Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

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A fatal fall at a temporary ice rink has put the city of Irvine, California on the receiving end of a $40 million wrongful death lawsuit. According to the Los Angeles Times, 49-year old Cherlynn Tang died last February from injuries sustained moments after she stepped off of the ice at a temporary rink built as a winter attraction by the city.

Last week the Orange County Register reported that Tang’s family is suing the city. “The lawsuit claims that the accident was the result of melted water that had been allowed to accumulate on the rink,” according to the Register. Media accounts say Tang slipped and tumbled backwards as she stepped off the ice, striking her head as she fell. The family also alleges that there were no medical personnel at the Great Park Ice Rink, resulting in a 20 minute delay in Tang receiving medical treatment, a time period that may have been crucial in determining whether she lived or died. Tang’s family is seeking $40 million in damages from the city.

This case is a tragic reminder of how important it is for cities and towns to take special care when setting up recreational activities that, while fun, are not necessarily in synch with their surroundings. Irvine’s temporary ice rink was located inside an unused airplane hanger which was open at both ends to the warm Southern California air. At the heart of the Tang family’s suit, according to the Register, is the allegation that the city did not take adequate precautions to protect users of an ice rink in an environment where ice was far from natural.

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The 2008 death of a 25-year-old woman who was kept waiting at an Oregon hospital for more than six hours has prompted an Oregon wrongful death lawsuit directed against Springfield’s Sacred Heart Medical Center, according to the Associated Press.

The suit was filed by the woman’s parents, a couple from Eugene, who contend that the hospital’s failure to see and treat their daughter in a timely manner contributed to her death two days before Christmas 2008.

According to the AP, the woman, Martha Barr, arrived at the hospital around midday and was initially assessed by hospital staff as suffering from “shortness of breath, anxiety, fatigue, abnormally fast heart and respiration rates and low oxygen saturation.” It was, however, more than six hours before a doctor actually examined her. The doctor reportedly ordered a series of tests, but Barr went into “respiratory and cardiac arrest” before they could be performed and died just over two hours later. AP reports that in the Springfield wrongful death court papers the Eugene parents “contend that a long wait to see an emergency room doctor proved fatal for their daughter.”

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Contracts between the Pentagon and defense contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root grant the company complete immunity in Iraq for harm its employees may cause to either Iraqi civilians or American and other coalition soldiers.

That immunity – cited by KBR in defending itself against an Oregon workplace injury lawsuit – has prompted Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat who represents much of the Portland area, to demand an explanation from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, according to The Oregonian. In his letter to Gates, Blumenauer called the blanket liability exemption “mind-numbing”.

The newspaper reports that the exemption came to light as part of a lawsuit filed by 26 Oregon National Guardsmen who served in Iraq in 2003. The troops were assigned to guard KBR employees undertaking reconstruction work. The guardsmen claim that “the contractor knowingly or negligently exposed them to a cancer-causing chemical” the newspaper reports. A similar suit is also being considered by courts in Indiana.

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The Oregon Supreme Court sided with cigarette giant Philip Morris last week in refusing to reinstate a $100 million punitive damage ruling issued by a lower court in 2002. That earlier ruling was overturned by a state appellate court in 2006.

It is important to note that one part of the Oregon product liability and wrongful death case still stands: the original Oregon jury award of more than $164,500 in “economic losses, pain and suffering” is not affected by the ruling regarding punitive damages, according to The Oregonian. Moreover, the Supreme Court ruling does not mean that the case is finished or that punitive damages have been disallowed: merely that the issue of Oregon punitive damages must be reargued before a lower court.

The case concerns a Salem woman who died in 1999 after decades of regular smoking. According to The Oregonian, she switched to low-tar cigarettes in 1976, after a dozen years of smoking, believing that low tar cigarettes would be less problematic for her health. Oregon personal injury attorneys representing the woman’s family argued that Philip Morris possessed study data showing that smokers of low-tar cigarettes tended to inhale longer and more deeply, thus negating the alleged benefits of the product. The company, however, did not disclose this information to consumers.

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The death last year of a patient at the Oregon State Hospital has led to reprimands for five hospital employees. According to the Salem Statesman-Journal a state official and “hospital leaders” decided that reprimands were a sufficient punishment for the five employees. The legal system, however, has yet to have its final say on this serious situation. Oregon wrongful death and Oregon medical neglect lawsuits remain a possibility.

The reprimands were occasioned by the death last fall of 42 year old Moises Perez. Perez died of coronary artery disease, according to The Oregonian, but “lay in his room across from the nurses station for several hours before his body was discovered.”

The paper reports that three nurses and two aides have now had letters of reprimand placed in their personnel files following an investigation by the OSH’s human resources department. The reprimands are not accompanied by any loss of pay or suspension from work. The Oregonian reports that one of the nurses failed to make monthly nursing summaries on Perez’s chart from June until the patient’s death in October. One of the aides was disciplined for failing to alert nurses when Perez did not “show up to take his 3:30pm medications” on the day of his death. A separate investigation of a doctor, being carried out by a medical board, is still under way.

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A Portland fatal shooting late last week led to an Oregon death that police describe as accidental, according to The Oregonian. Despite that description, the paper also reports that one person was taken into custody at the scene of the shooting, in Northwest Portland, raising the possibility that an Oregon wrongful death may have occurred.

The newspaper, quoting police sources, reports that police received a 911 call on June 10 indicating that a man had been shot. Arriving at the scene they found the man to be wounded in the chest, but still breathing. He was transported to an area hospital, where he later died. A neighbor told the paper that “she saw the police remove two or three guns” from the house where the shooting took place. The paper reported that homicide detectives has closed off the scene of the shooting and were investigating the precise circumstances of the incident.

One man was reportedly detained at the scene of the incident.

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Alcohol-related Oregon fatal car accidents and holiday weekends seem to have a grim connection. As the Daily Astorian notes, Memorial Day has long been the holiday weekend in Oregon most closely associated with alcohol-related fatalities. This year is no exception. According to the newspaper an Oregon drunk driver strayed over the center line of Highway 30 just east of Astoria Sunday night, striking a motorcyclist nearly head-on.

The motorcycle rider, who was wearing a helmet, was thrown from his bike and killed. Both the alleged drunk driver and his 13-year old daughter who was riding in the truck with him were uninjured. The Oregonian, quoting Oregon State Police, reported that the truck driver was arrested and charged with drunk driving, reckless driving, manslaughter and recklessly endangering another person (this is presumably a reference to the child in the truck).

Unmentioned by the media, but also worth considering as we think through the legal implications of this tragic Oregon fatal motorcycle accident, is where the alleged driver obtained his alcohol. If a bartender continued to serve the suspect or a store clerk sold him alcohol after he was obviously drunk that person too could be subject to legal action.

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A recent investigative report in The Oregonian has raised new questions about the murder-suicide rampage of an off-duty Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy earlier this year. According to the paper, its revelations may expose the county to an Oregon wrongful death lawsuit.

The paper looked into the circumstances leading up to the deadly evening last February when Jeffrey Grahn stormed into a Portland nightclub where he killed his wife and shot two of her friends before turning the gun on himself. The potential of a Portland wrongful death claim now arises because of memos obtained by the paper using a public records request.

According to the paper, these show that the Clackamas County sheriff’s office departed from its normal protocol in urging the Portland police to ““hold off” on contacting the district attorney’s office” last year after an investigation raised troubling questions about Grahn and his behavior. When allegations of domestic violence and other troubling behavior by Grahn first emerged in 2009, the paper reports, the Sheriff’s office brought in the Portland police – a standard procedure when the law enforcement agency needs to investigate one of its own. According to the paper, however, the newly released memos show that the Sheriff’s office later intervened to stop the Portland police from taking their concerns about Grahn to prosecutors.

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As a recent report in The Oregonian details, Adventist Medical Center has witnessed a dramatic drop in Portland hospital deaths from bloodstream infections in the three-plus years since it instituted a new set of simple, but effective, safety procedures. The development is obviously good for patients, but it also has implications for Oregon wrongful death and medical malpractice claims related to our state’s hospitals.

The paper explains that in 2006 Adventist began implementing a set of relatively simple procedures developed at Maryland’s Johns Hopkins University. These involve medical professionals carefully checking each other to ensure thorough hand-washing before care-givers have contact with patients, greater attention to the use of antiseptics to clean patients skin and more extensive use of “full surgical regalia”.

As the paper reports, data collected by the state shows a dramatic drop in mortality and infection rates once the new procedures went into effect – especially when compared with other Portland area hospitals that do not follow the Johns Hopkins guidelines. The newspaper, citing Adventist’s director of quality resources, reports that there have been no ICU infections at the hospital since the spring of 2007.

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Relatives of an elderly Canby couple who died after their vacation home caught fire are seeking $3 million in damages as part of a Multnomah County wrongful death lawsuit, according to an article published earlier this week in The Oregonian.

The newspaper reports that the suit targets the companies that installed a propane stove and its accompanying gas lines in Clinton and Kenda Schultz’s vacation house in Sumpter, near Baker City in Eastern Oregon. The couple died in September 2008 when their cabin caught fire.

According to the newspaper, the suit alleges that the companies that installed the stove and its related piping failed “to obtain permits, notify building inspectors… or have the work inspected for its integrity. The suit claims that the Valley Metal employee who installed the stove and interior piping was 18 and didn’t have a required license from the Oregon State Fire Marshal.”

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