Personal Injury Awards And Divorce: What Happens In This Case?

Here’s an interesting question we received last month about personal injury awards and divorce. What if one person receives a personal injury settlement and then gets a divorce? What happens to the money?

“My wife received an award 13 years ago. She has never used it for medical care or to hire a care giver. She also has trouble walking and can’t drive. Now she is suing me for divorce. I have always paid the aids and supplied help out my income. With a divorce she will fall off my plan. Can she be compelled to use the PI award to assist her in these matters?”

We replied:

“Thanks for your email. That’s really a question for your divorce lawyer, not for a PI lawyer. Your divorce settlement should take account of all of the assets and income that you both have. It would be best to talk to a divorce lawyer local to you, as soon as you can.”

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Accident Compensation: Can You Benefit?

Accident compensation may be available to you if you have suffered a personal injury that was somebody else’s fault. If you take up the case, you may be awarded compensation to cover your medical costs and other expenses. Sometimes you can also win personal injury awards for pain and suffering. However, it all depends on the individual circumstances.

The first thing to remember when considering claiming personal injury accident compensation is that your accident has to have been somebody else’s fault. For example, many personal injury cases are the result of a fall. If you trip or slip, you may be able to claim against the owners of the property that you fell on (or their insurance company). However, to get compensation you have to show that the accident was their fault, e.g. because the property was badly maintained. If not, for example if you fell on naturally forming ice, then it would be difficult to claim accident compensation.

Second, you have to think about the expenses you have had and whether it is worth making a claim. If you have been serious injured and your medical expenses are high, you may be able to have a lawyer act for you. Personal injury attorneys will usually take on these cases on a “no win, no fee” basis so that you do not have to pay them unless they win your case.

If your injuries were less, you could still try to claim compensation by acting for yourself. The first thing to do is to tell the property owner when the accident happened. You do not need to do any more than give them the bare facts at this stage. In fact, it’s best not to put too much in writing. They will usually contact their insurers who will get in touch with you. Be prepared with exact figures for your medical and other expenses. If you want to know how much you might be awarded, you may find it useful to consult a personal injury settlement calculator.

Personal injury cases are sometimes hotly contested and they can be stressful, especially if you do not have an attorney to advise you. Be sure that you are prepared for this before you start, and do appoint a lawyer to represent you in your accident compensation case if you can.

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Sacramento Personal Injury Attorney Helps Drivers

Sacramento peronal injury attorney firm Demas & Rosenthal are sponsoring a service that helps drivers avoid DUI charges. The service, called Last Call, provides another way to get home when you have been drinking over the limit and cannot safely drive. By offering low cost transportation to Sacramento drivers, it aims to avoid drunk driving accidents.

Last Call runs with the Second Saturday events in Sacto. When you call, you will be met by a two driver team with a car. You have to show that you own your car and that it is insured, then one of the drivers will be your chauffeur and drive you and your passengers in your own car, back to your home. The other driver follows to take the first driver back to the city.

The cost is very reasonable, not much more than a taxi fare. But it is better than a taxi service because you have your own car right there on the driveway when you wake up the next morning. Anybody who sometimes has a drink while out with their car knows that the main reason people don’t take a taxi home is because they are put off by the thought of trailing back into the city on public transit or in another taxi to pick up their car the next day. This scheme gets around all of that.

But it gets even cheaper. The sponsorship by the Sacramento personal injury attorney firm of Demas & Rosenthal means that Last Call will be completely free on the Second Saturday in February. To reserve a ride you can call 916-933-7483 or visit www.lastcallsacramento.com.

Around 1,000 people are killed every year in the state of California because of DUI accidents. Countless more people are injured. And if that is not enough to make you think twice, how about this: a massive 200,000 people are arrested for driving under the influence. The aim of Last Call is to reduce all of these figures and make the Sacramento roads safer for everybody.

Demas & Rosenthal provides representation to clients in all areas of personal injury, including vehicle accidents, wrongful death, product liability and other actions related to consumer rights. Their website is at www.injury-attorneys.com. The firm is a Sacramento personal injury attorney firm that has specialized in protecting the rights of accident and injury victims for nearly 20 years.

It is great news that a Sacramento personal injury attorney would be the one to sponsor a service that cuts down on the accidents that provide the firm with their income. Maybe personal injury lawyers are not all out for profit after all – at least, not in Sacramento, CA.

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Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney: Child’s Finger Torn Off In Escalator Accident

A 17-month boy lost a finger in an accident on an escalator at the Van Nuys Courthouse of the Los Angeles Supreme Court Tuesday, according to KTLA and Los Angeles personal injury attorney reports. The child was riding on a down escalator with his mom.

The child is believed to have caught his finger in the “comb and groove” of the tread at the bottom of the escalator. The emergency stop was activated to prevent him becoming trapped in the machinery, but his index finger had been cut off.

Witnesses included sheriff’s deputies and courthouse staff as well as visitors. A Los Angeles personal injury attorney may have been present.

Emergency services were called and the toddler was rushed to the Richie Pediatric Trauma Center at Northridge Hospital. Paramedics said that the child was calm and brave when they arrived.

Rescue teams along with the escalator maintenance supervisor then took the steps of the escalator apart to search for the missing finger. It was found after around 90 minutes. Waiting paramedics placed it in a sterile dressing and rushed it to the hospital. It is not known whether the surgical team were able to sew back the finger successfully.

A Los Angeles personal injury attorney commented that escalators can be very dangerous for young children because the machinery does not stop if fingers or clothing become trapped. Little kids are very likely to poke their fingers into holes if not watched, and somebody has to hit the emergency stop button.

However, the child’s parents would probably need to show negligence in order to claim compensation in a personal injury claim. That would mean that compensation and recovery of medical expenses may depend on proving that the escalator was not properly designed or maintained. Of course, all cases are different and it is not possible for a vehicle accident attorney to comment on this case. The child’s parents would need to consult with a qualified Los Angeles personal injury attorney to find out whether they might be able to claim.

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Vehicle Accident Attorney Reports High Fatalities And Injuries

A San Francisco vehicle accident attorney has drawn attention to the city’s high rate of fatalities and injuries. According to Bay Area personal injury attorney Mary Alexander, the California Office of Traffic Safety has found that San Francisco had the highest number of vehicle accident fatalities and injuries in CA in 2009. This was out of 13 Californian cities with a population over 250,000, taking into account the number of miles driven.

The Office of Traffic Safety reported that 736 pedestrians, 293 motorcyclists and 522 bicyclists, plus 2,194 people in vehicles, were injured or killed in San Francisco traffic accidents in 2009. This makes a total of 3,745 people.

The results are based on the estimate that the total miles driven per day in San Francisco is approximately 4.9 million. This includes non-residents as well as residents. The city went from fourth place on the 2006 list of traffic accidents resulting in injury or death, to first place in 2009, according to the report.

In particular, San Francisco reportedly had the highest number of pedestrians, bicycles and motorcycles involved in injurious or fatal collisions, with regard to both the population and miles driven. This may be partly because people use these methods of transit more in SF than in other Californian cities. But this does not help the dead and injured. “It’s the totality of these of these things that make it so bad,” said Chris Cochran, Assistant Director of California Office of Traffic Safety.

If you have been injured in a wreck in San Francisco or elsewhere, consult with a vehicle accident attorney to see if they can help you claim compensation. Often times a car wreck attorney can help a person win many times the amount of compensation that they could have gotten for themselves. They can also help in cases of wrongful death, where a loved one was killed in a car wreck or other accident.

A specialist vehicle accident attorney is best placed to evaluate your case and help you win.

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Car Wreck Attorney: Do You Need One?

A specialist car wreck attorney can help you if you have been involved in a vehicle accident. What will they do for you? Well, it depends on what has happened.

1. Was it your fault?

If the accident was your fault, you may need a criminal justice lawyer who can help defend you against criminal charges. If it is not a criminal matter but the other person in the accident is trying to claim compensation from you for their injuries or for damage to their car or other property, tell your insurance company. They will handle it. You will probably only need a lawyer if you were not insured.

If the accident was not your fault, then you should consult with a car wreck attorney or, to use their official name, a personal injury attorney to find out whether you have a good case to claim compensation from the other side.

2. Are the injuries serious?

If your injuries are not serious, it is unlikely that a firm of accident solicitors would take your case. Legal cases are expensive and if it is just a matter of claiming a small amount of medical expenses or other damages, you will usually need to deal with the insurance companies yourself.

This is because most of the time, a car wreck attorney does not charge for personal injury cases up front but takes their fee from the amount of compensation that is won for you. This is called a “no win, no fee” basis. So if your injuries were minor, the compensation might not be enough to pay their fees.

If somebody was seriously injured or killed, it is usually possible to find personal injury lawyers to represent the person or their surviving family. It may be a case of what are called catastrophic injuries, where somebody is permanently disabled, either physically or by damage to the brain. Or it may be that a person cannot continue with the career or life that they had, or will need medical treatment or special care in order to lead a normal life.

In most cases, vehicle accident attorneys will negotiate with an insurance company for you. The insurance companies have their own lawyers as well as investigators. You need to be very careful what you say to these people or you could find that you have damaged your own case. Try to talk to your car wreck attorney before answering any questions.

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What Can Accident Solicitors Do For You?

Accident solicitors can offer legal advice and help win compensation if you personally have suffered any kind of harm that was somebody else’s fault. This situation comes under personal injury law.

Personal injury cases can include:

- if you were hurt in a vehicle accident that was not your fault, or if you were hit by a car

- if you have been injured on property due to negligence of the owner, for example if you trip over a loose cable in a store

- if you have suffered from medical malpractice or negligence

- if you have been purposely hurt by somebody, e.g. if you have been attacked in the street

Accident solicitors can also be involved in a case of wrongful death. This is an action that can be brought by the family of somebody who has been killed in circumstances where somebody else can be blamed.

A personal injury solicitor will look at the details of your case and advise you what is the best way to claim compensation. In most cases, personal accident solicitors will not want to tell you how much compensation your case might be worth in the early stages. This is just because it is very unpredictable and they will not want to risk disappointing you.

The first stage in a personal injury case is negotiation with the other party. Often, that will be an insurance company. Your accident solicitors will try to negotiate a good settlement for you. If the other party does not offer a good settlement, the case can go to court.

Accident solicitors are usually specialists. They only deal with personal injury law and do not take other cases.

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Best Personal Injury Solicitor

If you are looking for a personal injury solicitor, you want the best. But how do you go about choosing one when there are so many personal injury law firms out there? You can search on the internet, but you don’t want to just choose the one with the prettiest website. You need to know some facts about a personal injury solicitor before you commit.

1. Location

You will want a personal injury solicitor who practices in your area. Of course, you need one who knows the law and is licenced to practice in your country or state – or the place where the injury or accident happened, if it was not in your home town.

But there is more to it than that. If your lawyer is located at a long distance, it will be much more difficult for you to visit their office. More importantly, personal injury lawyers build up a lot of contacts over the time of their career. Those contacts will be in their local area, and it could be useful for you if that is the area where you suffered your injury.

2. Experience

It is best to choose a specialist personal injury solicitor, not a general practice lawyer. This is because personal injury cases can be very complex, and you need to be with somebody who has the time and dedication to keep up to date on legal developments in this particular area of law.

You may want to take this a step further and look for a personal injury lawyer who is experienced in your particular type of case. It can be helpful if they already know the basics of medical evidence etc.

It is also vital that the law firm representing you is built on a sound financial basis. Usually, lawyers take on personal injury cases on the basis that you only pay if they win your case. That means they have to cover all of the expenses of the case until the moment when you are paid. These cases can be expensive. If they run out of money when you are half way through your case, you could have a big problem. So ask about what happens in this situation.

3. Going to Court

Check that your lawyer has plenty of experience of taking a case to court. Often, these cases are resolved by negotiation out of court, but it is very important that the other party knows that your solicitor is not afraid of taking the case to trial if necessary. You will be in a much stronger position if your personal injury solicitor has a reputation for going to court – and winning.

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Top Personal Injury Lawyers

Top personal injury lawyers can make all the difference between winning or losing your case. Not only that, but they can win you a whole lot more money. But how do you know whether your lawyer will be a stammering wreck or one of the best? Just glance through our checklist below.

  1. One of the best ways to find personal injury lawyers or any other kind of attorney is to have a personal recommendation. Now, most people do not know a whole lot of people who have successfully sued for compensation in an injury case, so it may be difficult to think who you would ask. But if you let a few people know that you are looking, you may find that somebody knows somebody who has contacts at the courthouse and can tell you which lawyers have the best reputation.
  2. Then you need to think about whether the attorney specializes in your type of case. Most firms of personal injury lawyers will take on any kind of injury case provided it has a good chance of success and a profitable outcome. However, some individual attorneys may specialize in a particular area, for example medical negligence. If you contact that lawyer about a different type of case, he or she will probably refer you to a colleague in the same firm.
  3. In some states you can ask the Bar Association to help you find an attorney. Be aware that they are often not allowed to tell you which ones are the best. They may or may not be able to say that certain lawyers are specialists.
  4. Alternatively, you can do your own research. The best way is on the internet. Just about all law firms these days have a website, and if you do an internet search for ‘personal injury lawyers’ plus the name of your city, you will see most of them listed. Remember that law firms write their own websites, so you are not looking at independent reviews here! Read them as if they were ads. Be prepared to call and interview two or three attorneys before you find the right one.

If your attorney found you instead of the other way around, that is a bad sign. Of course, if you have a very strong case, lawyers may be keen to take it on. But usually, you make the first move by calling or emailing them with information about your case. Top personal injury lawyers are not so desperate for business that they need to look for clients in emergency rooms.

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Medical Negligence: A Ticket To Riches?

Medical negligence is a difficult subject in law and in practice. Many people view it as a ticket to enormous wealth, but is it really so easy to sue your doctor? In this article we will look at what you have to prove if you want to bring a case of medical negligence against a doctor or other medical professional who has treated you or a loved one.

The first thing to understand is that there is no point in bringing legal action against a doctor who has just been rude or seemed uncaring. Medical negligence means that they have to have done their job badly in the medical treatment that they gave you.

Equally, a patient who does not get the result they expected or hoped for from medical treatment cannot usually bring a case for medical negligence. There has to have been some fault on the part of the doctor or hospital. If something happens that could not have been foreseen, that is not the doctor’s fault.

Let’s take a couple of examples. Of course, every case is different and even two medical negligence cases with similar circumstances can turn out to have very different results in court. However, these examples may help to make the situation clear.

  1. A young woman goes to the hospital for a routine operation. She does not know it and nor do her medical advisors, but she has a weak heart. She dies under the anesthetic. Can her family claim medical negligence? Probably not – it was nobody’s fault.
  2. A young woman goes to the hospital for a routine operation. The anesthetist makes a mistake and gives her ten times the correct dose of anesthetic. She dies. Can her family claim medical negligence? Probably they can – although they still have to prove that she died because of the anesthetic, and not because of something else that happened during the operation.

It is important to remember that there are no guarantees with medical treatment. You cannot claim from the doctor’s insurance company just because the treatment you had did not produce the result that you expected or hoped for. That is not what malpractice insurance is for.

The hard fact is that medical malpractice cases are notoriously difficult for the plaintiff to win. The doctor wins most of the time. Medical negligence is one of the most difficult types of personal injury law cases for an attorney. Of course, you do not need to pay your lawyer unless you win, but you will almost certainly have other costs. Going to court is an extremely stressful experience.

Attorneys know that medical negligence is a difficult ride and most attorneys will not take you on unless you have a very strong case.

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