Top Class Actions
New Wash Setting: Extra Sure Beyond Any Doubt Clean. What would you do if your washing machine took eight hours to do one load? Just to put that in perspective, you could to fly to Europe in the same time it would take to wash your sheets—depending on where you live. Ummm…doing the laundry or flying to Paris—that’s a tough one.
But you could only fly to Paris if you could trust that your washer would do the job properly in your absence, and Ms. Riva, who filed a class action against Sears recently, was not feeling the love.
No doubt.
Among the litany of problems both she and her machine were experiencing on washday—or would that be wash week—were a high-pitched squeaking noise, the machine stopping mid-cycle for no apparent reason, and then displaying the rather cryptic message, in washing machine secret code, “F1 or F51″—your guess is as good as anybody’s as to what that means.
Ms. Riva paid $1000 roughly for her new washer in 2006, and Sears issued a recall of the instrument panel in that particular model some time after that. But she didn’t find out about the recall until after she’d paid to have the panel replaced, by Sears, who didn’t mention the recall, but charged her for the replacement because the washer was no longer under warranty.
You know, I’d be suing too. If she wins, maybe she can take a trip to Paris and do her laundry.
Top Settlements
Medical Malpractice in the News… This is a rather tragic cautionary tale about a 47-year old woman who went to hospital complaining of tightness in her chest and chest pains, only to be discharged from emergency shortly afterwards with a diagnosis of high blood pressure and some relevant medications. She died of cardiac arrest 10 hours later. Her family sued the hospital and was recently awarded a $1,315,276 settlement.
What are among the first signs and symptoms we are told to look out for if someone is having a heart attack? Tightness in the chest and chest pains.
And continuing on the theme of medical malpractice: A man with diabetes who lost the ability to walk and may have to undergo amputation below the knee has recovered $1,475,000 in a lawsuit he brought against the doctor who failed to diagnose the condition responsible—Charcot Foot.
Apparently, in 2006 David Luna alerted his doctor to the continued swelling of his leg and foot only to be told that it is all part of being diabetic and he would have to live with it. Well, Luna sought the opinion of a podiatrist who diagnosed him with Charcot foot, and the podiatrist contended Luna must have been suffering from the condition while he was seeing is original doctor.
Thank goodness the young man sought a second opinion, or the outcome could have been far worse.
That’s it for this week—see you at the Bar!