- Staff Writer | October 31, 2006 8:40 AM |
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Automobile AccidentsA stretch of highway on Alabama 20 has had more than its fair share of motor vehicle accidents, many of them with fatalities. The latest accident occured on Wednesday, October 25, when an Iraq war veteran from Decatur's car ran off the road an struck a utility pole. The cause of the accident is unkown. Both the Decatur man and a Trinity woman who was the passenger died in the crash. According...
- Staff Writer | October 30, 2006 12:00 PM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsLast week The Wall Street Journal online's Law Blog reported that Merck & Company spends more than $1 million a day in legal costs, primarily on exploding Vioxx litigation. In 2006 alone, Merck has spent $325 million on Vioxx legal bills. Third quarter earnings were down 34 percent from this time last year. How long will Merck be able to keep up these costly bills? An excerpt from the blog...
- Staff Writer | October 27, 2006 1:09 PM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsIn order for a prescription or over-the-counter drug to be available for sale, it must undergo a long and complicated process with pharmaceutical company and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before receiving approval. This process takes an average of four years and a great investment on the part of pharmaceutical companies. There are also many phases of testing for a drug to undergo before...
- Staff Writer | October 26, 2006 12:52 PM |
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Tractor-Trailer AccidentsThis dangerous situation occurs when the front of a small automobile touches the rear or side of a tractor-trailer (semi or large truck). The great risk occurs when the passenger vehicle underrides the trailer, and the trailer bed intrudes into the occupant compartment above and behind the hood. Tractor-trailer underrides have been known to cause serious and deadly accidents. In tractor-trailers...
- Staff Writer | October 26, 2006 10:03 AM |
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Automobile AccidentsA motor vehicle accident involving a van colliding with a school bus in Athens, Alabama, left the van driver dead and a van passenger severely injured. The bus driver and a seven-year-old boy on the bus suffered minor injuries. According to a WAFF 48 News report, the bus was traveling west as the van was traveling south and the two collided, possibly as a result of the van's failure to stop....
- Staff Writer | October 24, 2006 8:40 PM |
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Motorcycle AccidentsThe recent death of Fort Rucker's Warrant Officer 1 Michael Boykin from a motorcycle accident has prompted the military base to implement a motorcycle safety awareness campaign. An article on MontgomeryAdvertiser.com details the program, its goals and success among military personnel.Fort Rucker officials say that many soldiers have an extracurricular interest in riding motorcycles, and some are...
- Tom Methvin | October 24, 2006 2:52 PM |
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Automobile AccidentsRecently a jury in Jacksonville, Florida awarded $16.9 million to a young college student who was rendered a paraplegic in a motor vehicle accident. The student was a belted passenger in a Ford Windstar who had reclined her seatback. During the trip, the Windstar was involved in a low impact collision. Because the student's seat was reclined, the seatbelt did not hold her in place. As a result,...
- Tom Methvin | October 24, 2006 2:16 PM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsThe drug industry should never be allowed to have its way with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by way of its funding of agency programs. Yet, that has happened on a continuing basis for at least the past ten years. Now, the FDA is bargaining with the industry for an increase in fees, giving the industry an even greater role in shaping the priorities of its supposed regulator. If this...
- Tom Methvin | October 24, 2006 2:07 PM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsOver the past few years, we have frequently written about the many problems at the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Recently, a survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists confirmed what many medical and healthcare experts have felt relating to the performance of the FDA. Dr. Sidney Wolfe, Director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, issued the following statement relating to...
- Staff Writer | October 23, 2006 9:54 AM |
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Automobile AccidentsA recent law signed by Gov. Bob Riley in April raises the penalties for illegally passing a bus loading or unloading students to up to $3,000 in fines and more. This law is part of the state's push to help prevent motor vehicle accidents and protect our children.http://ask.injuryboard.comAn article on Montgomeryadvertiser.com details the new law and the positive reaction of the school...
- Tom Methvin | October 20, 2006 4:39 PM |
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Workplace InjuriesApproximately 14,000 employers have been notified that injury and illness rates at their worksites are higher than average and that assistance is available to help them fix safety and health hazards. In a letter last month to those employers, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) explained that the notification was a proactive step to encourage employers to take steps...
- Tom Methvin | October 20, 2006 4:37 PM |
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Workplace InjuriesThe U.S. Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Titan Electric following the investigation of an August 2005 fatal accident in Auburn, Alabama. The worker was killed when he fell 40 feet from a concrete pole while working at Duck Samford Park where he was adjusting electrical lights. OSHA's investigation reportedly determined that safety equipment was...
- Tom Methvin | October 20, 2006 3:48 PM |
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Motorcycle AccidentsAlabama has a law called the Dram Shop Act that makes it a civil wrong for a bar to sell liquor to a person who is visibly intoxicated. While a good number of other states have similar statutes, some don't. Mississippi happens to fall in the latter category. But, a Jones County circuit court jury has ordered Applebee's, a restaurant that served alcohol to a man who ran over two people, to pay...
- Tom Methvin | October 18, 2006 2:50 PM |
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Automobile AccidentsBeasley Allen Law Firm has handled numerous cases against tire manufacturers when their tires failed causing accidents and injuries. As you may know, one of the most serious types of failure of a steel belted radial tire is a de-tread and/or belt separation. Because of the stress concentrations and subsequent high internal temperatures at the edge of the belt, this area is particularly sensitive...
- Tom Methvin | October 17, 2006 2:06 PM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsLast month we wrote about the mounting problems associated with the popular osteoporosis drug Fosamax. Since that time it has become most apparent that the problems are widespread. As a result, the Fosamax litigation scene will be very active. Osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ), a disfiguring condition that leads to the breakdown of the jawbone and loss of teeth, is clearly a most serious matter....
- Tom Methvin | October 13, 2006 4:36 PM |
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Workplace InjuriesEmployers must now post a summary of the total number of job-related injuries and illnesses that occurred last year. The summary required to be filed must list the total number of job-related injuries and illnesses that occurred in 2005 and that were logged on the OSHA 300 form. Employment information about annual average number of employees and total hours worked during the calendar year is...
- Tom Methvin | October 13, 2006 3:59 PM |
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Workplace InjuriesBeasley Allen Law Firm currently represents a man who worked for a company that installed communication satellites. Our client was contracted to install a communication satellite in a truck terminal in North Alabama. Our client and his co-worker had never installed a satellite dish on top of a structure, but instead had always installed the dishes on the side of the building. Because this...
- Tom Methvin | October 13, 2006 3:58 PM |
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Tractor-Trailer AccidentsA truck driver has been charged with homicide in a crash that killed five people and injured 29 others on a bus carrying high school band students home from a weekend competition. The man's tractor-trailer had swerved off an Interstate highway and jackknifed across the bus' path before dawn on October 16th. The charter bus slammed into the rig, killing the band's director, his wife, their...
- Tom Methvin | October 13, 2006 3:56 PM |
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Tractor-Trailer AccidentsOver the past several years a "disturbing pattern of dangerous activity" by the nation's trucking industry has developed. We find that a good number of the fatalities resulting from trucking accidents involve driver fatigue. During 2004, 5,190 people were killed in truck crashes, an increase of 154 fatalities over 2003. Additionally, in 2004, the number of truckers killed in crashes increased...
- Tom Methvin | October 13, 2006 3:54 PM |
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Tractor-Trailer AccidentsOur firm, Beasley Allen, has negotiated a settlement in a wrongful death arising out of an interstate highway crash that occurred in Baldwin County, Alabama. We representated the families of two ladies who were state employees traveling to an educational seminar in Mobile. While stopped in traffic due to a prior accident along with a number of cars, an 18-wheeler plowed into their car at a...
- Tom Methvin | October 13, 2006 3:53 PM |
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MiscellaneousAlthough tractor-trailers make up only a small percentage of the total vehicles on the road today, they cause a majority of fatalities. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, tractor-trailers have a substantially higher fatal crash rate per mile than passenger vehicles. This is very alarming, considering that most travel by tractor-trailers occurs on our interstates. Records...
- Tom Methvin | October 13, 2006 3:43 PM |
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Motorcycle AccidentsWhile this is primarily for our Alabama readers, I suspect the message applies to some degree for all of our readers. While drunken driving deaths declined in 32 states last year, the numbers actually rose in Alabama. Federal traffic safety officials say there were 341 such deaths in Alabama two years ago and 367 last year. That's an 8% increase and certainly not good news. The National...
- Tom Methvin | October 13, 2006 3:39 PM |
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Motorcycle AccidentsThe Indiana Court of Appeals has upheld the $39 million judgment against Outback Steakhouse Inc. in an Indiana couple's lawsuit alleging they were severely injured in a crash caused by a drunk driver who got drunk at a restaurant's grand opening. In June 2003, a circuit court jury found in favor of David and Lisa Markley, whose motorcycle was struck by a drunk driver on July 21, 1997. The...
- Tom Methvin | October 10, 2006 2:32 PM |
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Automobile AccidentsThree executives at Toyota Motor Corp., a company that built a global business on a reputation for quality, have been accused of failing to recall a vehicle they knew was faulty and could cause injuries in an accident. Interestingly, the accusation came from Japanese police officials. These officials filed papers with Japan's prosecutors' office relating to the need for a recall. It was alleged...
- Tom Methvin | October 10, 2006 1:33 PM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsNew Jersey Superior Court Judge Carroll Higbee, who oversees all the Vioxx litigation in New Jersey, recently granted a new trial in a Vioxx case won by Merck in 2005. The judge reasoned that Merck had withheld evidence of three deaths from an article that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. This evidence skewed the article that may have influenced thousands of physicians when...
- Tom Methvin | October 04, 2006 1:35 PM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsSchering-Plough Corp. will pay $435 million to settle the federal government's case against the drug maker arising out of the company's drug sales and marketing practices. The federal investigation also concerned the company's clinical trial programs. Schering-Plough will pay $255 million to resolve civil aspects of the previously disclosed investigation, which involves the drugs Intron and...