I like the business, but I would like it even more if drivers were extra cautious when it snows and those accidents didn’t occur. When you see a state, city or county truck sanding the roads, take into account that it is heavily loaded in icy conditions, or it wouldn’t be there loaded with sand. Remember that four wheel drive vehicles do better going up hills, but they will slide just like a two wheel vehicle. When it snows here the highway departments have very little equipment to deal with the road conditions and the snow typically turns into ice, often creating worse driving conditions than routinely encountered in the northern states. Finally, take note that Alabama doesn’t have a vehicle inspection law and, unfortunately, many drivers have tires with little tread — an accident waiting to happen on wet or icy roads.

Stay at home if you can. If you can’t, slow down, slow down, slow down! Getting there a few minutes later is far preferable to getting their hours, days or weeks late due to an accident — or not getting there at all.

Enjoy the snow, and BE CAREFUL!

Lloyd Gathings

“A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered four wrongful death lawsuits–including one from Humboldt County–involving Toyota vehicles consolidated.

Plaintiffs allege that Toyota failed to properly recall the steering relay rods in the Toyota pickups and SUVs. To date, four lawsuits have arisen out of accidents where plaintiffs allege the steering relay rod snapped causing the fatalities.

In addition to the one in Humboldt, which caused the death of an infant from Hoopa, accidents occurred in Idaho, Kentucky and Georgia. All four of the lawsuits are related to a safety recall Toyota issued in Japan but not the United States in 2004.”

If the allegations of these plaintiffs are proved, Toyota will be right there with the worst examples of car manufacturers placing dollars over human life. This has occurred all too often in past years and apparently continues to occur despite civil juries responding with punitive damages.

Lloyd W. Gathings

Television advertising is an ethical means for communicating to prospective clients the availability of good lawyers to handle their legal problems. Does television advertising insure that the lawyer is qualified in a particular area? No. You should still ask questions when you meet with the lawyer concerning his or her expertise and their experience with cases like yours. You will find that many of the lawyers who are advertising are among the very best in their field, while others may fall short of your expectations. Nevertheless, television advertising can serve as a valuable tool in helping you find a qualified lawyer to handle your legal needs.

Lloyd W. Gathings

In 2001, 669 children ages 14 and under died in pedestrian-related injuries. Surveys have shown that cross-walks near elementary and middle schools are in poor condition, that drivers do not stop at crosswalks, that drivers make illegal turns at crosswalks, that drivers exceed the posted speed, and that the posted speeds are too high. A large percentage of drivers do not stop at stop signs and some do not even slow down.

Riding bicycles to school also presents many hazards. In 2002, almost 300,000 children age 14 and under were treated in hospital emergency rooms for bicycle related injuries.

For those children riding buses to and from school, bus crashes have caused student deaths, nearly 50% of whom were between 5 and 7 years old. Injuries and deaths have been caused by the bus running over children in the blind spot in front of the bus. Childrens’ behavior at bus stops has resulted in additional injuries.

If you are the parent of a school age child, please talk to your child about safety. Talk to them about the rules of the road if they are walking, riding a bicycle, or driving to school. Talk to them about anticipating improper driving by other motorists. If they are riding a bus, talk to them about the blind spot in front of the bus, which generally extends about 10 feet in front of the bus. Talk to them about how to act at the bus stop and on the bus. You can’t stay with your children all day or put your children in a bubble to protect them, but talking about these things can help.

Lloyd W. Gathings

Unfortunately, private investors in these securities will probably still have to file their own legal actions to get full compensation for their losses. This is the latest example of a securities dealer misleading its customers who placed their trust in them, only to betray this trust to pad the firm’s bottom line. Hopefully the courts in Atlanta and in Alabama will deal swiftly and sternly with such conduct. Our firm has represented too many people in the past who have been similarly duped by the people who they were paying to give them good, honest advice.

Lloyd Gathings

A study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2002 - 2004 found Birmingham to be 1 of 39 areas designated by the EPA as exceeding the existing National Air Quality Standards for PM 2.5. PM 2.5 are particles in the air that are 1/28th the diameter of human hair, or 1/45th the diameter of a grain of fine beach sand. Although they cannot be seen with the naked eye, they can cause serious health consequences.

A 2005 report by the American Lung Association found that Birmingham ranked as the 10th most polluted by short-term particle pollution and tied for 15th most polluted year-round particle pollution. Jefferson County ranked 13th on the list for short-term particle pollution and tied for 19th for year-round particle pollution.

Just this past year Birmingham was named as the 5th ranked city in the United States for the most ozone pollution.

A study published by the Jefferson County Health Department in March 2009 showed that Jefferson County is still not within the National Air Quality Standards, despite the closing of several industries which had contributed to earlier results.

Our firm, along with several other law firms, represent many residents of the Wylam community against a number of companies in the area in a pollution / toxic substance damage case. The suit requests compensatory and punitive damages for property damage, trespass, nuisance (loss of enjoyment of the property) and will eventually seek damages for adverse health effects to some residents. Hopefully, through the efforts of the Jefferson County Health Department, the EPA and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, future generations in the Wylam community will not suffer the adverse effects of pollution as have their parents and grandparents. While we want good, quality jobs for our citizens, we don’t want them at the expense of the healthy living of our citizens.

Lloyd Gathings

Other states have comparative negligence. If the jury finds that the plaintiff and the defendant were both negligent, the jury assigns a percentage to the plaintiff and a percentage to the defendant, and the damage verdict is reduced by the percentage assigned to the plaintiff. For example, the jury may find that the plaintiff’s negligence was 25% of the cause of the accident and that total damages are $1,000,000. The $1,000,000 verdict would be reduced by 25% so that the defendant paid the plaintiff $750,000. The result is much fairer than applying Alabama contributory negligence law and returning a verdict in favor of the defendant.

Alabama should change its contributory negligence law and adopt comparative negligence. This would prevent jurors from having to apply contributory negligence to reach an unfair result or from having to ignore the law to reach a fairer result.

Lloyd Gathings

Compensatory damages that cannot be recovered in an Alabama death case include loss of the love and affection of a family member, loss of the deceased person’s earnings, loss of his or her services, etc. Not only can you not recover these damages, you cannot even talk to the jury about the losses that come when a close family member, often the breadwinner, is killed. A plaintiff’s lawyer in a death case in Alabama can really say very little about the deceased family member.

The only damages that can be recovered in a death case in Alabama are punitive damages. Although the IRS has recognized that the damages really serve compensatory purposes and do not tax them as punitive damages, I still cannot tell the jury they are to be awarded for any reason other than punishment. That often leads to a very awkward situation when the decedent’s family is looking for compensation and is really not trying to punish the defendant.

The availability of punitive damages is appropriate and very important in the situation where a pharmaceutical company has placed a drug on the market without reasonable testing or has failed to recall the drug when reports of injuries and deaths from the drug start coming in. Similarly, when a drugged or intoxicated truck driver crosses the median and plows into a family on vacation, punitive damages are more than appropriate. But in many other types of death cases, it would help if we could at least tell the jury that the punitive damages do have a compensatory aspect to them — that they aren’t just to punish.

Lloyd Gathings

During a recession such as we are in now, some insurance company profits may be lower because the company may not be getting as great a return on the premiums it invests in things such as shopping centers and other businesses. This situation gives insurance companies an incentive to deny claims they should have paid, or to unduly delay paying claims. At least one consumer organization suggests that this is causing an increase in insurance bad faith.

Our firm sees more bad faith cases involving life insurance and disability insurance than any other types. An example is the failure of a disability insurance company to pay a claim when two of the plaintiff’s treating physicians reported that she was totally disabled. The insurance company denied the claim on the basis of sending the plaintiff’s medical records to a physician they regularly hire to look at records and state that the claimant is not totally disabled. The doctor they hired had never seen or treated the plaintiff.

An example of bad faith with regard to a life insurance claim we handled involved the denial of death benefits to a widow on her husband’s life insurance policy. The company claimed the policy was not in effect at the time of her husband’s death, although they paid the premiums up to the time of his death and even after, and all of the premiums were accepted either by the insurance company or its agent.

People pay their hard earned money to insurance companies so that when they suffer a loss within the policy they can get paid. Unfortunately, some insurance companies and adjusters just don’t want to honor their commitments. Thankfully we have trial by jury and citizens who will force them to honor those commitments.

Lloyd Gathings

Unfortunately, our oldest daughter, Honora, will not be able to come for the 4th. She is a news reporter for ABC 33/40 and the news business is 24/7, 365 days a year. Tune in and watch her on the 10:00 news tonight and the afternoon news all weekend. While I will miss her on the 4th, her mother and I are both proud of her reporting for 33/40. She not only works with a lot of really talented news people there, those folks over there are also really good people. So Honora, while I can’t give you a shout out on TV like you did to me on Father’s Day, have a great 4th and I’ll bring you some barbecue from the pit.

Our youngest daughter, Margot, will be at the lake with us. I think I will get her to teach me how to do 360’s and flips on the wake board. On the other hand, she probably would refuse to teach me. She’s in her fourth year of medical school and every time she does a clinical rotation in a specialty, she seems to come up with more restrictions on my diet or my activities. (The only rotation she’s done that I escaped a lecture was probably ob/gyn. It’s just kind of hard to apply that one to me.) Obviously, we are also very proud of Margot, so forgive me for doting here on both girls.

Time to go. Have a very safe and happy 4th of July!

Lloyd Gathings