New Jersey Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Law Offices of Scott D. Grossman : Serving Monmouth County, Bergen County

The owner of the pit bull accused of terrorizing the community by biting five people in one day told a Parsippany New Jersey Municipal Court Judge that his dog had been provoked by passers-by.

The owner of the pit bull appeared in court to plead not guilty to the three charges lodged against him for the April 2 2008 attacks by his Pit bull. The victims were treated and released from the hospital for mostly superficial bites. 

Municipal Prosecutor said the state intended to have the dog declared "potentially dangerous," which he said was the "proper, prudent thing to pursue" given the rampage the dog went on outside the Lake Hiawatha branch of the public library.

The judge said the dog owner was offering a defense, which is something for him to do at trial, and asked again whether he understood the potential consequences of a finding of guilty. The owner said he believed the township was seeking "to put the dog down."

That the pit bull will not likely be destroyed did not sit well with one of the victims, who attended the hearing. He described the horror of trying to pull the dog off another victim only to have the pit bull bite him on his leg before charging his 13-year-old daughter. "I want to tell the judge what I went through," he said. "Trust me, it's too dangerous."

Parsippany's animal control officer, said… "Our concern is for public safety and we don't want people mugged in the street by pit bulls -- and that's just what happened,"  As reported in The Star -Ledger.  Please read more.

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A large chain pharmacy commits another mistake by mislabeling a three month old's prescription with the wrong dosage.  I used the word mistake here because it is a well known way to describe pharmacy errors but the truth is that the words "pharmacy mistake" sound way too innocuous for these situations. 

This time, in a  recent article on FoxNews.com, the victim was a baby with a sinus infection. The parents filled a doctor's prescription for Histacol DM syrup at a Palm Coast, Florida Walgreen's store. The dosage of the medication was to be a quarter of a milliliter. The prescription was erroneously filled by a Walgreen's pharmacy, who wrote the  dosage at a quarter teaspoon, six times the prescribed amount of medication.  Upon taking the first dosage, the baby became unresponsive and was rushed to the hospital, where doctors were able to stabilize the child. In a typical move,  Walgreen's offered $2,000 to make this bad story disappear, which the family refused.

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The medical journal Pediatrics has released a study that shows that hospitalized children are at a high risk of being overdosed, given the wrong medication or have an adverse reaction. In fact, the study revealed that one out of every 15 hospitalized children has fallen victim to medication errors. It is a heartbreaking, terribly frightening new study. Read FoxNews.com's article about the study.

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In January 2008, Governor Corzine signed a law which allows cities across the state to install cameras at intersections for the purpose of catching folks who run red lights. Here's how it works: you run red light, and the camera would take a color photo of you mid violation. Then you'd get a ticket in the mail. The bill has its share of supporters and detractors. Some say that the cameras are a good thing because they save lives by preventing accidents and the presence of the cameras reduce the number of red light violations. Others contend that the cameras deny alleged violators the right to confront an accuser in court, that they could possibly lead to innocent drivers being charged and overall their presence will do nothing to deter unsafe motorists.

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The results are in! The AAA Clubs of New Jersey biannual transportation survey published the results which revealed that the top five safety issues on our roads are:

1. impaired drivers
2. text messaging while driving
3. big trucks that tailgate
4. aggressive driving
5. using a hand-held cell phone while driving.

New Jersey motorists surveyed also identified the top five driver distractions:
1. reading
2. using a PDA or Blackberry
3. personal grooming
4. talking on a cell phone
5. eating or drinking.

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Hey New Jersey residents... I know you know this already, but as of March 1, 2008, you can be stopped, ticketed and fined for driving while talking on your handheld cell phone. Get a hands free attachment or use the speakerphone option, or better yet, don't use the phone just to catch up with old friends while you are driving.... Remember, driving while distracted is very dangerous and has led to quite a number of auto accidents... According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nearly 80 percent of all crashes are the result of driver inattention.

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This is just too much. After drinking gallons upon gallons of bottled water, only to find that some of the water was coming from other municipalities' water supplies (not the deep pure water spring as those ads led me to believe), and after learning that the plastic bottles the water comes in is either a) killing me slowly from the leaching chemicals and/or b) contributing to the hole in the ozone layer, my family and I decided to purchase a filter that attaches to the water tap on the kitchen sink, thinking we were eliminating 99.99999% of all the bad stuff in the water, presumably that the water treatment plant could not do.... BUT NOW I find that the water we are drinking is chock full o' drugs. DRUGS! Yes, DRUGS!!! Antibiotics, birth control pills, pain killers, anti-convulsion medications...the whole spectrum of prescription and non-prescription drugs. I am aghast, I am shocked and disgusted.... And I feel helpless.

I don't care that the water company swears up and down that their water is safe... I don't believe it. I worry about the long term effects of drinking this water on myself and my family. A recent probe made by the Associated Press revealed that during a five-month investigation, drugs were detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

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Check out the Consumer Products Safety Commission's website for the latest in recalls and defective products. You can even sign up on their website and get alerts sent to your e-mail address.

Today I received the alert that toy airplanes, cars, and motorcycles recalled by S.U. Wholesale due
to Violation of Lead Paint Standard.

Stay vigilant!

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There was an article on USAToday.com which excerpted an interview with a young pharmacist (who incidentally is now enrolled in law school), about pharmacy errors. It was a pretty interesting article, as it gave another view as to who is ultimately responsible for prescriptions that are filled and dispensed to the drug-consuming public. The pharmacist, Eli Phillips, Jr., a second generation pharmacist (his dad is a pharmacist too), was quoted as saying "Ultimately, the pharmacist is responsible for every prescription that leaves, whether it is correct or incorrect. It's all on the pharmacist. The technicians are there only as a means of support."

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