83% of recalls come from foreign manufactured products 

Foreign manufacturers have been able to escape responsibility for defective products. There is no accountability for foreign products hurting American citizens.

The majority of defective foreign products are causing injury to children.  Our children are defenseless against overseas manufacturers, particularly those in China where the vast number of “bad” products are manufactured.

Please support the passing of H.R. 4678, the Foreign Manufacturer Legal Accountability Act. It will soon be in front of Congress. This Act will provide American consumers greater protection from foreign manufacturers.

Our country buys products from countries with safety standards that are far less strict than here in our country.

Many foreign products have caused death,  and severe injury to Americans. There is no legal recourse for your injury. You cannot sue for your injury as there is no way to legally “serve” a foreign manufacturer. They take our money and injure us needlessly.

American manufacturers are held to a higher standard of safety. These safety standards are also community standards for keeping children and adults safe.

Foreign manufactures have no such standards. The get to take our money and ”run”  from the very problems they created.  Americans seek fairness, and the avoidance of responsibility hurts Americans. This is another problem caused by the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs.

We don’t expect people to stop buying products “Made in China” for example, but we do insist that foreign manufacturers export  products that are safe enough to be sold in our country.

The Actual Facts of the McDonalds Coffee Case   Reprint of Article from ATLA

There is a lot of hype about the McDonalds’ scalding coffee case. No one is in favor of frivolous cases of outlandish results; however, it is important to understand some points that were not reported in most of the stories about the case. McDonalds coffee was not only hot, it was scalding — capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh and muscle.

Here’s the whole story. Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat of her grandson’s car when she was severely burned by McDonalds’ coffee in February 1992. Liebeck, 79 at the time, ordered coffee that was served in a styrofoam cup at the drive through window of a local McDonalds.

After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. (Critics of civil justice, who have pounced on this case, often charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true.) Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled into her lap.

The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused.

During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebeck’s. This history documented McDonalds’ knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.

McDonalds’ witness also said during discovery that, based on a consultants advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees. Further, McDonalds’ quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees.

He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into Styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the “holding temperature” of its coffee.

Plaintiff’s expert, a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds.

Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck’s spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn. McDonalds asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. However, the company’s own research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving. McDonalds also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were unaware that they could suffer third degree burns from the coffee and that a statement on the side of the cup was not a “warning” but a “reminder” since the location of the writing would not warn customers of the hazard.

The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds’ coffee sales.

Post-verdict investigation found that the temperature of coffee at the local Albuquerque McDonalds had dropped to 158 degrees Fahrenheit.

The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 — or three times compensatory damages — even though the judge called McDonalds’ conduct reckless, callous and willful.

No one will ever know the final ending to this case. The parties eventually entered into a secret settlement which has never been revealed to the public, despite the fact that this was a public case, litigated in public and subjected to extensive media reporting. Such secret settlements, after public trials, should not be condoned.

Excerpted from ATLA fact sheet

She once loved caring for minature roses.

She was living in pain. I could see it in her eyes when we first sat down to speak.

Constant, chronic pain, you could see it around her eyes-there was tightness there. Melinda was beginning to look older than her years from the strain. She had been very careful with pain medications. She didn’t want to add addiction to her list of problems. I admired her for that carefulness.

But there was a price to pay for that. It was difficult for her to get comfortable during our interview. We would stop so she could adjust her position and then speak again to the camera. We wanted her to tell us her story.

The heavy, dark truck was going 60 mph in a school zone.  When she told me, I couldn’t believe it. A school zone!

The crossing guard had already stepped out, fluorescent green vest, motioning for cars to stop. She and her husband had already stopped and were waiting for young children to finish crossing the street after their day at grade school.

The driver of the dark truck saw nothing of this. Oblivious to his surroundings, he stepped on the gas pedal to increase his speed. He was in a hurry. He was always in a hurry I suspect.

Witnesses to the accident saw the truck slam into a stopped passenger car at sixty miles and hour. It sounded like an explosion and people from everywhere came running. People in a nearby bank thought a bomb had gone off. Glass and metal were everywhere in street.  She was grateful no children were hurt, and she was grateful the crossing guard wasn’t injured.

When she came to, she didn’t immediately know how badly she was injured. She just wanted to get home. She kept telling the paramedics-let me get home please.

“I wasn’t paying attention.” he told the police nonchalantly. They issued him a ticket of course. But where was his responsibility to the life he had changed in that school zone?

What she didn’t know then was that not all back injuries can be repaired. The best surgeons can’t always undo what’s been done. The rest of her life had been changed in that moment.

Melinda’s back took the brute, cruel force of the impact. The transfer of energy from the truck through the car then into to her lower back was more than she can ever heal.  The seat belt saved her life. But it is a very different life she has now. It changed dramtically and  through no fault of her own.

Before this collision, she was an active career woman, mother, grandmother and wife. Now, she is isolated in her home. Her day begins with pain and the difficulty of getting out of bed and tending to her home and family. Washing, cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping were things she didn’t think about before-she just did them.  Now, she is very restricted and limited as to what she can do. Many, many responsibilities have shifted to her husband. She cannot work and they can’t survive on one income no matter how much they cut back and are careful. She feels terrible that she can’t contribute and that he now carries more than a full load of worries.

Her career, caring for her home, gardening, have all been taking from her and left nothing in return but constant enduring pain as her new lifelong companion.

Roses, she loved miniature roses and had been growing, and cultivating them for years.

Now, the rose bushes in the rock wall in the front of her home were wild and unkempt. Yes, her husband got the weeding done.  But that was only the beginning of what she use to accomplish in her yard.

Her grandchildren had lost the once-young energetic grandma who could rough and tumble with them her large back yard. Gone were the famous pony rides she gave to her grandsons. Gone was the youthful laughter as they clung to the “pony” as it galloped and twisted and turned and rolled them onto the soft carpet of green and held them close and laughed with them when the climbed back onto her back.

Now, they have a tired grandmother, tired and world weary from the constant pain who sits briefly, uncomfortably trying to read to them. Distracted by her pain from really living and moving with the rest of us. 

Our legal efforts on her behalf can’t heal her back. We only hope that a modest insurance settlement can relieve her constant money worries. It’s the best we can do for her and we’re trying to do just that.

Our 325 gallon fish tank greets our guests as they enter our building here in Murray. It’s one of the larger tanks here in the Salt Lake Valley.

Ned Siegfried wanted a Dory & Nemo theme to help children feel comfortable in a business setting. Children love it when they walk in and see our fish tank. They immediately run to the tank to see Dory & Nemo and the other dozen or so fish we have in our aquarium.

Dory is now seven years old and the orange and black song fish are about the same age. I think that’s a long time for a fish.

Yes, the fish get along so they’re no disturbing sights of floating fish or shark attacks in an eight hour day. Not a good look  for a business…

Our receptionist Gianna, feeds them twice daily. She tells me they anticipate feeding time when the see the red cup. How their fish brains know this I do not know. (See photo below.)

We have some new additions that change their color and camouflage themselves in the shrubbery. Sometimes it’s really hard to find them.  See what I mean?

The red flaming fish sits near the bottom when he’s hungry. He looks kind of sulky. He’s waiting for the sight of the red cup and then the food magically appears.

Our fish tank is professionally cleaned once a week. Keeps everything healthy. The folks at Alpine Marine Imports in Orem, Utah help us with that. Give John a call, he can put fish in your office too.

Let us know if you have any suggestions regarding fish in aquariums.

                    Art in the Workplace

I would have preferred original art, but it wasn’t in the budget. So I set aside my personal preference and went to work with what were given. Do the best with what you have. And we did just that. We chose framed prints on canvas. The company helping us was Windsor Castle Gallery and a gentleman named David Cuningham.

The process used to make these prints is something fairly new, Giclée is the name. It’s a production technique that creates the closest to original art you can get. The prints look like original oil paintings.  (Giclée is pronounced zhee-klay.  It’s really a made up French word, and kind of fun to say.) When framed appropriately, these prints will look like an original work of art at an affordable price.

Giclée is a very different process than lithography which is only a four color method. This high-tech approach to art reproduction has only been around since the early 1990’s. Prints are made from originals using digital files. So no corruption occurs from multiple copies of the same original. It’s claimed that these prints are color-faithful reproductions of art work that will last for about 25 years. Inkjet printers using 8-12 colors use fade resistant inks to make high resolution prints on a variety of paper canvas and other materials.

Up close, you’ll see that these have brighter colors and aren’t composed of tiny dots. So, for the most part, these paintings look as though they are original works of art.

However, In a good piece of art, there is energy to the painting that is missing in a print. That part is unavoidable, but true. The upside is having pleasant art work in the hall-ways at one’s workplace.

Check out the gallery here to see some of my favorites.

ANDRES ALARCON

In 2002 Andres S. Alarcon graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in business management. He earned a Juris Doctorate in 2005 from the SJ Quinney School of Law.  He became a member of the Utah State Bar in 2006 and is licensed to practice in the State of Utah as well as Federal Court.

Alarcon began his legal career at Legal Aid Society. This is a non-profit organization helping low income individuals in court.

Alarcon was born in Provo, Utah but spent much of his life in Chile. He is fluent in Spanish.

El abogado Alarcón se graduó de la universidad de Utah con títulos de Administración de Negocios en el 2002 y Doctorado en Leyes en el 2005.  El abogado Alarcón nació en Utah pero vivió en Chile con su familia gran parte de su vida.

El abogado Alarcón le encanta viajar, conocer distintas culturas y aprender idiomas.