In part one of this two-part blog series, we went over some of the basics on schools and child injury liability. When children are injured or otherwise harmed on school grounds, it’s important for parents to understand how potential liability and negligence claims are made – against not only the school but possibly other parties as well.
At the offices of William Rawlings & Associates, we’re here to help with a wide variety of child injury cases, including those sustained while on school grounds or during school programs. In part two of our series, we’ll go over several specific areas of school liability here, plus certain cases where schools may be exempt or protected from injury liability.
As we touched on in part one, it’s the responsibility of teachers and other school staff members to care for the students who are in attendance during school periods. This includes many areas, but the broad theme stays the same: Preparedness to prevent students from being harmed or harming one another.
This refers to everything from proper hiring practices and staffing requirements to the individual responsibility of each staff member on a daily basis. Such daily responsibilities include all reasonable efforts to maintain student safety. School administrators will be expected to carry out background checks and other proper hiring processes when bringing in new staff members; failure to do so may result in claims against the school if something goes wrong with a staff member who was not properly vetted.
Down similar lines, many cases of injuries that take place on school grounds end up being decided from a liability standpoint in terms of how foreseeable, or predictable, they were. If your child’s school had clear evidence that there were safety issues with a given staircase on the premises, for instance, but failed to take the proper steps to repair these issues, the school would almost certainly be held liable if a child was injured on that staircase.
In other situations, it could be harder to prove negligence or foreseeability. Playground incidents are a common example – certain elements might not have been repaired anytime recently, but did this actually cause an injury, or was the child being too reckless?
There are several cases where schools may be excepted from liability for a child’s injury on their premises, including:
For more on schools and child injury claims, or to learn about any of our personal injury or auto accident injury attorney services, speak to the staff at the offices of William Rawlings & Associates today.
Personal injury and liability cases can arise within many circumstances or locations, including some we don’t often associate with this area. One good example here is your child’s school – one wouldn’t normally think of this as a location where the potential for injury or liability exists, but it absolutely does in a few unique and notable ways.
At the offices of William Rawlings & Associates, we’re proud to offer child injury attorney services in addition to our wide array of auto accident and other personal injury attorney solutions. No parent ever wants to hear that their child is hurt, but in cases where this happens, we’re here to help you manage the crisis and also receive just compensation in cases where another party – including potentially the school itself – was at fault. In this two-part blog, we’ll go over all the factors you might need to know about school liability for student injuries, plus other injury types that may occur at school and how liability works for them.
For starters, it’s important for all parents to be aware of their child’s school’s responsibility to provide safe property conditions. This is an area known as premises liability, and it’s one that’s present not only for schools, but also other public areas like restaurants, stores and many others where the public congregates.
Essentially, school staff are expected to act in the place of parents while caring for your children. They must present foreseeable issues on their property, such as slippery floors or poor playground equipment They must also prevent harmful or toxic substances from being exposed to children, and must maintain proper sanitary conditions. If these requirements are not met, multiple parents may have liability claims against the school if their children are hurt or harmed in some related way.
One particular event that’s sadly still common in many schools is bullying, which is considered an “intentional act” carried out by one student or group of students to another. Bullying cases may involve liability from multiple areas: The bully in question or their parents are often involved in such lawsuits, particularly if the behavior is repetitive, but the school itself may also be held responsible if it can be proven that teachers or other staff knew about the bullying and did not take proper steps to prevent it.
In rare cases where teachers themselves are involved in any kind of abuse or bullying of students, this will be looked on extremely negatively by courts. Teacher liability in these cases is often punished punitively by judges or juries.
In addition to the above, schools are required to provide shelter, food, transportation and a safe environment for students. If any of these standards or services is not met, and children are harmed as a result, the school may be held liable.
For more on schools and child injury liability, or to learn about any of our personal injury or auto accident attorneys, speak to the staff at the offices of William Rawlings & Associates today.
If you’re involved in a vehicle accident, especially one where you believe there’s even a chance another party was at fault, the time period directly after the accident is very important. While we realize this is a stressful and potentially traumatic period, it’s also the very best time to collect evidence that may prove extremely valuable in your upcoming liability case.
At the offices of William Rawlings & Associates, we’ve been providing auto accident injury attorney services and other personal injury solutions for many years. We’re happy to provide you with tips or expertise on the value of evidence obtained from the scene of an auto accident, particularly one of the most important types out there: Photographs. In today’s day and age where virtually everyone has a smartphone that can take pictures, it’s vital to document the scene of the crash in visual detail. Here are some important areas and themes to ensure you take detailed pictures of at the site of a vehicle accident.
First and foremost, you should take broad pictures of the entire accident scene, showing the entire area in full. Look for wide-angle shots from a few different perspectives, allowing anyone who views the pictures to have a simple understanding of the scene plus the positioning of things like stop signs, traffic signals and road markings.
If the incident caused skid marks or other items on the road, take pictures of these as well. Look for any missing vehicle parts or other pieces of evidence that will help establish the pattern that led to the accident.
Another vital area to ensure you have visual documentation of is any injuries you’ve sustained as a result of the crash. We’re talking cuts, scrapes, bruises and any other injuries that can be easily seen. If you are incapacitated or must receive medical attention for injuries, ask either a friend or family member – or even medical staff, if necessary – to take pictures for you.
One note here: Always seek medical attention for any serious injuries before you attempt to take pictures. Your health comes first.
To whatever degree possible, take pictures of the cars involved and the damage that occurred to them. Note the positions they’re in and try to take pictures from multiple angles so there is no doubt about the contents of the documentation. Be sure to take pictures of both the damage to your own car and that to any other vehicles involved in the accident, as both could be relevant for your case.
For more on taking the right kinds of pictures after an auto accident to use as evidence in a liability case, or to learn about any of our other personal injury attorney services, speak to the staff at the offices of William Rawlings & Associates today.
If you’ve been involved in a vehicle accident where you believe another party was at fault, there are multiple types of damages you could be seeking. These could be to pay for medical bills and other results of your pain and suffering, they could relate to emotional distress, or they might speak to paying for repairs to damage to your vehicle.
At the offices of William Rawlings & Associates, our auto accident injury attorneys are here to help you get your just compensation if this has happened to you. We’ll help you understand all the ins and outs of a car accident case, including vital information on how repairs will be covered and handled depending on the fault in the case. Here are some basics you might need to know about this area moving forward.
For starters, it’s important to know that Utah is a no-fault state when it comes to auto accidents and resulting damages. This means that your own vehicle insurance covers your economic damages all the way up to its policy limits – in cases where you believe someone else is at fault, however, you file a lawsuit against that driver.
Because there is not necessarily a guarantee of winning such a lawsuit, however, we highly recommend purchasing collision coverage in addition to your own basic car insurance policy. In situations where your claim is not successful, your basic no-fault insurance does not apply to vehicle damages, rather only to economic ones.
If you do not have collision insurance in this case, you could be on the hook for the entire cost of the repairs. And on the flip side, if you happen to be at fault in an accident at any point, collision coverage will also pay for your repairs in this case.
In cases where fault can be proven in another party, the at-fault driver will be responsible for paying for the repairs of any innocent party’s vehicle. This is generally done using the insurance of the at-fault driver, which can range up the policy limits. If this policy comes up short, a claim will be filed against the driver’s insurance company to help cover the difference.
If the estimate for repairs needed on your damaged vehicle exceeds the Blue Book value of the vehicle itself, it’s likely the vehicle will be declared a total loss. In these cases, rather than insurance covering repairs, it will pay you out the Blue Book value on your vehicle from the time of the accident.
For more on how to handle vehicle repairs in auto accident liability cases, or to learn about any of our personal injury attorney services, speak to the staff at William Rawlings & Associates today.
In part one of this two-part blog series, we went over some of the specific statutes and laws that govern common personal injury cases in Utah. Every state has different rules and regulations for these areas, and these can vary pretty significantly even between states that share borders.
At the offices of William Rawlings & Associates, our personal injury attorneys are here to help you manage any case within our purview, from auto accident cases to wrongful death, dog bite or attack situations and many others. In today’s part two, we’ll go over a few additional areas to be aware of that pertain specifically to the way Utah state law treats certain kinds of personal injury cases.
There are many states in the US that observe that’s known as a “one bite” rule. This rule allows protection for dog owners for only the very first time their dog bites someone, so long as there is no apparent reason the owner could have suspected the dog to be dangerous.
In Utah, though, there is no such rule. In particular, part of the Utah state code makes dog owners strictly liable for their animal’s behavior, even if there is no past history of aggression or violence. If you are bitten by someone else’s dog, there is no burden of proof required that the dog was vicious or violent or that the owner knew about it – the owner of the dog is liable regardless.
In cases where you are injured or harmed in some way due to negligence from a government employee or agency in Utah, it’s important to know that a different set of standards will be applied to your case. One major area to note here is the time period, which differs from traditional personal injury cases – you have a full year to file a claim in these cases, plus another year to file an appeal if your claim is denied originally.
Our attorneys can provide you with further information on government-related cases if needed.
Along with many other states, Utah places a cap or limit on certain kinds of damages in personal injury cases – namely non-economic or “pain and suffering” damages for medical malpractice. In such cases, the cap for damages is $450,000 so long as the issue occurred on or after May 15, 2010. If the issue occurred before then, there is a sliding scale used that our attorneys will explain to you. This cap, however, does not apply to economic or punitive damages, and only applies to medical malpractice, not all personal injury cases.
For more on specific Utah laws that govern certain personal injury areas, or to learn about any of our attorney services, speak to the staff at the offices of William Rawlings & Associates today.
When it comes to personal injury cases of a variety of types, rules and regulations vary fairly widely between states. Every state has its own set of laws and statutes that apply to personal injury cases, whether they’re in the form of vehicle accidents or numerous other injury types that could take place.
At the offices of William Rawlings & Associates, we’re here to help with any and all Utah-specific statutes or laws for any personal injury case. Our personal injury attorneys will help you navigate any restrictions or roadblocks that come up along the way, all with a detailed knowledge of the applicable laws here and how they apply to your case. In this two-part blog series, we’ll go over some of the specifics of Utah law as it relates to personal injury, auto accidents and other specific case types that might come up.
For non-vehicle accident injury cases in Utah, it’s important to note that the state has what’s called a shared fault system in place. This means that injury cases can have more than one party that’s at fault, and liability cases may reflect partial fault from multiple parties.
In some cases, this rule – known as the comparative fault rule – may reduce the damages you can recover from another party. In these situations, the goal of a judge or jury will be to ascertain a percentage of fault for each party involved. If you are found to have at least 50% of the fault, you may not be allowed to collect damages at all.
Let’s go over a basic example of shared fault in an injury case. Let’s say you’re in a restaurant and you trip and fall on a broken floor tile, breaking your arm as you land. The restaurant did not properly mark the broken floor tile, but at the same time, multiple witnesses saw you distracted by your cell phone and not looking where you were going when you fell.
In this case, a court will factor both these considerations into a decision on fault. They may determine you were 20% at fault for not paying full attention, but the restaurant was 80% at fault for the dangerous conditions on their premises. If your total damages were set at $20,000, you would actually only receive $16,000 in this case under the comparative fault rule. As we noted, if you’re determined to have at least 50% of the fault, your damages will likely drop to zero and you cannot collect any compensation.
In car accident cases, on the other hand, things are very different. Utah is among many no-fault states, which means that after an accident, your insurance company will cover your medical expenses and lost income – even if you believe another party was at fault for the accident.
Only in cases where your case meets a “serious injury” threshold can you hold the other driver liable, meaning this is the primary area our attorneys will look to help you prove. In these cases, you can step outside the no-fault system and file a liability claim. Our auto accident injury attorneys will help explain what meets the criteria for “serious injury” in your case.
For more on Utah-specific personal injury regulations, or to learn about any of our personal injury attorney services, speak to the staff at the offices of William Rawlings & Associates today.
If you believe you’ve been the victim of negligence or any other issue that puts another party at fault for personal injury or property damage after a car accident, one of the first things you may be wondering about is how soon you have to file such a claim. Various laws have their own sets of statutes and limitations, and some worry they have to file quickly or else risk letting the statue expire.
At the offices of William Rawlings & Associates, LLC, we’re here to help with this and any other auto accident attorney services you may be requiring. Let’s go over our basic recommendations on filing your claim, what the Utah statute of limitations is for these kinds of issues, and some documents to ensure you have in order when preparing to file.
Generally speaking, we always recommend you file a claim for a vehicle accident as soon as realistically possible following the event. Insurers and the at-fault party will try to use any tactic they can to hurt your case, and one such tactic might be muddying the waters by claiming they can’t accurately determine how much damage was caused since you took so much time to file.
While this is generally a spurious argument to begin with, it begins to hold a bit more weight if you wait too long to file. Our attorneys will advise you on the precise timing you should consider for your claim.
The Utah statute of limitations for personal injury cases involving personal harm or property harm in a vehicle accident is four years. If you do not file it within this period of time, the Utah court system is within their rights to refuse to hear it whatsoever. For more specifics on this, you can view the Utah Code with the full text on injury cases and their statute of limitations.
There are a few important documents to ensure you have in order for your filing, something our personal injury lawyers will help you with. Here are the most vital:
For more on the timing involved in filing auto accident injury claims, or to learn about any of our personal injury attorney services, speak to the staff at the offices of William Rawlings & Associates today.
While many are aware of the fact that they can seek compensation if they’re injured in a car accident by a negligent driver, you might not know that the same theme applies for bicycle riders. Unfortunately, a great number of cyclists are hit by vehicles during the course of a given year, and there are many such cases where driver negligence was the underlying cause and the bicyclist might have a liability claim against this party.
At the offices of William Rawlings & Associates, LLC, we’re here to help if you’ve been injured in a bicycle accident, just the same way we would be if you were injured in a typical car or motorcycle accident. We’ve spent 35 years as advocates for victims of such events, and we’ll represent you with vigor and expertise in these and other personal injury lawyer needs. Let’s look at some of the basics on bicycle accident negligence, bicycle hit-and-run situations, and how you should respond in the aftermath of such an accident if one occurs.
In any case where a bicyclist is hit by a vehicle on the road, the goal of the judge and jury in a resulting liability case will be to determine which party’s negligence caused the accident. If a vehicle driver is speeding, running a stop sign, drifting into a designated bike lane or breaking the law in any other way at the time of the accident, this will often be used as evidence of negligence.
For cyclists, on the other hand, negligence could refer to riding the wrong way on a certain street, turning unexpectedly into traffic or running a red light. Cyclists are required to obey the rules of the road when they’re on it just like vehicle drivers – do not simply assume that the other party is liable if the accident was a result of you being reckless or ignorant to your surroundings.
Just like accidents involving two vehicles, hit-and-runs are a risk in bicycle accidents as well. A driver may flee the scene after, an act that’s a felony if they had reason to believe you were injured by drove away anyway. In these cases, working with police to identify the party responsible will save you from having to use your own insurance to cover any medical bills or repairs.
If you are involved in an accident with a vehicle as a cyclist, the first and most important step involves remaining at the scene for police to arrive. You should do this even if you don’t believe you are injured, as many injuries don’t show up until hours later. Make sure your version of events are recorded by officers, along with those of any witnesses who can corroborate your story. Also be sure to take pictures if possible.
For more on bicycle accidents, or to learn about any of our personal injury attorney services, speak to the staff at the offices of William Rawlings & Associates, LLC today.
At the offices of William Rawlings & Associates LLC, one of the most common needs for our attorney services is in the realm of car and truck accidents. Sadly, there are tens of thousands of vehicle accidents, injuries and even deaths per year, many of which are caused by negligence or other factors that necessitate a personal injury claim.
One area here that’s on a major rise over the last several years is incidents that take place involving a ride-sharing company such as Uber or Lyft. More and more Americans are utilizing these services every year, but the legal field is still catching up in terms of liability when accidents take place involving ride-sharing drivers. Let’s go over some basic numbers here, the role insurance plays and the limited likelihood of successfully bringing suit against these companies directly.
While there is not necessarily direct proof to link these two trends, traffic incidents and fatalities have gone up over the last few years – at a similar rate to the increase in ride-sharing services, per several area of research. This has led some to speculate that more ride-sharing drivers are clogging the roads and helping contribute to a greater number of traffic incidents. And whether or not this is the case, the fact remains that many people utilize these services and need to be prepared in case an incident takes place during such a ride.
In cases where you’re injured as the passenger of a ride-sharing service and your driver is at fault, the insurance coverage of the individual driver is the first place to check. If this person has a commercial insurance policy or a personal policy that includes a ride-sharing provision, you’ll be covered. The problem: Most Uber and Lyft drivers do not have this kind of insurance.
Luckily, Uber and Lyft carry third-party liability insurance coverage up to $1 million for personal and property injuries. These kick in after the driver’s own policy is used up, if applicable, so you’re covered in these cases regardless.
What about situations where your driver is not at fault and the incident was caused by another motorist? In these circumstances, you’d seek coverage from the at-fault driver’s insurance via an insurance claim or a personal injury lawsuit. In rare cases where this third party does not have car insurance that will cover your injuries, ride-sharing companies also offer a $1 million policy for uninsured or underinsured cases.
Uber and Lyft list their drivers as independent contractors, not employees, in large part so they don’t have to be legally responsible for driver negligence. For this reason, it’s generally very difficult to bring and win a personal injury suit directly against these companies. While you’ll generally be able to take advantage of their $1 million policies for negligence issues, suing them directly usually isn’t a viable option.
For more on who is responsible for damages in a ride-sharing vehicle accident, or to learn about any of our auto accident attorney services, speak to the staff at the offices of William Rawlings & Associates LLC today.
While cases like car accidents, pedestrian concerns and various traumatic injuries are those most commonly handled by personal injury attorneys, there are also several rarer and more unique types possible. Any situation where an individual has experienced injury or distress due to the negligence of another party could lead to a personal injury claim, and those making such claims will need the best representation on their side.
At the offices of William Rawlings & Associates LLC, we’re here to help. Our personal injury attorney services range from the most common case types to extremely rare ones, with a high-level legal team that can handle even your most unique concerns. One such rarer form of personal injury that’s nonetheless important to understand if you spend time in this activity area: Hunting accidents. Let’s look at some basic statistics on the frequency of these incidents, their causes and how to prevent them – plus what to do if you happen to be involved in such an accident.
According to survey data from the US Fish and Wildlife Service taken back in 2016, over 100 million people over the age of 16 go hunting each year in the United States. And while you might think this is a dangerous pursuit in general based on the use of firearms and other lethal weapons for hunting, the rate of accidents is actually very low.
In fact, combining with Canada, fewer than 1,000 people per year are the victims of shooting-related hunting accidents. Under 10 percent of these, or roughly 75 people per year, are killed in these accidents. The most common accident causes are mistaken hunters who think they’ve seen a deer or other prey, but end up shooting a person who is running or performing some other task.
And while these cases are rare, they can still happen – and in many situations, they’ll be caused by negligence that could lead to a personal injury claim.
In most cases, hunting injuries or deaths qualify as negligence cases – these require the injury victim to prove that the defendant did not take reasonable care, and was responsible for the accident. Some of the reasons a defendant might be considered negligent include:
A parent teaching their child to hunt could be held liable for lack of training or supervision if the child is involved in the accident.
For both hunters and non-hunters, it’s important to exercise major caution when in the woods or any other area where hunting takes place. Wear bright and reflective clothing, and apply intelligent firearm training and handling if you’re a hunter.
If you happen to be involved in a hunting accident in any way, contact our team of personal injury lawyers for assistance if a negligence or liability claim is being filed.
For more on any of our personal injury lawyer services, speak to the staff at the offices of William Rawlings & Associates LLC today.