Missouri Personal Injury Laws

Black Box Data

After a truck wreck, it’s important to gather the data from the black box or the data recorder. And a St. Louis truck accident lawyer will have the resources and know-how to get, not only to the scene, but to get permission to download or copy the information that’s on that data recorder so that they have it to present your case. In the data recorder there’s not infinite space, and what happens is, after a certain amount of time, the recorder starts to record again over the breaking, the speed, the other events that are on that data recorder. So it’s crucial to get that offloaded as quickly as possible. When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out-of-pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office, and if we can help you we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case, if we’re successful for you. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for a free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

When you’ve been involved in a truck accident, the first thing on your mind is, “How do I get better. I hurt. Who’s going to pay my bills?”. Folks delay hiring an attorney, and that’s the worst possible thing that they can do, because the longer you wait, the harder it is for your St. Louis truck accident attorney to gather the evidence needed to protect your case. Over time, memories fade, and the evidence fades. It’s important to hire someone immediately, even though that goes against your instincts because you’re a good person, and you don’t want to be the kind of person that sues. But if you don’t, you’re going to let them get away with what they did to you. It’s important to hire an attorney quickly. When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out of pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office and if we can help you, we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case, if we’re successful for you. Call 314-A-LAWYER today, for a free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

Any time a grownup falls in Missouri, there is an opportunity for the jury to blame you for not paying attention. Because of that, slip-and-fall or trip-and-fall type cases are the type that I’ve tried more than any other in my history as a Missouri slip-and-fall lawyer. Whether it’s on snow and ice, or a spilled yogurt at the grocery store, or any number of other things, you’re responsible to look out. And because of that, the insurance company is going to want to blame you for your incident and say you’re at fault for falling. Call a professional, call a Missouri slip-and-fall lawyer, and get the help you need when you’ve injured yourself, to take care of your medical bills and to pay for the bills that are going to continue to come in while you can’t work.  When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out-of-pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office, and if we can help you we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case, if we’re successful for you. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for a free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

It’s too late, once you’ve been in a wreck, to think about insurance coverage.

Injury Law News, brought to you by the S.E. Farris Law Firm.

I’m Spencer Farris, an attorney with the S.E. Farris Law Firm, in St. Louis, Missouri. You buy automobile insurance and hope you never have to use it. But there are kinds of insurance that will help you quite a bit if you’re in a wreck. Let’s talk about those for a minute. In order to drive a car in Missouri, two types of insurance are mandatory: liability coverage, to take care of the harms you cause to other folks – and uninsured motorist coverage, in case someone hurts you, who doesn’t follow the law. Liability coverage protects you if you hurt someone else while you’re driving. It’ll also provide you with legal services in case you get sued. Although Missouri requires all drivers to have liability insurance, not all drivers follow the law. That’s why uninsured motorist coverage is also mandatory in Missouri.

Uninsured motorist coverage means that the person who hit you, who harmed you because of their negligent driving, has now coverage to cover your injuries. Besides the mandatory required coverages in Missouri, there are some other insurance coverages that will assist you if you’re ever hurt in a car crash, and it’s someone else’s fault. We’re not going to talk about property coverage today – just coverages for occupants, people, in the vehicles. The first of those is underinsured motorist coverage. Underinsured motorist coverage means that the person who harmed you doesn’t have enough insurance to cover all of your losses. If you’re seriously injured in a car crash, and the person who hurt you only has the minimum coverage required in Missouri – which right now is $25,000 – underinsured motorist coverage would help bridge the gap, between what they had and what you suffered, to help put you back where you were before you got hurt.

Even though you may have health insurance, medical payments coverage is another coverage that is available to you, to help defray some of the losses you have when you get hurt in a car crash. You can use medical payments coverage, even if you have health insurance, to help cover your deductibles and the other out-of-pocket medical expenses that you will have. Just because you have health insurance coverage doesn’t mean you can’t collect your medical payments. And it’s not cheating. It’s like having two life insurance policies. If you’ve paid for extra coverage, you get to collect when you have to. And if you’re hurt in a car crash, there’s not enough money for what you’re going through. You need to collect everything that’s available to you. In my office, and with most qualified injury attorneys in Missouri, there’s no fee for helping you collect your medical payments coverage. When you’re injured and go to the hospital or doctor, you want to make sure that, if you have health insurance, you present your health insurance information, and demand that the doctor or hospital bill your health insurance company.

Contracts with major providers, like Blue Cross Blue Shield, etc., will require that the doctor and hospital accept health insurance for payment. If you don’t do that, the health care provider is going to want to take money from your settlement. And there’s not going to be enough money, at the end of a settlement for an injury, for what you’ve suffered – the pain and the discomfort. It’s important to have a lawyer help maximize that coverage. And one way that my law firm does that is by making sure that health care providers bill health insurance. Medicare and Medicaid are the same thing as health insurance plans, and make sure that doctors and hospitals bill them. Don’t worry about repayments to Medicare, Medicaid, and other insurance plans. A qualified lawyer will take care of that, and try to minimize those repayments, so that more money goes to the injured victim.

Call the S.E. Farris Law Firm if you have any questions about insurance coverage. We’re happy to talk with you without a charge. The S.E. Farris Law Firm is dedicated to the needs of injury victims and their families.

By: Spencer Farris

Board Certified

Board certified means that after a certain number of years and a certain number of cases I’m able to take a written test and provide verification that I’ve practiced properly. Then each year I have to recertify, prove that I have my practice insurance, that I complete my continuing legal education hours, that I don’t have any complaints – bar complaints against me.

Deposition

A deposition is a recorded statement that you give with a court reporter for use under the rules of evidence in court.

Discovery

Discovery is just like -what it sounds like. You discover what’s going on in a case. You learn facts.

Interrogatory

An interrogatory is like a deposition, but it’s in written format and you answer your questions under oath.

Malpractice

Malpractice is when a professional breaches the standard of care. Not that they have to be perfect, but that they have to be reasonable in their actions.

Workers Compensation

Worker’s compensation means that you were hurt on the job. Your employer’s liable for your medical, a portion of your wages while you’re off work, and a lump sum for the disability that you have after medicine’s done the best it can do.

By: Spencer Farris

We carry insurance on our homes because the folks that come visit us are friends and relatives. And if they get hurt, you want them to be taken care off. In Missouri though if you get hurt at the house of a friend or relative, they are the ones who named in lawsuit, and it scares a lot of folks. Am I going to take grandma’s car? Am I going to cause aunt Betsy lose her house? No, you’re not. The short answer is, A Missouri slip and fall lawyer is going to pursue the insurance that covered the home. And we’re never going to take away the property of the person whose house you were at. Insurance companies want you to feel guilty and want you to feel that way, but it simply not true. When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out of pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office. And if we can help you, we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case if we’re successful for you. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

What Happens When Your Bitten by a Dog?

Hi, I’m Josh Myers, attorney at Schultz & Myers. We’re a personal injury law firm here in St. Louis, Missouri. Today I want to answer a question we get a lot, which is what happens if you’re bitten by a dog?

The One Bite Rule

A lot of people come in, and they ask us about this “one bite rule” or what they’ve heard of before called a “one bite rule” , and in Missouri, there’s no such thing. It used to be the law in Missouri that we had to show the dog had some kind of dangerous propensities, or meaning a past history of aggression. Several years back, the law was completely rewritten, so now it is a case of what’s called strict liability.

Basically this means if you were bitten on public property, or if you’re on private property and as long as you were there lawfully, the owner of the dog is completely liable for the damages you suffered.

Dog Bite Case Process

So it’s pretty simple these days. If you’re bitten by someone else’s dog, they’re responsible for that. Of course the real key comes in determining how much money it takes to make up for the harms and the damages that you suffered, and that’s where our expertise comes in.

So I hope this helped answer some questions. If you’ve ever been bitten by a dog, and you’re looking for a personal injury lawyer, I certainly hope that you’ll give us a call and at least let us talk to you about your case. Our phone number’s easy to remember. Just remember the fours: (314) 444-4444.

By: Josh Myers

Truck Accident Litigation

Sometimes car crashes occur due to circumstances that the driver has nothing to do with. If the road on which you are riding has been improperly built or maintained or if the surface itself has been allowed to erode and degrade over time, it makes the road more dangerous to automobile drives and truckers that use those roads. One way to know if the area where your crash occurred is improperly designed or negligently maintained is if there have been several crashes in a short period of time at that stretch of highway. If you have questions about a dangerous piece of highway or roadway, call my office at the number on the screen or you can reach us through the contact form on the internet. I’m happy to visit with you at any time without any cost or obligation. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for your consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

When you’ve been hurt whether it’s in a car or because you’ve gotten injured on someone’s property at that moment a Missouri personal injury lawyer is important to you and the Missouri law is important to you. But up until that time you weren’t even aware it existed and you’re always in the cross hairs in our state legislature. There hasn’t been a year gone by since the 22 years that I’ve been practicing that the Missouri legislature hasn’t had injury victims in it’s cross hairs. They want to get at the lawyers, but they do it by walking over folks like you, that have been hurt.

Unfortunately you don’t know your rights have been infringed upon, you don’t that you’ve been within the cross hairs of the legislature until you get hurt. But because of that you don’t know all the things you need to do to handle your case once you’ve been hurt and how the law has developed over the last several hundred years. And you need a Missouri personal injury lawyer to help guide you down the path and make sure that you don’t get taken advantage of by the insurance company for the folks that hurt you.  When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out of pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office and if we can help you, we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case if we’re successful for you. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for a free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris