By June of last year, it became clear that the total number of vehicles recalled in 2014 would be an all-time record. The final tally is in and just shy of 64 million vehicles were recalled for safety defects, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The number of vehicles recalled last year was […]
Product Liability
New Child Car Seat Information Available to Parents
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that children be placed in car seats until at least the age of 5. All children less than 57 inches tall should use a car seat or a booster seat. Having your child secured in the right seat, installed in the correct manner, is not always a […]
New Legislation Proposed Following Ignition Switch Defect Recall
The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has announced his intention to propose new auto safety legislation later this year or early next year. The announcement joined several other proposals intended to combat the problems demonstrated by the General Motors ignition switch failures and subsequent recall. The proposal would overhaul the Transportation Recall Enhancement, […]
New Laws For Compounding Pharmacies Following Meningitis Outbreak
The contaminated syringes that led to more than 750 cases of fungal meningitis and 60 fatalities were produced by a compounding pharmacy. Such pharmacies existed largely outside of the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration. The tragic outbreak and massive recall of the contaminated products caused legislators to seek ways of monitoring these types of […]
New FDA Rules Could Protect Medical Device Recipients
For some, receiving a new medical device leads to a vastly improved quality of life. For those who receive defective medical devices, the results can be painful or even fatal. The problems involved with faulty medical devices have long been complicated by the difficulty in identifying which patients received devices that ended up failing. The U.S. […]
General Motors Recalls Thousands Of Vehicles For Safety Flaws
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that General Motors is recalling 15,575 cars this week. The recalls are based on safety issues that may increase the risk of injury to occupants in the event of a car accident, according to the NHTSA. The recalls include automobiles in the Cadillac, Buick and Chevrolet lines. The specifics of […]
Federal Agency Posts Warning About Counterfeit Air Bags
After a crash in which the air bags deploy, vehicles that are still roadworthy require maintenance. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued a warning to consumers who have had replacement air bags installed after car crashes over the past three years. The NHTSA has discovered that counterfeit air bags have been installed in some vehicles […]
Tort reform and the McDonald’s hot coffee incident
Tonight on HBO, an important topic affecting the rights of injured people will receive a different kind of publicity. The documentary drama, Hot Coffee, covers the highly misunderstood product liability case against McDonald’s, as well as several other noteworthy cases demonstrating how Americans’ access to the civil justice system has changed over recent years. Tort reform is examined […]
Supreme Court allows defective seat belt design lawsuit to proceed
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the family of a passenger that was killed in a car accident while wearing a lap-only seat belt could bring a lawsuit against the vehicle manufacturer. The plaintiffs argued that by manufacturing the vehicle without shoulder belts for all passengers, the manufacturer was negligent in its design of the […]
Consumer Wins Major Legal Battle Against Prosthetic Hip Manufacturer
In recent years medical device manufacturers have increasingly been using what is known in the industry as “federal preemption” defenses to defeat personal injury lawsuits soon after they are filed. In many of these cases dismissal comes so fast the manufacturer is not even required to produce a single document addressing whether the medical device […]
Jury awards $2M to injured factory worker
On December 6, 2010, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, an eight member jury returned a verdict of $2,003,002.58 in favor of Rita Thakore, a 54 year old woman from Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Ms. Thakore was represented by Michael L. Teich and Joshua L. Weisberg of Rapoport […]
U.S. Senator Schumer Asks Food and Drug Administration To Publicly Distribute Data Showing A Possible Link Between Sunscreen Chemicals And Cancer
A recent study by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has revealed a possible link between a chemical found in most popular sunscreens and the acceleration of the development of skin cancer, and United States Senator Charles Schumer wants the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release that information to the public. Retinyl palmitate is a […]
Deadline Approaching To File Lawsuits Against AM2 PAT, Inc., For Contaminated Heparin Syringes
People who became ill as a result of using heparin syringes contaminated with the bacteria Serratia marcescens may be running out of time to file their lawsuit against the manufacturer, AM2 PAT, Inc., (also known as Sierra Pre-Filled). For many people, the statute of limitations to file a claim will expire in November, 2009. As […]
