Articles Posted in Personal Injury

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “What should I do if I have been injured by another party but I can’t afford a lawyer?”

A man’s attempt to collect some money from the Washington, D.C. metro system ended up backfiring, instead earning him only criminal fraud charges. The incident surrounds Maurice Owens’ staged slip-and-fall inside a Metro subway station.

Initially, Owens told police that he slipped and fell on a banana peel while he was getting off an elevator at a D.C. Metro stop. He then sued the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for $15,000, hoping to quickly and easily cash in on a simple slip-and-fall claim. Owens claimed in his suit that a janitor had left the peel in the elevator and, as a result, WMATA ought to be responsible for the injuries he suffered as a result of the slip. Owens said that as a result of the fall he suffered serious injuries to his hip and leg and had to be transported to a nearby hospital for evaluation.

Unfortunately for Owens, the case would not prove to be as easy as he had hoped. Officials with D.C. Metro said they located security camera footage in the Potomac Avenue station which clearly shows Owens faking his fall on the banana peel. The footage reveals that prior to Owens walking in, the elevator floor was totally clear. After Owens enters, he is seen looking up at the camera located inside the elevator, then dropping something that had been in his hand on the floor. Immediately thereafter, Owens is shown falling on the item. The object that Owens dropped was later identified as the banana peel.

Owens’ fake slip-and-fall not only did not work out as he had hoped, but has now led to second-degree felony fraud charges. Many wonder whether Owens believed he would really get away with his scam given the multitude of cameras positioned in the area.

Continue Reading

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “Can I wait a few months to pursue a personal injury claim?”

In yet another twist in the ongoing saga of the dangerous Vortex rides at the North Carolina State Fair, police say they have now arrested the owner of one such ride. Authorities say that Joshua Gene Macaroni surrendered to police late last week on three felony assault charges related to the accident that left five riders seriously injured.

Officials with the Wake County Sheriff’s Office say that Macaroni, a 32-year-old from Georgia, turned himself in to face charges related to the October 24th accident involving the Vortex amusement park ride. Investigators say that as riders were just starting to get off, the ride jolted back to life and ended up dropping five people from heights of up to 30 feet.

Investigators have so far not released word on why they believe Macaroni might be involved in the accident, though they have said that his name is listed as the owner of the Vortex ride at issue. For his part, Macaroni’s attorney has said that he is puzzled about why Macaroni would be charged and says that his client intends to plead not guilty. Macaroni is currently free on $225,000 bond.

The recent arrest marks the second since the accident occurred a few weeks ago. The ride’s operator, an independent contractor named Timothy Tutterrow also from Georgia, was arrested several days after the incident and has also been charged with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

Continue Reading

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

In a recent and troubling episode in Spring Lake, North Carolina, one high school biology teacher is now without a job after she allowed students to share needles as part of an in-class experiment. The teacher, Miyoshi McMillian, was fired after officials learned that she had her students prick their fingers with lancing needles and then leave them on their lab trays for other students to use later in the day.

The horrible incident occurred because McMillian was teaching the student’s about blood types and the finger pricks were meant to allow the students to identify their own blood types. The problem was that rather than properly disposing of the used lancets, McMillian simply had the students wipe the used lancets off with rubbing alcohol before students in a subsequent class reused them. The problem with this approach is that alcohol is not always enough to kill certain blood-borne viruses such as hepatitis or HIV.

A spokesperson for the Harnett County School District said that the incident was troubling for all those who were informed about it. The district not only does not want children sharing needles, but also said that any type of human blood should be kept out of high school classrooms.

The incident only came to light because McMillian offered students who did not want to participate in the experiment a chance to leave the room and write a five-page paper. One girl, who said she was concerned about the exercise, then left them room and called her parents. The girl’s parents then called the school’s principal who later fired McMillian.

Continue Reading

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “Can I wait a few months to pursue a personal injury claim?”

According to police officials in Raleigh, NC, the operator of the Vortex ride that injured five riders last week is now facing criminal charges after it was discovered that he cut crucial corners regarding the safety of the ride. Police say that Timothy Dwayne Tutterrow has been charged with assault after it was revealed that he intentionally tampered with the ride to bypass several safety features, an act that may have been directly responsible for the serious injuries suffered by the five fairgoers.

Wake County law enforcement officials say police investigators uncovered evidence that clearly showed that Tutterrow had tampered with the ride. This may have led to the accident last week at the North Carolina State Fair where five people suffered serious injuries. According to a spokesperson for the fair, the Vortex started moving last Thursday while people were exiting the ride. The riders were then dropped from heights of up to 30 feet. Three of the riders remain hospitalized recovering from serious injuries.

Investigators say that Tutterrow has a criminal history including several previous busts for cocaine possession. Beyond Tutterrow’s actions, it has also been revealed that the Vortex ride in question suffered another technical problem four days before the accident. Just before the State Fair officially opened for business a safety switch that keeps the ride from operating unless seat restraints are engaged malfunctioned. The ride was temporarily suspended while workers repaired the problem.

Amazingly, as the fair was being dismantled on Monday another version of the Vortex ride injured a 35-year-old worker who was dismantling it. His leg became trapped and he had to be taken to a local hospital for treatment according to officials with the North Carolina Agriculture Department.

Continue Reading

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

One woman from Atlanta learned first hand just how dangerous smoking could be. Though the case of Elizabeth Wilkowski is different than you might be expecting given that the danger she saw was not due to lung cancer or other conditions related to cigarette smoking. In her case, an e-cigarette she had been using to cut back on the real stuff exploded and lit a large portion of her living room on fire.

The wild case has received national attention after Wilkowski says she had her eHit electronic cigarette plugged into her computer’s USB port to charge. While plugged in, the device suddenly, and without warning, began shooting flames across the living room, burning a hole in her carpet and sofa. Wilkowski was quick on her feet and moved her pets away from the area while wrapping her hand in a nearby towel so that she could get close enough to the computer to unplug the faulty device.

Wilkowski said once she had unplugged it from the computer the flames finally abated. She has since contacted the store where she purchased the e-cigarette and informed the owners of the incident. The store says it has pulled all eHits off its shelves. A company known as Shenzhen Seego Technology makes the cigarette in China.

While Wilkowski learned a valuable lesson about the dangers lurking in supposedly safe e-cigarettes, the industry is a massive one with more than three million such devices on the market today. Though no one believes exploding cigarettes are common, there have been more disturbing incidents than many people may realize.

Within only the last few months, stories of fires started by exploding e-cigarettes have been reported in California, Oklahoma, Arizona and Florida. Several people say that their houses nearly burned down due to battery explosions that occurred while their electronic cigarettes were charging.

Continue Reading

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “Can I wait a few months to pursue a personal injury claim?”

A recent airline accident at the Bangkok International Airport led to a bizarre cover-up attempt that ended up creating worse media attention than the accident itself. The incident involved a Thai Airways jet that skidded off the runway last week seconds after landing. The accident was thankfully not too severe, with less than 20 people out of the 288 on board suffering injuries.

According to news reports, once the airline had successfully evacuated passengers from the plane, the company almost immediately went to work trying to hide their connection with the crashed jet. Within hours of the crash, maintenance men wielding black paint brushes were spotted painting over the plane’s prominent purple and gold logo. In no time, all the identifying marks on the plane had been covered-up. Thai Airways believed that this attempt at “de-identification” would help avoid thousands of damaging photos being circulated with the company’s logo being associated with a crashed plane.

Unfortunately for Thai Airways, they forgot that this is the era of Instagram. In the current time of instant communication, pictures of the plane before, during and after the cover-up were beamed around the world, subjecting the company to even more negative attention than the relatively minor accident. Passengers began Tweeting images of paint crews and noted how botched the attempt to hide the plane was from a public relations standpoint.

The problem became even worse when a Thai Airways spokesperson came out in defense of the cover-up and said that the actions were only taken in accordance with crisis communication rules of the Star Alliance network it is a part of. Thai Airways said that all Star Alliance members (including United and US Airways) are required to de-identify any airplanes involved in an accident. Almost immediately after making the claim a Star Alliance spokesperson flatly rejected it as untrue, clarifying that no such guidelines exist.

Continue Reading

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “Do I have to sign a release allowing the insurance company to get my medical records?”

City Council members in Raleigh, NC say they are examining the current location of bike lanes and whether the lanes are so tight that bicyclists are actually put in harms way. The reason for the examination is that some bikers have complained about being injured by “dooring”, the term for what happens when a bicyclist runs into an open car door.

To help remedy the problem, a local cycling organization, Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC), suggests that laws be changed to say that it is illegal for a motorist to open the door of their vehicle on the side that faces moving traffic unless it is reasonably safe to do so. Though dooring might seem like a minor annoyance, BPAC leaders say that the practice can frequently turn deadly. BPAC says that they hope local lawmakers in North Carolina will make it clear that it is the responsibility of the person opening their door to be sure that the door has sufficient clearance.

BPAC leaders said that they are working at the local level to push for dooring changes given that North Carolina is one of only 10 states across the country without a dooring law already in place. A survey of state laws found that besides North Carolina, the following states lack dooring regulations: Virginia, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Tennessee and West Virginia. Even Alaska, where there are surely few instances of cyclists being endangered on congested streets, has passed an anti-dooring law.

One council member noted that cyclists must also have some responsibility for their own safety and use common sense to stay alert when they see an approaching vehicle has just parked. The city council considered the dooring proposal, but said that before they feel comfortable voting on the issue they would like to have staff gather statistical data on the number of accidents that involve dooring and how best to remedy the problem.

Continue Reading

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

A young woman from Pennsylvania has broken ground by filing a class action suit against more than a dozen men who were found to have viewed explicit images of her as a young girl. The victim of child pornography, Masha Allen, is now using a law that carries her name to try and collect at least $150,000 from each of 14 different men so far.

Masha’s story is an especially tragic one and begins when she was a five-year-old Russian orphan. Masha was adopted by a divorced Pittsburgh millionaire named Matthew Mancuso. Mancuso claimed at the time that he was adopting her to try and make up for the distance he felt between himself and his teenage daughter, when he was actually seeking to adopt a young girl for sexual purposes. Police say Mancuso, a successful engineer in his 40s, repeatedly raped and sexually abused Masha on camera, sometimes during trips to Disney World. More than 200 sexually explicit images of her were posted online and the FBI says they have since been viewed millions of times.

Thankfully the FBI located Masha back in 2003, at age 10. She’s now 20 and testified before Congress about how law enforcement failed her by never checking up on her wellbeing. In response, Congress passed a law that allowed for lawsuits against the sometimes-wealthy individuals who view child pornography. The law notes that victims are injured every time their images are illegally accessed, thus allowing even viewers and not just the actual perpetrators to be held liable.

Continue Reading

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

Though the issue may have slipped the minds of many people, the Toyota sudden acceleration case is back in the news as a federal judge this week finally approved a $1.6 billion settlement with the automaker. The approval was formally announced Friday in a major class-action lawsuit filed against Toyota.

The suit was filed to ensure that vehicle owners who suffered financial harm due to the recall were compensated. The settlement means that anyone who sold their vehicle at a loss through trade-in and resale programs will receive money from Toyota, a number ranging anywhere between $125 and $10,000, depending on the amount of depreciation.

The settlement marks the end of one major string of lawsuits against Toyota that began in in 2010. However, the recent settlement does not represent the end of all litigation surrounding the sudden acceleration issue meaning Toyota still faces potential billions more in payouts. The recent settlement does not cover those who suffered injuries or died as a result of the defect, likely even more expensive cases.

Another part of the settlement agreement means that Toyota will have to install safety upgrades in 3.2 million vehicles. The company will also create two $250 million funds to pay owners who are not eligible for safety upgrades and those who sold their cars at a loss. The terms of the settlement agreement also means that Toyota will pay $30 million for automotive safety research regarding unintended acceleration. Finally, the company agreed to create a special customer service program that allows eligible Toyota owners to have free repairs on certain parts for the next 10 years.

Continue Reading