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Could your Failure to Wear a Seat Belt Affect your Settlement in Mississippi?

If you’ve been involved in an automobile accident, you may wonder about the legal consequences if you were not wearing a seat belt, and whether you could be considered negligent for this reason alone. This can be an extremely complex issue, depending somewhat on what state you currently reside in. While most all states have adopted legislation which requires drivers and front seat passengers to wear seat belts, the states differ widely in the specific consequences attached to a personal injury case in which the plaintiff was found to have not been wearing their safety belt.  While some states don’t consider nonuse of a seatbelt to be relevant in any way at all when determining the plaintiff’s potential recovery, other state courts do consider lack of a safety belt to be relevant.

Causation or Plaintiff Misconduct

If your particular state operates under the causation paradigm, you would not be allowed to recover any damages which resulted from your failure to wear a seatbelt. Some states will require you to prove that your injuries would have resulted just the same whether you had been wearing a seat belt or not, while others will make it the defendant’s job to prove that if you had been wearing your seat belt you would not have suffered injuries. Unfortunately, this issue can be very difficult to prove one way or another. States which operate under the plaintiff misconduct paradigm will focus more directly on your failure to snap your seat belt, which becomes the primary focus for calculating your specific damages. The plaintiff misconduct theory, however does require extremely complicated fact finding in the determination of whether you were properly wearing your seat belt, and the scope of the results of that failure.

No Clear Cut Method of Determining Negligence

Unfortunately, most courts currently have no clear cut rules regarding whether you can be held accountable in a personal injury claim for failure to wear a seat belt. Many courts will take into account your failure to wear your seat belt so far as to reduce your monetary recovery amounts for only the injuries which directly resulted from that failure.  The failure to wear your seat belt will not, however affect your other claims for injury and damages. A few states refuse to consider the seat belt issue at all when awarding damages, such as the Massachusetts law which states that “failure to wear a properly fastened seat belt shall not be considered as contributory negligence or used as evidence in any civil action.”

Seat Belt Defense

Ford and Chrysler companies first offered lap belts in automobiles in 1955, however it was not until 1968 that the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards required that all auto makers install lap belts for all occupants of the vehicle as well as shoulder harnesses for the driver and front seat passenger. State and federal requirements soon followed in an attempt to encourage the use of safety belts. Initially, the seat belt defense was used to completely preclude victims of auto accidents from receiving any settlement for injuries which theoretically would have been prevented through the use of a safety belt. Although some jurisdictions ran with this defense, others rejected it out of hand under the belief that since the plaintiff’s failure to wear a seat belt was not the cause of the accident, failure to wear a seat belt should not preclude recovery.

The use or non-use of a seat belt adds an entire new complex level to personal injury cases, and if it has become an issue in your particular case you must hire an experienced personal injury attorney who can determine whether the fact you weren’t buckled up will affect your settlement.

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Mississippi Construction Accident Claims and Compensation

Construction sites will typically pose a wide array of risks, meaning the likelihood of accidents which result in serious injury or death is quite high. Many construction workers are often working at considerable heights, making the risk of falling much more likely than other professions, and even when construction workers are working on with both feet firmly on the ground, they are subject to the risk of falling objects, hazardous substances, heavy machinery accidents, and the need to lift heavy or bulky objects. All of these things substantially escalate the chance of an on-site work accident with injuries which can range from relatively minor to extremely severe. There are many factors involved in a workplace construction accident, and if you have suffered such an accident it’s very important you retain a personal injury attorney who has experience in construction accidents.

Does Your Construction Accident Qualify for Compensation?

Although it may seem obvious, the primary factor to consider is whether the injuries sustained were a direct result of a construction site accident. This means that a near-miss accident—an incident in which you were almost severely injured or killed—does not meet the necessary criteria to justify compensation, even if you suffered severe psychological trauma from the incident. In other words, if something your employer did, or failed to do, directly caused you to narrowly miss being crushed by a piece of heavy equipment, you are not entitled to compensation even though you may suffer very real trauma as a result of such a close call. A plaintiff in a construction accident is only allowed to ask for reparation for harm, loss or damage which was sustained on the construction site and can be successfully substantiated.

Liability in a Construction Accident

In some cases a construction accident was not due to a direct act or lack thereof of the employer, however more often it can be proven that the employer neglected to maintain a protected working environment for company workers. This failure to provide safety could be through absence of training or any other manner of contributory negligence where it is obvious the employer failed to take the necessary safeguards required to keep his or her employees out of harm’s way. In order for a claim of employer negligence following a construction accident to have a positive outcome, the injuries sustained must be a direct result of the disregard for safety or blatant violation of duty of the employer. While employees may occasionally be injured as a result of their own error or negligence, the large majority of construction accidents are due to lack of a safe working environment.

Shared Responsibility

In certain instances there may be a dispute between the employer and worker as to who caused the accident and resulting injuries. In a case such as this, the court will make the decision as to the ultimate responsibility, and may decide that both parties were at least in some measure at fault. In such cases the theory of contributory negligence applies, meaning the worker may have caused his or her injury by ignoring known risks or behaving in a negligent manner. Should contributory negligence be applied, the amount of the settlement will be reduced accordingly.

What to Do Following a Construction Accident

The very first thing you must do following a construction accident, no matter how minor it may seem, is to get immediate medical attention. If your injuries require anything more than a band-aid, it’s essential you see your doctor or be taken by ambulance to a hospital. Your health is one of the most precious things in your life, and no amount of compensation will make up for a loss of your health, so take injuries seriously. Once you’ve attended to any health issues, you need to ensure that the details of your accident were recorded. Never admit responsibility of any sort for your accident until you have spoken to an experienced attorney—even if the employer was not directly responsible for the accident, a lack of training for employees may still render him liable.

Getting Legal Help

If you work in the construction industry, remember that it is your employer’s duty to ensure your health and safety while you work and to adopt all measures necessary to minimize the risks of injuries and accidents. Employees should be provided with sufficient training as well as safety devices necessary to carry out daily tasks, and all equipment and tools should be in good working order and pass all industry safety standards. Construction accidents can be quite complex requiring you to seek professional legal advice prior to making a claim. Don’t risk your health or financial future following a construction site accident.

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Dealing With a Difficult Insurance Adjuster in Mississippi

Hopefully you will end up with one of the “good” insurance adjusters who will offer assistance and will go out of his or her way to make your experience as positive as possible. You have already been through an ordeal with your accident, and if you should end up with an insurance adjuster who appears to being giving you trouble at every turn, you may feel frustration and anger. Supposing you get an adjuster who seems hard-nosed and doesn’t appear to be listening to anything you have to say—what then?

Dealing With the Adjuster Yourself

If you’ve decided to go it alone regarding your insurance settlement, first and foremost you will have to grow a tough skin and remind yourself over and over that while this accident and the subsequent injuries and expenses are highly personal to you, to the insurance adjuster it is just another day on the job. The job of the insurance adjuster is to get their company off for the least amount of money possible in order to increase the bottom line at the end of the year. Although insurance companies are perfectly happy to accept your insurance premiums month after month, year after year, they are banking on the odds that you will not have an auto accident. If you do have an accident, their goal is to pay you only the amount they absolutely must pay. When you fully realize this, then you understand that the insurance adjuster is simply doing what he has been told to do, and that even if he seems hard-nosed and inflexible, it really isn’t personal.

On the flip side, while you are not trying to hit the lottery, you do want all of your medical bills and lost wages fully covered. Especially if the accident wasn’t your fault, it can seem awfully unfair to be stuck with piles of bills that you simply don’t deserve. The insurance adjuster may not believe your injuries are severe enough to warrant a settlement, or he may not even believe your injuries are related to the accident but were injuries you had prior to the accident. Keep in mind that the first settlement offer is likely to be extremely low. Insurance companies count on you wanting to get the settlement over and done so you can get on with your life. They also know that many times you will be absolutely unaware of the future medical bills you will be stuck with, so if they catch you early on, they can minimize their payout.

Your goal is to be patient and immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. Determine the lowest amount you will accept after running the numbers. Make sure your bottom line number will completely cover the repairs to your vehicle, your medical bills past, present and future, any rehabilitation which could be involved, prescriptions, and money for all lost wages to date and any future lost wages you can anticipate. Once you’ve reached that figure, don’t budge. Politely tell the adjuster that this amount is what you will accept, and don’t be persuaded by anything they say to lower the amount. If the insurance adjuster also refuses to budge, it is time to contact a personal injury attorney.

Hiring an Attorney to Deal with the Difficult Adjuster

If you’ve exhausted your stores of patience and are becoming frustrated with the difficult adjuster, hiring a personal injury attorney can get the ball rolling in the right direction. Often all it will take is a call from your new attorney to get a much better settlement offer. Once your attorney reiterates your refusal to accept an unreasonable offer, your adjuster may become much less difficult. Besides—insurance adjusters do not want their company being sued. It looks bad to their boss or supervisor if every case they handle goes into litigation, and the truth is the adjuster wants to settle just as badly as you do, they simply don’t want to settle for a fair amount. Often all it takes is for your attorney to draft a complaint and send it over to the adjuster for his or her attitude to change dramatically and a reasonable settlement offer to be sent right back. Your attorney will look at your initial estimation of damages and let you know if it’s reasonable, or even too low, then the two of you can go from there. Your attorney will be much better equipped to deal with the difficult insurance adjuster—after all, that’s what they do every day.

 

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