Missouri Wrongful Death Laws

Whether you’re shopping at a business or walking down the street, the last thing you expect is to be flat on your back, and feeling pain. When you fall, or what lawyers typically call a “slip and fall injury,” the first thing to do is to figure out what caused you to fall. Was it a change in grade? Was it a slick substance on the floor? This isn’t always easy to do, because as you lay there in pain, the most important thing in your mind is to get medical attention. That is crucially important but if someone with you can take pictures of the scene, it will be invaluable to you later. When you slip and fall on someone else’s property, it’s important to get an experienced attorney who’s capable of investigating those claims. And if the claim involves a government entity, it is even more important to have an experienced attorney to investigate on your behalf. Call my office at the number on the screen, or visit us on the web at any time. I’m happy to visit with you and answer your questions about your slip and fall injury, without any cost or obligation. Call 314-A-LAWYER today, for your free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

Taxes are on everybody’s mind at this time of year and you maybe wondering, “Do I have to pay taxes on my personal injury case?” Injury law news brought to you by the S.E. Farris Law Firm. I’m Spencer Farris, a partner at the S.E. Farris Law Firm. I’ve represented hundreds of injury victims throughout Missouri. And at the end of the case the question my clients always want to know is how much money do I get from my settlement and will I have to pay taxes. Current Internal Revenue Service and Missouri state regulations do not tax personal injury cases. They treat a personal injury case settlement as a return on investment, which means that you’re really just getting back money that you’ve invested or in the case of an injury, your body and your future work life, which has been taken away from you. So, you don’t currently pay taxes on a personal injury case. However, whenever you file your taxes you always want to meet with a professional tax adviser because there are a couple of exceptions to that rule. If you’re verdict of settlement included punitive damages it is taxable.

Punitive or exemplary damages are damages to punish a defendant which you don’t typically see in a civil trial setting. The State of Missouri will take up to half of punitive damages that are awarded and puts them in a special fund to benefit injury victims. If you’re verdict or settlement includes a confidentiality clause – meaning that you can’t talk about your settlement – there are taxes are on confidential portion or the portion that was paid for confidentiality. Finally, lost wages are taxed just like your wages would be. It’s rare in Missouri for a verdict to specifically set out wages so this doesn’t come up very often, but it can and you and your lawyer and your tax attorney should talk about those things. If you have questions about the tax consequences of a personal injury settlement, call my office at the number on the screen or visit us on the internet. We’ll be happy to try to help you without any cost or obligation. The S.E. Farris Law Firm is dedicated to the needs of injury victims and their families.

By: Spencer Farris

Ok, you have the contact number of Missouri motorcycle accident lawyer, but you want to find someone else who rides, because the physics and the science of being on a motorcycle make those crashes different than a simple car crash. It’s helpful to get someone who understands what it’s like to be out there on the road and how naked and exposed you feel when you’re riding next to a three-ton car. You might be wondering how to hire a personal injury lawyer, or what kind of things you should look at. And the first thing that I tell every client, “Look, if you look around Saint Louis or Missouri, there’s probably 300 or 400 folks that will do just as good a job for you as my firm will do,” but you need to find someone that you feel comfortable working with, because you’re forming a partnership. And if you’re going to spend two or three years locked in a partnership with someone who won’t return your phone calls, doesn’t answer your e-mails, or really doesn’t care about you and thinks of you like you’re a number, no matter how qualified that lawyers is, he’s not the right lawyer for you.

You need a good mix of qualifications, and concern and caring chemistry, if you will, to get the right match so that you hire the right lawyer for you and your case.  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; Nevada Auto Accident Lawyers.

If you’re a victim of a hit and run in Missouri, your Uninsured Motorist Coverage will protect you. And an Missouri auto accident attorney is who you need to hire to make sure that you collect from the insurance company, and take care of all of your loses. We’ve had multiple cases over the years where someone caused a wreck and fled the scene. Maybe they cut-in in traffic or stopped suddenly and caused a crash and then fled the scene. And as a Missouri auto accident attorney I know how to use the law and recover my client’s Uninsured Motorist Coverage.

If I do my own plumping at home and messed it up, I can call a professional plumber. He’ll come in, he may laugh at me, it may charge more but he can fix it. But if you have a legal case and you don’t have an experienced Missouri auto accident attorney, you can never get over that. You can never fix that problem. You get one shot, to collect all of your damages and one shot to do it right. Well I don’t do wills, I don’t do trusts, I don’t handle divorces. Because the law is very broad. Think of it like you would think of a doctor. You wouldn’t go to your dermatologist if you had a brain tumor. You want someone who works in the same area everyday. And we practice Missouri auto accident law everyday. It’s what I’ve been doing for 22 years, I’m board certified, and focus my practice on injury victims and their family’s. 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-AL-AWYER today for free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

You wouldn’t dare hire a surgeon based on a television ad, but many people hire their attorney based on a television ad. It’s a horrible idea. Here’s why.

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

A lot of lawyers want to talk to you about credentials. Board certified? Schmoard certified. Superlawyer? Pooperlawyer. At 800-CASH-COW, we’re the home of the Super-d-Duper Lawyers.

You’re in a wreck and you hurt your neck. We’ll be there to get you your check.

I’m Spencer Farris. I represent injury victims in Missouri, and I’ve been doing it for about 20 years. I hope you enjoyed that video and realized that’s just a joke, and that’s the last way you should pick an attorney.

Here are some of the things you should look for though. You should look for experience. A lawyer who’s trying his first personal injury case is not the lawyer you want trying your only personal injury case. You want someone with trial experience.

You want someone with credentials, and we’ve talked about this before, credentials are a thing that requires some research to see if they’re real credentials or not. Be aware that a lot of the badges and things you see on folks’ websites are nothing more than paid marketing things. Real credentials are things like board certification. That’s a test that lawyers have to take, and it’s not required, so lawyers that are board certified you know have gone the extra mile.

Finally, you want to find a lawyer who’s dedicated to your needs, not someone who’s just trying to see how many cases they can handle and how fast they can move through each one. You’re entitled to personal assistance on your personal injury case, and you want a lawyer that takes that commitment and that relationship seriously.

Television ads are a great place to buy a refrigerator, but they’re a horrible place to hire an attorney.

If you have a personal injury case and would like to talk to an attorney without any cost or obligation, call me at the number on your screen, or visit us at our Internet website. I’m happy to try to help without any cost or obligation, and if we can do nothing more than help you choose the right lawyer, we’re happy to do that as well.

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

By: Spencer Farris

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 brought to you by the S.E. 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 adjusters handbook. They do that because if they settle a case quickly they know that they can 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 that she called 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 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. Thats 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 advice we can on how to handle your case. The S.E. Farris Law Firm is dedicated the needs of injury victims and their families.

By: Spencer Farris

In our modern mobile society, freight and passengers move by rail car every day, just at the same time you and your family are in your car, travelling the highways. And it’s inevitable that at the intersection there’s a potential for devastating collisions. We try to avoid that with crossing equipment and crossbars, but sometimes it doesn’t function properly. Sometimes it hasn’t been properly maintained, sometimes it simply doesn’t exist. If you’ve been injured, or a loved one has been killed at a train crossing, you owe it to yourself and to your family to hire a personal injury attorney who can investigate the causes of the collision and determine whether or not your rights should be protected.  Call 314-A-LAWYER today for your free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

Products liability is the part of the law that deals with defective or dangerous products. As a Missouri products liability attorney, I’ve been involved in cases where a product was misused and the manufacturer knew that it would be misused in that manner. The one that comes to mind was a baby seat case where a grandpa had strapped a baby into the car, didn’t get the seatbelt routed right, and there was a crash and the baby had a horrible, horrible brain injury because of that. We were able to hold the car seat manufacturer accountable because they knew that folks misused the product in this way and they didn’t design around it.

 It’s coming to light now that General Motors did exactly what Ford did back in the 70s and choose dollars over human lives with their Chevy Cobalt. As a Missouri product liability attorney, we understand that it takes a lot of work from the legal aspect from getting engineers involved and kind of doing reverse forensic sciences to figure out what was wrong with the product. Although, in the GM case, frankly they knew what was wrong and they made a decision to choose dollars over human lives. It’ll take a lot of attorneys to hold them accountable for what they did and for all the lives that they destroyed. There was a problem with the ignition switch that caused the airbag to fail. The airbag that’s designed to protect folks was failing and the cost of the part to fix it was under $1. GM’s first choice was to tell folks don’t hang heavy keys on your keychain. That will keep this from malfunctioning. They’d known for years before they finally did a recall, but they decided that the lives that they would have to pay for cost less than the cars they would have to fix. 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