Helping victims of personal injury and wrongful death since 1986
Senior Partner, Jon Mitchell Jackson, shares comments and opinions in Lawyers.com article after man convicted of child sexual abuse is allowed to go free because juror violated court order and researched case on Google! Read the entire article at Lawyers.com…
A judge has just ordered you to unlock or decrypt the hard drive on your laptop. Are you required to comply with the court order? What happens if you don’t? Will your Fifth Amendment constitution rights protect you from self-incrimination?
Senior Partner, Mitch Jackson, shares his thoughts and opinions in a recent interview at Lawyers.com entitled, “Can a Court Force You to Decrypt Your Hard Drive?”
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Click here to read more recent interviews…
New regulations to mandate back-up cameras in all passenger cars, trucks, minivans and buses is contemplated for 2014. These measures are being proposed to try and reduce the number of back-over fatalities and injuries that occur on a yearly basis.
According to NHTSA, “adoption of this proposal would significantly reduce fatalities and injuries caused by backover crashes involving children, persons with disabilities, the elderly and other pedestrians.” Here are our thoughts on the matter…
Michael Jackson’s father, Joe Jackson, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Dr. Conrad Murray in August 2010, after his son, passed away on an overdose of a prescription anesthetic. The Jackson wrongful death case was recently tossed out of court.
Read Mitch’s comments in Monday’s nationally syndicated Lawyers.com article entitled, “Confusion in Michael Jackson Wrongful Death Case”
Watch the live Q&A Spreecast here…
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Related items consumers and families may find helpful in a California wrongful death case…
Several years ago we represented a family who had a son tragically killed after being struck by a train while pushing his bike over a bridge near Trestles. For those of you living outside of California, Trestles is a popular collection of surfing spots at San Onofre State Beach Near San Clemente, California.
What we learned while handling this case is that over the past 10 years, there were more than 3,600 train accident deaths and 30,000 railroad crossing accidents across the United States.
We also learned that most railroad cross injuries and deaths are avoidable.
What most people don’t understand is that railroads have an obligation to construct and maintain safe railroad crossings. The rationale for this is that their trains travel across public highways so that the train companies can make billions of dollars in profits.
Now here’s the interesting part. Despite the fact that railroad companies are earning multi-billion dollar profits (in 2010 net profits: UP earned $2.8 billion and BNSF $2.5 billion), they many times refuse to install appropriate safety devices unless city, county or state taxpayers help with the expenses. We don’t think that’s right.
Causes of railroad crossing accidents include inattentive train operators; defective or non-existent lights, alarms, bells and gates; failing to maintain crossings allowing for overgrown trees to hide approaching trains; and of course, motorist and pedestrians not paying attention when walking on or crossing tracks.
Truth be told, a majority of all annual railroad crossing injuries and deaths can and should be avoided. Improved safety efforts on the part of the railroads would be a good start. Additional care by motorist and pedestrians crossing the tracks would also go a long ways to reducing the number of injuries and deaths.
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Related articles…
California Wrongful Death
California Personal Injury
Senior Partner, Mitch Jackson, asked to share his comments in today’s Lawyers.com article…
Here are the basic facts- Dustin McCombs heckled the law, and the law won. The young fugitive was wanted on forcible rape charges by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama. Unable to locate McCombs, theauthorities turned to social media, posting an image of McCombs on the department’s Facebook page. The first person to respond was McCombs himself.
As Mitch states in the article… “We are seeing more and more of these state and federal agencies monitoring social media, taking that information and combining it with their existing registries to help them with their investigation,” Jackson says. “Oftentimes they’ll cross-reference this information to narrow down suspects and to ascertain whether they are tracking the right defendant on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn…”
“…For instance, authorities may try to pinpoint the specific future whereabouts of a suspect by scanning his or her Facebook page for clues. If the individual says he or she is going to a professional baseball game the next day, authorities may send officers to intercept the suspect at the stadium. They can also inform stadium employees to be on the lookout for the fugitive in order to further beef up their surveillance.”
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Senior Partner, Jon Mitchell “Mitch” Jackson, shares his comments in today’s nationally read Lawyers.com blog post entitled…
Modern Slander: Man Sues Ex-Girlfriends for Online Remarks
“The difference between offline and online defamation is like the difference between placing a small ad in the local community newspaper versus the same ad being shared during a 60-second Super Bowl commercial,” says Mitch Jackson, a partner at Jackson & Wilson. “Publishing comments on the Internet can result in tens of thousands and even millions of people reading or watching what has been said about you or your business. Because of this, people need to be very careful about what they say about someone else…”
Click here to read the entire article and more of Mitch’s thoughts re online defamation…
Obviously each case is different and as in any profession, there are both good and bad claims adjusters and investigators. Having said that, we strongly suggest that you carefully review the following 10 reasons why you should not give the other side’s insurance company (claims adjuster or investigator) your sworn oral or written statement.
1. They will try to use what you say against you. Look, if all they really want is your version of the facts, then they can easily get that from your lawyer.
2. You’ll be giving your sworn statement to a trained professional. Her job is minimize the value of your claim. She knows what she’s doing. You don’t.
3. Unless you’ve done 20-30 of these, you’re going to be nervous and make mistakes. These mistakes will be used against you later in your claim or during trial.
4. To try and protect their insured’s interest, they will never let you take his statement. Why would you ever let them take yours?
5. If you make a mistake during your statement (and you will), you may not even realize it or if you do, it’ll probably too late.
6. Sometimes in life, it’s not what you say but how you say it. If something needs to be said, let a professional do the talking for you!
7. If you give a statement, it sends a message to the claims adjuster that you or your lawyer don’t know what you’re doing.
8. You don’t want to paint yourself into a corner. Facts can change and new witnesses can appear. How in the world can you share the past 6 months of surgery, rehabilitation, pain and suffering in a 20 minute interview? Answer- You can’t!
9. The facts of your case can be easily shared in writing, by your lawyer, once you’ve fully recovered and have a full and complete understanding of all your injuries, losses and damages.
10. Once the claims adjuster has all he wants from you, he’ll stop going out of his way to treat you in a professional or fair fashion. Keep this bargaining chip in your back pocket and you’ll be able to maximize the chances that your claim is handled in a civil and professional fashion.
Finding a good personal injury and wrongful death attorney can be a challenge. The problem is with more than 1,000,000 lawyers in the United States and 200,000 in California, where do you start? What resources are available and which ones can you trust?
Click here to read our 3 tips!
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