Pennsylvania Personal Injury Blog

A jury ruled that two Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries that make Duragesic, a painkilling skin patch, must pay nearly $16.6 million to the family of a woman who died from a drug overdose while using the defective pharmaceutical product.

According to this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Janice DiCosolo, a 38-year-old mother of three, died in 2004 while using a patch that her doctor prescribed to reduce pain caused by a neurological condition called reflex sympathetic dystrophy.

An Illinois Circuit Court ruled that DiCosolo died because the patch delivered a fatal dose of its main ingredient, the powerful narcotic pain reliever, fentanyl.

The lawsuit claimed that Janssen Pharmaceutical Inc. and ALZA Corp. knew about problems with the Duragesic patch. It allowed it to leak fentanyl in doses large enough to kill patients.

An attorney for DiCosolo's family said, "They knew this patch was dangerous and defective but they continued to sell it and make money, and that's the only reason Janice DiCosolo is dead.”

The companies are considering options for an appeal.

An independent expert and company expert inspected the patch that DiCosolo used and concluded there was no defect. The companies believe DiCosolo's cause of death was "a mix of multiple and potentially incompatible medications.”

Duragesic is a prescription-only product that is intended for cancer patients and others with chronic pain and is designed to dispense the medicine slowly through the skin. The patches were first approved under the brand name Duragesic in 1990. A generic version hit the market in 2005.

Continue reading " Jury awards nearly $16.6M in Ill. skin patch case " »

A panel of government health advisers urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to revise information for consumers and doctors about facial fillers, which are injected into the face to smooth away wrinkles. According to the article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, they want the product label to include the risk of long-lasting reactions such as bumps under the skin, blotches, and scars.

Wrinkle fillers are injected and include such products as Juvederm, made by Allergan, Inc., and Restylane, from Medicis Aesthetics Holdings. Most patients get a couple of touchups a year, which may cost more than $1,000 each.

Manufacturers and plastic surgeons say fillers have an excellent safety record. But the FDA hearing questioned unapproved uses, untrained technicians giving injections, and a lack of long-term safety data. The FDA is considering whether to regulate fillers more closely.
FDA officials are concerned that fillers are being used for purposes they were never tested nor approved for, such as plumping the lips, cheeks, and breasts.

According to the article, plastic surgeons performed some 1.5 million cosmetic surgery procedures with fillers last year alone.

The FDA presented data on 823 patients who suffered serious reactions after treatment with fillers between 2003 and this September. Nearly all were women, and the most common age group was 50- to 60-year-olds. A total of 638 of the patients required follow-up medical treatment.

Continue reading " FDA panel wants warnings on facial fillers " »

After Ben Breskman’s oldest son, Brian, was fatally electrocuted on the third rail of SEPTA’s Route 100 trolley line in a tragic accident, he is “on a mission” to keep it from happening to anyone again.

According to this article in the Delaware County Times, Brian, a 19-year-old Penn State student, attended the party of a high school friend on May 25, 2007. Ben Breskman later found out that a parent supplied the alcoholic beverages to minors at the party.

After Brian left the party he walked to 7-eleven, which proved to be disastrous for him. When a police cruiser stopped to question him, he panicked and fled into a wooded area. He tried to find a shortcut back to his friend’s house and came down an embankment in the dark near the Rosemont R-100 trolley stop. There were no fences, lights, or visible warnings near the trolley tracks and he stumbled, grazing his foot on the line’s electrified third rail. He was killed instantly by a lethal jolt and hit later by an oncoming train.

“It was a parent’s worst nightmare,” said Ben Breskman, a horrible accident that has forever affected me and my family.”

The family of the victim deserves to be rightfully compensated for their tremendous. In Pennsylvania, anyone over age of 21 can be responsible if they provide or made alcohol available to minors.

They would be well advised to contact a Pennsylvania Personal Injury attorney who will file a wrongful death claim against the individuals who served the alcohol to the minor.

A state appeals court revoked a New Jersey bar’s liquor license for serving alcohol to a man who ended up killing 2 people in a 2000 automobile accident.

On November 14, the court upheld the decision by the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) to revoke the license of Cheerleaders, in Brooklawn, NJ. The bar will have six months to sell its license and pay a fine to the ABC, once the ABC determines what that fine should be.

According to a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the court agreed that on April 15, 2000 the bar served alcohol to 23-year-old Humberto Herrera-Salas even though he was intoxicated.

Herrera-Salas was eventually ejected from the bar, drove south in the northbound lanes of Route 130, crashing head-on into another car and killing two people and injuring two others.
Herrera-Salas was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

The owner of Cheerleaders tried to have the ABC's ruling reversed, but the appellate panel focused on the fact that although bar employees forced Herrera-Salas to leave and called him a taxi because he had become drunk and abusive, no one stayed outside to make sure he got in the cab.

Continue reading " Court revokes bar’s license after crash " »

In the next few months the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on Wyeth Vs. Levine and will decide under what circumstances a consumer can sue a drug company for damages. The justices may even eliminate certain pharmaceutical lawsuits.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Diana Levine won a $6.7 million dollar judgment in Vermont against Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which Wyeth appealed. According to the article, Levine took Phenergan, a drug for nausea, to treat a migraine headache. After several weeks, her lower arm became purple and then black as gangrene set in. Eventually doctors had to amputate her arm. Levine sued Wyeth after she found out they knew about this risk.
Wyeth has argued that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had the final say over the risks Wyeth put on the Phenergan label.

Wyeth and its backers, which include FDA leadership, the Bush Administration, and the US Chamber of Commerce argue that the FDA is best able to assess the risks of drugs and that juries may be too sympathetic to an injured patient. Their case is based on “preemption,” which says that federal law overrides state law. Therefore, Wyeth claims that they could not comply with both the FDA and the jury’s verdict that says the label warning should have been stronger. Levine and her supporters disagree because they think juries serve as “an important check” on the drug approval system. According to the article, she and her supporters argue that a ruling for Wyeth could severely limit consumers’ ability to sue any company, as preemption becomes a ruling principle.

In previous years the FDA supported similar claims because these types of defective pharmaceutical drug litigations complement the FDA’s job of protecting consumers. In briefs supporting Levine, two FDA former commissioners stated, “risks that are rare, have long latency periods, result from drug interactions, or have adverse impacts on sub populations often go undetected in clinical testing.”

Continue reading " Defective Drug Lawsuits Under Review By Supreme Court " »

Pa. let incompetent doctor continue practicing

Dr. Richard A. Brown, once an aspiring doctor from Phoenixville, PA, is now facing many legal problems, including falsifying credentials to obtain his medical license, writing illegal prescriptions, and tax evasion.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Brown either “resorted to legal action or squirmed through loopholes in regulations governing medical practice in Pennsylvania.”

He was arrested in 2001 for a felony drug charge, which resulted in 5 years’ probation and suspension of his medical license. However, he somehow continued to practice medicine and dispense narcotics. According to the article, because Pennsylvania is a weak state for disciplining doctors guilty of various crimes including medical malpractice in Pennsylvania, state regulators did not find out about Brown’s guilty plea.

After he was first arrested in December 2001 and charged with 106 counts of drug violations, he still continued to prescribe narcotics to known drug abusers.

Continue reading " Incompetent Doctor in Pennsylvania Practiced Despite Felony Convictions " »

Delco woman faces DUI-related homicide charges

Roisin O'Neill, 22, of Newtown Square, had a blood alcohol content of .197 percent and was under the influence of marijuana when she drove up the off-ramp onto Interstate 476 on Sept. 19, traveling more than three miles in the wrong direction before striking a car operated by Patricia Waggoner, 63 in a fatal Pennsylvania head-on auto accident.

According to a Philadelphia Inquirer report, Waggoner, who was headed to Media to visit family, was pronounced dead at the crash site at 2:30 a.m. Sept. 19. She died of cerebral and chest trauma.

O'Neill’s injuries were described as non-life-threatening.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said O'Neill was "falling down drunk" when she sped down the Blue Route in the wrong direction flashing her headlights at oncoming drivers. According to the article, Roisin O'Neill met friends just after 10 p.m. on Sept. 18 at Brownies 23 East in Ardmore, PA. She later admitted to police that she had two whiskey drinks before she arrived at the bar and a "beer or two" after she arrived.

Police said they interviewed five drivers who swerved to get out of her way as she drove, flashing her high beams, at high speed in the wrong direction for more than three miles. Waggoner also attempted to get out of the way of the speeding Ford Escape. She swerved her car right just as O'Neill swerved left and head-on into the smaller car resulting in a deadly Pennsylvania SUV accident.

Continue reading " Head-on Auto Accident in Pennsylvania Kills 1, Sends Another to Jail " »

A state appeals court ruled that Sevastia Podias, the widow of a motorcyclist who was struck by a car on the Garden State Parkway can pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against two passengers in the car who failed to stop and help him.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the lawsuit against Andrew Swanson, Jr. and Kyle Charles Newell, the two passengers in a car that hit Antonios Podias, may now go to trial.

A trial judge originally dismissed the case against Swanson and Newell in 2006, but that ruling was reversed last year when a state appellate court ruled that the two men had a legal obligation to help Podias. The judge had ruled in March that Podias couldn't sue for the bulk of monetary damages against Swanson and Newell because she had already settled out of court with the driver and other defendants for an amount greater than what a jury had determined was appropriate.

Podias’ husband, Antonios, was riding his motorcycle on the Garden State parkway when he was struck from behind by a car driven by Monmouth University student Michael Mairs, whose blood alcohol level was .085. Mairs, Swanson, and Newell were returning to the Monmouth campus from a party in Matawan.

Mairs' car crashed through a guardrail and stopped on the grass near the highway express lanes following the motorcycle accident. The three men then drove away, and a car driven by Patricia Uribe, another Monmouth student, ran over Podias, killing him.

Court records showed that Mairs, Swanson, and Newell never called for emergency assistance. According to Sevastia Podias’ attorney, experts testified that Antonios Podias suffered some injuries from the impact with Mairs' car but likely would have survived those injuries had the young men called for help.

Continue reading " Wrongful Death Lawsuit Allowed To Be Filed By Widow of Auto Accident Victim " »