Boston Accident Lawyer Blog

In yet another example of how dangerous everyday driving can be, a 32-year-old Dedham woman was killed earlier this week as the result of injuries she received after being struck by another car. Making this death even worse, were the circumstances under which the tragedy occurred: A neighbor drove his SUV into a birthday party being held for the victim's five year-old daughter, and the victim, Kimberly McGinley, was struck by the SUV while she was trying to get other children attending the party out of the SUV’s path. Despite efforts by emergency personnel at the accident scene and by doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, Ms. McGinley died.

Now, a 32 year-old woman is dead, and a 5 year-old child motherless. As a Boston car accident lawyer, I see these tragedies all too frequently. The lifelong damage they cause is incalculable. According to police investigators, Zeggai S. Malu, 71, of Somerville, drove his Nissan Pathfinder across the sidewalk at 21 Munroe Street, then onto the lawn at 25 Munroe. The SUV struck McGinley and a 2-year-old Roslindale child, police said. The boy was found under the car, but was not pinned. The child is still at Massachusetts General Hospital, but is in stable condition. The operator of the SUV, Mr. Malu, has cooperated with investigators, police said. Preliminary indications are that speed, drugs or alcohol were not involved, according to police.

This preliminary report underscores the reality that while driving under the influence is a terrible problem in our society, it doesn’t take drunk driving to inflict the kind of tragedy witnessed here: All it takes is taking your attention off the road for a split second, and the results can be devastating. In my practice, I see this happen all the time. It can happen to anyone. While no charges have been filed against this operator, his driver's license has been suspended for, among other reasons, Operating To Endanger.

When a victim or a victim’s family comes to our firm, as Boston, Massachusetts car accident lawyers, we activate an entire team to help them. We cannot turn time back and prevent the accident. We cannot bring back a loved one who has been lost due to someone else’s negligent driving. No lawyer can. But we can, and do, act rapidly to ensure that the victim recovers as much financial compensation as possible under the circumstances. That is one of the key reasons why automobile tort law exists as a distinct type of legal practice; it is why auto insurance is compulsory in Massachusetts – to ensure minimum amounts of insurance are available to compensate victims of Massachusetts car accidents, and other drivers’ negligence.

If you’ve been injured by someone else’s negligent driving, call us and we can help you recover the maximum financial compensation possible under the circumstances. In the immediate case of this tragedy, where a dependent child is left without a parent, the victim’s family will need to secure the maximum amount of damages possible to help provide for that child’s future. Aside from a negligence claim arising from the reported operation of this motor vehicle, a wrongful death lawsuit might also be possible (though to be certain I would need to know more facts, which at the time of this posting, I am not in possession of.)

Take a lesson from this tragedy: Always pay attention to your driving – and stay off your cell phones when behind the wheel!

Continue reading " Somerville, Massachusetts Car Accident Kills Dedham Woman, 32 " »

In my previous post, I wrote about how Massachusetts medical malpractice occurs far more commonly than most people think. I also wrote about how some people view the subject of medical malpractice as largely an exaggeration cooked up by plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyers. That viewpoint is extremely false. To illustrate a very probative and illustrative example, in my last post I introduced the first-hand account of a doctor who herself witnessed a shocking example of medical malpractice. The doctor’s name is Amy Tuteur, an obstetrician-gynecologist, who was educated at Harvard College and received her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine. She is a former clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Earlier this year, in April of 2009, Dr. Tuteur posted a story on www.salon.com, entitled “They committed malpractice on my dad … and got away with it.” Not only was the malpractice shocking, it was tragic: It was her own father who died, at the hands of her own medical colleagues within the very hospital she worked in. What follows are excerpts from the rest of her story.

“(Following the discovery of the medical negligence that condemned her father to incurable cancer,) I had two questions: How had this happened? And why did (my father’s doctors) lie about it? Speaking with all the people involved, I was able to piece together what had happened. As part of the routine preparations for the bladder surgery, my father went to the hospital for pre-operative testing the day before. The hospital staff drew blood, did an EKG and took a chest x-ray. That night, he received a call: There had been a problem with the chest x-ray. Could he stop and have another one done the next morning before he presented for his surgery?

My father assumed that the problem had been technical; perhaps the X-ray was too light or too dark. He reported the next morning, as requested, for his repeat chest x-ray and headed off for surgery. The surgery went well. The bladder stones were easily removed and he recovered quickly and completely. What my father did not know is that he had been asked to have a repeat chest X-ray because the original X-ray had shown a small abnormal area on his left lung. The radiologist could not be certain about the identity of the abnormality, but strongly suspected that it was cancer. The repeat film confirmed that it was, indeed, cancer. Why had (my father’s doctors) failed to tell him of his cancer diagnosis? Because every doctor (involved in the case) had thought that the job of telling the patient this news, belonged to someone else. The radiologist thought that the urologist would tell my father, since the urologist had ordered the x-ray. The urologist thought that the radiologist would alert my father if there were anything abnormal on the x-ray. The anesthesiologist was aware that the chest x-ray showed a small cancer, but assumed that either the urologist or the radiologist had told my father. The radiologist actually sent the urologist the x-ray report, which mentioned the cancer, but the as the urologist admitted at trial years later, he had never looked at it.

Why did the doctors lie about it? To this day, I can’t figure it out. When I confronted the primary care doctor he claimed that they did it to “protect” my father. They didn’t want to “lower his morale.” Obviously, this was an excuse, because no one wanted to admit what had (really) happened, and because they wanted to protect each other. (Editor's note: Doctors do this frequently. Don't be surprised.) The part I can’t figure out is how they thought they would (successfully) keep it a secret: I worked at the same hospital. I had complete access to all the records, including the X-ray, yet somehow they imagined I would never look. Despite multiple types of aggressive chemotherapy, my father died, gasping for air, 8 weeks to the day after the second chest X-ray. What’s (so) difficult to believe is that his doctors had known for months that he had cancer, but they had “forgotten” to (even) tell him.”

Even though this is a true story, and the words no less of a doctor, supporters of medical malpractice and tort reform (translation: medical malpractice insurance companies that would like to restrict or outright eliminate a victim’s right to sue for medical negligence,) will likely brush off stories like this as an anomaly. Trust me, I’ve heard every excuse in the book: “It doesn’t happen statistically that often.” “Plaintiffs’ tort lawyers are suing doctors left and right, and we need to restrict the ability of people to file law suits.” “Medical malpractice jury awards and settlements are driving up the cost of doctors’ liability insurance.” Because of plaintiffs’ lawsuits and jury awards, doctors are abandoning the practice of medicine, leaving patients high and dry.” The high cost of health care is due to plaintiffs’ lawyers and medical malpractice lawsuits.”

Don’t believe a word of this. The objective, black-and-white truth is that medical malpractice lawsuits represent a very small portion of total tort suits filed in the United States, and in Massachusetts, the rate is even slower. Furthermore, the vast majority of Massachusetts medical malpractice lawsuits end in favor of the doctor, not the patient.

So don’t believe the false stories and excuses you may hear about how medical negligence is “rare” and "exaggerated". As a Massachusetts medical malpractice attorney and a Massachusetts personal injury lawyer with more than twenty years' experience in this field, I can assure you that medical negligence is anything but a rare occurrence. To learn more, visit the American Association for Justice’s website.

Continue reading " Massachusetts Medical Negligence: A Doctor’s Own Story of Loss - Part 2 of 2 " »

Most people who hear stories of medical malpractice or medical negligence think those stories usually come from plaintiff’s personal injury lawyers, intent on “dramatizing” a rare and infrequent anomaly. Trust me, that isn’t so, at all. Medical negligence occurs with shocking frequency. What makes this truth hard to believe, is our historic, and cultural, faith in doctors as “saints in surgical garb”, people of almost above-human capabilities, who are above fault and above reproach. While most doctors are ethical professionals and certainly mean to do well, they are far from flawless, and some are far from above lying about their faults to protect themselves or their colleagues from the legal consequences of their mistakes. As a Massachusetts medical malpractice lawyer, I have seen more than my share of stunning examples of medical negligence.

For those who continue to doubt that medical negligence exists among the most esteemed of hospitals and medical environments, consider the story that follows – from a respected physician herself. It is the story of Dr. Amy Tuteur, a woman who placed her father in the care of colleagues at a major hospital, only to see him die needlessly due to multiple medical errors at the hands of otherwise “flawless” doctors – doctors she trusted. Dr. Amy Tuteur is an obstetrician-gynecologist, who received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College and her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine. She is a former clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Earlier this year, in April of 2009, Dr. Tuteur posted a story on www.salon.com, entitled “They committed malpractice on my dad … and got away with it.”

Excerpts of her story follow here:

“I often write about egregious behavior I have seen during my medical career. Because of patient confidentiality, I generally cannot provide the details that will confirm those stories. This story is one of the most shocking, and certainly the most disillusioning for me, and it is my story to tell. Or rather, it is my father’s story, but he’s been dead for almost two decades, and I have to tell it for him.

On November 1, my father went to his doctor complaining of coughing up blood. He had never smoked, and could not imagine why this was happening. A chest X-ray done that morning revealed a fist sized tumor in the middle of his chest. I got the message as I was finishing up in the operating room and raced to meet him at the office of the chest surgeon where he had been sent. I didn’t have to go very far. All my father’s doctors were at the hospital where I worked; they were all my colleagues. I simply took the elevator. During the appointment, I listened as the chest surgeon explained the various grim possibilities: lung cancer, lymphoma, etc. They scheduled a biopsy procedure for two days later and the surgeon asked if my father had any questions. He had only one: How could he have a fist sized tumor in his chest if only a few months before, he had been in this same hospital to have bladder stones removed, and his pre-op chest X-ray had been normal? The surgeon was sympathetic; sometimes tumors could grow so fast that it they could be too small to detect even a few months previously.

The next few days have a rather nightmarish quality in my memories. The biopsy revealed adenocarcinoma with an unknown primary. The cancer was so aggressive that it had lost all the features of the organ where it originated; it might have been lung cancer, but it easily could have been a metastasis from prostate cancer, or indeed any other cancer. I went down to the pathology lab to review the slides with the pathologist. I remember looking at the bizarre and wildly growing cells and thinking that they would kill my father. Anything that aggressive was certainly incurable. At some point during those days, I thought to look at the original chest X-ray, the one that had been done routinely three months earlier, before his bladder surgery. I wanted to see if, knowing what we knew now, the cancer could be detected in its earliest stages. It was easy to find out. I just went down to the Radiology department and requested the film. As I was an attending physician at the hospital and had worked there for years, they handed over the film without question.

It is difficult to capture the sense of shock and horror that I experienced on looking at the X-ray. The cancer had been diagnosed on the pre-op film. Ironically, the diagnosis had been very skilled. The cancer was small and indistinct on the original x-ray, but the radiologist had found it anyway and prominently noted it in the written report. I immediately called my father’s primary care doctor to ask if he was aware of this. He admitted that he had known since November 1, as had the chest surgeon. The surgeon had simply lied when he had he led my father (and me) to believe that the original chest X-ray was clear.”

Next: Part 2 of Dr. Tuteur's Story

Continue reading " Boston, Massachusetts Medical Malpractice: A Doctor's Own Story of Loss " »

In my previous post, I discussed the disturbing news that Massachusetts has the lowest rate of seat belt usage in the United States. Apparently, a lot of people in this state think that unless they’re barreling down a highway at 75 MPH, they won’t be badly injured in a car crash and therefore don’t need to wear a seat beat. These are the same people who will slow down to morbidly take a look at an accident scene along the road – and drive away still unconvinced. If anyone doubts that severe injuries and death can easily result from a 30 MPH car crash, just ask Beatriz Fuentes. Her daughter, Natalie DeLeon, was not wearing a seat belt when she was killed in 2006. The car DeLeon and her boyfriend were in was traveling about 30 miles an hour when the vehicle in front of it stopped short. As a Boston car accident lawyer, I see these accidents happen all the time; all it takes is a split second, to turn everything deadly. DeLeon’s boyfriend, who was driving, swerved and lost control. Their car rolled over. “She was ejected and suffered multiple major injuries,’’ said Fuentes, who has become a vocal advocate of seat belt use and founded the Friends of Natalie Bilingual Seat Belt Campaign in Springfield.

Unbuckled passengers in a car that is moving violently after a collision or rollover “become like a rag in a dryer,’’ said Fuentes. True. Unbuckled passengers in a car doing only 20 MPH are like projectiles in the car. As a Boston car crash lawyer, I can assure you that the injuries that result from such a crash can easily result in death – and sometimes worse. (If you think that death is the worst thing that can happen to you, try to think of what life would be like, burned over 90 per cent of your body and paralyzed from the neck down.)

Natalie’s Law is a bill that would strengthen Massachusetts law to allow police to pull over motorists who are not wearing a seat belt. Current law allows police to issue seat belt citations only when they have stopped a vehicle for some other, unrelated reason. This is known as a “secondary seat belt law.” Otherwise, police can flag down a seat belt violator only when a child under 12 is not strapped in. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggests that a primary seat belt law in Massachusetts would increase the use of seat belts by 12.5 percent and, as a result, save 27 lives per year in Massachusetts and prevent more than 1,000 serious injuries. Last year in Massachusetts, 277 were killed in motor vehicle accidents. The lead sponsor of Natalie’s Law, state Senator Patricia D. Jehlen, noted that, “In every state that has passed a primary seat belt law, seat belt use has gone up dramatically and fatalities have gone down.” The legislation would also raise the fine for each violation from $25 to $50.

Supporters were hoping the Legislature would approve Natalie’s Law before a June 30 deadline for the state to receive $13.6 million in federal funds for traffic safety. But the deadline passed; the bill never made it to the floor. Similar legislation filed in Massachusetts has failed to pass repeatedly over recent years. Opponents have argued that the law could lead to racial profiling by giving police another reason to stop drivers. In my opinion as an experienced Boston personal injury attorney, that’s paranoid and ridiculous. Other vocal opponents include the National Motorists Association, which encourages seat belt use, but contends that “individuals should retain the freedom and responsibility to make choices affecting their own safety and the safety of their families.’’ Lawmakers have also been listening to drivers in their districts who embrace “the libertarian idea that we shouldn’t live in a nanny state,’’ said Jeff Larson, general manager of SmartRoute Systems Inc., in Cambridge.

It’s stunning to me that a supposedly educated populace like that in Massachusetts could be so blind when it comes to common sense. Then again, so many people only learn the hard way.

Continue reading " Massachusetts Motor Vehicle Accidents Increase, But Drivers Still Resist Using Seat Belts: Part 2 of 2 " »

What is it about drivers in Massachusetts? Not only do we have the reputation of being among the least civilized drivers in the nation, apparently we are also among the least intelligent: Recent statistics indicate that Massachusetts is the state with the lowest percentage of seat belt use in the nation. According to a survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA,) only about 67 percent of Massachusetts drivers are likely to buckle up. That lags behind even New Hampshire, the only state without a mandatory seat belt law, where the usage rate is 69 percent.

This is despite the fact that the Massachusetts seat belt law requires drivers to buckle up. So what is wrong with these drivers? After seven people were killed in three separate Massachusetts motor vehicle accidents over the recent July 4 weekend, (see my previous post,) in which almost all of those killed were not wearing their seat belts, the Boston Globe took to the streets to ask why facts like these don’t prompt more people don’t wear their seat belts. To hear it from the average driver, there are nearly as many reasons to avoid using seat belts as there are people who don't use them. Even news of these recent fatalities, however, didn’t seem to faze people. It seems that, despite the enlightened reputation that Massachusetts carries, a lot of people don’t like being told what to do. Some people say they’re uncomfortable. “Uncomfortable”? Ever try to imagine how “comfortable’’ it is, having your face smashed into a windshield?

Tom Vanderbilt, author of “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do", had some ideas to explain this insanity: “People engage in all kinds of magical thinking: That crashes happen to other people; that the air-bag will protect me (airbags in fact provide much less safety than belts); that I’m only going a short way or I’m on a quiet country road, so I don’t need one, etc.’’ Some drivers actually think that if you are driving 20 or 30 miles per hour for a short distance, you don’t need to wear a seat belt. Talk about foolish thinking. In my more than twenty years’ experience as a Boston car accident attorney, I can attest to the reality that most motor vehicle accidents occur at speeds below 40 MPH. And the injuries and deaths that can result would shock any one of these people who think otherwise. I call these people the “WOHATOME©’” crowd: “Won’t Happen To Me”. (Yes, that’s copyrighted. If “NIMBY” helped make Barney Frank famous, I can do the same.)

In my next post on this subject, I’ll address what might be done to improve this sorry situation.

Continue reading " As Massachusetts Motor Vehicle Accidents Increase, Drivers Still Resist Using Seat Belts: Part 1 of 2 " »

In yet another reminder that tragedy doesn’t take a holiday, several Massachusetts motor vehicle accidents marked this July 4 weekend, resulting in the deaths of eight people. Four fatal car crashes occurred in just one night.

In Walpole, three people died July 4 when the driver of the car they were traveling in, careened off the road and slammed into a tree near the corner of East Street and High Street at about 1:15 AM. The driver, Jason Wayne Spurlin, 31, of Lakeworth, Florida, who was the only person to survive the crash, is suspected of drunk driving and will face three counts of motor vehicle homicide in the deaths of the three passengers in the car. Those passengers were Nick Kelly and Anna Dubois, both 20, of Walpole, and Amanda Murray, 23, of Medfield. Reportedly, Murray and Spurlin were dating and Murray had recently given birth to the couple’s first child five weeks ago. Tragically, Spurlin will have to live with this for the rest of his life. That’s a prison sentence in and of itself; and it doesn’t come with a release date.

Additionally, five other people were killed in one night (July 4) in separate Massachusetts motor vehicle accidents. In Attleboro, another single-car wreck left three people dead and a fourth passenger hospitalized with grave injuries. Police said the victims, who were not wearing seat belts, were ejected from the car in the crash. Gleidson Pereira, 23, Ivanildo De Souza, 27, and Lavdeir De Silva, 29, all of Plymouth, were pronounced dead at the scene. Samuel Torres-Mendes, 29, was seriously injured and taken to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. A four-car collision also occurred Saturday that killed Michael B. Lally, 19, of Braintree, and a crash in Sudbury left that driver dead.

Anyone notice the common thread that makes these deaths and injuries caused by motor vehicle accidents, even worse? The victims are all relatively young. Further, speed and/or alcohol have been initially implicated in all these accidents. The emotional and financial damages that car accidents like these cause, is immeasurable. As a Massachusetts car accident lawyer, I see it all the time, and it’s quite sad. Once these tragedies have occurred, the best that anyone in my profession can do, is secure the highest level of financial compensation possible, from those persons whose negligence or recklessness has caused these deaths and injuries. As a Massachusetts motor vehicle accidents lawyer and Massachusetts personal injury attorney, I have over twenty years’ experience in representing injured victims of Massachusetts motor vehicle accidents and their families. If you, a loved one or someone you know has been injured in a motor vehicle accident, please do contact us and we will be glad to offer you a free consultation to discuss your case and offer some free suggestions.

Here’s hoping you don’t need to make that call. In the meantime, drive safely.

Thanks to a very effective and coordinated campaign by the medical liability insurance industry, a lot of people think that true cases of medical negligence, or medical malpractice, are rare. This is reflected in the relatively low rate of plaintiff’s verdicts in medical malpractice cases brought in Massachusetts courts. (“Plaintiff’s verdicts” are verdicts that find in favor of the plaintiff and against the hospital or doctor that committed the medical negligence alleged. In my more than twenty years’ of experience as a Massachusetts medical malpractice attorney and Massachusetts personal injury attorney, that is not true at all. Medical negligence occurs all the time – with alarming frequency. In my career as a Massachusetts medical malpractice lawyer, I have seen repeated cases of shocking medical negligence.

These cases have ranged from flagrant failures by doctors and nurses to diagnose an obvious disease process, to removing the wrong organ, to overall poor medical procedure. I have seen patients who presented to their doctor with obvious symptoms of a heart attack, told that they are suffering from indigestion, and later died from that heart attack. I’ve seen patients whose symptoms of cancer were misdiagnosed as benign, later die of that disease after too much time had passed, the cancer had spread and the patient lost the chance to treat that cancer, and died as a result.

Most people like to think that doctors – especially their doctors – are immune from fault – almost flawless. Of course, that’s not true. No professional is immune from fault or error. The truth is, nearly 100,000 patients die each year from medical errors. And that figure reflects only officially reported cases – many times that amount are never even reported at all, due to patients and their families either not possessing enough information to proceed ahead with a legal action, or by just being intimidated by the overall, complex healthcare industry. When medical negligence occurs, devastating results can follow – often ending in the death of a loved one. The lives of the victims of medical negligence, and their families, can be forever altered or destroyed.

But just What Constitutes Medical Malpractice? This isn’t easy to answer in a short, quick sentence, but very generally, medical malpractice consists of errors (of several different types) committed by a medical professional (usually a doctor, nurse, a hospital, etc.) which cause resulting harm to a patient. The harm suffered is usually physical, but it could also be emotional. The error(s) that the doctor, other medical professional, or hospital is alleged to have made, must be shown to be the type that a similarly-situated doctor or medical professional would not have made, under the same or similar circumstances. Broadly speaking, this is the ‘Standard of Care’ that the defendant in such a case is held to, when a jury (or judge) decides if the defendant is liable for damages. This “standard of care” that a doctor or other medical professional is measured against in a medical malpractice law suit, can be several of several types, but such standards are generally widely-known in the medical profession. Examples of this include failure to diagnosis a disease (such as cancer or heart disease,) which leads to death or loss of the opportunity to cure the disease when it was at an early stage that was treatable, or failure to diagnose a condition due to routine tests or procedures not being ordered. Failure to notice fetal distress during delivery, casing injuries or perforations to adjacent organs during surgery, even leaving surgical instruments in a patient, are all not unheard of.

As this new blog develops over time, I will be writing about actual cases of Massachusetts medical malpractice, to document and better illustrate the details this field of law. I hope you’ll become a regular reader of this blog, and let us know of questions we can answer for you in the areas of medical negligence and personal injury in Massachusetts. For now, one thing I’d like to say is that while I believe that most doctors and medical professionals are well-intended, that does not mean they are beyond fault or flawless, and I believe it would be healthier for both the general public, as well as the medical profession, if more people acknowledged this.

Despite the new Massachusetts Universal Health Insurance law being in place for over a year now, a good number of people still don’t know how their medical bills are paid for if they are injured in a Massachusetts motor vehicle accident. Here’s a quick background:

Under the law governing Massachusetts motor vehicle accidents, the automobile insurance company that insured the car that you were in when the accident occurred, is the insurer that is responsible for paying for your medical bills up to an amount of $2,000.00. If you were not in a car when the accident happened, but were a pedestrian or riding a bicycle, then the first $2,000.00 in medical bills is paid for by the auto insurance company that insured the car that hurt you.

The section of the auto insurance policy which covers that first $2,000.00 in medical bills is known as Personal Injury Protection, or "PIP". In the event your bills related to medical care exceed $2,000.00, those bills greater than that amount are submitted to your health insurance carrier, to be paid by them. This process is known as “Coordination of Benefits”. If you do not have any health insurance when the accident occurred, despite the mandatory Universal Health Insurance Law in Massachusetts, or if your health insurer denies payment for these bills, your "PIP" insurance should cover those bills up to a total of $8,000.00. This can be confusing, so if you’re injured in a Massachusetts motor vehicle accident, call us and we can help you sort these questions out. As a law firm that specializes in Massachusetts personal injury law, we can advise you as to the insurance specifics that apply to your situation, and assist you with the forms required to submit bills to the appropriate "PIP" carrier.

In the meantime, drive safely – and don’t text or use your cell phone when driving.