Month: October 2009

Car to motorbike collisions usually leave at least one person seriously injured or dead, but the insurance company wants to minimize its payout.

If a biker happens to survive a motorcycle crash they may find out that they have been crippled for life. Perhaps the collision was not the biker’s fault and he or she feels everything will be fine because it is covered by the insurance company. It’s a good thing the premiums were paid regularly every year, there were no claims, and the coverage was second to none.

With all these things on the side of the motorcycle rider, they would have every right to expect fair and prompt compensation from the insurance company. While the biker may “expect” that would be the case, it often isn’t what happens. Many motorcycle accident attorneys know that the insurance company is not a friend to anyone; and definitely not friendly if there is a severe injury that may require years of treatment and millions of dollars.

No, suddenly the benevolent insurance agent is hard to negotiate with, isn’t interested in giving the claimant any respect, and may also be combative about the claim being submitted. Why the change in attitude? Insurance companies are in business to make money and they don’t appreciate having to pay out on claims, even though that is what the coverage is for and what they are in business to do in the first place.

It doesn’t matter what the biker’s driving record says, how careful they have been or the fact they went 20 years or more without one claim or accident. The minute there is an accident, the insurance adjuster turns into Mr. Hyde. At this point, it’s time to hire a skilled motorcycle accident attorney to handle the insurance company. Insurance companies don’t like it when lawyers get involved in the picture, as they know they run the risk of having the case wind up in court.

If a case does wind up in court, chances are that the insurance company may have to pay out even more than they wanted to in the first place. The value of having an experienced motorcycle attorney doing the negotiations far outweighs any concerns about the fees paid later.
Given the fact that many of the injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident are debilitating, having a skilled motorcycle attorney handling the case will ensure the compensation matches the devastating injuries.

Most motorcycle attorneys will also advise their clients not to speak to insurance adjusters without consulting with the attorney first. There are too many things that may go wrong when dealing with an adjuster, not the least of which is them trying to minimize severe injuries in the hopes of paying out less money.

Remember that the injuries sustained in a crash may last a lifetime and that therapy and rehabilitation will be an ongoing process; and an expensive one. This is where a good motorcycle attorney is worth their weight in gold.

To learn more visit http://www.ozcomert.com.

COMPANY PORTRAIT

The law offices of Stephen M. Ozcomert specialize in personal injury, accidents, and malpractice law in Atlanta Georgia.

Any collision with a big rig causes untold damages, usually severe injuries or death, and many legal challenges.

Any case involving a semi is typically very complex, much more complex than a “typical” car versus car accident. For starters, the kinds of injuries sustained are catastrophic and the damages are monumental. This means when all is said and done that the stakes in 18-wheeler crashes are way higher for insurance companies; more particularly the insurance company that has the trucker’s insurance policy.

And one thing is as sure as the sun rising every day - the trucking corporation will pull out all the stops to reduce or deny any liability they may have in the accident. After all, they are in business to make money, not put it out to cover lawsuits. Anyone who has the misfortune to try and deal with a trucking company will find out soon enough that stall, delay and deny are three of the favored approaches to dealing with any accident claims.

Any Georgia resident who’s the victim of an 18-wheeler accident will find themselves coping with the trucking outfit’s insurance company and their in-house lawyers and investigators. The whole process is nerve-wracking and hair-raising, as most trucking companies are fairly large and have a lot of resources at their fingertips. This isn’t the only fly in the ointment when it comes to big rig accidents either.

In addition to the laws of the state of Georgia, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rules and regulations will be factored into the equation, as these rules, etc govern the big rigs and their drivers. This is way too much for any one person to handle and it’s much smarter to hire an experienced personal injury lawyer with a solid background in handling 18-wheeler crashes.
The attorney is trained to handle all aspects of complex cases like this right from the moment he or she starts collecting evidence and tracking down who owns the trucking company and dealing with their attorneys. Never try to deal with a trucking company without the presence of a skilled 18-wheeler attorney, as all victims need to have their rights protected.

To learn more visit http://www.ozcomert.com.

COMPANY PORTRAIT

The law offices of Stephen M. Ozcomert specialize in personal injury, accidents, and malpractice law in Atlanta Georgia.

Just when you thought you were going in for routine dental work or a simple day surgery, you are issued a Fentanyl (Duragesic) patch for pain and either suffer drastic side effects or overdose and die.

Modern medical science has advanced at light speed over the years and when pain patches were introduced to the market, there were cheers from pain sufferers the world over.

Much like the idea behind the stop smoking patches, Fentanyl patches are loaded with a powerful pain killer that is supposed to be dispersed in the body in a controlled manner. This doesn’t always happen and the results have the potential to be deadly.

Just recently there was a case in the papers about a young lad with autism who went for some basic dental work at a local hospital and had a tooth pulled. He was sent home with a Fentanyl pain patch and found dead in his bed the next morning. He’d suffered a drug overdose as a direct result of the patch.

In the resulting court case, the hospital admitted that it should never have issued the patch to the young man and that he somehow received the highest dose available. There were no safeguards in place to prevent an incident like this from happening. Medical malpractice cases such as this tend to make good media fodder for their spectacular facts. The sad thing here is this death could have been prevented.

Shockingly, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) admits that wrong prescription of the Fentanyl patch is a persistent problem across the United States. The fact of the matter is that the FDA has received numerous reports of life threatening adverse events and deaths.

In response to the adverse reaction reports, the FDA issued a warning to consumers that this patch was only for use by individuals with a high tolerance for drugs like morphine. Despite this warning, issued first in 2005, the FDA still receives adverse reaction reports.

Of course this may lead you to wonder why these patches are still on the market and only get recalled when there seems to be a problem – such as cuts in the patch that allows it to leak into the skin faster than it should.

The unfortunate thing is that physicians are not using this drug properly and are handing it out to individuals after surgery, for mild or occasional pain and for headaches. None of these situations warrants the use of the powerful Fentanyl patch.

Medical negligence? Medical recklessness? Medical oblivion about to how to administer drugs correctly? All these questions need to be discussed with a medical malpractice attorney.

The pain and suffering of a family faced with the death of a loved one due to using this patch (or any other drug that causes death) is not easily dealt with and only an experienced attorney is able to outline how cases such as this are handled and what the family may expect.

In many instances like this it’s not just the physicians or dentists or other medical professionals who may be sued, it’s the hospital where the procedure took place. The whole situation points out glaring holes in how hospitals administer medications. Put another way, it’s conspicuously bad.

Tim Anderson works with Atlanta Personal Injury attorney, Stephen M. Ozcomert. The firm specializes in personal injury, malpractice, motorcycle accidents, and wrongful death. To learn more about Atlanta personal injury lawyer, Stephen M. Ozcomert, visit Ozcomert.com.

It doesn’t matter if you hold the cell phone in your hand and talk while driving, or have hands-free access to talk all you want; both ways may cost you your life.

No matter which way you add it up, yakking on a cell phone held in your hand or one that happens to be hands-free still amounts to a deadly distraction. All it takes is one split second of not paying attention to your driving and you could wind up in a very nasty accident.

Consider the case of young John Stenner, on his way home from picking up a car with his tow truck. He had hands-free cell phone access in his truck. While talking on the phone to his base office about his next pickup, he was too distracted to see the semi heading his way and coming through the intersection. John died at the scene of the accident.

Just how easy is it for an unfocused driver to rear end another vehicle? All too easy is the answer. Getting sidetracked by having phone conversations in a vehicle is so simple it’s genuinely deadly. To put it plainly, there is no way a person can pay the proper attention to driving and also pay attention to what someone is saying on the phone.

Ditto goes for those who text while driving, enter phone numbers into a Blackberry, or surf the web on an iPhone. All of these “diversions” have the potential to kill you. Now the irony is that hands-free systems were supposed to make things safer, but do they? It seems the answer to that is no; they aren’t any safer than the phones you need to stare directly at and enter the numbers to call someone.

Pay attention to the data that Virginia Tech’s study gathered that showed in over 42,300 hours of driving about 2 million miles, researchers saw 82 crashes, 761 near misses, and 8,295 critical incidents. The causes of this mayhem? Texting and phone calling, hands-free or not. Virtually 80% of the collisions and 65% of the near misses were caused by the driver looking away from the road in front of them.

Surely hands-free phone calling allows drivers to look forward? Indeed it does, but talking on the phone is still considered to be a distraction, particularly if the phone call is discussing distressing news. Many of the newer systems coming out on the market hype the fact that if the driver is involved in an accident, the phone will call emergency services.

The point however is that one would rather “not” have an accident in the first place caused by not paying attention to the road. Dying a sudden death because you were planning a party while driving and discussing a hot guy is hardly on the top of anyone’s “to do” list.

Be smart and be aware of what is going on around you in traffic all the time. If you are involved in a nasty collision, make it a point to discuss the case with a highly qualified personal injury attorney. The attorney will assist you in obtaining justice.

Tim Anderson works with Atlanta Personal Injury attorney, Stephen M. Ozcomert. The firm specializes in personal injury, malpractice, motorcycle accidents, and wrongful death. To learn more about Atlanta personal injury lawyer, Stephen M. Ozcomert, visit Ozcomert.com.