It sure is nice to wake up on July 4th and see a front page article in your home newspaper recounting a story with a happy ending – especially when it involves people you know. Today’s Inquirer reported on the fight that ensued after 86 year-old Fran Bogom (grandmother of a young man who went K-12 with my daughter) to make sure that Mrs. Bogom received the medically necessary Medicare rehabilitation services after she fell and broke her arm in January.

This is a story we see almost daily – falls, fractures, disorientation all leading to a loss of function and diminished quality of life…and worse – for nursing home and assisted living facility residents. I’m really happy to report that this story shows the wonderful recovery – complete with return of physical function, decrease in disorientation, and restoration of dignity – that can result from proper rehabilitation care.

The troubling aspect of this story is that the family had to fight so hard to get the necessary rehabilitation covered by Medicare. After all, Mrs. Bogom had paid into Medicare for her whole life. I urge you to read this story so that when your loved ones face this situation, you’ll be well equipped to fight for their right to receive the health care they’ve been paying for throughout their working lives. Here’s a link to read the story: High Cost, Rigorous Rules Can Trap Medicare Patients.

I’m happy to report that by 2011 there will finally be a coherent set of rules in Pennsylvania which govern the basic operations of “Assisted Living Facilities.” These elder care facilities operate under a different set of rules than “nursing homes” – known in Pennsylvania’s system as “skilled nursing facilities.”

Beginning in 2011, to be called an assisted living facility (formally known as “personal care homes”) a facility will have to satisfy the following minimums: they will have to have a license; they must offer a defined set of services for defined rates, which will make it easier for consumers to compare facilities and understand costs; except in emergencies, they will be required to have a medical assessment and treatment plan completed prior to admission or the signing of a contract, so residents and their families know what services will be needed and provided; they will have to explain any denials of admission in writing; and they will have to meet additional requirements in special units for people with memory deficiencies.

This is a great start toward providing further protection for Pennsylvania’s elders and others requiring assisted living or nursing home care. If you have concerns about the nursing home or assisted living facility care rendered to your loved one, call the lawyers at Shrager, Spivey & Sachs for a free consultation – 800-568-5868.

Friday was a big news day for those of us who follow the trucking industry. Some of the news was sad, some was potentially very encouraging.

First, the sad news. The Philadelphia area woke to sad news of a fatal accident that closed the northbound NJ Turnpike early Friday morning. Reports in the press today indicate that a box truck driven by Leonard Doss, and owned by Seafood Connection in Maryland, hit a dump trailer from behind as the truck in front was entering a construction zone. Sadly, Mr. Doss died at the scene and the driver of the truck he hit apparently was not injured. A third truck carrying 8,000 gallons of  kerosene jackknifed as that driver swerved to avoid debris from the impact ahead of him.

Fatal Truck accident on NJ Turnpike

One thing I’ve learned from handling truck cases over the years is that accidents like this have to be investigated carefully to assess all of the factors that led to the collision. Members of the public often assume that the rear-ending vehicle is automatically at fault. Especially when you are dealing with commercial vehicles that have special added duties as professional drivers, you have to carefully examine the actions (or inactions) of the driver in front as well as the rear-ending driver.

On a brighter note, President Obama announced for the first time ever that the government would impose mileage and fuel emission standards on tractor trailers and work vehicles. While this has more to do with fostering innovation in truck design and power units for big rigs, it is still encouraging that this industry will soon become the focus of trying hard to help wean our country on dependence on foreign energy sources.

Over the years I’ve blogged about all sorts of dangers faced by Nursing Home residents, but this news report took even MY breath away. A 61 year old resident was shot after 11 PM last night by what authorities have described as a shotgun blast from an unknown source in a field behind the nursing home. Reports indicate that the resident has now been released from the hospital.

If you have concerns about the safety of a loved one  in a nursing home in Pennsylvania, please link to our nursing home site: www.philadelphianursinghomelawyer.com .

Congratulations to New Jersey which has just passed a comprehensive teen driver safety law tha tlimits many of the dangers which threaten our most vulnerable drivers. Here’s a link to the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial from this morning which describes the new law in greater detail.

So when will Pennsylvania follow New Jersey’s lead? Call your state representative and ask why Pennsylvania is delaying new laws on teen driving safety!

For years the mantra of the Republican party has been that we need to reduce “frivolous lawsuits.” The din has been deafening during the recent health care debate in Washington. As soon as the President began to sign the health care bill into law, state Attorneys General (including Attorney General Corbett in Pennsylvania) did what to challenge the law? They filed a lawsuit!

My friend Anthony Tarricone, President of the American Association for Justice (of which I am a Governor from Pennsylvania) has authored a great piece that was carried by the Huffington Post: “Tort Reform Hypocrites: Do As I Say, Not As I Sue”. I commend Anthony’s article to any of you who understand the hypocrisy of the lawsuits filed to challenge the health care bill.

So let me come back to a concept you’ll hear a lot about as these cases churn their way through the courts: pre-emption. It’s the constitutional law concept that is defined as follows by Black’s Law Dictionary (the dictionary that every law student swears by as we are taught in law school): “Doctrine adopted by U.S. Supreme Court holding that certain matters are of such a national, as opposed to local, character that federal laws pre-empt or take precedence over state laws.” In other words, states don’t get to say that a federal law (read: the health care bill) is illegal under state law.

Anthony’s article cited several prominent examples of tort reform hypocrisy in his article. In Pennsylvania we had our own version when Rick Santorum was our U. S. Senator. After he had railed against frivolous lawsuits for years, guess who filed one with his wife after she was injured as a result of health care malpractice? That’s right Mr. and Mrs. Santorum. In the interest of full disclosure I must point out that when it became politically expedient for the senator to continue railing against trial lawyers, he discontinued his part of the suit…while Mrs. Santorum’s claims continued.

This story will be an interesting one to follow.

What could add more insult to the horrendous tragedy of two teenagers dying in an accident? How about an admission in court that the driver, a newly licensed driver (3 weeks before the accident), had smoked marijuana an hour before he got behind the wheel with five friends in the car! This is the same accident I blogged on last november: Good News and Bad News for Safe Driving .

Austin Ewers, the 16 year old driver, admitted in juvenile court that had had done just that. He will remain in custody as a result and his case will be transferred to Montgomery County for final disposition.

I applaud the trial judge, Chester County Senior Judge, Charles B. Smith, for using the hearing as an opportunity to call from the bench for changes in current Pennsylvania law which allows new drivers like Ewers to drive a car with so many youthful passengers:

Citing the loss of six teenagers in crashes during a recent 90-day stretch, the judge said he hoped Pennsylvania lawmakers would pass legislation to restrict the number of passengers a teen can transport, as most states have done.

He said research indicates that the part of the brain responsible for judgment is not fully developed in teenagers, and said an ad taken out by the Allstate Insurance Co. stated that 4,000 teens died in 2008 in accidents that involved multiple teen passengers.

“Please, somebody do something,” Smith said, urging the audience to lobby for stricter teen-driving laws.

I couldn’t agree more strongly with Judge Smith. As a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania car and truck accident lawyer, I have been lobbying, writing and blogging on this issue for years. Here is a link to my safe driving blogs: Auto Accidents .

My friends Churchill Houston and Steve Maher from the Maher Law Firm received a $5 million punitive damages verdict today from a Philadelphia county  jury. I’m just posting the good news here. The full story is on line from the Philadelphia Inquirer in this article: “Unusual damages verdict in Philadelphia bedsores case.”

To my knowledge, this is the first ever punitive damages verdict in Pennsylvania in a nursing home case. The co-defendant in this case was Jeannes Hospital. The verdict was assessed $3.5 million against Hillcrest (a Genesis owned nursing home) and $1.5 million against non-profit Jeannes Hospital.

What a great news morning for someone like me who has been passionate about the need to increase driving safety by limiting text messaging while driving. Long time readers of this blog will recall that I have previously criticized the cellular industry for not getting out front to promote safety by their network users. Here’s a link to all of my past blogs on this issue: text messaging and other driving dangers.

This morning I heard that AT&T has finally answered the challenge I issued twice last fall (Good News and Bad News for Safe Driving; Text Messaging While Driving: Corporate Responsibility Increasing as Ford Joins Verizon in Supporting Federal Legislation Banning Texting While Driving) to join Ford and Verizon to promote driving safety for their text message customers. Way to go AT&T. Here’s the promo for the campaign:

AT&T logo

Click here to view the AT&T 15 second spot that is a very effective ad  they are running as part of this campaign.

The AT&T campaign wasn’t the only good news. The city of Allentown, Pennsylvania has just enacted a cell phone ban for drivers. The new law will go into effect on March 19th with the first month of enforcement resulting only in “warnings”. The fines will range between $150 and $300. The good news is that this law makes using a cell phone a “primary offense.” That means that the police can pull you over just for breaking this law. The law also applies to skateboards, in-line skaters, and bicyclists.

I’m glad that the cities in Pennsylvania are taking leadership roles in passing similar laws. We now have laws like this in Philadelphia, Erie, and Harrisburg. Pittsburgh, Scranton, what about you?

This is every family’s worst nightmare. A loved one is entrusted to the care of a nursing home and they are sexually assaulted by a resident who is a KNOWN SEX OFFENDER!

Incredible as this sounds, this has just happened in Centre County, Pennsylvania (home of Penn State), at the Hearthside Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.  The reports and information publicly available are still coming out.

According to accounts in the press, a 76 year old, wheelchair bound, resident who is listed on the Pennsylvania Megan’s Law website as a “sexually violent predator” due to a 2004 conviction for indecent sexual assault in 2004 was found “inappropriately touching” another resident.

Information about this facility is easily available to any family member who wants to see what their record is. My quick search shows that they have one of the lowest nurse hours/patient ratios in Centre County. It really is no surprise that “for profit” facilities that try to squeeze profits by reducing the hours of nurse time per patient would be the place where something like this could happen. As nursing home and assisted living facility abuse and neglect lawyers in Philadelphia and all over Pennsylvania, SHRAGER, SPIVEY & SACHS works hard to fight against this type of event and to protect your loved ones living in facilities like this.