Jury awards $20.6 million in pool slide death

SALEM — A Salem Superior Court jury has ordered Toys "R" Us to pay more than $20 million to the family of a young mother who died five years ago after an inflatable pool slide sold by the national chain partially collapsed while she was using it during a pool party in Andover.

The Banzai Falls in-ground pool slide was never tested to determine whether it met federal safety standards for pool slides before or after it was imported from China by the retailer, a violation of federal law.

The jury's $20.6 million verdict, returned on Thursday afternoon after a weeklong trial and less than an hour of deliberation, is believed to be the largest ever awarded by an Essex County jury and one of the highest in the state this year.

"He'd rather have his wife and his daughter's mother back," lawyer Thomas Smith, of Boston's Sugarman law firm, said yesterday of client Michael Aleo's reaction to the verdict. "He felt that there was a wrong done, and he is pleased that the jury recognized that. This product should not have been sold."

Robin Aleo was 29, married and the mother of an 18-month-old daughter when, during a pool party at the Andover home of relatives on July 29, 2006, she climbed to the top of the 6-foot-high Banzai Falls slide, then started sliding down head-first.

Near the bottom, the slide suddenly bottomed out and Aleo struck her head on the edge of the pool, according to testimony. Her neck was broken, and she was left paralyzed and unable to breathe. She died the following day at a Boston hospital.

The Aleos, originally from Long Island, N.Y., were living in Colorado at the time and were in Andover to visit Michael Aleo's aunt and uncle, Sarah and William Letsky. They had purchased the pool slide the prior month from Toys "R" Us via Amazon's website.

Aleo and others at the party testified that the couple's daughter was present when her mother was pulled, unconscious, from the pool. Michael Aleo attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and told jurors that as he looked at his wife, she mouthed the word "more." But the injury left her unable to breathe on her own, and her condition deteriorated.

Missouri man paralyzed

Robin Aleo was at least the second person allegedly left paralyzed by such an incident on the Banzai Falls slide, of which more than 4,000 have been sold nationwide, according to court records.

A camp counselor in Missouri, Mark Grantham, was left a quadriplegic when the same thing allegedly happened to him on a Banzai Falls slide purchased at a Wal-Mart, according to court documents. His suit against both Wal-Mart and the Chinese manufacturers is still pending.

Jurors were not told about the Missouri case but did learn that the company that Toys "R" Us uses in China to safety-test products before they are imported, Bureau Veritas, was never asked to test the pool slide for compliance with federal safety regulations governing pool slides.

The product was tested for other product safety rules — and twice failed, once for containing lead in excess of federal limits — but not for compliance with the Consumer Product Safety Commission pool slide regulation, a former Toys "R" Us executive acknowledged during testimony on Wednesday.

Lawyers for Toys "R" Us contended that the regulations did not apply to the Banzai slide because it was inflatable, and that they were not responsible for safety testing for compliance with regulations.

They also contended that Aleo had been injured when she attempted to dive off of the slide, and not while she slid down, which was contradicted by witnesses who testified.

While there is a small print warning not to use the slide head-first, federal safety standards required that the slide be tested for such a typical use.

Under those standards, all pool slides are also required to support a load of 350 pounds without "deformation" or giving way. The Banzai slide deforms under almost any weight at all, and the shifting of weight as a user slides down displaces the air at the bottom, making it unable to support any load, a plaintiff's expert witness concluded.

After the trial got under way, two other defendants named in the suit, Amazon.com, which was in a partnership with Toys "R" Us to sell items online, and the manufacturer SLB Toys USA both settled with Michael Aleo for undisclosed sums.

Two calls to the Toys "R" Us corporate public relations department were not returned yesterday.

Sending a message

The jury's verdict included $2.5 million in anticipated lost income from Aleo's apparently successful advertising and marketing career and other actual damages, $100,000 in compensation for pain and suffering before her death, and $18 million in punitive damages.

Essex County Clerk of Courts Thomas Driscoll said his office is still calculating the interest on the judgment but expects that it will be the largest ever awarded by an Essex County jury.

Smith, the attorney for the Aleo family, said he hopes the size of the verdict and in particular the punitive damages sends a message to all retailers and importers "to make sure, not just for toys but for all products, that they comply with our laws and that they are safe."

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source: salemnews.com (Manganis, 10/15)

Texas' tort law has failed to reduce health costs, attract doctors

A national report released Wednesday says the 2003 Texas law that limited damage awards in malpractice suits has caused health care spending to rise and has not significantly increased the number of doctors in Texas.

The report comes as Gov. Rick Perry has touted the benefits of the law on the presidential campaign trail, boasting that it has added 21,000 Texas doctors — a claim the report disputes. Supporters of the law also urged Congress to enact a similar provision for the nation as part of the federal health care law that passed in March 2010. That provision was not included.

The 24-page report by Public Citizen, "A Failed Experiment," says that using Texas as a model would benefit doctors and insurers — not residents.

The report claims that Medicare spending in Texas has risen faster than the national average, and so have private health insurance premiums. It also says that, contrary to Perry's claims, the per capita increase in the number of doctors practicing in the state has been much slower since the state passed the so-called tort reform law than it was before the law.

Organizations that support the 2003 law — the Texas Medical Association and the Texas Alliance for Patient Access — disputed the report's assertions on the number of physicians who have come to the state. As for health care costs, "we never said consumer costs would go down," Jon Opelt, the alliance's executive director, said Wednesday.

Before the state limited damage awards that patients and their families could collect in malpractice cases, doctors were leaving the state in droves, and malpractice insurance rates were about double what they are today for most doctors, said Dr. Howard Marcus, an internist at Austin Regional Clinic. Marcus, a member of the medical association and chairman of the alliance, said that it took several years for tort reform to have an effect and that since 2007, Texas has licensed 60 percent more new doctors each year than it did before tort reform.

The report by Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, examines the number of direct patient care and primary care doctors in Texas between 1996 and 2010. It says that in the seven years before the lawsuit limits, the per capita number of doctors increased by 9.3 percent. In the seven subsequent years, the increase was 4.2 percent.

Perry's 21,000 figure was disputed by a PolitiFact check, which Public Citizen cited. PolitiFact said that Perry was counting all physicians licensed in Texas — the number actually practicing was 12,788 — since 2003. Experts said most of that increase was due to population growth, not tort reform.

Marcus said that Public Citizen erred by using a seven-year range before and after the 2003 law took effect. He said that it took until about 2007 for the law's effects to be felt, adding that it would be better to examine 2007 to 2011 and compare those years with the period before the tort changes.

Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle said Wednesday that tort reform has greatly expanded access to care, especially in underserved rural areas. For example, she said, the number of obstetricians in rural areas of Texas has grown by 27 percent.

Castle added that from 2003 to 2009, Texas premiums for employer-sponsored health coverage increased at a lower rate than the national average and 27 other states.

The Public Citizen report counters that doctors in rural areas of Texas have decreased by 1 percent since tort reform after increasing by 23.9 percent in the seven years before the 2003 law.

It also says that health care coverage is unaffordable to more Texans since the law took effect. In 2010, 24.6 percent of Texans were uninsured — the highest rate in the nation — compared with 23.6 percent in 2003.

Regarding Medicare costs, the Public Citizen report says that proponents of lawsuit limits say that doctors would order fewer tests and practice less "defensive medicine" if they didn't have to fear as many lawsuits. "In fact," the report says, "Medicare diagnostic testing expenditures in Texas not only increased during this time frame (2003 to 2007), but rose 25.6 percent faster than the national average."

Marcus and Opelt said many factors drive such costs and that they have no bearing on changes in the medical malpractice law.

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source: www.statesman.com (Roser, 10/12)

Houston-based firm pleads guilty over Oklahoma acid spill in 2007

Integrated Production Services, a Houston-based oil field services contractor, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court in Muskogee, Okla., to violating the Clean Water Act by negligently spilling 400 to 700 gallons of hydrochloric acid -- used in "fracking" of wells -- into a creek in eastern Oklahoma in 2007.

IPS agreed to pay a $140,000 fine and make a $22,000 payment to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation for ecological studies and remediation of Boggy Creek in Atoka County, according to federal officials.

IPS will also serve two years' probation, perform an environmental compliance program at a cost of $38,000, and train employees in hazardous-waste handling and spill-response procedures.

IPS was working at a natural gas well site on May 24, 2007, when a tank leaked corrosive hydrochloric acid onto the bermed surface of the well site, which was already flooded after heavy rainfall. Rather than properly removing the acid-polluted rainwater, IPS supervisor Gabriel Henson drove a company truck through the earthen berm, discharging the rainwater and the acid into Dry Creek, a tributary of Boggy Creek, the statement said.

On July 20, Henson pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act and is awaiting sentencing. He faces up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

"As hydraulic fracturing occurs with increasing frequency across the country, companies and individuals involved in those operations must adhere to the laws that protect human health and the environment and level the playing field for responsible businesses," said Ignacia S. Moreno, an assistant attorney general for the Justice Department.


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source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (Smith, 10/11)

18-Wheeler & Car Wreck Briefly Shuts Down I-35 Early This Morning

(New Braunfels, TX) -- Southbound I-35 at FM 306 was briefly shut down early this morning, following an accident in the 14-hundred block of I-35, across the highway from Canyon High School, directly in front of the Best Western and Hilton Garden Inn.

At just past 4:30am an 18-wheeler collided with a small blue Honda passenger car, smashing that car severely, leaving the driver, a woman in her 20’s, trapped inside.

New Braunfels Fire and Rescue crews arrived on scene and began a prolonged extrication of that victim, and Airlife was originally sent to the scene. That helicopter was set to land directly on the highway, so crews were in the process of shutting down all of Southbound I-35, when the decision was made to instead transport the woman by ground EMS to University Hospital in San Antonio.

Police officers continued to block off the highway for a short time until crews finished the extrication. While Fire and EMS crews tended to the victim, other officers and personnel cleaned up debris from the roadway.

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source: kgnb.am (10/7)

East Texas police chase ends with shots fired

TYLER, TX (KLTV video link) - Smith County Constable Mark Waters was patrolling I-20 near the Smith-Gregg county line when he noticed Michael Scott Cook's truck missing a front license plate and made what he thought was a routine traffic stop.

"He became agitated about the law in the state of Texas of having to have a license plate and tried to take his paperwork back away from me," said Smith County Interstate Criminal Patrol Officer Mark Waters. "I informed him he would be placed under arrest. He informed me that he was not going to stick around."

Cook then took off, despite Waters running to the front of the vehicle in an attempt to stop him. Waters called for backup, and DPS troopers scrambled to I-20 to help bring Cook in.

"During the time he was throwing out a lot of articles...large bags of trash, a fire extinguisher, cans of Coke. He was waving gestures at us out the window," said Deputy Waters.

Near Kilgore, Cook allegedly tried to hit a DPS trooper's car that was parked on the shoulder.

"He was able to maneuver the vehicle out of the way to keep from being hit," said DPS Trooper Jean Dark.

DPS Troopers stopped the chase near the Eastman Road exit in Longview.

"A trooper was able to disable the truck tractor semi-trailer by deflating the tires with his M-4 rifle," said Trooper Dark.

Cook was arrested and taken to the Gregg County jail, where he is being held on $50,000 bond. He faces two felony charges in Gregg County and may face more charges in Smith County later this week.

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source: www.kltv.com (Callahan, 10/3)