Articles Posted in Consumer Law

In mid-May of this year, three kids –ages 5, 6 and 10 fell out of an inflatable bounce house after a gust of wind lifted it 50 feet off of the ground. According to witnesses, they saw the bounce house rise above both the trees and a nearby apartment building due to the small tornado. The 10-year-old girl fell out first. She sustained scrapes and a minor injury to her shoulder. As the inflatable floated higher, the other two children fell out. One boy was dropped onto a parked car and the other landed in the street. Witness Taylor Seymour recalls, “It dropped off the first little kid in the middle of the road, then it came the other way, it passed over my apartment, it dropped the second one, he hit his head on the back of my car and then he fell to the ground.” The boy who landed on the car suffered a serious head injury and the boy landing on the pavement suffered two broken arms, a broken facial bone and jaw and a ruptured spleen. The bounce house floated over a stretch of woods and landed in an athletic field behind a middle school.

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Threats of government shutdown foster nationwide concern over which federal programs would be affected. Although several activities would ultimately come to a standstill during the shutdown period, many were thankful to hear social security would function as usual.

Established in the 1930s as a safeguard for seniors during the Great Depression, social security now offers coverage for those unable to gain employment due to disability. The program is the largest of several federal initiatives to provide assistance for people with disabilities.

To minimize fraudulent collections, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has set up numerous checkpoints to ensure appropriate coverage is given when needed. However, the resulting complex framework can be difficult to navigate for anyone outside the legal profession.

The decision to buy versus rent is only the first hurdle in choosing your home, and placing your signature on a baited rental agreement can harm you financially. Whether you’ve spent days, weeks, or months searching for a new home, the most crucial steps begin right before you sign the contract.

It is important to approach any contract with knowledge of your state’s laws and your rights as a tenant. While specific laws may vary by county, these are some general tenant’s rights in Georgia.

  •  The Fair Housing Act prohibits denial of tenancy based on race, color, sex, religion, physical and mental disability, familial status, and national origin.

A California jury listened intently as DePuy’s own compliance manager told them that the company “took inappropriate steps to identify and eliminate risks in the design of 93,000 all-metal hip implants” that J&J recalled in 2010. Smith, who oversaw a 2011 review of a design team’s safety standards for the ASR hip cup, said his audit found that a DePuy group used irrelevant controls in a so-called failure mode and effect analysis, or FMEA, before the ASR was sold in 2005 in the US.  Moreover, Smith testified that DePuy never released a summary of a “post-mortem review” of the ASR that it conducted in November 2010 and neglected to perform a similar analysis “in response to the mounting number of complaints about the device that it received from doctors and others in 2008 and 2009.”   The McAleer Law firm can review whether you may have a products liability claim that fits in this category and, if so, what your remedies could be.

The CDC says two more people have died, bringing the death total to 23. There are now 285 cases in 16 states.  Of these cases, 284 cases are “peripheral joint infections,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  One of the new deaths occurred in Tennessee and North Carolina had its first death related to the meningitis outbreak.  New cases occurred in Indiana (2)  New Hampshire (2), New Jersey (3), Tennessee (3) and Virginia (3).  Tennessee’s death toll has risen to 9, and state Department of Health officials reported 69 total cases across the state as of Saturday afternoon.

The 76 clinics in 23 states that received methylprednisolone acetate from the three lots recalled by the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts, have been instructed to notify all affected patients.  The CDC said the “potentially contaminated injections were given starting May 21.”

If you or a loved one have been harmed by a dangerous and defective product or drug, contact the Atlanta Personal Injury Attorneys at McAleer Law today — Call now 404-816-7374.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched an investigation into whether more than 300,000 Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable vehicles have “sticky” throttles that can cause unintended acceleration.  The agency believes that throttles are sticking at 26-percent open due to a fractured speed-control cable. No recall has been issued as of yet.  For defective car and product information, contact the McAleer Law Firm.

A Minnesota-based company is recalling about 16,850 toddler’s chairs because of a laceration and choking hazards.  The US Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that “staples in the binding on the back of the chair may come loose, posing a laceration or choking hazard if swallowed.  The recalled children’s upholstered toddler chairs in Club style and Mod style are 24 inches wide by 18 inches tall by 17 inches deep.”   If your child has been harmed by a dangerous or defective product, call the defective product lawyers at McAleer Law.  404-816-7374.  

The AP (10/20) reported that the manufacturer of “Banana Boat sunscreen is recalling some of its spray-on products after reports that a handful of people have caught on fire after applying the lotion and coming in contact with an open flame.”   The dangerous products being recalled include UltraMist Sport, UltraMist Ultra Defense and UltraMist Kids.

If you own such products, contact the phone number found on these products for instructions on how to proceed.  DO NOT continue to use these products.  Dangers can arise when using these products near ignition sources such as barbecue grills, cigarette lighters, camp fires or any open flame.  Contact a personal injury lawyer to find out what your rights are if you have been harmed by such a dangerous and defective product.

Bloomberg News (10/19/12) has reported that “Pfizer Inc. (PFE) reached a confidential settlement with the widow of a Minnesota man who killed himself after taking its anti-smoking drug Chantix [varenicline], averting a trial set to begin next week.”   The report goes on to say that “the widow of Mark Alan Whitely sued Pfizer after his death in November 2007, alleging the company failed to sufficiently warn that Chantix could increase the risk of suicide.  According to the report, this lawsuit was the first among more than 2,500 involving the drug Chantix. The lawsuit alleges that Chantix causes depression and other psychiatric disorders so severe that the patients attempt or commit suicide.

If you or a loved on has suffered because of a dangerous drug, contact an unsafe drug attorney for help.

A proposed settlement has been reached which would resolve an insurance lawsuit alleging Allstate Insurance Company sent their motor vehicle insureds deceptive motor vehicle insurance renewal bills in order to induce Allstate’s insureds to pay their renewal premium in full a month before the were premiums were actually due.

Under the terms of the settlement a sum of $2,727,555 would be provided to pay for claims to  class members who submit valid claims.

There has been no judicial decision as to whether Allstate did anything wrong, and the two sides disagree on how much money, if any, could have been awarded had plaintiff won at trial.