William D. Kickham
William D. Kickham
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In a decision that has somewhat clarified the scope of social host liability, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) earlier this week issued a decision that absolved parents from liability where injuries result from a party their underage children hosted, but did not supply alcohol at. Social host liability is the body of tort law that determines if an owner of private property is liable for Massachusetts accidents and injuries that result from the conduct of a person who became intoxicated at the host’s premises.

I’ve previously blogged about on the subject of alcohol liability, in circumstances where a defendant is a business establishment such as a restaurant or bar. That area of law is known as Massachusetts Dram Shop liability or Massachusetts liquor liability. However, when the defendant is not a commercial business but is instead a homeowner who hosted a party or event at which alcohol was served and injuries were caused by a person who became intoxicated at the event, that form of liability is known as “Massachusetts social host liability.” This liability originates from certain laws which state that social hosts who provide alcohol to their guests can be held legally responsible for the injuries or harm that may result to another person if alcohol has been provided negligently to someone attending the function. Previously, it has been clear that if someone hosted a social gathering at their residence, where alcohol was excessively consumed by a person, and the intoxicated person later caused injury to an innocent party, liability attached to the event host.

This most recent decision has somewhat narrowed that doctrine. In a unanimous ruling, the court held that underage persons who host underage drinking parties, yet do not directly supply the alcohol, cannot be held liable if someone attending the party is later injured due to resulting intoxication. The court also relieved parents or owners of the property where the part took place of any liability, if they did not know that the party was being held, and did not play any role in providing the alcohol that was consumed.

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In my previous post on this subject, I wrote of a case now pending in Middlesex Superior Court against Wal-Mart Corp., following the electrocution death of a laborer at its Walpole, Massachusetts store. In my previous post, I spoke briefly about the tangled web of business entities that Wal-Mart apparently used in this project, and in almost all its construction and renovation projects. I’ll examine that more at length here.

According to published reports, Walmart hired a general contractor by the name of Kekoka Construction to oversee the renovation project at its Walpole store. Kekoka Construction is based in Texas. Kekoka Construction hired a Massachusetts-based construction supervisor and apparently paid him $11,000.00 to “pull” (obtain) a building permit from the Town of Walpole, after which he did almost nothing in terms of construction site supervision of the project. This practice is otherwise referred to as hiring a “straw”, whose sole function is to do something formal or official like pulling a building permit, and then disappear from view. Walmart’s general contractor, Kekoka Construction, then apparently hired an electrical subcontractor, a company named T&M Electrical of Arkansas. T&M Electrical, then apparently hired its own “straw”, a Connecticut man with a Massachusetts’ electrician’s license, to pull electrical work permits from the Town of Walpole. Stare investigators have reportedly concluded that this man, who as the person obtaining the electrical permits was responsible for overseeing the actual electrical work, was never seen at the worksite. Mr. Santos was hired along with other workers by another subcontractor, Italo Masonry.

Sound confusing enough yet? It gets even more so: It turns out that Walmart’s general contractor, Kekoka Construction, was formed about ten years ago by Walmart solely for the purpose of supervising construction at Walmart sites. In other words, Kekoka Construction is a creation of Walmart; an “arm” of it. Legally speaking, this is referred to as a “corporate alter ego.” Largely for this reason, the attorney representing the family of the victim who was killed at the Walpole site, is not only suing the electrical subcontractor and various related parties, but is also suing Walmart directly. As a Boston, Massachusetts construction site accident attorney, I welcome this approach. Walmart was apparently at the top of this pyramid, and though they have apparently taken deft steps to separate Kekoka Construction from itself in a formal, technical sense, as a Dedham, Massachusetts accident attorney, I think a strong legal argument can be made here that the two companies were essentially one for the purposes of this case. Achieving this legal objective in litigation is called “piercing the corporate veil,” and with good reason: Huge corporations like Wal-Mart try to hide their real actions all the time by setting up other corporate entities to carry out business objectives that for various legal and public relations reasons they themselves don’t want to be “out in front” on. I wish the attorney for Mr. Santos’ family the best of luck in this fight. It won’t be an easy one, but corporations like Wal-Mart – and the other defendants involved as well – need to be made to pay for the dangerous and unethical games that were apparently played here.

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A case that’s now pending in Middlesex Superior Court involving the death of a construction worker helping to renovate a Walmart in Walpole, Massachusetts illustrates the serious dangers facing many Massachusetts construction site workers.

As a Boston, Massachusetts construction site accident lawyer, I know how awful some of these injuries can be, and the lifelong effects they can leave on the victims of these accidents. The Walpole Walmart case makes it gravely clear just how dangerous these Massachusetts construction site injuries can be: Death. But in addition to this fact, the case also makes clear just how tangled the lines of corporate involvement and responsibility can be, and just how challenging it can be on a legal level, to hold the responsible parties accountable. In no small part, this is because there are typically multiple corporate parties involved in a Massachusetts construction site accident: These typically include: 1) The owner of the real estate; 2) The retail tenant or the developer; 3) A general contractor; and 4) multiple subcontractors.

In the case of the death that resulted at the Walpole Walmart, this tangled web was no exception. The victim who died from electrocution, Romulo de Oliveira Santos of Brazil, was working with a masonry crew to tear down a cement wall, when he was electrocuted. But it was several actions and events preceding the day that Mr. Santos was killed, that brought his life to an end. I’ll address those events in my next post on this subject.

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A woman in Burlington, Massachusetts has filed a civil lawsuit, alleging that her uncle raped her repeatedly as a child, then also subjected her to sexual abuse from as many as 10 other men.

The lawsuit was filed this past week in Middlesex Superior Court. It alleges that Domenic A. Previte Jr. of Waltham, Massachusetts committed the abuse. Furthermore, it states that Previte later confessed to the crime of rape, in a letter to his niece that he allegedly signed. In the letter, Previte reportedly said things such as “I admired and respected you and loved you as my own daughter…Somehow things got twisted…I had confused my love for you with sex.” Whether this is true or not, of course, remains to be seen. The niece, Rosanne Sliney, now 48, claims that her family pressured her to execute a document in 1991 that released her uncle, Previte, from any responsibility, in exchange for a payment from him in the amount of $26,500. Sliney now alleges that she did not understand the meaning of the document, because she signed it when she was in her late twenties, and had a damaged emotional condition due to the abuse. She claims the abuse started when she was five years old and it continued up until she was 14. Sliney says she had been told that Previte would provide for her for the rest of her life, but the lawsuit against him states that Previte has failed to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills related to Sliney’s mental-health problems stemming from the abuse.

Civil lawsuits like these, which seek damages for the harm and emotional injuries caused as the result of rape or sexual assaults that may have occurred years in the past, illustrate the increasingly long arm of the law. Statutes of Limitations, which bar many types of legal actions after a certain number of years has passed from when the act occurred, can be very complicated. As a Massachusetts sex abuse victims attorney, I can tell my readers that a legal doctrine called the “discovery rule,” has resulted in extending the statute of limitations for these types of cases. Whether or not this mechanism will apply in any particular case can be a complex matter and can only be answered following a thorough analysis of the case facts.

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Most people who walk past a construction site think that the construction workers on the job there are probably very rarely injured, since that’s their line of work and they “know what they’re doing.” The truth is, Massachusetts construction site injuries are quite common. The work in general is very dangerous, and even though a construction worker can have years of experience in that industry, the physical environments are usually ripe for serious injuries to occur.

A reminder of that was made clear in a recent injury settlement reported by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Specifically, a 42-year-old roofer who belonged to a union tripped and fell on a piece of slate which was not cleared from the staging on a job site. The plaintiff was employed by a general contractor, which was hired by the property owner to strip the old roof surface and replace it with slate. The defendant in the case was hired by the general contractor to be the subcontractor responsible for stripping the old slate. The plaintiff alleged serious injuries in his suit. The defendant’s main defense was that it was unclear exactly who left the left the slate un-removed from the site, it or the general contractor, since both the general contractor and the defendant were handling the slate at the time of the injury. The defendant argued that the plaintiff could not prove that the defendant was the party at fault in the accident. While causation in these cases it sometimes hard to prove, as a Boston, Massachusetts personal injury attorney, I can assure you that with a talented attorney and the right invesitgative approach, the responsible party can almost always be identified.

Massachusetts construction site accidents can cause extremely serious, lifelong injuries. A great many of them involve injuries resulting from falls, or injuries involving dangerous machinery, which can sometimes involve product liability claims. Regardless, if you or someone you know has been involved in a construction site accident, call us Ph.: (781) 320-0062 or Ph.: (617) 285-3600, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Or email us. We’ll provide you with a free initial consultation and let you know what your best legal options are.

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Crossing a trafficked street is a lot more dangerous than the average person thinks. The risk of serious injury increases with the volume of traffic present, a great deal of Massachusetts pedestrian-motor vehicle accidents happen this way.

This was illustrated in a recent case settlement involving just such an accident, when a 34 year-old man was attempting to cross a street in downtown Boston when he was struck by a vehicle in the process. The victim suffered a fractured eye socket, neck, head and back sprains, and several lacerations to his legs, arms and hands. He also eventually required arthroscopic surgery after extensive physical therapy failed to produce improvement. Measured overall, the victim suffered an 8-percent loss of bodily function on the whole.

Luckily, the victim’s lost wages and medical expenses were paid by workers’ compensation insurance after it was established that he was acting within the scope of his employment when he was injured. In total, he didn’t return to full-time employment until18 months following the accident.

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First, let me say to my readers that I’m sorry that I haven’t posted here in a while. I was extremely busy with cases in the first three weeks of December, then went on an extended Christmas & New Year’s holiday shortly thereafter.

Besides that, however, there was another important matter distracting my time: I’ve spent the last couple of months re-designing and re-formatting my website, www.attorneywdkickham.com.

By later this week, it will be complete, and I invite you to take a look at it. While it will contain the same valuable information on Massachusetts personal injury law that it always did, it will feature new and valuable information on a variety of tort and injury topics.

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Readers of this blog know that I’ve written previously about the problem of hospital alarm fatigue. It’s a new type of medical malpractice claim, and it’s not necessarily an easy problem to solve – at least not overnight.

Very recently, a case of this type that was previously filed against Massachusetts General Hospital, settled prior to trial, for $850,000. Actually, the hospital and the patient’s family had reached an agreement on settlement back in May, but the settlement was not filed in court and made public until very recently. The case was brought by the family of a man who died at MGH when nurses failed to respond to alarms on his cardiac monitor . The incident brought national media attention to the dangers of “hospital alarm fatigue” among nurses and other hospital staff – and raised the question of what, exactly, can be done to combat the problem. This case was noteworthy not only for the subject matter of hospital alarm fatigue, but for the way in which it was settled. Usually, the liability insurance companies that insure doctors and hospitals fight medical malpractice and medical negligence cases to the end. They do that in large measure because they know that their chances before a jury are very good: Statistically, juries are reluctant to find against doctors and hospitals.

As a Boston Massachusetts medical malpractice lawyer, I can assure you that this is due in large measure to the public brainwashing that has been accomplished on the subject of “tort reform” by the liability insurance industry. Anyone reading this post should, without delay, view the HBO award-winning documentary “Hot Coffee“. This stunning expose will show you exactly what “tort reform” means when it comes to medical malpractice and medical negligence cases – and of just how unjust it is.

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The annual Harvard-Yale football game yesterday will be known not for its memorable play or a sudden-death win, but for a sudden death of another kind: A young woman was killed by the driver of a U-Haul truck that was transporting beer kegs and other tailgating supplies to the game, held at Yale University this year. The annual event between the two Ivy League schools is 128 years old, has long been an institution among alumni of the schools, and is known as “The Game” among students and alumni.

The woman who was killed in the accident was identified by New Haven police as Nancy Barry, who lived in Salem, Massachusetts. According to a spokesperson from Yale University, Ms. Barry was not an alumna of either Harvard or Yale. Witnesses told police that Ms. Barry was run over by the truck as it accelerated when turning a corner. She was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital, and pronounced dead shortly after 10 a.m. The two other victims suffering injuries were identified as Sarah Short, a 30-year-old Yale student from New Haven, and Elizabeth Dernbach, who was reported to be a staff member at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education. Ms. Short suffered life-threatening injuries and was listed in critical but stable condition at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and Ms. Dernbach sustained minor injuries and was treated briefly at the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven.

This fatality and these injuries are far too common. As a Boston, Massachusetts car accident lawyer, I can assure my readers that while most motor vehicle accidents involve vehicle-to-vehicle collisions, a great many also involve pedestrian injuries. This is especially so at events where large numbers of cars, trucks, and pedestrians are concentrated together at public events – like football games and concerts. Tailgating at these events – drinking and eating – is almost as popular as the events themselves. The lethal combination of too many vehicles, too many people and alcohol, is a deadly combination. In fact, it is the perfect storm for what happened yesterday. While “legacy” events such as the Harvard-Yale football game, and lesser-known college football games, have for years allowed the open use of alcohol at these events (in practice unregulated to any effective degree,) for a long time now I’ve thought that practice unwise. I should point out that while the driver of the truck that caused this death and these injuries has not yet, to my knowledge, been charged with operating under the influence of alcohol, he was transporting kegs of beer in the rented U-Haul truck he was driving, though he was taken into custody and questioned.

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It is said that life is ironic. Occasionally an event comes along to prove that point, and today’s post is a tragic reminder of that.

The case is ironic because it involves catastrophic consequences of medical negligence, with the victim being a doctor and surgeon. The plaintiff doctor, 61 years old, underwent elective surgery for a condition known as cervical stenosis, which is a narrowing of the spinal canal. The operation required the placement of surgical screws into the spine, and the neurosurgeon performing the surgery drilled a hole into the plaintiff’s spinal cord. In the process, the surgeon punctured what is known as the dura of the spinal column, which is the membrane covering the spinal cord. The plaintiff awoke from the surgery a quadriplegic.

Following the surgery, the plaintiff underwent extensive inpatient physical rehabilitation for two months. Following months of physical therapy and medical management, he slowly – and surprisingly – improved. Before his rehabilitation began, he had to be lifted out of bed by an electric lift in order to be placed into a wheelchair. He had to be essentially “retrained” in every aspect of daily living, including not only basic ambulating, but in controlling bladder and bowel movements, and basic motor skills. Upon inpatient discharge, the plaintiff then had to undergo more extensive physical therapy for several additional months. He progressed from a wheelchair, to walking with forearm crutches, to using a walker, and he now walks with a cane. All in all, a miraculous recovery, most likely due to the fact that even though the doctor performing the surgery perforated the membrane covering the spinal cord, the spinal cord itself wasn’t punctured.

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