The most common types of injuries that can occur in auto accidents are Back, Neck and Spine Injuries. If a person is rear-ended due to the negligence of another person, there neck and head are always affected. The force of the impact causes the persons neck to be jerked back and forth rapidly. This usually causes the neck muscles to stretch and cause swelling and often severe pain.

Alot of these injuries can be handled with simple physical therapy by a chiropractor, however there is a percentage of people who develop chronic and ongoing injuries that take years to recover from.

In some of these cases the Neck, Back and Spine Injury that don’t survive the therapy can be more of a serious, permanant kind of nerve damage. You may need more tests to determine what the problem. In the meantime, while you are having these test your medical bills are piling up and may need a personal injury lawyer to help determine the fault of the person or persons that cause this accident.

The disk and columns of the spine can also be affected by this type of accident. Because the spine is an extremely vulnerable, and have plate-like between the vertebrae any one of these could be ruptured or herniated. It is import to get more tests such as and MRI or a CAT Scan if you feel you have had this type of injury and it continue to persist.

One of the most difficult injuries to overcome is in the form of soft tissue damage. The potential for catching these types of injuries is usually not good because they are not easily revealed in the MRI or CAT scan results. Also, recovery of damages in these type of Neck, Back and Spine Injury cases is problematic at best, primarily because of a lack of provable tests results.

These types of cases are very expensive as well and often require multiple surgeries. Even after the surgeries one can be debilitated for long periods of time if not for life. Here at Murphy & Pressentin Personal Injury Law Offices information is our specialty. Let our professional staff of investigators find the information you need to get the maximum compensation for your Madison personal injury case.

If you’ve been a victim of a neck or back injury, it’s important to have an experienced Madison neck, back and spine injury attorney on your side. Call the law firm of Murphy & Pressentin today at866-281-9559 (toll free) for a free consultation. We our aggressive Personal Injury Lawyers that will get you the compensation you deserve.

The value of any case is based upon legal liability or the concept that some other party is “at fault” for the accident and this fault caused the resulting injuries. An experienced injury attorney will be able to quickly analyze and explain these concepts based upon the particular factual background of the crash in question. For purposes of this article we will not be considering the issue of liability, however please note it does have a direct bearing on the ultimate value of any injury or death claim. For wrongful death claims, the closest surviving next-of-kin possess the claim for wrongful death compensation. Typically the closest kin will be the spouse, children of the deceased or the parents.

The crash occurred on a Thursday evening, several hours after Drunk Driver had completed his workday. Drunk Driver was operating his personal auto which was covered by only minimum liability insurance. He was being sentenced to prison and had no assets for additional compensation. All looked lost for our clients.

There are two distinct damage aspects to death claims. First, there is the claim possessed by the deceased’s estate. The estate possesses claims for final medical expenses, funeral expenses and conscious pain and suffering associated with the fatal injury, including fear of imminent death or severe injury. Medical and funeral expenses will be readily defined, however an experienced injury attorney will need to analyze and estimate the value of the conscious pain and suffering damages. Secondly, surviving family members (spouse, children or parents) may possess a claim for the loss of society and companionship of their deceased relative as well as any provable loss of financial benefits and support.

The value of society and companionship is based upon the closeness and warmth of the personal relations between the individual family members and the deceased. Similarly, loss of income and support is a function of the survivors expectation of monetary benefits tied to the deceased’s earning capacity. Your injury attorney will be able to estimate the value of your society and companionship loss and calculate the loss of future earnings claim.

Potential financial losses may include economic claims for the loss of your loved one’s future earnings, expected financial support and potential inheritance. These damages may require the assistance of an accountant or economist to analyze, evaluate and calculate the loss. Your attorney will obtain and work with these experts as part of their representation.

As with all insurance claims, the insurance company will require documentation establishing each element of damage being pursued. An experienced injury attorney will be able to help gather and prepare the documentation needed to present your claim for compensation, as well as estimating the value of your lost society and pain and suffering damages.

You might want to know what typically happens and the amount of time that takes place in a personal injury case if you believe you have a claim worth pursuing. This article will describe the standard procedures and sequence of a personal injury claim and lawsuit.
Obtain Professional Healthcare Services

Your first step after getting injured in an accident is to see a professional healthcare provider. Go to the hospital or see a doctor if there is any personal injury. A visit to the doctor is not only the best choice for your health, seeking professional care immediately following the accident will convince an insurance adjuster and jury that your injury was significant.
Select an Attorney

Selecting an attorney is the next step to follow up on any important claim. After the injury occurs you should decide on a lawyer as soon as possible. You may actually settle a small personal injury claim on your own, even though a lawyer is usually beneficial in smaller claims as well, but you will certainly need a lawyer for any personal injury lawsuit which involves major damages or loss.

How do you choose between a small claim that doesn’t necessarily require a lawyer and an important claim that involves hiring an attorney? Generally, if your employment is affected for than a couple of days, if you fracture a bone, or if your medical expenses exceed a couple thousand dollars, you should consider legal representation.

You definitely should discuss your damages with more than one lawyer. You may even choose to set up appointments to meet them in person. After selecting an attorney and signing a payment contract, your lawyer will get to work on your claim.
Case Examination and Medical Record Evaluation

Initially your lawyer will set up an in-depth interview with you to investigate how the accident occurred, your history, and your medical condition and medical services. The lawyer wants to identify everything that you know about your accident, injury and treatment. Lawyers don’t want any surprises, so be certain your answers are detailed and thorough.

The lawyer will then gather the entire medical history and expenses pertaining to the injury and will most likely also obtain your medical records all medical care that you have ever had concerning any pertinent matters in the claim. This stage could take months.

The lawyer will examine all medical records once they arrive to see if there is a potential case in his or her opinion. Often times the lawyer may decide that there is no case and can communicate that unpleasant news to the client beforehand in the representation.
Lawyer Considers Settling or Makes a Demand

Many times smaller personal injury cases are settled before a court case is ever filed. If the attorney considers settling the case, they will make a demand to the other party’s lawyer or the their insurance company. If not, your lawyer will file proceedings. Generally, if your claim involves a case of permanent damages or loss, a competent lawyer will not settle before filing a lawsuit.

An effective lawyer will also hold back on a demand until the plaintiff has reached a point of maximum medical improvement (MMI). MMI occurs when the plaintiff’s medical treatment is discontinued and his or her health is restored as much as possible. The reason for this delay is that until the plaintiff has achieved MMI, the lawyer cannot identify a monetary value for the claim.

Until MMI is reached the lawyer should wait to file a court case. The jury might otherwise underestimate the value of the case if the plaintiff is not at MMI by the time the case reaches the trial stage.

It may take months to years for the plaintiff to get to MMI and a good lawyer will postpone further action if the plaintiff has the financial means to hold off. Understandably, if the plaintiff needs money, then the lawyer should file a lawsuit as quickly as possible.
A Claim is Filed

The clock begins ticking when a lawsuit is filed as to when a case goes to trial. The pretrial process of each state is different, but usually a personal injury case doesn’t go to trial for one to two years. Be aware that a lawsuit needs to be filed within a firm timeline that each state has determined by assigning a statute of limitations law.
The Discovery Phase

The discovery process is the phase in which each party examines their opposition’s legal claims and arguments. They send interrogatories, or questions, and document bids to each other, and take depositions of all of the witnesses involved in the case, usually beginning with the defendant and plaintiff. Depending on the court’s time limits and intricacies of the case this procedure may last from six months to a year.
Negotiation and Arbitration

As the discovery course winds down, lawyers will usually begin settlement discussions. Occasionally a case is settled by attorneys negotiating among themselves, but as an alternative, they will go to mediation. Mediation is a process in which both clients and both lawyers appear in front of a mediator in an attempt to settle the case.
Trial

many cases mediation is successful, otherwise, if it doesn’t work, a trial for the case is planned. A personal injury trial can last anywhere from a day to longer than a week. The time it takes may be longer since trials in many states arrange for only a half-day instead of an entire day. That schedule doubles the amount of time a trial takes, but also allows judges and lawyers to take care of other business throughout the day.

A key fact about trials is that just because a lawsuit is scheduled for trial it does not mean the trial will take place on that exact date. Trials are frequently rescheduled due to the judge’s schedule. If your trial is cancelled, you should not come to the conclusion that the lawyers are scheming against you or that something bad is taking place. Trials are commonly postponed, and for many harmless reasons.

Five costly mistakes to avoid in your personal injury or wrongful death case

Each year, more than 40,000 Americans are killed and thousands more seriously injured at the hands of negligent drivers. Since 1954, Murphy & Pressentin has been representing the seriously injured and bereaved survivors of motor vehicle crashes negotiating and litigating their cases with liable insurance companies.

In our experience, the following are the most common and costly mistakes made by people dealing with injury and wrongful death claims:

1. Giving the insurance company a recorded statement without first consulting with a bodily injury attorney.

Insurance adjusters are likely to contact you shortly after the accident and will ask that you provide a recorded statement (if they haven’t already done so). Insurance adjusters are highly trained, skilled professionals whose job description is to reduce the amount of money their employer has to pay to settle or resolve bodily injury claims.

Be forewarned, even the most straightforward liability accident may contain hidden legal nuances upon which your ability to receive compensation may rise or fall, including the value to be assigned to your losses. If you do not know these nuances, a simple recorded phone conversation (which may be used as evidence at trial) may significantly reduce your compensation, or defeat it outright.

2. Trusting the insurance company will treat you fairly since their insured was responsible for and caused your injury.

Highly skilled insurance adjusters do not want you to hire an injury lawyer. In fact, if you ask them – Do I need a lawyer? they will tell you No. They will tell you the lawyer will simply take money from your pocket at settlement and that the lawyer will greatly delay the settlement process.

It is in the adjuster’s (and the insurance company’s) best interests that you not hire a lawyer, as they know settlements with bodily injury lawyers are two to three times as much as settlements with unrepresented injured people.

3. Pursuing early settlement before an investigation into applicable insurance coverage has been completed.

A wrongful death claim is not ripe for settlement until you have located and identified all available liability (or other) insurance and have calculated the monetary value of each category of recoverable damages: loss of society & companionship; loss of financial support; conscious pain and suffering; medical and funeral expenses, etcetera. Pursuing settlement discussions before this time, tips off the insurance company that you may be financially challenged and are a potential candidate for a bargain settlement.

In fact, part of the insurance company’s strategy is to get you to accept an early settlement at a discounted amount, for less than the total dollar amount which may be available to compensate you for your injuries and losses.

Should you fail to have a thorough investigation completed, you may end up leaving hundreds of thousands ($100,000 +) of dollars of insurance proceeds uncollected.

4. Failing to consult and hire an injury attorney to conduct an investigation into applicable insurance coverage.

An experienced injury attorney should be willing to work with you on a negotiated (and fair) fee basis, to make certain your interests are protected by completing a thorough and complete insurance investigation. This investigation will consider all potential avenues for your family’s compensation and recovery and may include, among other things, eyewitness interviews and searches for liability insurance policies, which may provide coverage for your claim.

I Your fee for an attorney’s insurance investigation should be for an established amount (i.e. $5,000). By working with a lawyer in this fashion you will protect your family’s initial liability insurance recovery from a contingency fee, while obtaining the peace of mind that you are recovering “everything that is available.” Under this type of a fee arrangement, you will pay an attorney’s contingency fee only if added insurance coverage is identified, thereby protecting your family’s monetary interests while maximizing your recovery.

At Murphy & Pressentin we always have your best interests at heart and we have developed this unique fee arrangement as a way to protect families who are dealing with devastating physical and emotional losses. We believe you should have full disclosure of “all available proceeds” before you sign off on your case.

5. Failing to seek psychological counseling for help in adjusting to one of life’s most traumatic events.

Losing a loved one unexpectedly and traumatically in an accident is devastating. Psychologists are trained to assist people in adjusting, as best as we may, to grief and the loss of an immediate family member. If your health insurance covers counseling, we strongly suggest that all family members meet privately with a psychologist. If you do not have insurance coverage, we will assist you in locating a counselor willing to provide services now, while waiting until your case settles before receiving payment.

If you are able to avoid making these common mistakes, you will be well on your way to resolving the legal issues surrounding your wrongful death loss in a most logical, reasoned and healthy way.

On May 25th, 2010, the personal injury lawyers at Murphy & Pressentin were retained to represent Client and her family for a severe bodily auto accident injury arising out of a March 25th head-on crash with a drunk driver at highway speeds. By the end of July 2010, two months after our retainer, the Insurance Company made us a policy limits settlement offer of $58,000, to be divided between Client and her family. The Insurance Company represented that the $58,000 insurance proceeds was “all the insurance that was available” to compensate our clients for their injuries.

The crash occurred on a Thursday evening, several hours after Drunk Driver had completed his workday. Drunk Driver was operating his personal auto which was covered by only minimum liability insurance. He was being sentenced to prison and had no assets for additional compensation. All looked lost for our clients.

Instead of settling, we advised Client that we needed to complete further investigation to determine if there was anyone other than Drunk Driver who might have responsibility for the crash. Although Drunk Driver was operating his own car, after work hours at the time of the accident, our review of the facts leading up to the crash suggested that Drunk Driver had attended his Employer’s “safety meeting” that afternoon. As a result, our review focused upon the Employer and this meeting.

Ultimately, our investigation established that Employer provided alcoholic beverages for its employees, including Drunk Driver, at the safety meeting. Our analysis concluded that Drunk Driver consumed 11 beers or more during the meeting, in the presence of his boss. We were able to establish by closed circuit cameras and timing analysis, that Drunk Driver consumed no alcoholic beverages after leaving the meeting and drove directly to the auto accident scene. Lastly, we were able to prove that Drunk Driver was a menace when he left his Employer, since his blood alcohol level was measured at .24 by blood test after crashing head-on into our clients.

As a result of our findings we contacted the Employer’s Commercial Liability Insurer and presented them with our findings and the facts which we were prepared to present to a jury, if necessary. We demanded that they pay our clients the Employer’s liability policy limit of $2,000,000. Employer’s Insurer agreed with our analysis and agreed to pay the Employer’s policy limits.
WE INCREASED THE GROSS RECOVERY OF OUR CLIENTS BY $2,000,000.

A Contingent Fee Agreement provided for our personal injury attorney’s fee of 25% if we were able to settle our clients’ case without filing a civil suit in court. In the event we had to resort to filing a civil Summons & Complaint, our fees increased to one-third (33%) per our retainer agreement.

We succeeded in settling this case without filing a civil court proceeding and increased our client’s NET RECOVERY to well over $1,000,000.

On May 25th, 2010, the personal injury lawyers at Murphy & Pressentin were retained to represent Client and her family for a severe bodily auto accident injury arising out of a March 25th head-on crash with a drunk driver at highway speeds. By the end of July 2010, two months after our retainer, the Insurance Company made us a policy limits settlement offer of $58,000, to be divided between Client and her family. The Insurance Company represented that the $58,000 insurance proceeds was “all the insurance that was available” to compensate our clients for their injuries.

The crash occurred on a Thursday evening, several hours after Drunk Driver had completed his workday. Drunk Driver was operating his personal auto which was covered by only minimum liability insurance. He was being sentenced to prison and had no assets for additional compensation. All looked lost for our clients.

Instead of settling, we advised Client that we needed to complete further investigation to determine if there was anyone other than Drunk Driver who might have responsibility for the crash. Although Drunk Driver was operating his own car, after work hours at the time of the accident, our review of the facts leading up to the crash suggested that Drunk Driver had attended his Employer’s “safety meeting” that afternoon. As a result, our review focused upon the Employer and this meeting.

Ultimately, our investigation established that Employer provided alcoholic beverages for its employees, including Drunk Driver, at the safety meeting. Our analysis concluded that Drunk Driver consumed 11 beers or more during the meeting, in the presence of his boss. We were able to establish by closed circuit cameras and timing analysis, that Drunk Driver consumed no alcoholic beverages after leaving the meeting and drove directly to the auto accident scene. Lastly, we were able to prove that Drunk Driver was a menace when he left his Employer, since his blood alcohol level was measured at .24 by blood test after crashing head-on into our clients.

As a result of our findings we contacted the Employer’s Commercial Liability Insurer and presented them with our findings and the facts which we were prepared to present to a jury, if necessary. We demanded that they pay our clients the Employer’s liability policy limit of $2,000,000. Employer’s Insurer agreed with our analysis and agreed to pay the Employer’s policy limits.
WE INCREASED THE GROSS RECOVERY OF OUR CLIENTS BY $2,000,000.

A Contingent Fee Agreement provided for our personal injury attorney’s fee of 25% if we were able to settle our clients’ case without filing a civil suit in court. In the event we had to resort to filing a civil Summons & Complaint, our fees increased to one-third (33%) per our retainer agreement.

We succeeded in settling this case without filing a civil court proceeding and increased our client’s NET RECOVERY to well over $1,000,000.