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Many locations are reporting enormous spikes in jail deaths. Locally, Multnomah County has reported seven deaths this year, which is more than the previous five years combined. Too many jail deaths involve inmates who needed essential (and often immediate) medical care but didn’t get it. A federal jail death case to our south (San Bernardino County, California) serves as an important reminder that, when this happens, it’s not simply wrong, it’s also potentially a violation of federal civil rights laws.

The detainee, C.P., was a college student with schizophrenia. After she became pregnant in late 2020, the woman discontinued taking her prescription antipsychotic medication. By March 2021, she had become unstable and attacked her father and a neighbor. The father called 911 and, according to a local news report, warned the responding police officers that his daughter was pregnant and schizophrenic.

The father told a reporter that a deputy assured him that the county jail where the officer took the woman specialized in “people with mental health conditions.” Within 24 hours, despite placement without clothes in a padded cell, the woman had managed to injure herself. After a trip to the hospital, she was returned to jail. The police told the father that his daughter would be placed in a “safe room” where “she could not harm herself.” The woman was not restrained inside her cell.

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When you’re seriously injured — or a loved one is killed — in an auto accident caused by someone’s negligence or recklessness, the legal system allows you to pursue restorative justice. What that means may vary depending on the specific facts of the crash. Was the at-fault driver merely negligent or was extreme recklessness involved? Are you entitled to seek punitive damages or simply pursue compensation for your economic and non-economic harm? If punitive damages are a potential option, should you ask for them or forego this claim? For answers to these and other essential questions, seek out advice from an experienced Oregon auto accident lawyer.

These questions (and their answers) are more relevant than ever as, in many parts of our post-COVID world, road-related injuries and deaths have shot up from the levels seen during the 2010s. In Nevada, for example, 385 people died in road-related injuries in 2021, a 15-year high, according to the New York Times. 2022 was nearly as deadly, with 382 fatal injuries.

According to the Times report, a surgery professor in Las Vegas knows why. Based on the data the professor reviewed, “drivers were speeding more, on highways and on surface streets, and plowing through intersections with an alarming frequency.” On top of that, fewer people were using seat belts and more people were driving while intoxicated.

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Many locations are reporting enormous spikes in jail deaths. Locally, Multnomah County has reported seven deaths this year, which is more than the previous five years combined. Too many jail deaths involve inmates who needed essential (and often immediate) medical care but didn’t get it. A federal jail death case to our south (San Bernardino County, California) serves as an important reminder that, when this happens, it’s not simply wrong, it’s also potentially a violation of federal civil rights laws.

The detainee, C.P., was a college student with schizophrenia. After she became pregnant in late 2020, the woman discontinued taking her prescription antipsychotic medication. By March 2021, she had become unstable and attacked her father and a neighbor. The father called 911 and, according to a local news report, warned the responding police officers that his daughter was pregnant and schizophrenic.

The father told a reporter that a deputy assured him that the county jail specialized in “people with mental health conditions.” Within 24 hours, the woman had managed to injure herself. After a trip to the hospital, she was returned to jail. The police told the father that his daughter would be placed in a “safe room” where “she could not harm herself.”

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Portland and the surrounding area welcomed the start of fall a few weeks ago, and the change of seasons brought temperatures in the 40s. Not long ago, though, Portland sweltered under triple-digit temperatures. As uncomfortable and challenging as extreme heat can be for most of us, it is vastly more dangerous for workers who work outside or in non-climate-controlled settings. These jobs can be not only dangerous but also fatal. Sometimes, a worker’s heat-related workplace injury or death may be the result of multiple people or entities failing to do their jobs — and that includes people or entities beyond just the worker’s employer. When that happens, an experienced Oregon industrial accident lawyer can help you take the appropriate legal steps.

When temperatures reached 100+ back in August, KGW8 took the opportunity to remind readers of the heat-related workplace protections that are now in place in Oregon.

Back in 2021, multiple workers died during a June heat wave where temperatures reached the mid 110’s. In the wake of those deaths, the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division (Oregon OSHA) created new administrative rules to protect workers from the heat. The rules apply to “any workplace where extreme heat caused by weather can expose workers to heat-related illnesses.”

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Thousands of motorcyclists die each year on American roads and highways. Many times, these crashes are the result of a car, truck, or SUV driver who failed to maintain a proper lookout and executed a left turn that directly led to the fatal crash. When that happens and you lose a loved one as a result, the law allows you to seek justice for your loss. Retaining an experienced Oregon motorcycle accident lawyer can provide your family crucial advantages as you undertake that legal process.

A recent fatal motorcycle accident in Lincoln County follows a factual pattern that tragically is all too familiar. A 27-year-old man from Toledo was traveling northbound on Highway 101 about 15 miles south of Newport.

According to the Oregon State Police’s preliminary investigation, as the motorcyclist passed through the intersection of Highway 101 and North Bayview Road, the driver of a Dodge Ram pickup truck turned left onto northbound 101 from Bayview Road. The motorcyclist was unable to avoid an impact and crashed into the truck. The motorcycle caught fire and the motorcyclist was pronounced dead at the scene.

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At a Portland City Hall rally earlier this month, a group of bicyclists sought not to accomplish a solely bicycle-oriented policy goal. Instead, the bicyclists focused on a larger objective: reducing the high number of traffic deaths in the city and making Portland’s roads safer for everyone, including drivers, passengers, pedestrians, motorcyclists, and bicyclists. The bicycle accident lawyers at Kaplan Law LLC understand the incalculable human toll that traffic fatalities represent, and support policies that will make our area’s streets and highways safer for all.

According to KGW8’s coverage, the rally included signs honoring the lives of each person killed in vehicle incidents in Portland this year. As of the date of the rally, Portland had already logged 46 fatalities, a pace that could allow the city to surpass last year’s total of 63 deaths.

The protest was organized by BikeLoud PDX. A member of that group told KGW8 that the changes they desired were reasonable and modest goals. Those objectives included enhanced enforcement of speed limits, an increase in the number of traffic cameras (particularly on “high-crash corridors,”) additional infrastructure investment, and campaigns against impaired driving targeted at “bars, restaurants, [and] liquor stores.”

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The last few months have brought a rash of deadly bicycle crashes here in Oregon, including at least two this month (one in Clackamas County and one in Polk County.) The tragic stream of fatalities is a reminder of the extreme dangers bicyclists face when they’re on the road — be it here in Portland or a rural area. Discovering the truth about the bicycle crash that took the life of your loved one can sometimes be a complex, challenging process. An experienced Oregon bicycle accident lawyer can help you both with amassing the factual evidence you need, and utilizing that proof in an appropriate legal action.

Sometimes, the facts regarding a crash can be fairly straightforward. In the recent Clackamas County accident, the mountain manager of the Mount Hood Skibowl died in a two-vehicle collision just east of Government Camp. According to the Oregon State Police, the 48-year-old bicyclist was headed southbound on Highway 173 when the 71-year-old driver of a Hyundai SUV, who sought to turn left from Highway 173 onto West Leg Road, failed to yield the right of way and turned into the bicyclist’s path.

The impact was so powerful that it launched the bicyclist from his bike and into the roadway. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Two different reports of two recent jail deaths (from two different publications) reveal a pair of incidents with some striking things in common. These deaths, and the timelines laid out in the accompanying news reports, show how often inmates receive questionable medical care. These reports are a stark reminder that substandard medical care remains a serious (and sometimes lethal) problem in Oregon’s correctional facilities. If you’ve lost a loved one in circumstances like this, the legal system allows you to pursue a constitutional claim. These cases are often complex and challenging, so getting advice and answers from an experienced Oregon jail medical neglect lawyer is well worth your while.

This kind of neglect can take many forms. Sometimes, it can include things as simple as a failure to do proper inmate wellness checks on a sufficiently frequent basis.

A jail death to our south recently received coverage from the Corvallis Gazette-Times, which laid out a detailed timeline of the inmate’s symptoms, and the actions (or lack thereof) undertaken by those responsible for her wellbeing.

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Pedestrian accidents are unique in certain ways. Unlike vehicle-versus-vehicle accidents, many vehicle-versus-pedestrian accidents leave little or no physical evidence at the scene. There may be a complete absence of skid marks or broken glass. In fact, the vehicle may endure no significant damage of any kind. That is one reason why retaining the right Oregon pedestrian accident lawyer to handle your case is so important. Once you’ve retained counsel, if that kind of proof isn’t available, your attorney can immediately get started pursuing other forms of evidence to make your case, like security camera footage, cell phone recordings, or other video/photographic evidence of the crash.

Recent news reports show that pedestrians are facing greater risks on Portland roads than ever before. City records revealed that 16 pedestrians died in 2019 and 18 in 2020. Last year, though, that number shot up to 28.

Shortly after midnight yesterday, another vehicle accident claimed the life of a pedestrian here in Portland. The incident represented the 44th traffic death in Portland this year. Of those 44, 14 have been pedestrians, according to OregonLive.com.

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As a parent, ensuring your small child is safe whenever you hit the road is often a primary concern. To accomplish that goal, it is important to make sure that the car seat you’re using is completely safe and appropriate for your child’s size. Sometimes, though, the safety hazard comes not from your car seat but from your vehicle itself. If your child has been seriously injured (or worse) in a vehicle crash, it’s possible that an improper restraint was part of the problem. If that’s the case, then your situation may entitle you to seek justice through legal action. An experienced Portland child injury lawyer can provide you with crucial answers to your questions and advise you about possible next steps.

Currently, the industry standard for attaching car seats to vehicles is the LATCH (a/k/a Lower, Anchors & Tethers for Children) system. The system involves connecting the car seat to a set of metal anchors (built into the vehicle’s seats and seat backs) using tethers and clips attached to the car seat.

LATCH has now been in existence for more than two decades (dating back to the latter half of 2002,) yet issues with LATCH car seats remain. In late May, a product recall targeted some of Baby Trend’s hybrid child seats. According to the recall, the LATCH “assembly webbing that secures the child restraint system to the lower anchorages may fray, which can reduce the strength of the webbing and fail to properly restrain a child in a crash.” Due to that lack of strength, the seats failed to meet the requirements of two Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards: “Child Restraint Systems” (number 213) and “Seat Belt Assemblies” (number 209).

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