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Kentucky Personal Injury Attorneys Blog
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By Kyle Roby, Partner

Have you ever taken your child to a trampoline park or bouncy house facility and had to sign a liability waiver, or check-in on an I-pad, to release all claims in order for them to be able jump? Have you ever asked yourself “What did I just sign… and is it enforceable?” The Kentucky Supreme Court recently answered those questions in Miller v House of Boom. The Court found that pre-injury liability waivers between a for-profit entity and a parent on behalf of a minor child are against Kentucky law and unenforceable.

In this case, a mother took her eleven year-old daughter and a friend to House of Boom, a trampoline park in Louisville, Kentucky. As a part of the registration process, she had to sign a pre-injury liability waiver for her daughter so that in the event that she was injured, House of Boom was not liable. As it turns out, the child was injured on that day and the mother sued House of Boom on the child’s behalf. House of Boom asked the Court to declare the waiver enforceable and declare that the mother waived all rights for her minor child.

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Breaking news from CBSNews.com: “A jury in Oakland, California, has awarded a couple $2 billion in punitive damages after concluding that sustained exposure to Monsanto Co.’s popular Roundup weed killer led to their cancer diagnoses. The couple will receive an additional $55 million for pain and suffering and to cover medical expenses.

The Alameda County Superior Court jury deliberated for less than two days before reaching a verdict.

Seventy-six-year-old Alva and 74-year-old Alberta Pilliod used Roundup for about 30 years for residential landscaping, which the jury believed played a “substantial factor” in their development of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Alva was diagnosed in 2011; his wife, Alberta, received the same diagnosis four years later. They are both in remission.”

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By Kyle Roby, Partner
English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley, LLP

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Kyle Roby

A recent Kentucky Supreme Court case addressed the issue of PIP or BRB payments, which are also called no-fault payments. This is part of a class action lawsuit against insurance giant GEICO. The company denied PIP benefits based on a doctor reviewing medical records and not examining the individual. This is known as a peer review of medical records by an out-of-state doctor.

This procedure is not found in the Kentucky Motor Vehicle Reparations Act (MVRA). The plaintiffs argued that this procedure should not have been used as a standard for denying benefits and the Kentucky Supreme Court agreed.  In fact, the Kentucky Supreme Court compared the arguments made by the attorneys and the trial court to coon dogs leading a hunter in the wrong direction or as the old saying goes “they were barking up the wrong tree.”

The case is Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO) vs. Jordan Sanders and Anita Houchens (individually and as class representatives). The court handed down the ruling on November 1, and ordered that the ruling was to be published, which means it can be used as a standard in future cases.

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By J.A. Sowell
Attorney, English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley, LLP

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J.A. Sowell

Meeting with an attorney can be an intimidating experience. We understand and we want to help prepare you for your potential meeting with an attorney following an accident, whether it is me or someone else. Keep in mind that lawyers meet with people every day who are suffering from injuries following a car wreck or truck accident, and we are accustomed to helping clients in every way that we can and making any necessary accommodations for our clients.

You may feel better about the process if you bring someone with you who is calm and can help you stay calm, too. You are welcome to bring that friend or family member with you if that is helpful to you, so long as you understand that we may be discussing personal business with you.

The initial consultation with our attorneys in accident cases is free.

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By Kyle Roby, Partner
English, Lucas, Priest & Owsley, LLP

Tractor-trailer accidents are the most dangerous and destructive collisions on our country’s roads – and the problem is only getting worse. When trucks collide with a car, more often than not, people die.

That’s because big rigs usually travel at a high rate of speed on interstates, and if they crash into another vehicle, it’s going to be much smaller. Braking time for large, heavy vehicles is substantially more than that of cars, so even if a truck driver can see the potential for an accident, they can’t necessarily avoid it.

Yet, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are high-tech solutions that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration could require trucking companies to install, but so far, they have not.

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By Jessica Surber, Partner

English, Lucas, Priest & Owsley, LLP

Women seeking relief from a variety of issues, including incontinence and other problems after child birth, sometimes receive a mesh implant made by a variety of companies including Boston Scientific. The mesh often ends up causing more problems than it solves.

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By Bob Young, Managing Partner
English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley LLP

In 2012, there was a national outbreak of fungal meningitis caused by poor manufacturing conditions at New England Compounding Company (NECC). Out of the 753 cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control, 234 individuals contacted fungal meningitis, while more than 300 individuals suffered from fungal infections. Sixty-four patients in nine states died.

We represented 32 patients from Kentucky and Tennessee, tracking the cases through the courts for more than five years. Even as NECC filed bankruptcy and the clinic that administered the injections in Tennessee closed down, we still gained settlements for our clients.

It was an incredibly complicated case, but for our team, it was all in a day’s (or a few year’s) work.

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By Kurt Maier, Partner
English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley LLP

amusement park Who hasn’t enjoyed a great ride at an amusement park in the summer months? It’s a staple of summer fun and entertainment for children, teens and adults. Your trip to an amusement park should be free of worry about accidents and injuries, but it’s becoming all too common to see serious injuries inflicted because of careless operation of amusement park rides.

There certainly are well-maintained amusement parks, and there are also those that are not. You probably won’t be able to tell which one you’ve chosen by looking at them.

Kentucky amusement parks have certainly had cases of serious injuries. The one that almost everyone remembers is the 2007 incident at Six Flags in Louisville (which has since closed). A 16-year-old girl was riding the Superman Tower of Power ride when a cable wrapped around her feet and severed them. The girl’s family sued the park.

At the Louisville Zoo, a small train designed for parents and their children crashed. One man had his leg pinned under the train and had a series of eight surgeries to repair the damage. He had missed 18 months of work at the time of the lawsuit. A small child had disfiguring face injuries, and many others were injured in other ways. The claims were eventually settled.

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By Bob Young, attorney
English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley, LLP

For the last year, cases have been working their way through the courts against Johnson & Johnson and their talc supplier, with plaintiffs who used their baby powder or Shower to Shower powder suing because they were diagnosed with cancer after long-term use of the products.

Last week, a jury handed down a landmark verdict against Johnson & Johnson on behalf of plaintiff Larry Lanzo and his wife. Lanzo had used Shower to Shower powder and other similar products for nearly 30 years, and developed mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer. Lanzo believes the disease came from inhaling the product during the past three decades of use.

The court ruled Johnson & Johnson must pay $117 million in damages, with $30 million of that going to Lanzo, and $7 million to his wife. The rest of the money – $80 million – will be paid in punitive damages.

Johnson & Johnson issued a statement saying it does not believe there is a link between its powder and mesothelioma.

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By Kyle Roby, Partner
English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley, LLP

Chances are, we’ve all been stopped on a road by a person holding a brightly colored flag as roadwork commenced in front of us. It’s so common it’s unremarkable, and expected whenever there is construction on roads (which seems like most of the year in Kentucky).

In a recent case we handled in Edmondson County, a stopped truck didn’t have a spotter or flagger directing traffic around a cement truck blocking the roadway, and it nearly resulted in the death of our client. The general contractor did not have temporary traffic control devises in place and the concrete truck company did not train its drivers on what to do when the required devices are not present.

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