At least eleven people have died in the United States as the result of a particular defective product—and one that you may not suspect. The very airbags that are installed in cars to keep people safe have been killing people. This does not apply to all airbags, only those manufactured by the Takata Corporation.

In perhaps one of the largest examples ever of a bad product going to market, manufacturers have been forced to recall millions of vehicles, but for some people, those recalls are too little, too late.

Ms. Delia Robles is the latest victim. She was killed while driving her Honda Civic in California. A truck turned left in front of her, and she was unable to stop in time to prevent a collision. According to her family, she would have been driving at 25 miles per hour. While traditionally a slow speed, the crash was nonetheless fatal due in large part to the defective airbag that inflated.

Defective Product

The Takata airbags are defective because the metal canister can explode, sending shrapnel throughout the vehicle. Ammonium nitrate creates that small explosion, but given its sensitivity to heat and humidity, it tends to burn too quickly, causing the explosion.

This is perhaps the largest recall in history, with over 100 million inflators being recalled worldwide.

Warning from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Concerns over Takata’s airbags have existed since at least 2008. However, with the death toll mounting, the NHTSA conducted additional tests, concluding that the airbags are extremely dangerous due to the Takata inflators.

Their reports show that there is a fifty percent chance of the inflator exploding if you get into a crash. Those are terrible odds. For unsuspecting drivers like Ms. Robles, those odds resulted in a sudden wrongful death and significant grief for her surviving family members.

The recalls extend to Honda Civics, Accords, Acuras, Odysseys, CR-Vs, and Pilots that were manufactured between 2001 and 2003.

Is Your Honda Safe?

There were around one million Hondas sold that were equipped with the defective and dangerous airbags. Driving one of these vehicles is unwise because you could be putting your life and the life of your family at risk.

The best way to find out if your car is part of the recall is to visit safercar.gov. You can enter your vehicle identification number (VIN) and the site will let you know whether there have been any recalls issued that affect your vehicle. At least 300,000 vehicles have not been repaired yet—and yours could be one of them.

Your Rights in a Defective Product Case

As a consumer, you have the right to expect the products you use to be safe, especially if you are using them as intended. A defective airbag, or any defective product, can put that trust in jeopardy—and your wellbeing at risk.

If you are then harmed by the defect, you have the right to sue the product’s manufacturer. Additionally, if you are the family member of an accident victim who died, you could sue on behalf of their estate. It is necessary to hold negligent manufacturers accountable so that they do not continue to put people at risk by selling a faulty product or device.

Get Help from an Orange County Product Liability Attorney

If you or someone you love was injured due to a defective airbag or any other bad product, call Kohan & Bablove,Injury Attorneys at 1-844-326-4771 or contact us using the form below.

One of our attorneys can answer your questions, provide you with sound legal advice, and represent you both during negotiations and in court.

Four students were injured last week when they were struck by a car and debris from a crash outside Ayala High School in Chino Hills. One of the pedestrians was seriously injured and had to be airlifted to a nearby trauma center; the others received only minor injuries and did not require hospitalization. The driver of the car, which caught fire after the crash, was also airlifted to a hospital with moderate injuries.

Initial reports of the crash were unclear on the number of vehicles and pedestrians involved, but it now appears that a single driver lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a light pole. Debris from the shattered pole hit three of the pedestrians, who were on the sidewalk, while the car itself struck the fourth.

The cause of the crash is not yet known, but it’s been reported that the driver had been behaving erratically and caused two other minor property damage crashes just before injuring the pedestrians.

California Dangerous for Pedestrians

While this accident was unusual because of the high number of pedestrians involved, crashes involving people on foot are unfortunately common. Nationwide, more than 70,000 pedestrians were injured and 5,376 were killed in motor vehicle crashes last year, the most since 1996. California saw 742 of those fatalities. In 2013, the most recent year with complete data, San Bernardino County (where Chino Hills is located) saw 363 pedestrians either injured or killed in crashes—that’s nearly one per day.

Car Safety Improving, but Not for Pedestrians

The safety of passenger vehicles has been steadily improving for some time now, and the United States has seen a consistent downward trend in crash fatalities for a number of years. Much of this has been the result of improved safety features such as airbags and antilock brakes.

However, almost nothing has been done to make vehicles safer for pedestrians involved in crashes. So while the number of crash deaths has been declining, the proportion of those deaths suffered by pedestrians has been increasing. In fact, for 2015, it jumped 10 percent to reach the highest total deaths since 1996 and the largest proportion of overall traffic fatalities in twenty-five years.

The problem is beginning to receive recognition throughout America, but we’re significantly behind other parts of the world on this important safety concern. In Europe, for instance, vehicle design has taken pedestrian safety into account for several years now, and some vehicles already have external airbags to protect those outside when a collision happens.

So far, there are no similar safety requirements in the United States. But the US Department of Transportation, as part of its vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication research, is already looking into the feasibility of vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) technology. V2V enables cars to monitor each other’s locations and speeds to avoid collisions. Adding V2P, even in limited circumstances such as at crosswalks and bus stops, would help prevent pedestrian crashes.

Orange County Pedestrian Accident Lawyers

If you’ve been the victim of a pedestrian accident caused by a negligent driver or an unsafe road condition, it is often just as important to get legal help as it is to seek medical help after the accident.

When you face the possibility of large medical bills, lost income, and other recovery expenses, you need someone with a solid understanding of pedestrian accident law on your side. At Kohan & Bablove,Injury Attorneys, we have experience with all varieties of automobile accident law, and we’re ready to put it to work for you. Call us at 1-844-404-2400 today or reach us by completing the form below. Schedule a free consultation to discuss your case, and find out how we can help you.

If you follow celebrity news, you’re no doubt aware that actor Jim Carrey has been the target of a wrongful death lawsuit. While it’s impossible for us to say exactly what happened in Mr. Carrey’s case, the suit raises a number of concerns, none of which should be taken lightly. Many of the issues which will be discussed as this case moves forward will be unique to this particular suit, but there are also issues which may turn out to be relevant to many other wrongful death cases.

Many people might be wondering, because they haven’t had personal experience with such a case, what exactly qualifies as wrongful death? What does that term mean in our legal system, and what can happen to a person if he or she is found responsible for causing a wrongful death?

What Is Wrongful Death?

Wrongful death is not a criminal charge, unlike assault or murder or negligent homicide. When those criminal acts occur, the state will file charges and pursue justice directly. A wrongful death claim, on the other hand, is a civil action taken by the surviving family members of a victim to recover financial damages for both actual expenses and the pain and suffering related to the death. The defendant in this type of personal injury suit stands accused of causing the victim’s death by negligence or misconduct and might previously have been found guilty in criminal court. But they also might not have ever faced trial, or might have been found not guilty of criminal charges.

How Responsible Is Responsible?

Those accused of wrongful death may not seem to be directly responsible. Their level of culpability can still be decided by a jury. For instance, a case now underway is attempting to recover damages from the company that manufactured one of the guns used in the Sandy Hook shootings in December 2012. The company didn’t pull the trigger and didn’t sell the guns directly to the shooter, but the plaintiffs argue that the company’s advertising sent specific, dangerous messages which may have influenced the shooter. Their claim is that the company should have foreseen this kind of result.

A similar idea has been put forth in the Carrey case. His girlfriend died of a prescription drug overdose last year, and her husband, with whom she had no contact at that point, claims that Carrey supplied her with dangerous drugs when he knew that she was prone to depression and had previously attempted suicide. Her death by overdose, the filing states, “was predictable and foreseeable” by Carrey.

Could Carrey Be Found Liable?

To those unfamiliar with cases of this sort, it might seem like there is no way that Carrey could be found responsible. However, the possibility exists. The standard of proof in a civil action like wrongful death is typically “a preponderance of evidence,” not the stricter standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” used in criminal trials. If, after hearing testimony, a jury determines that there is enough evidence, they could decide in favor of the plaintiff. The key to any suit like this is determining whether the defendant (in this case, Carrey) showed negligence, and if so, whether it was to a degree that justifies holding him accountable.

This suit doesn’t seek a specific amount in damages, but in addition to assigning blame in these cases, a jury usually decides the amount, if any, to be awarded. Some awards are small, but the amount involved could also be enormous. In the civil suit against O.J. Simpson following his acquittal for murder, the families of Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman were awarded $33.5 million. In 2013, a court awarded a thirteen-year-old girl $150 million after the death of her family in a car wreck. In 2014, a Florida jury ordered tobacco company R.J. Reynolds to pay an astounding $23.6 billion to the widow of a man who died from lung cancer. These results aren’t typical, but they show that a large payout could happen if a jury finds Carrey to blame.

Orange County California Wrongful Death Lawyers

If someone close to you has been the victim of a wrongful death, we deeply sympathize. These things should not happen, and that’s exactly why this area of civil law exists. By holding the negligent parties accountable, you not only alleviate the financial burden this death caused (medical and funeral expenses, lost wages and income, and so on), you also help put other negligent parties on notice by sending the message that they’ll be held answerable if they allow similar deaths to occur.

Give Kohan & Bablove, Injury Attorneys a call to discuss your situation. The consultation is free, and you’ll only pay us for representing you if we win your case. Our number is 1-844-404-2400 or you can reach us by completing the form at the bottom of this page. You can also use the LiveChat feature of this website to have some of your questions answered right now.

For years, women and some medical professionals have suspected that there might be a connection between the use of talc-based personal-care products and certain illnesses—especially cancer. But there was difficulty in proving that link when it involved just a few reports of ill effects and concerned an ingredient used in everything from plastic and paint to baby powder. So for years millions of people continued to use these products, despite efforts by some to prove that they’d been harmed by them.

That’s beginning to change as earlier this year two multi-million-dollar claims against Johnson & Johnson (J&J), a major manufacturer of talc products such as baby powder and Shower-to-Shower, have been decided in favor of the victims. Other cases continue to move through the system as more victims and their families step forward.

Large Verdicts, Many Cases to Come

In May, a South Dakota woman won a $55 million judgment against J&J for causing her ovarian cancer. That verdict followed on the heels of a February decision in favor of the family of an Alabama woman who passed away last year while her case was ongoing. In that case, a jury determined that J&J should pay $72 million in total damages (with the majority going to a state crime victim compensation fund).

While two similar cases in New Jersey were recently dismissed when a judge ruled that the plaintiffs’ expert testimony did not meet rigorous standards, there are many more cases pending—around 1,200 by some accounts. The first in a group of forty-five cases to be heard in a Missouri court is set to begin this week.

Talc’s Long History and Wide Use

Talc is the softest of all minerals and has been known to mankind for millennia. It’s found widely in nature and is commercially mined on every continent except Antarctica. Over the centuries, many uses have been found for it, and today talc is used on an industrial scale in making paper, plastic, paint, ceramics, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and even food products. It’s even been used as a medical treatment.

Potential Risks, Too

While talc is considered safe for many applications, concerns have existed about potential risks for decades. One problem with talc is that it’s often found in nature along with asbestos, a known toxic mineral blamed for many cancers and other diseases. Care is taken when mining talc to avoid contamination, and only the purest ore is reserved for human uses.

While it sees widespread use in many forms, including baby powder, small particles of talc can cause respiratory problems (and in rare cases death) when too much is inhaled. Most parents still use talc-based baby powders, despite the fact that as far back as 1969, doctors warned of potential problems. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against using it.

The personal injury cases against J&J center on ovarian cancer, which the plaintiffs claim was ultimately caused when particles of talc in body powders made their way through the genital tract. The presence of these particles led to chronic inflammation which, over time, led to more severe health issues, including cancer.

At issue in the cases so far has been both what J&J knew about the medical science around talc and when they became aware of it, as well as whether they were covering up known dangers. In the February verdict, the jury determined that J&J was guilty not only of negligence for selling a product they knew included risks and not warning consumers appropriately, but also of conspiracy for what were seen as extensive efforts to hide the risks from the public while preparing for eventual lawsuits.

California Talc Injury Lawyer

At Kohan & Bablove, Injury Attorneys, we understand the complicated nature of talc injury claims. If you or a family member has suffered injuries that you feel are related to the use of a product which contains talc, such as an after-bath powder, shower gel, sanitary pads, or incontinence products, you may have the basis for a claim to recover compensation for your injuries.

Give us a call today at 1-844-404-2400 or complete the form below to schedule a free consultation to discuss the details of your situation. You can also use the LiveChat feature from any page of this website for quick answers to many of your questions.

Recently, the new mobile game “Pokémon Go” has taken the gaming world by storm. In little more than a week after its debut, the smash-hit app became one of the most popular mobile games of all time.

The main reason “Pokémon Go” has been so successful is the nature of the game itself. “Pokémon Go” is one of a new breed of mobile games known as augmented reality games. A core aspect of their gameplay is interactivity with the real world. The game spawns creatures known as Pokémon in real locations that players must explore to find. The goal of the game is to capture these digital creatures, which can then be used against other players in battles.

Although the interactivity of “Pokémon Go” has led to its astounding success, it has also brought with it some areas of very real concern. Many gamers become so engrossed in the game that they lose awareness of their surroundings, resulting in a variety of problems such as injuries, trespassing, and destruction of property.

The use of “Pokémon Go” has been especially problematic with motorists. Since Pokémon can spawn anywhere, being able to get around and reach them quickly in order to capture them is a major advantage. This, however, has had a negative side effect: Many motorists have begun playing “Pokémon Go” while driving.

Pokémon and Driving Comparable to Texting and Driving

Playing the app while behind the wheel has become so common that it has reached the point where many have been making comparisons to texting while driving. Indeed, a compelling argument can be made that playing “Pokémon Go” while driving is just as distracting as texting while driving—possibly more so. Police departments across the country are warning players to avoid breaking the law and accidentally injuring themselves and others while playing the game.

A number of instances have demonstrated the dangers of playing “Pokémon Go” while driving. In Auburn, New York, a man playing “Pokémon Go” while driving smashed his car into a tree. Afterward, he admitted to playing the game when he crashed. His was only the first case, however. Many more were to follow.

In another case, a man in Baltimore sideswiped a parked police cruiser with his SUV. Upon exiting his vehicle, the man blamed the accident on “Pokémon Go.”

Not just U.S. motorists have been getting into trouble with “Pokémon Go.” The game has become a phenomenon worldwide. In Toowoomba, Australia, a woman backed her car into another at an intersection. She was reportedly playing “Pokémon Go” at the time.

Injuries Inevitable . . . but Who’s at Fault?

As demonstrated by these distracted driving accidents, there is clearly a danger posed by drivers using “Pokémon Go” while behind the wheel. Miraculously, in none of these cases did the people involved receive more than minor injuries. However, it is certainly only a matter of time before another accident occurs where those involved aren’t so fortunate.

When an injury occurs as a result of playing “Pokémon Go,” who is liable? When registering for the app, users must accept the game’s terms and conditions, which relieve Niantic, the game’s developer, of any responsibility to the user for harm or legal wrongdoing caused during gameplay. It is obvious that if a gamer is playing while driving and causes an accident or injury, he or she is at fault. It remains to be seen if Niantic will be able to avoid responsibility concerning non-users hurt during an accident caused by Pokémon hunters, however.

Experienced California Car Accident Lawyers

If you or someone you love has been injured by a distracted driver in a car accident, the capable lawyers at, Kohan & Bablove,Injury Attorneys, can help you seek compensation for your injuries. Please contact us at 1-844-404-2400 for a free consultation. Trust us to help you recover the maximum compensation possible for your case.