Reconstructive Surgery May Have Caused a Florida Woman's Death

The family of a Florida woman has hired a Florida personal injury attorney to investigate the cause of their loved one’s death. Idell Frazer-Bodden, recently died and her family believes that her cause of death is related to a cosmetic surgical procedure. The 50-year-old female underwent reconstructive surgery to have fat removed from her back and to have her buttocks re-injected. However during the surgery, her heart stopped at the Lauderhill cosmetic surgery center and despite efforts to resuscitate her, she could not be revived. This is a deeply saddened event and our attorneys understand the family’s desire to know how a plastic surgery operation could go so wrong.

Reconstructive operations, including breasts enhancement, face lifts, rhinoplasty and liposuction are common trends across the county in which individuals seek to improve their bodily appearance.  In fact, The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery’s statistics indicate that in 2011, their surgeon members report that they performed an average of 1,000 facial cosmetic surgical, cosmetic non-surgical, reconstructive and revision procedures per surgeons for the year. This association is comprised of more than 2,700 facial plastic and reconstructive surgeons in the world and is considered the largest specialty association for facial plastic surgery. Nevertheless, there are risks associated with every surgical procedure and reconstructive and plastic surgeries can often result in serious injuries or death. 

Our FortLauderdale medical malpractice lawyers help individuals and their loved ones who have experienced a similar situation. It is only logical that you will want to know why you or your loved one’s surgical procedure did not produce the result that you anticipated. It is far too often that these kinds of surgeries have resulted in a person sustaining emotional trauma, damage to the nerves, excessive scarring and even a wrongful death. All medical professionals, including cosmetic surgeons owe their patients a duty to exercise reasonable care and safety when performing a surgery.  Further, it is also their responsibility to explain to the patient the risks that are involved for a surgical procedure. When medical professionals fail to uphold these duties as the law requires them to do and you have been harmed as a result, you may be entitled to recover monetary compensation.

Also, you should never agree to any type of surgery without the complete knowledge of the risks involved. You should ask your surgeon about all dangers associated with your operation, including the type of anesthetic medication which may be administered to you. Additionally, you want to know who will be responsible for administering the anesthetic drugs to you. Typically, it will not be the surgeon who will be performing your operation, but an anesthesiologist. It is always in a patient’s best interest to inquire about the credentials of the anesthesiologist, including whether or not the medical professional has a certification from The American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA). The ABA certifies physicians who have completed an accredited program of anesthesiology training in the United States. 

If you have questions or want to investigate if your reconstructive or cosmetic surgical operation caused your injury or a death of a loved one, contact our office to consult with one of our Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorneys about your case. In these cases you will need the experience of an attorney who can help you investigate why your surgery went wrong. Typically, when a surgery goes wrong it is due to negligence and medical errors. Contact our office today to learn about your legal rights! 

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Employers Could Face Invasion of Privacy Lawsuits If Requesting Facebook Passwords

We are all aware that is a common practice for employers to conduct background checks on their employees and prospective employees. It is justifiable for a business to perform a criminal background check on a prospective employee whom they are considering hiring for a fiduciary position, or when the employee may work with the elderly or children. As a matter of fact, some federal and state laws require that an employer perform a background check prior to hiring an applicant. But, just how far should employers go when they are seeking to hire new employees or are considering promoting an existing employee? Apparently, some companies around the country believe that they should have access to a job applicant’s private social networking profile in order to determine whether or not to hire a candidate.

While it is common knowledge that employers often review a person’s public social networking profile, such as Linked In, to ensure that a candidate’s qualifications support what an applicant has stated in an interview or may have penned in a resume or job application, or what the candidate has made publicly available. However, it seems that employers are going a step further in their examination and requesting that potential employees provide them with their private social media log-in information and passwords. However, companies who are engaging in this practice of asking for log-in information should be aware that there they are treading upon a very dangerous trajectory and that there are important legal consequences from this type of action.

First, any Florida employer who requests a Facebook, Linked In, or other social media passwords from an application could subject themselves to a Florida invasion of privacy lawsuit. Once an employer is allowed to log-in to a user’s account, he or she will have access to information about the “friends” of the candidate and their privacy. When users have set their personal profile as private it only seems obvious that the information in which they post is only intended to reach those whom they have befriended on the social media sites such as Facebook. Therefore, providing log-in information to an employer exposes another person’s privacy to people who are not intended to receive the information. On Friday, Facebook representatives issued a public statement saying that it will protect its user’s privacy even if it meant going to court.

Secondly, our Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorneys are concerned about other information that could be possibly used to discriminate against an employee, such as age. By law, employers are prohibited from asking a job applicant about his or her age, including on a job application. In general, the law states that an employer can only asks questions which are job-related and should not be asking applicants questions about sexual preferences, disabilities, race, ethnicities, marital status, or religion. Therefore, an employer should not be allowed access to this private information through a candidate’s private social networking profile.

In short, if an employer asks for your log-in information and passwords of a social networking site such as Facebook and Linked In, you should not provide this information to them. If you provide them with this information, you could be compromising your legal rights of privacy. In addition, if you have been asked by a prospective employer for this information, you should consult with our Fort Lauderdale employment attorneys who can advise you of what legal alternatives could be available to you.  

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Food Borne Diseases Can Cause Serious Personal Injuries

On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 12 cases of the E. coli food poisoning has surfaced in five states from raw sprouts of the national sandwich chain Jimmy Johns. Our Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorneys learned that despite Jimmy John’s having local restaurants in our community and  the state of Florida is not among the states reported  by the CDC, however this outbreak comes one year after raw alfalfa sprouts from one the chain’s suppliers was linked to 140 cases of salmonella illnesses.

The Associated Press is reporting that federal regulators issued an alert to the public warning them about the potential in acquiring food borne illnesses by eating all raw sprouts. Moreover, representatives of Jimmy John have declined to comment about this most recent outbreak, but have issued prior statements that the company would switch from alfalfa sprouts to using clover statements. Furthermore, although sprouts are believed to be good for healthy eating, they must have warm and humid conditions in order to grow. As a result, they can become very dangerous to the public to consume due to bacterial growth under the required weather conditions.  Also, the government recommends that the elderly, pregnant women, children and those with weak immune systems not eat raw sprouts at all.

Apparently there has been three sprout outbreaks potentially linked to the chain which resulted in lawsuits being filed. It is usual for consumer complaints involving food borne pathogens to be settled outside of the courtroom and in which any compensation paid to those who were injured caused by these products to be held confidential.  Nonetheless, since there are 40 different microbial pathogens which are commonly known to cause human illness, it is possible for a person develop a serious injury. Among these are fungi, parasites and bacteria and can often be discovered in food products such as eggs, lettuce and bean sprouts.  If you or a loved one has sustained a serious illness, or death, you should contact our Fort Lauderdaleproduct liability lawyers to discuss your case.

Moreover it is familiar understanding that food handling errors are a major cause of the serious injuries and death among those who have experienced a food borne disease. Food can become contaminated due to employees not following the appropriate storage procedures or mishandling of food and their cooking utensils. While a substantial number of cases of food borne diseases can be traced to commercial or institutional establishments, it is often that these companies will attempt to shift fault to the consumer by claiming that it was the consumer who failed to properly handle their products. Nevertheless, it is a company’s responsibility to know about the potential risks of pathogens in their food and to take precautionary methods to prevent people from being harmed by their product.

It is important to contact our Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyers shortly after you have discovered that contaminated food was the cause of you or a family member’s personal injury or death. These types of cases are very complex and require thorough investigation of the facts. An attorney can assist you with identifying the entity that should be ultimately being held responsible for causing you injury. It is possible that you could have a legal claim and be awarded damages for your injuries.