Personal Injury Articles

I’ve Been Injured in an Accident: How Soon Can I Call a Lawyer?

When you have been seriously hurt in an accident, hiring a lawyer might not be the first thing on your mind, but I’m here to tell you that it’s never too early to make that first phone call. I’ve literally talked to victims and their family members from the hospital room. There are several reasons the call should be made as soon as possible, but the most important may be the peace of mind we can give you. In fact, even if The Segal Law Firm doesn’t end up bringing your case, we can still give you free advice and take some action to make sure you are protected. You would be amazed at how frequently evidence can disappear when lawyers are not involved. This is one of the main reasons to get on that phone with an attorney immediately following an accident. For example, I will write letters, free of charge, telling the tow truck company not to destroy the vehicle involved in the wreck because we may need to photograph it or have it examined by an expert. The same goes for tractor trailer accidents. We may not know for several weeks if we are going to represent the widow of […]

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I Have A Catastrophic Injury – What Now?

We’ve talked a lot of about specific types of cases in my last few blogs, but today I want to touch on some of the more broad cases we work on, those being catastrophic injuries. These are cases that involve paralysis, burns, blindness or loss of limbs. If you or a loved one has been involved in an accident that resulted in a catastrophic injury, you should get a hold of an attorney immediately. These are usually very involved situations and it takes a lawyer with a lot of experience to understand what legal steps need to be taken. When you make that initial call to my firm, whether you are the injured party or a loved of the injured party, the first thing you are going to want to do is ask about our experience. These cases can be extremely complex and your attorney must understand the magnitude and severity. Why do I say that? Well, it’s not just doctors that are going to be involved here; you’ll have life care planners, forensic accountants, rehabilitation experts, maybe prosthetics experts. There are a lot of considerations to take and I want to make sure when people call me that they

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Personal Injury Claims in West Virginia: What You Need to Know

Most top-of-the-line law firms begin with a thorough interview and meeting with the client. The client needs to understand what the lawyer can do for them, how they’re going to do it, how long its going to take and, last but not least, how much is it going to cost. What the Segal Law Firm Will Do for Our Clients We work on a contingency fee basis. That means, until we get our client’s  money and case settled, they don’t owe us any money. If we are not successful in their case, then they don’t owe us any attorney fees. It’s that simple. The Investigation Once the lawyer is in place, the investigation begins. In a simple accident, that may only take a few days. In a complex trucking case or a complex coal-mining explosion or death case, it could be a few weeks or several weeks. Sometimes, if you’re waiting on the NTSB – the National Transportation Safety Board – the wait can be as much as six to nine months. The Complaint The next step is the filing of a complaint. Sometimes an insurance company or major corporation will approach the Segal Law firm quickly and ask us to provide

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What type of Lawyer Handles Car Wrecks and Trucking Accidents?

Is There a Specific Type of Lawyer that Handles a Car Wreck or Trucking Accident? With regards to car wrecks, it depends. There are some car wrecks that are very simple. The injuries are not profound or life changing. Personal injury lawyers or trial lawyers handle these cases on a regular basis. At the Segal Law firm, we tend to focus more on serious life-altering cases where people involved in car wrecks have been killed or paralyzed, lost a limb, suffered blindness or suffered a serious head injury which results in them not being able to continue working and providing for their family. You want to have a lawyer who has not only prepared a car wreck case for settlement but has tried them in a court of law to a jury. You have to look at a lot of factors in a car wreck because sometimes there is evidence that people overlook. You may see someone who is in a rather mild car wreck but they suffer paralysis. Everyone is scratching his or her head saying, “Well, how did that happen?” But it turns out, when you look under the seat, the seat belts are sheared off. So obviously

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Tractor Trailers and Traffic Laws: What you Need to Know

The result of two objects coming together, one of which is your car and the other of which is something that weighs tens of thousands of pounds, is not going to be a good result. And you don’t have to be a physicist or a scientist to understand that if a tractor-trailer hits you in your little car or your SUV or your minivan, you and your family are going to be seriously hurt or killed. What Regulations Affect Truck Driving? There are a whole set of complicated federal regulations and you need an attorney that knows the federal regulatory system inside and out, and knows how to develop a tractor-trailer case. Federal Laws regulate how many hours they are allowed to drive so many truckers keep two sets of logbooks. One set is the driving time that they get paid for. The other logbook is the driving time they show the state troopers, or they show the federal regulators, or they show the truck stop operator. Equipment Regulations The equipment, the rig, how often it has to be inspected, how it has to be maintained – those are all things that are regulated by the federal government. Often, we

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Mesothelioma –The Cold Hard Facts

There are three major different types of asbestos in North America and it’s hotly debated whether one or all of them can cause a mesothelioma. Fiber size and all kinds of technical, scientific issues pop up in mesothelioma cases. Before you go to court, you need a lawyer with experience in the medicine and science of mesothelioma. It’s important that you have someone that has experience with the history of asbestos, because it was known a long, long, long time ago how dangerous asbestos was. What is Involved in a Successful Mesothelioma Case? You have got to win the case, explain to the jury the history of what was known and when it was known, to hold these companies liable. And you don’t just get to walk into the courtroom and say, “Hey, this is a meso case, give us a bunch of money.” You have to prove the history of why these products were used, and what the companies knew about how dangerous they where, what scientific material the company had available that the worker didn’t know about, and how they failed, year after year after year, to tell the workers this stuff is deadly. How Should you Decide on

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Mesothelioma in West Virginia Courts and How They Move More Quickly

Some court cases take years to see the inside of a courtroom but with mesothelioma cases, things get sped up. The exigent docket or commonly referred to as the “rocket docket” is most unique and specific law that people need to be aware of. The docket basically allows mesothelioma people to get a trial within a year to two years of their diagnosis. What determines When Cases Get on the Court Docket? Basically, the case is handled by two judges – one handles one type of mesothelioma cases and the other handles all railroad mesothelioma cases. They each have dockets every few months where 20 cases are chosen for trial. The cases are prioritized by:        Are they living mesothelioma? Highest Priority        Deceased mesothelioma        Lung Cancer – living        Lung Cancer – deceased There are some other variables the judges and the lawyers use, but generally speaking, these are the most important ones. Your lawyer gets you on a docket in a year, or six months or nine months, and you’re automatically under a court order that tells you what the time frames are. What will be Required of Mesothelioma Clients? Your lawyers, if they’re experienced, should know exactly

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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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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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