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West Virginia Personal Injury Law Blog

The Problem of "Reincarnated Carrier" Trucking

  • 18
  • May
    2012

Motor carriers, such as bus or trucking companies, will often close up shop after fines for safety violations and trucking accidents and reopen under a new name in order to avoid enforcement. These companies are referred to as "reincarnated carriers," and they pose a significant danger to motorists.

For example, in 2008, a bus chartered by Vietnamese pilgrims crashed in Sherman, Texas, killing seventeen passengers. The bus company did not have authority, but instead had a pending application with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and had reincarnated after being shut down for safety violations.

Up to 98,000 patients are killed every year as the result of medical errors

  • 18
  • May
    2012

In its landmark 1999 study, the Institute of Medicine estimated that up toScott.jpg 98,000 patients are killed every year as the result of medical errors. That number is even higher in a 2009 study done by Hearst newspapers which found that approximately 200,000 Americans died every year from preventable medical errors and healthcare associated infections. The Institute of Medicine estimated in 1999 that these errors cost an estimated $17 - 29 billion annually; when adjusted for inflation those costs are $22.1 - 37.7 billion today.

Too often in the debate over medical malpractice, special interests and the media try to make it a lawyers v. doctors issue. It's not. While I handle medical malpractice cases for patients and their families, my father is a surgeon and has practiced for decades in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. I know how hard my father works, how important his patients are to him and how he saves lives every day. No one respects doctors more than I do.

Automakers Targeted in National Push to Stop Distracted Driving

  • 11
  • May
    2012

Distracted driving laws are becoming more common throughout the United States, and now, new rules may be directed at automakers. According to a report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is pushing for federal guidelines to curb the development and use of built-in technological devices found in modern vehicles.

The NHTSA wants automakers to disable functions that take a driver's eyes off the road, like moving GPS maps and other navigation tools. The shift in focus from hand-held devices is yet another idea in a recent effort to crack down on distracted driving and resulting car accidents.

Finding a Way to Slow Down 18-Wheelers

  • 04
  • May
    2012

For years some of the vehicles moving the fastest down any stretch of America's highways were truckers. When money's on the line you can't blame the guys driving the big rigs from trying to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible.

But six years ago many trucking companies began voluntarily installing speed limiters on their tractor trailers. Now a new study by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration indicates these speed limiters are having a positive effect reducing accidents involving big rigs.

Upper Big Branch Guilty Plea Reveals Advance Notice Given of MSHA Inspections

  • 18
  • April
    2012

Ken Ward, Jr. of the Charleston Gazette recently reported on the guilty plea colloquy of Gary May, one of the mine superintendants of the Upper Big creagan.jpgBranch Mine.  His article detailed how Judge Irene Berger, a United States District Judge in the Southern District of West Virginia, took a detailed factual statement from Mr. May that included specific admissions by Mr. May that Massey employees were tipping off underground workers when federal mine inspectors were en route into the mine to conduct inspections. 

May admitted that those advance warnings were distributed widely so that mine foremen and supervisors could clean up areas in preparation for the inspectors' arrival.  Giving advance warning of such inspections is a crime.  Of particular significance was that May also indicated that the inspectors themselves sometimes tipped off mining supervisors that inspections were to occur a day or days later. Such warnings, even if given by an MSHA inspector, could also violate the Mine Act and constitute a federal crime.

Profits over people...

  • 12
  • April
    2012

"Profits over people..."

It's a fairly common expression.  We read it in editorials stoneking.jpgand blogs.  We hear it in political debates.  Unfortunately, it captures a very real phenomenon in many parts of the business world.  Corporations are far too willing to break the law and hurt people for the sake of making a profit.

            The civil justice system has a way of dealing with corporations that operate with a profits-over-people mentality.  It's called punitive damages.

Bordas & Bordas Secures Major Appellate Decision Voiding Unconscionable Arbitration Agreements

  • 12
  • April
    2012

State ex rel. Richmond American Homes v. Sanders II(Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, 2011) - Toxic Tort, Arbitration Agreements Void and Unconscionable

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a 2010 decision jamie.jpgwon by Bordas & Bordas' clients voiding arbitration agreements embedded in home purchase contracts.  Over 11 families in the Eastern Panhandle were victimized when homebuilder Richmond American Homes and MDC, Inc. installed faulty or phony radon removal systems in their home.  After the Skinner Firm of Charles Town, W.Va., engaged Bordas & Bordas to assist in the case, the families sued Richmond/MDC for exposing them to a dangerous cancer-causing gas and defrauding them. The Defendants were defaulted for litigation misconduct in related cases.

Bordas & Bordas continues to fight for the rights of worker injured in utility plant explosion

  • 12
  • April
    2012

The Marietta Times recently reported on Bordas & Bordas' continuing 543388_1.jpgefforts to collect on an over $5,000,000.00 judgment against Ohio Power Company arising out of a hydrogen gas explosion at the Muskingum River Power Plant.  The article, here [Worker waits for $5.57M judgment] explains how the AEP subsidiary, Ohio Power Company, has failed to pay the judgment rendered against it for intentionally causing the explosion or the over $1,000,000.00 in attorney's fees that was added to the award by the trial judge.  The hearing also involved OPCO's resistance to paying interest on the award.

Read more about the McLaughlin case here

Another miner dies at work in West Virginia coal mine

  • 30
  • March
    2012

Unfortunately, West Virginians still read too many news headlines about losing their own to coal-mining accidents. On March 10, the first 2012 coal-mine fatality in the state occurred - the fifth in the country this year.

Working the Saturday evening shift, an employee died in a rib-roll accident. In a "rib roll," the side walls - or "ribs" - of the mine collapse and fall inward. Apparently rib rolls are common and not always dangerous to miners, but this accident sadly was fatal.

A law is only as good as those who enforce it

  • 28
  • March
    2012

In a stark reminder of the old adage that a law is only as good as zac.jpgthose who enforce it, the independent panel assigned to investigate the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster on behalf of the National Institute of Safety and Health has recently concluded that If the Mine Safety and Health Administration ("MSHA") had timely enforced the safety rules and regulations set forth in the Mine Act, the chances of the Upper Big Branch explosion would have been greatly reduced and possibly eliminated altogether.

 Although MSHA has yet to make their report public, the panel found that if MSHA had engaged in timely enforcement of the Mine Act during at least one of the four UBB inspections that occurred immediately prior to the blast, there would not have been dangerous  accumulations of coal dust and, even if there had been a gas explosion, it would have lacked sufficient fuel to trigger the massive dust explosion.

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Recent Verdicts & News

Winning Experience: Read about our Appellate Decisions, as well as our Verdicts and Settlements. Recent cases Cox v. Personal Service Insurance Company , (Belmont County, Ohio, 2012) - Bad Faith Insurance Practices - $10,000,000.00 Verdict; Timmons v. Ohio Power Company and American Electric Power Service Corporation , (Marshall County, W.Va., 2011) - $6,998,000.00 Verdict - Wrongful Death, Gas Explosion, Workplace Injury ; McLaughlin v. Ohio Power Company et al. , (Washington County, Ohio, 2011) - $5,650,000.00 Verdict -- Deliberate Intent, Workplace Injury, Gas Explosion, Verdict and Brown v. Quicken Loans , Lender Liability, Mortgage Fraud , (Ohio County, 2011) - Verdict, $2,700,000

Contact Bordas & Bordas Today

If you or someone close to you has suffered a serious personal injury, our attorneys are here to protect your rights. We handle a wide range of personal injury cases for clients throughout West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The scope of our practice includes car accidents, truck accidents, medical malpractice, nursing home abuse and other types of negligence. We have a proven history of success obtaining favorable results for people like you.

Contact Bordas & Bordas

Bordas & Bordas, P.L.L.C.
1358 National Road
Wheeling, WV 26003

Phone: 304-907-0470
Toll Free: 866-674-8762
Fax: 304-242-3936
Wheeling Law Office

Bordas & Bordas, P.L.L.C.
106 East Main Street
St. Clairsville, OH 43950

Phone: 304-907-0470
Toll Free: 866-674-8762
St. Clairsville Law Office