Elder abuse & 'privileged' status of incident reports clash.
ON DECEMBER 22, 1999, RICHARD JOHNSON UNDERWENT AN OPERATION FOR LUNG CANCER AT SUTTER DAVIS HOSPITAL. While recuperating in the hospital's Intensive Care Unit (ICU), he fell and broke his hip while attempting to get up to go to the bathroom. Subsequent to the patient's death, his wife, Donna,...

Medication errors: a 21st-century perspective.
Over the past several years, increased attention has been given to the risks associated with medication use, especially within hospitals. The Institute of Medicine's 2000 report, To Err is Human (1), continues to stir an avalanche of interest from the government and the private and public sectors. This increasing...

PA: Nurse Has Severe Allergy to Latex Gloves: Products Liability Suit - Warranty Limitations Issue.
CASE FACTS: From April 21, 1990, to June 25, 1998, Jean Whitson was employed as a registered nurse at Hanover Hospital, in Hanover, Pennsylvania. In the course of her duty, she used and was exposed to natural rubber latex gloves. In the fall of 1995, she began experiencing facial...

Physicians 'dither' while emergency appendectomy Pt. suffers: Case on point: Hudson v. Wali, 2003 WL 1154188 P.2d--Ca.
ISSUE: In this unusual California case, a patient, who was undergoing an appendicitis attack, went directly to an emergency room. However, his case was not either diagnosed or treated as an emergency. Hospital personnel including physicians "dithered" over whether to operate, who should operate, and when. In the interim,...

`Lost' hospital records lead to default & 4 million-dollar award. (Nursing Law Case of the Month).
CASE ON POINT: Keene v. Brigham and Women's Hospital, 755 N.E.2d 725 -MA (2002) ISSUE: It is not unusual for a plaintiff to be defaulted and judgment entered for failure to comply with court ordered Discovery. However, it is most unusual for a defendant to be defaulted...

Il: child swallows ball and dies--x-rays ignored: court orders deponents be made defendants.
CASE FACTS: Eight-year-old Kylee Bivens, a girl with history of autism and seizure disorder complained of vomiting, abdominal pain, and lethargy. She was evaluated in the emergency room of Blessing Hospital by Dr. Richard Saalborn who examined her and determined that she was dehydrated and lethargic. Mild distension of...

Changing skies for D&O: This will be a telling year for the directors' and officers' market. Although excess capital is entering the market, industry experts are watching the trend of increasing frequency and severity of claims. (Liability).
2001 was a year to forget for most investors in the United States. Broad stock market volatility, combined with the continued frequency of financial restatements, have resulted in an all-time high of 487 securities class-action filings in 2001, a 105 percent increase from 2000, according to Stanford Securities Class...

A. Norman Jeffares, Anna Rutherford and the question of colonial inheritance.
When A. Norman Jeffares wrote in admiration of Anna Rutherford's "delight in extending experience/Not only for yourself but for others/With whom you shared your enjoyment," (To Anna xix) it was a particular enjoyment in the literary life that was also his own. Writing from Fife Ness in 2001, Jeffares...

Shielding reporters from prosecutors.
A tempest is brewing in western Missouri that will test the scope of the state's "reporter's shield" privilege in criminal cases. The controversy arose when Buchanan County prosecutors subpoenaed a St. Joseph News-Press reporter, Marshall White, who had interviewed a suspect in a homicide case. The subpoena...

Federal Judge Royce Lamberth is best known for the ease with which he approved dozens of discovery motions that allowed fellow conservative Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch to dig into the public and private life of President Bill Clinton.
Federal Judge Royce Lamberth is best known for the ease with which he approved dozens of discovery motions that allowed fellow conservative Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch to dig into the public and private life of President Bill Clinton. But Lamberth was considerably more strict last March, when he...