Maryland Injury and Disability Law : Washington DC Metro Injury & Disability Lawyer & Attorney : Greenberg & Bederman : Accidents, Falls, Medical Malpractice : Maryland, DC, Virginia

One of the more popular slanders against personal injury attorneys is the term “ambulance chaser.” It means exactly what you think it does. It gives the impression that we wait around by the police scanner for news of an accident and then rush to the scene so we can offer the victims our services. It also gives the impression that we encourage lawsuits when there don’t need to be any.

We don’t do that for a lot of reasons, and the primary reason is that this sort of behavior is against the law. It’s illegal in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC, which are the three places we have our practices. Movies and television shows like to portray lawyers as mavericks who break the rules, and while it makes for good entertainment, it would make for a terrible legal practice in real life. If an attorney violated codes of conduct anywhere but on a Hollywood set, he wouldn’t be an attorney for very long. But even if it weren’t illegal, it is an absolutely distasteful and unethical way to run a law firm.

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As Social Security Disability attorneys, there are certain questions and misconceptions we frequently hear. If you are fighting for disability benefits, or thinking about applying, the odds are that you have heard or thought some of these too. We encourage you to read through these frequently asked questions to see if it helps to answer questions you have, dispel myths you may have heard, and help you understand the Social Security process a little bit better.

            These are meant to be general answers. For more detailed information about Social Security law or process, please refer to the Social Security administration www.ssa.gov, or talk to a lawyer. If you have specific questions about your case, or if you need help obtaining Social Security Disability benefits, we encourage you to talk to a lawyer.

Q: I’ve been told you have to re-apply several times before Social Security will approve you for benefits.

A: This is not true.

Some people are approved on the first application. If you are not approved when you first apply, you do NOT want to let your application drop and re-file a new claim. Every time you are found disabled and you do not appeal, it becomes a legal “fact” that you were not disabled as of that decision. This means you will not be able to collect past-due benefits for any time prior to that decision. This may also affect the type of benefits to which you are entitled.

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Every insurance company has a slogan. Some are meant to seem reassuring.

“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”

“You’re in good hands with Allstate.”

“Nationwide is on your side.”

Others are meant to appeal to practicality.

“Save up to 15% by switching to GEICO.”

And some are nothing more than a jingle that means absolutely nothing.

“We are Farmers, bum-buh-bum-bum-bum-bum-BUM.”

These are all meant to keep their companies in the front of your mind when you decide to choose an insurance policy. You find yourself humming the jingle, or thinking about the lizard with the English accent, and you end up drifting towards their website.

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Turning 16 is a pretty big deal in the United States of America. You aren’t old enough to vote, buy a drink or join the armed forces, but you are old enough to drive a car. Most 16 year olds we have met would add “Finally!” to the last part of that sentence.

A driver’s license and access to a car mean a lot of things to a teenager. The most important thing is freedom. Prior to having a driver’s license, the places you could go were limited. You could go as far as you could walk, or as far as public transportation would take you. Or you would have to ask your parents for a ride. Now that you have a car, you can go anywhere.

Your friends can go anywhere, too. Those of your friends without driver’s licenses are probably just as excited as you are. Your car can carry passengers. It’s supposed to be one in the passenger seat and two in the back seats, but you would be surprised how many people you can cram in there if you really try. You can fit even more if it’s a mini-van or an SUV.

You can do all the things that your parents never let you do when you are in the car with them. You can turn up the music as loud as you want. You can joke around with your friends. You can even break the speed limit now and again.

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Greenberg and Bederman has been in practice since 1985, and in those 27 years we have helped a lot of DC-area residents who have been injured in car accidents. Sometimes the circumstances behind the accident are pretty easily defined. Our clients get hit by drunk drivers, or get hit by somebody who was really speeding or driving recklessly, and more recently we’ve represented a lot of people who have been hit by distracted drivers, which means they get hit by someone who is using their cell phone while they drive (either texting or talking.)

But believe it or not, a frequent cause for a lot of our car accident cases is something much more mundane. For every one distracted or drunk driving case we get five or six car accidents due to somebody forgetting to put on a turn signal.

We’ve all seen this before. You see a guy driving down the highway and he makes a lane change all of a sudden with no warning whatsoever. Then a few miles down the road he makes another lane change, except this time he signals that he is going to do it. It’s hard to tell if the guy is lazy or forgetful, but his signaling is completely inconsistent. And then there is the guy who doesn’t signal at all and just weaves in and out of lanes. There is also the girl who comes to a flashing red light and doesn’t signal when she is making a turn. She usually gets hit from the rear by another driver who didn’t see a turn signal and didn’t slow down.

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A few days ago, those of us in the Washington, D.C. area saw something pretty terrifying on the news. A grainy black and white security camera caught an unprovoked dog attack on three children in Northeast D.C.

The dogs were pit bulls, and as of the writing of this article they still haven’t been accounted for. That’s particularly troubling, especially if you consider the viciousness of the attack. Make no mistake about it; these two pit bulls were out for blood.  Two children were forced on to the top of a car for safety, and the dogs were making a move on to the hood when an incredibly brave neighbor came out and distracted them.

The neighbor was a man named Andre Hawthorne, who works as an usher at National’s Park. He ran out, essentially sacrificed his arm to one of the dogs and then stabbed it with a knife. When the other pit bull took Mr. Hawthorne down, his stepson came out and hit them with a baseball bat, which caused the dogs to flee. Mr. Hawthorne is currently receiving treatment for rabies as a precaution.

Both Mr. Hawthorne and his stepson are heroes. If they had not had acted, it is very likely that those two children would have been killed.

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From Bloomberg News, April 26, 2012:

“Bayer AG said settlements of U.S. lawsuits claiming that its Yasmin line of birth-control pills caused blood clots in women have increased to $142 million.

Bayer, based in Leverkusen, Germany, has resolved 651 cases alleging its Yasmin and Yaz contraceptives caused sometimes- fatal clots that can lead to heart attacks and strokes, the company said today in its Stockholders’ Newsletter for the first quarter. The company said it paid $142 million in the settlements, for an average of about $218,000 a case.”

$142 million might seem like a lot of money to you and practically everyone you know, but that sort of money doesn’t really mean all that much to Bayer. You should remember that before the number of women getting hurt or worse got too big for the FDA to ignore, Yasmin and Yaz were two of Bayer’s best selling prescription medications. They made around $1.52 billion off of sales of these products. Millions of women switched over from other forms of birth-control pills in order to start taking this new pill, which promised no weight gain, and end to PMS and a cure for acne. With a list of benefits like that, it’s no wonder so many women were taking it.

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There are firm believers in our Country that it is wrong for others to have any sort of reliance or help from the government.  Whether it is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any program that helps others through tax dollars, they still believe we are enabling people to be dependent on the government. You will even hear some of the more hysterical and hyperbolic commentators even refer to government assistance as “tyranny.” This is simply ludicrous.

Real tyranny is something like when you hear about Americans who have had to bribe their way out of third world airports for no reason, so we know real government tyranny when we see it. So a program that helps the injured, disabled and elderly when they have no other means or deserve government help is hardly “tyranny.”

Many of the naysayers are also mistaken when they believe we are somehow taking from those who are working hard and giving to those who won’t. If this idea could be summed up in three words, they would be “Why should I?”

“Why should I have to give my hard-earned tax dollars over to someone who won’t work? I work 50 hours a week when I have to. Why can’t they?”

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Have you ever noticed that in a lot of car insurance commercials, everyone seems to be smiling and talking? The lady with the beehive in the Progressive commercials certainly has a permanent grin, as well as the gift of gab. Even the quite intimidating presence of Dennis Haysbert has been softened to a smiling, avuncular type in his commercials for Allstate. 

It’s a strange sight for us to see, particularly because whenever we interact with insurance company personnel, they try to say as little as possible about practically anything. Sometimes we get the feeling if was asked them for the correct time they would say “It’s not our policy to comment.”

We get that a lot, you know. It’s nothing personal. It’s just a matter of the insurance company wanting to make things as difficult as possible for us, and by extension as difficult as possible for you.

Here’s what we mean: Let’s say for the sake of argument that you get hit by a car on 495 just past Bethesda and get injured. Let’s say the car that hit you is a 2005 Honda minivan. The woman driving is nondescript. As a matter of fact, you didn’t even get a really good look at her. The only reason that you know she is a woman is because that’s what it said on the accident report.

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