Oklahoma Injury Lawyer Blog

NYTimes.com recently reported a study, included in The New England Journal of Medicine, that tracked surgical teams following a checklist during surgery.  The "Checklist Reduces Deaths in Surgery" article states that the year long study tracked eight hospitals implementing a 19-item checklist.  Complications with surgery fell by about a third while the average patient death rate fell more than 40%!  Wow. 

I didn't realize the bullying that goes on with insurance companies until I started handling Oklahoma personal injury cases.  We'll have several people call in to our office each week asking "why is the insurance company refusing to pay anything on my car (or medical treatment) when their insured was the one who caused the accident?" 

The American Association of Justice has a photo along the same lines as the Allstate "good hands" approach: 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently released its nursing home "5-Star" ranking system.  The system allows users to search by nursing home name, zip code, city, state, and county.  According to medicare.gov, Oklahoma has five 5 star nursing homes. 

Here's a link to the ranking system: Nursing Home Compare.  This is helpful information considering there were more than 661,000 Oklahomans older than 60 in 2007.  There's also troubling news though:

• In Oklahoma, during fiscal year 2003, Adult Protective Services investigated approximately 16,000 reports of abuse, neglect, self-neglect, exploitation, and verbal abuse of vulnerable adults. Of the cases investigated, well over half (61%) were confirmed.
• Sixty-four percent of the cases in 2003 involved self-neglect. Another 14 percent involved caregiver neglect, and 13 percent involved financial exploitation

            (National Center on Elder Abuse)

Bill Kumpe, a Tulsa attorney, posts his newsletters on his website.  His January 2009 Newsletter leads with "SO-CALLED TORT REFORM WILL BLOCK THE COURT HOUSE DOORS TO AVERAGE CITIZENS." 

Mr. Kumpe points out some of the facts that the advertisements funded by large companies and insurance companies fail to mention.  He recommends calling the proposed "tort reform" legislation "The Plaintiff's Are Guaranteed to Lose Act of 2000." 

Note:  I personally do not know Mr. Kumpe.  He describe's his practice as "an emphasis on business transactions, small buiness entity formation, estate planning, probate and administrative law."  He definitely can't be called an "ambulance chaser" with that description. He's not the typical advocate that fights for the rights of injured Oklahomans.  He just appears to have a lot of common sense! 

Mr. Kumpe goes on to describe the unconstitutional tort reform as constitutional blackmail that "heavily weigh[s] the scales of civil justice in favor of lenders, insurance companies and large business interest[s]."   

CPSIA is the new Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act that's scheduled to go into effect on February 10th. 

It was passed in response to lead, phtalates and the other current issues recently occuring with toys from China.  Under the new Act, any product that's intended for use by children under 12 years of age is supposed to be certified by an official laboratory as not having more than a certain amount of lead and phtalates.  No new product may be sold without the certification. 

I just got off the phone with a current client.  She was hit head on by another driver last week here in Oklahoma City.  Luckily, the impact was not too severe and the injuries are minor.  But, even though her current medical bills are relatively small right now she is still having back trouble. 

She needs to see a doctor but she does not want to miss any work.   Damages related to missed work are generally recoverable in personal injury law cases.  But, day to day, she still needs the income. 

DFW's Star-Telegram reported yesterday that the personal injury law firm, Trey Allen, P.C., was placed on probation and ordered to pay close to a million dollars in restitution for its part in scheming to stage car accidents.  The paper got its information from the U.S. Attorney's office. 

This seems like something that would be dreamed up and reported at The Onion.  Maybe I'm naive, but it just seems astounding that someone would even try to do this.  Hopefully, the Department of Justice will stick the people involved. 

I did a little research on the story.  The USDOJ, back in September, released a more detailed report at their website.  See: Law Firm Admits Role In Staged Accident Scheme.  It doesn't appear the attorneys were actually invovled:

According to the Trey Allen, P.C. factual resume, both legal assistants informed the government that they did not disclose their fraudulent activities to the officers of Trey Allen, P.C. They admitted, however, they had an arrangement with numerous chiropractors in the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) area in which they would refer business to the chiropractors and, in return, the chiropractors would pay the legal assistants a cash kickback out of the settlement proceeds. The cash kickback was 30% - 40% of the amount paid to the coconspirator chiropractors by Trey Allen, P.C., which resulted in inflated medical bills being presented to the insurance companies.