon Poison Center were the main organizers here in the state. 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of National Poison Prevention Week, which was first designated by Congress in the early 1960s.

The issues we consider during this time are important. As a news release from Safe Kids Oregon notes, “more than 90% of poisonings happen in people’s homes.” Adding that each year around 100 children aged 14 or under die from unintentional poisoning. More alarmingly, the release states that “approximately one-half of all poison-related calls to the Oregon Poison Center have to do with children ages 5 and under.”

Even more worrying is the revelation that “the greatest portion of these calls involve drugs like pain relievers.” This is noteworthy because many of us, when we think of children and accidental poisoning in the home, think of cleaning or pest control products. It is useful to be reminded that common medications can be just as deadly, especially where small children are concerned.

March 9, 2012

Portland Workplace Safety Issues Highlighted By Factory’s Poor Report Card

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The revelation by The Oregonian last week that Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Agency has levied over $26,000 in fines against Precision Castparts was a reminder of the importance of Oregon workplace safety, and of the need for both regulatory and legal vigilance as we all struggle to prevent Oregon industrial accidents.

According to the newspaper, the company was cited for “32 violations at its large parts campus in Milwaukie and Southeast Portland, raising significant safety concerns for the third time since 2008.” Citing an Oregon OSHA spokeswoman, the paper notes that some of the violations “were repeats.” The overall list of infractions focused mainly on “cleaning operations in the two plants.” The company manufacturers parts for airplane engines and industrial gas turbines. It also does work for the military.

It is good to read that none of the safety violations cited by OSHA were deemed to be “willful” on the company’s part – the most serious category. Still, the newspaper reports, “28 were serious, with nine having the potential to cause death.”

March 2, 2012

Oregon Industrial Accident Questions Surround Man’s Death on Barge

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division is investigating the circumstances of a fatal Oregon workplace industrial accident late last month involving a man who fell into a chemical holding tank aboard a barge on the Willamette River, according to local TV station KOIN.

According to The Oregonian, the Portland Fire Department’s hazmat rescue team was called to the barge near Swan Island after workers realized one of their colleagues was missing and that he had last been seen standing near an open hatch aboard what the newspaper describes as “a 40-feet-by-50-feet barge filled with a toxic and corrosive chemical liquid called lignin amine…. (which) is often used to spray fruit trees.”

When rescue crews arrived they found the hatch leading to one of the barge’s tanks open and the man’s body at the bottom, the newspaper reports. The Oregonian quotes a member of the Portland Fire & Rescue team describing the tank as a “double hazard,” noting both the extremely confined space inside the tank and the hazardous materials it contained. According to the paper, the atmosphere at the bottom of the tank contained only 1% oxygen, guaranteeing that the victim would have perished within minutes of falling in. While standard safety procedures would have required wearing a life vest, the paper says it is unclear whether the victim was doing so – though granted the lack of air inside the tank it is not likely that a vest would have saved him.

February 21, 2012

Pesticides and Oregon Wrongful Death

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An opinion column published in Eugene’s Register-Guard newspaper earlier this month raises a number of important questions about a staple of agricultural life: aerial spraying. While crop dusting is viewed as an essential component of agriculture by many farmers, it has its detractors as well (the op-ed’s author is identified as a “farmer and forestland owner”) and there is no question that without proper safeguards and appropriate caution by pilots the practice may lead to Oregon wrongful death or to less severe – but nonetheless serious – medical consequences.

The op-ed criticizes the state bodies charged with regulating aerial spraying for what the author calls their “utter failure” to protect the public. Its harshest criticism, however, is reserved for Oregon regulations and legal opinions that leave those involved in aerial spraying “immune from liability for off-target drift, unless the poison causes organ failure or death.”

Clearly such a development, leading to a Eugene or Salem wrongful death, would be the most serious consequence imaginable. This is not, however, merely a health issue. Issues of commerce and people’s livelihoods are also involved. For example, with the growing popularity of organic products, the drift of pesticides from one farmer’s land to another has become a serious issue being addressed by legislatures in many parts of the country. Obviously the possibility of drift is far greater when the pesticide is applied from the air. Leaving aside entirely any potential health concerns, many organic farmers around the country fear the loss of high-value crops should someone else’s ill-applied pesticide drift across onto their land.

December 9, 2011

Wrongful Death Questions Raised by Citations Against Mining Company

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An Idaho mine operator says it plans to contest citations and fines totaling $1 million levied by the federal government in the wake of a miner’s death earlier this year, the Associated Press reports in an article reprinted in The Oregonian. The violations that led to the citations, in turn, raise wrongful death questions and are a reminder for us here in Oregon that mine operators and other employers in hazardous industries have, at all times, both a legal and a moral obligation to do everything they can to keep employees safe.

The 53-year-old victim, a 12-year veteran of the mine according to AP, died last April after a cave-in at the place where he and his brother were working, approximately one mile underground. The two “had just finished watering down blasted-out rock and ore in the mine in the Idaho Panhandle before the collapse,” the news agency writes.

The miner’s job involved “drilling holes in a rock face, blasting it to rubble, then carting the debris to the surface to be processed into silver, lead and zinc.”

November 26, 2011

Oregon Wrongful Death Suit Revived by Federal Court Ruling

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A ruling earlier this month by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has opened the way for the parents of a teenager shot dead by police officers in Washington County to move ahead with an Oregon wrongful death lawsuit, according to a recent article in The Oregonian.

The case stems from the 2006 death of an 18-year old near Tigard, in Washington County, Oregon. The teenager was threatening to kill himself with a pocketknife when police officers arrived at the site of the incident. Within four minutes the officers had fired 11 shots, killing the teen, despite pleas from his family and friends that the boy posed a threat to no one but himself. The family has long claimed that the law enforcement officers overreacted and made little effort to assess the situation before using deadly force.

After the Washington County sheriff’s office issued an investigative report absolving the officers from any improper conduct the teen’s family “brought suit against the officers and the county in (an Oregon) wrongful death claim, alleging an unconstitutional use of force,” according to the newspaper. A federal district court issued a summary judgment in favor of the officers and the county, but the circuit court has now reversed that ruling and sent the case back to the lower court.

October 20, 2011

Oregon Wrongful Death Questions Reopened by New Study

by Matthew D. Kaplan

When five Beaverton families and Mattel Corporation settled Oregon wrongful death lawsuits related to contaminated water near one of the company’s former plants earlier this year issues related to cancer rates and carcinogens were not closed. According to a recent article in The Oregonian a new study conducted by a Beaverton resident, combined with a reassessment of the toxicity of the chemical at issue – trichloroethylene, also known as TCE – are potentially bringing the question of Oregon wrongful death claims back into the public arena.

The newspaper’s article focuses on a long-running Beaverton wrongful death case involving a plant that was originally owned by View-Master and later passed through several other corporate hands before being closed by Mattel in 2001.

In 1998, the paper reports, “TCE was found in concentrations 320 times the federal standard in a private well that supplied drinking water” for the plant. “Many former workers, who sipped the tainted water later suffered from cancers, according to an unofficial health study.” In May, Mattel settled Oregon wrongful death claims with five families. Now, however, the paper reports that a new health study funded by the Oregon Community Foundation “may strengthen the case for other workers who wish to file lawsuits.” The study “suggests a strong connection between TCE exposure and certain cancers,” the paper quotes its author, Amanda Evans-Healy saying. Evans-Healy was one of the successful defendants in the earlier set of Beaverton wrongful death actions.