Category: Investigations

The largest study of the link between breast implants and lymphoma to date found that there is a greatly increased risk of a rare cancer, according to the report published this month in JAMA Oncology. The study found breast implants are associated with a 421 times greater risk of anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

This scientific evidence linking breast implants to ALCL could spark another wave of class action lawsuits by women seeking compensation for their injuries. In the 1990s, women claiming injuries from silicone breast implants agreed to a $3.7 billion settlement with several companies.

BIA-ALCL, the acronym for it, is a cancer of the immune system rather than a form of breast cancer. The absolute risk of this type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in a woman with breast implants is estimated to be 1 in 7,000. For every 7,000 women with breast implants, one will get BIA-ALCL. An article in JAMA Surgery last fall previously put the affected range from 1 in 4,000 women to 1 in 30,000 women with breast implants.

According to an FDA announcement last year, the agency received more than 350 reports of the cancer linked to breast implants between June 2010 to February 2017. The precise cause of the increased risk is not yet known. However, the study found the majority of the cases of BIA-ALCL had textured implants rather than smooth surface ones. A review of 115 scientific articles last year focusing on BIA-ALCL found 93 cases of the cancer in the medical literature.

Textured implants gained in popularity in the 1990s. The average time to diagnosis of BIA-ALCL is about 10 years after getting the breast implants. Researchers expect that the number of BIA-ALCL cases diagnosed will increase because the rates of women getting breast implants are increasing every year.

If you or a loved one have had a diagnosis of ALCL following breast implants (whether textured or smooth surface), call McEldrew Purtell’s attorneys at (215) 545-8800 to speak to a personal injury attorney in a free consultation.

A study of 3,066 U.S. workers found that nearly one in five employees face a hostile or threatening environment at work. The unemployment rate may be at a 16-year low in 2017, but the study indicates everything is not well on the job front. It paints a grim picture of American employees facing sexual harassment, bullying, humiliation, and verbal abuse from customers while at work.

Harassment at Work

The survey specifically found 20% of workers overall had been subject to verbal abuse, harassment, or violence at work. More questions will definitely need to be asked in the next survey to provide actionable information.

For some, there are already laws designed to protect from such conduct. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, protects employees from harassment in the workplace based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. However, some of the conduct (such as customer abuse) may fall outside the protection of current laws, which do not aim to eliminate every annoyance, slight or isolated incident.

The pervasive nature of the harassment and hostility found by this study is nevertheless disturbing, and the unhealthy conditions do not stop there. The survey found that many are exposed to hazards in the workplace, including handling hazardous materials or breathing unhealthy air.

Wage Theft

The survey also found that about half of employees must work on their own time to meet the demands of their job. Even more problematic, one out of ten are required to do so nearly every day.

Employers are required to pay employees for every hour worked unless they meet an exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), such as the exemption for certain salaried workers. Still, the implication of this high number is that even with these exemptions there is likely a significant amount of employees being forced to work without being paid properly. Overtime work may be unauthorized, but the employer is still responsible for paying their employees for it in certain situations.

We are familiar with both issue as a result of the work of our employment attorneys. If you are facing a hostile work environment or your employer requires time spent working while off-the-clock, please call (215) 545-8800 for a free consultation with an employment lawyer at McEldrew Purtell.

Congress is considering a bill to reform medical malpractice lawsuits called the Protecting Access to Care Act. Despite its well-intentioned name, the legislation would gut patient’s rights here in Pennsylvania and around the country.

The bill is a misguided effort to blame the high costs of health insurance and health care on the attorneys who fight daily for victims of medical errors. It does so by reducing the amount of time a patient has to sue, limiting pain and suffering to $250,000, reducing joint liability among tortfeasors, and decreasing contingency fees for attorneys.

The reality of the situation is that this solution tackles the wrong side of the problem. It would be best to stop this cost from escalating by ensuring that medical malpractice never happens at all. A study conducted at Johns Hopkins Medicine found medical errors were the third leading cause of death and called for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to add it to its annual list of the top causes of death. The study estimated that more than 250,000 Americans die from medical errors each year. If Congress wanted to limit the costs of medical malpractice, it should start by limiting the number of mistakes made by doctors and hospitals.

Instead, the changes imposed by the Protecting Access to Care Act make us wonder if the whole country is headed toward a Wisconsin-like system. A few years ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did an article about how tort reform there had made it nearly impossible to find an attorney willing to take on a medical malpractice lawsuit. Because of the constraints imposed on plaintiffs, defendants are willing to take cases to trial without early settlement. There is little downside for them since their maximum loss is $1 million.

For those that manage to win, Congress has proposed that non-economic damages should be capped at an amount set in 1975!! The law is modeled on California’s tort reform, which placed a $250,000 cap on such damages in medical malpractice lawsuits in 1975. If that amount was adjusted for inflation, it would be just north of $1.1 million in 2017. If there is going to be a cap for non-economic damages, it needs to be far higher.

The law also requires drastic cuts to attorney fees for trial lawyers in medical malpractice cases. Instead of allowing an attorney and their potential client to negotiate the contingency fee in a free market, the law imposes a sliding scale based on the amount of the recovery. For a settlement or verdict of $1 million, the amount is set at a maximum of $215,000. While this might sound like a large amount of money compared to the average salary in America, it would be a difficult amount to garner interest from among talented attorneys to represent patients on a contingency fee basis. This is particularly true if every case required a jury verdict and appeal.

On the opposite side, the law does nothing to prevent the party committing malpractice from unlimited spending to win. Malpractice insurers, doctors and hospitals will have access to the best lawyers and the best experts because they already have the most resources. And they will have no caps on the amount that they can spend in hiring their lawyers.

The law supposedly takes aim at frivolous lawsuits. However, those will not be the people that are impacted if the Protecting Access to Care Act is passed. It will be the patients who suffered from true medical errors and are unable to find a lawyer because of the system implemented by Congress.

If you agree, please call or write your representatives in the House and Senate and tell them. Find their contact information here.

There are a few different wage proposals at various levels of the government which we thought we would call attention to at the conclusion of a work week of beautiful weather here in Philadelphia. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Federal Governments are considering wage proposals to increase the minimum wage, stop wage theft and help unemployed workers get back to a job.

At the local level, Philadelphia was considering a wage theft coordinator at the end of last year. Funding for the position is included in Mayor Jim Kenney’s proposed budget. The previously proposed bill would allow the wage coordinator to revoke the company’s business license if they failed to pay workers what they were owed. Other cities have proposed similar measures to make it easier for workers to collect money owed from employers.

Last year, Philadelphia increased the minimum wage for contractors and subcontractors receiving funds as part of contracts with the City of Philadelphia. However, the law generally limits efforts to increase the minimum wage above the amount set by Pennsylvania law.

At the state level, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf increased the minimum wage for state workers to $10.15 an hour by executive order. The minimum wage for these 450 or so workers was previously $7.25 for the last seven years.

Governor Wolf appeared at an event in Pittsburgh highlighting a local business that pays its workers at least $10.10 an hour. The promotional program offers advertising on city owned bus shelters for Pittsburgh businesses with 15 to 250 employees that pay the required wage. At the event, Governor Wolf called on PA state legislators to pass a minimum wage increase for all Pennsylvania workers.

At the federal level, President Obama has proposed the adoption of a provision providing wage insurance to replace a portion of the lost wages of employees who are laid off and subsequently must take a lower paying job to become employed again.

There’s been a lot of news about wage theft in the media recently. An article published in Inside Energy discussed the surge in claims by workers involved in the oil industry as the price of oil has dropped. According to their report, the number of lawsuits in Colorado for wage violations in 2015 was nine times the number in 2010. The number in Texas, known for oil and gas, increased nearly ten times.

Inside Energy identified oil and gas companies as among the top violators of wage and hour laws including the failure to pay for overtime. A member of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is quoted in the article as stating that some employees were working so many hours that they were not even making minimum wage.

A similar article on Workday Minnesota detailed the underpayment of wages to farm workers in Minnesota. According to a member of a nonprofit organization in Southern Minnesota, as many as 70 percent of farm workers have experienced wage theft at work.

Workday Minnesota also identified a difference between the FLSA and Minnesota wage law in that Minnesota’s overtime continues to protect agriculture workers receiving an hourly wage even though some are exempt from the FLSA’s overtime provisions set by the U.S. Government.

Capitol Weekly even covered a report by nonprofit news origination FairWarning concerning the payment of approximately $330,000 in back wages by a Silicon Valley venture capital firm for wages to unpaid interns. The Fair Labor Standards Act provides for internships without pay only if the training is similar to an educational setting and their work does not benefit the company.

The Nation also discussed the impact of wage theft on freelancers such as the Freelancers Union, who are supporting the Freelance Isn’t Free Act in the New York City Council. According to a survey of 5,000 freelancers cited in the article, 70 to 80% are were cheated out of some portion of their income and even contractors for large companies with 150 or more employees had trouble collecting pay for their work.

Our employment lawyers have worked on wage theft cases both here in the Philadelphia area and on FLSA lawsuits in various other jurisdictions in the country. If your employer is not paying you properly, please call our attorneys at (215) 545-8800 for a free, confidential initial legal consultation.

A new study in The Journal of Pediatrics noted an increase in deaths related to crib bumpers, the pillow-like walls put on the inside of cribs to ostensibly protect babies, since 2006. The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended against them since 2008 due to the risks of suffocation, strangulation or entrapment.

The study analyzed data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) since 1985. There were 48 deaths by suffocation of children one to 22 months old related to crib bumpers. The average age of the children who died was five months old.

The researchers identified additional deaths from data gathered by the National Center for the Review and Prevention of Child Deaths. Nearly 150 other injuries and accidents were identified among the data examined after 1990.

Infants died as a result of pressing their faces against the bumpers alone as well as being wedged between objects and the crib bumpers. When a babies nose and mouth are covered by the fabric, they can suffocate. The researchers couldn’t identify precisely why there was an increase in deaths but concluded that the babies would not have died if the objects were not in the cribs.

There are no federal regulations on crib bumpers yet. The Centers for Disease Control and National Institute of Health also recommend against the products. The power to regulate these products lies with the CPSC, and they have not taken action yet.

A class action lawsuit was previously filed related to the products of a major manufacturer. If your family has suffered a tragic incident with your infant, you may be entitled to compensation. Contact one of our personal injury attorneys at (215) 545-8800 to discuss in a no-obligation, initial legal consultation.

A study of surgical procedures at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital found that there are medication errors or adverse drug events in almost half of all surgeries.

There was at least one error in 124 of the 277 operations observed as part of the study of the Boston hospital. The procedures considered errors to be both mistakes in the ordering or administration of the drug as well as an adverse event caused by the drug. The study determined that almost 80 percent of the errors were preventable while, fortunately, less than 2 percent of the errors were life-threatening.

The study employed a team of observers to watch anesthesia providers from the preoperative area until the patient reached the recovery room or ICU. They also reviewed charts of patients to ensure that the observed incidents were errors as well as to catch unobserved errors.

The lead author on the report commented that error rates were probably at least as high at other hospitals because of specific measures already taken in this hospital to improve operating room safety and its reputation as a national leader in patient safety.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine identified medical errors as the leading cause of death. But there hasn’t been any observational studies concerning error rates in perioperative medication. Perioperative medication is administered to patients immediately before, during or after surgery.

Medical malpractice by anesthesiologists during surgeries has become a topic of conversation recently because of media attention following a few different significant news events. This past summer, a patient was awarded $500,000 by a jury after recording their colonoscopy and discovering that the anesthesiologist mocked him. Anesthesia administration was also put into focus by the death of Joan Rivers, who went into cardiac arrest in September 2014 and died after the administration of anesthetic in an outpatient endoscopy.

A new study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics has found that tens of thousands of kids have been hurt by falling televisions. The researchers reviewed twenty nine studies from seven countries as they found that toddlers ages one to three years old are at the highest risk of injury.

When televisions or furniture tip, it can cause traumatic brain injury, neck injury or abdominal trauma that results in short and long term injuries including neurological defects or facial paralysis.

An earlier study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2013 found that 200,000 children in the U.S. alone had been sent to the emergency room by falling TVs over the past twenty years. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has estimated that 43,000 people are injured when televisions or furniture tip-over each year. More than 50 percent of them are children.

The number of injuries is expected to increase as more households get flat screen televisions with unstable bases. The switch has also led families to put heavier, older tvs on dressers and other furniture which can also be dangerous.

Earlier this year, IKEA issued a safety warning about the dangers of their furniture tipping after two children were killed. Ikea and the Consumer Product Safety Commission provided a free wall anchoring kit to consumers having purchased one of the 27 million pieces of furniture at risk.

Patients taking a class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones (which includes popular drugs Cipro, Levaquin and Avelox) may be diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy. This is a form of nerve damage usually affecting the hands or feet. More than 20 million patients had a prescription for an oral fluoroquinolone in 2011.

The drugs are believed to put patients at risk of mitochondrial toxicity, a condition where cell function is disrupted. The result can be nerve damage such as peripheral neuropathy and potentially even neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers or Parkinson’s. Media reports have placed increasing focus on the side effects believed to be associated with these drugs over the past year and the potential insufficiency of any warnings in the marketplace.

The FDA issued a warning about fluoroquinolone drugs that are taken by mouth or by injection in August 2013. The FDA has not yet required the manufacturers to put a black box warning about the side effect on the label . However, the FDA has received a citizen petition sponsored by the chair of the Medication Safety and Efficacy Center of Economic Excellence at the University of South Carolina and is reviewing the merits. In 2008, the FDA put a black box on drug labels in this class warning about the risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture.

Attorneys around the country are starting investigations into the potential liability of the drug manufacturers for nerve damage while taking these antibiotics. For additional information about the potential viability of a lawsuit based on injuries sustained while taking Cipro, Levaquin, or another drug in this class, contact an attorney at McEldrew Purtell.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating on-call staffing at 13 major retailers including Gap, Sears, Target and Abercrombie & Fitch. Last week, the NY AG asked the retailers to provide information on their use of on-call shifts by May 4th. Apparently, some retailers are using scheduling software to provide just in time schedules, notifying workers less than a week in advance of their hours at the store. Others are requiring individuals to call-in prior to coming to work. The software predicts customer demand based on weather patterns and recent sales and alters schedules. If there isn’t enough demand on a particular day, it may tell managers to send workers home unexpectedly. The practice appears to be widespread. A survey in 2011 found that 70 percent of workers didn’t know their schedules more than a week in advance. A significant number, around twenty percent, were expected to call in during the 24 hours prior to see if they would indeed be needed at work. Legislators in both New York and California are considering further measures to rein in the practice of telling an employee that they are not needed to work less than 24 hours in advance. The New York bill would have to pay workers for a minimum of four hours if they were not given more than 24 hours of notice that they did not need to work.