Year: 2015

Social Security

Social Security Agencies Push for Stricter Reporting in Disability Cases

The United States Social Security Administration (SSA) is responsible for managing the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, and of course, the Social Security retirement program. Social Security disability insurance benefits are made available to claimants who can no longer work due to injury or illness. A worker must have been employed for a certain about of time (broken up into quarterly credits), so that he or she has paid into the system, before SSA will approve claimant to receive disability benefits. The Supplemental Security Income benefits program is designed to provide money for children of low income families and disabled elderly claimants. This program does not require claimant to have ever worked or worked enough to build up a certain …

headlines

What to Do After a Pedestrian Accident

Pedestrian accidents can happen anywhere, anytime. Perhaps, before crossing a street, you checked left and right and saw that the coast was clear of cars. Or you thought you and a driver made eye contact, but she kept driving and ran into the…By: Barry P. Goldberg, A Professional Law

Road Accidents

Five Injured In Bellflower Car Accident

Five people were injured in a car accident in Bellflower after a car crashed into a Norwalk transit bus with passengers on board. According to a KABC news report, the injury collision occurred the evening of April 17, 2015. Police say an Acura Integra was driving eastbound on Somerset Boulevard crashed into the bus going south on Woodruff Avenue. Two people in the car were injured, including

4 Michigan Auto Law attorneys named Top 1{9c067c25ed205f086ce6001901eb13dfadc688a7aefab9f64e0c55b8c5a55872} of lawyers in U.S

Four Michigan Auto Law trial attorneys have been designated in the top 1{9c067c25ed205f086ce6001901eb13dfadc688a7aefab9f64e0c55b8c5a55872} of the nation’s lawyers. The legal honor comes from the National Association of Distinguished Counsel, designating the following in the top 1{9c067c25ed205f086ce6001901eb13dfadc688a7aefab9f64e0c55b8c5a55872}: Steven Gursten Kevin Seiferheld Thomas James Ian Freed This comes after  11 of our attorneys were named Super Lawyers (top 5{9c067c25ed205f086ce6001901eb13dfadc688a7aefab9f64e0c55b8c5a55872}) for the past several years, and five of our attorneys were named Best Lawyers in America (limited to the top 2.4{9c067c25ed205f086ce6001901eb13dfadc688a7aefab9f64e0c55b8c5a55872} of all lawyers). But what do these legal awards and honors really mean? I believe they’re a reflection of the way our attorneys treat the people we serve. We don’t do every area of law, but we do one area of law and we aim to do it better than…

headlines

What if I’m Injured Hiking or Camping?

Summer is almost here and many of us are already planning our outdoor expeditions. Safety first is the rule for any hiking or camping trip, but unfortunately not all backcountry injuries can be avoided. So what happens if you’re injured while hiking or camping this summer? If the injuries weren’t your fault, could someone else be liable? On Tour If you’re injured while part of a tour group or organized expedition, you may have a claim against the tour company. A couple years ago, a teen was swept out to sea by a rogue wave while part of a kayaking and hiking tour in Hawaii. As it turned out, the tour company didn’t have a permit to access the tidal pool area where the wave hit, and …

Will SB 248 make No Fault attendant care retroactive?

Or will current attendant care rates and hours no longer be grandfathered? Here’s how SB 248 may affect your No Fault benefits if it’s passed into law I’ve received a number of frantic emails these past two weeks on the various proposed changes to Michigan’s No Fault laws. I’ve been an outspoken critic against these proposed changes. I believe the amendments to our No Fault law, which I will refer to as Senate Bill 248 for this blog even as it’s racing toward a possible vote later this week in the Michigan House, are a gift to the auto insurance companies at the expense of catastrophically injured auto accident victims that require critical No Fault benefits such as attendant care. The question that most people want …

headlines

Food and Beverage News and Trends

Judge rejects consumer claim concerning evaporated cane juice – On March 12, a US district judge in the Northern District of Illinois dismissed with prejudice a consumer lawsuit against the manufacturer of Healthy Grains products. The plaintiffs…By: DLA Piper

headlines

Can You Get Worker’s Compensation for Obesity?

The National Heart Forum estimates that 37 percent of Americans are obese. This number could rise to 50 percent by 2030. Obesity doesn’t just affect our size. It can cause other health problems, such as high blood pressure or heart attacks, or exacerbate the effects of other injuries, such as a back or knee injury. With the sedentary lifestyle of office work and all these drastic numbers in mind, can you get workers’ compensation for obesity? Work Related Injury While workers compensation laws vary from state to state, generally, you can get workers compensation for an injury that is work related, meaning it was caused or aggravated by your work duties or the conditions of your work place. Simple enough right? Obesity In 2013, The American Medical Association reclassified obesity as …

headlines

Workers’ Memorial Day: Remember the Dead – Fight for the Living, 28th April 2015

An international day of remembrance and action for workers killed, injured or disabled by work takes place today (28 April 2015).

Legal News

Doctors Hesitant About Xarelto For Few Years

In 2012, Reuters published a piece that touched on the hesitancy that some doctors felt about a new generation of blood thinners, one of which was Xarelto. In 2011, the FDA had approved Xarelto for prophylaxis of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in patients undergoing hip or knee replacement surgeries. A few months later, in November of 2011, the FDA approved it for a second use, for stroke prophylaxis in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation. This condition affects about 3 million Americans and Xarelto, a once-daily pill, was meant to decrease the chances that patients with this illness would develop blood clots in a storage chamber of the heart. Xarelto has been marketed as a one-size-fits-all solution to traditional warfarin but even in 2012, a year after the …

Yoga to Help Treat Brain Injury Cases

In recent years, doctors and researchers have made a great deal of progress in development of new treatments for traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients. A lot of these advances were made possible through the sacrifices of those who suffered from TBIs as result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reason for this is that, in some ways, these wars were very different form past conflicts, especially with respect to medical treatment options for injured soldiers. In past wars, such as Vietnam, most soldiers who suffered serious head trauma did not survive. There was no way to get them the immediate medical attention necessary to treat their serious injuries. Today, soldiers who are wounded are sometimes airlifted to technologically advanced Combat Support Hospitals (CSHs) to be …

Local Standards: Don’t Let Them Cat-ch You Out

In Lougheed v On the Beach (2014) EWCA Civ 1538 the Court of Appeal reaffirmed the importance of the Claimant adducing evidence of local safety standards in the context of package holiday claims. The recent decision of the High Court of Northern Ireland in Kerr v Thomas Cook [2015] NIQB 9 provides a colourful (and not unamusing) example of the same principle being applied in a very different factual context. The Claimant and her partner travelled to Tunisia on a holiday organised by the Defendant tour operator. Whilst she was there the Claimant was attacked by a cat (not pictured) which jumped out at her from a bush, scrabbing and biting her right lower leg, which was uncovered as she was wearing shorts. After the attack the …