According to The Chicago Tribune, the teen suffered blunt force trauma to his head during a game and died the following day at a local hospital. The teen’s mother, as administrator of his estate, alleges there was an air bladder inside a helmet, and that this was intended to increase protection and reduce the risk of a head injury. However, this inflation device didn’t work properly, the complaint alleges. Not only is the manufacturer responsible for making a defective product, but the school district is responsible for allowing players to use a defective helmet, according to the filing.

The 17-year-old was reportedly blocked from making a tackle during one of the last plays of the high school football game in October 2015, and the block was delivered to the left side of his helmet. This amounted to incidental contact, and caused the teen’s head and helmet to slam to the ground with great force. Immediately after, the teen reported he was dizzy. He had a headache. Then he fell to the ground and suffered a series of seizures. He remained unconscious as he was rushed to the hospital. A CT scan revealed swelling and bleeding near his brain. He never regained consciousness and died the following day. 

The helmet was later inspected and, according to the lawsuit, the air bladder on the crown of the helmet lost 50 percent of its pressure after five minutes, while the rear air bladder lost 10 percent of its pressure after just 10 minutes. Plaintiff alleges school district workers were aware the helmets had to be properly inflated in order to make sure there was a low risk of head injury for players, and yet failed in the duty to make sure each helmet had proper inflation. There is also an allegation that the district was negligent in not providing timely medical care to the teen immediately after his brain injury.

The product liability portion of the lawsuit alleges defendant manufacturer knew or should have known the helmets were unreasonably dangerous if the bladders weren’t inflated and the firm failed to warn about the potential hazard.

It should be noted that there is no federal product liability law, which means most of these cases are going to be based on state-law theories of negligence, strict liability or breach of warranty. There are also some commercial statutes in each state that could provide guidance on certain warranties that companies are required to offer and whether those were breached.

There are three basic types of product defects:

• Design defect. This is when there is some aspect of the design of a product that is fundamentally unsafe.
• Manufacturing defect. This is when a mistake happens in the course of a product’s manufacture or assembly.
• Marketing defect. This is when there are errors in the way a product is marketed or if there are insufficient instructions, inadequate warnings about safety or improper labeling.

Football is one – if not the most – dangerous sports for youth athletes and there has been a large push in recent years to make it safer. However, these efforts have failed to fully prevent concussions, head injuries, spinal cord injuries and others in this contact sport.

Product liability lawsuits can be complicated, but it basically comes down to the reasonable expectations of the consumer and whether the product lived up to those. If not, the plaintiff could be successful. Likely, the defense will assert the assumption of risk doctrine. That is, players assume some level of risk when they play a contact sport like this. However, that doesn’t mean every injury suffered on the field was inevitable. Some are the product of negligence.

If you have been a victim of a school-related injury in Miami, call Chalik & Chalik at (954) 476-1000 or 1 (800) 873-9040.

Additional Resources:

Mother sues helmet manufacturer after son dies from injury in football game, Oct. 20, 2016, By Nick Swedberg, Chicago Tribune

More Blog Entries:

Snapchat Video Shows Florida Driver Going 115MPH Just Before Crash Killed 5, Nov. 5, 2016, Miami Wrongful Death Lawyer Blog

One drug that her mother was prescribed was missing. It was intended to prevent heart patients such as Oyler from keeping fluids. Instead, she was given a toxic drug with a name that resembles the correct drug, but has a different objective. The toxic drug was mainly used to treat cancer and serious cases of arthritis, and the label instructed the patient to ingest it every day.

When her daughter collected all of her mother’s medicines, and saw the incorrect one, she knew that her mother would not recover. She observed that the hospital committed several errors following her mother’s discharge. Oyler died at one of the most perilous moments in medical care, which is when patients are sent home from the hospital. Studies have revealed that poor coordination frequently affects patients’ transfers to the care of home health agencies, nursing homes and other health care professionals who have a responsibility to help them recover from their illness.

Medication errors such as the one that occurred in Oyler’s case are one of the most typical complications for patients who have been discharged from the hospital. Court records indicate that the error went unnoticed by her pharmacist and home health nurses. Oyler, who was 66 years old at the time, was discharged from Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph, Missouri after receiving treatment for congestive heart failure. Upon her return home, a hospital nurse called the local Hy-Vee Pharmacy to inform them of eight new prescriptions, one of which was for the diuretic metolazone.

However, the pharmacy technician neglected to write down the medication metolazone, and instead wrote methotrexate. The drug is sufficiently powerful for the Institute for Safe Medication Practices to include it among eight drugs that have a heightened risk of causing considerable harm to patients. Such medications require certain safeguards because they are said to have disastrous consequences.

In February, a jury found in favor of Oyler’s family, and rendered an award of $2 million from the pharmacy. However, the judge reduced the amount to $125,000 because Missouri has a maximum amount for noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases. The family reached a settlement with the hospital in the amount of $225,000.

If you or a loved one has an illness that was exacerbated due to a medication error, call the medical malpractice attorneys at Briskman Briskman & Greenberg.

Source

Shawn Garrett, 25, was traveling east on Chicago’s 69th Street on Jan. 10, 2011. According to the lawsuit, a police officer driving south toward the intersection failed to stop at a red light and hit his car. The lawsuit alleged the police officer was speeding while driving to a call and did not use police lights or a siren when he collided with Garrett’s car in the fatal crash.

Garrett’s mother, Louise Bohannon, filed the lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court on Nov. 23. She is seeking in excess of $50,000 in damages from each party. According to the claim, the officer “was driving the marked police car at an excess of the posted speed limit, and did not have his pursuit lights or sirens active.”

The officer was allegedly negligent and careless in looking out for other vehicles, slowing down or changing the direction of his SUV. Garrett died on the day of the accident. Two passengers in his car were taken to different hospitals with critical injuries.

However, the lawsuit’s allegations contradict the version of events police gave on the day of the crash. According to a Chicago Tribune report, police said two officers were driving in an SUV with its emergency signals activated. The police claimed Garrett’s vehicle ran a red light, collided with the police car and crashed into a pole.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit www.briskmanandbriskman.com.

Shawn Garrett, 25, was traveling east on Chicago’s 69th Street on Jan. 10, 2011. According to the lawsuit, a police officer driving south toward the intersection failed to stop at a red light and hit his car. The lawsuit alleged the police officer was speeding while driving to a call and did not use police lights or a siren when he collided with Garrett’s car in the fatal crash.

Garrett’s mother, Louise Bohannon, filed the lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court on Nov. 23. She is seeking in excess of $50,000 in damages from each party. According to the claim, the officer “was driving the marked police car at an excess of the posted speed limit, and did not have his pursuit lights or sirens active.”

The officer was allegedly negligent and careless in looking out for other vehicles, slowing down or changing the direction of his SUV. Garrett died on the day of the accident. Two passengers in his car were taken to different hospitals with critical injuries.

However, the lawsuit’s allegations contradict the version of events police gave on the day of the crash. According to a Chicago Tribune report, police said two officers were driving in an SUV with its emergency signals activated. The police claimed Garrett’s vehicle ran a red light, collided with the police car and crashed into a pole.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit www.briskmanandbriskman.com.

In March 2011, Moshe Lefkowitz had surgery to have his left leg amputated below the knee. The hospital claims that Lefkowitz signed consent forms permitting the hospital to dispose of his leg. Lefkowitz said in an affidavit that he is legally blind and was told by a nurse that he was only signing a form consenting to the surgery.

Lefkowitz sued the hospital and the rabbi in 2013, seeking damages in excess of $100,000. A Cook County judge dismissed the suit, but that ruling was reversed by an appeals court, and the case was sent back for trial.

The hospital argued in an appellate brief that Lefkowitz should not be able to sue the rabbi for what it termed “clergy malpractice,” saying that the plaintiff’s religious contentions have “no place” in the civil court system. Lefkowitz claimed in court papers that he is suing the rabbi for negligence for not properly informing the hospital staff of his wishes.

In reversing the circuit court’s granting of the defendant’s motion to dismiss, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First Judicial District ruled that Lefkowitz had raised at least a question of material fact as to whether he had knowingly consented to the disposal of his leg.

Rabbi Yona Reiss of the Chicago Rabbinical Council told the Chicago Tribune that under Jewish tradition, body parts that have been severed are preserved or buried for the day when it is believed that the bodies will be resurrected. Severed body parts are usually buried in private, low-key ceremonies, he said.

Bob Briskman is a Chicago malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The sponsor of the law that raised speed limits said that Chicago-area limits should also be raised.

On nearly 1,900 of almost 2,170 miles of Illinois interstate highways, the speed limit is now 70 mph, an increase from a generally 65 mph limit for rural interstates. However, only approximately 30 percent of the 286-mile Illinois Tollway’s network will see an increased speed limit. Also, according to IDOT, only five relatively short sections of interstate in the Chicago area will have their speed limits raised, leaving the 55 mph speed limit in much of the Chicago area unchanged.

State Sen. Jim Oberweis, Republican of Sugar Grove, sponsored the bill that raised the speed limit. He said the limit should be raised in the Chicago area as well. IDOT had the authority to create the speed limit map, but Oberweis said the department is putting “citizens into danger.”

According to Oberweis, 85 percent of vehicles are traveling 70 mph or faster on most interstate highways, and the variation in speed limits can be a factor in automobile accidents. He said that by not raising the speed limit in most of the Chicago area, IDOT was ignoring “the will of the people.” Oberweis owns a dairy that operates trucks on the highways.

A recent analysis by the Chicago Tribune found that the “actual” speed limit in the Chicago area — the speed at which most drivers are ticketed — is 80 mph. The Tribune’s research found that 90 percent of vehicles exceed the posted 55 mph speed limit on the tollway, where the average speed is 66-70 mph.

In a statement, IDOT claimed that the speed limit would be raised on stretches of interstate highway where it is deemed safe and reasonable. IDOT said it considered the 85th percentile (the widely accepted standard of the speed at which 85 percent of vehicles are moving at or below) and other considerations. According to the IDOT statement, the department’s top priority is driver safety, and it will continue reviewing speed limits as needed.

Oberweis said that he will attempt to bring his drive for higher Chicago-area speed limits to the legislature. He said that 70 mph is a reasonable, safe and consistent speed, but that he may settle for a limit of 65 mph.

Paul Greenberg is a car accident lawyer in Chicago and car crash attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.