Philadelphia Personal Injury Attorney Blog - Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis LLP

Although it sounds like a script they would green-light, it's a real suit faced by Fox News: an employee is suing the owner of the Manhattan building where the company was housed, claiming she suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after being bitten by bedbugs at work. This personal injury lawsuit is in addition to the workers' compensation suit she filed with News Corp. Through the workers' compensation suit, she is receiving lost wages and medical bills, and her employer was not named in the lawsuit, per the restrictions of workers' compensation law.

The woman complained to human resources three times and was ridiculed at work as a result of the circumstances. Although some may doubt the diagnosis of PTSD, typically associated with veterans returning from combat, insect phobias have been known to cause people great stress, often leading to a lingering condition known as delusional parasitosis, in which a person believes him or herself to be afflicted by insects and can cause themselves and others great personal harm in attempting to combat the affliction.

Although workers' compensation law prevents you from bringing suit against your employer, if the owner and operator of the building fails to provide a safe and comfortable working environment, you can bring a premises liability lawsuit against them. To learn more, please contact the experienced personal injury attorneys at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation and case evaluation.

On May 15, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal spoke before Congress and proposed a powerful federal-state partnership to protect patients from nursing home abuse, neglect. In particular, he cited the growing consolidation of nursing homes under parent companies that can not only funnel huge profits to the hungry maw of the great octopus, but can also use their many tendrils to confuse and deflect state oversight agencies.

In particular, he cited the case of Haven Healthcare, which operated 25 homes in New England before filing for bankruptcy in November 2007. The company neglected its nursing homes, staffing them at the minimum level, well below state or national averages. The nursing homes were cited for hundreds of violations, but the company did not improve the quality of care, rather preferring to pay its fines, sometimes less than $3000 in state and federal penalties for a lethal act of neglect.

The company let its utility bills go unpaid until the utilities went to the Connecticut state government with a threat to shut down power at six of the company's nursing homes for delinquency in payment. This company had been cited for hundreds of potentially and actually deadly violations of standards of nursing home care. It paid its fines, sometimes less than $3000 for a lethal act of neglect, an. The company received $130 million annually from Medicare and Medicaid, with much of the money earmarked for reimbursement of expenses for drugs and equipment for residents, but it ran up a debt of $ 20 million to pharmaceutical and equipment suppliers. This is above and beyond the nearly $80,000 a year paid by each resident of the 1300-bed system not on Medicare.

So where did the money go? It's hard to tell, but at least $15 million of it went into the hands of Chief Executive Officer Raymond Termini. Termini received about $5 million worth of assets directly into his wife's checking account, while the other $10 million was sunk into country music label Category 5 Records, headlined by singer Travis Tritt until it was also gutted by Termini, according to a suit filed by the singer against the label. According to the suit, Category 5 Records did not invest in promotion of Tritt's album The Storm, including a failure to provide promotional travel expenses. The suit also claims that the label fired most of its staff prior to the release of the second single off the album, making the company essentially defunct. How much of this company's assets were absorbed by Termini are unknown at this point, but it is known that the drain of this investment adversely affected the solvency of Haven Healthcare and threatened the lives of many residents through nursing home neglect.

But is Blumenthal's suggestion for a robust investigative arm of the federal government a viable solution to this problem? It does not seem likely that any such measure will pass congress in the short-term. Perhaps something might be done as part of a comprehensive reform of the entire health care system, but that, too, is many years off.

In the meantime, you often have only one recourse for dealing with nursing home profiteering: a personal injury lawyer who can recoup the money you have paid for housing and care, compensation for treatment of injuries suffered as a result of poor care, and punitive damages that make it unprofitable for companies to run poor-quality nursing homes. Please contact the experienced nursing home neglect attorneys at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation. In some cases, time is of the essence, as profiteers can try to use bankruptcy as a shield to cut and run.

Seven years after an 18-year-old Penn State freshman died during a liposuction, the Philadelphia doctor operating on her insisted that "The procedure was done properly," and accused the family of seeking money. However, the family insisted that they were never seeking money and that they would never have accepted an out-of-court settlement because they wanted to warn people away from the doctor who killed their daughter.

They say Dr. Richard Glunk, a veteran cosmetic surgeon, board-certified, killed their daughter, and say anything short of a criminal conviction falls short of justice for her. The mother accused the doctor, "You could have saved her life. You chose not to. We will never understand it to our dying breath why you didn't get a kid help when she needed it." The mother was referring to her pleas during the procedure that the doctor should call an ambulance when the girl began to show signs of complications.

The plaintiff's lawyer, describing the doctor's testimony, said, "The more he talked and said things that weren't supported by what other witnesses said and what the evidence was, they got angrier and angrier." The doctor was found to be operating without a license for an ambulatory surgical facility, which he said did not apply to his office.

The case reveals what is one of the chief reasons why people file medical malpractice lawsuits: the perceived arrogance of the medical profession. The doctor, refusing to admit a mistake, making his own interpretations of the law, and failing to call for help when necessary, showed the worst possible side of a medical god-complex, and also why doctors who admit their humanity lead to less medical malpractice suits. The jury was responding to his medical arrogance when it awarded $5.5 million in compensatory damages for the wrongful death of the young woman, and $15 million in punitive damages.

If you or a loved one have been hurt as a result of medical malpractice, but find that the doctor refuses to even describe what happened, let alone admit that what happened could be his or her fault in any way, often the only way for you to get the truth is to file a lawsuit. Contact the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free consultation.

A jury decided that doctors were medically negligent in trying to deliver a 9-pound baby by vaginal birth after telling the mother months before that she had a narrow pelvic arch. The full-term baby, larger than average, became wedged in the birth canal, and remained stuck there for 13 hours. The process squeezed the baby's head, and led to brain damage, including a limitation on her ability to use her limbs, vision problems, and mild retardation. After 13 hours, the baby was finally delivered by Caesarean section.

In defending the gynecologist, the organization Group Health Associates said she "did everything medically possible to facilitate a healthy delivery," but one wonders why it required 13 hours of the baby being lodged in the birth canal to make the decision to scrub the vaginal delivery and attempt a Caesarean section.

If your child suffered birth injury as a result of a doctor's failure to recognize a dangerous or untenable situation, please contact the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation.

The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) has released a report which details numerous concerns related to federal employees deployed in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. The report points out that because the goal of the Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction and stabilization efforts require what it terms a "whole of government" approach, with civilian personnel from all 15 federal civilian agencies, as well as representatives from state and local governments serving in the role of "experts."

However, the HASC report states that, although the government has deployed over 2000 civilians into the field, it has not prepared for the ramifications of that deployment, including preparing the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP) for the influx of injuries of a type that it has not previously handled. The workers' compensation program, they point out, is not prepared to handle either the number of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) it is likely to see in the aftermath of the deployment.

Other areas of concern the report identified included access to medical care for civilian employees while deployed, and the ability to properly compensate federal employees deployed to the war zone.

The concern shows that no matter where your worksite is, if you are injured on the job, you are entitled to workers' compensation. For help obtaining the benefits you are due, please contact the workers' compensation attorneys at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today.

Nowadays, office work is largely synonymous with computer work. We have already talked about how to reduce strain from working at a computer all day, but what about the computer screen itself? Can the computer screen lead to injury?

Currently, no evidence exists that working at a computer screen can lead to eye injury or eye disease. However, it can lead to many forms of discomfort, including:

· Glare from the screen causing irritation

· Poor quality images leading to strain

· Long periods at the computer lead to strain

· Computers heat and dry the air, which can lead to irritation in contact lens wearers

In addition to eye irritation and strain, many people complain about frequent headaches at work. These headaches can be related to many things, including:

· Eye strain

· Failure to take a break

· Poor posture

· Stress

To reduce headaches at work, make sure your eyes are not being strained by your work at the computer screen. In addition, make sure your chair, monitor, and other parts of your workstation are properly adjusted so you work in the proper posture. Finally, take breaks and reduce stress at work by keeping things in perspective. It is so easy to believe that one or another thing represent the end of the world, but the truth is that very few jobs are worth stressing over. Situations will arise that may cause you to worry, but instead you should try to put your energy into work instead. You will not only be healthier, but you'll find you're more productive as well.

If, however, you have suffered an injury at work, including a heart attack or stroke brought on by workplace stress, you are eligible for workers' compensation. Please contact the experienced workers' compensation attorneys at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today to set up a consultation about your workers' compensation claim.

The Detroit News has published another attempt at promoting tort reform by companies that stand to profit. This most recent distortion of the facts was co-written by John Engler, President and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, and represents a gussied-up form of "what's good for General Motors . . ." In this opinion piece, not only do Engler and his co-author promote the kind of statistics I objected to in a previous blog, call the state of Pennsylvania a "tort liability sinner," but they also promote a finding by "University of California-Berkeley economist Lisa Kimmel," which states that tort reform leads to a 1 percent increase in job creation.

I put the description of Dr. Kimmel in quotation marks because it is very misleading. The purported findings come from her 2001 dissertation, written while she was a student at the University of California-Berkeley, so it is not technically accurate to describe her as an "economist" at the school.

In addition, if you look at the summary she wrote of her dissertation's findings, you see a somewhat different story from what the industrialists would have you believe. Although she talks about the growth of jobs, she states, "I conclude my research by noting that jobs do not tell the wholestory [sic]. If tort reform has increased jobs by reducing the costs generated by frivolous lawsuits, then reform is on balance positive. However, if instead tort reform has reduced the costs of doing business by allowing firms to externalize social costs, then additional jobs will be paid for with higher accident rates and greater health hazards." She notes that in some cases job growth comes at the price of allowing firms to "externalize social costs," meaning that you are likely to pay for the jobs in another way, not only in money, but in the flesh and blood of workers and consumers hurt by unsafe workplace practices and defective products.

If we look at a Congressional Budget Office report from 2004, it notes that tort reform, specifically noneconomic damage caps, "led to increases in insurers' profitability for both medical malpractice and general liability insurance. (Evidence on whether premiums were affected was mixed.)"

Looking at the evidence, tort reforms may provide some increase in jobs, but they will definitely lead to higher profits for manufacturers and insurance companies and less recourse for you in the event of an injury.

If you have suffered a workplace injury, or an injury as a result of medical malpractice or a defective product, you know how vulnerable you are to the negligence of corporations. There is no reason to let them feed their greed on your misfortune. Please contact the personal injury lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation and case evalutation.

People concerned about the Smart fortwo microcar's safety may be happy to learn that the vehicle has earned top scores in automobile accident safety in crash tests conducted by the insurance industry. The Institute for Highway Safety rated the car "good" in front- and side-impact tests, according to results released Wednesday. The results compare vehicles within weight classes, and especially front-end test scores cannot be compared across weight classes. In the front-end crash, the simulation shows what would happen to the car if struck by a vehicle of a similar weight, while the side-impact crash results test what would happen if the vehicle were struck in the side by a sport utility vehicle.

The car has a steel safety cage and four standard airbags both in the front and on the side, and includes electronic stability control. Because this car is over three feet shorter and nearly 700 pounds lighter than other vehicles on the road, safety has been a limiting concern for many people.

The family of a high school student who nearly drowned in his high school pool during a mandatory swimming unit has filed a $10 million claim against the school district. The student was listed in school records as a "non-swimmer," but the physical education teacher made no effort to keep him from moving into the deep side of the pool, where he migrated while talking to other kids, although he stayed near the edge of the pool. Then, at one point, he sank to the bottom of the pool. When another student noticed that he was at the bottom of the pool, the teacher called all students out of the pool, but did not dive in to attempt to rescue him. Instead, she removed her warm-up suit and called for help on the radio. She only called the school security, not 911 emergency. Then she attempted to rescue him with the emergency pole.

The school security guards attempted to rescue the boy, but were unable to reach the bottom of the 12-foot pool. Finally a student was able to reach him and bring him up to where others could help him, but when he was raised to the surface, witnesses reported that his lips were blue and he was not breathing.

Although the boy survived, he suffered permanent brain damage. The parents filed a claim against the Milpitas Unified School District saying that the school and the physical education teacher "were profoundly incompetent, negligent, and grossly reckless" in supervising the class and the pool, which is the first step in filing a premises liability suit. Hopefully, this experience has at least taught the school that any physical education teacher supervising a swim class must be willing and able to dive in to rescue a drowning student.

If you or a loved one has suffered a tragic injury as a result of someone else's failure to properly supervise, maintain, or secure their property, please contact the experienced premises liability lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation.

The Air Force has made a record payment to a civilian employee after his baby suffered a birth injury at the US Naval Hospital in Okinawa, Japan. The man was working as a golf course superintendant in 2004, when his wife gave birth to their daughter. The mother's uterus ruptured during birth, and the baby suffered prolonged oxygen deprivation. The girl is now severely disabled. She suffers from spastic cerebral palsy and blindness. She is unable to eat and must be fed through a surgical tube implanted in her stomach.

The majority of the settlement will go into a trust to pay medical bills and nursing costs for the young girl. The lawsuit that was filed stated that the hospital midwife was grossly negligent and guilty of medical malpractice for attempting to perform a high-risk delivery without the assistance of an obstetrician.

The family's lawyer noted that the money cannot possibly compensate the family for their tragedy, but the hope is that the magnitude of the settlement will encourage greater vigilance at military hospitals.

If your child has suffered a birth injury, you not only need money to care for your disabled child, but hopefully can increase awareness of some of the most likely birth injuries that can occur. To receive compensation and raise awareness, you need the help of an experienced medical malpractice lawyer. Please contact Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation and case evaluation.

Many people assume that workplace injuries only occur at dangerous workplaces, like construction sites, oil refineries, mines, or convenience stores, but the truth is that many injuries occur under the very conditions where the majority of us work: in an office, at the computer. Sometimes, these injuries can be merely a nuisance, but other times, they can be serious, necessitating a workers compensation claim.

Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) is a name for any number of aches and pains that occur as a result of doing the kinds of things you have to do during your office job. This can range from stress that makes it painful for you to work, all the way up to disorders like bursitis or tendonitis that can prevent you from working at all and require expensive medical treatment. If you file repeatedly, if you stay on the phone all day, and especially if you type on your computer all day, you are liable to suffer some form of RSI. Here are some tips for avoiding this form of injury:

Break up tasks: if you have a lot of filing to do, break it up into several shorter tasks, rather than attempting to do it all at once. If your phone calls are long, take breaks in between to do other work.

Ergonomic design: Make sure all your work equipment is designed to help avoid strain on your body during use. A shoulder rest for your phone, a wrist rest at your keyboard, a well-adjusted chair can all make the difference between injury and health. Place your most-used files at a comfortable level to avoid repetitive bending over. If you feel uncomfortable at your work station, suggest to your employer that you might benefit from an ergonomic analysis of your workstation.

Keep active: Being generally active and healthy is a good way to prevent RSI. Park farther away from the building to get in more walking every day, or use public transportation to add walking and save money at the same time. If you can, consider biking to work. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Get up and walk during break times rather than spending it checking email or browsing the web. Suggest to your employer that the office practice a mandatory break with stretching exercises to help everyone in the office avoid injury.

If you have suffered an on-the-job injury in your office workplace, these can sometimes be the hardest to prove, but the experienced workers compensation lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP know how to maximize your success. Please contact us today for a free initial consultation.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the economic downturn has "prompted" nurses to work extra shifts, which has, in the words of the Kaiser Family Foundation (no longer associated with Kaiser Permanente), has helped to "address [the] nursing shortage" faced by hospitals and nursing homes. However, one wonders whether this solution is a good one. Working extra shifts leads to fatigue, and fatigue leads to mistakes, medical malpractice, and wrongful deaths.

On the other hand, previous solutions to the nursing shortage included a number of short-program for-profit schools rushing barely qualified nurses into the hospital. So how are we to address this problem?

Perhaps nurses need better pay and more respect. Compared to doctors, nurses make very little, although they often do most of the work. If nurses received better compensation and more respect, more highly-qualified people would enter the nursing profession and stay, moving up in the hierarchy to supervise and mentor incoming nurses.

If you or a loved one has suffered as a result of a nursing error, whether that nurse was fatigued from working extra shifts or poorly trained by a for-profit school, contact the experienced medical malpractice attorneys at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation.

In a speech before the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' (ACOG) 56th annual clinical meeting, Richard Boothman, JD, the chief risk officer for the University Of Michigan Health Systems said that lawyers were not to blame for the current crisis in medical malpractice liability. Instead, he said, doctors were themselves largely to blame for giving patients no recourse but to turn to a lawyer.

OB/GYN's are particularly sensitive to the crisis because they have the highest medical malpractice premiums of any specialty, since they are exposed to suits resulting from jeopardizing the mother's health and birth injuries to the baby as well. He said, "Study after study suggests that patients sue primarily because they feel they haven't gotten answers. They feel that no one is accountable when an error has caused injury. They also feel a huge sense of responsibility to protect others, to make sure what happened to them won't happen to other patients." Finally, a hospital that understands medical malpractice lawsuits are driven not by money, but by a desire for justice and by a desire to bring some good from a bad situation.

To respond to the real rationale underlying patients' lawsuits, the University of Michigan Health Systems instituted a process of full disclosure with respect to medical errors, and found that, since the procedure was instituted in 2001, the number of cases pending against the system were reduced by 2/3, costs were reduced by half, and processing times were reduced by half. This shows that it is not lawyers who are to blame for the current crisis in medical malpractice, but doctors, who are often too arrogant to admit a mistake, explain, and issue an apology.

Unfortunately, until more hospitals institute this kind of procedure, the courts remain your only avenue for getting the answers you need from a doctor. If you have been hurt by a medical error, please contact the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation and case evaluation.

We commonly imagine nursing homes as housing the elderly, but there are many different nursing home populations, including persons with:

· Crippling brain or spinal injury

· Birth deformity

· Lost limbs

· Cerebral palsy

· Learning disabilities

· Muscular dystrophy

Sometimes, the nursing home is an even worse place for these patients than for the elderly. Since the majority of the nursing home population is elderly, the nursing homes design their routines and patterns to that elderly population. But many of these other tenants need a different kind of routine, and often the nursing home staff is reluctant to go to the extra trouble to provide it. This kind of neglect can lead to long-range damage that may prevent the tenant from ever being able to care for him or herself.

Unfortunately, many of these other nursing home populations are just as vulnerable to abuse as the elderly population, as shown by a recent case in the UK, where a nursing home manager pled guilty to charges of stealing from a tenant of his home who had both cerebral palsy and a learning disability. The theft was not noticed until the manager changed jobs, and the new manager determined that the victim's account had less money in it that the record showed it should.

And in many cases, these nursing home tenants are just as vulnerable to physical and mental abuse in the nursing home as the elderly. Because they are vulnerable, they may fear retaliation more than continued abuse.

If you have a relative in a nursing home as a result of a medical condition who has suffered abuse, you need an advocate who can resolve the case in a way that puts you in a position to move your relative to a better situation in which he or she can receive better care. Please contact the experienced nursing home abuse and neglect attorneys at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation where you can discuss your options.

The American Tort Reform Association claims its goal is "Bringing greater fairness, predictability, and efficiency to the civil justice system," which, it claims, can be achieved by tort reform. It promotes itself as a champion of plaintiffs, but very few plaintiffs' groups are listed in its Lawsuit Abuse Reform Coalition. Instead, the coalition is mostly composed of industry groups like the Pennsylvania Automotive Wholesalers Association, the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, and the Petroleum Retailers & Auto Repair Association.

However, one wonders why this "coalition of the willing" also includes many chambers of commerce, such as the Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County, both in Pennsylvania. The probable reason is the argument put forward by corporate reformers, including industry think-tanks like the Institute for Legal Reform, which annually compiles a list of states based on the "fairness" of their liability system. This report is used by reformer groups, like the Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch to spread the basic lie that a free and open court system hurts business.

In a recent article, the supposed citizen group said that Illinois' poor legal climate (5th worst in the country) was responsible for slow economic growth in Illinois. According to their statistics, Illinois' economy only grew at 40 % of the national rate, based on GDP, and lost 66,000 jobs, no doubt due to the poor legal climate. However, their argument simply does not hold water.

First, I do not know where they got their statistics. According to the US Department of Commerce (DoC)'s statistics, Illinois' GDP grew at approximately the same rate as the national economy, (average of 4% per year, or 24 % from 2001-2006). Second, according to the Institute's list, the worst legal climate in the nation is in West Virginia, while the best is in Delaware. According to the DoC's statistics, Delaware's GDP grew at approximately 6 % per year, while West Virginia's grew at about 5 %, essentially no difference that might be attributed to any significant effects of a supposedly "unfair" civil justice system. Incidentally, Pennsylvania, ranked 32nd worst had GDP growth of about 5 % per year, slightly better than the nation as a whole, while one of the country's top performers, with a GDP growth of 7 % per year (no doubt due at least in part to profit-taking by the petroleum industry), was ranked 44th out of 50, just above California, whose GDP growth was approximately the same as Delaware's.

The goal of these misinformation campaigns is to get you to voluntarily surrender your right to recourse if you are injured by the negligence of another, especially corporate negligence. They hope that in the current economic troubles, their arguments will resonate with many people suffering as a result of the downturn, but do not fall for their scam.

Does the civil justice system hurt businesses? Yes, it hurts businesses that hurt people, and if it's weakened, businesses will continue hurting people.

If you have been hurt by the negligence of another, don't surrender your right to just compensation. Contact the experienced tort lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation.

One of the most common but lethal outcomes of medical negligence is hospital-acquired infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 99,000 people suffer wrongful death every year from infections acquired at the hospital. A hospital is a place where sick people gather, so it is natural that it can become a breeding-ground for potentially deadly bacteria. Unfortunately, many doctors and other hospital personnel treat this fact too casually, and it is up to you to prevent infection.

Speak Up

Don't be afraid to advocate for your own rights. Make sure the doctor washes his or her hands before touching you, even when wearing gloves. If you don't see him or her washing, politely request that he or she should do so.

Make Sure Syringes Aren't Being Reused

Although most doctors know and comply with the practice of one-use, disposable syringes, some doctors do not. This has been responsible for numerous, huge outbreaks of hepatitis, and it can happen to you. Ask the doctor whether the syringe has been used before, and make sure you see it disposed after your injection. If you don't see it disposed, alert healthcare officials.

Avoid Catheters

Catheters can be not only a breeding-ground for bacteria, but also a direct line into your body. Ask that catheters only be used when absolutely necessary. This goes not only for urinary catheters, but also for central venous catheters (aka central lines), which can lead to serious infections of the cardiovascular system. Make sure they are only in as long as they are needed, and, once unnecessary, are quickly removed.

These and other simple measures can dramatically reduce the chance you will suffer a hospital-acquired infection. Your doctors and nurses should be just as cognizant as you of the risks, and should take all necessary precautions. There are no excuses for this form of medical malpractice.

If you or a loved one has suffered from a hospital-acquired infection, contact the medical malpractice lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation and case evaluation.