Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

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The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court has dismissed appeals by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in its attempt to reverse a jury verdict of $8.6 million, which included a very sizable sum for punitive damages. A lawsuit originated in a claim against Wyeth as to its menopause drug, Prempro, which has been associated with women developing breast cancer.  Wyeth had asked the state’s Supreme Court to overturn the September 2013 punitive damages verdict. Wyeth argued that the verdict should be invalidated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) earlier approval of the drug for safe use. 

Wyeth maintained that the appellate court had erred in reinstating the jury verdict that was entered by a Philadelphia jury in 2007 for Mary Daniel, who claimed that the Prempro menopause drug caused her breast cancer. 

Following that jury verdict, the punitive damages were tacked onto a compensatory damage award of $1.7 million.  Ms. Daniel and her husband were the plaintiffs in the case. 

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Following an automobile accident, Cody Wade, 17, was hospitalized. The injuries he suffered in the car crash led the hospital’s staff to place a tracheostomy tube to help with Cody’s breathing. A tracheostomy is a surgical procedure in which a doctor creates an opening through the neck to the patient’s windpipe or trachea. The tube is placed through that opening to give the patient an airway and to allow for the removal of other secretions from the lungs. The tube itself is called a tracheostomy tube or a trach tube.

About a month after the tracheostomy, a hospital staff person removed the trach tube in anticipation of Cody’s transferral to a rehabilitation hospital. When the tube was removed, Cody experienced tachycardia and labored breathing. Tachycardia is a condition of rapid heartbeat. Generally, a resting heart rate over 100 beats per minute is considered tachycardic. 

Because of Cody’s condition, the trach tube was reinserted. Medical tests revealed that there was swelling in Cody’s airway.

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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has published recent data showing that the number of large trucks (those weighing more than 10,000 lbs.) involved in deadly crashes has risen. In 2011, 3,608 trucks were involved in fatal crashes. The 2011 numbers are an increase of 3 percent from 2010 and a 12 percent increase from 2009.

In the United States, 3,757 individuals died in large truck crashes in 2011. More than 80,000 were injured in truck-related crashes.

Even though the numbers are rising, truck drivers or professional drivers abide by the traffic and highway laws in most cases. More than 83 percent of truck drivers compared to 65 percent of drivers of other passenger vehicles use their seat belts. Truck drivers are much less likely to be drinking alcohol when driving than other motorists. 

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Sandy Parrish, the administrator of the estate of Karen Parrish, filed a wrongful-death and survival action against physician Michael Jones, D.O., and other medical providers. The suit stemmed from what was alleged to be the negligent care of Karen Parrish, resulting in her death. 

On Dec. 30, 2004, Parrish was admitted to Adena Regional Medical Center and diagnosed with an acute peripheral-nerve disorder. She was then transferred to a rehabilitation center and was under the care of another defendant physician, Christopher Skocik, D.O. 

In the lawsuit, the Parrish family alleged that the medical staff treating Karen had been negligent by choosing not to prescribe the appropriate anti-coagulation therapy. It was further alleged in the complaint that as a direct and proximate result of that negligence, Karen died prematurely suffering a cardiopulmonary arrest and hypoxia due to a pulmonary emboli with saddle embolus and deep-vein thrombosis.

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Recently two Cook County Circuit Court judges, Judge Lynn M. Egan (Law Division) and Judge Mary Ellen Coghlan (Probate Division), developed an instructive PowerPoint program for Illinois lawyers, in an effort to clearly define the differences between wrongful death actions and survival actions in Illinois.

In a wrongful death act claim, the recovery would be for the exclusive benefit of the decedent’s surviving spouse and next-of-kin.  If the wrongful death was immediate with no pain and suffering associated with it, a special administrator could be appointed as the case is being filed. No probate estate would be necessary.

However, the confusion begins when a wrongful death act claim and a survival statute claim are both present. When a survival action is available to a plaintiff, the judges concur that a probate estate must be set up for the benefit of the decedent’s estate.  A survival action is like many personal injury cases in which there may be pain and suffering element to the case associated with the injury that later resulted in death. Where there is a portion of the recovery for damages related to pain and suffering by settlement or verdict, the sum associated with the survival action goes to the decedent’s estate, not to the next-of-kin or surviving spouse as it would if for the wrongful death action. 

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Motorcyclists have a higher fatality rate than drivers of cars. This is due to many factors, but one is the fact that motorists frequently fail to notice motorcycles. In many accidents, the motorcyclist is not wearing a helmet. In some instances, motorcyclists are traveling at high rates of speed, and they collide with a car or truck. Such was the case in the death of D.S.

D.S. was operating a motorcycle eastbound on Aug. 31, 2008 on Higgins Road in Schaumburg when he entered the intersection at Mall Drive with a green light. He was cut off by a car operated by the defendant, T.W. She was making a U-turn from westbound Higgins to head eastbound.

D.S. was killed in the crash. He was survived by his wife and three minor children. D.S. was a firefighter and paramedic with the Deerfield-Bannockburn Fire Department. At the time of the accident, he was driving a high-performance motorcycle on his way to a charity run.The defendant was visiting from out of state. Several witnesses testified at trial that the defendant suddenly and unexpectedly made a wide and slow U-turn without activating her turn signal, and she cut D.S. off as he entered the intersection.

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The Illinois Appellate Court has affirmed a partial summary judgment order for a defendant in a head-on crash and death case.  This case arose out of a collision in which the car driven by Jeffrey Pister was struck head-on by an employee of the defendant, Matrix Service Industrial Contractors.  At the time of the crash in April 2009, the Matrix driver, Brian Stultz, was nearing his destination in Champaign, Ill.  Stultz was scheduled to work there later that morning for Matrix. Stultz and Jeffrey Pister were killed in the collision.

Jeffrey’s widow, Tisha Pister, filed a third-amended complaint against Matrix and the Estate of Brian Stultz.  The Estate of Stultz was not part of the appeal.

In the lawsuit, the Pister family claimed that Matrix was liable for Jeffrey’s death under the doctrine of respondeat superior.  Pister asserted two theories:  (1) Brian was a “traveling employee” of Matrix, on which the court, before the trial granted summary judgment for Matrix, and (2) Brian was on a “special errand” for Matrix at the time of the crash. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Matrix on Pister’s “special errand” theory.

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A Los Angeles County jury entered a verdict in favor of the family who died in a fiery crash with a semi-trailer truck on Thanksgiving 2009. 

The Asam family was on its way from California to Oregon to visit relatives for the Thanksgiving weekend.  Kylie Asam, who was 9 at the time, and her 11-year-old brother, Blaine, managed to escape from the family’s SUV after it was hit from behind by the semi-trailer truck on Interstate 210.

Kylie and Blaine unfortunately saw their parents and an older brother get burned alive after the vehicle they were trapped in caught fire. 

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The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has fined Cold Drawn Inc., a St. Louis steel manufacturer, for $52,000 after finding more than two dozen safety violations.

OSHA investigated a worker’s electrocution at the St. Louis Cold Drawn plant. Cold Drawn manufactures cold-finished steel bars at plants in St. Louis, Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Opodaca, Mexico.

The Cold Drawn worker was electrocuted on May 15, 2013 when he reached into an electrical panel box to retrieve work gloves.  The gloves were stored in a box at the company’s St. Louis manufacturing facility. Of the many safety violations, 19 of them were considered serious.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago reversed a district court decision granting summary judgment where the court found that the expert testimony for the plaintiff was unreliable. Donald Schultz was a painter for American Motors Corp. from 1981 until 1989. Benzene was a substance in the paint that was used.Mr. Schultz died in 2006 from an acute myeloid leukemia (AML) related to benzene exposure. 

The wife of Mr. Schultz, Joann, filed a lawsuit against Akzo Nobel Paints (formerly known as the Glidden Co.), asserting that the benzene in the paint caused Mr. Schultz’s AML and subsequently his death.

Akzo moved for summary judgment using the expert testimony of its expert toxicologist, David Pyatt. Pyatt’s opinion was that the benzene exposure did not cause Mr. Schultz’s AML because only workers exposed to more than 40 parts per million (ppm) years of benzene developed AML.

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