Category: Personal Injuries
Am I Taking Unfair Advantage of a Property Owner if I Pursue a Slip-and-Fall Case?
June 13, 2013 | Adriel B. VillarrealMany of our clients are often concerned about whether or not they are being fair when they file a slip-and-fall claim. Most of our clients are good people who would be the last ones to ever take advantage of anyone! It’s true that some slip-and-fall accidents are just that: accidents. Property owners are not responsible for all of them, and if that’s true in your case a good personal injury attorney will certainly advise you of that fact. However, some slip-and-fall injuries are caused by negligence on the part of property owners. Property owners have a legal obligation to maintain safe conditions on their premises, and they do not always follow through. Here are some examples of this kind of negligence: A restaurant spills grease on the floor and fails to clean it up. Freshly mopped floors in a grocery store are not clearly marked with a warning sign. Ice or snow on a walkway that should have been properly shoveled and salted before business hours began. A broken hand rail that ought to have been properly maintained causes someone to trip and fall down a flight of stairs. A loose floor tile, floor board, or bit of carpeting that was neglected for months causes someone to slip and fall. If you have…
Read MoreDo I Lose Money by Hiring a Personal Injury Attorney?
June 10, 2013 | Adriel B. VillarrealMany people believe they’ll ultimately end up with a smaller check in their pocket after hiring a personal injury attorney, so they avoid calling a lawyer when they could actually really use the help. In reality, the opposite is often true. Hiring a personal injury lawyer can help you save time and energy fighting with insurance companies, and worse, collection companies looking for payment on medical or other your injury may have prevented you from covering. Hiring a personal injury attorney may also mean a larger settlement than you could have negotiated for on your own in the end. As personal injury attorneys our job is to help you get the maximum legal compensation for your claim. This is often the opposite of what other parties in the case want to do. They usually want to get you to settle for the minimum legal amount they can offer you. We can help you by advising you on what you’ll need to do in order to get the full value for: Your medical bills, especially for injuries that doctors might not have diagnosed on the day of your accident. If the accident has rendered you unable to work for any period of time, your lost wages. The loss of your vehicle, vehicle value, or…
Read MoreSummer Drive Time ~ Keeping Safe on the Roads
May 23, 2013 | Jon P. EricksonI recently read this article in Star Tribune’s newspaper titled “Deaths on state roads top 100 for the year.” It references the state’s seat-belt crackdown which began on May 20th. Once again there were some sobering statistics about the number of traffic deaths where no seat belt was used. In the past three years, “852 motorists have died in crashes and 42 percent (361) of those were not wearing seat belts.” We can, and must do better in getting the message out to all drivers but most certainly our young drivers! The good news is that seat-belt use continues to climb in Minnesota at some 93{a0c01d20c42349884e67ff80c137866b0a9fe47aaae8f8a86a605a369ae487c3} as compared to the national average of 84{a0c01d20c42349884e67ff80c137866b0a9fe47aaae8f8a86a605a369ae487c3}. Let’s all try to improve this percentage. On Monday I was at the courthouse in Buffalo, Minnesota. When I came out of the courthouse there was a “crashed car” on a flatbed trailer with some signs on it. It was the car involved in an accident in Wright County in 2012. Its roof was crashed in, and one side of it was almost demolished. One of the signs on the trailer stated that the driver and occupant wore seat belts, and survived this obviously terrible crash. Making an effort to slow down and assure that you and all of…
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