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Worker’s Compensation: Third Party and Employer Negligence

The most important question to the worker is, “Is the lawsuit going to be against your employer? Or is it going to be against a third party, not your employer, because that’s who hurt you?” Third Party Negligence For instance, if you go to a work site and you are told, “We want you to paint this room.” But the person who brought you there, the premise’s owner doesn’t tell you, “Oh, and by the way, that’s a high-voltage room.” They can be sued for straight negligence. Likewise, if you got to a facility to do your job, and you’re given a defective piece of equipment, and you are told, “You can use this piece of equipment to do this,” and the equipment is defective, that’s a straight negligence lawsuit that you can file against the person who gave you the defective equipment. I had a very interesting case once where a welder was in a chemical plant, and he got what’s called a welding ticket, which is essentially a certification from the company who owned the chemical plant that the vessel he was going to weld on had been cleaned and did not have any dangerous gases. And so […]

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Burned on a Rig? You Have Rights

Here in West Virginia, we’ve got a bunch of new sources of natural gas that have recently been discovered. It’s kind of like the gold rush of the twenties out here! There are people coming from all over wanting to drill a well. The problem is, with all of the chaos, safety rules are sometimes put aside in favor of more profit. All of sudden, instead of doing it the right way, it’s about 80% of the right way and then 70% and so on. When you start cutting corners like that, people start to get burned. These environments have got very strict rules about how the rig needs to be set up and operated to protect the worker and if those are broken and you get injured, you need an attorney who can get you some help. The equipment that’s running the rig, that’s drawing off the gases, pumping, and filtering, must be maintained in a manner so as not to cause ignition sources or leaks. I think the reason you’re reading a lot more about these burn injuries is because too many drilling companies are willing to put aside their workers’ safety to make a quick buck on

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How Should Head Injury Cases Be Handled and What Makes Them Different?

Head injury cases are unique for lots of different reasons, but they’re unique mainly because you have to have experience and know what you’re looking for, and where are you going to find it? It’s as simple a question as saying, “Do you have a head injury?” Identifying A Head Injury  A lot of head injuries aren’t visible with an x-ray and you can’t see them with an MRI. So, if you can’t, where do you turn? How do you  know if you are going to be able to go back to work? There are neuropsychologists that we work with very closely. They offer certain types of tests that will find subtle changes that even the victim might not recognize. Another thing that’s very important based upon your experience is to make sure the wife or the husband of the person who may have a head injury goes with them. Inevitably they’ve seen changes in the head injury person that even the victim doesn’t even realize. You also have to be pretty familiar with the new techniques of medical imaging. There are tools available that we didn’t have five years ago that take different types of pictures of your brain and actually

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West Virginia Coal Mines and Safety: Awareness is Key

The focus on safety has become more and more apparent since several recent, major fatalities within the coal mining industry. Even the government now recognizes how critical it is that they inspect mines, and if necessary, shut them down until the management makes them safe. But there are avenues open to the miner. Unfortunately, getting that check at the end of the week to put food on the table can seem more important than blowing the whistle on safety violations, which is exactly what we’re going to discuss in today’s post. Who is Responsible for Regulating Coal Mines? There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of federal and state regulations that affect various safety requirements at coal mines in West Virginia. The laws differ depending if it’s a surface mine or a deep mine. But the most important safety requirement in West Virginia is to have employers who care about safety more than they care about production. They have to put safety first, and train their miners in the proper safety requirements to do their job. It’s critically important that management be invested in safety, and that they care about the employee understanding the safety regulations. What Kinds of Regulations

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Hurt Out of State? You’re Not Out of Luck.

The Marcellus Shale is one of the fastest developing natural gas producing sites in our country and it’s developing at an astonishing rate. As a result of that, we are seeing more and more jobsite injuries and, unfortunately, a lot of them are out of state workers. We see guys from Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana and when they get hurt, their boss will tell them all the can do is go home and file for worker’s compensation. This is far from the truth and we at The Segal Law Firm want to make sure our out of state workers understand that. If you are working here in West Virginia from out of state, you are our guest. We have laws here that protect you. If you can demonstrate certain types of misconduct, if your boss or foreman knew they were exposing you to a hazard, we might have a case on our hands. It’s our goal to get you more money for your losses. A worker who is injured in West Virginia can sometimes sue the contractor, subcontractor, or even their own employer. We’ve seen cases where it was actually an equipment failure that caused the accident and, in that

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How Injury Settlements are Decided and Why They’re Always Different

Every injury settlement is unique. In each case, we gather as much information as possible from our clients but no two cases are alike so there isn’t any kind of average amount for a settlement. Some people may only miss a few days of work while others may never be able to work again. Some injuries though serious, will heal, though it may take one to two years to become pain-free or scar-free. But for many their scars will be visible for life just as the pain may exist the rest of their life. How the Uniqueness of a Case Affects Settlement Cases are evaluated differently based on the type of injury. Obviously, the more serious the injury – such as paralysis and burns – due to the horrific and devastating injury. And many times the entire family is affected by the injury and it changes their lives as well. These cases can lead to a high settlement value. Any cases where a limb is amputated or multiple limbs are amputated – those are at the high end of the personal injury settlement scale. Also, how you are hurt affects what the settlement is likely to be worth. In aviation

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Tractor Trailer Accidents: Choosing Your Attorney

The best lawyer to help in a tractor trailer accident is a one who has experience with the Federal Motor Vehicle’s rules and regulations that apply to tractor trailers and their drivers. Many people think that the drivers of these rigs can just hop in their truck and drive, like we do with our passenger vehicles. Well, this simply isn’t true. They are regulated by a completely different set of rules and regulations. There are laws about training, how many hours can be driven, when the rig needs to be maintained, and so on. These laws are strict and extensive and your attorney needs to understand them thoroughly if they are going to represent you in a case. There are several tools we use to find the cause of a tractor trailer accident, one of those being black boxes. I’m sure many of our readers know what a black box is from hearing about it during airplane crashes. Well, tractor trailers are now equipped with basically the same thing. Using them, we can investigate to find what regulations have been broken. What was the driver doing at the time of the wreck? Was he or she speeding? Had they been

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Coal Mining Accidents: Asking Your Attorney the Hard Questions

Coal mining is no joke. It’s one of the most dangerous and aggressive jobs that exist and, because of this, we see a lot of coal miner accidents here at The Segal Law Firm. If you’ve been hurt on the worksite, you’ll want to find a lawyer right away who has experience in the industry. Your attorney has to have extensive knowledge of the work environment, the industry and must have tried several coal mining cases in a courtroom. Coal mining is a very heavily regulated industry. When a worker gets hurt in a deep mine or surface mine, there are many rules which have most likely been broken by the company. Usually, this involves putting profit ahead of worker safety. It could be the company itself or the subcontractor, but I can assure you that in the vast majority of the cases we see, we find that federal rules and regulations have been violated. This violation may have resulted in a coal miner being maimed or killed. At The Segal Law Firm, we pride ourselves in knowing what those rules are and where to start looking for answers. We use some of the best experts in the country who

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What Causes a Coal Truck Tragedy?

Here at The Segal Law Firm, we have seen every kind of coal truck accident. These wrecks are almost always devastating, especially if a passenger vehicle is involved. Coal truck drivers have a special set of federal regulations that must be followed at all times, but, unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. Lack of caution, fatigue, speed and impaired driving are common causes of negligence. If I have a client who has been hurt or killed in one of these tragedies, I work hard to figure out what caused it and who we can sue to get the victim as much help as possible. Too Fast, Too Heavy Speed is definitely a major culprit in coal truck accidents. We see a lot of wrecks where the road was narrow or curvy and the driver is simply going way too fast. They might be overloaded, but even if they aren’t, it’s not hard to speed when you weigh that much. Because of the truck’s size, if it collides with a passenger vehicle, it’s not going to be pretty. When we are investigating a case, we usually start looking for signs of speeding from the get-go; various types of reconstruction, skid marks and

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Don’t Wait to File Your Mesothelioma Case

If you’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma, finding an experienced lawyer to try your case is crucial. While you do have some time to figure these things out, you really don’t want to risk waiting too long. You have what’s called a statute of limitations, which means you only have so much time to file your suit before you become barred from ever getting the help you deserve. I don’t want want that to happen to anyone coming to me with questions, so let’s get it cleared up now. Generally speaking, you have two years from the date your doctor diagnosis you with mesothelioma. Now, remember, this is from the exact date that your medical records reflect, not when you think is might have been. You have exactly two years from that date to get your case filed in a court of law. One of the twists to this is, sometimes the diagnosis is not made until at or right before death. In this case, the family has two years from the date on the death certificate to file a claim. Once two years have passed, the family is forever barred from any legal claim. As a rule of thumb, if

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