Automobile Accidents | InjuryBoard Norfolk

Our firm uses the slogan "All we do is injury law" to summarize what our firm's focus is. However, there are really many types of cases within personal injury law. As a Virginia (VA) personal injury attorney, it always amazes me that clients may not fully understand what areas of law we practice in when we say we do injury law. I have had a client indicate that he didn't contact me about the...

There are three components of a good vehicle collision case, namely 1) liability, 2) damages and 3) insurance. You need to have all three of these elements in order for you to have a car wreck injury claim that I can help you with. If any of these elements is missing, I may be forced to decline the case because it isn't one that I would be successful at getting you compensation for.Liability...

A well written letter to the editor in a recent Virginia Pilot talked about the loss of young lives in the context of the recent Virginia Tech tragedy.No words can comfort a parent who has lost a child. That is probably one of the hardest and most unnatural types of grief in the world. The author noted that the leading cause of death in young people around the world is traffic injuries. In the...

I read in a recent news clip where eighteen people were injured when a car collided with a bus. One of injuries was critical. This happened in New York. However it could have been any town in the U.S including in Virginia or North Carolina. Car wrecks involving buses are not infrequent. Sometimes the bus involved in a motor vehicle accident is a school bus. The problem is that there are no...

I just met with an expert witness in a railroad crossing case (truck hit by train) whose field is vision and human factors. This lady, Ellie Francis, has two PhDs in these areas. She is an incredibly high powered expert in these subjects which are central to what happens during vehicular accidents like the one I am working on where a train hits a truck, killing its occupant.What this vision and...

Unfortunately, there is a relationship between the field of personal injury law and the field of bankruptcy law. At my law firm, Hajek, Shapiro, Cooper, Lewis, and Appleton, "all we do is personal injury law"; however, I have had to learn over 18 years in injury practice about the relationship of bankruptcy to what I do representing injured people. One of the main reasons that people end up in...

I have been working in the area of personal injury law nearly all the time for 18 years. During that time, I have learned lots of specific rules that are hidden in the statutes and case law pertaining to automobile wreck and other injury cases. Now, after having done injury work for so long, I feel that I know probably 97% of the rules applicable to handling personal injury cases and trying them...

The Virginia (VA) law related to injuries to minors is different than when adults get injured. Some special issues arise in the sad situation of serious injury to a child in Virginia (VA). One of the issues when a kid gets hurt by someone else's negligence is who is the client of the personal injury lawyer. The client is typically a parent who acts as representative for the child in hiring the...

The SUV that the governor was in was run into by another vehicle who was trying to avoid a collision. Unfortunately, it appears the governor was not wearing his seat belt and his vehicle may have been speeding. This automobile accident involving an important government official puts the spotlight on how all of us are vulnerable to being severely hurt on the road.The governor is going to have leg...

Insurance companies make their money by taking in premium dollars and paying out as little as they can get away with. That basic equation is why insurance companies do what they do. As a personal injury lawyer, it always amazes me to see the huge number of dollars wasted by insurance companies on television advertisement. We all know Geico's gecko, Geico's green lizard commercials, Nationwide...

Under the terms of most health insurance policies, and in accordance with the law of many states, if you are injured as a result of the negligence of someone else and sustained serious personal injury, your health insurance company is required to pay for the medical care that is needed to treat your serious personal injuries. This is true whether you sustain serious personal injuries as a...

There are ethics rules that apply in Virginia (VA) that say you cannot hold yourself out as a personal injury specialist no matter how specialized you are in personal injury law. In Virginia (VA), there are no recognized specialties in any field of law, including representing injured people. The state could develop a system of certified specialties so that a lawyer who has been practicing in a...

As a personal injury lawyer, it is important to use the AMA guides to permanent partial impairment to your client's advantage. AMA is the American Medical Association, which is the primary national professional group for doctors. They publish and periodically revise a book that sets forth how to quantify permanent partial impairments of various parts of the body after an injury. Most...

In 18 years of practicing injury law, it has never stopped amazing me how insurance companies and corporate defendants will "lose" or outright destroy important evidence about a personal injury accident. It is often hard to prove that this loss of documents in a personal injury case was intentional. However, with big dollars on the line in a serious injury case, some corporate managers forget...

The human body is not designed to withstand an impact with a car. If you get hit at a crosswalk by an automobile, you are likely going to be seriously hurt. The lightest cars weigh several thousand pounds. Even if the vehicle is moving at a relatively slow speed, it may well break your bones if it hits you when you are crossing the street.We are handling several pedestrian crossing cases...