William D. Kickham
William D. Kickham
Construction Accident
Car Accident
Nursing Home

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Christmas Eve, 2014. A time when families and friends gather to celebrate the blessings they have, and to give and receive gifts. A time of warmth, hope, and ideally happiness.

Yet tragedy knows no holiday. And tragically, earlier today in East Boston, a man was killed in a pedestrian-motor vehicle accident. You can read an initial news report of the tragedy, filed by CBS4 Boston (WBZ-TV,) by clicking here.

How awfully sad. While the victim’s identity hasn’t yet been released, all that you need to know is that he was somebody’s someone: Somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, somebody’s husband, somebody’s friend. Killed in a Boston pedestrian-car accident, on Christmas Eve. As a Massachusetts pedestrian-motor vehicle accident attorney, I see far too many of these types of accidents. They are almost always very serious, given the obvious reality that when a pedestrian is struck by a 2,000 lb. vehicle, terrible injuries are likely to result. My plea, yet once again, to anyone with a driver’s license: Watch what you are doing when you’re driving. Do NOT text and drive – do NOT engage in distracting conversation with anyone else in the car, kids or adults. Do NOT read your email. PUT DOWN that cell phone.

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In Massachusetts right now, there’s a bit of a war going on between the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs, nursing homes and assisted living facilities. As is so often the case, while the consumer is the party who is supposedly is designed to benefit from these regulatory skirmishes, that isn’t always what results.

Have you ever noticed these ‘Assisted Living Facilities’ when driving around Massachusetts (or elsewhere,) and wondered, “What are these places?” Well, in theory, they were developed about 15-20 or so years ago as a kind of an alternative to a nursing home, for primarily elderly residents who need some kind of care outside their families’ homes, but weren’t so seriously disabled that they needed a nursing home or skilled nursing facility with round-the-clock care. These facilities – or real estate developments as many would call them – supposedly offered primarily elderly residents (or otherwise infirmed persons) an alternative environment to a nursing home. In theory, many such residents would need limited assistance – perhaps to bathe or similar functions – and many would hire their own part-time nurse, Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN,) or nurses’ aide to come in for a few hours every day to help with these daily living functions. In practice, many assisted living facilities operate more like apartment complexes that have almost exclusively elderly residents, than anything else. Advocates for the elderly have criticized this practice, saying it’s an essentially low-ball way to make money off elderly patients – without being regulated as nursing homes or skilled nursing facilities.

This ‘sub-nursing home’ option became quite popular with the public, for a variety of reasons: 1) The primary one is that the cost for an assisted living facility is usually far less than that for a nursing home of skilled nursing facility. 2) Next, in theory at least, these facilities offered the resident a greater degree of independence and autonomy; but 3) – and as a Massachusetts nursing home neglect attorney, in my opinion this next one is very important – they offer the adult children of the elderly parents that they place in these facilities, a ‘way out’ of the guilt that usually results when placing an aging parent in a traditional nursing home. So, for a variety of reasons, assisted living facilities have grown rapidly, to the point now where approximately 14,000 in Massachusetts live in these facilities across the state. These facilities are regulated by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs – but trust me, as a Dedham Massachusetts nursing home lawyer – the oversight to date hasn’t exactly been strict or aggressive. However, it looks like that’s about to change, and that’s what the current battle between the state, the nursing home industry and the assisted living facilities is all about.

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I’ve written many times on this blog about Massachusetts pedestrian-motor vehicle accidents, but sometimes events like this just hit closer to home, for whatever reason, geographic or otherwise.

Such is the case for this post, as a pedestrian was killed this past Friday night in Dedham, next door to my town of Westwood, under circumstances that are even worse than a pedestrian-motor vehicle accident: A hit-and-run. At approximately 10:45 p.m. Friday, December 5, Dedham police officers responded to a car accident at a location on Washington Street at Lower East Street. There they found a 54-year-old woman, identified later as Ms. Jeannie Heppler, lying critically injured on the sidewalk. She had been hit by a motor vehicle – and the driver fled the scene of the accident. He or she left this woman on the side of the street, critically injured. Ms. Heppler was transported to nearby Norwood Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Police believe that Ms. Heppler was crossing Washington Street when she was hit in the southbound travel lane by a passing vehicle. Investigators are searching for a 2000-2006 Ford Escape that has passenger side headlight damage as well as damage to the passenger side view mirror. Anyone with information about this event is asked to call the Dedham Police Department at (781) 751-9300.

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I’m sorry that I haven’t posted to this blog in a while; the combination of too much work, and a little too much travel.

So, what are you thankful for this Thanksgiving holiday? You must have a list, and for many, the short list probably includes being thankful that some kind of family argument didn’t erupt with a relative during Thanksgiving dinner. That, or you’re grateful you probably don’t have to work on Friday.

If you get to where you’re going and back without being in a Massachusetts car accident this weekend, you should definitely add that one to the list. Why? Because Thanksgiving is traditionally the busiest travel holiday of the year, with an unbelievably high number of vehicles on the road all over the country. In Massachusetts, all the major highways will be jam-packed over the weekend – especially Thursday and Sunday. Those highways include the Mass. Pike, Route 128, Routes 3 & 92, and Interstate 95. Thank God I’ll be nowhere near them!

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You think Spooky World is going to scare you this Halloween?

As a Boston Massachusetts distracted driving accident lawyer, I can tell you three frightening stories of what happens when you practice distracted driving on the road. Texting and driving are two words that should never, ever be spoken together – and certainly never practiced in tandem. It’s a recipe for disaster. The Massachusetts Anti-Texting Law, otherwise known as the “Safe Driving Act,” also prohibits drivers from texting, emailing, and reading from handheld devices such as Smart phones, and devices such as iPads, when on the road. That should be enough warning for us all. But for some people, it’s not. For some shock value, consider these three horrific stories of how some people think they can “drive safely.”

My wife Debbi Kickham has told me three absolutely true horror stories about people she has met in her lifetime, who told her about what they do when they drive. Each story is so unbelievable, that Debbi never forgot them. And when I heard them, my jaw dropped.

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So many people love the Fall season. I’m just not one of them. For many people, it’s a time for apple-picking, football games, Halloween and clean, crisp air. For me, it’s a time for longing the warm summer air and beach days that have left us. It’s also the season for leaf-peeping, which here in Massachusetts, people do in droves.

But did you know that autumn leaves, while beautiful, can pose a threat and can precipitate a Massachusetts slip and fall injury? “Fall” is the operative word here. Think about it: Dew falls during the nights and mornings, and it rests on leaves that have fallen everywhere. Aside from dew, rain also can pour down on leaves. The result? Moist leaves that are as slippery as a banana peel – or a sheet of ice, in winter. People certainly know how dangerous snow and ice are, but are probably not as familiar with how dangerous wet leaves can be. A Massachusetts slip and fall injury caused by simply wet leaves can be very serious.

Wet leaves can pose a problem at private homes — especially on walking surfaces like driveways, stairs and porches. At public places and at businesses, wet leaves that are not raked away or that simply pile up can be very dangerous, at entrances and exits, and on stairwells. One false move, and you’re on the ground with a broken wrist, a twisted ankle, or far worse – and when and where you least expected it. If that happens, you will need a Boston slip and fall attorney.

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Recently here in the Boston area, the media has paid a lot of attention recently to the subject of dangerous off-campus housing for college students – and justifiably so.

Boston is the College Capital of the Nation, and there are more undergraduate and graduate students here than in almost any other part of the country. Against this massive student population, there are only so many campus dorm units – i.e., on-campus housing facilities. Universities here knowingly accept more students than they have the capacity to house on campus. Why? Tuition revenue. The student overflow ends up in apartment buildings in and around the greater Boston area – and these numbers have increased over 30% since just 2006. What’s the problem with this? A huge percentage of those apartment buildings and rental units are located in shoddy, dilapidated, over-crowded and dangerous buildings. Many of them are flagrant examples of numerous Building Code violations relating to both safety and health. Translation: Dumps and fire traps. More than 45,000 students live in these apartment buildings and houses – 99% never having lived on their own previously. Can you say “lambs to the slaughter?”

A great many of these apartments are located in the Allston/Brighton section of Boston – near Boston University and Boston College. Allston is so bad when it comes to dilapidated housing that it has earned the nickname “Rat City,” for the reputation it has for vermin in that part of Boston. Who owns the vast majority of these buildings and apartments? Many of them are absentee landlords – also known as slumlords. Whether it’s old, creaky stairwells that can collapse, causing a dangerous Massachusetts stairwell fall injury, or old, rotted exterior porches and decks that can result in a Massachusetts porch collapse injury, or old, out-of-code electrical wiring that can cause a Massachusetts apartment building fire, the risks are numerous and very serious.

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Something happened recently on Beacon Hill, and while it didn’t receive a great deal of buzz or media fanfare, it will substantially level the playing field for plaintiffs in Massachusetts injury suits. Governor Deval Patrick earlier this month signed legislation that will give attorneys the ability to question potential jurors in Massachusetts Superior Court cases. Surprised that this wasn’t always the case? You’d have every reason to be. How has it been handled in the past? Read on.

First, a definition: The process of questioning potential jurors in a case, before a jury is finally selected and empaneled, is called “Voir Dire.” The process is intended to ‘weed out’ potential jurors who may be biased in one way or another. For ‘eons’ in Massachusetts, judges have retained the sole power to conduct voir dire questioning of potential jurors. While judges tended to pose questions that attorneys in the case provided to them, they were never obligated to ask any particular questions that an attorney wanted. Judges retained sole control over the process.

In trying to assess whether a potential juror was biased or otherwise unacceptable to serve, attorneys were limited to reviewing the answers provided in a one page questionnaire given to potential jurors. Stunningly, no verbal exchanges or discussions were allowed between attorneys and potential jurors! Exactly how was an attorney to make an accurate assessment of a potential juror, without engaging in a direct, brief discussion about that juror’s views of the type of case they might serve on? For the plaintiffs’ attorneys involved, the whole process of juror selection was based on speculation and guess work. Care to know just how archaic and outdated this jury selection system in Massachusetts really was? 39 other states – including all of the other New England states – allow attorney-conducted voir dire (make that ten states, now.)

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Birthdays, especially for kids, are supposed to special days; days of happiness, a present or two, and carefree thoughts. They are cause for celebration, not mourning. Tragically, all that became reversed yesterday, when a 12 year-old Brockton boy by the name of Nazair Nunes-Escobar was killed when a tractor-trailer truck hit and killed him. Making matters worse, was the fact that the boy was killed while using the roller-blade skates that he had received just moments before, as a birthday present.

Young Nunes-Escobar was about to begin the seventh grade at the Oscar F. Raymond Elementary School in Brockton in September. “He was a very nice kid,’‘ said Jocelyn Meek, a spokesperson for the Brockton public school system; “He had a very nice smile and a great sense of humor. They are very sad at the Raymond (school) today.” Neighbors and friends placed candles and flowers at the accident site, creating a makeshift memorial at 35 Brattle Street in Brockton. Several persons familiar with the boy described him as a cheerful presence at the Roosevelt Heights apartment complex where he lived. One neighbor said young Nunes-Escobar, so active at just 12 years old, would have one day become a great athlete.

The Brockton Police Department and Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz’s office are investigating the accident, but at this point in time no criminal charges have been filed. However, Cruz’s office said that the driver of the tractor trailer, identified by Massachusetts State Police as a 33-year-old Hanover man, has not presently been charged with any crime or cited for any violations. The tractor-trailer unit is reportedly registered to M.J. Cimildoro Trucking in Hanover. However, the company that owns the trailer that was being hauled, Spiegel South Shore Scrap Metal of Brockton, was cited by State Police Friday for excessive air loss rate from the truck’s brake system, and a cracked lift hinge assembly frame, according to a Massachusetts State Police spokesman. State Police also reportedly notified Spiegel and the driver of other violations, including three inoperable lamps on the trailer and an inoperative horn. It’s also unclear whether those citations were a factor in the accident.

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A couple of events occurred recently that bring about this post and another post to follow on the subject of Massachusetts nursing home abuse. The first occurred just a couple of days ago, when a Middlesex County jury returned a verdict against a nursing home in a shocking case of patient neglect and abuse. While the amount of damages awarded in the verdict was shocking, what was even more shocking were the underlying facts that prompted the verdict against the nursing home, and the damages that were awarded to the plaintiff’s family: $14 million. This is the largest nursing home-related verdict in Massachusetts in at least ten years, according to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, which reports on such verdicts.

Powerfully illustrating the shocking level of patient neglect and abuse in this case, $12.5 million was for punitive damages – damages that a jury or judge awards to punish the defendant for the particular wrongdoing alleged. Of the $14 million awarded to the plaintiff’s family, $1.5 million was earmarked for compensatory damages – to compensate the victim for pain and suffering.

Who was the victim in this story? An old woman by the name of Genevieve Calandro. Of course, she was once a young woman, vibrant and in full. Perhaps beautiful; perhaps passionate; perhaps funny; perhaps witty. But not when she was a patient in the now-defunct nursing home: Radius Health Care Center, once located in Danvers. There, she was a frail, weak, vulnerable old woman. She needed the dedicated and gentle care of the “nursing home professionals” that had been paid to care for her. And what happened instead was, literally, a nightmare.

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