New Mexico Legal Issues Blog

It seems that evidence of distracted driving is all around us. Drivers sitting at a stop light need only look at the cars around them to see other drivers staring down into their laps or brazenly holding the phone or device in plain view. Law enforcement and safety officials are not ignorant of this fact and have raised the alarm about the increased number of motor vehicle fatalities and injuries due to distracted driving.

Unfortunately, the news gets even worse. According to a study by Journal for Adolescent Health that surveyed 101,000 teens of driving age, it found that 38 percent had sent texts or emails while driving within the last month. The study goes on to point out that the frequency increases with the age of the teen driver. It also adds that these young drivers who use their devices also engage in other risky behavior like not using a seat belt and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. 

The HCR ManorCare chain of nursing homes struggled for five years before filing bankruptcy in 2017. Owned by the Carlyle Group, which is a top tier private equity firm, the second largest nursing home group in the country put an estimated 25,000 patients in harm’s way by not properly caring for patients and not providing a safe and clean environment to live in. 

The Washington Post reports that there were numerous health-code violations between 2011-2017, which is the time that Carlyle owned ManorCare:

• Lack of staff and qualified staff on duty
• Medication administration errors
• Not providing special care for injections, colostomies and other treatment
• Not providing needed assistance for eating and personal hygiene
• Call buttons that did not work properly

SUVs are a common part of the motor vehicle landscape here in Albuquerque and across the United States. Families love them because the vehicles can provide more room for hauling kids. People feel safer because of the larger size. The four-wheel drive option is helpful in the winter. Some people just find them easier to get in to and out of.

However, these vehicles have also been tied to the rise in pedestrian deaths, which have gone up 46 percent overall since 2009 to nearly 6,000 in 2016. According to a new study by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, more people are buying SUVs and more people are dying because of them - SUVs lead all categories of motor vehicles, contributing an 81 percent rise in fatalities since 2009.

MGM Resorts has announced that it now is looking at possible negotiations to settle with the victims of the Harvest Festival shooting in 2017. This is a change in direction from a deeply unpopular approach where the company preemptively sued victims in order to minimize the amount of compensation paid to victims and their families. All told, there were 58 fatalities, an estimated 500 shot or injured in the melee and thousands more with broken bones, bumps and bruises. Regardless of the injury, many were traumatized by the experience.

There is now a recent filing in a Las Vegas federal court by the company and attorneys representing many of the victims. According to many news outlets, it asks that the judge put the litigation of the case on hold while the two sides attempt to mediate. The company will do the same in other courts across the country where plaintiffs have filed lawsuits. This is after the company recently lost an attempt to have all the cases consolidated into one federal case.