If you are injured as a result of a defective product in Virginia or elsewhere, then you must act quickly to protect your legal rights.  Whatever the product may be, it is critical that you keep the product in a safe and secure location and gather all of the documents relating to the product.

In a product liability claim, under no circumstances should you ever return the product to the manufacturer or allow the insurance company that is representing the manufacturer to have access to the product for testing purposes.

If your defective product injury is indeed significant, you need to contact an experienced product liability lawyer who can assist you in terms of not only investigating the claim but also acting as a buffer between you and the insurance company in terms of handling the claim and litigating the claim if necessary.

In the Fairfax Circuit Court product liability claims can typically be brought to trial quickly and efficiently to speed up your financial recovery.

for more personal injury news and views visit, Brien Roche Law

Motor vehicle accidents are an all too common occurrence in Virginia and they can completely disrupt your life. In 2010, there were 116,386 crashes reported in the Commonwealth of Virginia with 740 persons killed and 61,418 injured according to Traffic Crash Facts from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles.

If you have been involved in a serious motor vehicle accident resulting in significant injury to yourself, you need to consider consulting an vehicle accident attorney. To the extent that you are able to you need to make sure that the vehicle itself is preserved and is not repaired prior to retaining counsel.  Thorough pictures need to be taken of the motor vehicle and of the accident scene if at all possible.

In Fairfax County, Virginia if there is a serious motor vehicle accident, then the police will prepare a written report of the collision.  In many jurisdictions, the police not only do a traffic accident report but they actually do a more detailed reconstruction report in some instances.  If, in fact, that second report has been completed, then it may be necessary for a subpoena to be issued to obtain that report.

In addition, in many jurisdictions, the police themselves will take thorough photographs of the accident scene in particular if the collision was a significant one.

Whether your collision involves an automobile, bicycle, truck, motorcycle or pedestrian accident, the key to a successful outcome is prompt and thorough investigation before the evidence is lost or otherwise altered.

for more personal injury news and views visit, Brien Roche Law

Cohen syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that is named after its founder, Dr. Michael Cohen.  To date, only about a thousand cases of this syndrome have been diagnosed.  It is found to be most common in ethnic groups such as the Amish, people of Finnish ancestry and residents of an isolated Greek island.

The condition has no known cure and as such the treatment consists of simply addressing the physical symptoms and endeavoring to overcome the developmental delays. 

for more personal injury news and views visit, Brien Roche Law

Construction accident cases involve a number of peculiarities.  The most significant one is identifying the proper defendants.  Those proper defendants may be the property owner, the general contractor, the subcontractor, the construction manager or the developer. 

One way to identify the responsible parties is to get all permits for the project from the local government agency. 

Once the potentially responsible parties have been identified, review 29 CFR 1910, which deals with general workplace requirements and also 29 CFR 1926, which deals with specific requirements for the construction industry.

As part of the discovery process, it is critical that  you gather all contracts, all safety manuals, all safety plans for the project, all minutes of any construction safety meetings, all progress reports dealing with the job, any citations from OSHA, any photos showing the job site in various stages, any and all accident reports, and any and all diaries kept by superintendents or engineers  on the site.  

for more personal injury news and views visit, Brien Roche Law

Failure to warn claims involving generic drugs took a significant hit on June 23, 2011 with the decision of Pliva, Inc. v. Mensing from the U.S. Supreme Court.  In that decision, the Court diluted the Wyeth decision by concluding that manufacturers of generic drugs cannot be sued for failure to warn because such claims are preempted by federal law. 

In particular under the Hatch-Waxman statute, the Court said that warning labels for generic drugs must be the same as those for brand name drugs approved by the FDA, and therefore failure to warn claims against manufacturers of generic drugs are preempted by federal law. 

The decision affecting drug injury law is especially troubling in light of the fact that 75% of all prescriptions are filled with generic drugs.

The decision likewise creates an inconsistency between the generic drugs and prescription drugs. 

for more personal injury news and views visit, Brien Roche Law

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is frequently found to be the cause of sudden death among student athletes.  This is a condition in which the heart muscle is enlarged or in some other way is  abnormal.  Detecting this condition in young student athletes is extremely difficult because the warning signs that are most often present with older patients are not typically present with younger patiens.  Two different studies, one from Italy and one from Israel, suggest different ways of treatment.  The Italian study suggests that there are some benefits in performing EKGs.  The Israeli study, however, suggests that there is no particular benefit, in terms of diagnosis, in performing EKGs. 

Because of the expense associated with performing such studies and the inconclusiveness of  any data, the organization that has written the guidelines for sports physicals has not endorsed mandatory EKGs. 

Overall, the ability of a physician to predict  hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is extremely difficult without an EKG.  That does not mean that pre-season physicals should not be required.  Indeed, they should be in order to allow the physician to check a number of other things and obviously to look for an enlarged heart or other heart abnormality as part of a typical examination.  

for more personal injury news and views visit, Brien Roche Law

Punitive damages may be awarded in a case where only nominal damages are awarded at the compensatory level.  In the May 8, 2011 decision in Feld v. Feld, the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia adopted the view from the Restatement Second of Torts Section 163, which indicates an award of nominal damages is enough to support further award of punitive damages when the tort is committed for an outrageous purpose, but no significant harm resulted.    

for more personal injury news and views visit, Brien Roche Law

Product liability statute of limitations were the subject of a recent decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York where it dealt with a claim asserted by Virginia plaintiffs against the manufacturer of Fosamax.  The claims themselves were determined to be time barred under the two-year Virginia statute of limitations.  The plaintiffs, however, argued that the statute of limitations was tolled by the filing of a class action in New York state.  The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, dealing with a separate case, had determined that Virginia would not allow such equitable tolling on the basis of a federal class action filed outside of Virginia.

The Second Circuit certified that question to the Virginia Supreme Court to get an express determination from the Virginia Supreme Court as to whether the filing of a class action in New York state on behalf of Virginia plaintiffs would toll the statute of limitations as to those non-class state law claims, which had also been filed in New York state.

for more personal injury news and views visit, Brien Roche Law

Drowning due to rip tides is a significant problem in many beaches across the United States.  The rip tide effect is essentially caused by a break in sandbars that are offshore allowing water that is washed on the shore side of the sandbar to then funnel through that break between two adjacent sandbars creating a suction effect drawing the swimmer out away from the shore.

Some indices of rip tides are an area of water in the surf that has a different color from the surrounding water, an irregularity in the incoming pattern of waves, or the existence of seaweed or debris that is moving out through the surf .

If caught in the rip tide, which is different from an undertow, the best defense is to swim slowly parallel to the shore or in the alternative to simply allow the rip tide to carry you out until it loses its momentum.  It will indeed lose its momentum and once it does you can swim back to the shore away from the rip tide area.   

for more personal injury news and views visit, Brien Roche Law

Catastrophic injuries require special attention. A catastrophic injury might be defined as one involving total and permanent disability, the total loss of earning capacity,enormous past and future medical expenses, custodial expenses, and pain and suffering. Theses types of cases take a staggering toll on the victim. The predicate of proving the case is medical testimony establishing the permanency and the totality of the injury and the need for lifetime medical care. It is the medical testimony likewise that establishes the foundation for future rehabilitation, the need for structural modifications to the home, and the need for personal care attendants.

The role of the economist is to affirm what those costs are in terms of present value both as to medical care and loss of income.

In large measure those determinations are based upon the work life expectancy and/or the life expectancy of the Plaintiff which are governed by either state mandated tables or publications from the U.S. Government.

Another component of these damages are what is typically called loss of services, i.e., the loss of services of a wife or a husband as a homemaker or attendant at home. The value of that frequently is difficult to pinpoint. That again is the role of the economist.

During the voir dire process it is critical that members of the potential jury pool be identified who might be unwilling to award an amount of money that is commensurate with what is called for based upon the evidence and the instructions of the Court.

for more personal injury news and views visit, Brien Roche Law