Puppies

July 19, 2016

Good Morning Lawrence,

Our family summer (and maybe longer) project is fostering puppies for Stray Rescue. These are dogs that are abandoned or needed rescuing and are looking for a good home. Our kids love to help us take care of them - but it’s hard to give them to their new owners when they look like this.

Many great institutions rescue dogs, but we have chosen Stray Rescue to volunteer. We have fostered two rounds of puppies so far and picked up our next group later today. Three puppies can be a lot of work, but it’s worth it. The more you give the more you get. The kids love to help clean up after the pups (not).

Stray Rescue is a no kill shelter at Jefferson and Pine. They do amazing work for severely abused dogs and strays.

Our adult dog Jackson (above) has found his calling and fathers and herds the puppies. He loves it!!! BUT our dog King is scared to death of the little puppies, and hides up on our dining room table to be safe (he is 60 lbs). To see dogs at Stray rescue available for adoption, click here. To fill out an adoption application, click here. If you are interested in a super cute puppy and want to visit the ones we are getting today, email me.

Now for the legal news:

$270,000 bike premises liability settlement

Two weeks ago we settled a case against AT&T and Holloran Contracting for $270,000. Our client, Kimball Nill, had a terrible bike crash but made a miraculous recovery. It happened when he was riding his bicycle on the sidewalk along Baxter Road from his house to the post office to mail a letter.

He is super safety conscious – he wore an orange vest (like a construction worker) and had on his helmet. It had just rained and the sidewalks were damp. He only had time to think there was something amiss with the sidewalk before his bicycle flipped and he crashed.

He determined after he woke up that he crashed into an area that had been dug out and the sidewalk removed - but water had pooled in and filled in this area following the rain. It was difficult to quickly discern the difference between the sidewalk and the water. He was bleeding from his face and head.

Kimball got up, was a little bit out of it and warned a jogger about the hole. He walked home pushing his bike. His wife took him to the emergency room and he received treatment - he had facial lacerations and head trauma.

Unbeknownst to Mr. Nill, AT&T had been doing work in the area. It had a subcontractor, Holloran Contracting, that had removed the sidewalk some weeks before.

Holloran Contracting did not obtain a permit to remove the sidewalk as required by St. Louis County ordinance. Neither did AT&T. Holloran Contracting and AT&T pointed the finger at each other about who was supposed to pull the permit.

The lawsuit was both a dangerous condition of property and negligence claim against Holloran and AT&T, as well as negligence per se claims against both entities.

We deposed Art Becker, a 42 year public works official with St. Louis County. He testified that:

• AT&T and Holloran did not get a permit to do this work.
• A permit should have been requested to remove the sidewalk.
• This requirement comes from state and county ordinances.
• The main purpose behind the state and county ordinances is the health and safety of the public.
• The statute and ordinance requires that there be barricades and sidewalk closed signs and they “are a must”.
• The County received a call from Ms. Nill complaining about the absent sidewalk and did not know about it. They argued with her and said no project was going on. They sent an inspector out to see who was doing the work.
• St. Louis County went and put a “sidewalk closed” sign up to warn people of the empty sidewalk, after Mr. Nill crashed.
• They did not figure out who was doing this work until 7 days after Mr. Nill’s injury.
• It is important to put barricades and signs up so no one is injured when a sidewalk is removed.
• Defendant Holloran did not have “sidewalk closed” signs at all.
• Holloran Contracting violated the ordinance and statute by not getting a permit.
• Holloran Contracting and AT&T violated the ordinance and statute by not putting the fence up and appropriate signage.
• The County issued a notice of ordinance violation to AT&T following this incident.
• There was no information from AT&T or no documents from AT&T or Holloran that they communicated to St. Louis County about their ordinance violation.
• A sidewalk closure like that can affect pedestrians, people in wheelchairs, people on bikes, old people, kids, everybody. There was no shoulder on the road and people are forced to use this sidewalk to go along Baxter Road.
• This is one of the reasons why they have ordinances and regulations and the need for signs to protect the public.
• This is a very unusual occurrence – it’s the only one Mr. Becker is aware of and he has been doing this job for 42 years. Holloran Contracting and AT&T have failed to pull permits other times when they were doing work.

During the initial emergency room visit Mr. Nill was diagnosed with a closed head injury and facial fractures. He was admitted for observation and later released. About a month later, Kimball’s wife took him to the emergency room and stated that he “didn’t seem right” and that he had been having headaches, sleeping more than usual, was unable to dress himself, was unable to feed himself, and could not perform certain other activities. He was admitted and found to have a right frontal subdural fluid collection/hematoma that needed to be evacuated.

The next day Kimball underwent a Frontal Craniotomy for Subdural Hematoma procedure. The neurosurgeon cut open his head, removed his skull and the dura (membrane around the brain). “As soon as the dura was opened, there was spontaneous emanation of high pressure chronic subdural fluid.” A hemorrhage was repaired as well.

Less than a week after the surgery on November 18, 2014, Kimball was taken back to the emergency room for confusion and slurred speech and hand and arm numbness and loss of use. Mr. Nill underwent treatment for his right shoulder pain shortly after the crash as well.

Over the next few months, Mr. Nill continued his follow-up care with his doctors. He was prescribed anti-seizure medications and underwent additional head scans to monitor him after the surgery.

Kimball made a miraculous recovery but obviously went through a lot. His injuries were deadly and he narrowly escaped death and permanent brain damage. But he completely recovered and is now working and with no real problems other than a scar under his hair. But he no longer rides a bike.

Thanks for reading.

Responses:

“My wife and I need a dog badly.”

--Lawrence

Summer’s End

August 29, 2016

Peggy,

Summer's over. :-(. For a last hurrah, we rode a long stretch on the Katy Trail this last weekend. From Defiance to Augusta and back. All five of us. If you haven't ridden it lately, give it a shot. It’s a real asset in our area and lets one appreciate the Missouri river and our state. It goes from Machens to Clinton, Missouri. Many trailheads and abutting trails as well. No cars. Great in the fall when the weather cools down. On the way back, we did riddles, and my son Jordan told a hard one. (Warning - advanced math from my 14 year old). Let me know if you can figure it out:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

Answer in my next email.

R.I.P. Tim Frymire

We represent the family of Timothy Frymire in a wrongful death and medical malpractice action against a general medical practice in Wayne County, Missouri. Tim was a wonderful young man who died on August 1, 2013 at the age of 20. He had been to his doctor’s office 7 hours before his death. He had also been there 6 days before. In both of these visits, he complained of headaches. He died from complications of a brain tumor.

The nurse practitioners (he never saw a doctor) at Wayne Medical Center did not assess his headache, do a neurologic exam, do a fundoscopic exam, or assess the reason for Tim’s headaches. They inaccurately diagnosed him with allergies and gave him allergy medication.

In truth, Tim’s headaches were caused by a brain tumor. The coroner (whom we deposed) found the tumor in the front left lobe of Tim’s brain which caused his brain to shift and caused swelling or encephalopathy. The tumor also closed a ventricle (which drains spinal fluid from the head).

The type of tumor Tim had is sometimes called a ‘silent killer’ as it does not manifest significant symptoms until it’s too late. However, Tim did have headaches, communicated that to his family members and went to his family doctor twice for his headaches, including the day he died.

I filed medical malpractice, lost change of survival, and wrongful death claims against these medical practitioners. We obtained the opinion of both a nurse practitioner and a doctor that Tim’s medical providers were negligent, caused Tim’s death and decreased his chance of survival from the tumor. We hired a neurosurgeon who testified that Tim was salvageable even towards the end. The nurse practitioners at Wayne Medical Center should have given him a neuro exam and sent him for a CT or MRI of his head.

There was a CT machine about 40 minutes away in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Such a study would have shown edema and swelling in his brain as well as the tumor. This would have warranted rapid use of drugs or a stent to decrease the pressure in head and most likely surgical intervention to remove the brain tumor. Unfortunately, this never occurred.

We produced family members for depositions, produced our medical experts for depositions and I deposed the Defendants in this case. We established they only saw Tim for a short time; they did not do necessary tests and did not identify the brain tumor. We were scheduled to go to trial in August 2016 when the case settled. We appeared in Court on August 17, 2016 to have this settlement approved.

Tort Reform only helps insurance company executives

Tim’s family pursued this case to send a message so that other nurse practitioners and doctors would pay more attention to the type of symptoms that Tim exhibited. They also disagree with the statutory cap on wrongful damages in Missouri.

Although the statue has changed over the years, it places a cap on noneconomic damages of $350,000. So, this puts an artificial lid on these noneconomic damages.

Insurance companies, doctors, and nurses who break well established rules of care that they should provide to patients use these caps to artificially limit their liability and avoid responsibility for their medical errors. The New England Journal of Medicine studied the effect of tort reform and found no reduction in integrity of care, use of “defensive medicine”, use of MRIs or CTs at hospital admissions- i.e. no cost savings.

Insurance industry tricked states into passing it and does nothing to change the way medicine is practiced or help patients or doctors (other than to cap recoveries when doctors hurt their patients).

Tim was an animal lover. Our family fostered and found homes for 13 dogs this summer. If you or your family are interested in adding a dog to your family, visit Stray Rescue or click here. Fall and back to school are a great time for a new dog. These five puppies are on their way to a new home. Giving forever homes to stray dogs is great public policy we should support. That we would help insurance companies rather than good Missouri and American families like the Frymires is bad public policy.

Thanks.

Responses:

“Very nice. Many years ago I rode the whole trail, but at that time it started in St. Charles and ended in Marthasville so it wasn't a big deal.”

--Bernie

Crazy Weekend

September 12, 2016

Good morning Kenneth,

What a busy weekend in St. Louis! Art fair in Clayton, LouFest in Forest Park, the Flags of Valor on Art Hill, and we even did a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday. The young man who read from the Torah Saturday morning, Aaron Guller, gave a moving speech about justice and how we need to zealously advocate for it today more than ever.

You may have read my son's riddle in my email two weeks ago. It is a famous one called the Monty Hall Problem. It became famous as a question from a reader's letter quoted in Marilyn vos Savant's "Ask Marilyn" column in Parade magazine in 1990:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

Vos Savant's response was that the contestant should switch to the other door (vos Savant 1990a). Under the standard assumptions, contestants who switch have a 2/3 chance of winning the car, while contestants who stick to their choice have only a 1/3 chance.

Many readers of vos Savant's column refused to believe switching is beneficial despite her explanation. After the problem appeared in Parade, approximately 10,000 readers, including nearly 1,000 with PhD's wrote to the magazine, most of them claiming vos Savant was wrong.

Even when given explanations, simulations, and formal mathematical proofs, many people still do not accept that switching is the best strategy.

The correct result (you should switch doors) is so counterintuitive it can seem absurd, but is nevertheless demonstrably true.

TRIAL VICTORY LAST WEEK

I had the privilege to try a car crash case last week in St. Louis County and got a $20,000 verdict for a well deserving couple. The crash occurred on Manchester road and Wiedman. An elderly lady turned in front of them and they hit her. Not yielding the right of way to oncoming traffic can cause bad accidents. I'll spare you a picture of the car.

We fought an able defense lawyer, Art Clark, who called me the best trial lawyer in the State of Missouri in his closing argument (and then proceeded to criticize our case - nice trick).

We carefully pick juries in our cases. Missouri law provides "No person who has formed or expressed an opinion concerning the matter or any material fact in controversy in any case that may influence the judgment of such person, and no person who is kin to either party in a civil case or to the injured party shall be sworn as a juror in the same cause." R.S.Mo. section 494.470.1. And "Persons whose opinions or beliefs preclude them from following the law as declared by the court in its instructions are ineligible to serve as jurors on that case."

We are so indebted to our great citizens who serve as jurors, help resolve civil disputes, and help prosecute criminals. Pretty amazing how seriously and with such dedication people serve. It's a pleasure trying cases with good clients, juries and opposing counsel.

We put our clients on the stand and played video tapes of two chiropractors who treated them. Happily they are back working and taking care of their kids. They are immigrants from Bosnia and got to use our American judicial system for the first time.

Celebrating America in a trial and then somberly honoring it with 7,000 flags on Art Hill - each honoring a deceased Gold Star soldier who passed fighting for our rights since 9/11/2001.

SEPSIS MEDICAL MALPRACTICE SETTLEMENT - $1 MILLION

It is estimated that between 28 and 50 % of the 1 million people who contract sepsis each year die. Many times they are too long undiagnosed and then not treated in a rapid manner with antibiotics to which the infection is sensitive.

Sepsis is a general term that can describe many types of infections, these are usually bacteremia infections such as pneumococcal staph, but can also be other types of infections. Sepsis is defined as infection plus systematic manifestation of infection.

We represented a family of a southern Illinois man who went to the emergency room in southern Illinois with high fever. He was not diagnosed with sepsis for 5 hours and did not receive antibiotics until over 2 hours even after he was diagnosed. This late medical treatment did not save him.

We successfully recovered and settled his medical malpractice case late last year. We were able to place a large amount of money into structured settlement accounts for his family. More detail in my next email.

Thanks for reading.

Responses:

“Gary, congratulations on your verdict and settlement.”

--Ken

“Gary, Great Article and I agree that the best course is to switch to the other door.”

--Pari