New York Personal Injury Blog

Over the past several years, in an effort to reduce preventable harm experienced by hospital patients, many states have taken legislative steps to ensure that events causing harm are publicly reported. Despite new legislation, hospital accidents and errors causing patient harm continue to go unreported and uncorrected. A new study, commissioned by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, shows that hospital employees report only one out of seven incidents that harm hospitalized Medicare patients.

Although the vast majority of hospitals have a system for hospital staff to inform administrators of "adverse events," such as medication errors and hospital-borne infections, there is an alarming amount of incidents that go unreported.

While technology continues to advance and benefit a wide array of people and institutions, it also has the power to distract individuals from their most important responsibilities. For hospitals and physicians, more efficient technology has made it possible for medical staff to access a patient's medical history instantaneously, but it has also created extremely dangerous distractions from their primary responsibility: the patient's life.

Handheld computer devices and smartphones have given physicians, nurses, and hospital staff the ability to view the most up-to-date medical records and information within seconds, but mobile computing also pressures individuals to constantly monitor and interact with their devices, from reading emails and texting to searching the web. A peer-reviewed survey of 439 medical technicians, published by the medical journal Perfusion, found that 55 percent of technicians who monitor bypass machines had talked on cell phones during heart surgery, and half admitted to texting while in surgery.

Along with the increased awareness of bullying in schools, bullying lawsuits are also increasing in courts nationwide. Parents of bullying victims are initiating these lawsuits not only to help their own children but to also prevent the continued occurrence of bullying in schools.

In a recent settlement in Indiana, a former high school student reached an agreement with the school for $150,000. Her lawsuit alleged that the school and its employees failed to stop a classmate from bullying her. Neither the student nor the school admits any fault, but reached an agreement using private insurance policies.

This lawsuit is one of many that are being filed in courts across the nation, including in New York. Many of these lawsuits are alleging instances of bullying that include:

• Students spreading inappropriate rumors about the victim
• Physical assault
• Stealing of personal items
• Verbal abuse regarding sexual orientation or race

This bullying can take place in person or online - as seen with the rise of cyberbullying.

With the Penn State sexual abuse scandal at the forefront of the news, and additional abuse allegations coming forth from other schools nationwide, it is no surprise that several New York legislators are looking to take steps to deter such egregious action from occurring in their state.

A number of civil lawsuits were filed against Penn State in days following the firing of head football coach Joe Paterno. The allegations against Jerry Sandusky for sexual abuse are quite similar to those of clergy abuse perpetrated by priests in the Catholic church -- in both cases, those in authority are said to have failed to act on the allegations. It is likely that additional lawsuits will be filed in an effort to hold the university responsible for its alleged failure to report the suspected abuse to outside law enforcement.

In addition to these personal injury lawsuits, criminal charges are also being considered against the state-run university. Per a letter sent earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Education to over 6,000 federally-funded universities, institutions could be punished under the Civil Rights Act for not properly handling cases of sexual violence. A number of states have their own criminal codes that allow educators to be criminally charged for a failure to report allegations of sexual abuse.

Following the tragic suicide last month of a New York teenager who was being bullied, thousands gathered at the end of the month to march against bullying. With the prevalence of social media and digital communication, bullying has grown into so much more than innocent taunting on the playground.

New York state senator Jeff Klein (D-Bronx) said, "The schoolyard bully of yesteryear has become the cyberbully of today." Parents can no longer simply tell their children to turn the other cheek when verbal and physical abuse could be coming from all directions.

Statistics from the National Crime Prevention Council suggest that across the nation, 43 percent of all teens have been victims of cyberbullying. Common forms of cyberbullying include embarrassing photos on social media sites, negative text messages and Wall posts, and impersonating someone else on Facebook or in a chat room.

For the first part of this series, please check out our post on, "The Growing Problem With Hip Replacements."

For most patients who have received a defective hip implant such as the DePuy ASR hip, the problems are not life-threatening, but do cause a lot of pain. For others, serious permanent injury has occurred due to tiny metal particles digging into their tissue as parts of the metal-on-metal hip devices rub together.

In May, the FDA ordered all manufacturers of metal-on-metal replacement hips to study how often the devices were failing and to examine the dangers the medical devices posed to patients who had received them. Manufacturers such as DePuy (a division of Johnson & Johnson), Simmer Holdings, Wright Medical and Biomet are trying to comply, but their researchers are faced with the challenge of tracking down patients to be used in the studies because there is no centralized patient registry for hip implants.

Hip replacement is one of the most common procedures in the United States - with approximately a quarter of a million routine procedures occurring each year. Of those 250,000 annual hip replacements, it is believed that about one-third of patients receive metal-on-metal implants - implants where the artificial ball and cup are both made of metal. According to the New York Times, it is estimated that more than 500,000 patients have received all-metal hip replacements.

All-metal implants were once thought to be safe, but as complaints filed with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continue to grow, the federal government has decided to take a closer look at the dangers of metal-on-metal hip replacements.

In The New York Law Journal from Thursday July 14, the ever-impending issue of improper lending practices and foreclosures resurfaced in an article by Andrew Keshner titled "HSBC Executive Ordered to Attend Sanction Hearing in Foreclosure Case." New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur M. Schack, a Brooklyn judge with a reputation for playing hardball with banks and having a watchful eye over foreclosure applications, directed a top executive of HSBC Bank to attend a sanction hearing over a defective foreclosure application against a Bedford-Stuyvesant residence.

Justice Schack dismissed with prejudice a faulty foreclosure application, finding the bank lacked standing and ordered Irene Dorner, president and CEO of HSBC Bank USA, to appear. He even directed Frank M. Cassara of Shapiro, DiCaro & Barak in Rochester, who represented HSBC, to attend the hearing, stating that the claims he made in his affirmation on the accuracy of the court document proved to be "patently false."