Philadelphia Top Injury Lawyer Blog

Auto safety issues seem to be making Philadelphia headlines daily. Honda yesterday announced a recall of Element and Odyssey models to repair squishy brakes. A vehicle stability assist modulator connected to the brake assembly appears to be faulty and has been linked by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to several car accidents. The recall comes on the heels of Honda's recall of nearly half a million vehicles for malfunctioning air bags that can burst and cause serious personal injury, peppering vehicle occupants with metal fragments.

Toyota's acceleration problems continue to worry Philadelphia car owners and baffle federal regulators. Despite several repair efforts, sudden acceleration on Toyota vehicles remains a problem. Federal regulators are now investigating whether cosmic rays from space, known to affect airplane and space shuttle systems, might be interfering with car computer systems. NHTSA has also tracked fatal acceleration car accidents to Ford and Chrysler vehicles.

In their nationally syndicated column Car Talk, Tom and Ray Magliozzi advise drivers to shift their car into neutral if the gas pedal sticks or the car starts to accelerate on its own. Shifting into neutral disengages the engine from the wheels so that even if the engine continues to rev, the car will slow down and eventually stop. Shifting into neutral is preferable to turning off the key because it allows the driver to maintain control of the car. In neutral, the power steering, power brakes, ABS and other vehicle systems continue to work. Turning off the key shuts down all these systems and can activate the steering wheel lock, giving the driver absolutely no control over the runaway vehicle.

If you are in a car accident caused by uncontrollable acceleration or vehicle malfunction, a personal injury attorney can provide a free case evaluation and advise you of your legal rights.

The biggest night in football is nearly here. For fans, Super Bowl Sunday means trash talking with your buddies, snacks, beer, zany commercials, endless highlights and, of course, the Big Game. You'll watch the game ensconced in the comfort of your comfy easy chair, but dozens of high school fans will watch from their wheelchairs. One in 100,000 high school football players suffers a serious, paralyzing spinal cord personal injury and hundreds more suffer serious concussions that result in permanent disability or degenerative brain disease.

The serious personal injury suffered on the field by a pro football player gets a lot of press. When Philadelphia Eagles running back Brian Westbrook was struck in the head and knocked unconscious during the Washington game, Philly fans were horrified. A second concussion in San Diego was even more frightening, placing Westbrook at risk for long-term brain damage. Recent research linking concussions to degenerative brain disease has drawn attention to what the press is calling pro football's concussion crisis . Some argue that pro players are paid to take such risks, but what of the 140,000 concussions suffered every year by children who play football in Pop Warner leagues or on school teams? And what of the spinal cord injuries that paralyze some of those kids?

Former football players who have experienced debilitating injuries and parents caring for children forever damaged by football injuries have been working to raise public consciousness about the dangers of playing football. Medical experts say that young Philadelphia players with their still developing bodies are at greater risk than adults for serious personal injury while playing football. Parents of injured athletes charge that inadequate or improper training, overly aggressive coaching, lack of immediate medical attention, and lack of trainers and ambulances at games contribute to the severity of personal injuries suffered by Philadelphia children on the football field.

If your child is injured playing sports, a Philadelphia personal injury lawyer may be able to help you recover funds needed to pay for medical expenses and care for your child.

An improperly administered radiation treatment for throat cancer killed a 43-year-old New York City man just before Christmas 2007. Before he died, three overdoses of radiation left the man blind, deaf, severely burned, his mouth full of ulcers and his teeth falling out. Unable to swallow and in extreme pain, the man died of his injuries. It never should have happened and, certainly, the New York City hospital where the man went for treatment shouldn't have made the same radiation dosage error three times. A computer error was found to be at fault. Instead of directing a linear accelerator to target the man's throat cancer, the computer caused the machine to blast the man's brain stem and neck with lethal doses of high-energy radiation.

The potentially lethal danger of high-energy radiation treatments gone awry was revealed by The New York Times this week following an extensive investigation. The Times naturally found that radiation dosage accidents are common nationwide. Last June, more than 90 Philadelphia veterans were given incorrect doses of radiation during treatment for prostate cancer. Dr. John Feldmeier, a radiation oncologist at the University of Toledo, told the Times an estimated 1 in 20 patients is injured during radiation treatment.

Radiation is a standard treatment for cancer and one that is often highly effective. The Times pointed out that serious accidents are rare; however, medical radiation is being used increasingly frequently as a diagnostic and treatment tool. According to The Times, "The average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation has increased sevenfold since 1980, and more than half of all cancer patients get radiation therapy."

While radiation therapy serves a helpful use in modern medicine, radiation accidents can inflict unbearable pain and result in death. If you or someone you care for has been the victim of a radiation accident, a Philadelphia personal injury attorney can investigate to see if medical malpractice or negligence has occurred.

In Philadelphia, wrongful death is described as when an individual dies as the result of negligence by another individual or an entity such as a business, corporation, manufacturer, or other. A wrongful death personal injury claim seeks compensation for the victim's survivors from the person or entity that caused the individual's death.

A modern legal concept, wrongful death was not one of the early core "common law" legal principles brought to the U.S. by English colonists on which American's laws were first based. Those early common laws allowed victims injured by negligence to pursue compensation but held that the right to recovery died with the individual. Early law denied families to sue for the losses suffered by the death of a loved one: loss of earnings, loss of financial security, loss of family companionship and support, and loss of all the specific and even esoteric contributions the individual would have made to his family had he lived. Seeing a need for a path to such recovery, states gradually passed wrongful death laws. All 50 states now wrongful death laws, although they can vary widely from state to state.

In Philadelphia, a wrongful death claim can be made anytime death results from the negligent actions of another. State of Pennsylvania statute allows personal injury lawyers to sue for recovery to compensate the individual's survivors for the financial loss sustained by the death of their family member. Compensation is based on the portion of the deceased individual's earnings that would have supported his family had he lived. This can include funds for housing, food, clothing, education, health care, recreation, entertainment and gifts. In Philadelphia, wrongful death recovery is also allowed for the value of the care, comfort and companionship the individual would have provided his family over his lifetime.

Next time: Keys to proving wrongful death