A Virginia driver can be charged with an open container offense even if only their passenger has the bottle or cup of beer, wine or liquor. This matters to my Virginia personal injury and wrongful death law firm colleagues and I because it means that…
Working on and around trains was so dangerous during the second half of the 1800s that Congress, in 1893, passed one of the first national occupational safety laws specifically to lower the number of deaths and dismemberments from crashes, derailments, rollback accidents and falls from…
A broken, damaged, misaligned or inappropriately opened track switch can easily cause a train crash or derailment that leaves workers or passengers badly injured or dead. Such avoidable accidents are more than headlines to my Virginia-based law firm colleagues and I, as we have spent…
As wrongful death attorneys in Virginia, my law firm colleagues and I often find it necessary to answer tough questions from potential clients. One of the toughest situations involves advising grieving family members who think they might have a medical malpractice claim on whether to…
The Cleveland Clinic opens its webpage on anesthesia safety by asking readers, “For some people, anesthesia is one of the scariest parts of surgery. Do you wonder about the risks?” Farther down the page, the clinic probably misses the mark in attempting to give patients…
Towed trailers detach and create deadly highway hazards more frequently than most people realize. And negligent tractor-trailer operators are not the only individuals to blame. In 2016, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) published statistics showing that over the preceding 40 years, 736 Americans…
During the three decades that my personal injury and wrongful death law firm colleagues and I have spent helping victims of medical malpractice in Virginia, we’ve seen state lawmakers pass numerous laws making it harder to hold negligent health care providers and facilities accountable for…
In an annual tradition, hundreds of new laws came into effect in Virginia on July 1, 2019. My Virginia personal injury law firm colleagues and I pay close attention to these updates because seemingly small changes to what drivers and state residents can legally do…
As he lay in hospice care contemplating the potential causes of his deadly lung disease, Stephen Fowlkes recalled his extensive exposure to asbestos-containing brake shoes and pipe insultation during his 10+ year career at Norfolk Southern Lambert’s Point. Fowlkes never got the chance to investigate…
What happens in fatal car wrecks? Like most other states, North Carolina has a wrongful death statute. Under this law, an experienced attorney can provide a family compensation for their loss. Direct economic losses in wrongful death cases are compensable. These items include funeral and…