Birmingham Injury Blog

We have handled a number of trucking cases and many involve truckers who seem to suffer from a dangerous condition called sleep apnea. When you combine falling asleep with a huge semi truck this can and has proved deadly in many truck wrecks which have devastated the lives of people in Alabama and across the country.

We were pleased to see a blog post from Ken Shigley about a proposal to test at risk truckers for sleep apnea. Hopefully this will help detect problems and allow truckers and their employers to safeguard not only the truckers but the innocent drivers of cars who share the roads with truckers.

If you have any questions about a truck wreck or automobile accident, please feel free to contact us.

Posted by John Watts & M. Stan Herring | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Truck Wreck

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Mandatory arbitration is a growing problem in Alabama and this recent Wall Street Journal article discusses how it is becoming more common in Nursing Home contracts to require the family to sign an arbitration agreement. Please read this entire article but here is the heart of the argument:

Nursing homes have been among the biggest converts to the practice since a wave of big jury awards in the late 1990s. Attorneys litigating nursing-home cases on both sides say arbitration has quickly become the rule rather than the exception. Critics say the binding agreements are determining the outcome of high-stakes cases of vulnerable patients that should instead be handled by the courts. Too often, they say, people don't understand whether the clauses are mandatory, or that they are signing away their rights to sue. "It is an unfair practice given the unequal bargaining position between someone desperate to find a place for their loved ones and a large corporate entity like a nursing home," said Sen. Mel Martinez, a Florida Republican who introduced legislation along with Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin.

'IT SOUNDS SO GOOD FOR THE CUSTOMER'

The biggest arbitration provider, the American Arbitration Association, frowns on agreements requiring arbitration in disputes over nursing-home care and generally refuses such cases. Some patients "really are not in an appropriate state of mind to evaluate an agreement like an arbitration clause," says Eric Tuchmann, the association's general counsel. A second group, the American Health Lawyers Association, also avoids them. Other arbitration groups say they generally accept the cases if the agreements comply with the law.

We have a number of blog posts on our Alabama Consumer Law Blog regarding arbitration and typically how unfair it is to consumers. Its hard to imagine a more unfair use of mandatory arbitration agreements than an elderly person going into a nursing home or the family trying to get their elderly parent into a nursing home. When someone has been injured or killed, forcing the family to go through arbitration seems particularly disgusting.

If you have a question about a nursing home case or an arbitration agreement regarding a nursing home case, please feel free to contact us for a free consultation.

Posted by John Watts & M. Stan Herring | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Arbitration , Nursing Home

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One of the funniest blogs around is Legal Juice and this recent post is a classic on the drug Xyzal. You have to read this for yourself. I don't know what to say.

Posted by John Watts & M. Stan Herring | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Drug Cases

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One thing that is often surprising to our clients when they have been injured in a car wreck or truck wreck is that the health insurance company (BlueCross BlueShield, United, etc.) which has paid for medical treatment often has the right to recover the amount of money that it spent on medical treatment. This right is called a "subrogation" right, which means that the health insurance company can “stand in the shoes” of the injured person and recover its money from the wrongdoer.

When a health insurance company pays medical bills, it normally does not pay dollar-for-dollar but instead pays a percentage. It is that lesser percentage (for example $200.00 on a $1000.00 bill) that must be reimbursed. Normally, the health insurance company will negotiate with the injured person and will reduce the amount that it claims as subrogation by the amount of the attorney’s fee being paid by the injured person to his or her attorney. This makes sense as the injured person has hired an attorney to create a “pool” of money from which the health insurance company is reaching into and drawing from. So the health insurance company should have to pay its share of the attorney’s fee to create that. This has the effect of lowering the amount that the injured person must pay back to the health insurance company.

The law changed a number of years ago so that the Jury can now hear that the injured person has health insurance and how much the health insurance company actually paid. We will address this in a separate blog post, but we did want to alert you to this fact and to be watching for this blog post from us.

If you have been injured in a car wreck or truck wreck and would like to talk to us, we are always happy to schedule a free consultation with you.

Posted by John Watts & M. Stan Herring | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Car Wreck , Product Liability , Slip and Fall , Train Wreck , Truck Wreck

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“Adding insult to injury” – that is what it is like to be crashed into in a car or truck wreck and have medical bills that are turned over to a debt collector or a collection law-firm. If you are dealing with collectors because of your injuries in an automobile crash, we hope this blog post will be of some assistance.

Why am I getting collection notices? It could be your health insurance company is not paying the bills as quickly as they should. It could be that you have no health insurance or it excludes bills for car wrecks. Remember you may have “medical payments” insurance on your car insurance that would pay for some of the bills. But ultimately the insurance company for the driver who is at fault should pay – but this rarely happens until the whole case is settled. This is because the insurance company wants to use leverage and pressure from collection agencies and collection law-firms to force you into a settlement for less than you should – just to get these collectors off your back.

Every situation is different but remember that collectors, whether lawyers or non lawyers, cannot harass you. On our consumer blog – Alabama Consumer Law Blog – we have several articles about dealing with collectors that might be of interest to you:

When Can An Alabama Consumer Sue A Debt Collector - Part II?
Should An Alabama Consumer Contact A Consumer Lawyer When First Contacted By A Debt Collector?
Collection Letters Are Often Illegal In Alabama

We wish you the best of luck and please contact us if you have questions about harassing debt collectors or about your car wreck if you are not already represented by a lawyer.

Posted by John Watts & M. Stan Herring | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Car Wreck , Truck Wreck

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