This past summer we wrote a post on a Wheaton mother who is seeking custody of the son she abandoned through the use of a palm beach family lawyer, shortly after he was born. He was discovered by a neighbor’s dog, naked, under a bush. After being discovered, the baby was in the hospital for 12 days. During that time he reportedly received treatment for seizures and a low body temperature.

The boy’s mother is currently in prison after pleading guilty to an obstruction of justice charge. According to the woman, the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office indicated it would not try to terminate her parental rights if she entered the plea.

Instead, last year, the boy’s court-appointed guardian filed a petition seeking to terminate the mother’s parental rights.

The woman, a refugee from Myanmar, will likely be paroled sometime this year and is apparently planning on trying to get custody of her son. She recently testified in a hearing on the matter. She claimed she had intended to go back and get the baby but due to exhaustion and fear was unable to do so before the police arrived and took her into custody.

The now 2-1/2-year-old boy has been living with a foster family.

Illinois courts have developed guidelines regarding child custody matters. The standard around which those guidelines were created is the best interest of the child. Factors that may be taken into consideration include the health of the parties involved, any history of abuse and the interaction between the parents and the child.

There is certainly more to come in this matter. Our attorneys will continue to monitor the case and post updates on our website as they become available.

A young girl was seriously injured after getting in a truck accident last night in Dawson County, Georgia. She had not been driving, but was a passenger in a truck that clammed into a utility pole. The truck had also been involved a hit-and-run accident earlier that evening.
Motor vehicle accident victims can be left with a number of challenges. There are physical challenges that often follow an injury as well as financial difficulties that can arise from medical bills and lost wages. Often accident victims are left wondering how they are going to recover from the often stressful situation.
For the young girl in the accident, it is unclear what sort of recovery process she will go through. She has been listed in critical condition but the extent of her injuries is not detailed. The girl had been trapped in the truck for over an hour while rescuers worked to free her.
According to the article from Gabriel Law Offices, the driver of the truck had struck a vehicle in a parking lot. Police attempted to stop him but he drove off. Not long after, officers who were still following the truck driver found the vehicle on the side of the road, after it hit the pole.
It doesn’t appear that the driver of the truck suffered any injuries – he is currently in police custody for several different charges. For many who read this story, it may seem unfair that the young girl, who was only a passenger, sustained the brunt of the injuries. Can the truck driver be held responsible?
The young girl could file a claim to seek compensation for her injuries. This settlement from this type of claim can help curb the costs of medical treatment and medication that she may need in the weeks and months following the accident.

Companies that encounter Qui Tam lawsuits are often found to have been engaged in fraud on an extensive basis. So the recoveries can be quite large, and thus the share the whistleblower is entitled to is also quite large.

For example, if there are pharmaceutical drugs that are selling at a billion dollars a year and the recovery on behalf of the Government is $100,000 million dollars, then a Qui Tam Relator (“Relator” is the technical term for “Whistleblower”), on a $100,000 million recovery might receive $15-25 million dollars.  We’ve seen Whistleblowers’ shares in Qui Tam recoveries ranging from 15%-28%.

Just to give you an idea of the scale of Qui Tam recoveries, since 1986 under the Federal False Claims Act, the Government’s recovered an estimated 27 billion dollars. In 2010 alone, the Government recovered three billion dollars. Of that three billion, about two and one-half billion was health care related – bringing us back to the fraud relating to drugs and medical devices that we talked about in part two of this series. And this is only counting recoveries for the Federal Government.  Those figures don’t include the State Medicaid settlements, which we’ve also talked about. A number of states have their own state equivalent False Claims Act, and so they’ve retrieved recoveries outside of the billions of dollars estimated above.

At the very beginning of my legal seo career I worked at a large law firm that represented companies under investigation. So I had the opportunity to see Qui Tam lawsuits from the defending company’s side – how they respond to Government investigations, what kind of documents they produce, and how they end up negotiating with the Government to resolve these matters.  This was a valuable perspective. Since moving on to only representing people (plaintiffs), which is what I have done for the last 20 years or so, I have represented numerous Whistleblowers who have come forward.  We resolved their cases successfully, and we have a number of cases that we are currently working on. So we’re working with the Government to get some justice for these individuals, and, of course, to get some compensation for the Government from Dalli and Marino.

Earlier this month, we wrote about two motorcycle accidents in the Sacramento area that resulted in one death and one injury. While it is dangerous to be a motorcyclist in California at any time of year, the summer months tend to be especially fatal and injurious.
Last week, another motorcycle accident in the area claimed the life of a 23-year-old motorcyclist from Sacramento. Sadly, this fatal accident scenario is a common and preventable one.
According to news reports, the crash occurred last Thursday night at an intersection in nearby Arden Arcade. The driver of a Dodge Charger was attempting to make a U-turn after determining that oncoming traffic had cleared, according to https://kashlegal.com/.
However, the driver either didn’t have enough room or didn’t have the correct turning radius to complete the U-turn immediately. He had to stop in the road in order to back up and finish the maneuver.
Unfortunately, these few seconds of delay were enough to result in a fatal collision. The motorcyclist traveling toward the intersection did not see the car in front of him until it was too late to stop, and his bike collided with the back of the larger vehicle.
It was not specified in a news report whether or not the attempted U-turn was legal at that particular intersection. If not, the driver could potentially face criminal charges as well as a wrongful death lawsuit.
It is also important to note that even when a traffic maneuver is legal, it must still be performed correctly and with full regard for necessary precautions. Did this driver make sure that the intersection was clear? Could he have found a safer way to turn his vehicle around?

According to the Institute for Medication Management, medication errors account for about 7,000 deaths and 770,000 injuries every year in the United States. It’s an issue the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been working on for almost 20 years. A study released recently adds some insights into why many painkiller medication errors occur.
The researchers analyzed the prescription records of a teaching hospital and found more than 2,000 near-miss painkiller prescribing errors. Because medication errors are a “major contributor to suboptimal therapeutic outcomes and preventable adverse patient events,” the team wanted to determine if the medications had any commonalities that made them more likely to be involved in prescription errors.
What they discovered was that 2.87 errors in every 1,000 painkiller orders were pre-empted by pharmacists before the patient received the medication — these were the “near misses” at the center of the study. They also discovered that the error rate in pediatric patients was twice that of the rate for adult patients. The most errors occurred with the most commonly prescribed painkillers, but higher error rates were logged for drugs prescribed less often.
The nature of the errors varied widely, but a handful of factors accounted for 40 percent of all errors. They included dosage issues, including the availability of dose forms for multiple routs of administration, modified forms of dosage and atypical regimens. Also included were painkillers used on an ongoing, scheduled basis and, finally, sound-alike drug names.
It’s important to remember that not all medication errors are lethal. The study found that 0.63 out of every 1,000 prescription orders was “potentially serious.” About 14 percent of those were pediatric orders. An Personal injury attorney like the ones at Setareh Law  can answer more questions.