Charlotte Injury Lawyers Blog

Troubling trend of inmate deaths leave corrections institutions vulnerable to lawsuits

July 17, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What exactly is a wrongful death claim?”

The death of a 16-year-old at the S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice wasn’t a first for persons in the custody of the Palmetto State this year. Let’s hope it’s the last.

The young man—Alan C. Cottrell—was found in his room hanging from a bed sheet, according to Richland Coroner Gary Watts. Cottrell, who was alone in his room when the hanging occurred, was discovered by staff at around 11:30 p.m. He was taken to Lexington Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead of asphyxiation by hanging at 12:22 a.m.

The death is under investigation by the coroner and the State Law Enforcement Division. Watts said he did not know how long it had been since department staff had checked on Cottrell before the hanging. Three employees have been placed on suspension, according to Loretta S. Neal, the Director of Public Affairs for the Department. Through Neal, the Department extended its deepest sympathy and condolences to Cottrell’s family.

Earlier this year, in a May 20 incident, 44-year-old Randy William Stevens hanged himself in the Lancaster County jail. An investigation into Stevens’ death revealed that an officer on duty slept for two hours with headphones on her ears. Per jail policy, Stevens was supposed to be checked every 15 minutes. The officer falsified records showing she had performed the checks. Both she and her supervisor were fired, and three other officers were suspended for three days without pay.

Concussion injuries spark concerns well beyond the NFL playing field

July 15, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

The latest serious head injury to a world-class football player has raised concerns over the safety of the sport and how it deals with concussions. This time it is not America’s version of football that is grabbing headlines.

The concussion was not suffered on an NFL training camp field—the Buffalo Bills kick off training camp July 18, and most NFL teams don’t start until the following week. Instead, German midfielder Christoph Kramer collided with Argentine defender Ezequiel Garay during Sunday’s World Cup Finale. Kramer suffered a vicious knock in the face; he kept playing for 14-miuntes before being substituted. After the match, he said he remembered little of Germany’s 1-0 victory over Argentina.

The Argentine team started at least two players in the World Cup finale who had suffered hard knocks to the head in a semifinal match against the Netherlands. Michael D’Hooghe, chairman of FIFA’s medical committee, said he was dismayed at watching Uruguayan player Alvaro Pereira resume playing after being knocked unconscious in an earlier game. FIFA is the organization that runs the World Cup.

Americans aren’t as familiar with un-American football—also known as soccer—as the rest of the world, but they are familiar with sports-related concussions and their effects. Few Americans could have missed the amount of media attention devoted to football-related concussions in recent years. Democrat Representative Linda T. Sanchez of California told NFL commissioner Roger Goodell the NFL was like “the tobacco companies pre-’90s when they kept saying, ‘Oh, there’s no link between smoking and damage to your health’” at a 2009 Congressional hearing. That wasn’t the first—nor was it the only—Congressional tongue-whipping the NFL received on the subject.

Some researchers have called for a ban on American football. Others have asked leagues ranging from the NFL to local little-league football chapters to take steps to minimize the risk of head injuries. Even the White House got in on the action, holding a “Healthy Kids and Safe Sports” concussion summit this past May.

Man gored by running bull—and many others—have no case in North Carolina

July 10, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What if the accident was my fault?”

A 32-year-old American author who wrote a survival guide for Spain’s Pamplona bull-running festival was gored on Wednesday by a 1,320-pound bull named Brevito during the annual San Fermin festival.

The man, Bill Hillman, was skewered in the right thigh by the bull’s horn; the bull also gored a 35-year-old Spanish man in the chest. A friend of Hillman’s said the bull’s horn had missed the artery in Hillman’s right thigh and that Hillman had undergone surgery at a local hospital and was expected to survive.

Hillman co-authored a 2014 e-book called “Fiesta: How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona.”

Dozens of people were injured in the annual bull-running, held on a narrow, half-mile course. The bulls took under four minutes to run the course before being led into a bull ring to face matadors and death. The most recent human bull-run fatality came in 2009, when a Spanish man was gored to death.

Hillman may be lucky, but if he thinks he has any legal claims, he is out of luck. Of course he couldn’t sue the bull, but could he sue Pamplona or the outfit that organizes the bull runs? No. The reason why may seem obvious, but in the law, sometimes obvious answers lead to absurd results.

Woman grows nose on her back eight years after stem-cell surgery

July 8, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question: Can I wait a few months to pursue a personal injury claim?

Medical treatments involving stem cells have been hailed as holding the promise of a new generation of treatments for a variety of diseases, ailments and disorders. Now an American woman is learning that experimental stem cell treatments performed in Portugal eight years ago may have produced some unintended results.

The woman was suffering from paralysis. Doctors had used a similar method on some 20 other paralysis patients; more than half reported recovery of movement or sensation. The American woman’s treatment did not involve the controversial method of transplanting of embryonic stem cells; instead, doctors removed tissue from her nose and implanted it in her spine. Doctors hoped the cells would turn into other cell types similar to cells near the site of the woman’s injury, acting as a kind of bodily “repair kit.”

Instead, after the stem-cell operation, the woman experienced increasing pain. In 2013—eight years after the stem cell operation—doctors discovered a three-centimeter-long growth made up mainly of nasal tissue on the woman’s back. Doctors also found small pieces of bone and nerve branches that had not connected to the woman’s spinal nerves.

Doctors said this circumstance occurred in less than one-percent of operations and that many patients receiving the treatment had seen a “remarkable recovery.”

Hot-car deaths becoming all-too-common

July 3, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What if the accident was my fault?”

The death of a three-year-old boy from Lancaster County, S.C. is only the latest in a string of deaths nationwide related to hot cars. Logan Cox became trapped in a car with his dog after slipping out of his home without his mother noticing. She found him a short time later and called for help.

The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he was treated for heat stroke. Tragically, Logan Cox passed away Sunday evening. Police have not pressed charges against Logan’s mother, who said she believed her son climbed into the car because he loved toy cars and wanted to drive.

Meanwhile, police in Georgia have released more information regarding the death of 22-month-old Cooper Harris. He was left strapped in his car seat by his father for seven hours in a parking lot not far from where his father worked. Harris’s father, Justin, has been charged with murder in that death, after police alleged he left his son to die in the car on purpose.

Police have said Harris was sexting with as many as six different women throughout the day his son died—including one woman who was underage. Police also alleged that in the days before his son’s death, Harris made internet searches on how long it would take for a person to die in a hot car.

In injury claims, time is the enemy of justice, in more ways than one

July 1, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

Time cures all ills, as the saying goes. For at least one North Carolina sex abuse victim, time is the enemy of justice.

On July 1, a Stanly County Superior Court Judge dismissed a sex abuse charge against the Rev. Joseph Kelleher. The judge ruled that Kelleher, who is 86 and lives in a retirement home in High Point, is not mentally competent to stand trial.

The sexual abuse allegation was levelled against Kelleher in 2010 by a man who said he was abused by Kelleher in 1977, when the man was 14-years-old. At that time, Kelleher worked at Our Lady of the Annunciation Catholic Church in Albemarle.

Lawyers for the victim called the case “one of the oldest, if not oldest” criminal case pending in Stanly County, and questioned why it was delayed for some four years before being dismissed.

Delays of a different kind resulted in dismissal of two civil lawsuits brought in Mecklenburg County against the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte. Those lawsuits were premised on decades-old sex abuse of children by Kelleher and another priest. Lawyers for the diocese argued successfully that plaintiffs in those cases missed the deadline to file their lawsuits.

From online Tinder to offline DA’s office: Workplace sexual harassment is real

June 26, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can I wait a few months to pursue a personal injury claim?”

The online dating world took a collective gasp as one of its leading lights, Tinder Chief-Marketing-Officer Justin Mateen, was accused of sexual harassment and discrimination. The company says it has suspended the cofounder.

Tinder compiles information from users’ Facebook accounts and, based on a set of criteria, tries to connect potential mates.

In the sex harassment lawsuit, brought by former Tinder Vice-President of Marketing Whitney Wolfe, Mateen is accused of connecting with Wolfe inappropriately both online and the old-fashioned way. Wolfe alleges Mateen pursued her romantically, and the two began “officially dating” in February of 2013.

It didn’t take long, however, before Mateen became verbally controlling and abusive. He told Wolfe if she hurt his pride by dating another man, he’d fire her. A few months after breaking off their relationship, Mateen called Wolfe a “whore” at a company event. He also went behind Wolfe’s back, describing her as a “gold digger” and a “liberal lying slut” to coworkers. Wolfe claims pressure from Mateen led to her termination.

Important Do’s And Don’ts In A North Carolina Personal Injury Case

June 24, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

If you have been involved in a North Carolina car crash or other injury-causing accident, there are some important rules you should follow to ensure you are best able to move forward with a future civil claim for damages. Read through the following list of do’s and don’ts to get a better idea of what you should and shouldn’t do after an accident.

First things first, you do need to call the police. It is critical to get a record of the accident that can be used in a future personal injury case. Getting documentation about what happened, who was at fault, who witnessed the crash and the names and contact information of the parties involved is critical. Additionally, you do need to be sure and make your own list of information that you think could be important down the road. Write down any details of the accident, contact information, witness names, etc.

If you are hurt, it is crucial that you do receive medical attention immediately. Seeking out medical care as soon as possible is good for several reasons. First, it gets the injuries recorded early and entered into a medical record, which can later be used at trial or during settlement talks. Second, going early means that the responsible party will have less of a basis for claiming that any injuries were caused elsewhere or were faked just to drive up the cost of your settlement.

Finally, if you have been involved in a serious accident, it is essential that you do reach out to an experienced North Carolina personal injury attorney. Turning your case over to someone who knows what they’re doing and who has successfully handled other injury cases in the past is a great way to boost your chances of winning.

Experts Say Map Programs Just As Dangerous As Texting

June 19, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “Should I trust the insurance adjuster?”

Though we have all heard about the dangers of texting while driving, many may not realize that other activities, such as mapping while driving, can be just as deadly. The Department of Transportation has decided to publicize the dangers of mapping behind the wheel and is even seeking legislative approval to regulate those companies that make mapping software.

The issue of mapping behind the wheel is not only potentially dangerous, but actually a legal question. In some states, mapping is not among those activities specifically prohibited. Instead, laws are designed to target texting, emailing or even placing phone calls, but may not actually address mapping.

A recent case out of California brought this issue to light; after a driver was cited for distracted driving and later won an appeal of his case. The judge decided that the law did not cover mapping and so his ticket was thrown out of court. The court decided that only if the person had engaged in dangerous or reckless driving, by swerving out of the lane of traffic, could the cop have properly issued a ticket.

Some in the industry believe that mapping presents all the same dangers that texting does. To use Google Maps, Yahoo or Waze, a driver needs to devote his or her attention to the screen of their mobile phone, taking the eyes off the road in front of the car. Though the programs are meant to be simple to use, even short distractions can prove deadly. That is why the Department of Transportation says it wants the authority to regulate these mapping products.

Woman Charged After Motorcyclist Killed

June 17, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “What exactly is a wrongful death claim?”

Police in Charlotte have filed formal charges against a woman they say is responsible for the death of a motorcyclist. The accident happened Saturday morning at the intersection of Providence Road and Wendover Road.

According to law enforcement officials, the crash occurred when James Johnson was riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle down Wendover Road. Susan Brown, in her BMW X5 SUV, pulled out directly in front of Johnson.

Police officers say that Brown was in the left turn lane and had a flashing yellow arrow at the time, meaning she failed to yield the right of way to Johnson who had a green light. When she turned in front of Johnson, the grill of her SUV struck him and ejected him from his motorcycle. The force of the accident threw Johnson into the lanes of Providence Road.

The accident then set off a chain reaction crash, with the front end of the BMW hitting a Ford F150 that was stopped at the red light on Providence Road. Johnson was trapped on the ground between both the BMW and the Ford.