Anyone visiting a local mall may have seen a security guard scooting around on a two wheeled upright transportation device called a Segway scooter.  These upright scooters which are controlled by leaning in a particular direction have become the stuff of comic fodder on television sitcoms and movies like Mall Cop.  Despite these depictions as amusing but harmless gadgets, these images mask a darker side to Segway scooter vehicles that may result in devastating injuries.  A Connecticut man who was severely injured in a Segway accident won a judgment against the company for $10 million last month.

John Ezzo, 23, was injured during a competition that was coordinated by the New Hampshire based company Segway Inc. that manufactures the odd looking two wheel upright scooters.  The competitors were asked to navigate an obstacle course while wearing blindfolds.  Segway Inc. did not provide helmets to the competitors.  While it may be legitimately asked how the company did not see disaster on the spectrum, Ezzo predictably fell off the Segway and suffered a traumatic brain injury when his head impacted the ground.  Ironically, the company recommends that consumers that purchase Segway scooters wear helmets when operating the devices so the jury may have been influenced by the company failing to follow its own safety warnings designed to reduce the risk of injury associated with the vehicles.

The size of the jury verdict represented both economic damages like lost income, medical costs and partial future disability as well as non-economic damages like pain and suffering and impaired quality of life.  Ezzo who is young was forced to quit college and now works doing odd jobs as a handyman.  The difference in earning potential after suffering his injuries over the course of his lifetime is compensable.  The pain and suffering and impaired enjoyment of life also is considered over his expected life span which means that his relative youth typically justifies more extensive damages.

Segway scooters are becoming increasingly popular and can be fun forms or recreation, but they can also be dangerous.  They lack safety equipment such as structural protection, seat belts or air bags, and they are unstable compared to other forms of transportation.  Falls from Segway scooters can result in catastrophic head injuries and even wrongful death especially when they are operated without a helmet.  If you or someone you love has been injured in a Segway accident or other accident involving a scooter, our experienced Mississippi personal injury attorneys at Barrett Law have been zealously pursuing compensation for injury victim for over 75 years.  We provide diligent legal representation and impassioned advocacy so we invite you to call us today at 662-834-2376 to learn how we can help.

When a child is victimized by sexual abuse, the consequences often include long-term emotional damage and sometimes permanent physical injury.  The widespread coverage of scandals involving sexual abuse of children at respected institutions like the Catholic Church and distinguished universities like Penn State serve as a reminder that child abuse can be present in places that parents would least expect to find it.  Even more alarming is that most child sexual abuse is not perpetrated by an anonymous stranger but by close and trusted friends and family.  It is estimated that more than seventy percent of children who are sexually abused are victimized by immediate family member or someone very close to the family.  If your child is the victims of child sexual abuse in Mississippi, the dedicated and compassionate team of Mississippi sexual abuse injury attorneys at Barrett Law is committed to tenaciously seeking justice and financial compensation for children that have been sexually exploited.

According to the American Psychological Association, there is no precise universally accepted definition for sexual abuse of children.  However, child sexual abuse is characterized by adults using their dominant position over children to permit them to engage in sexual activity toward a child.  Sexual abuse of a child may include both physical and non-physical conduct including:

• Fondling or causing a child to fondle genitals
• Oral contact with the genitals
• Intercourse
• Digital penetration
• Exposing genitals to a child
• Displaying pornography to a child

While this list is hardly complete, it provides an overview of the types of conduct that may form the basis for a Mississippi personal injury lawsuit based on the sexual abuse of a child.  A civil lawsuit for personal injury has some overlap with a criminal case but has somewhat different objectives.  A criminal case is designed to punish the sexual offender by imposing criminal sanctions like incarceration and to discourage similar misconduct in the future.  While the purpose of a civil lawsuit also has a punishment and deterrent component in terms of inflicting financial penalties on a child abuser, the primary function of a civil lawsuit is to obtain fair financial compensation that will permit a child who has been sexually exploited to seek counseling and other resources and maintain the best possible quality of life.

The recent scandals regarding institutions where child abuse might least be expected reflects the widespread and lasting impact of child abuse.  Studies indicate that almost one-third of all children have been sexually abused by the time they reach the age of 18.  Tragically, many of these victims are younger than the age of seven.  The lasting effects of child abuse are evident in a variety of facts and statistics including the following:

• Abused children are 53 percent more likely to face a juvenile arrest
• Children subject to abuse exhibit a much higher rate of depression and suicide
• Children that are abused are 38 percent more likely to commit a violent crime
• Sexual abuse victims test lower in IQ and academic performance

If your child is the victim of sexual abuse, you or your child may have a right to seek financial compensation in a Mississippi personal injury lawsuit.  Depending on the specific facts of your situation, our experienced Mississippi personal injury attorney may be able to seek damages from the perpetrator and anyone that permitted the conduct despite a legal duty to protect the child from such abuse.  For example, lawsuits against Catholic priests that have committed sexual abuse and Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky also name the Archdioceses and Penn State University respectively.  The experienced Mississippi personal injury attorneys at Barrett Law have been providing tenacious representation to personal injury victims for over 75 years.  We provide diligent legal representation and impassioned advocacy so we invite you to call us today at 662-834-2376 to learn how we can help.

If you are involved in a car accident, slip and fall, construction accident or other incident where you suffer serious injury, you may have the ability to seek financial compensation for your injuries in a personal injury lawsuit.  A successful personal injury claim requires an accident victim to establish that the negligent (i.e. unreasonably unsafe) conduct of the defendant “caused” injury to the plaintiff.  While this may sound straightforward enough, the notion of cause is different as it is used in personal injury litigation than when the term is used in ordinary parlance.

There are two prongs to proving causation in a personal injury lawsuit which may vary slightly depending on the jurisdiction but generally include: (1) actual causation and (2) proximate causation.  Actual causation is essentially what people normally think of when they say that an unsafe act “caused” injury to a victim.  There is an uninterrupted chain of events in which the unsafe conduct of the defendant resulted in injury to the defendant.  For example, a car runs a red light and T-bones another vehicle causing the vehicle occupant in the other vehicle to be thrown forward violently and suffer serious head and neck injuries.

This is an easy example, but the causal connection between a negligent party’s unsafe conduct and injuries suffered by an accident victim can be infinitely more tenuous.  A little more sophisticated example might include a chain reaction collision where a vehicle slams into stopped traffic causing multiple vehicles to collide with the vehicle in front of them.  Again, it is easy to understand that while the driver that started the collision did not actually collide directly with the last vehicle to suffer impact in the chain reaction collision, the driver that initiated the chain reaction accident was a “but for” cause of the injuries suffered by the last driver involved in the collision.  If not for the unsafe driving of the first driver who failed to stop, occupants of the last vehicle would not have been injured.

Actual cause (also referred to as “but for cause”) is not the only sense in which the term “cause” is used in Mississippi personal injury lawsuits.  There are certain situations when there is clearly a chain of events where it can be said that unsafe conduct resulted in injury where the connection is so convoluted and unforeseeable that liability is not imposed based on public policy.  The key issue is foreseeability both in terms of a particular kind of unsafe conduct causing injury as well as the injury being within the scope of the risk that would be anticipated from such unsafe conduct.

A recent case involving a train that collided with a pedestrian provides a good illustration of this type of causation.  In a Chicago case, a man was running to catch a train when another train hit the man who was tragically killed in the fatal train accident.  A large body part of the man who was killed was propelled a hundred feet through the air and struck a woman who was waiting to catch yet another train to work.  The woman suffered a broken leg, fractured wrist and shoulder injury.  There was no question that if the man had not been running to catch his train that the woman would not have been injured.  However, the question was whether the injury to the woman was a foreseeable risk of running across a railroad track to catch a train.  The court ruled that the risk was foreseeable so the estate of the man who was killed had to compensate the woman for her injuries.

One other issue that must be considered when trying to understand “causation” as the term is used in personal injury litigation is the impact of intentional acts of third parties.  Sometimes the intentional conduct of a third party may be considered a “superseding cause” that may cut off liability of a defendant.  However, this is only the case if the act or hazard created by the third party is not a foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s conduct.  Again, the best way to understand this distinction is by way of example.  If a driver pushes a passenger out of a moving vehicle, the driver would likely be liable for injuries suffered in the fall.  However, the driver might not be liable for additional injuries suffered if someone passing by mugs the passenger ejected from the vehicle.  Although the driver still might be found to be liable if the passenger was ejected from the vehicle in a high crime area.

While the train accident might show the outer boundary of foreseeability in some respects, it is certainly the case that when running across a train track one might be hit and thrown into a bystander causing injury.  The bottom line is that terms like “causation” may have very different meanings from the way these terms are used in everyday language.  If you are injured by the negligent conduct of a third party, the experienced Mississippi personal injury attorneys at Barrett Law can help explain these complexities that may complicate your personal injury lawsuit.  The experienced Mississippi personal injury attorneys at Barrett Law have been providing tenacious representation to personal injury victims for over 75 years.  We provide diligent legal representation and impassioned advocacy so we invite you to call us today at 662-834-2376 to learn how we can help.