The tavern where our client was injured admitted that it knew the machine was tippy.  However, it did not put it in a safe place, mount it on a wall, or secure it to the floor.  Instead, it put it right next to the kitchen door, where patrons and workers brushed by nightly.  It was a personal injury waiting to happen.

The company that owned the machine also had an obligation to make sure this machine was secure.  In fact, the manual for the machine said it should be securely mounted to the wall with four screws.  It obviously wasn’t.

Our client suffered this serious personal injury while simply standing at a table, talking with friends.  An unknown patron or worker knocked this machine into her, slamming her to the ground.  Thus began nearly 2 years of intensive medical treatment to try to help her recover.

Before trial, the defendant tavern owners’ insurance company offered $30,000 to settle this case – less than the medical bills.

At trial, our client recovered over $160,000.  The compassionate jury understood the pain, suffering, disability, and medical expenses she had suffered as a result of this event.  They found the bar 77.5% at fault, and the change machine company 22.5% at fault.

At Domnitz & Skemp, we pride ourselves on our willingness to take cases to trial, and our strong record of success at trial.  This case, like many others, demonstrates our commitment to our clients and our skills as attorneys.    

Congratulations to Attorneys Ann Jacobs and Tony Skemp for their outstanding work on behalf of our seriously injured client.

What is important for you to know is that those rights of reimbursement (commonly called subrogation rights) vary from situation to situation depending on the specific language of your policy, whether it is a group or individual policy, and the extent to which you are being compensated for your injuries. Often times thousands of dollars are at issue and only a law firm experienced in the reading and correct interpretation of the specific language in your policy can help protect your rights in this regard.

At Domnitz & Skemp, we have years of experience in helping people obtain fair treatment not only from the liability insurers of the at fault party, but also from their own health insurers.

Although the common law of Wisconsin is favorable to injured persons regarding their obligation to reimburse subrogated insurers by requiring that the injured person be made whole (i.e., be fully compensated for their injuries and related damages) before the insurer is reimbursed, there is a federal law that governs policies that come under the ERISA law. ERISA policies most often are those which provide coverage through an employee benefit program. The rights of an insurer who pays medical expenses pursuant to a policy governed by the ERISA law are much stronger and negotiating reductions in reimbursements are much more difficult.

Since car accidents and other personal injury accidents often create financial hardships for the victims in many cases, it is extremely important that these matters of reimbursement rights be handled carefully and correctly in order to avoid further financial and emotional stress to the injured party.

If you or a loved one has been injured in an automobile accident or another type of personal injury accident, contact Domnitz & Skemp by phone (414-289-0909) or by going to our website (www.Domnitzlaw.com) and emailing us so that we can fully protect your rights.

For example, medical studies have shown that a high percentage of Americans over the age of 40 have some degree of arthritis in their spine, whether it be cervical (neck), thoracic (mid-back), or lumbar (low-back). This often referred to degenerative spine disease and may even co-exist with degenerative disk disease (a breakdown of the cushioning material between the boney vertebrae of the spine). The point is that often this condition is first revealed on autopsy, i.e., after death. This is because in most people mild to moderate arthritic changes in their spine is asymptomatic (without pain).

However, when a person is injured in an automobile accident or a bad fall, the insurance industry seizes upon these arthritic conditions (usually revealed on x-ray or MRI studies) and claims that the pain the injured party claims is the result of these pre-existing arthritic findings and not any trauma caused by their insured. Wisconsin law, as expressed in rulings by our supreme court and incorporated in instructions read to a jury by the trial judge, clearly provides for compensation for accident victims with these pre-existing conditions. Juries are told that as long as they determine that the accident which is the subject of the lawsuit is “a cause;” a substantial factor in bringing about the medical condition of the plaintiff, the accident victim is entitled to compensation for his or her injuries. This means that the accident does not have to be the sole cause of a plaintiff’s current medical condition, but rather “a cause;” i.e., one substantial factor.

Domnitz & Skemp recently represented a 47 year old man who operated a lawn maintenance business in the Milwaukee area. He had been the victim of an automobile accident in 1999 after which his doctors discovered he had degenerative changes in his spine. Although these changes clearly developed over years before the accident, they had not been discovered before the accident because they were asymptomatic. After the trauma of the motor vehicle accident, however, he began to experience back and neck pain. After treatment with doctors and physical therapists this client was assigned a minimal permanent disability rating and his claim was resolved short of trial.

Unfortunately, in December 2004 this same man was again struck from behind by a careless driver. Now his back and neck were even worse than before. The insurance company maintained that his problems were not attributable to the 2004 accident, but rather to the effects of his degenerative spine condition and/or the 1999 accident. Although the bills for related treatment from his 2004 accident totaled $20,000 – and his doctor clearly explained the worsening of his condition – the insurance company would offer little more than the medical bills to settle the case. The case proceeded to trial and we explained to the jury the provisions of Wisconsin law that provide for compensation for the aggravation of a pre-existing condition. The defense argued that $14,000 was adequate compensation since the treatment and the current medical condition did not relate to the 2004 accident. It took the jury less than two hours to return a verdict for $70,000.

Experience in the courtroom coupled with a clear understanding of the applicable Wisconsin law allowed this hard working man to obtain fair compensation as provided for by our civil justice system. Don’t be fooled by insurance adjusters or inexperienced attorneys who want to pass your pain and suffering off onto pre-existing conditions or even prior accidents; if the medical facts indicate that your condition has been worsened by an accident, find an experienced lawyer who knows this area of the law – it is your only protection against an insurance company’s attempt to deny you fair treatment under the law.

We recently resolved a claim for a woman who sadly now lives in a persistent vegetative state; i.e., she is totally dependent upon others for her every care need. She lies in bed day after day cared for by a combination of professionals and her loving family. During the course of this litigation we discovered much about how the basic rights of people in nursing homes are often trampled upon by the professionals charged with the responsibility of caring for them.

While this blog entry is not the place to detail the potential abuses by nursing home staffers, we want to alert the public to existence of the problem so that people understand that there is recourse in the event a nursing home resident is treated in an improper manner. There are state departments that can be accessed and private causes of action that can be brought against negligent nursing homes. The facility is responsible for the negligent or abusive conduct of their staff.

Some of the more common components of negligent care include, but are certainly not limited to failure to turn a resident resulting in pressure sores, failure to adhere to a prescribed dietary plan resulting in malnutrition, over/under medication, delayed diagnosis following falls, failure to properly staff and/or equip a nursing home unit, and on and on.

While it is true that many nursing home facilities deliver quality care and are dedicated to the welfare of their residents, negligent care and abuse do exist. Given the often defenseless condition of a nursing home resident this negligence often borders on outrageous conduct and has sometimes led to the imposition of punitive damages by a jury.

It is important to know your rights and those of a loved one residing in a nursing home or long term care facility. Speak up in defense of the resident and demand accountability for the acts and omissions of the staff.

I would never suggest that anyone relate facts other than the truth in a statement, a deposition, or at trial. But in nearly every accident scenario there are factual issues on both liability (who is responsible for causing the accident) and damages. Insurance adjusters are trained to ask questions regarding issues that, while they are potentially central to the determination of responsibility, may not be obvious to the average person. Time and distance analysis, for example, is a concept that often has great bearing on who is ultimately found to be at fault for an auto accident, and important information concerning facts that later get fed into complicated formulae are often gathered in early interviews with adjusters before people really think through their answers.

A good experienced law firm will protect an injured person from such early statements when potentially crucial information is otherwise provided unwittingly by an unrepresented person. All too often we see early statements where cleverly crafted questions by insurance adjusters result in an inaccurate description of accident facts which are later used against the injured party.

Similarly questions about your physical condition, your medical treatment, and your work status are often designed to limit your recovery. It is virtually impossible to know, in the days immediately following an accident, the nature and extent of your injuries, if any, or the full effect of those injuries on your life. The exchange of information with an insurance company needs to be metered to abide the determination by qualified medical professionals of the full nature and extent of your injuries.

The best protection against such unfair discovery efforts by insurers is to secure quality representation as soon after an accident as possible. Remember, you are dealing with claims adjusters who are professionals trained to record information on an accident in the light most favorable to the interests of the insurer. Don’t be fooled by sweet talk about how they want to help you and how they just want to do the right thing by you. Never forget that every casualty insurance company makes their money in the same way: by taking in as much as possible in premiums and by paying out as little as possible in claims.

This is not to say that every insurance adjuster or investigator is out to cheat you. But none of them are out to serve your interests. The only person who will always look out for your best interests is an experienced attorney retained by you to work for you.

Be smart. Get quality representation as soon as practical after an accident. Don’t let innocent answers to well-crafted questions eat away at your right to full and fair compensation under the law.

1. Law enforcement should be contacted at once so that there is a record made of the accident and identification of all involved parties can be documented;

2. Insurance information should be exchanged and coverage verified so that those responsible for paying for damages caused by the accident can be immediately notified;

3. Statements should be obtained from eyewitnesses to the accident; any delay in doing so can result in memories fading or accident accounts being influenced by investigators working for opposing parties or insurance companies;

4. In major crashes or very serious injury cases accident reconstruction engineers should be dispatched to the scene as soon as possible before physical evidence may disappear or fade through the passage of time or adverse weather conditions;

5. The vehicles involved in the accident need to be inspected and photographed to secure valuable information in the event of an argument over exactly how the accident occurred; once vehicles are crushed the evidence could be lost forever;

While all of these items seem pretty straightforward, in the crush of activity that follows an accident, with personal injuries occupying the fore of everyone’s thoughts, valuable time and important evidence is sometimes lost. The way to guard against the loss of valuable evidence often necessary to obtain full and fair compensation under the law is to secure quality legal representation immediately following an accident. An experienced law firm will handle all of the above issues and a number of similar issues for you while you and your family concentrate on recovering from the effects of the injuries.

At Domnitz & Skemp we have over thirty-five years of experience in handling accident cases from the very beginning. The truth is, the sooner we are involved, the better we can fully protect your rights.