Personal Injury Articles

In today’s blog, we’d like to take this oppurtunity to teach our readers about something called Nursing Home Arbitration Agreements. What are Nursing Home Arbitration Agreements? Nursing home Arbitration Agreements are legal documents that restrict or eliminate a nursing home resident’s right to bring a lawsuit in a court of law with a jury against a nursing home facility in the event of abuse or neglect resulting in injury or death.  Many residents, either unknowingly sign, or are coerced into signing an Arbitration Agreement upon their admission. What do they do? Sometimes, a family member unknowingly signs an Arbitration Agreement.  Often, these Arbitration Agreements are structured such that they eliminate not only the resident’s right to bring a lawsuit, but the right of a family member and/or the resident’s estate. You should never sign an Arbitration Agreement without consulting with a lawyer.  These Arbitration Agreements are meant to strip people of the fundamental right of access to the courts.  You cannot be required to sign an Arbitration Agreement in order to be admitted to a nursing home.  Please exercise every caution in signing documents at admission or any time during your loved ones’ stay.  You do not want to be

In today’s Segal Law Firm blog, we want to let you know about a startling new report called “The Facts Hurt: A State-By-State Injury Prevention Policy Report” recently released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It found that West Virginia had the seventh highest injury-related deaths for America. How does this compare with the rest of the country? In West Virginia, our injury-related death rate is 82.2 per 100,000 people.  However, the national rate is only 57.9 per 100,000 people.  Injuries are a leading cause of death nationally and the leading cause of death of Americans ages 1 through 44.  The report found that many injury prevention strategies such as seat belts and child safety seats have been shown to reduce harm and death. The report also identified new sets of emerging injury threats of which we should all be aware.  These threats include prescription drug abuse, concussions in school sports, bullying, texting while driving and falls in the aging baby boomer population. What should I do? At The Segal Law Firm, we believe in and promote injury prevention activities such as using seat belts, bicycle helmets and child safety seats.  However, if you are injured, you should call The Segal

In our last blog, we talked a little bit about nursing home abuse and neglect cases that The Segal Law Firm takes on. Today, we’d like to go more in depth about what nursing home abuse is, and the signs to recognize it. Nursing home abuse is generally defined as the willful infliction of injury, unreasonable confinement, intimidation, or punishment with resulting physical harm, pain or mental anguish.  Nursing home abuse may involve a variety of things such as assault and battery, sexual assault, the use of unnecessary restraints, the deprivation of food, drink, medicine or other basic necessities, and even mental or verbal abuse.  At The Segal Law Firm, we have the resources and the knowledge to help you and your loved one if they have suffered abuse in a nursing home. What are the signs of nursing home abuse? You may be able to tell, or at least suspect, if a loved one is being abused in a nursing home by certain signs.  These signs may include: The presence of bruises, cuts, wounds or welts Unexplained injuries Unreasonable use of physical restraints Your loved one may be confined to their room The elderly resident may be given too

The Segal Law Firm has handled a wide variety of nursing home abuse and neglect cases. As improvements in health care allow more and more Americans to live longer, it has created difficult questions for caring for elderly citizens. Most adult children want to care for their elderly parents at home.  However, it often becomes very apparent that the demands of children, work, and modern life do not allow for it.  Thus, many of our senior citizens who are no longer able to fully care for themselves have to rely upon nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to provide care and sometimes treatment. Who have you represented? We have represented victims and their loved ones in situations such as a person wandering from a facility and being killed due to improper supervision.  Other cases include far-ranging circumstances such as burn injuries, asphyxiation due to eating foods that should not have been consumed and also serious injury and death from infections and bed sores.  Is this type of case common? Sadly, there has been a stunning increase in reports of abuse and neglect in facilities trusted to provide care.  When that happens, a trust is breached and the rights of

Children love to play.  We all want to provide our children with fun and imaginative toys, and we expect toys to be safe. But when toys are dangerous, tragedy and injuries can be the result. Did you know… Did you know that hundreds of thousands of children are hurt in the United States every year while playing with toys their parents believed were safe?  Some injuries are slight, but others require trips to the emergency room and some can even result in death. What are the risks? The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regularly announces recalls of dangerous toys.  However, many of the unsafe toys remain on store shelves or continue to be played with by unsuspecting children. The risks from dangerous toys are many, including: exposure to toxic levels of lead paint chemicals and heavy metals exposure to choking hazards strangulation hazards fire and burn dangers Has your child been injured by playing with a toy? If so, please call The Segal Law Firm so we can determine whether there is a meritorious lawsuit to be brought on behalf of your child.

When a commercial truck, a coal truck, or a tractor-trailer truck is involved in an accident with another automobile or motorcycle, the results are often devastating and catastrophic. Tractor- trailers, coal trucks and other commercial vehicles are many times the size of passenger automobiles and motorcycles. A fully loaded tractor-trailer or coal truck can exceed 70,000 pounds, far in excess of the average passenger automobile. Because of the size and weight of these vehicles, it is often difficult for their operators to see passenger vehicles, to maneuver the vehicles, and to get their vehicles stopped in the event of an emergency. The injuries suffered by the victims of collisions with these large commercial vehicles are often far more devastating than an accident involving two or more passenger automobiles. What should I do if I’m in an accident? It is imperative that after an accident involving a collision with one of these large vehicles, an immediate and thorough investigation take place so that the facts and circumstances surrounding the accident, and its causes, can be uncovered. Tractor-trailer and other commercial vehicle drivers operate under a set of strict regulations governing how long they are permitted to operate their vehicles before putting