How Might New Safety Equipment Affect Texas Work-Injury Law?
Industries with a lot of manual labor often invest in developing safety equipment for their employees. Goggles and hard hats may not look like much, but they're carefully designed and rigorously tested to protect as many eyes and noggins as possible. Harnesses, gloves, reflectors, and other pieces of safety gear follow the same idea: An...
Ford Explorer Carbon Monoxide Issues Take Austin PD SUVs Off the Road
News recently broke that the Austin Police Department is pulling its fleet of 400 Ford Explorers off of the road due to officers showing symptoms of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning and testing positive for elevated levels of the chemical in their bloodstream. So far, blood tests on 18 officers have detected elevated levels of CO....
A Fatal Caffeine Overdose and the Dishonest Press Blitz About It
When people or companies hurt others intentionally or accidentally, they are accountable per the law's decree. One could say that "blaming people" as a broad definition of the law is part of how America works, in that wrongdoers should be held responsible for their actions. As a law firm we understand that; after all, we're...
CNN Just Blackmailed Someone — Business as Usual for Some Big Companies
As you've probably heard by now, President Donald Trump recently retweeted an animated GIF which highlights an appearance he made on a professional wrestling program. However, unlike the original version, which showed then-businessman Trump body-slamming the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, Vince McMahon, this edited version features McMahon as an anthropomorphic representation of CNN. The...
House of Flying Fan Blades: Ryobi Recalls Leaf Blowers With Faulty Fan Components
I don't own a house. It's apartment life for me. That has its ups and downs, of course, but squarely in the "up" column is the part where I don't have to do yard work anymore. Doing it in my youth admittedly could have been worse; my family had a gas-powered lawnmower and and electric...
DUI or Don’t We: Drunk Driving in Amarillo is Worse than You Think
A recent drunk driving accident in Amarillo caught my attention and led me to research the relevant accident statistics for the area. As it turns out, Amarillo packs something even more alarming than hubcap-size steaks: an inordinate number of drunk-driving crashes given its overall population. The Accident That Prompted Me to Look Into The Numbers...
Brandon Vezmar’s Lawsuit is Definitely Absurd, But Let’s Not Freak Out Or Anything
If you follow the news, you've probably seen a fluff article or two recently about a guy suing his movie date for texting during a showing of the movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. No matter what you think about the movie, it's well understood that bothering other theater patrons by talking or texting...
Mike’s Law: Does the End Justify the Means?
Like most people, I cringe when attorneys evoke a phony "voice of the people" mentality or preach about their practice as if they're the saving grace to humanity. I can't stand when attorneys preach down upon the people their magical wisdom of ethical truths. That said, I quite seriously believe that the service that my...
Click It Or Ticket 2017 Has Begun, But Just Buckle Up So You Don’t Get Obliterated
Monday, May 22 marks the beginning of the Texas Department of Transportation's two-week "Click It Or Ticket" campaign. Until June 4, Texas law enforcement officers will actively ticket drivers and passengers who are not wearing seatbelts. People whose young children are not riding in appropriate child-safety seats or booster seats will also be subject to...
HoMedics Recalls 400,000 Faulty Massager Units for Fire Hazard
Generally when products aren't what we expect them to be, they're just sort of a mild letdown over what they show in carefully-arranged advertising (the idea of "expectation vs. reality"), but sometimes they are faulty in more serious ways. When that happens people don't just groan and roll their eyes in disappointment--they can actually get...
Backing Crashes Are a Product of Negligence Behind the Wheel
The dangers of backing crashes are compounded for larger, more unwieldy vehicles. Box trucks and 18-wheelers lumber to and fro in cramped neighborhood streets and pop out from parking lots and alleys--sometimes in reverse--endangering passing traffic and pedestrians. Tragedy can strike when the people driving these trucks neglect their duty to be completely aware of...
How Do I Discover the Other Driver’s Insurance Policy Limits?
I've learned over the years that the quickest way to make people's eyes glaze over is to either discuss evidentiary rules in Texas courts or to talk about insurance. Despite being a topic that doesn't make people scream, "Oh, tell me more," following a fatal accident, knowing how insurance works is crucial to the surviving...
There Are More Daytime Drunk Drivers Than We Realized.
It's widely understood that the hours of midnight to 4 a.m. are a risky time to be on the road. It's not a baseless assumption; in Texas, our roads see an unfortunate number of drunk drivers taking to the streets around the time of last call. Indeed, this phenomenon is so well appreciated that most...
When All Else Fails, Trucking Companies Bluff Their Way to Victory
People often see a truck accident where it appears that the truck driver was obviously at fault. This leads them to believe that the victims are certain to get justice for the damages they've sustained. However, truck accidents are never open-and-shut cases. Our legal system affords everyone the opportunity to defend themselves, even if the...
The Legal Landscape Can Be Murky For Injured Cell Tower Workers
Work-injury law is already more complicated in Texas than in any other state. That's because Texas operates two parallel systems that help those who are injured on the job. The traditional workers' compensation system pays benefits to workers or their families when a worker is injured or killed on the job, regardless of whether or...
Are Passengers “Assuming the Risk” When They Ride with Drunk Drivers?
Everyone can probably agree that riding with an intoxicated driver is dangerous. However a passenger may have ended up in the vehicle (not knowing that the driver was intoxicated, or maybe even just drunk themselves), there's a significant measure of danger in sharing it with a drunk person behind the wheel. If we were to...
Atlanta Tragedy Shows Why We Have Attractive Nuisance Doctrine
It's no secret that any time a law firm discusses a tragic event in the news, people will invariably accuse that firm of attempting to profit from it. However, when the reaction of most people is that "the victim's family is going to make a ton of money," it illustrates a lack of knowledge about...
Highway Hypnosis and Fatal Truck Accidents
We've written many times, and will write many more, about how alcohol and distractions can cause serious accidents, but sometimes these are not factors in a crash. A dangerous lapse in concentration can be caused by highway hypnosis--the phenomenon when a motorist's brain "checks out" and mindfulness of the present is lost. Put another way,...
Do I Need An Accident Reconstructionist for My Truck Accident?
It's a common misconception that a driver who rear-ends another vehicle is always at fault. The popular belief is that the driver in the back is expected to exercise greater caution, given that they can more easily monitor the activity of the car ahead of them. This idea suggests that a collision shows the rear...
Does Not Wearing a Seatbelt Bar Someone From Getting Compensation?
One of the questions that I get asked all the time by people is, "If someone isn't wearing a seatbelt in a crash, can they still recover compensation for their injuries?" I learned of a recent trucking accident in the Texas Panhandle that makes answering this question particularly timely. Deaf Smith County, TX: April 4,...
