Columbus, Ohio Attorney Blog - Robert W. Kerpsack Co., L.P.A.

On February 20, 2008 in Wilkes-Barre, PA, one Sarah Marquis was sentenced to two to eight years in prison for killing a young man of 19, Erik Vannucchi in Plymouth, MA. She had been drinking and hit him so hard with her Jeep Wrangler that his body was thrown 97 feet along the street.

He had been riding his motorcycle and been pulled over by the police who could not see his bike’s license plate. While waiting for them to tow his bike, he was struck and killed.

Marquis told the police that she knew she had hit someone, but was too afraid to stop, so she drove on. By the time she was found and arrested, it was too late to test her blood alcohol level and she couldn’t be charged with drinking and driving.

Erik’s father told the court that Erik would have started his first semester at Penn State University in the fall and was planning to go on to law school.

Vannucchi’s family and friends filled the court and wept as Judge Michael Toole read the sentence and his statement. Marquis wept too, and had wept throughout the hearing as she fingered her rosary beads. Nobody in her family spoke on her behalf, although some wrote letters to Judge Toole. She had also struck the tow truck driver who was preparing to tow Vannucchi’s bike, and inflicted a shoulder injury.

Judge Toole ordered Marquis to pay court costs and $14,048.28 to the Vannucchi family as restitution. He gave her one to four years for vehicular homicide and one to four for accidental involuntary death, to be served consecutively, as well as six years probation on other charges.

At the end he told Marquis:

“This courtroom was full of tears not just by you, but everyone. You’re still here, he is not. Nothing I can do can make that right.”

If you have lost a loved person because of somebody’s negligence on the road, please contact us to arrange for a free consultation.

Health Net Inc. is one of California’s biggest for-profit insurers and has had a practice of canceling the policies of ill people. On February 22, 2008, an arbitration judge ruled that the company should pay more than $9 million to one Patsy Bates, a breast cancer patient whose coverage was canceled in the middle of her chemotherapy.

Patsy Bates is a grandmother, 52 years of age, who owns a hair salon. The cancellation of coverage was in 2004 and Bates was facing over $129,000 in medical bills. She had to stop her chemotherapy treatments and search for a way to pay that amount. She found a charity which helped her out.

The judge called Health Net’s actions “egregious” and stated that it had acted in bad faith. Part of his 21-page ruling stated:

“Health Net was primarily concerned with and considered its own financial interests and gave little, if any, consideration and concern for the interests of the insured.”

The arbitration hearing revealed that Health Net had paid bonuses to employees who met a cancellation quota and saved the company certain amounts of money.

Health Net’s Chief Executive has ordered an immediate stop to cancellations. He plans to change the company’s practices and retrain the sales force. Worried about the public’s confidence in his company, he has pledged to stop all cancellations pending the establishment of an external review process which will in future approve cancellations.

Would he have done these things had Patsy Bates not brought her suit? This ruling is the first of its kind, and now other insurance companies, which had previously defended such cancellations, are looking at changing their own practices. Cancellations were previously defended on the grounds that they were to hold down costs by weeding out people who may not have disclosed all pre-existing conditions when they applied for their insurance. In the case of Patsy Bates, Health Net had previously defended her cancellation, and stated that they would not have insured her had they known of her weight and heart condition. Apparently Bates’ insurance broker had filled out the application from her verbal answers as she worked on a client’s hair.

The judge wrote in his ruling:

"It's difficult to imagine a policy more reprehensible than tying bonuses to encourage the rescission of health insurance that keeps the public well and alive."

Have you experienced a sudden cancellation of your health coverage? If so, please contact us for a free consultation, and we will look at your situation to see if you have a legal claim.

An osteopathic physician who lied on his application for a position at Putnam General Hospital (Putnam County, WV) five years ago, has over 120 medical malpractice lawsuits pending against him at the current time.

Dr. John A. King, originally from Alabama, had gaps in his application, has been arrested, has left other positions abruptly, and has over 120 malpractice lawsuits pending in the United States. Somehow, all these red flags went unnoticed to the Putnam General Hospital and he was hired as an orthopedic surgeon in October 2002.

An attorney for the hospital insists that the hospital properly followed a seven-step screening process before granting King temporary credentials. Hospital officials say they found that King was licensed and in good standing in nine other states, that he was insured and that former colleagues and instructors gave him great reviews. Hospital officials state that several other hospitals where King performed surgeries did not report malpractice claims to the national database that hospitals rely on when interviewing candidates.

King surrendered his medical license and has since left the state.

If you or a loved one has suffered or died due to medical malpractice in Columbus or anywhere in Ohio, please contact Robert W. Kerpsack, Co., L.P.A. today to schedule your initial consultation.

The United States Department of Agriculture, yesterday, announced the largest beef recall ever in the country. The recall of 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a California slaughterhouse stems from an animal abuse investigation and meat being provided to school lunch programs.

Prior to yesterday’s recall, the largest was a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats. No illnesses have been reported thus far, and officials believe the health threat to the public is relatively small. The recall affects beef products that came from Chino, California-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Company.

Secretary of Agriculture, Ed Schafer said the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection and have been determined to be "unfit for human food." Federal officials suspended operations at the company after an undercover video from the Humane Society of the United States showed crippled and sick animals being shoved with forklifts. Both felony and misdemeanor counts dealing with cruelty to animals have been filed against various plant workers. Authorities say the video shows workers kicking, shocking and abusing cows that were too sick or injured to walk into the slaughterhouse.

Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch announced late last year that $1.2 million in grants was available to fight lead paint poisoning. This stems from DuPont’s $9 million donation they made two years ago in an attempt to escape a public nuisance lawsuit. Children’s Health Forum, based in Washington, administered the funds to groups in Rhode Island working on the issue of lead paint poisoning.

Originally, Rhode Island named DuPont as one of several companies that used to manufacture lead paint accusing them of creating a nuisance. While A.G. Lynch and DuPont claim the money wasn’t part of a settlement, DuPont’s name was dropped from the lawsuit.

Lead poisoning is still a problem in areas all across the country. It can cause behavioral disorders, brain damage, and death in children. If lead paint poisoning has affected you or your family, please contact Robert W. Kerpsack Co., L.P.A. to schedule a consultation.

Some of you may remember Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker Justin Strzelczyk who was killed in a fiery automobile crash in 2004 at the age of 36. Autopsy reports showed that the former football star had a condition similar to that generally found only in boxers with dementia or people in their 80s.

Strzelczyk was found to have brain damage in post mortem studies due likely to the persistent head trauma he suffered playing football. Since Strzelczyk's findings were released, at least five other former NFL players have been found to have similar brain damage. These findings add to the growing evidence that longtime football players, particularly lineman, are enduring hidden brain trauma and permanent brain damage.

The condition that has been found in the NFL players (and has been found in many boxers) is called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition evidenced by neurofibrillary tangles in the brain's cortex, which caused memory loss, depression and eventually Alzheimer's disease-like dementia.

Unfortunately, the tests that show someone has CTE cannot be performed on a living person other than through an intrusive tissue biopsy. For now, NFL players, even those who have never had a concussion like Strzelczyk, will not being able to find out if they have suffered brain damage until it is too late.

If you or a loved one has suffered a traumatic brain injury in the Columbus area or anywhere in Ohio, please contact Robert W. Kerpsack, CO., L.P.A. today to schedule your initial consultation.

A jury recently awarded a Florida man nearly $8.2 million in damages from Allstate car insurance company but has to wait for another jury to decide whether or not he can collect. John Clements was blowing leaves on a sidewalk when a truck jumped the sidewalk and plowed into him in November 2004. Clements suffered a broken neck, brain hemorrhages and herniated discs in his neck and back; he was hospitalized for six days.

Clements received $100,000 from the driver of the truck's insurer, but when he tried to get his insurance company, Allstate, to pay him the $100,000 it owed for underinsured motorist coverage, the insurance company refused to pay, which prompted the lawsuit.

Legally, Allstate is obligated to pay Clements the maximum coverage his underinsured motorist policy allows ($100,000), but when an insurance company should have paid a claim but refused, you can sue the company for bad faith with the help of an experienced bad faith insurance attorney. That is how Clements won the $8.2 million. His lawyers must now convince the second jury that Allstate should have paid Clements the $100,000 in underinsured motorist damages so he can collect the award.

If you have been the victim of bad faith insurance in Columbus, Ohio or anywhere in Ohio, please contact Robert W. Kerpsack, Co., L.P.A. today to schedule your initial consultation.

We often hear about doctors being involved in multi-million dollar lawsuits, but it is rare that the physician is actually the one suing rather than the one being sued. A Connecticut physician sued the anesthesiologist and hospital where his wife died during routine face-lift surgery for a total of $3.1 million in medical malpractice and won.

Dr. Alan J. Malitz sued for gross negligence after his wife, Susan, died just two hours after entering Manhattan Eye Ear & Throat Hospital on February 16, 2004. Fifty-six-year-old Susan Malitz died of cardiac failure caused by an overdose of local anesthetic. While in surgery, the alarms that monitor the patient's blood oxygen levels were turned so far down that they were inaudible.

The Malitz's settlement was reached after just four days of trial and requires that the hospital pays $400,000 and the anesthesiologist pays $2.7 million. However, this was not the first time the hospital has been sued. In 2004, just five weeks before Susan Malitz died there, Olivia Goldsmith, author of the book First Wives Club (later made into the movie of the same name), died during a routine cosmetic procedure, also. Later that same year, a 61-year-old mother of two suffered brain damage after a face-lift and was awarded $7 million.

While doctors constantly complain about paying the huge medical malpractice insurance premiums they must pay, Dr. Malitz must have been extremely relieved that malpractice insurance does exist and payment is awarded to deserving victims of medical malpractice or negligence.

If you live in the Columbus area and need an Ohio medical malpractice lawyer, please contact Robert W. Kerpsack Co., L.P.A. today to schedule your initial consultation.

At Robert W. Kerpsack Co., L.P.A., we believe in our clients, and we fight hard to get them the compensation they need and deserve for damages they've suffered through the negligence of others.

Our office is conveniently located in Columbus, Ohio. We'll provide you with directions when you call to make your appointment.

Read on through our web site to find out more about our firm, our personal injury lawyers, our staff, the types of cases we handle, etc. Most importantly, if we can help you in any way do not hesitate to contact us.