Howard County Personal Injury News

If you are involved in a car accident, the first rule of thumb is to keep everyone safe. Make sure that no one in your car is injured. If no one is seriously injured, exit the vehicle after checking to make sure that no cars are coming. Often times, an accident will place your vehicles in a dangerous position. Be sure you get your bearings before jumping out of your car.  Sometimes one accident begets another and it is far safer to be shielded by your car than to be standing in the middle of an accident scene. If possible, drive your car to the side of the road to keep yourself out of the way of traffic.

Approach the drivers of the other cars involved in the accident, but remember to stay calm. After an accident, everyone involved will be shaken up, and thus level-minded thinking will be tremendously helpful. Additionally, no matter what happened, do not admit guilt at the scene.  Do not run to the other people involved and apologize profusely.  You can act sorry without saying you are sorry. After all, actions speak louder than words. Even if the accident was your fault, simply collect contact information from the other drivers and do not confess to anything until you speak with your insurance agents as well as your Maryland Auto Accident lawyers at Shapiro & Mack.

The most crucial information to gather from other drivers after an accident is their license plate numbers, driver’s license numbers, full names, telephone numbers and addresses. Also collect insurance information if possible. It’s a good idea to take pictures of the scene and damaged vehicles with your cell phone, so that you can properly document an accident for your insurance company and lawyers. Take pictures of the overall scene of the accident, as well as specific damage to your vehicle and the other vehicles involved. After collecting information from the other drivers and documenting the damage, call the police to file an accident report, and then call your insurance company.

If anyone involved in the accident has been injured, the very first thing you must do is to call 911. Use any first aid equipment or blankets that may be in your trunk to attend to injured people until an ambulance arrives.  If you have no blankets then use spare articles of clothing to assist any injured individual on the scene.

Next to safety concerns, the second most important thing to remember is that if any of your passengers, or the driver of your car, have been injured and you are in Maryland, you’ll want to contact your Maryland personal injury attorney at Shapiro & Mack as soon as you get to a safe place.

The personal injury team at Shapiro & Mack will work with your insurance provider to collect money from the at-fault driver to cover hospital bills and any other medical fees. They will also provide you with a FREE consultation and free case analysis. If you have a case there will be NO FEE IF NO RECOVERY!

Again, if someone is injured, do not admit fault in the accident until you have first spoken to your Maryland personal injury attorneys. The personal injury attorneys at Shapiro & Mack are seasoned professionals who have successful strategies for helping injured victims in any type of accident, and they’ll want to do the speaking on your behalf.

Everyone has heard about the infamous McDonald’s hot coffee case, where Stella Liebeck was scalded with third degree burns. And almost everyone has an opinion. Every so often, someone knows the actual details. Most though, just know that some careless woman spilled hot coffee on herself and sued McDonalds for millions. A Google search for “Stella Liebeck, hot coffee” pulls up thousands of pages and “hot coffee lawsuit” turns up over thirty MILLION!

Now a movie has been made called (drum roll please…) “Hot Coffee.” This movie, set to hit Sundance, explains why you know about this suit, why it’s part of the discussion over the civil justice system, and how it was used (and misused) for propaganda purposes. This is the blurb from the Hot Coffee Movie website (which also has a trailer for the film):

“Seinfeld mocked it. Letterman ranked it in his top ten list. And more than fifteen years later, its infamy continues. Everyone knows the McDonald’s coffee case. It has been routinely cited as an example of how citizens have taken advantage of America’s legal system, but is that a fair rendition of the facts? Hot Coffee reveals what really happened to Stella Liebeck, the Albuquerque woman who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald’s, while exploring how and why the case garnered so much media attention, who funded the effort and to what end. After seeing this documentary film, you will decide who really profited from spilling hot coffee.”

The documentary was selected today to play at the famed Sundance Film Festival. The festival picked just 16 films out of 861 submissions.

The Sundance site had this blurb on the film:

(Director: Susan Saladoff) Following subjects whose lives have been devastated by an inability to access the courts, this film shows that many long-held beliefs about our civil justice system have been paid for by corporate America.

The incident occurred in 1992, 18 years ago, and this one case still fuels debate. Why?  Is corporate America exploiting legitimate cases in order to protect themselves against negligence suits?  Are careless people taking advantage of the Justice system in order to get compensation when they do not deserve it?  As Maryland’s best Personal Injury law firm we would like to hear your opinion on this hot topic.  Whether you see the movie or not your opinion counts.  THE DEBATE RAGES ON!

The parents of a Rutgers University student who killed himself after his roommate allegedly used a webcam to spy on him during a tryst with another man have filed notice that they intend to sue the school.

Joseph and Jane Clementi, parents of Tyler Clementi, filed the notice on Friday. They have to wait six months to file the lawsuit over their son’s death, which became a symbol in a national outcry over the bullying of young gays.

In the notice, the couple said “it appears Rutgers University failed to act, failed to put in place and/or failed to implement, and enforce policies and practices that would have prevented or deterred such acts, and that Rutgers failed to act timely and appropriately”

The claim, first reported by The Home News Tribune of East Brunswick, did not list how much in damages the Ridgewood family would seek.

Rutgers spokesman E.J. Miranda said in a statement that the school is not to blame.

“We at the university share the family’s sense of loss of their son, who was a member of our community. We also recognize that a grieving family may question whether someone or some institution could somehow have responsibility for their son’s death,” Miranda said. “While the university understands this reaction, the university is not responsible for Tyler Clementi’s suicide.”

Lawyers for the Clementi family did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Clementi, an 18-year-old violinist in his first weeks of college, killed himself on Sept. 22, days after a roommate and another Rutgers allegedly used a webcam to peek at Clementi’s liaison with another man.

The suspects, Dharun Ravi and fellow freshman Molly Wei, were both charged with invasion of privacy and have withdrawn from Rutgers. Authorities say they’re weighing whether to charge them with bias intimidation.

Clementi’s death came amid a string of high-profile suicides of young people who were gay or perceived to be gay. Partly because of the way he killed himself – jumping off the George Washington Bridge connecting New Jersey with Manhattan – Clementi has become a face of the issue.

Some experts fear that his death may have sparked copycat suicides among other vulnerable young people.

This personal injury news update is brought to you by the Maryland Personal Injury law firm of Shapiro & Mack.If you or a family member have been injured in Maryland contact Maryland’s Best personal injury lawyers, Shapiro & Mack for a free consultation. NO FEE IF NO RECOVERY!