car accident lawyer

Published on: November 9, 2016

Is Driving With a Cold As Dangerous as Driving Drunk?

Recently, an appellate court in South Carolina ruled on a criminal appeal brought by a woman who was accused of causing a fatal car accident while intoxicated, based on toxicology reports that showed marijuana in her system, as well as cold and cough medicines.

In the case of Kranchick v. State, defendant was challenging the expertise of the state’s primary witness, who asserted that while the marijuana in her system could have been consumed up to 24 hours previously if she was a regular user, the amounts of cold and cough medicines in her blood indicated she was not using them for therapeutic purposes. Initially, the trial court granted her request for post-conviction relief on this point, but the appellate court reversed and reinstated defendant’s original conviction and sentence – which was for 13 years in prison.

But the case raises the larger question of how much cold medicine is too much? Can driving with a cold really be as dangerous as driving drunk? What does that mean in terms of liability? Continue reading →

Published on: October 21, 2016

Family of Teen Killed in Car Accident Sue State, Allege Poor Road Design

By Dean Freeman

Early one morning in November 2014, a popular 17-year-old senior left her South Carolina home – and never returned. Her family didn’t know where she was headed at 6 a.m. on a Saturday, and they don’t know why she didn’t follow the highway’s sharp curve. What they can say with some certainty is that had a guardrail been positioned around that curve, she may not have careened off the road, down an embankment and head-on into a cluster of trees.

She died on the scene of blunt force trauma to her head. Her family has since filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the state’s Department of Transportation, alleging the agency was negligent in failing to erect a guardrail that could have saved her life.

Authorities with the state declined to comment on the pending lawsuit, which accuses officials with the agency of knowing a guardrail was needed, but failing to act. Coincidentally, the family’s lawsuit was filed the same week as National Teen Driver Safety Week. Continue reading →

Published on: October 12, 2016

Deadly Crash Leads to Airbag Lawsuit for 4 Orphaned Sisters

By Dean Freeman

A fatal car accident killed both their parents and their 90-year-old grandmother. Three of the four sisters had been in the car at the time of the collision, headed to a family reunion in Texas. They were seriously injured, but survived.

It wasn’t long after the crash that questions started to arise about what had happened and why. Specifically, what was going on with the airbags and why didn’t they deploy? As the Star-Telegram reports, the family was traveling in a Kia Sedona minivan. They were struck head-on by a Pontiac Bonneville when the driver crossed the center line while traveling on U.S. 67. The oldest sister was working and not traveling to the reunion with them that day.

Recovering from physical and emotional injuries, the sisters allege the local car dealership disconnected the fuse to the airbag system. In a lawsuit filed two years ago, the sisters say that when the dealership removed the cable from the deployment sensor, they also fraudulently replaced the seat sensor. The pre-owned vehicle dealership sold the deceased parents the van at one of its discount lots. Plaintiffs say the dealership employees’ actions caused the injuries and deaths in the crash. They do not allege defendants caused the crash, but rather that the injuries sustained were much more severe than they otherwise would have been. Continue reading →

Published on: September 16, 2016

Teens at Higher Risk of Injury, Death in Florida Car Accidents

By Dean Freeman

The voice on the line was that of a retired police officer who had come across many accident scenes in his career. But in that 911 call to dispatch at the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, that voice, although clearly and succinctly describing the situation, revealed the sheer awfulness of it.

“We have people trapped in the car unconscious. We’re trying to get the door open. I have one, two people in the back seat unconscious. It’s pretty bad.”

By the time active duty emergency crews arrived, they would find one of four teens inside that vehicle, an 18-year-old recent Nease High School graduate, was dead. Five others – including two 18-year-old sisters (two in a set of identical triplets) – were seriously injured. Additionally, two others in another vehicle – a 20-year-old driver and his 19-year-old passenger – were seriously injured as well. Three of the teens injured are high school students, including the two sisters. According to a GoFundMe page for the sisters, they face “a long recovery.” The decedent, according to his obituary, had been studying computer engineering at the University of Central Florida. Continue reading →

Published on: June 27, 2016

Cincinnati Ins. Co. v. Estate of Chee – Excess Insurance Coverage in Car Accident

By Dean Freeman

Excess insurance coverage is an insurance policy that provides coverage that will be in excess of what was available under the underlying liability policy. Often, that’s an umbrella policy, but it could be an auto insurance liability policy as well.

The general rule with excess insurance is that it can’t be broader than the underlying policy, but it can create higher limits. So for example if the underlying policy won’t cover damages caused by a certain act, the excess coverage isn’t going to do that either. However if the underlying policy offers up to $50,000 in coverage, your excess policy could provide more than that.

The excess insurance policy was at issue in the recent case of Cincinnati Ins. Co. v. Estate of Chee, a complex case that pits the estate of a deceased woman against her surviving husband and the doctors who provided her medical care in the wake of a crash. Those doctors then pursued action against the husband, who sought indemnification from both his auto insurance company as well as his excess insurance firm, which had provided a policy that covered both him and his wife. Continue reading →

Published on: May 22, 2016

People Texting Drivers Could be Liable for Resulting Accidents

By Dean Freeman

Drivers who text, snap photos or email while they are driving could find themselves liable – and possibly charged criminally – if their distraction results in a car accident.

But what about the people with whom they are communicating?

A recent report by Vocativ reveals the legal landscape is shifting, and there are a number of cases that may lay the foundation for liability against those who text with persons they know or had reason to believe were driving.

It’s estimated that approximately 431,000 injuries and more than 3,200 deaths every year in the U.S. are attributable to driver distraction. Although the number of drunk driving injuries and fatalities is pegged at triple that, the reality is distracted driving is a lot tougher to determine after the fact. Continue reading →

Published on: April 23, 2016

Morgan v. Beaumont Police Dept. – Fatal Car Accident in Police Pursuit

By Dean Freeman

Recently, a high-speed chase by police tailing a fugitive through the streets of Miami spanned more than a half hour until the suspect was caught, according to the Miami Herald. The 34-year-old suspect is charged with attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed his girlfriend numerous times before fleeing. During the chase, he reportedly narrowly avoided striking other vehicles as he weaved through traffic, blew past intersection red lights and skidded with sharp turns. At one point, he exchanged gunfire with police in downtown Miami.

This scene had a high potential for serious injury or death of innocent bystanders.

Most police agencies have policies that prevent chases – particularly high-speed chases – in all but the most serious of situations. A study by the National Institute of Justice found that most departments had written policies governing pursuits. While increasing the number of vehicles involved in the pursuit was more likely to improve the odds of apprehension, it was also more likely to up the risk of accidents, injuries and property damage. Continue reading →

Published on: March 17, 2016

Brown v. Davis – $3M Car Accident Verdict Affirmed

By Dean Freeman

The family of a man killed when logging equipment from an over-sized vehicle toppled onto his vehicle on a bridge over the Mississippi River prevailed recently in an appeal by the logging company and owner.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the jury’s award of $3 million in damages in Brown v. Davis, rejecting defense arguments that decedent’s own negligence in speeding broke the chain of causation set in motion by defendant’s failure to stop decedent’s car from entering the bridge in the first place.

This was an over-sized vehicle and it physically could not traverse the bridge without one wheel being partially over the center line. That meant opposite-direction traffic had to be stopped before the truck could proceed. Continue reading →