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AREAS OF PRACTICE
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PERSONAL INJURY ACTIONS
Motor Vehicle Accidents
The individual facts of these types of cases are without number. They may involve single or multiple vehicles, and include, owners, permissive users of a motor vehicle, licensed, unlicensed, adult or underage, insured or uninsured/underinsured, sober or intoxicated on alcohol or drugs, rage drivers or just plain competent or incompetent drivers.
If you have a question concerning any of the following areas, please click the "Contact" button in the upper right of this page and address your question to the firm for an email reply or direct contact if you include your telephone number to discuss the matter a no charge unless a case is accepted.
Automobile Collision - in addition to the usual two vehicle collisions of all types, a motor vehicle collision may involve a single vehicle or more than two vehicles. These cases involve anyone who is injured in their person and/or property such as drivers, passengers, and persons struck by a vehicle or the vehicle collision may involve damage to their property only.
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Negligent Entrustment of a Motor Vehicle - These cases arise out of motor vehicle collisions of all sorts involving one vehicle or more, where the owner of the vehicle gave permission, actual or implied, for a person to operate the owner's vehicle when the owner either knew or should have known the operator was not a competent driver for one reason or another. An example might be a parent, grand parent, friend or employer providing the use of a vehicle to a relative, friend, stranger or employee whose prior driving history and general conduct would indicate to a reasonable person that the user is not competent to drive or if allowed to drive would pose a hazard to others on the roadways. This may occur, where the operator is unlicensed, a drug or alcohol abuser or even a reckless driver who has little regard for the welfare and safety of others or may be given to road rage or contests of speed with other vehicles on the roadways. Interestingly these “permissive use” or “negligent entrustment” case as they are called do not require that actual permission be given to an incompetent driver. Legal responsibility for allowing an incompetent driver to have the use of a motor vehicle through leaving the keys around, where it can be foreseen or anticipated an incompetent driver may find them and use them to drive the vehicle is often enough to fix responsibility on the owner of a vehicle.
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Truck Accidents
- These cases involve one or more trucks of any size other than a pickup or SUV usually in collision with another vehicle, person and/or property such as drivers, passengers, and pedestrians and may involve injury to person or damage to property. They are highly complicated cases, and often involve out-of-state drivers, employers, and/or one or more insurance companies, if the truck consists of a tractor and a trailer. There can be issues of government regulation, state and federal, which require extensive knowledge of these rules, regulations and statutes.
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Wheel off or Loss of Tread Cases - These cases usually involve a motor vehicle or trailer that loses a wheel, tire, tread or combination of the three which in turn causes an accident that results in personal injury and/or property damage. An excellent example of this type of case involved an eighteen wheeler tractor trailer traveling on a major highway that lost an entire wheel assembly due to faulty mechanical work. Once the wheel and tire assembly fractured, it rolled free down the highway at a high rate of speed slamming into a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction, causing serious brain damage and other injuries to the driver and total loss of the vehicle.
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Another example involved a two wheel tow dolly rented from a commercial operation to transport another vehicle from one place to another along the highway. As a result of a failure to properly torque a wheel and tire assembly, it came lose through stretching of the metal lugs and a grinding out the lug holes of the wheel until it seperated from the tow dolly and rolled at a high rate of speed under a vehicle traveling in the same direction as the tow dolly and truck hauling it. It caused the trailing vehicle to go out of control, spin sideways and then tumble multiple times down the highway with serious injury to the arm of the driver. The vehicle is pictured to the right.
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All Terrain or Recreational Vehicle - These cases usually involve three or four wheel off road vehicles intended for pleasure but often result in injury to the operator as a result of collision with another recreational vehicle; coming into contact with hazards of one
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Slip and Fall - These cases usually occur in places called public accommodations. This simply means places to which the public is invited such as businesses of all sorts, offices, stores, theaters, hospitals, public recreational facilities, such as swimming pools, and bars, etc., but can include an apartment complex, a private location such as a private club, a home or any other physical location not open to the general public. They usually involve sliding or slipping in some substance on the floor but can involve excavations, unprotected holes, wells or other hazards one might encounter that cause injury.
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Trip and Fall - Like "slip and fall", these cases also usually occur in places of public or private accommodations. In these cases, the individual is injured as a result of encountering something that causes the person to "trip and fall" rather than "slip and fall" otherwise they are almost identical to "slip and fall" claims.
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Over-head Hazards - These cases occur in places open to the public like stores and shops of all kinds and cause injury that arises from something that strikes a person's head as a result of an obstruction or from falling from a height that strikes the victim.
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Animal Attacks - These cases usually involve a pet of some kind, dog attacks being the most common, but they
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| include domestic animals of all sorts, birds, snakes,horses,other livestock as well as naturally wild animals kept by someone which results in injury or death to another. |
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Electrocutions - These cases are self-evident. They most often occur to workmen involved with installation or repair of electrical wiring but they can occur through unintentional contact with wiring by persons engaged in other types of activities, such as construction or roofing.
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Attractive Nuisance Claims - These cases involving young children who are injured as the result of being attracted to some dangerous condition existing on the property of another which is either unprotected or such as may exist if not reasonably sufficient to meet a foreseeable child from coming into contact with the condition. The most common example is a swimming pool, but it can involve construction sites, excavations and anything else that adults may anticipate will be an attraction to a young person.
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Swimming Pool Accidents - These cases may arise as an attractive nuisance if a young child sustains injury or death, but they include adults as well and asually arise from hidden or unappreciated hazards such as the force of a drain, shallow water level, insufficient lighting or signage and even the potential for personal assault.
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Lack of Reasonable Security Claims - These cases usually involves theaters, bars, apartments, houses,
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| parking lots, shopping centers and other places where people are subject to physical assault, rape, robbery, and shootings that result in physical injury and/or death and which could have been prevented or the chances reduced had more reasonable security measures been taken by the owner/occupier of the premises in the face of foreseeable actions by 3rd persons. |
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Pharmaceutical Mistakes that cause Injury or Death. When we go to the pharmacy, we expect to get exactly what the doctor ordered. This is not always the case. A national report finds nearly 7000 people die every year because of a medication error. In Texas alone, patients file nearly 300 complaints every year about prescription errors and these are only the reported cases. Errors are common and becoming more so. Pharmacists out there are making mistakes. These can be serious errors that result in harm, potential harm, or the even death, but they are preventable. Pharmacists who make these mistakes and cause harm many times have failed to use reasonable care. When this is the case, The Livingston Law Firm, P.C., is ready to help you in this area.
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STATUTORY CLAIMS
Wrongful Death Claims - These cases are based on statutory rights given to a spouse, parents and children entitled to recover for the loss of a loved one where the death is related to the legal fault or liability of another, based on negligence, gross negligence or intentional misconduct. The circumstances out of which these cases arise are as numerous and varied as the number of different ways a person can cause the death of another.
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Survivor Claims - These cases are based on the statutory right given to the estate or heirs of a person who injured as the result of the legal fault or liability of another "survives" for a period of time, but then dies as a result of the injury sustained. Like "Wrongful Death Claims" the circumstances out of which these cases arise are as numerous and varied as the number of different ways a person can negligently or intentionally cause the death of another.
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INSURANCE CLAIMS
Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Claims - These claims are brought against one's own automobile liability insurance company, and arise when a person is injured or killed in an accident involving a vehicle approved for use upon a public road or highway and the legally liable person or his company that inflicted the injury or death is not covered by a policy of motor vehicle liability or given the extent of the loss, such coverage as the legally liable person or his company has is not sufficient in dollars and cents to meet the loss inflicted.
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Personal Injury Protection Claims (PIP) - These cases arise when a person's motor vehicle insurance carrier either refuses to pay or does not pay a claim for medical and/or wage loss reimbursment timely. Further, there are many instances when PIP claim should be made but are not made.
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EMPLOYMENT CLAIMS
Sexual Harassment - These cases usually arise in the workplace and occur between employees of the same company. There are also variations of this offense that occur to persons who come into contact with company employees that inflict such harassment.
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Non-Subscriber Claims - These cases arise when a person is injured on the job, but the employer has elected not to provide Worker's Compensation Insurance Coverage approved under the Texas Act. There may be some other type of health benefit insurance plan, but if there is no Worker's Compensation, then there may be a "non-subscriber" claim, if there is a basis for showing the injury was the result of the negligence of the employer or a fellow employee.
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Third Party Employment Claims - These cases arise out of a person's employment, but are the result of the negligence of some third party or condition encountered on the premises of a third party, which results in injury to a workman while in the course and scope of employment. The most common example is that of a delivery man involved in a motor vehicle collision while on the job or a driver or delivery man encountering a hazardous condition or activity, while on the job and on the property or work site of another person or company. There are many other examples too numerous to list. If an individual is injured in the course and scope of his employment by some person or condition not related to or associated with his employer, then there is the possibility of a "third party claim".
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Worker's Compensation Discrimination - These cases arise when a person's employment is terminated in retaliation or because the person filed a worker's compensation claim, contemplated filing such a claim and /or hired an attorney or some other person to represent them in a worker's compensation case. These cases are usually based on some pattern of discrimination under these circumstances by the employer; by failure to cooperate with reasonable requests for work accommodations due to physical limitations while receiving care, or derogatory remarks about or to persons who claim injury on the job.
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Family and Medical Leave Act Claims - These cases based on federal law arise out of an employer's failure to permit or provide an eligible individual up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave from work without loss of the job for birth of a child or medical care.
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Jury Discrimination - These cases involve any adverse action taken by an employer against an employee for answering a jury summons or serving on a jury, such as termination, pay cut or harassment.
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These cases are as varied as the circumstances of the individuals who need the service. Because this office has recently added "Immigration" to services offered it limits the types of cases it will handle, but if the need arises and is a matter which the office does not handle a referral will be made. At present, the office handles applications on behalf of fiancée who have married and need to change their status; persons who are eligible to apply for citizenship based on residency and/or family relationships, persons who qualify for asylum or who desire to change their status, if they are present in the United States, or simply give notice of changes of address.
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AREAS OF ASSOCIATION
All of the above Type Cases - The Livingston Law Firm, P. C., is available and often consults with or is associated by other law firms, near and far, within the State of Texas, in the type cases described in this section and in addition offers its consulting services and association within and without the State of Texas in insurance Subrogation under ERISA demands for repayment of medical expenses and Lien matters that may arise incident to personal injury cases. These demands may often be legally avoidable resulting in more money to the client.
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Subrogation and Liens - These demands arise as the result of contractual or statutory rights given to others such as hospitals, doctors, Medicare, Medicaid and particularly group health care insurancers under ERISA demands that either render care or make payments of the cost of an individual's medical expenses. These organizations demand to be paid or reimbursed out of any recovery by settlement or judgment received by a victim from a legally liable third party and/or the insurance company of such legally liable third party. Often times these organizations demand their money or reimbursement before any funds are paid to the injured victim and refuse to bear a reasonable portion of the costs and attorneys fees expended to obtain a recovery or refuse to reduce their demands to allow the victim to realize some recovery.
If contacted directly by the victim or associated in an appropriate case by another lawyer representing the victim, The Livingston Law Firm, P. C., is often able to provide a legal means to avoid the harsh demands of these organizations, in part and sometime entirely, resulting in a greater recovery of money to the individual victim than would otherwise be the case.
This is particularly the case in matters involving group insurance companies whose policy is part of a victim’s employment and is protected by provision of a federal law known as ERISA. Every lawyer representing a victim who is subject to these subrogation and lien demands might do well by their clients to contact The Livingston Law Firm, P.C. to explore the possibility of association to avoid an otherwise reduced recovery to their client.
If you have a question concerning any of the above areas, please click the "Contact" button in the upper right of this page and address your question to the firm for an email reply or direct contact if you include your telephone number to discuss the matter a no charge unless a case is accepted.
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