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

A Franklin County Ohio Jury ruled last week that nursing home neglect was the sole cause for the 2005 death of a lawyer who was debilitated following a stroke in 1984. The jury awarded the man's widow $6.5 million in her wrongful death lawsuit.

After his 1984 stroke, Peter Southard was disabled and forgetful. He was constantly thirsty, and could not merely be told to drink--he had to be watched to ensure that he drank enough water. His wife cared for him since his stroke, but on occasion she would admit him to a nursing home for a respite. In May 2005, she took him to a nursing home while she took a two-week vacation. But when she returned she found him in a clothes-strewn room with urine-soaked bedding. He was incontinent and had a bloody rash on his groin. Two days later, he died of dehydration and kidney failure.

The nursing home argued that Southard's death was due to diarrhea after he left the nursing home. They also filed a countersuit against his doctor, claiming medical malpractice, negligence, and inadequate instruction that contributed to Southard's death.

In the trial, doctors testified that care at the nursing home was below minimum standards, and aides at the nursing home said they were never told of Southard's need for water and close supervision.

Nursing home negligence similar to this case is unfortunately common. If you have lost a loved one in this type of tragedy, we can help. Please schedule a free nursing home neglect consultation with Columbus, Ohio wrongful death lawyer Robert W. Kerpsack of Robert W. Kerpsack CO., L.P.A.

Delivering an appropriate medication at the right time can save a life, but a medication error is just as likely to cause serious injury. Research shows that this is one of the most common forms of medical malpractice, an all-too-common occurrence in America's hospitals, nursing homes, and doctors' offices.

According to a 2006 Institute of Medicine (IOM) study, at least 1.5 million Americans are harmed as a result of medication errors every year, an average of roughly one per hospital patient per day. About 400,000 of these injuries occur in hospitals and 800,000 in long-term care settings like nursing homes. Some forms of medication errors are:

• Giving the wrong drug (about 25% of medication errors)
• Inappropriate delivery method (about 16% of medication errors)
• Delivering inappropriate dosage (about 41% of fatal medication errors)
• Prescribing inappropriate drug for patient

Although many steps are being taken to combat these forms of medication errors, they remain rampant forms of medical and nursing home negligence.

According to the IOM, the medication errors cost patients $3.5 billion in additional medical expenses, and resulted in an uncounted number of wrongful deaths every year. If you have been harmed by this type of medical error, please schedule a medical malpractice consultation with the Columbus, Ohio personal injury lawyers at Robert W. Kerpsack Co., L.P.A. today.

Erectile dysfunction drugs are a booming market for pharmaceutical companies. All three major varieties on the market--Viagra (sildenafil), Cialis (taldanafil), and Levitra (vardenafil)--have several million prescriptions written every year, numbers that continue to grow. Although these drugs have all been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they have many dangerous, potentially deadly side effects.

Because the main effect of these drugs is to dilate blood vessels, it can lead to a potentially serious decrease in blood pressure. The dip is small, and generally transient, but for people with heart risks, it can be dangerous. For those taking heart medications, the interaction with erectile dysfunction drugs can be dangerous.

Transient vision effects like a blue tinge to vision are seen more often with Viagra, but may be seen with other erectile dysfunction drugs. But Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra all seem to be equally likely to induce the potentially serious loss of vision known as non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), in which a person suddenly loses half or all of one's vision in one or both eyes. Although no causal relationship has been established, there seems to be a temporal relationship between the onset of NAION and the use of erectile dysfunction drugs.

Hearing loss has also been reported among a small number of users of these drugs. The hearing loss is sudden, involving one or both ears. In most cases, it occurs after taking the first dose of the drug. According to clinical trials, it seems to occur in about 1 every 5000 patients. Currently, there is no explanation for the mechanism of hearing loss. Sometimes, the hearing loss is permanent.

All of these side effects showed up during clinical trials, but manufacturers decided to market these dangerous drugs anyway. If you suffered a dangerous heart attack, other cardiovascular event, or sensory loss as a result of taking Viagra, Cialis, or Levitra, please schedule a drug litigation consultation with the Columbus, Ohio law firm of Robert W. Kerpsack Co., L.P.A. today.

One of the most comprehensive studies of the effect of birth modes on birth injury is the 1999 study, "Effect of Mode of Delivery in Nulliparous Women on Neonatal Intracranial Injury," by Dena Towner, M.D. et all, also known simply as The Towner Study. Although the study was originally designed to consider the safety and effectiveness of vacuum extraction delivery for newborns, the study, which considered over half a million live-born single infants to women who had had no previous children, between 1992 and 1994 also revealed the potentially dangerous effects of several different extraction methods.

Delivery by forceps is, according to The Towner Study, the most dangerous method of delivery. It increases the incidence of facial-nerve injury by over 13 times, and the incidence of brachial plexus injury by over three times. Vacuum extraction has an incidence of brachial plexus injury over twice that of spontaneous birth. In fact, the only method of delivery that results in a reduced rate of brachial plexus injury is planned Caesarean section (C-section), which reduces the risk by half.

Therefore, planned C-section is often recommended for the prevention of brachial plexus injuries, which can lead to paralysis or palsy in one or both arms, especially when the baby is late or large in comparison to the mother's pelvis.

If your child suffered brachial plexus as a result of a completed or attempted vaginal birth when a c-section may have been recommended, you may be facing a lifetime of medical expenses and intense care. A medical malpractice lawsuit may help cover some of these expenses. Schedule a brachial plexus injury consultation with the Columbus, Ohio law firm of Robert W. Kerpsack CO., L.P.A.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has released its analysis of semi truck accidents and other large truck crashes that occurred in 2007.

Although large trucks account for only 4% of all registered vehicles in the United States, 12 % of people killed in traffic accidents in 2007 died in accidents involving a large truck. Semi trucks accounted for 62 % of all large trucks involved in fatal accidents.

In contrast, large trucks represented only 2% of vehicles in injury crashes, and tractor trailers represented only 46% of those large trucks.

Truck drivers involved in fatal crashes were much less likely than passenger car drivers to be driving drunk. Less than 1% of truck drivers in fatal accidents were legally intoxicated, compared to 23% of passenger vehicle drivers. Truck driver-related factors were cited for 38 % of fatal large truck accidents, including: speeding, crossing lane boundaries, distraction, and failure to yield the right of way.

Road construction zones are very dangerous places to be with a semi truck or other large truck. About 24 % of all fatal crashes that occurred in work zones involved a large truck.

Overall, semi trucks are less likely to be involved in accidents, but accidents involving semi trucks are much more likely to be fatal. Over 80 % of those killed in semi truck accidents are in other vehicles. Although the rate of accidents may continue to decrease, this proportion never changes. Semi truck drivers are among the best drivers out there, but semi trucks are inherently dangerous. The cost suffered in wrongful death and serious personal injury is part of the cost of doing business in trucking, and must be borne by those who also reap the profits of trucking.

If you have been injured or lost a loved one in an accident involving a semi truck, a semi truck accident lawsuit can make those responsible feel the cost of your loss. Schedule a free, no-obligation semi truck accident consultation with Columbus, Ohio personal injury lawyer Robert W. Kerpsack today.

New tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) show that smaller cars, although frugal on fuel, may be more dangerous than larger models.

Minicars, sometimes called microcars, are being promoted to appeal to people looking for smaller, cheaper, and fuel-efficient cars. However, according to recent crash tests conducted by the IIHS, they may be more dangerous to drive than other cars. Most minicars perform well on the Institute's offset barrier test, an indicator of how well they will perform in a car accident with another car of their size. But when the IIHS crashed three of these smaller cars into midsize cars by the same manufacturer, each traveling 40 mph, they found that the smaller cars performed poorly.

IIHS crashed a Honda Fit (31 mpg) into a Honda Accord (29 mpg). While the Accord scored a good rating, the Fit scored poor, showing likely auto accident injuries to the legs during a crash. When they crashed a Smart Fortwo (41 mpg) into a Mercedes C-Class (25 mpg), the C-Class achieved a good result, while the Smart Fortwo did far worse. It flew into the air and spun 450 degrees, throwing the crash dummy around inside the car, with likely injury to multiple locations including the head and neck. They crashed the Toyota Yaris (36 mpg) into the Toyota Camry (31 mpg). The dummy in the Yaris showed likely head injury, neck injury, and leg injury.

Although only about 1 % of all car accidents are this violent, for many of these cars, the increase in fuel economy is slight when compared to the increased likelihood of injury. They may even be considered defective vehicles because they are unable to protect passengers. If you have been injured in a car accident, no matter what the car, you need representation to increase your likelihood of a positive settlement that covers your injuries. Schedule a free, no-obligation car accident consultation.

The key to ensuring the highest possible survival rate for all cancers is early diagnosis. Late diagnosis of a cancer dramatically decreases your chances of survival. For example, patients who are diagnosed with early stage colorectal cancer have an 89.7% 5-year survival rate, which drops to 10.8% if the cancer is diagnosed in a late stage, based on the National Cancer Institute's SEER database. This is also the reason why death rates for cervical cancer have dropped dramatically in the United States. The invention of the Pap smear and near-universal screening have allowed those at risk for cervical cancer to be detected early, and receive life-saving treatment. For cervical cancer, the 5-year survival rate is 91.7% if detected early, but only 16.6% if detected late, and early screening has roughly halved the mortality rate of this cancer since the 1950s.

Now researchers believe they have discovered a new form of cervical cancer screening that may be even more effective than Pap smears. The new test involves genetic screening for the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), which is a necessary precursor for cervical cancer. According to a study comparing Pap smears, DNA tests, and other screening methods among over 130,000 women in India, the DNA screening decreased mortality due to cervical cancer by a third over the Pap smear. This may be because women had to return to a doctor to learn the results of a Pap smear, while the DNA results were immediately available. Another important factor, though, is that the DNA test seems to have a 100% detection rate. No woman who received a negative DNA test died from cervical cancer. This led the study's authors to conclude that DNA testing could be conducted only once every ten years, but the American Cancer Society said screening should probably be conducted at least every five years, even with the new test. Although vaccination for the HPV may make screening redundant for many women, this new test could further reduce the incidence of late stage diagnosis for cancer.

With the variety of screening techniques available, there is no excuse for late diagnosis medical malpractice. If your doctor failed to detect cancer in you or your loved one at an early stage and you or your loved one has suffered through invasive cancer treatments or death as a result, you deserve compensation for your injury. Please schedule a free, no-obligation medical malpractice consultation with Columbus, Ohio law firm Robert W. Kerpsack CO., L.P.A. today.

The Supreme Court handed down a long-awaited decision in the important dangerous drug lawsuit Levine v. Wyeth. In making its decision, the Court decided against a general rule for preemption of state-based dangerous drug lawsuits by the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) regulatory power over the labeling and use of pharmaceutical drugs. This allows lawsuits to go forward against manufacturers of dangerous drugs, even if the drug and its labeling received explicit approval from the FDA for the application responsible for the injury.

However, the Supreme Court unfortunately left an open door for drug companies to shield themselves from state-based lawsuits on pharmaceutical injuries. Drug companies, the Court said, could be held liable for any potential injuries they knew were a risk and either failed to mention or did not adequately communicate in their labeling. But the company could be protected if it could prove it submitted adequate warning language to the FDA, even if the FDA rejected the change.

Accutane lawsuits now hinge on this question. The case of McCarrell v. Hoffman-La Roche was sent back to a trial court by the Superior Court of New Jersey, partly because of the Superior Court of New Jersey established a standard of proof that Hoffman-La Roche must meet to be protected under the Levine v. Wyeth decision.

The case stems from injuries suffered by a user of Accutane to control acne, who developed inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) while taking the drug and had to have his colon removed. Trial court found in favor of McCarrell, granting a products liability lawsuit judgment against Hoffman-La Roche.

The trial court found that Hoffman-La Roche had more than sufficient justification to further investigate the connection between Accutane and IBD and put a strong warning about IBD on the labeling.

In its appeal, Hoffman-La Roche wanted the Superior Court of New Jersey to throw out the verdict because the state-based tort lawsuit was preempted by federal law. Hoffman-La Roche claimed it could not strengthen the label for Accutane without FDA approval of the text. But, as affirmed by the Supreme Court in Levine v. Wyeth the FDA's "changes being effected" (CBE) system allowed for just such a unilateral action. The Superior Court of New Jersey instructed Hoffman-La Roche that, to receive preemption protection for its inadequate warnings about IBD, it had to produce evidence that it had applied for stronger warnings, but had them rejected by the FDA.

Levine v. Wyeth is a win-win situation for those taking potentially dangerous drugs. Either pharmaceutical companies will see encouragement to report dangerous side effects as soon as these become known, preventing further injuries, or people injured can pursue lawsuits based on a failure-to-warn argument without having to worry about preemption by weak FDA warnings.

Accutane lawsuits are currently going forward. If you are an Ohio resident who suffered inflammatory bowel disease or other digestive condition as a result of Accutane use, your window for filing a lawsuit may be closing. Schedule a free, no-obligation Accutane lawsuit consultation with the drug litigation lawyers at Robert W. Kerpsack Co., L.P.A. today.

On April 1 in La Cañada Flintridge, California, a car carrier lost control, struck five vehicles, then crashed into a bookstore & coffeehouse. The truck may have lost its brakes on the steep Angeles Crest Highway. It sped down the hill, through an intersection, striking several cars. Then it drove completely over a sedan occupied by two people, a man and his twelve-year daughter, who were both killed. Several people in other cars were injured, three critically, and an employee in the book store suffered a broken leg.

This tragic truck accident shows how the reckless actions and negligence of many people can combine to create a deadly situation.

According to the mayor of La Cañada Flintridge, numerous requests had been made to the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to fix the dangerous intersection when a truck lost control there last September, destroying seven vehicles and injuring one person, but due to disagreements between Caltrans and the city, no action had been taken. The driver, who was arrested on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter and felony reckless driving, had taken a steep mountain road where big rigs are banned. Coming down the steep grade may have contributed to the degradation of the truck's brakes and their eventual failure. Poor maintenance on the truck's brakes may also have contributed.

If you have been injured in a truck or auto accident, or if a loved one has suffered a wrongful death in one, all those responsible should be held accountable to the full extent of the law. Please schedule an auto accident consultation today with Columbus, Ohio personal injury lawyer Robert W. Kerpsack CO, L.P.A.to pursue action against those to blame for your injury.