Personal Injury News: Pick Of Last Month: Mar-2021

Southern California Edison, the largest subsidiary of Edison International and the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California, reached a settlement worth $2.2 billion to resolve insurance claims linked to the 2018 Woolsey fire.

The tragic incident happened on Nov. 8, 2018, and destroyed 1,643 structures, killed three people, and burned 97,000 acres. More than 295,000 people were evacuated from Los Angeles and Ventura counties, along with certain portions of Agoura Hills, Malibu Westlake Village, and Calabasas to the city of Malibu.

The Ventura County fire authorities found that the fire that arose near the former Rocketdyne site in the hills west of Chatsworth and south of Simi Valley in the early morning was caused by the company's equipment.

The wildfire, which began as a brush fire raised concern among several watchdog groups and neighbors who had been asking for a total clean-up of the facility. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control denied any public health threats from the fire, which stopped at the site and began again a few days later, spreading across other areas.

The company did not admit any wrongdoing and in the statement added that it has also reached settlements in the 2017 Thomas and Koenigstein fires and the 2018 Montecito mudslides. Last year, the company had reached a $360 million settlement with local government agencies associated with the same cases.

Earlier, bankrupt PG&E corporation is attempting to compensate $13.5 billion as part of a restructuring plan to the victims of the wildfire that recently took place in Northern California.

The rival group of creditors, namely Pacific Investment Management and Elliott Management, have also offered the same amount of compensation to the victims.

PG&E is trying to get out of bankruptcy until next year by restructuring a plan for the same. The company went bankrupt due to the malfunctioning of equipment leading to catastrophic wildfires and damaging an estimated $30 billion worth of liabilities.

Governor of California has warned PG&E to come up with a suitable reorganisational plan soon. Even the judge has ordered the victims and PG&E to try an agreement at the earliest.

PG&E has ensured that the victims will receive reasonable and fair settlement very soon.

A $205 million birth injury lawsuit verdict, which is considered to be one of the largest medical malpractice awards in U.S. history was overturned by the Maryland Court of Appeals in the first week of February.

The lawsuit was brought by a woman for herself and her daughter against a Maryland medical center, claiming that her child suffered from cerebral palsy due to a misdiagnosis of preeclampsia by the doctors.

According to the court memorandum, in October 2014, the woman was admitted to the hospital after she showed signs of severe preeclampsia. The memorandum states that the doctors told the 25 weeks pregnant woman that her baby was viable outside of the womb and would die or be severely brain-damaged by a C-section procedure, following which she says she declined the procedure as per the doctors’ recommendations.

The woman was initially awarded $229 million by a Baltimore jury in July 2019, which was later slashed to $205 million due to malpractice caps that limit the amount plaintiffs can receive in a lawsuit.

In the recent hearing, a three-judge Court of Special Appeals panel overturned the verdict stating a lack of evidence during the trial. The ruling stated that the woman was provided with proper treatment options by the doctors and still she opted to have a vaginal delivery.

The child suffered the injuries as warned by the doctors and now requires round-the-clock care due to permanent neurological disabilities and a seizure disorder.

Earlier, a family whose son was born at the Hoboken University Medical Center received a settlement of $7.1 million for the severe brain damage that their son suffered.

Parents of the child filed a malpractice lawsuit against the hospital, alleging the doctors and nurses of negligence towards the child's health during the delivery.

Currently, the kid is three years old and is unable to walk and feed himself. Medical documents submitted to the court state that he suffers from a host of severe medical problems, including seizures and hydrocephalus, and requires constant medical care and eight separate medications.

Initially, the names of several doctors and nurses came forward in the case, but the settlement included the name of only one doctor and the hospital.

Plaintiffs' lawyer said that the approval of the settlement came on December 10, and they received the money later in the same month. The settlement includes around $650,000, which goes to a trust for the medical care of the kid. $3 million is to be used to structure a settlement annuity that will pay $27,000 for 10 years to the kid.

Earlier, a Port Townsend family was awarded $23 million from a state jury in Washington in a similar lawsuit. In 2014, the baby of the family suffered a permanent brain injury during birth at Jefferson Healthcare Medical Center.

The jury held the nurses and the doctors responsible for the baby's brain injury. The court papers notified that the baby was in pain during delivery as the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck deprived her of oxygen, which resulted in permanent brain damage to the child.

The juries claimed that the authorities misheard the mother's heartbeat, considering it to be the baby's that made the doctors think that the baby is safe. The incident has resulted in permanent cognitive impairment, speech and language deficits, and impaired motor skills for the baby that will have a lifelong impact.

Mountaire Farms, the poultry processing plant, proposed a settlement of $65 million without admitting to the culpability over allegation of groundwater or air contamination across Millsboro and Dagsboro town in Sussex County, Delaware.

According to the lawsuit filed, the concerns grew in November 2007, when the Delaware Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Control (DNREC) said that the plant spray-irrigated under-treated wastewater onto nearby agricultural fields. It became a class-action when several people with the same claims joined in.

The deal would resolve the class-action suit brought by the citizens who were impacted by the contamination and who lived or worked full-time in those towns since mid-2000, the time when the company acquired the Millsboro poultry processing plant.

The settlement deal has left the citizens with four options, which include:

• Participate: Anyone who lived or worked in the eligible areas near Millsboro and Dagsboro (according to the map) and wishes to be considered for payment must complete a registration form by Monday, March 22, 2021. Those who fail to register by this date will not be eligible for settlement compensation.

•  Object: Anyone who wants to participate in the class-action settlement, but who objects to any part of the proposal, must submit the necessary forms by Monday, Feb. 22, 2021.

• Opt-out: Any class member who wishes to be excluded from the class must submit the necessary forms by Monday, Feb. 22, 2021. They will not be bound by any court judgments or orders, but neither will they receive settlement money.

• No action: Anyone who does not take action or register by March 22, 2021, will still be bound by the terms of the lawsuit but won’t get to benefit from the settlement. Also, they will not be eligible to participate in any other lawsuit against Mountaire on groundwater contamination or air pollution.

Out of the $65 million settlement, the attorneys who sued Mountaire will request a 25 percent ($16.25 million) payment along with the expenses of $2.5 million for hundreds of interviews conducted and dozens of experts hired in wastewater engineering, air emissions, hydrogeology, medicine, and more.

A fatal 2017 accident at Portland International Airport (PDX) has resulted in a $3 million settlement to the family of a passenger who succumbed to her injuries three months after the accident.

According to the court memorandum, the 75-year-old woman was traveling home from Hawaii to Spokane, Washington when the incident happened. She was an amputee and hence her family had arranged for gate-to-gate transportation to make the connection.

The woman was forced to finish the gate-to-gate journey herself as her escorts left her alone before completing the transfer due to miscommunication between Alaska Airlines and its contractor.

The woman fell 21 steps down from the airport’s escalator while completing the journey alone. The fall resulted in traumatic head and chest injuries, which followed a septic infection due to an Achilles tendon injury. Several surgical procedures were conducted along with the amputation of her remaining leg but the woman died due to her severe injuries.

The jury at King County Superior Court in Seattle held Alaska Airlines 90% responsible for the woman's fatal injuries and ordered the carrier to pay the family a settlement of $3.19 million.

California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB) has agreed to pay $39.5 million to a former student, now 24, who suffered heatstroke during a class run which resulted in severe brain damage and immobility.

According to the court memorandum, the tragic incident happened on September 26, 2018, when the student was running outdoors in a kinesiology class. She was running in 95-degree heat when she suffered debilitating heatstroke that resulted in severe brain damage, cardiac arrest, and multisystem organ failure.

The student was participating in a run on a 5K course along with other students and when nearing the end, she collapsed on the hot concrete outside Coussoulis Arena. The university athletic trainer and other personnel waited for the paramedics to arrive and did not provide any kind of rapid whole-body cooling or move her to the air-conditioned arena 20 feet away.

The evidence presented revealed that the instructor and the other CSUSB employees had not received the required Cal-OSHA training in heat illness prevention and treatment before the incident.

As a part of the settlement deal, the Cal State officials have agreed to implement a systemwide policy for heat illness prevention, education, and protocols, which will be applicable in all academic environments for the nearly 500,000 students enrolled at all 23 California State University campuses.

The student lives with her family and requires support around-the-clock, at-home medical care, and physical therapy for the rest of her life, which will be covered by the settlement.