California Personal Injury Law Case Notes : California Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Kristine Meredith : The Danko Law Firm : Car Accidents & Product Liability

As reported by the San Jose Mercury News, the "mystery" as to why the pipe ruptured appears to be solved. The NTSB found that the pipe was not properly welded, even by 1956 standards.  The welds were supposed to go through the whole pipe but didn't.

In the area of pipe identified as the spot where the rupture occurred, the weld penetrated only about 50 percent of the pipe wall.

In other words, the pipe was at less than half strength. Though it's not clear whether it was a PG&E employee or one of PG&E's favorite contractors who did the defective work, it makes no difference.  If PG&E hired the work out, PG&E still should have had an inspector on site approving the welds. In short, whoever actually did the welding, the integrity of the final product was PG&E's responsibility.

Right after their pipe exploded, PG&E promised:

If it is ultimately determined that we were responsible for the cause of the incident, we will take accountability.

So, is PG&E stepping up and taking accountability?  Not exactly.  PG&E has removed the old pledge from its website.  Now it is singing a different tune. While expressing "appreciation" to the NTSB for the "meticulous and painstaking work by its experts," PG&E nonetheless insists

  it’s premature for PG&E or anyone to speculate on what caused this accident. 

Huh? The NTSB's "meticulous and painstaking work" found that PG&E's welds were bad.  PG&E is responsible for those welds.  What more does PG&E need before owing up to its responsibility?

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Darvon and Darvocet are names for a drug that has been prescribed for many years to manage pain. In 2009, its generic version alone -- Propoxyphene -- was prescribed more than 17 million times.

In November, the FDA determined that the drug can cause serious cardiac problems, including arrhythmias and heart attacks, and recommended that the drug be recalled.

The drug manufacturer didn’t warn consumers about the drug’s risk to the heart. As a result, many people who have suffered heart troubles while on Darvon never linked their problems to the drug. 

Fortunately, if a patient stopped taking the drug before he developed cardiac issues, he doesn’t need to worry. But those who have experienced symptoms while taking Darvon, or lost a family member – however long ago -- may want to get more information.

Propoxyphene-containing drugs were sold by various names, including: 

• Darvon
• Darvocet
• Dolene
• Propacet 100
• Wygesic
• SK-65
• SK-65 APAP
• Trycet
• Genagesic
• E-Lor

More information at Girard Gibbs’ Darvon/Darvocet Lawyers website.

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When a car shopper asks for a list of "must - have" safety features, I always mention air conditioning. That usually gets a chuckle.

How is an air-conditioner a safety feature? Simple. Half the people killed in rollover accidents were ejected -- often through an open window. When windows are kept closed, occupants have a better chance of staying inside the vehicle, and survival rates go up considerably. But you can't expect people to keep windows closed if the car doesn't have an effective air conditioner.

What about seat belts? Don't they keep people in the car? Less often than you might think. In fact, seat belts fail to do their job in about 20% of the rollover accidents. Even when they do prevent ejection, occupants are better off with the windows closed. When the windows are open, arms tend to dangle out and get crushed between the rolling vehicle and the pavement. Heads can hit the pavement too, causing catastrophic or fatal injuries.

Now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has weighed in. NHTSA isn't quite mandating air conditioning. But beginning in 2013, manufacturers must take steps to keep occupants and their body parts inside the vehicle when the vehicle rolls over.  Even when the windows are open.  NHTSA is leaving it to the manufacturers to figure out how to accomplish this objective.  But it expects that manufacturers will use new side curtain airbags that will completely cover the window openings.

When that happens, air conditioning will be a safety feature no more.

The new NHTSA rule is here. 

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Though more than 30 homes were destroyed by the PG&E gas explosion, many more suffered damage that is not visible from the street.  Getting cracked chimneys, leaky roofs, and broken windows repaired has been, for many homeowners, an overwhelming battle of paperwork, engineering reports, claims forms, and phone calls.  Some homeowners have given up trying.  As a result of the emotional trauma they have suffered, the task is just too much for them to handle.

Early on PG&E promised that it would establish a $100 million fund to those affected by the fire - no strings attached.  But so far, only $17.5 million of that has been distributed.  Shaun Bishop of the San Francisco Examiner wrote about the victims' struggle in an article published this morning.

As I explained to Shaun, residents should not expect PG&E to compensate them fully unless they obtain a court judgment against PG&E. 

Danko said he reminds his clients that PG&E is not obligated to pay them anything unless they obtain a court judgment.

Until that happens, PG&E is free to offer as little to the victims as it likes.

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Is an accident victim entitled to be paid for lost earnings if, at the time of accident, she had no job? Yes, as long as the victim had the ability to earn when the accident happened, and the accident took that ability away. For example, the victim may have been a stay-at-home mom, but she also had a medical degree and worked as a doctor before motherhood. She had no immediate plans to return to work but she was keeping that option open. Until that dreadful day when she suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident. The accident closed that door forever. With the help of her attorney, she can seek compensation for the loss of the ability to return to her career and the income as a doctor.

It is up to the victim to prove that, though she wasn't working before the accident, she nonetheless had the capacity to earn. She can prove that with her W-2’s, records from her last job, and/or the testimony of her previous employers or co-workers. What counts are the victim's qualifications, including his:

• Training
• Education
• Experience
• Work History
   

The victim's attorney may need to hire an expert to testify that, in light of the victim's qualifications and experience, the victim could have worked before the accident, but that as a result of her injuries, now she cannot. If the evidence shows that the accident damaged (or destroyed entirely) the victim's capacity to earn, then the victim is entitled to be compensated for what she could have earned but for her injuries.

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PG&E documents said that Line 132 was of seamless construction.  As it turns out, it was not.  It was of weaker, welded construction.  As I wrote here, welded seam pipes have long been known to be dangerous.  To run them safely, the utility company should pressure-test them with water to make sure that they will not give way.  PG&E didn't do that.

A utility must determine the "Maximum Allowable Operating Pressure," or MAOP, that a pipeline can be safely subjected to.  To set a safe MAOP, the utility must know how the pipe is constructed.  The weaker the pipe, the lower the MAOP.  Because PG&E doesn't seem to know how its pipes are constructed -- for example, whether they are of seamless or welded construction -- the NTSB is concerned that PG&E may have set maximum pressures too high and that its pipelines are thus unsafe.

It is critical to know all the characteristics of a pipeline in order to establish a valid MAOP below which the pipeline can be safely operated.  The NTSB is concerned that [PG&E's] inaccurate records may lead to incorrect MAOPs.

To prevent another San Bruno explosion, the NTSB is urgently recommending that, unless PG&E has actually water-tested a particular line, that it come up with "traceable, verifiable, and complete records" that describe the type of pipeline buried beneath the streets of populated neighborhoods.  The NTSB wants PG&E to use those records to confirm that the MAOP assigned to the pipeline is appropriate.

If PG&E can't find reliable records for a particular pipeline, then the NTSB suggests that PG&E water-test the line to ensure that the assigned MAOP is safe.

Water tests are a last resort because customers' gas will need to be turned off during the tests. But we already know that PG&E's records can't be trusted. If you ask me, there really is no other way.     

NTSB Urgent Safety Recommendation

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