Category Archives : Injury Law

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Malpractice Claims, Politics And Limitations

Like many states, Texas has limitations on how much you can add to a medical malpractice claim for pain and suffering and related damages. According to an article in the New York Times, these types of limitations are being pushed at a national level. Measures that would limit the amount of money that could be attached to a medical malpractice claim for pain and suffering to $250,000. This limitation, according to the article and many experts, is woefully inadequate given what some malpractice victims are put through.

The Nature of Medical Malpractice

For many victims of negligent doctors, the financial damages they suffer are not as significant in their memories as are the pain and suffering that they are put through. This pain and suffering can be more than unpleasant. In some cases, it can be severely traumatic. The pain and suffering that patients are put through by doctors who are negligent generally has one characteristic in common between each of the different incidents where it occurs: it never should have happened.

In some cases, pain and suffering are parts of life-saving treatment. The pain that people who need dialysis, chemotherapy, surgeries and other procedures go through is something that everyone understands and that patients agree to endure because of the potential benefits of the procedures they’re being given. When those procedures are not necessary, however, or when they actually bring the patient to further harm, then there is sometimes cause to sue for malpractice.

How and Pain and Suffering Cost Money?

Pain is one of the most underestimated forces in the world. Pain can make it impossible to work, impossible to relax, can reduce a person’s quality of life to the point where they question whether it’s even worth living anymore and can affect everyone around the victim in many different ways. Severe pain and suffering can be as severe and debilitating as any other medical condition and, for that reason, attorneys sometimes encourage their patients to sue for pain and suffering when their doctors are negligent.

The limitations being suggested by Congress are very austere. They would make it impossible for some victims of medical malpractice to be compensated as they deserve to be. The justification being given for imposing these restrictions is that they would lower the cost of healthcare, even though tort reform has been demonstrated over and over to not have a substantial effect on healthcare costs.

Talking to a Medical Negligence Lawyer

If you’ve been caused pain and suffering by a negligent doctor, speak to a medical malpractice attorney. They may be able to help you get compensation for what you’ve been put through. Texas medical malpractice attorneys can help you to deal with the state’s limitations on medical malpractice claims and ensure that you get the compensation you deserve. While politicians may want to interject themselves into these matters, malpractice is between a patient and a physician and, when that patient is made to suffer, suing is one of their rights.

Houston Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blaine A (Bat) Tucker offers a FREE case review at 713-771-5453

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Drunk Driving Accidents

Is a Drunk Driver Negligent?

One of the things that sometimes confuses drivers who are debating filing a lawsuit is whether or not they can sue someone who has been convicted of a crime. You can, in fact. It’s possible to be a convicted drunk driver and to still be sued for negligence. A personal injury attorney can help you to determine whether or not this is an option for you.

Suing for Damages In a Drunk Driving Accident

When you sue someone in a personal injury claim, your first concern should be getting the money back that the injury caused you. This will involve your attorney determining how much you can realistically ask for. Your lost wages, property damage, medical expenses and other expenses are all calculated into this equation. The thing to remember is that, even though the drunk driver may be facing jail for what they did, that doesn’t really do anything to help you recover from the financial damages that they did to you.

Pain and suffering will usually be added to these claims. This is calculated to compensate the victim for what they’ve been put through as a result of the wreck on a personal level. Presumably, whatever suffering the victim endured may have not even happened if the driver that struck them hadn’t been negligent. Your injury attorney will help you to determine how much to seek for pain and suffering that resulted from the drunk driving accident.

What About Negligence?

Negligence has to do with taking reasonable care to preserve the safety of others. When you’re on the road, being drunk behind the wheel is most certainly negligent. Other drivers on the road should be able to expect that everyone else adheres to the law and that they do not willingly and unnecessarily endanger other drivers by doing things such as driving drunk. When drivers do end up taking to the road under the influence and hurt someone, they may be held liable for negligence, in some cases.

Getting Started

Even if the driver that injured you is already in jail, you should speak with an experienced personal injury lawyer about your options. There may be more options for you than you’d imagined. In the case of some claims, the other driver will actually offer to settle because they want to avoid court costs and because they’re convinced that they’re going to lose the claim, anyway.

Your personal injury attorney may be able to get started on your case right away or they may need some time to review it to determine whether or not you have a good justification for filing a lawsuit. If they believe that you do have reason to file a lawsuit, you’ll want to make the decision without delay. There are limitations on how long after the fact that you can actually seek compensation.

For a FREE case review, call Houston Personal Injury Lawyer, Blaine A. (Bat) Tucker at 713-771-5453

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What If You’re Injured At Sea?

Maritime law has always been complex. It has its own features and, because of that, you have to work with a lawyer who is familiar with it if you want to sue over injuries at sea or for other reasons. A personal injury attorney who understands maritime law, however, may be able to help you in the event that you’ve been injured.

Workplace Injuries that happen at Sea

Just as is the case on land, there are laws and regulations that govern workplace safety standards for those who work at sea. If you are injured or are brought to harm otherwise because of the negligence of a company, you may be able to file a lawsuit and get compensation. There’s no way to determine what the outcome of a jury trial will be before a jury actually hears your case argued but, if you have been injured, talking to a personal injury lawyer is always a good idea.

Other Injuries at Sea

There are plenty of firms out there that provide entertainment such as cruises, fishing trips and so forth. These companies are responsible for the safety of the people that they bring out to sea. Most of these companies will have waivers that you’ll have to sign to participate in their offerings but don’t for a moment think that signing a waiver means that you’ve absolved the company off all their responsibility for your safety when you’re on their boat or ship.

Negligence still may be something you can sue such a company over, even if you have been persuaded to sign a waiver. There are definite limitations on how much of a shield from negligence that a company can get by making people sign waivers. If you’ve been injured and you believe that the company that took you out to sea was negligent in a way that caused you or your family member harm, consider speaking with an experienced maritime lawyer like Blaine A (Bat) Tucker.

Working with an Admiralty Law Attorney

A Texas personal injury lawyer who understands maritime law may be able to help you if you’ve been injured at sea. There are some things that you should keep in mind before you talk to such an attorney.

First, the company responsible for your injuries may offer you a settlement. Shipping and cruise companies have generally a lot to lose due to bad publicity, so their initial offer may be rather large. Don’t take it without talking to an experienced injury attorney first. The attorney may be able to get them to offer more or they may advise you to pass it up completely because it’s a tactic to avoid going to court on the part of the company.

The company may also claim that you cannot sue them because the incident occurred somewhere at sea where US law does not apply. Never believe this. Talk to an experienced attorney who specializes in Admiralty Law and ask them whether or not you can sue. Asking the shipping company’s representatives if US law applies is exactly the equivalent of asking a fox if a henhouse is safe.

Make sure you talk to an attorney soon. There are limitations on how long you have to act in these cases.

For a FREE case review, contact the Law offices of Blaine A Tucker at 713-771-5453

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Suing Your Doctor – What Are Your Chances?

Physicians can be intimidating. They know so much about the human body that, when you have a dispute with them, it tends to be somewhat intimidating as to what you should do about it. You may find that you feel outclassed by the doctors and the healthcare facility and wonder if it’s even worth it to go after them for medical malpractice. In some cases, it is worth it.

Understanding Medical Malpractice Claims

You don’t have to be a medical expert yourself to file a medical malpractice claim. In fact, your personal injury lawyer will have experts who will help with your claim and who will give you another perspective than your doctor’s on what went on in your situation. In some cases, your personal injury attorney and the experts they work with may be aware of egregious malpractice that never even occurred to you has having happened. There are plenty of cases where people end up suffering horribly because of medical malpractice, so you’ll want to make sure to explore your options if you’re a victim of it.

What Do Medical Malpractice Claims Cover?

Some people aren’t aware of what medical malpractice claims can cover. In most cases, they’ll be surprised to find out what you can sue over. For instance, you can sue for:

  • Missed diagnosis
  • Wrong medication
  • Wrong procedure
  • Botched procedure
  • Improper diagnoses or Failure to diagnose

The basic thrust of any medical malpractice claim centers on the fact that the patient was wronged by the doctor in terms of not receiving the level or type of care that they needed due to negligence on the part of a physician. Remember that some conditions will not improve and that, unfortunately, some conditions are terminal and there’s nothing that a doctor could do about it. The key element in medical malpractice claims is that the negligence, not the condition, is really what caused the patient to come to harm.

Taking to an experienced Personal Injury Lawyer

The best way to get started figuring out whether or not you want to file a medical malpractice claim is to speak with an experienced injury attorney. There are time limitations on how long after the fact you have to sue over medical malpractice. Because of that, it’s important to speak with an attorney right away. It doesn’t matter whether you want to sue or not. They attorney can tell you how long you have to wait and that can make all the difference in the world.

Don’t be intimidated by suing someone for medical malpractice. There are some cases where medical negligence is obvious and others where it is not. It takes an experienced injury attorney to know the difference in some cases and, because of that, you’ll want to speak with one sooner rather than later. They may be able to help you put together a successful lawsuit for malpractice against a doctor who didn’t live up to the level of care expected of them when taking care of patients and the civil courts are there to make sure you have a way of getting compensated for that.

For a FREE case review, contact Texas Personal Injury Lawyer, Blanie A. (Bat) Tucker at 713-771-5453

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Understanding Unsolicited Settlement Offers

People who get into car wrecks with commercial firms sometimes find themselves on the receiving end of what seems like a generous check. This is because the commercial firm is protecting itself, not because they’re filled with regret and concern about your situation. Understanding settlement offers should make it apparent why you need to talk to a personal injury lawyer in these cases.

What Is a Settlement?

The word “settle”, in the legal sense, has several meanings. Basically, a settlement means that you put a conflict to rest permanently. This can be done in various ways, but, where lawsuits are concerned, it’s usually done out of court. This makes clear a few things about taking a settlement offer from a commercial trucking or driving firm or from anyone else, for that matter:

  • You’re entering into a legally-binding arrangement
  • You’re likely giving up the right to sue
  • You’re signing a legal document without an attorney to advise you

The settlements that these firms hand out are not designed to make your life easier. The people that figured out how much to offer work for the commercial firm, not for you. They’ll try to figure out how much they have to pay you to get you to go away and not make any legal trouble for them over the incident in the future. There are ways that settlements can work, however.

Making a Settlement Work

Rather than taking whatever check that a trucking company or other commercial firm hands you and heading off to the bank, speak to a personal injury attorney. They’ll be able to advise you on the matter. If they think that the settlement is all you’re going to get from the case, they’ll just advise you to take it and be grateful. If they don’t, however, and if they feel that the trucking company is just trying to buy you off, then they may advise you to go ahead and sue or to negotiate the settlement further.

Negotiating a Settlement

If you negotiate a settlement, you’re likely to get more. A injury attorney might be able to negotiate more than enough to pay for their fees and still allow you to go home with a bigger check. Consider the advantages that an attorney has in these situations:

  • They know the legal risks to the person offering the check
  • They know how much similar cases pay out
  • They know how much court fees would be, giving them leverage with the party offering
  • They know how much other people in your situation end up paying in expenses related to the injury

Talk to a personal injury attorney if you’re offered a check. They may feel that the company offering you the check is being generous and tell you to take it or they may want you a client, if they feel that you’re being treated unfairly by the company in question. Either way, at least you’ll know whether or not the settlement is a good one and whether it’s worth taking it or not or if you should file a lawsuit, instead.

If you are in doubt, or need a FREE case review, contact Houston Personal Injury Lawyer, Blaine A. (Bat) Tucker at 713-771-5453

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Understanding Wrongful Death Lawsuits

A wrongful death action is an option in certain situations. These actions can be taken against anyone who has caused by negligent action or inaction the death of an individual. The actions are filed by the survivors and are filed for monetary damages. Before this starts sounding like it’s akin to putting a price tag on someone’s life, understand that it’s different than that.

Why Sue for Wrongful Death?

In any family, each member contributes something to the whole. It may be an income, skills that allow for the maintenance of the family dwelling, help running a farm or anything else. Everyone contributes. When someone is killed because of the negligence of another, the surviving family oftentimes ends up suffering far more than emotional scars.

In some situations, the loss of a primary breadwinner may leave a family destitute. This is not acceptable when that death should have been avoided in the first place. Wrongful death lawsuits are designed to make sure that the family has some option to go on with their lives after they’ve lost someone. In some cases, this may actually be the only way that the family would survive.

Assessing Damages For Wrongful Death

The hardest part of wrongful death claims is usually figuring out how much the death impacted the family financially. It’s important to remember that this is what’s being discussed, as opposed to putting a price on someone’s life. The person’s life can never be replaced. The financial burdens placed on the family because of losing the person, however, can be alleviated and there are concrete figures that can usually be attached to them.

Your personal injury lawyer will help you to determine how much you should seek in damages. This will be based on your situation and on past cases and how much they awarded the plaintiffs. The attorney will make sure that you seek a fair amount.

Who Causes Wrongful Deaths?

Anyone who takes a life out of negligence can be held liable for having caused a wrongful death. Remember that there are sometimes criminal charges that people who end up causing a wrongful death face. These charges do not impact your lawsuit. Whether or not they’re found guilty, you can sue. The civil lawsuit is designed to provide for the survivors. The state and its criminal justice system will take care of themselves and you only need to concern yourself with surviving.

A wrongful death lawsuit can be very painful. The compensation that families sometimes receive, however, can enable them to go on and to avoid having the worst happen because they lost someone whose income and support they depended upon dearly. Like most lawsuits, there are limitations on how long you have to file a wrongful death action. You’ll want to speak with a personal injury attorney as soon as you can. They can let you know how much time you have left to make this decision and make sure you know about your options as far as filing a lawsuit is concerned. Contact an attorney soon to find out.

If you believe you have a wrongful death lawsuit, please contact the Law Offices of Houston Personal Injury Lawyer, Blaine A. (Bat) Tucker at 727-771-5453 for a FREE case review

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Medical Malpractice – What Is Failure To Diagnose

Almost half of the medical malpractice lawsuits filed every year have to do with a failure to diagnose. These aren’t lawsuits over someone leaving a surgical instrument in the body after closing the wound, about giving someone the wrong medication or about not treating someone at all. These lawsuits are about a doctor’s competence as it relates to being able to give diagnoses that save lives.

Diagnoses and Medicine

A great deal of the time that doctors spend in med school is spent learning how to diagnose conditions successfully. A great deal of how they protect their patient’s lives depends upon the physician’s ability to see what’s actually wrong.

There are cases where doctors do fail in this regard. People have been sent home from the ER with conditions as dangerous as fractured necks and have ended up suing for millions after the fact. The only reason that they weren’t diagnosed and treated properly was because of medical negligence and, because of that, these people sometimes decide that suing is the best option for them to recover their damages.

What if it Was a Logical Mistake?

There are cases where doctors cannot be expected to find a condition right away. In fact, sometimes doctors have to test and analyze a patient over and over to figure out what’s actually ailing them. Sometimes, there’s really no way that a doctor could have failed to find a condition, but there are some cases when they should have and, when someone is hurt because of that failure, medical malpractice lawsuits may be options.

The doctor will have to have taken you on as a patient, to begin with. You cannot, for example, sue a doctor for not recognizing that the cough they heard you struggling with in the ER was due to lung cancer. If they had every opportunity to give you a chest x-ray, to run other tests and to diagnose your cancer and if they failed in that duty, causing you to get sicker, you may be able to sue.

Why Sue Over This?

The reason people sue over failures to diagnose is the same as the reason that they sue over anything else. The failure to diagnose injures them physically and financially and it should have never happened. This means that the doctor was negligent and that means that the patient may have an option to file a lawsuit in front of them.

Finding An Experienced Personal Injury Attorney

Talking to a Personal Injury Attorney can help you clear your case up. It may not be that the physician was ultimately responsible for the failure, but the personal injury attorney should be able to tell you whether or not this is the case. There may be more investigation required but, if you consult with an injury attorney, they can usually tell pretty quickly whether or not they could help you. If they can help you, they may end up putting together a lawsuit and helping you to get compensated for the pain and suffering and financial losses that you’ve been put through.

Got Questions? Contact the Law Offices of Personal Injury Lawyer, Blaine A. (Bat) Tucker at 713-771-5453

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What Can a Personal Injury Attorney Do To Help Your Case?

If you’re involved in a very bad car wreck, there are likely some things that you have in common with other people who have been in wrecks. First, there’s a good chance that you remember sensations, being afraid, noise and the other chaos associated with car wrecks, but your recollection of specific details is probably not that clear. Second, you probably remember the terror more than anything else. So, what can a personal injury attorney do for you if you end up in a car wreck and aren’t even sure what happened beyond believing that it wasn’t your fault? The answer is: a lot.

Reconstructions and Experts Assist a Personal Injury Lawyer

Personal injury lawyers deal with people who have been traumatized by accidents all the time. Just as your emotional and mnemonic conditions following the accident likely took predictable forms, your car probably behaved in a predictable way during the accident, as well. After all, our brains may react with utter chaos when we see someone careening at us in the other lane or flying toward us at an intersection, but our vehicles are bound by the laws of physics.

Car Accident attorneys can reconstruct accidents. Using the accumulated knowledge of how cars behave in accidents, what you know, the condition of the cars and the site of the wreck after the fact and other data, along with the help of experts, they can reconstruct what happened and find out whether or not negligence was an issue. For drivers, this can mean a lot of things, aside from a chance to win compensation. It can mean:

  • Knowing for sure that it wasn’t your fault
  • Knowing that there was nothing you could have done to have prevented it
  • Having the confidence that the other driver was negligent

How Does this Help My Injury Case?

Personal Injury Attorneys can help you to fill in the blanks where your memory isn’t clear. More importantly, however, they can present empirical evidence to a jury that demonstrates the circumstances of your wreck and how it was an unavoidable consequence of the other driver’s negligent behavior. When this is established, the jury awards can be very large. One motorcyclist in California won over $800,000 after his attorney explained to the jury how the accident was not at all his fault and how the other driver was negligent.

Trust Your Personal Injury Attorney

There are some situations where you have to have someone with expertise help you through reconstructing what happened to you. Your attorney will do everything they can to determine what happened during your wreck and whether or not it was your fault. They don’t do this to just win money; they do it to get at the facts of what happened. If the facts are that negligence on the part of the other driver caused you injury-financial, physical, emotional or otherwise – they may be able to argue for you in court and win you compensation that could pay for your injuries, your medical expenses and your lost wages. Trust your attorney and you may be surprised what they can find out!

For trusted advice, contact Texas Personal Injury Lawyer, Blaine A. (Bat) Tucker at 713-773-5453

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How Can A Personal Injury Lawyer Help Maximize Your Compensation

If you’re injured on the job, in a car wreck or as the result of medical malpractice, you’ll want a very good personal injury attorney to represent you. Some people end up being offered a check by whatever entity or individual was responsible for their injuries and, unfortunately, they sometimes take it. It’s almost always a bad idea.

The Minimum Possible Amount

If you are offered one of these checks, consider how you got it. The attorneys for whatever company or person who injured you sat down and thought of the minimum possible amount they could pay to get rid of you. Then, they wrote up a check for that amount and came to you with it, probably offering their regrets along with the compensation. The problem with tis is that, if you take it, you’re probably letting them off the hook far too easily. What you need is your own attorney.

Understanding Personal Injury Attorneys

Your personal injury attorney understands how much accidents cost in real terms. He understands them in human terms. He understands that lost wages, lost opportunities, pain and suffering and other factors are all real things. He also understands how the law makes provisions for you to get compensated for these things. It’s not an automatic payout. Your attorney has to argue your case successfully to get you compensation. If you have a right to ask for compensation, however, your personal injury attorney will be sure that you exercise that right.

Your attorney also knows how much to ask for, which is very important. Asking for too much can ruin your case; asking for too little may end up cheating you. He will figure out a realistic amount for which to ask and they’ll have very good justifications for why you should receive that compensation, but the jury will ultimately decide if you should get that compensation.

A Settlement that works for you

If you are offered a settlement, your injury attorney will also know how much to ask for. He can keep the other side from wasting your time and trying to give you compensation as way to get you to back off of the lawsuit. If the offer a suitable amount, however, you may be able to avoid court fees and your attorney may encourage you to take it if it’s acceptable. The advantage with a good personal injury attorney is that he has the experience to really understand if it’s an acceptable amount or not.

Talk to an attorney if you believe that negligence has brought you to physical, emotional or financial harm. You can oftentimes consult with them for free and they’ll determine if they think you have a case or not. Personal injury attorneys can be exactly the people that you need to make sure that you don’t end up paying for injuries that were someone else’s fault, whether it was because of medical negligence, a bad or drunk driver or for any other reason. Their expertise can protect you from being put into financial ruin because someone failed to take the reasonable care that could be expected of any other person in their situation.

If you are a victim of an injury, call the Law Offices of Blaine A. (Bat) Tucker at 713-771-5453 for a FREE case review
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How Can A Personal Injury Lawyer Help With Medical Malpractice Cases

Sometimes, people hear medical malpractice and think that it’s about winning huge jury awards or settlements because a well-intentioned doctor made a simple mistake. If that’s what you think, you’re wrong. Medical malpractice claims sometimes range into the millions of dollars in awards and there is very good reason for that. Understand what the victims of medical malpractice go through and you’ll understand why those figures are so high.

Pain and Suffering

People like to speak frivolously about pain and suffering, likely because they’re talking about someone else’s. When you’ve been put through it because of medical negligence, you’ll understand why attorneys sometimes add so much to the awards they seek for it. Consider what happens to people sometimes as a result of medical malpractice:

  • Permanent disability
  • Permanent disfigurement/mutilation
  • Permanent loss of bodily abilities or functions
  • Brain damage
  • Unnecessary surgeries

If you’ve been a victim of medical negligence, you may have experienced some of this yourself. If you have, you should talk to a Personal Injury Attorney. No one should be made to suffer this way because of negligence.

Financial Damages

Here’s another category that people fail to understand. Sometimes, the media will report on the millions that someone gets because of a medical malpractice claim as if the jury were showering the claimant with riches; like the claimant won the lottery. Generally, these cases are very disturbing.

Some people are injured in a way that means that they can never work again. They may also be facing huge medical expenses because of the negligence. The very high figures you see in compensation are usually given for a reason. The jury usually sees how much the person is going to suffer, how none of it was their fault and ends up finding in their favor for tangible, empirical and very rational reasons. If you cannot work and you have to pay enormous medical bills for the rest of your life because a doctor let you down, you should not have to pay them yourself. You did nothing to deserve it.

Finding an Aggressive Personal Injury Lawyer

Medical malpractice claims hinge on a doctor breeching their duty to you as a patient. You’ll need an Injury Attorney who is passionate about arguing this area of the law and who is very good at it, of course. There are great attorneys out there and, with the right one, your chances of winning are vastly increased.

If you’re suing a doctor in Texas, you’ll want a very good attorney. The fact of the matter is that medical malpractice claims – and the patients who file them, unfortunately – have become political footballs. The odds are somewhat stacked against the claimant, so you’ll want a skilled and dedicated attorney. If you do have a good attorney, trust them to represent your rights. The attorneys who handle these cases aren’t intimidated by doctors, hospitals or insurance companies and you can be very sure that they will fight for your rights as much as is needed. There’s no guarantee you’ll win, but having a good attorney increases your chances greatly.

If you are a victim of medical malpractive, contact Blaine A. (Bat) Tucker, a Houston based Medical Malpractice Lawyer at 713-771-5453
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