Personal Injury Lawyers Pittsburgh

At Balzarini and Watson we are experienced in multiple Personal Injury Lawyers Pittsburgh and Medical Malpractice Law Suits. Our Practice Areas include Premises Liability, Work Place Injuries, Product Liablitly, Aviation Litigation, Pharmaceutical Litigation, Contaminated Food Cases and more. Below you can see all the areas of law that we concentrate on.

Motor Vehicle Accidents

The lawyers at Balzarini & Watson have vast experience in handling motor vehicle collisions of all types, including collisions resulting from driver negligence and from defective roadway design, construction or maintenance.

Premises Liability

» Slip & Fall

» Defective Walkway Design

» Foreign Objects

» Ice & Snow

» Slippery Substances

» Loose Gravel

» Elevator/Escalator Injuries

Work Place Injuries

» Construction Site Injuries

» Electrocution

» Crane Accidents

» Falls

» Falling Objects

» Negligent Safety Training

» Scaffold Failures

» Lack of Fall Protection

» Demolition Site Collapses

Medical Malpractice

» Birth Trauma

» Delayed Performance of Cesarean Section

» Failure to Diagnose Fetal Distress

» Negligent Management of Labor & Delivery

» Delayed Diagnosis of Cancer

» Surgical Errors

» Negligent Emergency Care

» Nursing Negligence

» Paramedic Malpractice

» Nerve Injuries under Anesthesia

» Negligent Positioning for Surgery

» Nursing Home Negligence

» Medication & Prescription Errors

Product Liability

» Lack of Guarding on Machinery & Equipment

» Scaffold/Bleacher Collapse

» Body Armor Failures

» Defective Automobile Design & Manufacture

» Vehicle Rollovers

» Lack of Interior Trunk Release in Vehicle

» Automobile Tire Failures

» Crane Accidents

» Defective Farm Equipment

» ATV Accidents

» Defective Medical Devices

Aviation Litigation

The lawyers of Balzarini & Watson have represented the survivors of Western Pennsylvania residents involved in numerous aviation crashes, including the following:

» TWA Convair Crash, Cincinnati, Ohio

» Aero Air DC 8 Crash, Gander, Newfoundland

» Special Jet Charter Crash, Raton, New Mexico

» United Airlines DC-10 crash, Sioux City, Iowa

» US Air 737 Crash, Pittsburgh, PA

» Muth Aviation Helicopter Crash, Spangler, PA

» JB Express Charter Crash, St. Mary’s, West Virginia

Pharmaceutical Litigation

The lawyers of Balzarini & Watson are experienced in litigation involving defective prescription drugs, improper combinations of prescription drugs, and the failure to monitor the side effects of prescription drugs.

Contaminated Food Cases

» Food Poisoning

» Hepatitis A

» Salmonella

» E-Coli

» Gastroenteritis

» Foreign Objects in Food

[Via http://medicalmalpracticepittsburgh.wordpress.com]

travel vignettes

While climbing Mount Cameroon was decidedly the highlight of our latest trip south – Greg’s 3rd, Caroline’s 1st since arriving 4 months ago – there was an actual reason for the journey. VSO Cameroon holds yearly national meetings in each of programme areas; we were heading down for the HIV-AIDS meeting where VSO staff and volunteers would get together to discuss priorities and activities for the new year.

just another bah-bah sheep getting a ride into town

On top of the business side of the trip, we had a few entertaining experiences we didn’t want to simply let pass by.  Here are a few vignettes of the trip south:

-   We shared the four-person train couchette compartment on the ride South with the head of the Emigration for the North.  His office issued the Residency Cards we all have to carry as ID.  We’ll remember him, though, from his well-intentioned lectures. Eating chicken with a fork and knife and not chewing the bones is a waste and therefore bad.  Oh yes, we certainly agree that we lack Cameroonian manners.  We’ll try to be better next time.

-   The same night we arrived in Yaoundé was an open house BBQ at the Canadian High Commissioner’s residence.  Hamburgers, fries, kabobs and Canadian VQA wine enhanced the experience of being guests at the residence.  A little piece of home.  The High Commissioner – a jolly and unassuming man– was a welcoming sight in a foreign land.  Go Canada Go!

Catherine, Bronwyn, Greg and Caroline: hockey enthusiasts in Cameroon!

-   With no TV up north, we’d missed much of the Olympic coverage.  However, in Yaoundé four true Canadians caught the men’s gold medal hockey game late in the evening.  With only 3 minutes left in regulation play, the Eurosport channel lost signal.  Argh!  Quickly, we found a German-language broadcast and finished watching the game.  The switch in languages was amusing and entertaining – the style of commentating a blast to listen to.  Luckily, the game spoke for itself.  Go Canada Go!

-   We journeyed by bus south to Buea at the base of Mount Cameroon.  About 2 hours after leaving Yaoundé, a man carrying a little green suitcase hopped on the bus and immediately started “educating” the passengers.  After a little while we caught onto his intent:  he was selling ginseng powder to prevent HIV and cure everything from erectile dysfunction to the diseases women get from peeing after a man has peed in the same pot.  He was also peddling an ointment made of garlic and ginger that he claimed would make skin stains disappear and cure any other fungus.  During 1 ½ hours of his hard sales pitch he sold almost everything in his suitcase.  Quite scary.

-   We elected to book ourselves into a nice hotel the night before the mountain climb as a way to get a good start to the hike. It turned out to be a dump and Buea was under water restrictions. No water until the early morning hours.  The power was also on an off for most of the evening, so no fan to cool us down.  Our room was directly above a nightclub, so when the power was on the boom boom boom of the music echoed through the night.  Fan or music… Couldn’t have one without the other.

Catherine, Caroline and Karine for IWD

-   Back in Yaoundé on March 8th for International Women’s Day, we made our way to the centre of town to observe the festivities.  Dressed in our commemorative pangs – hand tailored back in Maroua – Catherine, Karine and I, accompanied by Greg (who got teased for having too many beautiful women with him) got in position for the start of the parade.  For an hour we watched hundreds of women march to celebrate advancement, achievements and hopes for the future.  Awestruck by women marching in 4-inch high stilettos, we were also amused that some women tried to carry their purses in the parade.  “No-no” presidential police would tell them: “you have to leave them behind”.  Apparently Chantalle Biya -the president’s wife – was somewhere down the street.  So piles of purses were dumped on unsuspecting journalists and other passers-by for safekeeping.  We still wonder how the women found their bags again after the parade was over!

All in all, a good trip with many memories.  Glad we could mix business with pleasure.

[Via http://beneaththemosquitonet.wordpress.com]

"This is one of the bad effects of overheated big-urban markets. The warped perspectives mess things up everywhere!"

Nancy at greaterfool.ca 10 Mar 2010 8:51 am -

“I am trying to persuade a young Vancouver couple (2 young kids, self-employed) not to buy a house in Kingston, Ontario this spring, but to wait till the fall. They can’t afford to rent let alone buy in Vancouver, so they’re getting out. Good idea. Kingston is very affordable with a great quality of life. But the 5/35 mortgages and low interest rates mean even houses here are inflated. Because they’re in Vancouver, they think a midtown house is a steal at $250,000. I can’t persuade them they’re out of their minds, and they’ll see that price drop $50-70G over the next two years. This is one of the other bad effects of overheated big-urban markets. They bring their warped perspectives here and mess things up everywhere!”

[Via http://vreaa.wordpress.com]

"The heaviest penalty for declining to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself" -- Plato

“We give politicians the power of life and death over us; we authorize them to send us to war, imprison us, tax us, regulate our activity, expropriate our houses, discipline our children, supervise our conduct, our reading, and our speech.  We let these men make the laws that restrict us, direct the policemen who arrest us, choose the lawyers who prosecute us, appoint the judges who sentence us. … And we absent-mindedly bestow these absolute powers over our lives and welfare on a handful of men, in elections dominated by fanaticism and gangersterism, generally without asking of them smallest guarantee of intelligence or of elementary honesty.” — Pierre Elliott Trudeau in Approaches to Politics (1970)

Interesting words, spoken as they are by one of Canada’s most renowned politicians.  I wonder what eloquent outrage the old man could summon in response to our abusive government of today.  A recent poll, reported here by the CBC, suggests that Canadians generally don’t care about any of our leaders.  I find it interesting that Jack Layton is the only federal leader who is approved of by more people (40%) than disapprove of him (29%).  Interesting because he leads the party considered by many to be socialist, and by many more to be a vote FOR the political-right in a two party race.

If neither of our country’s viable political entities is able to summon a leader capable of even a net-positive approval rating, what does this say of our system of government?  What does it say about us, it’s citizenry?  Even as so many cry out for real leadership, would we ourselves measure-up in the eyes of Mr. Trudeau?

“The price of liberty, say the English, is eternal vigilance … strict limits must be placed on the right of one man to rule another.  This indeed is the domain of politics.”

True enough.  Somewhere in the last few decades, however, the “domain of politics” silently re-located to a domain more suitable to the success of its endeavors.  It’s in the distance now, on a hill-top far away.  Too far away, really, to be convenient in a world where convenience rules.  So far away, in fact, that even the technology that created a global community can do little but provide our apathetic population with a distant glimpse of a spectacle as absurd as it is incomprehensible.

The price, as Mr. Trudeau asserted, is our liberty itself.  That this most fundamental value is trampled increasingly with each passing month should not surprise us.  Mr. Harper’s refusal to talk to media or to face critical debate, his deliberate polarization of the population, his emotionally manipulative over-simplification of complicated issues and his annual brushing-aside of our democracy’s checks and balances are all par for the course for those in pursuit of power.

Who, afterall, would become a Prime Minister, but one with a desire to influence and control – with a lust for power?

The failure is not Mr. Harper’s.  He is doing as he should.  The failure is our own.  We sit on our numb hands, waiting for spring, while our democracy is disregarded, our economy is radically transformed and our international reputation evaporates.

Mediocre citizenship begets mediocre democracies.

[Via http://opwithhised.wordpress.com]

This Isn't High School

The things you overhear when you’re in charge: some Emergency Nurses, dissecting a colleague.

Nurse 1: That new nurse . . .

Nurse 2: The one that’s always late?

Nurse 3: Yeah, always!

Nurse 2: Not fair to her colleagues! I mean, we want to go home!

Nurse 4: So disrecpectful! And she dresses. . . inappropropriately!

Nurse 1: I heard she’s pretty good. . .

Nurse 2: If she’s always late, she’s a bad nurse.

Nurse 3: Someone needs to talk to the manager!

Nurse 5: Did any of you think to actually talk to her and finding out why she’s late before running off at the mouth and talking about her behind her back? Maybe she has home issues, child care issues, or something else you don’t even know about!

[. . .silence. . .]

Nurse 2: (indignant) That’s not our job!

Nurse 5: Sorry girls, that is our job.

I have to tell you, my sympathies are with Nurse 5. The older I get, the less patience I have with high-schoolish, adolescent, passive-aggressive behaviour from women in their 30s and 40s. Women, I might add, who really ought to know better.

[Via http://torontoemerg.wordpress.com]

Monday, Week 2

Snow snow snow… SNOW!

Today was rather exciting, it snowed… on the mountains surrounding my home… and because we’re in the mountains, I got to see the snow start falling at the top, and then it worked it’s way down, coating the pine trees like a cake decorator would dust with icing sugar… *sigh*. Will post some photos when I am able to connect my camera up.

In other news, I replaced my ski pants – free of charge, after the serious, mountain top wardrobe malfunction that left a rip from the top of my left leg down the seam to below my knee – only from stacking it a few times… so now i have pretty off white ones, that match my jacket, and have suspenders to keep my pants up and the snow out. YAY.

Went to this cool little cafe, but i can’t remember it’s name, and had a pretty good hot chocolate, accompanied by an AMAZING organic chocolate brownie… (I’m sure you could almost only get these in Nelson, or maybe you’d find them in Nimbin too?)

The local credit union here is on strike, and I think its really stupid, it’s not affecting me, as I bank with a different bank. The community here seems to be quite concerned about doing the right thing with the environment – recycling, organic foods/produce, BC grown rather than imported etc. One of the  issues that the bank staff is striking over is the introduction of paperless online statements, which means fewer hours for a few workers a week/month… The introduction of paperless statements is a great idea – the impact on the environment is significantly less. Naturally, when I’ve been offered it I’ve jumped at the opportunity, as it means that my bills/statements come to me, when I want them, and I don’t have to worry about filing them, because I can access them when I want to. So it seems that until people’s pay or working hours are being cut, they like looking after the environment. After that point, they’re more concerned with their pocket being full of cash…

anyway. that’s my rant about the bank. This week I need to get working on finding a job and a car…

So, if you’re the praying type, I’d love for you to pray for wisdom and guidance in my job and car search, and that God would provide the perfect solutions for both of these needs.

Thanks!

[Via http://anikabee.wordpress.com]

Whistler Village!!

We LOVE Whistler!









Here’s a replica of the torch!

The village was hopping with all the nations. I particularly loved the Swiss House… that thing was made out of chocolate!



How funny is this! That’s Janie and Irving!



I fell in love with these Ice Wine Truffles!

The sliding center was kind of hidden in between the Whistler and Blackcomb mountain valley, but we hiked up a trail to try to see some of it.

We weren’t able to see any of the track, but we did see the Bobsleighs all crated up ready to get shipped to their home countries. I thought this was so neat!



This was one of the bobsleighs!! We were so close to it!



We were really sad to see this Memorial for Nodar Kumaritashvil (The luge slider who died during a training run before the Olympics).



One day, we walked about 5 miles from Whistler Village to Creekside Village. It was a gorgeous walk around some frozen lakes to get there.

So much better than taking the bus there.



It was cold though. Good thing we had our mittens!

  

Creekside is where most of the alpine events take place.

 

Whooo Hoo!! Athletes Village!





At Creekside, we took the chairlift up to the finish line of the Downhill Ski events. So cool!!!





It was so weird to get off the chairlift without skies on. haha



These were the grandstands for the crowds watching the skiiers finish!



This is the finish line where all the skiers came in!





 

We thought this was funny. The sign says “Snow Tools”.



And then we rode the chairlift back down! (Those are Irving’s gloves and shoes. haha)



 Our hotel was the home to “Camp Norway”. The Norway support team was there. We thought that was pretty cool. 



We made sure to show our American Spirit in our room…. so our room went from this:



To this! PERFECT!



 We TOTALLY lucked out. Our hotel was slopeside on Blackcomb Mountain. This is the view from our room… you can see the chair lifts! (Click to enlarge!)

 

We literally had to walk DOWN the ski slopes to get to the village. The road wasn’t really an option. haha It was awesome!

 The village is great during the day, but really comes to life at night! They had these awesome “Fire and Ice” shows at night where snowboarders and skiers jump through a ring of fire. So fun!







Check out that moon coming up over the mountain! Those lights on the mountain are snow cats grooming the trails!

Good night!

[Via http://kelocity.com]