Sacramento Injury Attorney Blog

Oakland news reports that Sacramento Kings guard Francisco Garcia has filed a federal product liability lawsuit against the maker of a defective exercise ball. Garcia was using the ball while weightlifting when the ball exploded, dropping him to the floor and causing him to break his arm. As a result of his injury, Garcia was unable to play a full season and lost significant income.

If you have been injured while using a defective product, an experienced Sacramento products liability lawyer can provide you critical advice regarding your next steps and your right to compensation.

Under California law, a manufacturer may be liable for injuries caused by the use of a defective product where the defect exists before the manufacturer released a product and the defect causes your injury.

Defects are generally classified into three different types:

Design Defects - where the risk of harm is foreseeable and could have been prevented with a different design.

Manufacturing Defects - where an error in the manufacturing process causes a few to be defective. A manufacturer may be liable for failing to provide clear warning of the dangers.

Marketing Defects - where distributors or sellers of a product mislead consumers into buying a defective product.

Here, the lawsuit alleges that distributors should have known that the product was dangerous based on previous incidents and that distributors and sellers were deceptive in their advertising of the defective product.

Continue reading "Sacramento Kings Basketball Player Sues Ball Company In Product Liabilty Lawsuit" »

Allstate Insurance Company has issued it annual list of safest cities for driving - this includes ranking cities based on factors such as fewest car accidents and injuries. Unfortunately, Northern California cities did not rank very high. According to the list, San Francisco ranks 185, Sacramento 140, Stockton 102 and Modesto 91. ABC News cites traffic and busy freeways as reasons big cities don't fare as well on safety rankings.

If you have been involved in a car accident in California, it is important to contact a Sacramento auto accident attorney immediately to protect your rights and to determine your next steps. Even though filing a lawsuit may be the furthest thing from your mind, understanding the steps to take and talking to an experienced Sacramento car accident lawyer can provide you valuable guidance and preserve your options should you decide to file a lawsuit in the future.

Taking the top spot as America's safety driving city is Fort Collins. Fort Collins earned the number one spot for the second year in a row. Based on statistics, an average driver in Fort Collins will have a car accident once every 14 years - nationally the average is once every 10 years.

Many factors may lead to causing a car accident in Sacramento and throughout the country. These include driver error - sometimes caused by negligent or reckless driving such as distracted driving or driving while under the influence. In fact statistics now place distracted driving as causing 80% of all accidents. Drunk driving also leads to significant number of accidents, with DUIs causing nearly 40% of all traffic deaths.

Other causes of auto accidents include defective auto parts - with a record number of recalls blamed this year on parts that were not properly tested or failed to perform as intended. In these situations, it may be possible to file a California product liability lawsuit and recover damages for injuries sustained as the result of a defective part. Another potential contributor to Sacramento car accidents is negligent roadway design. In certain circumstances the design of the road itself may cause an accident, with inadequate signage, improper warnings or lack of proper safety considerations.

Continue reading "Sacramento Car Accidents High On Allstate List " »

Generally, if you've been hurt on the job California worker's compensation determines your right to recover. However, in some cases a tort remedy (i.e. filing a civil lawsuit) may be available. Other times, both types of claims may be filed. Consulting with a Sacramento worker's compensation lawyer is the best way to determine your next steps and your best options to obtain compensation when you've been injured.

On the job injuries include a variety of situations, from obvious injuries requiring medical care - such as head and brain injuries, back injuries and slips and falls - to diseases acquired from working around toxic substances such as asbestos and conditions that develop as the result of repeated strain or continuous trauma.

Where workers' compensation provides recovery to victims of work place accidents, you may be able to recover medical costs, lost income, expenses related to vocational training, permanent disability compensation and death benefits. A recent California worker's compensation case reviewed just how damages from work place injuries should be measured. Specifically, it evaluated how cost of living adjustments (COLAs) should be determined. This is a significant decision because it determines whether payments are measured prospectively from January 1st of the first year after a worker is injured or retroactively to January 1st after the year in which a worked is injured.

Here, a worker was injured in 2004 and asserted that his weekly payment should be adjusted based on his injury date. The appeals court agreed. However, the California Supreme Court overturned this decision. The Court reasoned that COLAs are intended to be "calculated and applied prospectively commencing from January 1st following the date on which the injured worker first becomes entitled to receive, and actually begins receiving such benefit payments."

Workers' compensation laws are complex and can be very confusing. An experienced Sacramento workplace accident lawyer can evaluate your circumstance and determine whether alternative avenues to compensation exist. Because recovery of damages may be limited in a worker's compensation case, filing a tort claim may provide an opportunity for greater recovery.

Continue reading "California Worker's Compensation - California Supreme Court Reviews Cost Of Living Adjustments In Christine Baker as Administrator v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board and X.S. " »

Earlier this month, a Butte County Superior Court jury returned a $30.9 million verdict against a boat driver and a boat manufacturer in a Lake Oroville boat accident. The accident occurred while a group was on the 24-foot-long wakeboarding boat. During a wakeboarding run, many passengers were sitting in the front of the boat. When the driver turned the boat around to recover the wakeboarder, water came into the boat. Two female passengers were swept off the craft and struck by the propeller.

According to news reports, the jury determined that the boat's design defects played a substantial factor in the accident and that MasterCraft should have reasonably foreseen how the X-45 was going to be used. As a result, the jury determined that the boat manufacture was 80% at fault for the accident, and the driver was 20% at fault.

If you have been injured in a boating accident or other recreational vehicle accident, it is important to speak to a knowledgeable Sacramento boat accident attorney to investigate all the circumstances surrounding the case and determine your next steps.

Although here the jury determined the driver was partly to blame, the jury was swayed by arguments that the design errors such as ladder holes in the hull, the hull design and the failure to perform adequate testing on the design of the boat were more significant contributions to the accident.

Continue reading "Butte County Jury Finds Boat Manufacturer Responsible In Lake Oroville Boat Accident" »

Nestle has announced a Lean Cuisine spaghetti and meatball recall affecting more than 17,000 packages as the result of consumers finding pieces of red plastic in their food.

Nestle has suggested that the plastic came from a red emergency stop button, although the plant where the packages were produced reports no buttons were broken and the "emergency stop" buttons were not located near food transit locations.

If you believe you have purchased an affected product, you can contact the company directly through its website.

The recently enacted Food Safety Law aims at protecting consumer from harm as the result of contaminated food products and food borne illnesses both by lessening their frequency and imposing penalties. If you have become sick or suffered harm as the result of consuming or purchasing a contaminated product, contact an experienced California personal injury lawyer to begin investigating your case.

The new laws hope to make your food safer and include the following important provisions:

• Mandatory recalls - The FDA may now order a company to recall a product were a company fails to initiate one.
• Mandatory inspection - The Secretary of Health and Human Services is required to rank the food facilities with the highest risk for contamination and inspect the facilities at least once every three years.
• Greater access to food facilities records.
• More control over standards for imported food.
•Implementation of preventative measures, including the identification of critical points where food could become contaminated.

Continue reading "California Food Safety Concerns In Wake Of Lean Cuisine Contamination" »

This past week, more than 500,000 bassinets were recalled due to the risk of collapse. With at least 10 reported incidents, including two injuries, Burlington Basket Co. has issued a bassinet recall, and is providing free kits with instructions on how to fix the problem.

NPR reports that nearly 10,000 kids a year are injured in cribs, bassinets and playpens. About 1 in 5 of these injuries constitute a concussion or other head injury.

If your child has been injured due to a defective bassinet or any other malfunctioning product, contact an experienced Sacramento defective product lawyer to begin investigating the injury.

A product may be considered defective when its design makes it unreasonably dangerous for its intended use, when the product has been manufactured incorrectly or when the product contains inadequate warning labels.

Continue reading "500,000 Defective Bassinets Recalled" »

According to the Los Angeles Times, Infantino has recalled more than 1 million baby slings after three infants suffocated.

If the slings are determined to have a design defect, a manufacturing defect or a marketing defect, the manufacturer, distributor, or even retail seller could be held liable in a products liability case.

Earlier this March, the Consumer Product Safety Commission stated that it was investing 14 deaths over the last 20 years related to the use of baby slings. The CPSC has now advised consumers to stop using the slings with infants younger than four months and not to try to fix the carriers, but to replace them instead. Because young babies have little motor control of their head, they are at risk for suffocation.

Liability for a defective product is established in one of three ways:

•The product is designed defectively. A product has a defective design when the foreseeable risks of harm could have been reduced or eliminated by using a different design.
•The product has a manufacturing defect. An error in the manufacturing process causes a few or many of a particular product to be defective. A product is also considered defective if the manufacturer fails to provide adequate warnings regarding the dangers of improper use.
•Marketing defects. A distributor and seller of a product may be held strictly liable in a case where the marketing is misleading.

The slings were sold from January 2003 through March 2010 at Target, Walmart, Babies R Us, Amazon.com and many other children's stores throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Continue reading "Massive Baby Sling Recall Could Affect Thousands of California Families" »