Personal Injury
A personal injury case is any case in which an individual is injured as the result of the negligent conduct of another person, company or entity. A wide variety of wrongful acts can create a cause of action for an individual to pursue a personal injury claim. A personal injury case is a civil, not a criminal case. Unfortunately, the only remedy available in a personal injury case is monetary damages or compensation for the injuries or death sustained by a person. Damages in a personal injury case are really a measurement of the harm or loss the victim, or their family, has sustained as a result of a wrongdoer’s negligent conduct. Personal injury cases come in all shapes and sizes, from minor injury to catastrophic injury and even death. Some examples include car wrecks, truck wrecks, and slip and trip and falls. Nursing home abuse and neglect and medical negligence (medical malpractice) are technically personal injury cases. Every individual is affected by injuries in a unique way. If you or your loved one has suffered an injury due to someone else's negligence, it is important that you contact a law firm who has experience litigating these claims.
Car, Truck, 18 Wheeler, and other Motor Vehicle Collisions
In our community, car accidents are the most common cause of personal injury lawsuits. Technology, in many instances, has improved our ability to survive a car wreck, sometimes without significant injury. However, airbags, seat belts, and crash protection have their own limitations. While crash protection has improved over the years, the number of drivers who are severely distracted has multiplied by the thousands. Twenty years ago, you had to worry about someone looking down to adjust the radio or turn on their air conditioning. Now, drivers are distracted by phone calls, texting, facebook, twitter, and any one of the number of gizmos that can be found in newly manufactured vehicles. What's worse, an increasing number of individuals operate their vehicles while under the influence of alcohol, prescription medications, or illegal drugs. Even if another driver is trying to pay attention, accidents happen due to less intentional forms of negligence. No matter the cause, in a matter of seconds, your life and the life of your family can change forever.
The greater the mass and faster the speed, the greater the force of an impact. Coal trucks, gravel trucks, 18 wheelers, and other commercial vehicles are constantly traveling on US 23, Interstate 64, and our secondary roadways. While the the operation of these vehicles is essential to our economy, the devastation that results from an impact with one of these trucks is in most cases, far more severe. Although state laws govern the operation of vehicles in Kentucky, additional laws and regulations apply to the operation of these larger commercial vehicles.
While the facts surrounding a car or truck wreck can become complicated, the issues that arise litigating car wreck claims can become even more tasking. Unless you have filed a written rejection of PIP or No Fault benefits with Kentucky Department of Insurance, if you are a Kentucky resident who purchased automobile insurance within the State of Kentucky and you have been injured in a car or truck wreck, you should be entitled to PIP or No Fault benefits. These benefits pay for a portion of your medical expenses and lost wages. Additional issues arise when your medical expenses have been paid by your own private health insurance, Medicaid, or Medicare. Understanding these issues and identifying the benefits and coverage that is available to you after you have been injured in an automobile accident is extremely important and is the key in determining that you are fully compensated for your loss.
The greater the mass and faster the speed, the greater the force of an impact. Coal trucks, gravel trucks, 18 wheelers, and other commercial vehicles are constantly traveling on US 23, Interstate 64, and our secondary roadways. While the the operation of these vehicles is essential to our economy, the devastation that results from an impact with one of these trucks is in most cases, far more severe. Although state laws govern the operation of vehicles in Kentucky, additional laws and regulations apply to the operation of these larger commercial vehicles.
While the facts surrounding a car or truck wreck can become complicated, the issues that arise litigating car wreck claims can become even more tasking. Unless you have filed a written rejection of PIP or No Fault benefits with Kentucky Department of Insurance, if you are a Kentucky resident who purchased automobile insurance within the State of Kentucky and you have been injured in a car or truck wreck, you should be entitled to PIP or No Fault benefits. These benefits pay for a portion of your medical expenses and lost wages. Additional issues arise when your medical expenses have been paid by your own private health insurance, Medicaid, or Medicare. Understanding these issues and identifying the benefits and coverage that is available to you after you have been injured in an automobile accident is extremely important and is the key in determining that you are fully compensated for your loss.
Premises Liability / Trip and Falls / Slip and Falls
Under the law of this Commonwealth, retail establishments, apartment complexes, restaurants, stores, gas stations, landlords, and other businesses have a legal obligation to ensure that their property is maintained in a reasonably safe condition. Often, businesses fail to fulfill this obligation. Examples of dangerous conditions that often lead to injury include spills that are not cleaned up in a timely fashion, broken areas of concrete and asphalt that are not repaired, improperly designed sidewalks, parking structures, and means of egress / ingress, and inadequate attempts to remove snow, ice, and other debris.
If a business is negligent in maintaining its premises and an individual is injured, they have a cause of action to recover damages for reasonably related medical expenses, lost wages, impairment of their earning capacity, and pain and suffering.
If a business is negligent in maintaining its premises and an individual is injured, they have a cause of action to recover damages for reasonably related medical expenses, lost wages, impairment of their earning capacity, and pain and suffering.
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect
As many families have experienced, often a loved one’s medical needs become so complicated that they must enter a nursing home or other long term care facility. Families entrust nursing homes with their loved ones to provide the medical care and personal attention that is promised upon admission into the facility. Unfortunately, some nursing homes do not deliver on the promise made to the family. Nursing home residents, due to their frail and weakened state, are often subject to abuse and neglect. Even when family members visit their loved ones on a regular basis, the signs and symptoms can go unnoticed to the untrained eye. Often, families are told that bruises, bed sores, skin tears, falls, weight loss, and even fractures, are unpreventable results of the “aging process.” When medical records are reviewed and depositions of caregivers are taken, it often becomes clear that these injuries were preventable and were in fact, the result of negligent care.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky has been very proactive in creating laws and regulations that specifically prohibit abuse and neglect of nursing home residents. Under the law of this Commonwealth, nursing home residents shall be free from mental and physical abuse and must be treated with consideration, respect, and full recognition of their dignity and individuality. Additionally, every resident, responsible party, responsible family member, or guardian has the right to be fully informed of the resident’s medical condition. Even more, federal regulation requires that every facility be administered in a manner that enables it to use its resources effectively and efficiently to attain and maintain the highest practicable, physical, mental, and psychology well-being of each resident. Violations of these state and federal laws are often the basis for nursing home and abuse claims.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky has been very proactive in creating laws and regulations that specifically prohibit abuse and neglect of nursing home residents. Under the law of this Commonwealth, nursing home residents shall be free from mental and physical abuse and must be treated with consideration, respect, and full recognition of their dignity and individuality. Additionally, every resident, responsible party, responsible family member, or guardian has the right to be fully informed of the resident’s medical condition. Even more, federal regulation requires that every facility be administered in a manner that enables it to use its resources effectively and efficiently to attain and maintain the highest practicable, physical, mental, and psychology well-being of each resident. Violations of these state and federal laws are often the basis for nursing home and abuse claims.
Wrongful Death
When an individual is killed as a result of negligent conduct of another individual or entity, that individual's estate has wrongful death claim against the negligent party. The wrongful death claim is prosecuted by the administrator or executor of the victim's estate. The beneficiaries of a wrongful death claim are determined by Kentucky law. Wrongful death claims can originate from the negligent operation of an automobile or 18 wheeler, nursing home abuse and neglect, a product liability or medical negligence claim, premises liability claim, or any other act or omission that would ordinarily give rise to a personal injury claim.
In a wrongful death claim, the estate may recovery damages for lost wages, destruction of earning capacity, medical expenses, funeral expenses, and for the pain and suffering that the decent endured.
In a wrongful death claim, the estate may recovery damages for lost wages, destruction of earning capacity, medical expenses, funeral expenses, and for the pain and suffering that the decent endured.
Product Liability / Defective Products
In Kentucky, product liability actions include any claims brought for or on account personal injury, death, or property damage caused by the manufacture, construction, design, formulation, development of standards, preparation, processing, assembly, testing, listing, certifying, warning, instructing, marketing, advertising, packaging or labeling of any product. These cases are governed by the Kentucky Product Liability Act.
Product liability claims are most often brought as a result of manufacturing defects, design defects, or for a failure to warn of a product's dangerous propensities. If a product is determined to be defective under any theory, the manufacturer is strictly liable for the damages sustained by the injured party. The victim of a defective product can recover damages for lost wages, destructions or impairment of earning capacity, medical expenses, and pain and suffering resulting from their injuries.
Product liability claims are most often brought as a result of manufacturing defects, design defects, or for a failure to warn of a product's dangerous propensities. If a product is determined to be defective under any theory, the manufacturer is strictly liable for the damages sustained by the injured party. The victim of a defective product can recover damages for lost wages, destructions or impairment of earning capacity, medical expenses, and pain and suffering resulting from their injuries.
Construction / Workplace Injuries
Due to the dangerous nature of working on construction projects and working in manufacturing facilities, injuries our inevitable. While injuries sustained by an employee in Kentucky in most instances will be covered under the Kentucky Worker's Compensation Act, the compensation an injured worker is entitled to receive is extremely limited. Complex immunity issues arise when work related claims are brought in state courts, outside of the Worker's Compensation Act. However, if you or your loved one's injuries resulted from the negligence of a third party contractor, product manufacturer, or some other entity, a cause of action for injuries can be pursued without waiving the injured worker's rights to worker's compensation benefits.
Insurance Law
Individuals who are sued for damages in a personal injury case often have liability insurance. Liability insurance is the result of a contract that is entered into between an insurance company and its insured. In the case of underinsured and uninsured claims for bodily injury, the contract that governs the injured party's right to damages is based upon a contract between the injured party and his or her own insurance company. Complex legal issues can result from the specific language of these insurance contracts.
Mediation
Mediation is a private and confidential process utilized by parties involved in a lawsuit to determine if their claims can be resolved without having to risk the expense, stress and uncertainty of a trial. It is a form of alternative dispute resolution that has grown very popular with courts, attorneys, and litigants over the last 20 years. In a mediation, a third party, the mediator, meets with the parties and attempts to negotiate a settlement of the lawsuit. Although mediations are often court ordered, the parties have the complete freedom to determine whether or not their case will be resolved. Richard "Sonny" Martin has been mediating cases since 2000, when he became a certified by the Mediation Center of Kentucky. He is a Kentucky Court of Justice Mediator and parties are often referred to him by the courts for mediation.