Injury

Mayor, city councilman, fire chief charged with DWI, sued by victims of crash he caused

November 13, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

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

A former mayor and Murrieta, California city councilman is facing a personal injury lawsuit brought by four teenage cheerleaders who were injured in a rear end automobile crash on October 16.

The girls allege that the vehicle in which they were riding was struck by a pickup truck being driven by then-Mayor Alan Long. The cheerleaders say Long was drunk when he caused the crash. Long was arrested at the crash scene and was charged with felony drunken driving.

Long’s blood-alcohol content at the time of the crash was .08, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s office. Officers concluded that Long was impaired after he failed field sobriety tests. Long is due to be arraigned on a charge of driving while under the influence of alcohol causing bodily injury on December 11.

The cheerleaders, who range in age from 14 to 17 and attend Murrieta Valley High School, suffered “severe personal injuries” that necessitated medical treatment and have caused them to incur medical expenses and to lose earnings, according to their lawsuit.

They were waiting to make a left turn at around 8:15 p.m. on October 16 when Long approached from the rear in a full-size pickup truck and plowed into the back of the girls’ car, according to Murrieta police Lieutenant Julie Hoxmeier.

Federal government marking out the boundaries for commercial drone use

November 11, 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?”

Now in addition to birds, planes and Superman, spectators at sporting events can look up in the sky and see drones.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating a number of recent drone-related incidents at packed football stadiums across the United States.

Agency officials say small drones pose safety hazards, hazards University of Wisconsin-Madison campus police spokesman Marc Lovicott saw firsthand when a drone swooped over the student section in the 80,000-seat Camp Randall Stadium during an October 11 football game against the University of Illinois.

Lovicott is worried criminals or terrorists could arm the drones.

That’s a drone stigma to which Nick Stover said he is accustomed. Stover is director of social media for the University of Louisville’s athletic department. The university purchased three drones, which Stover said he has used to film practices and fan events.

Causation, foreseeability vexing issues for lawyers, litigants

November 6, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Are the laws or rules applying to a wrongful death claim different from a personal injury not involving death?”

This may sound like a simple question, but did the person you want to sue cause your injuries? If so, were your injuries a reasonably foreseeable result of the person’s actions?

If not, you may be out of luck in your personal injury case.

The issue of causation can lead personal injury litigants and their lawyers into a labyrinthine maze of legal concepts fit for a law school-level philosophy course. While the issues and doctrines that accompany causation and so-called “foreseeability” may be complex, the practical day-to-day application of these principles mean the difference in who wins and who loses in personal injury lawsuits.

In many cases, causation and foreseeability are not issues of contention. An analysis of a recent Australian case shows how the issues can arise, however, even in cases involving relatively straightforward facts.

A driver’s negligence caused a motor-vehicle accident. A person injured his neck in the accident. Several witnesses testified regarding the driver’s negligence and a police officer concluded the driver was at fault. The issue of whether the driver caused the person’s whiplash injury was uncontested.

Mother of penknife-wielding man killed in barrage of 46 police bullets calls for justice

October 30, 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?”

Jewel Hall, the mother of a 49-year-old mentally disabled man shot dead by Saginaw, Michigan police officers in 2012, is campaigning for justice for her son.

Milton Hall was confronted by eight police officers after he refused to pay for coffee at a mini mart. After Hall brandished and refused to drop a penknife, officers unloaded 46 shots at Hall, striking him 14 times before he hit the ground, killing him instantly.

Ms. Hall said that after the shooting, an officer turned Milton Hall over and handcuffed him, then put his foot on Hall’s back while blood ran “down the street like water.”

The American Civil Liberties Union released a video of Hall’s shooting this week after a presentation to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights detailing racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Mr. Hall was African-American, while all the police officers involved in his shooting were white.

Ms. Hall said the Department of Justice investigated the shooting but refused to press charges. The State of Michigan likewise declined to prosecute any of the officers. Two officers were disciplined by the police department, and a supervisor was demoted.

Spike in bicyclist deaths has two-wheeled travelers ducking for cover

October 23, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” If an incident report was filled out, do I have a right to receive a copy?”

Scenes and outtakes from countless television shows and movies have shown cyclists speeding past people jogging or skating alongside the sands of Southern California beaches. Many of these have featured the twenty-or-so mile paved Marvin Braude Bicycle Path that runs from Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles south to Torrance.

Cyclists may enjoy a relative safety on the seaside paths, but inland things have gotten downright tragic for bicycle riders. California saw 338 cyclists killed in collisions with motor vehicles between 2010 and 2012, according to a report issued Monday by the Governors Highway Safety Association. Florida lagged not far behind Golden State, reporting 329 cyclists killed in collisions with motor vehicles in the same period.

Bicyclist deaths nationwide increased by 16-percent between 2010 and 2012, according to the report, but Florida and California reported the largest increases in deaths.

Allen Williams, a scientist who worked at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, compiled the report. He observed what he described as “remarkable changes” in the profile of those killed in crashes involving bicycles and cars. Adult males accounted for 74-percent of bicyclists killed in 2012. In 1975, by comparison, only 21-percent of bicyclists killed were adults of either gender.

Two-thirds of bicyclists killed in 2012 were not wearing helmets, while nearly a third of those killed registered a blood-alcohol content of .08 or more.

Woman “virtually decapitated” by lap belt awarded $12.5 million

October 21, 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 17-year-old girl who was “virtually decapitated” at the waist when she “jackknifed” over the lap belt in a 1996 Toyota 4Runner has been awarded $12.5 million by a California jury. If she had brought suit in North Carolina, her case would have been dismissed.

Toyota spokeswoman Carly Shaffner said the carmaker respected the jury’s time and consideration, but she remained confident that plaintiff Chelsie Hill’s injuries “were not the result of a defect in the 1996 Toyota 4Runner.” The jury reached the opposite conclusion after four hours of deliberations.

Hill—now 22—was a passenger in the February 21, 2010 crash in Monterey, California. Driver Aaron Corn, who was only 18 at the time and was driving while under the influence of alcohol, struck a tree while driving 30 miles per hour. The jury found that Corn was five-percent responsible for Hill’s injuries and that Hill was five-percent at fault for getting into a car with a drunken driver.

Dr. Robert Lieberson, the neurosurgeon who treated Hill after the crash, said the lap belt severed the girl at her midsection, and she was only held together by her skin. Lieberson and others testified that Hill used the belt properly.

Hill’s attorney suggested that Toyota chose to install the least safe and least expensive restraint system in the seat. Videos shown to the jury depicting dummies compared crashes involving lap belts against those with shoulder belts. Test dummies with lap-only belts jackknifed violently in crashes, while dummies in lap-and-shoulder belts remained upright.

Wife of N.C. inmate who died of thirst after solitary confinement prepares to seek justice

October 16, 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 wife of an inmate who died of dehydration after two stints in solitary confinement has hired an attorney to pursue potential legal claims, the inmate’s sister has revealed.

Prison officials accused 54-year-old inmate Michael Anthony Kerr of flooding his cell, according to an autopsy released in September. Prison staff are permitted to switch off the water flowing to an inmate’s sink and toilet if the inmate is found to have misused “plumbing facilities,” according to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.

Kerr died on March 12 after he was found unresponsive in the back of a van while being transported from Alexander Correctional Institution in Taylorsville to a mental hospital at Raleigh’s Central Prison.

It is unclear whether prison officials turned off the water to Kerr’s cell. Records obtained by the Associated Press showed that Kerr was placed in “administrative segregation” in February. He was cited twice—on the 21^st and again on the 24^th of February—for flooding his cell. Kerr was also cited for disobeying orders and for “lock tampering,” although, according to WCNC, inmates can be cited for lock tampering if they “repeatedly bang on the steel doors of their cells.”

Kerr was moved into “disciplinary segregation,” or solitary confinement, on February 25. Medical Examiner Dr. Susan E. Venuti, who conducted Kerr’s autopsy, said that she was allowed to read an internal prison report regarding Kerr’s death, but she was not allowed to make a copy of the report. She said the report failed to answer key questions such as when Kerr had last consumed food or water. Venuti could not even classify whether Kerr’s death was natural, accidental or the result of a homicide, given the lack of information.

Golfer who accused Eddie Murphy of inflating his handicap has lawsuit sunk

October 14, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

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

A 77-year-old Irish golfer who sued Eddie Murphy after a golf club told him he had a 13 handicap watched Ireland’s High and Supreme Courts sink his lawsuit last week.

The golfer, a retired insurance official from Dublin named Thomas Talbot, sued the Golfing Union of Ireland, the Hermitage Golf Club and Hermitage Officer Eddie Murphy in 2004 after the golf club sent Talbot a certificate showing he had a 13 handicap and was entitled to “General Play (Handicap Building).”

Talbot felt his handicap was lower. By assigning him a 13 handicap, he believed, the golf club accused him of cheating.

Irish Supreme Court Justice Daniel Herbert rejected Talbot’s claim. While the justice conceded that the words “Handicap Building” could have been interpreted by fellow golfers to mean that Talbot was inflating his handicap, “the words were only published in a limited form to a computer programmer who designed software for the club, including for handicap records.” The limited, intra-club publication of the words meant that it “enjoyed qualified privilege from being sued,” Justice Herbert said.

Red Bull does not really give you wings, but you can really get $10 if you bought one can

October 9, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

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

Red Bull does not really give you wings, but since you might have thought it did, the company that makes the popular energy drink has agreed to pay $13 million to customers in the United States.

If you are one of those customers, you can claim your share of the $13 million by simply filling out an online form. On the form, you will have to certify—under penalty of perjury—that you purchased at least one Red Bull can between January 1, 2002 and October 3, 2014. If you did, you can choose either a $10 reimbursement or a voucher for $15 worth of Red Bull products.

The company was sued by Plaintiff Benjamin Careathers in 2013 in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Careathers alleged that the company misled him about the energy drink’s health benefits. Careathers—who said he had been drinking Red Bull for over ten years—said the company’s claims that the drink increased consumers’ performance, concentration and reaction speed were “deceptive, fraudulent and therefore actionable.”

Careathers’ lawsuit was certified as a “class action.” Class action lawsuits enable one or more plaintiffs to file and prosecute claims on behalf of a larger group of people, or a “class.” The class action device saves time and expense by resolving claims of potentially thousands or millions of plaintiffs in a single court action. A company like Red Bull might actually save money by settling a merit-worthy class-action suit rather than facing thousands or millions of identical lawsuits.

Man accused of sex assault of mentally disabled woman wins $1 million in defamation suit

October 7, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What constitutes nursing home negligence?”

A four-year-long pursuit of justice ended last month for a former Orangeburg, South Carolina nursing home employee who was accused of attempting to rape a mentally handicapped woman in 2010.

Then-54-year-old Ralph C. Williams was charged in June of 2010 with third-degree criminal sexual conduct and abuse of a vulnerable adult. At the time, an employee at the Orangeburg Nursing Home called Capt. Mike Adams of the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety to report that she saw Mr. Williams on top of a 42-year-old female patient with his “scrub pants down and appeared to be starting to have sex with (the patient).”

Williams was acquitted of the criminal charges in 2012. As it turned out, he was the victim of false allegations lodged against him by Patricia Johnson, Josette Peppers and UniHealth Post Acute Care, LLC, an Orangeburg jury found. Johnson, Peppers and UniHealth were named as defendants in a defamation lawsuit Williams brought to clear his name.

Defamation, in general, is defined as any statement—written or spoken—that damages a person’s reputation. The statement must be “published;” in other words, the defamatory statement must be made to a third party or third parties. The plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit must prove that he or she was damaged by the alleged defamatory statement or statements.