Expenses of going to Trial

       One thing that I asked about often as a personal injury attorney is how much it will cost to go to trial. Going to trial can be pretty expensive. The biggest expense with trial is hiring expert witnesses. In cases where the Defendant denies that they are at fault you usually are required to hire expert witness that can show that the Defendant is at fault. The price for such a witness can add up. Typically they charge at least one hundred dollars an or more, often times much more for their testimony. You not only have to pay them this rate for their testimony at trial but also for their report which lays out their opinion. This report usually takes several hours to complete, and their bill will rack up that whole time.
    However, the most expensive expert witness is almost always a doctor, and most personal injury cases will require a doctor to give expert testimony. These doctors typically charge about 500 hundred dollars an hour for their time, and they must give an expert report. That is why getting a doctor for personal injury case is usually the biggest expense of taking a case to trial.
   On top of the expert witness costs there are numerous other costs such as court costs like filing fees, and the costs of doing depositions, etc. This is one reason why most personal injury cases settle. Neither side wants to keep paying these expenses. These expenses are a very important factor to be taken into consideration when the decision to file a lawsuit or settle a case is being made.


Check out our website at www.accidentawardslasvegas.com for more information on personal injury cases.

Employer's liability for employees purposeful actions

One interesting area of personal injury concerns where someone is injured by the intentional acts of an Employee of a business while they are on the job. If an employee injures a member of the public by his or her own intentional conduct then the business itself can be held responsible for the injury. The Nevada Legislature passed NRS 41.745, which is used to determine if an employer can be held liable for the intentional actions of an employee. This statute states that 1. an employer is not liable for harm or injury caused by the intentional conduct of an employee if the conduct of the employee: a) Was a truly independent venture of the employee; b) was not committed in the course of the very task assigned to the employee; and c) was not reasonably foreseeable under the facts and circumstances of the case considering the nature and scope of his or her employment.
So determining whether the employer is liable or not basically comes down to how far the action deviated from the performance or duties of the job. For example, a bouncer beating up a customer at a bar when there was no justification to do so, would probably create liability for the business owner. This is because the bouncer is hired to use force to protect other customers or the business, so using force to wrongfully harm someone is close enough to the job task, and it is foreseeable to the business owner that this may occur. Overall, whether an employer will be liable for the acts of an employee is usually a contentious issue and really depends on the facts of each individual case.

The Short Trial Program in Nevada

In 1999 the Short Trial Program was first enacted in Nevada. Since then it has become mandatory in certain cases. For personal injury cases it will be used for cases that are deemed to have a total value of less than $50,000 or if the parties agree to be in the Short Trial Program. Trials in the Short Trial Program can only last one day in length and have less jurors than a typical trial, and also less strict rules of evidence. However, the only problem with the Short Trial Program for Personal Injury cases is that Personal Injury Attorneys need more time to basically explain to the Jury that most personal injury claims are not fraudulent and that the Plaintiff is not faking injuries to get money. This is especially true for these smaller cases where the damage to the vehicles in the accident are not that great. Unfortunately, the public has this general perception that in many of these cases the Plaintiff is exaggerating their injuries or even making them up. This is not true at all. So few of these cases are like that its not even worth considering. However, the insurance industry spends vast sums of money convincing the public otherwise, and it is working. So for that reason I try to avoid the Short Trial Program when possible. Sometimes it may not be possible to avoid it though and this is a tough situation that you must be prepared to face. In these situations you just have to prepare as best you can and do as much as possible to try to weed out the members who will be on the jury.  Although the Short Trial Program may be great for certain types of cases it is not suited for personal injury cases at all.

How cell phones have affected personal injury cases

THE USE OF CELL PHONES HAS DRAMATICALLY CHANGED LITIGATION IN PERSONAL INJURY CASES

      Because cell phone use has become so common on roadways. It is becoming increasingly commonplace for attorneys to check the cell phone records of drivers involved in an accident. This is yet another reason why talking or especially texting on a cell phone is such a bad idea. If you were using your cell phone near the time of an accident you were involved in, there will be a presumption that you were not paying attention to the road and were at fault for the accident. On the other hand if you were in an accident and you believe someone was using a cell phone before the accident you will most likely be able to get their cell phone records and prove it. Therefore, it is very important to be aware that while driving if you use your cell phone this can be easily traced back to you.Another issue with cell phones is that sometimes people may use a “burner,” which is a cellphone that is bought with pre-paid minutes and its usage can’t be shown with records from the phone company.

If you or anyone you know has been involved in accident that was not your fault give our law firm a call at (702) 521-3794 or visit our website at www.accidentawardslasvegas.com.

Discount on hospital bills for people who do not have health insurance

NRS 439.260 allows for people who do not have insurance to have their hospital bills reduced by 30%. This law makes sense because Insurance companies routinely pay a discounted amount to hospitals for services that their insured receive. For a person to be eligible for this discount they must not have an insurance at the time of the hospitalization. So even if they get insurance after they leave the hospital they can still qualify for this discount. Unfortunately, even a 30% discount is still going to be less than the typical discount an insurance company will get for one of its insured. However, this will still go a long way in helping to settle a case and to make sure that the client ends up with a good amount of money at the end of the case. When a case has settled or a Trial Award has been rendered, we then need to pay back the medical providers that the client has treated with. At our law firm making sure that our clients end up with as much as money as possible is our number one priority. To do this we try to negotiate the amounts owed to medical providers so that our clients pay the least amount possible so that they end up with more money in their pocket. If you have been injured due to another person's actions please call us at 343-0494 for a free consultation or visit our main website at www.accidentawardslasvegas.com

Standard for Self Serve Businesses

Slip and fall cases involving self serve restaurants and other businesses are required to ensure that customers do not create dangerous conditions for other customers. This is arguably a high standard because it means that employees of a business should regularly check the premises to see if a customer left something on the floor that someone could slip on or some other hazard like that. In these types of businesses, employees may have to take extra steps to ensure the safety of customers because some members of the public can be especially careless and pose a danger to other customers.
This differs from other types of businesses that are not self serve because in those cases it can be very difficult to prove that the business is at fault for something that another customer did. In those cases it is much easier to prove fault when an employee has created a dangerous condition.
So if you were injured in a self service type restaurant like a buffet or other self service type business it is good to keep in mind that it may be easier to prove the business was at fault as long as you can show the employees were not taking the proper precautions to keep the business safe.