Houston Personal Injury Attorneys – Smith & Hassler

On the night of Saturday December 11th a speeding Ford Mustang crashed into two other vehicles on the Eastex Freeway in Houston, killing one woman and seriously injuring two other motorists.  The 21-year old driver of the Mustang has been charged with intoxication manslaughter. Oscar Javier Sanchez was driving the white-colored Mustang southbound in the 7500 block of the Eastex Freeway when he smashed into a black Dodge Ram pickup truck, and then also crashed into a Dodge Avenger car, according to Houston Police Department spokesperson Keese Smith.  Tragically, a 21-year old female passenger of the Dodge Ram was ejected from the vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene.  Police arrested Sanchez at the scene.  The drivers of the Dodge Ram and Dodge Avenger were both taken to hospital with severe injuries.

Smith & Hassler extends its condolences to the family members of the deceased 21-year old passenger, whose family are no doubt devastated by this preventable tragedy.

Thursday December 9, 2010: at approximately 7:30am an accident occurred on Fondren Road near Beltway 8 in Houston. A school bus was rear-ended by a Dodge Magnum station wagon.  The driver of the station wagon, who was not hurt, was given a citation for failure to control speed. The bus was loaded with kids who were being taken to Fort Bend I.S.D.’s Jones Elementary. Apparently the bus was at a dead stop when it was hit by the car: the driver was not watching where she was going. Two students were taken to a nearby hospital as a precaution.

Smith & Hassler is pleased to announce a trial victory yesterday in an automobile accident injury case. The case is Cause No. 2009-38849; Pedro Arroyo v Jennifer Fares, In the 165th Judicial District Court, Harris County, Texas (Judge Josefina Rendon presiding). Some details of the case are discussed here: no attorney-client privileges are violated because the trial and the trial transcript are a matter of public record.

Smith & Hassler’s client, Mr. Pedro Arroyo, is a 40-year old self-employed construction worker with 3 children. On December 12, 2007 Mr. Arroyo was driving a Chevrolet van on the beltway 8 feeder road. When he reached the intersection of the beltway 8 feeder and Gulfbank, his van was struck by a 2006 Dodge Magnum station wagon driven by the defendant, Jennifer Fares, who was 19-years old at the time.

The impact was significant: both vehicles were badly damaged and had to be towed. Many of Mr. Arroyo’s construction tools that were in his van were damaged. The police investigated and Ms. Fares was issued a ticket for running the red light. An ambulance checked Mr. Arroyo out at the scene but he did not want to be transported because he was concerned about the safekeeping of his tools. After the collision Pedro had pain to his left knee, left elbow, neck and his low back.

The next day Mr. Arroyo saw a chiropractor at Houston Spine & Rehabilitation Center on FM1960. He was diagnosed with headaches and lumbar and cervical sprains/strains. Pedro left for his annual Christmas vacation to Mexico at that time and resumed treatment with Spine & Rehab on January 4, 2008 when he returned to the United States. Mr. Arroyo’s additional treatment consisted of an MRI of his neck, an MRI of his low back, a consultation with a pain management specialist (M.D.) and two visits to a board-certified orthopedic surgeon. Doctors suggested Mr. Arroyo get an epidural steroid injection (he never have the injection). He had a total of 14 visits to Spine & Rehab for physical therapy and chiropractic care.

Pedro’s medical bills came to $8,046.  Before a lawsuit was ever filed, Smith & Hassler presented Pedro’s claim to Allstate, Ms. Fares’ automobile insurer, hoping to negotiate a fair settlement and avoid a lawsuit.  Allstate initially offered Pedro an amount under $6,000 then finally made their “top offer” of $6,800.  Despite Smith & Hassler’s efforts to negotiate, both before and after the lawsuit was filed, Allstate never offered more than $6,800 (which is less than Pedro’s medical bills). The last settlement offer Smith & Hassler made to Allstate before trial was $15,000.

After hearing the facts and evidence during a one-day trial, during which the only witnesses were the Plaintiff and Defendant, Smith & Hassler attorneys Daragh Carter (lead) and Roger Sullivan asked the jury to award the following:

Past medical expenses: $8,046
Past physical pain: $2,500
Past physical impairment: $2,500
Past mental anguish: $1,500
Total: $14,546

Here is what the jury actually awarded:

Past medical expenses: $8,046
Past physical pain: $3,000
Past physical impairment: $3,000
Past mental anguish: $1,500
Total verdict: $15,546 (not including taxable court costs and pre-judgment interest).

It was very gratifying that the jury saw fit to award MORE than was asked for, and this speaks to the justice of Pedro’s case.  The case was defended at trial by the law firm G. Patrick Collins & Associates, who is Allstate Insurance Company’s in-house law firm.

This was a fair verdict for a deserving client. Smith & Hassler thanks Mr. Arroyo for trusting us with his case. At our firm we believe it is important a personal injury attorney be prepared to take a case to trial when necessary: if you are currently searching for a personal injury attorney to represent you, you might ask attorneys you are considering when they last tried a case to a jury and what the outcome was.

Here is a link to an interesting article that sets out the 6 most common causes of car accidents.  Here are some highlights from the article:

• The first automobile crash related fatality occurred in London, England in 1896; since then the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 25,000,000 people have died in automobile related accidents
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says that automobile accidents are the leading cause of death in persons aged 3 to 33 years
• Worldwide close to 1,200,000 people die each year on the roads.

The six leading causes of automobile accidents are:
1. Distracted drivers
2. Driver fatigue
3. Drunk driving
4. Speeding
5. Aggressive driving
6. Weather

James Goggin, 55, died Sunday when the Mazda CX-7 he was driving crashed into concrete barriers on a northwest Harris County freeway.  Authorities say the vehicle struck concrete barriers on both sides of the freeway before coming to rest. Mr. Goggin was transported by paramedics to North Cypress Medical Center, where, tragically, he died.  Authorities suspect Mr. Goggin may have experienced a seizure or other medical event prior to the accident.

In another Sunday incident one man is dead and another injured when their truck crashed into a wall in north Houston. The black Nissan Frontier was being driven west on Bay Street at around 7:00pm when the driver ran a stop sign at the Eastex Freeway. The truck crossed the service road before crashing into a concrete wall that is part of the freeway on ramp. The driver was transported to LBJ Hospital in Houston where he died.

News Channel 2 story is here

A federal judge is California is soon to consider a motion filed by Toyota Motor Company in which Toyota seeks to dismiss lawsuit alleging there was a defect in Toyota’s vehicles that caused sudden acceleration.  Toyota has recalled millions of its vehicles yet is asking the judge to throw out hundreds of the lawsuit filed over sudden acceleration collisions. Toyota is claiming that attorneys for people injured due to sudden acceleration have failed to prove that there is a design defect in Toyota’s electronic throttle control system that is responsible for the sudden accelerations.  The lawsuit seek damages for injuries and deaths caused by the sudden accelerations, and also for economic loss due to the reduction in market value Toyota owners have experienced due to the bad publicity surrounding the recall.

Products liability lawsuits are based on one or more theories that a product caused injury because: (a) users of the product were not adequately warned of the dangers associated with the product’s use; (b) the product was defectively designed, and the design defect made the product dangerous and caused injury; and (c) the product was defectively manufactured, and the manufacturing defect caused injury.

Smith & Hassler currently represents “Mary”* in a lawsuit against a Farmers Insurance insured driver who rear-ended Mary in a severe automobile collision in May 2010.  The Farmers insured was driving a Ford Excursion, the largest, heaviest SUV available to the public (Ford Motor Company marketed the Excursion as being bigger than the Chevrolet Suburban).

Mary, who was driving a Toyota Corolla compact car was stopped for a red light in Houston at an intersection.  The Farmers insured smashed into the rear of Mary’s Corolla pushing her car completely through the intersection.  As you can see from the picture below, the damage to Mary’s Toyota was very significant:

Mary was taken by ambulance to Memorial Hermann Hospital where she was treated for neck and back pain and released that day.  Mary had a total of $11,878 in medical bills for treatment related to the accident.  After the hospital visit Mary had follow up physical therapy and chiropractic treatment.  She stopped seeing her chiropractor in July at which time it was noted she was still impaired, still having pain, and her pain would flare up when she exerted herself.

Farmers Insurance was offered an opportunity to resolve Mary’s claim on fair and reasonable terms.  Instead after they were provided a copy of Mary’s medical bills, records and photographs of her car Farmers Insurance offered Mary $11,170.

That means Farmers Insurance was taking the position that Mary should pay over $600 of her own medical expenses for being rear-ended by their insured, and should receive zero compensation for several months of physical pain and limitation due to her injuries.

Unfortunately when an insurance company doesn’t want to pay a fair settlement, their insured gets sued, which is what happened in Mary’s case.

Farmers Insurance’s advertising slogan is: “Farmers puts you back where you belong.”  Apparently that doesn’t apply to Mary.

* Client’s name has been changed for this blog post.

Adrian Alfredo Perez, 29, a former public bus driver in San Antonio, was ordered to serve 30 days in jail yesterday for what prosecutors say is the first conviction in Bexar County for reckless driving that is directly related to texting. His attorney had asked for probation, 30 days was the maximum sentence the driver could receive. Perez was driving a Metropolitan Transit vehicle when he crashed into the back of an SUV while traveling 34MPH: prior to the wreck he had been checking text messages on his cell phone. His sentence was decided by the judge after the jury found him guilty of the misdemeanor reckless driving charge.  Perez gained notoriety on the Internet when surveillance video from inside the bus was posted online. You can read the San Antonio Express News report of the story here.

In February 2010 8-year old Smith & Hassler client R.G. was involved in a serious automobile accident on I-45 in Houston. R.G. was sitting belted in the center of the back passenger seat with his 12-year old sister to one side and his 3-year old sister to the other.  R.G.’s mom was driving.  The family was stopped in traffic when an Allstate insured driving a full-size heavy duty pickup slammed into the back of their vehicle.  The family was pushed into the vehicle in front, and that vehicle was pushed into the vehicle in front of it, and that vehicle into the vehicle in front of it.  All told this was a 5 vehicle accident.  The family’s vehicle sustained very heavy damage and was totaled. The rear window glass of the family’s car entered the passenger compartment and split open the back of R.G.’s head, causing him to bleed profusely.  The family was transported by ambulance to the hospital, where emergency room doctors used 8 staples to close the cut in the back of R.G.’s head.  He now has a permanent scar as an ever lasting reminder of the car accident: hair will not regrow over scar tissue.

Smith & Hassler presented Allstate Insurance an opportunity to settle R.G.’s claim on fair terms and sent Allstate pictures of the family’s car, pictures of R.G.’s staples, the scar left after the staples were removed and R.G.’s medical records and bills.  R.G. had a little more than $3,300 in medical bills for treatment for injuries he sustained in the collision.  That’s just R.G.’s medical bills, that doesn’t take into account physical pain, physical impairment, disfigurement due to the scarring or the mental anguish R.G. experienced in the wreck.

Allstate’s response was to offer R.G. a settlement of $3,142.  If that were your 8-year old child, would YOU think that was a fair and reasonable settlement offer?

A lawsuit against Allstate’s insured promptly followed.  You might run a Google search and see what you turn up with regards to Allstate’s settlement practices and how Allstate handles personal injury claims made against their insureds.  Allstate’s absurdly unreasonable offer to this little boy resulted in an entirely avoidable lawsuit against their insured.  So much for “You’re in Good Hands.”

A pedestrian was hit and killed this morning at approximately 5:30am in an accident on Highway 6 near Piping Rock. Details are sketchy at this time, it appears the pedestrian was either trying to cross Highway 6 or was walking along it. The identity of the pedestrian has not been release. Houston Chronicle report is here.

The web site for Safe Kids USA offers lots of valuable information regarding pedestrian safety, including a Pedestrian Safety Fact Sheet. Safe Kids USA reports that:

* Children sustain more than 39,000 nonfatal pedestrian injuries each year.
* In 2005, there were 339 pedestrian fatalities in children ages 14 years and under. The year prior, 583 children died and nearly 70 percent of these deaths were motor vehicle-related traffic crashes.
* 33,571 children were treated in hospital emergency rooms for pedestrian-related injuries in 2005.
* Between 1995 and 2005, the number of child pedestrian fatalities decreased by 51 percent.
* The maturity level of a child under 10 years of age makes him/her unable to correctly gauge the speed of vehicles putting them at greater risk for injury and death.
* Other than in the street, driveways, parking lots and on sidewalks are where young children ages 0-2 years suffer the highest number of injuries as pedestrians.
* 83 percent of child pedestrian deaths occur at non-intersection locations.
* 1 in 4 child pedestrian deaths occur between 6 – 9p.m.
* On average, 12 children die each year in school bus-related crashes