Missouri Injury Law Blog

Being involved in the motorcycle community and as a motorcycle injury lawyer, I have experienced first hand the inattention motorists have for motorcyclists, represented dozens of clients involved in serious motorcycle accidents in Missouri and Illinois. Additionally, I have myself been the victim of an inattentive driver almost costing me my life while on my motorcycle; needless to say, his insurance company paid dearly.

Missouri Motorcycle accidents yearly increases over previous year and deaths:

2003: 11.1% increase over previous year
2003: motorcycle death every 5.0 hours
2004: 10.8% increase over previous year
2004: motorcycle death every 4.8 hours
2005: 10.4% increase over previous year
2005: motorcycle death every 4.2 hours
2006: 07.3% increase over previous year
2006: motorcycle death every 4.0 hours

Source: Missouri State Highway Patrol - Statistical Analysis Center

Missouri motorcyclists are at an ever increasing risk of injury or death as the result motor vehicle accidents. Every year in Missouri the number of fatal motorcycle accidents increases and the rate of death resulting from a motorcycle accident increases as well.

As a motorcycle accident injury lawyer I see a lot of motorcycle accidents resulting in either death or serious injuries that leave a permanent physical disability on my clients. In my experience, the absolute number one reason and cause of motorcycle accidents is other driver inattention. This results in motorcycles being side swiped, cut-off, rear ended, slammed into head on, and run off the road.

An experienced motorcycle injury lawyer is absolutely critical to any motorcycle accident case. Recently, I took over a case where the motorcyclist was cut off by a minivan that made a right turn from the left lane, thus cutting across the right lane of traffic, the lane of traffic my client was in. She claimed, I did not see him and the prior lawyer secured a weak offer to settle the case. I have taken over the case and we are taking a very aggressive approach as clearly the minivan driver failed to yield, cut off the motorcyclist, and his only option was to drop his bike to avoid a collision. Many lawyers and insurance adjusters approach this case with the attitude of no collision, then not really their fault. The dropping of his bike and avoidance of the collision probably saved my client's life.

2006 Missouri Motorcycle Accidents Summary

2005 Missouri Motorcycle Accident Summary

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Posted In: Motorcycle Accidents , Our Injury Cases

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As a patient you are entitled to informed consent before any medical procedure, generally, this included the specifics of the procedure, the risk factors, and the complication rates. This is a patent's way of protecting themselves from undergoing a procedure they may find too risky, but should also be a way of knowing the risk of medical malpractice via the doctor's competency. Many people may find it hard to believe, but doctors are people too, and people sometimes lie or conveniently fail to disclose past problems.

A St Louis Missouri doctor performed a colonoscopy on a local man who claims he almost died based on t he negligent performance of the procedure. More importantly, the Doctor was on probation for drug and alcohol abuse. A fact not disclosed to the patient, but should have been. A fact known by the hospital, but they allowed the doctor to perform surgery anyway. Probation after dosing off and becoming confused when treating patients; additionally, he was in drug rehab twice. See "FOX Files: Doctors on Probation".

I recently handled a Missouri medical malpractice case wherein a year into the case we finally got the doctor to disclose that his privileges were revoked at a local hospital, a fact he never disclosed to the patient or the family. Additionally, the doctor tried to conceal from us the fact that his license to practice medicine was restricted preventing him from performing gastric bypass and bariatric surgery in Missouri due to several deaths and serious complications that the Missouri Board of Healing Arts Disciplinary Commission found were the result of negligence and incompetence. The doctor knew it and the hospital knew it, but the gastric bypass patients and their families did not and this doctor performed 100s of complicated and high risk bariactric surgeries every year until he was restricted by the State preventing him from doing them at all, something the hospital would never do because it would cut into their bottom line. The family would have never known had they not contacted a Missouri Gastric Bypass Malpractice Lawyer.

How do you know of your surgeon is in good standing? Specifically ask him or her if they have ever been sued before, if they have ever had their license to practice medicine suspended, revoked, or restricted. Ask them if they have ever had their staff privileges suspended or revoked. Check them out through the Missouri Board of Healing Arts and actually call as many times the information is not seen online. Most doctors have a good track record, but their are a significant number that still practice that do not fully disclose or disclose at all their past problems.

Currently there is no law requiring a doctor to notify a patient of State disciplinary action. The State's excuse is that enforcement would be too difficult, what? enforcement too difficult so let's not even pass the law at all? Sounds like the medical field protecting their own to me, at every patients' risk.

Physician Background Check - HealthGrades.com

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Posted In: Medical Malpractice , Gastric Bypass Malpractice

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A truck accident injury lawyer needs to be aware of the primary causes of truck accidents as thees causes and statistics become relevant when investigating a truck accident and determining causation and the specific act of negligence by a truck driver. The Large Truck Crash Causation Study (LTCCS) was conducted by the US highway safety administration in an attempt to define the cause of most truck accidents, specifically large trucks, i.e. Semis, tractor trailer, 18-wheelers. The study covered over 900 crashes involving more than 1,100 large trucks and about 950 cars. Out of these 963 crashes there were 249 fatalities and 1,654 injuries.

What are the primary causes of large truck accidents? The primary cause (about 32% of the accidents) were from the truck driver drifting or leaving their lane of travel into another or off the road entirely. The second largest cause (about 29%) is traveling too fast for conditions, cargo shift, mechanical failures, or claimed poor road conditions. Lastly, about 22% were the result of rear end accidents, specifically the truck causing and accident by running into the vehicle in front of it.

Truck accident causation is important to injury lawyers in the prosecution of their client's claims because often the statistics ring very true to us when handling truck accident cases and pining down the cause of the accident and thus the liability on the truck driver's shoulders.

In addition to the critical factors above there are also high risk factors for truck accident causation, specifically, the highest risk factor, cargo shift. To an untrained accident lawyer may mean no fault on the driver, however, cargo shift is often the result of loading the trailer improperly or failing to secure the truck cargo to avoid the cargo shift and the leading cause of truck operators to lose control and cause an accident.

Most of the remaining factors when combined, make up a majority of the high risk factors resulitng in large truck accidents involving injury or death and those are:

1. Truck driver making an illegal maneuver - (9% of truck accidents)
2. Truck driver inattention - (9% of truck accidents)
3. Truck following too close - (5% causation of large truck accidents)
4. Truck driver Over the Counter Drug Use - (17% of truck accidents)
5. Truck driver speeding or traveling too fast for the conditions - (23% of truck accidents)
6. Truck driver failing to keep an adequate lookout - (14% of truck accidents)

LARGE TRUCK CAUSATION STUDY

DOT PRESS RELEASE - Study Concludes Driver Behavior Causes Most Truck Accidents

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Posted In: Truck Accidents

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Missouri Products Liability Lawsuit - Brown v. Toys-R-Us, Inc. My client, Essence, is a young girl that suffered a severe injury to her eye from a surprising source, a toy. A toy kitchen set called "Lil Chef" kitchen set, The box strongly implies it was made by Toys-R-Us and has their company info on the box, additionally, nowhere does it indicate it was made in China. However, after filing a products liability lawsuit against Toys-R-Us, in St Louis Missouri, their lawyers are now trying to point the finger at a currently unknown Chinese toy manufacturer. They are attempting to add them as a third party defendant, thus they can argue that if they are liable then the Chinese company (third party defendant) should be liable to them for any judgment against Toys-R-Us.

What is wrong with this toy? The kitchen set is marketed for kids around 4-6 years old and includes plastic toy knifes. These toy knifes are serrated, stiff, rigid, and sharp. Essence was play cutting string when the toy knife cut through the string and stabbed her in the eye. The toy is unreasonably dangerous as its characteristics described above are not only unnecessary for a toy knife, but are absolutely dangerous in the hands of very young children. The injury resulted in a cut and bruised cornea severely debilitating her eye sight. Essence has been forced to undergo eye surgery and her doctors believe she will need surgery when she gets older and that she has a permanent injury to her eye that will result in eyesight problems for the rest of her life. Eye injury information.

Under Missouri injury law, Essence is entitled to her past medical bills (about $40,000),her future medical bills (yet to be determined) and her past and future pain and suffering, which included her permanent disability to her eye.

This personal injury /products liability toy lawsuit is another example of the flurry of defective and dangerous toys from China. Recent research is showing that despite all the recalls numerous dangerous toys from China are on the US store shelves.

This holiday season be careful, watch for the made in China labels on toys, however, if you are unfortunate enough to buy a toy made in China but it is not disclosed and a loved one is injured you have an option, call us, as we are experienced products liability and dangerous toy lawyers based in St Louis Missouri and covering all of Missouri and Illinois.

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Posted In: Injury Law , Products Liability / Dangerous Products , Our Injury Cases

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Ms. Jacobs was traveling on I-70 when a fatigued truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and swerved into her and forced her off the highway. As a result of the truck accident she suffered shoulder impingement that required surgery.

The case was transferred to me after several years of drawn out litigation with another personal injury law firm that initially filed the injury case. The client came to us because she wanted her case pursued aggressively by personal injury trial lawyers. Her prior lawyers were not pursuing the case diligently, they failed to prepare and set the case for trial which keeps continued pressure on the insurance company.

When my office received the case the offer from State Farm Insurance, the insurer for the negligent truck driver, was about $20,000. I prepared the case for trial, primarily by getting the client's treating doctor's medical testimony on the record which supported her injuries, continued symptoms, medical treatment, and the doctor's opinion that the accident was the sole cause for the injuries and resultant symptoms.

More importantly, we amended the Injury Petition to a "Negligence Per Se Petition" based on the fact the negligent truck driver was cited by the police for careless and imprudent driving, moreover, the negligent truck driver plead guilty to and was convicted of the careless and imprudent driving, therefore, the issue of liability was was essentially admitted by the truck driver's plea of guilty and conviction. The negligence per se Petition was allowed by the Judge, thus adding tremendous pressure on State Farm. The issue at trial was not both liability and damages, but only damages now.

The defense lawyers for State Farm increased their offer by more than double within a few days of trial to $45,000. This was an exceptional injury settlement based on the medical bills of about $13,000 and the client's injuries which she recovered from.

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Posted In: Injury Law , Automobile Accidents , Truck Accidents , Our Injury Cases , Verdicts & Settlements

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Car accident in Chesterfield Missouri on Long Road with questionable liability as there were conflicting witness accounts as to whether the intersection traffic light was green or had a green arrow. Our client made a left turn pursuant to a green arrow and was broad-sided. Client suffered a broken leg and knee requiring a patella implant. After full recovery from the other driver's insurance we were able to recover $100,000 (policy limits) from our client's under-insured motorist coverage despite set-off clauses in the policy and the insurance company's claim that the policy payout was set-off by the recovery from the other driver. The insurance company settled for the UIM policy limit.

What is Set-off in this situation? After a victim of injury resulting from a car accident recovers from the other party's insurance company in full (i.e. the other at fault party only had $25,000 in coverage) and that amount does not fully compensate the injury victim, then if the victim had under-insured motorist coverage (as our client did in this case) then the under-insured coverage carrier can sometimes take a set-off against the coverage amount the victim had. In this case, the under-insured carrier tried to claim that since $25,000 was recovered from the at fault party, then that amount should be deducted from the $100,000 under-insured coverage therefore they should only have to pay out $75,000. We were able to prevent that in this case due to a strict reading of the insurance policy and specifically it's under-insured and set-off clauses and they paid out the full $100,000 to our client as the set-off clause was ambiguous and therefore unenforceable.

MISSOURI INSURANCE SET-OFF CASE LAW
See Zemelman v. Equity Mut. Ins. Co., 935 S.W.2d 673 (Mo. App. WD 1996) Court read the policy’s UIM “set-off” provision against the policy’s “other insurance” provision and found it ambiguous because the language described the UIM as “excess over any other collectible insurance.”

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Posted In: Automobile Accidents , Our Injury Cases , Verdicts & Settlements

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St Louis Missouri Work Comp case resulted when my client, Tim, who is a local contractor, was working on a residential roof in the St Louis area when the scaffold or roof rail failed, he fell two stories and landed flat on his back causing extensive personal injury. Unfortunately, this injury included several fractured vertebrae requiring multiple surgeries, physical therapy, pain medication, and regular medical treatment for the last two years. Sadly, Tim is not likely to ever recover and has a permanent total disability under Missouri's Worker's Compensation.

What does this mean to you if you are injured at work? Under Missouri law, work related injuries, regardless of the employer's fault (unless there is "Something More" see below) limits the employee to the exclusive remedy of Workers' Compensation insurance only. Meaning, the employee cannot sue the employer for negligence! Medical treatment is paid, TTD pay is made until the employee returns to work, then a lump sum is often paid based on the percentage of disability and the part of the body that the injury is to. This amount is almost always less than an average jury would award for like injuries.

In cases such as Tim's, he does not have a cause of action against the employer through the negligence of the other employee, despite the fact an employee failed to nail the scaffolding and caused its failure. Tim does not have a cause of action outside of work comp because their was only negligent failure to nail the scaffolding and no affirmative negligence. After his workers' compensation case is resolved he will likely be put on social security disability based on the severe nature and extent of his injuries.

Many lawyers to not pursue work related injuries to the fullest extent and fail to pursue the "something more" cases or the 3rd party liability. On example is a past client, Marla, she suffered a carpal tunnel type injury over the years as a result of her work duties. The doctor her worker's compensation insurer sent her to performed surgery to correct the problem, but the surgery was performed negligently, resulting in a cut nerve. Her first lawyer filed and tried to quickly settle her worker's compensation case and refused to pursue her medical malpractice claim. She came to me and we took over her case, got her an excellent settlement for her worker's compensation case (more than double the amount her first lawyer told her to take) and then pursued the medical malpractice case and got her a great settlement.

Continue reading " Missouri Workers Compensation Case - Construction Worker Suffered Broken Back and Fractured Vertebrae after Roof Scaffold Failed - Spinal Fusion - Pelvic Fibromyalgia - Permanent Disability " »

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Posted In: Workers' Compensation , Our Injury Cases

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In Franklin County Missouri, just outside the St Louis Missouri area, a serious truck accident occurred when a freight-liner model semi truck collided with a fire truck that was stopped on the side of the highway in response to another car accident.

Our client, an injured firefighter contacted us knowing we are experienced Missouri personal injury attorneys and especially Missouri truck accident lawyers. Both the fire truck and the tractor trailer were severely damaged and had to be towed from the scene as the semi truck struck the fire truck at about 60 MPH according to the truck driver's statement to police. The fire truck was hurled 186 feet, and worse yet, my client was in the fire truck when this massive truck accident occurred.

After the truck accident occurred and the trucks came to a rest, my client was evacuated to the hospital for treatment. Luckily, he is recovering from his injuries and hopefully will be back to normal after continued physical therapy.

Generally, a semi truck accident or collision involves another vehicle of much smaller size, such as the passenger vehicles most of us drive. The only thing that saved my clients life is the fact that he was in a vehicle that was the size and weight of the massive truck that slammed into him. Many truck accident victims are not that lucky. Experienced truck accident lawyers are essential as insurance, liability, and regulations are very particular in commercial freightliner and tractor trailer cases.

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Posted In: Injury Law , Automobile Accidents , Truck Accidents , Our Injury Cases

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Missouri Injury Lawyer - Premises Liability and Personal Injury Information Page

A recent Missouri escalator injury case. My client, a patron of Harrah's Casino, was on the escalator when the machinery caught her pant leg pulling her down and causing serious injury to her knee. The escalator pulled down with extreme force as there were no or faulty emergency stops or other important safety features in place to prevent this type of incident.

My client has suffered a torn meniscus cartilage in her knee, requiring surgery, along with other traumatic injury. She has been forced to incur over $20,0000 in medical bills to date along with several months of lost income due to the inability to perform her employment duties. Additionally, she has past and future pain and suffering damages as well as future medical expenses and limitations on her income.

The exact cause of the incident and what specific safety features would have prevented the injury are yet to be determined and likely the opinion of an escalator safety and operations expert will ultimately have to determine the specific cause. However, it is without doubt that my client was not at fault, and either Harrah's improperly maintained the escalator or Otis Elevator Company, the manufacturer of the escalator, improperly or negligently manufactured, installed, or maintained the escalator.

Regardless of the exact party at fault, there was a dangerous condition on the premises that resulted in injury to my client and she is entitled to compensation for her general, specific, and actual damages.

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Posted In: Premises Liability

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In 2007, there was a confidential settlement of a medical negligence case. Suit for the alleged negligent failure to timely diagnose and surgically treat complications following a gastric bypass (or stomach staple) procedure, settled for the sum of $3.5 million against the bariatric program of a hospital.

Additionally, we settled with the surgeon for his medical malpractice insurance policy limits of $1,000,000.00 Per confidentiality agreements names of parties and specifics of the case cannot be revealed.

CT Scan showing Leak from Staple Line
Arrows show leak abcess
A common complication that must be treated

Co-counsel on the above case was Robert Pedroli of Pedroli and Gauthier

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Posted In: Injury Law , Medical Malpractice , Gastric Bypass Malpractice , Wrongful Death , Our Injury Cases , Verdicts & Settlements

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