Understanding the legal concepts surrounding a personal injury case can be overwhelming without the right legal counsel. Fortunately, the lawyers at DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress, PLLC have years of experience in a wide array of personal injury cases. Whether you were injured in an automobile accident, on someone’s property, or by a doctor, we can examine your situation and help you determine how to proceed.

Every step of the way we’ll make sure you understand how your case is proceeding. This includes explaining legal terms and how they relate to you. When proving your accident resulted from another party’s negligence, we’ll use the terms “proximate” and “actual” cause. Let’s take a look at what those terms mean.

The time following a car accident can be confusing. Not only are you dealing with healing from the crash, you also have to figure out your legal options for proving liability and receiving compensation. You might assume that insurance companies will be on your side since you are the victim, but that isn’t always the case. When you aren’t responsible for an accident, you’ll need to know the tactics insurance companies might use to get out of paying you.

If you’ve been involved in a car accident, your next move may be thinking about suing the other party for negligence. However, if the person was driving a company car, you may also have the option of suing the employer. Because car accident cases like this can quickly become complex, it’s important to have an experienced lawyer at your side. The attorneys from DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress, PLLC will do everything possible to get you the compensation you deserve.

We’ll find out the facts of your case through careful investigation. If we believe you have a valid claim against the employer, then we’ll work as diligently as possible to build your case.

While whether or not you can sue the employer can be tricky to find out, our lawyers will look into the details of your case and explain your options to you. Before learning more about how we can help, let’s look at some situations where the employer may or may not be held liable for an accident.

An accident could happen anywhere—a car crash, the workplace, in a sport, or even at home. If an accident is bad enough, it can cause serious injuries that are debilitating to the victims. Each year there are over 20 million traumatic injuries caused by motor vehicle accidents, as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO). Not only do traumatic injuries affect the physical and mental health and abilities of a victim, but they can also greatly impact the victim’s family in the same ways.

The days and weeks following a serious injury like a car accident injury can be a confusing time. Since adrenaline and shock can mask symptoms of pain, you may not feel the full effects of your injuries until days or even weeks after the incident. You may decide to delay seeking medical care due to this fact. This delay, unfortunately, can cause complications if you decide to file a legal claim against the individual, group, or company that caused the accident to occur. In a scenario like this, the best thing for you to do would have been to seek medical care immediately following the incident.

Complications may arise in this situation because the date that the accident occured won’t match up with the date that your pain and/or symptoms were discovered. When you “discover” an injury from an accident, the legal term for this is discovery is called “injury discovery”. In most personal injury cases involving immediate injuries, the injury discovery date will match up with the date of the incident, which can be proven by looking at police records. When a judge or jury then looks at that evidence, they’ll naturally be able to assert that the accident caused your injuries directly because the dates will match.

People with diseases like Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia can be unpredictable in their moods, actions, and thoughts. The symptoms of dementia, like memory loss and trouble concentrating, can make it hard to reason with the person about their behavior because they might not remember acting out, or they might not see themselves as wrong. This unpredictable nature can lead to behavioral or safety issues if the patient is not properly monitored and supervised.

If your loved one is in a long-term facility, you should always pay attention to the care that they’re receiving. Unfortunately, nursing home abuse is a real possibility. Most patients with dementia require extra attention and care. Keep reading to find out what form negligence takes for nursing home patients with dementia so that you know what to look for in your loved one.

A federal investigation is taking place at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, West Virginia after evidence suggested potential wrongdoing in the deaths of 11 patients. So far, two of the deaths have been ruled homicides and both are the subjects of lawsuits.

In April 2018, Felix Kirk McDermott, 82, passed away just 24 hours before Georgie Nelson Shaw Sr., an 81-year-old Army veteran. Both bodies were exhumed during the winter months in 2018 and it was discovered that neither died from natural causes. Investigators learned both died from unnecessary insulin injections.

Workplace harassment, a form of discrimination, is something to be taken seriously. It’s generally referred to as a pattern of behavior that causes an employee to feel uncomfortable in their workplace. So why doesn’t HR always take it as seriously as they should? In 2018, there were 26,699 cases of workplace harassment filed according to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). But just because cases are reported doesn’t mean HR properly handled them.

Your child spends most of their day at school during the school year, and not in your care. You expect the school to keep your child safe, just as you would. But some teachers or administrators may act negligently when it comes to supervision, protection, or maintenance, even though they are supposed to be acting in place of parents, or “in loco parentis.” Certain cases of negligence fall under premises liability, and you may be able to sue a negligent party if they did not uphold the standards expected of them and the institution.

At DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress, PLLC, we pride ourselves on doing what we can to boost our local and nationwide communities. As part of that dedication, we understand the importance of education and how crucial it is for aspiring students and professionals to receive a college degree. We decided to start a scholarship in 2018 that was specifically geared toward first-year college students. The Fall 2019 submission period just came to a close.

We were humbled by the amount of applications we received as well as the overall quality of every essay. The essays were fantastic and we enjoyed reading them! We’d like to thank everyone who applied.

We’re pleased to announce we’ve chosen a winner.

Congratulations to Caroline Kurdej of Schaumburg, IL!

Caroline is attending Northwestern University. She is pursuing her MS in Journalism.