Walnut Creek Personal Injury Law Blog

Johnson & Johnson's DePuy medical device division reportedly sold a model of an artificial metal-on-metal hip overseas even though the Food and Drug Administration had rejected its sale in the United States. The hip replacement joint has since been recalled worldwide.

Knowledgeable lawyers in California and elsewhere know those sales weren't illegal, but they also know that the decision to go ahead with them despite the F.D.A.'s rejection potentially exposes the company to deeper legal and financial troubles from individuals with legitimate personal injury claims.

The deadly 2010 gas pipeline explosion in the San Bruno neighborhood is sparking an intriguing intergovernmental agency battle. It comes in the form of a lawsuit filed by the city of San Francisco in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. It alleges that an outright failure by federal pipeline safety regulators to do their job is putting San Franciscans at risk of more catastrophic death and injury accidents in the future.

The suit, filed Tuesday, claims that the little-known U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration "abjectly failed" to enforce laws ahead of and after the 2010 San Bruno natural gas line disaster. Eight people died and 38 homes were leveled. The suit asks the court to force the tiny PHMSA to fulfill its function. It accuses the agency of tending to leave the heavy lifting on pipeline safety regulation to state agencies like the California Public Utilities Commission.

A fatal motor vehicle accident, if it claims even just one life, is a catastrophe. When there are multiple deaths, the horror is magnified. But even with all that, there are aspects of such horrible incidents that can easily be overlooked by the average person in California; that is the residual impact of the losses wrought by the wrongful death situations on the loved ones left behind.

One recent accident particularly highlights this point. Eleven people, 10 of them migrant workers, were killed when the van they were being hauled in collided with a flatbed truck. It didn't happen in California, but our state is no stranger to such things. In fact, a crash similar to it more than 10 years ago in California sparked changes in the standards for how migrant workers are carried from place to place.

Californians, like most Americans, love their hot beverages. And if some company comes up with a new way to generate that 'just-so' brew suited to the particular tastes of the individual? Well, chances are the allure of the gadget will mean big sales and profits for the manufacturer. That's terrific, unless some defect in the product results in personal injury. Then, it's recall time. It's that time for Tassimo.

More than a million of the company's Single-Cup Brewing systems are facing recall following a string of reports of people suffering burn injuries when the plastic containers that hold coffee or tea unexpectedly burst during the brewing process, spitting out hot liquid and coffee or tea grounds.

Investigators are working to determine just what happened in the moments before a small plane went down in Fresno County over the weekend. Witnesses reportedly heard an explosion of some sort and saw the plane wobble in the air before it crashed. The pilot of the plane died. Authorities say no one else appears to have been on the aircraft.

At the time this blog was written, it was still not clear who the pilot was or what the specific conditions were that led to the crash. If a person has suffered catastrophic injury or lost a loved one to wrongful death, it's these kinds of questions that can require the diligence of an experienced attorney to ensure that full compensation is obtained. Particular issues that could color the case might be the history of the plane involved, its maintenance history and the record of the company that handled that maintenance.

A 39-year-old San Francisco woman probably feels like she is recovering from a nasty hangover this morning. After being struck by a U.S. Postal Service truck Tuesday afternoon, she's lucky that's all she is dealing with. When a person is hit by a truck, or any motor vehicle for that matter, the result often is catastrophic brain injury, spinal cord damage or even death. That this bicyclist escaped with what appears to be minimal injury is all the more amazing because authorities note she wasn't wearing a helmet.

According to police, the woman was biking east on Clement Street late in the afternoon Wednesday. At the same time, the Postal Service truck was headed north on 18th Avenue. Officials say the truck apparently failed to come to a complete stop and the bike and truck collided in the intersection.

Is there be anything more horrifying than a collision involving a passenger car and a moving train? It's the epitome of a David and Goliath confrontation. The train is bound to comes out on top just by the sheer physics of things. The result can be catastrophic injuries and death.

Sacramento Police and Regional Transit authorities in the city have their hands full trying to sort out the details of just such a weekend accident. Three people were killed and at least seven others were injured when a light rail train struck an SUV that was on the tracks. The force of the crash pushed the SUV about 30 yards down the tracks.

Ever heard the saying, once burned, twice shy? That may be the operative phrase in effect at the Food and Drug Administration concerning one of the latest proposed drugs for fighting Type 2 diabetes. California attorneys familiar with the catastrophic injuries and wrongful deaths associated with the drug Avandia are taking note this latest development.

The FDA decided in recent days to hold off on allowing the sale of the drug dapagliflozin to treat the most common form of diabetes. The drug's makers, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and AstraZeneca Plc, say regulators want more information about results from clinical studies to make sure that is really safe.

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department has a bit of a public relations problem on its hands after the unexplained death of an inmate earlier this month. It's stacking up to be a proverbial case of he said, he said. Answers to the mystery of how the man died seem to be slow in coming from official sources.

Mark Anthony Scott, 48, died Jan. 6 while in custody at the main jail in the county. He had been incarcerated since Dec. 1 on outstanding warrants. The official story from the Sheriff's Department is that he was discovered in his cell at 10 o'clock that night. But exactly what happened remains a mystery raising questions of possible wrongful death. An investigation is under way.