If you are involved in an Alabama automobile accident and if you have health insurance (Blue Cross Blue Shield, etc) then you will face subrogation.
Subrogation is the basic concept of BCBS wanting to get its money back out of any settlement or verdict that you receive from your car wreck lawsuit or settlement demand.
Please call me if you have any questions - 205-879-2447.
Thanks
John Watts
Birmingham, Alabama
A settlement in a personal injury case (car wreck, truck wreck, slip and fall, etc) is where money is paid to you by the defendant or the defendant's insurance company.
A verdict is where a trial has occurred and the court and jury have reached a decision.
Let me know if you have any questions regarding this - 205-879-2447.
John Watts
Birmingham, Alabama
Four reminders or rules will keep you in good shape during your deposition:
1. Make sure you hear the question;
2. Make sure you understand the question;
3. Think about the truthful answer; and
4. Only answer the question asked - nothing else.
We'll continue to expand on this in future posts....
Thanks
John Watts
Birmingham, Alabama
Here's the big secret of giving deposition testimony - tell the truth.
I know.... startling, isn't it?
But it really is this simple - tell the truth.
In other blog posts we'll give more details on how to make sure that you are testifying truthfully and accurately but it all comes down to making sure that you give truthful and honest answers.
I hope this has been helpful and if you have any questions contact me at 205-879-2447.
Thanks
John Watts
Birmingham, Alabama
Fraud law in Alabama is a powerful tool to stop companies that have cheated you and to force them to compensate you for your losses.
The four basic requirements or elements of fraud in Alabama are:
1. Misstatement or lie;
2. About a material fact or an important detail;
3. You must properly rely upon the lie - you can't be overly naive or close your eyes to the truth; and
4. You must have suffered damages.
I hope this video is helpful to you and if you have any questions feel free to contact me through this site or you can pick up the phone and call me at 205-879-2447.
John Watts
Birmingham, Alabama
This is similar to contributory negligence and is also a favorite of defendants who are sued in Alabama for negligence.
The basic idea is if you, as the injured plaintiff, do the following:
1. See a dangerous condition;
2. Appreciate the danger of it; but yet
3. Put yourself in that dangerous condition anyway
Then the defendant will argue you are not entitled to recover any money because you "assumed the risk" of the injury.
We'll talk more about this but this gives you the overview of this defense.
Please call me at 205-879-2447 if you have any questions regarding this defense.
John Watts
Birmingham, Alabama
In virtually every Alabama automobile accident case, the defendant will raise the defense of "contributory negligence" which simply means the defendant is claiming that you are guilty of negligence that contributed even 1% to the wreck. If that is true, then the normal outcome is you will lose your case.
In this video we discuss an overview of this law and in future videos we will explore it in more detail.
If you have any questions, please call me at 205-879-2447.
Best wishes
John Watts
Birmingham, Alabama
In this video we discuss an overview of the law that applies to auto accidents - and that is "negligence".
Negligence is when the defendant that hit your car or truck did not act reasonably under the circumstances.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at 205-879-2447 or through the sign up form on this blog.
This is funny and makes a good point. Enjoy it!
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has a number of articles and videos related to child safety related to car seats. Check these out and make sure that you are properly using car seats - something we all need to do when dealing with our kids....
Our friend Gerry Oginski has a new video that describes how he helped a client who was injured on a slippery parking lot due to the negligence of the parking lot owner and a snow plow operator. We think you'll enjoy watching this video:
If you have been injured in Alabama, feel free to contact us for a free consultation on your rights and whether litigation is appropriate for your situation.
When Alabama consumers are involved in car wrecks, one question that comes to mind is "Should I handle my case on my own or should I consult with a lawyer?" While there is no one right answer, but considering any good personal injury lawyer in Alabama will meet with you for a free consultation, you should at least talk to a lawyer. Now, whether to hire a lawyer has to be decided on a case by case basis.
Gerry Oginski has an excellent video regarding this question in New York car wreck cases. It is helpful for Alabama auto accident victims also and we recommend you take a look at it below.
If you would like to meet with us for a free consultation to understand your rights and options, feel free to call us at 205-879-2447.
Here is the video in its entirety:
We have admired the work of Gerry Oginski for some time and we wanted to hilight his recent video about the dangers of accepting a quick settlement offer from the other driver's car insurance company. While Gerry practices in New York the thoughts he shares in this video are helpful for Alabama victims of car wrecks.
If you have any questions about a recent car wreck that you have been involved in, please feel free to call us at 205-879-2447. Here is the video so you can view it directly here:
On our Alabama Consumer Law Blog, we recently posted about the requirement by Hyundai to submit any claims to arbitration. While you ponder that from a consumer standpoint on being able to properly enforce your lemon law rights, consider this interesting video of a Hyundai van. We don't know the details but it does cause you to raise an eyebrow, eh?
Here is one more car wreck video - of course in the real world the impact is not always so controlled but this does show what happens to a car in a frontal impact....
This video is a little bit long (15 minutes) but it is very interesting to see what happens to various popular vehicles when there is an impact from all different directions. This reminds us why the human body can be so badly injured - even if the car survives - that force and energy from the impact can travel to the human body. We hope you find this video interesting and educational and make your own experience with crashing cars limited to watching videos....
We found this YouTube video showing what happens when a 4X4 t-bones an older (1992) Honda. This shows the terrible impact that can result when high speeds are involved in a wreck. Be careful out there driving....
You can also see the vulnerability of SUVs to roll over when in a wreck.
As you know, we highly recommend Ken Shigley's blog - one reason is the depth and variety of posts he has including a nice variety of videos. One new video he has involves a YouTube video of a bobtail tractor (just the truck part without the trailer) skidding on wet pavement. Its interesting, particularly if you are looking at a truck case. Here is the video:
Over the years we have handled numerous trucking cases but what is shown in this excellent video which Ken Shigley has posted about is not something we have seen in video form. It shows what happens to a vehicle that strikes a truck from the side and then what happens when the truck is equipped with safety devices to minimize the harm to the vehicle's driver. First, though, the video shows a rear impact with and without the safety devices. Take a look at the video:
This video makes it very easy to see why truck wrecks so often result in the death of the driver of the car even if the truck is not moving. Be careful out on the roads since we don't (for some reason) have the same safety devices as other countries on our trucks.
Thanks to Ken Shigley of the excellent Atlanta Injury Law Blog who alerted us to this fascinating link of a video of a truck jack-knifing, hitting a vehicle, and ending up in flames. This graphically illustrates why truck wrecks can happen so fast and be so deadly.
If you have any questions about a truck wreck, please feel free to fill out the "Contact Us" to the left and one of our attorneys will personally respond to you.
