Blog

 Posted on June 14, 2023 in Case Matters

In personal injury cases, it is unusual that a lawsuit turns solely on a judge deciding a motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment.  It happens, but is unusual. More often, the Court’s failure to decide a procedural motion like Preliminary Objections, just slows things down a little.  However, periodically, Judges delay acting on critical motions that affect how the case will turn out. I know that for my non-personal injury lawyer litigators, most of their cases turn on what we call dispositive motions. These can be motions to dismiss at the beginning of the case or motions for summary judgment etc.

Anyway, so the problem posed above is one that we deal with from time to time. What do you as a lawyer do when you would like a judge to act on a dispositive motion but they are taking their time doing so? Well, first, Judges are busy just like the rest of us are and some cases may be a priority over others. Also, when Judges are on trial, those cases will take up a lot of hours in the work day. There is no benefit to the Judge deciding something faster or slower.  It has no bearing on them or their job as far as I can tell.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 14, 2023 in Auto Accidents

image courtesy of Playbill.com 2023

The actor Treat Williams died yesterday in a motorcycle crash that was probably not his fault. Treat was a staple of my youth and generally seemed like a decent guy living his life in Vermont. He was killed when a driver made a left turn across Williams’ lane of travel and Williams slammed into the car on his motorcycle.

These left turn cases are often devastating crashes because of the speed involved and impact of one car going fast and another nearly stopped.  These are often jaws of life situations that neither driver really saw coming.

The problem with motorcycle crashes is that there is little margin for error and no protection for the rider. They are often messy and upsetting cases. I have handled injures where people have lost fingers, legs, been badly burned by the road, and died after hitting things.

The quality of driving on the roads post-pandemic is pretty poor right now by all accounts. I see people making right turns into oncoming traffic and misjudging the speed of oncoming traffic. I see uber eats or other delivery drivers simply stopping on busy suburban roads and turning their flashers on to make a delivery, which is absurd and totally unexpected by other drivers doing 40mph. And, of course, there is always the person who hates cyclists. A special thanks to the sedan that kept honking at me as I was riding through Plymouth Meeting because he was upset that I was waiting for the red light and he wanted to turn right on red through me, but could not get past me because of traffic to his left. So, he had to wait. People are crazy on the roads.  Be careful out there!

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 14, 2023 in In the News

About two weeks ago, I headed down the sourdough rabbit hole. Watching a bunch of youtube videos, I made my own starter that took ten days and two tries. Then, I went through the two day process of proofing and finally baking a sourdough bread. It came out pretty well. It was missing some of the nice open crumb you would get from a pro, but it was a fun first try.  And, props to the professional bakers of the world. This ain’t easy.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 08, 2023 in Case Matters

Motions in Limine are a necessary evil to me. For the non-litigators reading this, Motions in limine are requests to the Court on the eve of trial to admit or exclude certain evidence. You will never see these on TV because they are basically just part of getting a case ready for the jury to hear it and are largely case-informed judgment calls by the Judge and the lawyers. The important thing about them is that they begin to narrow down the issues that are going to be heard at the trial. As someone representing the injured person, I don’t want a jury hearing that my client had a car accident eleven years ago even if it is totally unrelated. If I don’t bring it up, then the defense lawyer might suggest to the jury that the person sues a lot, or was injured previously, or is looking for any possible pay day. If I make the motion, most likely the Court will grant it and the defense lawyer when pressed will agree that they had no intention of bringing it up anyway. So, you have to make the motion. Just to be safe.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 08, 2023 in Case Matters

This nice headline was coined by the New York Post and Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank. Basically, a lot of very large retailers have learned the hard lesson that not everyone thinks like you do.

This is a hard concept to get across to people. If you were a republican legislator in Indiana and you think that everyone in your state will support your anti-abortion views when you took away their right to choose, you were in for a bit of a shock. Same for Bud Light’s comical self-own. Sales are down 25%? Because not everyone thinks like their marketing team.

Not everyone thinks like you do or read the room is a notion that lawyers have to convey to clients all the time. People think that everyone lives like they do because often people similar to themselves are who they spend time with. Here is an example, a client’s story began that she was coming back from her house in Stone Harbor, down the shore and was in a bad car accident. This was a house that she owned, that was easily googled, and well over a million dollars.  After the deposition, the defense lawyer’s memory of the case consisted of “beach house, Stone Harbor.”  The client did not think that her case was worth less because of her apparent wealth. The client was used to getting her way on most things involving money and negotiation, but it took a lot of work for the client to accept that jurors were going to be less willing to award her substantial money if she plainly did not need the money. Eventually, a mediator settled the case with both sides, but it took the mediator a bit of work to explain that the beach house was coming into evidence.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 31, 2023 in Case Matters

Why must it always be the Personal Injury Lawyers making headlines? In another new low, in Federal Court no less, it emerged that New York Attorney Steven A Schwartz, used ChatGPT to look for similar previous cases in a personal injury suit against Avianca, Inc. Airlines.  See the attached Affidavit from that case. It appears that none of the cases cited by Chat GPT were actual cases.  Rather, they were just plain old made up.

For my non-lawyer readers, this falls into the category of bad or ethical violation. How this will turn out for Mr. Schwartz remains to be seen. He does state that he has been an attorney for 30 years without a blemish on his record, so perhaps he will catch a break here. Nevertheless, lying to the Court or submitting plainly deceptive pleadings in Federal Court is like smuggling hashish into Burma or other locales where the penalty may be rather harsh. Doing so in State Court is similarly frowned upon, but may not bring the same level of outrage from the bench.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 31, 2023 in Case Matters

Every state requires a Certificate of Merit for a medical malpractice case. The Certificate establishes that you had the records reviewed by a qualified expert and that the case has merit. What if the basis for your claim is that a doctor was supposed to perform a consultation in a hospital and failed to do so leading to paralysis in your client. Do you still have to file the Certificate of Merit? The safe thing to do is to pay the expert and get the Certificate of Merit to avoid headaches and cover your tail. But, if you wanted to fight this issue out, why do you need an expert? An expert is supposed to help jurors understand something beyond lay people’s comprehension. In this situation, a doctor requested help from a surgeon. The surgeon failed to follow up and the patient was paralyzed. Is that beyond the jury’s comprehension? Well, certainly the being asked to do something and failing to do it is not beyond comprehension. But, the resulting injury is surely in need of some expert testimony. But, assuming you get that testimony elsewhere, do you need a certificate of merit to assert that a doctor failing to perform a consult is malpractice? I think one should not be needed.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 17, 2023 in Best of

That’s all folks or a greased pig? Stay tuned…

The great state of California in its infinite wisdom passed a law that no pork could be sold in California unless the pigs were treated humanely and housed in cages that allowed them to turn around and have a little room to do pig things. California consumes 13% of the nation’s pork but produces nearly none of it. So, California was essentially concocting a requirement that only affected out of state pork producers. The unhappy pig overlords did not want to spend their pig profits to give pigs more space. This case then ended up in the US Supreme Court where it led to a fractured verdict.

The issue here for the non-regular Supreme Court practitioner is whether one state can determine how residents of another state act if the foreign state’s actions affect the legislating state. The Court ruled that California absolutely has every right to legislate what sort of pork is sold in its state. Now, it seems like pigs will be much happier in Iowa, until they are slaughtered….

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 17, 2023 in Case Matters

Nice day for a dead wedding…

I have an interesting situation developing where a person is claiming that they are entitled to collect from a wrongful death lawsuit I am pursuing because they are the surviving spouse of the deceased. But the claimant and decedent were never legally married. So, they are claiming a common law marriage, which while outlawed by the Courts post 2000 or so, can still be claimed for marriages before that date. Pennsylvania courts look unfavorably on common law marriages because they are ripe for fraud and abuse, especially where there is no indicia that the couple were actually married or acting as a married couple. It is possible then that my case may end up being the death knell of the common law marriage rule if the case gets that far. I think that the PA Courts are looking for a case to get rid of common law marriage once and for all.

In my current case with one of the two married people deceased, it will be very challenging for the claimant to prove the common law marriage because of Pennsylvania’s Dead Man’s Rule. The dead man’s rule in Pennsylvania prevents a person who is engaged in a dispute with a deceased person’s estate from testifying in any manner regarding what the deceased person said while alive.
The Rule, 42 Pa. C.S. § 5930, states in pertinent part: no person whose interest shall be adverse to the right of such deceased … party, shall be a competent witness to any matter occurring before the death of said party.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 17, 2023 in Uncategorized

Hello, I’m Andrew Neuwirth. Today’s topic is accidents – more specifically, slip and fall incidents, and vehicular accidents in Royal Farms parking lots. This episode focuses entirely on Royal Farms. For those who may not know, Royal Farms is a prevalent convenience store chain in our Philadelphia region, offering daily essentials like coffee and gasoline.

However, any commercial operation is not without its risks. Accidents, including ones that result in personal injury, can and do happen. This is particularly true in the congested and often chaotic parking lots, where mishaps are not rare. I’ve come across individuals who have sustained severe injuries due to falls or being hit by cars in Royal Farms parking lots. It’s important to remember that Royal Farms, like any other commercial property owner, is liable for negligence.

Would I hesitate to sue Royal Farms? Not at all. Is there a chance that juries might have a bias in favor of Royal Farms? That’s uncertain.

Continue Reading ››