Category Archives: Personal Injury Blog

On TV, lawsuits often look much simpler when watered down and compacted for a couple minutes of screen time, but that is not the case. If you have been hurt due to the action or inaction of another, your personal injury claim will involve much more time and paperwork than you might be conditioned to expect. Luckily, a skilled attorney can handle much of that. However, the client does also have some responsibilities when it comes to filing a personal injury claim.

The first and most important responsibility of the client is to communicate with their attorney this can be something as easy as calling them up or even sending them a message on Facebook these days. You should never keep secrets from your attorney if you think that bit of information is pertinent to your case. In order to best represent you, they need access to every last drop of information that they can use. Furthermore, you shouldn’t be afraid to ask them questions either just so you can be absolutely clear as to what is going on with your case.

The second responsibility of the client, and almost as important as communicating with your lawyer is to keep them informed and gather documentation. They can help keep you on task by sending you a message, but you should keep organized all your trips to the doctor and medical expenses just so they can get an accurate idea of the extent of your injuries and how much you need to cover them. If your injuries worsen, they need to know about that as well since it can affect the amount of compensation you need to get.

By keeping true with these responsibilities, you will be well on your way to a successful case. If you were hurt and wish to pursue compensation, contact us today.

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, the Supreme Court has made a ruling that will tighten the rules on filing class action lawsuits. The case involved a civil action brought against Bristol-Myers Squibb that was brought by hundreds of plaintiff who claim that they were damaged by a blood thinner medication called Plavix. They claim that the company misrepresented the danger of strokes for those taking the drug. The suit was filed in a court in California, which proved to be a sticking point for eight out of the nine justices.

The Supreme Court ruled that the out-of-state plaintiffs had failed to prove that a connection existed between their alleged injuries and Bristol-Myers Squibb in California, in essence dismissing almost 600 out-of-state plaintiffs who live outside the state. Eighty-nine plaintiffs who live in California remain a party to the class action.

The reasoning behind the ruling is that none of the out-of-state plaintiffs bought, ingested, or were allegedly harmed by Plavix in California. Therefore a California state court does not have jurisdiction to rule on their cases. The plaintiffs will have to sue the company in their states of residence.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor provided the sole dissent to the ruling. She suggested that the Supreme Court’s decision will make it more difficult for a nationwide class action to be put together in a particular state court. As a result, lawsuits will have to be conducted piecemeal. The ruling leaves open two questions. What kind of connection has to exist between the claim and the place the class action is filed? Can a class action be filed in a court with jurisdiction over every member of the class?

For more information contact us.

Many people feel that they don’t deserve to lose their jobs and some times they are right. If you feel discriminated against due to your race, age, pregnancy, or something else, you may have a case. If you were let go even though you had a contract in place, you may also have a case, though there are many different reasons why you may feel wrongfully terminated.

So, what can you do if you feel this way?

First, you need to get everything together. Make sure that you have your pay stubs as well as the information you got when you were hired and terminated. Then, write down everything that happened with your termination. It is also helpful if you can get witnesses and statements from witnesses, including the person who fired you!

Then, you need to seek the advice of a lawyer who specializes in employment law. A lawyer will listen to you and see if you have a case. If you do, he or she will help you through the entire process, making sure that you have all of the information that you need and that you are ready to go to trial, though hopefully, they will just settle.

Remember that you are a very special person. It can be hard to go through an unlawful termination case. Harsh things may be said in court and it is important to have support through this time. Keep your chin up and you will get through the case just fine!

As soon as you believe that you are unlawfully terminated, you need to get ready to sue your old boss. Start by collecting paperwork together and see a good lawyer who specializes in these types of cases. He or she will be a great help to get you through this difficult time!

Contact us for all of your legal needs. 

Employment law often deals with unlawful termination. However, most people don’t really understand the term. They may think that just because they were fired, they were unlawfully terminated but that is not usually the case.

So, have I been unlawfully terminated? Here are some reasons where you might want to look into legal action.

If you are forced to quit, that may mean that you are unlawfully terminated. It is illegal to make employees quit so if you feel like you were not given any chance, you may want to see a lawyer.

If you feel like you have been discriminated because of your gender, race, nationality, and fired, you may have been unlawfully terminated. You may also fight if you think that you have been terminated due to your religion, age, disability, or even pregnancy.

If you have a contract and get fired before your contract is up, you might want to ask a lawyer if you have grounds for a lawsuit. Besides being unlawfully terminated, you may also be able to look into a breach of contract lawsuit.

You can’t be fired if you are taking leave. Many people take unpaid leave, for medical reasons, and they can’t be fired for it. People who are in the military or those who get jury duty need to have a job to come back to when they are finished.

Many people get unlawfully terminated. Whether you are forced to quit or you lose your job while you are taking leave to take care of your sick child, you may have a case against your job. Anytime you feel discriminated against, you also should seek legal assistance.

Contact us for all of your legal needs.

After being injured in a car accident, there will be a lot for you to take care of. From doctor’s visits to dealing with insurance companies to filing a police report, everything that must be taken care of can quickly become overwhelming. You may then want to consider hiring a personal injury attorney to help you through this difficult time. If you have been injured in an auto accident, here are just a few of the reasons to consider consulting an attorney.

An Attorney is Familiar with the Legal Process

A personal injury attorney is going to have a great deal of experience handling claims similar to yours and will know what this process entails. If you attempted to go through this process alone, you may overlook something that could inadvertently hurt your case. Furthermore, you may quickly find yourself overwhelmed by the complex paperwork and legal language. An attorney will be able to handle this process for you and will make sure that everything is taken care of properly.

An Attorney Can Help Evaluate Your Claim

When individuals attempt to handle their personal injury claim on their own, they often undervalue their injuries and accept compensation lower than what is owed to them. A personal injury attorney will have experience assessing these claims and will be able to properly determine what your claim is worth by taking into account the severity of your injuries, damage to your personal property, and anytime you had to take off of work.

Your Attorney Is on Your Side

Hiring an attorney is the only way to ensure that there is someone on your side who is working for you. At the end of the day, insurance companies are out to protect themselves and will try to close your case as quickly and painlessly as possible, even if this means that you do not receive proper compensation. An attorney will work tirelessly to make sure that this does not happen and that you are taken care of properly.

After being injured in a car accident, hiring a personal injury lawyer will ensure that you are taken care of; contact us to learn more about the reasons why you should hire a personal injury attorney to help you through this difficult time.

California continues to shine as a model of consumer protection, especially in terms of rules targeting the landlord-tenant relationship. This article focuses on a specific aspect of consumer rights, the rights of California tenants, following a new law effective January 1, 2017.

Assembly Bill 551, entitled “Rental property: bed bugs”, clarifies the landlord’s ongoing duty to provide a building fit for human occupation. The law now specifically prohibits a landlord from showing, renting, or leasing a vacant unit when the landlord is aware of a bed bug infestation adversely impacting that unit.

In addition, the new law places a duty on California landlords to provide a certain bed-bug related notice to tenants. As of July 1, 2017, the landlord must deliver the notice to the prospective tenant before creating the new lease. As of January 1, 2018, the landlord must provide the same notice to all tenants. The law details the language mandated with respect to the notice. In essence, that notice must include each of the following:

• a detailed description of bed bugs, to better enable the tenant to identify such pests;
• a detailed overview of the life cycle and reproduction habits of bed bugs; and,
• details regarding the common signs and symptoms of a possible bed bug infestation, including what to look for on the linen and the appearance/effects of bed bug bites.

As a tenant, realize the landlord’s bed-bug duties activate only following awareness of a possible infestation. Therefore, if you witness such an infestation, you must alert the landlord. “Paper trails” —notes written either during or soon after transactions— minimize confusion as regards who said what to whom when. The wise tenant not only promptly notifies the landlord, but also keeps all related notes in a single receptacle, such as a notebook. Those notes will likely prove quite valuable if your landlord ignores your alert.

Contact us if you confront a dilemma with your landlord. Our attorneys stand ready to assist in protecting your rights.

Zack Langston was a Pittsburg State College football player who committed suicide in 2014. His family is now filing a class action lawsuit against the NCAA for its mishandling of concussions suffered by players. Zack suffered over one hundred concussions, which are attributed to causing his death. The concussions caused him to suffer memory loss, depression and paranoia. The lawsuit also accuses the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association for negligence on its part of dealing with the issue of concussions.

Zack’s brain was examined by the Boston University’s Center for Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy after his death and was found to have the same level of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a type of brain damage, as Junior Seau, an NFL player who also committed suicide.

According to the lawsuit, the NCAA and the MIAA both knew about the potential brain damage that can occur as a result of multiple concussions but failed to do anything to protect their players or change their rules and regulations. According to the lawsuit, both organizations recklessly ignored the dangers in order to protect the profitable business of amateur college football.

The class action lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court in Kansas City, Kansas. It seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages for the past, present and future medical expenses; lost time, interest and future earnings; and other damages without limitation.

The NCAA is facing at least 43 other class action lawsuits relating to its handling of concussions. One case led to a federal judge giving preliminary approval for a $75 million settlement.

For more information on class action lawsuits and for legal help, contact us today.

Uber, the ride-sharing company, has revolutionized personal transportation around the world by allowing passengers to hook up with drivers through a smartphone app. The company has also been accused of a number of dodgy business practices, one of them being a manipulation of upfront pricing. The practice has become the subject of Class Action lawsuits, one in California, and another recently filed in New York.

When one summons an Uber ride on a smartphone, the fare is calculated up front using one’s location and intended destination. Thus, everyone knows what the cost of the trip is going to be ahead of time. However, the New York suit alleges that Uber has a system that overcharges the rider, by calculating a less efficient route than the one the driver ultimately uses. For example, the rider might be charged $14 for the ride while the driver would see $12 for the actual route taken. The driver’s portion is calculated on the lower figure while Uberpockets the two dollar difference. The New York suit alleges, based on a study by a website called the Rideshare Guy who suggests that half the Uber riders in New York City are being hit with the inflated fare, resulting in a windfall of $74 million a month in New York alone.

The plaintiff in the suit assumes that Uber is following the same practice in other cities, which would mean that the ridesharing company would be raking in an unearned windfall worth an enormous amount of money. A spokesperson for Uber told the New York Post that she is looking into the matter.

For more information contact us.

We should all be treated fairly in our work. If you are employed at-will and subject to specific disciplinary measures, your employer should tell you this and stick by their word. After all, you rely on their honesty to decide if you should hire on or leave a company. That’s a big, life-altering decision that you have to make with the best information available.

So, what if your employer misleads you? Say the recruitment officer in HR implied you were hired for a certain length of time and you signed up to work at the company, and then found that the implication you relied on was false? What then?

This is fraud, and it comes in 2 flavors. One is when you signed the employment contract, it said that you could only be fired for certain reasons or that you could rely on being employed for a certain amount of time, and then your employer fires you for other reasons or before the specified time is up. Since this is easy to prove, employers try to avoid such written promises.

However, there are times when implied promises constitute fraud. If an employer tells you he or she will keep you on for a set time or has written specific forms of progressive discipline in the employee manual, that can be considered an exception to an at-will contract. (A bonus situation is that the recruitment officer will give such promises verbally and then your written contract will undercut them. Always read your contract and get all promises in writing.) In such cases, a judge would look at evidence such as regularity of promotions, duration of employment, assurances of continued employment, violations of usual employment practice in firing you, and promises made at hiring.

Fraud is always tricky to prove. You will have to bring evidence that your employer made false representations, that people high in the chain of command knew about them, that you relied on the representations and that your reliance led to you being materially injured. Most difficult of all, you have to prove that your employer intended to deceive you. It can be worth the effort though.

If your employer made promises and then broke them, you may have a case against them. Contact us to see what you can do about it.

The organizers of the now infamous Fyre Festival, which promised the luxury cultural event of the decade for the steep price of up to $100,000 each but instead turned into a disaster that closed on the first day, has attracted not one but two class action lawsuits.

The first class action is being filed in the Central District of California against concert organizers Ja Rule and Billy McFarland as well as FyreMedia. The suit alleges that lack of food, water, and adequate medical care placed the festival attendees in danger, stranding them on a remote Bahamian island. The suit also notes that participants were encouraged to upload money to digital wristbands, with the result that they had no cash for taxis and other services.

A second class action was filed in Los Angeles claiming that the organizers of the festivals committed fraud by conducting a social media campaign with celebrity “influencers” that claimed the experience would be luxurious, with yachts and supermodels partying on the beach. The reality of the festival, which by all accounts consisted of all the worst aspects of a state of nature, was different than advertised.

The plaintiffs in the two class actions are going to have to prove that the organizers of the Fyre Festival deliberately misled the attendees about the experience that was in store for them. The defendants will claim that they were naïve about the scope of the event they proposed to put on and were so overwhelmed that they had no control over the disaster that resulted.

The festival organizers, by the way, are attempting to squash criticism of the festival on social media, claiming that not only it false, but it has the likelihood of inciting “violence, rioting, or civil unrest.” Sending cease and desist orders against aggrieved festival goers has every potential of backfiring, though.

For more information contact us.