MCFARLAND, GOULD, LYONS, SULLIVAN & HOGAN, P.A., ATTORNEYS AT LAW Serving the Tampa Bay Area For Over 45 Years
Injury Law Alert
Summer 2006
DAY-CARE DANGERS
It is an unfortunate fact that those most vulnerable and least able to protect themselves are often those at the highest risk for abuse or neglect. Elderly persons confined to nursing homes, the mentally ill and the retarded, and the very ill are often vulnerable targets for abuse or the victims of neglect. To this list, we can add one more group: children in day care. While the vast majority of day-care facilities and day-care providers are trustworthy and responsible, cases of abuse or neglect, while rare, do occur.
Preventive Measures
The good news is that such abuse or neglect is usually preventable. Before enrolling a child in day care, be sure to visit the facility. It can be a good idea to drop by without an appointment, so that you can see how the center operates when it is not expecting outside visitors. Make sure the facility welcomes parents in all areas, and that it does not have any "no-go" areas. Ask if the center performs criminal background checks on all of its employees and volunteers, and inquire if the center screens for other, noncriminal issues such as drug abuse or emotional problems.
Ask the day-care facility how it handles discipline--when children may be disciplined, by whom, and how. Make sure that the children being cared for appear to be relaxed, happy, and engaged in constructive activities such as learning or play.
You may also want to take steps to guard your child against dangers that could occur outside the facility itself. If the facility takes the children on field trips, check to see if the transportation is safe and determine how many adults will accompany the children to ensure that everyone returns unharmed.
Find out what the day-care center's policies are about having children picked up at the end of the day, and who will be allowed to claim your child. Make sure to identify, in writing, who is allowed to take your child from the facility. Find out what will be done if your child becomes seriously ill while at the day-care facility, and what steps will be taken if the facility cannot get in touch with you immediately.
Avoid Abuse
Additional steps should be taken to ensure that your child is not the victim of intentional abuse (as opposed to neglect) while he or she is at the day-care facility. When you visit, check to see that the bathrooms do not contain areas where children can be isolated, and find out how the facility handles toileting issues. Most of the cases of child sexual abuse at day-care facilities occur in the bathroom. Also make sure that children are well supervised during naptime. Day-care providers will sometimes leave the room when the children are sleeping, increasing the opportunities for someone to abuse a child.
It is important that any contact between the children and those not working at the facility is strictly supervised. Abuse often is not the work of the day-care teacher but of those not directly involved in caring for the children, such as bus drivers, janitors, and relatives of those who operate the day-care center. One study suggests that as much as one-third of reported abuse occurs in the hands of the day-care provider's family members who do not actually work for the day-care center.
Keep your eyes open for signs of abuse or neglect. If you suspect that your child has been abused or neglected at a day-care facility, it is important to act promptly. If your child is old enough, try talking with him or her to find out what happened, keeping in mind that children are sometimes not entirely reliable sources of information. You might also contact other parents who use the same day-care facility and ask if they have noticed any of the same signs of abuse or neglect in their children as you have seen in yours. If you still suspect something is wrong, contact the local authorities or, if the matter is very serious and places your child or others in immediate danger, contact the police.
If the investigation reveals that abuse or neglect has occurred, call our office. We know how important your children are. We will go to work for you to get you everything you deserve under the law, AND to prevent the same problem from happening to someone else.
WARNING SIGNS OF DAY-CARE ABUSE
* Unexplained bruises or other injuries, especially if they are repeated.
* Continued crying before being taken to day care.
* Unusual emotional behavior, ranging from complete emotional withdrawal to being overly "clingy" or extremely fearful.
* Bleeding or bruising around the genitals or asking to wear additional layers of unnecessary clothing to the day-care facility (may be signs of sexual abuse).
FLOOD INSURANCE MAKES SENSE
If you own property in a high-risk flood area, your mortgage lender probably requires that you maintain flood insurance. But if your home or business real estate is not in a high-risk area or you purchased the property without any commercial financing, you probably do not have any flood insurance.
In 1968, Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to oversee and financially support a program of national flood insurance. Through private insurance companies and agents, the NFIP makes federally backed flood insurance available to homeowners, renters, and business owners in communities that cooperate in federal flood-control planning.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 25% of all flood claims occur in low- to moderate-risk areas. Sudden or heavy rains, melting snow, failed levees or dams, and tropical storms and hurricanes can cause flooding even in higher elevations.
Flood insurance is generally affordable. Because the federal government sets premium rates, insurance companies that sell flood insurance compete on service rather than on price. When shopping for flood insurance, ask for information on how quickly the company resolves and pays its claims. To find out which insurance companies sell flood insurance policies in your area, ask your agent or visit www.fema.gov.
For some property owners, flood insurance is unavailable or unaffordable. The North Carolina Outer Banks, sections of the Florida panhandle, and selected areas in Delaware and South Carolina are not eligible for federally subsidized flood insurance. By withholding subsidized insurance, the federal government is trying to discourage land development in those areas. While some private insurance companies offer flood insurance not backed by federal financing, that insurance is so expensive as to be unaffordable for most property owners.
FEMA notes that most people who suffer flood damage have no flood insurance. Since flood insurance is not a standard provision in your homeowner's or business premises coverage, you may be completely without coverage. It is prudent to act quickly--flood insurance policies generally exclude coverage for the first 30 days of the policy. It will be too late to buy flood insurance when you hear that a major weather event is about to cause flooding in your area.
ORTHO EVRA: CONVENIENCE OR DANGER?
In 2002, the first contraceptive patch for women came on the market. This prescription drug, which is sold under the name "Ortho Evra," allows women to receive birth control medicine through a patch placed on their skin. One patch delivers its dosage over the course of a whole week, whereas birth control pills must be ingested daily. Since its introduction, over 5 million women have used the Ortho Evra patch.
FDA Warning
This past November, the FDA warned that women who use the patch are being exposed to levels of estrogen far higher than women who use birth control pills--as much as 60% more. Exposure to high levels of estrogen has been linked to an increased danger of blood clots, and information obtained from the FDA shows that women who use the Ortho Evra patch are three times more likely to develop blood clots than women who use birth control pills.
The FDA information also discloses that 23 of the women using the patch died, and as many as 17 of the deaths may have been related to blood clots. This is cause for concern, because the FDA itself estimates that it receives reports in only 1% to 10% of cases involving adverse drug reactions, and so the number of clot-related problems and deaths could very well be much higher.
For the time being, the FDA has approved of a change in the warning labels placed on the Ortho Evra patch, making users aware of the risk, but it has not pulled the drug from the market. The maker of Ortho Evra has vowed to launch its own study of the incidence of so-called "thrombotic injuries"--which include blood clots and strokes--associated with the use of the patch. However, there are reports that crucial data relating to thrombotic injuries from the original clinical trials was downplayed in the marketing campaign that was launched after the drug was approved.
Symptoms of blood clots are varied and can include sharp chest pain and coughing of blood (caused by clots in the lungs), pain in the calves (caused by clots in the legs), sudden loss of vision (caused by clots in the eye), or sudden and severe headaches, vomiting, dizziness, falling, and problems with speech and eyesight (a stroke, possibly caused by clots in the brain). Of course, if you use the Ortho Evra patch and have any of these symptoms, go to a hospital immediately. If you have used the Ortho Evra patch and have been treated for clotting, call us to discuss your legal options.
CAR REPAIR SCAMS
Whether because of a collision or simply because of wear and tear, from time to time every car will need to be repaired. For those of us who do not know anything about car repair, a trip to the repair shop can provide an occasion for unscrupulous mechanics to bilk us out of our money. Although most mechanics are honest, the few who are not have a number of tricks that they use.
Some scams are fairly obvious: lying about the need for a certain repair, agreeing to charge a certain amount and then actually charging more, or misrepresenting that a repair has been done when it has not. However, other car repair scams are more ingenious, such as:
* Putting your car on a lift and disassembling it before getting your permission to repair it. This may leave you stuck with the option of either authorizing the repair or paying to have your own car put back together, and even then it may not work.
* Showing you dirty oil contaminated with metal filings, and then telling you that this shows that you need a new transmission. Transmissions often contain dirty oil with metal shavings, and this does not necessarily mean that you need to have the transmission replaced--an expensive repair.
* Replacing a part with a rebuilt part but then charging you for a new part.
Be sure to protect yourself. Get all estimates for repair work in writing, and insist that the mechanic get your specific authorization before doing any work for which he is going to charge. If necessary, get a second opinion. Finally, always ask either for the return of any parts that have been replaced or for the box from which your new part came. If you follow these simple steps, you will make it more difficult for a scam artist to work his tricks.
THANKS
Thank you for trusting our firm with your legal needs. If you or someone you know has been injured due to somebody else's carelessness, please call us. We want to help.
THEY SAID IT
The following exchange between an attorney and a witness actually took place in a courtroom.
Attorney: Officer, when you stopped the defendant, were your red and blue lights flashing?
Witness: Yes.
Attorney: Did the defendant say anything to you when she got out of her car?