Personal Injury Resources

While many people here aren't all that interested in personal injury law, Eric's blawg is terrific and he really does a great job, both in breaking new stories and in analyzing the state of affairs. It's great stuff, and he's got unbelievable tolerance in dealing with those who believe the tort and med mal system is the end of American civilization.

When I started, it was a shoestring operation with no particular goal in mind. I wanted to write, and I had no idea whether anyone would read it. As it turned out, in the slightly less than 5 months that I've been doing this, my posts are read about 400 times a day. It's not as good as Eric Turkewitz at New York Personal Injury Law, but I don't think it's too shabby. Is the blawgosphere stagnant? Not for me.

Over at the New York Personal Injury Law Blog, Eric Turkewitz tells the tale of an insurance company that wants to settle, and a doctor that doesn’t. The insurer settles anyway. The doctor sues.

During my daily internet crawling I managed to come across this story from the South Carolina Personal Injury Law Blog. A man by the name of Ronnie Cooper, who lives in the same household as GEICO insured Yolanda Goethe, filed a family court action to validate common law marriage to Yolanda. When Mr. Cooper tried to stack uninsured motorist coverages under Ms. Goethe’s policy, the insurer denied the claim under the grounds that Cooper is not a named insured, spouse of a named insured, or resident relative of the fore-mentioned.

Trial by media is a real and continuing problem. In fact, the publicly traded company’s market value slid 18%. And now there are two personal injury law firms canvassing for “victims.”

Brad was last reported as also into politics, running for City Commissioner in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. As well, he continues to run his own law firm, successfully taking on numerous high-profile clients at his criminal and personal injury law practice in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; sees his real estate properties renting out exponentially faster (having appeared on “The Apprentice”); and has, he tells NBC Apprentice site visitors, “developed a T-shirt line and signed an exclusive deal with Nordstrom.” Hmm. Wonder if they read, “I survived Apprentice and all I did was make these lousy tee-shirts”?

Other examples of personal injury cases involve product liability, slip and falls, industrial accidents, farm accidents and medical malpractice. If the injury is caused, even partially by someone else’s fault, a claim should be investigated.

The motivation for the open and obvious doctrine is easy to discern: it is ridiculous for a plaintiff to recover for an injury which he could easily see and guard against. But given the current climate of personal injury law, why shouldn’t juries be allowed to make those determinations, instead of judges? Is the judges’ “gatekeeper” function really necessary? It’s hard to imagine juries finding a plaintiff less than 50% negligent — the cutoff for any recovery — if the condition truly is open and obvious. Going back to handling this issue through a comparative negligence analysis would probably lead to the same results, would be more intellectually consistent and coherent, and would help restore courts and juries to the respective roles they were intended to perform.

If you have been injured and are thinking of hiring a personal injury lawyer there are a few things to keep in mind.

We have sure heard a lot about the abuses in personal injury lawsuits over the years and the issues with these complaints and claims clogging our courts. We have also heard of the horror stories where people sue and a small business loses everything not because they did wrong but simply due to the costs to defend a case, which is basically bogus.

As to the classes themselves, I’m rather happy. Torts is by far the most interesting (another finding that has me scared, as the last thing I want is to fall in love with personal injury law). Contracts is fun as well, though the cases are more difficult to keep track of. They tend to be complex, with parties going back and forth — and often overlapping — until something happens to screw up the whole works. What that something is takes careful consideration to tease out but, I suppose, it’s no more difficult than figuring out what any of our great western philosophers is getting at in a given essay.

According to The Royal Gazette’s article yesterday, this was the award to the family of Rebecca Middleton. I do not see how they could reach this amount based on any common , accepted practice of personal injury law. This has now also reached The Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun. For more information have a look at A Limey in Bermuda’s forum on this, or Rebecca Middleton’s official website.

This case caused me to think about the implications of personal injury law and the inequalities in how people with similar conditions but different causes are treated based on who pays for their treatment and equipment. The following is a discussion of that line of thinking, but I warn everyone that it’s purely for the sake of argument.

Which do you think is a bigger conflict of interest?

I about fell out of my chair when I opened my fortune cookie at Lulu’s Noodle Shop in Oakland (try the pad thai) to find this treasure. My remarkable torts professor certainly would get a chuckle out of this one. In the process of studying for torts, the words “foreseeable” and “reasonable” were featured in nearly every sentence. Who among us will join the ranks of Edgar Snyder and Joel Bieber? Personal injury law seems to be the butt of nearly all jokes regarding careers and our futures. But, the only person laughing when someone’s life is destroyed by a devastating accident is the lawyer all the way to the…. Seriously, I have great respect for the field now. Although I know many of my colleagues would scoff at the idea, personal injury law seems to me to be a stimulating and highly important field.

Janine reminded me of a fact that she shares with me almost everytime we speak: women over 60 are the poorest segment of our population. She also pointed out how incredibly undervalued stay at home mothers are. She told me that the way to determine what the economic value is for mothers is to pay attention, believe it or not, to personal injury law where people try to put a cash value on the horrific death of a young mother. Janine explained that they rate the worth of mothers by extrapolating from blue collar jobs.

Most of the exhibiting companies I spoke with at the conference had all worked with personal injury law firms at one point or another, usually related to Vioxx or Bextra. This doesn’t surprise me. What concerns me is that as these marketing campaigns get further and further away from the law firm, the firm loses control and puts themselves in possible jeopardy over their connection with some of these questionable tactics. It also tends to potentially perpetuate an image problem for personal injury law firms that is big enough already.

Personal injury cases are serious matters. They often involve grave injury, permanent disability, and even death. Victims depend on the personal injury lawyer to recover financial damages that are required to cover their medical treatments, replace permanently lost income, and compensate for their pain and suffering.

If you’ve been injured in an accident, then you may be able to recover compensation. Remember that you must take legal advice from a quality personal injury lawyer as soon as possible after your accident to ensure that you receive the compensation you deserve. Get legal help for your injuries by finding an injury lawyer that has experience in your claim area and is confident they can help you.

So I’m wondering around craigslist/nashville no no real reason other than the kids are asleep and I’ve never done craigslist before and I run across this … a link for Nashville personal injury lawyer Bart Durham, who’s looking for a webmaster/content producer for his website.

PROVO, UTAH (AP) – One of Utah’s largest personal injury law firm is in the middle of a dispute over debt that could affect their clients. According to court documents, the law firm Gregory, Barton and Swapp is mired in more debt than the firm can repay.

Considering lawyer advertising for your personal injury law practice? Be prepared to commit a sufficient amount of money every month without interruption. Businesses and advertising agencies have long ago realized that whether you’re advertising in a newspaper, magazine, TV or Radio, your ads must be consistently seen by your audience to be effective. Additionally, there are other factors which require sustained, prolonged advertising campaigns. There are good months and bad months for any business, but even more so for a personal injury...

Web sites are inexpensive, however, for personal injury lawyers, web sites work best as an online brochure or for brand building, rather than for obtaining clients from Internet searches. Clients with more serious injuries are usually in a hospital bed or in bed at home without easy access to a computer and will call a telephone number in lawyer advertising they see on TV.

Since October 2004, Manhattan personal injury firm Weitz & Luxenberg has accepted new clients who have been seriously injured by the pain reducing medication Bextra. Bextra was prescribed to millions of Americans to treat the pain associated with arthritis, menstrual discomfort, and other ailments. Now, in light of the Food and Drug Administration’s demand that Bextra’s manufacturer, Pfizer, pull the drug from the market, the firm anticipates an increase in individuals seeking to file suit to get compensation for their injuries.

Product liability is the set of legal rules that identifies the one responsible for defective or dangerous products. It is based on the principle that a person who manufactures or sells a product has a big responsibility, not only to the person who buys the product, but also to anyone else who might reasonably come into contact with it. If you have been injured by a dangerous consumer product, you’ll have an easier time to recover compensation for the damages it has brought you than those who are injured in other ways because of the product liability law. You also need the aid of an experienced defective product lawyer in pursuing your lawsuit.

Cochran attained instant celebrity as a result of the O.J. trial. He could recently be seen on television ads across the country for his 120-lawyer personal injury law firm, as the notoriety he gained from the Simpson case made him a heavy ‘rainmaker’ in the industry. In the past, Cochran had hosted a television program on Court TV, had been parodied on shows such as Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld – which invented quipping advocate “Jackie Chiles” for a number of comedic episodes – and even...

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the masterful attorney who gained prominence as an early advocate for victims of police abuse then achieved worldwide fame for successfully defending football star O.J. Simpson on murder charges, died Tuesday. He was 67.

Cochran died of an inoperable brain tumor at his home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, according to his brother-in-law Bill Baker. He had been diagnosed with the brain tumor in December 2003, Baker said.

Near the end of class on Wednesday, several students expressed their concern over how the seemingly legitimate, voluntary concession of rights required by EULAs has the serious potential to chill innovation: by providing a legal precedent under which contract law may supercede the previously determined precedent of fair use protection for reverse engineering, hardware and software developers may be deprived of this extremely useful (and, as was pointed out in a previous post, historically significant) technique. There is, however, a larger issue at stake, one that in part rests upon the outcome of this case - the appearance of legal authority over small, independent development teams gained by corporate software studios in cases such as Davidson & Associates v. Internet Gateway may indirectly discourage the type of grassroots efforts from which many original works spring.

Help is available to borrowers who have claims against their lenders for violating the Truth in Lending Act and other laws regulating credit transactions. Such violations may be a defense to a mortgage foreclosure. If there is a violation, you may be able to void the mortgage and apply 100% of your payments to principal. You may also be able to recover money damages.

If the answer to any of the following questions is "yes," please arrange for a professional auditor to review your loan documents (including demand and collection letters, correspondence, and any account histories or monthly statements).

Ian Walker, partner at London personal injury law firm Russell Jones and Walker, said he was representing four customers seeking compensation.

“People expect good judgment from their lawyers and there’s a sense that riding a bike is reckless,” [said Spohrer Wilner partner Bob Spohrer].

Not at all, explains Spohrer. Although he admits he rides his silver Harley-Davidson for the “adrenaline rush,” he said his days of zooming through mountain passes are over. Like many of the legal riders, Spohrer favors cruising the open roads.

“Like anything worth doing, there’s an element of risk, but it’s manageable,” said Spohrer, sounding every bit the personal injury advocate.

Clients on the other side of the personal injury aisle don’t mind a motorcycling lawyer. E.T. Fernandez, a partner at Inman and Fernandez who specializes in personal injury defense, said his clients like his biking experience.

It gives him an edge, he said, when he’s defending a client against an injured biker suing for damages. It’s relatively easy to defend against lawsuits from bikers, said Fernandez. He can look at the circumstances surrounding a wreck and tell whether the biker was driving recklessly, he said.

A relatively new source of financing is now available for both individuals and business owners. It is called lawsuit financing, often referred to as lawsuit loans or lawsuit funding. But these are not loans because the money does not have to be paid back unless the case is won. Lawsuit financing (loans) help clients who are having financial difficulties.

Last year, nearly 10 million Americans were victimized by identity thieves using information maintained by companies such as ChoicePoint. According to the Federal Trade Commission, identity theft is the nation's top fraud complaint.

ChoicePoint executives, who dumped millions of shares of company stock in the weeks before the scandal hit, refer to the far-reaching security debacle as "crimes committed against ChoicePoint." If true, then ChoicePoint should try to contain and reduce the harm the crimes have inflicted on others. The firm's own laxity, fueled by its eagerness to make sales, allowed criminals to use open, seemingly legitimate accounts to buy sensitive financial information belonging to unwitting consumers.

When the information brokers can't spot a fake and will sell to all comers, what hope do consumers have to protect their assets and good credit ratings? This pervasive problem demands a comprehensive solution to protect law-abiding citizens' credit and privacy. In the meantime, perhaps ChoicePoint can explain how it came by all this personal information and what right it has to sell it at a profit.

New York City paid $570 million in personal injury lawsuits in 2004, an increase of $12 million from 2003. Medical malpractice law suits represented about one-third of the settlements.

The payouts included $6.9 million in the case of Joel Fernandez, an 11-month-old gastrointestinal surgery patient who was discharged from Metropolitan Hospital Center although he had a serious infection.

His mother then took him to Lincoln Hospital, where doctors failed to diagnose the sepsis infection, which led to serious brain damage.

Also, $5.15 million to Daury Espinal who went to Bellevue Hospital to treat nosebleeds he kept getting after a motorcycle accident. His lawyer said doctors did not treat a pseudoaneurysm in a brain artery and later also suffered brain damage.

Leoussis said the increase was caused the city settling more cases faster and cutting the backlog down and also because appellate courts are letting more expensive verdicts stand.

If you're in Wisconsin and need a personal injury lawyer, here's the ticket.

A lot of online resources are cropping up that are state-specific. Wisconsin dwellers may appreciate the Wisconsin Personal Injury Lawyers Blog run by Frank Pasternak

The Warsaw Convention has a two year limit of statute of limitations that applies to certain personal injury cases.

Thermal Burns Sustained by Airline Passenger On Flight From Denver to Chicago Barred Under Two Year Statute of Limitations of Warsaw Convention, Because Flight Was Part of Itinerary Including International Travel.

In Robertson v. American Airlines, the plaintiff was flying from Denver to Chicago, and was using a gel cooling pad on her back. She asked the flight attendant for something to keep the gel pack from warming up, and he put the gel pack in an air sickness bag along with some dry ice. Plaintiff suffered thermal burns, and sued American Airlines within D.C.'s three year statute of limitations.

However, summary judgment was granted to the airline, on the grounds that the applicable statute of limitations was two years under the Warsaw Convention, not three years. The Warsaw Convention applied because the flight was one leg of a larger itinerary that included international travel.

New York City is thinking about trying to use Cybersettle to make Personal Injury claims easier to process and resolve, especially if they are smaller claims.

Over at My Shingle , I've posted on this article from Crains that reports on New York City's proposed two year pilot program of a computerized, on-line settlement system for litigants who have suits against New York City. The system will use Cybersettle which according to the article has processed roughly 75,000 settlements in its six years in business. NYC expects to refer less serious personal injury cases - roughly 1/3 of the 24,000 suits filed annually against the City - to the on-line settlement system. Though I do not have personal experience with Cyber-settle, this proposal sounds like a great idea. It will expedite settlements against New York City and facilitate the time involved in negotiating claims, which hopefully will bring savings to litigants (I say hopefully because I fear that attorneys working on contingency will not take the expedited system into account when taking a percentage cut - which in my view, is unethical). Moreover, perhaps with an on-line settlement system, more litigants will be able to settle smaller claims without attorney intervention. This is one initiative that I'll be watching closely.

More on the debate on contingency fees and whether they should be the same from case to case.

Each client's case needs to be treated separately and the percentage fee charged must be related to the risk in that case, after fully informing the client and negotiating on the fee level. That is the ethics issue. I'll put some links up in a reply posting at ethicaEsq later today, in case you or your clients are interested. ABA Formal Ethics Opinion 389 lays all this out clearly and convincingly, interpreting the same ethical rule on fees that exists in Illinois and Missouri.

David Giacalone, a lawyer who blogs about ethics, discusses contingency fees for personal injury lawyers.

I've never attacked the basic concept or use of contingency fees, and instead support it. (see the many listings on our Fees resources page). My gripe is with the use of a standard contingency fee -- with a firm offering virtually all of its clients the same fee, with no offer to negotiate the level, regardless of the merits of their case -- rather than tailoring the fee to the risk involved to the lawyer in each case. At best, Evan's argument above explains why a contingency fee can be good for many clients. Well, sure.