Posts by Nick Verderame

Responsibility and accountability – even for the powerful – are rooted into the core of our legal system. This country’s founders knew that a democracy needs a court system that empowers people to protect themselves by holding the powerful to account. That’s why the Constitution guarantees each person the right to a trial by jury.…

Samsung is making news for a couple reasons today.  First, according to the Washington Post, Samsung is expected to present causes of the Galaxy Note 7 fires today.  The Galaxy Note 7, as you likely know, is no longer allowed on airplanes or cruise ships because the phones have a tendency to explode or spontaneously…

A new study, published in December of 2016, reports that fewer than 2% of all physicians represent half of the malpractice settlements in the United States.  This study concurs with findings in a previous study which found that 1% of doctors are responsible for 32% of paid malpractice claims.  These studies suggest that steps need…

Before purchasing products, you should always make sure the items are safe.  But precaution doesn’t end there.  We should all monitor items to make sure nothing we own and use is recalled for safety reasons.  If you or a loved one has been injured by a product – whether or not that product has been…

A former Oregon high school student has sued his school district for damages resulting from a traumatic brain injury he received while playing basketball.  In October 2013, Robert Amarillas was chasing after a ball when he slipped on vomit that was on the court.  An unidentified student had previously vomited on the court, and a…

In a big victory for nursing home patients and the Constitution, the federal government passed a new rule that prevents nursing homes from including arbitration clauses in their consumer contracts.  The new rule applies to every nursing home that accepts federal funding.  Companies, including nursing homes, often include arbitration clauses in their standard contract as…

Most people believe doctors are good people who consider helping patients to be the top priority.  And in many cases, that is true.  However, a report by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations found that less than half of physicians feel serious errors should be disclosed to patients.  This is concerning when considering…

We’ve posted about the dangers of e-cigarettes, but now we have video verification.  This video shows an e-cigarette exploding in the purse of a woman in New Jersey.  “Terrifying, scary. It sounded like a gunshot. It sounded like a bomb went off.” Anything with lithium batteries, including cell phones, risk exploding.  Try to avoid using…

Former University of California football player, Neville Hawkins, filed a lawsuit this week against the NCAA and Pac-12 Conference for repercussions of concussions he received while playing college football in 1970 and 1971.  According to the lawsuit, the NCAA, Conference and the University knew about the dangers of concussions, and that football hits caused such…

Being patriotic isn’t just the right thing to do.  Sometimes, it pays too.  A former executive at the agriculture company, Monsanto, is being paid $22.5 million for serving as a “whistleblower” to the government by alerting it to securities fraud.  The former executive, whose name is not being released, alerted the SEC to Monsanto’s misstatements…

If you vape, please read! This new trend, has a vicious side effect.  The e-cigarettes have exploding batteries, and explosions are not rare.  According to the Arizona Republic,  “officials at the Arizona Burn Center say such accidents occur regularly, with a dozen patients reporting burns from e-cigarette fires or explosions over the past three months.”  The injuries that occur…

As the saying goes, “failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”  Proving this to be true, a study by health economists at Harvard, M.I.T., Columbia, and the University of Chicago showed that recent improvement in heart attack survival rates is due not only to breakthroughs in technology, but also to patients selecting better hospitals.  As…