Shrager, Spivey & Sachs

If you are using Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking websites, you need to be aware of the following. It is now very common that the attorneys working for the defendants and their insurance carriers are filing motions with the court requesting that an injured plaintiff disclose information about their personal social networking accounts, so the defense can view the information, even the information restricted from the general public.

Pennsylvania courts are routinely ruling that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy concerning social networking websites, and that if the defendants can convince the judge that the information sought is relevant to the damages claimed in the pending personal injury action the court may require the plaintiff to either provide the necessary log-in information or actually allow defense counsel to view the Facebook or other website page.

Our managing partner, Rob Sachs has commented upon this routinely, and we always advise our clients that anything they post on Facebook/Twitter may be viewed by the defense attorneys or insurance carrier. Don’t assume that because you have marked your social media site private that the defense attorney will never see your posts!

I recently completed a trial in a complex medical malpractice action. I warned our client that the defendants would try to gain access to any social networking information and try to distort that information and make it seem like the victim was not as seriously injured as she truly was. The client followed my advice and during the pendency of the litigation was not actively posting any information. The defense attorney confided in me after the trial that they had attempted to gain pictures or other information from the social networking sites, but because the client followed my advice they were not able to find anything useful.

In March, I shared the tragic story of Polina Kadiyska, a talented ballerina killed by a hit-and-run driver. Her parents reached out to me in the days after her death, and along with their shock, grief, and sadness, they were burdened by unanswered questions. Had their daughter suffered? Who was responsible? And how could this have happened?

Yesterday, Polina’s parents got answers to some of their questions during a pre-trial hearing for the man charged in connection with her death. Deandre Barnes was held for trial on charges of homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, and several other traffic violations. The details, which included witness accounts and the preliminary results of law enforcement’s investigation, were heartbreaking.

In the early morning hours of March 18th, Polina, a promising ballerina studying with Philadelphia’s prestigious Rock School, had just left what would be her last performance. As she ordered food in a nearby takeout restaurant, she called her boyfriend to share her excitement about how well she had done.

Meanwhile, Deandre Barnes was still celebrating his 19th birthday. He and a friend were driving down Broad Street at “highway speeds.” Prior to the accident, another driver testified that Deandre had swerved around her, and investigators estimated his speed at 50 miles per hour – twice the speed limit. He also had a blood alcohol of .156.

At the intersection of Broad and Ellsworth, Polina’s bright future collided with Deandre’s joyride. As she crossed the street, he ran a red light, crashing into her at high speed. He continued to drive before crashing into two parked cars a few blocks away. A witness, unaware of the hit and run further up Broad, called police about the erratic driver. He watched as Deandre and his passenger abandoned the Audi and ran away from the scene. Deandre was taken into custody when he returned to his car to retrieve a bag from the trunk.

The evidence against Deandre, including the testimony of a Accident Investigation Bureau office who was “certain” Deandre was responsible for Polina’s death, convinced the judge to hold him for trial.

Polina was from Bulgaria, and her parents were unable to attend the hearing. However, her boyfriend and several of her friends came to hear the details of her tragic death. A witness who pulled over to help testified that Polina was breathing after the accident, but not talking, and that she was bleeding profusely. Officers testified that Deandre’s Audi had “long black strands of human hair enmeshed with ketchup.” Polina had ordered fries before crossing the street, and the impact of the accident sent her and her food flying 150 feet.

We’ll soon have more details about the accident, how it could have been prevented, and who shares the blame for Polina’s death. Though the evidence points to an intoxicated Deandre Barnes as the driver, why was he drunk in the first place? Birthday or not, he was underage. Who served him? Maybe if they hadn’t provided him with alcohol, he wouldn’t have taken such dangerous chances that night and Polina might still be dancing. In the coming weeks, we’ll learn more about who should be held responsible and what we can do to get justice for Polina’s parents.

I’ll keep you posted as events develop, and if you or a loved one has been harmed in an auto accident, contact us today.

According to Toby Edelman of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, the overuse of anti-psychotic drugs “is one of the most common and longstanding, but preventable, practices causing serious harm to nursing home residents today.” Drugs are often used for “off-label” reasons, i.e. purposes other than that approved by the FDA, which can and do cause harm to patients. An investigation by the Department of Health & Human Services found that 14 percent of nursing home residents were prescribed anti-psychotics, but 8 in 10 were off-label and thus not for treatment of mental illness.

Nursing homes should be looking to reduce the amount of anti-psychotic drug use by implementing alternative means to provide care and reduce aggressive behavior by residents, i.e. bed baths instead of showers, changing the employee who provides care, music therapy, etc. But many facilities take the cheap way out and give the patient a pill. All this really means is that the nursing home owners want to increase their profits by reducing their expenses, and this is done at the expense of patient care.

As nursing home neglect and abuse lawyers, we investigate claims in which the nursing homes are over-medicating your loved one to reduce their levels of activity, causing harm and serious injury. If you have any questions, please feel free to call.

As nursing home lawyers, we understand the importance of having an increased amount of staff to maintain the health and well-being of a nursing home resident. A recent study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College has learned that death rates among women rise in good economic times because “low-paid, low-skilled health workers find better jobs elsewhere,” rather than the nursing home industry. Further, government reimbursement rates for some nursing home services have been cut by Medicare, leaving operators of the nation’s roughly 1.6 million certified nursing beds looking for ways to streamline – reduce – services instead of increasing staff.

The study also concluded that “[a] greater scarcity of these front-line caregivers may have a direct impact on the elderly … causing them to die in greater numbers when the unemployment rate is declining.”

Here at Shrager, Spivey & Sachs, we believe the problem is not as complicated to resolve as some in the nursing home industry would lead you to believe. For-profit nursing home owners need to provide increased levels of staff to provided a maximum level of car to maintain the health and well-being of residents. In order to do this, the nursing home industry needs to stop placing profits over people. Or, in other words, hire more staff to protect the elderly at the risk of reducing profits.

Jason Tucker is a proud alumnus of Germantown Friends School and I am a GFS parent, so we were honored to participate in a teen driving safety presentation in honor of Distracted Driver Awareness Month. We met with students and their parents to discuss the dangers of distracted driving and what they can do to keep themselves and others safe.

The presentation was sponsored by “End Distracted Driving,” a national movement sparked by one family’s tragedy. Casey Feldman, a senior at Fordham University with a promising future ahead of her, was hit and killed by a distracted driver. In an incredible show of strength and resiliency, Casey’s family saw her untimely and preventable death for what it could be: a teachable moment. Her father Joel, a Pennsylvania trial attorney, turned to the legal community and the Department of Transportation to launch a national awareness campaign about distracted driving. Working with the American Association for Justice and 60forSafety, “End Distracted Driving” is now reaching thousands of teens. To coincide with National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, more than 1,000 attorneys, judges, and paralegals are visiting high schools nationwide to educate more than 50,000 teens and their parents about the dangers of distracted driving.

Here is a moving video about Casey and the impact her death has had on her friends, family, and teens across the country.

Raising awareness of the dangers of distracted driving is an issue close to both Jason and I. As personal injury attorneys, we see the devastating and sometimes fatal consequences sending a text message can have. As the father of teenagers, I’m also aware of the pressure young drivers feel to respond immediately to their friends, whether they’re behind the wheel or not. What we’ve learned is that the best resource against distracted driving is information. You may know that driving while intoxicated increases your crash risk by 4 times. But what you might not know is that simply talking on your cell phone increases your crash risk the same amount, and texting increases your crash risk eight times.

Jason and I were proud to support Casey Feldman’s family in its mission to prevent other families from losing a child to distracted driving. Hopefully our visit to Germantown Friends School taught students that “one text or call could wreck it all.”

So what can you do to end distracted driving? In honor of National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, take the pledge today!
I pledge to:

• Drive without texting.
• Drive without making or receiving calls or texts.
• Call or text before I start driving to let parents or friends know when I’ll arrive.
• When I’m alone, I’ll turn my cell phone off or to vibrate when I start driving.
• Pull over to a safe location before making or receiving calls or texts.
• Deputize my passenger to make or receive calls or texts while I’m driving.
• Wait until I’ve finished driving to eat or adjust my music.
• Put on makeup before I start to drive.
• Wait until I’m finished driving to reach for objects in the back seat.
• Wait to call or text others until they’ve finished driving.
• Ask my driver to drive safer while I’m a passenger in their car.
• Be a driver who cares about the safety of others.

You can also click here to learn more about the “End Distracted Driving” initiative and National Distracted Driving Awareness Month.