Washington Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Regan Zambri & Long Law Firm : DC Metro Area Personal Injury Law Blog

According to the American Camp Association (ACA), more than 10 million American children will attend summer camp in 2010. For the vast majority of them, camp will no doubt be a positive experience--an opportunity to get outside, try new things, build self-esteem, and form new friendships. However, it is equally certain that some of those 10 million campers will have their camp experiences (and lives) shattered by sexual abuse at camp. So what can you do to best protect your child this summer?

I want to lead off by presenting two unsettling facts:

• No camp is immune to sexual abuse. Camping programs as diverse as YMCAs, the Boy Scouts, publicly-funded camps, and a camp run by the Obama daughters' private school have all faced allegations of child sexual abuse.
• Camps cannot, and should not, be expected to shoulder the full responsibility of protecting campers from sexual abuse. Parents are equal and invaluable partners in the fight to protect children from abusers.

So do not shy away from the topic of child sexual abuse--meet it head-on. You owe it to yourself and to your child to be informed. Any good camp director will not be offended by a parent asking the tough questions about a subject as important as child sexual abuse.

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Three weeks ago, we wrote about the dangers of children overheating in hot cars. A recent article in the York (PA) Daily Record should serve as a timely reminder to all of us to be extra vigilant about not leaving our children in cars as temperatures begin to soar this summer.

06/28/2010 10:20:33 PM EDT

"A Seven Valleys man was arrested Sunday after leaving a 7-month-old infant alone in a vehicle for about 30 minutes in the heat, according to Southwestern Regional Police.

Charles T. Frey Jr., 36, of Seven Valleys was arrested in connection with endangering the welfare of a child, disorderly conduct and leaving a child unattended in a motor vehicle.

A resident of a North Codorus Township apartment complex called police after observing the man drive up in a vehicle and walk into a residence without the baby.

Officers responded and found the child in a Ford Explorer. The vehicle was not running and the windows were left open, police said.

The baby was crying, and his face was bright red, police said. The temperature at the time was 92 degrees with a heat index of 96 degrees.

The boyfriend of the mother of the child was located in a nearby apartment. He could not observe the child in the vehicle and said that he had forgotten about the baby, police said.

The child was left alone for about 30 minutes.

A Seven Valleys ambulance crew found the infant to be conscious, alert and physically well."

[All emphasis above added].

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Posted by Patrick M. Regan

When a BP refinery in Texas exploded in 2005, killing 15 workers and injuring 300, the company paid out $1.6 billion in settlements to compensate those workers and their families. But the families of those killed in the April 20, 2010, explosion on board the Deepwater Horizon stand to recover far less.

It turns out that deaths on the Deepwater Horizon fall under the authority of the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA) of 1920, an antiquated statute that severely restricts the liability of negligent corporations operating more than 3 nautical miles offshore, as BP was on the Deepwater Horizon.

Under DOHSA, the families of the workers killed on the Deepwater Horizon stand only to recover economic damages (in this case essentially the equivalent of a worker's anticipated wages for the rest of his life), NOT any compensation for pain and suffering or for the family's loss of the victim in their lives. Future wages cannot possibly compensate for a family's permanent loss of a husband and father.

However, there is at least one precedent that offers hope to the families of those lost on the Deepwater Horizon. In the wake of the fatal TWA Flight 800 crash in 2000, Congress amended DOHSA to allow commercial airline passengers to sue for non-economic damages, retroactively allowing those families to obtain a more just recovery. On June 8, 2010, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced legislation, under the name "Survivors Equality Act," that seeks to do the same for the victims of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy.

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Fireworks maim, and even kill, American adults and children every year. As the Fourth of July weekend approaches, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the safety issues that surround fireworks usage. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) provides some sobering statistics:

• "In 2006, fireworks caused an estimated 32,600 reported fires, including 1,700 total structure fires, 600 vehicle fires, and 30,300 outside and other fires. These fires resulted in an estimated 6 civilian deaths, 70 civilian injuries and $34 million in direct property damage.
• In 2007, U.S. hospital emergency rooms treated an estimated 9,800 people for fireworks related injuries; 56% of 2007 emergency room fireworks-related injuries were to the extremities and 36% were to the head.
• The risk of fireworks injury was two-and-a-half times as high for children ages 5-9 or 10-14 as for the general population.
• On Independence Day in a typical year, more U.S. fires are reported than on any other day, and fireworks account for half of those fires, more than any other cause of fires."
   

However, a great many of these injuries can be prevented by following some common-sense safety guidelines such as those laid out by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC):

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Every year, germs in pools, lakes, rivers, and water parks sicken thousands of Americans, most frequently with diarrheal illnesses (caused by germs such as Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Shigella, norovirus and E. coli, according to the CDC). Collectively, the illnesses they contract are known as recreational water illnesses, or RWIs.

While you should not let RWIs scare you away from your favorite water activities this summer, we want to provide you with a few key points of safety information:

• What are RWIs?
• How are RWIs spread?
• What can you do to protect yourself and your family from RWIs?

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American pool-goers often associate the simple presence of lifeguards with safety, yet every summer, swimmers drown in guarded pools. The presence of a lifeguard is of little use if he is not actively working to protect the swimmers in the pool. So as a swimmer (or as the parent or caretaker of a swimmer), what are some of the signs that can help you tell the difference between a well-guarded pool and a less well-guarded one this summer?

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Posted by: Salvatore J. Zambri, founding partner

The Washington Post (6/19, Rucker) reports, "It is not easy to divvy up $20 billion. Perhaps no one in America knows this better than Kenneth R. Feinberg. The nation's 'special master' in charge of disbursing massive relief funds has overseen the paying out of billions of dollars for families of those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks." Feinberg "flew to Mississippi and Louisiana on Friday to get started. He began by surveying the mess and meeting with governors. On Monday, he is scheduled to go to Houston to talk to BP executives."

Overseeing such a fund is tricky and difficult business, but Feinberg has the experience to do it right.  I had the great pleasure of representing a family who lost a loved one in the September 11, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers.  As part of my voluntary (we call it "pro bono" in the legal industry) representation, I worked to obtain for the family an award through the September 11 Fund that Feinberg managed.  The process was fair and expeditious.  I hope the same holds true for the many Americans who have been devastated by the BP oil spill.

Any questions about this post?

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Posted by Patrick M. Regan

President Obama met with the leaders of oil giant BP on Wednesday at the White House.  Following President Obama's strong urging,  BP announced that it agreed to establish a $20 billion compensation fund for victims of the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon oil spill. By federal law, economic liabilities for oil spills are capped at a mere $75 million; BP's waiver of that limit represents a significant concession in the face of intense pressure from the Obama Administration, Democratic leaders in Congress, and the American public. Importantly, the $20 billion fund does NOT cap BP's liability--the Wall Street Journal reports that the figure serves as "neither a floor nor a ceiling" for the ultimate price tag. 

President Obama was determined not to let this environmental disaster turn into another Exxon Valdez case.  In the Valdez case, Exxon deliberately dragged the legal proceedings on for nearly 20 years, and then paid only $5 Billion in damages----Exxon's profits during this time were as high as $40 Billion per year.  Many of the fishermen and others whose livelihoods were destroyed by the Valdez spill never received any money during their lifetimes. 

The BP compensation fund will be independently administered and controlled by Kenneth Feinberg. Feinberg has experience not only as the administrator of the compensation fund for victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, but more recently as the "Wall Street Pay Czar," controlling the pay of financial executives as part of the government's bailout of the banking industry.

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According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), 720 motorists and workers were killed in highway work zones in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available. Perhaps surprisingly, roughly 85% of the victims were drivers and their passengers, not workers, who might at first appear to be more exposed to danger. This summer, as road construction crews are out in force during the warmer months, all drivers need to remain vigilant while in construction work zones.

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Not enough Americans are taking care of their tires. A recent survey conducted by the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) revealed some startling statistics:

• "Only 17% of vehicles had four properly inflated tires.
• 55% of vehicles had at least one under-inflated tire.
• 15% of vehicles had at least one tire under-inflated by 8 pounds per square inch (psi).
• 20% of vehicles had at least one tire under-inflated by 6 psi.
• 31% of vehicles had at least one tire under-inflated by 4 psi."

Combined with these statistics are some important facts about the benefits of taking better care of your car's tires:

• "Properly inflated tires can improve fuel efficiency by 3.3% and save $.09 a gallon at the pump. Approximately 1.2 billion gallons of fuel are wasted each year by U.S. motorists driving on under-inflated tires.
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that under-inflated tires contribute to more than 600 fatalities and 33,000 injuries each year."

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A recent posting on the Greater Greater Washington blog about the new bike lanes on Pennsylvania Avenue reminded us that the beginning of summer is a great time to take a moment to think about bike safety. As Salvatore Zambri, a founding partner of Regan Zambri & Long, posted earlier for the DC Metro Area Personal Injury Law Blog, 600,000 people are treated annually in U.S. emergency rooms for bicycle-related injuries (data from the CPSC). It is predicted that an additional nearly 1,000,000 people are treated by physicians for less serious injuries also stemming from biking mishaps.

At least three (somewhat interrelated) theories exist as to how best to manage the often tense relationship between cyclists and drivers on the road.

1. The most common school of thought says that bikers should adhere to bike-specific traffic rules. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments does an excellent job of presenting this position, complete with state-by-state guidelines for the DC Metro area.
2. A related position proposes that the safest approach to biking in traffic is to essentially act just like all of the motorists on the road. In other words, pretend your bike is a car, and ride as you would drive.
3. At BicycleSafe.com, they take parts of both of those above, but place a much greater emphasis on active strategies to make yourself most visible to motorists, thereby decreasing your chance of being hit by a car.

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On Friday, June 4, 2010, McDonald's announced a voluntary recall of some 12 million Shrek-themed promotional glasses that it sold in May and June, after finding trace amounts of cadmium in the cartoon designs baked onto them. Cadmium, a naturally occurring element, is a known carcinogen (cancer-causing substance) that has been linked to several other health issues.

If you have any of the pint-size McDonald's glasses featuring images of the characters Shrek, Fiona, Puss n' Boots, or Donkey, you are advised to stop using them immediately.

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Every summer, dozens of American children overheat and die of hyperthermia in parked cars. Hyperthermia, the opposite of the more familiar term “hypothermia,” is essentially the extreme overheating of the body. While most parents tend to believe that this nightmare could never happen to them, these tragedies still continue to occur, year in and year out.

According to a 2005 study published in Injury Prevention, 27% of these deaths involve unsupervised children gaining access to unlocked cars, while the remaining 73% (averaging 30-40 children per year) result from a child being left behind (generally inadvertently) in a car by an adult.

In a June 1, 2010, blog for the New York Times, writer Paul Stenquist reports that at least seven incidents of the latter variety have already occurred in 2010, even as summer temperatures have yet to hit much of the country. But searing summer temperatures are not necessary in order for the interior of a car to become lethally hot.

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