The tragic TriMet crash in April that killed two women and injured several others has prompted the victims’ families to sue TriMet and Sandi Day, the bus driver behind the wheel. Victim Jeneé Hammel’s mother, through her attorney Roscoe C. Nelson, intend to sue the transit agency and driver for wrongful death. Victim Danielle Sale’s father, as well as survivor Robert Erik Gittings, also revealed plans to sue TriMet.

Another medical device manufacturer is held accountable for what a judge ruled to be a faulty product. The Mogen clamp, made by Mogen Circumcision Instruments, is used in circumcisions, and the manufacturer claims it is safe to use. Unfortunately, an infant lost the tip of his penis when it got caught in the clamp. The patient is permanently disfigured as a result. The New York judge awarded $10.8 million in compensatory and punitive damages. The award is meant to cover medical expenses as well as ongoing psychotherapy for the patient, who at three years of age is already self conscious about his deformity.

Now here’s something you don’t hear every day–a patient and his medical provider filed a lawsuit against a medical device manufacturer. The patient, Paramjit Singh, was undergoing heart bypass surgery in 2004 at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, WA, when a catheter in his right ventricle malfunctioned. The device overheated, and as a result, cooked and irreparably destroyed the ventricle. Surgeons were focused on another part of the heart and thus were unaware of the damage until the end of the surgery. Doctors were able to insert a mini artificial heart but believed the patient would probably die within a few hours.

TriMet, Portland’s transit agency, is still reviewing safety policies in an attempt to improve safety. The agency was prompted to reevaluate its policies after a bus driver hit five pedestrians, killing two, in a late-night accident in April. Though the driver had not been using a cell phone at the time of the accident, cell phones have been at the center of other accidents involving buses and pedestrians.

TriMet policy has been that drivers can keep cell phones and other devices such as MP3 players and headsets with them while driving but that they must store the items and not use them while driving. This week the new head of TriMet, Neil McFarlane, announced a change to this policy. Drivers must now keep these devices turned off and stored away.

There are plenty of nightmare stories about nursing homes and poor care, but it seems a jury in Humboldt County, California, has decided enough is enough. This week a jury awarded nearly $677 million in damages in a class-action lawsuit against Skilled Healthcare, one of the biggest nursing home providers in the nation. The decision came after a trial that lasted more than seven months.

The class-action lawsuit represented about 32,000 patients who received substandard care between 2003 and 2009. A California law requires each patient receive 3.2 nursing hours per day, a mandate Skilled Healthcare allegedly violated. Based in southern California, Skilled Healthcare has facilities in seven states totaling some 78 nursing homes, including five in Humboldt County.

Washington State’s Supreme Court just ruled that it is unconstitutional to require a 90-day waiting period for filing a lawsuit against a medical provider. In 2006 the state revamped its medical malpractice system and added the 90-day waiting period with the hope that disputes could be settled during this time and thus avoid going to court. The Washington Supreme Court believes, however, that the separation of powers between two arms of government, the legislative and judicial, is violated by this 90-day waiting period.

We’ve previously posted about the dangers of some drop-side cribs and the recall of a number of drop-side cribs from Simplicity, Stork Craft Manufacturing, and Graco. Sadly, the problem has continued, and this week the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled some two million drop-side cribs. Dozens of children have died as a result of malfunctioning cribs, and child advocacy groups are warning parents to avoid using ANY drop-side crib.

Last year a mentally ill patient in a medium-security ward at Oregon State Hospital lay dead in his hospital bed for several hours before anyone noticed. As a result, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a warning letter to the state indicating Oregon better shape up or risk getting sued by the DOJ. In addition, the State Office of Investigations and Training found the hospital was negligent in its care of the patient, Moises Perez.

We blogged a while back about the Food and Drug Administration investigating the safety of a number of over-the-counter pediatric medicines, namely Children’s Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl, and Zyrtec. The drugs are manufactured by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a division of Johnson & Johnson. The company issued a voluntary recall of some 43 over-the-counter children’s medicines.

Since the April accident in which a TriMet bus driver struck and killed two and injured three, the transit agency has undergone a safety review. Conducted by K&J Safety and Security Consulting Services, an initial report was recently issued. The report pinpoints some areas for improvement, though it does commend TriMet for having better than average safety programs. The report recommends TriMet limit cell phone usage by bus drivers as well as implement a twice yearly review of each bus driver on “observation rides.”