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

 

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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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 The safety systems of the entire Metro subway system in the D.C. area were so neglected and out of date that any “accident” should have been called“inevitability.”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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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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 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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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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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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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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In the current health care debate, we hear many of the naysayers use the argument that they don’t want “some faceless bureaucrat in Washington making decisions about our healthcare.” We find that argument strange, mainly because as things stand right now, decisions about your healthcare are made by a faceless insurance adjuster. The decisions aren’t based whether or not the treatment is what’s best for the patient, but rather on whether or not the insurance company is willing to pay for them. We have noticed that many of the scare tactics used by opponents of health care are simply recitations of the status quo. They aren’t creating the imagery of some Orwellian nightmare as much as they are simply shining a spotlight on how things currently are.

As an example, consider the case of James D, who suffered a broken leg.  At the time of his injury, he was an editor at the Washington bureau of a well regarded science magazine.  His employee health insurance was covered by United Health Care, which is one of the largest private medical insurers in the United States.

What was thought to be a straightforward injury claim turned into an 18 month odyssey in which James was facing $30,000 worth of denied medical bills.  Anyone who believes that health care coverage in this country does not need reforming should probably hear his story.

GB: Tell us about the circumstances of your injury.

JD: I slipped and fell and broke my leg in three places. That was all there was to it. This was during the winter, and it was snowing outside, and I thought I had salted the walkway to my house the night before as well as I could, but it seems that I missed a spot. That was the spot that I stepped on the next morning, of course. I stepped on some ice, and I fell, and there went my leg.

GB: That could have happened to anybody.

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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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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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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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This is a true story that Greenberg & Bederman is sharing that happened to a colleague of ours to illustrate yet another reason our country is in a healthcare crisis.

Back in 2003, I got sick.

I know that isn’t the most earth-shattering of statements. Everybody gets sick, after all. But I got VERY sick.

At the time, I had just gotten out of college and was struggling to find a job. In order to pay the bills I began substitute teaching, which meant that every day I was sent into a different classroom full children, with the age ranging anywhere from 5 to 17. On occasion I would end up in a high school, but for the most part my duties would involve looking after grade school students.

Young children, as many of you who are parents may know, are quite susceptible to illness and infections. And considering that I was a bachelor in his twenties, I can tell you with great certainty that my immune system wasn’t exactly operating at its peak performance. So within three weeks of starting my substitute teaching duties, I got a sore throat.

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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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In the twenty five years since we began our practice, one constant that we hear quite often from many of our injury victim clients are worries about “Pre-existing conditions.”

The style and syntax of the worries vary from person to person, but if we were to average them out into one sentence it would be this:

“The insurance company says that they won’t pay for the needed treatment because they say that the reason the injury was so bad was because of a pre-existing condition.”

If that seems a little hard to follow, here is a more concrete example.

Mr. X is driving down 395 at fifty miles an hour. A car in the lane to his right suddenly swerves into his lane without signaling. Mr. X’s car is sideswiped and is sent careening into the highway divider. Mr. X suffers a dislocated shoulder when his body slams up against the seatbelt.

Mr. X already has a particularly weak shoulder due to the fact that he used to be on the wrestling team in high school and suffered from a torn rotator cuff. Because of this previous damage, it will take surgery and physical therapy in order to get Mr. X’s shoulder back to normal.

The insurance company of the driver that hit Mr. X tells him that they will only pay for a pre-determined amount, which is usually an “average” of what they think a similar injury would cost. As far as they are concerned, the costs of the extra surgery and the physical therapy are not their problem, because these conditions were “pre-existing,” or, Mr. X had these problems before the accident occurred.

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On June 15^th, President Obama gave a speech to the American Medical Association in Chicago. Considering that a big part of the President’s agenda involves health care, it can be assumed that he attached a great deal of importance to this speech. Any kind of health care reform would be very difficult to pull off without the support of the biggest and most influential medical advocacy group in the country.

Right off the bat, Mr. Obama offered a real example as to the realities of our health care system when he described the working day of a doctor in New Hampshire:

“Our costly health care system is unsustainable for doctors like Michael Kahn in New Hampshire, who, as he puts it, spends 20 percent of each day supervising a staff explaining insurance problems to patients, completing authorization forms, and writing appeal letters; a routine that he calls disruptive and distracting, giving him less time to do what he became a doctor to do and actually care for his patients.”

He also gave an example as to how things were going among those of us who have to pay for the premiums:

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There doesn’t seem to be much you can do to avoid the high cost of health care these days.

In 2008, total spending on health care was $2.8 TRILLION. In case you aren’t sure how much that is, it’s enough to pay for all the goods and services produced in Australia in one year. It’s enough to fund the military of every country in NATO combined. It’s more than the value of every stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

It is, in short, a whole lot of money.

For those of us who have health insurance, that $2.8 trillion doesn’t just factor in the trips you make to the doctor or the deductibles that you have to pay. It also factors in your monthly insurance premiums, and any prescriptions that you have to have filled. Those of us without health insurance are also contributing a great deal to the overall total.

The vast majority of us in this country aren’t too thrilled about this, but we can tell you with great certainty that HMO’s, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are as pleased as they could possibly be with those numbers.

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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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Is getting ripped off “Usual” and “Customary?”

For the health care consumers all over the country, that has apparently been the case.

Back in January, New York Attorney General Anthony Cuomo pulled the plug on Ingenix, owner and operator of the biggest health care billing software in America.

The reason Ingenix was targeted by Mr. Cuomo was because of its billing practices when policyholders used out of network services. The “out of network” option is offered as a service on many health care policies, for which policy holders usually pay extra. If through choice or circumstance you found yourself using the services of a health care provider who isn’t affiliated with your health plan, the “out of network” option is supposed to cover somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of the cost while you pay the rest.

But it didn’t work like that in real life. If the insurance companies simply said “Ok, you have a bill for $1000, we’ll pay $800 and you’ll pay $200,” Ingenix wouldn’t have had a reason to exist at all. Instead, Ingenix used its software to apply a sort of alchemy to its billing practices, with the end result being that policyholders who were using out of network services were being forced to pay way more than they should have. The rub in the software came in what was called the “Usual and Customary” rate, with “Usual and Customary” meaning the “average” costs for a given service.

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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 APersonal 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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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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The Colossus Program

Insurance claims adjusters used to be people who were well trained and thoroughly experienced. They had to know about car accidents, repair costs, medical costs and economics. They had to go through each individual accident claim and factor in how much it would cost to repair the car, how much the medical bills could reasonably be expected to cost, how much money the accident victim would lose because of time missed from work, and basically get a handle on any conceivable monetary issues that might come up during the course of the claim.

That sort of expertise isn’t required anymore. These days, insurance adjusters are essentially no more than cubicle dwelling button pushers who don’t need to know much of anything about the costs of car accidents, or medical bills, or economic loss. A computer program called Colossus handles all of that for them.

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Bad Faith and Insurance

On the surface, an insurance policy seems like a straightforward proposition. You pay an insurer a certain amount of money every month in case something bad happens, and if something bad does occur, the insurer is supposed to provide the funds necessary to see you through it.

But as many injury victims have found out, it’s hardly ever that simple.

Insurance companies seem to live in a parallel universe where a contract is more of a suggestion rather than a binding legal agreement. Many insurers routinely offer settlements that are worth much less than what would be necessary to cover the damages. And if these initial offers are refused, they have the time and money to simply wait out the injury victim. They don’t return calls and ignore e-mails, secure in the knowledge that at some point the injury victim will start to need any bit of money that they can get.

This might seem like something that a fly-by-night insurance company would do, but in fact these are standard procedures used by some of the biggest insurers in the country.

For instance, Allstate has recently been exposed as using the “wait it out” method of dealing with those who file claims:

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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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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.

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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.

Continue Reading...

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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” Continue Reading...

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The LA Times is reporting that Health Net, Inc. gave bonuses to employees based on how many policies were canceled or dropped. The state of California slapped a $1 million dollar fine on the company for this practice. Technically, the fine is not for that particular conduct. The fine is for lying to investigators about the policy on two separate occasions. In addition to the fine, the insurer has agreed to discontinue the practice.

California is currently investigating the coverage policies of 4 other companies -- Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc., PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., Blue Cross of California, Blue Shield of California.

This is just ANOTHER reminder that insurance companies are corporations. Corporations exist to make a profit for their shareholders. They DO NOT EXIST to help people. If so, they would be charities. Insurance companies make money by denying claims.

For a detailed review of how denying claims and/or raising premiums creates a profit see here.

To learn more about persona injury insurance issues please go to 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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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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