Tennessee Injury Lawyer Blog

Wal-Mart, in an exciting follow-up to Tennessee Law Blog’s Wal-Mart wage and hour lawsuit story posted earlier this month, said Tuesday that it will settle its numerous unpaid wage lawsuits in Tennessee and across the nation. These unpaid Wal-Mart wage and hour lawsuits’ damages amount to at least $352 million and are largely the result of Wal-Mart managers forcing Wal-Mart employees to work off-the-clock.

Many of these wage and hour lawsuits filed by thousands of present and former Wal-Mart employees in 42 states have been in court for years. Wage and hour violations include forcing employees to clock out but continue to work, manipulating time cards to reduce overtime pay, and disallowing lunch and other breaks. Payment to each employee could be in the hundreds of dollars with their respective wage and hour attorneys receiving lawyers fees as separate from their recovered unpaid wages.

Continue reading "Numerous Wal-Mart Wage-and-Hour Lawsuits Settled" »

In the first government effort on a federal level to rate our nation's nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its evaluation of 16,000 U.S. nursing homes. That same day The Tennessean was quick to jump on what experienced
Tennessee nursing home lawyers have known for years: Tennessee nursing homes are some of the worst in the nation. According to the nursing home ranking system, Tennessee nursing homes are the third worst. Only Louisiana and Georgia nursing homes managed to be worse ratings than Tennessee’s.

Nearly one-third of the ranked 319 Tennessee nursing homes received the worst possible rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Only 7 percent of Tennessee nursing homes were judged to be well above average. Over 41 percent of Tennessee nursing homes had the lowest score for adequate staffing, one of the key factors that can prevent nursing home abuse and neglect.

Continue reading "New National Nursing Home Rating System Confirms Poor State of Tennessee's Nursing Home Care " »

Lawyer John Higgins discusses your legal options in relation to speeding tickets in Tennessee.

If you have questions regarding a speeding ticket contact John Higgins at TNJUSTICE.COM

The federal government has implemented a new nursing home rating system. Ratings on Tennessee Nursing homes has now been released. In the next few days I will submit a blog explaining the new system and how Nursing Homes have been rated in Nashville and throughout the state.

If you would like to see how Tennessee nursing homes performed you can go to medicare.gov to check it out. If you have a legal question regarding a nursing home feel free to contact one of our lawyers that focus on nursing home neglect cases.

Subprime loan fraud litigation continues to find new classes of plaintiffs. In the latest class actions, lenders are being sued by their investors. People who bought stock in Countrywide Home Loans and New Century Mortgage have brought class action lawsuits against the lenders for their reckless lending activities, according to an article by Alison Frankel of The American Lawyer. The Federal District Judges who oversee these cases have recently denied the lender’s motions to dismiss the actions. Cited in the ruling in the Countrywide case, the plaintiffs have made a preliminary showing that the lender recklessly changed its lending procedures with a goal to not deny any mortgages, despite knowing that these loans were incredibly risky. The crux of plaintiff’s action is that the giant lender continued to loosen its loan underwriting standards to the point of near non-existence, all the while holding out to investors that their underwriting standards had not changed. In December, 2007, the lender admitted that billions of dollars in loans made during 2005 and 2006 would not have been possible under their old underwriting standards. According to the opinion and article, Countrywide went so far as to create an “Exception Processing System” to address loan applications that did not meet the standard for prime loans. Through this system, Countrywide would approve loans as “prime” based on exceptions designed wholly to allow them to issue and fund the loans. The problem this creates for the investors is that there are loans that are deemed by Countrywide as “prime” loans that share many of the characteristics of “subprime” loans, which would discount the value of the loan to an investor. To accommodate these loans in the short run, Countrywide would simply charge the borrower higher fees. Therefore, Countrywide took greater earnings on these subprime loans immediately while knowing they had a much higher default rate.

If you are a member of a group that has invested in mortgage backed securities, you may have a cause of action on your own or you may be a part of a class action already underway. At Higgins, Himmelberg and Piliponis, we represent individuals who have been harmed by loan fraud, predatory lending, and fraud through investments. Our firm has lawyers licensed in Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating reports of possible nursing home abuse at a Tullahoma, TN care facility where a condom was allegedly found in a 88-year-old resident’s bed. The female nursing home resident is presently being treated at a local Tennessee hospital for numerous infections.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation was told by the examining physician that the nursing home resident showed signs of sexual assault.

The Tennessee nursing home in question is the Life Care Center of Tullahoma. Life Care Center operates more than 200 nursing homes, assisted living facilities, retirement living communities, and Alzheimer’s centers with over 25 such nursing care facilities in Tennessee. The executive director of the national nursing home company has stated that Life Care performs pre-employment Sex Offender Registry checks on all nursing home staff.

Last Thursday, the Tennessee Department of Health, which licenses nursing homes in Tennessee, found no deficiencies related to performing background checks on employees at the Tullahoma, TN nursing home, though Tennessee Bureau of Investigation continues its investigation of nursing home sexual abuse.

This year, Life Care Centers in Elizabethton, TN and in Jefferson City, TN have been ordered by Tennessee Department of Health to suspend admissions until they corrected safety, welfare, and/or health dangers posed to the Tennessee nursing home residents.

As a fighter for the improvement of our country's and Tennessee's nursing homes and the treatment of our elderly citizens, I urge anyone who suspects their loved one in a TN nursing home has suffered any form of abuse, whether physical, sexual, or neglectful abuse, to contact my Nashville law offices at (615) 353-0930 or fill out our Tennessee nursing home abuse form to speak with me or another of our TN nursing home attorneys.

In an ongoing class action wage and hour lawsuit, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. may be given a break, despite breaking employment law by having its employees work overtime and skip breaks without pay. Filed in Minnesota court in 2002, the lawsuit alleges break and wage violations and represents about 100,000 current and former hourly Wal-Mart employees who claim they were forced to work without pay before and after their shifts so Wal-Mart managers could meet profit and productivity goals.

Earlier this year in July, the state judge threatened to impose a fine of $1,000 per violation; Wal-Mart would then owe more than $2 billion in fines, with a majority of this money being returned to unpaid hourly employees and a part going to the state. At that time, the judge had also ruled that Wal-Mart owed $6.5 million to 56,000 employees for failing at least 1.5 million times to give workers promised rest breaks and that the company had failed to provide time to eat a meal 73,864 times.

As in many wage and hour lawsuits, systematically missed breaks add up, which is why a company try to cut corners will work their wage workers without pay. While a single missed break can be worth less than a dollar, the failure to allow a break repeated many times over comes to a substantial amount of unpaid wages.

Additionally, the Minnesota judge ruled that Wal-Mart managers had broken wage and hour law by having employees take required training off-the-clock.

All this legal action and compensation came from the courage of four women who filed the original lawsuit stating that Wal-Mart managers had made them work off the clock and had denied their meal and rest breaks.

The $54.3 million wage and hour settlement is still subject to court approval.

Tennessee and federal wage and hour laws set minimum wages, establish the requiremefor salaried pay, and provide for overtime and other rules governing pay for work.

If your Tennessee employer has repeatedly pressured you or fellow employees to work off the clock, then you, too, may have unpaid wages coming your way. If your Tennessee employer was inconsistent about when your workweek began and ended to prevent paying you overtime, you may have unpaid overtime wages coming your way. If your Tennessee employer labeled you as a salaried employee to prevent paying you overtime or a minimum wage, you may have unpaid wages coming your way.

For more on Tennessee wage and hour law, or if you suspect you may be a victim of time card fraud or unpaid wages, contact the Nashville law offices of the Higgins Firm. Our wage and hour attorneys know Tennessee labor law and can offer a free evaluation of your complaint of an illegal pay practices by a Nashville or other Tennessee employer. Call our employment lawyers at (615) 353-0930 or fill out our quick TN wage and overtime attorney form.

This week alone more than 1000 workers in Tennessee have lost their job. Many of my prior workers compensation clients have called to see if there is anything that can be done other than unemployment benefits Sometimes we can give these folks some more financial help.

In addition to unemployment benefits you can often re-open your workers compensation case to obtain additional compensation. Specifically, as many know your comp award is limited if you return to work for the same rate of pay. However, if you loose the job within a certain amount of time you can reopen the case to go beyond the cap. Because of the poor economy we have filed many new reconsideration claims. It will not got your job back but it can help in these tough times.

If you have lost your job and had a prior workmans compensation claim feel free to call or email my office to see if we can help. We handle workman's compensation cases throughout TN.

Continue reading "Tennessee Workers May re-open their work comp claim" »

This week I tried a fairly unique worker's compensation case in Nashville. My client is a strong hard working lady who has been employed in a hospital all of her working life. After years of working in the hospital my client developed a severe latex allergy. In fact, she became so sensitive to latex that if she touched any object that another person had touched wearing a latex glove she would have a reaction. The reaction would cause her heart to race, her throat would swell and she would began having difficulty breathing. Immediate medical care would be required or should would go into anaphalyctic shock. Obviously, because of this allergy she was eventually forced to leave her job at the hospital. She is currently working in retail for a fraction of her prior wage.

Here is were it becomes difficult. In Tennessee, a workers comp award is based largely on the physical impairment given by your doctor. Impairments are based upon the AMA guidelines. There is no clean way to give my client an impairment under the guidelines. Does that mean she is less impaired than others? Of course not. However, because of the rigidity of the law it is difficult for the Court to give a fair award as in general all awards are based upon the doctors medial impairment rating. Cases such as this one demonstrate the need to give the Court more flexibility in their rulings. I have no doubt the Court will reach a fair ruling in this case but it will take a creative ruling. I will let you know the results of the ruling when it arrives.

In my years of writing Tennessee Law Blog and warning Tennesseans of dangerous products, I have avoided publicizing dietary supplement recalls, partly because dietary supplement recalls are so common, partly because I prefer to use this pace to warn readers of the far more dangerous and larger betrayal of trust found in Tennessee pharmaceutical drug injuries and recalls. This said, two recent weight loss supplements pose dangers beyond the pale that Tennessee Law Blog would be remiss not to mention.

Though no serious adverse effects or drug injuries have been reported in Tennessee, the two following recalled supplements can pose serious harm due to the undeclared drug substances they contain. Any consumer who has purchased either of the following two recalled appetite suppressants should immediately discontinue use.

1. Zhen De Shou Fat Loss Capsules. Distributed through the U.S. and sold online, FDA officials found undeclared sibutramine (trade name Meridia) in these OTC appetite suppressant (“fat loss”) pills. While the appetite suppressant sibutramine is approved by FDA (despite claims of the drug being far more dangerous than the conditions it “cures”), sibutramine can significantly increase blood pressure and pulse in some consumers and studies are underway investigating reports of sudden death, heart failure, kidney failure, and other problems caused by this drug. Particularly at risk are patients with a history of coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, arrhythmias or stroke.

Zhen De Shou Fat Loss Capsules are sold in 10 light and dark green capsules in blister packs. Consumers should immediately discontinue use and responsibly dispose of any unused product.

2. StarCaps Diet System Dietary Supplement. At first voluntarily recalled by Balanced Health Products, now subject of a FDA immediate recall, these supplements were recalled upon discovering unlisted bumetanide as an ingredient. Bumetanide is a diuretic that requires a prescription and can cause dehydration and low blood pressure. Also, consumers allergic to bumetanide may experience adverse reactions from the drug, as can consumers using other prescription drugs, especially digoxin and lithium. FDA officials urge takers of StarCaps experiencing any symptoms to immediately call their health care provider.

StarCaps are marketed as an all-natural product from Peru that combines papaya enzyme and garlic to reduce appetite. A plastic bottle of 30 tablets costs about $100.

Neither dietary supplements’ packaging or labeling indicated that these products were anything other than completely harmless.

If you have suffered injury from undeclared substances in a dietary supplement and are a resident of Tennessee, Kentucky, or Georgia, our drug injury attorneys at our Nashville law offices would like to help. Contact our TN defective drug injury team online or give us a call at 800-705-2121. As always, initial consultations are free of any charge and, in many cases, we only charge attorney’s fees when you’re fairly compensated.

Hillcrest West nursing home in Knoxville, Tennessee has been flagged by the Federal government as a chronically poor performer which recently placed the facility on its Special Focus Facility list. According to a recent article by Scott Barker in the Knoxville News Sentinel, of the 319 nursing homes in Tennessee, Hillcrest West is one of only three that received this designation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In order to receive the designation, the facility must consistently and repeatedly have serious administration, health and sanitation violations over a significant time period. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services investigates nursing homes to determine if they have problems with administration, sanitation, quality of care and abuse and neglect. If any of these problems exist, the facility is cited with a violation. In its most recent study of the Hillcrest West nursing home, the facility was cited with 11 violations. The three year record for the facility however included 23 violations found in 2007 and 37 in 2006. Some of the violations included failure to notify family when a nursing home patient was injured, the need to instruct staff not to steal from patients and an incident involving slapping of a nursing home patient.

The attorneys at The Higgins Firm is a Tennessee Law Firm that represent patients in nursing homes and their families in actions against nursing homes when there are matters of abuse and neglect. The federal government inspects nursing homes to address the overall care of residents, but cannot effectively address individual patient needs and concerns. If you have a relative in a nursing home who is suffering from abuse or neglect, you may need to contact a lawyer to address your specific concerns