ThePopTort

Civil Justice Protects Kids

There may be nothing more emblematic (and fun!) about the holidays than kids.  But sometimes, kids aren’t having too much fun, especially when certain people let them down.  So here at ThePopTort, we thought it would be an especially good time to talk about how the civil justice system provides a unique and essential line of protection for them.

Lawsuits can be especially useful in revealing cover-ups and wrongdoing by institutions that are supposed to protect kids, as the many priest lawsuits have shown.  The latest example of this can be found in a recent case out of Chicago.  The archdiocese there has reportedly agreed to pay nearly $1.4 million to a man who was allegedly abused by a priest from 1987 to 1992.  Documents released as part of the settlement reveal that the archdiocese was aware of the allegations against the priest.  “How many more documents like this are they keeping secret?” asked Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Meanwhile, a New Hampshire woman has filed suit against her former school district, alleging she was sexually abused by a guidance counselor more than three decades ago, several years before a different former teacher allegedly abused two other women.  Peter Hutchins, the attorney for the three women, said the link between the women's suits is that the administrators were the same in each alleged instance.  It “leads you to believe there was some type of breakdown, an environment of permissiveness and tolerance of this conduct," Hutchins said. The district’s attorney said he didn’t know if the accused guidance counselor, who is now nearly 80, was aware of the allegations.  The teacher named in the other two suits has been placed on paid leave for the time being.

Finally, the parents of a young girl are suing several police officers in a Galveston, TX federal court, alleging that two years ago, when the girl was just 12, the officers (who were in plain clothes) drove up to the girl’s house in an unmarked van and immediately grabbed her, saying she was being arrested on prostitution charges.  At that point, according to the lawsuit, the girl resisted the officers and started screaming for her father.  The officers responded by “beating her about the face and throat.”  Reportedly, the officers had been dispatched to the area to look for three white prostitutes.  The girl in question is African American—but the officers allegedly thought she was a prostitute due to her “tight shorts.”  The attorney for the officers denied that his clients engaged in any wrongdoing. 

Hospital Accountability Can Be Such a Burden…

Check out this article in Sunday’s New Hampshire Union Leader observing that New Hampshire, unlike 27 other states, “does not require hospitals to report serious, preventable medical errors to the state, the patient or to the family left behind if the patient dies as a result of the mistake.”

Luckily, steps are being taken to help reverse the trend.  As we’ve been reporting, Medicare has stopped footing the bill for so-called “never events” like leaving surgical objects inside people or giving them the wrong type of blood. 

And New Hampshire’s Medicaid financial director, Marilee Nihan, told the Leader that beginning this December, hospitals filing Medicaid claims will have to specify if the diagnosis existed upon admission.  “That will allow us to analyze what kind of errors we have and…whether the need for treatment was present on admission or acquired during the hospital stay,” said Nihan.

Still, the trend toward improving patient safety by holding hospitals accountable for their mistakes has its detractors.  Chief executive of Concord Hospital, Mike Green, bemoaned the fact that requiring such additional reporting would be “an additional burden to hospitals.”

Then again, given that 98,000 people die in hospitals due to medical errors each year,  we’re hoping that Mr. Green, and medical professionals like him, can dig deep and find the muscle to carry that extra “burden.”

Uranium-Tainted Water Anyone?

The Associated Press recently reported that a water company in Tamworth, New Hampshire knowingly delivered water to customers that was contaminated with uranium. Besides possibly causing cancer from radiation, uranium can also cause kidney toxicity.

Even more shocking, Lakes Region Water Company allegedly delivered the radioactive water during a three-week period last year from a well that the state Department of Environmental Services (DES) had ordered shut off in 2004.  At that time, the company told the agency that the well had been closed, with all pipes and electrical connections severed.  But three years later DES discovered the supposedly “out of service” well was still being used—and it was still loaded with uranium.

To add insult to serious injury, Lakes Region Water Company failed to properly seal its wells, which exposed local water drinkers to insects, animals, and E. coli, and left the town of Tamworth, New Hampshire without water for weeks.   Residents have now filed a class action suit to get some relief from the outrage.

DES official Dave Gordon told the Concord Monitor that unlike bacteria, where just a little can make a person sick, uranium-related risks increase along with the amount ingested.

JoAnne Rainville, a nurse in Tamworth who was one of hundreds of people exposed to the poisonous water, told the AP “The water was polluted with high levels of uranium and arsenic….People right now are living under a shadow of what are the long-range effects.”

No Caps in New Hampshire

I live in New York, I don't own a car and take the subway to work everyday.  So, I really like public transportation.

So I'm all for New Hampshire's plan to build a commuter line connecting suburban New Hampshire to Boston.  But they don't have to take away the rights of people who could be injured or killed to do so.

On Monday, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would arbitrarily cap damages should someone be harmed or killed.  Governor John Lynch has said he supports the legislation, so now it is up to the Senate next week.

The New Hampshire's Supreme Court has previously ruled that caps are unconstitutional in the 'Live Free or Die' state, however it may be a while to see how this legislation goes.