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 […]
Suing Over Bullying Becomes Big News
The sometimes heartbreaking consequences of bullying have gotten more publicity in recent years. With that publicity has come an increasing public awareness of this problem and, in some cases, there have been lawsuits filed over bullying.
Examples of Bullying Lawsuits
The Houston Chronicle reported on March 29 of 2013 that a lawsuit filed by the parents of a student who committed suicide had been dropped. While the lawsuit had been dropped, it does give some insight into the dynamics of what may go into these types of lawsuits.
This lawsuit had alleged that the school district had ignored persistent bullying that the young victim had suffered. According to the reporting, the lawsuit alleged that the child had been bullied to death. The reporting also revealed that there were other factors involved in the death that may have not been related to bullying at all, eventually causing the lawsuit to be dropped.
In another case, an Iowa teenager’s family is in the process of pursuing a lawsuit against the administrators at the student’s high school and the school district, alleging negligence. In this particular case, bullying is said to have eventually led to the teenager suffering significant brain injuries, leaving him permanently disabled. The incident that led to the brain damage is alleged to have occurred when teammates on the teenagers’ football team repeatedly threw footballs directly at the victim’s head. According to the lawsuit, this led to injuries that have significantly diminished the teenager’s quality of life, according to reporting in Yahoo Sports.
Negligence
From a legal perspective, an individual is negligent when they have the opportunity to take an action that any normal person could take that would keep someone from coming to harm and when they fail to do so. It can also apply when somebody takes an action that to any reasonable person would put someone else in danger. To some degree, these losses all allege that whether it is the school administrators, coaches, classmates or anyone else, there was some form of negligence that directly led to an individual being harmed.
With bullying getting more attention in the press and with suicides and homicides both being implicated as potential outcomes of bullying, it’s likely that more of these lawsuits are going to be filed in the future. How courts find in regards to these lawsuits may set precedents that could have significant impacts for the next generation of children who have to deal with this particular threat.
If you are dealing with a similar situation and are unsure of the next steps, call the Law Offices of Blaine A Tucker for a FREE consultation at 713-771-5453
Doctor Gets Hit with $6 Million Jury Award
A doctor in Fayetteville will have to pay $6 million over a wrongful death lawsuit, according to SFGate.
This lawsuit is similar to many others, though still tragic. The doctor in question, according to the lawsuit, left a surgical sponge in the deceased woman’s body after closing a surgery. The sponge remained there for 10 weeks. This led to the woman suffering from infections and other ailments.
The woman was receiving the surgery to remove cancer from her colon and her rectum. Because she became ill after the surgery, she was unable to go through other cancer treatments.
Botched Surgeries
Surgery is far more advanced today than it was even a decade ago. Some surgeries that were formerly life-threatening ordeals are now actually rather safe, relatively speaking. There is still the potential that a surgery can go catastrophically wrong, however, and sometimes it does because of physician negligence. The unfortunate woman whose death spurred the lawsuit described above is not the only person to have an instrument left in her body following a surgery.
Some surgeries are not botched in this manner, but are incorrect for the condition that’s being treated or are the wrong surgery entirely. These surgeries, even when they don’t end up taking someone’s life, cause all of the trauma, distress and financial hardships that go along with having any surgery, and sometimes cause those things to a much more significant degree.
Getting Help
If you find out that something was done incorrectly during a surgery and it requires a surgical correction to fix the problem itself, you’re obviously in a very bad situation and one that was not any of your own doing. You’ll be out wages from missed work, there will be pain and suffering involved and it may mean that an existing condition doesn’t’ get the treatment it needs or that it actually gets worse.
Consider contacting an attorney if you’ve been the victim of this type of malpractice. The attorney, if you have a good claim, can get started on filing your case and make sure you don’t end up missing your window of opportunity to sue. A good Houston medical malpractice lawyer will be able to go figure out who was responsible for the negligence that brought you to suffer and can help you figure out how much to seek in damages. Talk to an attorney today; the initial consultation is generally free of charge.
Call us for a FREE consultation at 713-771-5453
Alcohol Implicated in Deadly Crash
A deadly crash in Temple has police getting ready to charge the surviving driver with intoxicated manslaughter. The crash occurred on Saturday night, during the last weekend of September and took the life of a 35-year-old woman. She was pronounced dead at the scene after having been involved in a head-on collision with an SUV driven by a 21-year-old man from Nixon, Texas.
The driver of the other SUV suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was brought to the hospital, according to a report in ABC News. Following treatment, police are planning on charging him with intoxicated manslaughter and taking him to the Bell County Jail. In the article, it’s stated that police believe that he was traveling at a high rate of speed.
Drunk Drivers
There are many hazards on the roadways, but hardly any of them are as characteristically deadly as are drunk drivers. They drive unpredictably, they drive too fast or too slow for the road that they’re on, they sometimes swerve into oncoming traffic and they all too often take people’s lives. Drunken driving, of course, is a criminal offense. When somebody ends up losing their life because of a drunk driver, charges such as the intoxicated manslaughter charge mentioned above may be pressed against the driver. The victims in these cases have other options, as well.
Suing
A wrongful death lawsuit is a type of lawsuit filed by the survivors of the victim against the party whose negligence cost that victim their life. Drunken driving is, in many cases, something that a skillful personal injury attorney can use to argue negligence. If you ended up losing a loved one due to a car crash with a driver who had too much to drink, you may want to consider contacting one of these attorneys about filing a lawsuit.
There is nothing callous or opportunistic about filing such a lawsuit. When families lose someone, they may be faced with horrible financial hardships, there is the obvious emotional devastation of having someone taken from you in such an avoidable and pointless way, and the driver who caused all this hardship is liable, in many cases, for criminal charges as well as for the damages they caused in the financial sense.
Settlements
There are some families who find themselves losing a family member or suffering horrific physical or financial damages due to a drunk driver who are offered a settlement, sometimes because the drunk driver or their family happens to be wealthy. Never take such a settlement without consulting a lawyer first. Unless your attorney has helped you to negotiate a suitable, useful and respectful settlement, you should always consider such money to be go-away money. Talk to a Houston personal injury attorney so you know your rights as well as what you should do about the situation.
Call us for a FREE consultation 713-771-5453
Texas Lawsuit Alleges Drug Test Ordered Before 911 Called
A lawsuit filed by the family of a Texas man who died at his workplace alleges that the employer ordered a drug test before they called 911 for assistance. As reported in the Courthouse News Service, the man ended up suffering a fatal injury at work due to a fall. The lawsuit also alleges that there was no fall protection equipment provided for the man and that he ended up falling to his death as a result of that.
Drug Test Before Paramedics
The lawsuit alleges that, while he was lying on the ground unconscious, the defendant ordered that a drug test be performed on the decedent. This is disputed by the defendant. The death occurred on July 1, 2011. According to the lawsuit, the man ended up falling several feet and was working as a loader at the time.
According to the lawsuit, it was the defendant’s failure to provide immediate medical assistance that ended up leading to the man’s death. It is also alleged by the lawsuit that OSHA violations – namely, the lack of fall protection – also contributed to his death. OSHA regulations hold that any employee working at a height be provided with personal fall protection equipment, a guardrail or another approved device that is designed to arrest their fall in the event that they lose their footing or otherwise come to lose her balance.
The lawsuit is seeking $15 million in wrongful death, gross negligence and punitive damages, according to the report.
Wrongful Death in the Workplace
OSHA and other organizations provide a regulatory framework that is designed to keep people safe at work. In addition to this regulatory framework, employers are also expected to be competent in delivering care to employees when they are injured. In any instance where an employee is injured on the job, performing a drug test on an employee at the hospital is generally standard procedure. In this particular case, the allegation that the employer ordered a drug test before 911 was even called is at the heart of the wrongful death lawsuit.
Wrongful death lawsuits are designed to provide for the family of the deceased individual. In some cases, they take into account the loss of income that the entire family suffers as a result of the loss of their loved one. They may also include – as in the case of this particular lawsuit – punitive damages against an employer or other agency that was proven to have been negligent.
If you have been injured in the workplace and you believe that your employer was negligent in either not following OSHA regulations or because they didn’t provide you with adequate care after the fact, you should speak with an attorney. The best thing to do, however, is to make certain that you don’t end up in one of these situations in the first place. Learn the OSHA regulations that apply to your work and make certain that your employer follows them. If they do not and you are injured, an attorney may be able to set the situation right for you.
Call us for a FREE consultation at 713-771-5453
Wrongful Death Lawsuit Implicates Houston Men’s Club
A men’s club located in Houston has been sued over the 2011 death of a high school senior. In the lawsuit, it is alleged that the club encouraged employees to over serve clients, creating a situation that led to the death.
The victim died as a result of a car accident in which the driver, who had allegedly left the club extremely intoxicated, ended up driving at very high speeds, causing the accident and the death. According to YourHoustonNews.com, the lawsuit alleges that the driver was already obviously intoxicated but received more drinks at the club when he should’ve been cut off.
Understanding Negligence
According to the report, this particular wrongful death lawsuit also implicates the driver of the vehicle, who has already been convicted of criminal charges related to the accident. When a car accident occurs because of the negligence of an individual or an establishment, it is sometimes possible to go after all of the parties involved, rather than lying all of the blame at the feet of one of the parties. In this case, the lawsuit alleges that both the establishment and the driver were negligent and, because of that, brought about the death of the victim.
Suing for Over Serving
If you were injured by a drunk driver who was served too much alcohol at an establishment, your attorney may recommend going after that establishment. There are some clubs and bars that do have policies that do encourage their employees to over serve clients. When somebody is already intoxicated, their judgment is impaired. This is why responsible establishments take very seriously the requirement that they cut somebody off when they’ve had too much to drink. Their patron, even if they don’t believe that cutting them off is appropriate, may be so intoxicated that they have no idea how drunk they already are.
Talking to an Attorney
It’s not always easy to determine who was negligent in a way that led to the death or injury of another individual. Attorneys can help you with this, however. Attorneys can conduct investigations, reconstruct accidents and determine where and when negligent actions were taken or when reasonable actions were not taken and how all of that played into an injury or death that should’ve never happened at all.
If you’re not certain who exactly the negligent party was but you did suffer an injury or death as the result of an accident, be sure to contact a Houston attorney about the matter. They are the only people that will be completely on your side in these matters and will take the time to determine when and how someone may have acted or failed to act and how that played into you being the victim of an injury.
Call us for a FREE consultation at 713-771-5453
Motorcycles and Negligent Drivers
Motorcyclists are in a great deal of danger when they’re out on the road. Contrary to popular belief, they handle well, are much more agile than a car in many situations and, if the rider wears appropriate safety gear, most motorcycle wrecks do not result in death. What kills motorcyclists is the negligence of other drivers.
Wrongful Death and Negligence of Car Drivers
There are two very common types of wrecks that motorcyclists should be aware of. The first is having a car turn left in front of them, causing the rider to either have to evade the vehicle by crashing their own or causing them to go over the hood of the turning vehicle, potentially killing them. The second type of wreck that motorcyclists tend to get in are ones that involve vehicles not yielding the right-of-way at stop signs or yield signs because the driver didn’t notice the motorcyclist. Either of these scenarios can easily be pinned on the negligence of the driver behind the wheel of the car.
Motorcyclists have as much right to the road as any car. You’ve probably seen the popular bumper stickers that say, “start seeing motorcycles”. Those bumper stickers are designed to remind drivers that they’re not just looking for cars when they pull out into traffic, make a left turn, merge into a right lane or take any other action that could easily crowd a motorcyclist they don’t see off of the road. Not seeing other drivers on the road can easily be construed as negligence. When you are behind the wheel of a car, you are expected to behave in a safe and reasonable fashion to other drivers on the road. Those other drivers include motorcyclists.
Getting hit by a vehicle while you’re on a motorcycle can easily kill you. If you’ve lost somebody in your family or if you have suffered injury because a driver was negligent, contact an attorney.
What Can an Attorney Do?
The first thing that an attorney can do is take a look at the circumstances of the wreck and see what happened. If you’re dealing with a skilled personal injury attorney, they’ve probably seen the same kind of wreck you’ve been involved in before. There are some classic motorcycle/car wrecks that attorneys tend to see over and over and, when they see certain characteristics of the accident represented in the reconstruction, they can sometimes lock right on to where the negligence was a factor.
If somebody hasn’t respected your rights on the road, don’t let them disrespect your rights in court, either. Get an attorney. The medical expenses you’ve suffered, loss of property, potential loss of wages, pain and suffering, impacts upon your quality of life and, if the situation is as bad as it could possibly be, the loss of somebody you love, are all reasons to seek compensation in court. Speak with a good Houston personal injury lawyer right away; there are limitations on how long you have to take action in one of these cases.
The Law Offices of Blaine A Tucker offers FREE consultations to victims of motorcycle accidents. Call us today at 713-771-5753
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.