Archive for July, 2008
Friday, July 11th, 2008
Reporter Bill Miller with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that one person has died and two others were injured early Friday afternoon in a fiery wreck involving a small car and two large rigs, including a tanker, on westbound NE Loop 820. Police, firefighters and ambulance crews responded to the wreck, which was reported at 12:44 p.m. near the loop’s intersection with Blue Mound Road, officials said. Initial police reports stated that a person in a small car was killed. Two people were being taken to Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, a dispatcher for MedStar Ambulance Service said at 1:40 p.m. Lt. Paul Henderson, police spokesman, said he was told that a cement truck and the tanker were covered in flames.
Police said the cement truck might have lost control and slammed into stopped traffic, killing the driver of a small car. The cement truck’s exterior fuel tanks may have ruptured as the truck slid alongside a tanker truck that was in front of the car, police said.
Tags: truck
Posted in Trucking Accidents | Comments Off
Friday, July 11th, 2008
Another report of Heparin overdosing of premature babies, this time involving up to 14 babies at Christus Spohn hospital in Corpus Christi. Two of the overdosed babies, twin siblings, have died.
“Christus Spohn (Health System) confirms that an error occurred during the mixing process in our hospital pharmacy,” Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard Davis said in a prepared statement. “The error was unrelated to product labeling or packaging.”
The Texas Legislature in 2003 – pumped full of special-interest money and controlled by the insurance and business lobbies – passed laws limiting the damages that victims of medical malpractice can recover from negligent health care providers. Unfortunately, they took no steps to try to ensure less negligence or better healthcare.
Tags: malpractice, Medical negligence
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
There’s a good op-ed online in today’s Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi by insurance-defense lawyer Alex Alston (certainly no bomb-throwing liberal trial lawyer) about how that state’s high court has shifted to protecting businesses and insurers over injured consumers. Switch the states and names and he could as well be describing the Texas Supreme Court.
Notable among Alston’s comments are these:
“Our entire judicial system is built on a “rule of law.” In other words, it makes no difference whether you are a prince or a pauper, the law must be precisely the same for all. A court that substitutes its opinion for that of a jury, or simply decides a case for the benefit of a favored party, tears the basic fabric of our judicial system to shreds. If the rule of law is not followed, the entire foundation of our judicial system is undermined. The public has a right to expect the Supreme Court to follow the rule of law and decide the cases before it fairly and impartially without favor to any party regardless of status, race, creed or color…Should we not demand that [they] follow the rule of law? Certainly it is a fair question to ask why 88 percent of the time, the court reverses a jury verdict for a plaintiff and substitutes its own opinion, and why, in 100 percent of the cases involving an injured victim’s appeals from a jury verdict in favor of a defendant, the court finds for the wealthy or powerful defendant. Our court must be more than a rubber stamp for the rich and powerful. Shouldn’t we expect that and more?”
Well said, Mr. Alston. Undermining the rule of law for injured consumers hurts us all in the long run.
John Cummings
Tags: Jury, lawyer, lawyers, undefined
Posted in Jury, Rule of Law | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
Great op-ed in today’s Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi by insurance-defense lawyer Alex Alston (certainly no bomb-throwing liberal trial lawyer) about how that state’s high court has shifted to protecting businesses and insurers over injured consumers. Switch the states and names and he could as well be describing the Texas Supreme Court.
Notable among Alston’s comments are these:
“Our entire judicial system is built on a “rule of law.” In other words, it makes no difference whether you are a prince or a pauper, the law must be precisely the same for all. A court that substitutes its opinion for that of a jury, or simply decides a case for the benefit of a favored party, tears the basic fabric of our judicial system to shreds. If the rule of law is not followed, the entire foundation of our judicial system is undermined. The public has a right to expect the Supreme Court to follow the rule of law and decide the cases before it fairly and impartially without favor to any party regardless of status, race, creed or color…Should we not demand that [they] follow the rule of law? Certainly it is a fair question to ask why 88 percent of the time, the court reverses a jury verdict for a plaintiff and substitutes its own opinion, and why, in 100 percent of the cases involving an injured victim’s appeals from a jury verdict in favor of a defendant, the court finds for the wealthy or powerful defendant. Our court must be more than a rubber stamp for the rich and powerful. Shouldn’t we expect that and more?”
Well said.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
