Cup of Noodles Soup Dangerous

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

Skin burns are probably one of the most painful of injuries. Everything about it, from the actual injury to the healing to the recuperation, brings with it severe pain. Many burns heal, but they don’t really “heal.” The scar tissue lasts for a very long time.

The burn specialists at University of Southern California Hospital are quite familiar with them. It’s what they do on a daily basis. They know how to treat them, how to keep them clean, and, most importantly, they know how they are caused. And in a recent program on NPR, they made it perfectly clear what is causing at least two or three severe burn cases a week in their hospital. It isn’t gasoline, or cigarettes, or kids playing with matches. What causes two to three severe burn cases a week at this hospital is lunch. Specifically, it’s those little Styrofoam cups of instant soup where you pour in boiling water and then wait for a few minutes.

Cups of Noodles (and all of the other equivalents on the market) are absolutely dangerous. For one thing, they trap heat longer due to the Styrofoam, and the noodles are also very effective conductors of heat. In other words, you can expect an instant soup cup to remain hot for much longer than say, a cup of tea or coffee.

 

 

 

Another danger is the design. The safest container for a cup of boiling water and noodles would be one where the base is wider than the lid of the container. Failing that, you would at least want a container where the base and the lid are equal with one another, like a coffee cup. Instead, these containers are built with the top significantly wider than the base. They are quite literally “top-heavy,” and that is absolutely the worst way for a container of boiling water to be built, particularly if the directions advise you to pour boiling water all the way up to the rim.

The results of this flawed and dangerous design are very predictable. As the doctor mentioned in the NPR story, they get at least two three cases of serious burns a week that stem directly from these cups. That’s over 100 burn victims just in that hospital from one specific product. We are sure that there are similar numbers in other burn units all over America.

With soup burns happening with such frequency, we simply cannot imagine that Nissin (the company that manufactures Cup Noodles) is unaware of the problem.  That leads us to believe that Nissin is simply engaging in some arithmetic. The formula probably goes like this: How much would it cost to settle with every person burned by our product who sues us? How much would it cost to redesign our container, and then implement the new manufacturing process for that container? We have to imagine that it’s simply cheaper for them to write checks to burn victims.

We’ve seen this sort of thing before. It was definitely seen in the Stella Liebeck case, in which a woman suffered severe burns from a cup of McDonald’s coffee. It turned out that McDonald’s had been serving coffee that was significantly hotter than any other chain of restaurants, and had also been settling with victims of their too-hot coffee for years. The general public didn’t really learn about this aspect of the case. Instead, all they hear about was “the lady who spilled coffee on herself and won $1,000,000.” Ms. Liebeck was hampered by a gag order and couldn’t respond.  Her case was used as an example of our so-called “broken court system,” and was used to push through laws that effectively curtailed the Seventh Amendment rights of all of us.

It would be a complete shame if Nissin attempted the tactic of ridiculing the victims here as the McDonald’s corporation did to Ms. Liebeck. Since this story broke out, we think they (or any tort reform organization) would be unable to paint hundreds of burn victims as “money-hungry.”

Instead, Nissin should view this as an opportunity. They are in the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons, and they have a chance to commit to making new and safer containers. If they did that, we would certainly buy them. The soup is pretty good, after all. If Nissin took this chance to show the world that they value the safety of their customers more than the robustness of the profit margins, they would be setting the best possible example. Now is their chance. We hope they take it.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to anyone in the Washington, D.C. area who has been injured due to no fault of their own, and that includes people who have been injured due to faulty products. If you or a loved one in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. has been hurt in an accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for afree consultation today.

 
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Are Lawsuits A Concern For Small Businesses?

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

How important are lawsuits in the grand scheme of things?

It depends on who you ask and when you ask them.

If you ask someone who has been injured due to the negligence of someone else, they would probably tell you that their particular lawsuit was quite important. If you asked one huge corporation that was suing another huge corporation, they would probably both consider that lawsuit to be important. Based on our experience, most people consider lawsuits the same way that they consider Congress. That is to say that just as they hate Congress but like their particular Congressman, they generally are against lawsuits right up to the point where they need to file one.

However, there are quite a few well funded organizations that seem to be convinced that lawsuits are incredibly important. They are convinced that lawsuits are nothing short of a plague of locusts on the economy and on American society in general. The American Tort Reform Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and all manner of other advocacy groups have done their best to further the premise that every single person, business, corporation and public entity in the United States is being crushed under and avalanche of litigation. They further claim that the chief victims of these lawsuits are “small businesses.”

We have a lot of problems with these assertions. In the first place, someone who is on the receiving end of a lawsuit is, legally speaking, the exact opposite of a victim. In fact, in any tort case, it is the contention of the plaintiff that he or she has been victimized. To put it in perspective, consider Union Carbide. When their chemical plant leaked deadly poisonous gas in Bhopal, India and killed just fewer than 4,000 people, would it be fair to say that Union Carbide was a “victim of lawsuits” when the survivors went to the courts? Or, on a smaller scale, if a doctor makes an easily preventable mistake that damages a patient permanently, would you say that the doctor was the “victim” in the scenario if the patient files a lawsuit? If a delivery driver is allowed to go on his route after his supervisor catches him drinking, and that driver hurts someone, is the business supervisor a “victim?” What about the person who got hurt by the driver?

 

We’re pretty sure that the ATRA and the Chamber of Commerce have plenty of lawyers themselves, and we are willing to bet that they understand the definitions of “plaintiff” and “defendant.” The reassignment of the word “victim” is a clever juxtaposition of roles in a legal case, and if it gets hammered into the heads of the general public long enough, they will probably start to believe it.

We also have a problem with the idea that lawsuits are epidemic. They simply do not occur very often.  According to the Center for Justice and Democracy, only about ten percent of injury victims file a compensation claim, and only two percent of those that file a compensation claim go on to file a lawsuit. The National Center for State Courts states that tort lawsuits have declined 21 percent over a ten year period in 30 states, and they further mention that contract lawsuits (corporations suing corporations) have increased 25 percent in 13 states over that same period of time. Oddly enough, you never hear from tort reformers and the Chamber of Commerce complaining about the explosion in contract lawsuits. It appears those sorts of lawsuits are just fine and dandy.

What about the contention that lawsuits are the bane of the small businessman’s existence? The Chamber of Commerce claims to be the official spokesmen for businesses everywhere, both small and not so small. As far as the Chamber is concerned, every small business out there is terrified of lawsuits. But a recent poll suggests that they maybe they should ask the small businessmen themselves; mainly because it seems that fear of lawsuits is pretty far down on the list.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses surveyed a large group of small business owners in order to get an overall sense of their worries and concerns. The various problems faced by small businesses were ranked in order of concern, and to be sure, fear of lawsuits was on the list. However, it was listed at number 65 out of 75, with 36.7 percent of respondents claiming that it “was not a problem.” Above the “fear of lawsuits” was listed such concerns as “traffic,” “delinquent accounts,” “getting information on government assistance programs” and, “cost of health insurance,” which was solidly in first place.

Small businesses seem to be the watchword of the day over at the Chamber, along with “job-killing,” which is the term they hang in front of anything that they don’t like. As they push forward with more and more legislation on state and national levels, the rationale is that “caps” on damages and restrictions on who can go to court will “help small businesses”, but if the small businesses aren’t particularly worried about lawsuits, who benefits the most from these caps?

We suspect it would be the “non-small businesses.” Large corporations, chemical manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies, who interact with a much wider percentage of the populace, and therefore have more of a tendency to do more damage if they are negligent. If anything, these caps and restrictions could actually help prevent small businesses from receiving fair compensation if they are forced to go to court against a large corporation, to say nothing of the restrictions they already place on individual citizens.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in the Washington, D.C. area. We offer experienced and dedicated legal counsel to those who have been hurt due to no fault of their own. If you have suffered from a medical malpractice, been injured in a car accident, suffered an adverse effect from a pharmaceutical drug or medical device, or been hurt due to the negligence of someone else, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.
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Frivolous Lawsuits in Texas

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

From the Office of Texas Governor Rick Perry:

Gov. Rick Perry ceremonially signed House Bill 274, which brings important lawsuit reforms to Texas courts, including implementing a loser pays system for frivolous lawsuits in the state. The governor designated this issue as an emergency item for this legislative session. Gov. Perry was joined by Rep. Brandon Creighton and Sen. Joan Huffman for the signing ceremony.

"HB 274 provides defendants and judges with a variety of tools that will cut down on frivolous claims in Texas," Gov. Perry said. "This important legislation will help make Texas that much more attractive to employers seeking to expand or relocate from countries all over the world by allowing them to spend less time in court and more time creating jobs."

It is very possible to “create jobs” without gutting the legal protection of the average citizen, but apparently our friends in Texas don’t see it that way. “Loser pays” is not about “frivolous lawsuits.” It’s about lawsuits in general.

 

For instance, let’s say you are a public school teacher and get severely injured due to the actions of an enormous corporation. Would you like to run the risk of paying the law firm that this corporation hires to defend itself in the event that you end up losing your case? Aside from the fact that there is no such thing as a “slam dunk” lawsuit, corporations often drag cases out in order to make lowball settlement offers more appealing. Do you have any idea how much that would cost? Probably a lot more than it would cost to make you whole after your injury.

It is already difficult enough for people in Texas to access the courts in the first place. Tort reform laws for medical malpractice have essentially made it impossible for low income individuals to enter the courtroom. With strict damage limits on non-economic damages, malpractice lawyers (most of whom operate on a contingency fee basis) can’t afford to bring these cases to court. After court costs, hiring expert witnesses, and the general labor of bringing a case to trial, most attorneys would end up losing money on the case. And a cap on non-economic damages might not bother you if you happen to play first base for the Washington Nationals, but if you are like the vast majority of the rest of us, non-economic damages are a crucial part of an injury case. Plus, if you happen to get injured due to the actions of emergency room personnel, the only way they can be found guilty in Texas is if they admit that they meant to hurt you. And who in their right minds would do that?

So now that doctors (and their insurance companies) are squared away and protected in ways that don’t extend to their patients, Governor Perry has decided to make sure that the rest of the folks who need the least protection get the most of it. The code word is “small businesses,” which is actually just short hand for “large businesses.” Basically, it doesn’t matter how much damage they do. There are now a series of safety nets in Texas that allows businesses to do whatever they want, regardless of the consequences. I mean, what are you going to do if you get hurt? Sue them? Are you sure you want to do that? What if you lose? And if you win? You might be able to maybe keep your house with the winnings. But it will be back to business as usual for them.

It’s worth mentioning that in the press release, there is plenty of talk of judges and defendants, and how this new legislation will make everything easier for them. But there is not one mention of the rights of plaintiffs, injury victims or victims of medical malpractice. Mentioning injury victims wouldn’t be very popular with this bill.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to victims of medical malpractice in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. If you or a loved one has been a victim of a surgical error, wrong diagnosis, prescription error or any other form of medical malpractice, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation. 
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Yaz Lawsuits Filed in Indianapolis

Posted on February 16, 2010 by Greenberg & Bederman

Women in Indianapolis Latest to File Yaz Lawsuits

According to the Star Press, over fifty women have filed yaz lawsuits against the Bayer Corporation due to injuries that these women received due to the use of Bayer’s line of birth control pills.

According to the British Medical Journal Study of the women who take Yaz, Yasmin, or Oscella, 6% will experience dangerous adverse reactions ranging from blood clots, to DVT, to Gallbladder injury. Other birth control products have adverse reactions in about 1 % of patients who take birth control pills.

Bear in mind, we certainly don’t think that it’s “normal” for birth control pills to be dangerous to women. But considering that Bayer had no problem with producing, releasing and aggressively marketing a pill with an ingredient that they knew to be more dangerous than other forms of oral contraceptives, we have to assume that they think a five percent casualty rate for their products is “normal.”

The ingredient in question is a synthetic variation of one of the two main ingredients found in almost every birth control pill on the market. Most pills contain a combination of progesterone and estrogen, which essentially fools the female body into thinking that it is already pregnant. In order to separate themselves from the pack, Bayer decided to use a synthetically produced variation of progesterone called drospirenone. With this ingredient firmly in place, Bayer began to trumpet the additional peripheral benefits of what their line of pills could supposedly do. Aside from helping to prevent pregnancy, Bayer claimed that Yaz and Yasmin both helped to prevent serious forms of acne and Pre Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD.) They combined these claims with an expensive and flashy advertising campaign that was aimed at younger women. After all, what young woman wouldn’t want to avoid acne? What young woman wouldn’t wantto avoid the emotional instability that often comes with menstruation?

 

As predicted, Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella became Bayer’s top selling products. And this is exactly why the casualty rate is so high. It turns out that drospirenone does other things besides acne and PMDD prevention. It also dramatically raises the potassium levels in the bloodstreams of the women who use it. This condition (called hyperkalimia) does not lead to positive health benefits. High potassium levels in the bloodstream can and do lead to blood clots in the arteries or veins in the legs, which is called deep vein thrombosis. These clots then break apart and the pieces start to travel through the bloodstream, where they then block the regular flow of blood. This leads to pulmonary embolisms, strokes and heart attacks. This is not to mention gall bladder disease, which has also been linked to Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella.

As of right now, Bayer’s public defense has been presented in two ways. The first is to say that since they have a warning label on the box, and since they mentioned the possible side effects on both the warning labels and the commercials, then it couldn’t possibly be their fault if nobody read it. The second public defense is to release statements that say things like, “When taken properly, Yaz or Yasmin are effective and safe birth control pills,” which implies that it is somehow the fault of the person who was taking the drug rather than the drug manufacturers themselves.

We find a great deal wrong with both of these methods of defense. In the first place, considering that the only way you can get birth control pills in this country is through a prescription from a doctor, most patients are already assuming that the pills are safe. If your doctor prescribes you a medication, wouldn’t you assume without thinking about it that it won’t be harmful to your health? With that being the case, we have to make the assumption that Bayer did not tell the medical community everything that it needed to know.

Secondly, how can you possibly blame the patient for any illnesses or adverse medical conditions that develop? Birth control pills are relatively easy to deal with. It’s one pill a day. We find it hard to believe that any of the women who have been taking these pills have somehow stumbled across a magic formula to make an otherwise benign working birth control pill deadly.

If Bayer had come right out and said “This pill contains an ingredient that increases the likelihood of deep vein thrombosis, strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms and gall bladder disease,” then it could be said that their bases were covered. But they did not. They did not say such things on the labeling, they did not say such things in their multi-million dollar advertising campaign, and they certainly aren’t admitting it now that the casualty numbers are starting to come in.

The women filing the yaz lawsuit in Indianapolis are only a fraction of the number of women all over the world who have suffered real and provable damage from the use of these birth control pills. Women who, in good faith, took birth control pills that were dangerous to their health, and these women were hospitalized with painful or even fatal injuries.

Here in the Washington, D.C. area, Greenberg and Bederman has been leading the way in both informing women of the dangers of Bayer’s line of birth control pills and providing legal assistance for women who have been harmed by using these pills. We are currently representing several women who have been injured and hospitalized due to Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella.

If you or a loved one has been similarly injured, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free yaz legal consultation today.

To learn more about our yaz lawyer, Andy Bederman, please read about Andy Bederman, or watch his yaz video onYoutube.
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