William D. Kickham
William D. Kickham
Construction Accident
Car Accident
Nursing Home

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Binland Lee was 22 years old and set to graduate from Boston Univeristy later this month. Tragically, she is dead today, killed last Sunday, April 28 2013, in a three-alarm fire that tore through her apartment in Allston. Beyond Ms. Lee’s fatality, nine additional residents and another six firefighters suffered injuries in the blaze. According to the Boston Fire Department, the fire was started by careless smoking. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s office is investigating to determine if criminal charges are warranted in the tragedy.

Aside from the possibility of careless smoking, there is an equal if not greater concern here: The dilapidated state of a great many of apartment buildings in Boston – especially in Allston and Brighton, which are “home” to thousands of BU students every year, who live in off-campus housing. Aside from being a Boston, Massachusetts burn injuries lawyer, I know this very well, because I grew up on the side of Brookline just down the street from these areas. I’ve seen them a million times, and been in them many times in my younger years. To be kind, many of them are one step above a slum: Virtual dumps and firetraps that haven’t been upgraded in decades. In many cases, they’re also overcrowded, housing a greater number of occupants than they legally should be. Liability for injuries sustained in such dilapidated buildings falls under an area of law known as Massachusetts premises liability.

Initially, that may well have been the case in this tragedy. News reports have stated that nineteen persons lived in this building, located at 87 Linden St, Allston. A city of Boston ordinance prohibits more than four unrelated college students from sharing or occupying the same dwelling. As of the date of this post, city officials have stated that no less than six of the 19 residents were students from BU. According to a city Inspectional Services spokesperson, the last time that the building was inspected was in 1992 – 21 years ago – and the building owner was allegedly cited by the city for operating an illegal rooming house. According to Ms. Lee’s uncle, Da Ren Kwong, when her mother visited her in Boston, she expressed concerns about the building’s safety. According to Mr. Kwong, Ms. Lee’s mother saw exposed wires on at least one wall, but Ms. Lee assured her mother all would be well. While the property owner’s lawyer has claimed that the building has passed inspection many times in the ten years his client has owned it, the city Inspectional Services Department disputes that claim, insisting that their records show that the last time the building was inspected was in 1992.

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My wife and I were watching an episode of the hit show Shark Tank on TV a few weeks ago, when we were shocked to see an entrepreneur’s latest offering: pancakes ladled with caffeine, so you could have your sugar and caffeine in one easy fix, no coffee required.

As a Boston product liability lawyer, I just have to ask: When will marketers stop pushing crazy “energy” food products to the American public? The proof is already in: “Energy products”, and “energy drinks” specifically, are very dangerous, and have even led to Massachusetts wrongful death lawsuits. Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey said recently, “It’s time for energy drink makers to stop masking their ingredients, stop marketing to kids, and start being more transparent with their products.”

I wholeheartedly agree. Consider these facts:

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How many times has the following happened to you? You’re driving, and talking on your cell phone, (which you shouldn’t be, in the first place.) You drive over a bump and the phone slips out of your hand, into the Netherworld – the black space between the middle console and your driver’s seat. Most people, at this point, take their eyes off the road, and start fishing in the black hole below. In probably 60% of these instances, they cause a car accident because they’re not paying attention and their eyes are off the road.

The same thing could happen to your coins, pens, paper, keys and God know’s what else you might be holding in your hand when you drive. This kind of distracted driving of course, doesn’t even begin to take into account the numerous people who text-message while they are driving. It bewilders me – and should frighten everyone – at the number of people who take their eyes off the roadway, thinking that sending a message is more important than driving safely.

People had better start to think twice about this foolish practice. Because It just might be the very last message you ever send.

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Most burn injury victims suffer these injuries due to a fire of some kind. However, as our burn injuries page makes clear, many times burn injuries occur due to scalding, and these types of burns are usually severe.

This was the case yesterday (April 6 2013,) when three students at the University of New Hampshire were badly burned Saturday afternoon due to a hot water pipe that burst in a dormitory, according to a university spokeswoman. Injuries from pipes that burst coming from a hot water heater, can be especially devastating: The normal water temperature inside a water heater is commonly set at around 160 degrees, and when water this hot hits the skin, it will without doubt cause third-degree burns. According to news reports, that’s exactly what these three female students suffered, as they were in or leaving Hunter Hall, a three-story dorm that houses nearly 115 students. Their burn injuries were so bad that while the burn victims were first taken to local hospitals, they were later transferred to Boston hospitals, due to the severity of their burn injuries.

Following such an accident, most families ask: Is anyone liable for the injuries that the burn injury victim suffered? If so, why, and what type of compensation is possible? As a Boston, Massachusetts burn injury lawyer, I can tell you that the answers to those questions depend on the facts and the circumstances surrounding the event, centrally whether and how much evidence of negligence is present. In this case, possible defendants could include:

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Today’s school lesson is: When in doubt, sit it out.

This is exactly what the American Academy of Neurology would like to see happen, if and when high school athletes receive a head injury while playing sports for their school teams. Head injuries happen to athletes in high school and college all the time, and, with that motto, the American Academy of Neurology has concurred and offered guidelines to improve safety in school sports.

If players who are displaying head injury symptoms such as dizziness and headaches are allowed back in a game after a suffering head injury, it could lead to serious, possibly irreparable neurological damage. In that event, injured athletes would be wise to consult with a Boston head injury lawyer, to ascertain any negligence on the part of the schools, game officials or other parties involved in the incident. And in case you might be asking yourself whether players in a sports game relinquish all legal rights once they agree to play in the game, the answer is “No, they don’t.” If a player suffers preventable injuries due to someone else’s negligence, that party may be held legally responsible.

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Injuries and accidents occur every day, everywhere, and usually when and where you least expect them.

And now, there’s reason to be concerned about eating lunch – specifically if it’s a tuna fish sandwich. If you live in or near Boston, consuming tuna fish that is contaminated can lead to a Boston food poisoning injury, and that can lead to all kinds of terrible complications. If you’ve ever contracted food poisoning previously, you know that it is a horrible sickness. If that happens to you in the future, you should consult with a Boston food poisoning lawyer. Symptoms of food poisoning can range from vomiting, to fever and dizziness. The most common food poisoning in the USA results from botulism, campylobacter, E. coli O157:H7, salmonella, shigella, and listeria. And if you’ve ever taken a cruise, you know all too well that you have to be on the lookout for other causes of food poisoning such as Norwalk virus. In extreme cases of food poisoning – such as if you contact botulism or E. coli — food poisoning can be fatal.

Think it can’t happen to you? Think again. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that annually, about 1 in 6 Americans (roughly 48 million people) get sick from foodborne diseases, 128,000 become sick enough to need hospitalization, and 3,000 die.

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Sometimes the worst things happen, when you least expect it. Imagine that you’re out driving safely, minding all the road signs and traffic lights. You’re behind the wheel, observing all safety regulations, your seat belt is on, and you are neither texting while in the driver’s seat nor are you drunk. Everything seems just fine.

Suddenly, without any warning, your car’s sunroof shatters, raining glass onto you and your passengers, in the middle of a busy intersection. What happens next? As a Boston car accident lawyer, I have a good idea — and it does not have a happy ending. Chances are, you will lose control of the vehicle and become involved in a car crash. That means that you could possibly wind up with catastrophic personal injuries, a stay in the hospital, endless doctor appointments, and months and months of physical therapy – if you are lucky enough to live. You may well need the services of a Boston car crash attorney in the process.

Think it couldn’t happen? That this kind of accident is just too strange – too “Twilight Zone?” Think again.

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I have published posts previously on the subject of Massachusetts nursing homes prescribing anti-psychotic drugs to patients who are not psychotic, but rather suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia-related medical conditions. In Massachusetts in recent years, this practice was exposed in federal court for what it really was: A kickback scheme between anti-psychotic drug manufacturers (notably Johnson & Johnson,) and nursing home operators, who received increased financial payments if they “pushed” these drugs onto patients, many times in the absence of medical need.

Thankfully, public awareness of this problem is growing. Care One and HealthBridge Management corporations, which own nursing homes in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, have become the focus of a newspaper and internet advertising campaign by a nursing home patient advocacy organization called HealthbridgeWatch.org, and careonewatch.org. The nursing home patient advocacy campaigns are warning people that nursing homes run by these companies have been reported by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS,) as prescribing anti-psychotic medications to patients and residents “At rates that are higher than Massachusetts and National averages”; sometimes “Over triple the national average.” The twin advocacy organizations have reported that as many as 76% of long-term residents of these facilities, who are not psychotic, are administered these powerful and dangerous drugs, despite the FDA’s warning against this practice. HealthBridge Management owns or operates several nursing homes here in Massachusetts, but at least three that HealthBridgeWatch.org has reported as prescribing these drugs to a high degree include the Newton Health Care Center, the Lowell Health Care Center, and the Holyoke Rehabilitation Center.

In my experience as a Boston, Massachusetts nursing home neglect and abuse lawyer, anyone who either has a loved one in a nursing home owned or operated by these corporations, or by other owners, would be wise to seek immediate clarification of whether their family member or loved one has ever been given anti-psychotic drugs, or any similar drugs belonging to the class of anti-psychotic drugs.

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File this under “Your Taxpayer Dollars At Work.” … Or, as I’ve been thinking recently about doing with this blog, creating a new category of post called “Outrage Of The Day.”

According to a recent article in The Boston Globe, in 2009 Medicare paid approximately $5.1 Billion in taxpayer dollars to nursing homes across the United States — including Massachuetts. That’s a staggering number. If it went to truly help the elderly and infirmed patients at these nursing homes, that would be money well spent. But there’s more to this story, and it isn’t good.

Those taxpayer dollars apparently went to sub-par nursing homes that reportedly were not meeting the most basic requirements necessary to look after their residents, according to government investigators. As a Boston nursing home neglect and abuse lawyer, I believe that these nursing homes could very well be perpetrators of the nursing home neglect, negligence and abuse that we as a Boston, Massachusetts nursing home neglect law firm see all too frequently.

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Want to travel from Boston to New York? Well, you could easily take the train, and ride in comfort on AmTrak. But that would set you back a few hundred dollars.

Or, instead, you could take the $15 Fung Wah bus line, as scores of people have done. A mere $15 from Boston’s Chinatown to New York’s Chinatown? That’s an incredibly low price.

But many people are beginning to learn why that price might be so low. And why, if you did actually take the Fung Wah, you might pay another kind of price, possibly a very serious one. That’s because the Fung Wah bus line has been cited with an inordinately high number of safety violations – so many, that as of today, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) has ordered the Fung Wah, stunningly, to remove 21 buses from its fleet of 28. As reported in The Boston Globe today, the Massachusetts DPU actually found cracks in the frames of 21 aging buses operated by Fung Wah. As a result, the DPU has asked the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to shut down the Fung Wah until it fixes and addresses its problems, which were found in state inspections that were held in early February. Inspectors discovered cracks in steering axles, engine cradles and also in motor mounts. Inspection officials have commented that the low-cost bus carrier does not understand basic safety requirements. Officials have also indicated that Fung Wah seems to be unable to maintain its bus fleet properly.

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