Philadelphia Car Accident Lawyer Blog

Every year, over 100,000 children under the age of 14 years will sustain serious injuries as a result of a motor vehicle crash. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of unintentional injury deaths for children aged 5 to 14 years and remain the second leading cause of death of unintentional injury deaths for children less than 4 years of age.

Most of the injuries occur due to failure to properly protect children and other occupants in motor vehicles. Obviously children have different tolerances to impact and resulting injury and many automobile and component manufacturers are not as focused as they should be on child injury prevention in automotive crashes. Unfortunately, many children are killed due to improper child seat design, seat belt design, and deficiencies with vehicle restraint systems.

In just a split second when an accident occurs, a child’s and family’s life can be forever impacted. Many of these tragic car accidents result not only from the negligence of other drivers but also as a result of defectively designed and manufactured products failing to take into account proper safety considerations despite knowledge of deficiencies.

Continue reading " Car and Other Motor Vehicle Accidents Remain a Major Public Health Concern for Children in America " »

As an experienced Philadelphia car accident lawyer for over 33 years, I have received calls from seriously injured victims of vehicle crashes caused by offending drivers who have serious health issues which may have contributed to the collision. Many times an auto accident involving a health issue is caused by a seizure or heart attack. Of course, the question arises that if a car accident caused injury to another under these circumstances, would the driver suffering a health issue or seizure be civilly liable for resulting damages?

Obviously each case must be judged on its own merits and a defendant may be held civilly liable for resulting damages if he or she was aware of their medical condition and failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that they were operating a vehicle in a safe and reasonable matter under the circumstances. If an individual has a history of seizures, whether or not they should be driving is a question of fact to be determined by a jury. If a driver had no reason to expect that he or she would suffer a seizure, then they may not be found to be negligent. If on the other hand, the driver was aware of a medical condition or determined likely to have seizures and failed to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of others by driving a vehicle under these circumstances, one must carefully understand and examine the medical evidence critical to determine responsibility and civil liability.

Continue reading " When Someone Suffers a Seizure While Driving a Car and Harms Another in a Car Accident, Who is Responsible? " »

It’s unfortunate, but many insurance company adjusters will delay negotiations or settlement of an accident claim until after the statute of limitations expires, thereby barring an individual’s right to sue in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania law dictates that insurers may not continue negotiations for settlement of a claim directly with a claimant who is neither an attorney nor represented by an attorney until the rights of the claimant may be affected by the statute of limitations on a policy or contract time limit without giving the claimant written notice that the time may be expiring and may affect the rights of the claimant. Notice shall be given to first party claimants 30 days and to third party claimants 60 days before the date on which the time limit may expire.

In today’s tightened economy, you would hope and think that your insurance company would deal with you in good faith to protect you from life’s many mishaps. When you pay a premium each month to your insurance company, you have every right to expect that they will deliver assistance to help when you need it most. Unfortunately, as an experienced injury claims, product liability, and premises liability lawyer for over three and a half decades, I am well aware of the fact that many insurance companies go out of their way at times to avoid paying justified claims. This tactic has frequently been referred to as the delay, deny, and defend game designed to raise the bottom line profitability of insurance companies.

Continue reading " What Happens When an Insurance Company Adjuster Lulls You into a False Sense of Security by Delaying Negotiations or Settlement of Your Claim? " »

Over the Labor Day holiday weekend, a story was published in a Philadelphia newspaper noting the death of an individual and catastrophic injuries sustained by two other passengers in a one car crash in Bucks County. Evidently a car carrying a man and two passengers ran off U.S. Rt. 1 and struck girders supporting a business sign and rolled over several times before it caught on fire. The driver and front seat female passenger were ejected from the vehicle and the other woman was pinned in the back. Initial police investigation revealed that alcohol was not believed to be a contributing factor.

For the last 33 years, I have litigated thousands of very simple to complex automobile crashes, many involving rollovers. I have learned that many times defective vehicle design and manufacturing defects can cause single vehicle car accidents.

Our Philadelphia catastrophic injury law firm has focused on serious injury cases from car accidents in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and throughout the United States for over 33 years. When one purchases a vehicle, they have the right to expect that the vehicle is safe for use.

Continue reading " When a Single Vehicle Crash Occurs, One Normally Jumps to the Conclusion that it Was Driver Error, but Many Times this is Not the Case " »

Recently one of my colleagues was confronted with the issue of whether a landowner could be held liable for having overgrown trees, which blocked the view of a negligent driver on a side street, resulting in a two-car accident. Pennsylvania courts have determined that landowners can be held liable in a situation where the crash was not caused by a motorist’s extraordinary conduct. However a homeowner will be relieved of liability if it is deemed that the driver, who caused the accident, was extraordinarily negligent.

The law limits liability placed upon landowners who fail to remove overgrown plants in several ways. Sections 363 and 364 of the Restatement of Torts prevents liability where the overgrowth and natural foliage which obscured the vision of motorists to both a stop sign and intersection was “a natural condition” of the land, as opposed to a structure or other artificial structure placed upon the land by a landowner or third person. A natural condition is generally used to indicate that the condition has not been changed by any act of a human being whether it be the possessor or any of the predecessors in possession or a third person dealing with the land either with or without consent of the then possessor.

Continue reading " Can an Owner of Land Be Held Liable if They Have Trees or Plant Growth Causing Visual Obstruction Which Results in a Car Accident? " »