Articles Posted in Personal Injury

On Thursday, the Supreme Court in Washington State unanimously voted to reinstate a $14 million award to a family who sued a tavern and a bartender after one of the bar’s customers drove away from the establishment and crashed into their vehicle. Their 7-year-old-son is now a paraplegic due to the tragic collision.

According to information from an Associated Press article, the law states that bartenders who serve visibly intoxicated customers are liable for damages to potential victims. At question was the type of evidence needed to prove “negligent over-service”. Most states have so-called “dram shop” laws that can make taverns or bartenders – and in some states, even social hosts – liable for damages if they serve intoxicated customers who leave the premises and harm themselves or others.

It was noted by Washington State’s justices that a forensic consultant found that the bar patron likely drank the equivalent of either 21 12-ounce beers or 30 ounces of 80-proof alcohol, and probably had a blood alcohol content of 0.32 at the time of the collision. The legal blood alcohol limit in Washington State is 0.08.

The man was drinking at the Bellingham Moose Lodge, about 90 miles north of Seattle, just before the April 2000 auto accident in Washington. His girlfriend was the bartender at the lodge and served him the night of the accident.
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A Los Angeles judge has dismissed two lawsuits that were filed against US Food Giant Dole by Nicaraguan banana plantation workers, according to a recent report on abcnews online. The lawsuits alleged that Dole was guilty of exposing plantation workers to harmful pesticides. Litigation was fueled by previous lawsuits that opponents of the Food Company had won in Nicaragua.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney dismissed the lawsuits on the grounds of fraud and attempted extortion. She made her ruling after hearing testimony that detailed a scheme to recruit men who would claim they were rendered sterile by exposure to a pesticide in the 1970s.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge sighted a litany of judgments coming from Nicaragua, from crooked judges who were ‘devouring bribes’. She was quoted as saying:

“What has occurred here is not just a fraud on the court, it is blatant extortion on the defendant…the record is so outrageous and profound.”
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A full recovery is expected for a Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy and his prisoner who suffered injuries in a Washington car collision that killed the other driver on Highway 2 near Snohomish.

According to a Washington State Patrol Trooper, the 35-year-old deputy is in stable condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The prisoner who was traveling in the car with the deputy, and was on his way to jail for domestic violence, was treated for minor injuries at a hospital in Everett.

A pickup truck apparently crossed the center line and collided with the patrol car at about 4:30 a.m., said Leary. The pickup truck caught fire and burned in the accident in which the driver died at the scene.

In order to reach the deputy and the prisoner, rescuers had to cut the roof off the patrol car.
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The Washington State Patrol reports that between 2005 and 2007, there were almost 5000 commercial truck accidents in Washington alone. These accidents involved drivers of cars who drive unsafely around large commercial trucks. In two-thirds of the accidents, statistics show that the driver of the car was at-fault. These accidents resulted in 175 fatalities and 450 injuries. According to the Patrol, drivers need to leave space for trucks and learn ways to share the road.

John R. Batiste, chief of the Washington State Patrol, says, “Motorists who drive recklessly, or are unsafe around these big rigs, are asking for trouble. When a car and a commercial vehicle are involved in a collision, the car will lose.”

Given these statistics, the Patrol has a worked with other law enforcement agencies to create the Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Truck (TACT) project. In an effort to reduce accidents, the Washington State Patrol is trying to increase the public’s awareness of unsafe driving behaviors around commercial vehicles. These dangerous driving behaviors include:

  • cutting off trucks
  • tailgating
  • failure to yield the right of way
  • speeding
  • aggressive driving

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According to KOMOnews.com, a 35-year-old Seattle man was killed Wednesday night in a bicycle accident in Seattle on Highway 99.

Apparently, the bicyclist collided with a car a little after 10pm in the southbound lanes of Highway 99 near the Dexter Avenue exit. The driver of the car is suspected of driving under the influence at the time of the accident and was taken to the hospital with injuries.

If it is determined that the driver was in fact under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the accident, he or she could be charged with Vehicular Homicide, RCW 46.61.520. This Washington State statute provides that if a person succumbs to injuries as a result of negligent operation of a motor vehicle, the driver can be charged.

Additionally, the family of the person killed as a result of vehicular homicide can bring a suit for Seattle wrongful death against the person charged with vehicular homicide.
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The Bernard Law Group has launched a new website focusing on spinal cord injuries and the legal grounds involved when such tragedy strikes. Personal injury attorney, Kirk Bernard, is happy to announce the website, http://www.washingtonspinalcordinjuryattorneys.com/, as a resource for spinal injury news, information on causes of spinal injury, and advice for those with various kinds of spinal injuries.

As is the case for most serious injuries, spinal cord injury affects lives unexpectedly and in life-altering ways that require specific medical attention and long rehabilitation to reach a point of well being and good health. The Bernard Law Group believes that it is important for a spinal cord injury victim and their family to understand their legal options when holding those responsible whose negligent actions caused the injury.

As the main “pathway” for neurological impulses to transfer senses and unconscious functions back and forth between the brain and the rest of the body, the spinal cord is extremely important and sensitive. Spine damage can have a drastic influence on an individual’s life and what can be done to treat these injuries has a lot to do with what caused it. Depending on the degree in which the vertebrae-which helps protect the spinal cord- has been damaged, nerve signal transmission can be hindered, causing different types of paralysis.

According to authorities, a father and his young son were killed in a single-engine aviation accident in Washington State. The man’s 5-year-old daughter was critically injured.

The Yakima County Coroner’s Office says that the 37-year-old man, from Yakima, Washington, and his 13-year-old son were killed in the crash that occurred Sunday afternoon.

The 5-year-old daughter suffered multiple fractures, as well as head injuries, and was first taken to Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, before being airlifted to a Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.

The rented plane, a single-engine Cessna, went down near the east end of Rimrock Lake, about 40 miles west of Yakima.

Allen Kenitzer, regional spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, says he isn’t sure of the plane’s destination or point of departure. The tragic crash is being investigated.
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Tuesday night in Thurston County, a 5-year-old boy was badly hurt in a hit-and-run accident. The boy sustained serious facial injuries and was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

According to troopers, the boy was in a car that rolled across Yelm Highway. They believe that the car was either hit or cut off by another vehicle. The car ended up running through the fence of a golf course.

The suspect, who had two dogs in his car according to the police, kept driving after the Washington car accident. He was later found at a veterinarian’s office, where he was taken into custody.

An adult and another child in the vehicle that rolled were taken to local hospitals.
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Kirk Bernard of the Bernard Law Group is pleased to announce the launch of a new website focusing on the legal arena of auto product liability law. The website, http://www.washingtonautoproductliabilityattorneys.com focuses on detailing the latest in auto product recall news, offering consumers information and advice on automobiles and automotive parts that have been deemed dangerous.

The Bernard Law Group hopes to share its substantial experience litigating these types of cases with the public for the purpose of educating and warning drivers throughout the state of Washington about the dangers of the automobiles they commute in daily. The group also hopes to reach out to those individuals who may have been injured due to a defective auto product and offer them an opportunity to not only share their story, but also pursue just compensation under the law.

The public has the right to expect that auto manufacturers will produce a safe product built with the highest quality materials available. A manufacturer is expected to stand behind its product, and the public should demand accountability from the manufacturer for injuries caused by the product. When automakers fall short of that goal and put profits ahead of the safety of their consumers, injured individuals have a right to seek restitution for their losses through the legal system.

The website latimes.com reported in an article on April 14, 2009 that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has recently published the results of a series of crash tests. The Institute crashed a Honda Fit into a Honda Accord, a Smart ForTwo into a Mercedes C-Class, and a Toyota Yaris into a Toyota Camry each at 40 miles per hour. Test results showed that small cars may be more efficient but your safety is definitely compromised. The vehicles were tested in “offset” crashes in which the cars do not crash head on; instead, the collisions are made to simulate the type of collision that would occur during an auto accident if a car had veered over the center line where the damage can easily break into the passenger compartment. The institute believes that the cars sustained enough damage that their occupants would also have suffered moderate to serious injuries.

Adrian Lund, president of the Arlington, Virginia based institute said, “Though much safer than they were a few years ago, minicars as a group do a comparatively poor job of protecting people in crashes, simply because they’re smaller and lighter. In collisions with bigger vehicles, the forces acting on the smaller ones are higher, and there’s less distance from the front of a small car to the occupant compartment to ‘ride down’ the impact. These and other factors increase injury likelihood.”

Dave Schembri, president of Smart’s U.S. operations said the tests were an example of “rare and extreme” accidents. The Smart ForTwo meets or exceeds all U.S. government crash-test standards. The other manufactures released similar statements.

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