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

Each year there are dozens of deaths related to carbon monoxide poisoning from boats. Carbon monoxide is a deadly gas that is odorless, colorless and tasteless. It is found in the exhaust emitted from the electric generator and drive engine. The risk of danger affects a variety of boating enthusiasts.

Federal officials have known for some time that carbon monoxide can reach lethal concentrations from generator exhaust that gathers at the stern of houseboats, but only in the last few years have they found evidence that carbon monoxide can gather in deadly concentrations behind ski boats, cabin cruisers and even personal watercraft. The highest concentrations of CO are often around swim decks, an area where occupants frequently sit while a boat idles or is traveling at low-speed and where the exhaust ports are located.

Some tests show as much as 30,000 ppm. How bad is that? As little as 200 ppm of CO can be deadly. High levels of carbon monoxide can be fatal causing death within minutes. It is suspected that carbon monoxide poisoning related to boating is underreported because the death may appear as a drowning.

The risk of high carbon monoxide poisoning may be reduced through proper boat design. For example, many houseboats may be retrofitted with a vertical exhaust system that routes the exhaust away from occupants. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has evaluated the “dry stack” exhaust system and found that the stack exhaust system is extremely effective at removing CO from the occupant environment. The data showed that the vertical stack exhaust was a simple and effective control that performed well during all the evaluations.

Boaters should be cautious when participating in any activity at the rear of the boat where emissions are usually heaviest.

Symptoms of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning. 

Low levels of carbon monoxide poisoning can be confused with flu symptoms or food poisoning. Some of the symptoms are:

• Shortness of breath
• Mild nausea
• Mild headaches

Moderate levels of carbon monoxide exposure can cause death if the following symptoms persist.

• Headaches
• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Light-headedness

So, while out on the lake this summer, keep these symptoms in mind. If these symptoms occur while boating, immediate treatment should be sought.
 

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PG&E had the perfect opportunity to stand up in court and take responsibility for what it has done to the people of San Bruno.  Instead, when it filed its written answer to the victims' lawsuits, it denied everything, and blamed everyone else, including its victims. PG&E stated that it should not be required to compensate plaintiffs because of the legal doctrines of "comparative negligence" and "contributory negligence."  In other words, according to PG&E, the victims were responsible for their own injuries.

I wrote about PG&E's legal position here.  Then, a few days ago, Jaxon Van Derbeken of the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote about it.  By Tuesday, most of the bay area TV stations were on the story, including NBC 11.

Once PG&E saw that blaming the victims wasn't exactly winning over any new fans, it issued a hasty press release stating that it never "intended" to blame the victims.  It filed new papers with the court saying the same thing.  Trouble is PG&E's new court papers assert the defenses of "comparative negligence" and "contributory negligence"  too. That is, PG&E's new papers, just like its old, blame the victims for their own injuries. 

As CBS 5 noted, PG&E's blame game is "astonishing," and its backpedalling is too little, too late.

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The failure to timely diagnose and treat a hospital-acquired illness (HAI) can, of course, be considered medical negligence. If doctors and nurses stick their heads in the sand and fail to recognize the signs of a serious infection, it can tragically worsen the patient’s condition. That sort of neglect can form the basis of a viable malpractice claim.

As it turns out, infection rates vary considerably between hospitals. The difference in infection rates is now being traced to whether the hospital has adopted a culture of “attentive hygiene.” When hospitals take steps to improve that hygiene, infectious disease doctors and hospital quality and safety research groups are finding that most hospital associated illnesses can be prevented.
That doesn’t mean that every hospital-acquired infection is the result of the hospital’s mistakes.

However, the research does mean that in a case where hospital acquired infection has caused severe harm, it may be well worth investigating whether the hospital had any of these common sense infection control protocols in place, and more importantly, whether the hospital made a real effort to strictly comply with the protocols on a daily basis.
 

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PG&E filed today its answer to the lawsuits brought by the victims of the San Bruno fire. This was PG&E’s first opportunity, legally speaking, to publicly account for itself in court.

PG&E owned up to nothing.  Instead, the document lists the 32 reasons why PG&E says it is not responsible for the fire and the harm that resulted from it.  Some of the most interesting:

State of the Art. PG&E says it is not responsible because the pipe that exploded was “state of the art.” (Paragraph 20.)

Does PG&E really believe that a high pressure pipe with missing welds and welds that go only halfway through is "state of the art"?

Looks like PG&E is taking issue with the NTSB, which found that the pipe that exploded failed to meet the minimum standards in effect in 1956.

Comparative Negligence. PG&E says plaintiffs’ injuries may have been caused by persons other than defendants “who may have been legally responsible under the doctrine of comparative negligence [or] contributory negligence.” (Paragraph 9.)

What does this mean? In plain English, PG&E is saying that plaintiffs themselves are to some extent responsible for their own injuries. 

Statute of Limitations. PG&E says that plaintiffs claims are barred by the statute of limitations. (Paragraph 3.)  But heck, it hasn’t even been a year yet.

In sum, PG&E admits nothing, denies everything, and blames others, including its victims.  

PG&E ends with a request to the court that plaintiffs be required to pay it “for costs of suit [and] that plaintiffs take nothing.”

That’s kind of harsh. Does PG&E really believe that plaintiffs should walk away without any compensation at all?

We hear a lot about frivolous lawsuits. But once in a while you run across a frivolous defense.
 

PG&E's Answer to San Bruno Fire Complaints
 

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When someone is injured during a sports activity, the one who caused the injury will likely raise a defense called "assumption of risk". The wrongdoer argues that he’s not to blame because the law didn’t require him to protect the participant from the particular risk of harm involved in the claim. Whether the doctrine applies to protect the wrongdoer depends on two factors: 1) the nature of the sport, and 2) the relationship between the parties.

For example, a golfer who suffers a brain injury when struck in the head by a sliced golf shot on the course would likely be barred from making a claim against the golf course or the golfer who made the bad shot. The risk of getting hit by a ball is inherent to the sport of golf and so the golfer, by participating in the sport, “assumed the risk”.
 

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