Ocean County Workers' Compensation Law Blog

New Jersey residents, like other news followers, have likely heard the horror stories of doctors removing the wrong organ, amputating the wrong limb, or leaving surgical tools inside of patients. You may not realize that dentists make errors, too, and some of them can be deadly, especially those that involve infections after tooth extractions, oral surgery and other procedures.

Dental malpractice is a growing concern. Dentaltown advises dentists to expect to be confronted with such claims at some point in their careers and lists the most known types of dental malpractice as:

• Lack of informed consent from the patient
• Dentist fails to refer the patient to a specialist
• Failing to correctly treat complications resulting from dental work, such as infection
• Failure to correctly carry out prosthodontic work such as crowns and bridgework
• Failing to diagnose conditions, including gum disease, cancer and infections

Anyone that has ever participated in an activity in Ocean County that could be viewed as dangerous may likely have been presented with a liability waiver prior to doing so. Things like flying, sky diving, scuba diving or parasailing carry with them certain risks, so it may be understandable why the companies that sponsor such activities may want to limit their liability. That limitation typically comes from participants recognizing that what they are doing is potentially dangerous and thus assuming responsibility for any outcomes that may result. Do liability waivers and agreements, however, protect companies in instances where they may have been negligent? 

A recent mid-air collision that occurred in Florida may serve as a good example of such a scenario. The accident involved two students from a flight school. Their aircrafts collided nearly head-on, killing both them and their instructors. This occurred despite conditions being favorable and visibility high. Following the accident, it was revealed that the plane carrying one of the student-instructor pairs was allowed to take off without first being warned that the other pair was already in the air and would be flying in the same general location and at the same altitude. Subsequent investigations into the flight school that owned the planes and employed the instructors showed that it had experienced numerous incidents prior to this latest tragedy. The school has since closed. 

Any kind of injury has the potential to traumatize a victim. Getting hurt is not just physically painful—it is often emotionally taxing and financially straining as well. The impact of an injury might be even worse when it happens at work. You were simply trying to do your job, but instead, you suffered an injury that might make you unable to work for a while. What do you do, and what are your responsibilities? 

Your employer has several obligations that must be fulfilled, but you also have a few responsibilities that you must keep in mind following an injury at work. Following are three examples of the responsibilities that you must act on after you have been injured on the job—no matter how big or small the injury. 

Given the danger that drunk drivers pose to other motorists in Ocean County, you might question how is that such people are allowed to driver after drinking. You might expect one's friend or acquaintance to not allow him or her to get behind the wheel after having had one too many, yet what about those establishments that serve alcohol to patrons? Should they share in the liability if those patrons then drive and subsequently cause accidents? Such is the question that many have brought to us here at Silvi, Fedele & Honschke Attorneys at Law. 

Almost every state has adopted statutes referred to as "dram shop laws." These laws assign vicarious liability to businesses that serve alcohol to drivers who then cause car accidents. The term "dram shop" itself hearkens back to the time period where liquor and other alcoholic beverages were sold by a units known as "drams." Today it specifies those unique situations where you might be able to go after whomever assisted the driver that hit you in getting drunk.