Virtually every claim for surgical negligence is first met with the defense that the screw-ups were a known risk of surgery. This is indeed the reason for the very lengthy release of liability a patient is forced to sign, usually just prior to surgery. From this, the surgeon and hospital will yell “gotcha” it was…
New Mexico Injury Attorney Blog
Chemical Restraint of Child Refugees Separated from Parents
Chemical restraints are typically associated with nursing homes. As far as I know, the United States government has never used them on children, until now. A Los Angeles Times article has revealed that the United States government is allowing the use of chemical restraints on refugee children separated from their parents at the border. There…
Independent Surgery Centers – Low Cost, Higher Risk
Surgery centers have been around for a while. They began as low costs alternatives for low risk out-patient surgery. In recent years, the number of surgery centers has grown enormously. This sounds like good news but it has not been the case for many patients and families. Profits Over Safety As the number of surgery…
Personal Injury Liability Releases Strictly Limited in New Mexico
There are many times consumers are asked to sign a release of liability before using a product or service. These releases of liability are then thrown back at the consumer when the consumer is injured because of the negligence of the business, its employees or other agents. Often the releases provide for a release of…
Wrongful Termination by way of Illegal Constructive Discharge
Wrongful discharge or wrongful termination is an employee’s claim that his former employer fired him or here for discriminatory purposes or otherwise in violation of public policy, or some Federal or State law. Many times, the employee is constructively rather than directly discharged. In short, the employer makes the employee’s work life so miserable that…
New Mexico’s Relationship with Private Prison Contractors
New Mexico leads the nation in terms of the proportion of its prison inmates who are housed by private prison contracting companies—a jaw-dropping 42 percent! The national average for state prisoners is 8%. There are eleven prisons which house state inmates in New Mexico, five of those are administered by private prison contracting companies. The…
Emergency Room Visits Hasten Health Decline in Elderly
Recent news stories reiterate the link between routine emergency room visits and rapid deterioration in the health of the elderly that often follows. The connection between the two is frequently obscured due to the fact that the actual health condition leading to the ER visit is not necessarily the sole cause of the deterioration. For…
Prescription Opiates: Profiting America to Death
OxyContin has generated $35 billion in revenue for Purdue Pharma. The drug was marketed as non-addictive despite clear evidence to the contrary. The evidence is not subtle. According to the CDC, there have been 183,000 prescription opioid deaths since 1999. The drug was first approved by the FDA in 1996 so the warnings came very…
Sexual Assault and Abuse in ICE Detention Facilities
According to Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), there have been thousands of sexual assaults in ICE Detention facilities have gone uninvestigated between 2010 and 2016. In April of 2017, the organization filed a Federal Civil Rights Complaint noting that of the 33,126 reported incidents of physical and sexual abuse only 570 have…
New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act’s (IPRA) Wide Scope
The New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) is a very good tool for gathering information on the facts and circumstances surrounding legal claims against governmental entities. In fact, a great deal of information can often be gathered through an IPRA Request. The scope of IPRA is very broad in recognition of the fact…