Pacific Northwest Injury Law Advocate - News & Updates on Personal Injury Law with a Focus on the Northwest & Seattle-Tacoma Metro Area

We pay a lot of taxes.  Our Government gets to use those taxes to supposedly help take care of us.  It is supposed to build and maintain safe roads for us.  Monitor and take care of our state's abused children.  Make sure that criminals on parol are actually being watched over so they don't kill us in our sleep.

But our government doesn't always do a good job.  We find this out through tragic headlines.  We find it out when people sue to hold the Government accountable.  To prevent bad practices from continuing. 

Our State Attorney General wants to limit lawsuits against the Government and its insurance companies.  It wants to create a special class that is above the law.  And it wants to be the only one in that class.

All the rest of us are responsible if we mess up.  But the Government won't be if new laws are passed.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013787841_apwastatejudgments1stldwritethru.html

This may save money in the short run.  But what about the long haul.  If we take away government checks and balances, then what kind of a monster will we be creating.  What incentive will the government have to get things right - if they are above the law.

By Karen Koehler

The grandfather bought a used car from a man who was happy to be rid of it.  The grandfather started driving it home, but the old jalopy began to lose power when he was on the freeway.  He thought he could make it to the next exit, but the car was dying.  Fortunately, there was space to pull it over just before it gave its last gasp. 

When two roads merge or split, they create a triangular piece of land known as a “gore point.” The triangles are then marked off with stripes or chevrons (v-shaped patterns). In most states including Washington, it is unlawful for you to leave your lane prematurely and drive through a gore point. This is commonly seen during rush hour traffic, when impatient drivers cut across the white lines to enter the new stretch of freeway without having to continue to wait in line for traffic to merge.  The gore points are considered non-travelled portions of the roadway.  They are often called safety zones.

The grandfather sat in his car in the gore point and wondered what to do. The car had no power at all.  Nothing worked, not even the emergency flashers. He decided to just sit tight and wait for help.

In a nearby building, a detective had just completed filling out paperwork and was happy to head home for the day.  He got into his unmarked squad car, went down the road and entered the onramp to I-5.  As he accelerated he began to merge left onto the freeway.  But he cut right through the middle of the gore point. The detective didn’t see the grandfather sitting in the dark dead car until he was right upon it. His car slammed into it at tremendous force, crumpling it like a stepped on soda can. Though the grandfather survived the impact, he never recovered and passed away in the hospital.

SKWC represented the grandfather’s children in a wrongful death lawsuit against the police department. The case settled because the detective’s actions clearly violated state law. But the children weren’t the only ones who suffered from this collision. The detective had to take a leave of absence due to the trauma of unintentionally taking the grandfather’s life.

Now that you know what a gore point is, please don’t ever drive through one.

By Karen Koehler

In the evening of October 5, 2006, you have a few drinks and smoke a bowl of marijuana.   The next morning you get up early for your new job driving a truck for a window company.  What better way for you to start your day, than to smoke another bowl as you are walking out the door.  In fact, you like this routine so much that you start off every morning this way.

You get to work, get in your truck and head out.  In the middle of making deliveries, you decide to turn around.  You are on highway 99 and make a left turn intending to go around the block.  All of a sudden, your truck feels like it’s been struck by a bomb.  It lurches forward.  And you sit in your seat thinking.  Uh Oh.

You are scared to get out of your truck.  You have a pretty good idea what you’re going to see when you do.  You sit in your seat and get up the nerve to call your boss.  By now you can see other people rushing around and assume someone else has called 911.   Time seems to take forever and you don’t know how long you sit there.   Eventually you get out of your truck, walk around the right front end and stand there, looking down the length of it.  You can see the people huddling around something that looks like the back of a car.  The front of it is under the truck. 

You don’t walk up to see if you can help.  You don’t want to see whatever is in that wrecked red pile of shredded metal.  You stay right where you are until you can hear the sirens.  You back away.  Away from the dread of knowing that there is someone half under your truck.  You can barely see his outline.  And that’s the last time you ever see Marc Maislen.

Years pass, and it is April 2010 and you are in court.  Mr. Maislen has sued you.  The company’s insurance company does not offer enough to settle the case.  You are facing a full jury trial.  The insurance company at first tried to claim that Mr. Maislen was at fault.  For years, they denied that you were responsible.  Even though you gave the police your pot and pipe that were in your coat pocket.  Even though you admitted that you were high.  Even though you were convicted of a crime and went to jail.   The insurance company tried to blame him.  Until a few months before trial.  They decided they better admit fault.  They told the judge they would agree you caused the wreck.  But they also wanted to keep the jury from ever knowing that you were high.    

Juries are almost never told when a defendant is drunk or high so long as they admit fault.  But this case is different.  Mr. Maislen has post traumatic stress disorder.  Knowing that you were high when you almost killed him, has made him more fearful of driving.  It caused him panic attacks.  Judge Gonzales rules the jury needs to know the reasons why Mr. Maislen claims an injury, since your insurance company is fighting this.  And so on the first day of trial, the jury is told of your behavior.

Your insurance company is very upset.  They cannot believe the jury is being told you were high.  This almost never happens.   Instead of being able to have the jury look suspiciously at Mr. Maislen for bringing a lawsuit.  They are looking at you. 

Over the next several weeks, Mr. Maislen’s attorneys Karen Koehler and Mimy Bailey tell the jury the story of Mr. Maislen’s life.  All the bones and joints that were broken, the nerves that were blown away, the traumtic brain injury, and the emotional injuries.  Mr. Maislen was beloved by many.  Over thirty witnesses testify for him.  The insurance company hires experts to minimize Mr. Maislen’s claims.  But at the end of the day, the jury has the final say.  And they say that Mr. Maislen deserves a verdict for full justice.

One of my pet peeves is the attitude of people about personal injury lawsuits.  So many are critical of such suits because of the propaganda machine of the insurance industry and the Chambers of Commerce that have filled their heads with so many lies.  But many don’t seem to understand the consequences of denying people a recovery for their injuries caused by the negligent conduct of others.

In many instances where people have suffered severe injuries as a result of the negligence of others, their only hope of a private method of compensation is a lawsuit. They have staggering medical bills; they cannot work because of their injuries.   If they are denied a recovery, their only recourse is to have the government pay the bills.  So this propaganda scheme is really one of transferring the cost of injuries from negligent conduct from the insurance companies who were paid a premium to cover these risks, and instead transfer the cost to the taxpayer.  Taxpayers should be offended!

So the next time you hear an offensive story about a personal injury lawsuit, look at the source of the story and determine the true facts.  It is probably an insurance company that is trying to get the taxpayers to pay for the bill so that they can keep the insurance premium.

These restaurants that cater to children with play areas and equipment need to make them safe.  They encourage these kids to play and climb, but then sometimes leave them exposed.

We had a case against Carl’s Jr. Restaurants.  Our 4 year old client was on the play equipment.  Mom was sitting nearby.  There was a gap between the wall and the netting that allowed entry behind the equipment. Our inquisitive youngster, like most kids, was able to find this gap and used it to gain entry to the area behind the equipment.   The youngster then had crawled up the back of one the tubes, lost his grip and fell about 10 feet to the solid floor below.  Unlike the floor that is padded inside the equipment, in this area the floor was solid concrete.  The boy suffered a significant traumatic brain injury that will impact the rest of his life.

As unbelievable as it seems, store personnel had seem other kids gain access to the back of the equipment on prior occasions, but the manager was concerned about overhead, and refused to have the gap plugged of otherwise covered.

Experts were quick to criticize this design that would leave such a gap.  These kids are encouraged to be climbing all over this enticing equipment; these restaurants need to make sure they are safe.

We secured a $2 million settlement for this youngster, and have the money tucked away in a structure to assist him for life.  Too bad they didn’t fix this before he had his fall.

Why would an employer have laborers work on a cliff without any fall protection safety? Two years ago, Mr. Perez was tightening barbed wire to a fence post when he fell backwards off a cliff in Eastern Washington. His horrified co-worker watched him land head first, then bounce straight back before “continuing to fall like “a fan” head over heels down a canyon wall. Mr. Perez, father of young children, became an instant quadriplegic.

SKWC was contacted by attorney Tim Gresback of Moscow Idaho. Mr. Gresback was the president of the Idaho Trial Lawyers Association and had worked with Karen Koehler before. For the next year and a half we tried to figure out why the companies doing the work created such a dangerous situation.

Under Washington law, there is a principle known as “Stute”. Stute requires that a general contractor maintain a safe work site. Here, the general contractor had no idea how to work on a cliff so it hired a subcontractor. But it took no steps to see if the subcontractor was keeping employees safe. The State of Washington did an investigation that ruled against the general contractor and issued a small fine. But what about Mr. Perez.

Mr. Perez had the right to sue the general contractor. Even though this was a work injury, Mr. Perez’s employer was the subcontractor. Because there is worker’s compensation in Washington, an injured worker cannot sue their employer. But they can sue if someone other than their employer caused their injury. The state of Washington encourages lawsuits against others who injure workers. When lawsuits are successful, the state (us the tax payers) can be paid back the medical expense and lost wage payments of the worker. In a case like Mr. Perez, those payments are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

SKWC through Karen Koehler, Paul Stritmatter and Kevin Coluccio brought a lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Perez and his three dependent children in Eastern District Federal Court, Spokane. For the next year and a half we battled with the general contractor. We even went with all five of our experts to the cliff, though as you can see from the picture, we had proper safety gear. Exactly two years after Mr. Perez’s tragic injury, the case settled for $7 Million which was the policy limits available.

Both the general and subcontractor are still in business and working together. But there is now a difference. Now, their workers attend regular safety meetings, minutes are kept, fall protection gear is provided, and there is a fall protection system in place