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

As a real-world example as to how bad an idea privatization can be, consider what happened to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. This is an independent government agency that has a function similar to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, except that while FDIC guarantees bank deposits up to $100,000, the PBGC guarantees pension programs. In other words, if your pension plan goes belly up due to bad investments, the PBGC is there to guarantee that you will receive your retirement money.

One of the reasons that the PBGC is able to do this is because they keep their money in bonds and securities, specifically bonds and securities that are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. At least, they did until 2008. It was at this point that PBGC head Charles Millard thought that it would be a good idea to create a new “investment strategy,” which involved moving 45% of the PBGC’s assets into the stock market. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

From theAssociated Press, October 24, 2008:

WASHINGTON — The federal agency charged with backstopping pension benefits for 44 million Americans lost almost $5 billion from investments in stocks in the budget year that ended Sept. 30, the agency head acknowledged Friday.

The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. will lose 6 percent to 7 percent on its entire investment portfolio, PBGC Director Charles Millard told the House Education and Labor Committee. It lost a significantly higher percentage of its investments in equities.

In other words, Mr. Millard thought it would be a good idea to put pension guaranty funds into stocks instead of boring old bonds. And as everybody knows, stocks can turn valueless practically overnight. Can you imagine what would have happened to the retirement savings of millions of Americans if they had put their money in the stock market? What if their investor told them that mortgage backed securities were the way to go? Or to pool their resources so they could get in on what this guy Bernard Madoff had going on?

Privatization or turning the retirement money of Social Security over to everyone in America is not any way to “save” it. In fact, we aren’t even convinced that it needs to be “saved.” Many people are under the impression that when the money for Social Security is taken out of your paycheck, it is then put in a specific account for you. But that isn’t what happens, any more than an insurance company would take your premium dollars and put it aside for you specifically when you get into an accident. The money that you put into Social Security is used to pay the benefits of current recipients, and what is left over is put into the Social Security Trust Fund.

To be sure, sometimes the government borrows money from the Social Security Trust Fund. But they pay it back with interest. And while the mass retirement of the baby boomers might cause the United States to occasionally dip into the trust fund, the only way that it could be completely depleted would be if it were completely deprived of income. If you can foresee a future where absolutely nobody in the United States is working at all, then you can imagine Social Security “running out of money.” If you can also make the assumption that absolutely everyone in America will live to be 100 years old, then you can imagine that Social Security will run out of money. And if you can further make the assumption that absolutely everyone in America will make it to the age of 65 to begin collecting Social Security benefits, then you can imagine that Social Security will go bankrupt. If you can imagine that the economy will continue to be in bad shape for the next 40 years and nobody will pay in as much, then you can imagine that Social Security will go bankrupt.

We don’t practice disability law with the vision of all of those scenarios taking place, so we can’t imagine Social Security going bankrupt. When we help our clients get Social Security disability benefits, we do so with full confidence in the funding.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury and Social Security disability law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to the newly disabled, particularly those who have been injured due to no fault of their own. If you or a loved one in Virginia, Maryland or D.C. needs the services of an injury lawyer, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

But there are two major differences between my experience with the coffee and Ms. Liebeck’s. In the first place, Ms. Liebeck accidentally spilled the entire cup into her lap. Secondly, Ms. Liebeck’s coffee was about 40 to 50 degrees hotter than the coffee that comes out of my coffee maker at home. It’s the difference between “hot” and “third degree burns.” Ms. Liebeck spent about eight days in the hospital, and her burns required skin grafts and painful recuperation. 

When you ask the tort reform people about this case, this is where they usually say “…and this woman sued McDonald’s for $1 million, and she won!”  But actually, that isn’t what happened at all.

Mrs. Liebeck asked for $20,000, mainly because she underwent painful skin grafts. McDonald’s refused her claim. If McDonalds had simply paid $20,000, they could have avoided the whole thing. Instead, they offered her around $600, which doesn’t seem like a lot for that much time in the hospital. So the case was essentially forced to move on to trial.

During the discovery portion of this trial, Ms. Liebeck’s attorneys discovered that between 1982 and 1992, more than 700 people had filed claims against McDonald’s because they had been burned by the coffee there. Ms. Liebeck’s claim was hardly an isolated incident. Upon further investigation, Ms. Liebeck’s attorneys determined that the coffee at McDonalds was kept heated between 180 and 190 degrees. Denny’s didn’t do that. Waffle House didn’t do that. Nor did Burger King, Krispy Kreme, Wendy’s, or any other major restaurant chain. In fact, McDonalds had specially built heaters that kept the coffee at that temperature.

180 degree liquid can cause a full thickness skin burn in around 2 seconds. So essentially, Mrs. Liebeck was only one out of 700 people who had been injured by coffee that was kept dangerous due to a companywide policy. McDonald’s couldn’t claim that Mrs. Liebeck’s claim was unheard of or ridiculous, not with over 700 similar claims in their history.

The jury awarded Mrs. Liebeck $180,000 for her ordeal and stay in the hospital. The so called “million dollar verdict” was initially $2.7 million in punitive damages, which was later knocked down to $480,000. The punitive damages did not exist to make Mrs. Liebeck rich, but rather, as the term indicates, to punish McDonald’s for knowingly having a dangerous corporate policy in place. As a result of this verdict, McDonald’s has since lowered the temperature of its coffee, and nobody has been severely burned since.

We don’t find anything “frivolous” about third degree burns or eight days in the hospital. Nor do we find anything “frivolous” about a company that knowingly serves products in a dangerous manner. But for some reason, tort reformers everywhere latched on to this case and turned what Mrs. Liebeck went through into a joke, or portrayed it as a money grabbing con game.

From what we understand of it, Hot Coffee not only tells Mrs. Liebeck’s side of the story, but also delves into a few other notable cases where Americans have actually lost their right to a court hearing, thanks mainly to fake outrage and tort reform legislation that was ginned up after Mrs. Liebeck’s verdict came in. We would urge everyone to see this film once it is released nationwide.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to people in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. who have been injured due to no fault of their own. We help people who have been injured in car accidents, pedestrian accidents, and people who have been injured due to medical malpractice. If you or a loved one has been injured due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

The report also claims that of the 1600 cases of acute liver failure each year, and acetaminophen is the leading reason. Also mentioned in the report are 56,000 emergency room visits, 26,000 hospitalizations, and 458 deaths over a ten year period. This is quite a number for something that costs about 10 cents a pill.

There are two elements of this problem, one of which is based on the ingredients. When it is taken, a small percentage of acetaminophen is converted into a metabolite, which in this case is toxic. In small doses, this is something the liver can manage. This is actually what the liver is for. Alcohol is a metabolite as well.

The problems start to happen when the metabolites build up faster than the liver can handle them. This is similar to the problems that occur with chronic drinkers. If a person has the occasional beer, it’s not a problem, but if he drinks a significant amount over the years, one of the more common medical ailments is liver failure. Likewise, if a person habitually takes more than the recommended dose of Tylenol or any other acetaminophen based pill, liver failure could easily be the result.

This brings us to the second element of the problem, which has been a lack of information on the part of Johnson and Johnson, which is the company that makes Tylenol. Most of us have a bottle of Tylenol in our medicine cabinets. If you take a look at it, you will most certainly see a warning label. But you have to look hard to find it. The website has more information, which reads as follows:

“Overdose warning: Taking more than the recommended dose (overdose) may cause liver damage. In case of overdose, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away. (1-800-222-1222). Quick medical attention is critical for adults as well as for children even if you do not notice any signs or symptoms.”

This is sound advice, but it seems a bit misleading. When most of us think of the word “overdose,” particularly when it comes to pills, we think of someone taking about twenty or thirty of them on purpose. You don’t necessarily have to have that printed on the warning label. We think what needs to be on there is a warning about chronic overuse.

Everybody knows somebody who always seems to have a headache, or knows someone who has a bad back, or a mild case of arthritis. They always have a jumbo size bottle of Tylenol in their desks, purses or glove compartments. These are the folks who take three or four Tylenols every four hours or so, and we believe they could use some straight shooting from Johnson and Johnson or any other company that makes acetaminophen based pain relievers. We hope to provide it to them now, because we seriously doubt Johnson and Johnson will.

If you are a person who suffers from chronic mild pain, please stick to recommended dosages when you take Tylenol. Don’t take more than what is printed on the label. While there is a definite risk to overdosing, there is also serious danger in taking even a little bit more than you are supposed to over a long period of time. There has been enough evidence over the years that taking acetaminophen in this manner is dangerous. All the FDA did was mention what Johnson and Johnson should have been warning people about all along.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have suffered from liver damage due to the use of Tylenol or other acetaminophen-based medications. We believe that Johnson and Johnson deliberately understated the danger that their product can cause, and we believe that they also failed to adequately warn the public about the consequences of taking this medication in the wrong way. If you or a loved one has been injured or hospitalized due to the use of Tylenol or any other medicine based on acetaminophen, contact Greenberg & Bederman today for a free legal consultation. 

There are quite a few things wrong with these assumptions. In the first place, we have yet to see medical malpractice insurance companies dramatically lower their rates in states where these caps have been put in place. Nor have patients who have been injured by their doctors suddenly stopped filing lawsuits. It seems to us that the only people who are helped by caps on damages in medical malpractice cases are the medical malpractice insurance companies, and considering that malpractice insurers are more profitable than 99% of all Fortune 500 companies, it doesn’t seem like they need much help at all.

Another troubling element about these caps is that they seem to favor those who are financially well off but completely disregards the suffering of those who are not. Economic damages basically compensate you for the amount of money that you lost due to the negligent actions of your doctor or surgeon. This can be a significant amount if you happen to be a stock broker, airline pilot, or if you happen to be a doctor yourself. That amount can be even more if the actions of the doctor or surgeon prevent you from returning to your job. But if you happen to be a retail worker or if you happen to work in a restaurant, the amount of compensation won’t amount to much, particularly once your insurance company goes through its usual round of claim rejections. So for those of us who don’t make millions of dollars a year, non-economic compensation is particularly important. Ultimately, what these caps do is make it incredibly hard for malpractice injury victims to collect for damages suffered as a result of negligence. Plaintiffs have to hire attorneys if they’ve been wrongfully injured, and these attorneys work on a contingency basis. Often expensive expert witnesses have to be hired. If there is a strict cap on non-economic damages, quite often the process of bringing a malpractice case to court becomes financially impossible. So while this legislation would not specifically make it illegal to file a medical malpractice case, it might certainly make it impossible financially. A malpractice suit would become the equivalent of buying a Lamborghini. Theoretically, anyone is able to buy one. But there are very few of us who can actually afford to do so.

The memorandum for today’s hearing gives us the inevitable mention of “frivolous lawsuits,” which to us is simply corporate-speak for “lawsuits that do not benefit us directly.” Coincidentally, today we also read a story from Northern Virginia Daily which gives a little more perspective on the sort of cases that would essentially no longer exist in America if H.R. 5 were to become law.

A 29 year old woman in Winchester, Virginia was suffering from persistent diarrhea and went to see a doctor. The doctor decided to perform a colonoscopy. When she was given a preparation medication before the colonoscopy took place, she had a great deal of difficulty handling it. She was suffering from nausea, abdominal pain and cramping. Rather than ascertain the cause of this pain, the doctor simply gave her Demoral and went ahead with the colonoscopy. The end result of this was that the woman had her colon perforated, which only added to her already existing medical problems. The woman came very close to dying.

If the allegations in the official complaint are correct, the doctor failed the patient in a number of ways, and her injuries are extensive. But let’s say that these medical malpractice caps are put into place. What are her options? She could still sue the doctor, of course. But what does she do for a living? Does she manage a bank? Is she an executive with Lockheed Martin? Is she a housewife? Is she a waitress? With H.R. 5 as established law of the land, that could matter more than the extent of her injuries,whether or not the doctor was guilty of negligence.

Greenberg and Bederman is a medical malpractice law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured due to the negligence or incompetence of a medical professional. We have helped hundreds of medical malpractice victims in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia receive fair treatment from the court system. If you or a loved one has been injured due to an instance of medical malpractice,  contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free medical malpractice legal consultation.

All of these numbers were put together in a very interesting New York Timesarticle, which can be somewhat uncomfortable to read. The article outlines what is essentially a cost/benefit analysis where they determine whether or not new regulations on industry would be financially feasible. For instance, let’s say that there is a new technology that would prevent a certain type of accident, but it is an accident that happens relatively rarely. Federal agencies would then take their version of monetary value of a human life, multiply it by the amount of times that particular accident happens, and then compare that number to the cost of forcing industries to implement that technology. This is not to say that this formula is the arbiter of whether regulation gets put into place, but if the cost of implementing regulation is much cheaper than the cost of lost human life, it certainly makes a clear argument for enacting that regulation. The howls of protest that come from businesses and industries of all types are quite interesting, particularly because they are placed in the awkward position of having to haggle over what they truly believe a human life is worth. After all, the more human life is valued financially, the more likely they are to have to obey regulations that could cost them money.

As mentioned in the article, one group that is very much against increasing the value of human life is the Chamber of Commerce, who are doing everything they can to encourage more Congressional control over regulations in general. If you wish to know exactly how much they think a human life is worth, all you have to do is take a look at the non-economic damage caps that are in place in quite a few states. These caps are in place largely because of the legislative influence of the Chamber of Commerce.

Alabama, for instance, believes that a human life is worth a maximum of $400,000. Alaska believes a human life is worth $250,000. Maryland is a bit more generous, with a current cap of $680,000. Virginia believes human life is worth $2 million. And there are several other states that have determined that if you subtract what you are worth financially, then your life in general is worth significantly less than what the federal government has determined it is worth.

We have a hard time accepting caps of any sort, regardless of whether they are on the high or low ends of the spectrum. We have a problem with caps primarily because we have a serious problem with the idea of a predetermined monetary value placed on human life. But we would at least admit that the amounts that the federal agencies use for their arithmetic seem reasonable, even if the industries that fight against regulation do not. And if you are going to place a strict monetary value on a human life, wouldn’t it seem decent to have it on the higher side rather the lower? In many of the states where these caps are in place, the compensation levels can barely be called compensation, and actually price many injury victims directly out of the courtroom. That’s fine for the insurance companies, and its fine for the businesses, but for people who get injured due to the negligence of someone else, “equal justice under the law” is a theory rather than a fact.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured in car or truck accidents, pedestrian or bicycle accidents, medical malpractice, product liability or premises liability. If you or a loved one in Virginia, Maryland or D.C. has been injured in an accident due the actions of someone else,  contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation.

What is puzzling to us about the fatality cases is that there seems to be a lack of interest on the part of the police to charge the drivers for the accidents. Out of the ten fatalities, only one driver was charged, and  he was drunk and tried to flee the scene. Nobody was charged when Constance Holden was hit by a military truck on her way home. Nobody was charged when David Williams was hit from behind by two cars, one of which fled the scene. Nobody was charged when 9 year old Rebecca Johns was hit and killed as she tried to cross a road in Franconia.

We aren’t sure why this is.  If you ride a bicycle in D.C, Maryland or Virginia are you expected to just take your chances? Are motorcycle riders treated the same way? What about pedestrians? Can you expect to receive no justice from the law when you are not in a car?

One example of this occurred very recently in Arlington on Clarendon Boulevard, which is incidentally one of the streets where there was a fatality in 2010. A bicyclist was travelling down the street when a car owner opened the car door. The bicyclist was “doored,” as the cyclists call it. This is when you collide with a suddenly opened door and then are essentially catapulted over it onto the street.

The police arrived at the scene and questioned both the car owner and the bicyclist. The cyclist claimed that he wasn’t really hurt, so the police sent them both on their way. The problem here is that the cyclist actually was hurt, but didn’t discover this until later.

This is a common occurrence. We have served many clients over the years that didn’t learn about the extent of the damage done to them until much later. Brain injuries often work that way, as does spinal damage or deep bruises. The effects aren’t immediately felt.

Later, when the cyclist realized that he was injured and would need medical care, he contacted the police and found that the officer at the scene had not filed a report. So there was no way for the cyclist to get any insurance information from the man who opened the car door.

Although there is somewhat of a happy ending here (Arlington PD have followed up personally with the bicyclist,)  the end result could be that the victim here might have to go out of pocket for medical expenses, which could be considerable. If you couple that with the fact that he would have to pay for injuries he sustained due to the negligence of someone else, you have to wonder why it was that the police didn’t file a report.

Bicyclists have as much right to our streets as cars and motorcycles do, and if they are struck by motorists, they need to receive the same care as a motorcycle or auto accident victim requires. Your responsibilites don’t disappear when you climb on to a bike, and neither should the responsibility of motorists or the police.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to bicyclists and pedestrians who have been injured due to the actions of motorists. If you or a loved one in Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C. has been injured in a bicycle accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation.

But it absolutely is in Texas. If you get treated by an emergency room doctor down there, and he makes a critical mistake, essentially all he has to do is say “I didn’t mean to,” and that keeps the victim of that mistake from collecting any damages, regardless of how bad the damage is.

The fine print in the law that capped non-economic damages at $250,000 had special protections for emergency room doctors, each of whom are now protected from penalties in court unless it can be proven that their negligence was “willful and wanton.” That phrase essentially means that whatever you did, you did so knowing that it would harm other people. And you are more likely to find Bigfoot riding a unicorn than any doctor anywhere who will admit to that.

Here is a real life example as to how this protection has further victimized people who have been injured by doctor’s mistakes. A woman with a history of blood clotting went to the emergency room of a San Antonio hospital because of leg pain. The ER doctor there sent her home with a diagnosis of “bilateral leg pain,” and advised her to follow up with her primary care physician. Three days later, she was in a different hospital, this time with tissue death in her legs and kidney failure. A filter that she had had placed in one of the veins in her heart was clogged up, which led to incredibly bad clotting.  Doctors had to amputate both of her legs.

Ultimately, the doctor who initially saw her and told her to follow up with her primary care physician must bear some responsibility. He didn’t ask the right questions, or he didn’t take the time to look into her case as thoroughly as he should have, and as a result this woman is a double amputee. But since he didn’t do any of these things on purpose, he gets a pass.

When you read about this case and others like it in Texas, you almost want to scream to the heavens. “Of COURSE he didn’t do it on purpose! He’s not a monster! He’s simplynegligent!” Medical malpractice suits aren’t filed because lawyers hate doctors. Medical malpractice suits are filed because sometimes doctors make easily preventable mistakes, and these mistakes have serious consequences. No lawyer would make the argument that a doctor gave the wrong diagnosis just to be mean. The argument is not “Did he mean to do it?” The argument is “Could have this been prevented if reasonable standards and practices had been used?” But the fine print in the laws of Texas essentially shifts all of the arguments into unwinnable territory for anyone who walks into an emergency room and is the victim of a doctor’s mistake.

These laws were not put into place to make things better for doctors or patients. They were put into place so malpractice insurance companies could continue to have profitable years. Call us crazy, but we think the financial health of an insurer should be the last thing on the list of priorities when you walk into a hospital.

Greenberg and Bederman is a medical malpractice law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to people in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. who have been injured due to the negligence or incompetence of doctors or surgeons. If you have been injured due to the actions of a doctor, contact a medical malpractice attorney for a free malpractice legal consultation today.

While the chemicals involved certainly did their job, they also wreaked havoc on the rural civilian population of Vietnam. Tens of thousands of civilians died early of cancer, and tens of thousands of children were born seriously deformed. And among the helicopter pilots, vehicle loaders and Special Forces units who handled the herbicide, the rate of cancer and birth defects skyrocketed.

There were two sorts of chemicals that were used to defoliate the jungles of Southeast Asia. One was called Agent Blue, but the chemical that was deemed the most effective and therefore saw the most use was called Agent Orange.

The Vietnam War was close to 40 years ago, and Southeast Asia is practically on the other side of the world, but if you think that the use of Agent Orange by the United States is not something that you should be concerned with, you should think again. Particularly if you live in the Baltimore-Washington area.

Frederick News-Post, 11/18/10: The Army sprayed about 17 pounds of a main Agent Orange ingredient on sections of Fort Detrick between 1944 and 1968, an official announced at a meeting Wednesday night. Randal Curtis, program manager for the St. Louis district of the Army Corps of Engineers, presented the preliminary Archives Search Report to the Fort Detrick Restoration Advisory Board. The findings were based on technical reports, standard operating procedures, lab notes, maps and photos uncovered in archive and records locations around the country. Curtis' office was tasked with sifting through these documents for any information on 2,4,5-T, one of two main ingredients in Agent Orange.

According to the preliminary report, Fort Detrick was the headquarters of the Chemical Warfare Service's special projects division during and after World War II, making it a hub for offensive and defensive biological research and development. 2, 4, 5-T was tested at Fort Detrick in three main time periods: 1944-1951, 1953 and 1961-1963.

As you can probably infer from that story, Agent Orange was not the only chemical that was tested on the grounds of Fort Detrick. But Agent Orange was sprayed into the ground, and the harmful effects of this chemical is well documented. And if you consider that Fort Detrick is currently the site of Army medical research, and that it used to be the headquarters of the Army biological and chemical weapons program, you can well imagine that the health of the surrounding residents is probably considerably worse than those who do not live near there.

The EPA has designated Fort Detrick a Superfund Cleanup Site, which means that in terms of the level of toxic waste and the potential harm that this place can do to the environment and the health of people around the area, its cleanup is an absolute priority. But that is small consolation to those who have already gotten sick, or worse. Frederick County is currently determining whether or not the surrounding area will officially be designated a cancer cluster, but even if they determine that it is not, it is impossible to imagine that sixty years of chemical and biological weapons testing and medical waste dumping had no effect on the groundwater or air quality for nearby residents.

Greenberg and Bederman is currently offering legal help for residents around Fort Detrick, Maryland who have suffered from unexplained illnesses, including birth defects, throat cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer or other serious diseases. We believe that the groundwater and air around Fort Detrick has been responsible for a high level of diseases and illnesses, and it is our hope that we can secure compensation for the victims. If you or a loved one has been affected by the pollution near Fort Detrick, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation. 

The way that these corporations are going about it is essentially the same way that malpractice insurance companies went about getting their protections. In 8 easy steps, here is the process:

1.       Drastically raise rates or prices on your products or services with the cooperation of your direct competitiors. “We’re sorry, but we have to charge you twice as much this month.”

2.       Blame the price hike on lawyers. “We get sued so much that the only way we can stay solvent as a business is to increase our rates!”

3.       Find overblown examples of lawsuits and present them as an everyday occurrence. “Remember that Judge who sued the dry cleaner for $50 million? That happens every single day.”

4.       Focus on an aspect of the judicial system that is not advantageous to you and pretend that this aspect affects everyone much more than it actually does. “Innocent, hardworking Americans all live under the threat of runaway, out of control punitive damages.”

5.        Claim that our judicial system is “in crisis,” utilize public relations, media outlets and lobbyists to hammer home the idea that something has to be done. “The National Lawsuit Crisis is making it impossible for hard working Americans to do anything. You can’t go get the newspaper without somebody suing you for punitive damages these days.”

6.       Lobby pro-business politicians for a legislative fix: “America cannot survive unless we enact strict limits on punitive damages.”

7.       Get caps on damages legislation pushed through sympathetic state assemblies. “The Americans for Liberty, Justice and Freedom Act has saved the country from utter ruin.”

8.        Celebrate the protections this legislation has provided your business by reducing your rates by about half of the amount you increased them initially. “See? Our rates have dropped! The system works!”

This is not an exaggeration. Medical malpractice companies pulled this stunt in the early 2000’s almost to perfection, and to this day there are still non-economic damage caps in multiple states. And while the rates have gone down, in many cases they haven’t dropped down to pre-“crisis” levels.

Before you start believing the tales of woe and horror of innocent, hard working businessmen driven to ruin due to punitive damages, here are a few things you should know.

In the first place, punitive damages are a fairly rare occurrence. It is very difficult to prove that a corporation (or even a person) did something grossly negligent on purpose. For instance, in the current Toyota recall cases, Toyota’s defense will be that they had absolutely no idea that so many of their cars were defective, and the burden of proving that will be on the prosecution. Secondly, in tort cases (injury cases,) only 3% of the tens of thousands of cases that happen every year involve punitive damages.

Nor is every punitive damage verdict an automatic seven figures in the bank account of the plaintiff. Most punitive damages are significantly less. In fact, the median punitive damage award is around $55,000. To be sure, that is a great deal of money if the defendant is a small business owner or private citizen, but when the plaintiff is a multi-billion dollar corporation, it is difficult to muster the sort of sympathy that the tort reform organizations seem to require of you.

So if the average monetary amount of punitive damages is so low, and punitive damages happen so rarely, why is it that corporations and insurers and tort reform organizations are trying to put lids on them? Probably because they know all too well that occasionally, there will be an Exxon Valdez. There will be a BP oil well leak. There will be a Dalkon Shield, or a Vioxx, or a Phen Fen. All of these corporations know that there will inevitably be a faulty product or an easily preventable disaster, but they don’t know when it will happen. So rather than face the music eventually, it’s better to fix the system now.

To understand the nature of punitive damages, you simply have to look at the word. “Punitive” means “to punish.” The most effective way to hurt a corporation is by attacking its wallets. A massive chemical conglomerate may come to the realization that there is a right way and a wrong way to do business if their actions cost them millions of dollars. If there is a “cap” on punitive damages, that cap can simply be factored in to whatever they choose to do. Punitive damages should not be written off as simply a cost of doing business. The amount should not be capped, nor should it be predictable. They exist to remind companies and corporations that their actions have consequences.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Maryland injury law firm. We are currently offering legal help to people who have been injured due to no fault of their own. That includes people in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. who have been injured in car accidents, injured due to medical malpractice, injured due to environmental or groundwater pollution, or injured due to dangerous and defective pharmaceutical drugs. If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

These caps also tie the hands of judges, who might otherwise decide that a victim of medical malpractice has suffered so much that he or she certainly deserves more than the $200,000 or $300,000 that is the limit in states that have these caps.

There are similar policies in place that have also negated the opinions of judges and juries. Many drug cases in this country are decided based on what are called mandatory minimum sentences, which means a uniform standard of punishment for drug related offences. What this means is that a person who is caught with a certain amount of drugs gets a standard prison sentence, regardless of what the circumstances are. If a person who has no criminal record is caught with three ounces of cocaine, he or she would get the exact same prison sentence as a person with multiple prior convictions. Even if the judge or jury thinks that the person convicted deserves a much lighter sentence, the juries’ opinion is meaningless and the judge’s hands are tied. Even if the defendant pleads guilty and co-operates with the police, the sentence would be the same if the defendant clammed up and forced the state to go through a trial that lasted months.  It is justice by rubber stamp, or justice by conversion chart.

These sentencing guidelines and damage caps essentially work under the idea that all of the cases are exactly alike, and therefore any sentences or judgments should be exactly alike. But we can tell you from  experience that no medical malpractice case is identical. There is no set limit of ways for doctors to make mistakes, and there is no set limit of the amount of suffering that a victim of medical malpractice has to go through. It only makes sense that there should be no set amount of compensation for which a medical malpractice victim is eligible.

It is also important to realize that these caps don’t change anything about the practices of doctors. A good and conscientious doctor who  makes an effort not to deviate from the standard of care, or immediately fixes the mistakes that he makes will not alter his habits because his insurance company has less of a financial liability. Doctors do not benefit from damage caps, and patients certainly don’t either. Insurance companies are the only people in this equation with anything to gain here, and why we as a nation have decided to essentially remove the function of juries and judges in order to benefit malpractice insurance companies is beyond us.

Greenberg and Bederman is a medical malpractice injury firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We serve the entire Washington, D.C. and Baltimore area, and that includes Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Prince William County and all of Northern Virginia. If you or a loved one has been injured due to medical malpractice, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

To learn more about our medical malpractice attorney, John Sellinger, please read hisbio, or watch his Youtube video.

These caps also tie the hands of judges, who might otherwise decide that a victim of medical malpractice has suffered so much that he or she certainly deserves more than the $200,000 or $300,000 that is the limit in states that have these caps.

There are similar policies in place that have also negated the opinions of judges and juries. Many drug cases in this country are decided based on what are called mandatory minimum sentences, which means a uniform standard of punishment for drug related offences. What this means is that a person who is caught with a certain amount of drugs gets a standard prison sentence, regardless of what the circumstances are. If a person who has no criminal record is caught with three ounces of cocaine, he or she would get the exact same prison sentence as a person with multiple prior convictions. Even if the judge or jury thinks that the person convicted deserves a much lighter sentence, the juries’ opinion is meaningless and the judge’s hands are tied. Even if the defendant pleads guilty and co-operates with the police, the sentence would be the same if the defendant clammed up and forced the state to go through a trial that lasted months.  It is justice by rubber stamp, or justice by conversion chart.

These sentencing guidelines and damage caps essentially work under the idea that all of the cases are exactly alike, and therefore any sentences or judgments should be exactly alike. But we can tell you from  experience that no medical malpractice case is identical. There is no set limit of ways for doctors to make mistakes, and there is no set limit of the amount of suffering that a victim of medical malpractice has to go through. It only makes sense that there should be no set amount of compensation for which a medical malpractice victim is eligible.

It is also important to realize that these caps don’t change anything about the practices of doctors. A good and conscientious doctor who  makes an effort not to deviate from the standard of care, or immediately fixes the mistakes that he makes will not alter his habits because his insurance company has less of a financial liability. Doctors do not benefit from damage caps, and patients certainly don’t either. Insurance companies are the only people in this equation with anything to gain here, and why we as a nation have decided to essentially remove the function of juries and judges in order to benefit malpractice insurance companies is beyond us.

Greenberg and Bederman is a medical malpractice injury firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We serve the entire Washington, D.C. and Baltimore area, and that includes Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Prince William County and all of Northern Virginia. If you or a loved one has been injured due to medical malpractice, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

To learn more about our medical malpractice attorney, John Sellinger, please read hisbio, or watch his Youtube video.

Morally speaking, there are many things wrong with this concept. And there are more than a few examples as to how these caps exist for no other reason than the financial convenience of the insurance companies.

One example in particular is happening in Nevada right now. A doctor named Depak Disal runs an endoscopy clinic there, and it is alleged that his clinic caused a hepatitis outbreak which affected thousands of people all over Nevada. At issue is this question: Does the damage cap cover “people,” or “incidents?”

In other words, if it can be proven that Dr. Disal was responsible for “one” hepatitis outbreak, would this mean that his insurance company would be obliged to pay out the limit of the $350,000 damage cap only once? Would everyone who allegedly got hepatitis from Dr. Disal’s clinic be forced to share one capped judgment? Or would the cap apply to each individual person who contracted hepatitis? Would any of you like to take a guess as to which side of the argument Dr. Disal’s insurance company is on?

As strange as this argument seems, one court in Nevada actually agreed with the premise, but another judge ruled the exact opposite. So we expect the case to be ruled upon by the Nevada Supreme Court fairly soon. And if rulings in other states are any indication, it could be that damage caps in Nevada might be a thing of the past altogether.

Illinois and Georgia are two states where their respective Supreme Courts have ruled that caps on damages are unconstitutional, based on the grounds that they ignore the separation of powers that was written into the Constitution. In other words, damage caps lessen the ability of a judge or jury to rule effectively on a case. With damage caps, a judgment on a supposedly independent court case is essentially pre-determined by members of another branch, and that is absolutely against the premises laid out in Articles I, II and III.

While we most certainly agree with that on legal grounds, we also find it outrageous that state or federal legislators are allowed to assign market value to pain, suffering and emotional loss. We also can’t imagine that a hepatitis victim being eligible only for a “share” of a judgment rather than a separate judgment is in any way fair. Hopefully, the Nevada Supreme Court will do away with damage caps entirely, and the question of whether it was “one” incident or a few thousands separate incidents will be rendered moot.

Greenberg and Bederman is a medical malpractice injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to people in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. who have been injured due to medical negligence, misdiagnosis, violation of standard of care, or surgical errors. If you or a loved one has been hurt due to a doctor’s mistake, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free medical malpractice legal consultation today.

"The most disappointing . . . is when we issue recommendations and those issues do not get corrected. For us, that is a big concern about Metro," she said. Nine NTSB recommendations issued to Metro in July and September, in the aftermath of the accident, remain open, according to NTSB records.

We aren’t exactly sure why Metro is dragging its feet about making these corrections. It might be money. It might be politics. It might be a combination of the two. State politicians in Annapolis and Richmond might have a problem with paying state funds for a transit system that their immediate constituents never use. We can certainly imagine that a state delegate from Lynchburg, Virginia or Havre de Grace, Maryland would fail to see the urgency.

Whatever the reason, WMATA has continued on as if that horrible train accident never happened. We can absolutely assure them that it did. In fact, we have a few injured clients who can verify that on that day in June, there was a catastrophic system failure that resulted in 9 deaths and 76 injuries.

The second serious safety hazard doesn’t involve the trains, but instead involves escalators that allow passengers to safely get in and out of the stations. Specifically speaking, they don’t work, and the scope and size of both the number of breakdowns and the escalators themselves makes this state of affairs an accident waiting to happen.

The Washington, D.C. subway system has 570 escalators. This is more than any other subway system in the world. Due to the fact that this area was built on what was essentially marshland, our subway system has to go very deep underground. The escalator at Wheaton, for instance, goes down 230 feet. Believe it or not, this is actually the longest escalator in the Western Hemisphere. The escalators at Bethesda, DuPont Circle and Woodley Park are also incredibly long. And while the escalators at Rosslyn and Clarendon don’t necessarily set records, they still are long enough to eat up over a full minute to get from the street to the station.

The way we see it, there are two potential dangers with broken escalators. The first would be the hazards involved with these escalators suddenly stopping. The stop wouldn’t even have to be a particularly jarring one for disaster to strike. One person falling down an escalator of that size and length would be catastrophic, not just for the person falling but also for anyone who happens to be on the escalator below the person falling. People can get badly hurt by falling off of a five inch curb on the side of the road, so the idea of someone falling down a crowded 230 foot escalator is so grim that it’s terrifying to think about.

The second danger is not going down, but going up. Metro might not have noticed, but not everyone who rides the subway is spry and athletic. Many of the passengers are elderly and infirm. Making them climb up 230 feet, particularly in heat that reaches upwards of 90 degrees, is something that could adversely affect their health. And if the elevators are broken (as they often are,) many passengers have no choice but to trudge up that enormous incline.

As of this writing, the escalator report for the entire WMATA system lists 62 escalators as being out of service, as well as 8 separate elevators. This reflects very poorly on WMATA. It is inconvenient, stressful, disrespectful of passengers and extremely dangerous. Among the many faults of the DC Metro system, this one is particularly galling.

Greenberg and Bederman is aninjury law firm based in Washington, D.C. We are currently offering legal help to anyone who has been injured due to negligence or poor management by the WMATA. This includes anyone who was injured while riding the subway, or anyone who was injured due to an escalator-related accident. If you or a loved one was injured on the Washington, D.C. subway system in Maryland, Washington, D.C. or Virginia, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident legal consultation.

Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry suffered from a chronic brain injury that may have influenced his mental state and behavior before he died last winter, West Virginia University researchers said Monday.

The doctors had done a microscopic tissue analysis of Henry's brain that showed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is caused by repeated hits to the head. It is a disease that essentially causes the brain to deteriorate, and as it progresses there are multiple symptoms that can affect the victim. Among these are dementia, irrational and violent behavior, memory loss and a lack of impulse control. As a receiver in the National Football League, Chris Henry would have spent the majority of the years of his life playing football. There was probably no shortage of incidents where he received major blows to the head. So all of a sudden, it becomes clear that Mr. Henry wasn’t necessarily “wild” and “immature,” but was instead sick, and his accident becomes that much more of a tragedy. It also raises a very troubling question. Why didn’t it occur to anyone in the NFL, or the Cincinnati Bengals or in Mr. Henry’s immediate circle that his behavior wasn’t natural? Why didn’t anyone recommend that he see a neurologist, or at the very least a therapist?

The story of Chris Henry underscores two things: First, it emphasizes how brain injuries can drastically alter the behavior of the victim. Secondly, it emphasizes how brain injury victims can go for years without being properly diagnosed.

The human brain is the most complex organ in the body. Modern medicine and modern science is still trying to figure out all the ways in which it works, or how one part of the brain connects to another, or how they all balance out and work together. When a part of the brain is damaged even slightly, the repercussions for the victim in terms of movement, the senses or emotional stability can be enormous.

For instance, what happens if you are an elementary school teacher who all of a sudden loses her ability to control her temper? What happens if you are an air traffic controller who all of a sudden loses his ability to remember the order of things? How are you supposed to continue on in your career? How are you supposed to earn a living? How are you supposed to live a normal life?

For that matter, how are you supposed to even know if you have a brain injury? It obviously never occurred to Mr. Henry that he had one, even as he was getting arrested, flying into rages, or, tragically, jumping on to the back of a moving truck.

If you have been in any kind of accident where you received a blow to the head, no matter how minor it might have seemed, it is crucial that you tell your doctor. Something as simple as an x-ray could be the difference between a proper diagnosis and having your entire life fall into ruin because of an undiagnosed brain injury.

Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm based in Washington, D.C. Many of our clients are people who have suffered brain injuries in car accidents or due to falls. We understand the difficulties that traumatic brain injuries can cause people, and we also understand the difficulties in getting insurance companies to recognize those difficulties. Insurance companies have an unfortunate tendency to automatically assume that people who suffer from behavioral or other mental difficulties after an accident are just a number, the lowest number, they can try to pay out an injury claim on. We take pride in our ability to help our clients fight through the obstructionism of insurance companies and get the compensation that they deserve. If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident and is suffering from the effects of a brain injury,  contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free brain injury legal consultation.

So as a result of this act of irresponsibility, two completely innocent people were badly injured. They went through painful and expensive medical treatment, they were unable to go to work and earn a living for themselves, and they had to go through a prolonged and painful recuperation process. And all they did to deserve this ordeal was to simply get in their car.

If you take the numbers available for drunk driving related accidents in Virginia as a whole, you actually get somewhat of an encouraging scenario. The earliest numbers available at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles are from 1984, when the Old Dominion had a staggering 19,371 alcohol related vehicle accidents. This was 15.7% of all vehicle crashes. In other words, if you got into a car wreck in Virginia in 1984, there was just under a 16% chance that the other driver had been drinking.

Things have improved drastically over the following 26 years. In 2009, the total number of alcohol related crashes was 9,366, which is almost exactly 10,000 less alcohol related crashes in Virginia. We can take that to mean that raising awareness of the dangers of drunken driving and increasing the penalties for drunken driving have made a difference in Virginia. But sadly, the awareness in Virginia didn’t make enough a difference to stop Lisa Marie Schettler from getting behind the wheel of a car after nine drinks and a blood alcohol content of .44.

The definition of negligence is when one person or party does not live up to the reasonable expectations of keeping someone else from getting hurt. For instance, if you are in possession of a loaded gun, you would not fire it in public for no apparent reason. Similarly, if you have been drinking a large volume of alcohol, you would not get behind the wheel of a car. You can’t make the argument that you didn’t know that drinking and driving was illegal. You can’t make the argument that you didn’t plan on hurting anybody. A person who drinks and drives is a perfect example of someone engaging in negligent behavior.

As injury attorneys based in the Washington, D.C. area, Virginia is right in our back yard. In our twenty five years as an injury law firm, we have represented countless Virginians who were injured due to the negligence of another driver. So even though Virginia Beach is a few hours away from our offices in Silver Spring, the story of Ms. Schettler and Mr. and Mrs. Gay caught our attention.

We have dedicated a significant portion of our practice to helping car accident victims in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. get fair compensation when they get injured due to no fault of their own, and that includes people who have been injured due to drunk drivers. We help our clients get past the artificially low settlement offers and delaying tactics that insurance companies use to avoid paying injury victims what they deserve. If you or a loved one has been injured in a car accident in Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C. and you feel that you need legal counsel, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident injury consultation.

To learn more about auto accidents and auto injury, please read our auto accident page, or our injury page, or watch our accident videos on Youtube.

According to Metro Spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein, this motion to dismiss the case was “partial” and “routine:”

“Even if granted, this would not deprive anyone of their day in court or their right to a jury trial. Neither of our motions separately or together seeks dismissal of the suit against Metro in its entirety."

Why bother to file a motion to dismiss at all? What about this lawsuit does WMATA find unfair or excessive? There are nine people who are no longer living because WMATA had not bothered to do proper maintenance on their outdated sensor system. There are sons and daughters, mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who have lost someone due to utter negligence. Which “part” of that does WMATA not understand?

Judging by the progress that they have made in terms of making safety improvements, we suspect that there is a great deal that they don’t understand. They seem to be looking at this disaster not in terms of human life and human suffering, but rather in dollars and cents. It appears to be too expensive to make necessary safety improvements. It appears to be too expensive to compensate the families of the victims fairly. So put off the improvements and repairs. File those motions to dismiss. Just roll the dice and see if you can avoid responsibility altogether.

Call us crazy, but we’re pretty sure that’s not the attitude that a public transportation agency is supposed to take. We’re also pretty sure that anything that involves getting members of the public from one place to another should be as safe as humanly possible. Safety inspections and improvements should not be put off or deliberated. They should be done early and often. The consequences for not doing so became tragically evident exactly one year ago today.

Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm based in Washington, D.C. We are currently representing injury victims from the Red Line Metro crash, and are also offering legal help to anyone who has been injured while riding any form of public transportation in the D.C. area. If you or a loved one has been injured on a bus, streetcar or subway in Maryland, Virginia or D.C, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

This area in Southwestern Louisiana has the misfortune to be virtually surrounded by a string of 20 industrial facilities, with many of them routinely emitting extremely dangerous pollution into the air, water and soil. These pollutions are known as dioxins, and they have been known to cause cancer, damage to the reproductive system, and can be harmful to fetal development. There is absolutely no minimum level of dioxin that is safe for human beings to come into contact with.

This area is home to the following industrial plants and facilities, which have released the following amounts of pollutants into the air, water and soil:

 LOUISIANA PIGMENT CO. 3,122,196 lbs.

CITGO PETROLEUM CORP. 2,242,249 lbs.

FIRESTONE SYNTHETIC RUBBER 2,144,458 lbs.

PPG INDUSTRIES, INC. 546,705 lbs.

CONDEA-VISTA CO. (now GEORGIA GULF) 449,449 lbs.

ARCO CHEMICAL CORP. 228,885 lbs.

CONOCO LAKE CHARLES REFINERY 199,996 lbs.

WESTLAKE POLYMERS CORP. 182,981 lbs.

OCCIDENTAL CHEMICAL CORP. 153,788 lbs.

W.R. GRACE AND CO. 137,400 lbs.

OLIN CORP. 55,828 lbs.

CALCASIEU REFINING CO. 44,341 lbs.

MONTELL USA INC. 32,686 lbs.

CARBOLINE CO. 22,538 lbs.

BIOLAB INC. 17,494 lbs.

WESTLAKE PETROCHEMICALS CORP. 16,932 lbs.

WESTLAKE STYRENE CORP. 12,168 lbs.

RESIN SYS. INC. 9,070 lbs.

INDUSTRIAL PIPE AND PLASTICS 7,000 lbs.

CERTAINTEED CORP. 4,500 lbs.

There is practically no way that being surrounded by so much pollution from industrial and chemical facilities could not have an adverse effect on nearby residents. Health surveys in Mossville have shown epidemic levels of sickness, from respiratory problems to extremely elevated cancer rates to a very high level of young and untimely deaths. It would take a legendary amount of obtuseness to not be able to link the numbers of illnesses and deaths in Mossville to the surrounding chemical plants polluting the air, water and ground water, yet it has taken decades for the Environmental Protection Agency to finally declare this area as hazardous to the health of the residents.

It certainly wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of the residents of Mossville. They have been trying for a few decades to get someone in the government to realize that they are literally being polluted to death by the surrounding chemical plants. And while it is certainly a positive development that the EPA is taking action and is in the process of designating the area for a Superfund cleanup, we can’t help but think that this is too little, too late for the residents of this town who have already become sick or who have already died. In scrutinizing all of the reports, we can’t help but wonder a few things.

What level of responsibility is Citgo, Firestone, Arco et al. prepared to accept? Pollution doesn’t just pop out of nowhere, after all. Are the responsible parties making every effort to lower pollution levels? Are they at least admitting culpability and making every effort to make things right for the citizens of Mossville? Are they paying the medical bills of those who became ill? Are they offering restitution to the families of those who died of their illnesses?

Most likely the polluters will deny responsibility. All of these polluters are in a unique position in that they can point the finger of blame at all the other polluters. It’s the equivalent of finding a burning house that is surrounded by fifteen guys who all have lighters in their pockets and empty gasoline cans at their feet. They all may look like they started the fire, but it might take some extra work to actually prove which one (or ones) actually did it. This task is made all that much tougher when each arsonist is simply pointing at the guy on his right.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. basedinjury law firm that is currently assisting those who have developed illnesses due to groundwater pollution. Americans have the right to live in areas that are free from the harmful effects of dioxins and other groundwater contaminants, and anyone who becomes ill as the result of irresponsible industrial practices should be fully compensated for medical bills, pain and suffering, and the loss of value of their homes and property. If you or a loved one has adversely affected by contaminated groundwater in Maryland, Washington, D.C. or Virginia, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free water contamination legal consultation.

 In all probability, an entire way of life down in the Gulf Coast is gone. People who run fishing and shrimp boats and the crews who man them will be out of work. People who offer tours into our now ruined marshlands will have to find another line of business. Restaurants all over the country that specialize in that wonderful regional seafood will have to either drastically alter their menus or go out of business. So will the wholesalers who deliver the seafood to them. Those who specialize in the tourist trade will be taking a beating, too. We can’t imagine that anyone would want to take their families to beaches that are covered in crude oil. So you can say goodbye to beachfront resorts in Alabama and Texas, as well as the smaller hotels and motels. Plus the rental home market is probably going to be nonexistent for the next few years.

The Federal Government recently secured a promise of $20 billion dollars from British Petroleum in order to help expedite the claims process for workers, business owners and property owners who will be adversely affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. But if the spill continues (and there is no indication that it will stop any time soon,) $20 billion could be a mere fraction of what the overall damages could be. And we have a sneaking suspicion that getting fair value for your damaged property or ruined business will require a lot of paperwork and legal acumen. It is because of this that Greenberg and Bederman is currently offering legal assistance to people who live in the Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia areas who have legitimate claims of damages down in the Gulf Coast.

Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm based in Silver Spring, Maryland. We have helped injury victims and people who have suffered real financial damages due to the negligence or incompetence of others. Over the next few months, we will be reaching out to victims all over the country to see if we can help them receive the sort of compensation that they both deserve and are entitled to. The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon and the subsequent oil blowout certainly qualifies as negligence and incompetence on the grandest scale imaginable.

If you or a loved one has suffered a serious financial loss due to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil leak, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

• You have an injury or illness that prevents you from doing the work that you used to do. In other words, if you used to have a job that required heavy physical labor and you severely injure yourself in a car accident, it is unlikely that you will be able to continue to work at your same job.
•  You can’t do other work because of your condition. Making a career change happens to many people at some point in their lives, but with severe injuries or debilitating illnesses a career switch simply isn’t an option. If you have an injury where simply sitting upright causes you pain, there aren’t many employment positions available.
•  Your disability is expected to last at least a year or to result in your death. It is important to realize that SSDI is generally for people who have been severely injured or are severely ill. Injuries that result in permanent impairment or injuries that will take extensive and lengthy recovery periods are generally the types that are considered for SSDI benefits.

If your condition meets these general criteria, then it falls to the Social Security Administration to determine whether or not you are actually disabled. They do this by asking five questions.

1.       Are you currently working? The idea here is that you can’t really be considered disabled if you are holding down a job and earning more than $1000 a month.  If you are currently working and making more than that, then as far as the SSA is concerned, you aren’t disabled.

2.       Is your condition Severe? In other words, does your condition directly affect your ability to work? Can you not work specifically because of your injury or illness?

3.       Is your condition on the list of disabling conditions? The Social Security Administration has a list of conditions which will automatically qualify you for SSDI. You can find that list here. If your condition is not on the automatically disabling list, that doesn’t mean you should give up. It just means that they take a longer time considering whether or not you will qualify.

4.       Can you go back to your old job or go back to similar work? If you get into a car accident, but are still able to do the job that you had before you were injured, then you will not qualify for SSDI. This has become more and more common in recent years, as a great deal of the work is more automated and less based on manual labor.

5.       Can you do any other type of work? The key here is that they want disabled to mean “severely disabled.” If your injury has you completely bed-ridden or has left you with brain injuries, then there is a high amount of probability that you would not be able to transfer your skills over to any other job, or really do any other job for that matter.

These are the basic qualifications for Social Security Disability benefits, but what has not been mentioned so far is that the process for applying for these benefits can be very long and quite complicated. There are rejections and appeals, many of which are decided by a presiding administrative law judge. This is not like waiting in line at the DMV to get a driver’s license. It’s more complicated than that.

This is why having experienced legal representation to assist you with your application is so important. It could be the difference between being provided with crucially needed income for you and your family and being left with nothing at all. With serious injuries, or a questionable disability problem, such as mental illness, the stakes are too high to attempt to do without legal counsel.

 Greenberg &  Bederman is a D.C. based law firm that helps injury victims get through the injury process, and that includes helping them with the applications forSocial Security Disability benefits. We serve clients in Silver Spring, Maryland and Baltimore, and have helped hundreds of people all over Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. If you or a loved one needs assistance in getting through the SSDI process, contact our social security lawyer Audrey Randall, for a free social security legal consultation.

As personal injury attorneys who serve the injured in the Washington, D.C. area, we can tell you from experience that accidents rarely “just happen.” In fact, we have found that most accidents are caused. And when people get severely hurt as the result of these caused accidents, the last thing anyone should be able to do is write them off as “just one of those things.”

Yet this is exactly the scenario that injury victims often face when they attempt to seek fair compensation for their injuries. They often have to deal with insurance companies who have no interest in treating injury victims fairly, but are instead concerned with paying out as little as possible. Car insurance companies often offer injury victims settlements that are far less than what would be needed to cover the medical costs and any lingering effects, and most of the time they don’t offer anything for pain and suffering. Medical malpractice insurance companies are notorious for not wanting to settle, but rather take the issue to court. And, quite often when they do settle, it is a paltry settlement offer.  Pharmaceutical companies have no qualms about not offering any compensation for injuries at all unless they are forced to by a court.

An injury victim who tries to deal directly with the insurance company is risking not having their individual situation monitored and protected by an injury lawyer. The insurance company has lawyers to protect their interests, so should an injury victim. Facing an insurance company on your own means you have to know all the legal angles, understand a myriad of laws that if you don’t understand could harm your injury case, leaving you potentially being treated un-fairly. Despite all of the advertising about being a good neighbor, the truth of the matter is that insurance companies are not in the business of sending out checks for the maximum value. They make money holding down costs and adding new members.

The law firm of Greenberg and Bederman has been protecting the rights of injury victims in the Washington, D.C. area since 1985, and all of our injury attorneys are dedicated to helping our clients get fair and realistic compensation for their injuries. We make it a point to address all of our clients injury needs when we deal with the insurance companies.

Our attorneys are currently offering legal counsel for the following areas:

Car Accidents:Our attorneys have decades of combined legal experience in helping victims of all types of car accidents, including accidents caused by drunk drivers, accidents due to reckless driving, rollover accidents, pedestrians who have been hit by cars, collisions, and accidents due to automotive malfunctions, and passengers in a car accident. 

Medical Malpractice:John Sellinger is known and respected throughout the country as a medical malpractice attorney who puts his clients’ interests first. In his thirty five years of legal experience, this former President of the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association has helped hundreds of victims of medical malpractice, including victims of wrong diagnosis, surgical errors, wrongful death, delay of treatment and birth trauma.

Pharmaceutical Liability: For all the good things that modern pharmaceuticals have done for humanity, it cannot be denied that there is a dark side to the pharmaceutical industry. There have been several instances over the past few years where heavily marketed and prescribed pills have resulted in serious injuries among patients who used them in good faith. The most recent example is Yaz, which is a line of birth control pills that has caused strokes, heart attacks and gall bladder disease among women who use it. Our attorneys are currently representing women who were injured and hospitalized due to the use of these birth control pills.

Social Security Disability Denial: It is not uncommon to be denied for Social Security Disability Benefits.  If you are disabled by either disease or injury, and your disability is expected to last at least a year, you may be entitled to Social Security Disability Disability or SSI. To learn more about Social Security Disability law, please read our Social Security Disability FAQ page.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located one half block from the downtown metro in Silver Spring, Maryland, one mile from the Washington, DC line. We are perfectly situated to help injury victims all over the Washington/Baltimore metropolitan area. If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

Police are also under strict procedural standards. A “Dirty Harry” shoots first and asks questions later type of police officer would not be on the force for very long, and would probably end up in prison. The use of physical force by the police is tightly regulated. They aren’t supposed to beat people up for no reason, they aren’t supposed to use a taser or pepper spray on people who are not resisting arrest, and they most certainly aren’t supposed to use their clubs to pummel someone who is simply standing on the sidewalk.

It should be mentioned that for every instance of police brutality that occurs, there are tens of thousands of instances where police maintain their composure and do their jobs with professionalism, patience and restraint. What happened recently in College Park, Maryland is certainly NOT an example of this high professional standard.

For those of us who live in the Washington, D.C. region, we are familiar with how rowdy things can get after a Maryland Terrapins basketball game. The students in the area seem to create quite a ruckus whenever the Terps win (or sometimes when they lose) an important game. In 2002, College Park erupted in a riot after Maryland won the NCAA Basketball Tournament. And it does seem that burning mattresses in the streets seems to be the preferred method of celebration of victory or protest of defeat. It is a pointless way to celebrate, but the Prince Georges County Police certainly can’t say that they were unaware that such a thing was possible.

The celebrations after a victory against Duke got out of hand, and the police were called in, and there were some arrests, but the video footage of this beating (and really, there is no other word for what occurred) shows that the police reacted in exactly the wrong way. Without any apparent physical provocation, two officers slammed a student against a wall, threw him to the ground, and clubbed him repeatedly over the head until he was unconscious.

Was the student drunk? He might have been, but that alone is no reason to have beaten him senseless. Was he threatening? That seems doubtful. Literally seconds before the beating he was dancing a goofy celebratory jig with a friend. It didn’t even look like he knew the police were there. In fact, it seems like he danced down the street, looked up and found himself feet away from a mounted police officer. It certainly didn’t look like he made any threatening gestures.

Did he perhaps say something threatening? It is impossible to tell. But even if he had, surely four Prince Georges County police officers could have arrested one student without delivering such a brutal beating. You can’t hear anything that was said over the noise of the crowd, but what is significant is that on the audio of the tape (which was shot from some distance away,) you can hear the sound of a nightstick repeatedly smacking this student’s head and body.

This was a complete breakdown of officer discipline. And to make matters worse, it appears that the officers responsible for the beating trumped up charges and claimed that the student “..struck mounted officers and their horses, causing minor injuries.” They further claimed that the reason that the student was injured was because he had been kicked by the horse. The video proves all of these statements by the arresting officers to be completely false.

This is the sort of behavior that you would expect from the police force in a country living under a dictatorship. A brutal and unnecessary beating followed by trumped up charges is not something that is supposed to happen in America, and it certainly isn’t supposed to happen in a suburb of Washington, D.C.

The student has obtained the services of an attorney, which is his right, and he is currently seeking financial damages against the Prince Georges County Police Department, which is something that he is completely justified in doing. He received an unnecessary and brutal beating, for which there was no warning or proper explanation given by the police. This is one of the most obvious cases of police brutality that we have ever seen.

Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm that helps people in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. who have been injured due to no fault ornegligence of their own. This includes those who have been unnecessarily injured while being arrested or while in custody of law enforcement. Being arrested by the police does not mean that you surrender your rights as an American citizen. There is no excuse for unwarranted force by law enforcement. If you or a loved one has sustained injuries from the police, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

Second would be full disclosure. Toyota should be more forthcoming with their crash data and reports than they currently are. Allowing this data to be independently analyzed would go a long way in not just determining the problems, but would also help Toyota avoid making these mistakes in the future. It is sometimes much harder to see your own errors, especially when there is a financial incentive to not see them.

Toyota should be responsible financially for the injuries and damages that they’ve caused. If someone has been killed or injured in a Toyota, someone has to pay the medical bills. For a large corporation like Toyota, the only way for them to actually feel the weight of what they have done is to make them responsible for the injuries and damages they’ve caused.   If a spouse who is counting on income suddenly is left alone due to an acceleration defect car accident, how will that spouse be able to survive financially? Is it fair to the surviving spouse to have to figure it out alone? Toyota should be held accountable for that loss of income. Doing so would not only give Toyota every reason to clean up its act, but it would also serve as an example to other automakers who are  manufacturing cars that are shown to be unsafe.

With that principle in mind, we feel that the fine of $16 million that the NHTSA recently levied against Toyota to be a good start in the right direction but falls quite short for the injured and killed, especially considering that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood issued a statement saying that the release of these defective automobiles was no accident:

“We now have proof that Toyota failed to live up to its legal obligations,” said LaHood on Monday. “Worse yet, they knowingly hid a dangerous defect for months from U.S. officials and did not take action to protect millions of drivers and their families.”

Even after the costs of issuing the recalls, Toyota still remains a wealthy corporation.  $16 million is not even a dent in their coffers. This is hardly the incentive needed to get them to improve its faulty vehicles, and compensate the injured or killed.

It appears that the only way to make this automotive giant accountable for its actions is for the victims to take their cases to the courts. If the NHTSA will not stand up and demand substantive penalties from Toyota, those who have been injured or have lost family members due to this act of negligence will have to do so themselves.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. area personal injury law firm that is currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured due to malfunctioning Toyotas. This includes drivers of faulty Toyotas, passengers who were riding in faulty Toyotas, drivers in other cars who were hit by faulty Toyotas, and cyclists, motorcyclists or pedestrians who were injured due to malfunctioning Toyotas. Our personal injury attorneys have decades of experience in both auto accidents and product liability, and accidents involving these malfunctioning Toyotas fall under both of those legal categories.

If you or a loved one has been injured due to an accident with a Toyota, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free Toyota Accident legal consultation today.

The vehicle that the astronauts were travelling in had to essentially break in half, and then one of the two sections had to do a 180 degree turn, and then gently thrust back towards the other section, where they re-attached. Bear in mind that this had to be done while they were travelling through the vacuum of space at thousands of miles an hour. Another stunning feat was the reattachment of the lunar module, which essentially launched itself from the surface of the moon (with two astronauts inside) and attached itself to the orbit module which was zooming along at thousands of feet above the surface. If you want a real life equivalent of how difficult that is, try hitting a bird flying overhead with a rock. If you also consider that these amazing things were done in the late sixties, which was practically the Stone Age in terms of computer technology, that gives you an idea as to how smart the NASA people are.

Any endeavor into outer space has to involve all manner of computers. All of the systems on any spacecraft are run by them, including steering, thrust, life support and navigation. Without the advent of computers, it would be impossible for us to imagine getting into space at all. If you consider that your average space craft is run by electronic systems that are often controlled from thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of miles away, you would have to assume that NASA knows what it is doing when it comes to computers.

This is why we consider it a good thing that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has brought in scientists from NASA to investigate the recent alleged unintended acceleration incidents that have occurred in so many Toyota vehicles. The NASA scientists are specialists in computer controlled electronic systems, electromagnetic interference, software integrity and hardware. In other words, they are the folks who you can expect to get to the bottom of what has been going wrong.

It might seem a little drastic, bringing in space shuttle mechanics to examine the inner workings of a Toyota Tercel, but one of the reasons that they have to be drastic is that Toyota itself isn’t talking. They are fiercely protective of their design and data, and are equally tight lipped when it comes to allowing crash data to be studied. Part of this might be because they are genuinely concerned about somebody making off with proprietary software or design, but we suspect it also has something to do with Toyota not wanting to directly provide any evidence of culpability on their parts. In other words, they want to make it as difficult as possible for any victims of random accelerations, brake failures or steering problems to be fairly compensated for their injuries and damaged property.

Toyota has shown a willingness to put profits over driver safety before. In what was probably one of the darkest moments in government consumer protection history, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration allowed Toyota to “negotiate” a 2007 recall that was limited to defective floor mats rather than move forward with a more extensive recall that could have possibly saved quite a few lives. Internal documents from Toyota referred to this as a “win.”  

We aren’t sure what the outcome will be of this NASA investigation, but what we are sure of is that too many people have been injured or even killed due to defective Toyotas for this to be considered a random, freak occurrence. Based on the evidence that has been gathered and the incidents that have been reported, we believe that Toyota not only put out a defective product, but also were aware of these defects and the dangers that they posed to the general public.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. based injury law firm that is currently offering legal assistance to those who have been hurt due to Toyota malfunctions. We can help anyone in Maryland, Virginia, or Washington, D.C.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a Toyota accident, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

Avandia works by making the cells more sensitive and responsive to insulin, which reduces the body’s need for the stringent blood sugar monitoring that diabetic patients require. If it works like it is supposed to, it allows diabetes patients to live their lives without going through the constant testing and monitoring that takes up so much of their time. But you have to think that if people had to choose between less blood testing and a massive heart attack, they would be willing to accept the inconvenience of the testing.

As important as the FDA’s actions are, they didn’t exactly come as a surprise to anyone. A 2007 study in the New England Journal of Medicine had already suggested that users of Avandia had an increased risk (by as much as 43%) of heart failure as opposed to diabetics who were treating their condition with regular insulin. And the FDA has further issued a so-called “black box warning label” for the medication, which is a way for the FDA to let the general public know that there are some real concerns about the medication that patients are about to take.

GlaxoSmithKline, who designed, manufacture and market the drug, went into full damage control mode, which meant an onslaught of press releases, as well as “rejecting the conclusions” of the New England Journal of Medicine, the FDA, and anyone with any teeth who had anything negative to say about their type 2 diabetes drug. To give you an idea of GSK’s overall game plan (as well as give you an idea as to how nervous this drug was making people, all you have to do is look at the titles of the numerous press releases that they put out in the wake of all of these negative studies:

o    24 Feb 2010: GlaxoSmithKline responds to US Senate Committee on Finance report on Avandia

o    20 Feb 2010 - GSK rejects conclusions of Senate Committee on Finance Staff Report on Avandia

o    20 Feb 2010 - GSK rejects conclusions reported in The New York Times story on Avandia

o    6 February 2008 - GlaxoSmithKline responds to findings in ACCORD study

o    3 December 2007 - GSK response to Nature Medicine article on rosiglitazone and bone in mice

o    11 September 2007 - GlaxoSmithKline responds to JAMA articles

o    27 July 2007 - GlaxoSmithKline statement in diabetes care study thiazolidinediones and heart failure: a teleo-analysis

o    5 June 2007 - GSK response to New England Journal of Medicine editorials

o    21 May 2007 - GSK response to NEJM article

o    21 May 2007 - GSK response to US Senate Committee on Finance

In case you aren’t keeping count, that’s ten solid denials of studies and warnings by the official digest of the American Medical Association, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and the Senate Finance Committee.

One thing that GSK seems particularly adept at is refuting any studies that portray Avandia in a negative light and creating a more positive outlook on the side effects of Avandia. As personal injury attorneys who represent product liability injuries, this is certainly something familiar with. Quite often, when we present one expert witness, the attorneys for the defendant will provide two or three expert witnesses claiming the opposite.

Over two hundred studies were sent to the FDA by GSK. These all contradicted any negative reports of Avandia, whether it was articles in medical journals, independent studies, or even editorials in newspapers. Rather than just accept that both the NEJM and the FDA had been buried in an avalanche of contradictory news, the British Medical Journal not only took a look at the data in these positive studies, but also at who was responsible for writing and researching them.

What the BMJ found out was that of these, a full 45% of these studies were done by people who had authors with serious financial conflicts of interest. This means that they were essentially on the payroll of either GSK or other competing pharmaceutical companies, either through research grants or consulting fees. There was more:

“Moreover, in an era of “seemingly ubiquitous” requirements for disclosure of financial interests in medical journals, only 53% of the articles reviewed included a competing interest statement, noted the authors from the Mayo Clinical in Rochester, US.”

“…Of these 90 articles, only 69 (77%) included a statement disclosing the conflict of interest in the article itself, while three of the 21 articles that did not disclose the relationship published a statement declaring no conflicts of interest.”

This is hardly unbiased research. If your next grant or paycheck depends on positive reviews, what are the odds that your reports will be, if not skewed in favor, at least carefully neutral?

This isn’t the first time such conflicts have been brought to light. In the wake of the Vioxx scandal, the New York Times discovered that the FDA’s independent advisory committee (which essentially makes or breaks controversial drugs) was populated with scientists and researchers who had similar conflicts of interest. This is profoundly interesting to us, especially if you take a look at the following press release from GSK:

July 30, 2007 — Philadelphia, PA

GlaxoSmithKline [NYSE: GSK] today welcomed the nearly unanimous recommendation of a US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) advisory committee to support Avandia’s (rosiglitazone maleate) continued availability to patients in the US. The company said it will continue to provide information to the FDA to assist in the Agency’s final decision-making.

Greenberg and Bederman is currently offering free legal consultations to people in the Washington, D.C. area who have been injured and/or hospitalized due to heart complications from taking Avandia.  For a free legal review of your Avandia bad drug injury, please fill out a free legal Avandia form, or call Andrew Bederman at (301) 589-2200 for a free legal consultation.

While there were minor differences in the chemical make up of each of these drugs, they were all marketed as “bisphospenates,” which, in a general sense, meant that they were drugs that were supposed to increase bone density.

Just as with many other drugs, things apparently did not go according to plan. Some of the first noticeable problems occurred when some people who were taking Fosamax began to suffer from what is known as “osteonecrosis of the jaw,” or “bone death.” This is as bad and as painful as it sounds. Most of the Fosamax users who suffered from bone death in the jaw had undergone dental surgery, which means that it is possible that Fosamax could strengthen the bones in the legs, arms, hips and ribs at the expense of the strength of the bones in the jaw.

Or maybe it’s simply bad for both. According to an article in USA Today, two recent studies have shown that women who take these bisphosphonates over a long period risk having the medications stop working, which means that the bones would be just as brittle as they were before the women started taking the pills in the first place. According to the study done by Columbia University:

"In the early treatment period, patients using bisphosphonates experienced improvements in all parameters, including decreased buckling ratio and increased cross-sectional area," Melvin Rosenwasser, an orthopaedic surgeon for Columbia University Medical Center, said in a statement. "However, after four years of use, these trends reversed, revealing an association between prolonged therapies and declining cortical bone structural integrity."

The problem here is that these pills are essentially made to be taken for long periods of time. Osteoporosis is the sort of condition that isn’t cured, but is managed. People who take these pills fully expect to take them for the rest of their lives. If the shelf life of effective treatment with this medication is only a few years, then the makers of these drugs have a responsibility to tell their customers that this is the case.

As of right now the Food and Drug Administration is currently running a safety review of Fosamax, Boniva and other bone building drugs in order to see if there is an increase of femur fractures among people who have been taking the drug over extended periods of time. But thousands of people who have been hurt as the result of using Fosamax for years have already filed lawsuits against Merck and other pharmaceutical companies.

A jury trial in New Jersey will be held on July 12, 2010, and this case is meant to be a “bell-weather trial,” for victims of Fosamax and other bisphosphonates all over the country. Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. law firm that is currently offering legal assistance to people who have suffered from osteonecrosis of the jaw or other bone fractures due to the use of Fosamax, Boniva, Actonel, or any of the generic versions of these drugs.

Greenberg and Bederman have offices in Silver Spring, Maryland and Baltimore, and are capable of representing injury victims in the entire Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area. That includes Northern Virginia.

Our attorneys have decades of legal experience, and have helped thousands of injury victims in the D.C. area receive fair compensation for their injuries. If you or a loved one has been injured due to the use of Fosamax or any other bisphosphonate, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free Fosamax legal consultation today.

To learn more about fosamax injury, please see our fosamax page on our website.

We completely understand how some people might find such advertising a little disconcerting, but we would like to point out that anyone who has any sort of business engages in advertising, be it a law firm or hardware store or ice cream parlor. Business owners who do not advertise will probably not be business owners for very long. And having represented the injured in the D.C. area for so long, we can tell you with great certainty that injury victims who choose to go it alone usually get treated very poorly by insurers or business owners. Our advertising is not just a way of getting business; it is letting the injured know that they have options and legal rights that they might be unaware of.

Word of Mouth and Professional References: The next time you are at a dinner party, ask any of the guests if they have been involved in a serious car accident. There will probably be more than one person who says yes. You may further ask if any of the guests had difficulties with their insurance company, and we can bet that more than one person will say yes. It is usually the bad behavior of the insurance company that causes the inured to look for an injury or accident lawyer. We have provided legal services for injury victims in the D.C. area for a little less than twenty five years now, and in that time we have built a good reputation as ethical, AV Martindale rated, knowledgeable injury lawyers. Quite often we get calls or e-mails from people who have been hurt, and they say that they were referred by a cousin or a co-worker that we have represented, or by other attorneys who don’t practice injury law.

Our Website: The internet is a crucial element of any modern marketing strategy, and we do our best to keep up with the rapidly changing pace of technological advancements. To that end, we update our website and our blog with new information constantly, not only to attract potential clients but also to keep the average citizen informed on legal issues and changes in the law that might affect them.

Other Internet Marketing: We engage in PPC (pay-per-click) advertising campaigns on Google,Yahoo and Facebook, in which those who type in specific key words will be shown a prominently placed link to our website at the top of the results.

So in a nutshell, we use all of the above mentioned methods to market our services. What follows is a list of what we don’t do.

WHAT WE DON’T DO:

Unsolicited Approaches: We do not and have never contacted injury victims without being contacted first.  We find that unsolicited approach to be profoundly unethical, in bad taste, and, in many cases such methods are against the law. In fact, we wrote a strongly worded article expressing that very same sentiment on this blog a week ago.

Visiting the Scene of an Accident:  An accident scene is usually chaotic, whether it is a major accident or a minor crash. The last thing the police or paramedics need is people  getting in the way, whether they are onlookers, insurance adjusters, or personal injury attorneys. We have never visited the immediate aftermath of an accident for the purposes of “drumming up business.” Frankly, we find such behavior repulsive.

Guarantees: We have never offered guarantees of a successful verdict or settlement to our clients, and we believe that anyone who is approached by attorneys who make such guarantees should find other legal counsel immediately. We also don’t encourage people to take legal action where there is barely any basis for doing so. Quite often, we end up telling people who come to see us that the settlement that they were offered was a fair one and that the matter should end there. We NEVER talk people into filing lawsuits.

Any lawsuit is a serious matter, and is not something to be taken lightly. We make sure that all of our potential clients know the pros and cons of taking their case to court, and we make sure that they know what to expect when they initiate legal action.

If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident in the D.C. area due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free consultation today.

“First, the company evaluates claims with a computer program designed to reduce payouts by as much as 20 percent of what the company once paid for the same injuries.

Second, Allstate pushes policyholders to accept quick settlements without the help of lawyers. Policyholders who try to fight for more money face Allstate attorneys coached to refuse to negotiate and to drag out litigation.

The approach often forces car accident victims to take what Allstate offers right away or spend years in court while their bills go unpaid -- a strategy Allstate spelled out in guidelines for claims adjusters that ‘forces the claimant and attorney to think about the obstacles they must overcome’ ..."

Some insurers aren’t even that clever. In some cases they will simply deny the claim, often referring to fine print in the contract, and sometimes not even offering an explanation at all.

A perfect example of a high profile claim denial would be State Farm’s blanket refusal to help any of their policyholders in the wake of Hurricane Katrina:

“Thousands of families who lost everything to Katrina's fury last August are now facing a second disaster: their insurers won't pay them a dime. The homeowners say they were led to believe they'd be covered when they signed up for their policies. The companies insist they're off the hook because of exclusionary clauses that distinguish between damage caused by wind (covered) and water (not covered). The courts will decide who's right: hundreds of homeowners have sued their insurers, among them U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, who lost a house in Pascagoula, Miss., and Congressman Gene Taylor, whose home in Bay St. Louis was destroyed.

While it's hardly unusual for homeowners and insurers to find themselves at loggerheads after a disaster, the wind vs. water debate has been especially rancorous. Earlier this month, 669 plaintiffs sued State Farm for allegedly denying their claims without properly investigating the cause of the damage to their homes. And last year, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood launched a suit against five big insurers--State Farm, Allstate, Nationwide, United Services Automobile Association and Mississippi Farm Bureau Insurance--for allegedly tricking Katrina victims into signing forms stating that their homes sustained flood damage, which isn't covered. ‘The robber barons of our time,’ Hood calls the insurers.”

These abhorrent and unfair practices fall quite neatly under the heading of what is called “bad faith insurance,” and quite often the best way past them is to acquire the services of an attorney. These insurers are banking on what you do not know about the law, and having a lawyer who knows how insurance companies work as well as what your rights are as an injury victim can put you back on equal ground.

By contacting Greenberg and Bederman, thousands of residents of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area were able to get past these abhorrent insurance company practices, and were also able to receive the compensation that they needed to get their lives back on track.

We have law offices in Silver Spring, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia, and as long as insurance companies believe more in their profit margins than their obligations to policy holders, we’ll be here to help.

Contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

 To learn more about personal injury law, please read Greenberg & Bederman's personal injury page..