Slip and fall accidents in Buffalo’s parking lots are not uncommon. When someone is injured because a lot has not been cleared — or not cleared adequately — who is liable for the injury will hinge upon the particular facts of the case and the contract between the parties.
Ultimately, however, in nearly all cases it is the property owner, not the plow company, that is liable in a personal injury lawsuit. In most cases, a plow company can only be held directly responsible under one of three conditions: (1) if the company “launches a force or instrument of harm” by negligently creating or exacerbating a dangerous condition, (2) if the plaintiff detrimentally relies upon the continued performance by the company of its duties, and (3) if the contract between the landowner and the plow company is so comprehensive and exclusive that it completely displaces the landowner’s responsibility.
All of these conditions are relatively rare. As a result, in most cases it is the landowner, not the plow company, who bears the responsibility to the injured person.
If you have fallen on someone’s property and suffered a personal injury, we would be happy to help you. Please call us at 716-542-5444.
While it would seem that suffering personal injury in two separate accidents would be rare, it is actually surprising how frequently a Buffaloresident can become involved in multiple accidents. While having been involved in multiple accidents complicates a personal injury lawsuit, there is no bar to pursuing both claims.
The primary difficulty with pursuing such claims is that the defendants in each case will frequently point to the other accident as the cause of your injuries. As a result, great care must be taken to ensure that your medical condition following each of the accidents is fully documented and explored. This is especially true of the time frame between the two accidents, when the second accident can clearly be excluded as a cause of the injuries, and a lack of complaints regarding body parts injured in the second accident can help distinguish the cause of those injuries.
If you have any questions regarding this topic, we would be happy to answer your questions. Please feel free to call us at 716-542-5444.
Evidence of the injuries suffered is instrumental to successfully pursuing a Buffalo personal injury lawsuit. In many personal injury cases, the plaintiff’s medical treatment is ongoing. As a result, it is not unusual for additional testing conducted after a personal injury lawsuit has been filed to reveal objective evidence of injuries not originally claimed by the plaintiff.
Typically, a plaintiff’s injuries are set forth in a document referred to as a Bill of Particulars. By law, a party may amend its Bill of Particulars once without leave of the court prior to the filing of a Note of Issue. A Note of Issue is a document that a party submits to the court after it deems discovery to be completed, indicating that the lawsuit is ready for trial.
Aside from this, amending a Bill of Particulars to add a claim of an additional injury may require the leave of the court. When determining whether such an amendment may be made, the court will consider whether enough time is available for the other party to obtain medical information and sufficiently evaluate the new claim and any prejudice that may arise as a result. Generally, whether the amendment will be allowed may hinge on how close the parties are to the trial date.
If you have suffered a personal injury and have any questions, please feel free to call us at 716-542-5444. We would be happy to help you.
Prior to going to trial, nearly all Buffalo personal injury lawsuits will involve what is commonly referred to as an examination before trial. At an examination before trial, the personal injury attorney and the defense attorney question a party to the lawsuit or a witness regarding issues such as how the accident occurred, medical treatment required as a result, and the impact of the injuries on the plaintiff’s life.
In most cases, all of the attorneys involved will question a party during the examination, although occasionally an attorney may waive questioning if they do not need any information that has not already been presented. While it is less formal than a court proceeding, testimony at an examination before trial is taken under oath and – in most cases – recorded by a stenographer. Unless the parties answer involves some otherwise objectionable evidence (such as hearsay or attorney-client privilege) the statements made at the examination before trial are admissible as evidence at future court proceedings.
The purpose of the examination before trial is to give both parties a clearer understanding of the facts of the case prior to proceeding to trial. In some cases, one or all of the parties may decide they wish to settle the personal injury lawsuit without proceeding to trial after hearing the testimony of the parties.
Exposure to certain strains of E. coli in food can cause serious and – in some cases – fatal injury. Thankfully, Buffalo has avoided any widespread E. coli outbreak in recent years. For the past seventeen years, the meat industry has been required to test their products for only one strain of E. coli.
There are hundreds of strains of E. coli. While most of these strains are harmless, the one tested for in meat is not the only strain dangerous to humans. Other strains that pose a danger have been increasingly found in food over the past several years. According to the Centers for Disease Control, these other strains cause approximately 110,000 illnesses each year.
Based on these findings the United States Department of Agriculture has decided that the meat industry must begin testing beef trimmings for six other strains of E. coli beginning in March of 2012. This additional testing may eventually be expanded to include other meat products.
The meat industry is overseen by the U.S.D.A., while most other food products in the U.S. are overseen by the Federal Drug Administration. The FDA does not distinguish between different strains when investigating E. coli outbreaks.
It is anticipated that this additional testing will reduce the number of injuries and deaths associated with contaminated food.
Most of the evidence presented during the trial of a Buffalo personal injury lawsuit will be regarding things that did happen, such as how a car accident unfolded or how a particular medical procedure was performed. Occasionally, however, it is helpful when a witness can testify regarding a party’s failure to perform some action.
Whether such evidence is admissible hinges upon the specific facts surrounding the witness’s testimony. While it is easy to establish that somebody observed something, a failure to observe can be much more complicated. Generally, before allowing such testimony, the court must be comfortable that the testimony actually establishes a failure to perform an action and is not simply the result of the witness’s failure to observe the performance.
As a result, where the witness was in relation to the event and what he or she was able to see or hear from that position are crucial facts in the admissibility of such evidence. If, however, the court is comfortable that the witness was in a position to observe the act if it had been performed, the court may also allow the witness to testify that from where they were positioned, they would have been able to see or hear the action.
If you have suffered a personal injury, we would be happy to answer your questions. Please call us at 716-542-5444.
All Buffalo personal injury lawsuits hinge on evidence. As a result, the rules regarding what evidence will be admissible for use at a trial are very complex. Parties often seek some basis to have evidence detrimental to their position barred from being presented to the jury, which has led to a variety of court rulings on different subjects related to the presentation of evidence.
Generally, to be admissible at a personal injury trial, evidence must be both “material” and “competent.” Evidence has been defined as being “material” when it is relevant to proving or disproving a fact that is in dispute. To be material to the case, the evidence sought to be admitted must be related to a matter that is actually in dispute. If there is no dispute regarding an issue, evidence regarding it is immaterial and may not be admitted at trial.
“Competent” evidence generally means relevant evidence that is in admissible form. Evidence may be relevant but considered “incompetent” if it falls under some legal exclusion making it inadmissible – such as the evidence being hearsay.
Evidence that is not both material and competent cannot be used at a personal injury trial.
Given the number of commercial trucks on the roads of Buffalo, it is evitable that some drivers will violate the rules regarding when they can drive. Personal injury accidents caused by fatigued drivers of large trucks could be completely avoided if all drivers would follow federal regulations regarding hours on the road and rest time.
To help address the danger of driver fatigue, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued a regulation in 2010 that required all commercial trucks operated by companies with poor work hour compliance records to be fitted with electronic devices that record the hours spent on the road. This device would replace the log book in which driver’s have traditionally recorded their work hours. Log books rely upon drivers honestly recording their information and, as a result, are easily falsified. The new regulation was scheduled to take effect in June of 2012.
Unfortunately, a federal appeals court has determined that the rule as issued is invalid because it does not address the possibility of the devices being used to harass drivers. The decision was a victory for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association – a group of commercial truck drivers who own their own rigs – which had argued that the FMCSA had a legal obligation to address potential harassment of drivers but failed to do so. The regulation had actually been supported by the American Trucking Association, which is the industry’s largest trade association.
In February of this year, the FMCSA proposed a regulation that would require an electronic recorder not just in the trucks of companies with poor compliance records, but in every long-haul commercial truck in the country. As a result, the court’s ruling may not just impact the regulation of companies with low compliance records, but may also delay the implementation of the use of electronic devices to record work hours for all interstate truck drivers while the FMCSA determines if it must revamp its proposed regulation to survive court scrutiny.
If you have been injured in an accident with a commercial truck driver, we would be happy to help you. Please call us at 716-542-5444.
When a person injured in a Buffalo personal injury accident is also receiving Medicare, it can add a layer of complication to resolving the personal injury lawsuit. This is because by law, Medicare should be the last insurer to pay any medical expenses arising from the personal injury accident, and it is required to monitor its payments and seek reimbursement.
If Medicare did pay out money and is not informed if any payment is received in settlement of the lawsuit, it is allowed to seek compensation and possibly impose penalties on the injured party, the insurer who paid the settlement, and the attorneys involved. As a result, it is important to all of the parties involved that Medicare be properly notified.
It is also important, however, to obtain information from Medicare regarding what it is seeking repayment for. Because most Medicare recipients are older individuals who are likely to be receiving medical treatment for conditions not related to the personal injury accident, there are times when confusion arises during Medicare’s review regarding what treatment is related to the accident and what treatment is unrelated and properly should be paid by Medicare. When this occurs, Medicare should be contacted and informed of any dispute regarding what it should be paying for.
Buffalo personal injury lawsuits against drunk drivers who cause a serious injury almost always involve a parallel criminal case. The injured party is rightly seeking compensation for the injuries caused by the driver while the government seeks to impose criminal penalties for the same conduct.
There are several reasons that a Buffalo personal injury attorney may wish to delay in moving forward with the civil case against the drunk driver until the criminal case is finished. One of these involves simply trying to stay out of the way of the individuals conducting the criminal investigation. While there is no bar to proceeding with an investigation in the civil case, in drunk driving cases a personal injury attorney usually will want to be helpful to the members of law enforcement or other agencies investigating the criminal case – sometimes this means simply leaving them alone to do their jobs.
Of equal importance, many drunk driving cases are resolved through the defendant pleading guilty to some charge instead of going to trial. A plea of guilty in a criminal case is often admissible in the civil case as evidence of the defendant’s guilt. As a result, the personal injury attorney may wish to see how the criminal case is concluded before getting too far into the civil lawsuit.
