Arkansas Injury Lawyer Blog

I just read a report of a recent study that found women to be better drivers than men. According to the study, some 80 percent of all fatal and serious car crashes are caused by male drivers. The car accident study found that women are 27 percent less likely than men to cause auto accidents. In 2007, statistics reveal men were involved in 6.1 million car accidents while women were involved in 4.4 million. Further, male drivers out number females 3 to 1 for DUI violations. According to the new report, traffic violations are higher for male drivers in almost every single category from reckless driving, failure to yield, seat belt violations, or speeding.

Women have been telling us men that they are better drivers. Now it seems that they can point to some proof. I will start to keep a non scientific list of at-fault drivers for Arkansas car accident cases that we handle. It will be interesting to see if the car and truck accident cases handled by an Arkansas personal injury lawyer will follow this same ratio....

Please contact an Arkansas car accident attorney if you or a loved one has suffered from a car crash in Arkansas. It is important that legal advice concerning the auto accident be given as early as possible.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board states should ban all driver use of cell phones and other portable electronic devices. The recommendation applies to both hands free and hand held phones and significantly exceeds any existing state laws restricting texting and cellphone use behind the wheel.

The recommendation came in connection with a deadly highway pileup accident in Missouri last year. The board found that the traffic collision was caused by the inattention of a driver who sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes immediately before the crash. The pickup driver and a 15-year-old student on one of the school buses were killed. Thirty-eight other people were injured in the Aug. 5, 2010, accident near Gray Summit, Mo.

The board previously recommended bans on texting and cell phone use by commercial truck and bus drivers. According to a study, at any given moment nearly 1 in every 100 car drivers is texting, emailing, surfing the Web or otherwise using a handheld electronic device. Arkansas has passed a statute limiting cell phone use. Please see a previous blog post outlining the new law. Arkansas traffic accident injuries caused from cell phone use is avoidable and drivers should use good judgment and not be tempted to use their cell phones while driving.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a traffic accident, please contact an Arkansas accident lawyer to discuss your legal rights.

The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday affirmed a 48 million verdict for farmers who say they lost money because a company's genetically altered rice seeds contaminated the food supply and drove down crop prices.

Bayer argued that Arkansas tort laws set a limit on punitive damages and that courts should set aside jury awards that "shock the conscience." However, in its opinion the Arkansas Supreme Court agreed with the Lonoke Circuit Court that the cap on punitive damages was unconstitutional. Associate Justice Courtney Hudson Goodson wrote that the cap "limits the amount of recovery outside the employment relationship," while the Arkansas constitution only allows limits on compensation paid by employers to employees. The court said the law conflicts with Amendment 26, which gives the Legislature the power to enact measures to prescribe the amount of compensation to be paid employees for injury or death.

This ruling is a great victory for ordinary hard working Arkansas residents. The Arkansas Court found that an Arkansas jury should not be constricted by big business and their hand picked legislators in deciding fair and reasonable verdicts and damages. If you have been harmed by negligence of another party, please contact contact an Arkansas Personal Injury lawyer to discuss your legal rights.

The nation’s largest for-profit nursing homes deliver significantly lower quality of care because they typically have fewer staff nurses than non-profit and government-owned nursing homes according to the study by UCSF.

The 10 largest for-profit chains operate about 2,000 nursing homes in the United States. Nursing home chains have expanded recently. The researchers compared staffing levels and facility deficiencies at the for-profit chains to those at homes run by five other ownership groups to measure quality of care. The 10 largest chains were selected because they are influential in the nursing home industry and are the most successful in terms of growth and market share. The study found that for-profit homes keep their costs down by reducing staffing. The 10 largest for-profit chains in 2008 were HCR Manor Care, Golden Living, Life Care Centers of America, Kindred Healthcare, Genesis HealthCare Corporation, Sun Health Care Group, Inc., SavaSeniorCare LLC, Extendicare Health Services, Inc., National Health Care Corporation, and Skilled HealthCare, LLC. According to the report, these chains had fewer nurse “staffing hours” than non-profit and government nursing homes when controlling for other factors. Together, these companies had the sickest residents, but their total nursing hours were 30 percent lower than non-profit and government nursing homes.

The report indicates that the 10 largest for-profit chains were cited for 36 percent more deficiencies and 41 percent more serious deficiencies than the best facilities. Deficiencies include failure to prevent pressure sores, resident weight loss, falls, infections, resident mistreatment, poor sanitary conditions, and other problems that could seriously harm residents. The study also found that the four largest for-profit nursing home chains purchased by private equity companies between 2003 and 2008 had more deficiencies after being acquired. The study is the first to make the connection between worse care following acquisition by private equity companies.

If your loved one or family member has suffered from nursing home abuse or neglect in an Arkansas nursing home, please contact an Arkansas nursing home abuse lawyer to discuss your legal rights.

An off-road utility vehicle company has recalled 3,200 buggies because the steering arm assemblies may break during operation. The recall involves Bad Boy LT, Classic, XT, XTO and XT Safari model electric off-road utility vehicles. According to the company, it has had reports of steering arm assembly breaking. When this occurs, the driver loses control of the vehicle. Owners should stop using the buggies immediately.

Product defects can cause severe injuries. In Arkansas, hunters use off-road vehicles to enjoy their favorite outdoor pastime, hunting. If these vehicles malfunction and cause injury, the injured person may have a personal injury lawsuit under Arkansas law. If you or a loved one have any questions regarding a defective product, please contact an Arkansas injury lawyer.

Law enforcement officials shut down a residential care facility in Hot Springs, Arkansas for various fire, building, and safety code violations. Officials from numerous government agencies converged on the home after finding people not getting the care they needed along with open electrical wiring and a lack of smoke detectors.

Data released by the federal government in 2008 found that 95 percent of Arkansas nursing homes were cited for health and safety violations and many of those troubling stats persist. A nursing home patient advocate recently pointed out that there are 234 nursing homes in Arkansas and all the nursing homes except for three percent were cited for violations of the law last year. There were 2,500 reported cases in Arkansas of senior harm, abuse and neglect at nursing homes in 2010 and some of those incidents caused the death of elderly residents.

Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel recently announced that his office is increasing both civil investigations and criminal cases to curb nursing home neglect. Currently, there are over 180 state and federal laws that govern nursing homes and their treatment of the elderly. It is important that family members of nursing home residents stay diligent in making sure the Arkansas nursing home is properly taking care of the resident's needs.

The Arkansas Nursing Home Abuse Lawyers with the Pfeifer Law Firm handle cases involving nursing home abuse and neglect and are available to answer any questions concerning nursing home care that you may have.

Residents’ Rights Month 2011 reminds us that residents of long-term care facilities (nursing homes) are part of the community. Community is more than just a nursing home. Residents have the right to continue to participate in activities and other groups that meet outside of the nursing home. This year’s Residents’ Rights Month theme Welcome Home: Creating Connections Between Residents and the Community challenges us to think of creative ways to involve residents in the community and to invite the community into the facilities in the month of October and throughout the year. It is time to bring our elders back into the community at large. As an Arkansas lawyer who represents nursing home residents and their families, this month is important to remind us all that these residents need our attention and our diligence to make sure their needs are being met. If their needs are not met, it is important to hold the nursing home owners responsible so that other residents will not be ignored.

A national insurance company has ranked Little Rock, Arkansas 119 out of the top 200 biggest cities in the report. According to the report, Little has gotten worse over the last few years. From my experience as a Little Rock accident lawyer, most accidents are caused from inattention and various distractions. Serious accidents caused from cell phone use continues to rise even even with recent Arkansas laws concerning texting while driving.

If you or a family member has suffered an injury in car accident please contact an Arkansas accident lawyer as soon as possible to fully protect your legal rights.

A recent article in the New York Times shed some much needed light on a problem that will grow larger and larger. The number of complaints filed with the Federal Drug Administration concerning artificial hip implants rose dramatically in the last couple of years. According to the article, there were 5,000 complaints this year alone.

The use of artificial hips became a very common orthopedic surgical procedure over the last decade and the use of all metal hips accounted for nearly one-third of the estimated 250,000 replacements performed each year. Patients have started to have severe problems with the hip implants necessitating removal and causing long term debilitating injury. A large number of lawsuits have been filed and it is expected that many more will be as more and more individuals have problems. Artificial hip implant complaints are currently being reviewed by Arkansas injury lawyers.

If you or a family member has problems with a artificial hip or have questions whether the artificial hip is part of a recall, please contact an Arkansas injury lawyer so that your rights can be protected.

The Arkansas State Police are reporting that a serious accident occurred on Interstate 30 near Prescott, Arkansas. Four people were killed, and four people are being treated for serious injuries as the result a wreck on Interstate 30.

A white Dodge Durango SUV was headed east on Interstate 30 when the driver veered into the center median and over-corrected and overturned. Three people in the vehicle were pronounced dead at the scene, but one person died later as a result of injuries at a Hot Springs, Arkansas Hospital. Additional people were severally injured and are being treated at local hospitals according to the report.

One vehicle accidents are often severe and result in serious injury or death. Many times we focus on two car accidents, however, on car accidents are just as serious and require consultation with a accident lawyer. Multiple types of insurance coverages could be triggered in this type of car accident. Therefore, it is important to contact an attorney to determine what the legal implications are because of a one vehicle crash. If you or a loved one would like to speak with an Arkansas injury car accident lawyer, please contact the Pfeifer Law Firm for a free consultation.

Cellphones and other electronic devices cause up to 25 percent of U.S. car crashes, according to a recent report. The study was released by the Governors Highway Safety Association.

The study stated that drivers are distracted up to half the time and that crashes caused by distractions can cause a fatal injury. The study indicated that texting causes more distraction that cellphone use.

Thirty U.S. states and the District of Columbia have law prohibiting the use of all cellphones by novice drivers and 41 states and Washington, D.C. had prohibited texting by novice drivers. Thirty four states and the District of Columbia have enacted texting bans for all drivers.

In my experience as an Arkansas car accident lawyer, incidences of personal injury caused by cellphones is common. These car accidents can and should be avoided. If you would like to speak with an Arkansas injury lawyer please contact the Pfeifer Law Firm.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced new safety rules that would make it harder for tour bus companies to gain permission to operate and easier for the government to put unsafe operators out of business. Other proposals would make it easier for the government to take away bus drivers' commercial licenses if they violate drug and alcohol laws while operating a vehicle other than a bus.

The new proposals would require bus companies to pass a safety audit before receiving federal permission to operate. The audit would include an interview with the company's owners and a safety examination of the company's drivers and vehicles.

This personal injury blog has written about previous serious bus accidents that were caused by unsafe companies and drivers. You can read about them here and here. A post about an Arkansas bus accident can be found here.

If you or a family member has been injured in a bus accident, it is important that you contact an Arkansas injury lawyer as soon a possible so that you know your legal rights.