Norfolk-Portsmouth Personal Injury Lawyer - Trucking Accidents

Negligence by truckers a major cause of large truck crashes, according to new study

John Cooper — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:14:36 GMT

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a report to Congress in 2006 about the reasons for tractor trailer wrecks.

In those cases where the action or inaction of the driver commercial truck is the cause of the collision, driving too fast for conditions and fatigue were often important factors. Big rigs accidents commonly happen when the truck drivers are feeling under pressure by their motor carrier employers or they are unfamiliar with the roads. Bad brakes was the main reason for collisions where a defect or maintenance problem with the truck's equipment was involved.

Over 60% of the studied trucks involved in these crashes were tractors pulling a semi trailer. Most of these are the commonly seen 18 wheelers that carry most of the freight on U.S. Highways. There are over 141,000 truck crashes that occurred in the U.S. over a two year and nine month period of study. This is over 40,000 wrecks involving tractor trailers a year. Some of the types of accidents in decreasing order of frequency were leaving the lane/running off the road, side swipes, roll over's, and head on collisions, among other types.

Here in Hampton Roads, Virginia (VA) we have more than our share of tractor trailer trucks, because of the ports and intermodal rail shipping. This risk of the road is part of every day living in our area cities of Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Newport News, Chesapeake, and Suffolk, Virginia (VA).

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Tractor-Trailer Accidents.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by John Cooper

Trucker's logs are key evidence in tractor trailer wrecks.

John Cooper — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:57:49 GMT

Your attorney needs to get all of the trucker's logs, if you are hurt in a crash where the big rig drivers was at fault. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) sets forth strict rules about keeping log books that apply to trucks and trucking companies.
As a law firm based out of Hampton Roads, Virginia (VA) we see many accidents with serious injures and often death involving semis. If you or your family has suffered an injury or wrongful death as a result of bad driving by a trucker, it's important to hire a competent personal injury lawyer as soon as possible to enforce your rights and make sure that you get full and fair compensation.

Your attorney needs to get all of the trucker's logs, if you are hurt in a crash where the big rig driver was at fault. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) sets forth strict rules about keeping log books that apply to trucks and trucking companies. The attorney for the person making the claim against the truck for bodily injury must get all copies of these log books as soon as possible, before the trucker or trucking company gets rid of any incriminating information in them. There are strict safety rules about the number of hours that truck drivers can drive per day and per week. However, the regulations on interstate truckers only require that these log books be kept for a certain period of time. The best lawyers who handle trucking accidents cases know that they must make request for the preservation of this data as soon as possible, so that if it is deliberated discarded by the trucking company they can be held responsible for failing to comply with the federal rules.

One of the main reasons that trucker have collisions with other vehicles is because of driver fatigue. The log books often show just how tired, or overworked, the person behind the wheel of that semi was when he had his wreck. Virginia (VA) and North Carolina (NC) have a lot of trucks moving through our states on the interstate highway particularly on the Interstates 95, 85, and 64. Likewise, the Chesapeake Bay bridge tunnel leading from our home city of Virginia Beach up to the Eastern Shore of Virginia (VA) and Maryland (MD) has many large trucks on it. Hampton Roads, Virginia (VA) has a particularly high concentration of trucks as they pass through Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, and Suffolk, Virginia (VA), on their way to the large international ports where container boxes are put onto ships for import and export purposes. As a law firm based out of Hampton Roads, Virginia (VA) we see many accidents with serious injures and often death involving semis. If you or your family has suffered an injury or wrongful death as a result of bad driving by a trucker, it's important to hire a competent personal injury lawyer as soon as possible to enforce your rights and make sure that you get full and fair compensation.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by John Cooper

Top 5 Ways Not To Choose Your Personal Injury Lawyer

John Cooper — Fri, 18 May 2007 10:19:31 GMT

I have been practicing law in Virginia Beach and Norfolk, Virginia (VA) for about two decades focusing on accidental injury and wrongful death cases. I have heard amazing stories about how million dollar automobile accident cases have gone to lawyers who really had no business handling such a case for all sorts of strange reasons. The suggestions for a person with an accident case in Norfolk/Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA) from me and my law partner, Richard N. Shapiro:

1. Do not pick your personal injury lawyer based on the last attorney you happen to have contact with such as the real estate lawyer who did your closing on your refinance or the lady lawyer you hired to do your traffic case in the Norfolk General District Court. These attorneys may be great at real estate or traffic but in today's era of specialization that may not be the attorney that you want handling a serious injury file.

2. Do not pick your personal injury lawyer based upon that attorney who hangs out in the bar that you sometimes got to after work because he is a great guy. That lawyer in the bar may be everyone's best friend, but your automobile injury case deserves an attorney whose main qualification is not just staying on the bar stool when drunk.

3. Do not pick your personal injury lawyer based on who paid the yellow pages $100,000.00 to be on the back of their book. That lawyer may generate a lot of calls from people in Virginia (VA) who have automobile accidents, but it does not mean that he is a good lawyer who will get the best result and give the best service on your injury case just because he shelled out that money to buy some cases.

4. Do not pick your personal injury lawyer because he happens to have the same last name as you do. Although I am sure you love your name, this is no way to decide who is going to represent your family in a big automobile accident case that may be one of the most important financial transactions of your life.

5. Do not pick your personal injury lawyer because they happen to be a family member even though they have never handled significant personal injury litigation. I am sure that your niece who just graduated from law school in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA) or your cousin who is an insurance defense lawyer in Norfolk, Virginia (VA) are nice people. However, what you need is someone who regularly handles automobile accident cases with serious injuries from the plaintiff's perspective, meaning that of the injured person. Further, you want someone who has done that for a long time with a proven track record of being good at it. You do not want to have a claim against your family member for messing up your injury case. Go to the right attorney right away.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by John Cooper

Death From Tractor Trailer Truck Accidents

John Cooper — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:36:34 GMT

As an injury attorney, I pay attention to the numbers of accidents reported by the government. United States Department of Transportation issued a report that in 2002 there were over 4,500 tractor trailers involved in fatal collisions. Over 5,000 people died in these truck wrecks.

The study put out by the USDOT and the federal motor carrier safety administration indicated that most tractor trailer wrecks occurred during daylight during the week between Monday and Friday and during normal weather. Additionally the study of truck related crashes and death in the US showed that most truck wrecks involving fatalities occur on rural highways. These statistics are not broken down by state. However if the 5,000 deaths were spread equally over the 50 states it would be approximately 1 tractor trailer related death on the highways of each state for example Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland etc every three days. States like Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina which may have more rural highway than other states also have more death as a result of truck wrecks. Seventy percent of the fatal tractor trailer accidents happen on rural highways.

A reason that so many of the highway fatalities occur during daylight hours Monday through Friday is that there is more traffic during those days and times. What is hard to understand is that most accidents took place on dry roads in normal driving conditions. This means that rain and other bad driving conditions are not the cause of most of these deaths in tractor trailer accidents.

Keep in mind that most of the accidents involving tractor trailers on the nations highways don't result in death. This means there are many more incidences than the 5000 deaths a year where significant injury results. According to the statistical information put together by the department of transportation, driver error by the tractor trailer driver accounted for almost one-third of all fatal accidents in the U.S. Some of the factors included driving too fast, running off the road, improper turns, and driver fatigue. Tractor trailers are approximately eight percent of all vehicles involved in fatal crashes each year. The number of tractor trailers on the nation's highways has increased by more than forty percent in the last twenty years. There are 8 million tractor trailers in and around our country.

The threat posed to the average motorist by big rigs is not just in the imagination. The danger is real. Our firm has been representing people injured in tractor trailer accidents for many years. To learn more about some of our actual cases please look at our real case results section on our website at www.hsninjurylaw.com. Giving these giant trucks a cushion of safe distance from your passenger vehicle is smart defensive driving.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by John Cooper

All We Do Is Injury Law

John Cooper — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:52:15 GMT

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 wrongful death of his son who was hit on a bicycle by a motor vehicle because he didn't think we did wrongful death cases. I have had other clients who while listening to our voice message for clients on hold realize that we handle automobile cases, not just train wreck and railroad injury cases. We hope that our clients realize that we handle cases in all areas of injury law and not just in Virginia (VA), North Carolina (NC) and West Virginia (WV) but throughout the eastern United States.

Some of the other areas which come under the heading "injury law" include auto accidents, collisions involving tractor trailer negligence, motorcycle wrecks and cases where a pedestrian or bicyclist is hit by a car. From the stand point of a Virginia personal injury lawyer, all of these injuries cases involve motor vehicles. From the stand point of getting a fair recovery to compensate a person for injuries suffered by a motor vehicle, these cases all have much in common. It doesn't really matter whether the motor vehicle involved in the accident is a car, a light truck, a big rig, or a golf cart. We are experienced in dealing with all these different combinations and scenarios. Obviously the insurance law applicable and the coverage rules are different in a large interstate truck with a million dollars of coverage compared to a passenger car that may have minimum coverage which in Virginia is $25,000 per person. However, whatever the type of motor vehicle wreck we are experience in handling cases where someone is hurt or killed by the actions of someone else operating such vehicles.

Injuries that we represent people on involve all sorts of different kinds of trauma and medical services. This means that our field of expertise involves all parts of the human body that can be hurt in an accident. These range from death down to strain/sprain injuries to the connective tissue in the back. However, there are certain typical injuries that we have developed experience with over firm's lawyers' decades of practice. For example, traumatic brain injuries are very complex injuries which often occur in accidents. We are also very used to dealing with plastic surgery injuries such as burns and scarring to the skin. Another area that we as personal injury lawyers deal with regularly are broken bones and other injures requiring surgery to the musculoskeletal system, including all the joints like knee injuries, shoulder injuries, elbow injuries and hand injuries. We have many cases that involve spinal injuries like herniations, ruptures or protrusions of the discs separating the bones of the spine. This kind of injury to the spine and to its discs routinely occurs in car wreck and FELA injuries to railroad workers. In the area of FELA injuries caused by railroad companies to their workers, there are certain types of injuries that we see over and over again such as carpal tunnel problems with the wrist and hands requiring surgery, bulging discs in the back, traumatic hearing loss and tinnitus from loud noise in the railroad work environment and, tragically, severed limbs. Often the injuries in railroad related cases are among the most severe because of the huge size and weight of railroad equipment which causes major destruction when it comes in contact with the human body or a vehicle.

Another set of areas of personal injury law that we routinely deal with has to do with who is the actor causing an injury. Injuries that occur as a result of errors by health care providers are common. These cases are often referred to as medical malpractice cases, and can also include nursing home or hospital negligence. A common theme in this kind of injury is that the person responsible is someone in the medical field providing services. Under Virginia law there is a whole special set of statutes or written laws governing what happens when medical mistakes occur and cause injury. These cases typically involve permanent and catastrophic injuries because unless such injuries are involved it's hard to justify taking on the fight against doctors and their powerful insurance companies under the challenging law in Virginia to prove these cases.

Another area of injury law that Hajek, Shapiro, Cooper, Lewis and Appleton regularly practice in is premises liability. There are many terms that you may have heard of to describe premises liability cases. However these injury cases are the ones where you get hurt at a particular place where the owner or occupier of the land or building has done something wrong to cause the injury. Sometimes these cases are referred to as trip and fall injuries cases, slip and fall injury cases or similar language. The common denominator in these injuries and wrongful death cases is that someone having a duty to properly keep their premises safe has failed to do so by leaving a dangerous condition that should have been corrected or warned about. Many times these cases are against businesses like restaurants, stores, or railroad companies who know that people will be on their land and yet fail to take proper safety precautions to prevent injuries. Often these cases involve someone slipping on water that has been left on the floor or tripping because of a hole that has been left unrepaired. However premises liability cases can involve things like falling merchandise that has been stack to high by a warehouse store in such a way that is falls onto customers. In the railroad context it often involves children playing near railroad tracks or other dangerous industrial sites with horrible results.

A further area of injury cases are ones against manufacturers or distributors of products or services which are defective and cause harm to death to an individual. These cases can involve major, expensive and complex products, like airplanes that crash because of some flaw, down to much more simple, everyday household products. Defective products can include a space heater which does not have appropriate safety devices and causes a house fire where a family gets hurt. Often products liability cases arise out of industrial accidents such as a ladder which is improperly made that causes someone to have a severe injury. For more information about these and other types of injury cases, please look at our website under the case results section at www.hsninjurylaw.com. I hope that this summary of what we mean when we say "all we do is injury law" is helpful to you in defining all the different types of cases that we get involved in. Obviously, I hope that neither you nor your loved ones get hurt in any fashion. However, if you are hurt as a result of someone else's wrong doing or think that you may have been, I hope that you will contact us to see if we can help.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by John Cooper

Lots of Specialized Personal Injury Laws

John Cooper — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:39:31 GMT

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 in Virginia (VA) courts. The beauty of this knowledge of the personal injury law related to car wreck cases is that I can immediately bring this information to bear to get my personal injury clients a better result and without having to check the law books each time to reinvent the wheel.

A few examples will help you to get a sense for the kinds of specific personal injury law and automobile accident law that I am talking about. For example, an experienced bodily injury lawyer in Virginia (VA) knows that: (1) in Virginia (VA), you are required to have your headlights on any time the weather requires you to have your windshield wipers on even during daylight hours; (2) if you give a recorded statement to the insurance company before you hire a personal injury lawyer, that cannot be used against you in court in Virginia (VA) (unlike some other states); (3) in Virginia (VA), if you are making a turn on a road with a speed limit of 35 mph or higher, you are required to show your turn signal for at least 100 feet, Virginia (VA) Code Section 46.2-848; (4) in analyzing the amount of medical payments coverage you have on your own automobile insurance policy, you take the amount of those limits and multiple it times the number of cars on the policy to determine how much money is available from the insurer for medical payments (thus you "stack" and take coverage of $1,000.00 on two vehicles to come up with an available amount of $2,000.00); (5) in a failure to yield right of way situation where one car is making the left turn in front of another car coming the opposite direction, the right of way is forfeited by statute if the vehicle coming the opposite way is speeding; (6) if a drunk driver has blood alcohol content of .15 or higher, then the person with an injury claim against that driver for an automobile wreck is almost automatically entitled to some punitive damages; (7) the failure to use a seat belt is never admissible in a Virginia (VA) personal injury trial against the person injured to prove negligence; (8) we are never allowed to get a recovery from a jury greater than the amount sued for in Virginia (VA) in a personal injury case.

These are but a few examples of the kinds of rules that affect car wreck and other injury cases in Virginia (VA) that experienced personal injury lawyers should know. However, the typical attorney who may only dabble in personal injury law or has not done it that long, may not have encountered and learned each of these rules. This experience and knowledge of the specific law applicable to injury and wrongful death cases in Virginia (VA) is why it is so critical that you contact a competent, experienced lawyer when you are hurt in a car crash. I find opportunities to use my knowledge of such rules to the advantage of my clients who have been hurt in automobile accidents. A lot of times the young insurance adjustors who I deal with in resolving cases are not familiar with all of the rules and have to be educated about them. The knowledge of the rules is a powerful tool in the hands of your personal injury lawyer to make sure that you get maximum compensation for your injuries.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by John Cooper

Health Insurance Companies Get Greedy Again!!

John Cooper — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:21:32 GMT

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 result of a automobile accident, the negligence of a nursing home, the negligence of a doctor or the negligence of the nursing staff in a hospital. This ensures that when you make a recovery against the wrong doer, who caused your serious personal injuries, all of that recovery is used to compensate you for the pain and suffering that you have endured. However, in a recent effort to change federal law, the health insurance companies tried to obtain the passage of a bill that would require that any person who caused a personal injury and his or her liability insurance company would have to pay your health insurance company back for all the payments they had made on your behalf while treating your serious personal injuries before the person who sustained the injuries receive any money what so ever. Fortunately, this attempt by the health insurance industry to further enhance their corporate profits was defeated and, for the time being people who sustain serious personal injuries, will continue to be able to rely on their health insurance companies to pay the medical bill associated with curing those serious personal injuries.

Authored By: James C. Lewis, Esq.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by John Cooper

AMA Guidelines For Permanent Partial Impairment Ratings Are An Important Piece Of The Personal Injury Puzzle

John Cooper — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:12:04 GMT

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 orthopaedic doctors, who are the primary specialists for bone and musculoskeletal injuries, are familiar with this set of guidelines. Personal injury lawyers need to be very familiar with them as well to make sure that they use them whenever possible to help get maximum compensation for people who are hurt in car wrecks and other injury cases.

There are essentially two types of impairment guidelines within the rating system. One type is based upon diagnosis of the injury saying if you have had a herniated disc in your back with surgery and have certain residual symptoms, that you get a certain percentage of permanent partial impairment rating. The other set of guidelines looks at range of motion problems to evaluate how permanently injured the person is. The minimum ratings for injuries are between 3 and 5 percent.

It is extremely important that the lawyer be aware of how the guidelines will likely come out in his client's case where there are permanent injuries . Then, in an appropriate case, the attorney can ask the doctor to do an AMA impairment rating. Often, this requires a separate doctor visit for the orthopedist to have the most recent information about the plaintiff's continuing injury. Obviously, the doctor has to be paid for his time in analyzing these issues and issuing a written report. The personal injury law firm can pay for this forensic examination as a client cost advance. This means that the client does not have to pay for it out of their pocket, but will reimburse the firm at the end of the case. Typically, the fees charged by orthopedists for such an evaluation are not insignificant, likely ranging from several hundred dollars to over $1,000.00 depending upon the community.

Because of the standardized and objective way that AMA impairment ratings are done, the insurance companies evaluating automobile wreck cases must pay attention to them. Having this evidence of permanent injury confirms the value of the case and can often result in more money for the client than the same injury file without this proof. To the extent the injury case has to go to trial, some very strong arguments can be made from this evidence of injury. For example, you can say that a person is like a valuable, famous painting. If you take a painting and cut 20% out of it, you have essentially destroyed the work of art. Given that some paintings sell at auction for $20 million dollars, what is a damaged human life worth? These kinds of proof and argument in serious injury cases are often the difference between a significant win and a less than satisfactory result.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by John Cooper

Corporations In Injury Cases Often Destroy Evidence

John Cooper — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:04:57 GMT

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 their ethics in order to stop the injured person from getting fair compensation.

One example of this bad conduct in an injury case is where the Canadian Pacific Railway Company stands accused of deliberately destroying documents in litigation about a derailment in North Dakota with spilled chemicals harming people. The injury attorney for the hurt families try to prove that these acts of spoiling the evidence are not isolated, but are companywide repeated offenses. However, a lot of times, the judge only wants to hear about what the defendant did in that particular injury case and does not know, or want to know, about the number of times that the railroad company has pulled a similar stunt in the cases where injuries occurred to someone else in a different location. By combining forces with other plaintiff's injury lawyers who do railroad and significant injury litigation, we try to come up with hard evidence of these abuses.

In one case I had in Maryland, the railroad took the piece of debris that my client tripped on and threw it away, even though it was specifically identified by the railroad worker as something that he tripped on. In a recent premises liability case, the store had conveniently misplaced the video surveillance tape, which would have shown exactly how my client slipped and was hurt. In a recent crossing case that I am working on, the defendant railroad company said that the black box or data event recorder was not properly installed and, therefore, the data about how fast the train was going was not useable. All of these examples show where either these companies are extremely sloppy in the way they do business or they are intentionally hiding information that would help the injured persons prove their cases .

The way the courts are set up, unless you can show willful acts of hiding or destroying evidence, there is not much of a sanction that the court will impose on the defendant corporation or their insurer. You can still argue to the jury that it is highly suspicious that the evidence is missing. However, it still amazes me that railroads and other corporations will play these games and commit overtly dishonest acts merely to save from having to pay money to someone who has been legitimately injured.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by John Cooper

Log Truck Accident Closes Route 220

Shannon Weidemann — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:27:38 GMT

A log truck overturned on Route 220 near Fincastle, Virginia on Monday morning. The accident happened near Country Club Road. No one was injured in the accident.

The driver tells State Police he heard something pop, then lost control. Logs spilled across the median and both northbound lanes, making for a long cleanup. Traffic was slowed in both directions for hours as crews removed all the spilled logs.

Cleanup took most of the day due to the logs all over the road. Route 220 was opened back up by 5:00pm.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann