The personal injury attorneys at Springer & Lyle are concerned about the number of drownings that have recently happened in and around Denton. While drownings have occurred in local lakes and ponds, the majority of drownings occur in private & public swimming pools. According to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), approximately 10 people die every day in non-boating drowning accidents. Approximately 20 percent of all those who drown are children younger than the age of 14. For every person who drowns, there are another five who are treated in an emergency … [Read more...]
Transvaginal Mesh Litigation
Transvaginal mesh has become a nightmare for thousands of women who have suffered severe adverse effects involving erosion and migration of the mesh along with perforation of organs from it. Surgical mesh was designed over 60 years ago for repairing hernias. It's a woven material made of synthetic or biological materials that usually comes in a prepackaged kit along with tools to aid in the surgical procedure. Because mesh was widely successful in the treatment of hernias, surgeons began using it in other parts of the body that needed support. About 20 years later they began inserting it … [Read more...]
Victory for Big Pharma: Texas Adopts “Learned Intermediary” Rule
Big Pharma had a major victory on June 8th, when the Texas Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Centocor, Inc. v. Hamilton. The Court held that "When a drug manufacturer properly warns a prescribing physician of the dangerous propensities of its product, the manufacturer is excused from warning each patient who receives the drug. The doctor stands as a learned intermediary between the manufacturer and the ultimate consumer." Further, "A prescription drug manufacturer fulfills its duty to warn end users of its product's risks by providing adequate warnings to the intermediaries who … [Read more...]
Injured by a Doctor? You’ll likely deal with the secretive Medical Board instead of open court
Fox 4 in Dallas did a great story on the Texas Medical Board and their contribution to physician discipline since tort reform in 2003. According to the report serious disciplinary actions are down and the time taken to conduct investigations has risen. Further, Doctor confidentiality and secrecy is maintained until a final disciplinary action is completed, leaving patients unaware of allegations of malpractice by doctors. Check the Fox 4 page for a video. Some of the images are graphic and the stories are truly tragic. Its a shame our state has fallen so far in protecting patient … [Read more...]
Texas Appellate Courts are More Likely to Reverse Plaintiff’s Judgments
The Dallas Morning News reports that a soon-to-be-released study shows Texas Appellate Courts reverse judgments for plaintiffs with alarming regularity, and at a dramatically higher rate than judgments for defendants: “The study, conducted by two appellate lawyers at Haynes and Boone, found the Texas appellate judges have an overall reversal rate of 49 percent when they review cases that the plaintiff won in the trial court and the defendant appealed. But those same judges reversed only 25 percent of the cases in which the defendant prevailed at trial and the plaintiff appealed. The Texas … [Read more...]
Happy Stop The Texts Day!
Distracted driving is a real scourge in our society. Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, has declared today #StopTheTextsDay asking Twitter for ideas on how best to fight this menace and convince people to put down the phone and drive. Celebrities like Kasey Khane have even released public service announcements with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration urging drivers to “STOP THE TEXTS STOP THE WRECKS.” Unfortunately, distracted driving isn’t just a problem amongst consumers. Many employers still have policies that allow, or even encourage employees to use their cell … [Read more...]
All-Metal Hip Implants Prone to Early Failure, Need to be Removed
Great story by NPR on the continuing problems faced by patients who have received All-Metal Hip Implants. Implants Need To Be Removed Early by Richard Knox EnlargeRichard Knox/NPRYoung-min Kwon of Massachusetts General Hospital holds the metal-alloy ball of Susy Mansfield's faulty artificial hip joint. The yellowish tissue on top is dead muscle caused by a reaction to the metal debris produced by the defective hip implant. When Susy Mansfield needed a hip replacement in 2009, her orthopedic surgeon chose a relatively new and untested kind of artificial hip made entirely of … [Read more...]
Honda Recalls Weed Trimmers Due to Laceration Hazard
Unsafe products can cause serious injuries at the most unexpected times. Household names we all come to know and trust are no exception to oversites due to engineering, manufacturing or material shortcomings that require diligent testing and monitoring. Honda has acted to recall certain gas powered weed and lawn trimmers within a designated manufacturing span denoted by listed serial numbers. Awareness of such measures is one paramount to the safety of all consumers. Springer Lyle feels the information in this article should be made known so consumers who rely on Honda's reputation can … [Read more...]
No Better Care, Thanks to Tort Reform
Published in The Texas Tribune by guest columnist, Charles M. Silver In 2006, Dr. Howard Marcus wrote that Texas’ 2003 tort reform statute sparked an “amazing turnaround” in which doctors came to Texas in droves, instead of leaving the state as they had before. He was doubly wrong. Texas neither lost doctors before 2003 nor gained them especially quickly in subsequent years. In fact, according to statistics published by the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS), the supply of active, direct patient care (DPC) doctors per capita grew faster from 1996 to 2002 than at any time … [Read more...]
Tragedy Brought on by Tainted Fruit
By Moni Basu, CNN William Beach was one of those people who fixated on certain foods. He would eat the same thing voraciously for a few days, and then, when he tired of the same tastes, he moved onto something else. In August, when summer's heat seemed unending in Mustang, Okla., Beach took to savoring fried chicken -- and soft, sweet cantaloupe. Beach was elderly -- 87 -- but after eating the fruit, his health declined rather suddenly and before anyone in his family knew what was wrong, he was dead. He is among 15 people who died from Listeria monocytogenes in what the Centers for Disease … [Read more...]