Wrongful Death Suit Filed Over Skier Killed by Avalanche inside Winter Park Boundary

The family of a 28-year-old killed in an avalanche in January has filed a wrongful death suit against Intrawest, the operator of Winter Park in Colorado. While most avalanches occur outside the boundaries of ski areas, the man was killed while skiing inside the park area.

According to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, the avalanche warning was high on January 22 due to high winds and heavy snow. They issued a warning of "widespread dangerous avalanche conditions."

The avalanche forecast also said: "Triggering avalanches remotely and from low angle or even flat terrain is likely. Be very wary near or below any avalanche terrain, and keep in mind that even small slides can bury and kill you."

When the victim and his father-in-law skied through an expert area called Trestle Trees, it had already been skied through by ski patrollers, whose tracks above where the victim was skiing may have helped to cause the avalanche. However, the official report says the victim skied beneath the slope on low-angle terrain and triggered an avalanche 40 feet wide that ran 30 feet down slope, burying the victim. His father-in-law reported him missing, and his body was found beneath three feet of snow with only his gloved hand sticking out.

The lawsuit argues that if avalanche dangers were high inside Winter Park, Intrawest "had a duty to close those areas within its boundary which it knew or should have known posed an avalanche hazard to skiers." It also says ski patrollers should have known Trestle Trees was not safe based on the forecast given that day.

Even if the victim's family wins, Colorado's ski industry is protected by a limited $250,000 liability cap. This Ski Safety Act was enacted in 1979 and has withstood several challenges to it. However, the law firm representing the family of the victim intends to challenge it and make this a test case. They failed in a challenge in a 2007 case.

As the attorney representing the family aptly put it: "Why should the government or a ski area not have the same responsibilities as individuals? Everyone — including the government — is telling us we all need to be held responsible and accountable for our actions. By giving immunity, all we do is encourage the government and ski areas to be grossly negligent."

If you have lost a loved one due to the gross negligence of another, please contact Jacoby & Meyers, LLC to speak with an experienced wrongful death attorney today.

Abbott Laboratories to Pay $1.5 Billion for Misbranding of Depakote

Because they promoted Depakote as a way to control aggression and agitation in elderly patients, Abbott Laboratories will pay $1.5 billion in criminal and civil liability. Depakote was only approved for prevention of migraines, bipolar mania, and epileptic seizures by the FDA. However, the drug company promoted the drug as a way to control elderly patients suffering from dementia, as well as a treatment for schizophrenia.

This is the second largest payment ever by a drug company. They agreed to pay a criminal fine of $700 million and civil settlements of $800 million. In addition, the CEO and board of directors of Abbot will now be subject to court-supervised probation and reporting obligations. Abbott is also under probation for the next five years.

Although Depakote trials for dementia were discontinued in 1999 because of adverse side-effects including drowsiness, anorexia, and dehydration, Abbott Laboratories admitted that from 2001 to 2006, a special task force was trained in marketing the drug in combination with other atypical antipsychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia, although clinical trials failed to show Depakote was more effective than taking an atypical antipsychotic alone.

In addition, sales reps at Abbott boasted Depakote "was not subject to certain provisions of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 and its regulations intended to prevent medications from being used unnecessarily in nursing homes." This action was called an exploitation of the law by the FDA.

Off-label promotion is frowned upon by the federal government, but this is sadly not the last time we will hear about a drug company misstating a drug's intended purpose.

If you or a loved one has been harmed by taking an off-label drug, please contact Jacoby & Meyers, LLC to speak with an experienced pharmaceutical injury attorney today.

Institute of Medicine Calls for Drug Safety Tests after Approval

Although some drugs have been approved for sale, it does not mean they're safe. In fact, many drugs continue to have safety risks and severe side effects although they've been deemed okay. However, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) is calling for these drugs to be tested for safety, even though they're already on the market.

They have called on the FDA to make a single record for each drug available to the public that will lay out safety problems and alerts. This would allow "a more systematic and transparent process" so that people know which dangerous drugs they may be taking. Post-approval should be mandatory for drugs with uncertain benefits or risks, and that these cases could, or should, include "'first in class' drugs that have been approved based on surrogate endpoints used previously for other drug classes."

IOM points to Vioxx as a drug that should have had a post-approval safety test due to the drug's link to heart attack and stroke. Vioxx was eventually pulled from the market.

According to a statement from IOM, the information is out there, but it is so scattered that seeking information might lead to serious gaps in what people are looking for.

Increasing public confidence in the FDA's ability to protect them is the end goal of these recommendations. IOM believes these actions will become even more important as the agency looks to expedite the drug approval process, something the pharmaceutical company says is bottlenecked due to over-regulation. Still, people are getting sick and dying from drugs that should have helped them.

If you or a loved one has become seriously ill from a defective drug, please contact Jacoby & Meyers to speak with an experienced pharmaceutical liability attorney today.

Three Dead, One Missing After Boating Accident during Sailing Race in California

Three people were killed and one is still missing after a boating accident during a sailing race. The boat was competing in the Newport, California to Ensenada, Mexico race. The sailboat was reported missing on Saturday around 1:30 am when its image vanished from radar, and small pieces of wreckage were discovered by the Coast Guard later that day. The first person on scene said it looked like the boat had gone through a blender. The bodies found were badly cut and bruised.

While it is unknown at this time what caused the boating accident, the Newport-Ensenada race runs across shipping lanes. It is entirely possible the sailboat was hit by a freighter that didn’t even realize the smaller vessel was there.

This is the first accident with fatalities in the race’s 65 years. However, people with experience of sailboat races are surprised it hasn’t happened before. Sailors with all levels of experience enter the race. The victims were in the sailboat Aegean and were said to have been competing in one of the lower categories.

This is the second sailboat accident off the coast of California in two weeks. A yacht was hit by waves off the Farallon Islands killing five people. As a result of that accident, the Coast Guard suspended all races in San Francisco Bay until it is determined what kind of safety measures may be changed.

If you or a loved one has been injured, or you have lost a loved one, in a boating accident, please contact Jacoby & Meyers to speak with an experienced boating accident attorney about your rights today.  

First Criminal Charges for Persons Involved in Gulf Oil Spill Go to BP Engineer

A former BP engineer was formally charged today for allegedly deleting texts related to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago. The 50-year-old has been charged with two counts of obstruction of justice, according to the Department of Justice. They also said more people will be charged for covering up the seriousness of the spill.

If convicted, the Katy, Texas resident faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for each criminal count. He reportedly resigned from BP several months ago.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder stated, "The Deepwater Horizon Task Force is continuing its investigation into the explosion and will hold accountable those who violated the law in connection with the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history." 

In the criminal complaint, the engineer is accused of twice deleting text messages after he was told repeatedly to maintain the records. Many of the texts dealt with the process of stopping the spill called "Top Kill." Top Kill involved pumping drilling fluid to stop the flow of oil from the pipe. However, it could only be done if the flow rate was below 15,000 barrels spilled per day. In one text, the engineer said, "Too much flowrate – over 15,000."

The engineer's initial estimates of the flow ranged between 64,000 barrels per day and 138,000 barrels per day – an admitted public disaster for BP if this became a talking point to be used by the media. Instead, BP publicly stated that the spill was much lower than that at 5000 barrels per day. The company also stated Top Kill was "proceeding according to plan."

One week later, the engineer sent an internal summary for his supervisors stating that based on computer models, the flow could be anywhere between 1000 barrels a day to as high as 146,000 barrels a day.

BP reached a $7.8 billion settlement with thousands of people and businesses affected by the spill, and will likely have to pay the government billions more for environmental fines.

Two years later, fishermen report shrimp without eyes and lesions, fish with sores all over their bodies, and animals who smell like they've been dead a week once they've been cut open. Tar balls continue to wash up on beaches and are caught in fishing nets, and coral is covered in oil and brown. The floor of the gulf around Deepwater Horizon is also covered in oil, as though BP tried to simply make the disaster disappear rather than deal with it. Environmental experts say this is something we will be dealing with for decades.

If you or a loved one has been affected by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, please contact Jacoby & Meyers to speak with an experienced environmental litigation attorney about your rights today.

Possible Link between Fracking and Increase of Earthquakes in Oklahoma and Arkansas

Nine times out of ten, scientists proceed with caution when working with something that may impact millions of people. Gas and oil companies do not. Case in point: Hydraulic fracturing, aka, fracking. Although local and state officials, civilians, and scientists have urged a cautious approach, as well as outright hostility toward, fracking, gas and oil companies, along with their political allies, have pushed forward in many states. As a result, there are poisoned water wells, a heavy smell of chemicals in the air, and now earthquakes.

According to scientists from the US Geological Survey, earthquakes in areas of Oklahoma and Arkansas where there is fracking are "almost certainly" tied to the extraction of oil and gas from deep in the ground. However, they temper this with saying they do not know if seismic activity has increased due to the removal of oil and gas, or because of the method – that is, fracking – in which they are being extracted. Two earthquakes in Oklahoma last January may have been directly linked to fracking.

Since 2010, there have been hundreds of small earthquakes, and a few large ones, in the central Arkansas area. However, these are allegedly not caused by fracking itself, but rather by the disposal of waste liquids produced through fracking. Scientists believe the toxic mix migrated to a previously unknown fault, which caused the quakes.

Fracking is when chemicals (that are proprietary, of course) and water are injected into natural gas and oil wells in the rock to create fissures. The fossil fuels are ideally then unlocked and extracted.

Fracking is occurring in more and more states as companies rush to extract as much oil and gas as possible. These companies argue we need the energy, but the truth is most of this natural gas will be exported outside of the US. In addition to this, the water used in fracking, which can be anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of gallons per well, is lost forever from the hydraulic cycle. In states where water is already scarce, this will only exacerbate the problem.

If you have been harmed, or your property damaged, and you suspect fracking, contact Jacoby & Meyers to find an experienced environmental litigation attorney in your area today.

FDA Puts Off Acting on BPA

The FDA once again showed why many people don't trust them with the announcement last Friday that they will not act to remove the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA) from consumer products, including food packaging. In fact, the FDA waited until the last day they could based on a judge's order last December.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) put forward a petition in 2008 to ban BPA from plastics in food packaging. A judge said the FDA waited too long to respond and gave them until the end of March to decide what to do about this defective product. They did so until the end of day on March 30.

The FDA's acting associate commissioner for policy and planning said the NRDC did not provide "sufficient scientific evidence to change the current regulations." They continued saying the most studies can show is that there is conclusive evidence BPA harms lab animals, not people. The FDA also claims they're still studying BPA.

After the FDA's decision, the NRDC pointed out that many manufacturers have voluntarily removed BPA from products such as baby bottles, water bottles, and can liners.

Studies show that if infants are exposed at even low levels to BPA their likelihood of obesity goes up. The UK nonprofit organization CHEM Trust lists BPA with chemicals they call "environmental obesogens" and diabetogens. BPA is also listed with persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as flame retardents, phlalates, and arsenic.

BPA mimics hormones in the body and appears in over 90% of all humans tested.

Until the FDA puts forward an actual judgment, it will be up to manufacturers to voluntarily remove the chemical and consumers to try and figure out if the product they are purchasing contains BPA.

If you or a loved one has been harmed by a defective product, please contact Personal Injury.com to find an experienced liability attorney in your area today.