As a personal injury attorney, injured people often meet with me to ask whether they can bring a claim against a doctor, nurse, chiropractor, or other medical professional.  As a result of these frequent inquiries, I thought it would be useful to describe what makes a personal injury case in Mississippi. One thing is critical to state up front—you will need to have experienced personal injury counsel help you attain any settlement from a medical provider. Barrett Law has the experience to help you through this process.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

What is Negligence?

Believe it or not, but accidents do happen. There is a difference between something accidentally or unavoidably occurring during a medical procedure and negligence. You cannot recover damages based simply on an unfortunate, unavoidable occurrence, but you may be able to recover a tremendous settlement once negligence is established. But how is medical negligence different from an accident? Negligence means that a doctor or medical professional failed to meet the standard of care of their profession. Within the medical context, negligence is usually referred to as “malpractice.”

What Does the “Standard of Care” Mean?

Simply put, malpractice occurs when the patient’s medical care does not meet current medical standards. This failure may be due to a physician or medical provider not staying current with their training, a failure to adequately supervise or train nurses and other support staff, or poor sanitation within the medical environment.

Common Types of Medical Negligence

There are many types of medical malpractice, ranging from the minor to the most severe, with consequence ranging from inconvenience to death. You should understand, however, that the malpractice does not have to be dramatic to have long-lasting, serious consequences. Many cases of infection due to unsanitary practices have had devastating, even deadly effects. Unfortunately, I receive frequent calls about MRSA and MSSA infections received from medical facilities and nursing homes, two very serious and all too common infections that can have be life-threatening. Believe it or not, one of the most common examples of medical malpractice is leaving a surgical tool or sponge inside the body cavity after an operation. Anytime you suffer an injury as a result of malpractice, you must call an experienced personal injury attorney immediately to protect your health and rights.

What Should You Do If You Were Injured?

If you were injured in the course of receiving medical care, contact an experienced personal injury attorney so that you can focus on yourself and on your healing process. Sadly, I sometimes speak with Mississippi clients whose loved ones have died as a result of medical malpractice. In either case, you may be offered a quick settlement after an accident in exchange for your agreement not to pursue a legal challenge.  Do not accept these “low-ball” offers, as tempting as they may be at the time.

Instead, contact an experienced personal injury attorney immediately. Let experienced personal injury counsel take care of preserving medical records, dealing with aggressive opposing counsel, attaining expert diagnoses, and dealing with insurance companies. These are important tasks that an only a personal injury attorney can handle for you. If they are handled poorly by an attorney without numerous personal injury cases under his or her belt, they may be done ineffectively, costing you a tremendous amount of compensation.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if you have suffered an injury that you believe is due to medical malpractice.

Barrett Law has the experience to take on defense attorneys and insurance companies that are focused on denying your compensation for your injuries.  Contact our experienced Mississippi Personal Injury Attorney today at (601) 790-1505.

Clients often come to me with questions about neck injuries, which are the most common injury I see resulting from motor vehicle accidents. Unfortunately, people are often misled about how much they can expect from a neck injury settlement. There are a wide variety of factors that influence what sort of payment you can expect to receive. One thing is critical to know—you will need to have experienced counsel help you attain your fair share of compensation from a neck injury. Barrett Law has the experience to help you through this process.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

What Factors Affect the Amount of a Neck Injury Claim?

Obviously, we all have tweaked our neck a bit from time to time after a night on a lumpy hotel bed. Compare that injury with a severed spinal cord and you will immediately see that there is a wide spectrum of “neck injuries.” The severity of the neck injury is the primary factor in determining the amount that you will be compensated for an accident—the more severe the injury, the greater the compensation. The severity of the injury also takes into account the amount of pain endured, the activities inhibited, whether a job was lost, and medical costs incurred. But even if an injury is severe, it does not mean that the injured party will be compensated.  How can that be?  Four factors come into play to affect recovery.

First, the person who injured you must have been negligent.  If you were at fault for your injury, or even partially at fault, your compensation will be reduced proportionally.  For example, if you were injured in a car accident, but were looking at your phone at the time, it is unlikely that you will recover full compensation for your injury, as you were partially at fault.

Second, you must be injured by someone with insurance to cover your claim. Even if the person who injured you was entirely at fault, if they no insurance, you will recover nothing. Even if they have insurance, your recovery will often be capped by their liability coverage caps.

Third, along the same lines as the above, if you are injured by a corporate entity, such as a driver for a national corporation, you are far more likely to recover money than from an individual of limited means.

Fourth, your attorney must be experienced enough to understand the value of your neck injury. Even if you have a good claim, an inexperienced attorney can make mistakes that cost you dearly. For example, inexperienced attorneys often take initial offers in neck injury cases, because they want a quick return on their work. However, you may have long-lasting or late-emerging side effects of your injury. You deserve compensation for those injuries, but they may go uncompensated for if your attorney urges you to take the initial offer from an experienced defense counsel or insurance company.

What Should You Do If You Suffered a Neck Injury?

If you have a neck injury, focus on yourself and on healing.  Let experienced counsel take care of preserving medical records, attaining expert diagnoses, and dealing with insurance companies. These are important tasks that a personal injury attorney can handle for you.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if you have suffered a neck injury.

Barrett Law has the experience to take on defense attorneys and insurance companies that are focussed on denying your compensation for the neck injury you experienced.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

As a personal injury attorney, injured people often meet with me to ask whether they have a strong case or not. As a result, I thought it would be useful to describe what makes a strong personal injury case in Mississippi. One thing is critical to state up front—you will need to have experienced personal injury counsel help you attain any settlement. Barrett Law has the experience to help you through this process.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505. Below are the characteristics of a strong personal injury case.

What is Negligence?

Believe it or not, but accidents do happen. There is a difference between something accidentally or unavoidably occurring and negligence. You cannot recover damages based simply on an unfortunate, unavoidable occurrence, but you may be able to recover a tremendous settlement once negligence is established. But how is negligence different from an accident? Negligence means that a person did not act as a reasonable person would under the circumstances.

Take a car accident. Imagine that you are hit from behind by a person who consumed three beers before getting behind the wheel and who was watching a movie on his phone while he drove. That is clearly negligent behavior because it is far below the standard of behavior that society would expect from a reasonable person. However, if a different person hits you from behind because you stopped short, and their car was in good condition and their tires were brand new, and they were sober and attentive, you may be able to recover from their insurance carrier, but you will have a difficult time demonstrating that their behavior was negligent, as it was reasonable under the circumstances.

What is Comparative Negligence?

Conversely, were you at all at fault?  If you have been drinking, were unable to avoid the injury because you were distracted, or were in some other way partially to blame, your potential financial recovery will be reduced by the degree to which you were at fault. This is the legal theory of comparative negligence, meaning that each party’s own negligence is weighed against them when fault is distributed.

Are Your Injuries Serious?

While you can recover compensation for any injury, the incredible amount of time, effort, and expense that goes into a personal injury case is really only justified by a serious or long-term injury. See a medical professional and determine both the immediate and possible long-term effects of your injury. If they are not significant, count yourself as lucky. But minor or short-lived injuries are rarely worth litigating.

Can the Person Who Injured You Compensate You?

As the old saying goes, you cannot get blood from a turnip.  That means that no matter how negligent the person was who injured you and how blameless you were, you cannot recover from someone who is unable to pay. This is why I advise all clients to have uninsured motorist coverage on their car, which allows you to be compensated even if the person who injures you in a car accident does not have insurance. But if a person has no assets, little or no money, and no homeowner’s insurance, there is little point in trying to sue them.

What Should You Do If You Were Injured?

If you were injured by a third party, contact an experienced personal injury attorney so that you can focus on yourself and on healing. Let experienced counsel take care of preserving medical records, dealing with worker’s compensation, attaining expert diagnoses, and dealing with insurance companies. These are important tasks that a personal injury attorney can handle for you.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if you have suffered an injury.

Barrett Law has the experience to take on defense attorneys and insurance companies that are focussed on denying your compensation for the injury you experienced.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

If you are injured in a commercial trucking accident, one of the first questions that will have to be answered is who is legally responsible for your injuries? While a trucker may be driving the truck with a major corporation’s logo on the side, he may be a sub-contractor of a trucking company that is itself just a contractor to the corporation. In fact, even that is a simplistic scenario, as there are often many corporate layers between the owner of the goods being hauled and the person behind the wheel who just injured you and your family. So if you have been injured, who pays?

Contractors versus Employees

The issue of who is legally responsible, or liable, for your injuries is a tricky one, but it could have a dramatic impact on your ability to be made whole. For example, if the truck was owned by the corporation and the driver worked directly for the corporation, the legal theory of “respondeat superior” would likely dictate that the corporation itself was responsible for its employee’s actions, so long as those actions occurred within the scope and duty of employment. That said, large corporations insulate themselves from that sort of liability and risk by contracting out services such as distribution, so their subcontractor may assume all of the liability for your injuries. If that was the case, while the major corporation may not be liable, the corporate trucking subcontractor would be liable for the driver’s actions, also due to the theory of respondeat superior.  Even that scenario might not apply, however, as the trucking company also likely contracts its truck distribution routes to individual contractors.

Each of these contracts insulates the contracting party from the actual driving activity occurring and the risk it incurs. In the end, you may only have a claim against the individual truck driver; however, it is unlikely that he or she has the insurance or resources of the corporation whose product is in his or her truck, therefore, your claim and the likelihood of being made whole is significantly diminished if the “buck” stops with the individual driver if he or she is an “independent contractor.”  This could be the end of your story, leaving you with serious injuries, an inability to work, and little or no hope of receiving from an individual who may have limited resources.

Unraveling Corporate Structures

With the help of an experienced trucking personal injury attorney, you can pierce those contractual layers insulating each level of the contract. This is not something you can do on your own or with inexperienced counsel; you will need an attorney with a long track record of taking on the complex corporate hierarchy created to prevent liability from flowing up to the corporate entity.

What factors would have to be present for the law to allow a trucking accident victim to sue the larger corporate entity instead of only the independent contractor driver? The courts will require that you prove that the “independent contractor” was not really independent or that the contract trucking company worked entirely at the direction of the contracting corporation or was under their exclusive control. This shifts the nature of the contractee/contractor relationship to one of employer/employee. Factors considered include: The amount of control the business held over the driver and his actions; Whether this is the driver’s main occupation; Whether the type of work typically requires supervision; The level of skill required; Who owns the truck; The length of the relationship between the parties; How the company pays the truck driver.

If it can be shown that the driver or trucking company was not truly an independent contractor of the corporation, but was, in fact, working as its employee, then the corporation itself may be able to be sued. Being able to sue the corporation itself is an important first step towards receiving the compensation you are due.

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

Determining whether the truck driver who caused your injuries was an independent contractor or an employee of the contractor can mean the difference between being fully compensated for your injuries and receiving nothing. The determination of who may be liable is only one determination that your counsel will have to make. If you are injured, do not hesitate, call experienced counsel immediately.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if you are injured in a trucking accident.

Barrett Law has the experience to take on insurance companies and defense counsel that are focused on denying your compensation for the harm you experienced.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

Clients often call us about “slip and fall” accidents, where they lose their balance and injure themselves as a result. Unfortunately, there is often no basis for a legal claim against the landowner where the client fell, as the client simply lost their balance. The reported injuries are often fairly minor. But sometimes a landowner knowingly maintained truly dangerous premises and the injuries are extreme. These latter cases make up the most serious slip and fall claims, especially when a traumatic brain injury or TBI results. A TBI can require a lifetime of care to deal with and can cost a person their savings, marriage, livelihood, and freedom.

Traumatic Brain Injuries

Our brain floats inside our liquid-filled skull. The liquid serves as a shock absorber so that our brain does not slam against the inside of our skull every time our brain moves. While concussions are caused by the slight to moderate impact of the brain hitting the inside of the skull, a TBI is caused by the brain either severely impacting the skull or being injured by a foreign object penetrating the skull.

Symptoms of a TBI include loss of consciousness, convulsions, seizures, vomiting, headaches, slurred speech, confusion, difficulty waking up from sleep, difficulty focusing, and others. Anyone who experiences a fall that results in these symptoms becoming present within a few days should contact medical help immediately.

But can a simple slip and fall result in those serious symptoms? Yes. Believe it or not, your head weighs about the same amount as a bowling ball. It’s suspended five to six feet above the ground by your body.  Tremendous force can be generated by your body whipping that weight to the ground. Your head moves at a high speed when you trip over a crack in the sidewalk and hit your head on a curb or slip on a soapy grocery store floor and hit it on a produce bin. Significant force is exerted on your skull when it impacts a foreign object. A TBI results from an extreme force being exerted on your brain by the skull wall or a foreign object penetrating the skull.

Do You Have a Viable Slip and Fall TBI Claim?

Slipping and falling does not create a negligence claim. Negligence is based upon an owner of the premises failing to meet a standard of reasonable care towards visitors on their property.  The premises must be reasonably safe, but they do not need to be absolutely safe.  So if a grocery store leaves soapy water on the freshly mopped floor and fails to notify shoppers of the soapy spot, it may be negligence. But just because you slip in a grocery store may not be negligence if the store would not have reasonably known that the slick spot existed. The key is that the owner of the premises where you fell must have known of a hazard or should have known of it; they cannot ignore hazards if they know of them or know they regularly occur.

Once negligence is established, compensation for a successful TBI claim can be significant. In part, that is because of the tremendous losses resulting from a TBI. Your damages will likely include medical expenses, pain and suffering, loss of future earning capacity, loss of companionship, rehabilitation costs, and future medical expenses. Obviously, the amount you receive will depend on the severity of your injury, the degree of the other party’s negligence, and whether or not they are covered by insurance. If you are injured as a result of an uninsured, poor person’s negligence, you may be due compensation but sadly may get none.

A slip and fall injury or TBI claim requires an experienced personal injury attorney. Do not make any decisions or sign any documents until you speak with an attorney.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if a loved one has experienced a slip and fall injury.

Barrett Law has the experience to take on insurance companies and defense counsel that are focused on denying your compensation for the harm you experienced.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.