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$150 Million Lawsuit Filed In North Carolina State Fair Case

April 10, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “Can I wait a few months to pursue a personal injury claim?”

Almost six months after a horrific fair accident left several people seriously injured at the North Carolina State Fair, a group has filed the first personal injury lawsuit in the case. The suit was filed by four family members who were riding the Vortex at the time of the accident and all sustained serious injuries as a result of the malfunction.

The lawsuit was filed against a worker in charge of the ride, the owner of the Vortex machine itself and two other companies that service fair attractions. The lawsuit was filed by the Gorham family and seeks an astounding $150 million from the defendants, a sum that rests largely on punitive damages. The lawsuit estimates that medical bills could continue costing the family money for decades to come and may end up totaling as much as $30 million. The remainder, $120 million, is intended to punish those responsible and ensure that another tragedy like this never happens again.

The Gorham family, Kisha and her husband Anthony, as well as their 14-year-old son and a niece, were all trying to get off the ride when it sprang back to life and threw the riders back into the area, many of whom were unsecured. Anthony Gorham suffered permanent brain damage, neck and spinal trauma and is now unable to act on his own legally. The man has had multiple brain surgeries and continues to struggle with what many agree will be a lengthy recovery.

One of those sued in the case is Timothy Tutterrow, a man from Georgia who police have said may have tampered with critical safety systems on the ride prior to the disaster. Safety investigators say they believe Tutterrow’s actions may have allowed the machine to continue operating when riders’ safety restraints were in the unlocked position. In addition to the civil lawsuit, Tutterrow faces criminal charges including assault with a deadly weapon.

Drunk Driving Crash Leaves One Charlotte Man Dead And Another Behind Bars

April 8, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

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

In a tragic example of the dangers of speeding, a Charlotte man died last week after police say the driver of an SUV crashed into the man’s Jeep at a high rate of speed. The case highlights the damage that a fast moving car can do to unsuspecting motorists whose only mistake is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Officers from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department say that the accident last Tuesday night left Ramez Eldin dead and Michael Perrella behind bars. The crash took place on South Tryon Street near the intersection with West Tyvola Road.

According to accident investigators, the crash happened when Perrella, who was driving a Ford Expedition, slammed into the back of Eldin’s Jeep. After the accident, both cars ended up spinning out of control. According to witnesses, after the crash the Expedition crossed northbound lanes of traffic and came to rest after hitting a telephone pole. Eldin’s car eventually ended up on the sidewalk of South Tryon.

When emergency responders arrived at the scene of the accident it was sadly too late to save Eldin. Eldin was pronounced dead at the site of the accident. Perrella suffered relatively minor injuries and was taken to Carolina’s Medical Center for treatment.

Police say they set to work investigating what may have caused the terrible accident and believe that Perrella’s speed played a decisive role in the deadliness of the crash. Additionally, Perrella is believed to have been impaired at the time of the accident, another factor that is frequently linked to fatal car accidents.

Deadly Accident Occurs After Driver Runs Red Light

April 3, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

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

A Charlotte woman died earlier this week after being involved in a terrible accident on Brookshire Boulevard near I-485. Police say the crash happened around 5 o’clock in the afternoon on Wednesday.

According to authorities, the accident took place after the woman, 53-year-old Annie Roller, took off from a stop light on the off-ramp of I-485. Roller had been stopped at a red light and when her light changed to green she pulled out into the intersection and tried to make a left turn onto Brookshire Boulevard.

Just as Roller was pulling into traffic, she was struck by an oncoming Ford Explorer driven by 23-year-old Quantovius Forte. Forte is said to have run the red light and smashed into the left side of Roller’s vehicle. Accident investigators say the force of the collision was intense and that the driver’s side of Roller’s vehicle absorbed the vast majority of the impact of the crash.

By the time emergency responders arrived, it was too late to save Roller who was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Forte himself suffered minor injuries in the crash and was taken to a Charlotte hospital for treatment. Once he was discharged, Forte was arrested and has since been charged with misdemeanor death by vehicle. In addition to the more serious death by vehicle charge, Forte is also facing charges for an expired registration, expired inspection and running a red light.

Distracted Driving Month Begins With Important Safety Tips

April 1, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “What if the medical condition improves before the hearing?”

April 1^st marks the start of the national Distracted Driving Awareness Month and provides an excellent opportunity to remind drivers across North Carolina of the dangers associated with texting or talking while behind the wheel.

According to recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, distracted driving contributes to more than 3,000 deaths each and every year as well as hundreds of thousands of serious injuries. With increasingly available and complicated personal electronic devices, distracted driving has never been as widespread or as appealing.

Given the dangers presented by modern technology, it is critical that drivers learn strategies to avoid being sucked into the trap of distracted driving. The most common and most dangerous source of distraction is undoubtedly a cellphone. Besides placing phone calls, writing emails, looking up directions and streaming music, phones are also frequently used to send text messages. Texting behind the wheel is one of, if not the most dangerous thing that a driver can do.

The reason that texting is so dangerous is that it requires the physical, mental and visual attention of a driver, ensuring that the driver is paying little if any attention to what is happening outside the confines of the vehicle. Allowing yourself to be consumed with what’s happening on a cellphone dramatically increases the risk that you could be involved in an accident leading to injuries to yourself or others.

GM Recall Linked To Potentially Hundreds Of Deaths

March 27, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

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

GM is currently in the midst of a major recall and consumers have begun to grow more nervous over the safety of what some groups have said are millions of potentially affected vehicles. So far more than 1.6 million GM cars have been swept up in the recall, a number many expect to rise before it’s all said and done.

GM’s CEO Marry Barra has apologized to customers and the driving public for the mistakes that led to the recall, saying that GM owes its customers better vehicles and a more direct approach in the future. The company has been criticized by safety advocates, Senators and even the NHTSA for what some call a dangerous and potentially deadly delay in issuing the important recall notice.

The problem at the center of the recall revolves around a faulty ignition switch that can go bad without warning. GM says that the ignition switch is prone to breaking if drivers have especially heavy key rings or even when the car suffers a big jolt or bump. When the ignition switch goes bad, it can cause the car to completely lose power, meaning that critical safety features like airbags fail to work properly, if at all.

For its part, GM says that it has seen reports linking the faulty ignition switch to 12 deaths. However, others say this is a woefully inaccurate underestimate. The group, Center for Auto Safety, says that an extensive investigation has revealed that the defective device may actually be responsible for more than 300 deaths due to high-speed accidents where airbags failed to deploy properly.

Accident Report Blames Actor’s Death On Speeding

March 25, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “If I am injured in a car accident or at work what should I do?”

In a very sad case, accident investigators in California are saying that Paul Walker, star of the “Fast & Furious” movies, died in a car accident last year due to speeding. Police initially wondered whether drugs or mechanical failure could have been responsible for the actor’s death, but recently confirmed that it was simply speed, a common though deadly mistake made by drivers across the country.

According to an official announcement by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, investigators say they determined the cause of the deadly single-car accident was that the vehicle was traveling at unsafe speeds for the road conditions. Walker died while a friend was driving between 80 and 93 miles per hour on a stretch of road that had a listed speed limit of only 45 miles per hour.

This isn’t the first time officials have noted the potentially deadly role played by speeding in the actor’s death. Last year the coroner’s report noted the kinds of injuries seen on the bodies of those involved in the accident typically occur when vehicles crash after going more than 100 miles per hour.

The case highlights just how dangerous speeding can be, even in cases where drivers appear to do everything else right. The final accident report showed that neither Walker nor his friend had drugs or alcohol in their systems. In addition, both were wearing their seat belts and their airbags deployed exactly as they should have. Nothing mechanically went wrong to cause the accident. It was simply speeding.

Horrific Hazing Allegedly Cause Of College Student’s Death

March 20, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

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

The family of a young man pledging the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity at High Point University who died after they say he was subjected to vicious hazing has filed suit against the school and the fraternity. The family of Robert Tipton, Jr. filed the lawsuit after their son was found lifeless back in March of 2012 in an off-campus apartment.

According to news reports, the family claims that the day before he died, Tipton was told he had to attend what the fraternity dubbed a “counseling session” at the off-campus apartment. After arriving, they say that members of Delta Sigma Phi proceeded to viciously haze the young man at the direction of the fraternity’s pledge master.

Specifically, the suit claims that fraternity members assaulted and battered Tipton, resulting in blunt force trauma to the young man’s head. An autopsy revealed contusions to the boy’s head, face and neck, but noted that oxymorphone poisoning officially caused his death. A separate report disagreed with the official cause of death and said that Tipton died due to aspiration of gastrointestinal contents and that a concussion caused by the hazing likely precipitated the aspiration.

The lawsuit says that Delta Sig’s pledge master, Michael Qubein, is also the son of the school’s president. So far, the university has said only that it was saddened by the loss of the young man, but that it believes the lawsuit naming the school is baseless.

Charlotte Students Injured In School Bus Accident

March 18, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “Can I wait a few months to pursue a personal injury claim?”

Police in Charlotte say that a serious accident involving a school bus in Uptown resulted in four people having to be taken to local hospitals for treatment of injuries. The wreck happened earlier this week on Mint Street a little after 2:30 p.m.

Officials with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools say that the bus, number 1305, was being used at the time of the wreck to transport students from the Performance Learning Center. The bus at some point collided with an oncoming vehicle, an accident that resulted in serious damage to both the car and the bus.

In addition to damage to the vehicles, emergency responders say four people were injured in the accident. Three of those injured were students who were taken to Carolinas Medical Center to be evaluated. The driver of the bus was also harmed, and was transported to Novant Presbyterian Hospital.

So far, officials with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools say they aren’t releasing the cause of the accident, but say that everyone involved is expected to be fine. That’s good news but hardly comforting to the parents of the children who were injured in the accident.

The latest accident is one of many seen frequently across North Carolina. A simple Google search turns up multiple articles involving school bus crashes across the state in only the last several weeks. Though school buses are said to be one of the safest modes of transportation for children, it does not mean they are always safe.

North Carolina’s Texting While Driving Laws In Dire Need Of Updating

March 13, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “What should I do if I have been injured by another party but I can’t afford a lawyer?”

Almost everyone has heard about the dangers associated with texting and driving. Distraction behind the wheel frequently proves deadly and is thought to be responsible for thousands of deaths across the country each and every year. Despite laws on the books in North Carolina, officers say they have a hard time cracking down on offenders given the way the current law is written.

Texting and driving is a serious problem not only across the country, but right here in North Carolina. Reports indicate that between 2011 and 2012 there were more than 1,500 accidents in the state directly related to distracted driving. Many people might think that given the hundreds of accidents, it was time that troopers in the state paid attention to the matter and cracked down on those who broke the law regarding texting while driving. Unfortunately, it isn’t always so easy.

Numbers gathered from law enforcement officials tell the story. Since the state’s no-texting law was passed in 2009, there have been fewer than 3,100 citations issued by Highway Patrol officers. Dividing that number by the total number of state troopers on the payroll reveals that each officer has issued fewer than two distracted driving citations in almost five years, an alarmingly low number.

The problem is that because of how North Carolina’s law against texting and driving is written, police officers frequently have a hard time catching people in the act. In fact, experts say that if the existing law was rewritten it is likely there would be a huge spike in the number of tickets written every year.

Ice Blamed For North Carolina Tractor-Trailer Crash

March 11, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “The insurance adjuster is saying I am partially negligent what does that mean?”

North Carolina has had its fair share of winter weather so far this season. Several bouts of snow and ice have not only led to canceled classes for students across the state, but also to hundreds of accidents as roads and interstates became too slick to safely pass.

The latest example of how dangerous frozen roads can be occurred recently when two tractor-trailers collided with one another on an icy stretch of I-77 near Statesville, NC. The accident happened around 2 in the morning near exit 42 of I-77 north.

Officials with the North Carolina Highway Patrol say that the accident left all lanes of I-77 north blocked as crews had to treat the injured truckers, clean up the wreckage and investigate the cause of the crash. The accident scene was even more of a mess than normal given that one of the tractor-trailers was hauling cars, several of which ended up scattered across the interstate.

Emergency responders say that both drivers suffered injuries in the crash, but that it could have been much worse given the size and weight of the tractor-trailers. Investigators say that ice is to blame for the accident and that the crash is yet another indication of how important it is for motorists, whether behind the wheel of semis or passenger vehicles, to take precautions when out driving in wintry conditions.