Northern Virginia Personal Injury Lawyer - All Topics - Latest Comments

A comment on Hulk Hogan Sues His Lawyers: What consumers need to know about car insurance

Cary White — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:27:21 GMT

Excellent points all to which I would like to add:

- the value of an independent broker - if Terry Bollea's (aka "Hulk Hogan") purchased his insurance from Progressive, it is quite possible that he did so directly without an agent or broker - what recourse would he have against Progressive for underinsurance?

- personal umbrella insurance is very inexpensive and should be considered by any person worth more than $250,000 or earning more than $250,000 annually.

- not all personal umbrella policies are the same, only a select few include coverage for Uninsured Motorists/Underinsured Motorists. All families should consider carrying UM/UIM coverage equal to their Auto/Umbrella limits, or as high as possible - if liability insurance is essential to protect yourself from lawsuits from third parties, it stands to reason that you need to protect yourself from injuries caused by third parties with no insurance or insufficient insurance.

- when was the last time your carefully reviewed your own coverage? - As insurance brokers specializing in providing insurance coverage for lawyers and law firms, many of whom represent victims of automobile accidents, it blows my mind how many fail to procure sufficient insurance to protect their own family in the event of a catastrophic accident.

A comment on Hulk Hogan Sues His Lawyers: What consumers need to know about car insurance

Mike Bryant — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:10:25 GMT

I hadn't heard about this, but amazing that the firm would just miss that little point. It's amazing that a person like Hogan would have so little coverage. Seems with the types of cars they drove on Hogan Knows Best, they got very poor advice from their agent also.

A comment on The Reality of the High Cost of Defensive Medicine

John Hopkins — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:57:23 GMT

It is certainly healthy to identify examples of problems and to have the opinion that our "med mal" tort system is not working, but that does not provide any solutions. It would be helpful if these opinions were based on real objective statistics. No fairly done study exists that illustrates medical malpractice as a problem for the tort system. It is an insurance regulation problem more than it is anything else. Our legislators simply refuse to address it as a regulation problem.

The approach of revising the tort system will do nothing but result in injured victims without legal recourse and insurance companies with easy profits. All you have to do in order to see the result of misguided tort reform is to look at Florida. Patients are injured and have minimal recourse in the courts. The result is that attorneys can not fund lawsuits requiring thousands and often hundreds of thousands in costs. Attorneys can not carry these costs for 2, 3, or 5 years until they can get a case to trial or get it settled.

I tell my tort reform friends that I am happy to have tort reform when they figure out how to justly treat an injured victim's claims. Arbitration is a system already proven to be a failure and damage caps simply act to bar the courthouse doors to these injured people.

Tort reform proponents are typically people who have not suffered tragedy at the hands of others and have led a pretty fortunate life; as I have been blessed to have had. Those that have suffered injuries have been forced to appreciate the compassion and justice that injured victims deserve.

A comment on The Reality of the High Cost of Defensive Medicine

Jeremy Engdahl-Johnson — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:45:13 GMT

The current medical malpractice(medmal) system is woefully inefficient, with only 39 cents on the dollar going to claimants. Find out more at More ...

A comment on The Reality of the High Cost of Defensive Medicine

Susan Browne — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:15:38 GMT

My husband with COPD went to the emergency room for an exacerbation. The treatment is always the same: hi dose of pregnazone, anti-anxiety pill, oxygen mask & clean hospital air. In two hours or so he is over it. Last trip: all those treatments, plus $4500 of additional testing paid for by medicare. The doctors when asked the reason for the additional tests said it is to defend against the possibility of a lawsuit.

A Doctor friend had a painful kidney stone episode in the middle of the night, and went to emergency for a pain pill to see him through until he could get to his physician in the AM. $5500 worth of tests later, he got his $25 pill.

We can't afford "nutty" medicine like this - where the common sense of the physicians is subject to constant legal scrutiny - no one can afford medical costs that presuppose a community of incompetent greedy physicians!!

Our professor friend from Harvard contends that the hard costs of Medical malpractice component of the medical equation is just a "drop in the bucket" - only 2% of a $2 trillion system!! I don't know Doctor, but my math tells me that is $44 Billion. $44 Billion here, $44 billion there, and you add up to real money.

That is just the estimate for hard costs! What if the Doctor's estimate of 30% - 50% of the testing they do being done to satisfy malpractice concerns are true. That is makes it between $700 billion to $1.1 trillion. Even our learned Harvard friend has to agree, that is some real money.

A comment on The Reality of the High Cost of Defensive Medicine

Susan Browne — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:15:31 GMT

A comment on The Reality of the High Cost of Defensive Medicine

Susan Browne — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:15:24 GMT

A comment on The Reality of the High Cost of Defensive Medicine

Mike Bryant — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:42:02 GMT

All very good points and all questions that need to be asked. The president was in Minnesota yesterday, another very good speech. But on the issue of the doctors that he's talked to, the question has to be asked "so how many times did you find something with these tests?" When you did wasn't it worth it? And when you didn't what was the cost? where did the money go? and could you send that list into Medicare so we have it when we need to get our money back for you going out side the standards of care. I would guess you are correct, there is far less of this in reality then they want to claim there is.

A comment on Dish Network Virginia Child Molestation Case--Every Parent's Nightmare

Michael Phelan — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:21:16 GMT

Hey Ben:
This is our case. See my parnter's blog about Judge Hudson's decision at the following link:
More ...
In the underlying case, the Dish defendants argue that the sex offender/satellite TV installer they sent to the home was an independent contractor for whom they are not liable. The types of businesses that send workers into our homes with full access the homes seem to go out of their ways to avoid doing background checks on the people they hire. Here is a blog I did about how consumers can protect themselves from this problem.
More ...
Mike

A comment on Hazard from Texting While Driving

Rosa — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:45:37 GMT

this is a giant public health risk, a lot of states are pushing for driving while texting bans. Maybe it will save lives and stop accidents i found this story about it that has useful stats and crazy crashes: More ...