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

The 800 block of West Diamond Avenue in Gaithersburg, Maryland isn’t a “block” in the traditional sense. It is an enormous shopping complex containing multiple businesses. This shopping center is bordered by I-270 to the east and Quince Orchard Road to the west. Running through the middle of all of this is a street called Bureau Drive. In other words, this section of Gaithersburg is surrounded by highways and busy, multiple lane roads. It isn’t a very hospitable environment for pedestrians. There aren’t many bus stops around. There is a MARC station nearby, but that doesn’t make for flexible transportation options. If you want to get to this place, your best bet is to drive.

In the southern corner of the lot is a business called Dogfish Head Alehouse. As you can guess by the name, this is an establishment that serves beer, wine and liquor in addition to food. So the question that we have is this: How much sense does it make to put a business that both serves alcohol and provides a place to drink it in the middle of a parking lot stuck between major roads?

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There is a network called Tru TV on cable, which basically gets most of its material from the world around us. Security cameras, random passersby with video capabilities on their phones, and cameras that are attached to police cars all contribute to the 24 hours per day of reality programming over on Tru TV.

The shows have titles like “World’s Wildest Police Chases” and “World’s Wildest Vacations.” In other words, it’s mostly real life footage of criminals getting chased down or bad things happening to people. We aren’t necessarily fans, mainly because we see enough bad things happen to people through the course of our work as personal injury lawyers in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. But in the event that the folks over at Tru TV experience a sudden drought of terrifying real-life video footage, we recommend that they head on over the headquarters of the Washington Area Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA for short, Metro for those of us who live in the Washington, D.C. area.) All they would have to do is take a look at the footage of the driver’s-view cameras that are mounted on every Metro Bus and they would have enough for at least half a season’s worth of television.

There is a pedestrian being hit by a Metro bus. There are dozens of near-misses. There is an SUV getting rear-ended. There are collisions in school zones with children nearby. There are red light violations. There are reckless right turns. There are stop signs that might as well have not been there at all. There are bicyclists almost getting hit. All told, there are 134 video clips of near misses, and dozens involving people or cars getting actually hit by busses.

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There is a strange phenomenon that happens quite often in this country. Whenever a new device or technology is made available that could potentially reduce deaths and/or injuries, the people responsible for implementing that technology do everything possible to try to get out of it.

A good example of that would be airbags. These devices come standard in most of the cars that are for sale today, and having them in cars has saved countless lives. It should have been a no-brainer to put them in cars, especially considering that airbag technology existed as far back as 1970.

But Ford fought the implementations of airbags bitterly, and went so far as to meet with President Richard Nixon to demand that any new regulations requiring airbags would be delayed. Even General Motors, who practically invented airbags in cars, decided to delay mandatory airbag installation.

When they presented their anti-airbag arguments to the public, Ford’s line of argument was that, according to their research, the public didn’t want airbags in their cars, and who were they to “force” such things on their customers?

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People all over the world are preparing for New Years Eve celebrations. Folks are getting ready for parties and balls, bars and restaurants are hiring more wait staff and bartenders, and parents are hiring baby sitters to look after their kids for the evening. If anything, New Years Eve does bring a minor economic shot in the arm.

There are another few groups of people preparing for New Years Eve. That would be the police and the hospitals.

San Francisco Chronicle, 12/27/11:  Bay Area doctors and emergency workers are bracing for what's likely to be the busiest weekend of the year.

New Year's Eve is typically loaded with alcohol-fueled deaths and injuries, and the coming celebration will probably be worse than most years because it falls on a Saturday, giving revelers a full day of partying and, presumably, a full day of recovery.

Eureka Times Standard, 12/27/2011:Fortuna police officers will participate in a DUI saturation patrol Saturday and will arrest anyone caught driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

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We’ve had a lot of problems with the D.C. subway system over the years. With the broken and sometimes collapsing escalators, the poor security, the indifferent staff and its malfunctioning and antiquated track safety system, there isn’t much about the Metro that bolsters our confidence.

People have been hurt, and some have even been killed. This isn’t what people should expect out of their public transportation system. While we understand that it takes time and money to fix these problems, and that money is particularly scarce these days, we believe that the Metro needs a complete safety overhaul, and it needs one quickly.

“Metro officials said Wednesday a friction ring came off a Blue Line train because of a “potential hub failure” in Tuesday’s incident that shut down service along two major rail lines for hours.

The transit agency has pulled 16 rail cars from service as part of its investigation. Those rail cars have 34 hubs that are the same as the one involved in Tuesday’s incident.” – Washington Post, 12/21/2011

If you aren’t sure what the friction ring is, it is a very important part of the braking system. It came off of a Blue Line train that was on the way to the Smithsonian station. The ring flew backwards into the tunnel and lodged itself between the right hand rail and the third electrical rail. Shortly afterwards, an Orange line train heading towards Vienna ran over the obstruction, which damaged that train.

It goes without saying that there were multiple failures here. The first was the failure of the friction ring. The second was the failure of the operator of the Blue Line train to warn the Orange Line train of the possible obstruction.

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 Everything breaks down eventually. Anyone who owns a car or a bike or a refrigerator or a television or a home can personally testify to this universal truth. This also applies to the human body. There isn’t one person living on the planet that has never gotten sick or injured themselves.

Nowadays, we are much more fortunate than we were a few decades ago. Technological advancements have given us the chance to replace many body parts that are either broken or are in the process of breaking down. There are cochlear implants for the hearing impaired, there are prosthetic limbs for people who have lost theirs, and there are artificial valves and pacemakers that keep a heart beating. If you consider what the alternatives used to be, we have many reasons to be thankful that we are living in 2011 and not 1911.

While these advancements are certainly good things, none of us can pretend that these new parts are perfect. For one thing, a victim of an IED is probably glad that he is able to walk on his own again, but we suspect that he would rather have not lost his leg at all. And another aspect is that the principle that “everything breaks down eventually” still very much applies to these new replacement parts. But the problem we are having with a particular brand of hip replacements is not that they are breaking down due to the normal wear and tear, but because they were defective.

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One of the more popular arguments among those who wish to either severely curtail or entirely eliminate the rights of patients is that if the states make it difficult for injured patients to sue doctors who make mistakes, then ultimately the quality of care will go up. This argument is made with particular fire when it comes to emergency medicine.

We can certainly understand how emergency medicine became the focal point. Emergency rooms are where serious cases are brought in, and the environment is usually chaotic. It can be difficult for emergency room physicians to make the right decision every time. But it is our contention that all medicine can be stressful and chaotic, and the fact that a medical professional is working in an emergency room or facility does not absolve this person of any responsibility when they make preventable errors.

Yet in Texas, emergency room workers are given immunity in all but name when it comes to liability for any mistakes that they might make. In order for someone who has been injured due to an emergency room mistake to be able to claim any damages in court, it must be proven that the emergency room worker meant to harm the patient. Since the odds are slim to none that any emergency room worker would admit to doing so, victims of emergency room medical malpractice in Texas now have no real recourse for malpractice injuries.

So if the argument that “less liability = more and better care” holds up, then Texas should be a prime example of high quality emergency care, right? For that matter, any state that has caps on damages and restrictions on how patients can sue doctors should have better emergency care facilities than states which have no restrictions, right?

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Skin burns are probably one of the most painful of injuries. Everything about it, from the actual injury to the healing to the recuperation, brings with it severe pain. Many burns heal, but they don’t really “heal.” The scar tissue lasts for a very long time.

The burn specialists at University of Southern California Hospital are quite familiar with them. It’s what they do on a daily basis. They know how to treat them, how to keep them clean, and, most importantly, they know how they are caused. And in a recent program on NPR, they made it perfectly clear what is causing at least two or three severe burn cases a week in their hospital. It isn’t gasoline, or cigarettes, or kids playing with matches. What causes two to three severe burn cases a week at this hospital is lunch. Specifically, it’s those little Styrofoam cups of instant soup where you pour in boiling water and then wait for a few minutes.

Cups of Noodles (and all of the other equivalents on the market) are absolutely dangerous. For one thing, they trap heat longer due to the Styrofoam, and the noodles are also very effective conductors of heat. In other words, you can expect an instant soup cup to remain hot for much longer than say, a cup of tea or coffee.

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Even though we live in a media environment where many events are forgotten almost immediately after they occur, we think it will be a long time before anyone forgets the disaster that happened at the Indiana State Fair.

Thousands of people turned up to see a band called Sugarland, who are quite popular. Before the show even started, wind gusts began to develop. The stage, which was not properly anchored, collapsed onto the first few rows of spectators. Forty-five people were injured, and seven were killed.

Not surprisingly, many of the victims and loved ones of the deceased began to contact attorneys about legal representation. It would be hard to imagine why they wouldn’t do so. This tragedy occurred on the site of the Indiana State Fair, which means the state was ultimately responsible for making sure that everything was secure and safe. As you can see from the video evidence, everything most certainly was not secure and safe.

With Indiana being quite a long way away from Maryland or D.C, we don’t have all the facts in front of us. But upon giving the case a passing glance, it seems that a reasonable argument could be made for a wrongful death claim for the seven victims who died, with negligence claims being made for all the injury victims. And from what we read in the papers, it appears that almost everyone involved in the accident is involved in a legal claim against the state of Indiana. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that it will do them much good.

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Have you ever wondered why it is that so many people are so eager to embrace limitations on their own Constitutional rights?

We don’t think it is because Americans are unintelligent, or because they enjoy having things taken away from them, or because they enjoy being ripped off. We think it’s because they have been systematically misinformed for so long that they have developed a worldview that is completely backwards. Up is down. Black is white. North is south. Hot is cold.

Whenever you see news coverage about the Constitution, you mostly read about cases involving the First Amendment (say, a case on flag burning or a case about corporate campaign donations), or the Second Amendment (assault weapons regulations or handgun bans.) But for some reason the rest of the Amendments of the Constitution never really come up. And one particular amendment that has been steadily eroded over the years is the Seventh Amendment.

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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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A few months ago, we mentioned a new documentary that was making the film festival circuit. That documentary is called Hot Coffee, and it is currently being aired on HBO.

We were pleased when we heard that the film had been picked up by HBO, and we are equally pleased by the number of positive reviews that has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and dozens of other papers all over the country.

The title of the movie comes from the Stella Liebeck case, which is more commonly known as the “McDonald’s Coffee Case.” If you ask the average person on the street (as the film’s director does,) you will probably get something like this:

“A woman gets a coffee from McDonald’s, is trying to drink it while she is driving, spills a little of it on herself, and then sues McDonald’s for $1 million. The jury lets her win and she makes off with a windfall.”

The actual case bears little resemblance to the aforementioned scenario, but thanks to an amazing level of media manipulation, the myths of the case are now considered to be the facts ofthe case.

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Somewhere in your house or apartment is something that was made by the DuPont chemical company. In fact, something on your desk was probably made by DuPont. Probably even something on your computer. Normally when you think of chemicals the first thing that pops into your head is big barrels of solvents or paint thinner. But DuPont does plastics, they do materials, they do fabrics and just about anything that you can name. DuPont doesn’t necessarily sell products as much as they sell what the products are made of.

It’s hard to believe that they are only the third largest chemical corporation in the world, considering how commonplace their products are. Nylon, Kevlar, the first synthetic rubber, Polyester and Teflon are all household names that were invented by DuPont. They are an absolute giant of not just American industry, but worldwide industry.

Being a titan of world industry does not come with zero responsibilities, however. It should be remembered that DuPont is a chemical company, and not a free range organic poultry concern. Chemicals can be dangerous in almost every step of the manufacturing process. Citizens of a town called Spelter in West Virginia found that out the hard way. DuPont ran a zinc smelter nearby which produced both slab zinc and zinc dust, and by 1971 there was a toxic waste pile that stood about 100 feet tall. The idea that this pile could exist without sickening nearby residents is unfathomable.

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Hurricane Irene did quite a bit of damage to the east coast last week. The usual states got hit pretty hard (Florida, the Carolinas), but Irene was unique in that it kept a consistent level of strength and traveled a lot farther north than most hurricanes normally do. When was the last time any of you ever heard the words “Hurricane damage” and “Vermont” in the same sentence? Vermont, New Jersey and Connecticut were all hit pretty hard, and even New York got hit with about $1 billion in damage. The Northeast is not used to that sort of thing.

Another thing the Northeast is not used to is how insurance companies behave in the aftermath of a hurricane. While insurance companies may cover wind damage, many simply do not offer flood insurance. The only entity that offers any kind of emergency coverage in the event of flooding is the United States government. This wouldn’t really be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that a hurricane is a combination of wind and water. If there is a situation where there is any sort of doubt as to whether damage was caused by either wind or water, the insurance company will most likely place all of the blame on water to avoid a claim. The insurance companies will not investigate themselves; they will not send anyone around to take a gander, and they will not look at pictures. They will simply say “not our problem.”

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Washington D.C. is the sort of town where everyone has to be at work in the morning. You can see the evidence of that every morning on 395, 495, 66 or Route 50. You can see the evidence of that at every Metro bus stop or every crowded Metro station.

Weekday mornings are usually very crowded. But during the summer months, they get less crowded, mainly because a huge part of the morning rush isn’t necessary between mid-June and early September. We are referring to your children, and getting them to school.

As it is officially the day after Labor Day, many of you might have noticed that the streets were a little more crowded on your way to work. According to the NHTSA, the number of cars on the road between 7:15 and 8:15 AM increases 30% during the school year, and 25% of morning traffic is parents driving their kids to school. Today is the first day of school for most of the students in the area, so there will be kids walking to school, riding their bikes to school, waiting on corners for school buses, or getting dropped off by their parents. (No doubt, some of the older students are demanding that they get dropped off a block or two away from school so as not to be embarrassed in front of their friends.)

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There is this idea among many Americans that everyone should just “walk it off” when something bad happens to them. As in, “You got injured, accidents happen, move on.” They believe that utilizing the court system in cases like this is primarily a sign of greed rather than a sense of restitution.  We’ve noticed that this mindset primarily exists in either those who have never been on the receiving end of an unfortunate event, or those who are directly responsible for an unfortunate event. However, once the tables are turned, that mindset changes dramatically. Some of the most ardent supporters of tort reform are usually the first ones at the courthouse when things aren’t going their way.

It is difficult to “walk it off” when, as a result of the actions of someone else, you can’t walk anymore. We consider that an injury. Tort reformers consider that “bad luck.”

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The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution often causes a bit of confusion, particularly among those who are involved in civil lawsuits. A lot of our injury clients have to wait for quite some time before they get within sight of a courtroom, and every now and then somebody asks about “the right to a speedy trial.”

While it’s true that the Sixth Amendment does cover the right to a “speedy trial,” it only makes that promise to those involved in criminal cases. If you are accused of robbing a bank, arson, purse snatching, murder, or any other crime, then yes, you do have a right to a speedy trial. One of the reasons that this was written into the Constitution was because back in the 18^th century, the British authorities thought nothing of locking up undesirables for long periods of time. People would be put in prison for months or even years, and no actual trial would ever happen. This was a way to keep people locked up without having to actually sentence them.  

This happened often enough that our founding fathers decided to actively address it in our founding document:

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When was the last time you took a driving test? Many of you would probably answer that question by saying something like “I take a driving test every day just getting to work.” While we are sure that’s true, we mean the sort of driving test where you have to sit down and answer a series of written questions about traffic signs, appropriate driving behavior, etc.

Most of you probably haven’t taken one since the day you passed your initial driving test. In Virginia, you only have to re-take the written exam if you’ve let your driver’s license expire for more than a year. In Maryland you only have to take it on your initial test.

The reason we’re wondering when the last time anyone took a written driver’s test is because recently, it seems that quite a few people have forgotten one of the basic rules of the road, which is this:

YOU ALWAYS STOP FOR PEDESTRIANS AND BICYCLISTS AT CROSSWALKS WITHOUT TRAFFIC SIGNALS.

Not some of the time. Not every now and again. ALWAYS.

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There is no such thing as a “guaranteed win” in a court case. This is a principle that all aspiring lawyers should have drilled into their brains the instant they set foot in law school. We can’t think of a better example of this premise than the Casey Anthony case.

This case was simply impossible to avoid, unless you happened to live in a place where there was no television, radio, internet or newspapers of any kind. However, for those of you who lacked the time or the inclination to delve deeply into the facts of the case, here is a brief summary.

The last time anyone saw 2 year old Caylee Anthony alive was on June 16, 2008. She was in the company of her mother, Casey Anthony. Ms. Anthony’s parents repeatedly asked to see the child over the next 31 days, but were told by Ms. Anthony that since she was busy with a work assignment, it would be impossible to see her. She also mentioned that Caylee was occasionally under the care of a nanny.

On July 13, 2008, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony received a certified letter which stated that their daughter’s car had been impounded. This was news to the Anthony’s, as they had assumed that the car was with their daughter and granddaughter. When Mr. Anthony picked up the car at the impound yard, they discovered an odor coming from the trunk of the car. They opened the trunk and found a bag of garbage, but no human remains. It was at this point where Ms. Anthony claimed that Caylee had been abducted by the nanny. This later turned out to be a lie, along with a whole host of other statements made by Ms. Anthony. Investigators also found other suspicious elements of Ms. Anthony’s story, such as her behavior during the month that her child was supposed to be missing. There are a great many pictures of her enjoying the company of friends and attending parties, which is hardly the behavior expected of a woman with a missing child.

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All of a sudden, people at Foggy Bottom Metro station are in considerably less danger than they were three weeks ago. All of a sudden, riders can simply get on a moving escalator rather than trudge up the stairs in almost 100 degree heat. All of a sudden, nobody has to worry about escalators collapsing, causing harm to Metro’s riders.

And all they had to do was get rid of the old, malfunctioning escalators that were beyond servicing, and put in new ones.

From the July 11^th edition of The Washington Post:

“For the first time in more than a decade, Metro has a new escalator that isn’t in a new station. The pristine escalator unveiled during Monday morning’s rush hour at the Foggy Bottom station is part of a $6 million project to replace three at the entrance, install a staircase and build a canopy to cover it all.”

The escalators at Foggy Bottom were in particular need of repair, especially since one escalator at that station suffered a partial collapse back in February. It is a miracle that no one was seriously hurt.

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How important are lawsuits in the grand scheme of things?

It depends on who you ask and when you ask them.

If you ask someone who has been injured due to the negligence of someone else, they would probably tell you that their particular lawsuit was quite important. If you asked one huge corporation that was suing another huge corporation, they would probably both consider that lawsuit to be important. Based on our experience, most people consider lawsuits the same way that they consider Congress. That is to say that just as they hate Congress but like their particular Congressman, they generally are against lawsuits right up to the point where they need to file one.

However, there are quite a few well funded organizations that seem to be convinced that lawsuits are incredibly important. They are convinced that lawsuits are nothing short of a plague of locusts on the economy and on American society in general. The American Tort Reform Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and all manner of other advocacy groups have done their best to further the premise that every single person, business, corporation and public entity in the United States is being crushed under and avalanche of litigation. They further claim that the chief victims of these lawsuits are “small businesses.”

We have a lot of problems with these assertions. In the first place, someone who is on the receiving end of a lawsuit is, legally speaking, the exact opposite of a victim. In fact, in any tort case, it is the contention of the plaintiff that he or she has been victimized. To put it in perspective, consider Union Carbide. When their chemical plant leaked deadly poisonous gas in Bhopal, India and killed just fewer than 4,000 people, would it be fair to say that Union Carbide was a “victim of lawsuits” when the survivors went to the courts? Or, on a smaller scale, if a doctor makes an easily preventable mistake that damages a patient permanently, would you say that the doctor was the “victim” in the scenario if the patient files a lawsuit? If a delivery driver is allowed to go on his route after his supervisor catches him drinking, and that driver hurts someone, is the business supervisor a “victim?” What about the person who got hurt by the driver?

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We aren’t sure if any of you have ever seen any of the films that were released under the name Jackass. Nor are we sure if any of you have seen any of the episodes of the television show that aired on MTV under the same moniker.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the premise of the show features a group of people engaging in comically absurd and extremely dangerous stunts. For instance, there is the “Fire Hose Rodeo” stunt, in which a man sits on a high pressure fire hose that is dangling from a crane. The hose is then turned on, which causes the hose to rocket back and forth in dangerous arcs.

There are also stunts like “The Ram Jam,” in which two men dress up in marching band uniforms, complete with a tuba and a trumpet, and walk into an enclosed pen with a full grown male ram. The two march back and forth, blowing on their instruments, which causes the male ram to charge them.

There is also “Beehive Tetherball,” which is exactly what it sounds like.

There have been stunts with fully functioning rockets attached to shopping carts and children’s bikes. There have been instances of jumping snowmobiles over hedges in August. There have been men who have had their bodies’ painted bright red and let loose into an enclosure with an enormous bull.

As foolish as these stunts are, at least the people who do all of them are smart enough to put a disclaimer at the beginning of every episode:

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Sometimes, a dead horse actually should be beaten.

We have lost count of the number of times we have mentioned our concerns about the D.C. Metro system. It seems as though we’re always hearing disturbing news about something with metro. If it isn’t fires on tracks, it’s outdated and faulty sensor equipment. If it isn’t a transit police force that is either overstretched or totally uninterested, it’s a poor review from the NTSB.

And in terms of the escalators and elevators in all the stations, we have done everything short of hiring a skywriter to bring attention to the fact that they are in poor condition, badly maintained and dangerous to the general public.

Many of you reading this may think that we are referring to the danger of escalators collapsing (which they have already done,) and while we have certainly mentioned that, we are also very much concerned with the fact that they break down on a regular basis. For those of you who have never ridden the Metro in D.C, or for those of you who do not live in the D.C. area, you might be thinking that an escalator that is suddenly converted to a staircase is not that big of a deal. But you should bear in mind that the D.C. subway is not at all like the subway in New York.

The New York subway system is pretty shallow. You only have to walk about twenty feet underground, which is about the height of the average staircase in an office building. The New York subway doesn’t have escalators because it simply doesn’t need them. The D.C. subway system is a different matter entirely.

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The internet is currently very much buzzing with a story about cell phone use. More specifically, the story seems to be about a suspected link between heavy cell phone use and cancer.

According to a panel of experts who reported to the World Health Organization, there is a suspected increased risk for giloma, a quite malignant form of brain cancer.

The end result was the World Health Organization put cell phone use in the same category as gasoline exhaust and DDT, a pesticide known to have some health risks. Also mentioned in the report is a specific risk to children, mainly due to the fact that their skulls are thinner and provide less of a buffer between the radiation emitted from the cell phones and the brain. This bit of news might make you want to rethink purchasing your ten year old a new iPhone.

So what are we to make of all this? Are we all carrying the equivalent of miniature Chernobyl’s in our pockets and purses? Is this asbestos all over again? Is it serious radiation, or is it the sort that you get from microwave ovens? Should we compare talking on the phone to lying in a tanning bed for an hour a week?

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From the Office of Texas Governor Rick Perry:

Gov. Rick Perry ceremonially signed House Bill 274, which brings important lawsuit reforms to Texas courts, including implementing a loser pays system for frivolous lawsuits in the state. The governor designated this issue as an emergency item for this legislative session. Gov. Perry was joined by Rep. Brandon Creighton and Sen. Joan Huffman for the signing ceremony.

"HB 274 provides defendants and judges with a variety of tools that will cut down on frivolous claims in Texas," Gov. Perry said. "This important legislation will help make Texas that much more attractive to employers seeking to expand or relocate from countries all over the world by allowing them to spend less time in court and more time creating jobs."

It is very possible to “create jobs” without gutting the legal protection of the average citizen, but apparently our friends in Texas don’t see it that way. “Loser pays” is not about “frivolous lawsuits.” It’s about lawsuits in general.

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As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. If that’s the case, a movie must be worth considerably more words than a thousand. With that in mind, we are very much looking forward to the release of a film that is being shown at Sundance Film Festival.

The name of this film is Hot Coffee.Its intention is to challenge your preconceptions about lawsuits. The title of the film is based on a case that unfortunately became the clarion call for insurance companies and tort reform groups all over the country, and has since been used as an “example” of a “frivolous lawsuit.” In fact, neither this case nor that verdict was either “frivolous” or “excessive,” but tort reformers have never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Even if you have never come within a hundred miles of a courtroom, you have almost certainly heard of the McDonald’s Coffee case. Here are the facts of the case: An 81 year old woman named Stella Liebeck bought a cup of coffee through the drive through window at a McDonalds.  She was a passenger in the car. Her grandson pulled the car over so Ms. Liebeck could add coffee and creamer. When she pulled the lid off, she accidentally spilled the coffee in her lap.

That doesn’t sound like the end of the world, does it? Most of us have spilled coffee on ourselves at one time or another. In fact, I spilled coffee on myself just this morning. And while it was moderately painful, and while I will most certainly have to use Clorox Color Safe Bleach on my pants, the experience didn’t exactly cause too much of a crimp in my day.

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When you look into tort reform rhetoric, you often see the same phrases and terms being used over and over again. “Frivolous lawsuits” is one. “Junk lawsuits” is another. “Lawsuit abuse,” “abusing the system,” “abusing the Constitution,” and so on and so on.

When you look at the people who are accused of doing these things, you generally see one or two people. One person accuses a doctor of medical malpractice, or one person accuses an insurance company of dealing in bad faith, or one person accuses a supermarket of not clearly marking a wet floor.

It is fairly amazing to us how these corporations that are often worth billions of dollars howl like a toddler with a scraped knee over lawsuits that would barely even show up in their ledgers at the end of the fiscal quarter. But apparently every penny counts, even when a lawsuit is completely justified and deserved. So the insurers and the corporations fund tort reform groups who call these lawsuits “unfair,” or an “abuse,” and they demand protections for themselves that won’t apply to regular private citizens, and often they get them. They get “caps” on damages that limit the amount of money that they would have to pay out. They get unrealistic standards of proof of negligence. They get loopholes and asterisks and all manner of legal bulletproofing that will eventually lead to corporate invulnerability if it is allowed to continue. We don’t know about you, but living in a country where corporations are considered above the law fills us with a great deal of apprehension.

We also notice that there is an immense double standard when it comes to how the court system is used. Corporations who decry frivolous lawsuits against them have no qualms about jamming the court dockets with cases over the meanings of clauses and verbs in contracts. Corporations who found tort reform organizations while engaging in multiple lawsuits. Do as I say and not as I do.

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Every now and then, a product becomes so ubiquitous in our culture that the name of the name of the product becomes the name for any and all variations of that product. For instance, people don’t ask for cola. They ask for Coke. People don’t ask for a tissue. They ask for Kleenex. People don’t use copiers as much as they Xerox something.

As far as we know, there are dozens of brands of acetaminophen analgesics on the market. But when someone has a headache, they don’t ask for acetaminophen analgesics. They ask for Tylenol. This particular over the counter remedy has not only established itself as a pain reliever, but also as part of the American lexicon.

With its place in the American medicine cabinet firmly established, it came as quite a surprise to us when the Food and Drug Administration released a report saying that Tylenol use can cause liver damage. But apparently this is indeed the case. The report claims that acetaminophen use “…was the leading cause of acute liver failure in the United States, with 48% of acetaminophen-related cases (131 of 275) associated with accidental overdose.”

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Since the federal government shutdown was narrowly avoided, thousands of D.C. residents (ourselves included) have been scouring the news to see if any of the budget cuts that were enacted would directly affect them. That might seems self serving, but considering that this whole area very much runs on federal dollars, it’s only natural for the people in this area to take a look at what we will have to do without.

One particular area of the budget that was thankfully left alone was federal funding of our Metro system. If the federal portion of the budget had disappeared, that would have been $150 million that would have been taken away from the annual operations of WMATA. That also would have placed an additional $150 million ($50 million from Virginia, $50 million from Maryland and $50 million from the District) at risk, mainly because Maryland, Virginia and D.C. would only have put that money towards Metro if the $150 million in federal funds was there. So in one fell swoop, Metro would have had to do without $300 million, which we believe is the same thing as saying Metro would have ceased operating.

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This is from the WMATA website:

The Mission of the Metro Transit Police Department is to provide protection for Metro patrons, personnel, transit facilities, and revenue.

So is this:

The MTPD has an authorized strength of 420 sworn police officers, 106 security special police, and 24 civilian personnel. Officers provide a variety of law enforcement and public safety services on the Metrorail and Metrobus systems in the Washington Metropolitan Area.

MTPD police officers have jurisdiction and arrest powers throughout the 1,500 square mile Transit Zone that includes Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia for crimes that occur in or against Transit Authority facilities. It is the only tri-jurisdictional police agency in the country and serves a population of 3.2 million.

That sounds pretty impressive. When you consider that there are 86 Metro stations, having 420 officers plus 106 security special police ought to be enough to have at least some police presence at each station. But apparently there wasn’t anyone around on February 28^th at the Suitland Metro station. It seems a mob of masked teenagers was in the midst of beating another teenager outside the station. No police seemed to be on hand.

When a concerned citizen pulled out his cell phone to call the police, the mob then ran at him and gave him an extensive beating. At the end of it, two of his teeth were knocked out, he had two stitches outside his mouth and six inside, and his eye was swollen shut. Again, no police anywhere.

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This is from the WMATA website:

The Mission of the Metro Transit Police Department is to provide protection for Metro patrons, personnel, transit facilities, and revenue.

So is this:

The MTPD has an authorized strength of 420 sworn police officers, 106 security special police, and 24 civilian personnel. Officers provide a variety of law enforcement and public safety services on the Metrorail and Metrobus systems in the Washington Metropolitan Area.

MTPD police officers have jurisdiction and arrest powers throughout the 1,500 square mile Transit Zone that includes Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia for crimes that occur in or against Transit Authority facilities. It is the only tri-jurisdictional police agency in the country and serves a population of 3.2 million.

That sounds pretty impressive. When you consider that there are 86 Metro stations, having 420 officers plus 106 security special police ought to be enough to have at least some police presence at each station. But apparently there wasn’t anyone around on February 28^th at the Suitland Metro station. It seems a mob of masked teenagers was in the midst of beating another teenager outside the station. No police seemed to be on hand.

When a concerned citizen pulled out his cell phone to call the police, the mob then ran at him and gave him an extensive beating. At the end of it, two of his teeth were knocked out, he had two stitches outside his mouth and six inside, and his eye was swollen shut. Again, no police anywhere.

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Law enforcement officers are supposed to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. There are a few very good reasons for this. The first is that they are supposed to be the people who enforce the laws of our cities, counties and states. The second is that they are the only people in the country who have the right to take our freedom away from us. Administrative assistants can’t serve a warrant for your arrest. Restaurant employees can’t search you for drugs or weapons. Doctors and nurses can’t lead you away in handcuffs. The only people who can do any of those things are police or federal agents. If the police and agents are in charge of enforcing the law, then should also strictly adhere to the law. The obvious premise is that law enforcement officers are not supposed to break the law. It goes without saying that the rest of us aren’t supposed to either, but if those who are supposed to enforce the laws feel no compunction about violating those laws, it means that some laws don’t apply to some citizens, which renders the whole concept of law essentially meaningless.

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It’s not like we need any more examples as to how dangerous the escalator systems are on DC’s subways. Everyone knows that they are malfunctioning, poorly maintained and prone to sudden stoppages.

But regardless of whether we need another example or not, they seem to keep coming, which means that nothing is being done to fix the problems. This is not good.

On October 30, 2010, an escalator malfunctioned at L’Enfant Plaza. The brakes on this particular staircase failed, and a group of people were rushed down the stairs at a high rate of speed. When they reached the bottom there was essentially a pile up of bodies, in which four people were hurt. This brake failure happened the weekend of the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally. The entire subway system was packed with people. There was not one subway station in the entire system that was not loaded to capacity. It was a miracle that more people were not hurt.

The latest escalator failure took place at Foggy Bottom, which is the Metro stop used by students at George Washington University. The malfunction this time wasn’t a brake failure, which is dangerous enough. This time around four of the steps at the bottom of the escalator gave way and fell into the escalator machinery down below. This happened on the escalator that was the only functioning way out of the station.

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It’s not like we need any more examples as to how dangerous the escalator systems are on DC’s subways. Everyone knows that they are malfunctioning, poorly maintained and prone to sudden stoppages.

But regardless of whether we need another example or not, they seem to keep coming, which means that nothing is being done to fix the problems. This is not good.

On October 30, 2010, an escalator malfunctioned at L’Enfant Plaza. The brakes on this particular staircase failed, and a group of people were rushed down the stairs at a high rate of speed. When they reached the bottom there was essentially a pile up of bodies, in which four people were hurt. This brake failure happened the weekend of the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally. The entire subway system was packed with people. There was not one subway station in the entire system that was not loaded to capacity. It was a miracle that more people were not hurt.

The latest escalator failure took place at Foggy Bottom, which is the Metro stop used by students at George Washington University. The malfunction this time wasn’t a brake failure, which is dangerous enough. This time around four of the steps at the bottom of the escalator gave way and fell into the escalator machinery down below. This happened on the escalator that was the only functioning way out of the station.

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The D.C. area is doing the best it can to present itself as a bicycle friendly city. In some respects, it is. There are plenty of bike paths in the District, Maryland and Virginia, and this year the District and parts of Virginia began its Capital Bikeshare program, which essentially allows you to rent a bike for low costs. There are a lot of positive reasons for encouraging bicycle use in the D.C. area. Anyone who has spent any time in traffic here knows that there is nothing wrong with getting a few cars off the road.

But despite its appearances to the contrary, the District is certainly not a bicycle friendly area. The number of bicycle related fatalities in Washington, D.C. (bicyclists who were struck and killed by cars or trucks) reached 10 in 2010, which is 4 more than 2009. That might not seem like a lot in an area with the population of the D.C. area, but bicycle crashes where there are injuries averages around 350 per year.

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Believe it or not, not everyone in the Washington, D.C. area is involved with politics. When this area is portrayed in the movies or on television, it seems like everyone has a security clearance, or that everyone works diligently for one government agency or another. Characters in D.C. based-dramas are all aides to a Senator, or they work at the Pentagon, or they wear suits and attend top secret meetings, or they wheel and deal in the backrooms of fancy restaurants.

For those of us who actually live here, we know that portrayal to be false. Most of us don’t work for the government. Most of us aren’t “operatives,” political or otherwise. On any given day, there might be legislation in the House or Senate that causes a big stir among those who actually work on Capitol Hill, but the rest of us who don’t work there rarely notice such things.

Much of the work that goes on at the Federal level involves minutia. We don’t mean that in a condescending manner. We are sure that it is necessary minutia that needs to be addressed. But if legislation passes that changes the regulation width of the Styrofoam tray in which ground beef is packaged, that hardly has an effect on the day to day life of Washingtonians, or the rest of the citizens of the country for that matter. The rest of us are worried about raising our kids, doing our jobs and paying the mortgage.

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We occasionally read the blog Greater Greater Washington,mainly because we agree with much of its overall premise. The contributors are all very much in favor of smart city planning and development. What this means is that rather than having a dysfunctional city center surrounded by increasingly sprawling and resource wasting suburbs, it would seem to be a better idea to develop cities that manage to have efficient public transportation and easy access for bicyclists and pedestrians. Generally speaking, if there is an issue that involves urban planning in the D.C. area, Greater Greater Washington usually has a pretty smart take on it.

But it isn’t always the nuts and bolts of zoning board meetings or whether or not streetcars in D.C. would be a good idea. Occasionally you get something that is a lot more commonplace and every day, but goes a long way towards reminding you how easy it is to make your life and the lives of those around you safer.

For instance, a reader recently sent in an e-mail to the blog, and the gist of it was that a construction project in Northwest is occasionally blocking traffic in the area of E Street and 20^th. This block in the flow of traffic is not constant, but it happens often enough during the course of the day that those who live and work nearby are noticing a fairly high rate of honking horns and yelling drivers and drivers behaving aggressively. Granted, this is Washington, D.C, and punctuality means a great deal here. But what this e-mail brought home to us as car accident attorneys is that being somewhere on time is not worth your life. Nor is the road the place to settle minor and temporary grievances, particularly when you are behind the wheel of a vehicle that weighs thousands of pounds.

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There is usually a great deal of talk from both sides of the political spectrum about a phenomenon called “judicial activism.” This phenomenon is also called “legislating from the bench.” It’s usually spoken about with derision.

Essentially, what this means is when a state or federal court makes a ruling that either negates or enhances existing laws. It also applies when a court rules in such a way that the ruling has consequences that affect many more people than those involved in the case before the court. Whether this is considered a good thing or a bad thing generally depends on who you ask and when you ask them. Democrats and liberals, for instance, would argue that the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling (which allows unlimited and anonymous spending on political advertisements from anyone who wants to spend the money) was judicial activism, primarily because most of them vehemently oppose unlimited money in politics. On the other side of the coin, many conservatives and Republicans would argue that a case like Griswold v Connecticut was judicial activism, because the ruling turned what was supposed to be a case on the legality of birth control into a broader ruling on the right to privacy. We hope this doesn’t sound too cynical, but it seems to us that in many cases, “judicial activism” is political shorthand for “judges that did not rule the way we wanted them to.”

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It is has officially been the Holiday season for about three weeks now, and we here at Greenberg and Bederman would like to extend our warmest wishes to you and yours. It is certainly nice to spend a few days of the year focusing on family and friends rather than all of the other concerns that seem to take up so much of everyone’s time. This is particularly true in the Washington, D.C. area, where work seems to take precedence over everything.

But while we encourage everyone to relax and enjoy themselves over the holidays, we would also urge everyone to exercise a modicum of caution. We’ve been reading a few statistics and reports, and we have come to the conclusion that the holiday season can be dangerous.

Accidents happen or are caused all the year around, but there seems to be a strange category of Holiday related injuries that happen every year. From falls to drunk driving to burns in fires to specifically bizarre occurrences, the spike in visits to the emergency room or worse appears to be fairly constant year after year. We thought it would be useful to share some of these statistics with you so that you might take a few simple precautions.

What follows is some information about Holiday injuries.

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We aren’t big believers in the idea that accidents simply “happen.” To be sure, there are certainly instances that can be called “acts of God.” If a gust of wind blows a moving car over, you can’t say that anyone is at fault there. Or if somebody gets struck by lightning out of the clear blue sky, there would be no conceivable way to lay the blame on anyone. Sometimes, things just happen.

But as injury lawyers in Washington, D.C, it has been our experience that most accidents are “caused.” Somebody makes a poor decision, or somebody neglects to perform an expected task, or somebody acts without thinking about the consequences, and the end result is that someone gets hurt or worse. You can’t really call an instance of negligence by a doctor “an accident.” Nor can you call it “an accident” when a driver hits a pedestrian in the crosswalk because he was texting while driving.

Another thing that isn’t an accident is continuing to serve a patron alcohol after he has already had enough to be visibly intoxicated.  It’s hard to make the argument that you didn’t know that there would be potential harmful effects if you served a patron close to twenty drinks over the course of an evening and then didn’t even bother to try to call him a cab.

In many states, there are laws in place that hold establishments that serve alcohol liable for any damage that might be caused if their patrons get drunk and behave irresponsibly. These are called Dram Shop Laws. There are limits to these laws, of course. For instance, if a man walks into a bar after drinking heavily elsewhere and only orders one drink, and that man shows no visible signs of being drunk, it could be argued that there was no way for the bartender to know what the customer had been doing before entering the establishment. Bartenders have many talents and capabilities, but telepathy is not one of them.

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One of the crucial elements of proving a negligence case is being able to show that the defendants had prior knowledge of the potential dangers of a product, service or place, but did nothing to warn people or fix the problem.

An example of this can be made with something as simple as a wet floor in a supermarket. If an employee mops the floor in an area and doesn’t put out a sign or markers telling people that the floor is wet, and if a person slips and breaks his leg, that employee could be considered negligent. The employee knows wet floors are dangerous, and he knows there is a spot in the supermarket where the floor is wet. A customer would also know that a wet floor is dangerous and would avoid it if he could, but the problem is that he doesn’t know if the floor is wet or not because the employee didn’t visibly mark the spot. If the customer sees the signs yet trudges on regardless, and then falls and breaks his leg, it could be argued that the employee did everything reasonable to warn the customer of the dangers, so there would not be negligence there.

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Much is made of so-called “defensive medicine” by the politicians and organizations who advocate for tort reform. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, “defensive medicine” is what happens when medical professionals operate more out of a fear of being sued rather than simply doing what is necessary for the patient. In other words, if you come in with a sore ankle, rather than simply asking questions, maybe ordering an x-ray and then diagnosing you with a sprained ankle, the doctor will put you up in a room for the night, order a full MRI of your ankle and call in a specialist in order to give your ankle a thorough examination. They don’t want to take the chance of missing anything so they won’t get sued later.

This would all be fine and dandy except for the fact that health care is incredibly expensive. And since somebody has to pay for all of these extra tests, that burden will fall on the insurance company. So, as the premise goes, health insurance companies end up getting billed for wildly expensive procedures, which forces them to drive up the costs for everybody, which then makes the insurance companies raise their rates, and all of this is based on trial lawyers waiting to sue at the drop of a hat.

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One of the crucial elements of proving a negligence case is being able to show that the defendants had prior knowledge of the potential dangers of a product, service or place, but did nothing to warn people or fix the problem.

An example of this can be made with something as simple as a wet floor in a supermarket. If an employee mops the floor in an area and doesn’t put out a sign or markers telling people that the floor is wet, and if a person slips and breaks his leg, that supermarket could be considered negligent. The employee knows wet floors are dangerous, and he knows there is a spot in the supermarket where the floor is wet, so he has a duty as an employee to the supermarket to keep his job, and to the public for safety, to put up a hazardous sign.  A customer shopping in the supermarket knows that a wet floor is dangerous and would avoid it if he could, but if the customer doesn’t know if the floor is wet because the employee didn’t visibly mark the spot, there could be negligence on behalf of the employee and the supermarket. If the customer sees a warning sign yet trudges on regardless and then falls and breaks his leg, it could be argued that the employee did everything reasonable to warn the customer of the dangers, so there would not be negligence there.

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Tort reform advocates have many bones to pick with our judicial system. By now we have all heard about “lawsuit lotteries,”“judicial hellholes,” and the miracles that non-economic damage caps are supposed to provide.  We have plenty of evidence (both anecdotal and concrete) that lawsuits are not lotteries, most of the “judicial hellholes” are simply places where corporations are not given special treatment, and that non-economic damage caps don’t help doctors or patients as much as they help medical malpractice insurance companies, who actually don’t need much help at all.

Obviously, medical malpractice insurance companies are big fans of these legal protections, and regular insurance companies and huge corporations everywhere are clamoring for protections of their own. These protections would limit the amount of punitive damages that a corporation would be forced to pay in the event that they are found guilty of gross negligence.

For those of you who don’t know, punitive damages are financial penalties assessed by the court that don’t have anything to do with the financial losses that the plaintiff suffered. In civil court cases, these damages are levied by the court when a corporation or commercial enterprise acts when the defendants’ harmful actions were considered either grossly negligent or intentional. Obviously, insurance companies and corporations do not like them, neither does the tort reform organizations. So they are working diligently, both through legislation and litigation, to have the same sort of caps put on punitive damages as there already are on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases.

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There are two ways to look at Toyota’s latest recall. The first option is to scratch your head and wonder if the people in Tokyo are capable of designing anything correctly, considering the amount of missteps and recalls that took place throughout most of 2010.

The second option is to believe that maybe the higher ups at Toyota have learned their lesson, which is that the correct action in the event of a defect is an immediate recall combined with complete repairs of the problem.

This current recall involves 1.53 million cars, most of which involve problems with the master cylinder, which could leak and cause the brakes to lose power. If you can say anything about Toyota, you can say that their recalls don’t seem to be over minor issues. They always seem to involve the steering, or the accelerator pedal, or the brakes, or anything that seriously puts the lives of drivers, passengers and passersby in danger.

This new immediate action is surprising, mainly because for quite a few years this was not how things were done at Toyota. Nobody there seemed to be interested in really fixing the defects in the cars at all. They danced around the issue, negotiated a lesser recall with the NHTSA that saved them money but didn’t really fix the problem, and hid behind a wall of silence, denials, and claims of trade secrecy privileges even as their cars started to get into accidents and people started to get injured or killed.

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There was an article in the Washington Post recently which goes into some detail about how “litigious” the culture is in the District of Columbia. The upshot of the article is that from 2007 to 2009, the D.C. government paid out $50 million in legal settlements. There is a quote from D.C’s Attorney General in this piece that misses the mark in spectacular fashion:

"There are more lawyers per capita in this city than any other city in the world…and what do lawyers like to do?"

The premise here is that the reason there are so many lawsuits is because there are so many lawyers. Not because D.C. is a crowded city with a dodgy safety record in terms of transit, pedestrian safety, crumbling infrastructure and a bureaucracy that is slow to respond. Not because people are getting hurt. It’s because the lawyers here in Washington DC have nothing better to do with their time.

The cases mentioned in this story disprove the argument pretty thoroughly. There is the tourist from Arizona who tripped on a poorly maintained sidewalk and had to undergo surgery for his shoulder. There is the mental patient who gouged his own eyes out after being left unsupervised after his doctor specifically warned the staff to have him monitored. There is the family of a prisoner who were not informed that this man had died of lung cancer and had already been cremated until four months after the fact. There is the couple who had two children killed by a DC Police cruiser that was in a pursuit. There was the bicyclist who got hit by a trash can that was haphazardly thrown from a sanitation truck. Not to mention a whole group of World Bank protestors who were detained and hogtied for hours without having access to food, water or the bathroom.

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Children and teenagers all over the country have been back in school for about a month and a half now. It’s been about a month and a half of rising early, doing homework, getting school projects together, and re-connecting with friends and classmates.

It’s also been a month and a half of incidents like this:

CEDAR PARK, Texas (KXAN) - A boy struck early Thursday morning while on his bicycle ride to school is recovering Friday and expected to be released from the hospital.

The 12-year-old was sent to the hospital with serious injuries after a pickup struck him as he rode through the intersection of a crosswalk.

Gaithersburg, MD - A Gaithersburg Police vehicle struck a teenage pedestrian at the intersection of Quince Orchard and Darnestown Roads Monday afternoon.

A press release from the Gaithersburg Police Department reported that a marked police vehicle hit a 14-year-old male as he crossed the street outside of the crosswalk.

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The Washington Post recently published a story on the steady flow of American servicemen who find themselves at Bethesda Naval Hospital upon their return from Iraq or Afghanistan. These veterans are often suffering from the more visible wounds of combat but the focus of the article is on traumatic brain injuries and, as the headline accurately puts it, the “Invisible, Life-Altering Wounds” from which these soldiers are suffering.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States is not fighting a traditional war. It isn’t one mass of troops lining up to fight another. It is instead a war of ambushes and booby traps. It isn’t bullets that our soldiers have to worry about as much as it is mines, tripwires and improvised explosive devices (IED’s.)

The shrapnel from these explosions is dangerous enough, but it should also be remembered that a blast is essentially compressed air that is traveling at 1600 feet per second. If that force can take out walls and humvees, it can certainly do a fair amount of damage to a human being. We see the more obvious casualties of these blasts in the missing limbs, but the Post article is focusing on the damage that is done internally rather than externally.

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By now, everyone has heard about all of the crashes, injuries and recalls involved with Toyota over the past year. Practically every model that Toyota has out on the market in multiple model years has been subject to a recall. The recalls involve defective braking systems, bad steering, and stuck acceleration systems.

Far from being theoretical, these defects have caused very real harm to innocent people, most notably the Saylor family, who were killed in San Diego when their Lexus suddenly accelerated, and Kuoa Fong Lee, who spent years in prison for vehicular manslaughter after the accelerator on his Toyota Camry got stuck. That resulting accident killed three people.

As long as cars are designed and built by human beings, there will always be flaws. The most important element of car defects is how responsible the car company will be when the flaw is discovered. Will they own up and initiate the recall and make the repairs, or will they try to hide the fact that the flaws exist? In the case of Toyota, it appears that they did the latter.

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A word on frivolous lawsuits: They exist.

Nobody in their right mind could claim that they don’t. Does everybody remember Roy Pearson, the D.C. judge who sued a dry cleaner for $54 million over a pair of lost pants? Or what about Jonathan Lee Riches? This inmate in Lexington, Kentucky who has filed over 3,800 lawsuits over the past few years. He has sued New England Patriots Coach Bill Bellichik, American Idol judge Simon Cowell (and his fiancé,) Somalian pirates, Plato, Bernie Madoff, and basically everyone who happens to garner any bit of media attention, no matter how big or small. The charges against this diverse group of defendants include “hurting my feelings” and “offending me.”

As you probably know by now, Judge Pearson’s lawsuit was not successful, and all of Mr. Riches’ suits get dismissed out of hand, as well they should have. Those suits are supremely ridiculous and a waste of time. But inevitably, these two folks serve as the poster children for tort reform groups. Their absurd (and ultimately unsuccessful) lawsuits are trotted out and given much more airtime and column inches than they deserve, mainly because corporate interests want you to believe that the vast majority of lawsuits belong in the same category as Mr. Riches or Judge Pearson’s. They are most assuredly not.

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There has been an important development in the ongoing Toyota recall story. According to ABC News:

An arbitrator has ruled that a former top Toyota attorney turned whistleblower can submit internal Toyota documents in court in order to prove his claim that the company asked him to hide evidence of product defects from the public. Dimitrios Biller, former managing counsel for Toyota, handled product liability suits for the automaker, and claims it regularly hid evidence of safety defects from regulators and the public. As part of a "civil racketeering" suit against Toyota, Biller had sought to place into evidence what he claims are four boxes full of internal Toyota documents that will show he was asked to hide facts from plaintiffs during product liability lawsuits.

This is incredibly significant. As we have learned from reports of various plaintiffs’ attorneys who have been attempting to read the data off of the so-called “black boxes” that exist in Toyota vehicles, this corporation makes every effort to hide behind trade secrecy laws. In other words, they are often allowed to claim that providing crucial evidence would somehow allow others to view and co-opt their technology, which keeps attorneys for the injured from getting crucial evidence needed to prove their case. Toyota’s resistance to Mr. Biller’s requests to provide these documents to the court serves as a perfect example.

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While we certainly don’t support the idea of cameras everywhere, we wholeheartedly support the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s decision to place cameras in Metro buses. These cameras will not be put in place to keep an eye on the passengers. Instead they will be there to record the drivers.

According to the story in The Washington Post:

“The new camera system focuses on drivers and activity outside the buses, transit officials said. The cameras record constantly during bus operations, and when a driver makes any extreme movement -- such as turning the bus sharply or braking or accelerating quickly -- the cameras capture the eight seconds before the incident and the four seconds after. The video and audio of the incident are then automatically downloaded wirelessly from the bus.”

If anybody needed this monitoring system, it would be the WMATA. Bus drivers in the Washington Area have a less than stellar driving record. Over the past few years there have been several high profile bus accidents involving injuries and fatalities, which is not something that should be considered normal in a public transit agency.

Just consider these incidents that have occurred in the past few years:

On Valentine’s Day in 2007, Martha Schoenborn and Sally McGhee were hit and killed by a Metro Bus on the corner of Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. The two Alexandria residents had the right of way in the crosswalk.

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WMATA seems to be gambling with the safety of its passengers. That might seem like a  heavy handed statement, but right now it is one that we feel comfortable making.

The first and most obvious problem is its antiquated and outdated sensor equipment on the subway tracks. This is supposed to act as a failsafe that prevents collisions between trains. As we all learned last year, it isn’t working properly. Last June there was a terrible accident on the Red Line where one train slammed directly into the back of another. 9 people died and 76 were injured.

Since the accident has occurred, the National Transportation Safety Board has made several recommendations to fix some of the more glaring errors, but according to an article in The Washington Post, not much has been done:

"There are significant deficiencies in their safety culture," said Deborah A.P. Hersman, chairman of the NTSB. "We do not see the frequency of accidents on other properties that we are seeing on Metro.

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12/17/2009 - CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry has died, one day after falling out of the back of a pickup truck in what authorities described as a domestic dispute with his fiancée.

There wasn’t much about the death of Chris Henry that made sense. According to reports, Henry wasn’t a mere passenger in the back of that truck. Apparently he ran alongside it and jumped in the bed of the truck while it was still moving. He then fell out and landed almost squarely on his head, which caused blunt force trauma to the brain, which killed him.

Henry had a reputation in the National Football League as somewhat of a wild child, with multiple arrests involving marijuana possession, driving under the influence, assault and criminal damage. Throughout his career, Mr. Henry displayed what can kindly be described as a serious lack of impulse control. He displayed a bad temper and poor judgment on multiple occasions.

So when he died in that accident, many people just wrote it off as the behavioral norm. He had been a little crazy his entire life, so why should his death have been any different? But a recent article in the Los Angeles Timesoffers what may be a reason for not only his actions at the time of his death, but also his actions during his very turbulent life:

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This story comes from WAVY down in Virginia Beach:

A 24-year-old woman who seriously injured two people in a drunk driving head-on collision in March 2009 was sentenced Wednesday to serve four years and six months in prison.

Lisa Marie Schettler, a Virginia Beach native, had a blood alcohol level of .44 that night in March. With that much alcohol in your system, you shouldn’t even be allowed to leave the house, much less get behind the wheel of a car. Yet that’s exactly what Ms. Schettler did. Her car drifted across the double yellow line on Bird Neck Road and slammed directly into the front of another car, which was occupied by Donald and Elaine Gay. According to the news report, all three of them were seriously injured.

Ms. Schettler is lucky that there were only injuries involved, and it’s hard to imagine that the Gay’s feel lucky at all, although they should count themselves lucky to be alive. What you had here was just about the purest form of vehicular negligence that exists. It’s dangerous enough to drink even a minor amount of alcohol and then get behind the wheel of a car; Ms. Schettler drank enough to the point where she shouldn’t have been able to see straight.

The news report doesn’t say anything about Ms. Schettler’s weight, but with a BAC of .44, we could make a fair guess that she had at least nine drinks, which is more than enough to impair someone’s ability to drive a car.

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It’s been exactly one year and one day since the Red Line Metro accident that killed nine people and injured seventy.  Due to faulty signaling systems and a host of other systematic safety failures, one red line train slammed into the back of another.

Like many Washingtonians, this accident hit particularly close to home for us. The offices of Greenberg and Bederman are right next to the Silver Spring Metro station on the red line, which many of us here ride into work every day.  It could have very easily been one of the people in our office who got injured or killed.

This accident was more than a personal tragedy for the families of the victims.  In fact, it could hardly be categorized an “accident.” The safety systems of the entire Metro subway system in the D.C. area were so neglected and out of date that any “accident” should have been called“inevitability.”

The National Transportation Safety Board initiated a study on how WMATA operates, and in their final report they determined that there were over 100 serious problems in our Metro system that have yet to be addressed, even as we are reaching the one year anniversary of the deadliest crash in the history of WMATA.

What makes matters even worse is that WMATA has decided to avoid culpability in this case by filing a motion to dismiss awrongful death andnegligence lawsuit filed by most of the victims’ families.  It’s as if they are pretending that these deaths and injuries were just some random, freak occurrence rather than the result of a system wide failure of technology and personnel.

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In the midst of all of the coverage of the BP oil spill, and in the wake of all of the coverage of Hurricane Katrina, it’s very probable that many of you have never heard of a town called Mossville, Louisiana.

This isn’t surprising. Hurricane Katrina was an unmitigated disaster which caused widespread flooding of New Orleans, as well as billions of dollars worth of property damage that the citizens of the Gulf Coast are still recovering from. The BP oil spill is an equally crippling disaster which has the potential to ruin the lives and livelihoods of thousands of fisherman and people who make their livings off of tourist dollars, which is a dubious proposition if the beaches are coated in dead marine life and hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil.

But while Mossville, Louisiana doesn’t have the same level of camera-ready and newsworthy coverage levels of the BP leak and Hurricane Katrina, it certainly deserves mention as one of the hardest hit areas in Louisiana. This is a town where oil spills and hurricanes are quite honestly the least of the residents’ problems. In Mossville, simply getting up in the morning is dangerous. Drinking water out of the tap is a risky proposition. Planting tomatoes or flowers in the garden could conceivably lead to hospitalization and eventual death. The everyday mundane processes that any other American goes through on a daily basis takes on a different and dangerous aspect for the citizens of Mossville, because Mossville, Louisiana is known as a “toxic town.”

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We’ve all seen the BP oil spill footage by now. We’ve seen the boats frantically trying to douse the flames that erupted on the Deepwater Horizon as it burst into flames, killing eleven oil workers. We saw a parade of British Petroleum executives claim that they had everything under control, when in fact they most certainly did not. We’ve seen so-called “top hats” and “junk shots” fail to stop the thousands of gallons of oil that is gushing uncontrollably into the Gulf Coast. We’ve seen the government take private enterprise at its word, if only to placate those in the same government who would howl bloody murder about communist takeovers of private enterprise, and then have those same people howl bloody murder about the government not doing enough. We have seen the results of the entirely too cozy relationship between the oil companies and the Minerals and Management Service. We have seen lax or non-existent oil rig inspections, “meetings” that were simply parties, and an institutional policy of “Do Whatever You Want” put into place. The “emergency measures” that BP had in place were simply cardboard cutouts that were outdated and unsuited to the monumental task. This catastrophic oil leak is the result of years of letting the oil companies do what they want, when they want and how they want, with barely any thought to the consequences.

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The premise behind personal injury law is a fairly simple one. If a person is badly injured due to no fault of his or her own, then that person should be compensated for any costs or losses. That includes initial medical costs, the costs of any rehabilitative therapy, the costs of any lost or damaged property, lost wages from an inability to work, and compensation for any pain and suffering that the victim went through.

This is not unreasonable. Would you like to live in the sort of country where someone who is badly injured due to no fault of their own is greeted with indifference? Could you imagine getting severely injured in a car accident that wasn’t your fault at all and having the whole thing ruin you financially? Imagine losing your job because you are too injured to work. Imagine losing your house because you are unable to make the mortgage payments. Imagine having your whole life drastically and irrevocably altered because somebody else wasn’t paying attention behind the wheel, and then imagine being told “Tough luck.”

Injury law exists in America because Americans are mindful of the fact that truly dreadful things can and do happen to innocent people. Someone could get hit by a drunk or distracted driver. A doctor can make a preventable mistake. A pharmaceutical company could market a drug with deadly side effects. Since all of these scenarios fall under the category of “preventable errors,” you can’t write them off as “acts of God,” or “just something that happened.”

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Believe it or not, there used to be a time when Toyota had a reputation for manufacturing safe and reliable cars. That certainly seems like a long time ago, what with all of the crashes and deaths and injuries. But there was a time when people used to get into Toyota model cars without having to worry about dangerous floor mats, bad brakes, stuck accelerators and faulty steering.

To be sure, the crash ratings for these cars were mostly average. But in fairness, they were no better or no worse than many of the other cars that were out on the market. Toyotas in the 90s and in most of the first decade of the twentieth century were no better or worse than Hondas, Chevys, Chryslers or Nissans in terms of safety.

So while they weren’t exactly up to the high safety standards of say, Saab or Volvo, they were at least well within established safety requirements.

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Being a police officer is a dangerous and difficult job. It involves long hours and often involves performing thankless but necessary tasks. To be sure, law enforcement officers often receive our  thanks, but almost never while in the process of performing their duties. This is because their duties involve apprehending people who break the law, and those who do so are not likely to be thrilled about being caught.  As an example, when was the last time you thanked a police officer for writing you a ticket? Have you ever heard of a burglar or car thief who thanked the officer who caught him for his hard work?

It is sobering to think about what your average police force has to deal with on a daily basis. They get verbally abused, they often have to break up fights, and they have to stop crimes in progress, both minor and major, often while putting themselves in harm’s way in order to do so. And, most importantly, they have to do all these things within the defined parameters of the law. The police are not free to apprehend criminals in any way they see fit. For instance, if they think someone is receiving stolen property, the police can’t just kick open that person’s front door and arrest him. They have to have cause to request a warrant for the search, and they have to have a judge agree to their reasons.

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To say that Toyota has “let down” its customers understates the impact of their actions. If your pizza is delivered in over thirty minutes, you can say that the pizza place “let you down.” If a suit that you bought falls apart after only wearing it three times, then you can say that your tailor “let you down.” But if the accelerator of your Prius sticks and you end up barreling through a stop light, hit another car and are seriously injured or worse, saying “Toyota let me down” doesn’t really cover it.

From what has been uncovered so far, it appears that the Toyota Corporation has marketed and sold cars with multiple defects in acceleration, steering and braking systems, and it appears that they were aware or should have been aware of these defects and did nothing about it, causing multiple injuries and death. 

So what would be the appropriate response from the government and Toyota itself? First and foremost would be a propersafety recall, and not one that is merely financially convenient to the Toyota Corporation, but rather one that actually fixes the problems that make these cars dangerous. Toyota has done that, issuing recalls on practically every model that they have on the market.

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 Plane crashes are taken quite seriously in this country. It doesn’t matter if the crash involved a crop dusting, single propeller plane or if it involved a 747 jumbo jet. Any time a plane goes down, agents of the National Transportation Safety Board are dispatched to the scene. They aren’t just there to clean up the wreck. They are there to examine every aspect of the crash, and one of the first things that they look for is “The Black Box.”

“The Black Box” (which is actually orange in color) is the nickname for the Flight Data Recorder, which records quite literally everything that goes on in a plane. It records cockpit conversations, air speed, height, which controls were used, what actions were taken by the crew, and every conceivable action that takes place during the course of a flight. It is this data that helps the NTSB determine whether or not the plane crashed due to an equipment malfunction, or weather conditions, or pilot error.

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Up until about a week ago, we had no idea that the Washington, D.C. subway system was the second busiest in the country. We think we can be forgiven for expressing surprise when we found this out. The car traffic in Washington, D.C. is some of the worst in the country, both in terms of gridlock and in terms of car accidents, so if you happen to spend a lot of time on the highways in Maryland, D.C. or Virginia, it would be reasonable to make the assumption that D.C. doesn’t have a busy subway system.

But we do have a subway system, and it is the second busiest, and we found this out while reading an article in the Washington Post, in which the Federal Transit Administration delivered its report on Metro safety to members of the Senate and Congress who served the D.C. metropolitan area.

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Many car accidents have causes that are based on the driver’s negligence. For instance, a driver might run a red light or run a stop sign because he was sending a text message and wasn’t paying attention. Some accidents have causes that are environmental, like when someone is driving responsibly but the car hits a patch of black ice. Other accidents involve purely random occurrences, like when a driver swerves to avoid a pedestrian or animal that has darted out onto the road.

But lately there have been a slew of accidents in this country, with some of them being fatal, and the cause has nothing to do with the driver, or the environment, or carelessness on the part of pedestrians or animals. These car accidents are taking place because of the systemic malfunction of a large number of Toyota makes and models.

The numbers of failures in crucial systems such as brakes, acceleration and steering are unprecedented. There have certainly been automotive safety recalls, but as far as we can remember, there has never been an event where multiple models from one manufacturer have experienced multiple safety failures all at the same time. A recall normally involves one problem with a few models at most. In Toyota’s case, the problems involved practically their entire line of automobiles, from hybrids to sedans to pickup trucks to SUV’s.

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 Have you been injured in Washington, D.C. because of a Toyota malfunction? Greenberg and Bederman can help.

Over the years, Toyota has developed a reputation as manufacturers of safe and dependable cars. This is why the two recalls that have occurred over the past four months have been so unusual.

In August of 2009, Toyota issued a recall of 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus models worldwide due to approximately 2000 cases of unexplained acceleration. In these instances, drivers reported their cars accelerating to speeds up to 100 mph, even while they were applying the brakes.

Toyota initially blamed the problem on improperly sized floor mats. Toyota claimed that the mats got jammed underneath the accelerator pedal and caused them to get stuck. The floor mats were replaced, but there were still incidents of acceleration problems even after the floor mats were replaced.

Toyota recently admitted that the problems went much deeper than defective floor mats, and has ordered the recall of some eight million cars worldwide. Bear in mind, car recalls happen with great frequency, and they often happen for quite mundane reasons. A faulty button on the stereo or power locks that short out on occasion are enough of a reason to bring thousands of cars back to the factory. But there is an enormous difference between a minor manufacturing error and one that causes cars to spontaneously accelerate up to 100 mph. According to the Times of London, these faulty throttles have been responsible for 19 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

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The Washington, D.C. mass transit system is not as safe as it should be. We wish we could believe differently, but we can’t. The overall number of accidents, injuries and fatalities over the past few years is the sort of number that you would expect from a transit system in a third world country without proper safety regulations, and certainly not from the transit system of the capitol city in the United States of America.

It isn’t just the disastrous Red Line accident in July that we are referring to. The past few years the dc metro system has experienced an extensive list of injuries and deaths on both the subway and bus lines, plus several maintenance incidents which underscore how our dc metro transit system is badly in need of upgrade or repair. We have to wonder about the commitment of the people who are in charge of our dc metro transit system.

The most recent tragic event was the death of two Metro workers who were killed by a large equipment truck that was backing down the track. The two workers were not new to the job. Jeff Garrard had been working at his position for WMATA for twenty years, and Sung Duk Oh had been on the job for twelve. With that much experience on the job they had to have known what was considered safe behavior and what wasn’t. According to an article in the Washington Post, Mr. Garrard left behind a wife and daughter, both of whom have congenital heart defects, and Mr. Oh had a family as well.

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Personal Injury Legal Terms       

Being injured due to the negligence of someone else can be (and often is) a terrible experience. You have to deal with the pain of your injuries, the possible loss of the ability to do your job properly, the  possibility that you may not be able to work again, and lost income from the time that you missed from work. In all probability you are also dealing with an uncooperative and seemingly completely uncaring insurance company.

It is usually when the insurance company becomes uncooperative that many of our injury victims from the Washington DC metropolitan area call us. They come to the realization that simply accepting what has happened to them is now unacceptable, and they realize that they will need legal help in order to get justice and fair compensation for their injuries.

The prospect of meeting with a lawyer can be an intimidating prospect, although most of our clients are shocked that they actually speak to Roger Greenberg upon hire, and throughout the duration of their case have close contact with Andrew Bederman, or our other personal injury lawyers at Greenberg & Bederman. In spite of our reputation in the legal community for customer service and congeniality, most people discover the whole legal process to be confusing. The law almost seems like an entirely new language. You are suddenly called one thing while the person who was responsible for your accident is  called something else.

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It’s quite easy to define what a traumatic brain injury is. You could go to the New England Journal of Medicine or a third year medical textbook if you so desired, but a TBI is so straightforward that going to Wikipedia should suffice:

“Traumatic brain injury (TBI, also called intracranial injury) occurs when an outside force traumatically injures the brain.”

That’s simple enough. Traumatic brain injuries happen when people hit their heads very hard. Somebody falls, or gets into a car accident, or something falls and lands on them, and the brain takes some damage. And even though they sound like rare occurrences, traumatic brain injuries actually happen with astonishing frequency.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1.4 million people suffer from traumatic brain injuries every year. Of these 1.4 million, 50,000 people die, while 235,000 of them suffer injuries that are severe enough to cause them to be hospitalized for an extended period of time.

So the occurrences are often enough, and the definition is easy enough to sort out, but when it comes to how a traumatic brain injury affects the victim, there is no such thing as an easy definition. The reason for this is that the brain is an incredibly complex organ that even modern medicine is still attempting to figure out. It controls all of the functions of the body, from sight to balance to movement to breathing to speech to the ability to eat. The brain handles literally everything. So if there is damage to the brain, there is no shortage of things that can go wrong with the body.

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A lot of people seem to have somewhat of a blind spot when it comes to personal behavior. You would be surprised at the number of folks who will read about a drunk driving accident, mutter “these people ought to know better” under their breath, and then go out and drive after having a few drinks.

There is a real sense of “it won’t happen to me” among people who drive after they drink. It’s a sense of invincibility that they keep right up until the point where they get arrested, or worse. We know this because we often find ourselves representing the victims of drunk drivers, who always seem to have thought that only other people are dangerous when they get behind the wheel.

A lot of this might have to do with the fact that alcohol lowers inhibitions, which makes those who drink a lot more confident in their abilities than they normally would be. Or it might have something to do with the myths that surround alcohol use. There are still people who believe that there is a way to instantly make a person “not drunk,” or that one form of alcohol is somehow less potent than another.

You have three choices on New Year’s Eve: Don’t drink at all, take a cab, or ride with someone who doesn’t drink. Getting behind the wheel after taking even one drink can lower your reflexes and dull your reaction time. In fact, impairment begins after just one serving of alcohol. According to the Department of Health and Human Services:

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Roger Greenberg was voted into 2010 Maryland and DC Superlawyers Magazine. 

Super Lawyers, an independent magazine adhering to a selection process that is objective and independent of any advertising or payments to nominate its candidate, has named Roger E. Greenberg a Super Lawyer in its Maryland and Washington DC 2010 editions. Lawyers were asked to nominate the best lawyers they've personally observed, were not allowed to nominate an internal lawyer without nominating an external lawyer, and lawyers were not allowed to vote for themselves. This evaluation led to a final selection of our personal injury lawyer , Roger Greenberg. Congratulations on a job well done!

Roger Greenberg is a partner of Greenberg & Bederman, a personal injury lawfirm located in downtown Silver Spring, MD, one half block from the Silver Spring Metro station, one mile from the Washington, DC line.  Greenberg & Bederman handles auto accidents, medical malpractice, social security disability denials, and yaz injury law.

To learn more about Greenberg & Bederman, please visit the Greenberg & Bederman website.  To learn more about Roger Greenberg, please read Roger Greenberg's bio, or watch Roger Greenberg's video on Youtube.

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There is a foot and a half of snow on the ground here in D.C. After the initial appreciation of how the snow looks begins to wear off, you start to realize that the winter wonderland is actually a foot and a half of inconvenience. Even the most simple of acts takes intensive preparation. Going out to get the newspaper involves putting on multiple layers of clothing. Driving anywhere involves digging a trench through the snow that is big enough for your car, and that’s only if the roads have been properly plowed and are safe enough to drive on.

 When there is a foot and a half of snow on the ground, it is very tempting to simply stay inside. Most people  hunker down and wait until things get down to manageable levels before they go anywhere. And while that is understandable, homeowners in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. do have some responsibilities regarding the sidewalks in front of their houses. As dull and labor intensive as shoveling snow can be, clearing a safe path in front of your house when it snows is not just courteous. It’s also the law.

Benny Kass wrote a great article in the Washington Post which details the laws regarding icy sidewalk liability in Maryland, Virginia and D.C, and we think everyone should take a look. Slipping and falling might seem to be YouTube worthy slapstick fodder to many of us, but in reality slipping and falling is one of the leading causes of deaths and injuries among older adults.

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Pedestrian accidents are something to take very seriously. The average weight of a passenger car is 3239 pounds, and even a car traveling just ten miles an hour can do severe damage to an unprotected human being.  D.C. is no stranger to pedestrians getting hit by cars. Just two years ago we broke a ten year record for fatal pedestrian accidents in the District, with 27 people struck and killed by automobiles.

At around that same time, The Washington Post put out a list of the most dangerous intersections for pedestrians in Washington, DC. Considering how many of us actually walk in this city, and considering the D.C. area’s reputation for traffic, we view this as practical information. You should also consider that with cell phones, text messaging, iPods and even television sets in automobiles, more and more drivers are spending less time with their eyes on the roads.

We found some particularly bits of information in this article that were surprising, and some that were not. For instance, it isn’t much of a surprise that over half of these dangerous intersections were in Northwest D.C. This is where the White House, Smithsonian, Capital Building and most of the major monuments are, which means that this is where most of the tourists congregate. Adams Morgan and U Street are also in Northwest, and if you are a D.C. native you probably already know how crowded with pedestrians these neighborhoods get on weekend nights.

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The holiday season is upon us, which means that we can expect all of the traditional trappings that go with it, both positive and negative. We can expect moments spent with friends and family; we can expect cold weather, and we can expect homes decked with bright lights and festive decorations. We can also expect crowded shopping malls, heavier than normal traffic and the majority of our population rushing around even more so than usual.

We can also attend the traditional round of holiday parties. Office parties, celebrations with friends and relatives, and parties at churches, social groups and charities are all a big part of the holiday season. The general sense of holiday festivities can encourage those who generally abstain from drinking alcohol to have a drink or two. And for those who make a habit out of drinking, the holiday season gives them every excuse to cut loose and drink even more.

This would simply be a matter of personal preference if it weren’t for the fact that we all have to share the roads with other drivers. And those of us who exercise personal responsibility and obey the law when we don’t drink and drive are not immune to the actions of those who don’t. This premise is true for all twelve months of the year, but it takes on a certain urgency during December. It is for this reason that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has declared December National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month. According to the CDC, over 1.4 million drivers were arrested over a period of one year for driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and these were only the people who were caught. The CDC further claims that in that same year there were 159 million self reported instances of drunk driving, so the arrests only count for around 1% of the actual number of people who recklessly take to the roads after drinking and driving.

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 Understanding Negligence

Laws are supposed to be universal. If you take a look at the U.S. Constitution or the laws on the books of any particular state, you won’t find any disclaimers or asterisks. There won’t be any fine print on laws regarding theft, murder, or even jaywalking for that matter. The most important premise of every single law that exists in the United States is that they apply to everybody.

This is why we were pleased about the judgment that was handed down on Thursday to the family of a University of Maryland student who was killed when an off-duty police officer slammed into his car at 50 mph.

Bear in mind that this accident didn’t happen on the highway. This occurred on a placid suburban street where the speed limit was 25 mph. Brian Gray, the driver of the car that was hit, was pronounced dead at a hospital five hours later.

What made this tragedy even worse was that the victim’s mother was a few car lengths behind her son, and was essentially a witness to his death.

The attorneys for Cpl. Mario Chavez of the Prince Georges County Police Department were attempting to make the argument that the reason the accident happened was because Brian Gray did not properly yield at a stop sign before making a left turn, but according to witnesses Mr. Gray had come to a complete stop before going out into the intersection. The strategy of Cpl. Chavez’ attorneys was to introduce the idea of contributory negligence, which essentially means that the Mr. Gray was at least partially responsible for the harm that he suffered because he did not yield at a stop sign.  (To learn about negligence law, please read our negligence page.)

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On Wednesday night, President Obama gave a speech to a joint session of Congress in which he discussed the importance of overhauling our health care system. The timing of the speech couldn’t have been better, especially considering how contentious the debate has been over the previous month. August has been loaded with screaming at town hall meetings, protests where people are carrying guns, violent and frightening rhetoric and some pretty wild claims.

The President’s speech was a fairly concise one, at least in terms of outlining what he expected this plan to do and how much he expected it to cost. There are a few details that need to be hammered out, but the President made it clear that he is open to suggestions and negotiations.

As is the custom, the opposing party was given the opportunity to deliver a response to the President’s speech, and to deliver their side of things they chose Louisiana Congressman Charles Boustany, who offered a speech that was fairly measured in comparison to some of the protestors out there this summer, or even in comparison to some of his compatriots who were in the audience during Obama’s speech.

But what we found indicative of the Republican’s stance on health care reform was that the man they chose to deliver their rebuttal is a heart surgeon who has been sued for malpractice three times. After all, who better to articulate the Republican platform of “tort reform, tort reform and more tort reform” more than someone who would benefit greatly from it?

Dr. Boustany said during his response, “We’re grateful the president mentioned medical liability reform and we hope he’s serious,” adding: “we need to establish tough liability reform standards” and discourage “junk lawsuits.”

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It’s quite possible that you might be the safest driver in the United States. You might always obey the speed limit, you might always drive defensively, you might never talk on your cell phone while you are behind the wheel, you might always be aware of your surroundings and you might have never gotten so much as a parking ticket in your entire life.

All of that would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that you happen to share the road with other drivers, many of whom don’t even take the bare minimum of precautions when they get behind the wheel. As attorneys who help car accident victims in the D.C. area, we can tell you with great certainty that while safe driving helps, it’s no guarantee that you won’t get into an accident.

This is why we are not only advocates of safe driving, but also safe cars. An automobile that is built specifically for safety could be the difference between an accident that you walk away from and an accident that changes your life completely. It’s for that reason that we think safety ratings should be a priority when you are in the market for a new car.

Every year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tests every new model of car that is sold on the American market, and by “test,” we mean that they wreck them in every conceivable way. They slam them into brick walls, they hit them with other cars, and they drive them at high speeds with the sole intention of forcing them to roll over.

What follows is a list compiled by Forbes Magazine of the some of the least safe cars of 2009. It is our hope that you will keep this list in mind when you go out to buy a car.

Chevrolet Aveo: We’re big fans of cars that get good mileage, and at 34 mpg on the highway the Aveo certainly qualifies. But saving money at the gas pump won’t keep you from getting hurt in a side or rear collision. And apparently, neither will the Aveo. The NHTSA rated its side collision protection “marginal” and its rear collision “poor.”

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The Reddest Herring in the Health Care Debate

It’s impossible to turn on the news without coming across the angry crowds at these town meetings. The national temper is certainly hot. And while we can certainly concede that there are some valid arguments to be made, we have noticed that quite a few of the arguments are based on deliberate half truths and misinformation, many of which seem to be pandering to the worst in us.

The most obvious of these would be the “death panels” argument, which essentially accuses the government of wanting to establish a policy of enforced euthanasia for the elderly and the terminally ill. There is also the rumor that health care reform will offer free medical care to illegal aliens, which is both untrue and a very convenient way to turn health care reform into a matter of race.

In comparison to these delusional rantings, some of the other arguments seem to be based on Planet Earth, but that doesn’t make them any more accurate. For instance, we are seeing more and more “Tort Reform Now!” placards showing up at these town hall meetings, and while we prefer those vastly to the signs that show President Obama with a Hitler mustache, we can say with great certainty that, as it pertains to health care, tort reform is as much of a red herring as death panels or free care to illegal aliens.

What the tort reform people are demanding is caps on medical malpractice damages, which has about as much to do with your health insurance as fire insurance has to do with drowning. Medical malpractice insurance companies have absolutely nothing to do with Aetna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield or United Healthcare. The premiums that malpractice insurers charge doctors have absolutely nothing to do with the amount that you are paying for your health care premiums, and everything to do with the malpractice insurers maintaining healthy profit margins.

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There has been a rather interesting development in the world of corporate and customer relations. About a year ago, a folk and country musician named Dave Carroll was flying to Nebraska on United Airlines. While waiting on the tarmac for his connecting flight at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, Mr. Carroll overheard a passenger behind him say “My God, they are throwing guitars out there!”

Quite rightly alarmed, Mr. Carroll then informed three airline attendants of his concerns, and was, in his words, “greeted with indifference.” When he landed in Nebraska, he found out that it was in fact his guitar that had been thrown around by the baggage handlers, and he found that it was broken as a result.

The guitar was a Taylor acoustic, which is one of the higher end brand of guitars that are currently made in the United States. The cost of an electric/acoustic model, which was what Mr. Carroll had in his possession, ranges between $1200 and $5000. They are not what you would call cheap guitars.

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Contingency Fees Give Legal Access to Those Who Can’t Afford It

Tort reform organizations want to do away with the contingency fee arrangement, which would take away legal access to the majority of our clients.

When we take on a client, we don’t take one penny from them up front. We don’t accept Visa, Master Card, American Express, the Discover Card, checks, money orders or cash. We don’t expect them to get loans or second mortgages on their houses to pay us.  We don’t expect them to get cash advances on their credit cards. We never put ourselves in a position to take anything up front from our clients.

The reason for this is because our clients have had plenty taken from them already. They usually have thousands of dollars in medical bills, and considering that many of them will be unable to return to work in the foreseeable future, they are often in no financial position to pay exorbitant up front  hourly legal fees.

What we do here at Greenberg and Bederman is offer our legal services on a contingency basis. What this means is that we will represent our clients’ interests in any negotiations or court proceedings, and the only way that we get paid is if our clients case is won. It doesn’t make economic sense to accept just any personal injury claim, so our business model is to accept only those cases we are pretty sure we can win.  If we get a settlement for our clients or come away with a successful judgment or verdict on their behalf, we usually take one third of what is recovered as payment (depending on whether it is pre or post litigation it may be up to 40%). This works to the benefit of the client, as this allows the disadvantaged client the opportunity to be represented against the large insurance companies who also have lawyers, and to help our clients collect everything they are entitled to under the law. In fact, our experience has shown that large insurance companies routinely deny or delay legitimate legal claims, and that’s WITH attorney representation. We can only speculate how the non-represented injury victim is treated by the insurance companies.

The American Tort Reform Association does not like the contingent fee system at all.  They would rather do away with the contingency fee system and have clients pay an hourly rate up front:

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Dram Shop Laws – Should We Have Them in Maryland, DC and Virginia?

Alcohol doesn’t grow on trees.  Nor is it sold in vending machines or hawked at lemonade stands. In order to buy alcohol, you have to walk into a bar or liquor store that has been licensed to sell it by the state. This is how it is in every state of the union.  

There is a good reason for this.  Alcohol is an intoxicating beverage, as we’re sure all of you are well aware.  In high enough doses, it can quite easily be fatal.  It seems that every year more and more teenagers or fraternity pledges find this out the hard way.  But even in less than fatal doses, alcohol still alters behavior and reflexes.  People who have been drinking often behave in ways that would never occur to them when they are sober.  And quite often, it isn’t just themselves they hurt.  Drunk people get into fights, or people abuse their significant others, people pass out in public places, people think it’s a good idea to walk along the hand railing of a bridge, etc. etc.

In short, alcohol is not something that should be easily available.  It should be as difficult as possible for those who are underage to get, and its sale should be forbidden to those who are already visibly intoxicated.  Those who sell alcohol should be fully aware of the unpredictability of those who drink it, and they should further be expected to sell alcohol in a responsible manner, whether they are bartenders or liquor store clerks.

It is because of these expectations that most states have what are called dram shop laws. The idea behind these laws is that if a bartender or liquor store owner continues to serve or sell alcohol to someone who is visibly and obviously intoxicated, then that bartender or liquor store owner should have to shoulder some of the responsibility when that intoxicated person causes damage, pain and suffering to others.

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The Waiting Might Get Shorter in Maryland

As we have mentioned before, there are some very specific and important advantages that insurance companies have over their policyholders. They have money, and they have time. These are things that many of us possess to a certain degree, but most of us certainly don’t have insurance company time and money.

For instance, if any of us get injured in a car accident, it usually goes without saying that we could use that insurance money as soon as possible. There is rent or the mortgage payment to worry about. There are utilities, groceries, and any number costs that we all accumulate in day to day life. The last thing anyone needs is a delay in getting that insurance settlement.

Unfortunately, those delays happen more often most of us would like, and they often happen on purpose. Insurance companies rarely simply receive a bill and then send a check. They haggle, they deny, they make a list of what they will and will not pay for, and then they offer you what they think is reasonable rather than what is fair.

Rarely do these payments cover all of the expenses that injury victims incur, and often the victim is left with the option of either taking less money than they should, or having to go to court. This is when the “waiting” aspect comes in, and this wait never works to the advantage of the injured. In fact, it is usually quite the opposite.

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Personal Injury Lawyers Who Advertise

As injury attorneys who serve the Maryland, Virginia and D.C. area, we at Greenberg and Bederman have been very fortunate in that our practice has grown exponentially since we started it in 1985, although both Roger Greenberg and Andrew Bederman have been practicing lawyers long before 1985. Greenberg & Bederman has provided thousands of injury victims in Silver Spring, Takoma Park, Alexandria, Arlington, Adams Morgan, Fairfax and all points in between with dedicated legal counsel. We have helped those who have been injured due to no fault of their own receive fair and decent compensation for their injuries, when otherwise they most likely would have received either nothing or an amount that would have been incredibly unfair.

The process of building our practice into a successful one was not something that happened over night. It took time to build a client base and establish ourselves as trusted, highly rated injury lawyers. But just under twenty five years later, we are pleased with the results of our work on behalf of the injured, and we look forward to continuing that work for the foreseeable future. We are also proud of the fact that we built our practice the right way. There are, unfortunately, some attorneys who pull out all the stops in order to get as many clients as they can, regardless of whether or not those methods fall within the boundaries of ethics or even good taste. We are proud to say that we obtain clients through smart and creative marketing, word of mouth, and reputation within the legal community, rather than using some of the more aggressive and less tasteful tactics.

Advertising: We have spots marketing our services on the radio and on television. We are willing to bet that you have seen or heard them. In these spots, we tell people what it is that we do and tell them how we might be able to help them. There are also spots that feature the testimonials of clients whom we have represented successfully. We also have a channel on YouTube, in which these spots are readily available for viewing at any time.

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Automobiles have dozens of safety features built right in. Seatbelts and airbags are standard on practically every vehicle on the current market. Cars have anti-lock brakes, crumple zones, and steering wheels that collapse in the event of a car accident.

Driving cars has become much easier as well. There is power steering, power brakes, GPS systems that tell you exactly where you are going, and cruise control for highway driving, which allows you to maintain a rate of speed automatically without putting your foot on the gas.

Most vehicles have fairly expansive entertainment systems, with CD players and docks for an iPod or mp3 player, while some of the higher end vehicles come equipped with DVD players and television screens.

But what none of these cars have is the ability to drive themselves, and that seems like it should be a priority for the Research and Development departments of automakers. The reason that we believe this is a necessity is because these days, drivers are so distracted with CD players, GPS systems, DVD players, iPods and cell phones that they are paying attention to everything except keeping their cars on the road.

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Choosing the Right Attorney

The recent DC Metro Red Line crash has been on everybody’s mind lately, and for good reason. It isn’t often that a disaster of such magnitude hits the D.C. area. The last real catastrophic event that occurred in our area was when the plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11.

Although the train crash where nine were killed and so many were injured was certainly a terrible event, we can at least take some solace in the fact that nine years between major disasters is an admirable span of time for any major metropolitan area, particularly one as politically charged as ours.

In the aftermath of any accident, victims and their loved ones are usually worried about basic things. They worry about their medical treatment, if and when they will get better, and if and when they will be able to get back to work. The idea of lawsuits and legal representation falls quite far down the list of immediate priorities, and we think that is entirely right and proper.

The decision to file a lawsuit should rest entirely on the victims, and they should not be pressured or connived into filing suit in any way.  An attorney who contacts an injury victim in the immediate aftermath of an accident is, ethically speaking, just as bad as an insurance adjuster who visits an injury victim in the hospital and attempts to get him to sign away his rights. But behavior of this sort on the part of attorneys is not only ethically wrong; it is also against the law.

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NTSB Report: Too Little Too Late

The government of the United States has any number of agencies that are experts at coming in when it is already too late.

Consider the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. Whenever there is a disaster, either natural or man-made, FEMA comes in and offers assistance and monitors rescue and clean up efforts. Sometimes they perform their tasks admirably and sometimes they don’t, as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina showed us in too vivid detail.

There is also the Securities and Exchange Commission, which prosecutes investors and other financial professionals who engage in fraud and insider trading. They were featured prominently in the investigation of Bernard Madoff, a financier who was recently convicted of running what was nothing more than a billion dollar pyramid scheme.

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“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, what sound does it make?”

That’s an old Zen Buddhist koan (or fable) that is meant to be used as an intellectual exercise. The idea is to ask an unanswerable question, which is supposed to send your mind into a transcendental state.

A version of this koan also appears to be a defense strategy for a law firm in Maryland. It goes like this:

“If a five year old boy drowns in a pool and nobody saw it, did he suffer?”

Whether that strategy sends the minds of a jury into a transcendental state remains to be seen, but we are of the opinion that drowning is a horrible and painful way for someone to lose his life, regardless of whether there are witnesses to that suffering or not.

On June 22^nd, 2006, a five year old boy named Connor Freed went swimming with two friends and an adult at the Crofton Country Club. The adult who was in charge of watching him removed Connor’s life jacket so the child could use the bathroom. The adult continued to watch the other two boys. Unbeknownst to the adult, Connor came out of the bathroom and ended up in the crowded pool without his life jacket, where he drowned.

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Tort reform organizations often paint a very erroneous picture when it comes to injury settlements. They make it seem that every stubbed toe is worth a million dollars, or that getting insulted or getting your feelings hurt is practically a guarantee of an enormous financial settlement.

As personal injury attorneys who practice in the Washington, D.C. area, we can tell you with great certainty that that is not the case. While we do our best to secure the most compensation for injuries that we can for our clients, getting to that point is not the walk in the park that the tort reformers describe.

There is an important aspect to injury verdicts or settlements which many people are unaware, and this is that quite often, an injury settlement has strings attached. It is not simply a big bag of money or an enormous cardboard check that is handed over to the victim as soon as he or she walks out of the courtroom. For one thing, your insurance company might need to be paid.

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The immediate aftermath of an accident might not seem to be the best time to be patient. After all, the hospitals certainly aren’t patient when sending out their medical bills, nor does the bank holding your mortgage note seem very patient about not getting its monthly payment because you couldn’t work.

But it is important to understand that hardly any accidents are simple affairs. Even a car accident can take a long time to unravel. One driver will swear that the accident occurred a certain way while the other will swear something different happened, and in the meantime there are multiple witnesses who are all contradicting each other.

There are also other things to consider. What condition were the roads in? Was it raining? Did the accident happen at night? Was it a driver error or a mechanical error?

These are all aspects of an accident that should be determined with great certainty before moving forward with an injury case. While it might seem to be a good idea to move forward in the immediate aftermath of a highly publicized accident, filing a lawsuit before all the facts are in could prove very detrimental to your case.

For instance, if you are at a stoplight and a car slams into you from behind and injures you, your initial thought would be to sue the other driver. But if you file the lawsuit immediately and it turns out that the reason the car slammed into you was because a mechanic did a poor job on servicing the brakes, the opposing counsel could successfully have the case thrown out before it even gets to the jury stage.

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The entire D.C. region is still coming to grips with the horrible accident that occurred on Metro’s DC Red Line on Monday. With the death toll at nine, and with 80 people injured, it’s the worst accident that DC Metro transit has ever seen.

There seems to be a lot of stories involving fate with this Metro crash. We have heard stories of people who managed to get through the metro crash unscathed while passengers who were sitting one car forward suffered horrible injuries. We have heard stories of people who were initially angry that they missed the train, only to be profoundly relieved once they found out that missing that dc metro train might have saved their lives. An event like this brings home the random uncertainty of daily existence, which, as accident attorneys, we are reminded of on a daily basis.

One random element of the crash was its location. The two cars collided just outside of the Fort Totten Metro stop, which is approximately 3,000 feet within the borders of Washington, D.C. Had the train been on the green line heading east, or if the metro crash had happened two stops away in Silver Spring or three stops away in Forest Glen, the accident would have occurred within the state of Maryland.

On the surface, that might not seem to be that big of a deal, but if you consider the differences between the laws of D.C. and Maryland, the site of the dc metro crash makes all the difference in the world.

The best way that we can put it is that under Maryland law, the victims of the crash are only really recognized as numbers, while in D.C. they are recognized as people.

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June 24, 2009

Reprinted from The Washington Times, in the "news/local -- Local" section.

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“The Metro train car that slammed into another on the Red Line yesterday evening was two months past due for scheduled maintenance on its brakes, and the car was an older model that federal officials had recommended be replaced because of concerns about its safety in a crash, officials said today.” – Washington Post, 6/23/09

There isn’t a lot to say about this just yet. The National Transportation Safety Board is still examining the wreckage of the two trains at the time of this writing, so we don’t know whether or not the two months lateness on the brakes of the car was a factor or not.

In fact, the reports are varying. In this morning’s Washington Post, staff writer Lyndsey Layton wrote the following:

“Experts familiar with Metro's operations focused last night on a failure of the signal system and operator error as likely causes of yesterday's fatal Red Line crash….Metro was designed with a fail-safe computerized signal system that is supposed to prevent trains from colliding. The agency's trains are run by onboard computers that control speed and braking. Another electronic system detects the position of trains to maintain a safe distance between them. If they get too close, the computers automatically apply the brakes, stopping the trains.”

It seems obvious now that the “fail-safe” system was anything but. And we still don’t know what role driver error had in the crash. The operator of the train that hit the stopped car was killed, but the driver who stopped is scheduled to be interviewed at the time of this writing, so there might be some answers there.

But in the meantime, what everyone in the D.C. area has to contend with is the fact that nine people are dead, among them a former Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard. There is also the fact that seventy-six people were injured, in ways ranging from minor to critical.

The best that we can hope for right now is that the people who were injured are able to make full recoveries as soon as possible. And we also hope that whatever recommendations that the NTSB comes up with after their investigation are fully implemented.

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The odds are that you have never heard of a woman named Janine Sugawara. And the odds are that after a few months, her name will completely slip your mind.

But it is entirely probable that her recent lawsuit will put her in a somewhat notorious pantheon of “frivolous lawsuits,” which means that she will be given a title rather than a name by tort reform organizations. And she can expect this title to be bandied about for the rest of time.

As a bit of background, Ms. Sugawara recently filed a class action lawsuit against the Quaker Oats Company. Her gripe was that after four years of purchasing and eating Crunch Berries brand cereal, she discovered that there was no actual fruit involved.

Through the law firm that took her case, Ms. Sugawara’s intention was to collect damages not just for herself, but for everyone else who was bamboozled at the breakfast table. It should be noted the law firm that she was working with had previously filed an unsuccessful suit against the Kellogg’s corporation over the lack of actual fruit in Fruit Loops.

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The Tort System: It Stops Being “Broken” When It Starts Being You

For those of you are unaware of what tort reform means, it is a political movement whose proponents believe that our current judicial system is too easy for regular people to use. That probably isn’t the way that they would put it, but that’s essentially the centerpiece of the argument. They want caps on the sorts of damages that citizens can receive. They want restrictions on the sorts of lawsuits that people can file. They want severe restrictions on punitive damages. They want to do business in America without the crushing, stagnating, profit killing responsibilities of accountability towards the people who buy their products or use their services.

It isn’t very hard to put yourself in their shoes. The majority of the people involved in the tort reform movement have direct ties to insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and product manufacturers. They often think of things in terms of profitability, and they probably view lawsuits as a problem that is to be solved, like improving efficiency or finding a cheaper supplier for parts. If you see everything in terms of a balance sheet, it’s hard to see actual human beings who have suffered real damages from the results of your business. Instead you think about the money you could be making if it weren’t for the insurance premiums and attorneys fees.

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When Do I need A  Personal Injury Lawyer?

In the aftermath of an accident, it can be sometimes be difficult to know if you need a lawyer. Many accidents fall squarely in the “no harm, no foul” category, in that the damage to the property or persons of those involved is negligible. For instance, if the accident is a fender bender car accident with minimal property damage, you should be able to handle your damages through the insurance companies. Or if you slip and fall in a restaurant but don’t injure anything but your pride, there is no need to contact an attorney at all.

But the stakes change when the accident involves medical treatment. This is when the liability involves more money, and insurance companies often take steps to make sure that they pay out as little as possible.

There is often a drastic difference between what an injury victim should receive and what an insurance company is willing to pay. Having an attorney to represent your interests can be the difference between receiving fair treatment and not even receiving enough to cover your damages. What follows are some situations where you should contact a personal injury attorney as soon as possible.

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Million Dollar Pants and Coffee: Two Common and Misguiding Tort Reform Examples

There is a popular misunderstanding about how our court system works.

Many people are laboring under the idea that anyone can, at any time, walk into a courthouse, sue somebody, and walk out with millions of dollars.  Any injury or slight, real or imagined, is a golden ticket that will lead to a huge payday, and all you have to do is go to court and sue.

Did you get into a fender bender? Jackpot.

Did you stub your toe on a curb when you were talking on the cell phone? Free money!

Did a waiter accidentally spill ice water on to your lap? Goodbye mortgage!

Of course, it doesn’t work like that at all, but this is the myth that tort reform organizations like to present to the general public. What they want you to believe is that every personal injury lawsuit is a bad lawsuit, all the damages are overblown, and that “greedy trial lawyers” are soaking innocent citizens, hardworking doctors and blameless businesses everywhere.

There are, of course, some lawsuits that are overblown and ridiculous which manage to actually get to the courtroom. The case about the $54 million pair of pants springs to mind.

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Understanding Auto Insurance Coverage

Considering how easy it is to buy insurance these days, it isn’t surprising that many people aren’t familiar with what their policies actually cover. Many people apply for and receive insurance online, or over the phone, and when they get their policies they simply place the policy in a filing cabinet without even reading it. And even if they do read it, they have to dig through pages and pages of dense legal jargon that they probably won’t understand.

As a result, many Americans have the wrong idea of what sort of insurance they have, or what sort of accidents or incidents will be covered under their policy. The consequences of this lack of understanding can range from annoying (having to go out of pocket for car repairs) to financially devastating (finding that your insurance will not cover the majority of your medical bills.)

Your best defense against getting one of those uncomfortable surprises is to KNOW rather than ASSUME what sort of coverage your policy provides. To that end, here is a list of the types of coverage that are on most regular auto insurance policies and what they mean.

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Can Juries Be Impartial?

In our modern age of techno gizmos and internet mass accessibility, can juries remain impartial? If you have ever served on a jury, you know that before the proceedings begin, the judge instructs the jurors prohibiting them from conducting any outside research while they serve on the panel. Juries are also prohibited from divulging any substantive information concerning the progress of its deliberations. The reason behind this prohibition is to let the legal system follow its course; to let the advocates convince the juries, and not to have the juries influenced by prejudice, or other preconceived notions that could adversely affect the outcome of the trial.

Despite the judge’s warnings, there is an implicit understanding that juries are not completely impartial, and that life experiences cannot be neutralized regardless of what we hear in the courtroom. In order to minimize these effects, the legal system provides for voir dire, the process by which prospective jurors are questioned about their backgrounds and potential biases before being chosen to sit on a jury. For instance, if during the voir dire process, the defendant’s attorney in a personal injury case discovers that a juror has recently lost a close family member in a car accident, it is likely that that juror will not be selected to serve on the jury, because he is expected to have a strong bias against the defendant. 

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One hundred and eighty BILLION dollars.

That amount of money is so large that many of us can’t even comprehend it. It is an amount of money that dwarfs what any of us can expect to make in our lifetimes, or our children’s lifetimes, or our grandchildren’s lifetimes, and so on and so on.

This is the amount of money that was given by the U.S. government to American International Group, one of the largest insurance brokers in the world. This taxpayer bailout was given to AIG in order to keep it solvent.

If you are wondering why we have to foot the bill of a dying insurance company, the short answer is that AIG doesn’t just do insurance. They do investment banking, retirement portfolios, and, most tellingly, financial securities.

What this means is that, like many other enormous corporations, AIG had an incredible amount of the wealth of their investors in securities that were backed by packaged sub-prime mortgages. These securities were a great way to make steady profits for investors and shareholders in the short term, provided that property values kept rising and rising. But eventually the housing bubble popped, and the result is that these mortgage based securities were not even worth the paper that they were printed on.

These investors, by the way, are not corporate bigwigs with private jets and mansions. They are your neighbors who have their retirement plans and 401k’s wrapped up in this company and its subsidiaries. They are the businesses that employ your friends and family members. They are, in short, US.

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Pain Pump Lawsuit

Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm based in Silver Spring, Maryland, but our practice extends to Baltimore, Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. We are currently accepting cases involving those who have experienced pain and suffering due to the implantation of the shoulder pain pump during surgery. If you or a loved one is suffering from pain, inflammation or difficulties in movement due to complications with your shoulder pain pump, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

When people undergo surgery, they are usually doing so under the assumption that the procedure will fix what is ailing them. Nobody in their right mind would have a surgical procedure done to them if they knew that they were only exchanging one physical ailment for another that is even more painful.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what has happened to thousands of Americans who underwent arthroscopic shoulder surgery over the past few years.

The problem is not in the arthroscopic procedure itself, but rather in a pump and catheter that delivers pain medication directly to the shoulder joint. This pump was implanted during thousands of surgical procedures and was left there for several days as part of the healing process.

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Everyone knows that coffee’s hot: A second look at the McDonald’s coffee verdict

Common sense tells us that coffee is going to be hot. Therefore it seems hard to believe that the injured woman in the McDonald’s coffee case received an award from the jury in the million dollar range- for spilling hot coffee on herself. What were these jurors thinking? Did the lawyers in the case somehow round up a group of people unfamiliar with coffee, or unfamiliar with everyday thought processing? This seems unlikely. To understand why the lady in the McDonald’s case received such a high award requires an analysis of the case that goes beyond common sense.

Let’s start with an examination of the facts in the case that has become one of the most common examples of how current society is needlessly over-litigious. Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants, as it is properly known, occurred in 1994 and involved a 79-year old woman as the plaintiff, a grandmother named Stella Liebeck. Ms. Liebeck ordered coffee from the drive-through window of a McDonald’s in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At the time of the incident, Ms. Liebeck was not driving, but was in the passenger seat of the vehicle. While the vehicle was at a complete stop, and the coffee cup held between her legs, Ms. Liebeck attempted to remove the lid of cup. The coffee spilled on her legs causing third degree burns over 6 percent of her body. The treatment of these injuries required an eight day hospital stay, and skin grafting procedures. Ms. Liebeck was required to undergo more treatments for her injuries over the two years that followed.
 

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 Accident Reconstruction

Accident reconstruction is a scientific method used to evaluate the circumstances of a traffic accident by working backwards at the scene. Some post-accident investigations require accident reconstruction analysis where liability is disputed. In many cases there are controversies about how fast the vehicle was traveling, the direction each vehicle was travelling, or which driver was at fault. Accident reconstructionists, specially trained people hired to determine most likely how the accident occurred, evaluate the scene by looking at skid marks, where the damage occurred on the vehicles, how deep the damage is, the road conditions, all in an attempt to uncover what most likely transpired at the time of the accident.

The process of reconstructing an accident scene is scientific and helps us to remove the mystery surrounding the accident . Accident Reconstructionists are highly technical, and skilled expert witnesses, and they rely on systematic testing of an extensive body of data. Accident reconstruction specialists rely on crash reports and videos of crash tested vehicles. The videos and follow up reports demonstrate the crush patterns that occur in various types of collisions. The typical reported data are then applied to accidents with similar fact patterns. Some specialists rely on computerized technology which provides a model of the roadway and its surface so it resembles the original conditions. Once the survey is brought into the reconstruction program, the accident scene can be simulated to include irregularities in the road surface to exactly recreate what happened at the time of the accident. Technology can be programmed to simulate a view point of both drivers involved in the accident.
 

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Tractor Trailer Collisions : Truck Safety and Victim Awards

The Maryland Traffic Safety Handbook offers statistics on the safety of particular drivers as well as that of particular vehicles. The latest data in this handbook is from 2006, and notes eight deaths and 743 injuries from tractor trailer drivers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration offers statistics nationwide from 2007. Last year there were 802 tractor trailer driver deaths as a result of collisions, 23,000 people were injured, with an overall total of 4,808 people killed in large truck accidents. Given the size and weight of tractor trailers, the potential is greater to do considerable damage when involved in an accident.

The recent local collision involving two cars and a tractor trailer on the Bay Bridge made headlines all over Maryland. In this tragic case, a tractor trailer was heading west-bound on the Bay Bridge at a time when the bridge had two-way traffic. The truck swerved across the east bound lane of traffic and hit the Jersey wall of the bridge. Unfortunately, the wall was not enough to stop the 18-wheeler, and the tractor trailer and its driver, John R. Short, went over the wall and into the water, resulting in his death. Many local leaders are questioning the safety of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, as this is the first time that a vehicle has ever gone over the edge of the bridge. This case raises questions about the safety of two-way traffic on bridges, the safety of bridges themselves, and the safety of tractor trailers.
 

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 Is The Economy Impacting Personal Injury Recoveries?

The economy is in the midst of an historical financial meltdown, bottoming out one day only to break a new low the next. We are left pondering what impact this cataclysm could have in the world of personal injury litigation. None of us have control over how and when one gets injured, as people suffer injuries whether they are able to pay for their medical treatment or not. We do not stop driving or discontinue getting sick, regardless of whether the money is tight. Sadly, personal injury field is far from being recession proof. 

The injured rely on the insurance company to cover their personal injury claim. So what happens if, despite the regulatory measures, an insurance company becomes insolvent? No need to hypothesize, as you just need to think back to the recent meltdown of the mega insurer AIG.  We never thought it would be possible for a company the size of AIG to wither away on the vine as it did.  Today, AIG is propping up its dinged façade.  They assure us there is no reason to worry; that we should keep a positive outlook. They say in a brand new disclaimer on their website, AIG, “The insurance companies behind AIG remain strong and well-capitalized to cover every policy they issue” and urge us to “continue to count on AIG to provide you with the very best.”   AIG claims that  not only are they solvent, but they are prompt in paying most collision claims within two weeks, some even as soon as forty eight hours. It is hard to detect the traces of its “past” troubles from just a couple months ago, when AIG executives came to Capitol Hill, hat in hand, asking for over $120 billion in loans from the federal government.  At least for now we have avoided another disaster. While the AIG was able to get a life line from the government, other insurers may have similar problems precipitated by the market woes. 

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Barack Obama on Tort Reform
   The new government is poised to take over in a little more than a month. Hence, I thought it would be a good time to take stock of where our President-Elect stands on the tort reform debate, and what we can expect to see in the next four years on the personal injury front. As discussed in the previous article on tort reform, the term tort reform stands for legislative measures designed to limit plaintiffs’ recovery and to make it harder for individuals to bring claims against businesses in general. So, does Barack Obama support limiting recovery for personal injury claimants or does he advocate increase in the discretionary decision making power for juries and state courts?

   So far Obama has manifested mixed signs pointing in both directions. As a Senator, Obama was one of the few Democrats who voted for the Class Action Reform Act (CAFA). The Act was criticized by the Plaintiffs’ bar as hurting personal injury claimants. Perhaps this was a chance for Obama to show that he can transcend party lines. Critics claim that his votes on legal issues have been carefully designed to create an image of evenhandedness that may disappear when he is in office. They claim he voted for CAFA only after it was clear it would pass, and did so after voting for several Democratic amendments that would have gutted the bill. The Act made the requirement of “complete diversity” of citizenship inapplicable to class actions, and provided federal jurisdiction when some class members and some defendants are from different states. It also eliminated the principle that the claims of class members cannot be aggregated to meet the amount-in-controversy requirement, and provided for federal jurisdiction when the total amount in controversy in a class action exceeds $5 million. The effect was to allow most class actions with classes or defendants including citizens of more than one state to be filed in or removed to federal courts known for their tougher stance on granting injury awards.
 

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Tort Reform II

Tort reform ranges from legislation that directly affects certain areas of tort law, such as medical malpractice, to changes in various rules, defenses and limits applicable to cases that can impact how much an individual or a group receives in damages.  Some of the tort reform proposals to date and laws based on the idea of tort reform have involved limits on punitive damages or non-economic damages in personal injury cases, moving class action lawsuits from state to federal court, or limiting frivolous lawsuits. In February, President Bush signed a sweeping overhaul of the class-action lawsuit process (Senator Obama was one of the 18 Democratic senators who voted in favor of the bill when it was in the Senate). Only a minority of tort cases will be affected by these laws, but the people affected really need the compensation and/or have been done an egregious wrong. Reform opponents argue that the current legal system produce safer products and drugs. They claim that if the right to sue is restricted, it may result in people not having the resources to get into the courts and businesses will have much less incentive to provide safe products.In the area of medical malpractice, tort reform advocates claim that insurance premiums will decrease, making medical care more affordable and eliminating a disincentive for doctors to practice medicine. In contrast, tort reform critics contend that high medical malpractice insurance rates are a result of the cyclical nature of the insurance industry, lack of competition, mismanagement of reserves, and a decline in investment income. Here are some of the tort reform issues:

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Tort Reform I

Before we can understand tort reform, we must first understand what tort law is. Tort law seeks out those responsible for harm to others, usually on the basis of fault. Tort law, or personal injury law, requires those who are responsible to compensate, usually with money. Medical bills, lost time from work, diminished ability to perform every day chores, and the incapacity to enjoy recreational or daily life all are considered for compensation. It is especially difficult to put a price tag on a wrongful death case, as no amount of money can ever make the family completely whole again.

Typically American courts expect a jury to ascertain the damages in a tort case. Juries are comprised of ordinary citizens who are expected to fairly determine fault, and to place a monetary value on the compensation to the tort victim. Juries can arrive at different verdicts when hearing a similar case under the same circumstances. Just as we all do, jurors often bring their own biases that may hurt or help your case. This unpredictability can bring a wide range of results to your tort case.

One of the main determinations a good plaintiff’s attorney will make is choosing a good venue. Some plaintiff friendly venues include West Virginia, Cook County, Illinois, South Florida, and Atlantic County, New Jersey. Sometimes juries award high monetary awards in punitive damages. Punitive damages are different than compensatory damages. Punitive damages are designed, as the name implies, to punish the offender. Remember the famous “pants case’ where an administrative law judge sued his dry cleaners for $54 million for misplacing his pants? He cited the District of Columbia’s consumer protection law to justify his outrageous demand. This case went on for two years and took a two-day trial before it was rightly dismissed. Ah, the Tort system at work.

 

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Teenage Driving Restrictions

Remember when you got your driver’s license? Do you remember the thrill, the excitement and your wonder of the uncertainty of the road? Then there were those few times when you barely escaped an accident…and that time when you were driving through the parking lot heading toward Ferrell’s Ice cream, with the music blaring, and you were singing at the top of your lungs off key, thinking you were cool, when you slammed into a parked police car.....with a police officer inside the car. Wait! That was me.
 

One of the first steps into adulthood for teenagers is getting that coveted driving permit, and more importantly, the real driver’s license. Add a considerable dose of peer pressure into the mix and that plastic card is viewed by a teenager as the ticket to independence and freedom. (Just don’t do to your teenager what my dad did to me. He knew I was lying, and he also knew I had no sense of direction, so he instructed me to stay away from Bowie, and don’t go down 450 West toward Bowie. Stay away, he said, as I got lost in downtown Peace Cross where half dressed girls were walking late at night, and neon blinking bars were around every corner. Why didn’t I ever listen?)

 

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Belt or no belt, that is the question

As your child steps inside the school bus every morning, do you worry that the bus being ridden is safe? As our little ones travel back and forth from school on the bus, should we think about them wearing a seat belt? Each day, 475,000 yellow school buses travel our nation’s roads and highways. Historically school buses have not been equipped with safety belts. Only in the past several decades have concerned parents and some safety advocates pushed for stricter laws to mandate seatbelts use. The argument is simple. Seatbelts are used in most other forms of transportation, so why not use seat belts on school buses?
 

Federal law requires seat belts in smaller buses weighing less than 10,000 pounds, some of which are used in the Washington region to transport pre-kindergarten or special education students. But this law does not apply to the large buses weighing 25,000 pounds or more that carry most of our students. States are free to extend the seat belt requirement to larger buses, but only six states have passed such laws. They include New York, New Jersey, Louisiana, California, Texas and Florida. Seat belts have been required on passenger cars since 1968. Forty-Nine states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws requiring the drivers and passengers of cars and light trucks to wear seat belts. Seat belts have often resulted in keeping people safer and may reduce the risk of death in passenger vehicles.
 

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WARNING!
Beware of Contributory Negligence

Auto accidents happen daily on our roads, and as the number of drivers increase, so do the odds of being involved in an accident. After getting past the initial shock of a car accident, the question becomes who is responsible for causing the accident, and who is liable for paying the damages. Expenses may be significant from medical bills, to lifetime care, to loss of income. Where will the funds to restore your life come from? It depends on who is at fault that determines who will pay for the damages caused by the accident.
If you live in the mid-Atlantic region, you are likely to encounter something called ‘contributory negligence.’ This is a 400-year-old English principle, adopted in many American jurisdictions in the 19th century. It was abolished in all but 5 states, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama and the District of Columbia. This concept transcends the simple ‘who is at fault’ factor, an inquiry is made into whether the injured party is partially to blame for the accident. Even if the negligent driver is 95% at fault, and you are 5% at fault, you may recover nothing under the doctrine of contributory negligence.

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How Much Is My Case Worth?

Of all the questions my clients ask me, there is one I dread more than others – “how much is my case worth?” For lawyers, the ethical restraints of our profession prevent us from answering that question. More often than not, the problem with the question is timing. No lawyer should attempt to settle a personal injury claim before the client finishes his/her medical care or reaches the point of maximum medical improvement. Once that point is reached, the lawyer can review the particular circumstances of the case and use his/her experience to approximate a fair value range for the client’s claim.
There are many factors that go into a case assessment. A few of the most common factors are the type of injuries suffered, the treatment those injuries required, the length of that treatment, and the cost of that treatment. Also included in the valuation of a case is any lost wages as a result of injuries or other “special” damages (i.e., expenses for the client that would not have been incurred if not for the accident). A lawyer must also consider whether the client suffered a permanent injury, any resulting disability, and the need for future medical care. In some cases involving lacerations and the like, scarring or disfigurement is also evaluated.
When looking at these many factors (and there are many more to consider), a lawyer uses his/her experience to estimate what a judge or jury may award the client seeking compensation. This then becomes the baseline for negotiating with the at-fault party’s insurance company.
Insurance companies also evaluate claims. The worst-kept secret of the insurance industry is that they use a massive computer database to assist in their evaluation of claims. The insurance companies collect data on all claims that are submitted. They track those claims locations, injuries, treatments, and ultimate dispositions (whether by settlement or verdict in court). They then use this information to approximate their opinion of the value of the claim. Of course, the number value that the insurance company assigns to a claim is frequently different from the lawyer’s opinion of a claim’s value. The difference of opinion is worked through during the negotiation phase. If a fair settlement is not obtained via negotiation, the case must be litigated.
Injured persons should keep in mind that insurance companies want to settle claims for as little as possible. In addition, it benefits the insurance company to delay paying claims for as long as possible – they stick the earmarked amount (the insurance company’s original guess as to the new claims value) in an interest-bearing account thereby minimizing their ultimate loss on the claim.
As always, it is important that injured people speak with an experienced attorney prior to settling a claim to make sure that a fair amount is being offered.

For more information on personal injury case issues, please visit our website at personal injury issues. For more information on our personal injury lawyers, please click personal injury lawyers.

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Statute of Limitations Law

The law limits the amount of time during which a person can seek civil legal remedies. The amount of time given by law to bring a claim is determined by the relevant statute of limitations. If a person does not resolve a claim by settlement or file a lawsuit before the appropriate statutory date, then the claim is lost and barred forever. It does not matter whether the claimant has a good reason for not filing within the statutory period; the claim is lost.

In most jurisdictions, different types of lawsuits have different periods before the statute runs. For personal injury cases, the statute of limitations period starts at the time of actual injury (i.e., the date of accident). In Maryland and the District of Columbia, an injured person has three (3) years to settle or litigate a case before the statute prohibits recovery for the injured person. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, the statute of limitations for personal injury claims is two (2) years.
Under certain circumstances, the statute of limitations does not begin to run at the date of injury. For example, a minor’s action for pain & suffering does not being until the child has reached the age of majority – 18 years old. Other commons exceptions include those declared mentally incompetent, insane, in active military service, and incarcerated. Once those conditions are no longer applicable (e.g., the person is no longer insane), then the time starts to run.

Actions against the government or a subset of the government have special timing requirements. Although the general statute of limitations do apply to cases where a person is injured by the fault of the government, there are additional requirements that the government be placed “on notice” of a person’s claim. Failure to place the government on notice within the appropriate time has the same effect as missing the statute of limitations – the claim is lost. The time period for notice can be anywhere from 180 days to 2 years, depending on the relevant governmental agency.
Because of the various timing implications involved in an accident, it is important that injured people consult a lawyer immediately. Attorneys can then investigate the potential claim in order to understand its nature and make sure that the injured person’s rights are preserved. Waiting until the end of the statute of limitations makes a lawyer’s job particularly difficult and can jeopardize the strength of the injured person’s claim.

To learn more about personal injury issues, please see the personal injury law information.  and click on the personal injury law tab.  To see information on our personal injury lawyer, please click personal injury lawyer.

Greenberg & Bederman is a personal injury lawfirm located in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, one half block from the Metro Station, one mile from the Washington DC line.  We serve the injured in Maryland, Washington DC, and Virginia.

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WHAT IS PERSONAL INJURY PROTECTION?
Automobile insurance policies offer many different types of coverage: property, personal property, uninsured motorist, under insured motorist, collision, rental, bodily injury, and personal injury protection (PIP). PIP is primarily available to pay medical bills related to an automobile accident and, a percentage (85%) of lost wages due to disability from injuries from a motor vehicle accident. What coverage is required varies from state to state. In Maryland, PIP must be offered by insurance carriers to customers, who then have the option of waiving or denying the coverage.  Maryland Pip Studies

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF HAVING PERSONAL INJURY
PROTECTION?
There are numerous advantages to PIP benefits. First, customers are entitled to the benefits regardless of who was at fault for the accident. This means that even if you caused the accident, there are benefits in your car insurance policy that you can use for your medical expenses and lost wages. Second, since fault does not need to be determined, medical bills can be paid without unnecessary delay. Maryland law requires that the PIP insurance provider take action on PIP claims within 30 days of submission of a medical bill or lost wage claim. Third, PIP can increase the amount of compensation obtained from the at-fault party’s insurance. An injured person can make a legal claim for medical bills even if PIP has already paid them, unlike health insurance which must be paid back. Fourth, PIP covers a variety of people thereby filling insurance gaps. PIP is available to all family members of the insured who resides in the same household, permissive drivers, guests/passengers in the insured’s vehicle, and pedestrians injured as a result of the accident. It is important to know that PIP money is not available, however, to those who have actively chosen to waive it under their own insurance policy, even if they are injured as passengers in a car that does have PIP coverage. In short, waive it on your policy, and you waive it for yourself on all insurance policies in Maryland.   Maryland Approved Insurance Companies.

HOW MUCH COVERAGE SHOULD I HAVE?
PIP coverage is limited to the amount of coverage the policy carries. Policies are usually
written in three amounts: $2,500, $5,000 and $10,000. The standard, and most common, amount is $2,500. Considering the benefits of PIP, I recommend that customers purchase as much as they can afford (high wage earners should always purchase the maximum amount of insurance possible). The legal system is slow. Recovery from the at-fault party can take months, even years, depending on the severity of the injuries. During that time period, there are precious few avenues for compensation for injured persons. PIP can pay outstanding medical bills before they go to collections and affect a person’s credit history. PIP also offers these people a source of income, if disabled, during the long road to recovery.

To learn more about PIP or personal injury issues, please see personal injury law.  To learn more about our personal injury lawyers, please click on personal injury lawyers maryland and read the firm bios on Andrew Bederman, Roger Greenberg, or Jason Fernandez.

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In the aftermath of the fatal tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day,the survivors have hired a lawyer to investigate possible negligence on the zoo’s part. According to the lawyer, Mark Geragos, the three victims initially encountered the tiger at around 4:30 pm. The first 911 call was recorded at 5:07 pm from someone inside the zoo.

According to the victims, after failing to find safety inside the zoo’s closed cafeteria, they spotted a female security officer in a golfcart. The security officer apparently doubted the story of a lose and dangerous tiger. The first police log notation of the incident (at about 5:10 pm) shares the security’s officer skepticism: “Zoo personnel dispatch now say there are two males who the zoo thinks ... are 800 (code for mentally disturbed) and making something up ... but one is in fact bleeding from the back of the head.”

In the end, it took about 45 minutes for the 3 victims to receive any assistance. During that time, they were accused of being mentally disturbed and ignored. That attitude resulted in the death of Carlos Sousa, Jr., age 17. “They say they were acting crazy. ... I don't know how one is supposed to act after being attacked by a tiger,” Geragos said.

The zoo’s response? Sam Singer, a newly hired spokesman for the zoo, said Tuesday that “anything that a defense (sic) attorney says has to be taken with not a pinch of salt, but a ton of salt.” In addition, a witness has come forward to claim that four young men, not three, were heckling the tiger in question by “growling” at it.

Historically, individuals and institutions are held strictly liable for actions of wild and dangerous animals. Unfortunately for the zoo, ad hominem attacks on members of the legal profession may be insufficient to overturn centuries of common law. The 4-year-old Siberian, Tatiana, maimed her handler’s arm a year ago.

To learn more about personal injury issues, please see personal injury law.  TO learn more about our personal injury lawyers, please click on personal injury lawyers maryland, and view our firm bios on Andrew Bederman, Roger Greenberg, or Jason Fernandez..

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How to Handle Your Personal Injury Claim

Once you have hired a personal injury attorney to represent you in your automobile accident, you should follow some basic guidelines to help your case go as smoothly as possible. These are our suggestions we recommend that you follow to help ensure the success of your personal injury case.



Protect Yourself and Your Case

? Take Photographs. Please take color photos of your injuries and of the damage to your car or property as quickly as possible. Give the photos and negatives to us immediately. If you do not have access to a camera, we will make arrangements to take the photographs ourselves.

? Start a Personal Appointment Book. Write down the dates and times you will need to meet with your doctor, car repair shop, and other people as a result of the accident. If you don’t have an appointment book, you can use the appointment log at the end of this article.

? Keep us informed of Your Medical Treatment. Please keep us informed of all hospitals, doctors, clinics, etc. where you are treated for your injuries. If your doctor refers you to another doctor or specialist, please notify us immediately. Finally, please be sure to tell us when your doctors have completed their treatment.

? Keep All Your Bills and Get Receipts. Keep all your medical bills and mail them to us. In addition, get receipts for all prescriptions and medical appliances you buy as well as other medical related expenses you incur at your doctor’s request. And get receipts for all transportation expenses (bus, taxi, metro, parking, etc.) you incur traveling to and from the hospital, doctor or physical therapy. If you drive to the doctor, please write down the mileage for each visit. Please be sure to mail all of your receipts to us, along with your medical bills.

? Document Lost Wages. If you are unable to go to work, make sure you get a “disability certificate” from your doctor at each and every visit. Please mail this certificate to us for placement in your file. When you return to work, ask your employer to mail us a statement of the wages you lost because of the accident. This statement must be on your employer’s stationary and state your job title, hourly or salary pay, and the amount of time you missed as a result of the accident. It should be signed by a company official. A sample Loss of Wage Verification form is included at the end of this article.

? Keep A Diary. Keep a diary or make written notes of those days and nights, if any, that you experience severe pain or discomfort.

? Report Any Prior Injuries or Pain. Be sure to tell us about any pain or injury to any parts of your body that you had before the accident. Many cases may be lost because the injured person fails to disclose a previous injury.

? Keep Your Medical Cast or Brace. If your injury requires a cast, brace, traction or other medical appliance, make sure you save it. Notify us when your medical appliance is removed, so we can tell you what to do with it in preparing your case.

 

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As a plaintiffs’ lawyer, one of the most frustrating aspects of this vocation is the public perception of trial lawyers as “ambulance chasers” filing frivolous lawsuits at the expense of hard-working people. In social gatherings, when new acquaintances learn in what area of law I practice, there are occasionally comments or questions about allegedly frivolous lawsuits. When this happens, I make sure to provide a reasonable theory for liability and justice in these cases. Certainly, these anecdotes and stories are propaganda of the insurance industry and others so aligned.  A common trial technique is to discredit the opposition by making their theory of the case seem ridiculous.  In formal logic, this practice is called “creating a straw man.”  In this blog, I am going to be practicing my cocktail-party-debunking-skills.  Namely, every so often I’m going to examine a so-called “frivolous” lawsuit and explain a theory of liability that the insurance industry does not want you to know.

The First Entry is called “Case of the Flying Shrimp of Death”

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GMAC Insurance has surveyed drivers across the country to determine the quality of drivers on our nation's roads. The 2007 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test measured the knowledge of drivers by asking questions that could have appeared on the state's driving exam. 1 out of 6 persons would have failed the test (18%). The number of failures increased from 9% in 2006.

How did the Metro area fare? DC ranked 48th out of 51. Virginia ranked 41st. Maryland "topped" the Metro area by ranking 25th.

Despite the District's poor performance, it was the only of the three jurisdictions to have a decrease in the number of auto related fatalities from 2005 to 2006. Both Virginia and Maryland reported an increase in deaths according to numbers published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

What do these numbers mean for residents of the metro area? Be careful in the car. Driving is one of the most dangerous activities (if not the most dangerous) that Americans routinely do.

To learn more about automobile personal injury issues please see our website at auto accidents.  To learn more about our accident lawyers, please click on auto accident lawyers maryland, and read our firm bios on Andrew Bederman, Roger Greenberg, or Jason Fernandez.

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Personal Injury - How Law Firms are Paid

In personal injury cases, Greenberg and Bederman is paid on a contingency basis. This means that if the case is won, Greenberg & Bederman will take a percentage of the recovery as a fee, and will also recover its costs. The balance of the recovery will go to the client. Either the money will go to pay the client’s medical expenses, or will go directly to the client. If the case is lost, the client will not be responsible for legal fees, but will still be responsible for their medical bills.

Contingency billing makes it possible for people to have access to the legal system even if they do not enough money to hire a lawyer who expects to be paid whether the case is won or lost.

Many people do not like the idea of contingency billing, since they feel that it encourages frivolous law suits. There is no doubt that some law suits are filed which have no merit. They waste the court’s time and cause delay. They are brought by people who are angry at the way they have been treated, who feel that they have been insulted, who are primarily interested in revenge. The people who are sued must defend themselves, and may incur large legal expenses.

The British legal system handles such cases very differently. Under British rules, the loser in a civil suit must pay the legal expenses for both sides. This certainly discourages frivolous lawsuits. But the British pay a very high price for this rule. Bringing a lawsuit is so risky that most people cannot consider doing it, because the possible expenses in case of loss are so great. The result is that the average British citizen has no access to the legal system. In cases of personal injury, most people are at the mercy of insurance companies, since insurance companies have lawyers and the average citizen does not.

Perhaps the best example of the drawbacks of the British system is the famous case of Robert Maxwell.

Maxwell was a Russian who was born in 1923. During World War II he served in the British Army, became a commissioned officer and a British citizen, and took the name of Robert Maxwell. He became extremely wealthy, and built a huge business empire, including many newspapers. He was always a controversial figure, and there were rumors of improprieties and unethical financial dealings. He did not hesitate to sue anyone for libel who said anything about him that he did not like.

Eventually he disappeared from his yacht, and was later found floating in the ocean. Foul play was suspected, thought nothing was ever proven. But after his death his business empire collapsed. It turned out that he had been guilty of all sorts of financial misconduct, including misappropriation of funds and bank fraud. His businesses went bankrupt, there were huge losses, and many of his employees had their pensions wiped out. It was a first-class financial scandal.

Why was he able to get away with such massive misconduct? The British rules concerning lawsuits were one of the principle reasons. Many people suspected that Maxwell was guilty of misconduct, but no one dared to say anything in public. They knew that they would be sued for libel if they did. The only way that they could defend themselves under British procedure was to prove to the court’s satisfaction that what they had said about Maxwell was true. Maxwell’s businesses were so complex, and so little information about them was publicly available, that they would never be able to do this. They would inevitably lose. They would have to pay whatever judgment the court imposed, they would have to pay their own legal expenses, and in addition they would have to pay for all of Maxwell’s legal expenses as well. They had to assume that they would face total financial ruin. As a result, no one dared to say anything.

The British system certainly keeps frivolous lawsuits under control, but the price is high. Contingency billing has drawbacks, but it allows the average citizen access to the legal system in order to defend their interests.
 

To learn more about personal injury issues, please click on  personal injury law.  To learn more about our personal injury lawyers, please click on personal injury lawyers maryland, and read our firm bios on Andrew Bederman, Roger Greenerg, or Jason Fernandez.

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