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.

Article that shows the importance of modern safety features in Cars

This article from the Moose Jaw Times Herald titled:
Mexico's booming car industry sells unsafe cars at home, safe ones for export to US, Europe Published on November 28, 2013

Explains how Mexico doesn't incorporate the same Safety standards at home as it does for cars it exports overseas, and the effect that this is having on Mexico. This excerpt from the article explains this in some detail "In 2011, nearly 5,000 drivers and passengers in Mexico died in accidents, a 58 per cent increase since 2001, according to the latest available data from the country's transportation department. Over the same decade, the U.S. reduced the number of auto-related fatalities by 40 per cent. The death rate in Mexico, when comparing fatalities with the size of the car fleet, is more than 3.5 times that of the U.S." This article further explains "The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said air bags and electronic stability control have prevented tens of thousands of injuries in auto accidents and reduced fatal crashes by as much as a third in the U.S."

This goes to show how important it is take advantage of safety features to prevent injuries on the road. If you or anyone you know has been involved in a car accident please call our law firm at 343-0494 or visit our main website at www.accidentawardslasvegas.com  

Article about injuries from horses

 

Local News

Are Horses “Naturally. . . Vicious?”

September 23, 2013 6:38 PM

 

Filed under

Court, Local News, News

Related tags

horses, Supreme Court

STEPHEN SINGER
Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — After a horse named Scuppy bit a boy in the face, a Connecticut court came to a conclusion that threw animal lovers: Horses are a naturally vicious species.
Horse owners and farmers are mobilizing as the state Supreme Court hears an appeal in the case Tuesday. Such a classification — the nation’s first, if it stands — would make owning horses uninsurable and jeopardize the state’s sizable horse industry, farmers and horse owners say.
“You could not pair children and horses, the core equestrian business nationwide that it’s all about,” said Doug Dubitsky, a lawyer who represents farmers and horse businesses.
When the boy tried to pet the horse at Glendale Farms in Milford in 2006, according to court papers, the animal stuck his neck out from behind a fence and bit the child on his right cheek, “removing a large chunk of it.”
In February 2012, the mid-level Appellate Court overturned a lower court ruling and said that testimony by Timothy Astriab, whose family owns the farm, demonstrated that Scuppy belongs to “a species naturally inclined to do mischief or be vicious.”
Although he had no knowledge of Scuppy biting anyone before, Astriab testified that Scuppy was no different than other horses that would bite if a finger was put in front of him. “Significantly, Astriab acknowledged his concern that if someone made contact with Scuppy, whether to pet or feed him, they could get bit,” the justices said.
The injury suffered by the boy was foreseeable and the owners of the farm had a duty to use reasonable care to restrain the animal to prevent injury, the Appellate Court ruled.
Astriab did not return a call on Monday seeking comment.
If allowed to stand, Connecticut would be the first state to consider horses as inherently dangerous, said Dubitsky.
Horse farmers and equine enthusiasts, who cite 2005 statistics saying that the horse industry contributes about $221 million a year to the state’s economy in boarding, training, lessons and breeding businesses, are asking the state Supreme Court to overturn the Appellate Court’s decision. The Connecticut Farm Bureau and Connecticut Horse Council filed a friend of the court brief saying that under common law viciousness generally is judged individually according to age, breed and gender, not as an entire species.
Fred Mastele, acting president of the state’s horse council, said it is encouraging horse owners to attend the hearing Tuesday and support the Astriab family.
“In our opinion, horses are not vicious animals,” he said. “They are certainly not attack animals.”
Astriab had won at a lower court in 2010, when a New Haven judge sided with the horse’s owner and ruled that the child’s father, Anthony Vendrella Sr., failed to prove the owner knew of previous incidents of aggression by Scuppy.
The Superior Court judge said Astriab testified that neither he nor anyone else had ever seen Scuppy bite a person before and that in 28 years, none of the horses at the farm bit or injured anyone.
“Cats have a tendency to scratch and horses have a tendency to bite, but the plaintiffs have failed to show, as they must, that the defendants were on notice that Scuppy specifically, and not horses generally, had a tendency to bite people or other horses,” Judge Robin Wilson ruled.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

This is a great article found on CBS Connecticut. It is a good illustration of some of the issues there are with lawsuits coming from recreational activities. Although in this article the injury happened from a child being bitten by a horse while petting it, this case can have a big impact on the liability of many business that run horse riding operations and other business like that where the public interacts with horses. Now the general rule in most jurisdictions is that a person assumes the risk of an activity like horseback riding and mere negligence is not enough to prevail in a personal injury suit against a business owner engaged in a business like this. However, if a Court rules that horses are inherently dangerous then this will hold businesses that run horse riding operations and other such operations that have horses to a higher standard of care. I have gone horseback riding myself, and I know how dangerous an activity it can be so it will be interesting to see how this case turns out when the Connecticut State Supreme Court rules on it.