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Do You Need A Child Injury Lawyer?

February 20, 2015 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

A growing percentage of children suffer significant injuries at the hands of their favorite toys, according to the Center for Injury Research and Policy.

Based on a study by the CIRP, several emergency room-related mishaps involving children have jumped a noteworthy 40 percent in the U.S since 1990. Kids under the age of 15 accounted for nearly nine out of ten injuries. This eye-popping rate has some people analyzing the impact of such a dramatic rise.

An estimated 3 billion toys are sold annually in the U.S., most of which prove to be harmless. Some toys, however, pose higher risks than others, a fact that the CIRP was quick to point out with foot-pedal and high-powered motor scooters, a long-time popular commodity for kids.

The report pointed out that scooters helped make categories like “falls” and “collisions” the most common type of injury. The total percentages: 46 percent for falls; 22 percent for collisions. Accidents involving scooters tended to be more severe than any other, which has proven to be the case ever since toys like the Razor scooter became one of the most popular toys on the market at the turn of the Millennium.

In 2000, Razor sold an estimated 5 million scooters in six months. A report in the journal of Clinical Pediatrics reported that nearly 110,000 kids were admitted to the hospital because of scooter-related injuries in 2001, up from 25,000 in 1999. That’s more than 4 times the amount of injuries! Despite these staggering statistics, the popularity of scooters continues to extend all over the world, even as similar injury numbers are reported. Israel banned children from bringing scooters to school earlier in the fall due to a serious scooter-related head injury.

When a child is injured, as a parent your first instinct is to wonder what went wrong. That could mean any number of things: carelessness, negligence, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If it happens to be the result of a defective product, then your next feeling is likely anger, frustrations and a vigilant pledge to get even with the company that allowed a defective product to go unchecked, ultimately inflicting harm upon your child.

What’s important to know is that every child injury case is different. Dealing with a defective product, especially, can be tricky a battle to wage; if the defective toy is the merchandise of a big company, your odds of litigating in a timely, cordial way are almost slim to none. That’s because big companies prepare for – and save money for – cases like this, working with seemingly unlimited legal resources at their disposal. You’ll want to ask yourself some questions:

Can you determine whether the accident was the result of defective equipment?
What were the circumstances of the accident (i.e. who was involved, how did it happen, where did it happen)?
Do state laws protect me in matters like this?
How do I objectively evaluate the situation?

But one of the most important questions you should ask yourself is, “Do I need a lawyer”? Getting answers to the above questions, and any other questions you may have, can help save you time and money, and a lawyer can help you sort out the situation. Our firm offers free consultations for families of child injury victims, and we’re happy to give you the guidance you may need.

Are Nursing Homes Inflating the Numbers?

February 18, 2015 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Nursing home resident Edna Irvin became the source of controversy late last year. The 80-year-old Irvin, a guest of the Chenal Heights Health and Rehabilitation Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, was the featured anecdote in an eye opening-read from the Center for Public Integrity. The Center found widespread reporting discrepancies among nursing homes in the U.S., including the home where Irvin had been living.

Based on several accounts and an analysis of government resources, the CPI discovered a laundry list of inflated, self-reported staffing numbers, some of which had been recorded just weeks prior to federally mandated inspections. The article points out that Irvin was a victim of a flawed system.

Over the first few months since she began living at the residence, Irvin endured a series of mishaps and injuries, according to the article. She suffered a laceration to her head related to a fall and fought through a severe bowel obstruction. In a later medical report, a rehab nurse noted that Irvin had traces of bacteria in her intestine and did not receive appropriate care for the obstruction. A law firm, acting on behalf of Irvin, obtained the nurse’s documents for an impending lawsuit filed by Irvin’s daughter, Lisa Sanders.

Sanders eventually had her mother transferred to a new facility, only after learning disturbing details about the staff, the home’s hours of operation, and the method by which the home monitored its residents. She discovered some wildly inaccurate numbers, a shock that ultimately set the move and the lawsuit in motion.

Irvin’s story is not unusual. The Center for Public Integrity uncovered an all too common if not systemic problem that has plagued nursing homes for many years. The process of self-reported data has been widely criticized by government agencies and the public, not least for its lax standards and shoddy reporting. Almost 100 peer-reviewed, academic studies, according to the Center for Public Integrity, showed that the amount of care was most strongly connected to quality care; lower levels of care showed higher risk for injury and, in some cases, death. By skewing the numbers, homes are, inadvertently or not, perpetuating bad practice and misleading prospective residents about the care they should be receiving.

The Center for Public Integrity also pointed out that self-reported data has historically been a crucial metric for government agencies that rank homes based on staff numbers, a metric that often helps the public make consequential decisions on behalf of their loved ones. But relying on self-reported information comes with a price. Irvin paid the price, and now her case is in the hands of litigators.

Improvements have been made since 2010, resulting from a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires many homes to change from a self-reporting method to a payroll-based method. The payroll-based system utilizes an electronic data collection system—practically standard in today’s digital world—that ensures more accurate tracking. But if anything, the report by the Center for Public Integrity reminds us that there’s much more to be done.

Why Truckers Ignoring Hour Limitations Is a Serious Problem

February 16, 2015 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

It’s a problem that’s rumbled its way to the top of local and federal totem poles, generating substantial controversy along the way.

Commercial truck drivers continue to stretch their limitations, according to findings by WFIR 23 in Rockford, IL, which earlier reported that operators of large rigs knowingly neglect the industry-mandated (and federally mandated) restrictions on driving hours to A) make up for lost time B) lessen the pressure of a deadline and/or C) make extra money by logging more miles. Because truck drivers are often paid by the mile, they have incentive to drive as much as possible to increase earnings.

The benefits of breaking the law and going over hours, however, definitely do not outweigh the costs. When truck drivers are driving while over-hours, they drive exhausted, rushed, or both. Think about a semi truck like the one pictured above, pushing down the freeway, say 5 pm in the winter – it’s dark out, and the driver’s been on the road for hours, but he knows he has another hundred miles to his destination. Big rigs are hard enough to control as is; and hoping the tired, hungry, hurried, distracted driver is able to stop the truck to avoid a collision is not a situation you want to find yourself in, ever. Do you feel safe with these drivers on the road?

In this case, the troublesome trend of driving while over-hours is made even more troublesome by virtue of its clandestine nature. WFIR points out that the Illinois State Police dedicates a group of officers to keeping drivers in check by monitoring food and gas receipts and driving logs. The problem: Not everyone tells the truth.

One Rockford officer said he’s come across instances in which drivers keep two separate logs: one for the official books and one to present to law enforcement upon inspection. Hundreds—if not thousands—of drivers, the report continues, forge time sheets to make it appear as though they’re within the legal limit. Between January and September of 2014 in the state of Illinois, more than a 1,000 truckers were caught driving too long without taking a break.

The F ederal Motor Carrier and Safety Administration, which allows drivers to work a maximum 11-hour driving day following 10 consecutive hours off the road, recognizes the risks facing the public. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has compared long stints of driver fatigue to drinking and driving; Bloomberg, in a December article that detailed provisions of the new fiscal budget (which includes a rollback of mandated hour regulations for truckers), wrote that truck crashes resulted in 3,912 deaths in 2012, and that the fatal-crash rate has increased each year since 2009.

As a law firm that represents truck crash injury victims, it’s hard not to cringe when we read statistics like the ones above.

In December of 2011, the FMCSA announced efforts to curb driver fatigue by augmenting provisions to the already-lengthy rules. The agency identified chronic fatigue as leading cause of injury among drivers, a result of long daily and weekly hours. At the time of the new regulations, the agency estimated that the new safety regulations would save 19 lives and prevent 1,400 crashes and 560 injuries annually.

Driver fatigue has since become the basis for several proposals, most prominently one that would incorporate e-logs as a means of monitoring drivers’ hours more closely. But one doesn’t need to look far to find opposition. Lobbyists for the trucking industry insist that long hours is the nature of the business, and as it stands, an 80-year-old pay system rewards truckers by the mile, giving truckers incentive to stay on the road for longer stretches of time.

The controversy, it seems, will rage on, but we will keep fighting against those who play fast and loose with rules designed – and proven – to keep the public safe.

App Essentials For a Safe Winter Travel Season

February 11, 2015 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Winter in Chicago. From Flickr user inthe-arena

With the winter season comes sloppy road banks, black ice, freezing rain and any number of treacherous scenarios that can cause trouble on the road (providing you can shovel your car out from under all the snow!). Now that we’re in the midst of the most travel-intensive part of the year, it’s nearly guaranteed that one of us will find ourselves in a precarious situation due to inclement weather. Even the most cautious drivers can can’t avoid the unpredictability of Mother Nature.

Of the average 5,870,000 vehicle crashes each year, 23% of crashes are weather-related, according to the Federal Highway Administration. And in 2013, USA Today reported the United States alone suffered nearly 7,000 fatal collisions as a result of weather-related wrecks.

Below are five apps to keep you safe and help out in a pinch.

Road Trip Weather
For $1.99, iPhone users can purchase this sleek app developed by Garafa, LLC, a small-scale meteorological weather center that helps travelers plan accordingly using real-time weather data to predict where and when a potential storm may turn ugly. Simply plug in your travel departure time and anticipated travel route, and Road Trip Weather gives a snapshot of what’s in store on the roads. Tweak your travel plans accordingly and find the safest routes possible.

Weathermob
Think of it like your own Facebook or Twitter dedicated solely to the weather. Like searching your newsfeed, this handy weather app gives you a quick glimpse of what others are experiencing outside, i.e. pictures of snow-buried cars, golf ball-size hail, or the unenviable task of digging a car out of a ditch. Say you’re considering a trip through Lincoln, Nebraska, only to find out that the clouds are pitch black, ominous, and generally uninviting, thanks to a quick selfie on behalf of another Nebraska-bound driver.

Winter Survival Kit
Of all the apps available for download, this may be the most useful of them all, complete with customized alerts and several key options to help you through the worst of times: Alert friends and family to your whereabouts with a push of a button; guesstimate how long you can keep your car running to stay warm; and anticipate how much energy you have before it’s time to abandon ship.

AAA Mobile
This dedicated app is especially handy for AAA members, providing roadside assistance with only a press of a button, but there’s lots to enjoy for the average app user. Get maps of the area and locate the nearest cell phone charging stations, gas stations, and the nearest hotels. There’s also an option to join AAA right then and there, in case the situation proves more dire than expected.

Tow Truck Finder
For just $0.99, you can download this app from by Exact Magic Software, LLC, which tracks your location and displays the nearest tow truck and service stations on Google Maps. You’ll instantaneously be able to find addresses, phone numbers and other info for local tows, potentially saving you some wait time in frigid temperatures.

Have any other life-saving winter apps we should know about? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook!

Here’s the Internet Slang Parents Should Know

February 9, 2015 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Texting - Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons — Texting – Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

Let’s start with a question: Do you know what “GNOC” and “IWSN” stand for? How about “CD9”?

“If it makes you feel any better,” writes Kelly Wallace, CNN digital correspondent and editor-at-large covering family-related issues, “I had no clue, and neither did a number of women I asked about it,” proving that even the most involved parents struggle to keep up with today’s increasingly explicit slang.

Wallace recently unveiled a list of 28 acronyms that parents should know, now that texting and social media have become part of the new normal, and kids can’t seem to put down their cell phones. And this new normal looks more incriminating than parents likely prefer. According to Wallace, the terms on her list—many of them sexually suggestive—elude even the most cautious adults. The issue has drawn attention from experts who say graphic short form slang is just one of the many problems plaguing teens and young adults today, as they increasingly rely on mobile devices as primary modes of communicating.

Wallace makes note of typical phrases: “LOL” (Laugh Out Loud) and “LMK” (Let Me Know), for example. Some not-so-innocent, but common variants among teens include things like “GNOC” (Get Naked on Camera) and “IWSN” (I Want Sex Now). Others like “PIR” (Parent In Room) or “POS” (Parent Over Shoulder) act like secret codes, indicating to would-be texters the appropriate moment to refrain from anything that might get them in trouble. There’s also “A/S/L” (age/sex/location), used to initiate what is likely to be an inappropriate conversation between strangers. Less obvious but equally suggestive terms are “1174’” (Party Meeting Place), “53X” (Sex) and the aforementioned “CD9” (Parents Around/Code 9).

Explicit content isn’t limited to just texts. In recent years, popular apps like Snapchat, Vine, and Kik have come under heavy fire for their surreptitious, unregulated nature. Kik, for example, a free texting app, allows text and pictures to be sent without being logged in the phone history, making it easier for kids to communicate with strangers without anyone’s knowledge.

Wallace’s 28 phrases may seem like a generous number, but by the time you finish reading them, it’s easy to imagine several new, equally suggestive acronyms that have already replaced the old ones. If you’re just waking up to the fact that Generation Next is giving you the runaround, it may be time to learn a bit more about what your teen is (or isn’t) saying these days on mobile devices and web-based apps. See Wallace’s complete list below.

Some of the words on the list seem too ridiculous to be so widely used and accepted. The online world is filled with people pretending to be other people, lying about who they really are. Word choice can give teens – and supervising parents – an idea of the person who’s on the other side of the chat or texting app. The lingo is constantly evolving as new phrases and acronyms become widely accepted, so it is understandable that your eyes might catch some abbreviations that you are unfamiliar with. A quick Google search is sure to help, most likely by sending you to www.urbandictionary.com for more definitions and interpretations.

Even though the way teens communicate is changing, and increasingly hidden from parental view, it is still possible to spot the warning signs that something inappropriate or bad is happening. Recognizing some of these suggestive phrases is a good start.

28 Phrases You Should Know:

1. IWSN – I want sex now

2. GNOC – Get naked on camera

3. NIFOC – Naked in front of computer

4. PIR – Parent in room

5 CU46 – See you for sex

6. 53X – Sex

7. 9 – Parent watching

8. 99 – Parent gone

9. 1174′ – Party meeting place

10. THOT – That hoe over there

11. CID – Acid (the drug)

12. Broken – Hungover from alcohol

13. 420 – Marijuana

14. POS – Parent over shoulder

15. SUGARPIC – Suggestive or erotic photo

16. KOTL – Kiss on the lips

17. (L)MIRL – Let’s meet in real life

18. PRON – Porn

19. TDTM – Talk dirty to me

20. 8 – Oral sex

21. CD9 – Parents around/Code 9

22. IPN – I’m posting naked

23. LH6 – Let’s have sex

24. WTTP – Want to trade pictures?

25. DOC – Drug of choice

26. TWD – Texting while driving

27. GYPO – Get your pants off

28. KPC– Keeping parents clueless

Original Source of 28 Phrases: CNN.com

How to Save a Choking Baby

February 6, 2015 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

It’s amazing the sorts of treasures one finds on the Internet. A particular favorite of ours, now making the rounds on the web and social media, might be this latest gem called “The Chokeables,” a public service-meets-Wallace and Gromit-type video fantasy into the realm of child safety. More specifically: the dangers of small, minuscule items that pose choking hazards to babies and infants.

The video, created by St. John Ambulance, one of the U.K.’s leading first aid charities that teaches proper first aid techniques to upwards of 800,000 people annually, employs the talents of none other than Sir John Hurt (better known to kids as Ollivander from the Harry Potter movies) and two additional British actors. The accomplished thespians lend their voices to the very toys and objects parents need to be aware of around the house, things like pen caps, marbles, broken crayons and nuts.

Amazingly, “The Chokeables” has racked up more than 4 million views by way of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter in its first ten days since going live; the video has been shared more than 150,000 times via St. John Ambulance’s Facebook page; and St. John’s estimates that 20.9 million people have watched the video in its first week on television.

And thankfully so: the video comes at a time when new research shows that 79 percent of parents don’t know the correct technique of tending to a choking baby, despite 58 percent that say choking is major fear for them, and 40 percent that say they have witnessed it happening.

The relatively simple video (a must-see, in our opinion, for parents and adults, including daycare workers and babysitters) provides a quick snapshot of what to do in a crisis scenario, teaching parents the proper way to assist a child in the event of a choking incident. Here’s how to save a choking baby:

Lay the baby face down on your thigh, giving up to five generous back blows
Should that method fail, turn the baby over and give him/her up to five chest thrusts until the airway is clear
And if the chest thrusts don’t work, call 9-1-1

“The Chokeables”—at just a mere 40 seconds—might seem like a small tick of time to encompass the grasp of the necessary safety precautions, but the brilliance of this little clip is its simplicity, providing just enough instruction in a visually engaging way for adults who have little time to spare on a day-to-day basis.

According to British publication The Mirror, seven people have saved choking babies thanks in part to “The Chokeables.” So after you’ve watched “The Chokeables” video, share it with friends and family!