Our Injury Law Blog

If you've ever been involved in an accident with a wrong-way driver, you know how surprising and devastating it is. One minute, you're following traffic, and the next, people are quickly steering into other lanes and making emergency maneuvers to avoid getting hit by a wrong-way driver. With not much time to move, chances are that you'll get hit by that wrong-way driver or by someone trying to out-maneuver them.

One state proposal would put spikes down at freeway on-ramps to help prevent wrong-way drivers from entering the roadways. Is that really the right answer, though?

Frank Powers and Shawn Cunningham have been chosen by their peers again this year to be named in the 26^th Edition of the Best Lawyers In America for their work in the area of plaintiff medical malpractice law. Frank and Shawn have been continuously chosen since 2008. Inclusion in the Best Lawyers is based on a peer-review survey comprising more than 8.2 million confidential evaluations by top attorneys.

Never events, which are appropriately named for being events that should have never happened, are medical mistakes or errors made that should have been easily avoided. Some common never events include operating on the wrong patient, operating on the wrong part of the patient, performing the wrong operation and leaving items inside the patient following surgery.

Never events have been part of the medical negligence discussion since the term was coined in 2001 by Ken Kizer, MD. Never events fall into one of seven reportable categories including:

• Procedural or surgical events
• Environmental events
• Radiological events
• Criminal events
• Patient protection events
• Product or device events
• Care management events

Effective July 1, 2020, the minimum amounts of coverage required are increased to $25,000 for bodily injury to or death of one person in any one accident, from $15,000, to $50,000 for bodily injury to or death of two or more persons in any one accident, from $30,000, and to $15,000 because of injury to or destruction of property of others in any one accident, from $10,000. This change does not apply to a policy issued to a person with a valid certificate of self-insurance or partial self-insurance. Also, an offer of liability limits on an automobile liability insurance policy is required to be made at the time of application for insurance.