Personal Injury Category Archives - Page 8 of 15 - Atlanta Injury Lawyer Blog Published by Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyer

DeKalb County Jury Returns $3 Million Verdict Today Against DeKalb Medical Center

February 3, 2017 | Robin Frazer Clark

Today, a DeKalb County jury returned a verdict against two nurses who are employees of DeKalb Medical Center in the amount of $3.012 Million. The case is Edwards v. Nicome, et al., 11A36121. filed in the DeKalb County State Court. The case centered around the May 2009 death of Shari Edwards, age 31, who died of heart failure three days after being admitted to DeKalb Medical for preeclampsia and ultimately giving birth to her daughter. A third defendant, a physician, was not held liable by the jury. Congratulations go out to Plaintiff’s attorneys Bill Atkins, Rod Edmund and Keith Lindsay for what was obviously a valiant fight for justice in a three week trial. The case was defended by a trial attorney who I have tried a case against before, Tim Bendin. Bendin and his law firm often represents DeKalb Medical Center in personal injury cases. Because the nurses who were found to be at fault are employees of DeKalb Medical Center, DeKalb Medical Center is responsible for the verdict.

The plaintiffs, the parents of the deceased Ms. Edwards, argued their daughter died because of peripartum cardiomyopathy, or heart failure, and the failure of her healthcare team, including Defendant physician Nicome and nurses Cox and Huber-Smith, to detect or treat her deteriorating condition. The evidence showed Edwards’ blood pressure problems had initially been treated, but in the hours before her death her condition became more precarious with low oxygen levels and blood-gas levels joining her complaints that she was short of breath. Despite this, Edmond said medical records showed staff did not take Edwards’ vital signs for three hours before she went into the cardiac arrest that proved fatal. The defense, however, argued Edwards’ condition was stable in the hours before her cardiac arrest, and her healthcare team treated her appropriately throughout her stay, including ordering tests and intervention where necessary. Bendin, the nurses’s attorney, seemingly attempted to cast blame on the attending physician, arguing they were just trying to follow doctor’s orders. This simply didn’t work. No word on whether DeKalb Medical Center will appeal the verdict. They have 30 days from the entry of judgment to do so.

I have often had defense attorneys tell me that doctors and hospitals win 95% of their trials in Georgia. If that is true, to say the odds were against this family and this team of trial lawyers would be an understatement. And $3 Million for the value of the life of a 31 year old could never be characterized of being a “runaway” verdict by any of those who think the Georgia Civil Justice System is out of whack and needs reform. In my opinion, $3 Million for the full value of the life of this mother is probably even slightly conservative. This verdict was a unanimous verdict by 12 DeKalb County citizens who all saw the evidence of negligence the same way, demanding justice in favor of the deceased patient’s family. There is nothing about it that could be labeled “runaway.”

Snapchat: “Don’t Blame Us”

January 27, 2017 | Robin Frazer Clark

This week in Georgia a Georgia State trial court ruled in favor of the social media application Snapchat in a personal injury case and granted Snapchat judgment as a matter of law based on immunity. The case is Maynard v. Snapchat and is pending in the Spalding County State Court. The plaintiff, who suffered severe brain damage in a wreck when he was hit by a teen who was using Snapchat at the time of the wreck is ably represented by several of my friends, including Mike Terry and Michael Neff, both wonderful lawyers. The suit asserted that Snapchat’s speed filter—a feature which allows a user to photograph how fast a user is going—”motivated” McGee to “drive at an excessive speed to obtain recognition and to share her experiences through Snapchat.” Apparently, young drivers who use Snapchat are now often driving recklessly fast so they can snap a photo of the speed of the car they are driving to share it with all of their Snapchat followers, and then I guess the reckless driver gets to brag to all of her friends, “Hey! Look at me!! Me! Me! Me! Look how fast I am driving!! Whoopeeee!” But the Snapchat app encourages the driver to break the law, drive way too fast, illegally fast, and then requires an action by the speeding driver to capture the not-to-be-missed moment. Those few seconds of distraction force the young driver to take her eyes off the road and they often lose control of their car or fail to stay in their lane, resulting in a horrible car wreck and causing untold devastation to an innocent person minding his own business driving on the road that night. In the Spalding County case the evidence showed the teen driver reached speeds of 113 m.p.h. AWFUL!

The defense attorneys argued successfully that Snapchat was entitled to complete immunity under the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, and whose Section 230 states, “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This provision seems to grant immunity for written communications published on the social media application, not for creating an app that encourages someone to break the law in the first place. Simply reading the literal words of the immunity provision, they would seem to be inapplicable to the facts of this case. But I’m not a judge and the only opinion that counts is the trial judge’s and he disagreed with me. Plaintiff’s counsel, I would assume, are considering an appeal.

This case shows a horrifying trend with the Snapchat “speed filter.” In November of last year in Tampa, Florida, a teen driver who reached speeds of 115 m.p.h. lost control of her car, crossed a median and hit a minivan carrying a family. The wreck killed five people. Snapchat says it actively discourages “their community” to use the speed filter while driving. If that is true, what is the point of it? Can Snapchat claim, with a straight face, argue that the speed filter is not designed to be used while driving when it’s entire purpose is to measure a vehicle’s speed? There is also currently pending in Texas another lawsuit against Apple with essentially the same facts and allegations as the Maynard case here in Georgia but involving Apple’s application Facetime. In that case, a “driver rear-ended the Modisettes with his Toyota 4Runner at 65 miles per hour — killing five-year-old Moriah Modisette. The driver, Garret Wilhem, told police he was on FaceTime at the time of the crash, and officers found his phone in the car with FaceTime still engaged.”

My Falling Out With Mediation

November 3, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

Friends: I have to confess, I back slid recently and agreed to mediation of a client’s case. I had not agreed to a mediation of my clients’s cases in several years, primarily because of a sense that mediation generally was not successful and perhaps was even counterproductive, pushing the opposing parties even further into their corners as positions became entrenched due to ridiculous positions taken during mediation, all through the implicit stamp of approval of a rather expensive mediator (who, by the way, gets paid regardless of whether he or she is successful in resolving the case). I regret allowing my client to agree to mediate his case. And again, I have made my pact with myself not to make that mistake again. Here is a short list (certainly not exhaustive) of reasons why I have fallen out with mediation of personal injury cases.

Defense counsel get away with childish, immature positions and remarks. I had a case once in which the insurance carrier wanted to try to settle prior to my filing a lawsuit. I gave them a dollar amount to do just that. They refused. They took the “so sue me” attitude. So I accommodated them and sued their insured. After two years of litigation, when the insurance carrier is in the corner because of the egregious facts that I have now exposed during discovery, I make a new demand reflecting the increase in value of the case in the last two years. Defense lawyers and the insurance adjuster say they “are hurt” by the increase and take away their initial offer in bad faith at medication. Did I not tell them that their best opportunity to settle the case was before I filed suit and litigated the case for years, and that in so doing, their case would only get worse?
Defense counsel approach me to mediate, saying “they really want to get the case resolved.” So I agree to mediation. My clients take a day off from their jobs. We are paying a mediator. Insurance adjuster offers at mediation only what was already on the table BEFORE mediation and says that’s it, take it or leave it. That’s one of the most UNprofessional things I can even imagine, yet it happens. A simple phone call to me would have sufficed. Yet they put my client through the stress and expectation that maybe finally, after two years of duking it out, they have come to their senses and want to resolve the case for what is only fair. Nope.

State Farm: LIke a Good Neighbor? Don’t Bet Your House On It

August 8, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

Do you believe that “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there?” I have previously presented plenty of evidence that the answer to that question of whether State Farm is like a good neighbor is a resounding “no.” If you recall, in my case Eells v. State Farm, State Farm did everything it could possibly do within the bounds of the law (but outside the bounds of moral and ethical decency) to prevent its own policyholder from collecting on an uninsured motorist claim after the policyholder had paid premiums to State Farm for over 40 years. I blogged about that case, which went all the way to the Georgia Court of Appeals, where we prevailed, before it was resolved. The bottom line is that State Farm will do nearly anything to avoid paying legitimate personal injury claims, including forcing its insureds to endure a trial and potential personal exposure, rather than settle a clear liability suit prior to trial.

My son, a great lover of the sport of basketball, likes to say “The ball don’t lie.” Well, the two cases I am going to tell you about involving State Farm clearly share the theme of “the ball don’t lie,” meaning the truth ultimately comes out. Two recent trials in Georgia have placed the litigious policies of State Farm in the spotlight. The first trial was tried last month by James Robson and Robert Glass in Cobb County. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $850,000.00 after just two and a half hours of deliberation. The at-fault driver, insured by State Farm, had only $100,000.00 in liability coverage. The plaintiff’s attorneys demanded the $100,000.00 to settle the case prior to trial, even though the plaintiff’s medical bills from her injuries were nearly $170,000.00. This means any verdict for the plaintiff would be very likely to be in excess of $170,000.00. State Farm had the opportunity (and the contractual duty) to resolve the case prior to trial for the demanded policy limits of $100,000.00. The plaintiff’s attorneys gave State Farm and extension of time to decide to pay the policy limits and even had the plaintiff’s treating physician speak by telephone to the State Farm adjuster confirming for her the plaintiff required neck surgery from the car wreck. But did State Farm do the right thing? No. State offered only $22,500.00 to settle the case, even after admitting their insured was at fault in causing the wreck. The jury returned what is known as an “excess verdict,” i.e., over the policy limits, and because State Farm had the clear chance to resolve the case for policy limits, will be on the hook to pay the entire verdict. You have often heard of “frivolous lawsuits” in the media but you seldom hear of “frivolous defenses.” This case was certainly one of them.

Another was in a case tried last week in Bartow County by my good friends and fellow trial lawyers Morgan Akin and Lester Tate of Akin & Tate in Cartersville. In that case, the plaintiff pulled into a roadway after stopping at a stop sign and was struck directly in the rear by a teenage driver. The investigating Georgia State Trooper measured 229 feet of skid marks left by the teenage driver as he tried to stop before rear-ending the plaintiff’s vehicle. The State Trooper found teen driver at fault. Mom of teen driver then went to State Trooper’s supervisor with photos maintaining the plaintiff just pulled out in front of him. Ultimately, the State Trooper relented and amended the accident report changing fault to that of the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff had shoulder surgery and $90,000.00 in medical bills. State Farm took up the mom’s torch, denied all liability and hired an expert who simply ignored the skid marks. The plaintiff’s expert accident reconstructionist, Herman Hill, testified that not only did the teenage driver hit the plaintiff in the rear but was going 75 MPH+ at the time of the collision based on the amount of skid marks left by her car’s tires during braking. State Farm doubled down by asserting a counter claim. The Plaintiff made a settlement demand of 100K policy limits initially and then after extensive litigation made a settlement demand of $275,000.00 prior to trial. State Farm never made an offer. The jury returned a verdict of $300,000.00. And because State Farm had the opportunity to resolve this case within the policy limits of $100,000.00 but declined to do so, State Farm will be on the hook for the entire verdict. Can you imagine being rear-ended by a teenage driver going 75 m.p.h. and then the teenage driver tries to blame you for it?

Death in a Georgia Jail: Does Anyone Have Any Responsibility Under Georgia Law?

July 15, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

Two interesting but diametrically opposed cases came out last month dealing with deaths of prisoners in Georgia jails. One came out in favor of the prisoner who was killed. The other came out in favor of the police department. Why? I thought it would be interesting to take a look and compare the two.

Jail deaths occur rather frequently. As I discuss “jail deaths” in this blog I am excluding death by natural causes, e.g., disease or old age and I am excluding for now wrongful death of an inmate caused by inadequate medical care in prison (which also is very frequent). I am referring to jail death proximately caused by another person, whether that other person is another inmate or a custodial officer. The nationwide average of jail deaths is 983. The annual average of jail deaths in Georgia is 46. Some of these deaths account for an increased fervor across the nation for criminal justice reform.

But how do the courts treat wrongful jail deaths? Two Georgia cases show a large disparity in court treatment even in the face of what are clearly egregious facts. It is notoriously difficult to sue successfully a prison warden or any state deputies, sheriffs or police officers for their conduct related to the death of an inmate. These suits are frequently brought but infrequently won. Why? Because the burden of proof for the family or estate administrator who would bring a wrongful death suit on behalf of a prisoner killed while incarcerated is astronomically high. So high it is seldom met. A plaintiff in a prisoner death case must allege violation of the prisoner’s 8th Amendment Constitutional rights, which is the Amendment that prevents the government from enacting cruel and unusual punishment on a prisoner. Beyond just restraining prison officials from inflicting “cruel and unusual punishments” upon inmates, the 8th Amendment also imposes duties on these officials to take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates. But plaintiffs must show the prison officials acted with “deliberate indifference” to the prisoner’s constitutional rights, which is a pretty high mark to meet. It is just slightly shy of intentional conduct. “Deliberate indifference” in the context of a failure to prevent harm has a subjective and an objective component, i.e., the plaintiff must prove the prison official actually knew an inmate faced a substantial risk of harm and that the defendant disregarded that known risk by failing to respond to it in an objectively reasonable manner.

Who is Legally Responsible for Death by Alligator? Anyone?

June 17, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

The tragic news from Disney World in Orlando, Florida this week of a toddler being carried away and killed by an alligator in a lagoon on Disney property has sent waves of terror in every parent whose child has ever waded into any water other than a swimming pool. My family made many trips to Disney World when my children were young and water is everywhere around the property. It is my understanding that at this particular lagoon at The Grand Floridian Hotel there were “No Swimming” signs posted near the water. Yet the photos I have seen show chaise lounge chairs on a sandy beach in front of the lagoon. The beach was, apparently, man made by Disney for the enjoyment of their guests and Disney put the chaise lounge chairs on the beach looking directly to the lagoon. What is the message being sent by Disney? Come sit in these lounge chairs and enjoy the beach and the water? Doesn’t the placement of the chairs there and the placement of the sand there act as an invitation to wade in the water?

Disney is now, apparently, placing warning signs there now, along the lines of “Beware of Alligators.” Is this too little, too late? What is the duty Disney owed to its paying guests to warn them of alligators or to make sure they could not be harmed by alligators while their paying guests are staying at their hotels?

This incident brought to mind a similar tragedy that occurred not too long ago in Georgia, when a senior citizen was, ostensibly, grabbed by an alligator, carried away and killed while she was staying with her children at their home which was on a golf course. This case was litigated and, ultimately, decided by the Supreme Court of Georgia. The case is Landings Association v. Williams and was decided in 2012. The relevant facts, as discussed in the Court’s opinion are as follows: Williams, the victim, was house-sitting for her daughter and son-in-law at The Landings, a planned residential development with a golf course located on Skidaway Island off the Georgia coast. Before The Landings was developed, the land within and surrounding its boundaries was largely marsh, where indigenous alligators lived and thrived. In order to develop the property, The Landings entities installed a lagoon system which allowed enough drainage to create an area suitable for a residential development. After the project was completed in the 1970s, the indigenous alligators subsequently began to move in and out of The Landings through its lagoon systems.

Who Is Legally Responsible for a Suicide?

June 9, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

Many of you know that as President of the State Bar of Georgia I began a statewide effort to reduce suicides among attorneys, which was occurring at an alarming rate. I created the State Bar’s “How To Save a Life” program and we set about educating our members about the warning signs of suicide, what to say and what not to say to a colleague or friend who you suspect may be contemplating suicide and the steps to take to help prevent suicide. In the process, I learned a lot myself and suicide prevention has become a movement I hold dear, although I had certainly never even given it a second thought before I was faced with it in our membership as President of the State Bar. As a result of this learning process for me, I read just about everything I can on suicide.

Which brings me to the subject of this post: who is legally responsible for the suicide of someone else? The recent Georgia Court of Appeals opinion in Mayor and City Council of The City of Richmond Hill v. Maia, No. A15A2334 (Ga. Ct. App. March 20, 2016), which may very well be one of the saddest cases I have ever read, answers that question in the context of city police officer and suicide victim and held the victim’s suicide was a reasonably forseeable consequence of the police officer’s negligent conduct where the police officer had a specific duty not to disclose the suicide victim’s confidential information. The appellate court held that issue was one for the jury to decide and the case was remanded to the trial court for a trial. It is my understanding, however, that the City of Richmond has appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court and the case is on the Supreme Court’s July docket.

The facts of City of Richmond Hill are heartbreaking and very difficult to read and even imagine. A young high school teenager attempted suicide by cutting her neck and stabbing herself. Her mother placed her in a mental health hospital after the attempt. The child stayed there for 9 days and then returned to her school. As such things are with teenagers, the child’s suicide attempt became the talk of the school. According to her boyfriend’s testimony in the case “everybody knew after a couple of days what happened.” The City of Richmond Hill police department investigated the suicide attempt and as part of their official police investigation took photographs of the child’s injuries from the suicide attempt. In what appears to be a horrific irony, one of the investigating police officers had a child who attended the same high school as the victim. The police officer became concerned that his child did not appreciate the seriousness of the suicide attempt and so, in clear violation of the police department’s written policy entitled “Duty to Refrain from Disclosing any Information Relating to Police Activities,” showed the photographs of the victim to his daughter by accessing them through the police department’s computers. The police officer swore that he did not give them to his daughter or print them, but within days his daughter was showing these photographs of the victim on her cell phone to other students in the high school.

What is a Manufacturer’s Duty to Warn Consumers?

March 9, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

My friend and fellow trial lawyer, Lester Tate, and I are representing a young man in a case against Kawasaki, the manufacturer of the motorcycle he was riding when he was severely injured because it stalled on him. Months later, he received a recall notice that said the voltage regulator on his motorcycle was defective. The minute he received the notice he thought that sure explained what happened to him the day his world was turned upside with a catastrophic motorcycle wreck. The case was heard yesterday before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, our appellate court for cases that are filed in Federal Court, here in the Northern District of Georgia. One of the issues on appeal involves Kawasaki’s duty to warn its customers who have bought or used that particular motorcycle about a known defect with the motorcycle’s voltage regulator. So, a manufacturer’s duty owed to its consumer is heavily on mind right now.

What exactly is a manufacturer’s duty to want its customers of a potentially defective product? Under Georgia law , when the manufacturer of a product has actual or constructive knowledge that its product involves danger to users of the product, the manufacturer has a duty to warn users of the danger. Battersby v. Boyer, 526 S.E. 2d 159, 162 (Ga. App. 1999). O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(b)(1) provides that “[t]he manufacturer of any personal property sold as new property directly or through a dealer or any other person shall be liable in tort, irrespective of privity, to any natural person who may use, consume, or reasonably be affected by the property and who suffers injury to his person or property because the property when sold by the manufacturer was not merchantable and reasonably suited to the use intended, and its condition when sold is the proximate cause of the injury sustained.” The term “not merchantable and reasonably suited to the use intended” as used in this statute means “defective.” Giordano v. Ford Motor Co., 165 Ga. App. 644, 645(1983). “In a product liability case, the existence of a duty to warn depends upon the foreseeability of the use in question and the type of danger involved, and the foreseeability of the user’s knowledge of the danger.” Dorsey Trailers Southeast v. Brackett, 363 S.E.2d 779, 781 (Ga. App. 1987). A manufacturer may be subject to liability for failing to warn the user adequately of the known or foreseen danger if there is no reason to believe the user will realize the dangerous condition.” Id. at 477; see Ford Motor Co. v. Stubblefield, 319 S.E.2d 470, 477 (Ga. App. 1984). When a duty to warn arises, the duty may be breached in one of two ways: (1) failure to communicate the warning to the ultimate user; or (2) failure to provide an adequate warning of the product’s potential risks. Battersby, 526 S.E.2d at 163; see Wilson Foods Corp. v. Turner, 460 S.E.2d 532, 534 (Ga. App. 1995) (citing Thornton v. E.I. Du Pont De Nemours &Co. Inc., 22 F.3d 284, 290 (11th Cir. 1994)). “This duty to warn is a continuing one and may arise “months, years, or even decades after the date of the first sale of the product.” Watkins v. Ford Motor Co., 190 F.3d 1213, 1218 (11th Cir. 1999). “Some products are defective solely due to an inadequate or absent warning.” Chrysler Corp. v. Batten, 264 Ga. 723, 724, 450 S.E.2d 208, 211 (1994).

The issue of failure to warn, including the lack of any warning or the adequacy of any warning, is one that the jury must resolve. See, e.g., Dorsey Trailers Southeast v. Brackett, 363 S.E.2d 779, 782 (Ga. App. 1987); Bryant v. BGHA, Inc., 9 F. Supp. 3d 1374, 1389-90 (M.D. Ga. 2014); Giordano v. Ford Motor Co., 165 Ga. App. 644, 645 (1983)(“Whether a duty to warn exists thus depends upon foreseeability of the use in question, the type of danger involved, and the foreseeability of the user’s knowledge of the danger. See Greenway v. Peabody International Corp., 163 Ga.App. 698, 294 S.E.2d 541 (1982). Such matters generally are not susceptible of summary adjudication and should be resolved by a trial in the ordinary manner. Beam v. Omark Ind., Inc., 143 Ga.App. 142, 145, 237 S.E.2d 607 (1977).”).

Are Police Chases Really Necessary?

February 11, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

Police chases seem to be extremely prevalent in our everyday goings on lately. Last night I watched the famous “slow speed chase” of O.J. Simpson when he fled the Los Angeles Police Department back in 1994 instead of turning himself in as agreed upon following the murders of his wife Nicole and her friend. The mini-series drama currently being shown on the FX Network about “The Juice” reminded me of the night that slow speed chase happened as my husband and I watched in horror and amazement in 1994 as my husband put together the crib for the child we were expecting in August of that year. Then I woke up this morning to a text alert from the AJC that there had been another police chase here in Atlanta this morning. This morning’s chase, which was near the Douglas-Cobb county line, near Six Flags Over Georgia, was of two people suspected of having robbed a convenience store of cash and cigarettes. This police chase ended with the suspects’ car crashing into a utility trailer. The police caught one suspect and the other suspect got away. Apparently, no one was injured in the police chase this morning. Thank Goodness, I might add. In San Francisco, California on Sunday, February 7, three people were killed in a police chase after police chased a car that had been seen “doing circles” in the middle of a city street.

We were not so fortunate, however, with regard to two other police chases that occurred a week ago. In Gwinnett County, a totally innocent older couple was killed in a police chase in which the Johns Creek Police Department started a high speed chase of a vehicle for “equipment violation” because it had multiple antennae. This chase lasted for 4 miles and reportedly reached speeds of 83 m.p.h. The couple was driving home after celebrating the 78th birthday of one of them. The suspect’s car crashed into the innocent couple’s car and killed them. No, the police car didn’t hit the couple’s car, but in the world of proximate cause, “but for” the police car and the police chase this lovely couple would be still be alive. Tragically, and almost unbelievably, the next day a totally innocent grandmother who was taking her precious two grandchildren to church on Sunday morning, was killed, along with those precious two grandchildren, in a high speed police chase. This time it was the College Park Police Department chasing a vehicle driven by a suspect suspected to have stolen a vehicle. The chase lasted a purported 10 miles. Five innocent lives lost in the span of two days due to high speed police chases.

Think for just a minute how you would feel if one of your loved ones were killed because of a high speed chase. How would you feel? Would you think the high speed police chase had been unnecessary? Not worth the risk? Put yourself in the shoes of those grieving family members for a minute.

My Car Has a Push Button Starter: Am I At Risk?

January 25, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

My car has a push button starter: am I at risk? The short answer is yes. Not only are YOU are risk but anyone who lives in your house if you have an attached garage in which you park your car is at risk, too, for carbon monoxide poisoning and perhaps even death. Does your push button starter look anything like the one above? I was driving a rental car on business in another state recently and it had one of these push button starters. I had never used one before, but I had certainly heard of their inherent dangers. The problem is a design flaw. You may think you have turned off the ignition, after all, you have the keyless fob in your pocket with you. But often the engine is so quiet while in park you don’t realize it is still running. If you park your car in an attached garage, dangerous carbon monoxide gas can easily enter your home and kill you and anyone in your home while you sleep, without your ever waking up to realize there is a fatal hazard in your home.

This design flaw is well known to car manufacturers. “We have documented at least 19 fatalities that are specifically attributed to keyless ignition vehicles since 2009 and 25 more close calls,” said Janette Fennell, founder and president of the safety group KidsAndCars.org. “As more keyless ignition vehicles are sold, we are going to see these predictable and preventable injuries and deaths increase.”

There is a simple solution: an automatic shut-off system for the car if it has been running for a certain amount of time without moving, e.g., 30 minutes or so. This would prevent any carbon monoxide build up if you accidentally leave your car running in your garage. Some cars do have this safety feature, others do not. It is difficult at this point even to understand why not all such cars would include the automatic shut-off feature. There is currently a class action lawsuit filed against 10 automobile manufacturers who have not incorporated this simple fix of a deadly design defect. According to the suit, the automakers have long known about the risk keyless ignitions pose. In fact, the suit claims, that at least 27 complaints have been submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since 2009. There is evidence that these cars continue to run regardless of how far away the keyless fob is from the running car.