Southern California Injury Law Blog

Pain is the natural side effect from any type of personal injury recovery, including car accidents and major trauma injuries. Unfortunately for the majority of those accident victims, the pain never goes away. We have cataloged the typical injuries from accidents for your use. This is something that accident survivors have always known but now a major pain study by the University of Washington has come to the same conclusion. In fact almost 63% of all trauma patients still experience moderate to severe pain one year later.

This study included 3047 patients ages 18-84. They all had experienced acute trauma from an accident. The researchers followed the people for over one year and discovered most of the pain was reported in the joints and extremities (44%), back (26%) head (11%) and neck (7%). Moreover, 59% of those patients with injury-related pain had three or more painful areas one year after injury.

Pain can rob you of your family time, work productivity and quality of life. Since pain is a component of your claim for damages in a personal injury lawsuit, it is important to choose the best qualified attorney in your area. In Orange County, California, you have the advantage of one of the top-rated personal injury firms in the state, Allen, Flatt, Ballidis and Leslie.

Other findings worth noting in this March 2008 study were that more interventions are needed to decrease chronic pain when treating trauma patients. Pain levels at the 3 month marker were indicators on how long pain severity would continue. Basically, if you had severe pain after three months of a single trauma, most probably you would be experiencing at least moderate pain in one year’s time.

In addition, other recent studies have shown patients with specific injuries like pelvic fractures and lower extremity injuries will most likely experience chronic pain five to seven years after the injury. Of course, this can eventually lead to various forms of disability, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

The information for early pain management options should be available to patients so that they can choose the best treatment according to their injury and lifestyle. But where can a person go to get unbiased information? First, always keep a good line of communication open with your doctor and then start with the following resources:

A general overview of evaluating Health Information on the Internet can be found at, http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/evalhealthinfo.html.
A comprehensive non-profit organization called the American Pain Foundation has several resource guides for managing and understanding your pain. Here are a few helpful links:
Pain Resource Guide,
Discussion Guide for you and your doctor,
Pain Treatment Options,
Options for Managing pain,
Pain relief: OTC options.

Take care, drive defensively and stay safe.

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Posted In: Injuries

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A victim of an auto accident had a serious knee injury arising from an impact with the dash board of his vehicle. His injury necessitated multiple surgeries, and kept him from working in his occupation. Michael Mazal of Allen, Flatt, Ballidis & Leslie was successful in negotiating a settlement of the case for $500,000. This represents the largest settlement for a knee injury in the firm's 30 year history.

Congratulations to Mr. Mazal and the entire litigation team of the firm.

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Posted In: Car Accidents , Injuries

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Imagine having your loved one experience a serious personal injury, or worse yet, die during surgery due to a malfunctioning medical device that the doctor had just implanted. Normally in cases like this, survivors are able to sue the medical device manufacturer for some type of damages due to the defective device and get it banned and to protect others so that they wouldn’t be affected. Well, as of last month, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, in an 8 to 1 decision, that patients injured by medical devices can’t sue the manufacturer.

Seems hard to believe, but true. What’s more unbelievable is that the legal theory behind this ruling is that the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, the agency that approves the safety of drugs, medical devices and other consumables is doing a good job. With thousands of current recalls on medical devices, not to mention questionable pharmaceuticals and the record number of food contamination outbreaks, do we really trust the FDA is doing the best job possible to protect us?

The FDA’s own advisory committee found that “the agency is so underfunded and understaffed that it’s putting U.S. consumers at risk in terms of food and drug safety”. The FDA has 1,311 fewer employees than it had 14 years and a deteriorating budget with obsolete technology. Moreover, currently 80% of all drugs sold in the United States are currently made overseas and the number of inspectors has gone from 531 in 2003 to just 380 in 2006. How does this lack of inspections make our food and drug supply safer?

Last year the U.S. experienced record numbers of food and drug recalls. Many of our products are now coming from China and they have a dismal record of contaminated food and drugs. Your prior rights in personal injury cases due to defective products and product liability have been severely compromised. The FDA admits that they only are capable of inspecting 2% of the imports coming into this country. This is truly unacceptable and even the advisory committees are helpless to provide change without a major overhaul of federal funding and major budgetary increase from the congress. In an election year and with a financial crisis looming, that probably won’t happen.
Last year, the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, wrote an extensive article on the role of litigation and the release of drug information entitled, “The Role of Litigation in Defining Drug Risks”. The article, written from the doctor’s point of view, argues that often they themselves are unaware of some of the adverse side effects of some drugs. Doctors learn about new drugs from publications of clinical trials or case reports, promotional materials and FDA approval letters. Sometimes the information is limited in nature and only through the discovery process do the accurate, balanced data become known. In addition, sometimes the FDA approves drugs for a specific condition and then the drug is used for other reasons. The system is clearly flawed and needs to be fair for all involved.

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Orange County is known for top quality restaurants and award winning schools, but in recent weeks, restaurants and schools on the food distribution list of Chino-based Hallmark -Westland Meat Company are scrambling to distance themselves from the largest beef recall in U.S. history.

Last month, an explosive undercover video showed sick animals shoveled by forklifts, crippled cattle being prodded and other cruel acts. A Westland employee, working undercover for the Humane Society shot the video to expose the inhumane treatment of animals going to the slaughterhouse, but now it has opened up scrutiny to just how did this award-wining slaughterhouse, under the watchful eye of two federals agencies, succumb to probable bankruptcy and the largest recall in history.

After purchasing Hallmark meat Company in 2000, Steven Mendell wasted no time in turning the slaughterhouse into a state-of-the-art facility. The goal was to acquire one the federal government most lucrative accounts-The National School Lunch Program. Mendell invested millions in upgrades; stainless steel equipment, new floor and ceilings, and soon it became a top beef processor. In 2004, Mendell was named “Supplier of the year” for the program. Even though the company had minor violations, the firm always said that the workers involved had been retrained and all animals were being treated humanely.

Ironically, if it wasn’t for an undercover, Humane Society inspector, none of these problems would be known today. The main problem within the slaughterhouse is the killing of sick cows or “downer” cows-cows that can’t stand alone. Sick cows pose a risk of spreading mad cow disease, salmonella or E. coli and the USDA, United States Department of Agriculture, has banned their meat from entering the food supply.

Mad Cow Disease or BSE, bovine spongiform encephalopathy is a rare condition that affects people that have eaten beef from diseased cows. Although very rare, if humans eat this poisoned beef they can contract a serious and always fatal disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). The huge problem with this disease is that no one knows how long the incubation period is. However, most experts agree that it takes years, if not decades to actual get the disease from the time you initially eat the contaminated food. This makes possible personal injury correlation from contaminated beef consumption almost impossible.

On average, around 250-300 cases of CJD are reported in the United States. Recently a Kansas man died of CJD after working in a meat packing plant for over 20 years.
The Department of Agriculture’s set of rules is to have veterinarian inspect any cow that can’t walk to the slaughterhouse on its own. If they can’t stand, for obvious reasons, they are not supposed to go into the food supply. It is always the veterinarian’s call as to the health of the cow. In the Westland case, the Food and Safety Inspection service determined “the food was unfit for human food due to the cattle not receiving proper inspection”. Know your rights when you have been a victim of defective products.

Unfortunately, most of the meat in questioned has been eaten. Currently 21 of the 28 Orange County School Districts have been affected. Visit www.fns.usda.gov for a complete list of schools affected. Along with schools, numerous restaurants, hospitals, and retail outlets have been involved. The whole incident is such a tragedy for the public in general. We depend on government inspectors to do their job, but as in so many cases, they are overworked, underpaid, and the innocent consumer gets the raw deal.

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Posted In: Product Liability

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