Finch McCranie, LLP

Reuse of Syringes Can Cause Dangerous Infections

Medical Malpractice takes many forms. In this article, we write about a unusual but dangerous medical error that can cause lifetime consequences for an innocent patient.
Though most everyone knows that sharing needles is unsafe in today’s world, sharing or reusing syringes can be equally dangerous. During any health related injection, a tiny amount of blood is often inadvertently drawn back into a syringe. Most of the time, that does not make a difference because it is common practice to use a new syringe and
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Motorcycle Accidents on the Rise

Our personal injury practice reflects pretty much what we see in national statistics concerning the rising rate of motorcycle injuries and accidents. We are seeing more and more clients seriously injured in motorcycle accidents. In large part, this is primarily due to increased numbers of motorcycle riders. Motorcycle registrations have more than doubled since 1997. In 2006, almost 6.5 million motorcycles were registered in this country. The good news is that the number of deaths and injuries resulting from these 6.5 million motorcycles is no
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AEDs Save Young Athletes

Portable defibrillators are becoming common equipment at youth athletic event. We have written in the past explaining how theses devices, also known as AEDs, help restart the heart in the event of an accident.
A recent news report relates that last month in Jacksonville, Fla. A high school lacrosse goalie was hit in the chest by a lacrosse ball causing his heart to stop beating. And, it happened again just last week at another lacrosse game in Raleigh, N.C.
Researchers say that over the last
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Lasik Problems To Be Studied

Lasik vision correction surgery has been performed in the United States for almost ten years. It has become a massive business with specialized centers opening in most markets and advertising freedom from glasses. However, not everyone’s a good candidate and some suffer life-changing side effects — lost vision, dry eye, night-vision problems.
Today, the Food and Drug Administration is beginning a major new effort to see if warnings about the risks are strong enough. The FDA estimates that approximately 5 percent of patients are dissatisfied,
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Plastic Bottle Dangers

Wal-Mart announced this week that it will soon stop selling baby bottles made with the chemical bisphenol A (BPA). The retailer said that it was immediately stopping sales of baby bottles, sippy cups, pacifiers, food containers and water bottles made with BPA in its Canadian stores. There has been speculation that Canada’s health department would soon declare the chemical unsafe.
On Monday the U.S. National Toxicology Program released a draft report that expressed concern that BPA, which is used to make plastic, could cause behavioral
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Medical Record Privacy In Peril

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine, warns that the entry of big companies like Microsoft and Google into the field of personal health records could drastically alter the practice of clinical research and raise new challenges to the privacy of patient records.
The authors are proponents of the benefits of electronic patient records to improve care and help individuals make smarter health decisions. But their concern is that the medical profession and policymakers have not begun to understand the implications of companies
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TRIBUTE TO A CLIENT

Our firm concluded a wrongful death case this year on behalf of the family of a 40-year old man who was killed when a bicycle he was riding became entangled in loose utility wires which completely obstructed a city sidewalk adjacent to Peachtree Road in Atlanta. The injuries this young man received in the accident cost him his life. Subsequent thereto, our firm filed a lawsuit against the City of Atlanta for negligent maintenance of the City’s sidewalk and against two utility companies for
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Insured Loses Katrina Claim

The Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled that a flood exclusion in an “all-risk” policy barred a claim by the owner of an apartment building damaged by flood waters during Hurricane Katrina.
The owner lived in the five-unit building when four feet of water entered the basement during the hurricane. He had a commercial “all-risk” policy and submitted a claim for the damage. An insurer’s inspector claimed most of the damage was due to poor maintenance and flooding.
The insurer paid only $230 on the claim
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Heparin Concerns Grow

This Tuesday federal regulators from the FDA urged makers of many kinds of medical devices that contain heparin to test their supplies. These concerns arise from previously discovered supplies of Chinese made heparin contaminated with a look-alike ingredient that mimicked heparin in standard tests of drug potency and purity.
The FDA announced last month that it had identified the contaminant as a modified form of a common nutritional supplement. That substance is cheaper to produce than heparin, leading to suspicions that it may have been
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Escalator Injuries Increasing

A new study reports that from 1991 to 2005, nearly 40,000 people older than 65 were injured while riding escalators, an average of 2,660 a year. The report, published in the March issue of the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, is based on an analysis of data collected by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The rate of injury more than doubled in that period — to 11 per 100,000 population in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, from 4.9 in 1991. There
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Bus Accidents Continue to Kill and Injure

Bus accidents were the subject of action taken by The National Transportation Safety Board this week. The NTSB is the federal agency charged with investigating major transportation accidents. On Tuesday, it strongly criticized regulators at the Department of Transportation for lax oversight of the commercial bus industry.
The NTSB voted to cite the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to implement recommendations that could lead to new safety equipment on buses, including seatbelts and stronger roofs and windows. They have been urging NHTSA to
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Trial Techniques – The Art of Cross-Examination – Part XII

Rule No. 8 of 12: The successful cross-examiner listens carefully to what the witness says in response to his questions on cross-examination.
As set forth above, counsel should know what a witness will say in response to each question posed. No question should be asked that the answer is not known in advance. Nonetheless, sometimes, an answer more favorable than anticipated may be given by the witness or impeaching or contradicting of yet another witness. By listening closely to what the witness says on cross-examination,
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Caps on Damages For Nursing Home Abuse – What Are They Thinking?

In addition to representing victims of trucking accidents and automobile accidents, the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP also represent victims of nursing home abuse and nursing home neglect. including patients who have sustained decubitus ulcers (bed sores), falls and brutality in nursing homes. Consequently we have seen, first-hand, how victims of nursing home abuse or neglect suffer when those facilities don’t adequately take care of the people for which they are paid to care. It has been our experience that the owners
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Trial Techniques – The Art of Cross-Examination – Part XI

Rule No. 7 of 12: The successful cross-examiner listens to the witness’s direct testimony.
When a witness is called by the other side to testify against one’s client, one must be very careful to listen to that witness. Even if counsel has had the benefit of taking the deposition of the witness and has a beautiful outline to be used for anticipated cross of the witness, counsel must nonetheless listen very closely to the actual testimony given before the jury. It may be that the
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Trial Techniques – The Art of Cross-Examination – Part X

Rule No. 6 of 12: The successful cross-examiner stays calm and collected whatever happens.
During the testimony of a witness, particularly where the witness is providing very damaging testimony, counsel cannot flinch or otherwise demonstrate through body language that his client’s case has been hurt. Counsel must always stay calm and collected because body language many times can betray counsel’s representation of their client.
When a witness is being evasive or refuses to answer questions or asks counsel questions from the witness stand, counsel must
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ATV ACCIDENT RESULTS IN DEATH & SERIOUS INJURY

The Georgia injury lawyers have written before that with the growing popularity of ATV’s or All-Terrain Vehicles, serious injury and death cases are on the increase in Georgia, especially among children. Yesterday, we read about a 12-year-old Alto, Georgia girl who was killed last Friday night about 8:30 p.m. in an accident involving an all-terrain vehicle in Banks County. According to the Georgia State Patrol the girl was driving the vehicle when it overturned on private property. A 15-year-old passenger, who was not identified, was

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Trial Techniques – The Art of Cross-Examination – Part IX

Rule No. 5 of 12: The successful cross-examiner never asks an open-ended question such as “why” unless it does not care what the answer is.
In discussing rule 4 above, we gave a good example of why you do not ask open-ended questions. If you ask a witness “why?” they will tell you. In other words, they will give a speech, which usually will hurt your client. If you are cross-examining a witness, by definition, that means that the witness has been called by the
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Dangerous Magnetic Toy Manufacturer Fined

We have previously written about dangerous toys containing magnets which can be swallowed by small children. Last week, toy manufacturer Mega Brands America Inc. consented to pay a $1.1 million civil penalty for failing to promptly report promptly dangerous magnetic building sets which it manufactured. The sets have been blamed in the death of a child.
As we reported, tiny magnets can fall out of toys and be swallowed or inhaled by children. If more than one magnet is swallowed, they can attach to each
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Trial Techniques – The Art of Cross-Examination – Part VIII

Rule No. 4 of 12: The successful cross-examiner never asks a question unless he knows what the answer will be or doesn’t care what it is.
Unless counsel is fully prepared, has fully investigated the case and has conducted necessary discovery, this rule is difficult to follow. On the other hand, if counsel knows everything about the case then there is no reason why this rule cannot be followed and, in fact, it should be followed in all cases. Otherwise, disaster can strike.
There is
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Trial Techniques – The Art of Cross-Examination – Part VII

Rule No. 3 of 12: The successful cross-examiner avoids the appearance of pettiness, nit-picking or unfairness to the witness.
Even though we practice in an adversarial system, there is no necessity to be adversarial with the cross-examination of each and every witness. Righteous indignation needs to be saved for appropriate occasions where the witness is clearly lying or needs to be exposed for some form of aggravated misconduct. Counsel must reserve outrage and indignation for the proper case.
If trial counsel is unfair to any
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