If you’re planning on filing a lawsuit, you probably have what you believe to be evidence that you were wronged in some regard. Understanding evidence, however, does take some real legal knowledge. In fact, you may find that, upon meeting with your attorney, they don’t really believe that the things you consider to be evidence […]
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Police Sued Over Privacy Violations
CNN reported that a police department in Washington is facing a lawsuit over violating the rights of inmates. The reporting details that 11 women and 1 man are suing a police department over alleged instances where the inmates—who were all arrested on suspicion of drunk driving—were recorded while they were undressing and using the toilet. […]
Frivolous Lawsuits Get too Much Publicity
The idea behind a lawsuit is to give a person who was wronged because of another person’s negligence away to get compensated. This can include suing manufacturers for putting dangerous products out on the market when they should’ve known better, suing motorists who are prone to driving dangerously and end up hurting or killing someone […]
Dog Bites and Liability
Unfortunately, many dog owners are not responsible with their animals. In fact, it’s quite reasonable to argue that the biggest cause of dog bites has nothing to do with dogs, but with the people who are in charge of taking care of those dogs. There are differences on a state-by-state basis as to how much […]
Daycare Worker Arrested for Raping Children
For parents with children in daycare, a nightmare scenario seems to be unfolding in Ohio. According to NewsOK, a daycare worker has been arrested on two counts of rape. The woman, according to the article, had engaged in sexual conduct with an infant and made a video of herself doing it. Police claim that they […]
Class Action Against LinkedIn Reveals Importance of TOS
If you’ve gotten emails that appear to be from a friend of yours but that were actually from LinkedIn giving a pitch for the website, you’re not alone. In fact, a lawsuit has been filed against the business social networking website alleging that the company breaks into email accounts, uses the contact list to send […]
Can You Sue a Company for Mishandling Your Information?
Today, it’s not uncommon for companies with whom people do very casual business – cellular phone companies, Internet service providers, etc. – to have some very sensitive information about their clients. For example, Social Security numbers are routinely used as forms of identification and many companies require that information in order to open an account. […]
Why Do Personal Injury Attorneys Turn Down Cases?
There are instances when a personal injury attorney may turn down your claim. This may leave you wondering if there is any hope for justice but, keep in mind the fact that civil lawsuits are not really about justice; they’re about compensation. If you’ve been turned down as a client by an attorney, some or […]
How Do You Sue on Behalf of a Child
Some of the largest jury awards are actually handed out to children. These occur in cases involving medical malpractice during birth, car accidents that permanently damage a child and in other cases. Obviously, a child cannot enter into a contract or take any other legal action of their own accord. Parents are the ones who […]
Houston Car Crashes Kill Two Well-Known Figures
A singer and a lighting designer were both among the fatalities that resulted from two separate car wrecks in Houston this month. Laura Botkin, a singer, died after being struck by a vehicle heading the wrong way. The accident occurred when she was on her way back from the Grand Canyon. According to a report on Chron.com, the singer was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash. She was ejected from the car and killed.
Jeremy Choate, a lighting designer, was killed in a motorcycle accident on a service road near I-10. The 33 year-old artist was on his way to a cast party at the time of the wreck.
Police are investigating to see if alcohol was a factor in the accident that killed Botkin. The driver of the wrong-way vehicle had a warrant out for a previous DWI, according to the report on Chron.
Wrong-Way Accidents
Wrong-way accidents have been frighteningly common over the last few months. Drivers who mistakenly enter a freeway heading the wrong way can cause devastating damage to the cars they strike, oftentimes killing the driver or passengers. These accidents oftentimes do involve alcohol and the driver of the offending vehicle sometimes may have never made the mistake if they were not intoxicated.
Motorcycle Accidents
The wreck that killed Choate was a hit and run. These crashes are among the most frustrating because the driver who caused the accident sometimes ends up getting away with it for a time. Quite often, however, police are able to piece together evidence that allows them to determine who the hit-and-run driver was and to go after them for criminal charges.
Common Accidents and Options
If you’re involved in one of these types of accidents, you do have options. You can contact an attorney to discuss whether or not filing a lawsuit would be to your benefit.
Lawsuits over car crashes are filed due to the negligence of the driver that caused the accident. When that other driver was negligent and, because of that, brought you to harm, you can sometimes seek a jury award or a settlement through a lawsuit. Not every driver involved in such a crash, however, will have this option.
Talk to an Attorney
If you want to know whether or not it would be worth it to go ahead and file a lawsuit, the first step is consulting with a Houston accident attorney. They’ll be able to review the circumstances of your crash and help to determine whether or not the other driver involved was likely negligent. If they believe that driver was negligent, they can start putting together a case to establish as much to a jury and this may win you compensation.
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Pfizer Loses Fen-Phen Dismissal Move
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer was unsuccessful in getting claims dismissed over fen-phen, a diet drug that has been the subject of numerous lawsuits. The company acquired the original manufacturer, Wyeth, in 2009 and sought to get lawsuits over the side effects of the drug thrown out. Specifically, it was trying to get lawsuits alleging that the lethal side effects of this drug could be experienced many years after usage had stopped.
Fen-Phen
A popular diet drug up until its 1997 recall, fen-phen was found to have potentially fatal side effects. The drug is linked to primary pulmonary hypertension and, according to some lawsuits, that condition can result from usage of this drug more than a decade after a patient has discontinued using it. At its peak, there were more than 6 million prescriptions written for fen-phen. In the year since it was recalled, fen-phen has been the subject of of nearly 200,000 lawsuits.
The Side Effects
The lawsuits filed over fen-phen alleged that the drug had side effects that were deliberately hidden by the manufacturer so that they could continue making profits on the drug. Since the drug was recalled from the market, however, fen-phen has cost the manufacturer a great deal of money. Some of the largest jury awards and settlements have taken place in Texas.
In a lawsuit over the wrongful death of a woman who was using fen-phen, a Texas jury ended up awarding her surviving family $900 million in punitive damages and $113 million in compensatory damages. To deal with the lawsuits that they were certain they were going to face, the original manufacturer of the drug had put aside $21 billion, according to reports.
Suing a Pharma Company
Pfizer and other large pharmaceutical companies, as you can see from the $21 billion figure, have plenty of money to protect themselves in court. In cases where you know you’re going to be up against such a huge company in a lawsuit, it’s easy to be cynical and think that you would never be able to win when a company can put up that kind of money. The fact of the matter is, however, that the law is on the side of a person who was wronged by a company that was irresponsible and people routinely win lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies when it can be established that those pharmaceutical companies deliberately and cynically endangered their customer’s lives.
If you believe that you were injured by a pharmaceutical company, whether it was from using fen-phen or any other drug, make certain that you contact a Texas personal injury attorney. They will be willing to sit down with you for a free consultation about whether or not filing a lawsuit is a good option for you.
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It’s Fair Season; Be Careful
Late summer and early autumn mean that county fairs will be popping up all over Texas. With those fairs, of course, come plenty of thrilling rides where children test their ability to endure frightening roller coasters and other amusements and where adults see if the intervening years between the present and their childhood have given them stronger stomachs. Before you get on one of these rides, however, realize that they can be dangerous and that there have been cases of people being grievously injured and killed on amusement park rides.
Avoiding Negligence
If you or a family member has come to any harm on an amusement park ride, a Houston personal injury attorney may be able to help you. Any Houston personal injury attorney, however, would very much prefer that you exercise a bit of common sense and that you are aware of any risks that you’re taking when you get on these rides. Your children may be a little bit disappointed by you putting safety before a momentary thrill on an amusement park ride, but make sure you do take the following into account.
Be wary of ride operators who let children slide when the safety guidelines for the ride demand that they be taller or bigger than they currently are. According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, a three-year-old ended up losing his life after a safety restraint failed to keep him in his seat. In this particular case, the family did receive a settlement, but the amusement park continues to operate.
When you’re taking a look at a ride, take note of how safe it appears. You may not possess the type of engineering skills that are required to design and maintain an amusement park ride, but you should follow your instincts in this matter. If it seems like the ride isn’t stable, like it hasn’t been well maintained or the people operating the ride have very little regard for the people getting on it, you may just want to skip it and find something else amusing for your family to do at the fair.
If you do take a ride, make sure you instruct your children to stay seated or positioned however else is recommended by the ride operator throughout the entire ride. People have fallen off of rides before and ended up losing their lives. There are cases where this is not the fault of the ride operator, but is, instead, the fault of somebody who did not follow the safety guidelines. Make certain that you do and make certain that your children do.
If an irresponsible ride operator ends up causing you or someone in your family injury, make certain that you talk to a personal injury attorney about the matter. The operator may well owe you compensation.
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Houston Police Strike Pickup
A Houston police vehicle slammed into a pickup at the intersection of Bissonnet and Beechnut on August 19. According to Chron.com, the accident occurred when the driver of the police vehicle was on his way to a chase at around 1am.
The driver of the pickup will not be ticketed and no one was hurt in the accident. The truck was t-boned in the intersection. According to the report, the police officer did have his sirens and his lights on but the driver of the truck could not stop before entering the intersection.
Crashes with Municipal Vehicles
Drivers sometimes end up getting hurt or killed due to the actions of the drivers of emergency vehicles. Obviously, it’s not uncommon for emergency vehicle drivers to have to drive very fast in areas where the speed limits are much lower. Even though they do have reasons for doing this, you may be able to get compensated for the damages they caused.
Settlements
Sometimes, cities will be fair and offer a settlement amount that takes care of the damages that they caused to people’s property. If a police officer smashes into your vehicle and destroys it, for example, the municipality may simply offer to total out the vehicle for you and to pay you back. This isn’t always the case, however.
When to Sue
You need to talk to an attorney if you’re interested in going after a municipality because of damage that they caused to your property or because of medical expenses that you suffered due to a crash that they caused. There are cases where the municipality won’t offer anything or where they won’t offer enough to actually cover the damages that they caused. In such cases, it’s a good idea to at least consult with an attorney to see what your options are.
If it was a non-emergency vehicle that struck you, you may be able to sue, as well. Accidents involving city buses and other heavy, municipal vehicles can destroy a car in less than a second. In some cases, these accidents may involve serious injuries or even deaths and that means that you need to talk to an attorney about getting compensated. Which part of the city you go after for damages may vary depending upon the department responsible for the vehicle that struck you but, overall, there is usually a way that an attorney can seek compensation for you.
Talk to an attorney and let them know what happened. Even if the wreck didn’t cause injuries, you should be able to get compensated for your financial and property losses as a result of the crash. If an emergency or non-emergency vehicle struck you, be sure to talk to a lawyer about it.
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Another Lawsuit Over Hot Beverages
A woman in Seattle is suing Starbucks over injuries allegedly caused by a hot beverage. The woman claims that, after buying tea in a drive through lane, she suffered burns that resulted from the lid not being affixed to the cup properly. These types of cases are oftentimes ridiculed in the media, but it’s important to understand what happened to the woman and why she might want to sue.
The Injuries
The injuries that were allegedly the results of the tea not being sealed correctly are distressing. The woman claims that, upon taking a sip of the tea, the lid came off the cup and the hot tea poured all over her body. She suffered immediate blistering and second-degree burns, according to a report in Seattle PI. The woman’s representation claims that the company was negligent and that the cup was designed improperly. They also claim that the popular coffee chain is aware of the problem and that they have done nothing to remedy the issue.
The woman’s injuries required skin grafts to repair, which are both expensive and painful procedures. She also claims other injuries in her lawsuit, according to the report.
When It’s Not Your Fault
There are plenty of ways that claims like these are characterized as being the fault of the injured party. In some cases, the injured individual likely is to blame. In other cases, however, the injured party is simply a victim of someone else’s negligence or of negligence on the part of a company.
When you buy a product, you have a justified reason to expect that you’re buying something that’s safe. There are plenty of cases, however, where someone is sold a defective product that ends up injuring them. Sometimes it’s a cup of coffee and sometimes it’s a medical device; these cases vary widely. The thing to keep in mind is that accepting a settlement without talking to an attorney is not in your best interests.
Negligence
It’s natural to feel like something such as the incident described above, or a remarkably similar incident in Albuquerque years ago, would somehow be your fault if it happened to you. An attorney should be consulted about these matters, however. There’s no sense paying for your own injuries if you didn’t cause them through your own actions and if a little more care in the delivery of a service or a product on behalf of a provider would have prevented those injuries.
Don’t accept a settlement without contacting an attorney if you’re injured by a product or a service. If you’re offered a settlement, consider it an indication that the company offering it is worried about being sued and there may be good reason for that! Contact a Houston personal injury attorney and get their opinion first.
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Driver Takes Plunge into Sinkhole
According to a report by ABC news, a college student in West Palm Beach, Florida drove into a sinkhole while trying to make a turn in a fast food restaurant’s parking lot. The student wasn’t injured. He also wasn’t the first to fall prey to the sinkhole. The story also details that the driver of an 18 wheeler also got stuck in the sink hole, but his vehicle was large enough to prevent him from falling in completely.
Unexpected Hazard
The driver, who happened to be a law student, was driving into the parking lot to turn around. He couldn’t see the hole, as the caution signs and tape that had been installed after the semi had gone in the hole had blown away overnight. The driver was driving a vehicle that was low to the ground, making it even harder to see.
It took a tow truck to get the vehicle out of the sinkhole. The report claims that the sinkhole was a whopping 8 feet deep.
Premise Liability
Not every premise liability claim involves a physical injury to the victim. As is the case in this story, the victim sometimes ends up suffering property damage. There are no reports as to whether the driver of the vehicle intends to sue for damages or not but this is a case where you would definitely want to speak with an attorney, whether or not you were injured.
Commercial establishments are responsible for the safety of the people they invite on their property. In a case such as this, it might not make any difference that the hazard was flagged initially. It wasn’t flagged at the time and, depending upon what an attorney thought of the matter upon review of the situation, there might be an opportunity to file a lawsuit for damages in a case such as this. Even though there are no physical injuries reported in the story, the driver’s car would certainly need a lot of work after falling into an 8-foot deep hole, if it was repairable at all.
Talking to a Lawyer
If you’ve suffered property damage or a personal injury on a commercial property, the time to talk to a lawyer is always right away. There are limitations on how long you have to file a lawsuit in such cases and the more quickly you report the incident the better.
An attorney who takes cases like these usually works on contingency. This means they don’t get paid if you don’t win via settlement or jury award. There’s no risk in talking to an attorney and, if you have a good claim, you may end up being compensated for your losses that resulted from the property owner’s negligence.
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Verizon Settles in Class Action Suit
If you were a Verizon landline customer and paid unauthorized third-party charges on your phone service between April 27, 2005 and February 28, 2012, you may be able to recover that money. The company settled a class action lawsuit that requires them to pay back 100% of certain unauthorized charges. You’ll have the option of filing a Full Payment Claim, which gets you all your money back or to file a Flat Payment Claim, which will give you a refund of $40.
You can also find out if you did pay for such charges. If you’re a member of the class that sued-you would have been notified by mail-you’ll be able to request a summary to see if you’re owed money. Even the attorneys in this case acknowledge that the changes Verizon is implementing will go a long way toward minimizing such problems in the future. Being “slammed” is the slang term for having third-party services added to your phone service without your consent.
What Are Class Actions?
Class actions are lawsuits that involve a large number of claimants who have more or less the same complaint. The case is heard via one representative case, which is why these cases are sometimes called representative actions. These types of claims are common in product liability law. For instance, when many people suffer similar injuries due to defective drugs or medical products, class actions sometimes result. They allow people to get compensated and free up the court system from being overwhelmed by potentially thousands of claims that are very similar.
Individual Claims Against a Company
Quite frequently, consumers have individual claims against a service provider or manufacturer that aren’t mirrored in other claims. In these cases, a product liability lawyer might be able to help. There are three broad ways in which a product or service can be defective. They are:
· Defective in that it did not perform as advertised
· Defective in that it was manufactured in a way that made it useless or dangerous
· Defective in that it was designed in a way that made it useless or dangerous
Where services are concerned, there are sometimes discrepancies between what is advertised and reality that bring about lawsuits. For instance, if your Internet speed was advertised as being of a certain quality but it never delivered, you may have an opportunity to file a lawsuit against the provider.
Talking to an Attorney
A Houston product liability attorney may be able to help you if you’re in a situation where you paid for something that was useless, dangerous or not as advertised. If you’ve been charged for goods that you never ordered, you may also have a claim. Talk to an attorney to learn more.
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Semi Driver May Face Charges in Houston County Crash
A semi driver may face criminal negligent homicide charges from an accident that resulted in the death of the driver of a passenger vehicle. The accident occurred at a construction zone, where four vehicles were already stopped. The semi driver, according to a report on KTRE, failed to apply brakes in time, slamming into the last of the vehicles and causing a chain reaction accident. In total, one driver died and six other people nearby were injured.
Negligence
Legally, negligence involves failing to take an action that would’ve prevented somebody from coming to harm or taking an action that caused somebody to come to harm. In instances where negligence involves a vehicle, nobody is expecting an everyday driver to be possessed of the type of skills that you would expect of a police officer or a professional driver. Negligence involves the types of actions or inaction that would apply to the average person.
In instances where negligence causes a death or injury, filing a civil lawsuit is an option for the parties that were injured, or their families, if somebody happened to lose their life as the result of the accident.
Accidents that involve negligence on the part of a semi driver are particularly deadly. In instances where a semi collides with passenger vehicles, there is very little chance that any of the drivers of those passenger vehicles are going to escape unharmed. Simply because of the mass of a semi, the amount of inertia it generates when it is moving at speed is incredible. No matter how sturdy a passenger vehicle may be, most of them will not stand a chance against that kind of force and that is precisely why accidents involving semis are so deadly.
Trucker or Company?
If you have been injured by a semi, your lawyer may recommend that you sue the trucking company for which the driver worked, the driver themselves or both. There are instances where the truck driver happens to be the one who was negligent and where they are solely responsible for having caused the accident. There are also cases where the trucking company was negligent in maintaining their equipment or in providing adequate rest time for their drivers, thereby being a party to the accident that occurred. An attorney is the only one who can really figure out where negligence may apply and who is responsible for it.
Filing a Lawsuit
There are essentially two types of lawsuits that come out of accidents involving semis where somebody is hurt. If you are injured, you’ll be looking at a personal injury lawsuit and, unfortunately, if somebody happened to die, you may find yourself talking to an attorney about filing a wrongful death claim. A Houston personal injury attorney can help you with either type of claim. The first step is arranging for a consultation with a personal injury attorney so that you can tell them the situation. Don’t worry if you don’t remember everything that happened, which is common in these situations. Attorneys have the technology and the knowledge required to reconstruct accidents if necessary.
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When Medical Malpractice May Apply
Medical malpractice lawsuits are sometimes the only ways that the victims of malpractice or their survivors have to get compensation for the negligence of a doctor or a healthcare facility. Understanding when medical negligence may be an issue is imperative. The number one thing to remember is that, if you even suspect negligence, you should talk to an attorney about the matter as soon as possible. Here, however, are some things that you may want to consider.
Failure to Diagnose
Almost half of the medical malpractice claims filed every year involve failure to diagnose in one form or another. It’s important to understand how failure to diagnose can affect a patient.
Failure to diagnose can occur in scenarios that involve a regular visit to a doctor or an emergency room visit. The main thing these claims generally involve is that the doctor missed something that they should’ve caught and, because of that, their patient was brought to harm. An example would be an emergency room doctor failing to diagnose a serious trauma injury that later went on to cause the victim a great deal of financial and personal harm.
It’s important to remember that, if you deliberately concealed information from a doctor that may have led to them making the correct diagnosis, medical malpractice may not apply. For instance, if you were suffering all of the symptoms of diabetes and didn’t tell your physician and the physician didn’t run any tests to determine whether or not you had diabetes, it would be very difficult to argue that the physician is at all responsible for that. Failure to diagnose applies when the doctor should have known but did not.
Wrong Treatments
The incorrect treatment or surgery for a condition can end up causing a great deal of harm to patients. Being given the wrong treatment is one of the most common reasons that people file a medical malpractice claim. Not only may the treatment itself – particularly if it is a surgery – cause the patient to go through pain and suffering, loss of wages, physical harm, mental trauma and other hardships, it may cause the condition they actually had to worsen. If your physician has ordered an incorrect treatment for you and if you have suffered because of it, you should speak with an attorney.
What if You Don’t Know?
Again, speaking with an attorney is the best move if you’re not sure whether or not you were the victim of medical malpractice. A Houston medical malpractice attorney will be able to listen to your story and determine if it seems like medical malpractice was an issue in how you came to harm. This area of the law is particularly complex and, in Texas, it has been changed in recent years. You’ll want to make certain that you find an attorney who understands this law to a very exacting degree and who is willing to sit down and listen to you during a consultation. Consultations are usually free, so there’s no harm in calling an attorney and asking if you could meet with them.
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Distracted Driving an Epidemic, Says CDC
Distracted driving has reached epidemic proportions, according to a survey released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June of 2012. According to this survey, over 55 percent of high school seniors acknowledged that they had sent messages via text or e-mail while they were driving. The same survey said that approximately 40 percent of high school juniors had also e-mailed or texted while they were driving.
Distracted driving is rapidly becoming one of the worst threats on the road. In the second or two it takes to look down at the screen of a cellular phone, a car can travel a significant distance and, of course, that car may end up plowing into somebody in front of them or into a pedestrian crossing the road.
Tech Cures and Failures
According to an Associated Press report, the industry has responded to problems with people driving while distracted by releasing a range of cell phone apps that are designed to curb this behavior. Rather than relying upon the driver’s own sense of responsibility, these apps turn off or reduce the volume on cellular devices when they detect that they are moving at vehicle speeds. Results of these apps have been mixed, though they have proven somewhat popular.
At the same time that the technology sector is attempting to address this problem with new apps, the Transportation Department is looking to law enforcement. Hoping that a combination of public service messages and increased law enforcement will curb the problem, the Department is planning on spending millions in California and Delaware to address this issue, according to the same Associated Press reports.
Sensible Solutions
In Texas, there are restrictions on teenage drivers using cellular phones while they are in cars. There is no statewide ban on texting as of yet, however. Using cellular phones has long known to be dangerous when behind the wheel. Obviously, the easiest solution to this problem is to either turn your cellular phone off when you’re driving or to use a hands-free device. There are conflicting studies, however, where the safety of hands-free devices is concerned. Some of them maintain that there is an increase in safety when utilizing a hands-free device and others have found that there is no appreciable difference between the levels of distraction experienced by drivers utilizing hands-free devices as compared to those using a cellular phone with their hands.
Negligent Drivers
Driving while distracted, in some cases, may be determined to be a form of negligence by a jury. Drivers who have their vehicles wrecked or who suffer personal injuries because of a driver who was distracted by a cellular phone or any other electronic device may wish to contact an attorney about the matter. Rather than footing the entire bill for the repairs and the medical expenses yourself, an attorney may be able to present you with an option to file a lawsuit, which could win you significant compensation and, possibly, enough to more than pay for the damages and injuries that you suffered as a result of the other driver’s negligence.
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