Kansas City MO Personal Injury Law Blog

A lawsuit following an accident between a tugboat-towed barge and a sightseeing boat has led to a total of $17 million in reparations being paid out to the individuals and the families of persons riding the boat when it crashed and sank. The families of two Hungarian students who were killed in the crashed will split $15 million each as a result of the wrongful death lawsuit.

The remaining $2 million will be split up among the surviving passengers.

Watercraft tours are common in Missouri and other states, but this particular water tour featured an amphibious vehicle capable of driving on roadways and plunging straight into open water. The tour boats, which are operated in numerous states, take tourists on a tour of sights seen from the water.

Few things are more emotionally painful than losing a loved one in a car accident. After a fatal car accident, you expect the police to help bring justice to a situation. The police in Kansas City can help determine who caused a car accident. They can help provide documentation explaining the injuries people suffered or the cause of your loved one's death.

But what happens if the police fail to do that? What if you were responsible for tracking down the person who caused the hit-and-run that killed your loved one?

As long as we have police officers, you should never be put in that situation. Sadly, one woman found herself in a similar situation. After she suffered multiple rib fractures, a liver laceration and other injuries, she also tracked down the person who caused the accident and then fled the scene.

People in Kansas City and throughout the country are engaged in a harrowing debate: Is the Remington 700 a safe rifle that should be recognized for its pinpoint accuracy, or does the Remington 700 misfire without anyone touching the trigger, regardless of whether the safety is on? And is the problem limited to the 700 model, which employs the Walker fire control system, or is it more widespread?

To date, Remington has received more than 125 complaints about misfiring firearms. Of those complaints, 75 included injured people and seven included wrongful deaths.

One man, who is an engineer, marksman and a trained authority on firearms, has given his expert opinion in more than 100 cases regarding Remington guns misfiring. In each case, he testified that the problem has been with the Common Fire Control system used in numerous other Remington models. According to him, the CFC enables Remington guns to fire without the trigger being pulled.

On Tuesday, April 3, 2012, the Supreme Court of Missouri ruled in a split decision that Missouri's cap on non-economic damages in medical negligence cases is constitutional. Missouri's legislature, in 2005, passed a bill limiting such damages, which usually manifest themselves as pain and suffering, to a maximum of $350,000. A Jackson County, Missouri jury after hearing all the evidence in the case, awarded Paulette Sanders' family $9.2 million in non-economic damages. Ms. Saunders had remained in a long-term care facility between 2003 and her death in 2005 following surgery that left her brain damaged and in a persistently non-responsive condition. In accordance with the mandate of the legislature, this award was reduced by the trial judge to $1.2 million. The decision of the Missouri court was specifically focused on the right to trial by jury in a wrongful death case, and the corresponding ability of the legislature to limit damages in such cases.

In short, a legislature otherwise uninformed about someone's individual suffering and disability, determined in advance that such suffering could never be worth more than $350,000. In this specific case, the legislature determined in advance that the value of someone's life could never be more than $350,000. It does not matter how much someone suffers before death or the depth of the family's loss.

Congress is considering a similar law that would limit the rights of litigants to a maximum of $250,000 for non-economic losses. House Republican Phil Gingrey has introduced H.R. 5, the Protecting Access to Health Care Act. Pithy name, but nothing about the bill protects access to healthcare. Rather, it precludes fair compensation for victims of healthcare. The only parties protected are the medical malpractice insurance companies of the doctors, which in recent years have been realizing record profits. During the same time frame, studies have indicated 65,000 to 200,000 people die annually from medical negligence. This exceeds the combined annual deaths due to automobile collisions and work place accidents. H.R. 5 also imposes protections on drug companies and manufacturers of medical devices.

Contact your state legislator and your U.S. Representative to tell them you oppose such an attack on individual rights. If a jury hears the evidence in a case and believes the evidence justifies a result, why would we allow the faceless legislators to say otherwise. The Courts are bound to follow the laws imposed on all of us by the legislatures, state and federal. Do not allow your representatives to limit the value of human life for the benefit of big dollar insurance companies.

If you or a family member has suffered as a result of medical negligence or as a result of medications or a medical device, contact Monsees, Miller, Mayer, Presley & Amick, P.C. at www.mmmpalaw.com.