All Topics

• 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...

• The Expert Witness Industry

  Ken Margolin | August 15, 2007 2:45 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Many serious personal injury cases, and pretty much all products liability and medical malpractice actions, require expert witnesses. The experts testify on topics including the mechanism of injury, industry standards or medical standard of care, the plaintiff's medical condition, economic loss, and others. Local experts may not want to testify against a professional or company in their own...

• Wrong Site Surgeries

  Ken Margolin | August 06, 2007 4:10 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  An article in Saturday's Boston Globe illustrated the gap that sometimes exists between written procedures and implementation. The article also highlighted the ongoing danger from surgeries on the wrong part of a patient's body. Five hundred fifty-two cases of wrong-site surgery have been reported by American hospitals since 1995; there are undoubtedly many unreported cases. The incident covered...

• $160 Million Nursing Home Abuse Verdict

  Ken Margolin | August 02, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Corporate nursing home officials who bank on jurors discounting residents' injuries from nursing home abuse, because of their age or pre-existing illness, may think again after a $160 million dollar verdict in Texas. The victim of the abuse was an 81 year old resident of the Comanche Trail Nursing Home in Big Spring, Texas. Nursing home personnel assigned him a new roommate who was mentally ill...

• Protecting Consumers from Binding Arbitration Clauses

  Ken Margolin | July 26, 2007 6:20 PM | 2 CommentsBoston, MA

  Big corporations love binding arbitration clauses. They are hidden in many contracts, requiring the individual to give up his or her right to a jury trial in the case of a dispute with the company. Some clauses attempt to block class actions. When large corporations are safe from class actions, they can cheat large numbers of people in small increments, knowing that paying off the few...

• Mediation of Personal Injury Cases

  Ken Margolin | May 31, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Clients often ask me if "my case will have to go to court?" By that question, they mean, will it have to be tried before a jury, or will it settle "out of court." Most clients, even those who appreciate that they could get significantly more money with a verdict than through settlement, prefer the surety of a settlement over the high stakes gamble of a big score vs. nothing. Sometimes a case...

• Staff Abuse of Clients with Developmental Disabilities

  Ken Margolin | April 06, 2007 10:55 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  It's not often discussed outside of professional settings, but the issue of sexuality and developmental disability, poses ethical dilemmas. In fact, a book on the subject, bears that exact title: Ethical Dilemmas: Sexuality and Developmental Disability, Dorothy M. Griffiths, Ph.D., et al., ed., NAAD Press, Kingston, NY 2002. Professionals who work with individuals with developmental...

• 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...

• New Pharmaceutical Worries

  Ken Margolin | December 26, 2006 7:15 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  A British study reported last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reported a significantly higher risk of hip fractures in patients over 50 years of age, taking popular heartburn drugs, such as Nexium, Prevacid, or Prilosec, for more than a year. The drugs, as any television watcher or magazine reader, knows, have been heavily advertised. The drugs that showed the highest...

• Construction Accidents Continue

  Ken Margolin | November 30, 2006 9:30 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  An ongoing theme on this blog site is the hazards of construction work and the justifiable liability for companies that negligently put workers at risk. Two more significant settlements were reported this week in Massachusetts, resulting from serious accidents at construction sites. In the first case, an ironworker fell to his death from a scaffolding 65 feet in the air. A piece of structural...