One of the most frequent questions is, “how long will it take for my case to be done?” After your initial meeting with your attorney, the investigation procedure begins. This includes collecting all of your medical records, accident reports and speaking with witnesses. Depending on the circumstances, it is at this time when the defendant may be put on notice that they may be sued.

In our area it usually takes between a week to a month for your medical providers to respond to our request for your medical records. Sometimes it takes a few requests as some physicians are notoriously slow in responding to these requests.

If there are no limitations of time in which to start your case, your attorney will want to conduct a full investigation into your case to make an initial evaluation as to its strengths and weakness before commencing a lawsuit.

Another major consideration is whether to deal with an insurance company in trying to settle your case or to start the lawsuit as soon as possible. In most serious injury cases, it is almost always preferable to start the lawsuit as soon as practitible after the investigative stage.

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Determining legal liability isn’t as difficult as it’s usually presented and mainly common sense. Liability revolves around who was negligent or the most careless. A simple rule is applied to injury claims, if two people are involved in an accident, the one who was the least careful will pay for some or all of your claim.

Legal liability for almost all accidents is determined by this rule of carelessness, and by one or more of the following simple propositions:

• If the injured person was where he or she was not supposed to be, or somewhere he or she should have expected the kind of activity which caused the accident, the person who caused the accident might not be liable because that person had no “duty” to be careful toward the injured person.
• If the injured person was also careless, his or her compensation may be reduced by the extent such carelessness was also responsible for the accident. This is known as comparative negligence.
• If a negligent person causes an accident while working for someone else, the employer may also be legally responsible for the accident.
• If an accident is caused on property that is dangerous because it is poorly built or maintained, the owner of the property is liable for being careless in maintaining the property, regardless of whether he or she actually created the dangerous condition.
• If an accident is caused by a defective product, the manufacturer and seller of the product are both liable even if the injured person doesn’t know which one was careless in creating or allowing the defect, or exactly how the defect happened. (For more information, see Proving Fault for Defective Product Injuries.)

(via General Rules for Proving Faults in Accidents - Nolo.com)

One of the things injured people in a lawsuit are most surprised about is that your own insurance company wants to get paid out of your proceeds.  This is also true if you have received workers compensation from the same incident.  Motor vehicle accidents are usually exempt from this due to no fault rules.  In the end insurance companies not only get your premiums, but furthermore the right to be reimbursed for anything you collect, if they do end up paying when you are in an accident caused by someone else.

In handling a personal injury action in New York, obtaining an injured plaintiff’s medical records is crucial to the case.  It is most troubling the cost that health care providers impose on you to enforce your legal right to access your medical records.

Presently, in New York State a qualified person, including the patient, has a right to request copies of a medical record. The cost can be no more than 75 cents per page for paper copies and a reasonable charge for diagnostic images, plus postage.  Well guess what the cost is 99% of the time? —.75 cents!

In handling cases with seriously injured persons, it is not uncommon to have thousands of pages of  medical records.  This not only costs a small fortune unnecessarily but it is a tremendous waste of paper as the records will have to be forwarded to the opposing attorneys and/or insurance companies.

The common sense solution is to require health care providers to maintain and provide your medical records digitally and limit their ability to charge for a small processing fee.  Assuming the government does not intervene to remedy this, it is a terrific business idea for an enterprising person.

As the deadline to pay income tax in the United States approaches, I can’t help but wonder of the history of this peculiar institution. In fact, it seems our ancestors had the novel idea of no income tax from the inception of our revolution until 1913.

The U.S. income tax was first proposed during the War of 1812, but was defeated. In July 1861, the Congress passed a 3% tax on all net income above $600 a year (about USD 10,000 today). Income taxes were enacted at various times until 1894, but were not imposed after 1895 when an 1894 tax act was found to be unconstitutional. In response, the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913.

It begs the question that a free democratic nation can and has prospered successfully without income taxation on its people.

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