OMAHA, Neb. — A 6-year-old girl who underwent a rare transplant surgery after her intestines were sucked out in a swimming pool has died in an Omaha hospital. Abigail Taylor’s family said she died Thursday evening. Bob Bennett is an attorney for the Taylor family. He said Abigail’s parents were with her when she died at Nebraska Medical Center…

Jamie Jones, the young woman who alleges that she was drugged and raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers while she was in Iraq, has filed suit in federal court in Houston. Halliburton wants to force Jones’s claims into arbitration per her employment contract, which is outrageous given the inquities of arbitration against the plaintiff. Halliburton’s attorneys argued that the contract…

Medicare, soon to be followed by private health insurers, will no longer pay for medical treatment of preventable injuries caused by medical errors. Medicare lists eight “hospital-caused preventable injuries,” including urinary tract infections from catheters, falls, pressure sores, and embolism. After October 1st, if a Medicare patient develops one of these eight injuries, Medicare won’t pay for treatment. Apparently…

An Alon USA oil refinery in Big Spring exploded this morning. All workers are accounted for, according to CNN. No word yet on the environmental impact and property damage. I-20 is closed. Something tells me explosions like this will become more commonplace. We seem to have had a rash of them lately….

Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife sued the makers of heparin Tuesday after their newborn twins were inadvertently given massive doses of the blood thinner at a hospital. The product liability lawsuit, filed in Chicago, seeks more than $50,000 in damages. It claims that Baxter Healthcare Corp., based in Deerfield, Ill., was negligent in packaging different doses of the…

Every day, more and more gas drilling rigs pop up all over north Texas, mainly around Tarrant, Johnson and Parker Counties. And with the increased drilling activity comes a greater risk of injuries, both to workers and to those living around the wells. Today many residents in this area watched as huge flames and a billowing cloud of black…

Good article about the dangers of amusement park rides. Hey, I’m not opposed to the well-run outfits, but even the most-professionally run parks have had some problems. What really scares me to death are the traveling carnivals that set up in mall parking lots, at county fairs, and such. I worked on a case years ago involving a machine…

Women, children, the elderly, minorities and those who are less-affluent, according to a study done by two professors at Emory University. Here is the abstract to the article: “Tort reform may not affect all segments of society equally. Studies have shown that many tort reforms disproportionately reduce compensation to women, children, the elderly, disadvantaged minorities, and less affluent people. This…

Good article in the Texas Observer dispels one of the big myths foisted upon Texans by the insurance industry in pushing “tort reform” back in 2003. Quote: “Proposition 12, and the far-reaching changes in Texas civil law that it dragged behind it, was built on a foundation of mistruths and sketchy assumptions. The number of doctors in the state…

Allstate refuses to turn over documents in a Missouri lawsuit which pertain to company policies “allegedly” designed to shortchange clients while earning itself huge profits. Even the Missouri Supreme Court, not exactly known as a hot bed of liberal judicial activism, orders Allstate to turn over the documents. They still refuse. So the trial judge fines Allstate $25,000 per…