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.

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.

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.

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.

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. ]]> http://shragerlaw.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=3993 0 http://shragerlaw.com/blog/?p=3991 http://shragerlaw.com/blog/?p=3991#comments Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:21:31 +0000 Chad J. Galvin http://shragerlaw.com/blog/?p=3991 A study published last year in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology found that nearly half of 371 Florida death certificates surveyed had errors in them. For example, in a 2008 study, 225 physicians were asked to determine what killed an elderly man who had fallen and suffered a severe head injury. Just over half of the doctors correctly identified bleeding of the brain as the primary cause of death; however, nearly two-thirds didn’t list the fall as a contributing factor.

In many states, laws are so lax that doctors can sign off on death certificates without having seen a patient in months or actually viewing the body. As a result, even obvious signs of abuse can go unnoticed by authorities in some instances.

In another case in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, an elderly person’s death certificate listed the cause of death as “failure to thrive” and “dementia.” The funeral director, however, had never seen so much bruising and obvious broken bones. The autopsy eventually showed that some type of violent impact had snapped the person’s ribs, and one of the broken ribs had pierced his lung, flooding his chest with blood. The injury was fatal, and the cause of death had nothing to do with a “failure to thrive” or “dementia” as listed by the doctor on the death certificate.

With the Baby Boomer generation getting older, such concerns will grow and become more important. Some consider this problem a result of “ageism,” which can occur because sometimes our society and culture don’t value old people in attempt not to acknowledge that we ourselves will get old.

At Shrager, Spivey & Sachs, we handle many nursing home abuse and neglect cases. As nursing home neglect and abuse lawyers, we recommend that people with loved ones in nursing homes inquire about the cause of death if neglect or abuse is suspected at the facility. You should consider pressure sores, malnutrition, dehydration, falls, broken bones, bruising, and infection as potential or contributing factors of death. We often see death certificates that list “dementia” or “failure to thrive” as the causes of death, but these findings can be wrong.

If you have any questions regarding a loved one’s cause of death in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or hospital, please contact us to initiate an investigation.

Robert Wilson, lead author of the study and a neuropsychologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, stated that “hospitals can be a very risky experience for the elderly, and we think people need to understand that.” Dr. Wilson’s research was published in Neurology.

“The hospital can be a bad place to go if you’re an older individual,” says physician Marie Bernard, deputy director of the National Institute on Aging. “It should be avoided if possible, but that doesn’t mean patients shouldn’t see their healthcare provider. They need to do that.”

At Shrager, Spivey & Sachs, we handle many cases on behalf of people who are over 65 for neglect and abuse against nursing homes and hospitals. As nursing home neglect and abuse lawyers, we always recommend that people over 65 seek medical treatment when needed, whether at the hospital or with their family doctor. It is important, however, to understand that a prolonged hospitalization can have a potential negative impact on cognitive skills as demonstrated by Dr. Wilson’s study.

If you or a loved one have been the victim of neglect or abuse at a nursing home, assisted living facility, or hospital, contact us today.

Polina’s parents, Ruslan and Daniela, rushed to Philadelphia from Bulgaria to be by their daughter’s side before her death Tuesday. While in shock over their daughter’s tragic death, they’re grateful for the kindness they’ve received from Philadelphia’s dance community. Thanks to a two-day fundraiser, they have enough money to bring their daughter home to Bulgaria for burial.

Polina’s parents and I were interviewed by NBC’s Claudia Gomez, and you can view the video below:

From interviews with her friends and fellow dancers, Polina had just left a performance. While she waited for chinese takeout, she called her boyfriend, excited by how well her performance had gone. Sadly, the performance was her last. While crossing Broad & Ellsworth Streets, 19-year-old Deandre Barnes ran a red light in his Audi A4, hitting Polina and three parked cars before fleeing the scene. Police reports indicate he was intoxicated, and he has been charged with driving under the influence, aggravated assault, and related offenses. With Polina’s passing, he will most likely be charged with homicide by vehicle as well.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, Polina’s parents are left to wonder how this could happen. How did an underage 19-year-old become intoxicated in the first place? Who served him or provided him with alcohol? And why did he flee the scene of the accident?

Working with Polina’s parents and investigators, I hope to help them find the answers they deserve.

Signed in November, the law makes it a primary offense to use your phone for anything other than talking while behind the wheel. Prohibited actions include texting, emailing, and Internet browsing. As a primary offense, police officers can pull over and ticket violators just for texting while driving.

Last year alone, distracted driving played a role in 14,000 crashes across Pennsylvania, 68 of which were fatal. What most drivers don’t realize is that texting takes your eyes off the road for an average of five seconds. While none of us would drive with our eyes closed for that long, too many of us think nothing of sending a quick text or email – both of which are equally dangerous.

I’ve represented many clients who have been injured in tragic accidents, some as a result of distracted driving. Their injuries could have been prevented if drivers kept their eyes – and hands – on the wheel instead of on their phones. Pennsylvania’s new ban is a step in the right direction that makes it clear to drivers that safety isn’t optional.

For more information, click here to read a Montgomery Life article that answers drivers’ frequently asked questions about the new ban.

The Government Accountability Office and Health Services Research recently released studies that found for-profit nursing home chains frequently violate federal regulations to cut costs. Research found that for-profit facilities had higher rates of serious deficiencies than government and non-profit facilities. In fact, the nation’s top ten for-profit homes received 36 percent higher deficiency citations and 41 percent higher serious deficiencies than non-profit homes.

Why are for-profit facilities more likely to violate regulations than other facilities? Because they’re in the business of making money. Many nursing home chains are owned by private investment firms, and these firms have one goal: return on their shareholders’ investment. To accomplish this, every aspect of care is monetized, and the biggest cost is labor. Cutting staff is an easy way to cut costs and return a bigger investment.

Unfortunately, though, understaffing is the leading cause of neglect and abuse. Lower nurse-to-patient ratios contribute to the incidence of pressure ulcers, bed sores, falls, and fatalities.

I’ve been a vocal advocate of non-profit nursing homes, and when my father required extended care, I felt confident entrusting his health and safety to a religious non-profit facility. These homes aren’t in the business of making money; they’re in the business of caring for our loved ones. For-profit facilities, however, are focused on their profits, which lead them to devise creative and dangerous ways to cut costly services and keep more of their profits in their pocket.

If you or a loved one have been a victim of neglect or abuse at a for-profit nursing home, click here to contact the experienced attorneys of Shrager, Spivey & Sachs today.