By Robert I. Feinberg | Published February 16, 2018 | Posted in Accidents, Personal Injury | Tagged Tags: Legal Tools | Comments Off on The importance of using the tools of the legal trade
A discredited politician from the 1930s was fond of quoting an expression that children regularly hear: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Hopefully, I’m not discredited and hopefully that credo stands for something of value and use.
Read MoreOnce again we’ll look at the concerns that a plaintiff may have as to whether the other side is altering and/or holding back certain documents or information that could be helpful to the plaintiff. When I say plaintiff, I mean the person who is pursuing his or her personal injury action. In the last blog we talked about ethical rules, rules that impose on the other side’s attorney, as well as your own, a duty of good faith in the pursuit or defense of a case.
Read MoreOver the years, I’ve heard a legitimate question from my personal injury clients. Let me start off by assuring you as the would-be client that the other side and its lawyer has a duty to be ethical and candid. The highest court of Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court, has established and promulgated ethical rules. They are contained in Supreme Judicial Court Ethical Rule 3.07. Specifically, let’s look at two.
Read MoreIn a recent blog I talked about ways to prove your construction site accident case and I ended with a discussion of OSHA. I said if they came and investigated, that would be a fertile ground of material for your lawyer. However, there are circumstances, in fact many, where even if a serious accident occurred, OSHA will not come to investigate. Recently, there are more stringent requirements on having OSHA investigate. Let’s assume that we are dealing with those times where there has been no investigation of the construction accident.
Read MoreProving fault for an accident on a construction site is not easy and handling a construction site accident in the right way is not easy. It requires a lot of work. I would like to review some of that work in this brief blog. As we draw to a conclusion of these construction site accident blogs, it is an appropriate time to provide a summary of the necessary work.
Read MoreYou have a serious construction accident case and the question is, as I have pondered in the past blogs, how do you go about establishing or proving liability on the part of the general contractor or another subcontractor? Again, the injuries can be varied and, unfortunately they are often severe. They can happen as a result of any number of reasons: unguarded stairway, unsecured plywood over a hole, or a fall from a roof.
Read MoreBefore we begin a little background: I have been asked what you can and cannot say at a deposition. New lawyers are always told in trial preparation classes to never say “this is the last question.” The reason why is because, invariably, it isn’t. There’s almost always another question that occurs to a lawyer. The lawyer will want to ask the question despite having already said that they had finished their questions.
Read MoreConstruction site accidents involve many players and they can be complicated. They also involve many defendants. There is one unmistakable document that governs the relationship of the parties. It is the friend of the injured working man. That document is the American Institute of Architect’s General Conditions, Form 201-2007. It sets out the rights and responsibilities of the parties.
Read MoreLong time legal observers have said that to bring a lawsuit is to open yourself up to scrutiny, both of the past and the future. Yes, there is a fair amount of discovery that takes place of the injured victim who brings a lawsuit. But the good news: I am here to tell you that it goes both ways. When a defendant, especially in a construction site accident, is sued, your lawyer will get a whole lot of information about the other side as well.
Read MoreIn a claim for personal injury as a result of a construction site accident, you are going against a company, perhaps a corporation or an LLC or something of that nature. You are almost never suing an individual. That brings to mind how do you proceed with discovery once the lawsuit has been brought?
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