Automobile Accidents | InjuryBoard Scottsdale

Interesting and disappointing personal jurisdiction memo opinion from Division One, Womack v. KC Arena. In short, KC operates a bar on the Nevada side of the Arizona-Nevada border, over served a patron who then drove across the state line and killed an Arizona pedestrian. Moreover, plaintiffs asserted that KC employees knew the patron lived in Bullhead City and that he would return there after...

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Today the Arizona Supreme Court issued an opinion in Cundiff v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co. which dealt with workers' compensation offsets in underinsured motorist (UIM) claims.Pima County Deputy Sheriff Jean Cundiff was injured by a third-party while on the job, in her patrol car. Although she was paid certain workers' compensation benefits, the third-party only carried $15,000 in...

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Worried about lead in your toys this Christmas? You now have something else to worry about - if those toys harm or kill your children, your rights and remedies in the state of Arizona are under serious attack.This week, in State Farm Ins. Co. v. Premier Mfg. Sys. Inc., the Arizona Supreme Court held that, despite centuries-old common law "strict liability" in product liability cases, Arizona's...

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Division One just handed down Banner Health v. Medical Savings Ins. Co., a terrible opinion which deals with whether a hospital can charge a patient and its "non-network insurer" full billed amounts historically paid by only two percent of all patients. The answer, for now, is yes in a two-to-one decision.Incidentally, by "non-network insurer," I mean to refer to an insurer who has no agreement...

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Division One handed down Levy v. Alfaro today which holds that Rule 68 sanctions include all reasonable expert witness fees after the offer, not just those fees for testifying at trial. The decision is no surprise to those of us who regulaly try cases, but I suppose it is good to have it "clarified."

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Division One just handed down Garner v. Schindler, a short and sweet opinion on the nature of judges pro tempore (I am a judge pro tempore, by the way). In sum, the appellant had a probate dispute litigated before a judge pro tempore and, after the case was over, decided to raise (for the first time) hyper-technical defects in the judge's appointment.The Court of Appeals, awknoweldged that...

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Frank Zappa said, "We are a nation of laws; badly written and randomly enforced." That's probably the way that Joe Burkhamer feels, having lost his daughter (and son-in-law) in tragic accident in 2003, and now having had his appeal dismissed in a published opinion from Division Two, Burkhamer v. State of Arizona, because two of the three Judges on the panel decided that the appeal was filed too...

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New case from Division One, Felder v. Physiotherapy Assoc., that has some good stuff in it concerning lost earning capacity and anxiety over the "increased risk" of harm.The first and main issue in the case concerns the quantum of evidence needed to prove lost earning capacity. Although the standard is "reasonable certainty" in predicting the future in such cases, the Court "conclude[d] that...

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Arizona requires mandatory disclosure of medical records in medical malpractice cases and, amazingly, is currently considering a change to mandatory arbitration procedures to require the same thing. As we have often explained, these provisions violate HIPPA, the comprehensive federal scheme that provides essential privacy rights for medical records.The voice of reason is finally kicking in: ...

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In Arizona, if you are under 18, your application for an instruction permit or driver's license must be signed by at least one adult. The adult may be responsible for any negligence or willful misconduct when the minor is driving.The statute, A.R.S. 28-3160, provides that "[n]egligence or wilful misconduct of a minor when driving a motor vehicle on a highway is imputed to the person who signs...

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This report published by Rueters says that if "the typical stay-at-home mother in the United States were paid for her work as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist among other roles, she would earn $138,095 a year."This is an important study because the issue often comes up about the value of domestic services in personal injury litigaton. Perhaps this data can be reasonably relied upon by an...

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The other day, Division One affirmed the trial court's granting summary judgment to a livestock owner in connection with an accident occurring on a portion of unfenced "open range" land. The case, Brookover v. Roberts Enterprises, Inc., held that the plaintiff failed to show facts evidencing conduct below the applicable standard of "ordinary care."To get there the Court of Appeals seized upon...

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A New York personal injury lawyer was recently disbarred for basically "being an asshole." Although I can hardly endorse his brash style (e.g., telling the judge to "Kiss my tuchis!"), it is interesting what other New York attorneys had to say: "Personally, I find him abrasive, angry, tough, fierce, and frightening," says attorney Ron Kuby. "You know, the qualities you usually want in a...

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The numbers are out for civil jury verdicts and they are not pretty. Indeed, they are generally very low and, since they include commercial cases in the average (which can skew the numbers quite a lot), we pay more attention to the median numbers.2006 Reported Arizona VerdictsAverages vs. Medians {mso-displayed-decimal-separator:"\\."; mso-displayed-thousand-separator:"\\,";}@page {margin:1.0in...

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Over three years ago, our client was a passenger in a vehicle driving on U.S. 60 in La Paz County. Unfortunately, a truck driver that had stopped at an intersection on the highway, proceeded to cross the intersection and did not see our client's vehicle approaching.The vehicles collided, resulting in serious injuries to our client and another passenger.As is sometimes the case, even though the...

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