Washington Injury Law Blog

As a Kirkland, Washington car accident attorney many of my injured clients have had to deal with Liberty Mutual. My experience with Liberty Mutual is anything but stellar. If you have an injury claim with Liberty Mutual in my experience you can expect to receive resistance at every turn.

A good example is my client “Joan.” The names have been changed to protect the innocent! Joan has Liberty Mutual car insurance with Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage, which is suppose pays her medical bills from injuries suffered from any car wreck she’s in. A while ago Joan was in a hit n’ run car wreck. She was injured in the wreck and unfortunately the other driver sped off before she realized what was happening.

Joan did not realize the steps she had to go through to get Liberty Mutual to pay her medical bills under her PIP coverage (the steps include calling in an injury claim, completing PIP application and sending bills to Liberty Mutual). Instead she paid the medical bills out her life savings, depleting them completely. A friend referred her to me to help with establishing an Uninsured Motorist claim. When I met with Joan I learned of this and began the process of getting her savings paid back through her PIP coverage. That’s when the fun began!

Initially I did not know a PIP application had not been completed because I had a copy of a letter from the PIP adjuster stating she had received some bills and was waiting for records before making a determination on payment. This is normal and generally only takes a few weeks. This kind of letter does not usually exist unless a PIP application has been received and PIP claim fully opened. Months passed and Liberty Mutual ignored my repeated telephone messages and letters about the payment. Finally, they responded and claimed they did not receive Joan’s PIP application, despite raising no objection like this in the months before hand. Seemed a bit fishy, but I thought let’s just move forward and try to get the money reimbursed.

Joan completed the application and I mailed it as requested. Two more months passed with no reimbursement check arriving. I called again and Liberty Mutual claimed they did not receive the application. It wasn’t returned to me, so under the terms of Washington laws is deemed delivered. So, I  resent the PIP application – this time via fax and mail, so we’ll see what happens. Deny and delay tactics like this seem to be the general policy in effect at Liberty Mutual. Joan’s case is not the first where I’ve seen Liberty Mutual act this way.

Once Liberty Mutual places its corporate policies in place and removes Safeco’s current policies, look out all you Safeco customers. Profits are much more important to Liberty Mutual than its customers. If you have any kind of injury claim in my experience you can expect to fight an uphill battle the whole way. That’s why it’s important to speak with an experience Washington injury attorney after a car accident and get the 411 on your rights before speaking with the insurance company.

My friend Dave Nelson last week lost his brother, Cpl. Richard “Ricky” J. Nelson, to a roadside bomb in Iraq. People say we all know someone who has had to endure this kind of sacrifice in their family, but you don’t really believe it until it smacks you square in the face. It is scary when it hits home for you personally. I am greatly saddened that we have lost Ricky Nelson, another great young American soldier, to the war in Iraq.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBo1RiTEXD0&feature=related[/youtube]

I cannot imagine the pain Ricky’s young wife and the Nelson’s must endure. I know Dave was concerned for his brother before he left for a second tour in Iraq. Ricky believed it was God’s will that he was in Iraq again, and it was this strong faith that guided him in life. Ricky told his mother two days before his death ”As much as I don’t care to be here, I know God has a plan.” God has summoned Ricky to his Kingdom and Ricky has found his rest. Ricky is in a better place now, and we are all blessed to have men like Ricky who choose to serve our Country so Freedom can endure throughout the world.

My friend Dave is a pastor at my church and a man of God as was Ricky. If there’s one thing that my faith and Dave have taught me – is to love those in your life with unbridled abandon. You never know when life can change in an instant forever. Never let an opportunity go by to express the love you feel in your heart to your family and friends.

For more information about our American Hero – Cpl. Richard “Ricky” J. Nelson go to www.richardjnelson.com.

I’m a fan of the show “The Biggest Loser.” The show recently promoted the use of Nalgene type water bottles as a way to stop filling the landfills with discarded plastic water bottles. This sounds like a great . . . BUT . . . Nalgene just announced that it will be pulling its hard plastic water bottles – that are made with controversial carbonate plastic Bisphenol A (BPA) – from store shelves.

When heated it has been reported that the toxic chemical Bisphenol A can leak out into the liquid to be drank. Baby bottles are commonly made with Bisphenol A plastic and there is a possible link to toxins getting into the baby’s milk. There is a possible link between the chemical Bisphenal A and neurological and behavioral problems in infants and babies, along with certain cancers, diabetes and obesity.

More than 6 million pounds of Bisphenol A is used each year in U.S. products. It can be found in baby bottles, dental sealers, liners of food cans, CDs and DVDs, eyeglasses and hundreds of household goods.

Nalgene plans to replace its bottles with Bisphenol A free plastic bottles. Perhaps the makers of baby bottles should do the same if they haven’t already!

Sources: msnbc; ABC Wolrd News

Yesterday I wrote a post about how dangerous big truck or commercial vehicle accidents can be and how serious injuries more often than not result.  What do I wake up to this morning on the news – in Everett, Washington a little after 4:00 a.m. – a truck vs. truck accident happened causing one driver to be ejected from his truck, killing him at the scene of the accident. 

Police report that there was a traffic light controlling the intersection where the accident happened, and it appears one of the trucks ran a red light. The investigation is ongoing – which driver had the green light has not yet been determined.

I can’t emphasize enough as a Kirkland Washington truck accident attorney how careful you need to be when driving near semi-trucks or large commercial vehicles. In the news we see time and time again how serious injury and deaths are the common result of truck accidents. There were 567 traffic related deaths in Washington in 2007, according to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. Please drive carefully, stay focused, and don’t drive if you’re sleepy.

If you or a loved one is in a Washington truck accident it’s important that you speak with an experienced Washington injury attorney. There are some additional or different rules that apply to commercial truck drivers and an investigation needs to be conducted as soon as possible following an injury causing truck accident.

Source: KOMOTV.com

A charter bus taking the Garfield High Women’s Softball team home from a game in Kirkland, Washington against Lake Washington High School crashed into a pedestrian bridge shearing off the roof of the bus last night. Five students were taken by ambulance to the Harborview hospital with complaints of neck and back pain, luckily none of the injuries appeared serious. 

 The bus accident happened in Seattle’s Washington Park Arboretum.  The bus driver appears to have been distracted and failed to see the bridge clearance was only 9 feet, when the bus was 11 feet 8 inches tall. 

As a Kirkland, Washington truck accident attorney I have seen cases where a commercial vehicle or truck accident is caused by a distracted driver. Driver distraction is a common cause of commercial vehicle or truck accidents in Washington. It is very dangerous for other drivers and passengers when the driver of a huge vehicle – that can crush another car if an accident happens – does not maintain focus on the task of driving. This is especially dangerous when it’s a bus or other common carrier of large numbers of passengers. People can be seriously hurt in the blink of an eye when a big bus or semi-truck is in a bad accident.

Luckily, in this case it appears the injuries where minor. That is not always the case, and we should count our blessings that a much bigger tragedy was avoided. 

Source: Seattle PI

The tax man is coming! April 15th is fast approaching, meaning it is time to pay Uncle Sam his due. As a Kirkland Washington personal injury attorney I rarely wade into tax law issues. However, for all my Washington personal injury clients, there is one very important tax regulation that applies to personal injury lawsuit verdicts or settlement money.

If you are the injured victim or family member that recovers money as the result of a personal injury lawsuit or claim – then the money received is not taxed. Under Federal Treasury Regulation § 104(a)(2) Gross Income (potentially taxable income) does not include money (unless punitive damages – which aren’t available under Washington laws) received as the result of personal injury lawsuit /claim settlement, judgment, or verdict.

If you settled your car accident or other Washington injury accident case in the last tax year you will not have to pay taxes on it. You will probably have to report that you received a personal injury settlement or verdict, but no taxes will be charged against it. So when your accountant or tax software asks you about the amount received don’t worry, you won’t pay more taxes by telling the IRS about your injury settlement/verdict money. 

The tax code section reads specifically: “Section 104(a)(2) excludes from gross income the amount of any damages received (whether by suit or agreement) on account of personal injuries or sickness. The term “damages received (whether by suit or agreement)” means an amount received (other than workmen’s compensation) through prosecution of a legal suit or action based upon tort or tort type rights, or through a settlement agreement entered into in lieu of such prosecution.”

Ben Sansone of the Missouri Injury Law Blog had recent post on the same subject. If you live in Missouri you should definitely check out his blog, it is excellent.

From 2004 through 2006, medical errors resulted in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths of Medicare patients – according to the fifth annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study. This cost the U.S. Medicare program $8.8 billion dollars.

The study showed that patients treated at top-performing hospitals were, on average, 43 percent less likely to experience one or more medical errors than patients at the poorest-performing hospitals. This really emphasizes the importance of checking out the hospital and doctor before you have any major surgery performed.

Among the other findings:

 • Patients had a 20 percent chance of dying as a result of suffering a medical error.
 • The overall death rate among patients who experienced medical error(s) fell by almost 5 percent between 2004 and 2006.
 • However, over that time, there were increases in post-operative respiratory failure, post-operative pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis, post-operative sepsis (blood infection), and post-operative abdominal wound separation/splitting.
 • The most common types of medical errors were bed sores, failure to rescue, and post-operative respiratory failure – which together accounted for 63.4% of the medical errors.
 • Failure to rescue improved 11.1 percent from 2004 to 2006, while both bed sores and post-operative respiratory failure worsened during that time.
 • If all hospitals performed at the level of the top-ranked hospitals, about 37,214 patient deaths could have been avoided.

Starting Oct. 1, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will stop reimbursing hospitals for the treatment of eight major preventable errors, including objects left in the body after surgery and certain kinds of post-surgical infections.

As a Kirkland Washington Medical Malpractice attorney I have seen the devastation medical malpractice can cause in clients’ lives. I am truly hopeful that when the government and insurance companies stop paying for medical errors we will see dramatic improvement in patient safety in our hospitals and less medical malpractice by our doctors.

Source: HealthDay News post on msn.com

As a Kirkland Washington personal injury lawyer I often see cases where a child is injured by a defective product. In the news recently you may have heard that children’s toys can contain scary levels of dangerous chemicals. Washington Governor Christine Gregoire took a big step this week and passed a strong new toy safety  law which limits the amount of dangerous chemicals contained in toys. The new toy law is called the Children’s Safe Products Act.

Testing has found some toys made in China and other countries can at times have high levels of lead, cadium, or phthalates. These chemicals are often found in the paint or outer coating of the toys, which is what comes in regular contact with kids skin or mouth.

The new safety rules include:

• Limit total lead to 90 parts per million by July 1, 2009, 40 ppm by July 1, 2010, if achievable. (Federal standards limit the lead in surface paint on toys to 600 ppm)

• Limit total cadmium to 40 ppm by July 1, 2009.

• Limit six specific phthalates to 1,000 ppm by July 1, 2009.

• Set limits that apply to children’s toys; cosmetics and jewelry marketed to children under the age of 12; products used for teething babies; and car seats that are made or sold in Washington.

Hopefully, the flow of toxic toys in Washington will be significantly reduced by this new toy safety law.

Source:  Seattle PI, April 2, 2008