Articles Posted in Unsafe Products

On March 6, 2012, an woman was driving her four-year-old nephew to a tennis lesson when she was hit by another car. As the woman was waiting to make a left-hand turn, a pickup truck crashed into the back of the car. The gas tank of the Grand Cherokee the woman was driving, which was located behind the rear axle, was punctured as a result of the collision. Soon afterward, gas began to leak, causing the Jeep to catch fire. The woman was able to escape, but tragically she could not save her nephew, who was in the backseat.The child’s parents filed a lawsuit against Chrysler, alleging that it acted with a reckless or wanton disregard for human life in its design or sale of the Grand Cherokee and breached a duty to warn the public of the danger. The case went to trial, and the jury found in favor of the parents. On appeal, Chrysler argued the court should not have allowed the jury to hear evidence about 17 other rear-end collisions involving Jeeps. In Chrysler Group LLC v. Walden, a Georgia appeals court found the trial court properly allowed the jury to hear the evidence.

To support the claim that Chrysler knew of the danger of the gas tank’s location, the parents submitted evidence of 17 other crashes involving Jeeps in which the Jeeps were rear-ended and gas leaked. In those cases, the fuel tanks were also located behind the rear axle. In those incidents, the Jeep was rear-ended, and fuel escaped from the tank. The parents also presented evidence that Chrysler had notice of those crashes before this tragic crash occurred.

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No machine is without its flaws, but sometimes those flaws can become injurious to motorists. When a flaw or defect involved with the manufacturing of a vehicle is so prevalent that it may be severely harmful or even fatal to those that utilize the vehicle, the automobile manufacturer may issue a recall of your vehicle.
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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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A Pennsylvania woman died days after she was struck by a power line that fell into her yard. Carrie Goretzka stepped outside to call 911 about the line and was shocked and burned by a live electrical wire that fell from trees. Rescue workers were unable to administer treatment until a utility crew came to cut off the power.

Goretzka’s family filed a lawsuit against the utility company, West Penn Power, and its related companies. It contends the companies are liable for Goretzka’s death because utility workers failed to properly maintain the wires that fell near her home.

The family’s attorney, Shanin Specter, says the power line failed at a point where it was spliced. He says workers using a splice device know to use a wire brush to clean oxides from the wires, otherwise overheating will cause the splice to fail.

The case involving the 2004 explosion of a water heater in Indiana has been settled for $27 million.

The explosion leveled an apartment that was attached to a Morgan County barn, killing one man and critically burning six of his family members.

A year after the incident, the family filed a products liability suit against the water heater company. The jury decided South Central Indiana Rural Electric Membership Corp., RushShelby Energy Rural Electric Cooperative and SCI Propane LLC were 65 percent liable for the accident.

According to WSAV.com, the family of former Lee County Commissioner, who was shot a year ago, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company that was monitoring the electronic device that the suspect was ordered to wear.

The company was responsible for monitoring the suspect’s house arrest anklet but did not take action when the suspect violated the terms of house arrest. The Lee County family is alleging negligence on the part of the monitoring company.

If you and your family are experiencing pain and suffering due to a loved one’s death and feel that a third party is responsible for your loss, please contact McAleer Law to get the justice you deserve.

Household product recalls in the news recently included:

Martha Stewart’s enamel cast-iron casseroles: Enamel coating can crack or break during use, cutting and burning the consumer. More than 960,000 casseroles sold at Macy’s between June 2007 and June 2011 have been recalled. The product ranges in price from $25 to $170.

What to Do: Stop using this unsafe consumer product and return it to Macy’s for a refund. Call Macy’s at 888-257-5949 or go to www.macys.com for more details.

Teva Parenteral Medicines, Inc., Baxter Healthcare Corp., and McKesson Corp. have been ordered by a jury to pay at least $20.1 million for packaging and selling an anesthetic in a way that proved harmful to patients. The jury concluded that the companies wrongfully sold Propofol in vials large enough to be used on multiple patients. Consequently, three colonoscopy patients contracted Hepatitis C. The plaintiffs sought $25 million in actual damages over the incurable liver disease. Punitive damages have yet to be decided.

Teva faces almost 300 lawsuits stemming from a Hepatitis C outbreak three years ago. The company has argued that the infections were caused by “improperly sanitized medical equipment, not reused Porpofol containers.”

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