6 Steps for Evaluating a Legionnaire's Disease Claim - Part 2

Have you suffered injury or a death in the family from Legionnaire’s disease?

Call your Legal Team for Legionnaire’s Disease at Carabin Shaw at 800-862-1260. We can help you and your family with evaluating a Legionnaires’ disease and determining any possible claims.

After the first three steps we take in evaluating cases, our attorneys finish the evaluation process to determine if you have a claim for Legionnaire’s Disease damages and losses. Next we:

4. We Review the Results of Your Epidemiologic Investigation

Isolation of the Legionella bacteria from any patient’s body requires hospitals and doctors to report that disease finding to the appropriate state or local health authorities. These health authorities are then expected to conduct their usual thorough investigation to figure out what caused the outbreak and what is the scope of an event (unfortunately, this is not always actually done). When it isn’t, you need our Legionnaire’s Disease Legal Team to get to work for you.

Part of our potential claims process is a good investigation of the epidemiology of your disease. This investigation usually involves our generating various hypotheses regarding your possible sources of disease exposure and then asking questions of the people who may also have been sickened or exposed by that same source. We then generate a statistical analysis of all of the data generated by the answers to these questions. This helps to identify the exact characteristics of the patients involved in this outbreak and, more importantly, the exact, specific source of the bacteria Legionella (i.e. a specfic fountain within a known hotel).

5. We Also Review the Results of Our Environmental Investigation

Once the most likely source of your particular Legionella bacteria has been identified, our investigators take samples of the water from the exact feature or specific system and test it scientifically for the presence of LD bacteria.

Our investigators will also examine the records which the facility itself is supposed to maintain regarding disinfection, cleaning, water quality and maintenance. Frequently, our Legionnaire’s Disease Legal team’s environmental investigation will reveal a lack of appropriate cleaning and disinfection which resulted in failure to get rid of the bacteria. A finding of Legionella bacteria in the sampled water system or feature and identification that preventive measures that were not taken or performed incorrectly, is generally convincing and admissible proof that fault goes to the owner or manager of the facility..

6. We Then Review the Laboratory Investigation Results

Our Legionnaires Disease Legal Team prefers (but cannot always) to isolate the genes and then compare portions of those genes from different samples of Legionella bacteria to check for matches. Genetic matches between case patients and various suspected water sources link all of the outbreak patients. The matches also link them to common sources and provide confirmation of the existence of an outbreak.

Every Legionnaires case and every Legionnaires Disease outbreak is very different. It is sometimes not possible (or necessary) to get all of the above data to successfully resolve a claim for a person or people killed or harmed by LD. It is very important, however, that you consult our Legal Team for Legionnaires Disease. They have both the experience and the reputation for success when handling LD cases.

Have you suffered injury or a death in the family from Legionnaire’s disease?

Call your attorneys at Carabin Shaw at 800-862-1260. We can help you and your family with evaluating a Legionnaires’ disease and determining any possible claims.