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An 82-year-old elderly woman was assaulted by an angry dad who thought she was scolding his child, the San Francisco Gate is reporting. According to this news source, the woman was a visitor at the Golden Gate Park when she observed a child harassing a goose and asked the young male to stop. Acting under a wrongful assumption, the man shoved her to the ground because he believed she was harshly punishing his child. As a result of this shove, the woman struck her head and sustained serious personal injuries. The police are still looking for the man, who has been only described as a male suspect in his 40’s.

Our San Francisco injury attorneys wish this woman a successful recovery and hope that law enforcement officers find the culprit who committed the attack against her. Parents can become emotionally charged when they believe a person outside of the family reprimands their child for inappropriate behavior. However, it is obviously inappropriate to physically strike an individual without legal justification. As a matter of fact, not only can a person be criminally punished for committing a battery, but they can also be sued in a civil lawsuit.abuse.jpg

Civil Remedies Following an Assault

1375941_fireworks_7.jpg The Fourth of July is an activity packed holiday, from the typical summer barbeque to the after dark fireworks display. Of course, the temptation is too great for many celebrators and many neighbors hear the blast of small scale fireworks off and on all week. Fireworks have the aura of magic about them, but are bit like the magic of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. When the unprepared or immature set off fireworks, they could let the magic get out of control, which gets them, or others, burned.

It is important to remember that fireworks are explosives in every sense of the word. Fireworks are made of a shell with a fuse that contains explosive material. Smaller fireworks may consist of paper or cardboard wrapped tightly around black powder. Urban cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, and San Mateo have banned the sale and use of fireworks all together by non-professionals. Close quarters ramp up the hazard for fires and injury and make it a matter of public policy to crack down on violators. Other Northern California cities like Dublin, Union City, Sacramento, and St. Helena allow residents to set of so-called safe and sane fireworks. Safe and sane fireworks include sparklers and spinners and are characterized by the fact that they do not fly or explode.

Illegal fireworks, for example the notorious M80, are responsible for many holiday related injuries because they are more powerful and more unpredictable than safe and sane fireworks. Illegal fireworks are unregulated and therefore do not undergo quality control. Illegal fireworks have been known to explode prematurely while still in the amateur pyrotechnician’s hands.

In general, fireworks should be handled very carefully at a safe distance away from spectators and especially children. If you are having your own show, never relight a dud firework as it has already proven to be unpredictable and could explode without warning. Carefully place used fireworks in a bucket of water to prevent unwanted explosions. Of course, it is never advisable to handle fireworks under the influence of alcohol as it severely impairs judgment.

Sparklers may seem like the most innocuous of fireworks, but actually the slow burning wands can reach temperatures of 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. Children are more susceptible to burns and eye injuries from fireworks and sparklers are a big culprit.

The American Pyrotechnics Association released a chart showing fireworks related injuries from 1974-2006. Unfortunately, the number of injuries each year has stayed fairly constant, fluctuating between 8,000 and 12,000 injuries every year. In 2006, 9200 injuries were reported. The good news is that although the base numbers have not declined much, the number of injuries per pound of fireworks consumed by Americans has actually decreased drastically. In other words, there are a lot more fireworks being shot off on Fourth of July, but no more injuries than in past years.
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This blog has followed the Affordable Care Act debate, nicknamed “Obamacare,” as the law has ramifications on many different health insurance issues affecting local consumers. Our San Francisco insurance attorneys (know that whether you are happy with the Court’s ruling or not, this decision (see the decision here) will have a huge impact on the future of health insurance in our state. capitol%20%28ranchocanyon%29.jpg

Starting in 2014, California will receive as much as $15 billion a year to expand Medi-Cal coverage for the poor and to provide federal subsidies to people buying policies in a state-run exchange. In fantastic news for insurance policyholders, insurers have to cover consumers regardless of pre-existing conditions and insurance companies will be required to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on medical care for individuals and small businesses. There are also incentives to provide for more coordinated patient care and taking away incentives for unnecessary medical procedures.

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones told the Los Angeles Times that getting coverage for even a portion of uninsured Californians would drastically reduce the amount of unpaid for medical care that is driving up costs for everyone else. And no one disputes that costs need to come down. The average premium for employer coverage in California has increased 154% in the last ten years, which is more than five times the state’s overall inflation rate of 29% in the same time period.

Working with family members in the aftermath of tragedy, our Sacramento wrongful death law firm knows the emotional turmoil that follows an unexpected and untimely loss. While we can help families recover damages in civil court, money that can be essential to paying final expenses and other financial repercussions, we know that nothing can bring back a lost loved one. However, organ donation can allow families to turn their loss into hope for others.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that there are currently 114,729 people who are waiting for a donated organ. A patient is added to this list approximately every ten minutes. The shortage of donated organs means that an average of 18 people will die every day waiting for an organ to become available. While these statistics are upsetting, there are other numbers that carry much more hope. Every day, on average, 79 people receive a much-needed organ transplant. A single donor can save up to 8 lives.

Some organs can be provided by living donors including a kidney, a portion of a liver (which can regenerate to allow both donor and recipient to have a full-sized organ), and all or a portion of a lung. Living donors must go through both mental and physical examinations to ensure suitability. Most donations, occur after death. Those who want to donate should enroll in a donor registry, a process that is often as easy as checking a box when obtaining or renewing a driver’s license. It is important to also let your family know about your wishes. Since a match is more likely when the donor and recipient have similar ethnic backgrounds, it is vital that a diverse population register as donors.

As your Oakland injury law firm, we hope that this blog helps injured Californians know that they have rights after an accident and that we are here to help them navigate the complex process of obtaining compensation when someone else’s actions cause them harm. We also hope that this blog helps prevent accidents by sharing safety tips relevant to life in 2012. While we’ve covered the importance of cars, bicycles, and pedestrians sharing the road before, a recent piece in The Oakland Tribune reminds us that it is a topic worth revisiting.

road.pngThe article, originally carried by the Contra Costa Times, focuses on making the roads safe for everyone. It has been nearly three months since a father and his nine year old daughter, Solaiman and Hadessa Nuri, were struck and killed while biking near a fire department training center on Treat Boulevard in Concord. Flowers and candles can still be found at the site where officials believe a seventeen year old boy hit the pair while driving an SUV. Sadly, as traffic officers told the reporter, the accident is just one example of a growing adversarial relationship between cars and others using the roads, including pedestrians and cyclists. One of the first officers to respond to the tragic crash on April 7th noted that travelers have adopted a “take every inch you can” mentality.

In 2010, according to the California Office of Traffic and Safety, more than 3,100 people were killed or injured in crashes involving pedestrians, bicycle riders, or skateboarders in Contra Costa, Santa Clara and Alameda counties. Not only is this an increase from the 2,800 injured or killed in similar accidents in the three county region in 2006, there is also a disturbing increase in the portion of the incidents involving young people. In 2006, one in eight of the victims in such crashes was age 15 or younger. In 2010, that ratio was closer to one in six. Biking accidents have decreased in recent years but pedestrian accidents in California increased 5.4 percent between 2009 and 2010.

Environmental accidents can occur in moments but often take years to resolve. An article published in this weekend’s Oakland Tribune, by a reporter for the Contra Costa Times, details the dispute that started with a sewage malfunction in 2008 and continues with a lawsuit filed this month in Contra Costa Superior Court. The San Francisco sewage accident attorney at The Brod Law Firm is monitoring developments so that our team can better serve victims of toxic accidents in San Francisco and throughout Northern California.

sewage.pngOn July 18, 2008, a malfunction led 94,000 gallons of raw sewage being released into a lake located in the Lakeshore subdivision in the town of Discovery Bay. Amazingly, the entire incident started with a wayward bird. The bird flew into the power grid, landing on a power line and sparking a power failure. Pumps failed to turn back on after the power interruption, forcing sewage to back up into a storm drain that then fed into the community lake. Concerns about the environmental contamination were worsened because fountains in the lake were not shut off. Instead, the fountains remained on for a week after the sewage spill and potentially adding to the spread of contamination and raising additional concerns about illness.

State fines and penalties also followed the incident. Shortly after the incident, an escrow account was opened including funds from both the town and SouthWest Water Co., the town’s wastewater collections operator. However, state staffing cuts and other matters resulted in the issue dragging on for years. Southwest’s escrow company has now refused to open the account to make any payments. Just last month, Discovery Bay paid $241,000 in fines to the state’s regional water quality control board, based on the spill detailed above and three other spills that occurred in 2008.

I recently read an inquiry to Consumer Reports about whether or not uninsured motorist coverage protection was worth purchasing, as an additional provision in a driver’s insurance policy. In many ways, uninsured motorist coverage (“UM”) and underinsured motorist coverage (“UIM”), can be equally as important, if not more important than the liability portion of an insurance policy, itself. An auto insurance policy with limits of 50/100, for example, would offer coverage of $50,000.00 per person, and $100,000.00 per occurrence. Under these insurance policy limits, if a driver is involved in an auto accident involving one other person, the most that injured person could recover from the driver’s policy would be $50,000.00. If there were four people injured in that collision, the most all four could recover under the driver’s insurance policy would be $100,000.00.

Uninsured/Underinsured motorist coverage (UM/UIM) comes into play when someone is injured by a driver with no insurance (though it is required by law in California) or by a driver with insurance policy limits that aren’t sufficient to cover the claim of the injured person. For example, if someone has UM/UIM coverage limits of 100/300 and an uninsured driver runs a red light and causes an accident that causes injuries, the most the injured person could recover would be $100,000.00. If the offending driver had insurance policy limits of 15/30 ($15,000.00 per person, and $30,000.00 per occurrence), the injured person would be entitled to recover $15,000.00 from the offending driver, and then seek the remaining $85,000.00 (totaling $100,000.00) from their own insurance company. UM/UIM coverage is a very important protection to have, because one certainly can’t predict if another driver will cause an auto accident, and what kind of insurance coverage that person will have. Therefore, maintaining sufficient UM/UIM limits to your own auto insurance policy is very important, because it protects you, in the event someone with no insurance, or inadequate insurance, causes an auto accident.

If you or someone you love has been involved in an auto accident caused by a driver with no insurance, or limited insurance policy limits, please call the Brod Law Firm to learn your rights. At the Brod Law Firm, we’ve been fighting for the rights of injured Californians during three decades. Call today for a free initial consultation.

From an early age, we teach our children that they should contact the police in the event of an emergency. As a law firm for injured victims in Oakland and throughout Northern California, The Brod Law Firm team knows that a strong law enforcement regime can save lives. As taxpayers, our whole community funds emergency services so that they will be available when we need them. However, one Northern California family is alleging that a loved one was murdered after Berkeley police failed to respond to a distress call.

copcar.pngAccording to reports in The Oakland Tribune and The Berkeley Daily Planet, the family of Peter Cukor, 67, has taken the first steps to file a wrongful death suit against the city of Berkeley. At approximately 8:45 P.M. on February 18, Cukor called police to report a suspicious intruder. Per the claim, a dispatcher told him that an officer would soon arrive at his Berkeley hills home located on Park Gate Road near Tilden Park. Allegedly an officer volunteered to respond to the call but the dispatcher instructed him not to go to the home. Believing an officer would be arriving shortly and seeing the intruder move away from his property, Cukor walked outside to the bottom of his driveway to help the officer locate his residence and advise the officer as to what he had observed. At 9:01 P.M., Cukor’s wife looked out an upstairs window and saw that, while police had not arrived, the intruder had returned. She watched as the man, later identified as 23 year old Daniel Dewitt of Alameda, hit Cukor on the head with a ceramic flowerpot. She then placed an additional call, this time to 911. The police did respond and Cukor was taken to the hospital where he died as a result of his injuries.

The Cukor family believes that the city and the Police Department showed gross negligence in failing to properly train and supervise their emergency dispatchers. While a criminal case is pending against Dewitt, who had previously been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and whose murder case has been suspended while he undergoes additional treatment, the Cukors believe the city shares in the blame for Peter Cukor’s death. Previous statements by a police detective suggest the department believes that Cukor had left his house to seek help at a nearby fire station, rather than to help police locate his home as his family alleges. Police have also stated that they had no way to know that the intruder would attack Cukor. An additional dispute exists regarding whether the phone number used by Coker was a non-emergency number, as a police representative suggested at a community forum, or had been advertised as the number to call in case of an immediate threat to life or property, as the family claims.

Like the rest of the country, our San Francisco insurance lawyers are eagerly waiting for the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act (the so-called “Obamacare”), which should be handed down soon. Since the oral arguments earlier this year, this has been a huge national issue (see our previous post about the debate here).

So much is at stake with this law. There are nearly seven million Californians who do not have health insurance. A new study by Families USA reports that California has the highest number of residents who die prematurely each year from lack of health insurance. According to the study, 3,164 California residents between the ages of 25 and 64 died prematurely in 2010 because of lack of insurance, or about 61 residents per week! These are unacceptably high numbers. Californians are less likely to have health insurance, receive employer-based insurance, and be able to afford coverage than residents of other states. Californians are also more at risk of being denied coverage for preexisting conditions than those in other states.

Nationally, this new study found that those who died from lack of health insurance per year grew as well. In 2005 that number was 20,350. By 2010, it was 26,100. And over that five year period, a shocking 134,120 US residents died prematurely from not having health care coverage.

Sometimes safety decisions are much more complicated than they appear at first glance. In theory, everyone would be in favor of the use of flame retardant materials. Home fires can be devastating financially and we hear all too often of lives lost in residential fires. However, some of the materials used to create flame retardant items, including furniture, pose significant health risks and the toxicity may mean the products pose more dangers than they prevent. As a Northern California toxic tort law firm, our team is following the debate closely so that we can be prepared to help residents of our region who are injured due to dangerous chemicals in their homes or workplaces.

danger.pngAs reported in The Sacramento Bee, Governor Jerry Brown is urging state regulators to reduce the use of flame retardant chemicals in household furniture manufactured, sold and used in California. Gov. Brown is part of a growing group that believes the chemicals are toxic and pose a threat to public health and the environment. His statement, delivered on Monday, addresses chemicals that are used in a wide-range of household items, including couches and high chairs. The directive urges regulators to reduce and eliminate the use of toxic chemical flame retardants and asks industry groups to find safer ways to meet fire safety standards.

This is not a new issue. Last year, the state legislature voted down a bill that would have allowed furniture manufacturers to avoid the use of these chemical flame retardants by creating an alternative test for fulfilling state fire prevention requirements. The Citizens for Fire Safety Institute, a group backed by the chemical industry, and other opponents said last year’s bill would raise the risk of fires. Furthermore, opposition groups suggested the bill would weaken California’s safety standards, a regime they praised as among the strongest in the nation.

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