Tennessee Injury Lawyer Blog

It is fast approaching the time of year when schools basically close down for the summer and kids of all ages get to enjoy four months of relative freedom and leisure. For this reason, this is also the time of year when families take the opportunity to vacation together while the kids are out of school. Tennessee has several tourist-friendly destinations across the state which should expect to experience increased traffic during these times. As our blog articles have discussed before, increased traffic leads to an increased rick of traffic accidents, due not only to the fact that there are more cars on the road but that many drivers are also fatigued from long trips and maybe even a bit irritable from dealing with traffic.

The summer also presents an increased risk of vehicle-pedestrian accidents due to the fact that small children are often outside playing near areas where motorists travel. Small children often behave unpredictably and may dart out in front of passing motorists without even knowing that a car is approaching. He combination of favorable summer weather and no school increases the risk of this occurrence a great deal. Drivers should thus be exceedingly cautious whenever traveling through neighborhoods, parks, tourist-friendly areas, or other highly-populated areas and keep a vigilant lookout for children or other pedestrians that may be entering the roadways. Tennessee law places the burden on drivers to keep a proper lookout and to drive as slowly as is necessary to ensure that the road is kept safe for children who might be playing or traveling nearby.

Where drivers fail to drive appropriately, the injuries and damages suffered by children or their families can be substantial. Tennessee law allows such victims to recover for their losses by filing personal injury claims against negligent drivers who cause auto accidents. Victims of such accidents should consult a skilled personal injury attorney who can help them recover for their losses.

Previously, this blog discussed the fact that the federal government was temporarily banning texting while driving for some drivers. More details have emerged this week on efforts by the government to make the ban permanent reports the Associated Press. The ban was put into place by the Department of Transportation and threatens to impose civil and criminal penalties on drivers of interstate buses and commercial trucks over 10,000 pounds that engage in the activity of texting while driving. This is part of a concentrated effort by the Department of Transportation to cut down on distracted driving, a form of negligent driving that is on the rise due to advancing technology and accounted for almost 6,000 deaths last year. Texting while driving is a particularly dangerous form of distracted driving because it involves the driver diverting his or her attention from the roadway entirely and focus it on something else even if only for a moment. In fact, research by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration shows that on average drivers divert their attention long enough to drive the length of a football field without looking at the road while they are trying to text.

Texting is rapidly becoming the dominant form of mobile communication, which unfortunately leads to a rise in texting while driving. Texting while driving is automatically negligent in Tennessee because the driver is not keeping a proper lookout if he or she is focusing on a mobile phone. This behavior unfortunately leads to accidents which can result in serious injury and even death to the victims. Due to the negligent nature of texting while driving, victims of such accidents are entitled under Tennessee law to recover for the damages and injuries they sustained as a result of the accident such as lost wages, medical expenses, and other damages. Tennesseans who have been injured or suffered loss as a result of another driver’s negligence should contact an experienced East Tennessee personal injury attorney who can help them recover for their losses.

Source: http://news.findlaw.com/ap/f/1310/03-31-2010/20100331093509_11.html

Some incidents resonate in both the personal injury and criminal law contexts, which enables both our injury blog and our criminal law blog to examine the issue from both sides of the spectrum. The situation that will be discussed here and on www.tennesseecriminallawyerblog.com today is one of those situations.

An eighteen year old New York woman has been charged with manslaughter after she drove a van into the yard of a sixty-nine year-old lady while she was mowing, running her over and killing her. The young lady claims the car was out of control at the time of the incident and that she was pressing the brake to try to stop the vehicle. The young lady was apparently high on painkillers when she ran over her victim, having been released prematurely from drug rehab recently due to insurance issues. To make matters worse, the driver did not seem to express much remorse, reportedly telling the police: "The thing that made me feel not so bad was she was old. I mean, 70 years is a long time to live."

In the State of Tennessee driving while high on painkillers like the woman did in this scenario is automatically considered negligent because it is a violation of the DUI laws. This means that the girl will likely be liable for any of the damages suffered by the woman, which would probably consist in large part of a wrongful death suit considering the circumstances surrounding the incident. As this scenario illustrates, certain situations lend themselves to legal problems on multiple fronts. When this happens, defendants will need an experienced attorney who can help them sort through all of the challenges presented to the defendants. Likewise, victims of such accidents should also consult experienced personal injury attorneys who can help them recover for what they or their family members have lost as a result of the accident.

Source: http://www.1010wins.com/Woman-Charge...as-Old/6869742

One often-overlooked aspect of vehicular negligence is the importance of always supervising your vehicle when it is running and, to a lesser extent, controlling who has access to it when it is not running. Failure to take either of these precautions can result in a substantial amount of personal injury liability being imputed to the party who was responsible for supervising the vehicle. For a good example of the types of damages that can be caused by a runaway vehicle, we can look to a situation that occurred last Friday in Connecticut in which an unmanned excavator was somehow put into gear and immediately took off to terrorize the surrounding area. The excavator was reportedly started in order to be warmed up and left unmanned by the construction crew. While the excavator was warming up, its movable windshield fell in and hit the controls, putting it into gear. The excavator reportedly leveled a shed, plowed over some trees, and flattened a camper before smashing into the garage of a nearby house, damaging the home’s foundation and cracking the walls. Thankfully, no one was injured.

Stories where vehicles cause damage due to being unmanned are fairly common on the personal injury front. More often than not, it is a vehicle such as a car or truck that is left unmanned and knocked into gear or taken for a spin by an ambitious child that makes the headlines. Whatever the type of vehicle, situations such as these can be deadly as vehicles wander aimlessly or are driven recklessly, crashing into houses and drifting into traffic. These situations present the risks of large monetary damages and serious bodily injury to victims. Tennessee imposes a duty on its drivers to take reasonable care that this does not happen to their vehicles. Failure to take such care is actionable negligence.

Situations like this cannot always be prevented even by the use of reasonable care, but many of them can. Tennesseans who have been injured as the result of a situation like this or a similar occurrence should consult with an experienced personal injury attorney who can assist that person in recovering for his or her injuries and damages.

Source: http://news.findlaw.com/ap/other/features/1120/04-16-2010/20100416053510_02.html

Authorities say five people are dead after a multiple-car accident occurred on the freeway about five miles south of Santa Clarita, California on Monday. Details of the crash are reportedly still unknown, but at the time of the crash, the freeway was slick with rain. When police responded to the crash, they noticed an overturned pickup truck, and firefighters reportedly worked for several hours to free victims of the crash who were still trapped inside as many as four vehicles.

Since rain is the most commonly experienced adverse-weather condition of all, the danger it poses to drivers, especially on the highways and freeways, does not receive enough attention. Rain can cause a number of conditions, such as slick roads and hydroplaning, that make driving treacherous at times. In the context of driving on a freeway, sudden stops and maneuvers are sometimes necessary in order to avoid collisions, which on busy freeways can collect a number of vehicles in a hurry.

Tennessee law imposes a duty on drivers to recognize the dangerous conditions created by rain and to drive accordingly. This will often include slowing down, sometimes substantially, in order to be able to react to changing road conditions appropriately. Also, driving rain storms or flooding conditions may dictate that a driver stops the car completely in a safe area.

Unfortunately, many drivers take for granted that rainy conditions do not pose a threat to them or their vehicle and do not adjust their driving habits. Often, this carelessness leads to negligent driving which results in accidents such as the one described above. Tennesseans who have been injured as a result of someone failing to drive carefully in adverse weather conditions, or driving negligently in any other manner, should consult an experienced personal injury attorney who can assist them in getting the compensation for their injuries that they deserve.

Source: http://news.findlaw.com/ap/other/1110/04-12-2010/20100412042008_21.html

Sometimes the line between negligent driving and safe driving is hard to define. Situations like how fast one can drive on a curvy, wet, or icy road often present tough judgment calls that must be made by the driver. Sometimes, though, negligent driving is incredibly easy to spot and obvious from the outset. Any situation that can be described in a newspaper article with the phrase “[t]he officer also noticed that the driver's head could not be seen above the steering column, so he stopped the truck […]” is very likely, if not always, a situation where someone is driving negligently.

It goes without saying that if a driver’s head is not visible from looking at the vehicle, for whatever reason, that person cannot see the road well enough to drive safely. In this situation, the driver’s head was not visible because the driver was a twelve year-old boy who had taken his mom’s truck for a spin. He had apparently been driving for a couple of hours before he was spotted by law enforcement officials. The boy also told police that he had driven to a nearby city to pick up his sister, took her to get a candy bar, and then took her back home. Miraculously, he was able to do all of this without wrecking the vehicle and injuring himself, his passenger, or anyone else.

This situation shows how a person could be held liable for an auto accident in a personal injury suit without ever leaving the house. The mother or other party that is responsible for supervising the boy would be on the hook for the damages or injuries suffered by any parties involved had the unsupervised boy caused an accident while driving the vehicle. Situations such as this, where parents either fail to properly supervise children or allow their children to drive before they are properly licensed or have a permit, occur much more frequently than many would like to admit. Unfortunately, these situations often lead to accidents. Tennesseans who are injured as a result of such negligence should consult a skilled personal injury attorney who can help them recover for their losses.

Source: http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=129601&catid=8

Miraculously, six people were able to survive an ATV crash that caused them to plummet over seven-hundred feet down a cliff in a Massachusetts state park. All six riders, ages twenty-seven through twenty-nine, were rescued thanks to a rescue effort consisting of more than fifty people working for over four hours using ropes to scale down the cliff and pull the victims back up. The cause of the crash is still reportedly unclear, but ATV riding is prohibited in the park.

As spring approaches and favorable weather arrives, any Tennesseans will take to their ATV’s to enjoy the outdoors, especially in areas like East Tennessee, where the terrain is varied and ATV riding is extremely popular. Although ATV-riding can be a lot of fun, operators of such vehicles should take care not to avoid one of the several methods of negligent driving that often occurs on such vehicles and can lead to injuries. For example, many ATV riders allow passengers to ride with them despite warnings on the vehicle itself to the contrary. Doing so could result in personal injury liability for the driver should the passenger be injured as a result of crashing the ATV, especially if the passenger was a minor or other party who was not aware of the risk they are assuming by riding as a passenger. Also, many ATV riders do what the parties in the above scenario did by riding where riding is prohibited or driving unsafely in an area with which they are not familiar. If riding is prohibited in an area, it very well may be because the area is too dangerous for riding because the terrain may be dangerous (e.g., there may be a 700-foot cliff). Choosing to ride in this area can be dangerous and in some situations may give rise to personal injury liability if one rider operates his or her ATV negiligently given the circumstances and injures another rider.

ATV-riding is an extremely popular in Tennessee, and is a great way to enjoy the outdoors when done safely. Negligent operation of an ATV often leads to injuries and can lead to a personal injury lawsuit if riders are injured by the negligence of other riders. Tennesseans who have been injured as a result of ATV negligence should contact an experienced personal injury attorney today.

Source: http://news.findlaw.com/ap/other/1110/04-05-2010/20100405102009_27.html

Any parent will tell you that it’s nearly impossible to keep an eye on your child at all times. Unfortunately, diverting your attention from a child for just a few minutes can lead to the child or others being placed in a dangerous situation. Such situations can also give rise to personal injury liability on behalf of the parents of the child.

A perfect illustration of this principle comes from Bethel, Ohio, where an eight-year old boy decided to do his parents a favor and take their minivan on a quick jaunt down to the gas station to fill it up with gas. The boy reportedly found the car keys in his mother’s purse and tried to drive it to the gas station. Shortly after backing out of the driveway, the boy lost control of the car and crashed into a telephone pole. Luckily, he was not injured.

Situations like this present themselves frequently in the personal injury context. Whether it is a parent or guardian allowing an adolescent to serve as a designated driver or a child simply sneaking out of the house in order to take the family minivan on a joyride, the adult who is responsible for watching over the child can find himself defending a lawsuit if the child under his care causes an accident that injures or even kills another driver or damages someone’s property. Persons who are not licensed, including children who are too young to obtain a license, are presumed to be unfit to operate a motor vehicle except in special circumstances (such as having a license permit). Allowing such a person to operate a motor vehicle or failing to prevent them from doing so can lead to a personal injury suit if that person drives unsafely and causes harm to another person. Victims of such negligent actions should seek an experienced East Tennessee personal injury attorney who can assist them in recovering for their losses.

Source: http://news.findlaw.com/ap/other/features/1120/04-05-2010/20100405070509_30.html

A seventy-three year old man is charged with driving under the influence after he crashed his Ford Explorer through the front of a Lake City, Washington drive-in recently. The man got out of the car after the incident and stated that he accidentally pressed the accelerator instead of the brake which led to the crash. The drive-in will reportedly be closed for a week or more, due to damage sustained by the front of the restaurant, the tile wall, and the metal counter. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured. However, there exist in this scenario many possible sources of liability for the man should he be found to have been under the influence at the time or otherwise driving negligently.

First, the man will be held responsible for the damage sustained by the restaurant. This includes not only liability for the cost of the repairs, but also potential liability for lost profits suffered by the restaurant during the time it has to close to make those repairs. He will also be held liable for any injuries caused to any employees of the restaurant as a result of the crash, if any were caused. It is also worth noting that there were customers in or around the drive-in who may have been injured. For example, one customer was reportedly standing in line when he noticed the SUV heading straight for him, forcing him to dive out of the way and injure his knee. He wasn’t badly injured and was treated at the scene. Had he been badly injured and required further treatment, it is likely the man would have been held responsible for those injuries as well.

Situations such as this one present a lot of opportunities for persons and property to sustain injuries or damage. Victims of negligent driving should contact an experienced East Tennessee personal injury attorney who can help them recover for their losses. Likewise, those who find themselves liable in such situations should seek representation in order to avoid paying more than their fair share of damages.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/417609_dicks31.html