MN Personal Injury Cases: Suing as a Business or Individual Is the Best Choice or Worst Mistake to Make

Education and Assistance Are Vital to Success When Pursuing Litigation Involving a Business

Deciding to file a civil action is not a light undertaking for individuals, but businesses face far more complexity. Among the myriad choices is who should be the actual party that sues; who will be the plaintiff? You as an individual, the company, perhaps both, and perhaps neither. But first, a word of caution: there are scare few places where an attorney’s advice can better save you from a fatal mistake, but the following basic outline presents some initial issues at the outset:

• The configuration of injuries and remedies is a first point of evaluation. Good or not, it’s commonplace to name as defendants those potentially liable under any theory, easy to collect against, or able to pay a significant judgment. This is not reciprocally wise, because you want to be protected, not exposed.
• Injured plaintiffs make for successful plaintiffs. It ought to be straightforward: who was actually injured? Physical injuries are fundamentally personal, but contracts may commit multiple parties; those who get hurt usually know it. Who could benefit from a money judgment? Who would benefit from equitable relief, such as a preliminary or permanent injunction?
• Business entities should protect individuals. In most cases, a business is a shield over its principals and employees, precisely to protect their personal assets and way of life. This is a good thing. If the business was injured with some collateral injury to individuals, a well-structured business ought to be well-suited to protect the interests of owners and employees alike.
• Plaintiffs are also defendants in a counterclaim. Just because you file the action doesn’t mean you’re the only one prosecuting a claim. Under most rules of procedure, defendants may counterclaim against the plaintiffs over issues material to the complaint, and may have to to avoid claim or issue preclusion. Ask yourself whether you, or your business, would want to be subjected to discovery over someone else’s allegations or liable for collection on a counterclaim judgment.

The foregoing can serve far better as an introduction to problems rather than a recipe for blind solutions. An experienced attorney can help you maximize your chances of recovery and protect everyone’s assets from counterclaim liability by choosing the right plaintiffs for the right allegations by navigating these and many other issues.

If you believe you may have a personal injury legal claim arising out of the operation of your business, please contact us to discuss a free case evaluation. 

 

Taking an Interest In the Victim Can Help If Your Pet Bites Someone

If your pet bites someone, you’ll be exposed to immediate legal risk if the victim becomes injured. Fortunately, pet attacks are governed by ordinary civil law, but there are several major differences compared to most civil litigation. Recognizing the legal presumptions against you can help you focus on the nonstandard measures that are more likely to keep plaintiffs away.

In Animal Bite Cases, Some Trial Strategies Are Inherently Unavailable

As a preliminary matter, the effectiveness of your defense is handicapped from the start because of a few factors:

• Pets can’t give testimony. Fundamental fairness demands that those accused of wrongdoing be able to defend themselves in person, allowing judges and juries to judge their credibility and character without relying on the biased characterizations of others. Pets can’t defend themselves in this way.
• Pets are property. In the eyes of the law, your favorite pet has scarcely more rights than your favorite furnace. Pets are owned, the same as factory equipment, cars, watches, money, contracts, and patent benefits. Treating an animal fairly is not a natural instinct for courts.
• Wild animals are less than property. It is nigh impossible for some creatures to evoke sympathy from the law, judges, or juries. Viruses, bacteria, cockroaches and molds are surely at the top of the list, but wild dogs, deadly snakes, and crocodiles aren’t far behind. If a python you call a “pet” attacks someone and continues to act aggressively, the chances it won’t be shot on sight are virtually nil.

With So Few Defenses, the Best Strategy Is to Demonstrate Good Character If Your Pet Has Bitten Someone

What can you do? Because the fundamental protections of the law will not particularly help your pet be treated fairly, an alternative approach becomes attractive:

• Demonstrate your character by supporting the victim. The best way of avoiding a loss in court is never to get there in the first place. Because how things proceed substantially hinge on the victim’s anger and loss, build a personal relationship with them. You may even want to voluntarily help the victim financially, particularly if keeping your pet is more important than avoiding money damages. It will also demonstrate good faith to a judge if you do end up in court.
• Demonstrate your pet’s character through old videos. Once your pet commits an attack, no one will believe he’s always gentle, but if you can show a constant level of kindness through years of videos, it’ll give the victim or a court independent evidence that the attack may have been aberrant.

These efforts may not make much of a difference, but every bit helps. A pet’s death can be severely traumatic for a pet owner, but there is a stark reality you must face. Innocent, wonderful dogs and cats are euthanized all the time; most people are simply desensitized to animal death. Raising a gentle pet that’s comfortable around strangers may be the only effective prevention you can seek.

If your pet bites someone, your best defense is to seek the advice of a personal injury lawyer experienced in animal bite cases. 

Dispute Resolution: Litigation, Mediation, Arbitration – Who Decides?

If you need help with a legal problem, litigation conducted by an attorney may not be your only option. There are two common alternatives you may wish to consider: arbitration and mediation. Each has distinctive advantages and disadvantages, but being familiar with their basic parameters can help you decide which path to take.

Between litigation, arbitration, and mediation, the essential difference comes down to a single question: who decides? First, however, there’s a caveat: you may not have any choice at all. If your dispute is fundamentally over a written contract, it probably sets forth in specific detail how any disputes would be resolved. Decades ago, these provisions generally took for granted that disputes would end up in court—the real question tended to be which court in which state—but those days are over. The nearly-universal choice of businesses now is arbitration—and it generally doesn’t favor consumers:

• Litigation: judges, juries, and appeals courts decide—slowly. Unless your dispute is simple, you’re likely to win, and you’re willing to represent yourself, an attorney will be most people’s safe harbor for utilizing the courts. The process is lengthy, but arguably more fair: if you lose, you generally can appeal to higher courts.
• Mediation: the parties decide themselves—patiently. In fact, mediation and marriage counseling are not far apart. An independent facilitator, the “mediator,” works with the parties to understand each other and reach consensus.
• Arbitration: the “arbitrator” decides—quickly, and with no chance of appeal. Arbitrators enforce the law as it’s written. Whether this is good or bad depends, in turn, on whether the law is skewed against you. Corporations like arbitration because they write the contracts in their favor. When the law is against you, procedural fairness won’t help, because arbitrators don’t have to observe the rules designed to enforce it. Once the arbitrator decides you should lose on the merits, the case is over.

However, arbitration may not be a bad option for consumers when the law is clearly on their side, or when any underlying legal issues aren’t tilted against them. Because arbitrators are generally in the habit of finding in favor of businesses, you may have to make your case forcefully. If you want to preserve friendly relationships, mediation is attractive. If you have significant damages such as in the case of a personal injury, litigation is the most likely to result in equally significant compensation.

A Good Attorney Can Help You Collect on Difficult-to-Recover Civil Judgments

Your civil case is over and you’ve been awarded money damages, large or small. Too often, though that’s only the beginning, because actually collecting the money can be difficult and prolonged if you attempt to do it yourself. Knowing the circumstances likely to apply to your case can help you set expectations and allocate your resources effectively. Here are some common factors successful plaintiffs confront when they attempt to recover the money they’ve been awarded:

• The rules about collecting judgments are not uniform across states, or even across counties within the same state. If you want to learn the law, find out from any court clerk’s office whether there are any “local rules” that apply. You may have to go to the court in person to pick up a copy; they’re usually not online.
• A key step is discovering the assets a person has, and in most states you’ll be able to conduct discovery, requiring them to appear for questioning (depositions) or answer questions in writing (interrogatories).
• Above all, you’re looking for cash, in bank accounts, from paychecks, in cash registers, and so forth. If a debtor has a house or car, you can’t make them sell it and give you the proceeds. Obtaining someone’s car or antique desk may be fine if you want a car or desk—but liquidating it into cash will be your responsibility.
• A defendant can’t pay what he doesn’t have in the first place, but you can garnish a person’s wages, often up to 25% of each paycheck.
• A medium-sized or large business will probably pay immediately.
• The local sheriff often can help you collect, and in some jurisdictions is the only person that may pursue certain types of collection activities. When you try to seize the money in someone’s bank account or in a business’s cash register, it’ll probably be the sheriff who actually does it.

An attorney can be useful managing this process, and may work on commission instead of by hourly fees. This may not, however, be the same attorney who represented you in the actual case. When debtors are out-of-state, on the run, or are assisted by attorneys themselves, finding a competent attorney can make the difference between having a piece of paper and collecting the compensation you deserve.

As experienced personal injury attorneys committed to helping Minnesotans receive fair and just compensation for their injuries, we aggressively pursue recovery of judgments.   If you have a question about a pending or outstanding judgement you have received, please contact us. 

 

Avoiding Internet Identity Theft When Buying Online

Cyber Monday: the Monday after Thanksgiving when retailers want you to shop online for everything you should have bought Friday, but didn’t. It can offer enormous advantages over in-store shopping, but Internet identify theft is a poison pill that can make holiday shopping do more harm than good. A small number of sensible precautions will go a long way to protecting you from the risk of online exploitation any day of the year.

A safe online purchasing experience begins with the basics of being online at all: virus checking. A common virus, Trojan, or other  malware can erase your data or slow down your computer until it’s unusable. You can’t make safe purchases on the Internet if you can’t access the Internet in the first place.  Here are some specific steps to afford maximum protection:

• Buy from established merchants. There are thousands of online retailers who will gladly take your money, but you shouldn’t trust most of them. Indicators of a reputable online merchant include its age, amount of advertising on TV, level news media coverage, and whether it has traditional brick-and-mortar stores where you could also shop in person.
• Do your shopping from home or work. The Wi-Fi available in places open to the general public is convenient, and often free, but these are among the most dangerous networks.  Here’s a test – would you leave your wallet unattended in this place for an hour?  If not, you probably shouldn’t be using their Wi-Fi to shop online.
• Keep a strong password readily available. You’ll need to create a personalized account on most e-commerce websites. Just because you may only buy from a website once is no excuse for a weak password, because the account persists long after you’ve completed your purchases. Use a password at least 10 characters long with a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and punctuation symbols, and keep a written record of it somewhere at home (NOT on your computer).

Helpful as these steps should be, they can’t eliminate entirely the possibility of suffering economic injury from identity theft. If that happens, attorneys you trust can help you  assess the state of your online and financial safety and explore any opportunities for compensation through the courts which you may have as a result of identity crime.

 

Energy Drinks Pose Hidden Dangers

Anyone who has stepped foot into a gas station or the check-out line in a grocery store has noticed the explosion of pocket-size energy shots and energy drinks resembling soda.  Energy drinks such as Rockstar and Red Bull as well as small shots such as 5-Hour Energy promise concentrated jolts of energy.   The safety of these products is currently under scrutiny.  The FDA has received at least five reports of deaths related to Monster Energy use since 2009.

Due to rising concerns about safety of these products, many countries now regulate their sales or attempt to reduce the rate of purchase through heavy taxation.  Other countries such as Canada have set a limit on the amount of caffeine they may contain.  In the United States, some congressional members have pressed for a review of the entire energy drink industry.  The New York Attorney General currently is investigating several companies.  However, due to a regulatory gray area regarding disclosure of caffeine amounts, the Food and Drug Administration has not yet acted, claiming they do not yet have enough evidence to do so.  FDA studies of the products, however, continue.   But with the reports of the recent death of one teenage Monster Energy consumer, the agency is under increasing pressure to take action.  Monster Energy’s manufacturer disputes claims that its products are unsafe.

The bottom line is consumers deserve to know that the products they are buying are safe.   Then they can make informed decisions regarding their use.  The difficulty with energy drinks – as with some other products – is that sufficient information is not available, and it is feared that manufacturers are taking advantage of the situation by marketing unsafe products.

Injuries and sometimes fatalities can result from defective or dangerous products.  If you or someone you love have suffered ill affects from energy drinks or other questionable products, seek the advice of an experienced product liability attorney.

 

Fungal Meningitis Outbreak Still Critical

At least 111 clinics in Minnesota obtained drugs from a Massachusetts facility that is linked to the national fungal meningitis outbreak that has now turned deadly.  According to reports the clinics are located all over the state and not just concentrated in the Twin Cities metro area, which will create challenges for health officials in identifying and containing the outbreak. However, since only one steroid made by New England Compounding Center is involved in the current meningitis scare and while it appears that the outbreak has been correctly identified and isolated the FDA has warned that there is no guarantee that the other drugs produced by this pharmacy are safe.  It appears the investigation has just begun.

According to Minnesota Public Radio reports, health care providers have already been in touch with their patients who have been exposed to NECC products which are potentially contaminated with the fungus.  The Minnesota Department of Health receives daily calls about patients with meningitis symptoms who received other injectable drugs from NECC and they have been in the process of contacting those people they believe may be affected by the outbreak. Clinic officials have also been contacting state public health officials as patients present in emergency rooms and urgent care clinics with possible symptoms of fungal meningitis.

Although to date the only NECC drug linked to fungal meningitis, methylprednisolone acetate, there are possibly other contaminated drugs distributed by the facility.  The FDA is also investigating a transplant case in which a patient developed a fungal infection after being administered a cardiac solution from NECC.

This latest public health crisis is yet another reminder why this country needs a robust regulatory structure. Drug manufacturers face constant pressures to cut corners to produce more product at higher profits, and those priorities are in stark contrast to the public good. The public has no ability to police against contaminated drugs and these are problems a truly free market will correct only after dozens if not hundreds of lives have been lost. Some things just shouldn’t be left to that kind of market correction.

If you or a loved one believe you may have been given the steroid linked to the fungal meningitis outbreak, contact the attorneys at Lord & Faris for a free consultation.

17,000 People have been Exposed to a Tainted Steroid

We are writing to advise our many clients and friends to be aware of the possibility of contracting fungal meningitis if they have received a lumbar epidural steroid injection for the treatment of pain in the lower back, neck or other joints such as ankle, wrist, elbow, or knee.

If you have one of the symptoms listed below and were injected at one of the clinics listed, make sure you go to your doctor immediately to be tested for fungal meningitis. If you have been diagnosed with the disease, you may have a claim against the manufacturer and we encourage you to call us for guidance in a possible legal claim at 612-333-LORD (5673).

At least 17,000 people have been exposed to a tainted steroid that has been linked to fungal meningitis that has killed several people and sickened others.

The following clinics in the Metro area used the drug methylprednisolone acetate for the treatment of back, neck and joint pain:

1. MAPS-Edina Medical Pain Clinic in Minneapolis.
2. MAPS-Medical Advanced Pain in Fridley.
3. Medical Advanced Pain Specialists in Shakopee and Maple Grove.
4. Minnesota Surgery Center in Edina and Maple Grove.

The company that manufactures this drug is the New England Compounding Center (NECC) which is located in Framingham, Mass. The company has closed its business and recalled all its products.

Fungal meningitis is not contagious. The only treatment available is an antifungal drug; voriconazole or amphotericin B.   The incubation period for the disease to appear can be a few days to a month.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the signs to look for in a person with meningitis of subacute onset (1 to 4 weeks) following epidural injection on or after May 21, 2012 include the following:

1. Headache, fever, stiff neck, or photophobia and a cerebrospinal fluid profile consistent with meningitis (pleocytosis +/- low glucose, elevated protein).
2. A person with basilar stroke 1 to 4 weeks following epidural injection on or after May 21, 2012, who has not received a diagnostic lumbar puncture. These people, if possible, should have a lumbar puncture.
3. A person with evidence of spinal osteomyelitis or epidural abscess at the site of an epidural injection diagnosed 1 to 4 weeks after epidural injection on or after May 21, 2012.
4. A person with septic arthritis diagnosed 1 to 4 weeks following steroid joint injection on or after May 21, 2012. Clinically diagnosed septic arthritis meaning new or worsening pain with presence of effusion or new or worsening effusion.

While the CDC is only aware of infections occurring in patients who have received epidural steroid injections, patients who received other types of injection (e.g., joint injection) with potentially contaminated methylprednisolone acetate should also be contacted to assess for signs of infection (e.g., swelling, increasing pain, redness, warmth at the injection site) and should be encouraged to seek evaluation (e.g., arthrocentesis) if such symptoms exist.

If you or any of your family and friends have been treated for pain, please alert them or have them contact us with further questions at 612-333-LORD (5673).

 

Yours in Good Health,

Priscilla Lord Faris
priscilla@lordandfaris.com

Lord & Faris Law Firm

Heading Out to a Football Game? Enjoy the Fun, But Watch for Dangers

The sight of someone getting hurt at a football game is not uncommon, but unfortunately not every injury is down on the field.  As a football fan, you should be aware of potential dangers when attending the next game, because fan injuries (and sometimes fatalities) can and do happen.  If you’re aware of the crowd around you and the problem spots, you should be able to avoid getting into trouble.  Here are your top three hazards:

• Other fans:  Remember, the word “fan” is short for “fanatic,” and sports fanatics sometimes get a little out of control, and it’s even more threatening if you throw alcohol consumption in.  Wearing the wrong color jersey just might put you in the hospital.  Verbal harrassment can and sometimes does turn physical, so be aware of the fans around you.
• Weather:  While it’s usually not a factor in covered stadiums, if you’re attending an outside game, keep in mind that sunburn and frostbite can sneak up on you before you’re aware of it.  You may not be paying attention because you’re locked into what’s going on down on the field.  And in an open stadium if you’re sitting near the overhangs, you could get hit by falling ice.  And don’t forget to factor in the weather on your way to and from the stadium, both driving and walking.
• Escalators and Stairs:  Often these areas are the site of horseplay, which can be intensified with those who have been consuming alcohol.  In one tragic case, a man fell to his death at the Houston stadium when he tried to slide down a three-story handrail.

Note that for two out of the three above danger areas, alcohol can play a significant factor.  As you’re out enjoying the next football game – whether it’s high school, college, or NFL, be safe and be aware of potential hazards around you.  Fans, football, and alcohol can be a recipe for fun – or for injury. If you’ve sustianed a personal injury at a sporting event, contact the personal injury attorneys at Lord & Faris to see if you may be entitled to compensation.

 

Even Law Schools Can Face Trouble For Stretching The Truth

Even in the context of law school admissions and rankings the temptation to stretch the truth for a competitive edge can be too much. The University of Illinois College of Law must pay a $250,000 fine to the American Bar Association for inflating the academic credentials of its incoming students, under a censure the ABA announced on July 24.

It was the first time the ABA has fined a school for misreporting consumer data, and Villanova University School of Law is the only other school to have been censured for inflating its numbers in the past 25 years, a spokesman said.

The ABA’s Council of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar concluded that $250,000 was proportionate to Illinois’ wrongdoing and represents a “small fraction” of the school’s annual budget, according to the censure letter.

“The conduct of the University of Illinois College of Law in connection with the intentional reporting of inaccurate admissions data to the ABA and the public was reprehensible and misleading to law school applicants, law students and law schools, and damaging to the reputation of the legal profession,” the censure reads. “The conduct of the College of Law undermined and continues to undermine confidence in the accreditation process.”

The money will go into a fund the ABA uses “for monitoring and enhanced compliance with the data reporting and publication requirements,” the council said in administering the sanctions.

In another aspect of its censure, the ABA revoked Illinois’ waiver of an accreditation standard that requires schools to use the LSAT in admitting students. Illinois obtained the variance in 2009, allowing it to launch a program called iLEAP, which allowed certain Illinois undergraduates to gain admission without taking the test.

The ABA noted that the variance was not intended to help the law school bolster its U.S. News ranking, but that a university investigation concluded that the school used it to that end. The law school dropped 17 spots in the U.S. News rankings to reflect its accurate credentials, landing at No. 35.

There’s a name for this kind of practice: puffing. And when puffing goes to far, it’s fraud.

Need legal advice? Contact the attorneys at Lord & Faris and let us help.