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

There are times when you see a piece of information that you simply can’t believe. You read it but simply can’t process it. You sort of stop and say, “Wait, what?”

We had that experience the other day when we read an article in The Examiner. We have always known that the transit system in the Washington, D.C. area leaves much to be desired. We have always known that there are real problems with the tracks on the subways and the escalators in the subway stations. But we had no idea that the bus system was as badly run as it appears to be.

Our “Wait, what?” moment happened when we saw the number of crashes (or “incidents” as WMATA calls them) that have occurred this year. According to the Examiner article, the number of “incidents” that have occurred during the first eight months of the year is 1,649.

Take a moment to process that. You’re probably having a “Wait, what?” moment of your own. This means that municipal buses that WMATA operates in Washington, D.C, Maryland and Virginia, are involved in an average of about 6.8 crashes a day. Not 6.8 crashes a month, but 6.8 crashes a day.

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Of all the holidays in the year, we have to admit to having a soft spot for Halloween. It’s a day of the year where children get to do three things that they love dearly all at the same time. They get to run around at night, they get to wear costumes, and they get to eat candy, which they essentially get for free.

It can be a fun night for adults, too. It’s a lot of fun to see the lighter side (or darker side, as the case may be) of your friends and co-workers. You can see it in the way that they decorate their houses, or even in the costumes that they wear.

It is a night of high spirits, which is good, but it is also a night of less caution and concern, which is not good. It seems that every year you read about senseless Halloween tragedies, many of them involving either alcohol or drivers and pedestrians, or a sad combination of both.

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Have you ever stopped to think about how car insurance really works? We’re sure that you have given some thought to how you think it works, but in this case there is quite a bit of difference between perception and reality.

When you consider your insurance policy, you probably think that in the event that you get into an accident, your insurance company will simply cover the costs of your repairs, or your medical bills if you need them. That’s what you’re paying those premiums for, right? But actually, for the majority of insurance companies, an accident is viewed as a starting point for negotiations. Or traps.

The people who the insurance companies hire to handle your claim are called “adjusters,” and they are called that for a reason. While their public job descriptions say flowery things like “providing thorough and conscientious service for your customers,” the actual job description is “making it so the insurance company pays as little as possible, or better yet, doesn’t have to pay anything at all.”

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Contrary to what many corporations, insurance companies and tort reform groups would like you to believe, people do not file injury lawsuits for recreational purposes. Nor do they file them because they want to “get rich.” Injury lawsuits are filed because injury victims have lost something that is valuable to them.

This is the premise of practically any lawsuit, injury or otherwise. Corporation A will routinely file a lawsuit against Corporation B because they believe that the actions of Corporation B cost them money. This happens all the time. In fact, if you look at your average court docket, you will see that most of the lawsuits involve contract disputes rather than tort or injury cases.

While many contract disputes center around the loss of money, injury cases center around the loss of other things. They involve the loss of mobility, the loss of the ability to work or the loss of a loved one. And unfortunately, since many of these losses don’t have strict price tags on them, many states have decided to do that for us in the form of “caps” on certain types of damages.

What this means is that in many states, there are limits to the amount that you can be compensated, no matter how grievous the damage to yourself, your loved ones or your property.

What follows is a breakdown of the types of damages that can be claimed in a personal injury case, as well as notations on which types are “capped” in some states.

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