With two fatal bicycle accidents over such a short span of time, area cyclists are becoming increasingly nervous about their chosen form of exercise or transportation. One Oklahoma City rider says that, while his vigilance can help him avoid collisions with oncoming vehicles, he feels that there is nothing he can do about vehicles approaching from behind. A recent study of hybrid vehicles shows that the quiet operation of these automobiles has actually increased the number of bicycle and pedestrian accidents and fatalities, as people cannot hear the approaching cars and take safety precautions or evasive measures. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, hybrid vehicles are twice as likely as standard cars and trucks to be involved in pedestrian accidents at low speed.

Hybrid cars are not the only danger for bicyclists and pedestrians, however, as the Oklahoma City accidents demonstrate. Safety officials recommend that both cyclists and drivers remain alert to their surroundings. Oklahoma City police Captain Patrick Stewart admonished automobile drivers, saying, “People are looking for cars. It tends to be the case that people just don't see motorcycles, and they certainly aren't looking for bicyclists. We need to educate both the motoring public and the cycling public about being vigilant and taking extra precautions." Stewart’s warning about motorcyclists was underscored by the deaths of two riders in separate Oklahoma City motorcycle accidents in the days following the fatal weekend bike wrecks.

As for the legal response to the Oklahoma City bicycle accidents, criminal charges will certainly be filed as soon as the driver in the hit-and-run accident is identified. In the second accident, charges may or may not be filed pending the results of the investigation. It is important to note that Oklahoma law requires that motorists passing a bicycle must give at least 3 feet of safety clearance. Regardless of whether or not criminal charges are filed in an accident case, the drivers may be held liable in a civil case. Oklahoma City accident attorneys can help hold the responsible parties accountable for damages resulting from a fatal collision, including medical expenses, funeral expenses, and daily living expenses resulting from the loss of a loved one’s income. While no amount of financial recovery can compensate for the death of a family member or loved one, some peace of mind can be established by easing the financial burden of a loss. Experienced accident lawyers in Tulsa and Oklahoma City can help a suffering family receive restitution from the individuals responsible for an Oklahoma auto accident.

The charges stem from a May 31 incident in which the dogs attacked Mary Wolf, 48, outside her nearby home. Wolf was forced to take shelter in her vehicle for more than 20 minutes before help arrived. Wolf was bitten and clawed in the attack, which resulted in large scarring on her legs.

A police officer who arrived on the scene recognized the dogs from an attack on a child earlier in the month. In that incident, three of Ulonda Jackson’s dogs bit a 7-year-old boy, who required stitches for his wounds. Jackson was warned that her dogs could not legally roam freely. She told authorities that she would get rid of the dogs, but within a few weeks, the dogs were loose and free to attack Mary Wolf in her own yard.

While Ulonda Jackson faces criminal charges as a result of her failure to keep her dogs safely confined, it is not clear whether Mary Wolf or the family of the young dog bite victim have retained the services of an Oklahoma City personal injury lawyer. Because Jackson was negligent in restraining animals proven to be dangerous, she could be held liable for the damage caused by her dogs. Furthermore, dog bite law in Oklahoma upholds strict liability, meaning that the owner is liable for any injuries the dog inflicts, regardless of whether or not the dog has previously displayed any aggressive tendencies.

Oklahoma City and Tulsa personal injury attorneys are instrumental in helping Oklahoma dog bite victims receive compensation for their injuries. Such compensation includes reimbursement of medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and psychological counseling necessitated by the trauma of a vicious attack.

Victims of aggressive dogs in Oklahoma need to understand that criminal charges against owners of these animals are not the last resort. A civil case can help victims regain some of what they have lost physically, emotionally, and financially as a result of a canine attack. A personal injury attorney in Tulsa or Oklahoma City will provide a dog bite victim with the tools necessary to hold the dog owner accountable for the damages caused by a savage animal.

Drop side cribs are responsible for at least 32 infant deaths in the past several years; thousands of babies have been injured. Each of these personal injuries and deaths occurred when a child was strangled or suffocated as the drop side front of the crib became detached from the frame itself. When the front becomes detached from the top of the frame, a child can become caught between the drop side and the top of the crib, strangling the infant. If the front detaches from the bottom, a baby can fall into the gap between the drop side and the crib and can suffocate against the mattress.

The Oklahoma product liability claims for drop side cribs comes as a result of faulty manufacturing, defective hardware, unstable construction, and improper assembly resulting from unclear instructions. Millions of drop side cribs have been recalled due to defect since the beginning of 2010. The problems with these cribs are so rampant that the CSPC warns parents not to attempt to fix the problems themselves and urges them to avoid purchasing drop side cribs altogether. With the continued problems with these models, most manufacturers are instituting a self-imposed ban, discontinuing the sale of all drop side cribs beginning in June 2010.

When new parents buy products for their infants, their primary concern is their child’s safety. Oklahoma parents have the right to reasonably expect that the products marketed and designed for their children are safe and free from hazards. However, Tulsa personal injury attorneys have seen many stories of heartbreak when a child’s bedding, clothing, or toys did not meet standards, causing debilitating injury or even death. When a defective product causes harm, parents are entitled to compensation for medical expenses, funeral expenses, and emotional suffering wrought by the injury or death of a child. While no amount of monetary reparation can make up for the injury or loss of a child, personal injury lawyers in Oklahoma can help families hold negligent manufacturers accountable and protect the safety of Oklahoma children.

Let’s say you fall asleep at the wheel, run off the road and injure yourself severely.  You need months of conservative care and ultimately wind up with a back surgery.  Your medical bills total over $100,000.00, but you are fortunate enough to have excellent health insurance through your employer or privately.  All of your medical providers have contracted with your health insurance plan and are bound by the guidelines of these contracts in terms of what they can bill you personally. 

Your health insurance carrier pays all of your expenses, less of course the co-pays and co-insurance and deductibles.  You do not owe your health insurance company anything.

Now let’s say someone runs you off the road, causing the exact same injuries.  Now that there is someone at fault, that has automobile insurance to pay you for your injuries.  All of the same doctors and medical facilities will now refuse to file with your health insurance and instead file a medical lien with the insurance company for the other driver and with your attorneys.

These liens are for the full amount of the medical treatment and will not include the usual and customary write offs they would have to take through your health insurance.  These doctors will refuse to file with any health insurance plans, including Medicare and Medicaid, if there is any chance they can get paid in full directly out of your personal injury lawsuit, rather than the reduced amount through health insurance. 

Injured individuals should insist that the doctors and medical facilities agree to file with their health insurance plans at the onset of any treatment.  Every health insurance plan has a right of recovery provision, which will guarantee them reimbursement out of any settlement or judgment you might obtain in your lawsuit.  Your attorney will pay the health insurance plan only what they paid to the doctors. Moreover, the plans will usually reduce this amount for the attorney’s hard work on the case in obtaining their money back. This amount is much less than you would have to pay through a medical lien on your case.

For example: If your surgery cost $25,000.00 and your health insurance company would have paid that doctor $8,000.00, you would owe the doctor only your co-pay and deductible (if not yet reached). Let’s say it's a maximum of $2,500.00.  At the time of settlement, you receive $100,000.00 because there is not enough insurance.  Your attorneys would reimburse the health insurance carrier less than $6,000.00 and the other $19,000.00 that would have gone to the greedy doctor that filed a medical lien (instead of filing with your health insurance) will now go in your pocket.

Individuals fortunate enough to have health insurance in this day and age, are entitled to all of the benefits, whether or not their injuries are caused by someone's negligence.  The attorneys at Lawter & Associates have years of experience in dealing with these issues and doing everything possible to prevent these doctors from receiving more than they are entitled to.

If you are injured through the negligence of another and have no health insurance, it can be difficult to obtain medical treatment outside of an emergency room.  Many types of injuries that can be caused in motor vehicle accidents and slip and fall accidents, can require specialized care.

It is easier to obtain treatment without health insurance for many types of soft tissue injuries.  These injuries can usually be resolved with conservative chiropractic care or physical therapy.  In these cases there are many excellent health providers that will treat individuals that cannot afford to pay their bills.  These medical providers will file liens and wait to be paid by the insurance company for the negligent party that injured you.

The more difficult situation comes around when your injuries are more extensive and require extensive care and surgical intervention.  It can be almost impossible for an unrepresented individual to find surgeons and other doctors that will provide treatment without health insurance or the ability to pay. 

Experienced lawyers, like us at Lawter & Associates, will know many excellent surgeons and specialized physicians that understand these difficult situations.  These doctors will provide the care injured persons need, even with extensive costs going unpaid when they know you are represented by attorneys that will fight with the insurance companies and defense attorneys to make the responsible party pay.

     Because Oklahoma is an “at will” employment state (which means that a non-unionized employer may terminate any of its employee’s for basically any reason), my first question was whether he was a member of a union; he was not.  My second question was, did he miss the three days because of an on the job injury?  Oklahoma law precludes an employer from terminating an employee merely because he is absent from work, due to a work place injury or because he has filed a Workers Compensation case.  Unfortunately, the client stated his absence from work was not caused by an injury.  I then inquired whether there was any indication that he had been fired because of issues relating to his age, race, sex, religion or physical handicap.  Even under Oklahoma’s “At Will” doctrine, an employee within a protected class is protected from termination based on illegal discrimination related to that class; but there had not been any such discrimination.

     Fortunately, I didn’t give up at that point and I then asked the client the questions necessary to establish that the illness, which caused him to miss work was of a serious and chronic nature.  Further questioning revealed his employer had enough employees to entitle the client to protection under the “Family Medical Leave Act”; a federal law that protects an employee’s job, even if he misses work for up to 12 weeks per year due to his, or a family members’ serious medical condition.  Armed with that information, I was able to quickly convince the client’s employer it was in their best interest to reinstate him of his employment.

     Oklahoma doesn’t provide a lot of protection to it’s workers, but don’t give up until you talk with an attorney.

Keep in mind that there are multiple sources of recovery available to you that will cover your medical bills, lost earnings and to compensate you for your pain and suffering.  Not only is the insurance company of the other driver that caused your injuries responsible for all of your damages, but your own insurance company may provide you with multiple coverage to compensate for the damages.  Often times this is provided to you faster and in a greater amount than the other driver's insurance company’s settlement. 

Check your personal insurance to see if you have uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, as well as medical payments coverage.  Also, if you were in someone else's vehicle as a passenger at the time you were injured, there might be three separate insurance companies, all of which could provide coverage to pay your damages. 

Many of these coverage policies can assist in paying some or all of your medical bills; even if there is a dispute as to who is at fault.  If you do not have all of those coverage policies, get them!  They are relatively inexpensive and will protect you and the household members of your family, in the event that someone's negligence causes injury to you or them.

 It is important for you to understand that the largest percentages of these cases settle without ever having to go to trial.  As long as your medical treatment was reasonable, necessary and related to the motor vehicle accident, you are entitled to recover all of your actual damages (medical bills past and future, lost earnings past and future) as well as an amount to cover the other damages like pain, discomfort, suffering, stress, emotional damages, etc…

If you or a family member has been injured in a motor vehicle accident, choose an experienced motor vehicle law firm, like Lawter & Associates, that knows how to deal with these insurance companies and adjusters. 

Injuries are often caused by slipping on slick or wet surfaces or tripping over some object that you did not see.  The main defense in these cases is whether or not the dangerous condition was "Open and Obvious" to the visitor.   The issue in open-and-obvious cases is lack of duty of the owner not the negligence or assumption of risk of the visitor.   The owner's duty includes warning of dangers known to the owner but unlikely to be discovered by the visitor. The easiest way to prove your case is when the owner actually creates the hazardous or dangerous condition that causes your injury because it eliminates one of their main defenses.

Just because you did not see the condition that caused you to fall does not mean that it was a hidden danger. Often times the condition that caused the fall can be open-and-obvious like a spilled chocolate milkshake on a white floor, or a big hole or an orange extension cord, etc. The visitor who honestly did not see it can still be prevented from recovering from the owner because they weren't paying attention to where they were going. Moreover, under Oklahoma Law it is a question of whether the hazard or danger is open-and-obvious not whether the object itself is open and obvious.

Also keep in mind the injured plaintiff has the burden of proof in all Oklahoma cases. The Plaintiff must establish not only that the condition was a hidden danger but that the owner breached their duty to protect them from it. This involves establishing that the owner actually knew about the condition or that the owner should have known about the condition in the exercise of ordinary care. The difficulty can show up when the injured Plaintiff has no evidence of how the dangerous condition got there or how long it had been there. For example: if Mom brings her two year old into the grocery store and he spills his water all over the floor in the vegetable department and you come walking by two minutes later and slip on the water. It will be difficult to establish that the owner is liable because you cannot prove that the owner or any of the employees knew about the spill or that they had enough time to discover the spill and protect you from it.

The bottom line is that all of the different circumstances of each case must be examined to determine if the open-and-obvious defense or other defenses will prevent the visitor from recovering for injuries and damages. The experienced attorneys at Lawter & Associates have handled hundreds of slip and fall cases with great success.