Wilmington Personal Injury Lawyer - Automobile Accident

Lawsuits Against North Carolina State Employees

Jean Martin — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:14:03 GMT

The government and governmental agencies have protection from lawsuits under the theory of sovereign immunity, which precludes lawsuits against the government without its consent. Governments can waive sovereign immunity to allow for lawsuits.

In 1951, North Carolina adoped the State Tort Claims Act which allows injured persons and grieving families to file suit against state agencies and state employees for acts of negligence. Under the State Tort Claims Act, a state agency, state employees or agents of the state may be sued for injury to another for the negligence and carelessness caused of a state employee or agent acting within the course and scope of their employment.

An action under the State Tort Claims Act must be filed with the North Carolina Industrial Commission within three years of the date the cause of action accrued or within two years of the date of death in the case of a wrongful death. Under the State Tort Claims Act, the liability of the State is determined under the same principles applicable a private person under the laws of North Carolina. This simply means that the State has no greater protection or available defenses than would private citizen who was sued for negligence. As the injured party, although you have to bring your claim in a particular court of law, you have the same rights and claims against the State for the negligence causing the injury as you would if a private citizen would have been at fault.

Types of claims that may be brought under the State Tort Claims Act include:

* medical malpractice at a state hospital

* wrongful death in automobile accident caused by state employee driving a state vehicle

* gross negligence during a police chase

* premises liabilty at a state owned property or facility

Citizens need to be aware that they do have rights to bring lawsuits against the state for negligent acts of state employees or agents.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jean Martin

Spinal Cord Injuries - Things to Know

Tate Hodges — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Spinal cord injuries (SCI) are some of the most tragic, prevalent, and costly injuries that occur in the U.S. Thousands of cases are reported each year, and over a quarter of a million Americans are currently living with spinal cord injuries. Automobile accidents are the leading cause of SCI – therefore, an extremely large percentage of the American population is at risk. Falls and violence also contribute to a large number of injuries. SCI are extremely complex and can have drastic, life-altering effects on a person for the rest of their life.

The two most common effects of SCI’s are whiplash and paralysis. Whiplash, most commonly found in rear-end automobile collisions, is caused by a sudden and violent movement of the neck. This movement will likely cause soft tissue damage around the neck. If you think that you have whiplash, the most common symptoms you should look for are pain and stiffness in the neck, headache, nausea, numbness, and loss of balance. These symptoms may not appear immediately after the accident and may take time to manifest. Unlike other SCI’s, whiplash is difficult to diagnose through modern X-ray procedures, so if you think that you have whiplash, it is very important to consult a doctor who specializes in soft tissue damage. The second most common effect of SCI’s, paralysis, is the inability to control the muscles that move the body. SCI’s may render the injured a paraplegic or a tetraplegic. The paraplegic has lost the partial or complete ability to move the legs while the tetraplegic has lost the partial or complete ability to move both the arms and legs. There is a wide range in the severity of paralytic injuries. The extent of the injury largely depends upon the location of the SCI. Generally, the higher the SCI occurs within the spinal column, the more damaging the results, and consequently, the higher the cost associated with the patient’s care.

After the initial SCI trauma, further unnecessary injury may result if the proper steps are not taken by medical professionals who have undertaken the duty to care for the SCI patient. Early measures that should be considered to avoid further injury include methlyprednisone therapy and/or surgery or traction to decompress – or relieve the pressure of – the spinal cord. Methylprednisone is a steroid that, if given up to 8 hours after the injury, can improve neurological recovery by 20%. Directly after a spinal cord injury, it is important to determine whether: (1) methylprednisone was administered or considered; (2) the spinal cord has been decompressed; (3) blood thinners have been administered to prevent dangerous clotting; and (4) the other organs are being cared for to prevent complications. If further injury results because of the failure to consider any of the above, you may have sufficient grounds for a lawsuit against the patient’s health care providers.

SCI injuries are extremely costly to treat. The average lifetime health care and living expenses of a person injured at 25 is $3 million, not including loss of earnings or companionship. If the circumstances of the injury are such that other people may have contributed to the initial injury or unnecessarily made the initial injury more severe, you may wish to hire an attorney and file a lawsuit. A successful lawsuit following an SCI will provide much needed financial support for the patient’s care, and may potentially deter others from acting negligently or recklessly in the future. Hiring a lawyer shortly after an SCI provides several helpful advantages. First, the attorney will help you gather all relevant information and evidence that likely will increase the chances of your lawsuit being successful. Second, legal actions have a statute of limitations, which requires that a lawsuit be filed within a certain amount of time. While hiring an attorney following a SCI is not mandatory, it is strongly recommended if it is likely that someone other than the patient may have contributed to the injury.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Tate Hodges

Child Car Seats - Safety Is A Key

Jean Martin — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:44:24 GMT

So, you’re in the market for a child car seat and you walk into your local retailer only to find dozens of seats on the shelf and no way to make an easy decision. First and foremost, you need to view this purchase as being for a “safety seat” not just a car seat.

But I probably didn’t need to tell you that safety was the number one key, but that also didn’t make your decision any easier. You see a tag that says ‘meets or exceeds FMVSS 213” safety standard so you rush to pick up that particular model. Then you notice that all of the other choices have the same tag. Then you ask yourself how the car seat that sells for $20 can carry the same safety tag as the child seat that sells for $200. You might think that it doesn’t matter, but it does.

In a world of “it will never happen to me,” thousands of children are killed each year due to injuries sustained in a car crash. According to NHTSA statistics, more then 9500 children, from birth through age 8, were killed and almost 1.5 million were injured in motor vehicle crashes from 1991 to 20002. Those are alarming statistics, especially given the laws requiring that children use child restraint car seats. However, the statistics show that properly used child seats can reduce the chance of death in an accident by as much as 71%.

I encourage you to go back home and do some much needed research before you make that most important decision. Read some guides on how to choose a car safety seat. Review the websites of various manufacturers. Research the federal safety guidelines. Have a good understanding of your child’s physical structure, particularly height and weight, and have a general understanding of the anatomical structure of children, particularly the head, neck and abdomen.

To get you started, here is a brief overview of the types of child restraint seats that are available in the United States:

Infant seats – these should only be used in “rear facing” mode. They are designed for use with children who weigh no more than 22 pounds and have reached the age of one. Many of these come with a removable base.

Convertible seats – these can be used in “rear facing” mode with children who weigh no more than 35 pounds and are at least one year old. These seats can be “converted” to forward facing seats for children who weigh up to 65 pounds. These seats are usually available with a tray shield or “T”shield harness.

Low shield booster seats – these seats are no longer being sold, but are still available in the resale markets. These are forward facing seats for children weighing between 30 – 60 pounds. These seats often contain conflicting warnings and instructions with regard to the correct weight range.

Combination seats – these seats are forward facing and are used, with a harness, in children weighing up to 40 pounds. Once the child reaches 40 pounds, then the harness can be removed and the seat relies on the car’s belt system for restraint. These seats should never be used with only a lap belt.

High Back Booster Seats – these are forward facing seats and are generally recommended for children weighing between 20 – 100 pounds. These seats have no built-in harness system, so the car’s belting system must be used. Basically these seats simply raise the child to a level that allows the proper use of the car’s lap/shoulder belt system.

Backless Booster Seats - these seats are very similar to the High Back Booster Seat but they have no back and, thus, no back support. They are not suitable for cars with low seat backs or with no headrests.

Integrated Safety Seats – new model cars comes with “built in” child seats that typically fold down out of the automobile seat. These seats are forward facing only.

As you can see, there are many choices and one size definitely does not fit all. So do your homework before you buy.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jean Martin