Montagues versus Capulets. Red Sox versus Yankees. Charlie Brown versus Lucy’s football. These rivalries are rooted in history and tradition, and it wouldn’t be wrong to add dogs versus mail carriers to that list. Just in time for Dog Bite Prevention Week, the U.S. Postal Service is shining a spotlight on U.S. cities where mail carriers are most at-risk for getting bitten by one of their four-legged neighborhood foes. See where your city ranks by checking out Postal Service Releases Top Dog Attack City Rankings (from USPS.com).

Every year, dogs bite more than 4.7 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Thankfully, the majority of those bites are minor and don’t require any medical attention. And of the more than 4.7 million people who are bitten by dogs each year, about 800,000 seek medical attention, including about 385,000 people who need to visit a hospital emergency room or other urgent care center. (See more Dog Bite Statistics and Trends.)

The USPS is asking pet owners to help prevent future skirmishes that are no laughing matter to the people charged with delivering the nation’s mail. And if keeping postal carriers safe isn’t enough of an incentive, there’s always this “promise”, from Ken Snavely, the acting postmaster of Los Angeles (the city that led the list for 2012): “If our letter carriers deem your loose dog to be a threat, you’ll be asked to pick up your mail at the Post Office until it’s safe to deliver.”

So, there’s that. Plus, you don’t want to end up on the wrong side of a Dog Bite Injury Lawsuit.

The family of professional hockey player Derek Boogaard has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the National Hockey League, claiming the organization is to blame for his brain damage and the addiction that played a role in his 2011 death from an overdose of alcohol and painkillers.

Boogaard played for the Minnesota Wild and New York Rangers over the course of six NHL seasons, and was widely considered an “enforcer”-type player who would aggressively protect teammates and strong-arm opponents. For NHL enforcers, fights are practically part of the job description, and according to the lawsuit, Boogaard engaged in at least 66 fights on the ice, leading to numerous concussions and other injuries. A postumous medical examination revealed that Boogaard suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which can be caused by repeated head trauma.

The complaint tries to put liability for Boogaard’s death on the shoulders of the NHL by arguing that team doctors and dentists prescribed oxcodone and other powerful drugs to Boogaard — more than 1,000 pills in the course of the 2008-09 season alone, according to the lawsuit – and then didn’t do nearly enough to help him with his ensuing addiction and health complications.

The Chicago Tribune quotes William T. Gibbs, an attorney representing Boogaard’s family, opining on the league’s culpability: “The NHL drafted Derek Boogaard because it wanted his massive body to fight in order to enhance ratings, earnings and exposure.  Fighting night after night took its expected toll on Derek’s body and mind. To deal with the pain, he turned to the team doctors who dispensed pain pills like candy. Then, once he became addicted to these narcotics, the NHL promised his family that it would take care of him.  It failed.  He died.  Today, his family seeks justice for the NHL’s egregious failures.”

Learn more about Wrongful Death Claims.

Some overly-enthusiastic passenger-side airbags are to blame for a worldwide recall that is affecting more than 3.3 million Honda, Mazda, Nissan, and Toyota vehicles worldwide.

The problem is that the airbags may deploy with too much force, resulting in metal shards showering the passenger cabin of the vehicle, which could make a bad situation worse for people who are involved in a car accident.

For Honda, this week’s airbag recall joins a list of others dating back to 2008, although prior problems involved driver’s side airbags deploying with too much force.

The airbags were manufactured by Japan’s Takata Corporation, according to the New York Times, and some of the affected airbags were also sold to BMW and General Motors, so we likely haven’t heard the last word on vehicles that have been affected by this problem.

For details on affected vehicles (all of which were model year 2000 to 2004 as of now) and instructions for vehicle owners, check out this L.A. Times article and the press releases linked up here: Honda | Toyota.

Learn more about vehicle recalls and defects.

Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $8 million in damages to a retired prison guard who received a defective artificial hip that was manufactured (and later recalled) by the health care giant.

A Los Angeles jury sided with plaintiff Loren Kransky and placed Johnson & Johnson on the legal hook for marketing a defective product and failing to warn consumers about the health risks associated with the all-metal artificial hip device, 93,000 of which were recalled in 2010.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the financial hit that Johnson &  Johnson took today could have been a lot worse: the plaintiff’s attorney asked the jury to order the company to pay another $179 million in punitive damages. When the jury declined that request, you could probably hear the sigh of relief coming all the way from J&J headquarters in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Learn more about Product Liability Claims Involving Medical Devices.

A new report on hospital safety shows that more than a few health care facilities need a second opinion when it comes to safe treatment practices and eliminating preventable medical errors.

The study looked at more than 2,600 hospitals, and of those, 790 came home with an “A”, including the Mayo Clinic, New York Presbyterian, Duke University Hospital, and Bellevue Hospital Center.

But nationwide, 25 health care facilities received a failing grade. And as the Los Angeles Times mentions, the prestigious UCLA Medical Center was one of those hospitals whose report card announced the dreaded “F.”

The study was conducted by the nonprofit group Leapfrog, whose focus is on quality and affordable health care. Read a press release from the group here: Leapfrog Group Announces Updated Hospital Safety Scores

It’s no surprise that preventable medical errors and hazardous treatment environments — such as those outlined in Leapfrog’s report — have a pretty close correlation with medical negligence. And when that kind of negligence leads to injuries to patients or a worsening of a patient’s condition, the result can be a viable medical malpractice lawsuit.

Learn more about what is (and what is not) medical malpractice, and how these cases work, in Nolo’s Medical Malpractice Center.

Graphic images of diseased lungs and other visual warnings on the dangers of smoking don’t violate tobacco companies’ free speech rights, a federal appeals court has ruled, upholding an FDA regulation that would require placement of the new amped-up warnings on all cigarette packs sold in the U.S.

The decision was handed down yesterday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. You can read the full text of the decision here. In upholding the legality of the new warning labels, the court ruled that they “do not impose any restriction on Plaintiffs’ dissemination of speech, nor do they touch upon Plaintiffs’ core speech. Instead, the labels serve as disclaimers to the public regarding the incontestable health consequences of using tobacco.”

Yesterday’s decision upholding the constitutionality of the graphic warnings comes a month after a federal district judge struck down the FDA regulations (we blogged about an earlier preliminary injunction that was granted in that case). It would come as no surprise if the Supreme Court has the final say on the controversial warnings.

It may be time to rethink what you’re willing to do for a good night’s sleep. According to a new study, taking prescription sleeping pills like Ambien, Lunesta, and Sonata — even once in a while — puts patients at a much higher risk of dying or developing cancer.

“It looks like sleeping pills could be as risky as smoking cigarettes. It looks much more dangerous to take these pills than to treat insomnia another way,” said Daniel F. Kripke, MD (who headed up the study) in an interview with WebMD.

And you don’t even need to take that many prescription sleeping pills over time before you’re exposed to the health risks. The BMJ (British Medical Journal) Open study found that even patients who were prescribed fewer than 18 hypnotic sleeping pills per year saw “greater than threefold increased hazards of death.” (Hypnotic sleeping pills are designed to induce sleep, not merely promote sleep through relaxation, according to WebMD.)

As this ABC News article points out, however, the study may not be telling the full health story of those who participated: “the study did not say why the patients were prescribed the sleeping medications, whether the patients were evaluated by a sleep specialist, or whether they were also undergoing other types of treatment for any underlying health conditions — all important factors when weighing an increased risk of death, said Dr. Steven Scharf, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.”

The study will be published in the online-only medical journal BMJ Open (see an abstract here.)

More from Nolo: Drug Safety and the Law.

A flurry of new driving and licensing laws may be triggering an epidemic of eye-rolling among teen drivers in several states. But lawmakers in New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere have passed these laws to prevent car accidents and address some of the safety concerns that come along with putting brand-new drivers on the road. Here are a few highlights of some of the new teen driving laws:

New Jersey. A bill recently passed by state lawmakers would require teen drivers in New Jersey to log up to an additional year of driving with their learner’s permit before they can be fully licensed. This law has been passed by lawmakers in New Jersey, so stay tuned on when it takes effect. More from CBS NY.

North Carolina. Teen drivers with learner’s permits will need to jump through a few more procedural hoops in North Carolina’s graduated licensing system for young drivers. This law took effect as of the first of this year. Learn more from the North Carolina DOT.

Pennsylvania. A new set of laws puts restrictions on drivers who are under 18, including limitations on the number of passengers who may ride with the driver, if those passengers are also under 18. Other new Pennsylvania laws on teen driving make the failure to wear a seatbelt a “primary offense” for drivers and passengers under 18 (meaning they can get pulled over for it), and bump up the number of supervised driving hours required for new drivers. These laws went into effect close to the end of 2011. More here.

These are just a few of the newest state laws that target teen drivers. For a state-by-state look at similar laws, check out Young Driver Licensing Systems in the U.S., from the IIHS.

For a unique view on the impact of teen driving laws like these, read this blog plost from the New York Times website: Teenage Driving Laws May Just Delay Deadly Crashes.

The problem of distracted driving has the attention of lawmakers in every state these days. California laws on driver use of cell phones and other devices are already some of the toughest in the country. And now you can add to that set of rules yesterday’s decision from a California appeals court: Next time you grab your cell phone to make a quick call or send a brief text message while you’re waiting out a red light, you can still get ticketed for a $103 traffic violation, even though your vehicle isn’t moving. The three-judge appellate panel in yesterday’s decision held that a driver who is stopped at a red light is still “driving” under California’s Vehicle Code — specifically, the driver is merely “pausing momentarily” at the light, in compliance with the rules of the road. So, use of a hand-held device while stopped at a red light is still a violation of California’s distracted driving laws.    

Read a PDF of yesterday’s decision: People v. Nelson, from the California Courts website.  

With iPhones and Blackberries becoming more and more pervasive — and drivers increasingly unwilling to go unplugged even on a trip to the dry cleaners — distracted driving has become a leading cause of car accidents. In 2009, 20 percent of all injury-causing car accidents involved distracted driving, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). And a driver who is using a hand-held device is four times as likely to get into a serious-injury car accident, says the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). This is all on top of numerous studies showing that drivers who use a cell phone while driving (even those who go hands-free) have their reaction time and judgment impaired to the same level as a driver who is legally intoxicated.

Learn more about Car Accidents Caused by Cell Phone Use from Nolo. And visit Distraction.gov, the federal government’s new web portal on distracted driving.

A federal judge has blocked the implementation of a new FDA rule requiring the display of graphic images on cigarette packaging. The nine controversial photos are set to appear (along with accompanying text) on all cigarettes sold in the U.S. beginning in September of 2012. There’s no subtlety here. It’s a rotating gallery of unpleasant images meant to convey the dangers of smoking — everything from a set of diseased lungs to a man smoking through a hole in his throat. There’s even a post-autopsy sutured chest thrown in for good measure. Under the FDA rule, the warnings and the images must cover the top half of every pack of cigarettes, front and back. (More on Cigarette Health Warnings from the FDA.)    

This week’s granting of a preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon does not amount to the overturning of the FDA rule itself. What the injunction does do is block the rule from taking effect until the lawsuit over the requirement is resolved; specifically, in Judge Leon’s words, until “the constitutionality of the commercial speech that these graphic images compel” can be evaluated.

Judge Leon’s granting of the preliminary injunction means that, here in the early stages of the lawsuit, the tobacco companies have made a strong argument that the FDA rule violates free speech. That argument goes like this: by requiring the display of these new graphic anti-smoking images on all cigarette packaging, the federal government is essentially — and unconstitutionally — forcing commercial speech on the part of the tobacco companies. The granting of the tobacco companies’ request for a preliminary injunction is obviously a win for R.J. Reynolds and friends. At the very least, it’s an early indication of which way Judge Leon is leaning on the larger issue of the rule’s constitutionality; an injunction like this is only issued when the party requesting it shows a “likelihood of success” on the merits of the lawsuit.

For now, when it comes to scaring smokers straight, it looks like the old standby Surgeon General’s Warning will just have to do.