Connecticut Injury Attorney Blog

A jury in a Connecticut federal court awarded a $41.7 million verdict to a woman who, as a student at a Connecticut school, contracted an illness on a school trip to China that left her permanently disabled. Munn, et al v. Hotchkiss School, No. 09-cv-00919 (D. Conn., complaint filed Jun. 11, 2009). The lawsuit alleged that the school negligently failed to protect students from tick bites, the cause of the plaintiff's illness. The school claimed that it took all reasonable and necessary precautions, and announced that it intends to appeal the verdict.

The plaintiff was a fifteen-year old student at The Hotchkiss School, a boarding school located in Lakeville, Connecticut, when she went on a six-week school trip to China during the summer of 2007. She suffered a tick bite, likely while on a hike in the vicinity of the city of Tianjin. According to court documents, she fell ill about four weeks into the trip, and was diagnosed with tick-borne encephalitis (TBE). Other students were reportedly also infected, but none suffered damages as severe as hers.

"Encephalitis" describes an inflammation of the brain commonly caused by infection. Multiple viral infections can cause encephalitis, including viruses commonly carried by ticks or mosquitoes. Early symptoms can range from a mild fever or headache to seizures and loss of consciousness. Swelling in the brain can damage nerve cells and cause internal bleeding in the brain, possibly resulting in permanent brain damage or death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issue updates and warnings regarding TBE and other illnesses. According to the CDC, TBE is endemic to Eurasia's temperate areas, which includes Tianjin, and is most common between April and November.

Continue reading "Student Receives $41.7 Million Verdict Against Connecticut School for Disabling Illness Contracted on Field Trip " »

A man who lost his leg when a Connecticut State Police cruiser struck him on a highway has received a substantial jury verdict. The jury reduced the $25 million verdict to $16.2 million based upon a finding of comparative negligence on the part of the plaintiff. Even with this reduction, the verdict may be the largest ever awarded in a lawsuit against the state of Connecticut.

At around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 29, 2010, the plaintiff ran out of gas and pulled his truck to the shoulder of northbound Route 25 in Bridgeport. He claimed that he could not reach his wife on his cell phone, so he got out of his car and began to cross the highway, intending either to find a gas station or walk home. State Police Office Darren Pavlik was driving his cruiser in the southbound lanes of Route 25 at the same time. Pavlik's vehicle struck the plaintiff as he was crossing the southbound lanes on foot.

The impact severed the plaintiff's right leg, which landed in a parking lot across the street, over one hundred feet away. The plaintiff landed on the shoulder of the highway. He suffered brain damage and a crushed pelvis in addition to losing his leg, and injuries to his hands prevent him from grasping anything. According to evidence presented at trial, Pavlik drove to the nearest exit after the collision, re-entered the highway on the other side, and drove around to the crash site. The dashboard camera reportedly shows Pavlik exit his vehicle, inspect his front bumper, and then approach the plaintiff to ask for his name and address. News coverage at the time of the accident said that Pavlik administered first aid until an EMS crew arrived.

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An accident at a Connecticut ski resort injured five people on New Year's Day 2013 when a cable towing a group of people up the mountain in an inner tube broke. Accidents such as these are apparently rather common, as another accident at the same resort less than a year earlier injured three people. Claims for injuries against a ski resort, using a theory of premises liability, are difficult because of the danger inherent in the activity, although a claimant may be able to claim a product defect against a tube or lift manufacturer.

The accident occurred late in the afternoon of Tuesday, January 1, 2013. As an inner tube holding six people was being towed up the mountain at Woodbury Ski Area, the cable broke. The tube slid back down the tubing ramp and collided with the lift at the base of the slope. Five of the six riders were taken to nearby Waterbury Hospital with injuries. All but two of them were released that day. A nineteen year-old woman remained in intensive care for several days with multiple injuries, while a thirty-eight year-old man continued to receive treatment for a head injury. Other injuries included a foot injury and a concussion. The Connecticut State Police was investigating the accident to determine if any criminal charges were warranted, along with the Woodbury fire marshal and the state's Bureau of Elevators.

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The Supreme Court of Montana ruled that a mother's lawsuit may proceed against the city government over an injury her daughter suffered on a public playground. The mother, suing on behalf of her minor daughter, argued that the city breached a duty to maintain safe premises by failing to provide material of a safe enough depth to protect children from injury during falls. The ruling in Gatlin-Johnson v. City of Miles City, No. D.A. 12-0129, slip op. (Mont., Dec. 21, 2012) overturned a lower court's order dismissing the lawsuit after finding that the city did not owe a duty of care to the injured child.

Tiffany Gatlin took her eight year-old daughter, Alyssa Gatlin-Johnson, to Riverside Park in Miles City, Montana in July 2002. The city owned and operated the park, and it designed a playground area there and installed and maintained playground equipment. Alyssa fell from a slide and suffered a serious head injury. The previous year, Gatlin discovered, the city had conducted a review of maintenance and safety in its park system. A review committee recommended surface protection around the playground equipment as a means of preventing injuries. Additionally, the city's insurer recommended establishing "fall zones" underneath playground equipment, based on guidelines promulgated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. These fall zones would have surfacing designed to minimize injuries by providing surface material to cushion falling children. At the time of the accident, the city was using bark chips in the fall zone of the slide.

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Trampolines, when used for recreational activity, present a serious risk of injury for children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). A new study published in the AAP's journal, Pediatrics, warns of head and spinal injuries that may result from trampoline use, particularly when multiple people use a trampoline at once. Recent injuries and resulting lawsuits demonstrate the dangers trampolines can pose.

In an article published in the online edition of Pediatrics on September 24, 2012, the AAP's Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness renewed its calls for discouragement of trampoline use in the home. The AAP identified 3,041 reported injuries for 2009, with an estimated 97,908 total injuries and 3,164 hospitalizations or fatalities. Cervical spine injuries often result from falls from trampolines, collisions with other users, or attempts to perform flips and somersaults. Safety measures added by manufacturers, such as nets surrounding the perimeter of trampolines, have not shown any significant mitigation of the risk of injury, according to the AAP.

The trampoline in its modern form began with a patented design by competitive gymnast George Nissen in 1945, according to the AAP's report. Nissen did not intend his trampoline for recreational use, but rather to train gymnasts and acrobats. His design later found use as a training tool for military aviators. Recreational use of trampolines, particularly trampolines available for home use, came once they became affordable for mass production. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) notes a positive correlation between the number of trampoline-related injuries and the availability of trampolines for recreational home use.

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The case of a Connecticut child, who suffered severe head injuries when he fell from a second-story roof, raises questions about civil liability when a person fails to supervise a child under their care. Connecticut courts have allowed for possible recovery on such a claim, in addition to any criminal penalties that may accrue. This sort of liability is of particular concern for children at daycare centers and other places where adults have responsibility over supervising children's safety.

A two year-old boy in Hartford suffered serious head injuries the afternoon of Monday, September 3, 2012, when he fell three stories. The child evidently opened a window and crawled onto a roof about twenty-five feet above the ground. A passerby reportedly found the child in the driveway of the apartment building "crying and stumbling," according to the Hartford Courant.

Police knocked on the apartment door for several minutes before the child's mother's roommate, who was reportedly supposed to be taking care of the child, answered. The roommate allegedly told police that she had been up all night partying with friends, and had fallen asleep when the child crawled through the open window and fell. Police arrested the roommate and charged her with two counts of risking injury to a minor. The child was found to have suffered a skull fracture and cranial bleeding, but was in stable condition.

Continue reading "Legal Claims for Failure to Supervise in Connecticut When a Child Suffers Injury " »

A rise in the number of concussions among youth soccer players, particularly girls, has led health officials and sports organizations to recommend a ban on "heading" the ball. Heading is considered an important move for most players, but research suggests that the risk of injury it poses to young players is greater than any benefit the move may have for the game. Some youth soccer organizations have already banned the practice for their teams.

The Hartford Courant reports that children and teenagers receive treatment in hospital emergency rooms for around 175,000 concussions and other traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) related to sports every years. Other estimates place the number as high as 300,000. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of sports-related TBIs in children and teens has gone up by sixty percent in the past decade. High school football, which is almost exclusively a male sport, accounts for the highest number of TBIs each year, with about 55,000. Girls' soccer ranks second, with 29,000 TBIs reported per year, more than in all levels of boys' soccer combined. The single-greatest cause of concussions in youth soccer players, researchers have found, is heading the ball. The impact of the ball and the player's head is only part of the risk, along with the fact that players attempting to head the ball often collide with one another.

Although a concussion is considered a mild form of TBI, a single concussion can have long-term, debilitating effects if not treated properly. Many youth soccer players suffer multiple concussions over their soccer career. NBC Sports reported that some studies found a higher incidence of brain damage among adult players who frequently headed the ball, and estimated that amateur adult players head the ball an average of 1,000 to 1,500 times every year.

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A New Jersey teenager settled a products liability lawsuit this week for $14.5 million. The teen was severely injured during a baseball game, when a ball hit off an aluminum bat struck him in the chest, ultimately causing irreversible brain damage. At issue in the lawsuit was his claim that aluminum bats can cause balls to fly much faster than wooden bats, and that the additional speed is unsafe.

During a June 2006 Police Athletic League baseball game in Wayne, New Jersey, 12 year-old Steven Domalewski was pitching. A batter, using an aluminum bat from about forty-five feet away, hit a line drive that hit Steven in the chest. The ball happened to hit him in the instant between heartbeats, and the impact caused cardiac arrest. Steven fell to the ground, stopped breathing, and lost consciousness. A bystander began to administer CPR, and paramedics arrived within minutes. They tried to give him oxygen on the way to the hospital, but his brain had been deprived of oxygen for fifteen to twenty minutes, causing extensive damage. Steven spent more than eight months in the hospital, and he has required extensive physical therapy and rehabilitation since then. He is now eighteen years old and has reportedly shown some improvement.

Continue reading "Teenager Who Suffered Brain Damage from Baseball Injury Settles Lawsuit with Bat Manufacturer for $14.5 Million " »

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1.7 million people suffer from a traumatic brain injury each year. People living with the long-term effects of a traumatic brain injury can suffer from difficulty with memory and speech, emotional problems, problems controlling their movement, and cognitive difficulties, according to the Brain Injury Association of America. Brain injured individuals often require extensive long-term care and rehabilitation after their initial injury. The Brain Injury Association also reports that many Americans with brain injuries have difficulty obtaining the rehabilitation they need because insurance benefits don't always cover adequate care.

Bloomberg recently reported on multi-state investigations of one of the largest centers for rehabilitation and care for brain injuries in the nation, the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation (FINR). According to the Bloomberg article, 20 current and former patients have made complaints against the facility, criminal charges have sometimes been against three former employees, and advocates for the disabled have become involved. Allegations have been made that five patient deaths since 1998--two in less than the last two years--have been due to abuse or neglect. Patients have described being hit repeatedly by staffers, families have alleged that health care plans such as the use of feeding tubes have not been followed, and the aggressive behavior often seen as a symptom in those recovering from a brain injury has allegedly been dealt with harshly by FINR staff.

In addition to investigations in its home state of Florida, FINR was recently investigated by the Connecticut Fatality Review Board for Persons with Disabilities after the death of a patient who had been placed at FINR by the state of Connecticut due to mental illness complications suffered after abuse as a child, rather than a brain injury. According to a report by the Fatality Review Board, FINR had used a technique called Brief Assisted Required Relaxation, where patients were taken down to the floor by FINR staff and restrained, on the Connecticut woman 29 times in her 5 months at FINR. The woman alleged that the FINR staff hit her and called her names, and a Florida sheriff's report documented physical injuries, although it concluded that she had not been abused.

The Connecticut woman had a history of harming herself, and FINR staff had a plan of care that required two staffers to be watching her closely at all times. However, on February 10th, 2011, employees arriving for the morning shift found her with her hair wrapped around her neck and not breathing. According to the Florida investigations, one of the employees who was supposed to be watching her was asleep and the other had not checked on her in at least 15 minutes.

Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration is investigating, as FINR's license doesn't allow it to treat patients such as the Connecticut woman, who suffered from a mental illness rather than a brain injury. However, James Siemianowski, a spokesman for Connecticut's Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services considers "FINR to be a safe and effective placement."

Continue reading "Investigations of Rehabilitation Facility For Brain Injured Patients Raise Questions About Quality Of Care, Proper Licensure " »

An 81 year-old woman is suing a hospital in New Haven, alleging that her doctor and other hospital staff failed to properly monitor her and ensure her safety while she was recovering from a medical procedure in 2010. She claims that she suffered multiple severe injuries when she fell off the table in the operating room. She is claiming damages for medical expenses and future care needs.

Florence Fiedler, a retired administrator for the FBI, went to Yale-New Haven Hospital on February 7, 2010 to have a pacemaker installed. This is a relatively routine surgical procedure, and it reportedly went well. She alleges that hospital staff left her unattended after the procedure, while she was still under anesthesia. She also claims that the staff did not leave the gurney in a low position, placing her at an unsafe height. She fell off the gurney, allegedly suffering a fractured hip and collarbone, a fractured spine, a broken toe, and a traumatic head injury causing internal bleeding. She claims that she was unable to walk after the fall and had to re-learn how. She also allegedly cannot climb stairs or drive a car. She cannot live on her own, and says that she is now a "shut-in."

A hospital spokesperson stated that the hospital reported the incident to the state's health department, and that the hospital has taken corrective measures to prevent future incidents. The hospital also reportedly apologized to Fiedler.

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Awareness of concussions as a serious health risk in sports, particularly youth sports, has quickly grown in recent years. Many coaches and athletic officials recognize that contact sports, particularly hockey and football, pose risks of seriously debilitating injuries to players. This awareness has also brought an understanding of the extensive recovery needs of athletes suffering from concussions. That said, athletes continue to sustain concussions at an alarming rate. Training and education regarding concussions and traumatic head injuries are mandatory for coaches in several states, including Connecticut. Personal injury attorneys are helping injured athletes obtain compensation for damages when their injuries result from negligence or defective equipment.

An article published recently in a Canadian medical journal addressed concussions among young hockey players in very blunt terms, asking if such concussions amount to "child abuse." Hockey officials have reportedly implemented new rules, including a "no tolerance" rule prohibiting contact with a player's head. Officials are also promoting education about how to prevent concussions and how to properly treat a player suffering from one. Whether these measures are enough remains to be seen.

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The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recently announced a recall of roughly 21,000 inflatable water slides. One person has died, and several more have suffered disabling injuries, because of a defective condition in the slides' design or assembly. The slide, which sits on the side of a swimming pool so users can slide into the water, can suddenly deflate or topple while in use. Both Wal-Mart and Toys R Us are reportedly cooperating with the CPSC in announcing and facilitating the recall. The Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection is also assisting with the recall.

The recalled product is a "Banzai in-ground pool water slide" manufactured by Manley Toys, Ltd. in China. Wal-Mart and Toys R Us sold the slide for $250 from January 2005 through June 2009 in stores around the country. The pool inflates to a height of six feet, and is designed for use with in-ground pools. Once inflated, a hose connects to the top of the slide so water can run down the slide's surface. It has the words "Banzai Splash" on either side with a wave-shaped logo in blue, orange, and white. The CPSC urges consumers to cease use of the product immediately. Wal-Mart and Toys R Us stores are accepting returns and offering full refunds.

A Colorado woman, 29 year-old Robin Aleo, suffered a fatal injury using one of the slides while visiting relatives in Andover, Massachusetts. On July 29, 2006, she began to slide down head-first, when the slide suddenly deflated. She hit her head on the edge of the pool, which broke her neck and paralyzed her. The injury left her unable to breathe on her own, and she died in the hospital the next day.

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A former high school football linebacker has settled a lawsuit against the school district where he used to play for $4.4 million. Scott Eveland, now 22 years old, suffered traumatic brain injury during a 2007 game that left him confined to a wheelchair, able to communicate only through a specially-designed computer keyboard or iPad. He had previously settled a suit against the company that manufactured his helmet. His suit against the school district alleged negligence on the part of coaching staff for ignoring or failing to recognize his injuries prior to the game.

On September 14, 2007, Eveland reportedly asked the school's athletic trainer if he could sit out the first quarter of a game, complaining of a severe headache that had already caused him to miss some practice. A student trainer who claimed to be present testified at a deposition in 2010 that she heard the trainer relay the request to the coach, and heard the coach respond, using an expletive, that only he would decide who would or would not play in the game. In deposition testimony, both the coach and the trainer denied having this conversation.

Eveland started the game, but only played for thirty minutes before collapsing on the field. After he was rushed to the hospital, he required emergency surgery to remove part of his skull. He spent several weeks recovering in the hospital, but unfortunately the bleeding in his brain had caused excessive damage. He can only communicate by typing on a specialized keyboard, and he requires help supporting his elbow to do that.

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The death of a young baseball player in Illinois has demonstrated the need for comprehensive data on youth sports injuries. Extensive data are available for high school and collegiate sports, but not for participants in sports who are younger than high school age even though they face many of the same risks of injuries. In addition to injuries from accidents and ordinary game play, children face the risk of injury from faulty or defective athletic equipment, particularly protective gear.

A 12 year-old baseball player from Oswego, Illinois died on April 12, 2012 due to an injury sustained during a game. Eric Lederman was warming up on the side of the field, playing catch with a teammate. The ball reportedly struck him in the neck, hitting his carotid artery. He collapsed immediately, and was taken to the hospital. Doctors pronounced him dead shortly after 8:00 p.m. that night. They ruled the death an accident, the result of head trauma causing a cerebral hemorrhage.

Lederman had played baseball for five years, including three years with the league's traveling team. He played center field, third base, and catcher. He was reportedly warming up for the catcher position at the time of the accident. A league spokesperson did not know if he was wearing protective gear, or if it would have made any difference if he were. The league has reviewed its safety regulations in response to Lederman's death, and they have conducted a safety inspection of all their equipment.

Continue reading "Few Resources Available to Track Sports Injuries Among Young Athletes " »

The victim of a brutal 2009 attack by a chimpanzee is seeking to hold the state of Connecticut liable for her injuries for failing to enforce animal control regulations and protect the public. Charla Nash, who suffered severe and disfiguring injuries in the attack, alleges that the state had warnings that the chimpanzee could be dangerous. Police shot and killed the chimpanzee while the attack was occurring. Nash also sued the chimpanzee's owner, who passed away in 2010.

Nash was visiting her friend Sandra Herold at Herold's Stamford, Connecticut home on February 16, 2009. Travis, a thirteen year-old, 200-pound chimpanzee, was roaming the grounds at the time of Nash's visit. Travis had starred in television commercials and was highly socialized, reportedly even dressing and bathing himself and using a computer to look at pictures. For reasons that remain uncertain, Travis attacked Nash. While Herold reportedly stabbed at Travis with a butcher knife and hit him with a shovel, Travis blinded Nash and tore off her hands, lips, eyelids, and nose. The attack also caused Nash traumatic brain injury. Police shot and killed the chimpanzee.

Nash required months of hospitalization to recover from wounds described as "life-changing, if not life-threatening." An attempt to transplant new hands by doctors in Boston was not successful, but they successfully performed a face transplant in August 2011. Nash continues to recover from that procedure to this day.

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