The Injury Lawyer Directory Blog

68-year-old former librarian Trudy Roy was injured on May 19 of this year when she was injured in a motorcycle accident involving a police motorcycle. Trudy had been walking to the grocery store, something she'd done for years without incident, when she stopped to observe a group of policeman running for a Special Olympics fund-raiser. She had a good time, stopping to chat with children along the way who had also stopped to watch the fun. When she decided to continue on her way, she waited for a policeman to motion her across the street. She was struck halfway across the street by officer Jerry Shuttles.

The office had raced to the front of the pack. Just as he cleared the pack of motorcyclists, he saw Trudy Roy and attempted to swerve, leaving a forty foot skid mark. The officer was violently bucked from his motorcycle, but it paled in comparison to Trudy's injuries. Her battered 118-pound body flew ten feet high and twenty feet across the road before slamming into pavement. The left side of her body was deadened, perhaps permanently. Her left arm is a source of constant aching numbness as its nerves were destroyed in the motor vehicle accident. "I wish they'd cut it off," claims Trudy. Doctors are attempting to save the left leg, but it is proving difficult as the leg was broken in five places and contracted an infection.

Her insurance through the Homewood Public Library in Alabama offered Trudy $100,000. The sum covers less than half of her medical costs, and places her in a pickle with her finances. Trudy had taken the job at Homewood Public Library in order to support her and her alcoholic husband. She retired in November, 2005 after working for the library for 20 years. Her five children and their families are incredibly frustrated with the predicament. "Homewood is someone who could help my mother, and they're just hiding behind the cap. We're just asking for her to be taken care of," said her son Mike Roy.

The cap responsible for causing such personal injury to Trudy was placed in 1977, back when $100,000 was more than enough to cover the bills. If the cap were updated, it would decrease a great deal of these horrible instances in Alabama. Brenda Roy, Trudy's daughter, said that, "We've all cried; we've all been angry. We don't believe in frivolous lawsuits. But we strongly believe that, in severe situations, the representatives need to amend the law."

If you or someone you know has been injured in a motorcycle accident, or if you would like to learn more about damage caps, please feel free to contact a personal injury lawyer. The Injury Lawyers, P.C., in Mobile, Alabama are a group of experienced personal injury attorneys specializing in automobile accidents and other forms of personal injury law.

In 2005, a class-action suit was placed against the company Federal Pacific Electric for their "Stab-Lok" circuit breakers. The company was found to have cheated on a circuit breaker test in order to pass Underwriters Laboratories approval. The "Stab-Lok" breakers involved in the lawsuit were found to be prone to overheating and causing electrical fires. The fault in the system of the "Stab-Lok" breaker was that some of the double-pole (240-Volt) FPE circuit breakers and possibly some single-pole units may not work entirely. In some instances of the breaker problems, there have been panel and panel-bus fires, with arcing fires in some equipment.

For more information on these defective circuit breakers, click here.

If you or someone you know has been injured by a defective product such as these faulty breakers, feel free to contact a personal injury attorney.

Down in the Prarie State, rules are kept fairly strict on penalizing doctors. "Clear and convincing" evidence" of guilt must be evident for a doctor to be disciplined for negligence in Illinois, which allowed many incompetent doctors to slip by undetected in the past. A new state law is trying to alleviate that problem, allowing the punishment of negligent doctors with a bad history of at least ten years.

This isn't to say that Illinois is swarming with negligent doctors. The chances of you encountering a bad medical experience due to doctor negligence are rare. What tips the scales in Illinois is the incredible history of negligence in each doctor: a recent study shows that a small handful of doctors, under 1% of all the doctors in Illinois, pay out 53% of all the malpractice damages (while areas like hospitals and insurance companies are paying the rest).

One of these gross examples of medical negligence can be found in the case of Dr. Jashua Salvador of Illinois. The incompetent doctor has had a history showing many instances of negligence over a number of years, and has been declaired "unprofessional, unethical and 'grossly negligent'" by a judge conducting a hearing for the state Medical Disciplinary Board. The judge stated, "There is a serious risk of harm presented if Dr. Salvador is permitted to practice."

In one case, Dr. Salvador operated several colonoscopies on a woman suffering digestive problems. Somehow, the doctor failed to diagnose colon cancer while operating on her colon. In another instance, the doctor placed a pacemaker on the wrong side of the heart of an elderly man. The example that stands out the most in his long history of errors was one example where Dr. Salvador was operating in fibroid growths in the uterus of Rosemary Simone. Mrs. Simone and her daughter, Michele Polan, suspected nothing. "He's a touchy feely doctor," claimed Michele Polan, "He said, 'I love your mother. I would never let anything happen to her."

Dr. Salvador had reported to the family after an operation to remove the fibroid growths, stating that he had accidentally cut Mrs. Simone's bladder. However, he assured them that he had repaired the cut and that Mrs. Simone should be fine, despite her pale appearance upon coming out of surgery. She was suffering a great amount of pain and remained fairly incoherent. Polan insisted on her going to a hospital, but the doctor assured them that nothing was wrong. He sent a janitor from the clinic home with them to carry Mrs. Simone to her apartment. Dr. Salvador himself came by later that night to give the fading mother some intravenous fluids. Around midnight, Rosemary was still in great pain and becoming jaundiced, so her daughter called an ambulance. There paramedics were stunned at the sight awaiting them: her mother was attached to an IV bag hung from a ceiling fan and a catheter was strung from her bladder, filling with blood. Later, doctors at the aptly named Ressurrection Hospital claimed she would have died without an emergency operation. Rosemary spent nearly a month in the hospital afterwards.

Later, Rosemary Simone was able to obtain a $900,000 compensation payment for a malpractice judgement. The payment alone could not alleviate the injustice to Mrs. Simone. "He basically left me to die," said Mrs. Simone. In court, Dr. Salvador tried to claim that he had properly repaired Rosemary's bladder, claiming that the pain and blood in her urine were normal side effects. The disciplinary hearing judge stated that Dr. Salvador lacked credibility and "suffered from delusions of grandeur."

If you or someone you know has been injured by medical malpractice, feel free to contact a personal injury attorney specializing in medical negligence. Thaddeus M. Bond, Jr., of Chicago, Illinois has years of experience in dealing with medical malpractice law.

Islam Yasim Ibn Siddiq "Izzy" Peterson was injured at birth in 2005 when hospital staff put the newborn on carbon dioxide instead of oxygen. The 40-minute exposure to the wrong gas gave Izzy a severe brain injury that will require him to be reliant on medical devices and 24-hour surveillance his entire life. The federal government admitted in July of 2006 responsibility for the injuries inflicted on the child, but had not come to a decision on damages compensation.

On Wednesday, August 16, 2006, a government witness testified that Izzy is expected to live another 20 years, entitling him to $10 million in government money at $500,000 a year. However, the attorney of the parents (Shalay and Dwight Peterson) claims that Izzy could actually live another 40 to 45 years, which would entitle him to $20-22.5 million. "We need to make sure he has sufficient funds for his lifetime because it's very expensive for twenty-four-hour nursing care," says the Petersons's attorney.

If you or someone you know has suffered traumatic brain injuries, feel free to contact an experienced TBI lawyer.

A new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) in the Columbus Children's Research Institute at Columbus Children's Hospital in Ohio states that traumatic brain injury in infants leads to $1 billion annually in medical fees. Researchers obtained this number by analyzing data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Kids' Inpatient Database. These statistics were collected from January 1 through December 31 in the year 2000, from 1,784 hospitals in 27 states.

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are fairly common, with an estimated 50,658 cases in children 17 and younger reported in the data collected from 2000 alone. TBI is horrifyingly common among small children of this day and age. It can come in the form of a skull fracture, intracranial bleeding, concussion, and shaken baby syndrome. The study showed that TBI is among the top 10 most costly hospital outpatient diagnoses for children.

Study senior author and CIRP director Dr. Gary Smith said in a prepared statement that "injury costs for children are often greater than those for adults because they include acute treatment, long-term rehabilitation and loss of productivity for the parent or guardian. TBIs resulting from unintentional trauma constitute the primary cause of death among U.S. youth and are often the most serious consequences of nonfatal injuries."

If you or someone you know has suffered a traumatic brain injury, do not hesitate to contact a personal injury lawyer specializing in TBI law and medical malpractice. Jim S. Adler of Houston, Texas has years of experience in dealing with traumatic brain injury cases.

In New Orleans, Louisiana and other areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, people are lining up to file lawsuits against their fraudulent insurance agencies. "We're trying to get some money and it looks like suing them is the only way that might happen," said Randy Anny, one of many victims of Hurricane Katrina who did not receive the appropriate amount of compensation as their insurers locked their doors on them. Randy Anny's lawsuit is concerned with a vehicle held under repair during the hurricane that was damaged by the storm's fierce conditions. According to recent changes in Louisiana Legislature, citizens have until September 1st, 2007 to file lawsuits concerning Katrina damages and up to October 1st, 2007 to file charges based on Hurricane Rita damages. This has driven many homeowners, home renters and drivers with auto insurance, like Randy Anny, to wait in lines taking up to two hours, often involving multiple visits, to the Civil District Court in Louisiana.

Excluding flood damage (flood insurance is handled under a federal program in Louisiana), the Louisiana Department of Insurance estimates private insurers have paid out over $14.5 billion on hurricane claims. Most of this money has gone to the New Orleans area to settle over 549,000 claims. As the deadline approaches, more and more people line up to file lawsuits. "To give you an idea of what that's like," said Clerk of Court Dale Atkins, "we have not taken 1,000 lawsuits in month in the past, let alone in a day. And we're handling it with half the staff we had before Katrina."

If you or someone you know has been injured by personal injury or insurance bad faith, please feel free to contact a personal injury lawyer in your area such as Broussard and Hart, L.L.C. in Lake Charles, Louisiana.