Friday, December 28, 2007
Jack MeeHoff
Columbus, Ohio - In a major victory for insurance companies and those who wish to be able to determine the financial risks associated with injuring people due to their own negligence; the Ohio Supreme Court rules that caps on damage awards in personal injury lawsuits, declaring them constitutional by a 5-2 margin this Thursday, December 27, 2007.
There were several business organizations who convinced - some say paid off - the Ohio legislature to cap damages awards to victims who are injured to a neglectful business economic in injuring others, effectively destroying hundreds of years of well settled law as it relates to the rights of man. But health care organizations are gleeful that they can always know no matter how careless they are, it will only cost them a sum certain, rather that being exposed to what a jury believes the value of the case is.
One dissenting justice stated it was a: "a sad day for the court" and "a tragic day for Ohioans."
The Court actually upheld damages caps approved by the legislature way back in year 2004. One of the statutes has a cap on awards for pain and suffering and intangible injuries to a maximum of $350,000 unless the injured person loses bodily organ or a limb. The other statute limits punitive damages normally understood to be a sort of death penalty to businesses who put profits over people, to just two times the amount of compensatory damages awarded by juries for injuries. The Court's shocking ruling was the result of several years of litigation by Plaintiff Melisa Arbino, a Cincinnati woman, versus Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Co. The allegations were in part, that Johnson & Johnson was negligent, causing blood clots due to the use of a birth control patch manufactured and distributed by Defendant Johnson & Johnson.
An organization considered by many consumers to be an anti-victim, anti-plaintiff group, called the Ohio Alliance for Civil Justice, claims the ruling sets: "parameters that fairly award injured parties while providing a reasonable and predictable system for Ohio's job creators."
The Ohio Alliance for Civil Justice consistently argued that the tort damages caps have been long needed in order to encourage businesses to stay afloat and also to help businesses create jobs without being threatened by run away jury verdicts. Consumer groups retort that if businesses followed the law to begin with, they wouldn't get sued and there would be no fear. "This simply acts as a get out of jail free card." According to California trial attorney, Michael P. Ehline.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who wrote the majority opinion, said damages caps still let juries be fact-finders in personal-injury lawsuits, but simply allows the General Assembly to determine how much the jury gets to award.
"We are charged with evaluating the constitutionality of their choices," Wrote Moyer. "Issues such as the wisdom of damage limitations and whether the specific dollar amounts available under them best serve the public interest are not for us to decide."
Moyer did seem to agree that the Court had in the past rejected damages in injury lawsuits in over 30 years, but now a bill had been written good enough to take away the historical role and right of the jury, stating the new legislation approved by the General Assembly three years ago fixed these constitutional "problems."
Justices Maureen O'Connor, Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, and Judith Ann Lanzinger all joined in the Court's majority opinion. Justice Robert R. Cupp wrote a separate and concurring opinion.
Justices Terrence O'Donnell, and Paul E. Pfeifer wrote dissents. They both agreed that the cap on intangible damages clearly violates the constitutional rights of injured victims because it lets the legislature, instead of juries determine damage awards in tort lawsuits.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Los Angeles and Orange County personal injury accidents
What everyone needs to know about Los Angeles and Orange County personal injury accidents is a many faceted question. Many of the circumstances in your daily life in California cities like Los Angeles and Newport Beach may lead you to an unfortunate incident causing you injuries and suffering. Accidents such as car accidents, truck accident and motorcycle accidents are bound to occur every now and then. In fact, your may need a Los Angeles injury attorney or Orange County car accident lawyer sooner than you expected.
In fact, you could simply might be walking along the roadway, crosswalk, or even in a grocery store aisle and get injured by a moving object, or trip or slip upon a substance that was not supposed to be on the ground to begin with. If there had been proper care and maintenance the injury could have been avoided altogether.
Other accident situations could involve a railroad accident, truck accident or other types of vehicular bus accident while riding as a passenger, driving to or from work or on the way to the swimming pool at the health club.
There are other accidents that could happen out the blue like a a dog bite or animal attack. You could also become the victim of defective product from a design defect, or manufacturing defect, etc.
In many of these accident scenarios there is a real possibility you could suffer a catastrophic personal injury. Since a California personal injury is often caused from an accident or unexpected happening, it is fundamental that someone was negligent in causing you the injuries to your person or property because they were irresponsible.
The special and general damages sustained by an individual who is the victim of a serious personal injury in Los Angeles could be psychological and not just physical. An individual could also suffer a head injury resulting in paraplegia, quadriplegia, or some injury like a disc burst fracture that could result in a mild traumatic brain injury or (MTBI), all just from one simple accident.
These personal injury damages need to be made into money damages, typically by highly trained and respected Los Angeles personal injury attorneys, assuming the accident occurred in LA. These damages are typically paid by a liability insurance company who insured the wrongdoer who injured you.
The help of an expert attorney with skill and expertise in personal injury cases is a necessity a personal injury victim in California in order to get the money damages owed to them by the person, individual or business who caused the injuries or wrongful death of you or your loved ones.
In Los Angeles, and Orange County, California, there is a lot of excellent, aggressive personal injury lawyers with integrity who can help victims in the court proceedings and difficulties of a personal injury claim. Many of these Orange country and Los Angeles personal injury lawyers are hardworking accident lawyer pros who get compensation for the clients who have retained them either through settling or going to trial by a jury.
If you want to hire a competent lawyer, there are many ways to do so. But you should hire a lawyer with lots of experience in issues like yours. The lawyer you need should have high levels of legal expertise and be able to handle the personal injury from start to finish.
Many Los Angeles personal injury counselors specialize only in car accident cases. Some other ones like to specialize in motorcycle accident or bicycle accident claims. Still others like to litigate elder abuse law, or workman's comp law cases.
You can use powerful search engines like Yahoo! or Google.com. There are also many free lawyer directories. If you are old school, you can use the yellow pages or Penny saver ads. You can also go online to the the Los Angeles County Bar Association website to find attorneys. The problem is that unless you know someone who dealt with that firm, you won't know until he or she is retained how they will do.
Learning from friends is a helpful way to choose a competent lawyer also. The best way is to look at the results, verdicts and settlements page of your lawyer. This is simply the quickest way to answer the question of what everyone needs to know about Los Angeles and Orange County personal injury accidents, which is how to find the right injury lawyer.
It gives you a chance to observe the records and accomplishment and your attorney's system of how he or she charges fees and what not. If you were injured, you should take a look at the Ehline Law web site. Michael P. Ehline is a former U.S. Marine, aggressive and has a proven online track record of success in injury cases. His number is 888.400-9721
In fact, you could simply might be walking along the roadway, crosswalk, or even in a grocery store aisle and get injured by a moving object, or trip or slip upon a substance that was not supposed to be on the ground to begin with. If there had been proper care and maintenance the injury could have been avoided altogether.
Other accident situations could involve a railroad accident, truck accident or other types of vehicular bus accident while riding as a passenger, driving to or from work or on the way to the swimming pool at the health club.
There are other accidents that could happen out the blue like a a dog bite or animal attack. You could also become the victim of defective product from a design defect, or manufacturing defect, etc.
In many of these accident scenarios there is a real possibility you could suffer a catastrophic personal injury. Since a California personal injury is often caused from an accident or unexpected happening, it is fundamental that someone was negligent in causing you the injuries to your person or property because they were irresponsible.
The special and general damages sustained by an individual who is the victim of a serious personal injury in Los Angeles could be psychological and not just physical. An individual could also suffer a head injury resulting in paraplegia, quadriplegia, or some injury like a disc burst fracture that could result in a mild traumatic brain injury or (MTBI), all just from one simple accident.
These personal injury damages need to be made into money damages, typically by highly trained and respected Los Angeles personal injury attorneys, assuming the accident occurred in LA. These damages are typically paid by a liability insurance company who insured the wrongdoer who injured you.
The help of an expert attorney with skill and expertise in personal injury cases is a necessity a personal injury victim in California in order to get the money damages owed to them by the person, individual or business who caused the injuries or wrongful death of you or your loved ones.
In Los Angeles, and Orange County, California, there is a lot of excellent, aggressive personal injury lawyers with integrity who can help victims in the court proceedings and difficulties of a personal injury claim. Many of these Orange country and Los Angeles personal injury lawyers are hardworking accident lawyer pros who get compensation for the clients who have retained them either through settling or going to trial by a jury.
If you want to hire a competent lawyer, there are many ways to do so. But you should hire a lawyer with lots of experience in issues like yours. The lawyer you need should have high levels of legal expertise and be able to handle the personal injury from start to finish.
Many Los Angeles personal injury counselors specialize only in car accident cases. Some other ones like to specialize in motorcycle accident or bicycle accident claims. Still others like to litigate elder abuse law, or workman's comp law cases.
You can use powerful search engines like Yahoo! or Google.com. There are also many free lawyer directories. If you are old school, you can use the yellow pages or Penny saver ads. You can also go online to the the Los Angeles County Bar Association website to find attorneys. The problem is that unless you know someone who dealt with that firm, you won't know until he or she is retained how they will do.
Learning from friends is a helpful way to choose a competent lawyer also. The best way is to look at the results, verdicts and settlements page of your lawyer. This is simply the quickest way to answer the question of what everyone needs to know about Los Angeles and Orange County personal injury accidents, which is how to find the right injury lawyer.
It gives you a chance to observe the records and accomplishment and your attorney's system of how he or she charges fees and what not. If you were injured, you should take a look at the Ehline Law web site. Michael P. Ehline is a former U.S. Marine, aggressive and has a proven online track record of success in injury cases. His number is 888.400-9721
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
The Swiss and Turks at odds over Armenian Genocide Legal Interpretations
The massacres that followed the first world war in Armenia by the ottoman Turks,
and later reported in some circles as a genocidal attack by the defeated turks on a minority group
in their country (later echoed by the Kurds, another minority group in the country) has caused a strain in relations between
those two countries much as it recently had done with the United States. Whether the million-plus figure of slaughtered Armenians is accurate or not,
Turkey maintains that the Armenians are exploiting this issue for their own political gain. All in all, these
talks on the massacres, which take place in Switzerland, are quite explosive in nature.
Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney
For it's part, modern Turkey in the post-Ottoman period continues to repeat its calls for researching the events from an objective viewpoint
and has now caused a crisis between the two countries. In fact the various
statements that are given by the News Agency of Switzerland reflect the Swiss tendency who does not favor the unilateral scenarios.
Peter Breiner, who is head of the Senate Commission of Foreign Policy and also head of the Foreign Policy of Assembly of Cantons, states that
about this historical issue : “this issue regards rather the concerned sides, namely Turkey and Armenia. Also, pointing Turkey with finger after some 90-odd years
is not the business of other countries.
and later reported in some circles as a genocidal attack by the defeated turks on a minority group
in their country (later echoed by the Kurds, another minority group in the country) has caused a strain in relations between
those two countries much as it recently had done with the United States. Whether the million-plus figure of slaughtered Armenians is accurate or not,
Turkey maintains that the Armenians are exploiting this issue for their own political gain. All in all, these
talks on the massacres, which take place in Switzerland, are quite explosive in nature.
Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney
For it's part, modern Turkey in the post-Ottoman period continues to repeat its calls for researching the events from an objective viewpoint
and has now caused a crisis between the two countries. In fact the various
statements that are given by the News Agency of Switzerland reflect the Swiss tendency who does not favor the unilateral scenarios.
Peter Breiner, who is head of the Senate Commission of Foreign Policy and also head of the Foreign Policy of Assembly of Cantons, states that
about this historical issue : “this issue regards rather the concerned sides, namely Turkey and Armenia. Also, pointing Turkey with finger after some 90-odd years
is not the business of other countries.
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