BIRMINGHAM PERSONAL INJURY

PERSONAL INJURY

You never thought it could happen to you.

Without warning, a personal injury accident occurs and your life is changed.   Who do you turn to?  Clear Channel Radio Birmingham and The Shuttlesworth Law Firm are pleased to provide this community service page for anyone seeking information regarding a potential personal injury lawsuit.  Learn more about personal injury issues below – including nursing home abuse, tractor trailer accidents, product liability and things to remember.

Use the email box on the right side of this page to email your questions to The Shuttlesworth Law Firm– or call The Shuttlesworth Law Firm now at (866) 323-1411.

ABOUT PERSONAL INJURY

“Personal Injury Law” is a broad term that actually encompasses many different types of claims.  Typically, a personal injury case involves claims that a person or corporation acted negligently which resulted in injury or death to the Plaintiff.  In a typical personal injury negligence action, damages maybe recovered for past and future medical expenses, pain suffering, mental anguish, loss of wages or income, and other very case specific damages for loss of enjoyment of life, change in lifestyle, and other ways in which the Plaintiff’s life has been damaged or diminished as a result of the injury.

Typically, punitive damages are not available in a simple negligence case.  However, when it can be proven that the Defendant acted recklessly or “wantonly”, which essentially means that the Defendant recognized, or should have recognized, a dangerous situation and proceeded to act with disregard of the danger.  In this situation, a jury may be asked to award damages in order punish the Defendant for intentional or reckless wrongdoing, and more importantly, to deter others from similar conduct in the future.

The term personal injury may also encompass “wrongful death” cases which applies when a corporation or person acts negligently or wantonly, thus causing the death of another person.  Unlike virtually every other jurisdiction in the United States, Alabama’s wrongful death statute does not allow the recovery of any “compensatory” damages, which in the event of a wrongful death case would include loss of future earnings, loss of companionship with decedent’s family, and so forth.  Instead, the Alabama Legislature long ago expressed a belief that life is sacred and that no dollar amount can accurately be placed on a person’s life.  Rather, the Alabama Wrongful Death Statute allows that only punitive damages be awarded against a Defendant for causing the death of another person. For example, if a commercial transportation company allows an unqualified driver to operate a vehicle which has not been properly inspected or maintained, and these factors ultimately cause the death of another person, the jury will get to decide what amount would be appropriate to punish the Defendant trucking company for this dangerous conduct, and what amount would be sufficient in order to deter that company and others like it from conducting themselves in a dangerous manner in the future.  Ultimately, the size of the award in wrongful death actions depends primarily upon how badly the Defendant acted in causing the accident.

In addition to simple negligence claims for personal injury or wrongful death, there are many industries which are regulated in order to ensure public safety.  Companies that choose to engage in these industries, and avail themselves of the benefits and profits from their businesses, are required to comply with these regulations in their businesses.  Some examples are the commercial transportation industry, to which the Federal Motor Carrier Regulations apply, the pharmaceutical drug industry, which is governed by the FDA, manufacturers of certain products such as automobiles who must comply with safety standards in order to protect the public, and many others.  Typically, lawsuits against companies engaged in these various industries will focus to a large degree upon determining how a particular corporate defendant, and often its employees, disregarded safety regulations governing their industries, therefore placing profits above human life.

NURSING HOME ABUSE AND NEGLECT/MEDICAL LIABILITY

In Alabama, the statue known as the Alabama Medical Liability Act applies to all actions against providers of health care services.  In injury or wrongful death cases arising from neglect or abuse of the elderly in a nursing home, Defendants typically include the nursing home itself, often other entities set up as parents or subsidiaries of the nursing home which ultimately exercise control over the activities of the nursing home, and if appropriate, treating physicians and nurses whose conduct may have caused or contributed to the injuries or death.  Both federal and state regulations apply to the activities of nursing homes and the degree of care required with respect to the treatment and care of the elderly is clearly set forth.  The critical piece in these cases is understanding the medical chart sufficiently in order to determine where the violations of law occurred, and particularly those which ultimately caused or contributed to the injury or death.

TRACTOR TRAILER ACCIDENTS

The commercial trucking industry, at least with respect to interstate carriers, is governed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.  These are extensive regulations which ultimately ensure that the driver of such large and potentially dangerous vehicles is healthy, well qualified and well trained in order to safely operate these vehicles, and that the vehicles themselves are properly inspected and maintained for the benefit of the motoring public.  With respect to vehicles that are not engaged in interstate commerce, or because of size, weight or some other factor do not fall under the federal regulations, state regulations apply for the same purpose as the federal regulations, namely to ensure the safety of the motoring public.  Most states have actually adopted the federal regulations to apply to vehicles operated within the state, so most of the federal regulations will typically apply to commercial vehicles used in intrastate commerce.

As with other areas of the law involving regulated industries, knowledge of the regulations, knowing what the Defendant company must do in order to comply with the regulations, and knowing how to determine from documents and testimony whether or not specific regulations have been violated is critical in this type case.  Also critical is the preservation of physical evidence, including the tractor trailer involved, the other vehicle(s), markings on the road, crash debris, gouge marks, skid marks, documents required to be maintained by the commercial carrier and so forth.  In order to ensure the preservation of this evidence, it is important to take action at the earliest possible time following an accident so that persons in control of all of the evidence maybe apprised of their obligations to preserve the evidence for use in litigation.

PRODUCT LIABILITY

Product liability cases arise from injuries or deaths caused by defective products.  Essentially, the Plaintiff must prove that the product was defective either in its design or manufacture, that the defect rendered the product unreasonably dangerous, and in those cases involving defective design, that safer alternatives were available and feasible.  Again, there are engineering and design standards governing many products which must be met by designers and manufacturers in order to insure that their products are safe.  Probably the most common types of defective product cases involve defective automobiles which caused injuries or death, and defective pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices.  With respect to pharmaceutical drug litigation, product liability lawsuits often typically involve a claim that the manufacturer and distributor of the drug failed to properly warn of the risks and side effects associated with the drug.

INVESTIGATION

The investigation following any incident resulting in injury or death always is critical.  Obviously, investigations of tractor trailer accidents are extremely important due to the fact that there typically is a tremendous amount of physical evidence that can be obtained if the investigation begins early enough.  However, accident scenes can change very quickly, skid marks fade away, crash debris can be swept or blown away, gouge marks disappear and in general the surroundings of any particular place on the roadway changes over time.  A timely investigation also is critical to ensure the preservation of documents, correspondence, agreements and other evidence which may be discarded or destroyed unless the Defendant is promptly put on notice that a claim is anticipated, at which point they must preserve any and all evidence which could possibly relate to the incident at hand.  In cases where the Defendants are not put on notice of their obligation to maintain documents and other evidence, it is not uncommon that documents known to have been created and used were never produced, and vehicles involved are scrapped, repaired or otherwise “unavailable for inspection”.