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

It’s actually a question we have for a lot of bars and restaurants these days. Drive down any major road, or take any exit off of the beltway, and you will see a place where you can buy and drink alcohol where practically the only way in or out is to drive a car. If the Washington, D.C. area is committed to ending drinking and driving, our zoning boards have a strange way of showing it.

We aren’t suggesting that everyone who goes to these places gets drunk and then drives home. But one of the reasons that we focused on Dogfish Head Alehouse is because of a particularly egregious drinking and driving accident that  happened there in 2008.

A man named Michael Eaton went to the Dogfish Head Alehouse in Gaithersburg, which is in the middle of a parking lot and surrounded by a series of major roads. Mr. Eaton went to the bar and started drinking, and he didn’t stop for hours. By the end of the night, he had consumed 17 beers and three shots of hard liquor. In other words, he was extremely drunk.

There was absolutely no way on earth that the bartenders who provided him with all of that alcohol can claim that they didn’t know that Mr. Eaton was drunk. They work in a bar. They know what even three drinks can do, much less 17 beers and three shots of liquor. They were also perfectly aware of the local geography. Mr. Eaton couldn’t have left the place and gotten on the subway. He couldn’t have stepped out onto the street corner to hail a cab. His only options were to call a cab himself (which he didn’t do,) call a friend for a ride (which he didn’t do,) or to walk home.

He didn’t do any of those things. He walked out to his car, which was in the middle of the parking lot, and drove home. And the bartenders who served him 17 beers and 3 shots over the course of an evening simply let him.

The consequences of this inaction by Dogfish Head Alehouse were tragic. Mr. Eaton slammed into a minivan carrying Jazemin Waar and her family while they were both traveling down I-270. Ms. Waar did not survive, and Mr. Eaton is currently serving 8 years in prison.

So what punishment did the establishment receive? The bar that provided Mr. Eaton with enough alcohol to put him well over the legal limit for alcohol consumption and then sent him out to the parking lot? Well, nothing much really happened to them.

There are no laws establishing liability for bars and restaurants that over-serve their customers in Maryland, even if the bar is located in the middle of a parking lot with no public transportation in sight. This means that whatever happens after their customers leave the premises is of no importance to them whatsoever. This is why you have happy hours that last four hours, or “dollar shooter” nights, or any of the other countless promotions that are designed to get people to drink more. There are no consequences for the owners.

We believe that this is wrong, and it is why we are currently representing the family of Jazemin Waar in Maryland’s courts. We believe that her case is the clearest example of why Maryland needs so-called “dram shop laws.” It is our hope that this case will begin the process of establishing dram shop laws in Maryland, as it is in place in other states.

As car accident injury lawyers in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, we have seen more than our share of people getting hurt in easily preventable car accidents, and unfortunately, alcohol was a factor in some of them. While dram shop laws won’t stop drinking and driving, they would certainly make it harder to accomplish. If bars realize that there could be financial consequences for the reckless behavior of their customers, they might take a few minutes and call that patron a cab, or not serve him that fourth drink. And as a result, we might see fewer cases like Jazemin Waar’s death in Maryland. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would certainly be better than this.

Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to anyone in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. who has been hurt due to the recklessness of another driver. If you or a loved one has been in a car accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident case evaluation.

Believe it or not, it seems that the truth is the exact opposite of that claim. We are getting this information from a study that was published in 2006 by the American College of Emergency Physicians. While we realize that the study is five years old, what makes this study important is that it gives grades in two categories. The first would be quality and availability of care, and the second is what is called “liability environment.” “Liability environment” means the extent to which emergency room physicians are legally liable for damages. If there are caps and other restrictions in place in that particular state, the state is more likely to get an A or a B. If there are few or no restrictions, the state is likely to get a D or an F.

So here are some interesting results from the two-category grading system used by ACEP:

                                            Access to Care                          Liability Environment

District of Columbia                    A+                                                     F

Pennsylvania                               A                                                        F

Massachusetts                             A                                                        D

Maine                                          A                                                        D

Rhode Island                               A                                                        F

Ohio                                            A-                                                       D

Connecticut                                 A-                                                       F

As you can see, all of these states have a liability grade of either D or F. As far as the ACEP is concerned, these states are terrible places to practice medicine. There are either no caps on damages or the caps are on the higher end of the spectrum. There are no so-called “good Samaritan laws” or any other form of immunity for emergency room workers. Yet when you look over at the Access to Care categories, where you would expect to see equivalent bad grades, all you can see are a row of A’s. This means that there are plenty of emergency room workers, low waiting times and a high quality of care received. This goes directly against the standard argument of tort-reformers and insurance companies. There has been no exodus of emergency room physicians due to their fear of being sued.

So what do you think happens if you take a look at the other end of the spectrum? What is the quality of care like when the doctors (and insurance companies) are protected by caps and immunities?

                                            Access to Care                          Liability Environment

Texas                                          D+                                                    A+

California                                   C                                                       A+

Montana                                    C+                                                      A

Nevada                                       D+                                                     A

South Carolina                           C                                                       B+

Georgia                                      D+                                                     B

Colorado                                    C+                                                     B-

Again, we see the exact opposite of what tort reformers and insurance companies expect you to see. No fear of lawsuits, but no real spike in the amount of doctors or the quality of medical care.

Since we very much doubt that any of the tort reformers will give any sort of explanation for these findings, we would like to venture one. Medical malpractice lawsuits do not exist simply to make people money. They exist to help people who have been injured by the mistakes of doctors receive some sort of compensation. They also exist to help keep doctors on top of their game. If there are no consequences for bad medicine, bad medicine will thrive. Look at the doctors in Texas. They have no fear of being sued, so why bother going that extra mile? Why bother double checking? Why bother taking a second to make sure that the diagnosis is correct? What’s the worst that could happen?

Nothing will happen to the doctors, so the patients are on their own.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Maryland-based Medical Malpractice law firm. Our main office in Silver Spring allows us to serve the entire Washington, D.C. area, as well as Baltimore, Maryland. If you or a loved one in Washington, D.C, Virginia or Maryland has been injured due to the actions of a doctor, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

Insurance giants like Allstate, State Farm or GEICO didn’t get to be insurance giants by signing a lot of big checks. When you get into a car accident, the first question they ask isn’t “How can we help?” but rather “How can we get out of paying for this?” And they are very good at getting out of it. Harry Houdini had nothing on your average insurance company.

MSN recently published an article about some of the more notorious insurance adjuster tricks of the trade, and you would be well advised to learn them. Knowing how they work might be the difference between getting reimbursed for your damages and getting stuck with the bill entirely.

One of the more common insurance tactics is offering you a check as soon as possible. And when we say as soon as possible, we mean as soon as possible. Some insurers have adjusters on the scene before the wrecks are even carted away, and in some cases they even show up at the hospital if you have to go there. You might be thinking that the adjuster is using his amazing damage appraisal skills to do an instant financial calculation, and to a certain extent, that’s exactly what he’s doing. The rub here is that when he offers you that check, it may be for significantly less than what the damage will cost. And when you accept that check, you essentially absolve them of any further financial responsibility. You will be footing the bill for the difference between what the insurance company paid you and the actual cost of the car accident.

That’s the obvious trick. Some of the others are a lot more subtle, and most of the time it involves just sitting back and letting you talk.

If you just got into a car accident, your nerves are probably shot. Your adrenaline has kicked in. You might not always mean what you say, or even know what you are saying, for that matter. So if you say something like “I’m so sorry!” or “That was stupid of me!” or anything that can be misconstrued as you having anything at all to do with the causing of the accident, you are giving the other driver’s insurance company an out. Your best bet is to make sure that everyone is ok, and then don’t say anything.

The aversion that insurance companies have towards paying for damage claims is nothing compared to their loathing for paying for medical bills, and people who have been injured in an auto accident often aren’t immediately aware of their injuries until hours or even days later. Just because you feel ok after an accident doesn’t mean you are ok. If your injury manifests itself after you have already told the adjuster that you are fine, you will have a very difficult time getting the insurance company to cover your medical costs. If the adjuster asks if you are injured, the smart thing to do is say “I don’t know yet.”

Bear in mind that we aren’t encouraging anyone to be obstinate or unhelpful after a car accident. But you should know that insurance adjusters have a very specific job to do, and that job involves minimizing their financial responsibilities. If you get into a car accident, you should always keep that in mind. Keep what you say to the bare minimum, and don’t sign anything until you have a clearer understanding of the real costs of your accident, or have retained a lawyer.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Maryland car accident law firm located in Silver Spring, but we can help car accident victims in Virginia and Washington, D.C. as well. If you or a loved one has been injured in an auto accident anywhere in Maryland, Virginia or the District, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

Back in the 19^th and early 20^th century, there used to be places called “workhouses.” This was where the destitute poor were placed. The majority of them were either children or the elderly. These places were essentially prisons. They would be fed the bare minimum, and they would work 12 hours shifts six days a week. Their tasks included picking oakum out of hemp rope, making brooms, or performing other menial tasks so they could earn their keep. Those who were placed in them were actually considered “lucky,” mainly because the only other option was life on the street with nowhere to go. It was a fairly popular background for novelists like Charles Dickens, whose name has become synonymous with bleak living conditions and the utterly destitute.

We don’t live in a society like that anymore. But anyone who thinks we can’t slide back into that sort of thing if we just get rid of the bothersome Social Security tax is delusional.

Sure, we won’t have them make brooms or pick tar out of rope. It would probably be a more twenty-first century kind of menial labor. Maybe working at a call center? Sending out spam e-mails? I’m sure they’ll think of something.

Detractors of Social Security claim that many recipients of social security are getting a “handout” or an “entitlement,” but we have a hard time seeing it that way. An entitlement or a handout is something that you get for free. Social Security is something that you pay into for your entire working life, from your first job as a 15 year old at McDonalds to your last job as a CPA. Your employers pay into it as well. What about that is a “handout?” In fact, we would argue that it is the only government program that takes dues from the taxpayers and provides them with tangible money at the end of it. Taxpayers pay for farm subsidies and receive no real tangible monetary benefit. Taxpayers pay for spare engines for jets, yet never get to fly one. Taxpayers pay for everything this country does, but the only program that gives them money back is Social Security. So when someone asks “Why should I have to pay for somebody else’s retirement,” the answer is “You are paying for someone else’s because someone else will be paying for yours.”

And what about those who become injured and are unable to work?  Do we want to live in a country where those who are unable to work are left with absolutely no income whatsoever? For those of us in gated communities, it probably won’t be that much of a big deal. But for those of us who are not financially well off, and for the majority of us who didn’t make it through life without a significant financial catastrophe, the idea of having nothing, either when we retire or get injured, is not something that we think would be a good idea.

Social Security Insurance and Social Security Disability Insurance is not perfect. There are a lot of things that we can do to make it more efficient and fair. But either privatizing it or abolishing it all together smacks of a different, darker time in America. We shouldn’t go back there again.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Social Security Disability law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance for those who are applying for Social Security Disability Insurance. If you or a loved one in Maryland, Virginia or D.C. need assistance in getting through the Social Security Disability Insurance process, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today.

We were hoping the next replacement will be at L’Enfant Plaza, where what is about the worst case scenario for an escalator failure actually did happen on Halloween of 2010. Right after Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity (which was one of the biggest crowds the National Mall has seen in years,) the brakes on the escalator that leads down into the station failed, causing a pile up of humanity at the mouth of the station. Four people were seriously hurt. You can see the video here.

The next new escalators scheduled for installation are three at Foggy Bottom, three at DuPont Circle and three at the Pentagon. The rest will be going into what WMATA is calling “a major rehab.”

While we completely understand replacing the escalators at the South exit of DuPont (a collapse there would be a monumental disaster,) we are having a hard time understanding why the escalators at L’Enfant aren’t being considered a priority. If there is a total brake failure on an escalator, it would seem that replacing the entire escalator would be a priority. Plus, L’Enfant Plaza is a very high traffic Metro station, at least as equally high traffic as Foggy Bottom. But at this point, we have given up trying to figure out Metro. We just cross our fingers and hope for the best. And replacing some escalators is a good start.

However, we are worried about how this escalator refurbishment will take place. According to the article in The Washington Post, all of the escalators in the Metro system were made by seven different companies, four of whom are currently out of business. And the quote from Deputy General Manager Dave Kubicek makes us somewhat nervous:

“Vendors couldn’t service what was in there. No matter what we did, we weren’t going to be able to service them to the level of expectations.”

Further disturbing bits of information appear shortly below that particular quote:

“Metro used to contract out its service and maintenance of escalators and elevators but brought these back in house in spring 2010. If parts can’t be found on the market, Metro makes them or takes ones from elevators no longer in service.”

So basically, it appears as if in the interest of saving money, Metro brought the escalator maintenance in house, despite not having people with the skills to do the work or the resources to get new parts. They then resorted to cannibalization of no longer existing escalators and elevators, which makes about as much sense as saying, “Hey, why don’t we use the plug from this leak and move it over to the new leak? What could possibly go wrong?”

A great deal can go wrong, apparently. This is the sort of thing that you would expect from a subway system in a third world country, but not Washington, D.C. We urge WMATA to get moving on fixing or replacing all of these escalators before somebody gets hurt.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance for those who have been injured due to no fault of their own, and that includes injuries due to falls. If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today.

One branch of law enforcement that is held to a particularly high standard is the FBI, which basically functions as our national investigative police force. They investigate bank robberies, terrorism, financial fraud, forgeries, kidnapping, or any crime that occurs over multiple states. It takes a lot more than standard police training to be able to join.

We were recently very shocked to learn about the following incident, particularly because it involves an FBI agent breaking the very law that he is supposed to uphold and enforce:

WASHINGTON - Law enforcement officials have identified the FBI agent suspected in a fatal drunk driving car crash in Brandywine, Md. Monday night as 37-year-old Adrian Norbell Johnson. The FBI says the agent has worked for the bureau for six years…Law enforcement sources tell FOX 5 Johnson's blood alcohol level shortly after the deadly crash was .25, three times the legal limit in Maryland. Prince George's County Police say that amount of alcohol in a driver's system is extremely dangerous.

Speaking as attorneys who help victims of drunk drivers, we can tell you  that a .25 blood alcohol level goes beyond “extremely dangerous” and veers right into “extremely reckless.” He would have had to consume at least 10 drinks in order to get to that level of drunkenness, and considering that the job of most law enforcement officers is to prevent people from drinking and driving, he must have known that drinking that much and then getting behind the wheel was both illegal and completely negligent. But he did it anyway.

If Agent Johnson had been pulled over by another police officer or got arrested at a sobriety checkpoint, this might have just been an unfortunate and embarrassing incident for the FBI. Instead it turned out to be an accident where one person died and another was left in critical care in the hospital. So this incident has turned out to be both a tragedy and an embarrassment, especially considering that Agent Johnson was meant to join the security detail for the Attorney General.

Drunk driving is a serious problem in this country, particularly in the Washington, D.C. area. There were 243 DUI fatalities in Virginia last year, 10 in the District, and 162 in Maryland. And the DUI accidents where people were injured numbers in the thousands. The cost of these accidents ranges in the tens of millions. Drinking and driving is a detriment to the safety of our society, and it is one that could be easily avoided if everyone simply exercised some basic responsibility.

There is a big difference between a run of the mill car accident and an accident that is caused by drunk driving. An accident can happen to anyone. But drunk driving is negligent behavior that is often the primary cause of an auto accident. You can’t blame a driver if a deer runs out in front of his car, but you can blame a driver if he drinks ten vodka tonics, and then attempts to drive home. Agent Johnson should have certainly known this, and why he decided to risk driving home after drinking that much is beyond us.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently helping people who have been injured in car accidents due to the negligence of drunk drivers. We can help anyone in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. If you or a loved one has been injured in a drunk driving car accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident legal consultation.

Generally speaking, the answer is that your insurance company and the insurance company of the other driver get together and hammer it out. In many cases, the solution ends up being that your insurance company handles your damages and the other driver’s insurance company handles their driver’s damages. This usually isn’t a problem if it’s a no fault accident with no injuries, but things get tricky if people get hurt.

Each state has minimum levels of insurance for drivers. This basically means that there is a minimum amount of coverage that you can have before you are allowed to drive. In Maryland, the minimum is $20,000 worth of coverage for one person injured in the car, with a $40,000 total for all passengers injured. In Virginia, its $25,000 for one person injured, with a $50,000 total for all passengers injured. In Washington, D.C, the minimum is the same as Maryland’s. That might seem to be a perfectly reasonable amount, but you should remember that $20,000 is not a lot of money when it comes to emergency room treatment. You should also remember that in Virginia, the “minimum” is actually just the insurance level. Virginia is one of the few states in the Union where you can simply pay a fee every year to the Department of Motor Vehicles and drive with no insurance whatsoever.

So what do you do? What happens if the accident is just one of those things, but the insurance doesn’t cover all of your physical damages? What happens if the car accident is in Virginia and the driver simply doesn’t have insurance? It has been our experience that insurance companies are profoundly hesitant to even get close to the maximum of what they are supposed to spend, and they often delay and deny payment in the hopes that their claimant will simply give up.

The smartest thing that you can do is contact an attorney for legal advice before it even gets to this point. Insurance companies are quite good at making it seem as if you have no options, when in fact you have several. An experienced attorney can help you determine the best course of action for you, and can also help you avoid the standard tricks of the trade of the insurance companies.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to people who have been injured in car accidents in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. We also help people who have been hurt in motorcycle or trucking accidents, as well as bicycle and pedestrian accidents. If you or a loved one has been injured in Maryland, Virginia, or Washington, D.C, contact car accident injury lawyers Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

The general argument would seem to be “Wait a minute, how is it that this ruling is now a law? Aren’t the legislatures supposed to create law? I didn’t vote for this. Nobody I voted for had anything to do with creating or passing this law.”

But sometimes, this is exactly the point of having a judicial system. As the saying goes, “What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.” State legislatures or even the federal government can pass and have passed laws that don’t always line up with the Constitution. For example, let’s say that Baltimore passes a city ordinance that states that everyone who attends a Ravens game has to wear the color purple or face a fifty dollar fine. This might be a particularly popular law in Baltimore, but there is no conceivable way that any court in the land would allow that ruling to remain in place. Our judicial system acts as a check to make sure that legislatures do not overstep their bounds, and sometimes that pleases Americans and sometimes that makes them angry, but at the end of the day we believe that a strong Judiciary is an absolute necessity for a functioning democracy.

We are bringing this up not to give you a civics lesson, but because the concept of “activist judges” and “judicial activism” has been on our minds lately. We are currently addressing a case that we hope will establish laws in Maryland that currently do not exist in our state, even though similar laws are established on the books of many other states in America. These are called “Dram Shop Laws.”

In a nutshell, dram shop laws exist to make sure that alcohol is sold in a responsible manner. It is no secret that people can do reckless and stupid things when they are drunk. They get into fistfights, they pass out in public, and they often drink and drive. While you can’t prevent people from consuming alcohol (nor would we want to,) you can hold businesses that sell alcohol accountable if they are selling alcohol to people who are already visibly intoxicated. Many states do just that. If it can be proven that a bar not only allowed but also encouraged a patron to become drunk, and that patron drives off and causes a serious car accident, that bar can be held liable for the damages. These laws aren’t on the books in Maryland, but we think they should be.

We are currently representing a family that lost a granddaughter due to a drunk driver. While this is a sadly common occurrence, what makes this case relatively unique is that the driver got visibly drunk at one bar over the course of an evening. One establishment served him beer after beer and shot after shot and simply let him leave.

As we mentioned, Maryland has no real dram shop laws on the books. There is nothing in Maryland’s legal code that could hold this bar even possibly responsible. We took this case because we believe that we can change that. We believe that a state court can and should rule that the victims of the irresponsibility of a business can hold that business accountable. It isn’t a law that would be made up out of whole cloth. There are examples of these laws on the books in several other states. And since there isn’t any sign of legislation about this issue moving forward in the Maryland state legislature, we believe that the only realistic avenue that is available to us is through the court system.  

We have no doubt that there are some who would call this “judicial activism,” or “legislating from the bench” or “judicial overreach,” most likely the alcohol and restaurant lobbies. But we believe that there is nothing overreaching about establishing protections for victims and liability for businesses when equivalent laws already exist in other states. All Maryland would be doing is catching up to the other states who have taken a more responsible view as to how establishments could conduct themselves.

Greenberg and Bederman is apersonal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured due to the negligent and irresponsible actions of drunk drivers. We can help injury victims in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

However, In the case of Michael Eaton, telepathy was not needed.  On August 21, 2008, Mr. Eaton came into Dogfish Head Alehouse in Gaithersburg at around 4 in the afternoon.  He opened a bar tab, and in the course of six hours he ordered 14 Coronas and 2 shots that are called “Lemon Drops.”  Lemon Drops are essentially about an ounce and a half of vodka.  It could be argued that Mr. Eaton didn’t drink all of the alcohol that he ordered.  But even if he bought half of those drinks for other people his tally up to that point would have been 8 drinks.

After closing that first bar tab, he opened another, this time purchasing 3 more Coronas and a shot of tequila. Then he paid that off and left.

At no point did anyone at the bar cut him off.  At no point did anyone say “I think you’ve had enough.” It’s a safe assumption that the only thing that was said to Mr. Eaton by the employees at Dogfish Ale House was “Would you like another round?” or “Here’s your check.” They can’t make the argument that they didn’t know he was drunk. They were also responsible for getting him that way.

This is an important point. Because after Mr. Eaton left the bar, he got into his car and proceeded to drive down I-270 at around 90 miles an hour.  It was there that he slammed into a car carrying Jazimen Warr, a ten year old girl. Jazimen Warr did not survive the experience.

Mr. Eaton is now serving a term in prison for vehicular manslaughter, which is what he deserves.  But the underlying question is this: How much responsibility does Dogfish Head Alehouse have in the death of Ms. Warr? Mr. Eaton sat in that establishment for four hours and consumed enough alcohol to where there could have been no question as to his state. Establishments that sell alcohol should have a duty to do so in a responsible manner. So where does this leave Dogfish Head Ale House? Are they liable?

We believe they are. Unfortunately, Maryland believes that they are not.

Maryland is one of the few states in America that has no laws establishing liability for bar and restaurant owners for the actions of their customers, even if the amount of alcohol they consume is a direct cause for anything that happens later.  Considering what the Warr family lost, and considering how easy it would have been for the people at Dogfish Head Ale House to prevent what happened, we believe dram shop laws should be put into place. This is a position that we have held for quite some time, and it is one of the reasons that we are representing the Warr family.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to anyone in the Maryland, D.C. and Virginia areas who has been injured due to no fault of their own. If you or a loved one in the D.C. area has been injured due to a drunk driver, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

• 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.

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.

Serious Car Accidents:Any accident that involves a complete loss of your car and/or a stay in the hospital should not be handled without legal counsel. When medical treatment is involved, insurance companies will often try to deny liability outright or offer an artificially low settlement in order to minimize the payout. Handling a car accident injury claim without an injury lawyer is practically a guarantee that your needs will not be realistically met.

Accidents with Trucks or other Commercial Vehicles:Tractor trailers and other commercial vehicles are on the road for no other reason than to make money, and as a result the laws regarding commercial insurance coverage are different. A commercial vehicle might have multiple policies, with the driver having one policy and the freight company having another. What often happens in the event of a commercial vehicle accident is a game of “pass the buck,” where one insurer will claim that the other insurer is more liable than the other and vice versa. Commercial insurance companies are also notorious for being closed mouthed and difficult during investigations. An experienced personal injury attorney can help you sort out the liability issues, determine who was at fault, and help you receive fair compensation for your injuries and property damage. And considering the harm that a truck or tractor trailer can do, it is a safe bet that there will be both serious injuries and major property damage. The stakes are too high in a situation like that to go it alone.

Medical Malpractice: Doctors make mistakes all the time, but not all medical mistakes are necessarily a medical malpractice. If a medical provider deviates from the standard of care, and causes harm to the patient, with damages, there may be a negligence claim against the medical provider. Even if the doctors are upfront about the mistake and the insurance company offers you a settlement, there could be elements of that settlement that are inadequate. An experienced personal injury attorney should be able to tell fairly quickly whether or not your settlement offer is a decent one.

Falls:On the surface, slipping and falling might seem to be more comical that damaging, but the reality is that falls are a major cause of serious injuries and deaths. Because slipping and falling can be embarrassing, even people who are severely injured are sometimes hesitant to consult with an attorney. But businesses, hotels and rental properties are required to maintain safe premises for customers, guests and tenants. Unmarked wet floors, poorly lit staircases or cracked flooring are only some of the examples as to how negligent maintenance by an owner or manager has resulted in serious injury. A fall might be embarrassing, but if you were seriously injured due to circumstances that were not your fault, you have every right to seek compensation for your damages. An injury attorney can conduct an investigation and help determine whether or not your injury happened due to negligence.

Despite the sunny advertising about being a “good neighbor,” the average insurance adjuster is not in the business of writing big checks. In fact, most insurance adjusters, whether they work for auto insurance, commercial vehicle insurance, medical malpractice insurance or property insurance, are actually financially rewarded for paying out less in claims. It is therefore in their best interest to pay you as little as possible. To that end, they routinely offer artificially low settlements, and engage in manipulative tactics to get you to accept them. A good rule of thumb for dealing with insurance adjusters is that if there is any element of your injury that goes beyond the concrete arithmetic in front of you, then any settlement that is offered to you should be thoroughly scrutinized by a personal injury attorney. For instance, if the injury was particularly painful, then that pain and suffering should be compensated. If you are unable to return to work because of your injury, then you should be compensated for your lost income. If you will have to go through rehabilitation to recover from your injuries, the rehabilitation costs should be covered.

If your adjuster offers excuses for not providing for these costs in the settlement, or if it seems that he is trying to steer the blame for the accident over to you, or if he says things like “We don’t want to make mountains out of molehills,” you can be absolutely sure that this means you aren’t being treated fairly.

Any experienced personal injury attorney should be able to take a look at your settlement offer and determine whether or not it is adequate to cover your damages, both present and future damages. If insurance companies would simply be forthcoming and generous from the beginning, we injury lawyers may go out of business. An experienced injury lawyer can judge what any settlement is lacking and the  best way to proceed.

In any accident requiring medical treatment, it is simply better to be safe than sorry. Consulting an injury attorney after a serious accident can keep you from becoming victimized a second time. You shouldn’t find out that your settlement is inadequate after you’ve already signed it.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm based in Silver Spring, Maryland. Our attorneys have provided legal counsel for the injured of Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. since 1985. We have helped secure high settlements and judgments for those who have been injured due to car accidents, medical malpractice, or other types of personal injury. If you or a loved one in the greater Washington, D.C. area has been injured in an accident, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

To learn more about personal injury law, please read our personal injury page on our website.  To learn more about our personal injury lawyers, please see our personal injury videos on Youtube.

Other states are also taking steps to prevent elder abuse in nursing homes. New Mexico and Texas have also recognized the utility of using video cameras to monitor the rooms of patients in nursing homes. Both state legislatures passed laws giving patients and family members the right to place a video camera in the patient’s room. Although this monitoring system may not allow a third party to catch and stop abusive behavior while it is occurring like in New York, this technology can certainly aid in the prosecution of abusive and negligent staff members. Video camera surveillance is not limited to catching active abuse. In New Mexico, video camera footage was used to substantiate a claim of patient neglect. The footage made it clear that a patient’s bedsores had resulted from the nursing home staff’s failure to regularly turn the patient in bed.

Technology retailers have begun to market these cameras as a safety trend. Camera suppliers have begun to specifically market cameras to the elderly. Purchasers are even given the option to hook up the video camera to a local server for at home monitoring (with of course, an additional fee). With just a quick Google search I was able to find such a camera, one disguised as a clock radio, for about $260.00.

Yet mixed among the success stories of prevention and prosecution, are doubts about the usefulness of such video monitoring systems. Currently, no state has a law which explicitly prohibits the placement of cameras in the rooms of nursing home patients. However, the laws of many states require that the patient or their family members inform the operators of the nursing home about the plan to place a camera in the patient’s room. Nursing home care is already cost-prohibitive, and the addition of video monitoring systems only exacerbates this problem.

While the biggest reward of implementing a video monitoring system is the piece of mind of knowing your loved one will not be receiving abusive nursing care, there is the possibility of additional benefits. The installation of such surveillance technology may help lower the cost of insurance premiums. The hope for advocates of such technology is that soon, surveillance cameras will be placed in all of the patient rooms in nursing homes, resulting in a better quality of care for all patients, and increased confidence in nursing care facilities nationwide.

To learn more about maryland medical malpractice issues including nursing home abuse, please click on medical malpractice.  To learn more about our Maryland medical malpractice lawyer, John Sellinger, please read our firm bios.