Category: Catastrophic Injuries

Is Hiring An Attorney For A Car Accident Worth It?

Las Vegas personal injury attorneys

If you were injured in a car accident, you may be wondering whether it’s worth hiring a car accident attorney. You may be worried that you can’t afford an attorney or that the attorney’s fees may reduce your share of any settlement. Or you may be looking at all the billboards of personal injury attorneys in Las Vegas and wondering whether an accident attorney will really care about you and your case. Or you may be thinking, making a claim seems so simple since the other person was clearly at fault that you don’t need an attorney to handle your claim.

There could be many reasons why you may be concerned about hiring an injury lawyer, but whatever those are, it is usually best to consult with an attorney before settling your car accident case. You may discover it’s not about whether you need an attorney but whether you can find the right accident lawyer for you and your case. You may also discover that the at fault party’s insurance company does not have your best interests at heart and that your claim is not as simple as you think it is.

Why Hire An Injury Attorney For Your Car Accident?

A good personal injury attorney will have the knowledge, skill, and experience to value your case and to get maximum recovery as possible. Doing a Google search for how to handle your personal injury case is no substitute for experience, because each injury and each accident are as unique as each individual. Meaning, there is no one foolproof formula to handle a car accident claim. A seasoned car accident lawyer knows what facts to look for and to highlight, as well as how to deal with facts that the insurance company uses to low ball your accident claim.

If you suffered serious injuries or have permanent lifelong damages from a car accident, you may find that the automobile policy limits of the person who caused the accident is not enough to fully compensate you. Most of the time, the automobile insurance policy limits for the at fault driver will not be sufficient to compensate someone with serious permanent injuries. In Nevada, drivers are only required to carry car insurance policies of a minimum of $25,000.00 per person and $50,000.00 per accident.

If you are seriously injured, you would want to definitely hire an attorney who will conduct the research and investigation to find other sources for recovery. For example, sometimes there may be more than one person at fault or who contributed to a car accident. There are times when the design of a roadway contributed to the crash. A good car accident lawyer knows their first obligation is to their client and to perform the due diligence necessary to provide maximum recovery for their client.

What About The Cost Of An Attorney?

The cost of a personal injury lawyer should not be a concern. Personal injury and automobile accident cases is one of the few areas of law where the lawyer does not get paid up front. A car accident lawyer doesn’t get paid at all they are not successful in obtaining a settlement or an award for their clients. This type of fee arrangement is called a contingency fee.

If you or a loved one have been injured in a car accident, call and speak to one of our Las Vegas car accident attorneys. All personal injury consultations are free. D.R. Patti & Associates has a combined 50+ years of experience in all forms of injury cases.

Accident At Work? You May Have A Personal Injury Claim

Personal Injury Accident At Work

Where you hurt while working?

People injured in an accident while working will generally have a claim for worker’s compensation. What many don’t realize is that they may also have a personal injury claim. There are important differences between a personal injury claim and a worker’s compensation claim. One of those important differences provides an important benefit to an accident victim who presents a personal injury claim and could amount to thousands of dollars.

Differences Between Worker’s Compensation and Personal Injury Law

Worker’s compensation laws arose over a century ago to provide a faster way to provide compensation to injured workers. Traditionally, the law did not distinguish between injuries at work and injuries from any other accident. Before legislatures enacted these laws, people injured at work could only receive compensation from their employer for those injuries if they showed their employer was negligent. Employers can try to escape responsibility by showing that the employee was also negligent. In some states, if the employee had any negligent, the employee couldn’t recover anything, not even for their medical bills.

Because of these harsh results and other reasons, legislatures passed laws that allowed an employee to recover against an employer for his or her work-related injury without having to show the employer’s negligence. To provide this new benefit to employees, however, legislatures required a trade-off. In exchange for not having to prove fault, legislatures prohibited employees from bringing personal injury lawsuits against the employers, with few exceptions. Nevada’s worker’s compensation statute, for example, makes worker’s compensation the “exclusive remedy” against an employer for on-the-job injuries. Another trade-off is the loss of the right to obtain compensation for pain, suffering, and lost enjoyment of life. So, under worker’s compensation laws, an employee can get compensated for medical bills and wage loss. However, the injured employee can’t get compensation for the pain and suffering he or she endured. Nevada’s worker’s compensation statutes can be found in Chapter 616A, 616B, 616C, and 616D of the Nevada Revised Statutes.

An employee may have both a worker’s compensation and personal injury claim, however, if the work-related accident was caused by someone other than an employer. That is, if an employee was in an accident while on the clock and the accident was caused by a third-person, the employee can make a worker’s compensation claim and also a claim for personal injuries against the person who caused the accident. The worker’s compensation claim will cover the medical bills and wage loss, while the personal injury claim will cover the pain, suffering, and lost enjoyment of life. Also, if the third party who caused the accident acted recklessly, intentionally, or with malice, the injured employee may have a claim for punitive damages.

Examples of Personal Injury Claims From On-The-Job Accidents

  • A person running an errand for work gets into a car accident and is injured. That person will have both a worker’s compensation claim and a personal injury claim. The car accident injury claim will be against the person who caused the accident and their insurance company. The experienced Las Vegas car accident attorneys at D.R. Patti & Associates have recovered millions of dollars for accident victims in this situation.

NOTABLE SETTLEMENT

Our client, a master painter, suffered a career-ending injury during a car accident in Las Vegas. While driving from one job site to another, his truck was rear-ended by an SUV. The at-fault driver’s insurance company gave our client a difficult time, because of a prior back injury. Nevertheless, shortly after filing suit, we were able to obtain about a million dollars in total settlement.

  • A person is injured at work while using defective product, such as a ladder, electric saw, or even a washing machine.

NOTABLE SETTLEMENT

A hotel employee’s was amputated while using a commercial washing machine at work. During their investigation, the accident lawyers at D.R. Patti & Associates discovered that the employer had hired an outside company to repair the washing machine on multiple occasions. The outside company failed to properly repair the machine, which allowed the employee to unknowingly disable the machine’s safety features. After suing both the repair company and the washing machine manufacturer, D.R. Patti & Associates was able to obtain a multi-million dollar settlement for our client’s product liability and personal injury claims.

  • An employee, as part of their job, is visiting a construction site that is not owned by the employer and is injured due to the negligence of someone at the construction site.
  • An employee is shopping on behalf of her employer and slips and falls at the store. The employee may have a premises liability claim.

In their combined 50+ years of experience, our accident attorneys have handled the simplest to the most complex accident cases. In that time, the Las Vegas personal injury lawyers at D.R. Patti & Associates have been able to obtain millions of dollars for work-related accident injuries caused by negligent third-parties. If you or a loved one have been injured in an accident while on-the-job and want to know if you also have a personal injury claim, give us a call.

Liability Of Alcohol Sellers for Drunk Driving Accidents in Las Vegas

Las Vegas personal injury attorneys

Consider the following scenario: A patron, let’s call him Dana, enters a bar. He chooses to sit at the counter where there’s a video poker machine. Dana knows he will get free drinks as long as he is playing the game. The bar keeps serving him alcohol, even as he is staggering and slurring his words, because he is still putting money into the poker machine. Finally, the patron runs out of money. That’s when the patron decides to go home. He’s visibly drunk. He gets into his car. As he is driving home, he runs a red light and crashes into and kills Jo, a wife and mother just leaving her night shift.

Can Jo’s family sue the bar for continuing to serve alcohol to Dana even after he is obviously drunk? In Nevada, the answer is generally no. However, there are limited circumstances were a bar may be held responsible for a car accident in Las Vegas involving a drunk driver.

The laws governing whether sellers of alcohol can be held responsible when their customers get drunk and causes a car accident are called “dram shop laws.” While other states permit such liability, the Nevada Supreme Court has historically refused to recognize it. The Court refused to recognize an alcohol seller’s liability for a drunk driving accident even if the alcohol seller violated laws, such as by selling alcohol to a minor. See Yoscovitch v. Wasson, 645 P.2d 975, 976 (Nev. 1982) (holding that a motorcycle passenger injured due to a collision with an intoxicated minor driver has no claim against the convenience store that sold the alcohol to the minor); Van Cleave v. Kietz-Mill Minit Mart, 633 P.2d 1220, 1222 (Nev. 1981) (finding a convenience store was not liable for selling alcohol to a minor who later caused a drunk driving accident). In 1995, the Nevada legislature expressly prohibited it by enacting Section 41.1305 of the Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS).

In 2007, the Nevada legislature carved an exception to the liability of sellers of alcohol. It permitted holding those who provide alcohol to underaged persons liable if those persons cause an alcohol-related injury or death. It should be noted that the above exception is not limited to sellers of alcohol. It includes those who provide alcohol to underaged persons for free. This encompasses those who provide alcohol to minors at parties or other events. It also encompasses those who permit alcohol to be served to underaged persons on their property.

The statute now reads as follows:

NRS § 41.1305. Liability of person who serves, sells or furnishes alcoholic beverages for damages caused as a result of consumption of alcoholic beverage: No liability if person served is 21 years of age or older; liability in certain circumstances if person served is under 21 years of age; exception to liability; damages, attorney’s fees and costs.

1.  A person who serves, sells or otherwise furnishes an alcoholic beverage to another person who is 21 years of age or older is not liable in a civil action for any damages caused by the person to whom the alcoholic beverage was served, sold or furnished as a result of the consumption of the alcoholic beverage.

2.  Except as otherwise provided in this section, a person who:

(a) Knowingly serves, sells or otherwise furnishes an alcoholic beverage to an underage person; or

(b) Knowingly allows an underage person to consume an alcoholic beverage on premises or in a conveyance belonging to the person or over which the person has control,

is liable in a civil action for any damages caused by the underage person as a result of the consumption of the alcoholic beverage.

3.  The liability created pursuant to subsection 2 does not apply to a person who is licensed to serve, sell or furnish alcoholic beverages or to a person who is an employee or agent of such a person for any act or failure to act that occurs during the course of business or employment and any such act or failure to act may not be used to establish proximate cause in a civil action and does not constitute negligence per se.

4.  A person who prevails in an action brought pursuant to subsection 2 may recover the person’s actual damages, attorney’s fees and costs and any punitive damages that the facts may warrant.

5.  As used in this section, “underage person” means a person who is less than 21 years of age.

We know how devastating it could be to lose someone you love or be severely injured in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. We’ve seen clients go through the grieving process or endure the economic hardship of medical bills and losing a job because of injuries caused by a drunk driver. We also know the hardships personally. The car accident attorneysat D.R. Patti & Associates have also loved ones who have been victims of drunk drivers.

If you or a loved one have been injured by a drunk driver or in a car accident in Las Vegas, the experienced car accident attorneys in Las Vegas at D.R. Patti & Associates can help you. With over 50 years of combined experience in personal injury cases, we know the law and have the skills to get you the compensation you deserve.

Can’t Afford Hospital Bills After Las Vegas Car Accidents?

Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorneys

From our extensive experience as Las Vegas personal injury attorneys, we have seen the huge hospital bills after Las Vegas car accidents our clients receive. For the injured victims of Las Vegas car accidents without health insurance, those hospital bills could prove devastating. One emergency room visit to a Las Vegas valley hospital after a car accident can amount to thousands of dollars. In many cases, when a hospital knows that someone was injured in a car accident, the hospital bills after Las Vegas car accidents are usually higher than for any other type of injuries. In Las Vegas car accident cases, the hospitals know they can assert a lien against the car insurance company of the negligent driver that caused the accident.
Despite the Affordable Healthcare Act, many people still do not have health insurance, and many more people than that cannot afford the hospital bills resulting from a car accident, which bills could be in the thousands of dollars. Nevada hospitals can hold off on receiving payment until a settlement or the personal injury claim is resolved by issuing a hospital lien.  Section 108 of the Nevada Revised Statute governs hospital liens. NRS 108.590(1) provides:

Whenever any person receives hospitalization on account of any injury, and the injured person, or a personal representative after the person’s death, claims damages from the person responsible for causing the injury, the hospital has a lien upon any sum awarded the injured person or the personal representative by judgment or obtained by a settlement or compromise to the extent of the amount due the hospital for the reasonable value of the hospitalization rendered before the date of judgment, settlement or compromise. 

To be able to put the hospital bills on a lien, the hospital must be made aware that the treatment is a result of a car accident. The hospital will also want to know the car accident’s personal injury attorney and the car insurance company of the person who caused the accident. A hospital lien, however, will not necessarily stop the hospital from sending the bill into collections or reporting the outstanding bill on your credit report. Speak to the hospital about this at the time of your treatment or soon after.

To be valid and enforceable, the hospital lien must be recorded with the county recorder’s office and sent by certified or registered mail to the insurance company of the person responsible for the car accident, as well as that person. NRS 108.610 provides:

NRS 108.610.  Notice of lien required: Recording and service.  In order to perfect the lien, the hospital or the owner or operator thereof shall: 

  1.      Before the payment of any money to the injured person or to a legal representative as compensation for injuries received, record a notice of lien, substantially in the form prescribed in NRS 108.620, containing an itemized statement of the amount claimed. The notice of lien must be filed with:
     (a) The county recorder of the county wherein the hospital is located; and
    (b) The county recorder of the county wherein the injury was suffered, if the injury was suffered in a county other than that wherein the hospital is located. 
  2.      Before the date of judgment, settlement or compromise, serve a certified copy of the notice of lien by registered or certified mail upon the person alleged to be responsible for causing the injury and liable for damages on account thereof and from which damages are claimed. 
  3.     Before the date of judgment, settlement or compromise, serve a certified copy of the notice of lien by registered or certified mail upon the insurance carrier, if known, which has insured against liability of the person alleged to be responsible for causing the injury and liable for damages on account thereof and from which damages are claimed. 

Additionally, the hospital is required to provide a thirty percent (30%) uninsured discount if you make payment arrangements in advance. Under § NRS 439B.260(1), hospitals generally must reduce charges by 30 percent to inpatients who lack insurance “or other contractual provision for the payment of the charge by a third party,” are not eligible for public medical payment assistance, and arrange within 30 days of discharge to pay the hospital bill. See Bielar v. Washoe Health Sys., Inc., 129 Nev. Adv. Op. 49, 306 P.3d 360, 361 (2013). In that case, the car accident victim, after paying the hospital its full bill, sued the hospital claiming that the hospital’s charges were unreasonable and that the hospital failed to give her the mandatory 30% discount under NRS § 493B.260.  She presented evidence at trial that the hospital had made a 185% profit margin on the victim’s bill and that the hospital overcharged the victim.  The district court held that the victim was ineligible for the 30% statutory discount because of the personal injury settlement she received much later after her hospitalization.  On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court held that the victim was eligible because at the time the victim received the hospital services, she had no health insurance or other insurance that would cover her bills. According to the Court, the subsequent personal injury settlement cannot be considered as “other contractual agreement.”

The hospital lien is enforceable only against the insurance company of the person responsible for the car accident, otherwise known as liability insurance. This means that the hospital cannot enforce its lien against a car accident victim’s uninsured (UM) or underinsured motorist policy. See Washoe Medical Center, Inc. v. Reliance Ins. Co., 112 Nev. 494, 915 P.2d 288 (1996) (holding that Nevada’s hospital lien statute does not encompass an individual’s UM benefits for several reasons).

If you were in a Las Vegas car accident and have medical bills piling up, contact the experienced Personal Injury Attorneys of D.R. Patti & Associates to help you. We obtain not only fair compensation for the injuries suffered by our clients but also negotiate with hospitals and other medical providers to reduce our clients’ medical bills. We have helped many clients with their hospital bills after Las Vegas car accidents.