Concussion Baseline Testing

Concussions are a very serious personal injury, especially for children involved in contact sports.  Wisconsin high schools and colleges are becoming more aware of this problem and many are requiring baseline testing of athletes.  However, parents of younger children involved in sports may not be as aware of the problem and the need for baseline testing.  In the Milwaukee area, Children's Hospital of Wisconsin has a Concussion Clinic that will conduct such testing for only $25.  If you have a young athlete in your family, you should seriously consider such testing.  Here's a video from the Concussion Clinic explaining this:

Wisconsin Personal Injury Attorney

ExamWorks - IME's are Big Business

Previously, I wrote about Wisconsin IME doctors, medical defense doctors, and defense ("independent") medical exams and the latter two posts linked to a company formerly known as Verity Medical.  Well, Verity Medical was bought and so you get an idea of how BIG a business it is for insurance companies (and their lawyers) to hire defense medical examination brokers to get them doctors willing to fight legitimate insurance claims - I present ExamWorks. 

Depending on the day, ExamWorks, publicly traded (NYSE symbol EXAM), has been worth about $225,000,000.00 to $900,000,000.00.  How's that for big business!  And that's only one IME broker.  Here's the list companies purchased by ExamWorks between 7/14/2008 and 2/28/2011:

• MES Group, Inc., Warren, MI
• National IME Centres Inc., Thornhill, ON
• Royal Medical Consultants, Inc., Tampa, FL
• BMEGateway, Woburn, MA
• UK Independent Medical Services, Durham, England
• Health Cost Management, Beaverton, OR
• Verity Medical, Madison, WI
• Exigere, Bellevue, WA
• SOMA Medical Assessments, Toronto, ON
• Direct IME, Toronto, ON
• Network Medical Review, Rockford, IL
• Independent Medical Services, St. Paul, MN
• 401 Diagnostics, Sacramento, CA
• Metro Medical Services, East Rockaway, NY
• American Medical Bill Review, Redding, CA
• Medical Evaluations, Minneapolis, MN
• Abeton, Portland, OR
• Medical Assurance Group, Phoenix, AZ
• MedNet I.M.S., Atlanta, GA
• QualMed, Mount Laurel, NJ
• IME Operations of Physician Practice, Boynton Beach, FL
• The Evaluation Group, Southfield, MI
• Benchmark Medical Consultants, Sacramento, CA
• IME Software Solutions, Farmington Hills, MI
• Florida Medical Specialists, Fort Lauderdale, FL
• Marquis Medical Administrators, Roseland, NJ
• Ricwel, Dublin, OH
• CFO Medical Services, Roseland, NJ
• Crossland Medical Review Services, Syosset, NY
• Southwest Medical, Dallas, TX

There are still hundreds, if not thousands, of other "independent medical examination" brokers out there selling doctors to fight diagnosis, causation, allege problems are pre-existing, argue treatment was unnecessary, asserting injuries aren't permanent, etc.

FYI, too, though the companies have become savvy at hiding doctors who work for them, here's a list of the doctors in the area who were working for Verity Medical, and likely now ExamWorks:

• Mark R. Aschliman, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Stephen E. Barron, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• David H. Bartlett, M.D. – Ortho Surgeon – Knees & Shoulders
• Paul D. Belich, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Paul A. Cederberg, M.D. - Orthopedic Surgeon
• Steven C. Delheimer, M.D. – Neurosurgeon
• Steven Donatello, M.D. – Pain Management
• Anthony A. Ferguson, M.D. – Ortho Surgeon - Foot/Ankle
• James C. Foster, M.D., MPH – Occupational Medicine
• Steven P. Friedel, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Dan B. Futch, D.C. – Chiropractor
• James G. Gmeiner, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon/ Spine Specialist
• J. Jay Goodman, M.D. – General/Vascular Surgeon                            
• Thomas W. Grossman, Jr., M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Steven I. Grindel, M.D. – Ortho. Surgeon/Upper Extremity
• Gary N. Guten, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon – Knee Specialist
• Timothy S. Hart, M.D. – Orthopedic/Hand Surgeon
• Scott A. Kale, M.D. – Internal Medicine
• William B. Kelley, M.D. – General Surgeon
• William R. Klemme, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Norman Kohn, M.D. – Neurologist
• Kevin J. Kulwicki, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Paul L. Liebert, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Daniel P. Lochmann, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Thomas A. Lyons, M.D. – Neurosurgeon
• Hani Matloub, M.D. - Hand Surgery
• William T. Monacci, M.D. – Neurosurgeon
• William D. Moore, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• J. Christopher Noonan, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Michael R. Nordstrom, M.D. – Otolaryngology
• Marc J. Novom, M.D. – Neurologist
• Gregory Nystrom, D.C. – Chiropractor
• Ellen O’Brien, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Thomas J. O’Brien, M.D. – Ortho. Surgeon/Spine Specialist
• Timothy S. O’Brien, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Dan M Olson, D.C. – Chiropractor
• Michael W. Orth, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Michael C. Reineck, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Francisco Sanchez, M.D. – Neurosurgeon
• Thomas W. Schueppert, M.D. – Ortho. Foot & Ankle Surgeon
• James E. Self, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• David A. Solfelt, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon
• Morris M. Soriano, M.D. – Neurosurgeon
• Sridhar V. Vasudevan, M.D. – Physical Medicine & Rehab
• Michael A. Weiner, M.D. – Plastic/Hand Surgeon
• Gilbert Westreich, M.D. – Neurology
• John M. Williams, Sr., M.D. – Occupational Medicine
• Michael G. Wirth, D.C. - Chiropractor
• Randal Wojciehoski, D.O., DPM – Internal/ER Med./Podiatry
• John S. Xenos, M.D. – Orthopedic Surgeon

Note, according to New York lawyer Eric Turkewitz, Allstate (Allstate's Obstructing Justice, Allstate exposed, Insurance Companies again,  Allstate's issues continue) is getting its stable of IME doctors from ExamWorks.  Surely, that can be no surprise.

Wisconsin Personal Injury Lawyer

Buy your teen the same amount of car insurance you buy yourself

The day has arrived when you drive your teen to the DMV to get his or her learner’s permit and then driver’s license.  Scary.  But the scariest thing for a parent is being asked to sign for your child’s driver’s license as a “sponsor.”

Wisconsin law requires that children under 18, with some exceptions, have an adult sponsor in order to get a learner’s permit and driver’s license.  The sponsor is typically a parent. The sponsorship application for a child’s driver’s license requires that a parent agree to be jointly and severally liable for damages caused by the negligence or willful misconduct of the child.  This means that if an accident were to occur, the parents would be held liable as if they caused the accident.  Note too, one parent’s signature typically puts both parents on the hook even if they are divorced.  As a result of Wisconsin’s “sponsorship statute” it is important to protect your family and your assets by purchasing your teen drivers as much car insurance as you buy for yourself. 

A recent appellate court decision shows why adequate insurance is so important.  In Progressive Northern Ins. Co. v. Jacobson, 2011 WI App 140, a minor child caused an accident killing his two passengers.  He owned his car and carried his own car insurance, but it appears it was minimal.  However, since Wisconsin requires a sponsor for a minor’s driver’s license, his mother was his sponsor.  Due to the severity of the damages, the deceased passengers’ estates looked to the mother since she was equally liable under the sponsorship statute. 

The mother sought coverage with her insurance company, Progressive Insurance.  However Progressive sought to escape responsibility arguing that it had no duty to cover her son’s accident, even though she was her son’s sponsor.  Progressive’s insurance policy, like most auto policies in Wisconsin, had a “relative” exclusion and the Court agreed with Progressive and found that the mother had no insurance coverage for her son’s accident.  As a result of being liable for her son’s negligence, she could now be forced to use her own assets (money, home or other property) to pay a judgment.

As a result of the sponsorship statute, my typical recommendation for families is that all cars in a family’s household be insured with the same car insurance company and that each car has liability, uninsured (UM), and underinsured (UIM) limits of at least $250,000 per person.  In addition, I strongly advise anyone with any assets, like a home, to purchase an umbrella insurance policy with UM and UIM coverage for $1 or $2 million. 

Sometimes people ask why UM and UIM coverage is important.  The answer is that such coverage protects you and your family from irresponsible drivers with little or no insurance or assets.  Added coverage is not nearly as expensive as you might think, and if you are sponsoring one or more teen drivers, you are at risk and must protect yourself and your assets.

Wisconsin Personal Injury Lawyer

Wisconsin Super Lawyers 2011

Pasternak & Zirgibel is again honored in Milwaukee Magazine via Super Lawyers (December 2011).  Both Jeff Zirgibel and I have now appeared in the Top 50 Wisconsin Super Lawyers, which is an incredible award since there are about 14,000 lawyers in Wisconsin.

Super Lawyers tries to identify Wisconsin attorneys in the top 5% of all Wisconsin lawyers and Rising Stars under age 40. Super Lawyers also publishes a Top 50 list discussed below.

For 2011, there are only eight Wisconsin personal injury law firms represented in the Top 50 list:

• Cannon & Dunphy, Brookfield
• Domnitz & Skemp, Milwaukee
• End, Hierseman & Crain, Milwaukee
• Gingras, Cates & Lubke, Madison
• Habush Habush & Rottier, Multiple
• Laufenberg, Stombaugh & Jassak, Multiple
• Murphy & Prachthauser, Multiple
• Pasternak & Zirgibel, Brookfield

Wisconsin victims of car accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, premises liability, etc., could do far worse than to start by interviewing these law firms to get help with their personal injury cases.  Mostly in Milwaukee personal injury law firms, they have been recognized by peers as outstanding in their field. 

Hiring lawyers or law firms because they advertise a lot on television or Google, chase ambulances with letters or Wisconsin chiropractors or postings on the web or dabble in personal injury is simply a bad idea. 

If you want a high quality “expert,” look for a personal injury lawyer who shares the traits that these firms do.  This includes injury attorneys who are Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™ 5.0 out of 5 by Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings and active members of The American Association for Justice and Wisconsin Association for Justice.
Wisconsin Personal Injury Attorney

(888) 232-1274 Milwaukee Family Chiropractic?

(888) 232-1274 is a phone number for what appears to be an outfit attempting to contact personal injury car accident victims.  Callers from 888-232-1274 identify themselves as working on behalf of Milwaukee Family Chiropractic.  These Milwaukee Family Chiropractic reps include: Mr. Presley, Yolanda, Tanya, and Shalanda.  Individuals calling from this phone number contact people after Wisconsin motor vehicle accidents.  In fact, they even call individuals as far away as Madison, Wisconsin.

After googling, I found this site.  Anonymous web users report individuals stating they were called the day after a traffic accident and received multiple calls from same number, 888-232-1274.  Others report receiving ambiguous messages stating they were "calling in regards to your accident."  Most everyone reports that callers leave no company name.  Often, people called were not even injured. Some opine that Milwaukee Family Chiropractic is working on behalf of unethical personal injury lawyers. I say unethical because in Wisconsin it is unethical for personal injury attorneys or reps to cold call accident victims.  I hope that this is not the situation, but based on the information below it appears they may be working with at least one Wisconsin lawyer.

I googled "Milwaukee Family Chiropractic" because one report I received regarding its involvement was from a known source and I found this site.  Interestingly, comments there give sordid details about this outfit and have serious allegations including the involvement of a personal injury attorney.

If you get a call from (888) 232-1274, ignore it and don't respond.  In fact, if you get any cold calls from doctors, lawyers, chiropractors, clinics, or anyone else, other than your own car insurer, do not talk to them or respond.  If you're seriously hurt after a car accident, get a referral from a lawyer you trust for reputable lawyers who focus on personal injury cases.

Wisconsin Personal Injury Lawyer

Wisconsin Drug & Medical Device Immunity Proposal is Misplaced

Below is an article I recently wrote for the Wisconsin Association for Justice:

Wisconsin State Senator Rich Zipperer of Pewaukee has recently proposed a bill under the pretense of attempting to create Wisconsin jobs.  The proposed law would bar claims for injury or death by Wisconsin citizens injured by dangerous drugs or medical devices simply because the drug or device had been FDA approved.  Not only is it impossible to imagine how such a law would create a single Wisconsin job, but the simple truth is that such a law is horrible for Wisconsinites.

First of all, under the proposed law, it doesn’t matter whether or not the manufacturer or seller of the dangerous drug or medical device is based in Wisconsin.  This is critical to the claim that the proposed law would help create Wisconsin jobs.  Under the bill, the manufacturer or seller could be based in any state in the nation or country in the world.  Thus, the law won’t encourage any manufacturers or sellers of drugs or medical devices to move from Illinois or China to Wisconsin.  In fact, the only other state in the nation to have a similar law is Michigan, which granted drug manufacturers such immunity in 1996, and it has one of the highest jobless rates in the country.

Secondly, the only consumers affected by the law are Wisconsin citizens.  Wisconsinites injured or killed by a dangerous drug or medical device lose their legal rights under the proposed law.  These are legal rights that citizens of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and other states retain.  What does this mean?  Well, if such a drug or device kills a Wisconsin family member, the Wisconsinites get no day in court and no justice.  However, if such a dangerous drug or device kills a family member from Minnesota or elsewhere, those citizens get their day in court.  It is hard to imagine how such a law benefits Wisconsin.

Finally, and most importantly, the FDA’s rubber stamp does not mean that dangerous drugs and medical devices will not get to market.  It also does not mean that manufacturers or sellers of such products will act responsibly both before and after obtaining FDA approval.  Where manufacturers and sellers of such products do not act responsibly before or after obtaining FDA approval, they must be held legally responsible to those injured or killed. 

An outstanding article from the American Association for Justice entitled “They Knew and Failed to…: True stories of corpations that knew their products were dangerous, sometimes deadly” recounts true stories behind numerous FDA approved dangerous drugs and medical devices.  Some products mentioned in the article include:

·         Guidant Heart Defibrillators

·         Medtronic Sprint Fidelis

·         Bjork-Shiley Heart Valve

·         A.H. Robbins Dalkon Shield IUD

·         G.D. Searle Copper-7 IUD

·         Playtex Super-absorbent Tampons

·         Renu Contact Lens Solution

·         Johnson & Johnson’s Propulsid

·         Bayer’s Trasylol

·         GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia

·         Eli Lilly’s Zyprexa

·         AstraZeneca’s Seroquel

·         Johnson & Johnson’s Ortho Evra

·         SSRIs – Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft

·         Chiron’s Flu Vaccine

The article conclusively shows how irresponsibly individuals at drug and medical device companies can act and that such negligence can occur both before and after obtaining an FDA rubber stamp.  Too frequently, product warnings turn out to be wrong, design flaws discovered, and problems and side effects revealed.  Yet, often those responsible for these dangers ignore or attempt to hide such dangers.  In such instances, the manufacturers or sellers must be held accountable.

 Senator Zipperer’s proposed law does nothing to create Wisconsin jobs, only harms Wisconsin consumers, and wrongly assumes that manufacturers and sellers of dangerous drugs and medical devices will act responsibly.

Wisconsin personal injury attorney Frank Pasternak is managing partner of Pasternak & Zirgibel S.C. in Brookfield, Wisconsin.  He is on the Board of Directors for the Wisconsin Association for Justice and a Charter Member of the American Association for Justice President’s Club.  He is AV® rated by Martindale-Hubbell and listed on the “Top 50” Wisconsin “Super Lawyers” list published in Milwaukee Magazine. His practice focuses on personal injury and wrongful death cases particularly cases involving serious accidents and liability for asbestos caused mesothelioma.

Wisconsin Personal Injury Lawyer

Would the Tylenol tampering lawsuits have survived Wisconsin’s new product liability laws?

In 1991, the Chicago law firm I was working at, Corboy & Demetrio, settled a highly publicized product liability case. The law firm represented the families of three individuals who died in 1982 after ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol. The Tylenol tampering deaths caused a nationwide poisoning scare and eventually led to tamper-resistant packaging on all over-the-counter medicines.

Twenty years later, in 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed product liability law changes that he claimed businesses needed to create jobs here. Despite the fact that the Chamber of Commerce ranked Wisconsin in the top half of states to do business in 2010, Walker felt the new law was necessary. Unfortunately, the simple truth is that the new law harms Wisconsin consumers by giving manufacturers and sellers of dangerous products large legal loopholes for skirting responsibility to those they injure.

Essentially, the new law gives corporations a variety of new defenses and makes defendant-oriented changes to prior Wisconsin product liability law. The changes and defenses make it easier for manufacturers to sell dangerous and defective products and not be held responsible for the injuries or deaths such products cause. I would like to use the Tylenol tampering lawsuits to demonstrate the effect of the new law.

One of the most egregious examples of the new law’s anti-consumer bias is a dismissal of all sellers and distributors of products if the manufacturer defends the case. Thus, any company that sold or distributed the cyanide-laced Tylenol would be off the hook under the new law because the manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, appeared. This is despite the allegation that the Tylenol was tampered with after it left Johnson & Johnson. So, despite the fact that companies profited from selling or distributing the cyanide-laced Tylenol, they would not be held accountable under the new law.

Additionally, a distributor or seller cannot be held accountable if the distributor or seller receives the product in a sealed container and had no opportunity to inspect it. Thus, any company that sold or distributed the cyanide-laced Tylenol in a sealed container would be off the hook under the new law.

Another new defense for manufacturers of dangerous products is the presumption that their product is not defective if it complied with applicable state and federal regulations or specifications. So if the Food and Drug Administration had approved the non-tamper resistant bottles for Johnson & Johnson, any Wisconsin jury hearing the case would have to presume that the bottles were not defectively designed.

A further new defense can limit what a jury can know about actions take by the company after the cyanide-laced Tylenol was found. A Wisconsin jury may never learn that Johnson & Johnson put tamper-resistant lids on all of its Tylenol bottles. The only way evidence of the tamper-resistant lids is admitted is if the injured person showed the risk of harm posed by the product could have been reduced or avoided by the lids because it was a reasonable alternative design.

An additional defense provided under the new law is a 15-year time limit. This time limit provides manufacturers immunity from claims by those injured by a defective product that was manufactured 15 years or more before the injury. Thus, if one of those defective bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol were still here in Wisconsin today, and someone ingested one and died, there would be no case. Not even Johnson & Johnson would be responsible. Note, however, there is one exception to this new law, which is claims for damages caused by a disease that doesn’t appear for several years, such as mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos.

Governor Scott Walker’s new product liability law is replete with reasons as to why the Tylenol tampering lawsuits would not have survived in Wisconsin. With the stroke of a pen, the Governor changed years of Wisconsin law and tragically harmed Wisconsin’s consumers.

Wisconsin Personal Injury Lawyer