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• The Power of Demonstrations

  Ken Margolin | April 03, 2007 1:45 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Trials are interesting events. Plaintiffs' lawyers must recreate events that took place a few years ago. The key to engaging a jury is to make them forget that the events were in the past, and make them come alive for the jury. If the jury experiences the events that injured the plaintiff as if it were happening in the present, the likelihood of a successful result is greatly improved. In a...

• Dangerous Toys Update

  Ken Margolin | April 02, 2007 1:45 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Reports on dangerous toys will be a recurring topic on this blog. Intended for harmless fun, recklessly manufactured toys continue to maim and kill children. U.S. PIRG reports that 292 children have died in the US between 1990 and 2005: a rate of between 11 and 25 per year. The majority of these deaths (57%) are due to choking or asphyxia. In late 2006 the CPSC ordered a recall of a Mattel...

• Insurers' Wrongful Refusal to Pay

  Ken Margolin | March 27, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Today's Boston Globe, carried an article exposing a growing problem as predictable as it is disgraceful - long term care insurers refusing to pay for long term care when it is finally needed. With people living longer, and many in the baby boomer generation acknowledging that they could one day require nursing home or other long-term care, long term care insurance is a booming business....

• Don't Let your Rights Slip Away

  Ken Margolin | March 23, 2007 5:40 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Most people have heard the term "statute of limitations," and have a vague idea that it creates some kind of time limit for legal action. Many people do not realize, however, how devastating a statute of limitations can be when it expires and extinguishes the right to pursue a valid lawsuit. Victims of a serious injury, or their family members, often suffer a type of emotional numbness when it...

• Dangers from Above

  Ken Margolin | March 21, 2007 4:10 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  I'm not a deer hunter, but I have a few friends who are. They tell me that the reason why hunting deer from a tree stand is so successful, is that deers have no natural enemies who prey on them from trees. Deers don't look up to spot potential dangers. Humans are similarly at risk from objects falling from above them. Some truly catastrophic brain injuries, crushing injuries, and deaths, have...

• Swimming Pool Accidents

  Ken Margolin | March 20, 2007 1:45 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Swimming season is not far off, and with it will come the inevitable swimming pool tragedies. Most likely to experience pool accidents are children, usually because they fall into pools while supervising adults are not present. Persons with backyard pools who have children, or whose neighbors have children, are therefore advised to install appropriate fences, door alarms and/or pool covers to...

• Missed, and Mis-Diagnoses

  Ken Margolin | March 19, 2007 1:30 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  There was an excellent article written by Dr. Jerome Groopman, of Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center, in today's Boston Globe, about the causes of medical misdiagnoses. When mis-, or missed, diagnoses occur, they can be deadly. The problem, writes Dr. Groopman, often stems from rigidity in the way doctors think about the symptoms presented by their patients. Dr. Groopman identifies three...

• Truck Accident Victims Unite for Change

  Ken Margolin | March 15, 2007 1:50 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Sometimes the only solace after a loved one has been killed due to corporate negligence and greed, is to join with other grieving families to lobby for change. That is just what the families of children killed by truck driver negligence did, in forming Parents Against Tired Truckers (P.A.T.T.), and Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways (CRASH). Together, they call themselves the Truck Safety...

• Asthma Drug Xolair Risks

  Ken Margolin | March 14, 2007 9:30 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Asthma is a highly-prevalent, yet also easily treatable condition. Drugs and inhalers can make asthma manageable for sufferers and enable them to suppress symptoms and to deal effectively with sudden, severe flare-ups. Asthma is often related to allergies and therefore responds to treatment by so-called "allergy shots." The benefit of this treatment is that the patient does not need to take...

• Is Law Enforcement the Way to Reduce Truck Accidents?

  Ken Margolin | March 08, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  I've posted a few blogs on this site, recounting the fearsome toll on the highways due to large truck accidents and truck driver negligence. The list of well-known causes of fatal truck accidents includes speed, excessive driver hours, drug use, oftentimes to help the driver stay awake, faulty equipment, and inadequate safety training. An excellent blog by Attorney Jeff Lowe, of Missouri,...