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?”
Allison Kinsman was an 18-year-old freshman at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, on the night in December 2012 on which she says she ran into a man at a Potbelly Sandwich Shop.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What should I do if I have been injured by another party but I can’t afford a lawyer?”
Humayun Akhtar purchased a parcel of real property in Florham Park, New Jersey where he planned to build a dream home for him and his wife. The dream home turned into a nightmare for Akhtar after a plumber discovered cracks in the structure’s foundation. Eight years after the home’s construction, Akhtar and his wife have yet to live a single night in it.
Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”
Neighbors of a North Charlotte man who has a penchant for standing naked at his front door say they want to change North Carolina’s indecent exposure law “to protect their children.”
Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What if a loved one dies from the injuries sustained in a serious accident while the case is pending?”
State officials have rebuffed calls to stop installing guardrails that activists say have caused dozens of deaths and injuries in accidents across the United States. California became the 41st state to ban the guardrails this week after a Texas jury levied a mammoth fraud verdict against the company that makes the guardrails.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation is aware of safety concerns raised about the ET-Plus end terminals, but the agency said it is leaving the decision of whether to pull the terminals from state highways to federal officials.
NCDOT spokesman Steve Abbott said his department has not seen any evidence of the end terminals’ danger, despite its awareness of “a couple of incidents.”
On Wednesday, federal regulators approved new safety testing of the end terminals. The NCDOT said it will await the results of new safety testing before making a decision on removing the terminals.
Even if the agency does decide to remove ET-Plus end terminals that have already been installed, it has not kept a database of the locations of the terminals. The state has installed different types of guardrails in different locations throughout the state, and the NCDOT has not kept track of which guardrails are where.
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?”
If he knew any better, Seattle Seahawks star Richard Sherman’s son would be praying his dad never gets traded to the Carolina Panthers.
Sherman’s son Rayden, born Feb. 5, does not know any better. He could not know—nor could any infant—that in North Carolina, unless his father takes certain legal steps to “legitimate” him, he cannot inherit from him.
Sherman is not married to Rayden’s mother, Ashley Moss. Media reports refer to Moss as Sherman’s “girlfriend.”
North Carolina law used to call Sherman’s son a “bastard.” That term was replaced by “illegitimate,” a term employed until 2013, when the legislature removed “illegitimate” from the general statutes, replacing the same with the phrase “child born out of wedlock.”
Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Should I trust the insurance adjuster?”
The American Bar Association—prodded by American businesses like Legal Zoom, Inc.—is studying the issue of non-lawyer ownership of law firms.
In the United States, lawyers are generally prohibited from “creating, owning or managing law firms” with non lawyers. Multidisciplinary practices—or those practices that combine the provision of legal services with non-legal services—are greatly restricted.
This is not the case in the United Kingdom, the fount from which the United States’ Common-Law legal tradition sprang. In the United Kingdom, restrictions of non-lawyer ownership interests in law firms have largely been eliminated, leading to the development of so-called “alternative business structures.”
The United Kingdom lifted its restrictions on alternative business structures in 2007. Since then, by most accounts, it has encouraged the establishment of alternative business structures for largely the same reason that they are prohibited in the United States: for the benefit of clients.
The 2007 Legal Services Act—which lifted the prohibition against alternative business structures—was passed after a study of the legal industry in the United Kingdom revealed a glut of unmet but nonetheless needed legal services. The new Act focused on the functions of advocates as opposed to the identity of law-firm owners, restricting the performance of certain activities to authorized lawyers. Those activities include the right to appear as an advocate in court, to certify documents and transactions, to probate estates, administer oaths, cause the consummation of a transfer of real property and to conduct litigation.
Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “The insurance adjuster is saying I am partially negligent what does that mean?”
The owner of an Ohio dance franchise will have to defend against a lawsuit brought by angry customers on its own after its insurer successfully denied coverage under two insurance policies.
Peggy and Rick Lavinsky prepaid Christopher Cloud and his Fred Astaire Dance Studio a whopping $500,000 for ballroom dancing lessons, coaching, dance camps and other services. In December 2010, after Cloud abruptly closed the studio without providing notice to students, the Lavinskys sued, asserting claims under Ohio’s consumer protection laws and alleging fraud and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
In their lawsuit, the Lavinskys named Fred Astaire Dance System in Ohio, G & K Management Services, Inc., G & K’s president Guy Schiavone, and In Time LLC as defendants. G & K owned the Fred Astaire Dance System franchise. Cloud, who ran his own dance studio—In Time—became a Fred Astaire franchisee in 1990.
G & K and Schiavone were the named insureds under an insurance policy issued by Auto-Owners Insurance Company, and they were also “additional insureds” under an Auto-Owners policy issued to In Time.
When Auto-Owners told G & K that it would not defend the company against the Lavinskys’ claims, G & K brought an action against Auto-Owners seeking a declaration that the insurance company had a duty to defend G & K in the Lavinskys’ lawsuit.
Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What if the accident was my fault?”
A spate of recent tragic incidents shows the dangers posed by motor vehicles do not end when we park them—or when we think we have parked them.
A tragic accident involving a “parked” vehicle took the life of a well-known New York realtor this past Saturday.
Realtor Jennifer Feuerman died on Saturday evening after she got out of her 2012 Mercedes Benz outside a house she had listed on Bowditch Lane in Center Moriches. Center Moriches is on Long Island, to the east of New York City.
Feuerman evidently left the vehicle running and forgot to shift the transmission to “Park.” The vehicle backed over Feuerman and pinned her under the driver’s side door, Suffolk County police reported. Feuerman, aged 50, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police impounded the Mercedes in order to conduct a safety inspection.
Also on Saturday, a 79-year-old woman in City, Idaho became trapped under her own car when it slid backward as she tried to get out. A 17-year-old boy who saw the incident tried to assist the woman, but police said the car pushed both the boy and the woman across the road and over an embankment, pinning them both under the driver’s side door. The woman suffered significant injuries, while the boy was able to free himself and summon help.
Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” Is a tractor-trailer accident the same as an automobile accident?”
Motor vehicles and the virtually unfettered freedom of movement throughout the United States they have afforded have become staples of American life over the past century.
Those staples are not likely to disappear anytime soon, but if technology giant Google, Inc. has its way, the manner in which many people move around the country in motor vehicles may be in for a drastic change.
The company recently announced that it had developed a “fully functional” prototype of a self-driving car. It is now seeking corporate partners in the automobile industry to bring self-driving cars to market within the next five years.
New York personal injury lawyer Eric Turkewitz said the self-driving cars will have the ability to “see the other cars/pedestrians and slow down or stop despite the driver being lost in thought elsewhere. Or drunk. Or asleep…” As Turkewitz notes, the self-driving car software automatically slows or stops the car when it senses an impending collision. Turkewitz thinks the software may lessen or eliminate crashes caused by human error. As a consequence, the number of crashes will be reduced and, Turkewitz speculated, less people will die or be injured in car crashes each year. That will lower insurance premiums for drivers and may reduce the number of personal injury lawsuits brought by claimants injured in car crashes. That would mean, in theory, less work for personal injury attorneys.
Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What if a loved one dies from the injuries sustained in a serious accident while the case is pending?”
The State of Maryland’s first-ever ordained female Episcopal Bishop is in the news over the holidays for all the wrong reasons.
Heather Elizabeth Cook is the second-most-powerful officer in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. The diocese confirmed on Sunday that Cook was behind the wheel of a Subaru that sustained damage in a “massive impact” with 41-year-old custom bicycle builder Tom Palermo. Palermo was riding a bicycle when Cook’s vehicle collided with him.
Palermo was killed in the accident. Cook initially fled the scene, but returned about twenty minutes later to take responsibility for the accident. The diocese insisted that since Cook returned to the scene, the accident was not a “hit-and-run.”
Lora Peters, a cyclist who encountered Palermo after the crash, said Palermo was still alive when she found him. Peters said Cook may have been able to help Palermo or to call for help if she had remained on the scene. A local biking advocacy group, Bikemore, released a statement alleging that “the driver of the car involved initially fled the scene, leaving Tom to die on the street.”
Cook has not released any public statements about the accident, however the Episcopal Diocese has revealed that she has been suspended from her post because she may be facing criminal charges related to the accident.
Charlotte Injury Lawyers Blog