Why are there so many personal injury attorneys?

Injuries and accidents are far too common in the U.S.  Tens of thousands of people are injured each year.  In many cases the injured persons will need the representation of an attorney.  Advertising is a good way for attorneys to connect with injury people to help them win compensation for their injuries.

The national statistics for injury and violence in the United States is a clear indication of why there is so much advertising.

Injury and Violence in the U.S. Annually:*

• 199,800 people die each year from Injuries and violence in the U.S.
• Total cost from injuries and violence: $671 billion in medical & work loss costs in 2013.
• For every person that dies 13 are hospitalized and 135 are treated in an emergency room.

*All figures based on Current CDC data

Unintentional Injuries in the U.S. Annually:**

• Nearly 35,400 people died in motor vehicle crashes
• More than 14,800 people died from prescription opioid overdoses
• 2,792,000 older people were treated in emergency rooms for fall injuries each year
• 325,000 kids treated for sports and recreation related concussions in and emergency room

**Prescription opioid overdoses represent all intents including unintentional, intentional, or undetermined. All figures based on Current CDC data.

The number of people injured or killed in accidents each year is astounding.  May of these injuries and deaths are caused by the negligence and irresponsible actions of others.  When an injury or death occurred through no fault of the injured person the responsible party can be held accountable for their actions or neglect.

Often the responsible party is unwilling to accept full responsibility for the accident. In these cases the best way to motive the responsible party to provide fair and proper compensation is to hire an attorney.  An attorney can navigate the complex and difficult process of negotiating a settlement and or bringing the case to court.

There is a growing resistance for the responsible party or their insurance company to offer a fair settlement. Every dollar they pay out in claims is a dollar less the company will earn in profit.  They are highly motivated to pay as little as possible to settle your claim. In addition, it is to their advantage to lengthen the settlement process as much as possible.

Most serious injury claims fall into the hands of an insurance company.  The company has experience and resources that gives them an unfair advantage over the injured person. This is why you need an attorney to help you.

The good news is when you are represented by a personal injury attorney in most cases you will pay no fees unless receive compensation.  However, you will agree to share a portion of your compensation with your attorney.  The amount will vary based on difficulty and value of your case.  Your attorney will advise you of the shared amount before the process is started. This system allows anyone with a legitimate claim to obtain legal representation.  Without this system the injured people would be at an extreme disadvantage in the settlement process.

Data source:  http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/overview/key_data.html

 

Port St. Lucie fatal car crash and road accident statistics 2013

It’s easy to believe that accidents don’t happen in our city or neighborhood but they do. In 2013 there were nine fatal accidents in the city.  Some were on streets and in neighborhood that that see very safe and unlikely to be the scene of a serious accident.  There are many causes for auto accidents including drunken driving, distracted driving, speeding and just plain carelessness.

Often people become victims through no fault of their own.  One simple mistake can have catastrophic consequences like death and serious injury.  It’s important for all of us to operate our vehicles safely and in accordance with the law, driving the speed limit and obeying street signs and traffic signals.

Driving safely and carefully saves lives and avoids serious injuries.  Keep it safe out there.

 

Port St Lucie, FL,  fatal car crashes and road traffic accident statistics for 2013
Fatal accident count	9
Vehicles involved in fatal accidents	14
Fatal Accidents involving drunken persons	2
Fatalities	9
Persons involved in fatal accidents	16
Pedestrians involved in fatal accidents	3

Location	Vehicles	Persons	Pedestrians	Fatalities
Nw St Lucie West Blvd, Nw Country Club Drive	1	1	1	1
Sw Bayshort Blvd.	1	1		1
Sw Gatlin Blvd.	2	1		1
Se Airoso Blvd	1	1		1
2174 Se Floresta Dr.	3	1		1
Se Port St Lucie Blvd, Se Shipping Rd	2	5		1
US-1, Se Port St Lucie Blvd	1	1	1	1
Se Tiffany Ave	1	1	1	1
Se Green River Pkwy, Se Charleston Dr.	2	3		1

* Data provided by City-Data.com

This information was provided by The Law Office of Gloria Seidule.  www.glorialaw.com

 

 

When to call an Auto Accident Lawyer in Port St Lucie

In the case of most minor auto accidents and fender benders, hiring an attorney won’t be necessary.  Resolving the issues that arise from these types of events are handled via the insurance companies involved.  If, however, you find yourself involved in a more serious or complicated accident, it will be in your best interest to find an experienced auto accident lawyer.

Following your accident, a lawyer will attempt to:

• recover funds to pay for damage to your car
• secure payment for any resultant medical care needed
• to speak on your behalf with representatives and adjusters for the insurance companies
• to gather the evidence you’ll need to prove that the incident was not your fault

Four good reasons to contact a Port St. Lucie auto accident attorney

If you’re unsure whether your situation warrants the professional assistance of a personal injury lawyer, consider these factors:

The accident resulted in serious injury and/or death

These cases very often end in one or more complicated lawsuits. Courts will be involved, having to decide on multiple legal issues, and the stakes can be very high. Your attorney will help with damage assessment and settlement calculations, lead you through the litigation process and protect your interests. Find a lawyer with extensive personal injury and wrongful death experience behind them.

Any person involved in the accident is uninsured

If you find that any of the parties to the accident are not insured, don’t wait to locate and retain an attorney. While most insurance companies sell uninsured motorist coverage, it is often not enough to cover the damages sustained. If necessary, your attorney can help you with getting a civil lawsuit filed to protect your interests and cover your losses.

Settlement talks with the insurance company are coming up

Auto accident lawsuits frequently settle prior to actually going to trial. Settling before trial has the potential to save you money in costly litigation, but you need to be aware of any possible complications that may arise during negotiations. An experience auto accident attorney is more likely to negotiate a higher settlement than you’d be able to do on your own.

You need to collect evidence about the car accident

Did you know that most late-model vehicles are equipped with technology known as a “black box” similar to those found in airplanes? It is able to record critical information during crashes. The data it collects may be able to establish facts like whether or not the driver was wearing a seatbelt, or the speed of the car at the time of the collision. Your attorney can help obtain the court order often required to obtain this data.

Retain an attorney with the skills and experience needed to protect the interests of you and your loved ones. Gloria Seidule has been practicing personal injury law for over 27 years, and is a highly skilled auto accident attorney in Port St. Lucie. Call today for a free consultation at 772-287-1220.

Healthcare Acquired MRSA and when to consult a Personal Injury Attorney

A bacterial infection that has become more and more common in healthcare-related settings is Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). MRSA is responsible for a number of very difficult-to-treat infections for patients across the United States. By definition, it is any strain of Staphylococcus Aureus bacteria that is resistant to beta-lactam antibiotics, including penicillin- and cephalosporin-based treatments.

How do I know if I have MRSA?

Cases of MRSA have grown rampant in hospitals and other healthcare settings where open wounds, invasive devices and patients with weakened immune systems can be found. In medical facilities, MRSA causes life-threatening bloodstream infections, pneumonia and surgical site infections. The infection may begin as tiny red bumps resembling pimples or insect bites that can become very painful, deep abscesses rapidly. If you become infected with MRSA, it has the potential to introduce life-threatening bacteria into your bloodstream, joints and bones, and heart and lungs.

MRSA and other staph skin infections often appear as a bump or infected area on the skin that may be:

• Red
• Swollen or painful
• Warm to the touch
• Full of pus or other drainage

It is very important to seek medical help when the symptoms of a MRSA skin infection are accompanied with a fever.

Although the overall national trend has seen a decrease in MRSA-related infections, here in Florida the standardized infection ratio(SIR) is significantly higher. The 2013 state SIR is 11% higher than the national baseline, and a full 23% higher than the national SIR.*

As MRSA may present potentially serious complications, it is essential that healthcare workers, from lab techs to nursing staff to doctors, adhere strictly to sanitation procedures and requirements. Without the proper safeguards, MRSA can be spread easily and quickly from patient to patient. It’s likewise critically important that those visiting MRSA-infected patients also adhere to these protocols to prevent the spread of bacteria through cross-contamination of public places such as elevators, bathrooms, and the hospital cafeteria.

Those infected with MRSA need to be identified quickly and staff should follow all sanitary procedures such as providing and wearing gloves, gowns and masks. Hands must always be properly washed with soap and water or, at a minimum, use alcohol-based hand sanitizers to prevent the spread of bacteria.

A Personal Injury Lawyer/Medical Malpractice Attorney can evaluate if you have a case

If you or one of your loved ones has suffered a hospital-acquired infection such as MRSA that has resulted in illness or death, you may be entitled to compensation.  Contact the Law Office of Gloria Seidule for a free, no obligation consultation today at 772-287-1220.

*Centers for Disease Control, Healthcare Associated Infections Report based on 2013 data, published in January 2015; http://www.cdc.gov/hai/pdfs/stateplans/factsheets/fl.pdf.

Finding a Stuart personal injury lawyer

A personal injury lawyer should be someone well-experienced with personal injury claims, having a good track record of success. Someone who has suffered a personal injury and seeks legal action should have a legitimate chance of winning a case, or it should not be pursued in court. A good lawyer adheres to ethical standards that call for honestly informing a client when success is unlikely, rather than knowingly prosecuting a case that likely cannot be won. Ideally, the attorney chosen should take a personal interest in the case, and be involved every step of the way.

In the Stuart, Florida area, Ms. Gloria Seidule is an experienced attorney who brings that kind of professionalism and that kind of commitment to each case. Ms. Seidule takes cases on a contingency basis, which means that she earns no fees unless the case is prosecuted through to a favorable result, and the client receives an award.

Her peers have such great respect for her ability and her ethical standards that she is rated at the top of the Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review AV-Ratings system, and this says a lot about  how she is perceived in the legal community.

Prevalence of personal injury cases

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (USBJS) has noted that around 60% of all civil trials conducted in any given year are centered around incidents in the nature of personal injury. This isn’t really surprising, given the fact that there are so many incidents annually which include personal injury serious enough to require hospitalization.

The following statistics have been reported by various agencies, including the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the
Federal Railroad Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• Motorcycle accidents – 50,000 serious injuries and 2,300 deaths annually
• Boating accidents – 3,000 injuries and 651 fatalities
• All terrain vehicle accidents – 107,000 injuries and 327 deaths
• Train accidents – 2,500 injuries and 820 deaths
• Slip and fall accidents – 17,000 accidents annually
• Construction accidents – 300,000 injuries and 1,000 deaths
• Amusement park accidents – 7,000 annual injuries
• Dog bites – 800,000 incidents annually that require  medical attention

Personal injury lawyer Gloria Seidule has successfully represented many injury victims, and brings a wealth of experience to the table. contact the Law Office of Gloria Seidule for an initial consultation about your Port St. Lucie, FL case.

What types of cases are handled by a personal injury lawyer?

Personal injury lawyers in this country handle a large proportion of all civil litigation conducted in state court venues. This, in large part, is because personal injury can be very costly, so the parties involved naturally dispute liability. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (USBJS) reports that up to 60% of all civil trials conducted in a given year are in the nature of personal injury trials. The reason there are so many personal injury trials is that there are simply a great many personal injuries that occur in this country every year, from all sources.

What cases are handled by a personal injury lawyer?

Paraphrasing the legal definition of personal injury, it is harm that befalls a person or damage to personal property which occurs as a result of the wrongful or negligent actions of another party. The claims brought by a personal injury lawyer in court therefore often revolve around the attempt to prove that a specific party is responsible for those negligent actions, or that the actions themselves were indeed negligent. Some typical examples of personal injury cases involve traffic accidents, medical malpractice, construction accidents, and defective products that lead to injury. In terms of their frequency, the USBJS reports the following breakdown:

52% of all personal injury claims stem from motor vehicle accidents

15% are due to medical malpractice cases

5% revolve around product defects

28% include all other causes, with none higher than 5% of the total

From this breakdown, it can be seen that motor vehicle accidents are by far the greatest cause of personal injury claims, which stands to reason, since the injuries resulting from traffic accidents always have the potential to be extremely serious in nature. In terms of the success rate of plaintiffs bringing action against an alleged wrong-doer, a typical breakdown looks like this:

61% of all traffic accident claims are successful

50% of all intentional tort claims are proven

38% of product defect claims were upheld

39% of personal property damage claims are successful

19% of medical malpractice claims are proven

The monetary awards stemming from the decisions above tend to be the highest in cases of medical malpractice and in product defects, which are the lesser-occurring types of claims. Motor vehicle accident claims usually are associated with far lower awards, since they occur so commonly. Intentional tort claims are those where some kind of wrongful act causes harm to another party, and did not occur accidentally.

What is involved in a personal injury claim?

The reason that personal injury claims are initiated in the first place is that the injured party simply cannot bear the burden of the ramifications stemming from the injury. Quite often a serious injury causes the victim to lose significant time at work, during which period there may be little or no  compensation from an employer to provide for family needs. Then too, the medical costs associated with recovery from a major injury must be paid, and those costs are not usually covered entirely by health insurance, especially if a long period of physical therapy is indicated.

Not to be overlooked in a claim is the physical pain and suffering endured by the injured party, as well as the emotional stress sustained. In cases involving wrongful death, burial costs can be included in the claim, and it is also legally permissible to seek reimbursement for the loss of income that would have been provided by the deceased party if he/she had remained alive and still earning income.

How should a personal injury lawyer be chosen?

First and foremost, a personal injury lawyer should be someone well-experienced with personal injury claims, especially with those that have gone to trial and have had a decision rendered. Obviously a lawyer with a track record of success in this area is desirable too, since the claimant should have a reasonable expectation of success with his/her chosen representative.

These are very important points, but they are far from the only considerations that should be borne in mind. Someone who has suffered a personal injury and seeks legal action should have a legitimate chance of winning a case, or it should not be pursued in court. A good lawyer should adhere to ethical standards that call for honestly informing a potential client when success is unlikely, rather than knowingly prosecute a case that likely cannot be won simply to secure a fee.

Ideally, the attorney you choose should take a personal interest in your case, and be involved every step of the way. Even though these cases can be grouped and summarized statistically as shown above, every single case is truly unique, and should be treated that way by the personal injury lawyer who takes your case. The tricky part is finding an attorney who demonstrates that level of professionalism for every case, every client.

A highly skilled and experienced personal injury lawyer

In the area of Stuart, Port St. Lucie, and Fort Pierce, the personal injury lawyer who brings that kind of professionalism and that kind of commitment to each case she agrees to take on, is Ms. Gloria Seidule. Her peers have such great respect for her ability and her ethical standards that she is rated at the top of the Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review AV-Ratings system, and this says a lot about  how she is perceived in the legal community.

When your life has been disrupted by a serious personal injury, you need representation that can restore order to your life and compensate you for all the pain and suffering you have been forced to endure. You need Ms. Gloria Seidule.

Expect defense appeals after your personal injury case win in Port St. Lucie

Sometimes it happens in legal proceedings that winning a personal injury lawsuit is only a precursor to the real trial, which is often an appeal filed by the losing party in the lawsuit. Even when personal injury has clearly taken place and an award is made to the injured party, there are numerous grounds on which the verdict can be appealed, including improper arguments or comments by attorneys, improper instructions issued by the judge or improper application of relevant laws to the case, and many other reasons as well. Especially in verdicts where large awards are made to the plaintiff, it is almost a foregone conclusion that an appeal will follow, and if soundly based, can overturn that huge award and devastate the plaintiff in the case.

Example of Successful Appeal in Florida Personal Injury case

In June of 2007, a jury awarded $3.7 million to a Delray Beach resident who had been viciously attacked by two Rottweiler mix dogs, and lost the use of her right arm permanently as a result. Jurors made the award after less than 3 hours of deliberation, citing city officials for being at fault in not properly establishing animal control through the city agency established for that purpose. Since the animal control department had received several prior calls about the two dogs being loose in the neighborhood, jurors deemed the city to be at fault, as well as the dogs’ owner, who offered no defense.

The City of Delray Beach strongly disagreed with the verdict and filed an appeal (CITY OF DELRAY BEACH, Appellant, v. Marguene ST. JUSTE, Appellee.), and in September of 2008, after some deliberation, the original verdict was overturned by the court. The Appellate Court found that decisions made by the city’s animal control officer and the city’s police force to not impound the dogs were discretionary decisions by those officers, in which case the city itself was immune from prosecution with respect to the subsequent actions of  the dogs.

Port St. Lucie, FL personal injury attorneys

The Treasure Coast region of Florida is home to some fine personal injury attorneys. It should always be remembered however, that even the best personal injury lawyer and the most solidly presented case can be appealed on grounds that have nothing to do with the arguments or the lawyer, and when that happens the battle must be joined all over again.

Personal injury lawyer Gloria Seidule has successfully represented many injury victims, and brings a wealth of experience to the table. contact the Law Office of Gloria Seidule for an initial consultation about your Port St. Lucie, FL case.