- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 31, 2007 9:46 AM |
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MiscellaneousMany people do not understand the difference between legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty.Legal malpractice arises when an attorney owes someone a duty of care and, by an act or omission, the attorney's conduct breaches that duty of care and causes that person cognizable harm. While the "person" harmed is typically a client, an attorney-client relationship is not required and legal...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 30, 2007 11:33 AM |
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MiscellaneousAn intoxicated defendant who injures someone is often exposed to punitive damages. Arizona Appellate Courts have unanimously affirmed punitive damage awards against drunk drivers in cases where it is proven that intoxicated driving was a proximate cause of the collision.An intoxicated defendant who injures someone is often exposed to punitive damages. Arizona Appellate Courts have unanimously...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 29, 2007 8:39 PM |
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MiscellaneousAttorneys know that deadlines matter, but in this age of electronic filing and 24-hour drop boxes it was just a matter of time before a court would have to address a filing that was, say, a mere six minutes late. That is what the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit had to deal with and this is what they had to say about it:Six minutes seems trivial and unlikely to cause...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 28, 2007 10:26 AM |
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MiscellaneousSometimes, when a medical provider learns there is a third-party at fault for an injury, they bill an injured party's insurance and then seek to recover the "balance" from the injured person's recovery. In fact, sometimes they even try to collect twice (which is fraud, and well-beyond the scope of this article), but can they even attempt to collect the "balance" of the bill after accepting...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 27, 2007 9:15 AM |
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MiscellaneousThere's a saying concerning doctors that applies with equal force to lawyers:Do you know what they call the person graduating medical school in the bottom of their class?"Doctor."On par with hiring an attorney with superior personal injury knowledge and experience is finding an attorney with the knowledge and skill to properly resolve healthcare-related liens. Such an attorney can make the...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 26, 2007 11:21 AM |
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MiscellaneousIt might surprise you, but defense lawyers salivate over attorney referrals to medical providers. Indeed, "attorney referral" is even a factor in the pre-litigation "evaluation" systems used by insurers. Defense lawyers make the argument that, where a tort victim goes to an attorney and gets a doctor referral, the injured person's care is suspect and/or "attorney-driven," regardless of any...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 24, 2007 9:28 PM |
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MiscellaneousNegligent infliction of emotional distress claims often arise where someone who is in the "zone of danger," i.e., subject to being injured, and they witness a family member's injury or death. Like most serious injury claims, limited insurance can present a barrier to recovery. Recently, however, the Arizona Court of Appeals held that a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim is...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 23, 2007 8:55 AM |
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Medical MalpracticeA whole new type of medical malpractice is brewing in the fertility field. For example, today a New York court ruled that a couple can proceed with a lawsuit against a fertility clinic for medical malpractice after the wife gave birth to a daughter whose skin they thought was too dark to be their child.This follows a story from two weeks ago, where a couple sued a negligent clinic for lost...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 22, 2007 10:17 PM |
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MiscellaneousRandy Udelman reports on the record profits from State Farm Insurance, noting:In the midst of its record-setting year, according to a recent story on CNN, State Farm apparently adopted a policy to minimize settlement offers for low-impact motor vehicle collisions forcing accident victims to take substantially low settlement offers or spent significant costs in litigation. Moreover, Katrina...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 22, 2007 7:07 PM |
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Automobile AccidentsAs of September 21, 2006, the statute of limitations was amended in Arizona for UM/UIM claims. Pursuant to ARS 12-555, as amended, insureds are now required to provide "written notice" to insurers that they are making a claim, and they must request arbitration or file suit within three years of such written notice.
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 21, 2007 10:38 AM |
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MiscellaneousWhen someone gets hurt on property or on a roadway, the issue that is litigated is typically whether there was sufficient "notice" to the property owner or entity responsible for the roadway. Often, however, proving such notice is not required where the defendant is responsible for creating the dangerous condition. As the Arizona Supreme Court recognized in Isbell v. Maricopa County, 198 Ariz....
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 21, 2007 10:22 AM |
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Wrongful DeathUnlike most injury claims, wrongful death claims are created and governed by statute. Those statutes typically permit claims by certain family members for the negligent loss of a loved one or, in pure legal terms, a "person." But what qualifies as a "person" is subject to a great deal of political, philosophical and even legal debate.What about frozen embryos? They are genetically complete...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 21, 2007 10:07 AM |
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MiscellaneousSay someone owes you $100 and agrees to pay you in $10 monthly installments. What if they pay the first two installments, miss the third one, pay the fourth installment and miss the fifth installment. When does the statute of limitations begin to run?The answer is that there is a new accrual date for each missed installment, unless there is an acceleration clause in the agreement. In...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 21, 2007 9:53 AM |
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Medical MalpracticeSometimes mistakes are so obvious that the law permits an inference of negligence. The legal term for this type of situation is res ipsa loquitur and, in Arizona, applies where (1) in the normal course of events, the accident would not have occurred unless defendant was negligent; (2) the accident occurred as a result of an instrumentality that was under defendant's exclusive control; and (3)...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 21, 2007 9:25 AM |
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MiscellaneousMost attorneys hire outside companies to handle filing and serving lawsuits. What happens when these process servers mess up and, as a result, you cannot pursue your lawsuit?We have a case like that right now. About one week before the statute of limitations ran, our client's former attorney prepared a lawsuit and sent it to be filed with the Court. Although the attorney's staff followed up...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 20, 2007 8:37 PM |
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Motorcycle AccidentsImagine riding your motorcycle down the freeway and having a tire tread or some other debris thrust into your path by an unknown vehicle. It is a prospect, in one form or another, that bikers face all the time. Often the problem for injured bikers in these types of situations is that, even if they have uninsured motorist coverage, carriers attempt to deny these claims since it is impossible to...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 20, 2007 8:09 PM |
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Automobile Accidents"What do you mean they don't have insurance?!" is something every injury attorney hears at some stage.Whether the issue is no coverage or limited coverage, with healthcare costs being what they are today, odds are that the person who injures you will not have sufficient insurance coverage. That is one reason why uninsured motorist and underinsured motorist coverage (called "UM" and "UIM,"...
- Geoff Trachtenberg | March 20, 2007 8:06 PM |
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MiscellaneousFor many pet-owners, pets are more like family members than simple property, so what happens when a pet is negligently injured or worse? Historically, those pets were treated just like property and the owners were simply entitled to the "market value" or "replacement value" of the pets. While the law varies from state to state, in Arizona the courts have suggested that pet owners may have a...
- Christina Cole | March 18, 2007 11:38 PM |
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MiscellaneousThe Department of Justice is seeking $8.5 from MedCath Corp to settle an investigation surrounding a clinical trial that was conducted by one of MedCath's hospitals.The business dispute alleges fraudulent billings were made to federal health care programs for devices that were implanted into patients during a clinical study.MedCath says the hospital complied with internal policies and federal...
- Christina Cole | March 17, 2007 12:15 AM |
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MiscellaneousA University of Louisiana-Lafayette graduate who sued her political science professor for sexual harassment last year has added UL's interim athletic director to the suit.In an amendment to the original lawsuit, she is now accusing Walker, an attorney, of legal malpractice. The suit states she met with university officials and Walker in a meeting the last week in September to discuss her...
- Christina Cole | March 15, 2007 7:55 PM |
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Wrongful DeathA wrongful death lawsuit involving a 16-year-old girl who was killed by a motorist on her way to school, has settled for $225,000 with the city paying up.The suit was filed by the Mother of a junior at Alhambra High School that was killed on November 20, 2004 while she was attempting to catch a Valley Metro bus to get to class.The lawsuit accused the city of negligence in its operation of...
- Christina Cole | March 13, 2007 11:20 PM |
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Automobile AccidentsA fatal early morning car accident left one man dead and forced Eastbound 202 to close down for hours.Witnesses say a driver traveling the wrong way was the cause of the accident that occurred at 3:30am. Officials say a driver got onto the Scottsdale Road exit ramp and was traveling west in the eastbound lane when his car collided with a Suburban causing it to spin into a third car. The driver...
- Christina Cole | March 09, 2007 11:57 PM |
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Medical MalpracticeSeveral surgical disasters - including the death of a Tucson attorney- has now prompted the state to crackdown on Doctor's performing surgeries in their offices.For the first time, doctors will need to have specific monitoring and emergency equipment, specialized staff training and inform patients of the potential risks of having surgery in an office - if the proposed rules from the Arizona...
- Christina Cole | March 05, 2007 11:29 PM |
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Motorcycle AccidentsOne person is dead after a traffic accident involving a motorcycle and two vehicles on Monday morning on westbound Interstate 10, approximately 15 miles east of Scottsdale.The Arizona Department of Public safety says the accident involved a motorcycle and at least two other vehicles. One of the vehicles was rear-ended during a lane change. At this time there is no further information regarding...