More Bad Truckers on the Border

Police in Weslaco, Texas are on the hunt for a trucker suspected of causing an accident that killed four people on the Pharr International Bridge five months ago. Allegedly, the 18-wheeler was entering the United States, when the driver made a U-turn that sparked the series of events leading to the fatalities.

Officials on the U.S. side of the border are looking for the 18-wheeler.

Mexican authorities don’t believe it exists.

Texas Combats Truckers Working for Cartels

Texas’ Governor Rick Perry announced a new plan to stop smuggling operations bringing drugs and illegal immigrants across the border from Mexico.

The Austin Bureau of the El Paso Times reports:

Standing with U.S. Border Patrol sector chiefs from Texas, Perry said that cartels have started coercing commercial truck drivers into hauling narcotics and humans. Starting now, he said, Texas will aggressively pursue drivers who fall prey to that temptation and permanently revoke their commercial drivers' licenses.

According to Perry, Border Control has already caught over 400 truckers hauling nearly 2,000 illegal immigrants and more than 112,000 pounds of drugs.

One wonders: how many of these truckers are abusing the illicit substances they’re hauling?

Sprains, Strains and Other Confusing Diagnoses

Sitting in the doctor’s office following an injury, you try to listen to every word he or she says while laying out the facts about the cause of your pain. Some terms are familiar; some sound like a foreign language. You leave thinking, what does all that really mean?

Cut through the confusion with some easy definitions for common injuries:

• Sprain. A sprain is a stretching or tearing of ligaments. Ligaments are tough bands of fibrous tissue that connect one bone to another. Common locations for sprains are your ankles and knees.
  
• Strain. A strain is a stretching or tearing of muscle or tendon. People commonly call strains "pulled" muscles. Hamstring and back injuries are among the most common strains.
  Source: Mayo Clinic
  
• Fracture. A break or crack in a bone.

Healing time for sprains, strains and fractures vary from person to person. It is a general rule that strains take less time for recovery, because injuries to areas which have a good blood supply, like muscles, heal faster. Since ligaments have very little blood supply, they take longer. Fractures to bones with a greater blood supply are also known to heal more quickly than injuries to bones with a lesser supply.

• Contusion. A bruise, or contusion, is caused when blood vessels are damaged or broken as the result of a blow to the skin (be it bumping against something or hitting yourself with a hammer). The raised area of a bump or bruise results from blood leaking from these injured blood vessels into the tissues as well as from the body's response to the injury. (from Medicinenet.com)

Spinal injuries have a set of terms all to themselves. Many are interchangeable and some are used differently from doctor to doctor. Rather than focus on terms, it’s important to understand the source of the pain to determine the best course of action.

Dr. Peter Ullrich, Jr. provides a list of terms used to describe spinal disc abnormalities in an article on spine-health.com, these include:

• Pinched nerve
• Sciatica
• Herniated disc (or herniated disk)
• Bulging disc
• Ruptured disc
• Torn disc (or disc tear)
• Slipped disc
• Collapsed disc
• Disc protrusion or degeneration
• Degenerative disc disease
• Disc disease
• Black disc
  

According to Ullrich, the diagnosis determines the pain generator. The key factor in the clinical diagnosis is to determine if the patient has a pinched nerve or if the disc space itself is generating the pain. These two common conditions produce a different type of pain.

• Pinched nerve. When a patient has a symptomatic herniated disc, it is not the disc space itself that hurts, but rather the disc herniation is pinching a nerve in the spine. This produces pain that is called radicular pain (e.g., nerve root pain, or sciatica from a lumbar herniated disc, or arm pain from a cervical herniated disc).
  On Spine-health.com, this type of condition is referred to as a herniated disc.
• Disc pain. When a patient has a symptomatic degenerated disc (one that causes low back pain or other symptoms), it is the disc space itself that is painful and is the source of pain. This type of pain is typically called axial pain.
  On Spine-health.com, this type of condition is referred to as a degenerative disc disease.

As with all injuries, the diagnosis determines the treatment. By providing your doctor with accurate descriptions of your physical limitations, pain and degree of suffering, he or she will be able to combine that with medical testing to pinpoint the source of your problems. Treatment for each injury varies. Pain caused by a bulging disc will not be resolved by treating a muscle sprain, and surgery may not be appropriate in many cases.

Before considering any treatment, make sure to discuss it thoroughly with your medical care provider.

Vioxx Appeal Verdicts Are a Slap in the Face to Consumers

From the AP:

“Appeals courts in New Jersey and Texas on Thursday scrapped verdicts against the drugmaker Merck & Co. Inc. stemming from some of the earliest trials involving its once popular painkiller Vioxx.

A Texas court reversed a $26 million verdict against the drug company stemming from the first trial. The court found no evidence that Robert Ernst suffered a fatal heart problem from a blood clot triggered by Vioxx. He had been taking the now-withdrawn drug for eight months before being stricken in May 2001.”

Despite the fact that Merck pulled Vioxx off the shelves voluntarily after its own studies found that the drug doubled the risk of heart attack or stroke, the company refuses to accept responsibility for the lives it has claimed. After the Texas appeal verdict, it’s painfully clear that our conservative courts are more than happy to protect deep pocketed pharmaceutical companies at the risk of consumers’ lives.

A more in-depth discussion of the appeals can be found on Texaslawyers.com. Mark Lanier, attorney for the plaintiff, found that the appeals court judges opinion is "judicial activism for corporate America." This type of judgement from Texas’ higher courts isn’t unusual.

Houston plaintiffs lawyer Tommy Fibich, a partner in Fibich Hampton & Leebron who has settled all of his 250 or so Vioxx suits, says the 14th Court opinion in Ernst is a reflection of Texas' conservative courts.

"They look askance at every plaintiff's verdict. . . . Mark Lanier knows the rules on causation, and he and I thought he had met those under the Texas rules," Fibich says. "Our courts are conservative. It's like they try to find a reason to reverse a case these days."

Fibich says it's a sad day when appeals courts "substitute themselves for the judge who tried the case and the jury who heard the evidence determination."

The Houston Chronicle echoes these sentiments in an editorial on May 31, 2008, claiming that the "Houston appellate court usurps role of trial judge and jury."

What’s it going to take to make sure consumers are safe?

Big Rigs, Drug Problems

Last week the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), “the investigative arm of Congress,” released a report, titled "Motor Carrier Safety: Improvements to Drug Testing Programs Could Better Identify Illegal Drug Users and Keep Them off the Road.” It brings to light a problem in the trucking industry that we in the legal field have suspected for a while. Truckers are finding ways around the drug testing process and positive testing suspension regulations so that they can keep driving.

The offenses of Jerry Reed’s “Snowman” in Smokey and the Bandit are nothing compared to the way these guys drive.

The GAO’s report focuses on two areas:
1) the factors that contribute to the challenges of drug testing drivers, and
2) possibilities for addressing these challenges.
(for highlights of the report, click here)

Unscrupulous drivers and carriers know that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is overburdened. According to the GAO study, FMCSA reviews “touch about two percent of the industry.” The known limited resources promote a lack of adherence to federal regulations among some companies, particularly ones with six or fewer drivers. Led by profits, drivers want to stay on the road longer (despite 11 hour rules) and to do so, many take drugs. Without constant supervision by the FMCSA, these drivers skirt the law and endanger ordinary citizens.

An investigation by Lisa Myers for MSNBC highlights some of the main flaws of the current system, including job hopping. The scariest part of the MSNBC report includes monitored CB radio conversations at truck stops where truckers are buying and selling crack and cocaine.

The Dallas Morning News has been following the trucking industry since 2006, after its seven-month investigation written about in the series Road Hazards. According to a recent article in the DMN, the GAO report confirms its findings. The DMN adds:

"In 2006, 4,995 people were killed nationwide and 106,000 injured in crashes involving large trucks, the report noted. Statewide, about 500 people are killed each year in crashes involving large trucks.

Although mechanical problems, speeding and driver fatigue are the most frequent factors in fatal accidents involving big rigs, studies have also found that drugs or alcohol substantially increase the risk of accidents. The trucking industry blames passenger cars for causing the majority of accidents."

While Texas is one of seven states that has a database of drivers who have failed drug tests, it is also known for low reporting from carriers. Only drivers who have Texas CDLs are reported. The DMN article states that just over 13,000 entries are in the database.

Two states, North Carolina and Washington, are ahead of the game: following a positive drug test, a driver’s CDL is disqualified. Texas – and the FMCSA – could learn from their methods. The GAO recommends similar actions on a national level and that such a suspension only be lifted after a driver has completed the return-to-duty process. These suspensions would be regulated by medical review officers, rather than carriers, to ensure full compliance. Along with a national database of drug testing offenders, this would address job-hopper and state-hopper problems as well as owner-operator concerns.

Congressional action is necessary to see these changes enacted. They are long overdue. I hope that these recommendations of the GAO are not taken lightly, so that in the future each of us will be safer on the road.

Glasses of Milk Mourn the Loss of Oreos

From the Chicago Tribune:

Several lanes of Interstate Highway 80 were shut down for hours overnight after
a truck hauling Oreos crashed into a median, spilling tons of the chocolate
cookies across the highway, police said.

The crash occurred at about 3:40 a.m. Monday on I-80 just east of Morris, said Master Sgt. Brian Mahoney of the Illinois State Police.

The truck was westbound, hauling about 20,000 pounds of Oreos, when the driver lost control and the rig hit a median before veering into the eastbound lanes. The impact ripped the trailer open, spilling its cargo across the eastbound lanes of the highway, he said.

The driver was not hurt, but police had to shut down the eastbound lanes for several hours while the cookies were cleaned up, Mahoney said. The wreckage had been moved to the side of the road and lanes had reopened by about 6 a.m.

Precious cargo as Double Stuf Oreos may be, thank goodness that they were the only casualties.

Faulty Facts Blazed Trail for Tort Reform

Advocates for your right to hold medical practitioners accountable for mistakes never had a chance. A KDFW news investigation learned that much of the argument for tort reform leading up to the passing of Proposition 12 in November 2003 was based on exaggerated facts and blatantly incorrect information.

After the law was passed, a group of Texas law professors began studying medical malpractice insurance trends for a period of 17 years and found that there had been no increase in claims. Fox also reports that Texans’ For Lawsuit Reform statistics used during the campaign claimed that lawsuits were raising doctors’ medical malpractice insurance rates, but in reality rates were increasing because insurance companies had been undercharging doctors.

“Did reform really work?” asks the investigation. “Most Texans probably couldn’t
say.”

Two things are certain: Texans lost their right to fair compensation after medical mistakes and insurance companies kept a whole lot more money in their pockets.

For more information about the study, click here or visit http://www.myfoxdfw.com .