Articles Posted in Personal Injury

According to a recent news report from Boston.com, a 42-year-old man died after he was allegedly attacked at a bar in Quincy, Massachusetts. Authorities say defendant attacked victim in the bar, for reasons which have not yet been released, and left him there to die with serious bodily injuries, which is how first responders found him when they arrived at the scene of the alleged attack.

Norfolk County prosecutors say they have charged defendant with murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery causing serious bodily injury. Prosecutors also say this alleged assault was entirely without provocation, and defendant is being held without bond in the Norfolk County jail to await trial.

Victim was survived by his two boys, ages 18 and 15. It is important to understand, defendant has not been convicted of any crime in connection with this alleged assault and is presumed innocent unless and until he is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
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Personal injury cases in Massachusetts typically involve claims of negligence. Essentially, plaintiff is accusing defendant of acting in a negligent manner or failing to act (claim of omission), when they are required by law to do so.

An example of a negligent act would be drunk driving. Every driver owes a duty to others on the roads and sidewalks to operate their motor vehicle in a reasonably safe manner so as to prevent foreseeable (predictable) injury to other persons and property. When someone drinks to the point of intoxication and then gets behind the wheel of car, they are not acting in a responsible manner, since everyone knows or should know drunk driving is dangerous. If this negligent conduct results in an accident in which a victim is injured, plaintiff can file a negligence-based claim in civil court.

With respect to a negligent omission, normally, people are not legally required to come to the assistance of another person. While we hope people wouldn’t ignore someone in need, if you walk by a pond and see someone drowning, you are generally under no obligation to call for help or try to help victim yourself. Again, we hope someone would not simply walk away, but there is generally no legal requirement to come to the aid of another person.

However, there are two main exceptions to this law. If you are the reason victim was placed in peril, you do have a duty to act. For example, if you pushed victim into the pond, or negligently fell into them, and they fell into the pond, you have a legal duty to come to their aid, or at the very least, call someone who can assist them.
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Skiing is a fun activity enjoyed by many throughout Massachusetts and the New England area, even with winter coming to an end in our area. Buses are still leaving from Boston to take skiers up to Maine for a weekend of skiing.

According to a recent news report from Fox News Springfield, seven people were injured in a chairlift accident. A mountain spokesperson said four of the injured were taken to taken to a local hospital for treatment, and first responders at the ski area attended to the other three.

According to reports, there were 200 skiers on the lift at the time of the accident. The lift was a “quad” designed to carry four riders on each chair, with multiple chairs suspended from a moving cable. For reasons still under investigation, the chairlift abruptly stopped moving up the ski slope and started to move backward.
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While many dog bites occur each day in the United States, very few of them make the news. However, one story from the Citizen Times was a bit more newsworthy. For one thing, the victim is a disabled army veteran who recently underwent a total knee replacement at the VA hospital.

Victim was leaving a local pet store, which he went to get food for his girlfriend’s dog. He reportedly stepped outside of the store, he heard a dog barking. He didn’t think much of it, because it was common for dogs at the pet shop to bark at each other.

Before he knew it, a 75-pound boxer had bitten him in the knee he just had replaced and was shaking as hard as it could. He fell to the ground, and the dog got on top of him and continued to bite his leg. What makes this story somewhat unique is the dog was on a leash. The woman holding the other end of the leash was allegedly talking on her cellphone at the time her dog attacked the man.
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When we hear about sexual assaults on the news, we often think of these cases in terms of a criminal prosecution.

However, if you have been sexually assaulted, you may not only have a valid civil case against your assailant, but also his or her employer or other entity/agency which may have negligently allowed the attack to occur.

According to a recent news article from the Daily Hampshire Gazette, a rape victim at the University of Massachusetts was forced to face her alleged assailant during a student disciplinary hearing and testify. The school then allowed him to remain a student and maintain his residence on campus.

Protestors are upset the school did not provide a way for this victim to give her testimony in private, so she did not have face this man at the hearing. Students are demanding the school adopts what they refer to as Survivor’s Bill of Rights. They believe such a policy would provide more protection to sexual assault victims and more consistent punishment to assailants.
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Even with the seemingly long winter finally winding down, there is still time for many to enjoy outdoor activities the colder season has to offer.

Snowmobile riding, for example, can be a lot fun. But it can also be dangerous. Because many people do not own a snowmobile, accidents often involve rented equipment and riders with little or no experience.

According to a recent news article from the Sun Journal, a couple from Massachusetts was involved in a snowmobile accident when their machine was unable to make a sharp curve and ran into a large tree.

The 66-year-old husband and 64-year-old wife were riding a rented snowmobile on a mountain in Maine. After hitting the tree, both riders were injured an required immediate medical attention. Due to the remote location, first responders rode their own snowmobiles to the accident scene to assist the two victims. A medical evacuation helicopter was called to the scene to fly the male victim to the nearest level one trauma center for immediate treatment. His wife was put in a sled attached to an EMS worker’s snowmobile and taken down the mountain, so a waiting ambulance could transport her to a local emergency room. She suffered a shoulder injury in the crash. Her husband suffered broken bones and possible other injuries that were not known at the time of initial reports.
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According to a recent report from the Sun Sentinel, a Florida police dog has been fired after biting two people in a three-month period. The police K9, a four-year-old Belgian Malinois, had been with the police department for around a year prior to these two biting incidents.

The first incident occurred last November, when the dog bit a police officer while he was issuing a citation. The officer was bit in the leg and suffered a personal injury. The second injury was much more serious. According to reports, the dog ran out of his handler’s car and into a local doughnut shop. When this dog entered the shop, he immediately bit an employee’s calf, causing serious damage. This injured worker has hired a lawyer to represent him in his dog bite case.

Witnesses say the dog and his handler, a police officer, went to the doughnut shop to meet a police sergeant. Police sergeant started to pet the dog that was in the back seat of a patrol car when the dog lunged at her.
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Injuries from burns are often among the most severe and painful types of personal injury. According to a recent news report from WWLP, grease and steam are the leading causes of burn injuries in Massachusetts.

The State Fire Marshal for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts urges people to be more aware of the dangers associated with unattended cooking, and hopes to educate people through his work with National Burn Awareness Week.

While many people think of a structure fire as the leading cause of burns, cooking grease and steam cause far more severe burns in Massachusetts each year. As he noted when being interviewed, simply tipping over a pot of hot soup can lead to serious burn injuries.
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The issue of gun control in this country is a highly contentious one. While the right to bear arms is generally undisputed, those weapons do sometimes cause unintentional harm and gun owners can be held liable for injuries in some cases.

In 2013, lawmakers in Massachusetts debated a bill that would require gun owners to purchase liability insurance in the event the firearm caused injury or death. The state already has gun storage laws, but police are not allowed to come into someone’s home without a warrant to ensure weapons are properly stored. The idea was that insurance companies could verify proper gun storage prior to issuing a policy. Plus, if gun owners received better rates for adequate gun storage, the thinking went, there would be fewer accidents and fewer incidents of theft resulting in guns falling into the wrong hands.

The measure ultimately failed.
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The fact of injury is never enough to establish a finding of negligence necessary to make litigation a worthwhile pursuit.

In order to establish negligence, one has to prove:

• A duty owed
• A breach of duty
• Proximate cause
• Compensable injuries

It sounds simple, but without any one of these key elements, a civil injury lawsuit will inevitably fail.
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