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Archive for October, 2017

Insurance Investigations and Personal Injury

Posted on: October 30th, 2017 by pmilakovic No Comments

An insurance investigation can compound the stress and anxiety of an accident.  To evaluate your claim, insurance companies may deploy investigators.  These investigators are hired to determine whether your claim is valid.  They do this in a number of ways, including interviews, photographs, video, surveillance, and requesting official reports.  The following are common procedures used by insurance companies.  If you or a family member have been injured, and are the subject of an insurance investigation, please contact Bryan W. Crews, your Orlando personal injury attorney.

The purpose of an insurance investigation is to confirm the merit of your claim.  The scope of an investigation can range from whether they suspect fraud to questioning the amount which you are owed.  Fabricated claims are rare, sometimes referred to as hard fraud.  More common, are claimants that inflate, or overstate, the severity of their claim.  Soft fraud is investigated not to discredit the basis of your claim, but to ascertain the true value of the claim.

Regardless of what the insurance company may suspect, if you have been injured, and are suffering, withstanding an insurance investigation can leave you exasperated.  Bryan W. Crews, your Orlando personal injury attorney, can help you through an insurance investigation, and work on your behalf to resolve your claim.

Insurance adjusters look for a number of reasons to deny claim.  But where they will often start is with you, the insured.  Their initial inquiry will start with your own recollection.  However, if they are not satisfied, suspect fraud, or have some other reason to investigate further, they will, and you should seek competent legal counsel at the offices of Bryan W. Crews.

MEDICAL RECORDS

Hospital charts, medical bills, and other records are used to evaluate your insurance claim.  The insurance company may not trust you to send the records and go straight to the source.  If your insurance company asks you to sign a medical authorization form, proceed with caution, and consider calling Bryan W. Crews, your Orlando personal injury attorney.  Medical authorizations can vary, and some may actually give your insurance company authorization to request and review more than is necessary to evaluate your claim.  This additional information may be used to deny paying the full claim amount.

SURVEILLANCE

Insurance companies use private investigators to watch deceitful claimants.  A “severely injured” claimant that is observed playing basketball or washing their car will almost certainly be denied coverage.  Investigators may be used to verify other facts, such as income, or to interview other witnesses.  Your best course of action is to tell the truth and go about your business.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Avoid writing, posting, or commenting about your personal injury online.  This day and age it is almost a first instinct to share online a that you have suffered a traumatic event.  If you choose to do so, insurance investigators may use your social media history to corroborate your claim.  Insurance investigators evaluating your personal injury claim will review comments and pictures.  Changing your privacy settings may help, but avoiding social media altogether is most prudent.

BE HONEST

If you speak to representatives from the insurance company without an attorney, be transparent, and do not attempt to exaggerate or embellish your story.  Being anything but forthright could draw unwanted attention, and cause an insurance adjuster to take a second look at your claim.  Volunteer the facts and try not to editorialize what happened.  If during the course of their investigation, they discover something that you should have shared, your credibility may be called into question.  Your mistake may be inadvertent, and the investigation can become intrusive, and the questions excessive.  The insurance company employs lawyers, and so should you.  Bryan W. Crews, your Orlando personal injury attorney, is an experienced lawyer and ready to help you deal with insurance investigators.

Boating Accidents in Florida and Personal Injury

Posted on: October 27th, 2017 by pmilakovic No Comments

In Florida, there are on average over 600 boating accidents per year.  Last year, there were 714 reportable boating accidents and 421 injuries.  Sadly, some of these boating accidents are fatal with on average over 50 fatalities per year and 67 in 2016 alone.  Florida is home to “more registered boats (931,450) than any other state” according to Florida officials.  Boating accidents can be devastating and seeking recovery is complex.  Bryan W. Crews, an Orlando personal injury attorney, can help.

Negligent operators can be liable for excessive speed, grounding, hitting another boat, another boat’s wake, or failure to have the proper safety equipment onboard.  Your injury may result from being a passenger on a charter, a friend’s boat, or while operating a boat.  Boating accidents include motorboats, canoes, kayaks, pontoon boats, sail boats, jet skis, and ancillary activities such as tubing, waterskiing, or wakeboarding.  Collisions with other vessels, floating objects, skiers, towable objects, persons falling overboard, capsizing, drowning, sinking, flooding, swamping, fire or explosion, and carbon monoxide poisoning can all form the basis of a personal injury lawsuit.  Depending on where the accident or injury occurs, Florida or maritime may govern, and hiring a personal injury attorney is critical to the success of your recovery.

In May of this year, “one person was killed and a dozen other people were injured in boating accidents across Miami-Dade County.”  In one of the accidents, a boat carrying nine passengers crashed into a dock and injured four people, with one personal in critical condition.  Accidents like this are tragic and highlight the importance of safety.  Florida now requires operators to take an approved boating safety course before being issued a Florida Boating Safety Education Identification Card, with some exceptions.

Between Brevard County and Volusia County, there are over 60,000 vessels, and last year there were 44 reportable accidents.  Boating accidents are rarely the result of storms or sea conditions.  Most boating accidents involve human error and many are the result of negligence.  The question in most personal injury cases is whether the defendant acted reasonably under the circumstances.  With over 60,000 vessels operating in waterways near Orlando, all operators should be navigating with caution and they owe others a duty of care.  Operators that are not paying attention, boating under the influence, or being reckless should be held to account.

Have you been injured in a boating accident?  Contact Bryn W. Crews today at his Orlando office.  Bryan and his team handle personal injury cases throughout Orlando, Brevard County, and Volusia County.  You may be entitled to compensation for medical expenses, ongoing treatment, lost wages, pain and suffering, and punitive damages.  Each case is different, and results are not guaranteed.  The skilled personal injury attorneys at Bryan W. Crews can begin working immediately.

Dangerous and Defective: Products Liability in Florida

Posted on: October 23rd, 2017 by pmilakovic No Comments

Ford Motor Company released the Pinto in the early 1970s.  Now infamous, the Pinto’s gas tank was positioned in the rear of the vehicle, between the rear axle and rear bumper.  Rear-end collisions with the Ford Pinto led to fires, severe injury, and sometimes death.  Unlike other cars of that era with a similarly placed gas tank, the Ford Pinto was designed in such a way that it increased the risk of combustion.  Ford found a way to cut costs and developed a cost benefit analysis that compared the cost of improving safety versus the injury and death costs borne by society at large.  In short, through a series of legal battles, it was revealed that Ford knew the dangers inherent in their design and sold the Pinto to customers anyway.

Not all personal injuries are the fault of a particular person.  Widgets sold and distributed by large companies such as Ford are designed and manufactured by many employees where no one person is responsible.  These companies are held to account by filing a products liability action. Products liability is a generic phrase that refers to an area of law dealing with negligent suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers.  Plaintiffs pursuing a products liability action can bring suit under a number of legal theories: intent, negligence, strict liability, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, and express warranty or misrepresentation.  Bryan W. Crews is a personal injury attorney practicing in the greater Orlando are.  He and his staff will gladly evaluate the merits of your products liability case.

In general, to prove liability the plaintiff needs to show that the product was defective.  This defect must have existed when the product left the defendant’s control.  There are two types of defects.  A manufacturing defect occurs when a single product is different and more dangerous than if it had been made properly.  This occurs when there is a mistake in the manufacturing process itself.  The second defect is a design defect.  Design defects occur when the product is made according to manufacturing specifications, all products are identical, but they have dangerous propensities.  These dangerous propensities may stem from packaging, mechanical failures, or harmful materials.  A subset of design defects are inadequate warnings.  Some products such as prescription drugs and medical devices must warn end users of any risks.  The warnings have to be clear and complete.

Product suppliers owe end users a duty of reasonable care.  That duty is breached when the defect is something that does not usually occur without negligence, or when the defendant knew or should have known of enough facts to put a reasonable manufacturer on notice.  When this duty is breached, the plaintiff must show that the product was the cause of their injury.  Under a negligence theory, you may recover for personal injury and property damage.  However, some courts may not allow recovery under a negligence theory if there is only property damage.

As a consumer, we place great trust in the expertise of the companies that develop and sell everyday products.  When that trust is broken, consumers have a right under the law to seek just compensation.  The personal injury attorneys at Bryan W. Crews have been helping clients throughout Orlando seek recovery.  If you or a family member have suffered personal injury, lost wages, loss of consortium (the loss of a close family member or a spouse), then contact Bryan W. Crews today for an evaluation of your case.  We fight tirelessly for our clients and are ready to go to work for you.

Comparative Negligence

Posted on: October 18th, 2017 by pmilakovic No Comments

In Florida, the amount of recovery in a personal injury lawsuit is determined by whether you contributed to your own accident.  Some states use comparative negligence, and Florida had adopted the comparative negligence rule.  Comparative negligence allows a judge or jury to apportion fault.  In some states, even if you are only slightly responsible for your own accident, you are barred from recovery.  Florida’s comparative negligence rule is codified under section 768.81 and is an important consideration when evaluating the facts of your case.  Bryn W. Crews, an Orlando personal injury attorney, have been fighting on behalf of plaintiffs for many years.  To understand the merits of your case, and whether the comparative negligence rule will limit your recovery, call today for an evaluation of your case.

Florida allows a contributorily negligent plaintiff to recover a percentage of damages by weighing the plaintiff’s negligence against the defendant’s, and reducing the plaintiff’s recovery accordingly.  For example, an inattentive driver, or a careless pedestrian, will not recovery 100% of her damages if a judge or jury finds them partially at fault.  Florida is also known as a pure comparative negligence state.  This theory of recovery allows a plaintiff that is 95% at fault to recover against the defendant for 5% of her damages.  Interestingly, Florida was the first state to adopt pure comparative negligence through a court of last resort, without resorting to the legislature.

Comparative negligence is an important development in the law.  Under contributory negligence, a plaintiff may have a duty to remove himself from danger.  Other special rules apply under contributory negligence such as a duty to mitigate, the last clear chance rule, and a bar from recovery if he violated a statute during the course of the accident.  Some exceptions apply in Florida under comparative negligence.

Florida statute 768.36 Alcohol or drug defense, dictates that “a plaintiff may not recover any damages for loss or injury to his or her person or property if the trier of fact finds that, at the time the plaintiff was injured” he or she was “under the influence of any alcoholic beverage or drug to the extent that the plaintiff’s normal faculties were impaired or the plaintiff had a blood or breath alcohol level of 0.08 percent or higher.”  This is not a hard and fast rule, as it is qualified by subsection (2)(b), which states, this code section only bars recover if “the plaintiff was more than 50 percent at fault for his or her own harm.”  So a plaintiff that is under the influence, but only contributes 40% to his injury will still be able to recover 60% of his damages.

The Florida Supreme Court provides model jury instructions.  Model Charge No. 1, addresses comparative negligence in automobile collisions and reads as follows:

If, however, the greater weight of the evidence shows that both John Doe and Rachel Rowe were negligent and that the negligence of each contributed as a legal cause of loss, injury, or damage sustained by John Doe, you should decide and write on the verdict form, which I will give you at the end of the case, what percentage of the total negligence of both parties to this action was caused by each of them.

These jury instructions, Florida’s comparative fault statute, and its exceptions demonstrate the importance of contacting a personal injury attorney before seeking recovery.  Bryan W. Crews handles personal injury cases throughout Orlando and is ready to help you or a family member.  Each case is different, and results are not guaranteed.  The attorneys at Bryan W. Crews will gather the facts, work towards a settlement, or pursue a lawsuit on your behalf.

What to do After You Have Been Injured: Documenting Your Personal Injury

Posted on: October 16th, 2017 by pmilakovic No Comments

Document everything.  Those two words should be your guide as you deal with the aftermath of an accident.  Winning your personal injury case or settling an insurance claim will more often than not depend on whether there is sufficient proof.  Bryan W. Crews has been representing personal injury plaintiffs in Orlando for many years and is well versed in personal injury law.  The lawyers at Bryan W. Crews can help you document everything.

WRITTEN RECORD

Write down everything.  Our memories are not perfect and sometimes unreliable.  As time goes by, memories fade and details are lost.  As soon as you are able, make notes, on a computer or in a notebook of everything that you can remember.  Even events that you think are immaterial, write them down!  A personal injury attorney can sort out the details later, but not if there are no details.

THE DAY OF YOUR INJURY

Make a timeline of everything you can remember on the date of the accident.  Try to map out everywhere you went and pay particular attention to the events immediately preceding and immediately after your injury.  Some of these details will not matter in evaluating your case.  However, Bryan W. Crews, your Orlando personal injury attorney, will sift through these details and decide their significance.  Did you work a double shift before getting behind the wheel?  What did you have to drink with dinner?  Were you on any medication that you do not normally take?  These details can be important but might not seem significant if they did not occur immediately before or after your injury.  Whatever the case, withholding these details can be detrimental if discovered later.

PRESERVE EVIDENCE

Taking photographs and keeping relevant evidence is critical.  During the stress of an accident or injury it may not occur to you or a family member to take photographs.  Depending on where the injury happens, the event may have been captured by security cameras, dash cams, or other witnesses.  Byran W. Crews and his staff can request this documentation on your behalf.  If you have sustained injuries, document them by taking photos or seeing a medical professional. Do not delay, as time goes by some evidence may be lost.  Gathering recent photos of your condition prior to the accident is also helpful for comparison.

GO TO A DOCTOR

Schedule an appointment with your medical professional as soon as possible.  For your personal well-being and to capture your injuries with an official record and obtain a diagnosis.  It is important to establish a baseline of your medical condition before and after the accident.  If possible, request a copy of each and every medical document.  These can be obtained later but medical records are protected by HIPAA and it can take time to obtain them.

TRACK EXPENSES

Keep track of all your medical bills.  Visits to the emergency room, your physician, and any other expenses incurred as result of your injury form the basis of your personal injury claim.  A personal injury attorney will uses these expenses when working on your behalf to obtain compensation for pain and suffering.  This also includes lost wages.  Keep an accounting of any time away from your job.  Bryan W. Crews, your Orlando personal injury attorney, will work tirelessly for you and seek just compensation.

Your quality of life is important and an injury can impair your ability to work, enjoy your family, and have long lasting effects on your health.  Documenting every aspect of your personal injury will allow Bryan W. Crews and his experienced staff to fight for you.

How Negligence Works in Personal Injury Cases: The Reasonable Person Standard

Posted on: October 9th, 2017 by pmilakovic No Comments

Negligence is the failure to act in a reasonable or prudent manner.  Whether you know it or not, each of us is charged with a duty to act with care, a reasonable degree of caution.  The law punishes careless actors, those that do not account for the safety and security of others.  The law does not punish careful individuals that through happenstance find themselves in an accident.  Sometimes accidents happen.  Bryan W. Crews and his staff will gladly evaluate the circumstances of your personal injury and determine whether liability exists.

In a civil society we owe one another a general duty of care, which means that we are all obligated to act as an ordinary, prudent, reasonable person.  Sometimes called the reasonable person standard.  Defendants that do not take precautions against creating an unreasonable risk of injury to others are liable for any damage they cause.  At the same time, no one is under a duty to take unreasonable precautions.  A duty of care is owed to foreseeable plaintiffs.

A helpful example of how negligence operates are rescuer situations.  If you undertake the rescue of another, you may have a case for damages against defendants that needlessly place themselves in peril.  In some jurisdictions, civil servants such as police officers and firefighters are barred from recovery.  Emergencies also present high pressure circumstances and leave little reaction time, something that is taken into account when determining the standard of care.

The standard of care is established a number of ways.  Think of the reasonable person as an average member of society, in the most positive sense.  This is an objective standard.  Defendants must act as a person with average mental ability and have the knowledge of an average member of the community.  However, defendants with a superior knowledge or ability may be held to a higher standard.  But this standard is not automatically imposed on all defendants.

Professionals are held to a higher standard because of their expertise.  Professionals, or those with special skills, are required to possess and exercise the same knowledge and skill of members in the same profession or occupation.  This is markedly different from the reasonable person standard.  If you are harmed or injured as the result of professional negligence, Bryan W. Crews, an Orlando personal injury attorney, will investigate your case to determine the standard of care.  Important factors include professional certifications, training, how other specialists would have acted, accepted practices in the field, and whether local or national standards exist.

Children are required to act and behave as other children the same age, education, intelligence, and experience would act.  Some children are so young that courts will not impose a duty.  Courts will express this in terms of lacking the capacity for negligence.  This analysis changes however when a child engages in adult activities such as driving a motor vehicle or motorboat.  Then children will be held to the same standard that would be imposed on an adult.

Each case is different, and this short article on negligence may illuminate your understanding of personal injury law.  Bryan W. Crews is a personal injury attorney in Orlando with years of practice experience, successful recoveries, and a dedicated staff.  Call today for a consultation and evaluation of your case.

Know the difference between personal injury and worker’s compensation claims

Posted on: October 6th, 2017 by ContentDev No Comments

Every day, people get injured due to all sorts of reasons in all sorts of places: you may fall because of a bad or uneven, or get injured because of an improperly placed object in a store or residential building, or you may be involved in a car accident and hurt yourself and/or damage your vehicle; that’s a case of personal injury claim. For this, you would do well to consult a personal injury attorney in Orlando like Bryan W Crews who can help you with getting your rightful compensation. Then there is a possibility that you may get injured at work in spite of taking all the precautions normally expected of an employee in that specific workplace – here you are entitled to file for worker’s compensation.

Though both basically involve bodily injury, there are certain differences between the two. Let’s take a look.

Basis of filing Claim

Personal Injury

The biggest difference between the two is that to file a personal injury claim, there needs to be proof of fault on the part of the premises owner, but that is not required for worker’s compensation claim. When you slip and fall, it should have happened because of the other party’s negligence: lack of maintenance or repairs, failure to post warning signs regarding wet floors or other hazards, and so on. If you slipped and fell because you were looking elsewhere and not where you were going, you won’t be entitled to a personal injury claim. After all, accidents do take place where nobody in particular is at fault. This also applies in car accidents – if the other driver was willfully negligent, you may be able to recover damages from them; an experienced car accident lawyer in Orlando can help you with this.

Workers’ Compensation

If an employee gets injured while on the job, they are entitled to worker’s compensation benefits; there is no need to prove negligence of the employer; that is, ‘fault’ is not the basis of filing this claim. You are entitled to this compensation even if you received the injury due to your own negligence.

Damages

Personal Injury

In a personal injury case you can claim damages for all of the following: medical bills including doctors fees, medicines, cost of rehabilitation therapy, etc.,  the emotional trauma and suffering you underwent; for loss of wages, loss of future earnings (in case of severe injuries, disability and so on), loss of relationship and enjoyment of life and so on. If you get injured in a vehicle accident or because of a slip and fall, a reputed injury attorney in Orlando, Florida can help you investigate the facts of the case and claim the damages due to you.

Workers’ Compensation

In this case, workers are only entitled to receive weekly compensation, medical bills, vocational rehabilitation costs and if applicable, permanent impairment benefits. Employees cannot claim damages for emotional suffering. This concept was born out of a compromise reached between labor unions and business owners sometime in the late 19th century to early 20th century. Prior to this, employees could only sue for negligence, and if they could not prove negligence, they could not get any compensation at all. The worker’s compensation laws don’t allow employees to use either their employees or co-workers for negligence; however, it ensures that their medical expenses are taken care of and that they receive weekly benefits.

Have you or a loved one received injuries from an accident or slip and fall? Simply call us for a free case evaluation. At Bryan W Crews, we can help you recover damages; we believe in going all the way for our clients, and if needed, we can even take your case to court to ensure you get justice. Just click below to start:

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Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.: Foreseeability and Personal Injury Law

Posted on: October 6th, 2017 by pmilakovic No Comments

In 1928, Benjamin Cardozo penned the majority opinion in one of the leading cases of American tort law.  Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. is best known for its articulation of the foreseeability doctrine, and an entertaining read.

In Palsgraf, the plaintiff, Helen Palsgraf, was on her way to Rockaway Beach with her daughters.  While standing on the train platform buying tickets, two men ran to catch a train that had already started moving.  One of the men leaped to catch the train, lost his footing and dropped a package containing fireworks.  The fireworks ignited on impact, causing a ripple effect that knocked over scales on the other end of the platform.  The scales collided with Mrs. Palsgraf and left her injured.

Mrs. Palsgraf sued the train company.  The basis for her claim was that of the two guards working the platform that assisted the men rushing to catch the train, one of them dislodged the package containing the fireworks.  The court held that the guards did not act negligently.

Cardozo observed that “[t]he conduct of the defendant’s guard, if a wrong in its relation to the holder of the package, was not a wrong in its relation to the plaintiff, standing far away. Relatively to her it was not negligence at all. Nothing in the situation gave notice that the falling package had in it the potency of peril to persons thus removed.”  In short, the guards did not owe Mrs. Palsgraf a duty of care and had no notice that the package contained fireworks.  Later in his opinion, Cardozo wrote “[o]ne who seeks redress at law does not make out a cause of action by showing without more that there has been damage to his person. If the harm was not willful, he must show that the act as to him had possibilities of danger so many and apparent as to entitle him to be protected against the doing of it though the harm was unintended.”  Cardozo seems to be suggesting that because the contents of the package were unknown, it was not foreseeable that someone on the other end of the platform would be injured.  Interestingly, the dissent in Palsgraf has been instrumental in shaping tort law and the doctrine of foreseeability.

William Andrews penned the now famous dissent in Palsgraf.  His dissent is perhaps most famous for the phrase “danger zone.”  Andrews discussed at length the legal theory of proximate cause.  Where Cardozo had suggested that there is no negligence unless someone is harmed, Andrews wrote that “[w]here there is the unreasonable act, and some right that may be affected there is negligence whether damage does or does not result.”  He opined that driving down Broadway “at a reckless speed” is negligence whether a collision results or not.  Andrews described what he called “the radius of danger.”  Andrews concluded that defendants owe a duty to plaintiffs “even if he be outside what would generally be thought the danger zone.”

This legal discussion in Palsgraf has been instrumental in shaping personal injury law.  Defendants are held liable for the direct consequences of their negligence as long as the harm is foreseeable.  Essential to that analysis is whether the defendant could have reasonably foreseen injuring the plaintiff.  Other considerations are independent intervening causes, and dependent intervening causes.

If you or a family member have suffered injury as the result of negligence, contract Bryan W. Crews, your Orlando personal injury attorney.

Do I need an Injury attorney in Orlando to settle a Personal injury compensation for my child?

Posted on: October 5th, 2017 by ContentDev No Comments

Being involved in an accident or slip and fall is traumatic; if your children are involved, even more so. It can be pretty devastating. Injuries to young children pose unique challenges to them and the family; with the help of an experienced accident attorney in Orlando like Bryan W Crews, you can get your child the proper legal help and deserved compensation. We can help you with a child’s injuries or wrongful death regardless of whether it was due to an animal attack, medical procedure that went wrong, bike, car or ATV accident, our firm has the expertise and the capability to offer you effective representation.

Regardless of where the child sustained the injuries – a theme park, someone else’s property, school or daycare, or because of defective products like toys or any equipment, we can help you recover damages.

Parents are often required to sign pre-injury releases as a prerequisite for their children to participate in certain events. In Florida there are specific laws that apply to these releases; this makes it imperative that you consult an expert personal injury lawyer in Orlando who can help you review your options for recovering damages.

Here are some of the most common reasons for injuries or wrongful death of children in Florida:

Whatever the cause of the injury to a child may be, the person who caused it must be held accountable and made to pay for the damage caused, and an Orlando personal injury attorney can help you with it.

A child who gets injured may suffer physically and psychologically; if the injury is serious, there could be long-term ramifications for the child and family, like permanent disability. At Bryan W Crews we collaborate with medical professionals to ensure we have an accurate assessment of the total loss suffered by your child and family.

The victim may require medical care for the rest of their life, special treatment like say, physiotherapy, use of special medical equipments, special education and so on. If the injury is so severe as to prevent the child from working in adult life, the family will need to plan for lifelong care. This may necessitate one of the parents from quitting work or reducing work hours, you can seek compensation for lost income.

These are the possible injuries a child may suffer due to accidents and animal attacks:

When it’s your child that has suffered a devastating injury or worse, died, no amount of money can suffice for the anguish your child or family goes through; a claim of compensation for personal injury however, serves to hold the wrongdoer responsible and accountable for their actions and to bring some financial relief to the bereaved family.

It’s therefore not just necessary, but critical that you choose one of the best accident attorneys in Orlando like Bryan W Crews when your child has suffered injuries due to another’s negligence. We are very familiar with the laws that apply, negotiation strategies and courtroom tactics that could come into play in cases like these, and we will leave no stone unturned to secure the highest possible compensation for your family.

Call us now for a FREE case evaluation.

Medical Malpractice

Posted on: October 3rd, 2017 by pmilakovic No Comments

Doctors and medical professionals perform an invaluable service, improving and saving countless lives.  Their services, and advancements in medical technology have led to increased lifespan and quality of life for many Americans.  Despite their accomplishments and honorable endeavors, medical malpractice, according to a 2016 study, “may now be the third-leading cause of death in the United States – claiming 251,000 lives every year, more than respiratory disease, accidents, stroke and Alzheimer’s.  These numbers include everything from bad doctors to more systemic issues such as communication breakdowns when patients are handed off from one department to another.”  According to the National Practitioner Data Bank there were over 24,000 adverse action reports from 2012 to 2016 in Florida alone, and 433,151 adverse action reports nationally during that same time.

We place great trust in out physicians.  Medical procedures are inherently risky, and we turn to seasoned medical professionals for treatment.  When that trust is broken, it can be devastating, leaving patients with long term injury.  Bryan W. Crews is a medical malpractice attorney skilled in personal injury.  As a season personal injury attorney, Bryan W. Crews evaluates each case thoroughly, reviewing the facts to seek the highest possible recovery.  Florida is one of the top four states for instances of medical malpractice.

Tragically, routine steps during the course of surgery often result in injury or death.  In 2003, a young girl from Mexico died during a heart transplant at Duke University Hospital.   Her death was the result of “a heart lung transplant with organs of the wrong blood type. Ms. Santillán had type O blood; the organs were type A and her body rejected them, sending her into a coma like state.”  After waiting for three years to receive a transplant, and an unsuccessful attempt to correct the failed surgery, the young girl from Mexico who came to America for medical treatment slipped into a coma due to complications was eventually disconnected from life support.

Other examples of medical malpractice include bypassing the wrong artery, performing surgery on the wrong patient, drilling a hole on the wrong side of a patient’s head, a fertility clinic impregnating a woman with the wrong sperm, ignoring patients in the emergency room for 24 hours, improperly administering anesthesia, leaving surgical tools inside a patient, and amputating the wrong leg.  Medical malpractice is unacceptable, and you have every right under the law to be compensated for your injuries, or the loss of a family member due to negligence.  Physicians undergo years of training and education.  Their expertise should be the cause of healing, comfort, and renewed qualify of life for patients.  However, more and more, doctors and medical professionals are operating in complete disregard for the well-being of their patient’s.

As skilled professionals, doctors are held to a national standard.  Their conduct is judged according to accepted practices within their professional community.  When their practice deviates from this standard, or they act carelessly, they are liable for the resulting physical and mental anguish.

Plaintiffs are entitled to compensation for all damages.  Including fair, adequate, and complete compensation for economic damages, such as medical expenses, lost wages due to time away from work, and noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering.  You even have a right to future damages.  Incapacitated plaintiffs can demand or sue for impaired future earning capacity.

Using the legal system to secure compensation also sends a message to the medical community.  As the statistics above show, medical malpractice is on the rise, and has affected countless Americans and Floridians alike.  If you or a family member in Orland have suffered an injury due to medical malpractice, contact Bryan W. Crews, your Orlando medical malpractice attorney.

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