Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

November 30, 2014

Fatal Oregon DUI Crash Raises Dram Shop, Social Host Liability Questions

Oregon DUI stories often, sadly, seem to be an inevitable part of every holiday weekend. Here in Oregon Thanksgiving week began with a DUI story that may raise broader issues.

“Police say a Salem woman was under the influence of alcohol early Tuesday when she drove her car the wrong way down Interstate 5 and crashed into another car, killing a passenger inside,” according to a report this week in The Oregonian. The newspaper reports that the 49-year-old woman “was driving northbound in the southbound lanes of I-5 for several miles, police said, before her 2003 Volkswagen Jetta collided head-on with a southbound BMW near mile marker 266.5, near Keizer.”

A 49-year-old Nyssa woman riding in the BMW “was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash,” while that car’s driver and a second passenger were injured. The driver was treated at Salem Memorial Hospital while the second passenger was transported to the Portland area for treatment. The wrong-way driver was also treated at a Salem hospital for crash-related injuries and, once released, was charged “with second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, driving under the influence of intoxicants, assault, reckless endangerment and reckless driving.”

November 29, 2014

Possible Oregon Industrial Accident Mars Holiday Weekend

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Investigators from Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration are looking into a possible Oregon industrial accident that claimed the life of a Scappoose woman on Thanksgiving Day.

According to a report in The Oregonian the 43-year-old woman “died Thursday afternoon in an explosion that investigators believe was started by sparks from a metal grinder at an industrial work site.” The fact that, according to the local sheriff’s office, the site of the accident was being leased by a trucking company from a third party may prove to be significant in determining whether this incident meets the legal definition of an Oregon industrial accident.

Third-party liability is often overlooked in reporting on incidents like this, but is important nonetheless. Under Oregon law a company or a property owner’s duty to provide a safe workplace extends to sub-contractors as well as its employees. While we obviously cannot draw any firm conclusions based solely on the short piece in The Oregonian, it will be important for OOSHA investigators and, in turn, the courts to consider where ultimate responsibility for this fatal accident may lie.

November 25, 2014

A New Focus on Trucks and Distracted Driving

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An experiment by a Connecticut television station designed to highlight the problem of distracted driving among truck drivers turned up a wealth of disturbing evidence.

NBC Connecticut.com set up cameras on three major interstate highways “over the course of several months looking for distracted drivers behind the wheels of big rigs… it didn’t take long for us to find several drivers of tractor-trailers who appeared to be either talking or texting while driving.” Like Oregon, Connecticut has a comprehensive distracted driving law that bans the use of cellphones without a hands-free device and bans texting by drivers in all circumstances.

The article goes on to quote a spokesman for Connecticut’s Motor Transport Association asserting that the trucking industry has always advocated “tougher laws and better training to stop distracted driving,” as NBC Connecticut puts it. The TV station’s findings, however, highlight the importance of enforcement mechanisms to prevent distractive driving. Specifically, other states need to do what Oregon did several years ago and close loopholes that allow truck drivers and others involved in serious accidents to avoid distracted driving responsibility by claiming that their phone calls were “work-related.”

November 18, 2014

ODOT Changes Are Welcome, But Should Not Have Required the Nudge of Publicity

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A recent story in the Salem Statesman-Journal highlighted some critical changes the ODOT is now beginning to implement in the name of traffic safety, but did an equally good job of drawing attention to how those changes get approved.

The article focused on the September 24 death of a well-known Salem-area psychiatrist in a fatal Oregon car crash on I-5. According to the newspaper the accident took place when a vehicle traveling the interstate highway in the other direction crossed the median. The psychiatrist died at the scene. A colleague who was travelling with him died at an area hospital a few days later from injuries suffered in the crash.

The circumstances of the accident raise longer-term questions about Oregon wrongful death, and whether the fatal crash may prompt a legal action. More immediately, what made the reaction to this accident different was the outpouring of emotion from the Salem community, an outpouring which only increased when the Statesman-Journal revealed “that in the previous 10 years there had been 20 crashes along I-5 in Salem that involved vehicles crossing the center median into oncoming traffic.” The paper noted that the ODOT has plans to install simple cable-like barriers along that stretch of the highway. Cable barriers have been shown to be a relatively inexpensive way to prevent crossover crashes. The paper also discovered, however, that bureaucracy and political infighting had led to progress implementing the plan to install the barriers moving slowly at best. Indeed, a low-bidder to carry out the work was not scheduled to be selected until next February, even though, the paper reported, a decision in principle to move forward had been reached some time ago.

November 8, 2014

Serious Allegations Focus on Defective Airbags

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Last month I wrote about the spreading scandal relating to potentially lethal airbags installed in millions of vehicles from nearly a dozen carmakers over more than a decade. The airbags have a defect that can cause the steel cylinders used to inflate them to fragment, sending shrapnel into the bodies of the people the bags are meant to protect. Car accidents involving the defective airbags, manufactured by an auto parts supplier named Takata, are believed to have resulted in at least four deaths.

This week, however, the story became even more serious when the New York Times reported that as far back as 2004 “Takata secretly conducted tests on 50 airbags it retrieved from scrapyards, according to two former employees involved in the tests.” The paper goes on to report that when the tests confirmed the defect in the airbags “instead of alerting federal safety regulators to the possible danger, Takata executives discounted the results and ordered the lab technicians to delete the testing data from their computers and dispose of the airbag inflaters in the trash.”

“Today, 11 automakers have recalled more than 14 million vehicles worldwide because of the rupture risks,” the Times notes. In addition to the four fatalities linked to the defective products “complaints received by regulators about various automakers blame Takata airbags for at least 139 injuries, including 37 people who reported airbags that ruptured or spewed metal or chemicals.” The newspaper adds that Takata is the world’s largest airbag company “accounting for about one-fifth of the global market.”

November 1, 2014

Suspected Washington Drunk Driving Mars Halloween

by Matthew D. Kaplan

If there is any night of the year when extra-cautious driving and attention to pedestrian safety are required in residential areas it is Halloween. Small children are everywhere, running up and down streets, many of them dressed in dark costumes as the sun sets. The news spreading around the northwest today is of a terrible accident that appears to have brought this fact home in the worst possible way.

According to The Oregonian “two girls, ages 6 and 7, and a 20-year-old woman were in critical condition with life-threatening injuries on Saturday morning, police said. The woman was reportedly put into a medically-induced coma.” This was the tragic outcome of an apparent Washington drunk or impaired driving incident in which “a Ford Mustang… jumped the curb and struck a group of trick-or-treaters on a Vancouver sidewalk Friday night.” The newspaper adds that, according to police, the man driving the car “was likely speeding and driving impaired.” A 33-year-old woman also suffered broken bones in the Washington car accident.

Police say the driver, a 47-year-old male, only came to a stop after hitting a pole. He is reported to have only minor injuries. The paper reports that toxicology tests are still being conducted but the police already suspect that drugs may also have been a factor in the driver’s impairment.

October 31, 2014

Distracted Driving App Seeks to Raise Awareness

by Matthew D. Kaplan

As I have written on several previous occasions, distracted driving here in Oregon and around the country is not exclusively a teen problem – but it is also important to acknowledge that it is an issue of particular relevance to teens and other young drivers.

The latest attempt to reach that audience and impress the importance of this issue on them comes from, of all places, CalTrans, California’s state transportation agency. According to a recent Tech Wire story, reprinted by the newsletter Government Technology, the agency “has launched a mobile app and online game designed to teach teenagers the importance of safe driving habits and avoiding distracted driving while on the road.” The app is currently available for free in the Google Play store, the publication reports (there is no mention of an iOS version at this point).

According to Government Technology the app and game “puts the player in the driver’s seat and challenges them to obey the speed limit in a virtual car while slowing down in highway work zones and avoiding phone calls and other potential distractions… CalTrans seems aware of the potential mixed message of releasing a game app, and says the game should not be played while driving.” If that last point seems a little obvious the fact that the agency felt compelled to make it is also evidence of how deep the distracted driving problem runs, especially among teens.

October 29, 2014

Airbag Recall is Unusually Extensive

by Matthew D. Kaplan

For more than a week we have been learning details of what may be one of the biggest recalls in automotive history. The potential car accidents linked to it are especially scary because the recall is focused on one of the most basic safety features of modern automobiles: the airbags.

As the Associated Press reported earlier today, a recall of cars with airbags made by Takata, a Japan-based supplier of parts to numerous car companies, is now thought to effect “more than 12 million cars… (including) dozens of models made by BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota dating to the 2001 model year.” As a result of the recall order AP reports that AutoNation, the nationwide chain that is the country’s largest car dealer, says it will stop selling the affected makes and models. The company’s CEO also went on record criticizing the car manufacturers “confusing and incoherent” handling of the situation.

As the news agency reports, the Takata-made airbags “can inflate with too much force, blowing apart metal canisters and sending shards flying at drivers and passengers. Safety advocates say that four people have died due to the problem.” The article goes on to note that “government investigators believe that prolonged exposure to moisture in the air makes the air bag inflator chemicals burn too fast, creating too much pressure.”

October 24, 2014

Oregon Child Car Death Offers Sad Reminder Why Safety Procedures Are Critical

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The death earlier this month of a six-month old Hillsboro girl whose father forgot that she was in the back of his car when he went inside his office for work is a sad reminder of a problem that is far more extensive than most people think. As The Oregonian put it last weekend, “though the tragedy that played out in Hillsboro… is incomprehensible to many, research shows it’s a scenario that has played out hundreds of times nationwide since the late 1990s as parents and caregivers grapple with a growing litany of distractions.”

This Oregon child death is also a reminder, as SafeKids tells parents every year (see link below) around this time, that even as the weather turns cooler a closed car can still become very, very hot as it sits in the sun for hour after hour.

“In the United States, at least 635 children have died of hyperthermia in vehicles since 1998. In 51 percent of those cases, the parent of caregiver said they had forgotten the child was inside,” the paper reports, citing data from an expert on the subject at San Jose State University in California.

October 22, 2014

Hayride Accident offers an Autumn Warning for Oregon

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A recent news item from Maine offers an important autumn reminder about safety and Oregon injuries to children. According to the Portland (Maine) Press-Herald, a teenager died and 22 other people were injured when “a mechanical malfunction caused the Jeep towing a trailer of passengers on a haunted hayride… to careen down a steep hill and crash.” The report cites information from “state officials.”

The newspaper reports that local and state police are still working to determine the exact cause of the accident, but the overall nature of the incident is something that merits our attention here in Oregon. Fall and the early part of winter are times when hayrides, Christmas tree cutting parties and similar activities take many people outdoors in unusual ways. No one would suggest banning this kind of family Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas fun, but this tragic incident in Maine is a reminder that safety also needs to be considered when planning these kind of events.

The fact that events like these often involve children only makes the need for safety more critical. Whether it is a Halloween Hayride or a Christmas tree cutting party (that might involve children who have never before been close to power tools), it is critical that anyone organizing events like these take appropriate precautions to ensure the safety of everyone involved.