If you had hip replacement surgery since 2003, you might want to check to see if the medical device that was used is affected by this recall.
Depuy Orthopaedics manufactured artificial hip systems that are being recalled worldwide for serious issues that have arisen concerning patient safety and product failure.
The ASR XL Acetabular Hip System and the ASR Hip Resurfacing System have been recalled by DePuy. The company has put up a guide and a help line at http://www.depuy.com/asr-hip-replacement-recall
By the company's own statements, about 1 in every 8 affected units are failing, requiring an additional hip revision surgery. Because these units were used worldwide for several years, that means that there are plenty of people affected by this recall that might not even know about it. As you can imagine, when a company recalls its medical device that was surgically implanted into your body and his currently holding a crucial joint in your body together, acting on this recall is a little more complicated than returning the device to the store.
DePuy is offering to cover "reasonable and customary costs of testing and treatment" associated with this ASR recall. There may also be reimbursement for lost wages and other out-of-pocket costs.
The DePuy ASR hip system might loosen, break, or dislocate, leading to pain, swelling and immobility. The metal-on-metal construction of the DePuy hip has been seen to wear down, releasing metal particles into the blood. While the company states that this is "expected", it admits that the release of these particles can lead to problems in some patients.
Stoneking Law is investigating DePuy hip recall claims. If you would like to speak to a Minnesota attorney about this DePuy hip recall, contact us at 1-800-241-9036.
Varencline is a drug marketed by Pfizer as Chantix. It is supposed to help smokers quit by blocking receptors in the brain that cause positive sensations from nicotine. Unfortunately, there are many reports of serious, unexpected Chantix side-effects.
There are reported cases all over the country that show how Chantix could be causing psychiatric issues. The use of Chantix has been related by many to have caused psychosis and even suicides.
Unfortunately, Chantix has been very widely prescribed. Many doctors and patients were completely unaware of the serious psychological problems that could occur from the use of Chantix.
We are looking into potential claims regarding Chantix. We know that many people across Minnesota could be affected. If you would like to speak to a Chantix lawyer in Minnesota, give us a call. We will try to help you.
From the FDA:
May 2, 2011 - Bristol-Myers Squibb initiated a voluntary recall of one lot of 1,000-count bottles of Coumadin® (warfarin sodium) Crystalline 5 mg tablets. Bottles of 1,000 tablets are distributed to pharmacies for further dispensing to patients in prescription quantities. The lot number affected in the U.S. is 9H49374A with an expiry date of September 30, 2012. The recall is a precautionary measure based on the company’s testing of tablets from a returned bottle. A single tablet was found to be higher in potency than expected.
I know what the commercials say, but the truth is you might not need a lawyer after a car accident.
Minnesota law has protections in place to help you get back on your feet after a crash. If you end up getting better and all of your medical bills and lost wages get repaid, there isn't any reason you would need me. But if any red flags pop up, do yourself a favor and talk to an experienced injury lawyer before you make a mistake you could regret later.
If you have an injury that looks like it might not heal right away
This is a big one. If you are having troubles a month, two months, six months after an accident, things are going to be a lot more serious for you than you expected. If you miss a lot of time from work or if you are unable to perform tasks of daily living for a long time, you might be considered disabled. If you still have symptoms a year after the accident with medical treatment, a doctor might testify that you suffered a permanent injury that will be with you for the rest of your life.
This isn't obvious right away so you should take your time before settling your case. I have met with people after accidents where I see the warning signs before they do and they sometimes undergo serious surgeries down the road that wouldn't have been paid for had they accepted the accident scene settlement offers.
Look at the Minnesota No-Fault law injury thresholds. If any of them are going to apply to you, consider calling a personal injury attorney.
If the insurance adjuster is acting fishy
On the same note, take your cue from the insurance company. Do they seem eager to sit you down with a tape-recorder? Do they keep calling to offer you money?
Think about it. If anyone else called you up out of the blue and offered you money you would think they are a con artist. Think no different about the insurance company employees. They are offering you money in the hopes of saving the company money in the long run. They have mountains of data that allow them to predict what is going to happen to you before your doctors even realize it. If they are trying to settle with you early, there may be a good reason. Give a call to an attorney to talk about what's going on. You don't have to sign up with them if you don't want to.
If your injury is very serious
Obviously, if your medical bills are off the charts or if somebody was killed in the crash, you should meet with a lawyer. Once no-fault gets tapped out, which, unfortunately, is pretty darn quick these days, the liability case might be your only option for repayment for missed work and other harms. A lawyer will help you with this and there might be insurance policies in place that you wouldn't otherwise know about.
We had a new client call after a serious injury in which the insurance company was offering him the whole policy limit. Pretty nice of them, huh? Well, they forgot to tell him one little thing. There was an extra million dollars of coverage in place that he never knew about because, get this, he never asked. If you are badly hurt, talk to a personal injury lawyer.
If someone passed away in the crash, a settlement or claim will bring on some additional legal complications. Wrongful death claims, especially, should be discussed with an accident lawyer.
If there is a dispute about what happened in the car accident
Assuming there is a substantial harm indicating a claim is on the horizon, if there is any liability dispute in the works, talk to a lawyer. Lawyers can find the accident reconstructionists, experts, and witnesses you will need for the fight that is certain to take place down the road. The Minnesota State Highway Patrol does a good job of recording the evidence at the scene, so the assertion that you need to hire a personal injury lawyer from the accident scene so that he can show up with his Sherlock Holmes hat and magnifying glass is a myth. We will get what we need to prove your case, even if you call us after some time.
Don't take this one for granted. A defense lawyer's job is to create a liability dispute where there was none. Don't be surprised if a lawsuit's answer blames a rear-end crash driver for "causing his own injuries". We have seen passengers blamed for their own injuries.
These are some broad strokes. As usual, if you have any questions, shoot me an email.
I was an economics major. What that really means is I spent about 4 years of my life drawing graphs. We used these graphs to prove things like "tariffs are bad", "price controls are bad", you know, stuff like that. So why haven't I made a graph showing how dumb the idea of capping lawsuit damages would be if the stated purpose was to curb "frivolous lawsuits?
Here it is:
This thing is bulletproof.
I don't want to keep harping on this, but the topic of punitive damages is in the news again on the federal level. A new medical malpractice bill would make a number of changes to current civil justice rules, including limiting the amount of time injured people have to bring claims, limiting the amount of damages that may be recovered and otherwise protecting the medical industry in cases where they would otherwise be held responsible for negligence.
Setting aside the fact that this bill is sponsored by a physician who has himself recently been sued under existing medical malpractice laws, the way the bill addresses punitive damages is so anti-patient as to become completely absurd.
Punitive damages are in the news recently as they tend to be from time to time. The Wisconsin legislature has approved a bill that transforms their civil justice rules in many ways, including a limit on recovery of punitive damages to $200,000 or twice economic damages (whichever is greater). The Wisconsin law illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of punitive damages that is extremely pervasive in the media and society in general. This misunderstanding on the part of voters has been both cultivated and exploited by special interests to the detriment of the American consumer. It doesn't take much to see what is going on if you only look at it in light of the greatest wide-receiver in Vikings history.
When someone presents a personal injury claim, the other side eventually will have the right to have their own doctor do a physical examination. This "Independent Medical Examination" can be used by insurance companies as part of the no-fault process and in any lawsuit in which injuries are claimed. The authority to do force a personal injury plaintiff through an adverse exam i written in the No-fault law and the Rules of Civil Procedure so there is usually no getting around them.
This is a common question. The short answer is that the Minnesota No-Fault law was written to exclude injuries to motorcyclists. Injuries suffered while on a motorcycle or, for that matter, while getting on or off a motorcycle are all excluded from the benefits provided by the Minnesota no-fault law. Minn. Stat. 65B.46, Subd. 3.
There is an article in the New York Times today about lawsuit loans. We run into these loans and the lenders who make them a lot because, after all, we are in the business of representing people with personal-injury lawsuits. Whenever possible, we tell our clients to avoid these loans because they are generally a really bad idea. The article does a good job of talking about what is really going on with these personal-injury loan advances and I would like to highlight a few key points.
Despite what you might hear on TV or read in the newspaper, personal injury lawyers do not sue every doctor that they possibly can. Even when an attorney focuses his or her entire law practice on representing people in medical malpractice cases, that attorney will turn down the vast majority of the potential claims that come their way. There are several major reasons for this, including extra legal hurdles that make medical malpractice cases more expensive and difficult than other negligence lawsuits. But even without tort reform efforts, a medical malpractice case can be more difficult than most people realize because of the issue of legal causation.
One example of a potential medical malpractice claim that often hinges on causation is a doctor's failure to diagnose a problem.
Why would an injured person pursue compensation in excess of the policy limits despite the availability of UIM coverage?
Thursday, 30 December 2010 16:09
Here is an interesting question I got over the web that I'm guessing came from an insurance adjuster. I'm only kidding. After all, the dynamics of insurance after a car accident can be very confusing, even for lawyers. When a person is injured in a car crash, Minnesota law provides that there should be at least three different types of insurance coverage: no-fault (also known as personal-injury protection, or PIP), liability coverage and underinsured motorist coverage (UIM).
Can I sue somebody for personal injury if my insurance has already paid?
Monday, 20 December 2010 18:21
Yes. You carry insurance for all sorts of possible claims but not all damages suffered in a personal injury accident are covered by your own insurance. For example, your health insurance will not pay you for your pain, suffering and inconvenience. While it might cover the costs of scar removal, it would not compensate you for the embarrassment you might experience from what is left over after revision. So for the rest of your harms and losses, you need to look at the other driver's insurance policy. In general terms, you make a claim for all of your harms and losses and the law will tell you how to treat the various prior insurance payments. There is a large body of law that governs the priority of coverage, amount of payments, and defining the rights for the payors. The majority of the issue can be covered with a brief discussion of collateral sources and subrogation.
There is an organization out there known as the American Tort Reform Association, "ATRA". It puts out the "Judicial Hellholes" publication you may have heard of recently. Its website goes over some of its important issues and I can't help but take issue with a few (OK...most) of their conclusions.
Among their goals is reforming the joint and several liability rules in favor of a purely proportionate liability system. This post will address the difference.
In a move that will make unnecessarily nostalgic people very angry, the federal government has banned drop-side baby cribs. The feds, in the interest of small innocent babies, determined that an unnecessary convenience that kills several babies a year is a bad idea and shouldn't be allowed. Seems like the sort of consumer protection anybody could appreciate. Just for kicks, I went to the Fox News version of this story online to check out the comments. Here's a good one.
An insurance issue has come up that is really bothering me. Many auto insurance companies are changing their policies to provide less protection to policy holders and their families. The courts have held that this sort of thing is allowed even though it can be done in sneaky and confusing ways. The only way to stop insurance companies from doing it is to be informed. Here is how it works.
This is one of the most common questions we get at the beginning of a case. Much like any sort of legal dispute, a personal injury case can be a long, drawn out affair. Some cases move quickly while some cases drag on for years. This post will go over some of the factors that can delay a case.
If you currently have a claim proceeding, stay involved in your case. Make sure you and your lawyer are on the same page so that you can talk about some of these issues as they come up.
Certain types of harms are called "special" while others aren’t. It doesn’t sound very nice but the distinction is important.
Whenever you have an insurance claim, there is no guarantee that you and the company will ever agree on the amount of compensation that you are due for your loss. So you get divergent opinions about the value of something, making it unlikely that two sides can come together to reach an agreement without some help.
At the common law, there was no action to recover damages for the death of a member of one’s family. It was said that the negligence claim belonged to the injured person and that if they were to die before it was resolved, the claim died with them. Wrongful death claims were created by the legislature to compensate victims’ families and dependents for their deaths as the result of another’s negligence.
Because the statute is the authority on wrongful death actions, it is very important for an attorney to be familiar with the procedure, time limits and operations unique to wrongful death actions.
When a child is injured in an accident, there are often different issues in the case. A guardian assists with the case but the claim always belongs to the child. When the matter is settled, a court needs to approve the settlement. Often, the guardian decides that it is better to pay the settlement out over time rather in one lump sum payment when the child reaches 18.
