When someone dies, the deceased’s family is often flooded with a variety of emotions. I frequently spend time with clients who have lost a loved one who are tremendously sad and angry. They are often financially devastated by the medical bills accompanying their loved one’s death, as well as a loss of income.  If another party’s negligence caused the death, then a wrongful death suit may be a fruitful avenue for attaining compensation for those losses. I have helped many Mississippi families understand the legal basis for a successful wrongful death lawsuit and can help you too.

If your loved one has been killed, you must immediately retain experienced counsel to help you attain your fair share of compensation for your loss. Barrett Law has the experience to help you, contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

What is a Wrongful Death Case and Who Can Bring One in Mississippi?

In Mississippi, wrongful death is defined as killing anyone “by any real, wrongful or negligent act or omission.” That is broad language, but it generally means that a person must be killed as a result of either an ill-intended act or an error that that he or she could have anticipated and avoided.

Obviously, the deceased person cannot bring a wrongful death suit on his or her behalf.  But who can file the lawsuit?  Wrongful death cases in Mississippi must be brought under statute § 11-7-13, Actions for Injuries Producing Death. That statute lays out a fairly complex network of familial relationships that govern who can file a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the deceased.

The action for such damages may be brought in the name of the personal representative of the deceased person or unborn quick child for the benefit of all persons entitled under the law to recover, or by widow for the death of her husband, or by the husband for the death of the wife, or by the parent for the death of a child or unborn quick child, or in the name of a child, or in the name of a child for the death of a parent, or by a brother for the death of a sister, or by a sister for the death of a brother, or by a sister for the death of a sister, or a brother for the death of a brother, or all parties interested may join in the suit, and there shall be but one (l) suit for the same death which shall ensue for the benefit of all parties concerned, but the determination of such suit shall not bar another action unless it be decided on its merits.

That is a long confusing sentence, but it boils down to the fact that immediate family members—husbands, wives, children, sons, daughters, brothers—can bring wrongful death lawsuits on behalf of their family members. But that right is limited to immediate family members, so an uncle could generally not bring a suit on behalf of a nephew, a cousin could not bring a suit on behalf of another cousin, nor could a grandchild bring a suit on behalf of a grandparent. The one exception to this is that a person’s legal representative can bring it on their behalf. Generally speaking, only immediate family members can bring a wrongful death suit on behalf of their immediate family.

What Should You Do If You or a Loved One Has Been Injured?

If your loved one was killed, you might have a viable wrongful death claim against the person responsible for their death if the death was caused negligently or wrongfully. Let experienced counsel take care of attaining statements and analysis from expert witnesses and dealing with the automobile company’s legal team. These are essential tasks that a personal injury attorney can handle for you while you concentrate on grieving.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if you think you have a wrongful death claim on behalf of a loved one. Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

As someone who has handled personal injury cases here in Mississippi for a long time, I have seen more than my share of tragedy. Consistently, some of the most serious injuries I see occur when a pedestrian is hit by an automobile or truck. Clients sometimes think that these are particularly easy cases, which is a misconception. There are often multiple defendants—the driver, any other drivers that may have instigated the accident, the government agency responsible for building and maintaining the roadway in question, even the car company—and the actual cause of the crash is often vigorously disputed.  Accordingly, my clients tend to be very thankful that I have extensive experience defending injured parties in pedestrian accident cases. Because I often receive questions about how to handle this situation, I have written the following blog post.

If you or a loved one was injured or killed, you must contact an attorney experienced in representing families in pedestrian accident cases immediately. Dealing with opposing attorneys and insurance companies is no simple task, and your loved one’s health, finances, and well-being are at stake. Barrett Law has the experience to help you during this difficult time.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

Pedestrian Accidents

You do not have to be a physicist to understand why pedestrian accidents are so severe—a car weighing many thousand pounds, moving at a high rate of speed hitting a 100 to 200-pound person moving slowly is bound to create a tremendous amount of force on the pedestrian’s body.

Under Mississippi law, it is not enough that a pedestrian was just hit by a car to collect damages. The pedestrian must also demonstrate legally that there was negligence involved and that the collision injured them. Negligence is proven when a driver knows or should have known of some risk and fails to avert it.  So if a driver is operating his vehicle while intoxicated or driving at night without headlights, he (or a reasonable person under the circumstances) should have been aware that that behavior was likely to result in some harm.

The above accident descriptions are fairly straightforward examples; the drivers were behaving in a way that was obviously negligent. Accidents are not always that clear, however. What if the driver is driving responsibly down the road and makes a right turn at a heavily wooded intersection, and because of the heavily potholed road and bushes fails to see a pedestrian crossing the street?  The driver that injured the pedestrian is likely to claim that he or she was driving responsibly—not negligently—and it may be difficult to prove otherwise. That said, the true cause of the accident may not be the driver at all. The municipality might be the negligent party if they failed to maintain the road and cut back bushes in a way that protected pedestrians. The negligence argument against the municipality would get stronger if this were the third accident at that intersection or if the municipality had received complaints about how dangerous it was.  Basically, the more a party is aware—or “on notice”—of a danger, the stronger the claim of negligence is for ignoring that danger.

What Should You Do If You Are Injured in a Pedestrian Accident?

If you or a loved one has been hit by a car while walking, contact experienced personal injury counsel immediately. Collecting evidence of the accident, dealing with opposing counsel, and attaining expert opinions about the scene are essential tasks that a personal injury attorney can handle for you while you concentrate on making sure you or your family member recovers.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if your loved one has been injured. Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

With baby boomers starting to move into nursing homes, there is an increasing demand for spots, especially in high-quality placements. As demand increases, nursing homes have leverage and can be more selective about who they admit. Along with that selectivity comes contract terms that are unfavorable to residents, including conditions that bar lawsuits against the nursing homes. Instead of being able to go to court like any other injured citizen, nursing homes sometimes insert contract provisions requiring binding arbitration instead. While arbitration is ostensibly a neutral setting for grievances to be heard, it lacks many of the quintessential qualities of a court, such as a jury, strict rules of evidence, and an ability to appeal decisions. Arbitrators rarely grant the significant settlements that come out of jury trials, making them the favored venue of industries such as nursing homes.

I want to discuss the effect that a recent U.S. Supreme Court case will have on nursing home abuse cases, and how it may affect the contracts that families sign when they agree to house their elderly loved one at a nursing home.  I attached the entire case below for you to read but will provide an overview and discussion of the case’s ramifications below.

If you fear that an elderly loved one is being abused or taken advantage of, you must contact an attorney experienced in representing families in elder abuse situations immediately.  Your loved one’s health, finances, and well-being are at stake. Barrett Law has the experience to help you during this difficult time.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

Kindred Nursing Centers v. Clark

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kindred Nursing Center v. Clark changed the playing field for those entering contracts upon moving into a nursing home. The facts are relatively straightforward. The families of two residents of Kindred Nursing Center moved their relatives into the Kentucky facility. Upon moving in, the families signed arbitration agreements that mandated that they resolve disputes in front of an arbitrator instead of taking any claim to court. The elderly residents did not sign arbitration agreements, however.  Soon after, the elderly residents both died, and the families felt that their deaths were due to Kindred’s neglect or abuse.

Usually, if a family believed that their relative’s death was the result of neglect or abuse, they would file a case in state court alleging a tort such as negligence or wrongful death. But because these families had signed an arbitration agreement, Kindred argued that they should be barred from filing a case in Kentucky state court and should instead have the case heard by an arbitrator. The families filed wrongful death in state court, arguing that because the elderly residents did not sign an arbitration agreement, the parties were not bound to arbitration.

The case eventually made its way to the Kentucky Supreme Court, which held that a family member could not bind an individual with an arbitration agreement unless the person has expressly authorized entering the contract. The Kentucky Supreme Court held that a person must expressly waive his right to a jury trial under the Constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, determined that federal arbitration law trumped state law and that states cannot create special rules that apply only to arbitration agreements. This is a significant change, as states had enacted laws that protected their citizens’ rights to have a jury trial.  I expect that over time, nursing homes will make it a practice to have families sign away residents’ rights to a trial in favor of more industry-friendly arbitrators.

What Should You Do If You Believe Your Loved One is Being Abused?

If you believe a loved one has been neglected or abused in a nursing home setting, contact experienced personal injury counsel immediately. Collecting evidence of the abuse, dealing with opposing counsel, and attaining expert opinions are essential tasks that a personal injury attorney can handle for you while you concentrate on making sure your parent or relative is safe and healthy.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if your loved one has experienced abuse. Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

Car crashes cause some of the worst injuries I see as a personal injury attorney and sadly often result in death. We buy cars so that we will be protected in a crash, so it is disheartening to see that cars themselves are often the cause of injuries.  I sometimes meet clients who failed to attain legal advice regarding a life-altering injury. These folks lost so much due to their car-related injury, yet simple mistakes kept them from being compensated. A simple mistake can mean the loss of your home and financial ruin for your family. I wrote the following blog post to help individuals and families avoid costly mistakes when their car causes significant injury or death.

If you have been injured, you must find experienced counsel to help you attain your fair share of compensation for your loss of income and injury. Barrett Law has the experience to help you if you have been injured.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

Overview of Three Types of Automobile Related Claims—Crashworthiness, Design, and Manufacturing Flaws

Not everyone who gets in a car accident has a valid claim against an automobile manufacturer. To establish liability, an injured party must show some negligence on the part of the manufacturer. Negligence generally means that a person knew or should have known of a risk and failed to take steps to avoid that risk. In the automotive context, that means that the manufacturer was negligent regarding the car’s crashworthiness, design, or manufacturing. Clients here Mississippi often have questions regarding the difference between these three theories of negligence, so I have described each one in some detail below.

Crashworthiness

You have likely seen commercials where car companies show off their crash-dummy filled cars surviving horrific impacts. While those images were made to get you to buy that car, that sort of crash testing is critical to establishing the car’s actual safety rating.  Many advances in car design—seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones—have increased passengers’ chances of surviving even an extreme impact. Claims against car manufacturers alleging failures to ensure crashworthiness usually focus on one of the car’s safety features failing to work during a crash.  At its core, a crashworthiness claim argues that a person in an accident should have survived given the manufacturer’s claims regarding the car’s safety systems.

Design Failures

Recent history is full of examples of poorly designed cars.  Those design problems frequently resulted in tragic results. Whether it was cars that tipped over at certain speeds or had airbags that propelled deadly shards of plastic at passengers, design flaws have proven to be fatal. If you were injured by your car, it may be because of a problem with its design. You can recover compensation for your injuries if it can be shown that the manufacturer was negligent in selling the vehicle with this design flaw.

Manufacturing Failures

Sometimes vehicles are designed by the manufacturer to be safe, but the car is actually built incorrectly. This is a manufacturing flaw, which means that an otherwise well-designed car was made unsafe due to a mistake in the manufacturing process that rendered the car unreasonably dangerous. For example, if a cheaper, weaker metal is used instead of the specified type, part failure and serious injuries may ensue.

What Should You Do If You or a Loved One Has Been Injured?

If you or a loved one was injured by a car, you might have a viable claim against the automobile manufacturer for compensation for your injuries, loss of work, and other harm. As I explained above, claims can be made based on crashworthiness, design defects, manufacturing defects, and other negligence claims. Let experienced counsel take care of attaining statements and analysis from expert witnesses and dealing with the automobile company’s legal team. These are essential tasks that a personal injury attorney can handle for you while you concentrate on healing.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if you have suffered an injury in a car crash. Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

There is a shortage of trained, qualified nursing home staff in the United States. There are federal staffing requirements for nursing homes that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding, requirements of which are rarely met. Here in Mississippi, I frequently see the tragic effects of this understaffing—neglect, medication errors, injuries, poor hygiene, falls, and more. No one should spend the end of their life suffering these indignities, and if you have discovered that a loved one has, you should speak to a personal injury attorney immediately.

If you fear that an elderly loved one is being neglected, you must contact an attorney experienced in representing families in nursing home negligence situations immediately.  Your loved one’s health, finances, and well-being are at stake. Barrett Law has the experience to help you during this difficult time.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

How Understaffing Affects the Elderly

Federally, the Department of Health and Human Services’ recommendations are that nursing home residents spend two hours each day with a nursing aide and twelve minutes each day with a registered nurse. In my experience, many nursing homes fail to meet this standard. In understaffed nursing homes, residents’ needs go unnoticed because staff do not have sufficient time with each resident to identify them. At a minimum, this lack of attention can lead to emotional and intellectual decline. At worst, it can lead to life-ending neglect. That is a wide spectrum, so I listed various ill-effects below:

Problems Commonly Caused by Understaffed Nursing Homes

Medication Errors—short-staffed nursing homes have to ask more from their staff.  That means staff must work without breaks and distribute a tremendous number of medications daily to residents they barely know, a recipe for mistakes. If an elderly person receives the wrong medication, it can be life-threatening.

Dehydration—nursing home residents are often unable to get themselves a drink and are dependent on staff for hydration. But because residents are not moving vigorously or sweating, attention to hydration can be lacking, leading to serious health consequences and even death.

Malnutrition—like hydration, nursing home residents are often unable to feed themselves. Even if they are given adequate food, careful monitoring must occur to assure that they are consuming enough food to maintain their health.  Over time, inadequate food intake can have serious, negative health consequences.

Problems Related to Immobility—if nursing home residents are incapable of standing or moving easily, they often spend a lot of time either in bed or sitting. Prolonged periods sitting or lying in bed can lead to life-threatening bed sores, infections, and muscle atrophy.

Falls—low staffing means that nursing home residents have to do more for themselves, without help. The more often residents try to walk or move in instances when they require assistance, the more likely they are to have a fall. Given some residents’ fragility, these falls can be traumatic and life-ending.

Poor Hygiene—like many other aspects of life, the elderly often rely on nursing home staff for basic hygiene. Understaffed nursing homes are less able to provide the sort of personalized attention that residents require, sometimes resulting in serious infections, soiled clothing, dirty bedding, and other basic hygiene deficiencies that threaten residents’ health and sense of self-worth.

What Should You Do If You Believe Your Loved One is Being Neglected?

If you believe a loved one is being subjected to neglect in his or her nursing home, contact experienced personal injury counsel immediately. Collecting evidence of the abuse, seeking expert medical opinions, and getting answers from the nursing home are essential tasks that a personal injury attorney can handle for you while you concentrate on making sure your parent or relative is safe, happy, and healthy.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if your loved one has experienced negligent care at his or her nursing home. Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.