An early investigation shows that a 2003 Honda Civic driven by Fortuna was going South on Hyde Park Avenue when it crossed the center line and hit a 2008 Honda Civic traveling north. The two-vehicle crash occurred near the Milton Street Bridge.
The passengers in the other vehicle, three women and a man, who were being driven by a 24-year-old, suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
At the current time, no charges have been filed.
]]> It remains to be seen what, if any, causes for the crash will be unearthed in future investigation.Sometimes -- though there's no such established correlation here -- accidents are caused by car defects in vehicles that should have been recalled.
If your vehicle (or your vehicle's equipment) is found to be defective, you have the right to have the situation remedied, and the vehicle/equipment manufacturer and dealer must take steps to ensure that those rights are protected.
Within a reasonable time after the determination of a car defect or noncompliance, manufacturers must notify, by first-class mail, all registered owners and purchasers of the affected vehicles of the existence of the problem and give an evaluation of its risk to motor vehicle safety.
Once a defect determination is made, the law gives the manufacturer three options for correcting the defect: repair, replacement, or refund. The manufacturer may choose to repair the vehicle; replace the vehicle with an identical or similar vehicle; or refund the purchase price in full, minus a reasonable allowance for depreciation. In the case of equipment, including tires and child safety seats, the manufacturer can either repair or replace.
And, in those instances where you may have had an accident potentially caused by the car defect, you may wish to speak to a personal injury attorney.
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Maybe, but that seems to have been what happened to a Middleboro scammed couple that mailed three boxes full of $94,000 in cash to try and claim bogus sweepstakes winnings, reports Enterprise News.
Moral of the story: don't mail boxes full of cash to people you don't know.
]]> The Middleboro sweepstakes scam seemed to strike a few other people in the area. The way it worked was that back in December you entered a sweepstakes run by a group called R.W. Rich & Associates for $12.99, reports the News. At that point, you were notified you won $175,000, but had to pay a fee to release the money.Then a fake IRS agent called you and told you to send about $94,000 in taxes to … Dubai (which is not in America, mind you). If you wouldn’t send the money there, you could always send the cash to Canada.
Consumer scams like sweepstakes fraud strike frequently. One of the most tragic things about them is that you can rarely get your money back in a consumer scam. One big reason is that the scammers often operate abroad.
However, sometimes you can get lucky, or you may have good detective skills, and can find a culprit of the sweepstakes fraud, that falls under the jurisdiction of your state. At that point you may be able to institute a claim for fraud.
Remember, fraud always involves some sort of false statement, misrepresentation, or deceitful conduct. There may also be filing requirements, like the time-limit within which a case must get to the court, which an attorney would be best able to advise about.
In the meantime, don’t give money to R.W. Rich & Associates.
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It turns out that the average halogen headlight is about 40 to 70 percent brighter today than it was 20 years ago, reports The Boston Globe in an investigation. And if that bright headlight isn't enough here is what is really shocking:
But that's nothing compared with those bluish-tinged, high-intensity discharge lights, which are more than 400 percent brighter than headlights from the early 1990s.]]> In terms of lumens, which is how you measure headlights, old headlights produced 700 lumens, new headlights produce 1,000 to 1,200 lumens, and those bluish discharge lights produce 3,000 lumens.
While the statistics might seem extraordinary to some, the headlight glare is regulated by the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration. So when cars come out of the factory, the headlights are calibrated so that even the high-intensity ones don’t get in other drivers’ eyes.
But where things can go wrong is in the after-market products or fixes, like when you replace a headlight, or if you hit a pothole hard, or because of simple maladjustment. That would change the trajectory at which the headlights come out and potentially get in the eyes of oncoming traffic.
What brighter headlights means is that in car accidents where there may have been a head-on collision at night-time, it may be necessary to investigate the headlights. It is not one of those eye-ball tests to check for the calibration of a headlight. You probably need an expert to get in there and evaluate the specifics.
The best person to help you find such an expert will be a personal injury attorney who is familiar with automobile accidents and has retained expert witnesses in the past. It looks like brighter headlights add another wrinkle to car accident litigation.
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The J&J artificial hip recall came from DePuy Orthopaedics Unit, which made the “metal-on-metal” (not Lollapallooza’s new name) hip that that shed metal fragments.
Beyond the financial losses and the hit the hips took in terms of reputation, was also the matter of the hip replacement lawsuits going through the court system, reports Bloomberg.
]]> All the countless DePuy Orthopaedics Unit hip replacement class-action suits were consolidated in federal court in Ohio. The total number of lawsuits was upwards of 150, and billions in liability was possible.The litigation revealed that the reason the hips were recalled was because they caused "revision surgery" after five years, because of their design defects.
Cases involving design defects generally focus on the manufacturer's decisions in making a product, especially with respect to decisions regarding a product's safety. Unlike manufacturing defect cases, which focus on errors that a manufacturer made while actually making the product, design defect cases focus on the manufacturer's plans in producing the product.
Modern courts employ a cost-benefit analysis in resolving design defect cases. A plaintiff must identify an alternative design that could have made a product safer in order to prove a case based on a design defect. If a plaintiff can demonstrate that a practicable alternative to the design employed by the manufacturer could have prevented the plaintiff's harm, then the court will determine whether the alternative was cost-efficient.
Whether caused by a hip-replacement recall or some other injury, design defects cases are difficult to litigation and require the assistance of experienced counsel.
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The verdict that healthy men shouldn't get the prostate-specific antigen test, or PSA blood test, came down from the United States Preventive Services Task Force. Its conclusions was based on five clinical trials, which showed that while PSA screening did detect more cancers, it didn't save more lives as compared with a group of men that received routine medical care.
]]> However, questions about the conclusions are being raised, particularly with respect to younger men, since the study focused on older men.While medically speaking the question about efficiency and effectiveness is important, legally speaking there may not be much room for the doctors to operate.
A missed diagnoses is one major reason why the entire medical malpractice bar exists. Medical malpractice laws are designed to protect patients’ rights to pursue compensation if they are injured as a result of a medical professional’s negligence.
However, malpractice suits are often complex and costly to win. Therefore, if you believe you have a medical malpractice claim, it is important to consult with an attorney who will discuss your case with you, and help you determine your best options. It is important to make the consultation in a timely manner so that the attorney can make preparations and get what is known as a “certificate of merit” which is a secondary consultation with another medical expert.
To learn more about medical malpractice claims, see the Related Resources below.
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Methylmercury, which is the most potently toxic form of mercury, was found to be widespread in the Northeast. This includes lakes, rivers, forests, and marshes.
Mercury is released into the air when coal is burned. It causes neurological disorders in humans, especially children, causing learning disabilities. Mercury's dangers go further: it causes up to 100,000 heart and asthma attacks per year, reports the Environmental Protection Agency.
]]> Other Mercury dangers are premature death, chronic bronchitis, hospital and emergency room visits, and restricted activity days.One way to control mercury’s dangers are through establishing rules that control power plant emissions.
Of course, it is not always possible to predict how mercury will effect each individual. Some individuals will suffer greatly and will have to consider other options going forward.
Injuries arising from toxic materials or chemicals can give rise to different types of legal actions — including standard product liability lawsuits as well as “toxic torts.” A toxic tort in Massachusetts is a legally actionable injury caused by exposure to a toxic chemical or substance. Because many people are often exposed to the same toxic substances, toxic tort claims often take the form of class actions, such as the long-running asbestos class action suits.
Perhaps because of the “advances” of industry in our nation over the past fifty years, the number of dangerous, toxic substances in our environment has increased. To learn more about toxic torts in Boston and throughout the state, please see a local attorney.
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As a result of this mind-boggling act, the dentist is being charged criminally. He pled guilty to defrauding Medicaid, assault and battery, illegally prescribing prescription drugs, and witness intimidation. It turns out that his attempt to do paper clip root canals was an attempt to save money.
]]> What's scary is that according to experts, paper clips should not be left permanently in a root canal as they are made of the wrong material and consistency. One can only wonder what kind of pain someone that had a bad root canal might undergo.At the least the law affords some remedies for such people. The most likely recompense would be in the form of a medical malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Michael Clair, in a private, civil capacity. This would be a separate proceeding than the criminal action against him. In a criminal action the state pursues punishment against an individual, in a civil action another private citizen seeks redress, usually in the form of damages.
Most medical or dental malpractice cases in Massachusetts proceed under the theory that a medical professional was negligent in treating the patient. To establish medical negligence, an injured patient, the plaintiff, must prove the existence of a duty; the violation of the standard of care that causes a breach of the duty; a relationship between the deviation from standard of care and the patient's injury; and actual injury.
The best person to help you prove these elements, which contain various sub-elements, are local personal injury attorneys. You may ask if they specialize in dental malpractice in the Boston area.
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]]>For the gearheads, the real problem is that "auxiliary water pump designed to dissipate heat from the turbocharger was the cause of the hazard." After this, the water pump may fail. In other words, the car catches fire because it gets too hot and there is no water to put out the fire, i.e. a mini-history of human failure.
]]> The models included in the Mini Cooper recall are the 2007-11 Cooper S; 2008-11 Cooper S Clubman; 2009-11 Cooper S convertible; 2011 Cooper S Countryman; and the 2009-11 John Cooper Works, John Cooper Works Clubman and John Cooper Works convertible.BMW, which owns Mini, describes the Mini Cooper recall as voluntary, reports The Times.
Those who are subject to the Mini Cooper recall should know that they may not bear full responsibility for any injuries or damage caused by the defective product. So, if you have suffered harm due to a defective car or other defective product, you may want to speak with a product liability attorney.
Over 2011, the BMW recalls were in the middle of the pack, with the leaders being Honda and Toyota. It just goes to show that foreign cars are not what they used to be.
If you have more questions about a car recall and whether you bear any liability for injuries or injury or products liability attorney.
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The men, Oulton Hues, 73, of Norwood, and Robert Walker, 68, of East Falmouth, both died when the single-engine Piper Comanche went down. Both men were certified pilots, reports the Globe.
Oulton Hues had worked for Raytheon and served in the Navy from 1957 to 1961.
]]> The plane crashed from an altitude of 2000 feet when smoke filled the cabin.Robert Walker was one of the co-owners of the plane. Although an investigation has been launched into the cause of the Cape Cod plane crash, no conclusive verdict is in yet.
It is quite conceivable that the plane crash due to bad luck or simple human error by the pilots. However, a large piece of machinery like an airplane, whose maintenance and upkeep falls on many different people within a chain of control, could implicate any number of people. This is particularly significant given that the airplane was quite old -- its first flight was in 1961.
Aviation accidents caused by faulty machinery are particularly likely to give way to a strict liability type of claim.
To establish strict liability in a product liability lawsuit, the injured person (the "plaintiff") must show that the product was defective when it left the manufacturer or distributor's (the "defendant") control; the product was used in the intended manner or a reasonably foreseeable manner; and the product caused plaintiff's injury.
Strict liability can arise as a result of a defect in design or manufacture, or a failure to warn. Each one of these types of strict liability claims are different. For a more thorough understanding of them please contact a local attorney, especially if you have an aviation accident claim.
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The Sportsmen’s Alliance sent a letter to various police departments around the state, telling them that the incident had cast a negative light on all hunters. The Sportsmen’s Alliance wants Bergeron charged under a law that says, “”A person shall not use any firearm, bow and arrow or other weapon or article in a careless or negligent manner so as to cause bodily injury or death to another while engaged in hunting or target shooting.”
]]> The Sportsmen's Alliance is concerned that by not charging John Bergeron for accidentally shooting a neighbor, the police are behaving in a questionable manner.The other interesting issue worth inquiring about in this case is whether the victim of the alleged shooting, the Harry Whittington to John Bergeron's Cheney, has prepared a lawsuit against Bergeron.
When someone accidentally shoots you, a possible cause of action based on a negligence theory might allow you to take the matter to court.
In order to prevail on a negligence claim, the plaintiff has to prove several things. First, the plaintiff (person claiming injuries) will have to show that the defendant had a duty to act in a certain manner towards the injured person. The general rule is that an individual has a duty towards all persons, at all times, to exercise reasonable care for the person's physical safety and property.
Next, a successful plaintiff must prove that the defendant failed to act in a reasonable manner.
Lastly, the plaintiff must show that he or she suffered actual damages or harm as a result of the unreasonable behavior.
With all the qualified Boston personal injury attorneys in the area, it shouldn't be long before Bergeron's victim raises his head again. This time, in court.
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The Ford recall is for both Minivans and SUV's, specifically, the 2004 and 2005 Freestar and Mercury Monterey minivans, and the 2001 and 2002 Ford Escape SUV's. The Ford recall minivans apparently have a problem with their torque converter output shaft and that can cause a loss of power.
As for the Ford recall SUV's, they have a leaky brake fluid cap which can result in fire if the fluid leaks and damages the electrical connector.
]]> The news of the recall comes just after the 2011 statistics for car recalls came out, as blogged by FindLaw's Atlanta Injury News Blog.In those statistics, Ford had come in third for most car recalls. It was exceeded only by Honda and Toyota.
If your vehicle (or your vehicle's equipment) is found to be defective, you have the right to have the situation remedied, and the vehicle/equipment manufacturer and dealer must take steps to ensure that those rights are protected.
Within a reasonable time after the determination of a car defect or noncompliance, manufacturers must notify, by first-class mail, all registered owners and purchasers of the affected vehicles of the existence of the problem and give an evaluation of its risk to motor vehicle safety.
Once a defect determination is made, the law gives the manufacturer three options for correcting the defect: repair, replacement, or refund. The manufacturer may choose to repair the vehicle; replace the vehicle with an identical or similar vehicle; or refund the purchase price in full, minus a reasonable allowance for depreciation. In the case of equipment, including tires and child safety seats, the manufacturer can either repair or replace.
And, in those instances where you may have had an accident potentially caused by the car defect, you may wish to speak to a personal injury attorney.
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Lowering the threshold for lead poisoning would mean a lot more children would meet the standard for lead poisoning. Lead is likely to be present in most homes built before 1978, says The Times, and a high level of lead can lead to developmental delays, organ failures and other physical consequences.
]]> It is estimated that currently, 250,000 children in the United States are affected by lead poisoning.The researchers at FindLaw also point out that lead can be found in soil around a home, in household dust, and in drinking water. Other places to look for lead include your work, old painted toys and furniture, food, liquids, lead smelters, and even folk remedies.
If you suspect that there is lead in your home, or that your family has been exposed to lead, there are some steps you can take to ensure their protection
First, have your children's lead levels measured through a simple blood test. It is best to seek the advice of your doctor. Second, contact a qualified professional to assess the lead content of the paint in your home and/or to assess the risks of serious lead exposure. While home test kits are available, they may not always be accurate.
Third, if you find lead, hire a certified lead abatement contractor to permanently remove any lead hazards.
Fourth and final, consider speaking to a personal injury attorney to determine if you have a claim against the landlord and/or manufacturer. Lead poisoning in children is a serious matter and should be dealt with.
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Jack Street's death is under investigation by Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr.'s office, though from the reports it sounds like the young man suffered a seizure before falling.
]]> The Ski Ward ski area is one of the oldest in the country, having been in operation since 1939.Sending one’s children out to ski area poses a special dilemma to parents. Ski lift accidents are one of the most common ways people get injured. Obviously many of the accidents can be presumed to be self-inflicted, which would lead to a denial of liability by the ski resort. They will say that you “assumed the risk” by coming and doing a somewhat dangerous activity in the first place.
However, there are many instances in which ski resorts are liable, too.
The legal theories behind ski resorts assuming liability for ski lift accidents is what is known as the “invitee” theory. When people are invited to somebody’s property to do business, the owner assumes a very high a duty make the property safe. This responsibility includes regular inspections to uncover hidden dangers.
If you have been injured at a ski area you may wish to speak to an attorney to discuss the merits of your case. This could include anything from a crash to a ski chairlift accident.
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The foreclosure fraud website looks so legit that you will actually think that ModExperts is a real company.
However, the moment you click on any of the outbound links, you are taken to a second page which screams: THIS IS A SCAM. You also see a big sign for the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation.
]]> At this point the fake foreclosure fraud website proceeds to give you advice on how to avoid getting scammed in a loan modification scheme.Some of the helpful tips on the website are as follows:
This is information that will be useful to all Mass. home owners and consumers in general.
Once a person is equipped to be able to identify and spot a fraud, he or she may also be able to take even more affirmative action to recover their lost funds. This could involve going to court.
Civil fraud cases can be filed where bad-faith is involved, and where the penalties are meant to punish the perpetrator and put the victim back in the same position they were in before the fraud took place.
Remember, fraud always involves some sort of false statement, misrepresentation, or deceitful conduct. There may also be filing requirements, like the time-limit within which a case must get to the court, which an attorney would be best able to advise about.
Know your rights and learn about how to protect yourself from fraud. It would be a great way to start a new year.
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Statistically it is a perfect storm of alcohol-consumption numbers:
Still, higher drinking statistics lead to more drunk drivers on the street. And while that is bad news for everyone, it is also bad news for the restaurants and bars that are serving the alcohol.
If one of the patrons they served ends up in an accident -- and say kills someone -- the establishment could be liable for damages under a dram shop law. These laws allow victims of drunk driving accidents (or their families) to hold bars and alcohol retailers accountable for the death, injury or other damages caused by an intoxicated customer.
While Mass. has some general laws related to negligent serving of alcohol, the Mass. dram shop law is not codified. The main case that established dram shop liability in Mass. is Cimino v. The Milford Keg (1981), in which there were just way too many White Russians drank and a pedestrian got killed.
Given that Mass. dram shop is based in case law, in the event that you think you have a dram shop type of action, you will be in even more need of an attorney.
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