Maryland Injury and Disability Law : Washington DC Metro Injury & Disability Lawyer & Attorney : Greenberg & Bederman : Accidents, Falls, Medical Malpractice : Maryland, DC, Virginia

A lot of people seem to have somewhat of a blind spot when it comes to personal behavior. You would be surprised at the number of folks who will read about a drunk driving accident, mutter “these people ought to know better” under their breath, and then go out and drive after having a few drinks.

There is a real sense of “it won’t happen to me” among people who drive after they drink. It’s a sense of invincibility that they keep right up until the point where they get arrested, or worse. We know this because we often find ourselves representing the victims of drunk drivers, who always seem to have thought that only other people are dangerous when they get behind the wheel.

A lot of this might have to do with the fact that alcohol lowers inhibitions, which makes those who drink a lot more confident in their abilities than they normally would be. Or it might have something to do with the myths that surround alcohol use. There are still people who believe that there is a way to instantly make a person “not drunk,” or that one form of alcohol is somehow less potent than another.

You have three choices on New Year’s Eve: Don’t drink at all, take a cab, or ride with someone who doesn’t drink. Getting behind the wheel after taking even one drink can lower your reflexes and dull your reaction time. In fact, impairment begins after just one serving of alcohol. According to the Department of Health and Human Services:

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As we have been reporting extensively over the past few months, Bayer’s line of birth control pills has been a source of major controversy over the past year or so. The pills (which are marketed under the names Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella) first came to the attention of the general public when the Food and Drug Administration ordered Bayer to remake an advertising campaign in October of 2008. The FDA’s problem with the campaign was that it overstated the supposed side benefits of Yaz (treatment for acne and depression,) while understating the increased dangers that the special ingredient posed towards the women who used the pill.

While the FDA was having problems with the advertising, the women who were actually using the products themselves were having serious problems of their own. The new ingredient that Bayer decided to use for these birth control pills is called drospirenone, which is a synthetic variation of progestin. Along with the supposed benefits of decreased acne and an easier time with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, this ingredient has also been shown to increase the odds of deep vein thrombosis (blood clots in the legs.) These blood clots have a tendency to break apart, and the pieces of the clots have a tendency to travel through the bloodstream. This can cause pulmonary embolisms, strokes and heart attacks among women who are otherwise healthy.

To be fair, there is a risk of deep vein thrombosis associated with most forms of oral contraceptives, but the problem with Bayer’s line of pills is that the drospirenone increases those odds pretty substantially. According to the British Medical Journal, there is a 6.3 fold increase of deep vein thrombosis among women who use birth control pills containing drospirenone. Bayer’s birth control pills are the only brands available that use drospirenone, so the BMJ’s study might as well just say “Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella.”

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One of the reasons that scare people away from litigation is the amount of time that it takes for cases to come to a conclusion. Many corporations and insurance companies make it a point to delay the litigation process as much as they can, solely in the hopes of wearing out the plaintiffs. In the midst of the judicial process, there are all sorts of opportunities for both sides to file motions about one aspect of the yaz lawsuit or another, and corporate defendants often take many of them. They are in a good position to do so. Most plaintiffs in injury cases are facing real financial hardship, like medical bills or an inability to go back to work due to injuries. Insurance companies or major corporations aren’t facing any such difficulties, and can usually afford the legal costs of delaying a trial.

A product liability trial like the yaz lawsuit, can often take a long time; especially if there have been multiple victims from the same product. Fortunately for victims of Bayer’s line of birth control pills, the yaz lawsuit process has been streamlined by the judicial system, so women who have suffered from strokes, heart attacks, gall bladder disease or pulmonary embolism should not have to suffer from long and unnecessary delays.

Bayer’s birth control pills, which are marketed under the names of Yaz, Yasmin or Oscella, contain an ingredient called drospirenone, which is a synthetic variation of progestin. Bayer claims that this ingredient brings with it additional benefits, such as an easier time with premenstrual dysphoric disorder as well as a cure for acne. While that might or might not be correct, the trade off is that the levels of potassium in the blood go up, which can and does cause blood clotting. These clots can break apart and travel, which can cause blockages in the heart (cardiac arrests,) blockages in the brain (strokes,) and blockages in the lungs (pulmonary embolisms.)

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Roger Greenberg was voted into 2010 Maryland and DC Superlawyers Magazine. 

Super Lawyers, an independent magazine adhering to a selection process that is objective and independent of any advertising or payments to nominate its candidate, has named Roger E. Greenberg a Super Lawyer in its Maryland and Washington DC 2010 editions. Lawyers were asked to nominate the best lawyers they've personally observed, were not allowed to nominate an internal lawyer without nominating an external lawyer, and lawyers were not allowed to vote for themselves. This evaluation led to a final selection of our personal injury lawyer , Roger Greenberg. Congratulations on a job well done!

Roger Greenberg is a partner of Greenberg & Bederman, a personal injury lawfirm located in downtown Silver Spring, MD, one half block from the Silver Spring Metro station, one mile from the Washington, DC line.  Greenberg & Bederman handles auto accidents, medical malpractice, social security disability denials, and yaz injury law.

To learn more about Greenberg & Bederman, please visit the Greenberg & Bederman website.  To learn more about Roger Greenberg, please read Roger Greenberg's bio, or watch Roger Greenberg's video on Youtube.

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There is a foot and a half of snow on the ground here in D.C. After the initial appreciation of how the snow looks begins to wear off, you start to realize that the winter wonderland is actually a foot and a half of inconvenience. Even the most simple of acts takes intensive preparation. Going out to get the newspaper involves putting on multiple layers of clothing. Driving anywhere involves digging a trench through the snow that is big enough for your car, and that’s only if the roads have been properly plowed and are safe enough to drive on.

 When there is a foot and a half of snow on the ground, it is very tempting to simply stay inside. Most people  hunker down and wait until things get down to manageable levels before they go anywhere. And while that is understandable, homeowners in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. do have some responsibilities regarding the sidewalks in front of their houses. As dull and labor intensive as shoveling snow can be, clearing a safe path in front of your house when it snows is not just courteous. It’s also the law.

Benny Kass wrote a great article in the Washington Post which details the laws regarding icy sidewalk liability in Maryland, Virginia and D.C, and we think everyone should take a look. Slipping and falling might seem to be YouTube worthy slapstick fodder to many of us, but in reality slipping and falling is one of the leading causes of deaths and injuries among older adults.

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Have you ever been questioned on the witness stand or in a deposition? It isn’t fun.

The main job of the opposing counsel is to make the jury doubt the validity of your testimony. This means they will do everything short of calling you a liar. They will pick apart your story, obsess over irrelevant details of your testimony and call your motives into question.

If that doesn’t work, the opposing counsel often has no problems with getting personal. They will often ask you questions about your life that has absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand. The reason they do this is because they want to make you appear untrustworthy to the judge or jury.

Fortunately, for thousands of women across the country, the judge presiding over the Yaz birth control pill case will be placing limits on these sorts of questions.

For those of you who don’t know, there have been hundreds of lawsuits filed against Bayer over their line of birth control pills. These pills, which are marketed under the names of Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella, contain drospirenone, which is a synthetic variation of the hormone progestin. This variation has been shown to increase the level of potassium in the bloodstream of the women who use these birth control pills. This can cause deep vein thrombosis, which is the formation of blood clots in the veins and arteries of the legs. Quite often, theses clots break apart, and the remnants travel through the bloodstream, causing blockages in the lungs, heart or brain.

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Are you tired of the runarounds, denials, and rate hikes of health insurance carriers such as Cigna, Aetna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and United Health Group? Have you tried to take your business somewhere else? Have you ever tried to find a small, mom and pop style health insurance company in Maryland, D.C. or Virginia?

Good luck with that. There aren’t any.

Every health insurance option that you have in the D.C. metropolitan area is either a direct subsidiary of an enormous health insurance conglomerate or is an enormous health insurance conglomerate. “Taking your business elsewhere” simply means going to another company that will charge you exorbitant amounts of money for the same shabby treatment. 

The reason this is the case is because there is nothing keeping health care giants from buying out or muscling out any other health insurance company that tries to set up shop. Ordinarily, this would be called a “monopoly,” which is supposed to be against the law. It’s the reason that there is a Ben and Jerry’s and Baskin Robbins. It’s the reason that there is Coke and Pepsi, as well as RC or the generic version that you can buy at any supermarket. It is illegal for any one entity to corner the market of any product or service. The only two entities that are exempt from setting up monopolies are Major League Baseball and health insurance.

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Pedestrian accidents are something to take very seriously. The average weight of a passenger car is 3239 pounds, and even a car traveling just ten miles an hour can do severe damage to an unprotected human being.  D.C. is no stranger to pedestrians getting hit by cars. Just two years ago we broke a ten year record for fatal pedestrian accidents in the District, with 27 people struck and killed by automobiles.

At around that same time, The Washington Post put out a list of the most dangerous intersections for pedestrians in Washington, DC. Considering how many of us actually walk in this city, and considering the D.C. area’s reputation for traffic, we view this as practical information. You should also consider that with cell phones, text messaging, iPods and even television sets in automobiles, more and more drivers are spending less time with their eyes on the roads.

We found some particularly bits of information in this article that were surprising, and some that were not. For instance, it isn’t much of a surprise that over half of these dangerous intersections were in Northwest D.C. This is where the White House, Smithsonian, Capital Building and most of the major monuments are, which means that this is where most of the tourists congregate. Adams Morgan and U Street are also in Northwest, and if you are a D.C. native you probably already know how crowded with pedestrians these neighborhoods get on weekend nights.

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The Food and Drug Administration’s  (FDA)primary responsibility is to see that any food products and pharmaceuticals are safe for consumption or use, or at the very least they make sure that the benefits outweigh the risks. For instance, if you were to come up with an effective pain reliever using ingredients in your kitchen, you couldn’t mass produce and sell it as a pain reliever unless you had your product go through the FDA approval process.

This process actually takes years. After initial testing, the pharmaceutical companies have to send their testing results to the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation Research (CDER.) These results are then reviewed extensively by a team of doctors, statisticians, pharmacologists and other scientists. Aside from going over the testing results, they also see if the labeling proposed by the pharmaceutical company is accurate. In other words, if the CDER perceives a risk in the drug that isn’t mentioned in the labeling, or feels that the supposed benefits of a drug are overstated, it is their duty to inform the pharmaceutical company of their findings.

It is important to mention that the CDER doesn’t actually test the drugs themselves. They only go over the data provided to them by the pharmaceutical companies. That’s not to say that they do a poor job in analyzing the data, but what is to prevent the pharmaceutical companies from turning in half truths or incomplete information? What if the pharmaceutical companies fail to mention a possible side-effect because they view it to be “statistically unlikely?”

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The holiday season is upon us, which means that we can expect all of the traditional trappings that go with it, both positive and negative. We can expect moments spent with friends and family; we can expect cold weather, and we can expect homes decked with bright lights and festive decorations. We can also expect crowded shopping malls, heavier than normal traffic and the majority of our population rushing around even more so than usual.

We can also attend the traditional round of holiday parties. Office parties, celebrations with friends and relatives, and parties at churches, social groups and charities are all a big part of the holiday season. The general sense of holiday festivities can encourage those who generally abstain from drinking alcohol to have a drink or two. And for those who make a habit out of drinking, the holiday season gives them every excuse to cut loose and drink even more.

This would simply be a matter of personal preference if it weren’t for the fact that we all have to share the roads with other drivers. And those of us who exercise personal responsibility and obey the law when we don’t drink and drive are not immune to the actions of those who don’t. This premise is true for all twelve months of the year, but it takes on a certain urgency during December. It is for this reason that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has declared December National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month. According to the CDC, over 1.4 million drivers were arrested over a period of one year for driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and these were only the people who were caught. The CDC further claims that in that same year there were 159 million self reported instances of drunk driving, so the arrests only count for around 1% of the actual number of people who recklessly take to the roads after drinking and driving.

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Recently in New York, a group of five veteran medical malpractice defense attorneys joined a Manhattan law firm. In the press release celebrating this acquisition of talent, we read the following:

"The rising cost of damage awards and settlements in medical malpractice cases continues to take a heavy toll… With these additions to our medical malpractice defense team, LeClairRyan is now in an even stronger position to help New York-area healthcare providers fight back."

They also mentioned a report from the Physicians Insurance Association of America, in which they claim that the amount of money given by jury awards is skyrocketing. All of this is new to us. Far be it from us to go against the numbers that the malpractice insurers themselves put together, but when we checked with the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, we found that most medical malpractice cases are closed without any payout to the plaintiffs at all. And those jury awards that are supposed to be so high were only awarded in cases where there was a serious medical injury or a near death experience  of the patient. It’s hard to imagine how compensation could be “excessive” when a patient almost dies or will be spending the rest of his or her life with an injury or serious medical condition.

Whenever politicians or business advocacy groups discuss tort defense and tort reform, we always seem to hear a lot about “excessive jury awards.” They always trot out the McDonald’s case, or bring up some cases that slipped through the cracks of common sense as if they were everyday occurrences rather than the legal oddities that they are.

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There are many frustrating things about the work that we are doing with women who have been injured by Bayer’s line of birth control. The idea that these women came to us after being hospitalized for taking what was supposed to be a safe drug is bad enough. But what makes it even worse is that Bayer is continuing to deny that Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella are dangerous despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We also find it aggravating that while the Food and Drug Administration has been taking some positive steps towards bringing Bayer’s rampant and irresponsible marketing under control, they are still moving unacceptably slowly when it comes to having the drug removed from the shelves. They are currently running “more studies,” but they don’t expect to have that done within a year.

There is also an element of frustration in the deafness of the media. Greenberg and Bederman and other law firms like us have practically been crying from the rooftops about the dangers of Yaz, Yasmin and Oscella. We have been running radio and TV ads, we have been all over YouTube, and we have been running this blog, and up until today, the dangers of these birth control pills have received barely any coverage in either local or national media.

Finally, the Washington Times has taken notice that there is something very wrong with these pills, and that there has been something wrong with them from the very beginning.

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The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally known as “Black Friday” among merchants. This title doesn’t actually specify anything dark or foreboding. Instead it means that, due to the lowered prices and heavy advertising, this is quite often the day that brings many businesses out of the “red” (or in debt,) and into the “black” (or profitability.) Hundreds of thousands of early Christmas shoppers show up sometimes as early as five in the morning in order to take advantage of low prices.

Unfortunately, the insatiable American need to save money can sometimes lead to tragic consequences. For instance, last year in Nassau, Long Island, a 34 year old Wal Mart worker was killed in a stampede when he opened the door to let the throng of shoppers in. In addition to this, three other shoppers suffered injuries, and another had to be hospitalized for observation due to the fact that she was pregnant.

It is very easy to look at a situation like this and declare it an unavoidable tragedy, but as lawyers who represent people who have been injured due to no fault of their own, we view what happened last year in Nassau as a tragedy that should have been avoidable. While it is difficult for us or anyone to describe the needless death of someone as “textbook,” the incident at the Nassau Wal-Mart was in legal terms, a premises liability. Who was responsible for keeping order in the crowd? Who was responsible for making sure that these throngs of thousands of people were in line instead of milling around the front door in a bunch? Who told Jdimytai Damour to open the door without sending someone out to get people in line? Why weren’t barricades placed in the parking lot in order to corral the crowd? Why weren’t personnel outside the store with walkie talkies or radios? Or bullhorns for that matter? Why wasn’t there some sort of lottery system involved in getting people inside, or in steering people toward the items that everybody really wanted? Any one of these precautions could have saved Mr. Damour’s life, yet none of them were followed. The operators of this store simply threw the doors open and hoped for the best.

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