Accident & Injury Law in Texas

Archive for the ‘Government’ Category

Austin City Council members  approved a resolution last week saying it is their “clear will” that police officers not personally collect blood from people suspected of driving while intoxicated.

During the meeting, police leaders told the council that they have abandoned plans to train a group of officers to act as phlebotomists.

Police Chief Art Acevedo had previously said he was interested in teaching officers to collect blood evidence, setting off a public debate that went on for months.

Assistant City Attorney David Douglas told council members before their vote that barring Austin officers from collecting such evidence could conflict with state statutes, which require officers ‘to use “all lawful means” to enforce the law.

Civil libertarians oppose police officers taking blood, saying it could put the city at risk of lawsuits if a suspect is injured. They also said they thought city officials should instead focus their efforts on programs that would prevent drunken driving, such as offering free taxi rides for intoxicated motorists.

The police department is now exploring other options and told council members that police officials have been, and will continue to, have blood drawn at Austin hospitals.

Austin police administrators also are in talks with Travis’ County Sheriff Greg Hamilton about creating a partnership in which blood would be drawn by phlebotomists at the county’s central booking facility.

In a blow to businesses that contact drivers after car wrecks, Texas’ law enforcement and transportation agencies have agreed to drop telephone numbers from crash reports.

The Texas Transportation Commission is scheduled to consider the new reporting form at a meeting today in Fort Worth.

The inclusion of phone numbers on the reports has prompted several transportation commissioners to express concerns about privacy. If adopted by the commission, the new form would be used starting Jan. 1.

“The need for and uses of the phone number do not outweigh the privacy concerns that the collection, storage, and release of the phone number creates,” Texas Department of Transportation staff members said in their recommendation to the commission. The commission oversees TxDOT.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, which also has a say on the forms, agreed in 2008 to drop the numbers after questions were raised about the potential for insurance fraud.
The numbers were reinstated after a lawsuit by a chiropractor and a business that gathers crash report information for clients. They argued that the state had to follow a formal rule-making process to make the change.

This year, DPS officials changed course and said they wanted to keep the numbers on the forms for law enforcement purposes. Transportation commissioners balked; the two agencies said they’d talk.

In the latest turn, the Tx-DOT staff recommendation posted Monday said “The Department of Public Safety has determined that, although the phone number can be helpful for follow up crash investigation issues, it is not vital to the form.”

DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said by e-mail that his agency is “confident the concerns we have previously expressed regarding the contents of the form can be adequately addressed in other ways.”

An investigating officer can still put a phone number into the narrative portion of the report or into separate notes, TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott said.

Deleting it from the form, however, would make things difficult for businesses that purchase crash records from local law enforcement agencies so that they can call and offer medical or other services to those involved.

Insurers say that such telemarketing prompts fraud, creating or inflating claims. Insurance regulators supported removing the numbers. Businesses using the phone numbers say poor people in particular benefit from calls that allow them to get services paid for by the insurer of the at-fault driver.

Douglas Becker, attorney for the two entities that sued last year, said: “I think it’s sacrificing what’s good for the people in favor of what’s good for the insurance companies. I just think it’s disgusting and not the way government ought to act.”

Mark Hanna of the Texas Committee on Insurance Fraud and the Insurance Council of Texas, which represents hundreds of insur ance companies, said “The recommendation allows Texas transportation commissioners to go, with their gut feeling that no one wants this type of solicitation.”

I, for once, agree with the insurance company as I have multiple clients who have had phone calls for medical and legal services before and after they hire me.  In addition, some have claimed they worked for the insurance company or the doctor worked for the insurance company.

More than 1,200 driving while intoxicated convictions in Harris County are invalid after a contractor was convicted of faking inspections of alcohol breath testing devices, prosecutors said.

Deetrice Wallace, a Department of Public Safety contractor, told investigators that she had falsified inspections records for South Houston and Clute police department intoxilyzers.

Wallace was prosecuted for three counts of tampering with a governmental record and on Friday was sentenced to a year in prison (not enough in my opinion).

Harris County Assistant District Attorney Terese Buess said about 1,000 defendants convicted of DWI can petition for a retrial without evidence submitted by Wallace. Some defendants had more than one case affected.

Buess said Wallace manipulated the machines instead of changing the reference sample every month and pocketed $146,000.

From 2002 until she was arrested in October 2008, Wallace handled DPS instruments that were used to determine alcohol concentration in DWI cases for at least seven police departments: League City, Friendswood, Webster, Seabrook, Galveston, Clute and South Houston.

Buess said Wallace signed off on about 4,000 test slips. Of those, some did not result in convictions and others were not in Harris County. Buess did not know how other counties would address the problem. The prosecutor was not optimistic about seeking 1,200 convictions again because the office will not have test results, and other evidence has been destroyed, including videotapes.

DPS officials invalidated all breath tests recorded by intoxilyzers under Wallace’s supervision because they could not pinpoint the date when her unethical behavior began.

“It’s just a massive problem that is not going to go away,” Buess said. “It’s a huge mess.”

If you were injured by a drunk driver, call us at (512) 343-2572.

Becky Murphy’s boss Dr. Russell Boone was found stealing her health insurance number to buy painkillers for a year.  She reported him and was pretty upset that he was put on a probation and continued to practice even after he plead guilty to possession of a controlled substance by fraud.  His attorney is negotiating a settlement with the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners, and Murphy is confused as to why since he committed a felony.

However, the dental board is known for being extremely lax in all their decisions.  For example, Dr. Shephen Durbin who videotaped his female employees getting undressed only received a probate suspension.  The board also gives out probate suspensions to dentists who in other states are having their licenses revoked.

In contrast the Texas Medical Board is more harsh and has suspended 56 doctors in two years.  The dental board usually just gives out fines with few follow ups, and the few follow ups that are made have been found to be flawed enforcement and weak oversight of dental professionals.

Even with the inadequacy of the dental board’s performance, this year they are receiving an extra one million dollars in funding.  Louis Leichter, Boone’s attorney and a frequent defense lawyer for other dentists, believes that Boone’s treatment and suspended probation is fair enough.  Murphy however does not because Boone could end up with a clean record  and she believes that from law enforcement of the dental board the system is skewed to shield doctors.

A vast majority of the world’s countries — 85 percent — lack adequate laws to address the growing problem of traffic deaths and injuries, according to the World Health Organization’s first report on road safety.

Traffic injuries are the ninth-leading cause of death worldwide, and public health experts say that without intervention, they will rise to fifth within 20 years, surpassing AIDS and tuberculosis.

In many countries, the laws needed to protect people are either not there or are too limited in scope,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, the health organization’s director general, as she announced the findings Monday in New York “Even when the legislation is adequate, the problem we have is enforcement.”

The 287-page report is based on data from a 2008 survey of 178 countries, representing 98 percent of the world’s population. It builds on a 2004 report that estimated that 1.27 million people die and that an additional 20 million to 50 million are injured annually in traffic accidents.

Among the new findings: pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcycle riders make up almost half the deaths.

According to the health organization, about 90 percent of traffic injuries occur in developing countries, and the majority of victims are young, suggesting large economic losses for poor countries.

In addition to causing tremendous personal suffering, traffic deaths and injuries can impoverish families and burden already strained health systems, said. Dr. Etienne Krug, director of injury and violence prevention programs at the health organization.

“Very few people realize that this is one of the leading causes of death in the world, and the leading cause of death for young people,” Krug said. “Because it happens one by one, here and there and not in mass events, it gets less attention.”

This is off topic, but a friend just sent me this info which shows our government at work:

Among farmers eligible for subsidies, just 10 percent of recipients collect 73 percent of the subsidies—an average of $91,000 per farm. (See Chart 3.) By contrast, the average subsidy granted to the bottom 80 percent of recipients is less than $3,000 annually.

According to the USDA, the majority of farm subsidies are distributed to commercial farms, which have an average household income of $199,975 and a net worth of just under $2 mil­lion.

Celebrity “hobby farmers” such as David Rock­efeller ($553,782); Ted Turner ($206,948); and Scottie Pippen ($210,520).

Does Ted Turner really need my money?