Charlotte Injury Lawyers Blog

Hoaxers “SWAT” online streamers with prank emergency calls

February 5, 2015 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

Joshua Peters was streaming the popular online games RuneScape and Clash of the Clans when his ten-year-old brother answered a knock at his family’s front door.

Within seconds, Peters told The Guardian, a London-based paper, his face was flat on the floor and police officers armed with rifles were towering over him. Peters said officers also pointed guns at his mother and little brother.

When he returned to his online games some fifteen minutes after a police SWAT team raided his family’s home, Peters tearfully told the some 60,000 gamers who were online that his mother and little brother could have been shot.

“They could have died,” Peters said, “because you chose to swat my stream.”

North Carolina law would discriminate against Richard Sherman’s son

February 3, 2015 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Are the laws or rules applying to a wrongful death claim different from a personal injury not involving death?”

If he knew any better, Seattle Seahawks star Richard Sherman’s son would be praying his dad never gets traded to the Carolina Panthers.Sherman’s son Rayden, born Feb. 5, does not know any better. He could not know—nor could any infant—that in North Carolina, unless his father takes certain legal steps to “legitimate” him, he cannot inherit from him.

Sherman is not married to Rayden’s mother, Ashley Moss. Media reports refer to Moss as Sherman’s “girlfriend.”

North Carolina law used to call Sherman’s son a “bastard.” That term was replaced by “illegitimate,” a term employed until 2013, when the legislature removed “illegitimate” from the general statutes, replacing the same with the phrase “child born out of wedlock.”

Injury lawyers voice concerns over specter of non-lawyer ownership of law firms

January 29, 2015 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Should I trust the insurance adjuster?”

The American Bar Association—prodded by American businesses like Legal Zoom, Inc.—is studying the issue of non-lawyer ownership of law firms.

In the United States, lawyers are generally prohibited from “creating, owning or managing law firms” with non lawyers. Multidisciplinary practices—or those practices that combine the provision of legal services with non-legal services—are greatly restricted.

This is not the case in the United Kingdom, the fount from which the United States’ Common-Law legal tradition sprang. In the United Kingdom, restrictions of non-lawyer ownership interests in law firms have largely been eliminated, leading to the development of so-called “alternative business structures.”

The United Kingdom lifted its restrictions on alternative business structures in 2007. Since then, by most accounts, it has encouraged the establishment of alternative business structures for largely the same reason that they are prohibited in the United States: for the benefit of clients.

The 2007 Legal Services Act—which lifted the prohibition against alternative business structures—was passed after a study of the legal industry in the United Kingdom revealed a glut of unmet but nonetheless needed legal services. The new Act focused on the functions of advocates as opposed to the identity of law-firm owners, restricting the performance of certain activities to authorized lawyers. Those activities include the right to appear as an advocate in court, to certify documents and transactions, to probate estates, administer oaths, cause the consummation of a transfer of real property and to conduct litigation.

Google exec’s Seeking Arrangement hookup leads to heroin-injection death

January 27, 2015 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Are the laws or rules applying to a wrongful death claim different from a personal injury not involving death?”

It took three months and a court order, but the Santa Cruz, California Police Department tracked down video taken onboard the yacht owned by Google X executive Forrest Hayes. Google’s top-secret “X” office is “where the firm makes unimaginable inventions like Google Glass and driverless cars a reality,” according to the Daily Mail and New York Post. Hayes worked there until his sudden death in November 2013.

Hayes, a 51-year-old father of five, met 27-year-old Alix Catherine Tichelman on the website Seeking Arrangement. Some media reports on the Hayes case say he was married at the time of his death, while others say he was divorced. CBS News reports that Hayes’ wife sounded the alarm when he did not return home on November 22.

No one disputes that Hayes met Tichelman on Seeking Arrangement. That site pairs wealthy so-called “sugar daddies” with younger, attractive “sugar babies” for “mutually-beneficial relationships.” The site pairs almost exclusively older men with younger women, according to the Huffington Post.

Hayes, a native of Dearborn, Michigan, had worked in the auto industry before joining Apple and then Google. After meeting Tichelman on Seeking Arrangement, Hayes exchanged texts and emails and met with her several times before an encounter on his yacht on November 22, 2013.

Even personal-injury lawyers are against frivolous lawsuits

January 22, 2015 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

A personal injury attorney who has found himself on the other side of at least two lawsuits—as a defendant—says he does not like the feeling and says lawyers who bring frivolous lawsuits should be sanctioned more often.

During a contentious trial in Queens, New York City in 2013, Dr. Michael J. Katz testified that he took ten to twenty minutes, on average, to conduct an examination of a patient. The plaintiff’s lawyer in the case “unveiled a surreptitiously recorded video [of Dr. Katz’s examination of the plaintiff] that lasted six minutes,” leading Judge Duane Hart to call Dr. Katz a “no good liar,” a “thief” and a “spy” with “little beady eyes,” according to Forbes.

Lawyer and blogger Ed Turkewitz reported accurately on what happened between Katz and Judge Hart, but he also “teed off on insurance doctors who perform ‘quickie exams that serve only to deny benefits to the injured[,]’” according to Forbes.

Katz sued Turkewitz, claiming that his blog post falsely implied that Katz had committed perjury. Turkewitz answered, claiming he had reported on the case accurately, and a judge agreed, dismissing Katz’s lawsuit.

Looming Medicaid change means some personal injury claimants may get nothing

January 20, 2015 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

If you think the courts are overflowing with personal injury lawsuits, you had better close your eyes for the next year-and-a-half. A looming Medicaid law revision is going to engender a flurry of personal injury lawsuits and settlements, according to an attorney in one of the most litigious counties in the United States.

Beginning in October 2016, all personal injury settlements in the United States will first be subject to a payback of medical expenses paid by Medicaid.

Edwardsville, Illinois-based attorney Todd Sivia said the change may result in claimants whose medical care was provided by Medicaid having to repay the entire amount advanced by the agency for medical treatment, even if that amount swallows up an entire lawsuit settlement.

Claimants do not have to repay amounts above and beyond a settlement if the settlement cannot cover all of the medical expenses incurred.

The change was passed with a late 2013 federal budget agreement, but its implementation was stalled until October 2016.

School-bus compartment door flies open, causing crash that injures 23 students

January 15, 2015 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” Is a tractor-trailer accident the same as an automobile accident?”

A storage compartment door on a Gaston County school bus opened suddenly on Wednesday, causing the school bus to overturn and injuring some 23 middle-school aged students.

State troopers who responded to the scene told WSOC that they did not think the bus was travelling the posted 45-mile-per-hour speed limit at the time of the crash. As of Thursday, the school-bus driver had not been cited, and troopers were mum on whether any charges were expected.

A student interviewed by WSOC said “he heard a loud squeaking noise coming from the bus right before the accident happened.”

One student said the last thing he remembered was a lot of people tumbling over him.

The driver of the school bus said she tried to close the storage compartment door and started to run off the road. The driver overcorrected, causing the school bus to flip on its side. Eleven students were taken to CaroMont Regional Health Center in Gastonia; four were taken to Carolinas Medical Center in Kings Mountain, and another eight were taken to local hospitals by their parents.

Same-sex spouse says 2013 DOMA decision means she is entitled to $400,000

January 13, 2015 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Are the laws or rules applying to a wrongful death claim different from a personal injury not involving death?”

The summer of 2013 was a joyous time for some same-sex couples. When the United States Supreme Court struck down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”)—a 1996 Act signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton that prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages—on equal protection grounds, same-sex couples across the United States became eligible for certain spousal benefits.

A few days before the DOMA decision, a woman named Lesly Toboada-Hall passed away after a long bout with uterine cancer. Hall’s wife—Stacy Schuett—received survivor benefits from FedEx—where Toboada-Hall had worked as a delivery driver for 26 years, but the company told Schuett she was not entitled to receive Toboada-Hall’s pension benefit because Toboada-Hall died six days before the DOMA decision.

Public and private employers as well as federal and state legislatures have struggled with the complex ramifications of the DOMA decision. In some instances, employers merely needed to change policies to comport with the decision, while in others, state and federal statutes and administrative rules were placed in jeopardy and needed to be modified.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 DOMA decision arose out of a case involving Edith Windsor—whose spouse Thea Spyer died in 2009. Windsor argued that she should not have to pay a $363,053 tax on Windsor’s estate. Federal law provides for an exemption from the tax for spouses. Although Windsor and Spyer married in Canada in 2007, under DOMA, spouses in same-sex marriages could not claim the exemption.

Definition of “humiliation” means no coverage under insurance policy for company

January 8, 2015 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “The insurance adjuster is saying I am partially negligent what does that mean?”

The owner of an Ohio dance franchise will have to defend against a lawsuit brought by angry customers on its own after its insurer successfully denied coverage under two insurance policies.

Peggy and Rick Lavinsky prepaid Christopher Cloud and his Fred Astaire Dance Studio a whopping $500,000 for ballroom dancing lessons, coaching, dance camps and other services. In December 2010, after Cloud abruptly closed the studio without providing notice to students, the Lavinskys sued, asserting claims under Ohio’s consumer protection laws and alleging fraud and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

In their lawsuit, the Lavinskys named Fred Astaire Dance System in Ohio, G & K Management Services, Inc., G & K’s president Guy Schiavone, and In Time LLC as defendants. G & K owned the Fred Astaire Dance System franchise. Cloud, who ran his own dance studio—In Time—became a Fred Astaire franchisee in 1990.

G & K and Schiavone were the named insureds under an insurance policy issued by Auto-Owners Insurance Company, and they were also “additional insureds” under an Auto-Owners policy issued to In Time.

When Auto-Owners told G & K that it would not defend the company against the Lavinskys’ claims, G & K brought an action against Auto-Owners seeking a declaration that the insurance company had a duty to defend G & K in the Lavinskys’ lawsuit.

“Parked” car accidents illustrate danger of being run over by your own car

January 6, 2015 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What if the accident was my fault?”

A spate of recent tragic incidents shows the dangers posed by motor vehicles do not end when we park them—or when we think we have parked them.

A tragic accident involving a “parked” vehicle took the life of a well-known New York realtor this past Saturday.

Realtor Jennifer Feuerman died on Saturday evening after she got out of her 2012 Mercedes Benz outside a house she had listed on Bowditch Lane in Center Moriches. Center Moriches is on Long Island, to the east of New York City.

Feuerman evidently left the vehicle running and forgot to shift the transmission to “Park.” The vehicle backed over Feuerman and pinned her under the driver’s side door, Suffolk County police reported. Feuerman, aged 50, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police impounded the Mercedes in order to conduct a safety inspection.

Also on Saturday, a 79-year-old woman in City, Idaho became trapped under her own car when it slid backward as she tried to get out. A 17-year-old boy who saw the incident tried to assist the woman, but police said the car pushed both the boy and the woman across the road and over an embankment, pinning them both under the driver’s side door. The woman suffered significant injuries, while the boy was able to free himself and summon help.