According to state laws in four states and the District of Columbia, if you play any role in your own personal injury, you cannot collect compensation from a personal injury lawsuit against other parties involved.
One of these states is North Carolina, and for the first time after repeated attempts, a bill to change this law has passed the State House of Representatives and is in the State Senate.
According to the Winston-Salem Journal, N.C. resident Lisa Vogel will never receive compensation for her son’s death - because he knowingly got in a car with his friend’s roommate, who was convicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter and DWI.
The driver was able to defend himself because he was able to prove that Vogel’s son was negligent in getting in the car in the first place. Even an injury lawyer can’t help that case.
Fortunately for victims of personal injury and injury lawyers, a change is in process. The Winston-Salem Journal reported that the bill in the Senate would also make a major change to the current state law by taknig away a rule that says that if a plaintiff wins a lawsuit against several defendants, each defendant can be held responsible both for paying their share of the damages and the shares of the other defendants.
Check out the full article at the Winston-Salem Journal.
It seems like New York City Transit and the Metropolitan Transit Authority have seen quite a bit of news coverage in the past few months - and almost all of it has been linked to injuries and lawsuits.
According to a New York Daily News report, NYC Transit officials say legal quirks in the law make the organization an easy target for lawsuits. In the past 20 years, the MTA has paid out more than $1 billion in personal injury lawsuits.
The organization has tried to get the state to pass legislation protecting its rights when it comes to personal injury suits - but to no avail. The MTA pays for lawsuits involving very drunk passengers who fall on the tracks or voluntarily walk on the tracks because of their own impaired judgement. This is not something that a transit organization should be paying for.
As a result of the money put toward lawsuits, the MTA has less funding to do good things for transit, like update train tracks and increase service lines and times.
Unfortunately the New York legislature in Albany has not yet passed any laws that could protect the MTA against frivolous lawsuits for which it should not be held responsible, according to the New York Daily News.
If such legislation were to be passed, NYC Transit would save millions of dollars each year because of fewer personal injury lawsuits, and there would be greater strides taken to improve public transit in NYC.
While advances in genetic testing have allowed people to get a better picture of their health by catching and treating health conditions sooner rather than later, it also comes as no surprise that insurance companies have used genetic testing as a means to deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions. Thanks to legislation which recently passed the U.S. Senate, health care discrimination based on genetic testing would be banned, leaving insurance companies to find another way to save a buck at the expense of the public’s health:
● Congressional Bill Prevents Health Care Discrimination based on Genetic Testing.
After much debate and its sunset on October 1st, Florida’s personal injury protection (PIP) law requiring all drivers to have PIP coverage on their car insurance was brought back to life yesterday. Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed the PIP legislation on Thursday morning and finally resolved, at least for the moment, what had been one of the most pressing personal injury issues in the state this year.
Under its old law, Florida required drivers to carry PIP, which essentially covered up to $10,000 of medical expenses sustained in car accidents, regardless of who was at fault for the injuries. This no-fault law had sparked much debate between auto insurance companies and health care specialists.
Auto insurance companies had claimed that the old PIP system was wrought with fraud and that consumers would ultimately be the ones who’d suffer with higher car insurance rates. Doctors and health care providers challenged these claims, saying that the auto insurance companies were merely trying to pass on their costs to another sector.
Legislators could not come to an agreement on the Florida PIP law, which ceased to be at the beginning of this month. However, at Crist’s urging, the legislators came to a quick proposal on Florida PIP in a special legislative session.
The new law will not only reinstate Florida’s PIP law on January 1st of next year but also try to curtail instances of PIP fraud. With that said, Florida drivers involved in car accidents could be subject to a tort system establishing fault for the rest of the year.
There are roughly 700 car accidents in Florida each day, and as many as 300,000 PIP policies could expire before January. Florida motorists are urged to contact their insurance coverage agent with any questions about PIP in the meantime.
With Little League and Babe Ruth baseball leagues in action throughout the country, a Pennsylvania legislator would like to see a ban on the use of aluminum bats in youth and high school games. State Representative Mike Carroll has introduced legislation mandating such a ban with the goal of preventing serious injuries. Carroll said in a Pocono Record story that lightweight, aluminum bats pose greater threats than wooden bats since they cause the ball to travel faster and farther. Carroll added that severe accidents and injuries are just waiting to happen with the use of aluminum bats. Major League Baseball does not use aluminum bats for safety reasons.
With similar intentions as this Pennsylvania legislation, the New York City Council will ban the use of metal bats in high schools beginning this September. The Pocono Record story added that nearby New Jersey is considering similar legislation as in Pennsylvania while Montana’s American Legion teams have banned the use of metal bats after a pitcher was killed by a line drive off of an aluminum bat. We’ll keep you updated on this legislation in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
In recent weeks, The Injury Blog has detailed the debate surrounding the Florida Personal Injury Protection (PIP) law requiring drivers in the state to carry up to $10,000 in personal injury insurance for car accident injuries. Last Friday, state legislators failed to extend this personal injury law, which will officially expire on October 1st unless the issue is taken into consideration during a special legislative session in June.
This Florida No Fault Law required drivers to purchase the PIP coverage, which would pay up to a maximum of $10,000 in coverage for car accident injuries, regardless of who caused them. Auto insurance companies had been arguing for the death of this Florida personal injury protection law because of what they said were large cases of fraudulent claims. A recent Insurance Journal story indicated that such a move could save insurance companies more than $350 million in payments to hospitals, doctors and clinics treating car accident injuries.
Proponents of this Florida personal injury protection law have warned about the possible ramifications of if it expired, including the fact that 40 percent of car accident victims in the state have no form of health insurance coverage besides mandatory PIP. The Florida Hospital Association warned that getting rid of Florida PIP would cause some hospitals to seriously consider whether they could even maintain trauma centers. The FHA added that it would urge legislators to add PIP to the agenda of its special session.
Florida Governor Charlie Crist expressed confidence in the story that the issue would be resolved in the special session. The state Senate had previously proposed a bill that would extend Florida personal injury protection for car accident injuries for three more years. A study of the current system would have also been concluded by 2010 under this bill in order to determine whether to keep moving forward with PIP at that time. However, the state House failed to take up the plan passed in the Senate, and rather pushed a proposed law that would let PIP go to the wayside and be replaced by $15,000 of coverage that could only be used in emergency rooms and hospital-owned clinics immediately after a car accident. We’ll keep you updated on any more developments with the Florida PIP debate.
The Injury Site blog appears to be very active, but in fact, nobody is really writing the Injury Site blog (injurysite dot com) at all.
Instead, the entire contents of the Injury Site blog have been scraped from the Total Injury Blog.
Total Injury has a staff of writers, designers, and developers, including several attorney writers and researchers. The Injury Site apparently has no such thing, because this blogger has been unable to find a single post on the Injury Site blog that didn’t appear on the Total Injury blog first. If you’re reading this post on the Injury Site blog, it’s a safe bet that no one at the Injury Site is even READING the blog—otherwise, they’d surely have prevented this post from appearing.
If you’re reading this post on Total Injury, thanks for visiting, and we apologize for the interruption. We’ll have more timely personal injury news and commentary for you later today.
Three New York train derailments in the last three months, including one last week in Oneida, have prompted a federal investigation of tracks from Albany to Buffalo. Federal railroad administrator Joseph Boardman said in an online Observer-Dispatch story that a specially designed train will examine more than 1,300 miles of track owned by CSX Corp. Just last Monday, CSX train cars derailed and then exploded near Oneida, causing the evacuation of homes and businesses in the city of 10,000. No personal injuries were reported following this train accident.
Specifically, Boardman said the investigation will examine whether the two CSX rails are level and whether the width between tracks is acceptable. This announcement of a federal investigation into CSX-owned tracks comes nearly a week after US. Senator Charles Schumer of Brooklyn said he’s pushing legislation which would toughen regulations on rail companies, increase penalties for negligence and direct millions of dollars to improve rail infrastructure. Schumer, who said that federal regulators haven’t done enough to combat these problems, also issued a report detailing 527 upstate New York train accidents in the last seven years.
In addition to last Monday’s derailment, CSX Corp. had witnessed similar accidents in the previous months. Thirteen cars on a CSX train left the tracks in East Rochester on January 13th. Luckily, no one was injured. In December, a CSX train carrying canned vegetables derailed on an overpass in Cheektowaga, leaving one box car teetering over the edge of a bridge, according to the Observer-Dispatch story. Visit The Injury Blog for the latest developments on this federal investigation and learn more about train safety at the TrainBlog.
Did you know that March has been christened Brain Injury Awareness Month? With that in mind, a U.S. Senator from Utah has recently introduced a head trauma bill reauthorizing a federal law supporting programs for people with traumatic brain injuries, or TBI. More than 5.3 million Americans suffer from TBI, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, with most of those personal injuries occurring during falls or car accidents.
U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah introduced a new head trauma bill last Wednesday to the Senate. Co-sponsored with U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, this legislation would allocate money for services for people affected by brain injuries, fund projects for injured veterans, and help states develop treatment capacity for these injuries. This federal head trauma legislation would also put the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in charge of determining how common TBI is in the general population. Hatch and Kennedy sponsored the original TBI legislation in 1996.
Around two percent of the U.S. population requires lifelong or long-term care for a brain injury. According to a statistic cited in a Utah Daily Herald story, 67 percent of Iraq casualties involved some level of brain injury. Hatch said that this legislation would help provide resources for networks which treat returning soldiers. He added that the overall goal of this bill is to help patients get the best possible care early on so they may recover from their brain injuries.
In addition to Hatch’s efforts in the nation’s Capitol, Utah state legislators have already tried to achieve similar means this year. State Representative James Gowans and Senator Darin Petersen tried to secure $500,000 for a Traumatic Brain Injury Fund which would help establish outreach programs for TBI and help train medical professionals in treating this condition. However, this legislation stalled in the Utah Legislature last month for the second year in a row.
Frequent The Injury Blog for the latest updates on the aforementioned federal head trauma bill, and learn more about brain injuries at the Brain Injury News and Information Blog.
As previously detailed at The Injury Blog, a West Virginia bill striving to reduce ATV accidents and personal injuries by bolstering ATV safety was dealt a tough blow by state senators last week. According to an Associated Press story in the Charleston Daily Mail, West Virginia senators blocked this bill banning ATV use on open roads and passengers from riding on these vehicles unless allowed by the manufacturer out of a concern that the bill would infringe on private property rights.
Specifically, the Senate did not vote on this West Virginia ATV accidents bill last Tuesday. According to the story, the powerful Rules Committee essentially left this bill in neutral by voting to take it off the upper chamber’s calendar. In other words, without reaching a space on the calendar, this bill will not be voted on by the Senate. In order for this ATV accidents legislation to be brought back, a vote by two-thirds of the Senate or a special Rules Committee meeting will be required.
West Virginia Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin essentially described the bill as being “probably dead” in the story. He added that some senators thought the bill was too restrictive and would criminalize ATV users on their own property. This West Virginia ATV accidents bill would have also added the creation of a single form for police to report ATV accidents and track comprehensive data. Tomblin said that senators were not concerned with this aspect of the bill, which he said could return in time.
This bill was prompted in large part by disturbing statistics for West Virginia ATV-related deaths in 2006. According to the AP story, at least 53 people were killed in West Virginia ATV accidents last year. This number was not only a state record but also the highest per-capital death toll in the country.
In a related and tragic story, a man who was interviewed about this West Virginia ATV accidents bill in late February by a local television station was killed in an ATV accident last week. Homer Williams talked to WSAZ-3 in a February 22nd story about how this ATV bill banning open road use would leave him with no transportation. With that said, Williams’ family said that he died last Thursday morning in an ATV accident. The family said that Williams was found dead on the side of the road with his ATV nearby. Watch the February story including Williams’ comments about this West Virginia ATV accidents bill right here (Windows Media Player is Required), and stay updated on the latest developments on this and all other ATV legislation at The Injury Blog.