Personal Injury Primer

Medical Negligence is a Leading Cause of Death https://personalinjuryprimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ep-361-Medical-Negligence-is-a-Leading-Cause-of-Death.mp3 I’m Katelyn Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana. Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics. According to various studies, medical negligence is the third leading cause of death in the United States. Multiple studies, including those published in 2016, 2022, and 2024, have determined that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the US, behind heart disease and cancer. One study from 2022 notes that at least 250,000 Americans die each year due to medical errors. These studies do not tabulate all of the people who are harmed as a consequence of medical mistakes but survive and do not die. A medical error is a preventable adverse effect of medical care. Examples include botched surgeries, misdiagnoses, and prescription mistakes. Why are medical errors occurring? What can be done to reduce the rate of medical errors? Experts recommend redesigning medical systems and implementing legal reforms to reduce medical errors and fatalities. Let’s focus on legal reforms. Filing a lawsuit following a serious medical error or omission serves several goals: Compensation for Victims: Damages can help cover medical bills, rehabilitation costs, and loss of income and may address pain and suffering. Accountability and Responsibility: Holding healthcare providers accountable for their actions may lead healthcare institutions to enforce stricter standards of care. Highlight Systemic Issues: Lawsuits can call attention to recurring healthcare problems, prompting reviews and changes in protocols and procedures. Public Awareness: Lawsuits can raise public awareness about specific issues within the healthcare industry, and the public may demand improvement. For patients, the implications of medical errors can be profound: disability or death, emotional distress, and crippling financial loss. Patients trust the healthcare system, and when that trust is broken, they deserve the opportunity to seek compensation and systemic changes. The legal system plays an integral role in addressing the consequences of medical mistakes. I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”The post Ep 361 Medical Negligence is a Leading Cause of Death first appeared on Personal Injury Primer.

Prescribing a Contraindicated Drug https://personalinjuryprimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ep-360-Prescribing-a-Contraindicated-Drug.mp3 I’m David Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana. Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics. Today’s question comes from a caller who said his doctor prescribed the antibiotic Ciproflaxin (Cipro) without discussing its use with him. The FDA’s black box warning for Cipro indicated serious risks, especially for patients who have a history of corticosteroid use, which applied to the caller. After taking Cipro, the caller experienced severe adverse reactions, including tendon ruptures and peripheral neuropathy. He wanted to know if he could successfully sue his doctor. Success in a case where a physician prescribes a medication that the drug warnings say would be contraindicated for a patient will still require an expert opinion that it was below the standard of care to prescribe the medication to a patient. You might think that the FDA warning itself could be used to establish the standard of care and that there would be no need for expert testimony. But, you likely would be wrong in thinking that expert testimony would be unnecessary. At least one state trial court held that any FDA warning alone could be sufficient to establish the standard of care without expert testimony. But, the highest court in that state reversed holding that the FDA warnings cannot substitute for expert testimony to establish the standard of care in medical malpractice cases. The Court emphasized that medical judgment is required to determine the appropriate standard of care, which must be established by expert testimony. If you are scratching your head, do you know what the term ‘contraindicated’ means? My guess is that, like most people, it is a new, unfamiliar word. Contraindicated is medical speak that basically means: do not give. Courts require medical expert testimony in medical malpractice cases because judges and jurors are not doctors. Medical terms require a medical doctor’s explanation for everyone involved in the case. Requiring medical expert testimony helps ensure that justice is fairly administered. I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”The post Ep 360 Prescribing a Contraindicated Drug first appeared on Personal Injury Primer.

Slipping in a Hotel Shower https://personalinjuryprimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ep-359-Slipping-in-a-Hotel-Shower.mp3 I’m Katelyn Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana. Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics. Today’s question comes from a caller who said that when he stayed at a local hotel, he slipped while using the shower tub in his room and broke an arm. He said the shower floor was not slip-resistant. He wanted to know if he had a case to pursue against the hotel owner. Where a hotel presents a guest with an unreasonably dangerous condition, it is possible to sue for negligence and seek damages for any injuries suffered. This means that a successful claim against the hotel owner is possible. But keep in mind that the guest who sues has the burden of proof to establish all the material elements required to present a winning premises liability claim. That means the guest, likely through expert testimony or other valid evidence, must show that presenting a guest with a shower tub without a slip-resistant surface to stand on was unreasonably dangerous. This evidence is crucial in establishing negligence and supporting a winning premises liability claim. In other words, the mere fact that someone slipped in a wet shower tub without more evidence does not establish negligence on its own. To be successful against the hotel, the guest and his attorney will need to be prepared to present evidence of industry standards, safety codes, or other expert testimony. This expert testimony will need to support the claim that the shower tub was unusually slippery or unsafe, providing a strong foundation for the case. I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com. While there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”The post Ep 359 Slipping in a Hotel Shower first appeared on Personal Injury Primer.

Injured in a Stampede by a Crowd https://personalinjuryprimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ep-358-Injured-in-a-Stampede-by-a-Crowd.mp3 I’m David Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana. Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics. Occasionally, you hear in the news about a person injured in a stampede at a festival, parade, sporting event, theme park, or shopping sale. Anytime there is a crowd of people, there is a potential for someone to be hurt by the crowd’s actions, such as being knocked down and crushed or suffocated during a stampede or even being lifted up and propelled in the air by crowd-goers. When festivals, concerts, and other events that draw crowds are put on, the event organizer typically employs crowd control plans developed ahead of time to ensure everyone has a safe experience. Crowd control involves much more than just having a security team on the ground watching for disorderly or violent conduct. It includes things like erecting barriers to keep people out of certain areas, having enough emergency exits, and proactively monitoring crowd dynamics and movement to ensure the density of people in one space does not get to such high levels that it becomes dangerous. When a person is injured by a crowd surge or stampede, the event organizer can be held liable for failing to adequately control the crowd or failing to have appropriate safety measures in place to ensure the safety of all attendees. Let’s suppose a woman takes her child to an amusement park on a summer weekend when the park is having a deeply discounted day. There are special booths set up with all kinds of prizes. Many people are crowding into the park for the day and flocking to a particular section of the park where word got out that workers are giving away freebies that everyone seems to want.  Suddenly, the woman finds herself separated from her child in the mass of people. She stops and looks around her to see where the child might be, but in stopping to look, she’s knocked to the ground by the excited people behind her who are anxiously trying to get to the freebies. Once on the ground, she suffers severe injuries from the crowd surging over her. Suppose still, that the child looks around and sees this all happening to his mother. In this situation, the amusement park can likely be held liable for the woman’s injuries and the child’s emotional distress caused by witnessing this happen to his mother. As part of a case investigation, the woman and child’s lawyer might learn that the park did not train its employees in crowd management. Or perhaps the park did not have enough of its trained workers actually on duty watching over the crowd of people. There are numerous negligent actions or inactions on the part of the park that an attorney may uncover in working on such a case. I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”The post Ep 358 Injured in a Stampede by a Crowd first appeared on Personal Injury Primer.

Choosing the Right Auto Insurance Coverage https://personalinjuryprimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ep-357-Choosing-the-Right-Auto-Insurance-Coverage.mp3 I’m Katelyn Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana. Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics. Quite often, when we conclude a case with a client and hand them their check, the client will ask, “Should I make any changes to my car insurance?” The right way to look at car insurance is to see it as providing financial protection if you are unfortunate and end up in a motor vehicle collision. Injury bills and vehicle repair costs can quickly mount up. Most car insurance carriers offer a variety of coverage choices, including: Liability coverage — If you cause a collision, liability coverage will pay any judgment obtained against you by the injured party up to your coverage limit. Collision coverage — If your vehicle is damaged in a collision, this coverage benefit will reimburse you for the cost of repairing or replacing it up to your coverage limit. Comprehensive coverage — Protects a vehicle owner’s losses due to vandalism, hail, and other similar events up to the coverage limit. Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage — Will pay towards the cost of medical treatment to passengers injured in a collision, regardless of fault, up to the coverage limit. Medical Payments (Med-Pay) coverage  — Will pay for medical treatment costs that any insured incurs as a result of the crash, up to the coverage limit. Uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM/UI or UIM) coverage — Will pay for damages insureds sustain in a collision (including medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering) caused by another driver who has no liability insurance or low limits liability insurance, up to the coverage limit. Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) coverage —Will pay the difference between a vehicle’s actual cash value and the outstanding loan amount owed on the vehicle up to the coverage limit. A common mistake people make in Indiana is buying car insurance that provides just the bare minimum coverage and not choosing a policy with enough UIM coverage to protect them should they be in a crash with another driver who has little or no liability insurance. Although you hope to never need your UIM coverage, it’s important to take time to think about how much coverage you can afford. Since this coverage protects you when others on the highway do not have insurance or have bare minimum levels of liability insurance, it makes sense to have the most coverage you can afford. Additionally, people often fail to recognize that GAP coverage is important when purchasing a vehicle, especially if they’ve been sold a loan that is greater than the value of the vehicle purchased. The minimum amount of liability car insurance coverage you need varies by state. In Indiana, the minimum amount of liability insurance coverage is $25,000 for bodily injury or death of one person, $50,000 for bodily injury or death of two or more people in one accident, and $25,000 for damage or destruction of property in one accident. See Ind. Code § 9-25-4-5. As attorneys who represent people injured in motor vehicle crashes, we recommend getting an insurance policy with the highest coverage levels that you can reasonably afford. I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”The post Ep 357 Choosing the Right Auto Insurance Coverage first appeared on Personal Injury Primer.