Maryland Injury and Disability Law

Understanding The New Pit Bull Law In Maryland

Greenberg & Bederman — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:12:39 -0500

About two weeks ago we wrote a story on Maryland’s new law regarding pit bull bites, and some folks have been a little confused by the judge’s ruling on the matter. In the interest of clarifying what this new law means, we thought we would try to expand our explanation a bit.

The ruling in question happened in a case called Tracy v Solesky. The case involved a pit bull owner who had failed to properly secure the animal. The dog escaped and mauled a child. The child’s parents sued for damages. Since the owner of the pit bull was a tenant, the family of the victim sued the landlord on the grounds that he allowed the tenant to have the dangerous dog in the first place.

Here is the ruling of the judge, and this is absolutely verbatim:

“…When an attack involves pit bulls, it is no longer necessary to prove that

the particular pit bull or pit bulls are dangerous.”

So, what does this mean? It means that the victim of a pit bull bite doesn’t have to prove much in a court of law other than the fact that he or she got attacked and that the attacker was a pit bull. That pit bulls are dangerous is already established. Therefore, the owner of the pit bull (or the landlord or property owner that allows a pit bull to live on the premises) should know that the risk of a pit bull seriously injuring someone is substantially greater than if the dog concerned were a springer spaniel or a Scottish terrier.

If the dog bite did involve a Scottish terrier, a few things would have to be established in order to prove negligence. The first thing to establish would be prior history. Has the dog attacked people before? Then you have to establish that the owner knew that the dog had attacked people before and didn’t do a very good job of keeping the dog from attacking again.

You have to do this with collies, golden retrievers, Chihuahuas, spaniels, poodles, St. Bernard’s and every other dog you can think of, but in Maryland, you don’t have to do that with pit bulls.

The reasoning of the judge indicates that he believes that the danger that pit bulls pose is a well enough known fact, so you can’t use the excuse that “you didn’t know” that the dog could have bitten someone.

Here is a parallel to consider: All cars can be dangerous, but owning and driving a car is not illegal. A car can’t hurt anyone if it is sitting in your driveway. But cars certainly have the potential to be dangerous. Consider someone who drinks and drives. Everybody knows by now that drunk driving is dangerous and irresponsible. It causes tens of thousands of accidents every year, quite a few of which are fatal. Nobody caught drinking and driving can make the argument that “they didn’t know” that such an obviously reckless act could result in somebody getting hurt. Nor can they make the argument that they “didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” That they didn’t mean to is irrelevant and that they didn’t know is impossible. Drinking and driving is negligent behavior.

Similarly, owning a pit bull is not illegal in Maryland. There are probably thousands of people who own pit bulls that have never hurt a fly. But that doesn’t mean that you can behave irresponsibly with the pit bull. You can leave it in an unsecured pen or let it roam around the neighborhood. You also can’t make the argument that you didn’t know it was dangerous, particularly in Maryland. Thanks to Tracy v Solesky, the fact that pit bulls are dangerous is not only a foregone conclusion, but it’s also a point of law. It doesn’t matter if you “didn’t know” that the pit bull could bite somebody, and it doesn’t matter if you “didn’t mean” for it to hurt someone.

So whoever owns the pit bull that attacked a 10 year old Anne Arundel County boy while he was at lacrosse practice does not have the law on his or her side. The dog was running loose, just like the dogs that attacked those three boys in Northeast DC a few weeks ago. And since there aren’t packs of wild pit bulls roaming around Maryland, you have to assume it belongs to somebody who wasn’t taking the necessary precautions to keep the dog secure. This led to a child getting attacked. In Maryland, that’s considered negligence.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to people who have been hurt due to no fault of their own, and that includes people who have been bitten by pit bulls or other dogs. If you or a loved one in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, DC has been injured in an accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today.

Lawyers Who Solicitate Injury Clients

Greenberg & Bederman — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:56:27 -0500

One of the more popular slanders against personal injury attorneys is the term “ambulance chaser.” It means exactly what you think it does. It gives the impression that we wait around by the police scanner for news of an accident and then rush to the scene so we can offer the victims our services. It also gives the impression that we encourage lawsuits when there don’t need to be any.

We don’t do that for a lot of reasons, and the primary reason is that this sort of behavior is against the law. It’s illegal in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC, which are the three places we have our practices. Movies and television shows like to portray lawyers as mavericks who break the rules, and while it makes for good entertainment, it would make for a terrible legal practice in real life. If an attorney violated codes of conduct anywhere but on a Hollywood set, he wouldn’t be an attorney for very long. But even if it weren’t illegal, it is an absolutely distasteful and unethical way to run a law firm.

As far as we are concerned, being an “ambulance chaser” is one of the worst things that a plaintiff’s attorney can be, and we are keenly sensitive of being accused of it. And we get equally angry when we hear of other law firms engaging in that sort of thing because it unfairly smears the vast majority of personal injury lawyers in the DC area who behave correctly and ethically.

One of the more common practices among the less scrupulous personal injury attorneys is to use what are called “runners” or “scouts.” They aren’t actually employed by the law firm on paper, which is useful in that it offers deniability. They usually operate on a commission basis. Sometimes they get a flat rate for every case that they bring in, and sometimes if the case is big enough they are offered a small percentage of the settlement or judgment if the case is successful. Sometimes they are offered a choice between the two.

These “scouts” usually have a friend or two at the hospital who let them know if anything that looks like a good case comes in, and sometimes they are able to get a home address of the victim. If they aren’t able to do that they simply wait ten days and obtain the official accident report, which doesn’t cost much. They usually approach the victim at home as he or she is recuperating. Sometimes they say inaccurate things like “I’m working with the police,” which makes them seem official. Before too long, they offer the accident victim a business card of the law firm they are scouting for, and if all goes as planned, the law firm gets a new client and the scout gets a commission. So these firms don’t actually sit around and listen to the police scanners, but they know a lot of people who do. These firms don’t actually “chase ambulances,” but they know a lot of people who do. These firms don’t actually solicit individuals, but they know a lot of people (totally unconnected, of course) who will.

This is a profoundly unethical way to do business as a law firm.

At Greenberg and Bederman, we get our clients through advertising, references and reputation. This means that many of our clients are friends and relatives of people who we have helped before. This shouldn’t surprise anyone as we have been helping injury victims in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC since 1985. We have spent decades building an outstanding legal and personal reputation here, and we have no desire to ruin it by breaking the law in order to get clients.

If you have been injured in an accident that wasn’t your fault, choosing your attorney is one of the most important decisions that you can make. Any attorney who either offers you a guarantee of a legal victory is not someone who you want representing your case in a courtroom. Despite what some politicians might say, injury lawsuits don’t happen because somebody sees a chance to get rich. They happen because somebody has been badly hurt and an insurance company is thinking in terms of what’s cost-effective rather than thinking about what is fair. The right attorney can be the difference between getting enough money to provide for your medical and financial needs and having less than you need to be made whole, or getting nothing at all. You should always do your homework on which attorney is right for you, but an absolute solid rule is this: If the lawyer personally introduces himself and offers his services to you out of the blue, you should think twice.

Any legal case is serious business. Witnesses can face fines or jail time if they say something on the stand that isn’t true. Attorneys can face fines, disbarment and jail time if they behave inappropriately in (and sometimes outside of) in a courtroom. It doesn’t matter if the case is a murder trial or a squabble over the size of a hedge between two houses. The courtroom is meant to be a serious place, and if an attorney isn’t ready to be serious and follow the rules, he or she shouldn’t be there. And he definitely shouldn’t be chasing you.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured due to the negligence of others. If you or a loved one has been hurt due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today,

Social Security Disability Top 5 Questions Answered

Greenberg & Bederman — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:53:00 -0500

As Social Security Disability attorneys, there are certain questions and misconceptions we frequently hear. If you are fighting for disability benefits, or thinking about applying, the odds are that you have heard or thought some of these too. We encourage you to read through these frequently asked questions to see if it helps to answer questions you have, dispel myths you may have heard, and help you understand the Social Security process a little bit better.

These are meant to be general answers. For more detailed information about Social Security law or process, please refer to the Social Security administration www.ssa.gov, or talk to a lawyer. If you have specific questions about your case, or if you need help obtaining Social Security Disability benefits, we encourage you to talk to a lawyer.

Q: I’ve been told you have to re-apply several times before Social Security will approve you for benefits.

A: This is not true.

Some people are approved on the first application. If you are not approved when you first apply, you do NOT want to let your application drop and re-file a new claim. Every time you are found disabled and you do not appeal, it becomes a legal “fact” that you were not disabled as of that decision. This means you will not be able to collect past-due benefits for any time prior to that decision. This may also affect the type of benefits to which you are entitled.

If you have been denied benefits you should contact an attorney as quickly as possible to help guide you through the appeals process.

Q: Why is my case taking so long? I thought I hired a lawyer to speed things up.

A: There are a lot of valuable things a lawyer can do to help with your Social Security case. Unfortunately, one thing we do not have control over is the timeframe.

At the initial application and reconsideration levels, the state agency has to assign your case to an examiner. Then the examiner has to compile information. This can include sending questionnaires to you, getting medical records, and sending you to examinations with doctors paid by the Social Security administration. This process can take several months. Once they have done this, they send the information to a team of experts who decide if you are disabled. This too, can take time. Sometimes the team may decide there is not enough information and send it back to the examiner to obtain additional information.

At the hearing level, the main reason for waiting is backlog. There are only a handful of Administrative Law Judges who hear all the cases for a large area. The Judges have to review the cases before they hear them – and many cases contain over 1,000 pages of evidence! After they’ve heard a case, the Judge has to write a full written opinion justifying the decision they make. As a result, it does take a while before a Judge can hear your case.

That being said, Social Security can speed cases up for people who are in dire need. This usually means your condition must be expected to result in imminent death, or you are facing imminent homelessness. If you think you qualify for this exception, speak to your lawyer. Be prepared to provide written evidence that this is the case. Also understand that Social Security still has the final say. Your lawyer can ask them to speed a case up, but they may not.

Q: Social Security is sending me to one of their doctors. Are they doing this so they can deny me?

A: No.

The Social Security Administration sends you to doctors, or “consultative examinations” to get specific information about your conditions or how they affect you. The examinations are paid for by Social Security, but the doctors are not employed by Social Security. They are not given any incentive to provide any opinion regarding disability, one way, or the other.

Finally, these doctors’ findings are not conclusive. In some instances they may have findings that do not support disability, when claimant is ultimately found disabled. Many times the findings do support disability, and Social Security may still deny a claim.

Q: I know someone who is faking/is not as disabled as me/ has the same condition as I do, and they are getting benefits. Why am I being denied?

A: As lawyers, we hear all three versions of this question quite often. Generally, don’t worry about other people, focus on your case.

We all know that there are people out there who fake disability and take advantage of the system. But they are not as common as you would think. You are probably learning firsthand just how hard it can be to get benefits. Everyone is subject to the same process, if it’s hard for you with real medical problems, it’s even harder when there aren’t problems.

Remember, there are many different types of disabilities. Not everyone who is disabled looks like it. Some disabilities are mental, some are episodic, and some people just put on a brave face when they’re in public. It is for this reason Social Security requires medical records to see how a medical condition affects a claimant. Their doctors are in the best position to discuss the nature and severity of their conditions.

Also remember, Social Security does not typically grant benefits based on diagnoses. They are more concerned with how these conditions limit that person. Everybody will experience medical conditions differently. Even if someone has the same diagnosis as you Social Security may have been able to identify different symptoms than you.

Social Security must consider how the combination of impairments affects a person. Even if someone says they have been approved because of one medical condition, they may have other conditions that are contributing to a finding of “disabled.”

Finally, Social Security grants decision-makers a significant amount of discretion. Two people may look at the same case, and come to two entirely different conclusions. One of our tasks, as lawyers, is to advocate for you and argue that your condition, as if affects you is disabling.

Q: I want to try to go back to work. Is that going to hurt my case?

A: It might.

Social Security defines “disabled” as not being able to work. If you are working you are not disabled.

However, there are several exceptions. Social Security acknowledges that you may try to go to work and not be able to maintain a job. In this case your lawyer may be able to argue that this is an “unsuccessful work attempt” or a “trial work period.” Social Security also has a program called “Ticket to Work” that helps beneficiaries get back into the workplace.

If you do try to go back to work, make sure you let your attorney know. Working will not necessarily end a claim, but your attorney needs to know what is going on in order to effectively represent you. If you are already receiving benefits, make sure you communicate with Social Security, and keep records of these communications.

Greenberg & Bederman handles Social Security disability denials. For a free consultation, please contact Greenberg & Bederman today.

Lost Wages Due To An Accident Must Be Paid

Greenberg & Bederman — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:32:18 -0500

Every insurance company has a slogan. Some are meant to seem reassuring.

“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”

“You’re in good hands with Allstate.”

“Nationwide is on your side.”

Others are meant to appeal to practicality.

“Save up to 15% by switching to GEICO.”

And some are nothing more than a jingle that means absolutely nothing.

“We are Farmers, bum-buh-bum-bum-bum-bum-BUM.”

These are all meant to keep their companies in the front of your mind when you decide to choose an insurance policy. You find yourself humming the jingle, or thinking about the lizard with the English accent, and you end up drifting towards their website.

These slogans are used to lure you in, but once you actually have a policy and happen to need to use it, the slogan becomes something else.

“That’s not our policy.”

“We can’t do that.”

“You aren’t eligible for that type of compensation.”

Obviously, State Farm wouldn’t have very many policy holders if their motto was “You Aren’t Eligible for That Type of Compensation.” But State Farm and practically every other insurance company out there might as well use that for their motto when it comes to paying out claims.

A lot of people think that when they get into a car accident or get injured all they have to do is simply present the bills to their insurance companies and everything will be settled. But insurance companies are not in the business of simply handing out money. It is the insurance adjuster’s job to get you to accept the least amount of money that they possibly can, particularly if you don’t happen to have a policy with their insurance company.

So they haggle and negotiate and make low-ball settlement offers, and sometimes they simply deny parts of your claim altogether. Quite often they will deny part of your claim even though they have absolutely no legal right to do so.

This happens quite a bit in Maryland, particularly if someone gets injured and misses time from work to recover.

Here is how the scenario usually plays out: Let’s say John Smith is driving from Beltsville to Silver Spring. As he is merging from 95 onto the Beltway, a driver who is texting instead of looking at the road sideswipes him and sends his car into the guardrail.

John suffers a broken arm and two broken ribs. When John puts in a claim to the other driver’s insurance company for the loss of the car, the medical bills and the time that he missed from work, quite often the insurance adjuster will refuse to pay for the time off of work.

Here are the two reasons they almost always use for refusing:

“You are a salaried employee. You don’t get paid by the hour or by the day. Since you are getting paid, you technically aren’t losing any income from time off of work.”

“You get vacation time and sick leave, right? Well, you can simply use that and still collect your salary.”

The first thing you should know about this sort of claim refusal is that if your accident happened in the state of Maryland, the insurance company does not have a right to refuse a lost wages claim. They simply refuse in the hopes that you will have no idea how things work in Maryland, and will simply accept the refusal and move on with your life. Believe it or not, a lot of car accident injury victims in Maryland just accept these insurance adjusters at their word.

The reason they shouldn’t is because Maryland has what is called the “Collateral Source Rule.” And when it comes to an injury victim recouping lost wages, it doesn’t matter whether you are receiving pay from your insurers or not. You are still eligible for lost wages compensation.

The premise of the collateral source rule as it is applied in Maryland is that liability is liability is liability. It doesn’t matter if an injury victim’s employer chooses to let him use vacation time to recover or simply decided to pay him anyway. Letting an insurer not pay for lost wages is essentially letting the person responsible for the accident off the hook. It doesn’t matter if the victim still gets a salary, or the Red Cross brings him relief packages, or if his second cousin twice removed gives him money. In Maryland, the victim is eligible for lost wages, and the person responsible for the accident (and therefore his insurance company) is responsible for paying them.

Adjusters in Maryland may pretend that this isn’t the case. Sometimes, even if you point out the collateral source rule to them they will pretend that it doesn’t exist, or that you are mistaken, or that it doesn’t happen in Maryland, or that it recently got overturned, or really anything that they can think of. Don’t buy it. The collateral source rule has been on Maryland’s books for over 100 years.

If you have been injured in an accident that wasn’t your fault in Maryland, and the insurance adjuster that you are dealing with flatly refuses to pay for your lost wages during your recovery, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

Teenagers Behind The Wheel

Greenberg & Bederman — Wed, 09 May 2012 08:42:26 -0500

Turning 16 is a pretty big deal in the United States of America. You aren’t old enough to vote, buy a drink or join the armed forces, but you are old enough to drive a car. Most 16 year olds we have met would add “Finally!” to the last part of that sentence.

A driver’s license and access to a car mean a lot of things to a teenager. The most important thing is freedom. Prior to having a driver’s license, the places you could go were limited. You could go as far as you could walk, or as far as public transportation would take you. Or you would have to ask your parents for a ride. Now that you have a car, you can go anywhere.

Your friends can go anywhere, too. Those of your friends without driver’s licenses are probably just as excited as you are. Your car can carry passengers. It’s supposed to be one in the passenger seat and two in the back seats, but you would be surprised how many people you can cram in there if you really try. You can fit even more if it’s a mini-van or an SUV.

You can do all the things that your parents never let you do when you are in the car with them. You can turn up the music as loud as you want. You can joke around with your friends. You can even break the speed limit now and again.

We’d like to tell you that no teenagers actually think like this, but we can’t. Teenage drivers are notoriously dangerous, and have been ever since there have been cars. There are a lot of reasons for this. Some of them have to do with experience, in that teenage drivers simply haven’t been driving for that long, and some of the reasons have to do with brain chemistry and brain development. A 2008 study from the National Institute for Mental Health claims that teenage brains are naturally predisposed towards estrangement from their families, thrill seeking and risk taking, which are all behaviors that are at their peak right about the time we decide to give them drivers licenses.

And as we mentioned before, you don’t see a lot of 16 year olds driving by themselves. Teenagers don’t all turn 16 on the same day, so the kid who turns 16 and gets his driver’s license first usually becomes pretty popular. After all, he gets to go where ever he wants, and everybody else wants to as well.

These are all reasons why when you read about teenagers involved in car accidents, it never seems to be just one. It’s always two or three or however many were able to fit in the car. In fact, there was an article in The Washington Post which mentions this very tragic phenomenon.

The article cites an American Automobile Association study, which correlated crash fatality data from all over the United States, and it paid specific attention to car accident fatalities involving teenagers.

This study has actually placed a number on the risk involved in teenage drivers with other teenage passengers in the car. We already know that teenagers are four times more likely to have a fatal crash than an adult driver, but this study shows us that if there is one teenage passenger with one teenage driver, the risk of a fatal accident goes up by as much as half. If there are two teenage passengers with a teenage driver, the risk of a fatal accident doubles. And if there are three teenage passengers with a teenage driver, the risk quadruples.

The story also cites quite a few tragic local examples. Four dead teens in Montgomery County, three in Anne Arundel, two in Prince William County, another five in Montgomery County.

It should also be mentioned that teenagers think nothing of multi-tasking these days. They text and instant message while doing their homework. They use Skype and other videoconference software while watching TV. It’s possible that they don’t see much of a difference between multi-tasking at home and doing so behind the wheel of a car.

We aren’t really sure how to combat this particular problem. There are already laws on the books against texting and driving, but there is no law against teenagers being in a car together. The best advice we can offer is to monitor as best you can how often your teenager drives and who he or she drives with. Set a curfew and have them stick to it. And simply encourage them to be careful. Here in America, we’ve given them the keys to the car before they are psychologically ready for them.

Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured in car accidents in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. If you or a loved one has been hurt due to no fault of their own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today.

Mundane Turn Signal Use

Greenberg & Bederman — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:55:05 -0500

Greenberg and Bederman has been in practice since 1985, and in those 27 years we have helped a lot of DC-area residents who have been injured in car accidents. Sometimes the circumstances behind the accident are pretty easily defined. Our clients get hit by drunk drivers, or get hit by somebody who was really speeding or driving recklessly, and more recently we’ve represented a lot of people who have been hit by distracted drivers, which means they get hit by someone who is using their cell phone while they drive (either texting or talking.)

But believe it or not, a frequent cause for a lot of our car accident cases is something much more mundane. For every one distracted or drunk driving case we get five or six car accidents due to somebody forgetting to put on a turn signal.

We’ve all seen this before. You see a guy driving down the highway and he makes a lane change all of a sudden with no warning whatsoever. Then a few miles down the road he makes another lane change, except this time he signals that he is going to do it. It’s hard to tell if the guy is lazy or forgetful, but his signaling is completely inconsistent. And then there is the guy who doesn’t signal at all and just weaves in and out of lanes. There is also the girl who comes to a flashing red light and doesn’t signal when she is making a turn. She usually gets hit from the rear by another driver who didn’t see a turn signal and didn’t slow down.

If that strikes you as completely irresponsible, you are right, but believe us when we tell you that this sort of thing happens all the time. We know this to be true through practical experience, and now the Society of Automotive Engineers knows it because they did an exhaustive study on just that subject.

Here’s how the numbers work out: Turn signal failures happen 48% of the time. That means that people either don’t turn them on when they change lanes or forget to turn them off once they do. Just under half of all lane changes don’t come with an accompanying turn signal.

And when people make turns at stop signs, the turn signal failure rate is approximately 25%. So one out of every four times a driver makes a turn at a stop sign, he doesn’t let anyone know.

At this point you might be thinking “That’s impossible! I signal all the time, every time!” Are you sure? Are you absolutely positive? Think about how many turns you make on even a simple trip, like a run to the grocery store. What about when you drive to work? The average driver makes about a hundred turns and lane changes a week, and this includes you. Are you sure that you made a turn signal every time? According to the study, there are about 2 billion instances of turn signal failure every day. It is not inconceivable that you were one of those drivers.

As you can probably guess, these turn signal failures have real consequences. According to this study, these turn signal failures cause about 2,000,000 roadway collisions a year. And while we have been as vocal as anyone could possibly be about how reckless and dangerous it is to drive drunk or to drive while texting, the fact of the matter is that more accidents happen due to people forgetting the mundane things like remembering to signal when they turn.

As we mentioned before, we knew this intuitively simply because we are DC car accident lawyers, and more car accident injuries in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia happen due to mundane reasons such as forgetting to engage a turn signal. But it is still disconcerting to see the actual numbers put down. It’s like knowing in theory there are a lot of atoms in a human body and then seeing the actual number of them put in front of you.

We have become so used to driving as a culture that we have become careless about it. Cars ride so smoothly and have so many features that make driving so easy that it becomes just as easy to forget about the fact that you are traveling in a vehicle that weighs over a ton and is capable of traveling at 100 mph. It’s almost as if people are expecting the car to make the signal change for them.

So while tuning on your turn signal might be something so mundane that you don’t even think about it, these numbers stress how crucial a part of driving it is. The next time you are out on the road, really think about how often you have to use your turn signal to be safe, and make sure that you do. There isn’t anything mundane about a car accident due to negligence.

Greenberg and Bederman is acar accident injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured in accidents in Maryland, DC and Virginia. If you or a loved one has been hurt in a car crash due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

New Pit Bull Ruling Hurts Dogs Owners

Greenberg & Bederman — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:24:44 -0500

A few days ago, those of us in the Washington, D.C. area saw something pretty terrifying on the news. A grainy black and white security camera caught an unprovoked dog attack on three children in Northeast D.C.

The dogs were pit bulls, and as of the writing of this article they still haven’t been accounted for. That’s particularly troubling, especially if you consider the viciousness of the attack. Make no mistake about it; these two pit bulls were out for blood. Two children were forced on to the top of a car for safety, and the dogs were making a move on to the hood when an incredibly brave neighbor came out and distracted them.

The neighbor was a man named Andre Hawthorne, who works as an usher at National’s Park. He ran out, essentially sacrificed his arm to one of the dogs and then stabbed it with a knife. When the other pit bull took Mr. Hawthorne down, his stepson came out and hit them with a baseball bat, which caused the dogs to flee. Mr. Hawthorne is currently receiving treatment for rabies as a precaution.

Both Mr. Hawthorne and his stepson are heroes. If they had not had acted, it is very likely that those two children would have been killed.

There isn’t a breed of dog on the planet that isn’t capable of hurting a human being in some capacity. Even little dogs like Chihuahua’s or toy poodles have powerful jaws and sharp teeth. But pit bull terriers belong in a separate category. They are the great white sharks of the dog kingdom.

In 1999, the Center for Disease Control released a study compiling the number of dog attack fatalities that happened in the United States over 20 years. Pit bull terriers had the most by a wide margin, with 66 fatalities between 1979 and 1998.

You can make the argument that not all pit bull terriers are going to attack you, and you would be right. But you absolutely can’t make the argument that pit bulls aren’t dangerous. They absolutely are. Statistics show that out of all the breeds of dogs, the one that is the most likely to attack and do damage for whatever reason are pit bull terriers.

The state of Maryland recently agreed. In a case called Tracey v. Solesky, a judge recently ruled that the victim in this case did not have to prove that the dog was known by the owner to be dangerous, mainly because proving that a pit bull is dangerous is the equivalent of having to prove that the sky is blue or that there is a law of gravity. The proof is completely self-evident.

This is a key difference between how dog bite cases work with other dogs and how they work with pit bulls in Maryland. Let’s say you get bitten by a golden retriever. The only way you can prove negligence by the owner in this case is if the dog has a history of biting people. If the dog has bitten before, that means the owner already knows that the dog can be dangerous and has not taken adequate measures to secure the dog. But if this is the first time that the dog has ever bitten anyone, then negligence on the part of the owner can’t be established.

Pit bulls are now treated as special cases thanks to the Solesky decision. The premise is that anyone who owns a pit bull knows that they are dangerous to begin with, and no establishment of prior aggression on the part of the dog is needed. If you own a pit bull, you should be well aware of how they can act and the damage they can do, and if you have not provided for proper security, then you are liable for any damage that your dog does to the general public, whether it’s the first time it has happened or not.

Owning a dog comes with responsibilities. There is the obvious feeding, walking and caring for the animal, and there is also making sure that your animal is safe to take out in public, and if it isn’t then it should be properly secured at all times. With a pit bull, that need for security is absolutely crucial. If you aren’t prepared to accept the responsibility of owning a dangerous dog, then you shouldn’t have one at all.

Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured due to negligence, and that includes those who have been mauled, bitten or injured by dogs. If you or a loved one in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. has been injured by a dog, contact Greenberg & Bederman today for a free consultation.

Yaz Blood Clot Cases Beginning To Settle

Greenberg & Bederman — Wed, 02 May 2012 08:06:43 -0500

From Bloomberg News, April 26, 2012:

“Bayer AG said settlements of U.S. lawsuits claiming that its Yasmin line of birth-control pills caused blood clots in women have increased to $142 million.

Bayer, based in Leverkusen, Germany, has resolved 651 cases alleging its Yasmin and Yaz contraceptives caused sometimes- fatal clots that can lead to heart attacks and strokes, the company said today in its Stockholders’ Newsletter for the first quarter. The company said it paid $142 million in the settlements, for an average of about $218,000 a case.”

$142 million might seem like a lot of money to you and practically everyone you know, but that sort of money doesn’t really mean all that much to Bayer. You should remember that before the number of women getting hurt or worse got too big for the FDA to ignore, Yasmin and Yaz were two of Bayer’s best selling prescription medications. They made around $1.52 billion off of sales of these products. Millions of women switched over from other forms of birth-control pills in order to start taking this new pill, which promised no weight gain, and end to PMS and a cure for acne. With a list of benefits like that, it’s no wonder so many women were taking it.

There were two major problems with the money from sales of Yaz, Yasmin, and Oscella that Bayer was enjoying. The first was that the supposed benefits were greatly exaggerated, and secondly, Yaz and Yasmin were simply more dangerous to use than other birth control pills.

Did women lose weight while taking Yaz? Some did and some didn’t. Did it cure PMS? Not really. It was supposed to help alleviate some of the symptoms of what is called Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder, (PMDD) which is less common than PMS and, in terms of emotional instability, is much worse. But having one does not mean that you have the other, and the alleviation of some symptoms for PMDD won’t do you any good if you don’t happen to have the condition. Did it cure acne? It kept some pimples from forming, but it wasn’t an all-out cure. In other words, if you had problems with acne, there was no guarantee that Yaz or Yasmin would simply get rid of it, or even make skin problems moderately better.

What made Bayer’s line of birth control pills different from all the others was one single ingredient which has been shown as what also made them hazardous to the health of the millions of women who were taking them.

This ingredient is a synthetic variation of progestin called drospirenone. Progestin is one of the two key ingredients in most hormonal birth control pills, with estrogen being the other. Birth control pills essentially work by tricking the body into thinking that it is already in the early stages of pregnancy.

With the vast majority of birth control pills, there is a risk of blood clotting. A side effect of this hormonal shift can sometimes be a buildup of platelets in the deeper veins and arteries of the woman’s body. Data suggests that these buildups are more likely to happen to older women or women who smoke, but there have been plenty of cases of clots occurring in perfectly healthy, non-smoking younger women.

Clots are fine when there is an actual cut or wound, but clots should not be floating around the bloodstream. The fact that many of these clots form in particularly wide veins and arteries is troubling as well, because that means they have more room to grow. When these clots eventually break up, the pieces start to travel through the bloodstream, eventually going into the smaller veins in the lungs, heart and brain. This can lead to blockages, and this has lead to pulmonary embolisms, strokes and heart attacks among women.

This is a risk that any woman takes when she uses birth control pills, although the risk is somewhat more minimal if you are taking other forms of birth control pills. Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella users, however, have tripled their risk of blood clots. That isn’t estimation or an exaggeration. The FDA required Bayer to put labels on these pills saying that very thing, but only after there had been a few years worth of injuries, illnesses, hospitalizations and even deaths.

It’s good news that Bayer seems to be willing to settle on the blood clot cases, although they have not yet begun to settle on the more severe cases such as stroke, heart attack, and death. We do know that for our clients who have been injured because of the use of these dangerous birth control pills, we will fight for what is fair and in the best interests of our client, and not for what is financially convenient for Bayer.

For a free consultation, please contact Greenberg & Bederman today, and ask to speak to our yaz lawyer, Andrew Bederman.

Social Security Disability Is Not Welfare

Greenberg & Bederman — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:49:09 -0500

There are firm believers in our Country that it is wrong for others to have any sort of reliance or help from the government. Whether it is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any program that helps others through tax dollars, they still believe we are enabling people to be dependent on the government. You will even hear some of the more hysterical and hyperbolic commentators even refer to government assistance as “tyranny.” This is simply ludicrous.

Real tyranny is something like when you hear about Americans who have had to bribe their way out of third world airports for no reason, so we know real government tyranny when we see it. So a program that helps the injured, disabled and elderly when they have no other means or deserve government help is hardly “tyranny.”

Many of the naysayers are also mistaken when they believe we are somehow taking from those who are working hard and giving to those who won’t. If this idea could be summed up in three words, they would be “Why should I?”

“Why should I have to give my hard-earned tax dollars over to someone who won’t work? I work 50 hours a week when I have to. Why can’t they?”

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what Social Security Disability Insurance is. It is not for people who won’t work; it is for people who CAN’T work. And the use of Social Security Disability Insurance doesn’t “take away” from anybody. Most of us contribute to the Social Security Disability Insurance fund when we work and pay into the system, which happens when Social Security is taken out of your paycheck. So when people become disabled and are no longer able to work, taking part in the SSDI program is not charity. Those who qualify for SSDI benefits have paid into it at least five out of the last ten years. Assuming that someone collecting SSDI is “taking away” from you is like assuming that someone who has a policy with the same insurance company is “taking away” from your health care if he breaks his leg.

And with regards to the “why can’t they work” question, the answer is that they medically cannot. People who apply for and collect SSDI benefits have been seriously injured in car accidents, have been hurt on the job, or they are suffering with an illness that makes work impossible. Would it be more about “freedom and liberty” if these folks had no recourse at all? Should we just let them be thrown out in the street? Of course we shouldn’t. This is why the Social Security Disability Insurance program exists.

There is also an inference that SSDI is something that you can just sign up for at the local CVS. Nothing can be further from the truth. Applying for Social Security Disability Insurance is an intense process that involves a legal hearing, thorough medical documentation, and testimony from medical or vocational experts. A disability applicant typically has a two year wait, a hearing, and several medical evaluations before they are able to qualify. So the idea that SSDI enrollment is a simple thing to go through is at best laughable.

Greenberg & Bederman does not buy into the urban myths about SSDI benefits, nor do we buy into the idea that everybody who needs it is somehow “lazy” or a “moocher.” Disabilities affect people of all races, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, and genders. We help our clients get the benefits they need and deserve regardless of who they are. If you are disabled and can’t work, we are on your side.

There was a recent, very misinformed article in Investor’s Business Daily which instilled a lot fear and misinformation in the general public. This article aimed to perpetuate the stereotype that anyone on Social Security Disability was simply looking to take an early retirement on the government’s dime. The headline reads “5.4 Million Join Disability Rolls Under Obama,” which gives the reader the impression that President Obama simply threw the floodgates open and let everybody who wants SSDI have it.

We also don’t agree with the premise of this biased article that standards for SSDI have been relaxed. In fact, denial rates are at an all-time high when individuals initially apply for disability benefits. Moreover, these problems definitely did not begin to occur under the Obama administration as this article improperly contends. As attorneys who help injury victims get through the SSDI process, we have yet to hear of anyone getting approved for Social Security Disability because their unemployment ran out, or because they couldn’t find a job. This article makes it seem like that sort of thing is happening all the time, when that simply is not the legal standard whatsoever.

Articles such as these are particularly aggravating because they are usually part of a concerted effort to sway public opinion about our President, and improperly encourage us to be less empathetic toward those with disabilities.

On the other hand, the Supplemental Security Income program is for those who have never worked or paid into the system. And, yes, our general tax dollars do help these people make ends meet. But just like in the SSDI program, these people have to be medically disabled and unable to work, but are reserved for those who have never worked and have no income or assets. The maximum SSI benefit is also capped at $698 per month, which is not that much considering SSI recipients are expected to pay for food, shelter, and basic necessities out of these monies. We should be glad help those who are disabled and have never been able to work, as the alternative is often homelessness.

When you hear things like “Everyone is going on disability because they don’t want to work,” it’s disingenuous. And it’s also using the misguided “Why should I have to” mentality towards heartless ends. None of us want to live in a country where the disabled are treated with suspicion and contempt, and where a necessary social insurance program is considered “dependency.” After all, how would you feel if your parent, sibling, or child was disabled and needed help? Our guess is that your first step would be to contact the Social Security Administration.

Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering victims of injuries and illnesses assistance in getting through the Social Security Disability process. If you or a loved one in Washington, D.C, Maryland or Virginia are unable to work and have been denied your disability benefits please contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

Insurance Company Policy

Greenberg & Bederman — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:46:17 -0500

Have you ever noticed that in a lot of car insurance commercials, everyone seems to be smiling and talking? The lady with the beehive in the Progressive commercials certainly has a permanent grin, as well as the gift of gab. Even the quite intimidating presence of Dennis Haysbert has been softened to a smiling, avuncular type in his commercials for Allstate.

It’s a strange sight for us to see, particularly because whenever we interact with insurance company personnel, they try to say as little as possible about practically anything. Sometimes we get the feeling if was asked them for the correct time they would say “It’s not our policy to comment.”

We get that a lot, you know. It’s nothing personal. It’s just a matter of the insurance company wanting to make things as difficult as possible for us, and by extension as difficult as possible for you.

Here’s what we mean: Let’s say for the sake of argument that you get hit by a car on 495 just past Bethesda and get injured. Let’s say the car that hit you is a 2005 Honda minivan. The woman driving is nondescript. As a matter of fact, you didn’t even get a really good look at her. The only reason that you know she is a woman is because that’s what it said on the accident report.

Normally, this is where the stonewalling begins. You get the name of her insurance company, and you (or preferably your attorneys) contact them, and that’s when the “It’s not our policy to comment” routine starts.

The reason they do this is because the insurance wants to pay out the least amount possible, while we want to get you the most amount possible for your injuries. Information is available during the discovery period, but that only happens after the lawsuit has been filed. Withholding information is a smart way for insurance companies to force the opposing attorneys to file a lawsuit rather than settle the claim, or at the very least to buy some time before a lawsuit it filed.

Time is actually the insurance company’s best friend. They have a ready reserve of cash on hand, while the injury victim usually does not. The insurance company has a source of income, which the injury victim might not. The insurance company can pay its bills, while the injury victim cannot. The financial realities are completely different for the injured who cannot work, verses the insurance company who continues to collect premiums from its policy holders, and the insurance company knows this. As the bills go unpaid and the collection agencies begin to call, all of a sudden that initial settlement offer that the insurance company made starts to look pretty appealing. And so you settle, all while having no idea whether you are even getting a fraction of what you could have received because the insurance company is under no obligation to tell you exactly how much that could possibly be.

Fortunately for car accident injury victims in Maryland, the guessing game is now officially over.

As of October of 2011, insurance companies will be required to say what their policy limits are before a lawsuit is filed, provided that the accident victim presents the insurer with the following information:

· When the car accident happened (date, time)

· Name and address of the person that (allegedly) hit you

· A copy of the vehicle accident report

· Thorough documentation of health care costs related to the accident (medical bills,) documentation of loss of income (pay stubs or a letter from your place of employment)

We know that seems like a lot to go through, and that’s because it is a lot to have to go through. But if the end result is that you get information that helps your attorneys avoid guesswork and helps shave time off of the lawsuit process, then this can't be anything but good.

Here is a link to the bill, which became law in October of 2011. If you get injured in an auto accident in Maryland that wasn’t your fault, and if you attempt to find out the limit of the coverage of the person who hit you, the insurance company very well might tell you that it “isn’t our policy to comment.” But if you present them with the all the forms listed above, you can quite easily tell them “It’s the state of Maryland’s policy that you will comment.” You will have important information, which can give you a better idea as to you should proceed. Are you getting a fair settlement offer or not? Now you will know.

Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been hurt in car crashes due to no fault of their own. If you or a loved one has been injured in a car accident in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free consultation today.

Children's Money In A Car Accident

Greenberg & Bederman — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:53:16 -0500

There have been plenty of stories of actors in Hollywood who go from being really big stars to really big tragedies. The work dries up, the big paychecks stop coming in, and then they find themselves owing way more than they are worth. A recent article in USA Todaynames Lindsey Lohan, Nicholas Cage and Lionel Ritchie among many others as owing quite substantial amounts of money to the IRS.

One particular subset among Hollywood stars that seem to have it even rougher is child actors. One of the major reasons that their earnings dry up is because what made them marketable when they were children doesn’t necessarily stay the same when they get older. It is a difficult transition for many of them to make, and some of them don’t make it at all. But it is certainly not as bad for them as it used to be.

There are horror stories from the early days of Hollywood of parents of child actors who simply squandered all of their children’s earnings. One in particular was Jackie Coogan, who some of you might remember as Uncle Fester from the Addams Family, but who got his start as a child actor who worked with the likes of Charlie Chaplin. He was also one of the first faces to be internationally merchandized, with his face appearing on all sorts of products. In other words, he made a great deal of money.

But according to the laws of the day, every single penny of that money went to his mother and his stepfather, who viewed the money as rightfully theirs, and treated it that way. By the time Jackie Coogan was old enough to claim it, there wasn’t anything left. It had all gone to jewels, cars and vacations. For her part, Coogan’s mother had absolutely no guilt or regret about her actions. “No promises were ever made to give Jackie anything. Every dollar a kid earns before he is 21 belongs to his parents. Jackie will not get a cent of his earnings.”

As a result of this case, the California passed what was called “The Coogan Bill,” which required that a certain percentage of the money that a child actor earns is put into a trust fund. Since then the law has been amended to include the majority of the child’s earnings, which can be accessed when the child turns 18. Most states have equivalent laws on the books, and the principal is the same. If your child either earns or is awarded money, that money belongs to the child. It is not yours.

The reason we are bringing this up is because sometimes there is confusion over how financial judgments and settlements won by children are supposed to be handled in Maryland. The answer to that is pretty simple. If it’s under $5000, the money goes to the parents to use for the child’s benefit as they see fit. If it’s more than that, it is to be placed into an interest bearing account and it is not to be touched. Parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, foster parents or other legal guardians can’t get near it, under most circumstances.

If you have a child who has been injured in an accident, and he or she receives a financial judgment or settlement, you should view the money as not existing at all.

It’s important to separate yourself from it. Money earned in a settlement or judgment should not be considered a “windfall” or a “jackpot.” In the first place, that money is there not because your child was Jackie Coogan, or MacCauley Kulkin, or Justin Beiber for that matter. That money is there because something awful happened to your child due to someone else’s negligence or incompetence. If the damage that happened to your child is lasting (in other words, if there was brain damage or permanent physical disability,) then he or she will most definitely need every penny of that money for therapy, care, and other related expenses. Taking away from those funds because you might need to fix the roof on your house is not a good way to go about handling the money, and fortunately in Maryland, it is nearly impossible for the parents to get the money.

We are sure that every one of our clients has the best interests of their children at heart, but we are also certainly mindful of the dim economic climate that exists out there. Everybody could use more money. And if times get tough, it is only natural for your mind to start drifting towards a settlement that your child received. But believe us when we tell you that even if it were possible to get the money, it would not be worth it to know that you have taken directly from your child’s future.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance for those who have been injured due to no fault of their own. If you or a loved one has been injured in a car accident or due to medical malpractice, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation.

Cars That Drive Themselves

Greenberg & Bederman — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:14:30 -0500

Do any of you remember a movie called Minority Report? It was a science fiction movie that came out about ten years ago. The premise was that the police were able to stop crimes before they happened thanks to the use of clairvoyants who were able to predict the future.

It was a pretty unlikely scenario, and not really all that great of a movie. But one part of it that stuck out for us was the futuristic depiction of all the cars. They did all the things that you would expect of futuristic transportation. They flew through the air, they drove themselves, and they even dropped you off right at the front door of your apartment.

We are pretty far away from flying cars. In the 50’s we thought we would have them by the 90’s, by the 60’s we thought that we would have them in the early 21^st century, and so on and so on. But the practical application of cars driving themselves is becoming more of a reality.

One early demonstration of an autonomous car happened about two years ago. It was a demonstration put on by engineers from Google. A car literally drove itself, and did so in traffic. And a recent display at the New York Auto Show gave us an idea of what we can expect over the next decade or so. The idea is that cars will have sensors that automatically link up with sensors in other vehicles, which will automatically regulate speed and space between traffic. There are already cars that feature sensors and will automatically apply the brakes if need be.

As car accident attorneys, we are big fans of all of these technological developments. We love the idea of the Beltway being a serene and safe road as opposed to what it is now. But before we get too excited, we should remember that we are now in that dangerous spot where technology that distracts us is more prevalent than technology that makes us safe. We might be getting towards an accident free world with automated cars, but we certainly aren’t there yet. The problem is that some people seem to believe that we have already arrived.

People all over the country routinely do things that distract them from the road in front of them. They text friends, download apps, and stare at the moving blue dot on their iPhone GPS system when they should be keeping an eye on what is happening in front of them. In short, they act like the age of autonomous crash free vehicles is already here.

“Texting while driving” is really an all-encompassing term, mainly because people can use their phones for much more than that. But whatever people choose to do with their phones doesn’t really concern us as much as what happens while they use them.

If you need any proof that distracted driving is dangerous, just take a look at the numbers that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration collected after 2008:

“…driver distraction was the cause of 16 percent of all fatal crashes -- 5,800 people killed -- and 21 percent of crashes resulting in an injury -- 515,000 people wounded.”

That’s just under 6000 people killed and just over half a million injured, and that’s only in a year. It might seem surprising, but it shouldn’t be. In the amount of time it takes for you to send a one or two word text, you have traveled about the length of two football fields. That’s a long way to travel without looking at where you are going.

We are as excited about the idea of self driving cars as anyone else, but until they actually get here, remember that your primary job as the driver of an automobile is to keep your eyes on the road. Distracted driving is an incredibly dangerous and irresponsible thing to do. Keep your phone in your pocket until you get to your destination.

Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured in car accidents due to no fault of their own. If you or a loved one in Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C. has been hurt in an accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today.

Alec and Tort Reform

Greenberg & Bederman — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:05:23 -0500

Awhile ago, we did a piece on a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC for short.) Basically, ALEC functions as a clearing house between elected officials (who are not charged very much for membership) and corporations (who are charged a great deal.)

If these folks just sat around and played ping pong, this wouldn’t be much of a story. But what does happen at ALEC is that corporations essentially hand over legislation that they have written themselves to willing local, state and federal representatives. That includes state delegates and state senators, as well as actual congressmen. It’s a scenario where an elected representative doesn’t even have to do anything at all except show up, pick up some pre-packaged bit of legislation and then file it in his or her respective state house or on Capitol Hill.

The legislation is inevitably something that makes things easier for corporations and more difficult for you. It is usually where “tort reform” legislation comes from, or where “mandatory arbitration” legislation is born. Both of these types of legislation have been turned into law in multiple states, and as a result it is becoming more and more difficult for you to sue your doctor if you get injured. If you feel that you have been wronged by an employer or a wireless carrier, you have no legal recourse other than the one that they set up, which is often a mandatory arbitrator chosen by the employer or wireless company ahead of time.

ALEC has been in the news a great deal lately, and not in a favorable way. What caused this sudden interest was the incident involving Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.

There isn’t much to say about that tragedy that hasn’t already been said, but what is important is that people who were outraged over this incident took a look at Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law and began to wonder where it came from. This led them to the American Legislative Exchange Council.

To be sure, ALEC has never really advertised what it is that they do, but they haven’t exactly been a secret organization. They are open about what they do, but not who they are doing it with. They are more along the lines of a group that only certain people know about, and that’s exactly the way that they like it. Willing politicians can meet up with eager corporations or groups and have ready-made legislation to put into play. Why clutter the process up with plain old regular people?

But now, everybody knows what ALEC is and knows what they do. They don’t like the “Stand Your Ground” law, and they like the idea of their representatives taking marching orders from large corporations even less. So what we have seen over the past few days is an exodus of high profile members of ALEC almost solely due to public pressure.

Nobody wants to be associated with a group whose sole objective is not to protect the free market, but rather to use our democratic system to protect the profits of its members with the help of complicit government officials. And they do so completely in the dark. Membership lists are confidential, and so is model legislation. In fact, by the time the average person knows anything about ALEC’s “model legislation,” it’s usually already a state law.

“Caps” on non-economic and punitive damages (which essentially price the non-wealthy out of the courtroom) came out of ALEC. Same with the so-called “good Samaritan” laws that make it impossible for you to sue emergency room physicians, even if they demonstrate perfectly abhorrent instances of incompetence. Most of these laws that keep you out of the courtroom and help the insurance companies stay rich were written by insurance company lawyers and given to state legislators as “model legislation.”

We want to stress that there is nothing technically wrong about this. There is nothing on the books requiring state legislators or congressmen to write their own legislation. But we think this sudden show of daylight on ALEC and the subsequent bailing out of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Intuit and other organizations from ALEC’s ranks brings up an important point. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean that it’s right. Many of these corporations are perfectly fine with writing their own legislation, right up to the point where people find out about it. If that level of embarrassment doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the sorts of things that ALEC does, we don’t know what will.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. based personal injury law firm. We are currently offering legal assistance to anyone who has been injured due to no fault of their own. This includes car accidents, medical malpractice, public transit injuries and injuries due to faulty or dangerous products. If you or a loved one in D.C, Virginia or Maryland has been injured due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

Obama Care and Broccoli

Greenberg & Bederman — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 08:44:52 -0500

As most of you know, the Supreme Court recently heard arguments on President Obama’s signature piece of legislation, which would be the Affordable Care Act. Even before it was enacted into law, critics have been referring it to “Obamacare,” probably to associate any negative feelings that people have with the president to the actual law itself. That particular tactic isn’t new. Back in the Clinton administration, opponents of his brand of health care reform called it “Hillarycare” because President Clinton’s wife had a significant amount of influence on developing the legislation.

The argument that was laid before the Supreme Court was the “mandate” element of the law, which states that you are required to purchase health insurance. Conservatives viewed this as government over-reach because it essentially forces people to purchase a product. The comparison used by a few of the Supreme Court justices while questioning the Solicitor General was “broccoli.”

That is not a joke. The premise put forth by the Justices was essentially “If the government can force you to buy health insurance, what’s to stop them from making you buy broccoli?”

There are many things wrong with this comparison. In the first place, it assumes that health care is just another product, when in fact it absolutely is not. But let’s pretend for a second that broccoli and health care coverage were identical things. If they were, buying broccoli would be a nightmarish and unfair process.

There would be $700 “stalk and flower” premiums that change with the whims of the people who grow the stuff. People who might need more broccoli in their diet would be placed in a “high risk” category, and would be charged five times as much for the same amount of broccoli. And someone who looked like they might have an allergy to broccoli somewhere in their family’s DNA would be rendered “too high risk,” and would be unable to purchase it at all.

The only reason health care is considered a “product” is because we are about the only western civilized country that has made medical care into a commodity. The fact that unnecessary middlemen make tons and tons of money off of it is the only thing that makes health care similar to cars, DVD players, Frisbees, orange juice or broccoli.

For one thing, you can go your entire life without ever having to eat broccoli. (It might take some doing, and some scrutinizing of every restaurant menu, but it’s possible.) Health care is the one thing is this country that everyone will use, whether they have the money to pay for it or not. Everybody has been to the doctor at one point or another in their lives. And we mean everybody. It’s impossible to find someone who hasn’t.

One of the major arguments against any kind of health care reform is that we somehow might drift into a situation where people are made to pay for someone else who isn’t working as hard, or isn’t working at all. “I work hard,” opponents say. “Why should I have to pay for the slackers and the moochers who don’t have enough sense to purchase their own coverage?” We hate to break it to those people, but you are already paying for them, regardless of whether they have insurance or not. Everyone who has an insurance policy has someone else on that policy that is out of shape, overweight, smokes a pack a day, doesn’t exercise, etc. When that person gets sick, his or her health care is paid for by your premium dollars. It should also be mentioned that you pay for people who don’t have insurance, whether you like it or not. People without insurance go to the hospital all the time. They get treated and then promptly ignore the avalanche of medical bills that get sent to them. Since the hospitals can’t collect from them, they collect from the people who actually do pay for medical care, which would be the insurance companies. They raise the prices for everything to make up the difference, which causes the insurance companies to raise their rates, which causes more and more people to be unable to afford coverage, which leads to more and more of those “moochers and freeloaders” that people who are against health care reform complain about.

The Affordable Care Act makes people buy insurance. But by increasing the number of people in the insurance market (in other words, people buying in to the system,) hospitals and insurance companies will have no excuses for jacking up the cost of everything since everything will be paid for. It should also be mentioned (and this is REALLY important to us) that insurance companies will no longer be able to engage in the soulless and abominable practices of arbitrarily refusing to pay peoples medical costs, kicking people off of their policies for having the audacity to actually use them, and refusing to cover people because they will probably need to use the insurance at some point in the future.

If the Supreme Court overturns the Affordable Care Act on the grounds of “liberty and freedom,” then what they are offering us is the “liberty and freedom” to have our medical bills rejected arbitrarily. We are getting the “liberty and freedom” to go bankrupt due to medical costs. And we are getting the “liberty and freedom” to be unable to afford any coverage at all, which in turn gives hospitals and insurance companies the “liberty and freedom” to raise the rates for everybody.

Health care is not broccoli. It isn’t even close.

Greenberg and Bederman is an insurance law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We have handled thousands of insurance legal claims with bodily injury over the last 26 years. We are currently offering legal assistance to people in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area who have been injured due to the negligence or incompetence of a doctor, surgeon or other medical professional. If you or a loved one has been hurt due to medical malpractice in Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C, contact Greenberg & Bederman today for a free consultation.

Speed Cameras

Greenberg & Bederman — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:05:54 -0500

Like most people, we aren’t big fans of receiving speeding tickets. No matter how conscientious a driver you try to be, there always comes a time when you find yourself moving a lot faster than you should be. Most of the time people find themselves going over the speed limit completely by accident. They miss a speed limit sign, or the road goes slightly downhill for awhile and gravity takes over. The vast majority of adults out on the road have long since gotten over the urge to “floor it.”

However, the truth of the matter is that just because you didn’t mean to speed doesn’t absolve you of driving over the speed limit. And as attorneys who offer legal assistance to car accident injury victims, we can tell you that most of our clients who were severely injured in car accidents were hurt by other drivers who were speeding.

The damage that can occur in a car accident can change dramatically over increments of only a few miles an hour. Along with a careful survey of the road and the landscape, this is the reason that speed limits are normally raised or lowered by five or ten miles an hour. An accident that happens at 55 miles an hour could be one where everyone walks away unhurt, but an accident at 65 miles an hour could cause serious injuries or worse. When someone uses “but I was only going five miles over the speed limit” as an excuse, it doesn’t carry much weight, mainly because those five miles an hour can be the difference between life and death.

We’re bringing this up because there seems to be a great deal of controversy over the new speeding cameras that have been put up all over Maryland, particularly in Montgomery County, which is our neck of the woods. We understand the controversy. At its worst it seems like something out of Orwell’s 1984to have automated cameras monitoring your speed and penalizing you when you go too fast, and at its best it just seems like some sort of dirty trick.

While we understand what people don’t like about them, we also have a pretty good understanding of why they are there. For one thing, police can’t be everywhere at once, and there are places where speeding can be a heck of a lot more dangerous. One place where cameras are set up is in work zones, where construction workers are quite literally standing there doing their work. They don’t have airbags, anti-lock brakes or crumple zones to keep them safe if a speeding driver happens to hit them. Since the police rarely have the time or the resources to monitor drivers before they head into the work zone, cameras are doing that job for them. And since we have represented many people in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. who have been injured in pedestrian accidents, we think anything that helps prevent them is a good thing.

To be sure, there is certainly a revenue-generating element behind the use of these speed cameras. And it is quite a bit of revenue as well. Baltimore County made a little over $200,000 in revenue thanks to fines issued by speed camera violations, and that was only over five months.

The most important reason for these cameras is the safety element. And if you look at things from a purely economic standpoint, the fine that you get from a speed camera violation is peanuts compared to what it could cost you if you cause an accident because you are speeding.

Going over the speed limit when a camera is operating will cost you $40, and that’s if you pay it on time. The most it will cost you is $90. That might seem like a lot, but think about what it might cost if you cause a car accident with injuries involved. You might take the speeding ticket with pleasure. If you get into a car accident that wrecks the other car and causes the occupants to be hospitalized, you and your insurance company are on the hook for that, and the insurance policy that most people have only goes so far. It is almost a guarantee that if you have the minimum insurance and you cause a serious wreck, the difference between what your policy covers and what the accident costs will be paid by you.

We don’t like speeding tickets any more than you do. But we like handling catastrophic car accidents where people get seriously hurt even less. So in our opinion, the best way to handle speed cameras is to simply obey the speed limit.

Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident injury law firm located in Montgomery County, Maryland. We have provided legal counsel for car accident victims in Washington, D.C, Maryland and Virginia since 1985. If you or a loved one has been hurt in a car accident due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident consultation.

Indiana Victims Get Additional $6 Million

Greenberg & Bederman — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:02:46 -0500

From WXIN, Fox 59, Indianapolis:

“More money is on the way for the victims of the Indiana State Fair stage collapse.

Governor Mitch Daniels authorized an additional $6 million for victims Wednesday. The money will be split among the estates of the seven people killed and the dozens injured.”

Well, that’s good, isn’t it? The fact that the state was able to discover more money in the budget for people who were either terribly injured or for the families of those who were killed is positive, right?

Well, yes and no.

To be sure, the folks who are recovering from this utter disaster probably need all the money that they can get. But considering that the initial amount of money that they can receive was already limited, and since the pool of victims was so wide, that additional $6 million probably won’t amount to much.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this particular disaster, it happened on August 13, 2011 at the Indiana State Fair. High-velocity winds caused an enormous stage to collapse between acts at a musical concert. Seven people were killed and 43 were injured, many of them severely.

It was a terrible tragedy, and it happened on the state of Indiana’s watch. There will no doubt be all sorts of finger pointing involving the people who set up the stage and the people who decided to keep the show going, but ultimately the responsibility lies with the state of Indiana. And that is exactly the problem.

We would like to think of states as being benevolent entities that do their best to look after their citizens, but in recent years state governments have taken their cues from profit minded private groups like corporations. The bottom line has become something that needs to be minded, no matter what the costs to the well being of the general public. So just as private corporations have lobbied for caps on damages in the event that they are found liable for injuries to the public, states have done the same.

Indiana has a $5 million cap on damages that arise from a single event. Bear in mind that this isn’t $5 million per person. This is $5 million per event. So for the sake of argument, let’s say that a public power line falls on a public swimming pool because the power line has not been properly maintained. All of the theoretical victims of that event (and their families) would only be entitled to a maximum of $5 million. If there were forty people in that pool, then each one of those people, whether they survived or not, would only receive $125,000. And that’s under optimal legal conditions.

For those who survived this theoretical electrocution, $125,000 might cover their time in the emergency room, but then again, it might not. For the family members of those who died, $125,000 might be a poor equivalent for the life of their loved one, particularly if that person was the primary earner in the household.

If we use this formula of $5,000,000 and apply it to the 50 casualties involved in the stage collapse, each victim gets $100,000. That’s even less than the swimming pool scenario. If you add the $6 million that the state “found,” then each person would theoretically get $220,000. But the divvying up doesn’t actually work like that. They have to take all sorts of things into consideration to determine which victim gets how much. Was anyone injured in a permanent way? As in crippled? Were any of the people who died primary money earners, or were they simply “dependents?”

This is the sort of cruel and heartless arithmetic that has to be done in Indiana thanks to damage caps. It doesn’t matter if the divvying up process will leave everyone involved with funds that are completely inadequate to their needs. It doesn’t matter that Indiana was negligent and responsible. The cap is $5 million, and that’s that. After all, we don’t want anyone “gaming the system,” now do we?

Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C.personal injury law firm. We are current offering legal assistance to those who have been injured in an accident that occurred due to no fault of their own. If you or a loved one has been injured in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

Watching For Frivolous Lawsuits

Greenberg & Bederman — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:18:56 -0500

Like a lot of plaintiff’s attorneys, we keep a pretty watchful eye on the news. One particular method that we use is Google Alerts, which automatically sends us news that feature stories about topics that affect us and our current and future clients.

This means that we get a lot of stories about “tort reform,” which is what large corporations call the legal limiting of access to the courts of everyone except large corporations. That might sound like we are exaggerating, but we really aren’t. These new regulations that states are putting into practice are done under the guise of limiting “runaway lawsuits,” and to some extent they do, but they do so mainly by preventing almost anyone from receiving anything in a courtroom other than a symbolic victory. Symbolic victories are great when you have absolutely no financial worries in your life, but there aren’t very many of us who are in that position.

In many states, the only people who are winning lawsuits are people who are already wealthy in the first place. Thanks to “caps” on damages, anyone in these states who happens to be a low-income or even a middle-class individual simply won’t be able to afford the cost of seeing their case through the courts.

Through our Google Alert system of gathering news, we recently came across a story from KGO in San Francisco with a quote that we found particularly aggravating. The regional director of Citizens of Lawsuit Abuse spent a few column inches calling basically any lawsuit not filed by a corporation “outsized,” but then went on to say the following:

“… It doesn't take a runaway jury verdict to force a small business to close. A $10,000 verdict can be just as damaging to a small business as a multimillion-dollar verdict is to a large corporation."

We have noticed that lately there has been a tendency to mythologize anyone who owns a business as a saintly and blameless individual. The current adoring name for them is “job creators,” as if they were fragile and benevolent beings who descended from the sky. They are all like Johnny Appleseed, wandering around the country with a big bag of money and providing generous employment to everyone, and to even hint that they might be doing anything wrong is simply blasphemous.

This is the exact mindset that comes blazing out of that quote in the KGO story. How could we allow a business to suffer a verdict of even $10,000? They create jobs! This plague of lawsuits must be stopped!

It’s a ridiculous sentiment. The fact that you own a business does not give you automatic immunity if your business does something that hurts people. The fact that you are a doctor does not absolve you from responsibility for your mistakes. The fact that your corporation provides thousands of jobs does not mean that you are automatically blameless when dangerous products come rolling off of your assembly lines. But in case you haven’t picked up on it yet, tort reformers are all doing their best to make sure that immunity and absolution for the rich trump justice for those who are not.

By limiting the amount of money that plaintiffs can receive (we don’t say “win,” because that implies it’s a stroke of fortune rather than a legitimate request for restitution,) they are essentially pricing them out of the courtroom. Your average low income or middle-class person can’t afford to pay the three or four figure hourly wage for a law firm. Instead, they contact us or attorneys like us, who work on a contingency basis. What this means is that we offer to represent them and take on the costs of the trial (and there are costs, sometimes substantial ones) in exchange for a percentage of the judgment. If the case is unsuccessful we don’t get anything, which is only fair considering that our client won’t either.

If the amount that the plaintiff can receive is less than it costs to take the case to court, the only people who would represent them are charitable organizations, and as much as we would like to be one, we aren’t. We can’t afford to be. Corporations, however, can afford to keep law firms on retainer.

We encourage you to think about what it means for you when politicians and tort reform organizations give starry-eyed and reverential speeches about protecting job creators and frivolous lawsuits. None of these new regulations benefit you in the slightest. In fact, they actually harm you. Remember that when it’s time to go to the polls in November.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Maryland personal injury law firm. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured due to no fault of their own. If you or a loved one in Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C. has been injured in an accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today.

Surgeons Who Drink

Greenberg & Bederman — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:57:08 -0500

Does anyone remember the show “M*A*S*H”? For those of you who happen to be in their twenties or younger, it wouldn’t surprise us if you have never heard of it. For those of you who happen to be older, it would surprise it if you hadn’t heard of it.

It was an extremely popular television show about a mobile army surgical hospital (hence the name) that was in operation during the Korean War. It ran for eleven seasons between 1971 and 1983. The final episode drew an astonishing 121.6 million viewers.

In other words, this was one of the most popular television shows of all time. We remember watching it and enjoying it sometimes, but there were a few points about the show that bothered us. We realize that it was television, and that to truly enjoy it we were supposed to suspend disbelief, but a few of us here at Greenberg and Bederman paid attention in history class, and noticed the following discrepancies.

First, the Korean War lasted two years, from 1950 to 1952. The television show lasted for about eleven and a half years. If they wanted a bit of realism in regards to the timeline, they should have chosen Vietnam.

Secondly, we couldn’t help but notice that the two main characters Hawkeye Pierce and B.J. Hunnicut had some interesting hairstyles considering it was supposed to be 1951 and they were supposed to be in the Army. Even civilians in the 1950s had hair that was either buzz cut or slicked back. Our two heroes in “M*A*S*H” had floppy 1970’s hair that appeared to be blow-dried. One of them even sported a vintage mid-1970’s mustache, which would have been perfectly acceptable if the setting wasn’t supposed to be the early 1950s.

The timeframe and the hairstyles were enough to make us like the show a little less than we would have normally, but what clinched it for us was the fact that these people were supposed to be surgeons tending to seriously wounded patients, yet they were drunk for a substantial percentage of all of their waking hours.

Hawkeye and B.J. had a working moonshine still in their tent. Colonel Potter, who was supposed to be the authority figure at the camp, kept a bottle of whiskey in his desk drawer. Practically every spare moment for these characters was spent in the officers club bellied up to the bar. As medical malpractice attorneys, we know enough to know that the last thing any injured person wants is a doctor, surgeon, nurse or ambulance driver with whiskey on his breath.

So for the past thirty years, whenever we saw an old re-run of the show and the drunken hi-jinks that ensued, we always considered the drinking as just another bit of non-realism. But according to a recent survey, it turns out that the television portrayal was more accurate than we thought.

“MONDAY, Feb. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Alcohol use disorders are a significant issue among U.S. surgeons, a new national survey reveals.

The online, anonymous poll indicated that 15 percent of surgeons appear to suffer from alcohol abuse or dependence: nearly 14 percent of male surgeons and 26 percent of female surgeons.”

This is not to say that surgeons everywhere are taking nips from flasks before they do open heart surgeries. But these numbers are more than a little startling, and enough to make us not believe anyone who tells us that they are “nothing to worry about.”

There isn’t anything much more precarious than a surgical procedure. The surgeon is the equivalent of a tightrope walker, except if he falls, he isn’t the one who gets hurt. Even one drink can significantly affect your reflexes and reaction time, and considering the amount of coordination and intensely sensitive work that goes on in even a minor surgery, there should be nothing going on to impede the surgeons abilities.

It should also be considered what happens to alcoholics when they aren’t drinking. People who are problem drinkers often suffer from body shakes when they are going through alcohol withdrawal. Is that the sort of thing that you want a surgeon to go through in the middle of a procedure?

What is making us want to bang our heads against our desks about this is that in many states, a drunken surgeon probably wouldn’t have to face a case of medical malpractice. We aren’t joking. The reason for this is that thanks to a series of “caps” and arbitrary limits on damages in medical malpractice lawsuits in many states, most people simply can’t afford to see a medical malpractice case all the way through the court system. All the malpractice insurance company has to do is make the case cost more than the plaintiff could possibly win, and no medical malpractice attorney could afford to take the case.

This is what we have come to in states all over America. Citizens have decided to give unnecessary legal protections to those who need them the least while giving up legal protections for those who need them the most. And since surgeons in many states can quite literally operate without fear of legal consequences, is it any wonder there happens to be a bit of an alcohol problem among medical professionals these days?

Greenberg and Bederman is a medical malpractice injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured due to the actions of a doctor in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. If you or a loved one has been injured due to negligence or incompetence, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today.

Distracted Driving Wisconsin And P

Greenberg & Bederman — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:47:28 -0500

It is profoundly frustrating when people don’t get a perfectly obvious message. For instance, there is no conceivable way that anyone can say that smoking is good for you. Every bit of available evidence points to the fact that cigarettes lead to lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema, yet people still continue to either start smoking or continue to smoke.

There is also no way that anyone can make the argument that drinking and driving is perfectly safe. Study after study has proven that drinking and driving is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible, and the thousands of deaths and injuries that happen every year are certainly evidence enough. Yet people still get behind the wheels of their cars after having one, two or several drinks.

Human beings don’t seem to learn very quickly. We don’t think that it’s because we as a species are stupid. It’s probably more along the lines that we are blessed (and cursed) with a particularly strong strain of optimism. “Bad things happen to other people, not me.”

One example of this is the thoroughly modern and thoroughly dangerous trend of talking, texting or otherwise using your phone while operating a motor vehicle. There has been no shortage of studies done on how dangerous this practice can be, yet day after day we are presented with real world examples as to how dangerous distracted driving can be.

On any given day, 15 people are killed and over 1,200 are injured due to a distracted driving- related accident. In 2009 alone, 5,400 people were killed and 448,000 people were injured because of distracted driving. In 2006, the University of Utah put out a study claiming that drivers who used cell phones behind the wheel (be they handheld or handsfree) were as functionally impaired as drivers who had been drinking. The sheer number of people in this country who simply can’t wait until they get off the road before they send that next text implies that they aren’t taking either the studies or the high number of accidents seriously.

We would like to think that things would be done a little differently here in the D.C. area. By all accounts, Washington, D.C and the suburbs of Northern Virginia and southern Maryland are all areas where smart people congregate. There is a higher percentage of people with advanced degrees here than anywhere else in the country. But it appears that when it comes to careening down the road while otherwise occupied with a cell phone, there isn’t much of a difference between here or anywhere else.

A well-known blogger here in Washington, D.C. recently took his camera to a corner in Georgetown. P Street and Wisconsin, to be specific. He sat there for five minutes, with the idea of taking a picture of everybody who happened to be driving while either talking, texting or otherwise using a cell phone. Five minutes, five cars with phone-using drivers. Three of them were texting, two of them were talking. That means all of them had their minds on something else besides the road in front of them, two of them had one hand off the wheel, and the other three had one hand and both of their eyes off the wheel. And this was an average of one a minute.

We would like to be optimistic and say that this was just a fluke, but if you were to park yourself on any corner in Silver Spring, Bethesda, Arlington, Alexandria, Prince Georges, Montgomery County or the District, you would probably find the exact same scenario, which is every fourth or fifth driver doing everything except paying attention to the road.

As car accident lawyers in the D.C. area, we have represented enough victims of car accidents to know that texting while driving is never a good idea. It’s just as bad an idea as drinking and driving. There isn’t anything so important that it can’t wait until you aren’t going 70 miles an hour. Please don’t text and drive.

Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured in car accidents due to the negligence or recklessness of other drivers. If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a Free Consultation today.

Please Don't Text And Drive

Greenberg & Bederman — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 10:41:05 -0500