All Topics

• E. Coli Hamburgers Make 21 Sick in 8 States

  Courtney Mills | September 28, 2007 2:42 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  The CDC has announced that at least twenty-one people in eight states are on record as having fallen ill in the latest E. coli scare after having consumed hamburger meat tainted with E. coli bacteria.According to reports, CDC spokeswoman Lola Russell said three cases - two in New York and one in Florida - are confirmed as being linked to the ground beef, with the other 18 cases possibly linked...

• Charitable Immunity is Unjust

  Ken Margolin | September 19, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Protecting charitable organizations from liability for the negligence of the organization or its employees, may sound noble, but is in fact, unfair. The immunity doesn't really accomplish its goals, and insures that employees of an organization involved in a personal injury lawsuit, will be sued instead of the organization. Here's the way it works in Massachusetts. By statute, M.G.L. c. 231,...

• Hospital Falls

  Ken Margolin | September 17, 2007 3:45 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  A great deal of attention has been paid lately - rightfully so - to the subject of infections contracted in hospitals. Less focus has been placed on another source of serious and preventable injuries in hospitals - falls. The result of a fall down injury in a hospital may be severe. Patients are ill and often debilitated or disoriented to begin with. If a patient's condition presents any...

• Deadly Medication Errors

  Ken Margolin | September 14, 2007 6:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  The problem of medication errors has by now been well-reviewed, and efforts to minimize such errors are underway in hospitals and doctors' offices across the country. Nevertheless, the problem of medication errors has proven to be a very stubborn one. In his groundbreaking book, "To Err is Human," Lucien Leape, M.D., estimated that medication errors caused approximately 98,000 deaths per year....

• Teen Cell Phone Ban

  Ken Margolin | September 14, 2007 3:35 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  California has banned cell phone use by drivers ages 16 & 17. The ban will include text messaging. Older drivers will be allowed to use hands free phones, but the ban for the teenagers will be total. While the legislation is positive and regrettably, too rare, it is insufficient. A number of studies have shown that even during conversations on hands free cell phones, drivers' reactions times...

• Tainted Beef Sold in Shaw's Supermarkets Recalled

  Ken Margolin | September 06, 2007 1:15 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Ground beef patties sold under the Shaw's supermarket label, were recalled yesterday. According to Fairbank Farms, the company that sells the beef to Shaws, packages with the tainted beef could have been purchased in New England between 7 a.m. - 11 a.m., on Wednesday, September 5, 2007. The 85% lean beef was sold in 1.33 pound packages with the establishment number "Est. 492. The beef was...

• Settling Cases

  Ken Margolin | September 06, 2007 12:15 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Fifteen years ago, the idea of formal mediation of a serious personal injury case in Massachusetts, was cutting edge stuff. Settlement of most cases took place the old-fashioned way, via phone calls or meetings between counsel and at times, insurance adjusters. Today, by way of contrast, a look at the advertisements in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, shows more than 30 ads for alternative...

• Virginia Tech Faulted in Student Deaths

  Ken Margolin | August 30, 2007 10:30 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  An eight-person panel, appointed by Virginia Tech. President, Timothy M. Kaine, issued its report yesterday, on the April 16th multiple murder at the school. The panel said that lives could have been saved if the school administration had issued a timely warning that two students had been murdered. The two were killed approximately two hours before the killer proceeded to another building and...

• PET Scan Aids Large Brain Injury Settlement

  Ken Margolin | August 29, 2007 1:40 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  This week's Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, reported a $3.3 million dollar settlement in a brain injury case. The plaintiff was a contractor in his mid-40s, who was allegedly struck by an improperly secured piece of equipment, while climbing a ladder in a poorly-lit area of the water supply tunnel project on which he was working. After the blow, he complained of headaches, hypersensitivity to...

• Reported Physical Abuse in Nursing Homes Declines

  Ken Margolin | August 22, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  There was some good news in a 2005 study from the National [Nursing Home] Ombudsman Reporting System ("NORS"). Complaints involving physical abuse in nursing homes decreased from 5,426 in 1998 to 4,137 in 2005. According to the report, complaints of nursing home physical abuse ranked 19th out of 128 categories of complaints relating to nursing home conditions.While any decline in numbers of...