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How To Tell If You Have Toxic Drywall In Your House

Gerry McGill — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:14:19 GMT

Several people have contacted me asking how to tell if they have toxic Chinese drywall in their house or business. Generally, but not always, there is the "rotten egg" odor caused by Sulfur gasses. Also if there is some way you can view the back, or unfinished, side of the drywall see if it is marked as being made in China. Further if it is stamped "KNAUF" it is imported from China. Check your evaporator coils and copper wires in your indoor A/C units. If they are black you have the toxic drywall. Finally, remove the covers from some electrical outlets to see if the copper wires are black. Use care as the wires are live.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gerry McGill

Toxic Drywall From China Causing Health Concerns In Homes

Gerry McGill — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:24:36 GMT

Several news sources have recently reported that drywall imported from China and installed in new and renovated homes in 2004-2005 has been creating noxious sulfur (rotten-egg) odors and potential health problems. In addition, the fumes given off are causing a problem with copper wiring and the coils in air conditioning units.

Doug Hoffman, executive director of the National Organization of Remediators and Mold Inspectors said he has been getting a lot of reports about the Chinese drywall recently from his members. Most of the complaints so far are in the U.S. Southeast. He said: "What they're finding is that the drywall being shipped over from China is emitting much higher levels of sulfur, methane, and other volatile organic compounds." At highest risk for health problems and children and the elderly. People with asthma and chemical sensitivities are at even higher risk.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirms there is a problem, but says the breadth and severity of the problem are unknown. However, anyone living along the Gulf Coast knows only too well the extensive damage caused by major hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 and the great amount of rebuilding necessary which is still going on today.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gerry McGill

Armed Cruise Ship Security Team Fights Off Somali Pirates

Gerry McGill — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:06:58 GMT

An Italian cruise ship carrying armed Israeli security guards successfully fought off a hijacking attempt by Somali pirates last Saturday, April 25, 2009. The MSC Melody, a 670 foot Italian flagged cruise liner, was carrying 991 passengers and 536 crew members when it was attacked by a speed boat carrying six men armed with Kalashnikow rifles. When the pirates attempted to board the liner using a ladder with hooks, the crew sprayed them with fire hoses and he Israeli security guards opened fire with small arms. The pirates backed off but continued to follow the ship for about 20 minutes firing at it. The pirates left when a Spanish Naval Ship appeared on the scene.

This incident is believed to be one of the first times a non-military ship with private security guards has used guns to repel a pirate attack. Generally ships with guns onboard are barred from docking at non-military ports, a fact that is well known to Somali pirates. However, as in this case, to get around this restriction some vessel owners are hiring private security forces to board as a ship enters dangerous waters and then debark when the ship has passed beyond the danger area.

Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas in a video speech said: " We shouldn't say that they (commercial vessels) can't carry guns." He further stated that ship operators need to take responsibility for the safety of their vessels, crews, and passengers.

The avoidance of a hijacking putting more than 1500 people in danger by simply hiring a few armed guards should show policymakers the total absurdity of making ships sail unarmed into dangerous waters.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gerry McGill

How to hire an injury lawyer in Mississippi

Gerry McGill — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:00:00 GMT

I have written in an earlier blog that virtually all lawyers handle injury and death cases on a contingent fee basis which means that the fee charged is a percentage of the client's recovery. Although some lawyers charge 1/3, most ask for 40%. However, in Mississippi lawyers can charge as much as 50%! Fees in Mississippi are regulated by Rule 1.5 of the Mississippi Rules of Professional Conduct.Mississippi Rules of Professional Conduct. Rule 1.5(a) provides that: "A lawyer's fee shall be reasonable" and then lists eight factors to be considered in determining the reasonableness of a fee.

Rule 1.5(c) provides in part that: "A contingent fee agreement shall be in writing and shall state the method by which the fee is to be determined, including the percentage or percentages that shall accrue to the lawyer in the event of settlement, trial or appeal, litigation and other expenses to be deducted from the recovery, and whether such expenses are to be deducted before or after the contingent fee is calculated."

Unfortunately, nowhere in the Rules is any requirement that a lawyer tell a prospective client that both contingent fee percentages and whether expenses are deducted before or after the contingent fee is calculated are negotiable.

Let's take a worst case example for the client. You hire a lawyer in a serious case and agree to a 50% attorney fee with the costs to be deducted after the contingent fee is calculated. Over the course of the case the lawyer advances $50,000.00 in costs for depositions, expert witness fees, and medical expert fees. If the case is settled or there is a jury verdict for $250,000.00, the lawyer takes $125,000.00 as his fee leaving the client with a gross recovery of $125,000.00. However the lawyer then recovers his $50,000.00 in costs leaving the client with a net recovery of $75,000.00. Most lawyers would not do this, but the Rule allows this.

Let's take a more likely example using the same settlement figure and costs. In this case the lawyer charges a 40% fee with costs to be deducted before the contingent fee is calculated. When the $50,000.00 costs are deducted from the total recovery of $250,000.00 there is a gross recovery of $200,000.00. Now the 40% attorney fee is $80,000.00 and the client's recovery is $120,000.00.

What's the moral of this story? Be sure you discuss the terms of any contingent fee with the attorney before signing any contract. In fact, if you have been seriously injured due to someone else's negligence, you should probably talk with several attorneys before deciding which one should handle your case.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gerry McGill

Homeowners Nightmare. Insurance doesn't cover Chinese drywall damage.

Gerry McGill — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:37:36 GMT

Just when you thought you had seen it all with insurance companies, ABC News has released this new report on homeowner's insurance:

As a New Orleans federal court holds a hearing today on lawsuits alleging that defective Chinese-made drywall is destroying people's homes and their health, outside the courtroom owners of more than 100,000 houses built with that drywall are learning that some insurance companies are canceling their policies.

Apparently:

Now that insurance companies know about the tainted drywall, some, such as Universal Insurance and Citizens Property Insurance, have chosen to cancel policies to avoid further risk from things like corroding pipes that could burst.

Builders started using Chinese-made drywall after the combined building boom, the devastation to Florida by Hurricanes Charley, Francis, Ivan, and Jeanne in 2004, and then the Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma in 2005 caused a shortage in domestic building materials. At first, the building materials from China didn't seem to be any different than the normally-used materials, but after a while, the homeowners who moved into the homes built with Chinese-made drywall began to notice a change in their health and living conditions. Take, for instance, the story of real-estate agent Felix Martinez:

Felix Martinez thought he'd found his dream house when he bought the 3,500-square-foot beauty in Homestead, Fla., two years ago.

Then, he says, his large-screen TV mysteriously failed. Next, the air conditioner went. His bath towels smelled like rotten eggs. Visitors noted an odor in the house. Martinez says he's suffered new sinus problems and sleep apnea. His wife and son sneeze a lot.

Other families have reported similar timelines in homes that were built with Chinese materials: damage to their property, a sulfurous odor, and negative health effects, usually dealing with the respiratory system. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is currently investigating Chinese-made drywall, to see if it is emitting sulfur gasses, which can corrode copper coils and electronics in a home. A current lawsuit against the drywall manufacturer Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin says that such sulfurous gasses can have negative health effects on people, but Knauf disagrees, saying that tests have been done on the gasses and they do not affect health in any way.

Either way, it is apparent that living conditions in homes with Chinese-made drywall are becoming unbearable, so the homeowners have two options: either move, or replace the drywall. If the family moves, "they have to disclose the drywall problem and that may make their dream home virtually worthless". These homes were built in 2005 or more recently, so the majority of the people who have bought these homes have not paid off their mortgages on them, which may make selling them for less then they paid for them a financial catastrophe.

Unfortunately, if the family chooses to replace the drywall, it could cost them upwards of $100,000, and many home-owners insurance companies, such as Citizens Insurance Company, are dropping their policies with these homeowners as soon as the families make a claim to help pay for the replacement drywall.

While the law doesn't prevent insurance companies from dropping policies in this manner, this is another example of ordinary people being left out to dry by the insurance companies that they pay high premiums to every month. If we can't rely on our insurance companies to help us financially when we fall on hard times, then why do we pay them so much money? This is a sad situation, and hopefully we will learn from this, and start to hold our insurance companies and homebuilders accountable for their actions.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gerry McGill

Church bus crash in Mississippi kills 1; injures 23

Gerry McGill — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:04:32 GMT

Church Bus Flips in Mississippi; Killing 1, Injuring 23

A church bus carrying a church youth group from Louisiana to Georgia flipped Sunday July 12 at around 10:20 a.m., killing one and injuring 23. The accident took place on Interstate 20 near Meridian, Mississippi. The Lauderdale county coroner, Clayton Cobler III, reports that a rear tire blowout caused the bus to flip three times before landing on its side and trapping passengers underneath. A group of National Guard soldiers were traveling on I-20 when the accident occurred and helped extricate the injured. They also managed to lift the bus up off the two people trapped underneath and get them out.

While some sources report the deceased to be an 18-year-old male, the Shreveport Times reports that he is 14-years-old. The young man was pronounced dead at Jeff Anderson Hospital. Passenger injuries range from severe pelvic, back and chest injuries to minimal scrapes and scratches. Sources report that three passengers were airlifted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center, while 13 were taken to Rush Foundation Hospital and six were taken to Regency Hospital of Meridian. Many of those injured were released from the hospital late Sunday.

The bus left the Shreveport, Louisiana church at 4:45 a.m. The youth group was traveling to Macon, Georgia to attend a week-long Christian youth camp called Passport, which is held at Mercer University. At the time of the accident, the bus was two miles west of the Alabama state line. The rollover happened near the visitor center. The First Baptist Church of Shreveport, Louisiana learned of the accident shortly before they began their Sunday morning worship. Dr. Greg Hunt, senior pastor of First Baptist, expressed appreciation for the heroic actions and support of those involved. The congregation is pulling together to overcome this unfortunate tragedy.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time a church bus has been involved in an accident. In Texas, a fatal church bus accident was also caused by a tire blowout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B_arWTekeo

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gerry McGill

Malpractice Tort Reform is a Red Herring in the Health Care Debate

Gerry McGill — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:30:50 GMT

Do you know what a red herring is?

Dictionary.com defines a red herring as "something intended to divert attention from the real problem or matter at hand". The term was coined because escaped criminals used to use the strong smell of red herrings to confuse the police's bloodhounds.

Nowadays, there are a lot of people using the "red herring" of capping rewards in malpractice cases to distract us from the real issue of health care reform. These people would claim that the main problem in our health care system comes from ridiculously expensive malpractice cases, and that doctors are being run out of business by corrupt lawyers and their greedy clients.

Of course, these claims are only loosely based on fact, and serve more to distract the public than to educate them. According to several studies, and prominent American economists, malpractice costs make up only about 2% of our nation's spending on health care, and health care prices continue to rise even in states where caps have been set on the amount of money a person can win in a malpractice case.

So why do so many people continue to push for malpractice caps as the solution to our health care problem?

For one thing, it's more easily grasped than the more complicated arguments for health care reform. Media accounts of huge jury verdicts (Remember the woman who spilled McDonald's coffee on her lap and was awarded millions?) tend to magnify the lotterylike aspects of the tort system, with undeserving plaintiffs reaping huge rewards while deserving victims get shut out.

"Everyone likes to have villains," said Kansas City lawyer Gene Graham, whose firm handles medical malpractice cases. "They want to find someone to blame. Trial lawyers have become convenient targets for people who want to say they're responsible."

Tom Baker, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of "The Medical Malpractice Myth," theorized that having "a common enemy" keeps insurance and pharmaceutical companies -- the real culprits behind rising costs, he said -- from fighting among themselves.

Conversely, [Harvard economist Amitabh] Chandra said: "Everyone likes their doctor and doctors work hard, so we as a society have a tendency to listen to their view of the world."

The Gulf Coast, and Mississippi in specific, has too many uninsured citizens for us to pay attention to these red herrings. According to the Birmingham Business Journal, all of the Gulf Coast states reported Census statistics that put them above the national average number of uninsured adults and children. As it was broken down statistically:

The U.S. average for uninsured adults was 19.85 percent. Florida had the highest level of uninsured adults in the South at 27.4 percent. Arkansas reported 25.7 percent uninsured. Louisiana had 25 percent while Georgia’s rate was 24.5 percent. Mississippi had 23.5 percent of its adults uninsured. Texas was the worst nationally with 30.4 percent of adults uninsured.

We can't afford to be distracted from the real issues at hand. Health care costs are going up, and medical malpractice caps will not help us make health insurance more affordable; if anything, capping how much an injured party can receive in damages will only hurt people who are already suffering.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gerry McGill

NHTSA fears angering Congress; Hides study on cell phones and driving.

Gerry McGill — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:46:53 GMT

Everyone knows that drinking and driving is bad. We are bombarded on a daily basis with public service announcements to that effect. Our children take drivers education classes in which they watch films with titles like “Blood on the Highways!!!” If we actually drive after drinking we can expect to be caught and lose our drivers licenses and possibly go to jail. If we get in an accident and someone is killed, we will be charged with vehicular manslaughter. So, with all this, surely it is obvious that drinking and driving is the worst combination ever, right? Wrong. It now appears the driving while texting is more dangerous than driving while intoxicated.

Reports have begun to surface that in 2003 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) suppressed research showing the tremendous danger of using a cell phone while driving. According to the former head of the NHTSA, the report was suppressed in order to “avoid antagonizing members of Congress.” According to their website, the mission of the NHTSA is to “Save lives, prevent injuries, [and] reduce vehicle-related crashes.” Unless of course, that mission results in “antagonizing members of Congress.”

The NHTSA report finds that drivers talking on a phone are four times more likely to crash than other drivers. This is the same likelihood of causing an accident as a driver with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .08. The study also shows that the problem is not the physical manipulation of the device. In other words, drivers talking on a hands-free device are no safer than those holding the phone. This sounds bad enough, and yet a 2006 study from the University of Utah found that in simulators, cell phone users actually caused more accidents than drunken drivers.

Neither of these studies examined texting while driving, merely talking. However, common sense suggests that if the mere act of using a phone while driving is dangerous, then using it while not looking at the road will be even more so. And, in recent months the nation has begun to reap the fruits of the NHTSA’s timidity. There have been a number of high profile public accidents involving texting. Since September 2008, more than 25 people have been killed, and nearly 200 injured in a train accident where the operators were texting. Early in June, a federal employee in California somehow failed to see an enormous Department of Transportation maintenance truck, at least until he slammed into it at full speed. The cause? The driver was talking on his cell phone, in violation of California law.

If this recitation of facts has not been disquieting enough, consider another conclusion from the Utah study. At any given time, the number of drunk drivers on the road is quite small, particularly during the day. Just look out of your car window during today’s commute home and see how many folks are chatting away on their phones, or even texting. My own, informal, research suggests that at least half of drivers are blithely chatting away in what are, I’m sure, extremely important phone calls. Perhaps they are all trauma surgeons responding to emergency pages, or ambassadors to foreign nations, or perhaps they are all the guy who holds the nuclear codes for the president. They can’t possibly be risking their lives and the lives of others in order to share the details of the sandwich they ate for lunch, or because they can’t wait fifteen minutes to schedule a haircut.

Here is the bottom line, folks. Talking on a cell phone is at least as dangerous as driving drunk. Texting is worse. If you do it you are endangering those around you. In a word, it is negligent. So, let’s stop doing it.Just once, let’s all try and do the right thing because it is right. If however, doing the right thing for the right reason just doesn’t make it for you, consider how you will feel explaining to the grieving relatives of the people you just killed that you couldn’t pass up the opportunity to win free concert tickets. If even that is not enough, imagine sitting in a courtroom someday, explaining it to a jury.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gerry McGill

IDA's main danger is flooding.

Gerry McGill — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:24:02 GMT

"Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at and missed!" Winston Churchill cabled back to England when he was a war correspondent covering the Boer war. The same could be said for hurricanes. Thanks to the late date, resultling in cooler Gulf waters, and upper wind shear, the winds were much less than they could have been. However, as with most tropical storms and depressions, most of the damage is done by flooding,often miles inland from the coast. Unfortunately some homeowners are going to suffer flooding and find that their Homeowners Insurance does not cover flooding even when that flooding is caused by a named windstorm. I have posted earlier blogs on this site as to how to obtain low cost flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) which is a government funded policy. If you suffered flooding, or even if you escaped this time, I urge you to look into obtaining flood insurance. History has shown that flooding occurs anytime throughout the year, not just during Hurricane season or near the Gulf Coast.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gerry McGill

Drug Manufacturers Sued Over Marketing of Cholesterol Drugs Vytorin and Zetia

Gerry McGill — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:22:58 GMT

The Associated Press has reported that drug manufacturers Merck & Company and Schering-Plough Corporation, the makers of the popular cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia, are being sued in states across the country, including Mississippi, over allegations that the two companies misled consumers into thinking the drugs were more effective than generic cholesterol drugs.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gerry McGill