Miscellaneous

• Expert Testimony in Personal Injury Cases

  Ken Margolin | May 16, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Most every serious personal injury case, will have at least one expert witness testifying for the plaintiff - if only a physician, explaining the extent of the plaintiff's injuries. Medical malpractice plaintiffs must have an expert to testify to the defendant's deviation from acceptable standards of medical care. Expert testimony gets really interesting, when the cause of an event is in...

• Shame

  Ken Margolin | May 03, 2007 4:30 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  The much publicized lawsuit by a sitting D.C. administrative judge, seeking $67 million for a lost pair of pants, is a cruel perversion of the justice system. The plaintiff has done immeasurable damage to the hard-working defendants, immigrants from South Korea, to legitimate plaintiffs, the justice system, and, one would think, to his self-respect. The anti-justice forces, aka "tort reformers,"...

• Important Massachusetts Slip and Fall Decision

  Ken Margolin | April 23, 2007 3:45 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  As I wrote in a recent blog, lawsuits arising from slipping on a foreign substance in a Massachusetts premises were made difficult by the rule that the plaintiff had to show the substance was on the ground long enough for the proprietor to become aware of, and remove it. Many a significant slip and fall case never made it past summary judgment, because of the rule, which the courts considered a...

• 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....

• Dangerous Toys Still for Sale

  Ken Margolin | March 01, 2007 2:30 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Little has changed since I ran a blog some months ago, on dangerous toys. They are still out there, still for sale, and still marketed to the children most likely to be harmed by them. A number of consumer and advocacy groups put out lists of the year's most dangerous toys. The list by W.A.T.C.H. (world against toys causing harm), of the most dangerous toys of 2006, illustrates the kinds of...

• Peanut Butter Salmonella Outbreak

  Ken Margolin | February 21, 2007 12:30 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Massachusetts has not escaped the salmonella outbreak attributed to jars of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter, that has sickened hundreds of consumers. According to federal officials, lids of peanut jars produced by ConAgra Foods with a product code beginning "2111" may contain the contaminated peanut butter. While a majority of the people known to date to have gotten ill from the peanut...

• Treadmill Injuries

  Ken Margolin | February 16, 2007 11:58 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Surveys of health club owners and managers reveal that the single most dangerous piece of equipment is the treadmill. It makes sense. Treadmills are powerful machines with moving parts, that can seem to have minds of their own. While most treadmill injuries are minor, such as strains and sprains, some can and have been serious, even catastrophic. In one case, an Indiana jury awarded $9 million...

• Parking Garage Crimes

  Ken Margolin | February 02, 2007 3:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  A United States Department of Justice survey lists parking garages as the second most likely site of non-violent crimes and the third most likely location of violent crimes (as of 1999). The problem seems especially pronounced in college settings and in urban areas. Floors of unattended vehicles with plenty of places to escape or hide, a general lack of good lighting or consistent security...