Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog

Wednesday around 4:30 p.m. a 10-year-old boy was impaled by a crowbar after the pickup truck he was riding in was rear-ended in Ennis, Texas. The car accident—which happened at the intersection of Highway 287 and Highway 34, caused an inch-in-diameter crowbar from the bed of the truck to be thrust into the cab. It impaled the boy’s lower back and leg and continued on to pierce his 38-year-old mother’s back, who was seated in front of him in the front passenger seat.

It took fire and rescue crews almost two hours to cut the boy out of the truck; rescuers said he was alert, oriented and talking throughout the process. He was taken to Medical City Children’s Hospital in Dallas and his mother was taken to Parkland Hospital. Miraculously, neither suffered life-threatening injuries.

The woman who hit the Ford Ranger pickup truck, causing the accident will not be charged. The wreck happened yesterday during the severe thunderstorm weather that hit North Texas.

If you or your child has suffered bodily injuries as the result of someone else's negligence, in a car wreck--or any other type of personal injury accident, please contact the Anderson Law Firm for a free consultation on how to recover damages.

Photo courtesy of NBC-Dallas.

Imagine that you're crossing a street at a crosswalk and you have the right of way. All of a sudden, a car flies around a corner and crashes into you. Pedestrian accidents like this scenario can be serious and often fatal, and unfortunately there is little you can do to prevent them if you're following the rules.

Most pedestrian accidents restult in serious injuries.

An alarming 64,000 pedestrians are injured each year and over 5,000 of these injuries result in fatalities. That means that a pedestrian is injured almost every eight minutes; someone just walking along, minding their own business and in a second a car strikes them and changes their life. Incredibly, over 85 percent of pedestrian accidents occur in urban areas--where drivers know to look for pedestrians in crosswalks and drives. The fact that the pedestrian accident rate is so high shows that drivers simply don't look before pulling out or turning a corner, and unfortunately, you or a loved one could be seriously injured as a result of another person's carelessness.

Pedestrian accidents fall under the same insurance policy as motor vehicle accidents.

If a person in a vehicle strikes you as a pedestrian, that person's auto insurance policy is just as valid as if he or she had hit the driver of another vehicle. If the negligence falls on the driver--and in many states the driver in a pedestrian accident is always liable, then that driver's auto insurance policy must pay your medical bills and other recoverable damages.

Unfortunately, due to the potentially life-altering nature of pedestrian injuries compared to injuries commonly sustained in car collisions, low auto policy limits may not be enough to cover your medical bills. Medical treatment is almost always more extensive since there is no protection of another vehicle between a pedestrian and the impact from a car or truck.

Hiring an experienced personal injury attorney to pursue an at-fault driver personally, to pay the rest of your medical bills and any other sufferable damages incurred (i.e. time off of work, loss of benefits, etc.) will help you recover the compensation you deserve after such a traumatic incident. Please contact the Anderson Law Firm for a free consultation if you or someone you know has been injured in a pedestrian accident at 817-294-1900.

If you’ve ever tried to leave Northeast Mall during rush-hour, then you know just how awful the traffic is in Hurst, Texas, right there where the three major North Texas highways interchange. Well it’s official—the interchange where Loop 820, Highway 121 and Airport Freeway (Highway 183) all intersect has been given the title: “Most Congested Area of the Metroplex.”

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been stuck in traffic in that area—at any time of the day, really—whether driving to or from work, or just taking someone to the airport. The area has been officially rated by a traffic company as the worst bottleneck in North Texas.
I can’t tell you the number of calls we get from those who have been in truck accidents, car wrecks and motorcycle collisions in Hurst and along that whole stretch of Airport Freeway into Euless and Bedford.

Luckily, the $2 billion North Tarrant Express is aimed to alleviate much of the stress on that particular area, however it’s not expected to be completed until 2015. And I don’t even want to think about how much worse traffic will be when the construction begins (it’s projected to take five years). The Texas Department of Transportation is going to have to do something to keep that bottleneck moving or North Texans will have to put up with the ever-growing congestion for six more years until the Express is finally complete.

If you have been involved in a vehicle-related crash on that stretch of road, or any other in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, please call the Anderson Law Firm to learn how you can recover compensation for your injuries.

Many motorcycle riders love it for the inherent risk, and the adrenaline rush of driving fast with nothing between you and the road but the bike between your legs. Unfortunately, because motorcycle riders lack the inherent protection of a ton of steel between themselves and the point of impact in a collision, motorcycle accidents often have tragic endings.

Motorcycle accidents typically result in serious injury
With over 5,000 motorcycle fatalities annually, motorcycle riders are far more likely to experience a serious injury or even death than people involved in an automobile accident.

The instances of motorcycle riders colliding with stationary objects, such as guardrails, trees or walls, is significantly higher than that of automobile accidents, and can cause significantly more damage due to the nature of motorcycle riding. Crushing, throwing or pinning injuries are far more serious than the typical whiplash injuries of a car accident, and motorcycles don’t have a seatbelt to protect you.

The best defense is a good offense
Because motorcycles can be so potentially dangerous, and so many things can cause motorcycle accidents, the best defense is a good offense in a motorcycle accident case. If you’re involved in a motorcycle accident with another vehicle, such as a car or SUV, the vehicle’s insurance company is going to try to find a way to make you responsible for the accident. They may accuse you of driving unsafely or speeding—or whatever excuse they want to make.

In the event that you’re injured in a motorcycle accident, you should consult an experienced personal injury attorney to help you prepare a good offense against the liable party. Don’t give an insurance company the chance to brush you off; you deserve a favorable recovery if you’re injured in a motorcycle accident that was due to the careless actions of another driver.

Free Consultation
Board Certified Injury Lawyer Mark Anderson had represented motorcycle riders for years and is experienced in these types of cases. For a free consultation on your rights, please contact the Anderson Law Firm at 817-294-1900 or Contact Us Online.

LEGISLATURE OPPOSES SPEEDING CAMERAS

About a month ago, the state announced it was changing various Dallas-Fort Worth speed limits on different interstate stretches, effective as soon as new signs were posted. This mostly meant reducing speeds from 65 to 60 miles per hour on roads like Loop 820 and Interstates 30 and 35 in and around the Metroplex. At the same time, state legislators have been discussing a bill which would implement the use of cameras to take pictures of speeders and send them tickets in the mail to enforce local speed limits (much like red-light cameras do for those who run them). Luckily for speeders, Thursday’s legislature opposed the idea presented by the Department of Public Safety and area counties who proposed it.

UPDATE ON MEXICAN TOUR BUS WRECK

The company who owned the Grupo Sendo bus which was demolished Monday after a drunk driver in an 18-wheel tractor trailer crashed into it in Mexico announced it will cover the funeral costs, medical bills and transportation expenses for the 11 victims of the wreck. Seven of the 11 killed were Americans. The Mexican company, based out of Brownsville, Texas has offered to help out—even though it wasn’t at-fault, because the driver of the semi-truck was uninsured.

Uninsured drivers are a huge problem and cases like this prove why. The number of injured and wrongfully killed parties on that tour bus who could make personal injury claims is huge, and there’s no insurance to cover their medical bills and pain and suffering, unless they use their own coverage (assuming they have it).

Please take this tragic situation as a lesson and look into getting yourself uninsured motorist coverage, so that if you’re in an accident with someone who’s uninsured, you’ll have something to fall back on. I think the bus company is extremely generous for helping out.

Please contact the Anderson Law Firm if you have questions about the different types of insurance coverage or if you’ve been injured in a truck/bus accident.

Construction work can be dangerous. Construction work presents many potential causes for injury. Workers are injured in construction accidents every day here in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Construction accidents shouldn’t be a fact of life, but they are. If you have been injured in a construction accident, you might have a personal injury claim on your hands in certain circumstances.

If a construction accident occurs because of negligence, it might warrant a personal injury claim.
Accidents happen. But when accidents happen because someone didn’t do his or her job properly, it can become a personal injury claim. When the negligence of one of your co-workers causes your injury, both that co-worker and your employer may be at fault for your injury. Consider an example where a co-worker fails to assemble a piece of scaffolding correctly. If you’re up on that scaffolding, it falls and you become injured, you might have a personal injury claim against the co-worker who assembled the scaffolding, your employer and even the scaffolding manufacturer.

Construction accident claims can get complicated, so consult a lawyer.
Construction accidents can have their roots in a variety of causes. If you’re using a piece of equipment that fails and injures you, you could have a product liability case contributing to your construction accident. If you’ve got a piece of equipment that someone else failed to operate properly, then that person and his employer could be at fault for your accident.

A personal injury lawyer with experience in construction accidents can help you figure out what caused your accident, and whether it’s a product liability case, a personal liability case or something else entirely. In some cases, a personal injury crosses the boundaries of several types of cases, so an experienced lawyer can help you sort it out and pursue the correct parties to get you a remedy for your injury.

For a free consultation on your rights if you have been injured in a construction accident, please contact the Anderson Law Firm at 817-294-1900 or Contact Us Online.

Area ambulances are trying to fund a new fleet of vehicles to decrease the time the injured have to wait for help. The only problem is, ambulance services like Medstar, are using patients to foot the bill.

Lately, Medstar has made changes to try and get to accident scenes quicker—their goal is to reach 90 percent of patients in less than nine minutes. To do this, they have recently started stationing their ambulances around the mid-cities area near places where personal injury accidents, like car crashes, commonly occur. Medstar services to 15 cities in Tarrant County and wants to add at least five more working ambulances, per day, to the current system.

Right now, Medstar has proposed the cities it serves to foot the bill for new vehicles and if they refuse to pay, the burden will fall onto the citizens. It seems to be putting city council members in tough positions. Some say that they’d be willing to pay for new vans if Medstar can prove its goal of reaching 90 percent of injured people within nine minutes. Those with critical injuries—usually from vehicle accidents, can’t wait much more than that for help.

Helping injured people receive quicker treatment is great, but many are worried about the cost—and for good reason. Currently, for a Medstar ambulance to pick a patient up, it charges about 1,200 dollars. On top of that, the company charges an extra fee for millage. Before a person even gets to a hospital, they’ve already racked up over a thousand-dollar bill. So obviously increasing this amount worries many people.

It will be interesting to see who ends up having to pay for this, and if it ends up being Dallas-Fort Worth Cities, how they’ll prove whether their money is being put to good use or not.
If you or someone you know has suffered bodily injury as the result of another person’s negligence, please call the Anderson Law Firm at 817-294-1900 for a free consultation.

The driver of an 18-Wheel Tractor Trailer faces homicide charges after his semi truck crashed into a Mexican tour bus on Monday, killing 11 and injuring many more. Investigators are still waiting on toxicology results to show the truck driver’s blood alcohol level which many suspect was over the limit. The Grupo Senda bus tour, which was hired out by McAllen, Texas-based Viva Mexico Tours was headed to Zacatecas in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, which was just one stop along the four-day tour of the area.

The semi-driver apparently lost control and swerved to overcompensate before crashing into the driver side of the tour bus. The truck had been traveling in the opposite direction of the bus. One of the bus passengers who escaped death said the first six rows of the tour bus were completely crushed. The driver of the tour bus, Cesar Garcia of Mexico was killed on impact.

Passengers on the bus included Mexicans, Americans and even Canadians. Among them, seven Americans were killed—including two Brownsville, Texas school teachers, as well as three Canadians and the Mexican driver. Sixteen people were injured—many seriously, but all are said to be in stable condition now.

The driver who caused the accident was hurt, but not critically, and now faces potential involuntary homicide charges due to the severity of the wreck and the number of those killed. His name has not been released yet as the accident investigation continues.

If you or someone you know has been injured or wrongfully killed in a truck, bus, car, motorcycle, or other vehicle-related accident, please contact the Anderson Law Firm at 817-294-1900 for a free consultation on your rights.

Yesterday evening, in the 3000 block of Las Vegas Trail, a toddler was injured when a group of teenagers threw rocks at the car she was riding in. The two-year old had a contusion and swelling to her right cheek, but did not suffer any life-threatening injuries. The girl’s mother was driving and noticed a group of teens throwing rocks from the sidewalk as her car approached them. One of the teens then threw a rock which flew through an open window and struck the girl as she drove by. The culprit was a 15-year-old girl who admitted fault and was taken to the Tarrant County Juvenile Detention Facility. This personal injury accident happened around 6 p.m.

The Anderson Law Firm handles all types of injury accidents, and most times, they result from vehicle accidents like car, truck and motorcycle wrecks. Occasionally, we get calls about dog bites and other common accidents. But there are so many ways a person can be injured as the result of someone else’s negligence that it’s too hard to categorize them all. This is the perfect example of a freak accident which cannot be categorized, but it’s also a case I might be able to take after some investigation.

If you or someone you know has been injured as the result of another person’s negligence, please contact the Anderson Law Firm to discuss your rights at 817-294-1900.

An on-the-job accident today killed 56 year old crane operator at Delta Steel in South Fort Worth. The man, Johnny Little, was operating an overhead crane to move a 5 ton piece of metal when the metal fell and struck him on the head. Mr. Little was pronounced dead at the scene. Mr. Little was from Joshua and had worked at Delta Steel since 1997. A total of 527 workplace deaths were reported in Texas in 2007, the last year those statistics are available.

If you a loved one has experienced a serious injury of death as the result of the negligence of another person or company, then please call Board Certified Injury Lawyer Mark Anderson for a free consultation at 817-294-1900 or Contact Mark Anderson Online

I came across a story today on the Internet that I found very interesting. As reported in law.com, a California lawyer has been disbarred for his conduct on a jury panel. The lawyer, Francis Fahy, was one of 12 jurors in a medical malpractice case tried in San Francisco in 2004. Medical malpractice cases generally take a long time to try, and this one was going on for nearly a month, including ten days of deliberations, when Fahy changed his vote to break a deadlock. At the time, there was an 8-4 deadlock in favor of the doctor who had been accused of negligence while performing a laser eye surgery. Apparently during the deliberations, Fahy had felt that the doctor had been negligent, but decided to change his vote because the long trial was hurting his law practice. With his changed vote, the jury was finally able to render a verdict in favor of the doctor and the trial was over.

After the trial, one of the jurors brought the vote change to the attention of the judge, who then inquired as to Attorney Fahy. In response, Fahy said that he had only acted within the court’s instructions and trial evidence. When the matter was turned over to the California State Bar, an investigation came to the “inescapable” conclusion that Fahy had violated his duties as a juror. As such, they disbarred him, which means he is no longer eligible to practice law in California. He cannot resume practice in law until he undergoes a formal reinstatement proceeding that proves by clear and convincing evidence that he has been rehabilitated, that he has the appropriate moral fitness and he has retained the ability to practice law.

As a trial lawyer, you always wonder how jurors come to their conclusions. Sometimes I have been very puzzled by a jury’s decision. You always wonder what goes on behind closed doors. Sometimes certain jurors will tell you things after the trial that make you very uneasy. Reading this story, it makes me wonder how many people reach a decision just to hurry the trial process along. I hope this is an isolated incident and it doesn’t happen very much. But you have to wonder.

This information provided by Fort Worth personal injury attorney Mark A. Anderson. Contact information: 817 294 1900 or contact Mark A. Anderson Online. Cases handled include car accidents, construction accidents and defective product claims, and other personal injury actions.

Tractor-trailer accidents are some of the most serious accidents waiting to happen on the roadways. Semi-truck-related deaths are estimated at over 5,000 per year, and 98% of fatalities in tractor-trailer accidents are the drivers of the other vehicles; not the drivers of the 18 wheelers. Defensive driving is vital to keep you out of harm’s way and out of the way of the tractor-trailers with whom you share the road.

Look out for blind spots when driving near tractor-trailers.
18 wheelers have two big blind spots; along the side of the trailer, and very close to the rear of the trailer. If you’re passing an 18 wheeler, you’ll spend much of the trip in its blind spot, which can result in the semi-truck trying to merge and potentially pushing you off the road. If you drive too close to the rear of a semi-truck, it may stop suddenly and you could find yourself under the truck, in a potentially serious or fatal accident. Avoid blind spots when driving near tractor-trailers for your own protection.

Don’t drive right in front of a semi-truck.
Tractor-trailers take a long time to stop. National highway associations estimate that it takes tractor-trailers over 300 feet to go from 55MPH to a complete stop. Because semi-trucks are so large, bulky and difficult to maneuver, it’s vital to stay far ahead and give them plenty of room to stop. If you’re too close to the front of a semi-truck, let it pass you or speed up and pass other traffic to get you out of harm’s way.

Don’t be afraid to drive off the road to drive out of the way of a tractor-trailer accident.
Brakes fail. Semi-trucks jackknife. If you’re driving near a tractor-trailer, always keep one eye on it to make sure it’s driving normally. If an 18 wheeler begins driving erratically, do whatever you have to do to get out of the way. Drive onto the shoulder or off the road entirely to get out of the way of a semi-truck accident. Driving off the road may damage your car, but it’ll be less damage than if you’re involved in a tractor-trailer accident.

Information provided by Fort Worth, Texas based personal injury lawyer Mark A. Anderson.

Free Consultations. Please call at 817-294-1900 or Contact Mark A. Anderson Online.

People panic when they’re in an automobile accident. All the rules you’ve ever heard for what to do in an accident fly right out the window when an accident occurs. To make sure you’re prepared if you’re ever in an accident, make a list of procedures (or print this one out!) and keep it in your glove compartment with your registration so you’re sure to follow the right steps.

Call the police if you’re in an accident.
Call the police – no ifs, ands or buts. Let the police determine whether the accident warrants a written report, and let the police collect insurance information from the other driver. If you’re unable to retain the other driver at the scene of the accident, make sure you get a thorough description of the vehicle, including the license plate number, color make and model of the car. Also get witnesses’ information if they need to leave before the police arrive.

Seek medical treatment sooner rather than later.
Sometimes it’s readily apparent when you’re in an accident that you need medical assistance. Other times, it doesn’t seem obvious until the next day, or even a week later, that something isn’t right because of the accident. Seek medical treatment sooner rather than later. If nothing else, go to the ER and follow up with your doctor a week or two later. If you don’t seek medical treatment right away but develop complications later, it’s more difficult to tie your injuries to the accident if you didn’t seek medical assistance quickly.

Get photos of the scene, if possible.
The best thing you can do for yourself if you’re in an accident is to get photos of the accident scene, if possible. Get photos of your car, the other car and the surrounding area. Take photos from multiple perspectives to capture all the relevant details from the accident. If you can’t get photos at the time of the accident, return as quickly as possible to the scene to get photos of the area.

Consult a personal injury attorney.
Insurance companies can be quite a hassle if you’re involved in an auto accident. If you don’t want the hassle of dealing with the insurance companies, contact a Board certified personal injury lawyer if you’re involved in an accident. Let the lawyer be your advocate and deal with the insurance companies directly.

Information provided by Mark A. Anderson, Fort Worth, Texas
Contact: 817-294-1900 or Contact Mark A. Anderson Online

When you’re involved in an accident, you should try to get photographs of an accident scene as quickly as possible. Why do you need photos of an accident scene?

Photographs back up what you say.
One of the most important considerations in a personal injury case is to establish credibility. Photographs physically back up what you say by showing how things happened. Not only does this strengthen your personal injury case in terms of facts, but it also makes you look like a more credible party.

Photos can demonstrate negligence.
Depending on what’s included in a photograph, photos can demonstrate negligence. If you slip and fall on debris that someone should have spotted and cleaned, photographs can show the debris and demonstrate that the party was negligent in not cleaning it. Likewise if photographs show an auto accident scene where a vehicle made no attempt to stop (i.e. skid marks) before hitting your car, the photo can help to establish the liable party’s negligence.

Photographs show the extent of the damage.
One of the most popular defense mechanisms for a liable party is to attempt to minimize the damage of an accident. Photographs show the extent of the damage at an accident scene. If a liable party tries to say you weren’t injured badly in an accident, but a photograph shows a car so mangled that you had to have the Jaws of Life pry you out, the liable party can’t minimize that photograph away.

Good photos can help counter any defense.
Popular automobile accident defenses may include inclement weather, poor road conditions, blocked or obscured street signs or other considerations that prevented the liable party from exercising due caution. Good photos that show the accident scene can counter all of these defenses by showing conditions at the time of the accident.

If you have questions regarding your personal injury claim, The Anderson Law Firm offers free consultations. Please call us at 817-294-1900 or contact us online.

It seems that I am always reporting about bad news. But today, I have incredibly good news to report about a decision issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. Back in September, I wrote about the Levine vs. Wyeth lawsuit. In that case, a Vermont lady had sued Wyeth and won a $6.7 million jury award based upon her losing her arm because of a botched injection of an anti-nausea medication. The manufacturer of the drug, Wyeth, appealed the jury’s award all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and relied on a federal governmental ruling which essentially barred any lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company as long as the drug was approved by the Food & Drug Administration. This was just one of the many anti-consumer rulings set forth during the Bush administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling rejected Wyeth’s interpretation of the Bush administration’s ruling and said that the federal law did not prevent Ms. Levine from suing Wyeth. This is great news for Ms. Levine who has to live with one arm for the rest of her life due to the defective drug manufactured by Wyeth. I am very happy for her. I am also happy for all of America as the threat of litigation keeps these pharmaceutical companies somewhat honest. When they do not have the fear of lawsuits, they are truly able to disregard patient safety and focus only on profit.

See a full copy of the opinion here.

Information provided by Fort Worth Injury Lawyer, Mark Anderson.

Contact number: 817-294-1900