Damages - Personal Injury Category Archives — Page 4 of 6 — Day on Torts Published by Day on Torts — Tennessee Personal Injury Attorney

September 17, 2009

Georgia Supreme Court Considers Constitutionality of Damages Cap in Medical Malpractice Cases

The Georgia Legislature imposed a cap on noneconomic damages in meritorious medical malpractice cases in 2005. The cap is $350,000. In a case tried in Fulton County several years ago, the jury’s verdict exceeded the cap, and the Georgia Supreme Court is now considering whether the cap is constitutional.

According to a press release from the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association and re-printed on the Atlanta Injury Lawyer Blog

“Betty Nestlehutt was the face of her real estate business,” said Malone. “Her face was so horrifically disfigured that she was no longer able to even leave her house. Photographs of her disfigurement are even too gruesome for public distribution. The damage is permanent. Years later she has to wear layers of special makeup to try to give the appearance of normalcy.”

August 10, 2009

Dog Bite Case Website

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

I admire people who have the foresight and courage to pick a practice area and learn it, inside out. I greatly admire those who share the knowledge they have to help other lawyers and the public.

Here is a fine example: Dog Bite Law by Kenneth Phillips. He limits his cases to representing people who have been bitten by dogs and "accept [s] only cases where a person has been bitten in the face, or has become disabled — or where a person has been killed."

Kenneth shares lots of information for victims of dog bites, down owners, parents, journalists and other lawyers. He also sells what appears to be a very comprehensive form book. He also sells videos and books for lawyers. For those who have relatively minor cases, Kenneth sells forms to aid the injured party in resolving his own case.

April 30, 2009

Can A Podiatrist Give Causation Testimony?

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

A Virginia trial judge refused to allow a podiatrist to give causation testimony in a FELA case where a railroad worker alleged his foot problems were caused by conditions in the workplace. The Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case.

Here is the wording of the assignment of error that the court has agreed to review:

The trial court erred in granting Norfolk’s motions in limine to exclude the testimony of Drs. Zelen and Steffan based upon its finding that they were not qualified, as podiatrists or otherwise, to render expert opinions as to the causation of plaintiff’s physical injuries, and in subsequently granting Norfolk’s summary judgment motion based upon plaintiff’s lack of causation testimony.

April 29, 2009

Work Life Expectancy Tables

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

Economists in personal injury cases and wrongful death cases often consider work life expectancy tables in calculating future economic losses.

As explained on this website, "[m]any laypersons (and some experts) assume that [worklife expectancy] is the number of years until the person turns 65, the historic age for full social security retirement. This assumption is incorrect for two basic reasons: many people retire at different ages (usually earlier) and the average person has some breaks in employment (perhaps involuntary) before retirement."

The factors taken into account in determining work life expectancy are age, gender, education and level of work disability.

October 15, 2008

Race and Damages

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

Here is a fascinating article from the New York Law Journal about an opinion by Judge Jack B. Weinstein objecting to a defendant’s use of race-based statistics on life expectancy to reduce a damage award in a quadriplegia case.

September 19, 2008

Ohio Supreme Court Addresses Value of Services

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

I am Columbus, OH today speaking an Ohio Association for Justice seminar program. The hotel where I am staying is right down the street from the Ohio Supreme Court building. It is appropriate, then, that I write about a new opinion handed down by that court on the issue of damages that may be recovered by a spouse who took off time from work to care for a spouse injured by the negligence of another.

The plaintiff was a financial planner who took off work to care for his injured wife. He sought over $1,000,000 in loss of income. A 5-2 majority of the court rejected his claim for this element of loss, holding instead that he could only recover the economic value of the care as if it had been provided by a non-family member.

To be more precise: "part of the injured spouse’s damages against a defendant can include the fair market value of the home health care provided by the uninjured spouse. Damages are measured not by the lost income of the supporting spouse but by the market value of the services he or she renders."

September 14, 2008

“Defending the Damages Only Case”

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

Smart defense lawyers know that sometimes the best defense is to admit liabilitiy and talk about damages. This article – "Defending the Damages Only Case" – is written by Mercer Clark of Miami. It appeared in the Winter 2008 edition of the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel Quarterly.

Defense lawyers: read it and learn. Plaintiff’s lawyers: read it and learn even more.

Note: this is post number 1250 in the 43 month life of this blog.

September 8, 2008

Your PI Cases – The Government Has Its Hand Out

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

We all know that Medicare and Tenncare has a subrogation right in PI and wrongful death cases, but new information being sought by Medicare has lead some lawyers to believe that Medicare will now be looking at case proceeds for payment of future medical bills.

The Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007, §111, which requires liability (including self-insured), no-fault and workers’ comp insurers to report certain information about injured parties who are entitled to Medicare. New rules have been proposed on the subject and will go into effect on July 1, 2009.

The data required by the new rules will give the government a significant amount of information about PI and WD claimants and the concern is that the data will be used to insist that case proceeds be used to pay future bills.

April 14, 2008

Controversial Malingering Test

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

One of my favorite publications, Lawyers USA, has an interesing article about a new test which allegedly determines whether a personal injury plaintiff is malingering. It is called the "Fake Bad Scale."

The article says that "[a] leading critic of the test, Dr. James Butcher, PhD, a senior author of the MMPI-2 and a professor at University of Minnesota, said that the fake bad scale does not meet the standards set by other MMPI-2 scales and "greatly overestimates" malingering."

Read the article here.

September 10, 2007

Tough Jury Climate

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

The jury found that the defendant was negligent and that the negligence caused an herniated disk. The disk problem was surgically repaired. The plaintiff used a walker for nine months and now uses a cane. Amount of damages for pain and suffering? Zero.

Motion for new trial? Denied.

The California Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the failure to award damages for pain and suffering meant that the verdict was inadequate as a matter of law.