Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog

Xarelto Litigation Update

May 13, 2015 | John Suthers

Xarelto (rivaroxaban) is a prescription blood thinner that was developed by pharmaceutical giant Bayer, and marketed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a division of another pharmaceutical giant, Johnson & Johnson. Xarelto is typically prescribed to reduce the risks of suffering a stroke or blood clot in patients who have a heart rhythm disorder known as atrial fibrillation or A-fib. For example, Xarelto is commonly given to patients with atrial fibrillation who have undergone hip replacement or knee replacement surgery to prevent blood clots from forming after the surgery. The drug’s manufacturer is attempting to expand the use of Xarelto for patients with another heart condition known as acute coronary syndrome.

There have been multiple reports of Xarelto causing excessive bleeding in patients. This can result in severe and permanent injuries, or death, if the bleeding is uncontrolled. As a result, multiple lawsuits have been filed across the U.S. against the manufacturer of Xarelto and the marketer of the drug, alleging these companies failed to warn both patients and physicians of the increased risks of fatal internal bleeding when using Xarelto. Because of the number of lawsuits filed in federal courts across the U.S., in December 2014, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) created a Xarelto MDL and consolidated all of the cases in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The Xarelto litigation is in the beginning stages.

Interestingly, litigation against the manufacturer of a similar drug, Pradaxa, was settled in May 2014 for $650 million. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices issued a report in 2013, stating that more patients had suffered serious, disabling or fatal injuries from taking Xarelto than those who took Pradaxa. It should come as no surprise that Bayer and Janssen Pharmaceuticals are fighting the litigation, since annual sales of Xarelto in the U.S. were expected to exceed $1 billion for 2014. The companies believe that the drugs sales could eventually reach $3.5 billion a year.

I-16 Tragedy Avoidable

April 28, 2015 | John Suthers

The tragic deaths of five young women on Interstate 16 recently is a stark reminder of the dangers that tractor-trailers pose to all drivers on Georgia highways. Five Georgia Southern University nursing students, riding in two cars, died when a tractor-trailer failed to stop for traffic slowed by a prior accident on I-16 in Bryan County during the early morning hours of April 22, 2015. Two other students were injured. The GSU students were on their way to their last day of clinical rotations at a Savannah hospital. Sadly, this tragedy might have been avoided with the use of “crash avoidance” technology on tractor-trailers. Forward collision avoidance and mitigation technology is already fully-developed and comes as a standard feature on many new automobiles. This life-saving technology works by taking over the brakes and engine of the tractor-trailer when an imminent collision is anticipated and alerting the driver to the danger. Many systems brake the vehicle autonomously if the driver does not respond. An auto brake system may not always be able to prevent a crash, but it can reduce the vehicle speed, mitigating the severity of the crash and injuries caused thereby.

Not only is forward crash avoidance technology available, studies have shown that it can prevent collisions and fatalities. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is the U.S. government agency whose mission is to achieve “the highest standards of excellence in motor vehicle and highway safety.” NHTSA is well aware of the existence and effectiveness of forward collision avoidance technology. It estimates that current forward collision avoidance technology could prevent over 2,500 crashes each year and future generation systems could prevent over 6,300 crashes annually. In Australia, that country’s equivalent of our Department of Transportation investigated forward collision avoidance technology. A detailed study of Australian crashes found that the use of such technology would have resulted in a 20-40% reduction in the number and severity of fatal crashes and a 30-50% reduction of injuries. In light of such evidence, one must question why NHTSA has failed to move forward and require that this basic crash avoidance technology be installed on all tractor-trailers. Estimates of the cost to retrofit current tractor-trailers to meet this standard are in the range of $500 per truck. This cost pales in comparison to the costs and consequences of lost lives and severe injuries resulting from tractor-trailer collisions.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, there are nearly 100,000 injuries and 4,000 deaths annually on U.S. highways as a result of tractor-trailer collisions. In 2013, 97% of those killed in two-vehicle crashes involving a large truck and a smaller passenger vehicle were the occupants of the smaller automobile. Georgia is currently among the top five states in the U.S. in truck-related fatalities. Steve Owings is the President and Co-Founder of Road Safe America. Mr. Owings lost his son, Cullum, when the car Cullum was driving was barreled into from behind, in stopped traffic, by a tractor-trailer. Road Safe America, joined by the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association and other highway safety groups, is calling on Congress and NHTSA to require forward collision avoidance technology on all current and future tractor-trailers. Last week’s heartbreaking wreck is another example of the tragedy that can occur when a truck driver is distracted or otherwise not alert. It is time that the trucking industry implemented the technology that is already available to take over and avoid a collision when a fatigued and distracted truck driver does not do so manually. Savannah native Abbie Deloach, Emily Clark, Morgan Bass, Catherine McKay Pittman, and Kaitlyn Baggett were, by all accounts, outstanding young women with promising careers and lives ahead of them. Let’s honor their memories by demanding that Congress and NHTSA immediately require the installation and use of forward collision avoidance technology on all tractor-trailers.

Alarming New Report Concerning Laminate Sold in Lumber Liquidators Stores Nationwide

March 31, 2015 | Adam Harper

Lumber Liquidators is one of largest retailers of both wood and laminate flooring in North America. In fact, there is more than 100 million square feet of the company’s laminate flooring alone sold and installed in American homes every year. In a startling recent report on CBS’ “60 Minutes”, the news show claims Lumber Liquidators has been selling laminate flooring that contains levels of formaldehyde in excess of regulatory standards.

The flooring at issue is Lumber Liquidators’ laminate flooring made in China. (American-made laminates sold at Lumber Liquidators had acceptable levels of the formaldehyde.) Independent test performed by CBS News indicated the flooring failed to meet health and safety standards due to the high levels of formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a colorless and flammable chemical, and is a common ingredient in the glue used in laminate flooring. During and after installation, it is released as a gas that causes burning eyes, nose and throat irritation, coughing, headaches, dizziness, joint pain and nausea. At long-term exposure, formaldehyde is listed as a known cause of cancer in humans by both the federal government and the State of California.

On the program, Dr. Philip Landrigan, a physician at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital, said that long-term exposure to formaldehyde from the Lumber Liquidators flooring increases the risk for chronic respiratory irritation, reduced lung function and asthma. Dr. Bernard Goldstein, a physician, toxicologist and former dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health stated that this is especially true in children. “For flooring I’d be more concerned about acute health effects, particularly for infants crawling over the floor. Children breathe in more air relative to their small body sizes than do adults. When they work hard, as they do when they crawl or run, they will have maximal respiratory uptake of anything gassing off the floor. Pets too,” he added.

NURSING HOME QUALITY SCORES DROP

March 3, 2015 | John Suthers

Almost one-third of the nursing homes in the United States will be getting lower scores on the Government’s Quality Scale as a result of tougher standards being utilized for rating purposes. The Government’s Nursing Home Compare website is a five-star quality ratings program used by more than one million consumers to assess the quality of care being provided at nursing homes across the United States. Lawyers, like John Suthers, who have been representing victims of abuse and neglect in nursing homes for years, have urged the Government to implement changes in the way nursing homes are evaluated. Some of the changes being implemented include measures of the nursing homes’ use of any psychotic drugs. Such drugs can place older adults, especially those with dementia and Alzheimer’s, at an increased risk for suffering injuries. The new evaluation measures being implemented also involve a more refined method to evaluate a nursing home for adequate staffing, which is one of the most important factors in providing good, quality care.

In excess of one million people used the Nursing Home Compare website in 2014 to check on a nursing home’s ratings. Some nursing homes who receive good scores use that information in touting their facilities. The five-star rating system is not an exact science, and there is no substitute for going to the facility, observing the conditions there, and asking the right questions of management. For more information about questions to ask, go to the Nursing Home Resource Center page at Suthers & Harper website, www.sutherslaw.com. The new rating system, at least, raises the bar in order for nursing homes to receive a higher rating. Those of us who have been suing nursing homes for neglecting residents have been concerned for a long time that the ratings were over-inflated, so we applaud the implementation of stronger measures.

There were several findings resulting from implementing the new rating standards. The average overall rating for all U.S. nursing homes decreased from 3.4 stars to 3.1 stars. The biggest drop in specific areas of performance came in the category for quality of care, where the average score dropped from 4.1 stars to 3.3 stars. Alarmingly, almost 20% of nursing homes received the lowest possible score on the newly implemented measure for using anti-psychotic drugs. The new rating system penalized nursing homes who used such drugs on residents unless the drugs were indicated for specific conditions, such as schizophrenia, Huntington’s disease, or Tourette’s syndrome. There are other quality measures that consumers should review, including the prevalence of pressure sore development and the number of falls resulting in injuries, as these remain the most common problems we see in nursing home residents.

Workplace Injuries and Third-Party Claims

January 22, 2015 | John Suthers

The Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety has issued its 2014 report, ranking the top causes of serious, workplace injuries. The report is based upon workers’ compensation claims data from year 2012 and data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among the leading causes of workplace injuries were:

• Overexertion • Falls • Being struck by an object or equipment • Roadway incidents involving vehicles • Being caught in or compressed by equipment or objects • Repetitive motions involving small or micro tasks

When an employee suffers a workplace injury that causes him or her to miss a certain number of days of work, the employee is entitled to file a workers’ compensation claim. Virtually all states have a workers’ compensation award schedule that limits the employee’s recovery to a portion of the employee’s wages for a specific number of weeks. Additionally, the employee may be entitled to a lump sum payment to compensate the employee for any permanent impairment resulting from the injury. Because workers’ compensation benefits are limited by law, the injured employee is rarely made whole.

Nursing Homes Misrepresent Staffing Levels

January 12, 2015 | John Suthers

A series of reports were published recently, substantiating low levels of care at nursing homes across the United States. An investigation was conducted by the Center for Public Integrity in an effort to quantify the level of care at nursing homes and determine the reason for poor care. Nursing homes are required by state and federal regulations to meet certain minimum levels of staffing in order to meet the needs of their patients. The Center for Public Integrity’s investigation determined that greater than 80% of nursing homes reported staffing levels that were higher than what they really were. The investigation also found that 25% of nursing homes nationwide reported staffing levels that were at least two times as high as their actual levels.

Savannah, Georgia attorney John E. Suthers was one of the first attorneys in the United States to sue a nursing home and hold it accountable for neglecting a resident. “Many of us who represent victims of abuse and neglect by nursing homes have been saying for years that the underlying cause of almost all problems in nursing homes can be traced to staffing. It’s either a case of inadequate staffing or inadequately trained staff or both. The Center’s study just confirms what we have been preaching for years,” said Suthers.

In conducting the investigation, the Center for Public Integrity compared numbers that nursing homes had reported to the Government website known as Nursing Home Compare with the numbers submitted in Medicare cost reports, which are detailed reports that nursing homes are required by law to provide and which set out the number of hours paid to staff and the number of residents. By reporting artificially inflated numbers that are posted on the Nursing Home Compare website, the public can be misled when trying to investigate the quality of care rendered at a facility. “You have families relying on inaccurate reports who unknowingly place their loved ones in dangerous facilities,” Suthers said.

NPR Report Shows No Real Consequences for Nursing Homes Overdosing Patients

December 31, 2014 | Adam Harper

Data shows that in more than one in five nursing homes in the United States, antipsychotics are administered to a significant percentage of residents, despite the fact that they do not have psychosis or related condition that warrants their use. Antipsychotic drugs, which are intended to treat severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, can leave people in a stupor. Both the FDA and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services say it’s not appropriate in most cases for patients suffering from dementia to be prescribed antipsychotics. The FDA has given these drugs black-box warnings, the agency’s most serious medication alert, about potentially fatal side effects when antipsychotics are taken by patients with dementia, saying they can increase the risk of heart failure, infections and death.

Federal law has long prohibited the use of antipsychotics and other psychoactive drugs for the convenience of staff, a practice known as “chemical restraint.” The Nursing Home Reform Act, passed more than 27 years ago, gave residents the right to be free from “chemical restraints.” The law also says that nursing home residents should only receive antipsychotics if the drugs are medically necessary. However, in 2012, despite the law being on the book for almost three decades, the government finally started a campaign laying out new stricter guidelines and harsher penalties for the overuse of antipsychotics to urge nursing homes to cut back on their use of these drugs that are so dangerous for patients with severe illnesses. Unfortunately, according to a recent report by NPR, it appears these new regulations have had little success curtailing the practice, largely because they are rarely enforced.

The penalties for giving residents unnecessary medication can range from a “plan of correction,” to civil fines, to being kicked out of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. However, the NPR report found that when penalties are actually assessed the harshest penalties are almost never used when nursing home residents are given unnecessary drugs of any kind. As a result, antipsychotics continue to be overused in nursing homes across the country.

NURSING HOME CARE LEVELS ARE OFTEN TIMES MUCH LOWER THAN FAMILIES ARE AWARE

November 18, 2014 | Adam Harper

Today, many families entrusting a skilled nursing facility with the care of a loved one may be shocked to find out the low number of registered nurses and other medical professionals that are actually providing care inside nursing homes at any given time. The controlling federal law intended at one time to improve the country’s nursing homes, the Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987, actually requires only one registered nurse on-site eight hours a day, regardless of the size of the facility.

Additionally, often times, advocates and experts believe that the data is skewed by nursing homes to make it look as if there are a greater number of medical staff available at all times in their home due to government data relying on self-reporting by the owners of the nursing homes. Data on the publicly available Nursing Home Compare website, which is promoted and operated by the government for comparison shopping, reflects staffing levels self-reported by nursing homes during a two-week period before annual federal inspections. Advocates say many homes work hard to prepare for those visits, and, as a result, critics say, those staffing levels may be artificially inflated. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency responsible for overseeing nursing homes, has since 2001 discussed the problem of the inaccuracy of self-reported data. Unfortunately, these self-reported staffing levels are a crucial metric in the federal government’s broader quality rating of nursing homes on their Nursing home Compare website, which is heavily relied on by the public.

The discrepancies between the inflated numbers and the actual numbers can lead family members to believe their loved ones are receiving one level of care, when they may be receiving much less. This is troublesome as close to 100 peer-reviewed, academic studies have shown that the amount of care, particularly that provided by registered nurses, is most strongly connected with residents’ quality of care. Lower levels of care are associated with a higher likelihood of injury, abuse, neglect and even death.

Takata Airbag Recalls

November 14, 2014 | John Suthers

Eleven major automobile manufacturers have issued recalls on more than 7.8 million cars equipped with defective airbags manufactured by Takata Corporation. There have been reports of the airbags exploding and shooting metal shrapnel at passengers in the cars. Complaints that were filed recently indicate that Takata has known about this serious safety hazard for longer than 10 years. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) is now opening an investigation into Takata’s defective airbags. Several United States Senators have recently called upon the U.S. Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation as a result of recent reports that Takata erased the results of tests that indicated the existence of defects in the airbags. Thus far, complaints and/or lawsuits filed against Takata claim that Takata’s defective airbags are responsible for the deaths of 4 individuals and injuries to 139 individuals.

The recall is focused on geographic areas with high humidity, since the alleged defect is thought to be triggered by exposure to excessive moisture. The following is a list of the manufacturers and models recalled involving Takata airbags:

BMW

Infections in Nursing Homes Increasing

October 29, 2014 | John Suthers

A recent study by the Columbia University School of Nursing reported that the rate of infections in nursing homes is increasing. Regrettably, the trend will likely continue unless and until better care and hygiene practices are implemented.

The author of the study, Carolyn Herzig, stated, “Infections are a leading cause of deaths and complications for nursing home residents…We found a significant increase in infection rates across the board.” Data submitted by nursing homes to the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) between 2006 and 2010 was analyzed by the author and her team. The data revealed increasing rates of urinary tract infections, pneumonia, wound infections, and septicemia, also known as blood poisoning. Septicemia is a serious, life-threatening infection that can worsen quickly. It arises from other infections throughout the body, often when such infections are either untreated, improperly treated, or treated too late. The Columbia University study also found increased rates of drug-resistant bacterial infections like methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, also known as MRSA. Of the above-referenced infections, urinary tract infections and pneumonia were the most common in nursing homes.

One of the more common types of cases that we see in our nursing home litigation practice are decubitus ulcer (pressure sore) cases. These wounds develop when the nursing home staff fails to turn and reposition a resident to relive pressure on a bony area, such as the sacrum, hips or heels. When a pressure sore occurs in the sacral area, it often becomes infected, especially if the nursing home resident is incontinent of bowel or bladder. If the wound infection is untreated or treated too late, the resident can develop septicemia (sepsis), which can, in turn, lead to death. That is why early intervention, proper treatment and proper hygiene practices are so important.