Personal Injury

Automobile Accidents
Truck/Big Rig Accidents
Motorcycle Accidents
Wrongful Death
Bicycle Accidents
Broken Bones
Slip and Falls
Brain Injury
Dog Bites
Defective Product

Personal Injury – Automobile Accidents

Automobile accidents can cause extreme physical pain and suffering, as well as financial devastation to victims of reckless and negligent drivers. Injured victims are forced to deal with large and unforeseeable medical bills, lost wages, pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life. It is common for your loved ones to suffer economic loss, mental anguish and loss of companionship in caring for an injured family member. Auto accidents resulting in debilitating injury can have severe consequences to a family’s finances, which can cause loss of jobs, homes, cars, and other assets.

When an auto accident results in death or permanent disability, families are subjected to the most severe mental and emotional anguish that exists. The loss of a close family member creates pain and loss that is immeasurable. When the victim is the primary wage earner, additional financial difficulty is then placed on the family members. When you retain The Law Offices of Mark J. McGowan, P.C., it will immediately perform a complete investigation into the accident and establish liability, investigate all available insurance coverages and assets of the responsible party. It then works aggressively to quickly recover all legal damages to which the victim and their family is entitled.

Whether fault for an accident has been established or not, all involved parties should immediately consult with a lawyer. A consultation with an experienced lawyer is crucial to protecting your legal rights. Remember that time is of the essence in severe auto accidents because physical evidence can be destroyed or lost, witnesses’ memories may fade, and recovery of out of pocket expenses could be delayed.

What to do after an auto accident:

Immediately contact and file an accident report with the police, sheriff or highway patrol, if the agency has not done so at the scene.
Write down the name, address, insurance information, vehicle license number and driver’s license number of any and all persons involved in the accident. Record names, addresses and telephone numbers of all witnesses.
Take photographs of the accident scene, all vehicles involved (before repairing) and any visible injuries to the parties involved, such as cuts, bruises, and scars.
Do not discuss the accident or your injuries with anyone, with the exception of your doctor and your lawyer.
Do not consent to a recorded statement or sign any document without first reviewing it with a lawyer. Innocent statements made by you attempting to assist an insurance adjuster can easily be misinterpreted and used to deny or minimize your recovery.

Immediately seek medical attention and tell your doctor the nature and extent of your pain and injury, and how the injury occurred.

Personal Injury – Truck/Big Rig Accident

Anytime a person negligently operates a big rig truck they are required by law to pay for any and all damages caused. There are rules and regulations that big rig truck operators are required to comply with under the law. Some of these rules include, maintaining trip/hauling logs and maintaining valid and current medical certificates. Big rig truck operators are required to drive with “reasonable care under the circumstances.” If an accident occurs and the requirements were not met, they are legally and financially responsible for all damages.

If you were involved in an accident with a big rig truck and were injured as a result of the carelessness, negligence or irresponsible behavior of another individual or organization, you will most likely have a valid personal injury claim.

In a case where someone has suffered substantial injuries and damages and the insurance coverage is inadequate, you need an experienced and aggressive attorney to fight the insurance companies. The Law Offices of Mark J. McGowan, P.C., will diligently strive to ensure that your medical bills, ambulance bills, medication, lost wages, future loss wages, etc., as well as all of your pain and suffering are adequately compensated to the fullest extent possible.

Personal Accident – Motorcycle Accident

If you were involved in a motorcycle accident which resulted in an injury, the law says you have the right to make a claim for all your losses, medically and financially. Most motorcycle accidents result in serious physical injuries such as broken bones, road rash and even permanent disabilities.

As you know, there are unique issues concerning accidents involving motorcycles which require specific experience and expertise. Some of these issues are that of accident reconstruction, roadway design as well as liability which must be considered in every case as well as a knowledge of the California Vehicle Code.

Personal Injury – Wrongful Death

A wrongful death lawsuit alleges that the decedent was killed as a result of the negligence (or other liability) on the part of the defendant, and that the surviving dependents or beneficiaries are entitled to monetary damages as a result of the defendant’s conduct.

Under “common law” this type of claim did not exist. It was reasoned that the claim died with the victim, and the surviving family members could not claim damages from the person who caused the victim’s death. To correct this injustice, the individual states have passed “wrongful death statutes” over the years, and some form of wrongful death claim action exists in all state jurisdictions today. While they all follow some general principles, each state jurisdiction is unique, since each state has drafted its own form of “wrongful death statute.”

In order to bring a wrongful death action, a death must have been caused by the wrongful, negligent, careless, or reckless act of a person, company or municipality.

The decedent’s survivors are able to file a Wrongful Death Claim. These survivors are defined as: the decedent’s spouse, children, parents, and, when partly or wholly dependent on the decedent for support, any blood relatives and adopted brothers and sisters. This includes children born out of wedlock of a mother, but not the child born out of wedlock of the father, unless the father has recognized a responsibility for the child’s support.

Personal Injury – Bicycle Accident

In order to bring a wrongful death action, a death must have been caused by the wrongful, negligent, careless, or reckless act of a person, company or municipality.

Personal Injury – Broken Bones

A bone fracture is a break in a bone. Fractures are common. Most people fracture at least one bone during their lifetime.

The severity of fractures increase with age. Children’s bones are more flexible and less likely to break. Falls or other accidents that do not harm children can cause complete fractures in older adults. Older adults suffer from fractures more than children because their bones are more likely to be brittle. Bone fractures occur when a bone can’t withstand the physical force exerted on it.

Some Bone Fracture Symptoms:

Swelling around the injured area
Loss of function in the injured area
Bruising around the injured area
Deformity of a limb

There are many types of fractures: simple, stress, comminuted, impacted, compound, complete and incomplete.

Simple: Bone breaks into two pieces.
Stress: Hairline break that is often invisible on the x-ray for the first six weeks after the onset of pain.
Comminuted: Bone fragments into several pieces
Impacted: One fragment of bone is embedded into another fragment of bone.
Compound: Bone protrudes through the skin. Also called an open fracture.
Complete: Bone snaps completely into two or more pieces.
Incomplete: Bone cracks but doesn’t separate.

Bone Injury or Fracture Treatment Options.

To heal properly, the bone must be realigned. The most common realignment procedures are:

Immobilization using a cast or splint.

Setting of bone through surgery. When surgery is needed, the procedure is called an open reduction. The doctor will give you local or general anesthesia. (General anesthesia will put you to sleep.) During the surgical procedure, the doctor may insert a rod, pin, plate, or screw into the injury to hold the bone in place. Advantages of surgery include: early mobility of injured bone and some use of the injured bone within weeks rather than months.

After the bone is realigned, medication and rehabilitation will help the recovery process. Medication is used to lessen the pain. Rehabilitation prevents stiffness. Rehabilitation involves light movement of the tissues surrounding the injury. It helps increase blood flow which will aid the healing process.

Side effects of the treatments?

If the fracture is closed repaired, the bone may not heal properly or it may not function properly. If the fracture is open repaired, infection, bleeding, damage to blood vessels or nerves, and allergic reactions to the anesthesia may occur.

How serious is a fracture?

The seriousness depends on the age of the individual and location of the fracture. Some fractures only require temporary protection (crutches, splint). Other, more serious fractures require surgery.

Personal Injury – Slip and Falls

Premises Liability refers to the liability of certain persons for injuries and damages to others arising from the ownership or possession of real property. In California, premises liability is based on general principles of negligence and is controlled both by statute and case law.

Premises liability actions have traditionally involved “slip and fall” or “trip and fall” causes of action. Premises liability is not, however, limited to such causes of action and includes, among other things, construction accidents, dog bite cases, lead poisoning, defective and/or inoperative lighting, failure to warn of hazardous conditions, and injuries caused by the negligent or willful conduct of third persons on the premises involved.

In determining who is liable in a premises liability action, the crucial elements are ownership, possession, and control of the premises. The person who owns, possesses, or controls the premises is the one responsible for any injuries arising from a condition of the premises.

The landowner’s duty differs based on the status of the occupier and the visitor. There are three different legal types of visitors and the degree of responsibility owed by the owner varies according to the status of the injured person. The three types of visitors are:

Invitees or business visitors – An invitee is a business visitor who is invited or permitted to enter or remain on the land of another for the purpose directly or indirectly connected with business dealings between such person and the owner or possessor of the land.
Licensee – A licensee is a person who comes onto the land of another by consent or permission, but for his or her own purpose having no relation to the business of the owner or occupant.
Trespassers – A trespasser is a person who enters or remains on the land of another without a privilege or consent to do so.

The Responsibility to Mitigate Danger

Commercial and residential property owners, managers, and landlords do have a general duty to ensure that their property is reasonably maintained and any known dangers are mitigated. Some issues that may lead to premises liability include:

Failure to maintain sidewalks, parking lots, buildings, lighting, and other property components.
Failure to post warnings of known hazards.
Failure to provide adequate security in relation to the known level of criminal activity in the area.
Failure to property screen tenants for past criminal behavior.
Allowing smoking in common areas, entryways or near building entrances

Protecting Your Rights if You Are Injured

When a guest is injured in a slip and fall accident in a hotel or resort, the response of the property manager is usually prompt and caring. However, while you are being cared for by a staff member or medical professional, the property manager may be doing things behind the scenes to reduce your chances of making a financial recovery.

Under California general liability laws, hotels and resorts have a duty to protect guests from injuries caused by dangerous conditions on their property. Examples of dangerous conditions in a hotel or resort include:

Water or other foreign substance on a floor that causes you to slip and fall
A step or variation in floor level that is not up to code or violates OSHA requirements
Poor lighting conditions that can cause you to trip over something you can’t see
A protrusion from a wall or ceiling that you can walk into
An area that has an unsafe edge that you can fall off
A construction area that is not protected
Misplaced objects that can cause you to trip

Incident Reports

Most hotels and resorts write up an incident report following an accident. However, this incident report offer favors the property owners, who will do almost anything to avoid liability. For example, the hotel may claim that you were drunk or did not look where you were going. To protect your rights, you should seek prompt medical attention and talk to a lawyer as soon as possible.

Personal Injury – Brain Injury

Those who sustain concussion, hemorrhage, significant loss of consciousness, coma, and/or skull fractures are typically diagnosed as having sustained a “moderate” to “severe” traumatic brain injury.

Injuries of this nature are generally detectable on CT, MRI, and other imaging devices. In many instances, the patient’s very survival is an issue. Brain swelling, contusion and edema are likely complications. In virtually all cases, quality of life is a premier end goal.

A brain injury is not always visible to the naked eye. Direct trauma to the head may leave a gash that can penetrate or fracture the skull and possibly the brain. That same kind of trauma can cause the brain to collide with the skull without breaking the bone itself. Another kind of trauma, indirect trauma, is often associated with the “Shaken Baby Syndrome” because it involves a severe shaking or whiplash that can shake or rotate the brain, damaging the delicate nerve cells inside your head.

Some secondary types of brain injury stemming from non-neurological structure injuries can also be devastating to victims and their families. Such injuries include edema, hematoma, and hydrocephalus and hygroma. An edema refers to the swelling of the brain that can lead to pressure building up and preventing blood and oxygen from entering the brain. Hematoma is the collection of blood due to tissue injury or tearing of a blood vessel. Bleeding in the brain after trauma can occur after being released from the emergency room. Hydrocephalus and hygroma are characterized by a collection of fluid in and around the brain.

When you are involved in an accident, it may be very hard for even medical professionals to determine whether or not a brain injury has occurred. The following is a list of common signs of an injury to the brain:

Loss of consciousness – You lose consciousness to any degree from being dazed for a few seconds to slipping into a coma.
Post-traumatic amnesia – You experience memory loss of events prior to and following the incident.
Concussion – Your awareness is altered, and you may feel dizzy, nauseous, disoriented, forgetful, irritable, or depressed.
Encephalopathy – Your brain is not functioning normally (which may not be a permanent state), and you may be confused, inattentive, or in a stupor.
Focal neurological signs – You experience recognizable signs that tell your doctor your brain is not functioning one hundred percent.
Seizure – Your nerve cells function improperly causing you to lose consciousness, fall and convulse.
Unequal or un-reactive pupils – Your pupils do not respond normally to light

Personal Injury – Dog Bites

Dog owners, and in some cases property owners and landlords, are strictly liable for injuries caused by their animals. This means that these individuals are responsible for the actions of their animals without the need to establish negligence.

California has the highest occurrences of dog bites, animal attacks and fatal animal attacks. Statistics show that every year insurance companies settle over 1 billion in claims related to dog and other animal attacks. Homeowners’ insurance policies paid over one-third of all settlements and judgments caused by these animal attacks.

The Humane Society of the United States, in conjunction with The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, recently updated data on fatal dog bites for the period 1989 to 1994.

This six year study reported the finding of 109 bite-related fatalities — 57% of the deaths were in children under ten years of age; 22% of the deaths involved an unrestrained dog OFF the owner’s property; 18% of the deaths involved a restrained dog ON the owner’s property; and 59% of the deaths involved an unrestrained dog ON the owner’s property. The researchers also found that 10% of the dog bite attacks involved sleeping infants. The death rate from dog bite-related fatalities (18 deaths per year) in the 6-year study period remained relatively constant compared with the prior 10 years.

Dog bite injuries can lead to serious infections (such as tetanus and rabies), disability, deformity, and occasionally death. Most of these injuries are preventable.

STRICT LIABILITY FOR ANIMAL ATTACKS

Under California law, the animal’s owner is strictly responsible for all damages caused by their animal. This means that the victim does not need to prove a dog was known to be vicious or had a propensity to bite. One bite is enough to attach liability to the dog owner, or the owner of the property where the animal is kept.

Personal Injury – Defective Product

Product liability is the area of law involving the liability of designers, manufacturers, and suppliers of products for injuries to purchasers, users, and bystanders caused by defects in the products they market.

The purpose of products liability in California is to insure that the costs of injuries resulting from defective products are borne by those who put the defective products on the market rather than by the injured persons who are powerless to protect themselves. Theories of liability on which a products liability action may be based include strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty.

There are several products manufactured today that can become dangerous. This is due to improper design, poor manufacturing, or they do not contain the proper warnings of the dangerous propensities of the product.

When manufacturers are faced with mounting production costs for their product, safety and quality can be compromised. This causes some manufacturers to release their products into the stream of commerce that are unreasonably unsafe for the public, either knowingly or unknowingly.

Believe it or not, government agencies cannot automatically “order” a product recall. Most product recalls are done voluntarily by the manufacturers and suppliers. Government agencies only intercede when the manufacturer fails to comply with the voluntary recall. The Consumer Product Safety Commission protects the public from thousands of unsafe products by publishing current comprehensive lists of recalled products.

Strict Liability In Products Cases

Strict product liability, now the law in nearly every state, allows an action against a manufacturer that sells any defective product resulting in injury to a buyer or anyone who uses it. If you are injured by a defective product, you do not need to prove that a manufacturer was negligent, but only that the product was defective. A strict liability action can be brought against the parties that designed, manufactured, sold or furnished the product. It is possible for plaintiffs to recover punitive damages in strict product liability actions, though such cases are relatively rare and usually deal with outrageous conduct. Punitive damages are money awards, which go beyond an award for other damages. Punitive damages are intended to set an example and punish wrongdoers for intentional and outrageous conduct with evil intent. Liability actions against manufacturers for products that injure consumers also may be based on negligence, a contractual breach of warranty or, sometimes, a manufacturer’s intentional wrongful conduct.

Here are the three primary ways a product is defective:

Design – is a defect that arises from some aspect of the design or plan of the product that makes the product unsafe.
Manufacture – results from a flaw in the manufacturing process that causes a product to differ from the manufacturer’s intended result or from other ostensibly identical units of the same product line. That is, when a product comes off the assembly line in a substandard condition it has incurred a manufacturing defect.
Failure to warn of dangerous propensities of the product – one may recover under strict liability where an injury is caused by the manufacturer ‘s failure to provide the consumer with conspicuous and appropriate warnings of the known or knowable dangers resulting from foreseeable use of the product.