Articles Posted in Personal Injury

Seek medical attention as soon as possible

The first tip for those looking to strengthen their Mississippi personal injury case is to seek medical attention as soon as possible after an injury-producing incident occurs. There are two reasons for this: First, the sooner you seek medical help, the sooner the doctor can begin treating you and the sooner you can start recovering from your injuries. By delaying treatment, you increase the amount of time you must endure your injury and, in some cases, might actually compound your trouble by making the initial injury worse. Second, by delaying treatment you open the door for the defendant (or insurance company) to undermine your case. Insurance companies can seize on a delay and portray it as proof that your injury was not that serious to begin with, arguing that if it were you would have sought help immediately. Insurance companies might also argue that the delay indicates your injury occurred elsewhere, such as in a subsequent accident on your own time, meaning they should be excused from liability.

Don’t delay hiring an attorney

Given how common it is to pick up your keys and go for a drive, people often forget just how dangerous it can be. The ubiquity of driving can numb us to its inherent risk, a good thing in that we aren’t paralyzed by fear every time we have errands to run, but bad in that it can make us less cautious, less aware and less focused on the task at hand. When we hear about terrible accidents we should use the stories as reminders of just how serious it is to get behind the wheel of a fast moving object that weighs several tons.

The latest example of just how dangerous driving can be occurred last month in Canton, Mississippi on Interstate 55. According to police, the chain-reaction collision began when a Toyota minivan, traveling southbound on I-55, was moving very slowly in the right hand lane. A second vehicle, a Jeep SUV, came up on the minivan going much faster and rear-ended the Toyota.

Due to the severity of this initial crash, the Jeep’s engine stalled out and became disabled in the right hand lane, behind the minivan. Thankfully, the driver of the Jeep thought to get out of his vehicle, because only moments later another southbound vehicle, a Chrysler 300, struck the disabled Jeep.

As we all know, size isn’t everything. That being said, in the context of automobile accidents, size is an undeniably important factor. When a much larger, much heavier vehicle crashes into a smaller, lighter vehicle, it doesn’t take a physicist to understand the result. The smaller, lighter vehicle will almost always sustain substantially worse damage, as will the occupants of the smaller, lighter vehicle.

A good illustration of this rule is when a tractor-trailer collides with a passenger vehicle. The two vehicles are mismatched in every way: height, length and weight. This dramatic imbalance means that a crash involving a semi might result in minor injuries to the truck driver, while those in the passenger vehicle suffer serious harm or, possibly even death.

A recent accident in Hattiesburg, Mississippi thankfully avoided tragedy, but did alarmingly demonstrate the potential harm that can occur when a tractor-trailer tangles with a much smaller car. According to police, three people were injured after an 18-wheeler collided with their car.

As headlines discuss the massive snowfall totals in D.C. and elsewhere on the east coast, residents of Mississippi were forced to contend with wild winter weather of their own this weekend. Though no one in Mississippi saw 2+ feet of snow, several inches of snow, ice and even tornadoes were spotted across the state.

According to the National Weather Service, at least two tornadoes were spotted in southern Mississippi. The tornadoes left miles of destruction in their wake, tearing down trees, downing power lines and damaging homes. At the other end of the state, and the other end of the weather spectrum, several inches of snowfall occurred, with Oxford and the suburbs of Memphis getting hit the hardest.

Experts say the snowfall, while nowhere near as bad as what drivers in New York or Philly are dealing with, can create serious traffic hazards. Even a light dusting of snow can cause problems, and police departments have reported an increase in accidents as the bad weather began.

It can be very difficult when a loved one ages to know how best to continue to care for him or her. Many people struggle with the choice of putting a parent or grandparent into a nursing home, fearing that they could become the victim of abuse or neglect. Unfortunately, such cases do happen, with elderly victims suffering at the hands of their supposed caregivers. For tips on what you can do to educate yourself about nursing homes and advice on how to help protect your loved ones, keep reading.

First things first, the problem of nursing home abuse and neglect is a serious one. According to the National Center on Elder Abuse, 44 percent of nursing home residents report being abused and a staggering 95 percent say they’ve witnessed other residents being either abused or neglected. This kind of shameful treatment is shockingly widespread, though it should be noted, is not true across the board. There are plenty of kind and generous caregivers that sincerely want to help those they watch over. The trick is knowing what to look for (and what to look out for) when considering nursing homes.

Experts say the first thing that you should look for when visiting nursing homes is staffing levels. It is absolutely critical that a nursing home be well staffed. The vast majority of problems that can occur in a nursing home setting, including sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect and even malnourishment occur almost uniformly because of understaffing. If there are a sufficient number of caregivers, it becomes difficult for one person to ignore or abuse a resident, as others are around and actively monitoring the welfare of the residents. When nursing homes are short staffed, it’s the patients that suffer, with too many residents demanding too much time and resulting in too little care and attention on the part of employees.

The holidays are supposed to be happy times, full of families, food and fun. It can be especially devastating when these good times are interrupted by tragedy, such as a house fire. Though it may come as a surprise, a sizable share of fires occur during the holiday season thanks to the abundance of candles and lights. To find out more about the dangers of holiday house fires and how resulting products liability cases are handled, keep reading.

You may be surprised to learn that between 2007 and 2011, the National Fire Protection Association says that more than 10,000 fires were started thanks to candles. The fires resulted in 115 deaths, 903 injuries and hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that the three leading days for candle fires are Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s. Fires caused by holiday lights or Christmas trees are similarly destructive, with estimates indicating 160 fires are caused each year due to decorative lighting.

If something terrible should happen and you or a loved one becomes a victim of a holiday house fire, the first thing that will need to occur is an investigation and analysis of the fire and its likely cause. The fire marshal will usually commence a search for potential sources of the fire and, once those sources are identified, attempt to understand what may have actually sparked the blaze. If the results indicate that a defective product is to blame, at that point, a products liability case is likely to commence.

The Ohio Supreme Court will now join those in many other states hearing challenges to existing damage award caps. The case before the state’s highest court is different than most in that it concerns damages associated with sexual assault and whether they should be subject to the same cap despite the lifelong repercussions that such an assault can have on a victim.

Currently, Ohio’s law says that victims in civil lawsuits are limited to receiving $250,000 in noneconomic damages. These include things like pain and suffering or emotional distress. These damages can be uncapped only if the harm is deemed catastrophic, meaning permanent physical disability. The state currently does not have a cap on economic loss, such as medical expenses or lost wages, those easy to quantify. The problem is that in truly tragic cases like those involving rape, the real loss isn’t tangible; it’s subjective and thus likely (in the worst cases) to run up against the arbitrary damages cap.

In this case, a 15-year-old girl was raped by a pastor at her church during a counseling session. The man has since pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery and is serving a prison term. The girl’s family decided to sue the church after it was uncovered in a subsequent investigation that the church was aware of allegations of inappropriate conduct concerning the minister, but chose to continue employing him.