Helping You Put Your Life Back On Track After A Serious Injury
Last month, Indiana Injury Blog detailed many of the potential dangers and harms that come with texting and driving. To summarize, Indiana is one of 39 states to ban texting while driving.Statistics are revealing some facts about texting and driving safety, which are somewhat surprising and counter-intuitive. Mary Allen, Director of the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute has recommended police raise…
We recently addressed a wrongful death lawsuit brought in federal court that invokes Nebraska’s fetal death statute, and how that law differs from corresponding statutes in Indiana. The lawsuit, Baumann v. Slezak, et al, also asserts a cause of action for alleged violations of federal commercial truck driving regulations, including restrictions on the number of hours a driver may be…
A Nebraska law allowing wrongful death claims for unborn children is getting its first test in a federal lawsuit. The suit, Baumann v. Slezak, et al, arises from a multi-vehicle accident that killed a family of four and their unborn child. It asserts causes of action for negligence and violations of federal trucking regulations. Several states, including Indiana, have passed…
Allstate Insurance released its annual “America’s Best Drivers Report” in late August, listing the cities with the lowest rates of automobile collisions, both per driver and compared to the national average. The survey ranked the two hundred largest American cities, including two cities in Indiana. Indianapolis ranked 60th, and Fort Wayne ranked 31st. Smaller cities tended to rank higher than…
The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that a man who was injured when his father drove into him, pinning him between two vehicles, may sue for damages. A trial court dismissed the lawsuit in Robert L. Clark, Jr. et al vs. Robert L. Clark, Sr., based on a state law that bars suit between family members in certain circumstances. The…
Drivers have dealt with distractions since the invention of the automobile. The explosive growth in the use of cell phones, however, has compounded the risks presented by distracted driving. Drivers who use their cell phones to talk, send text messages, or even read e-mail or web pages cause thousands of accidents around the country every year. A member of the…
Indiana ranks in the middle of the fifty states and the District of Columbia when it comes to injury prevention, according to a recent study. The study, entitled “The Facts Hurt: A State-By-State Injury Prevention Policy Report,” is the work of the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), a health care policy organization, in partnership with the philanthropic Robert Wood Johnson…
In the case of Hamilton v. Key (Cause No. 48D01-0905-CT-749), Dewayne Hamilton (the plaintiff) was riding his motorcycle and was seriously injured after a collision with another motorist at the intersection of two roads located northeast of Pendleton, Indiana. Hamilton was driving in the left southbound lane and Jacob Key (the defendant) was driving in the right southbound lane. Key…
In Person v. Shipley (No. 20S03-1110-CT-609), the Indiana Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that an engineering expert was qualified to provide expert testimony on the cause of a lower-back injury the plaintiff suffered when his tractor trailer truck was rear-ended by the defendant’s Buick sedan. The engineer’s qualifications included an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering, a Ph.D. in…