Boston Personal Injury Attorney Blog

April 30, 2017

Rental Bike Injury Sidelines Baseball Ace

Madison Bumgarner has been the Ace of San Francisco Giants’ pitching for quite some time. Even though the team has not gotten off to a great start in the 2017 season, fans and team officials were hoping that some better offense and good pitching performances by the likes of Bumgarner could get them back to where they want to be.

This is going to harder they had first hoped, as, according to a recent news article from ESPN, as Bumgarner may miss two months of the season as a result of injuries he sustained while riding a dirt bike. He has supposedly injured his throwing shoulder and a few of his ribs. This is creating a lot of angst for many connected with the team. While injures happen all the time in the game, injuries that occur during non-baseball activities tend to bring out more emotions from fans. Continue reading

April 27, 2017

12-Year-Old Boy Killed in Skiing Accident

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Skiing can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a dangerous activity. Each year, hundreds of people are seriously injured or killed. According to a recent news article from the Aspen Times, a 12-year-old boy from California died as a result of a skiing accident in which he crashed into a tree at a high rate of speed.

Ski patrollers (skiing or snowboarding first aid personnel) first got a report of an injured skier a few minutes after 2 p.m. They said he was skiing when he hit a tree stump that caused him to lose control and crash into another tree. For those who haven’t skied before, ski trails are marked according to difficulty, ranging from a beginner single green circle to a double black diamond expert trail. Victim was skiing on a beginning trail at the time of the accident that ultimately proved fatal. Continue reading

April 24, 2017

Teen Victim Injured at Party in Pool Accident

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

According to a recent news article from WCPO, a college freshman was landed in the critical condition unit (CCU) of a local level-one trauma center after suffering serious injury at a party. The accident occurred on property that was being rented by students of the same university as the victim.

Witnesses say there were about 300 or 400 people at this party, and there was a makeshift pool erected on the front lawn. The pool was constructed using straw bales to form the walls of the pool and then a blue tarp was laid over the top of them to contain the water. When filled, it held around 8 inches of water and it also featured a slide that the students had also constructed.
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April 20, 2017

Report: Sexual Abuse in Nursing Homes a Pervasive Problem

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

All forms of sexual abuse are under-reported. However, sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape involving nursing home residents is vastly under-reported and is far more pervasive than probably any of us realized before. That’s according to a new in-depth report by CNN Investigations.

Chronicling disturbing and heartbreaking instances in great detail, the reporters sought to expose the failings of nursing home staffers, administrators, investigators, regulators and lawmakers in addressing this serious problem.

In general, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services tallies all allegations of nursing home abuse – including those involving sex-related offenses – into a single category. At the request of CNN reporters, CMS conducted a specialized search using certain keywords that would help single out sex-related offenses. However, reporters still had to sift through each case because not all were relevant. That search revealed 226 facilities cited for failure to protect residents from sexual abuse between 2010 and 2015. Of those, only about 60 percent resulted in fines and only 16 were cut off from federal funding. However, an independent analysis by CNN reporters of the raw data showed that between 2013 and 2016, there were more than 1,000 nursing homes cited for mishandling or failing to prevent alleged cases of sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape at the facilities. About 100 of those centers were cited multiple times for these offenses. Continue reading

April 17, 2017

Mob Boss Sues Prison for Personal Injuries

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

A former organized crime boss is suing the federal government for injuries he sustained in a game of ping-pong in prison.

The New York Daily News splashed the cheeky headline, “Bada-Ping!” across its front page story, which detailed how the 64-year-old plaintiff, convicted a year earlier of racketeering conspiracy connected to several plots of murder, was injured in a slip-and-fall. He asserts prison officials knew or should have known there was a hazardous wet floor in the recreation area of the prison. As proof, he noted the proximity of the showers to a leaky slop sink pipe nearby. The leak had been reported to officials from the prison days or weeks before the fall. Plaintiff suffered a fractured right knee cap that required surgery, and he is continuing to undergo physical therapy and occupational therapy.

The government refutes any allegations of negligence. What the newspaper fails to note is that suing a prison or jail – particularly one operated by the government – can be very difficult. Suing privately-run prisons and jails may be a bit easier, but there are still significant challenge. Only claims of serious injury or wrongful death have much of a chance of moving forward, and that’s only if plaintiffs can prove a violation of civil rights, including deliberate indifference to a medical need. Continue reading

April 13, 2017

Mass Man Injured in Snowmobile Accident

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

With the winter weather behind us and warmer days ahead, people will not likely be doing all that much snowmobile riding in the near future. While it is actually becoming more popular for people to put wheels on the ski blades and race on grass fields, this is still not a common activity for most riders.

Even though the riding season may be over, there were many people who were injured over the past winter while using a snowmobile or riding on one as a passenger, and some of these victims may have a valid personal injury claim. This may include a case against a negligent operator, a negligent snowmobile rental company, or even the manufacturer for failure to warn of a known danger. In some cases, the device itself may have been defectively designed or manufactured, and this could lead to a products liability case, which is a special kind of personal injury case. Continue reading

April 10, 2017

Slip-and-Fall Accident Litigation

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

In a recent case from the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, plaintiff was injured when she slipped on ice that had accumulated in front of her dorm room. Her accident occurred on January 17, 2014. This date is important, because this case deals with a notice requirement when filing against a state or municipal defendant.

On February 3, 2014, plaintiff’s father contacted the university’s risk management office about his daughter’s injury. In his email, he notified the school that his daughter broke her leg and tore a ligament. He further informed the school in his email message that she required surgery to repair the damage from her slip-and-fall accident. He also stated that he expected the school to assume liability for his daughter’s injury, as it was their responsibility to make the walkways safe in campus areas. Continue reading

April 6, 2017

Violent Propensity of Dog at Issue in Bite Injury Lawsuit

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

In a recent case from the Georgia Supreme Court, a plaintiff was injured when she was bitten by defendant’s dog. She alleged that the attack occurred when she was bitten by the dog while she was visiting defendant’s home.

Plaintiff and defendant in this action were neighbors at the time the action was filed. The defendant’s adult son was planning to move back to his parent’s home and asked if he could bring his dog, which was an American pit bull terrier. This is dog most people would instantly recognize as the pit bull breed.
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April 2, 2017

Slip-and-Fall Injury Suffered by Child Litigated Years Later

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

One recent appeal from the Mississippi Supreme Court involved a slip-and-fall accident that was anything but your typical personal injury case. In this case, the plaintiff had slipped and fell in a store owned by the defendant, but that accident occurred in 1989. He was three years old at the time of his accident.

He filed the lawsuit against the defendant many years later when he reached the age of majority. In his lawsuit, he alleged that he was seriously injured because the store had negligently allowed the floor to become slick, and he slipped on this floor. He said that, as he developed, it became apparent that he had suffered various injuries as a result of this fall that caused him to have a significant traumatic brain injury. Continue reading

March 29, 2017

Slip-and-Fall Injury at Big Box Store

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

In a recent case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, plaintiff had filed a personal injury lawsuit after he suffered an alleged slip-and-fall injury in defendant’s big box retail store. According to court testimony, the plaintiff was walking in the store when he fell on water that had allegedly been left on the floor in a negligent manner.

Plaintiff’s sister was present when the accident occurred, as was a store employee. It was not clear whether the employee actually saw the plaintiff fall, but she did get a wheelchair owned by the store to transport the victim to the front of the store, where he was taken to a local emergency room to be treated for his injuries. As for the cause of his injuries, plaintiff argued that the store roof was negligently maintained, and that resulted in water leaking from the ceiling and was negligently allowed to pool on the floor, which caused him to slip and fall, resulting in his personal injury.
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