Injury Law News

http://www.farrislaw.net 314.252.9937

Today I am going to talk about money.

I am Spencer Farris a St. Louis MO injury attorney. Folks call me every day and they want to talk about money. Often times when folks have been injured they will ask if they can get justice and I will tell them, “There is no such thing as justice.” I can’t hand you a pot of justice, you can’t drink a glass of justice, and in fact, after you got hurt, you did not lose justice; you lost money.

Money For Medical Bills
I has cost you money from the time you got hurt. You have not been able to work so no money is coming in, but money is still going out to pay your bills. A big chunk of those bills are medical bills. Either health insurance is paying or not but you are certainly paying out of pocket, and you are worried, that costs you money too.

Money For A Good Lawyer
Once you have hired an attorney, there is more money involved in your injury case the attorney’s fee is contingent on recovery, meaning that the lawyer is working for free unless they are successful for you. But, on top of that the lawyer is spending money to help get your case ready for trial. I can’t try a case these days for much less than about five thousand dollars, and we have to spend that money to get your case ready and that is on the low end. A medical malpractice case, a defective product case, a case against a big insurance company or against a big trucking company can cost fifty or a hundred thousand dollars or more to get ready for trial

How much money is my case worth?
A man called me yesterday and like most folks the money he wanted to know was what is my case worth. Every case is different. We look at the factor of where you got hurt; who hurt you and what kind of witness will they make. Although a jury trial should not be a beauty contest; we also want to know what kind of witness you will make, and what kind of burdens and baggage you bring in to the court room with you. We need to know how badly you were hurt. A permanent disabling or disfiguring injury has a different value in front of a jury than one where you got well in a few weeks, and those cases have some value too, but the money is much less.

Our Promise
Money is not the most important thing in the world, but after you have been hurt, it is the thing that is going to be on your mind. It is important to talk to an attorney who is not focused on money, but wants to help you with your case; unfortunately, you need to find a lawyer who knows about the money aspects of your injury case. If you have questions about an injury case; what is it going to cost; what you need to do next; and how you are going to get your bills paid; feel free to call my office at the number on the screen or contact us at our website. I am happy to visit with you, and it won’t cost you any money.

The SE Farris Law Firm is dedicated to the needs of injury victims and their families.

www.farrislaw.net 314-252-9937

The only thing scarier than looking in your rear view mirror and seeing a tractor trailer barreling down on you is litigating against a trucking company.

Injury law news is brought to you by the SE Farris Law Firm

I’m Spencer Farris, a Missouri personal injury attorney with the SE Farris law firm, and today we are going to talk about trucking cases. Trucking cases are very different from cases that involve two cars and not just because of the size of the vehicles.

THE DIFFERENCE
Anyone who has been on the highway knows that a big truck moves with a lot of energy, and that big energy can produce devastating injuries. When a fifty ton truck hits a two ton car the occupants of that car feel all of the force and all of the energy that the truck is delivering, along with its load, down the highway.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Within twelve hours of a trucking accident, the company will have investigators on the ground gathering evidence, and sometimes influencing the official investigation done by law enforcement. Most folks that are in an accident think, “I don’t want to file a lawsuit; I want to deal with my injuries,” and that is ok, but if you cooperate with the trucking company, you have put yourself even further behind. Evidence will start to disappear. Modern over-the- road trucks have what is called a black box, a unit that gathers data from the engine, and the breaking, speed, and that sort of information from the truck, and it is not uncommon for that information to disappear if you don’t have someone on your side preserving it immediately.

THE RIGHT ATTORNEY IS CRUCIAL IN YOUR TRUCKING CASE
You need to choose the right attorney to handle your trucking case more than perhaps any other type of litigation. This is not the time to hire a cut-rate lawyer, and try to cut corners. Because the trucking company has already gathered evidence, your lawyer is coming in late to the process, and will have to recreate and bridge the gaps that may exist in your case through no fault of your own. You need a lawyer who is familiar with the state and federal regulations that govern over-the-road trucking. You need a lawyer who knows the right experts and can help fill in the gaps between the evidence to make sense of what occurred and how you were injured.
You need a lawyer who is trial ready. A trucking case is not the sort of matter that an inexperienced attorney can use to cut their teeth or get their feel for the system. These are huge cases, and they are rigorously defended by the trucking companies, and you need someone who is willing to fight on your side.
Remember, if you hire the right lawyer to handle your case, someone with the fight, ability, and experience to proceed for you, you may not have to go to court on your case, and that may be the best part of this bad situation.

OUR PROMISE
If you or a loved one has been involved in a crash with a semi- truck, a tractor trailer, or an over-the –road truck, call my office at the number at the bottom of the screen. We are happy to visit with you without cost or obligation, and help you with your case, or at least point you in the right direction.

The SE Farris Law Firm is dedicated to the needs of injury victims and their families.

If you have lost a loved one and it is someone else’s fault, the Missouri wrongful death law can help you.

Injury law news brought to you by the SE Farris Law Firm

I’m Spencer Farris, a personal injury trial attorney in St. Louis MO, and a partner at The S.E. Farris Law Firm. When you have lost a loved one and someone else is responsible, you have a lot of concerns and a lot of things on your mind. While you are sorting through those, and the grief, remember that the Missouri wrongful death act can help hold the other person responsible for the damages they have caused to your family.

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

While you are sorting through your grief, and the personal matters that go with the death of a loved one, the Missouri wrongful death act is ticking away; you have three years after the death of a loved one to file a law suit.

WHO IS ENTITLED TO THE SETTLEMENT?

In Missouri the law suit does not belong to the dead person’s estate, it belongs to his survivors. Whether they be spouses, siblings, parents, or children, the law gives different rights to different classes of people and you should find out where you fall and whether or not you have the right to pursue the wrongful death case for the loss of a loved one.

WHAT LOSSES DOES A WRONGFUL DEATH CASE RECOVER?

You can never replace a loved one and we all know that, in fact the Missouri wrongful death law does not cover your grief or sorrow for the loss and death your family has suffered. It tries to replace the loss of income that person provided, the loss of support, education, comfort, the kinds of services you would have gotten from your loved one, but for their wrongful death.

OUR PROMISE

If a member of your family has been killed and it is someone else’s fault, you owe it to yourself and your family to contact an attorney. Call my office at the number at the bottom of the screen or contact us at our website. I am happy to visit with you about your case without any cost or obligation, and if we can’t help you, we will try and point you in the right direction.

The S.E. Farris Law Firm is dedicated to the needs of injury victims and their families.

Stages of a Lawsuit – Part 2

We’ve talked about the early stages of a personal injury case and what happens before a lawsuit is filed; now negotiation has failed, what happens next?

Injury Law News brought to you by the SE Farris Law Firm.

I’m Spencer Farris, a St. Louis personal injury lawyer, and a partner at The S.E. Farris Law Firm.
Often times negotiations with insurance companies don’t work and if the insurance company won’t be reasonable, your attorney will have to push them to the next stage. That’s filing of a lawsuit.

LAWSUIT
If the insurance company won’t be reasonable your lawyer has to start a lawsuit. The lawsuit starts when a petition is filed. A petition sets out who hurt you, and who you are of course, and what happened. Once those papers or served, or delivered to the wrongdoer by the Sheriff, the lawsuit is started. And in Missouri, even though the insurance company is in control, they are seldom the one sued. We always have to serve the person who hurt you. After the defendant is served with the lawsuit, they filed what’s called an answer where they tell the court the reasons that they don’t believe their responsible for your damages.

DISCOVERY
The next stage of the lawsuit process is called Discovery. Discovery consists of two factors, the first is written discovery where each side sends the other questions to be answered under oath so that facts can be gathered, statements can be gathered and so on and each party can learn a little bit about the case. The other part of discovery is called Request for Production, and in those situations documents are exchanged, or video tapes, surveillance, and those kinds of things if they exist. Requests to produce also allow a party to inspect cars or property or other items that are involved in the lawsuit.

DEPOSITIONS
After written discovery is started, and probably completed, each party will sit for a deposition in which the lawyers get to ask the parties what happened and what they know about the case.

LAWSUITS TAKE TIME
This process doesn’t happen quickly, remember it takes 30 days after the petition is filed before an answer is due. It then takes some time to get written discovery out to each side and there’s another 30 days period to answer those questions and produce documents. And again, there may be delays along the way. Depositions are set up and people’s schedules come into question, and when everyone is available, depositions go forward. So, it may well be six months to a year from the start of a lawsuit just to get through the deposition process.

TRIAL
After discovery, the next step of the process is the trial. Don’t be alarmed, about ninety, maybe ninety-five percent, of all cases settle before trial, sometimes on the courthouse steps. You may get a trial date when your lawsuit is filed, you may get it at some point along the way, and don’t be concerned if the first trial setting is continued or delayed, it’s very common in the law that multiple cases will be set the same day for trial and the oldest case goes out first. So if it doesn’t settle, the cases that are not as old have to wait their turn.
APPEALS
Hopefully after trial your case is over, but not necessarily. Sometimes case are appealed because there’s an error in the law or something didn’t happen as it should. All in all this process can take months or even years to get from beginning to end. If you’ve hired the right lawyer and law firm, you’re guided through this process with expert care and the experience that is necessary for you to be successful at the end of your injury case.

If you have questions about an injury; if you have questions about a lawsuit, contact my office at the number or the web site at the bottom of the screen. I’m happy to visit with you without cost or obligation.

The SE Farris Law firm is dedicated to needs of injury victims and their families.

I’m Spencer Farris, partner at The S.E. Farris Law Firm in St. Louis. We represent injury victims in St. Louis.

A personal injury claim has two main parts, Liability and Damages:

Liability means that someone else is completely, or at least partially, at fault for causing your injury.

Damages are the kinds of things that you suffer because of the negligence, the liability, of the other person. They include medical expenses, lost wages, and other economic losses. Maybe your car got totaled or your clothes were damaged in a fire or due to a crash. Those are the economic damages. You may also have noneconomic damages and those are probably the most important: the pain that you went through, the inconvenience, the worry and the stress that it placed on you and your family.

If you’ve been injured and you have questions, contact my law firm at the phone number or the web address at the bottom of the screen. We will be happy to visit with you about your case, without any cost or without any obligation.

The SE Farris Law firm is dedicated to needs of injury victims and their families.

What If the Insurance Company Offers Me a quick Settlement?

A lady called me to tell me that she’d been in a car crash and, before she even got home from the hospital, she had a message on her answering machine from the insurance company. Let me tell you what happened next:

Injury Law News is brought to you by The SE Farris Law Firm.

I’m Spencer Farris, a partner at The S.E. Farris Law Firm. I represent injury victims and their families and when I got the call from this lady I knew that she needed some help. The insurance company wanted to initially make contact and befriend her, if you will, and offer her a settlement. That’s “101” in the claims adjuster’s handbook. They do that because if they settle a case quickly, they know they can do so more cheaply. You won’t know the full extent of your injuries, you won’t have spoken to a lawyer, and you won’t really know what your case is worth. In this client’s case, it was a good thing she called us because we told her not to settle her case and six months later she needed surgery on her neck. You only get one opportunity to settle your case, to get all of your medical paid for, to gather your lost wages and provide for your family, and to get whatever damages you’re going to get for your pain, suffering, and inconvenience. If you do that too quickly in a case, and don’t know the full extent of your injuries, you’re going to sell yourself and your family short. That’s what the insurance company wants, that’s what some lawyers want when they advise you to take a quick settlement, but it’s not what’s best for you.

If you have questions after you’ve been hurt, call my office at the number you see on the screen or contact us through the internet at the web address below. We’re happy to visit with you for free and give you whatever advise we can on how to handle your case.

The SE Farris Law Firm is dedicated to needs of injury victims and their families

Do I Need A Lawyer?

You’ve been hurt and you’re thinking that maybe you can handle your case without a personal injury attorney, let me tell you some things you should look out for.

I’m Spencer Farris, a partner at The S.E. Farris Law Firm. Folks call me all the time and wonder if they even need to have a personal injury attorney represent them in their claim. Maybe not, and I tell folks daily how to handle their own cases but there are some things you need to be aware of.

First and most important is the Statute of Limitations. Every case has a time limit and it must be filed within the time limit or you’ve forever lost your case.

The law changes, and the law of medical bills and damages has changed in the last several years, you need to know what that is in order to present your case to a jury. Your health insurance is going to what to be reimbursed for the medical bills that they’ve paid for on your behalf. They may not be entitled to reimbursement and whether or not they are is a question that you need to find the answer to.

The insurance company has professionals looking out to investigate your case and try to find a way to pay you as little money as possible. Some folks are able to deal with the insurance company and able to handle their own cases, most are not. In fact, studies show that people with an attorney get four to five times more money, on their injury case, than those without.

You may have questions about handling your own personal injury case. Contact my office and I’m happy to visit with you without cost or obligation. I tell folks everyday that they don’t need an attorney to handle their case and point them in the right direction and I’m happy to do that for you. Thank you for watching.

The SE Farris Law firm is dedicated to needs of injury victims and their families