Written by jeffreyhoward on . Posted in Coffee Talk, North Carolina Law Blog.
https://screen.yahoo.com/videos-for-you/scalded-coffee-then-news-media-104632481.html
People believe such nonsense about this case. Special interests took hold of this case early and warped it into an urban legend to support their goal of being negligent with impunity. Please, if you live in America, watch this video to learn more. It’s important you understand the facts before you judge. Always.
Written by jeffreyhoward on . Posted in Coffee Talk, North Carolina Law Blog.
The family of a 25 year old Pop Warner player sued Pop Warner after the man’s suicide due to CTE. Do you think there will come a time when this lawsuit happens in NC? I think it’s only inevitable that it will happen. But in the immortal words of my favorite law school Professor Mark Morris, “It’s not whether or not you can sue, because you can always sue; it’s whether or not you will win.”
In North Carolina, the question would boil down to what the duty of Pop Warner was and did they fail in that duty. Do sports organizers have a duty to warn you that sports are dangerous for participants? Do they, or did they at the time, even understand the dangers of multiple head injuries? Did they fail to warn if they did know? I don’t think this is an easy win in North Carolina. And would contributory negligence be raised as a defense? Should the parents have recognized the dangers even if they weren’t warned? And would that even be contributory negligence, or would it be a cross claim against the parents?
This is a complicated and sad issue. People may not like attorneys in general, but everyone is glad they are around when they need them.
Written by jeffreyhoward on . Posted in Coffee Talk, North Carolina Law Blog.
Believe it or not, I’ve had this case. TWICE. Client goes to fast food joint, gets a drink, takes a sip, and it’s cleaning solution of some sort. Bleh.
The case in the article is a little different, in that the solution was in the tea dispenser, not simply in the cup. But the causation is probably the same; the employees are cleaning, forget what they put where, and the next thing you know someone is poisoned.
If this happens to you, bring it to someone’s attention immediately. Have multiple people on site observe the substance to confirm that it ain’t Coca-Cola, and get their contact information. Take care of your health, of course, and seek medical attention, but make sure you document that it happened when it happened and it wasn’t you who put the stuff in there. That’s where these cases fall apart.
It’s sad that we live in a world where you have to think about building your case immediately, but it’s a fact. The fast food company will do whatever they can to deny your claim, and if you don’t have some testimony to help substantiate that it was their employee who screwed up, your case might fall through.
Protect yourself, protect your case. Call me. 919-929-2992.
Written by jeffreyhoward on . Posted in Coffee Talk.
http://durhamfamilylawjournal.blogspot.com/2009/03/heart-balm-torts-alive-well-in-nc.html
NC law allows a jilted spouse to sue the person who had an affair with their spouse. That’s right, if your wife is seduced by some mustachioed, top-hatted villain, you can sue him and take some $$ from him! Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Thoughts? Would you do that? Talk amongst yourselves…
Written by jeffreyhoward on . Posted in Coffee Talk.
If someone was in an accident due to no fault of their own and sustained injuries, BUT they weren’t wearing their seat belt, should they be able to recover at all from the at fault party? Should their recovery be limited? Should they have to prove that the injuries would have happened regardless of the seat belt? Tell me your thoughts.
Written by jeffreyhoward on . Posted in Coffee Talk.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/lawsuit-las-vegas-market-worker-alleges-wage-theft
I wasn’t aware this sort of thing happened, but apparently it does. Here’s the scenario:
Plaintiffs are working for employer, they clock in and out for certain hours, but after their shift their asked to work hours which they don’t document and aren’t paid for.
Eh?
Granted, I’m self-employed and have been for what feels like a hundred years now. And when I was working for hourly rates before that, I clocked in when I was working and didn’t clock out until I was done and done. No one ever asked me to not ask to get paid when I worked. Frankly I never even thought of what I would do if someone asked. I probably would have said, “No.” and if I was pressed I probably would have quit.
But I was lucky and had a good safety net back then, so I could get a new job if necessary. So what if you don’t have that safety net? Is that when these sorts of situations arise? Have you ever been asked not to get paid for your time at work? Do tell! I’m interested in how much this happens.
Written by jeffreyhoward on . Posted in Coffee Talk, North Carolina Law Blog.
In North Carolina we have plenty of personal injury attorneys. We also have plenty of lawyers who will take on personal injury cases. In addition, we have big-time advertising machines that staff lawyers to work on personal injury cases. Those may sound like the same thing, but they aren’t. Let’s discuss: We’ll go from last to first:
Throughout the state there are several firms that spend thousands of dollars on advertising. You see them on television, you get letters from them when you’re in an accident, they dominate the internet with their money. If you have a claim that they are interested in, they will send a runner to your home to get you to sign their contract. This runner is not legally capable of giving you legal advice, but that person is supposed to answer all of your questions. If you sign up with them, when you call you will, on most occasions, be dealing with a “case manager” who spends more time on your file, relatively speaking, than anyone else. What credentials will this case manager have? They almost certainly will not have a license to practice law and therefore can’t give legal advice (but aren’t they the ones answering your questions?). They almost certainly won’t have gone to law school. So what are their qualifications? I don’t know. And when, exactly, are you going to deal with an actual attorney? The question on their side is, “Does that case warrant an attorney’s involvement?” Who knows?
Then you have attorneys who do a little bit of everything. Perhaps they spend most of their time in district court handling drug paraphernalia charges, and DWIs. But you call them because they got you out of a ticket, ask who they’d recommend for a personal injury claim, and they tell you, “Oh, I can do that!” I suppose they can. But do they do it often? Are they keeping up with the changes in the law? When they do their annual 12 hours of continuing education are they spending most of their time on DWI stuff, or are they learning more about handling personal injury claims? Do they have processes in place to actively and successfully manage a personal injury claim from start to finish, or is the same secretary who does traffic ticket letters handling your case as best she can? I don’t know.
Finally, you have personal injury attorneys. These guys and girls devote the majority of their time in their practices to handling personal injury cases. They probably belong to the NCAJ and keep up with the latest developments in this area of law. When you call them, you get to them. When they sign you up to handle your case, you deal with them, not their assistant or case manager. When you need help, they will answer. If you need them to come visit you, they will come – personally. If you want top-notch personal service these are the attorneys you should hire to handle your personal injury claim.
I am proud to say that I belong to the third category. When you hire me, you get me. I work on your case personally. When you call, you get me. Remember, if you are at UNC Hospitals, I am only minutes away and routinely visit people there upon request.
If you have a personal injury claim and want advice, give me a call. 919-929-2992.
Written by jeffreyhoward on . Posted in North Carolina Law Blog.
*AGENT/FRIEND DISCLAIMER: I have several friends who are State Farm agents and at the same time kind and wonderful people. This is not meant as a slight against the agents of State Farm, but it is an accurate report of what the claims department of State Farm is doing now. Love you guys, but this stuff is going down and people should know.
While you were asleep in 2011 the Republican-controlled General Assembly of North Carolina passed a bill that is referred to as the “billed v. paid” legislation. This changed the Rules of Evidence to allow evidence of what was necessary to pay the bill, as opposed to what was actually billed, when people were seeking recovery for health care expenses. Here’s the text of the Rule:
“Evidence offered to prove past medical expenses shall be limited to evidence of the amounts actually paid to satisfy the bills that have been satisfied, regardless of the source of payment, and evidence of the amounts actually necessary to satisfy the bills that have been incurred but not yet satisfied. This rule does not impose upon any party an affirmative duty to seek a reduction in billed charges to which the party is not contractually entitled.”
The best way to explain what this means is to go back in time before it was passed.
In the good old days, when you were attempting to recover against someone who harmed you, what they owed you was whatever was billed by your health care provider, regardless of your health insurance adjustments. That meant that if your hospital bill was $5000, your health insurance paid $3000, and the hospital wrote off the other $2000 as part of their contractual adjustment with the insurance company, the bad guy in your case owed you the full $5000 because that’s what was billed.
Now, what is allowed into evidence, and therefore all a victim is allowed to recover, is the amount that is necessary to pay the bill. So in the above example, you could only recover the $3000 on that bill, even though it was billed at $5000.
That’s right, now tortfeasors get credit for the health insurance that you pay for. Super fair, right?
That’s sarcasm, by the way. Of course it’s not fair.
We aren’t in a position to change that law now, and maybe will never be, so we have to deal with it.
What’s unfortunate is that, as insurance companies are wont to do, State Farm’s claims department is taking its own unilateral and irrational interpretation of this Rule of Evidence. State Farm claims is telling victims of their insureds that they don’t have to pay any bills that aren’t paid by health insurance.
Go back and look at the text of the Rule. There isn’t anything that even comes close to, “Thou shalt use thine health insurance.” There is no such compulsion in the rule whatsoever. But State Farm is claiming that there is.
This may seem simply like an annoyance to those of you who aren’t in a claims situation right now. But here is where it’s getting really, really ugly: Many people in auto accidents sustain soft tissue neck and back injuries that they believe to be best treated by chiropractic care. Health insurance isn’t exactly friendly about chiropractic care, and the co-pays are dreadfully expensive. As a result, what most people do is simply go to the chiropractor, not use their health insurance, and have the bill wait until the case is settled. If they are forced to use their health insurance, then they would have to be shelling out $40ish every time they are treated, which is normally 3 times a week for a few months. Who do you know that can sustain that sort of expenditure? And why should they when they are the victim and didn’t ask for this in the first place?
Why shouldn’t State Farm do this? Several reasons:
What can we do? Well, the only real solution is to file suit over and over again and beat State Farm on this issue enough to cost them money and get them to change course. The problem with that is not many people want to file suit given the uncertainty, time, and expense involved. But that’s the reality we are facing now.
So the next time you think that personal injury attorneys are the reason that law suits are filed, stop and think about how insurance claims departments can necessitate this uptick in litigation because of their opportunistic and manipulative practices.
If you have an auto accident, call me. I would like to help. 919-929-2992.
Written by jeffreyhoward on . Posted in North Carolina Law Blog.
Stereotypes are all over. Here are a few:
PI attorneys are take advantage of “the system” to siphon off money for clients who aren’t hurt as badly as they say and to make profit for themselves.
Claimants exaggerate their injuries for profit, and some even do this as a part-time occupation. They file false claims with insurance carriers and cost honest premium-payers money.
Insurance companies are megalomaniacal corporations with more money than heart and play a gambling game that they refuse to lose, along with their bought and paid-for politicians.
Are any of these exactly correct? What’s your opinion? I’d love to hear it. Here’s mine:
There are good and bad folks in every walk of life. There are honest PI attorneys and there are scheisters. There are claimants with legitimate injuries and claims and there are scammers. But do the scheisters and the scammers represent all of us? Obviously not. But do those bad apples make the rest of us look bad and cause problems? You bet.
Insurance companies are in a for-profit business and like the rest of us do their best to manipulate circumstances to their financial advantage. Who can blame them?
I can blame them. It’s a matter of scale. Insurance companies have vast resources, and have over the years spent a ton of time in money to mold a system that favors them. So when a person has a legitimate claim, it’s vastly unfair when a multi-billion dollar company refuses a $10,000 claim. How can the little guy fight and win? And how many times do they do this to almost powerless injured people each day? Thousands?
It’s a circular problem, I know. But think about it and see if there’s anything you can do to change the system. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Written by jeffreyhoward on . Posted in North Carolina Law Blog.
Insurance companies do not want you to hire an attorney for your auto accident personal injury claims. This might seem intuitive to some, but trust me: it isn’t intuitive to others.
It’s important to think about this. Why wouldn’t an insurance company want you to hire an attorney?
The way to the answer is, oddly, by answering another question: What’s always the most important thing to insurance companies? That’s an easy one…money!
Take this into consideration:
In 1995, Allstate produced a training manual for its claim adjusters [Allstate Insurance Co., Unrepresented Segment Training Manual, 15-30, July 1995]. This document stressed the importance of convincing claimants to represent themselves and not retain an attorney. Why? Allstate explained its position with a number of telling statistics: With settlements under $15,000 injured claimants represented by an attorney averaged $7,450 in a total settlement. Those who represented themselves to Allstate averaged only $3,464.
So what does this boil down to?
Personal injury claims are an example of a zero sum game. That means that every time the insurance company saves a buck, you lose a buck. So if there’s anything you can do to turn that around – where you get a buck and they lose a buck – and put the profit on your side, shouldn’t you do it?
Hiring an attorney does just that; it puts you in a position to turn the odds in your favor and help you get the compensation you deserve on your claim.
If you have a personal injury claim, an auto accident claim, a slip and fall claim, a dog bite claim, or anything like that, call an attorney. Better yet. Call me. 919-929-2992.