Personal injury cases can encompass a variety of injuries. Most of those injuries start with a physical injury such as a back injury from a car accident. Some personal injuries, however, can exist without a predicate physical injury. Take for example emotional distress. While emotional distress can be included as a non-economic damage in a personal injury case where there are also physical injuries, an emotional distress personal injury case can sometimes be filed without an underlying physical injury. Sound confusing? It gets even more confusing when you take into account the tax ramifications of a personal injury award or settlement.

Imagine winning a million dollar personal injury jury award only to find out that the Internal Revenue Service was going to tax the money – leaving you with only half at best. Don’t panic yet – most personal injury awards or settlement are NOT taxed. The key is in the definition of income. Over the years the courts have been faced with the task of defining the word “income”. As such, the legal definition of the word income is “all accession to wealth, clearly realized, over which you have dominion. What that boils down to is “anything of value that you receive to do with as you please, for which you do work or because it is obligated by contract“. Of course we all know that Uncle Sam says income…is taxable! So here does that leave personal injury settlement or jury awards?

The good news is that most personal injury settlements and jury awards are not taxable. The government looks at compensation paid as a result of a physical injury as making the person whole again. In other words the plaintiff hasn’t gained anything, she has just been made whole again. Therefore, the federal government has not right to tax that money. The tricky part comes in when the personal injury is not predicated on an actual physical injury . As mentioned earlier, a lawsuit for emotional distress is not based on an actual physical injury. The victim may suffer physical symptoms of the emotional stress but there is not actual physical injury upon which the lawsuit is based. In that case, the compensation received by the victim in a settlement or pursuant to a jury award can be taxed by Uncle Sam.

Clearly, a victim must be careful how settlements in a personal injury case are worded and would always consult with her attorney about the tax ramifications of a settlement before accepting one. Having said all that, the bottom line in most personal injury accident cases is that the compensation received via settlement agreement or awarded to the plaintiff by a jury is generally not taxed by the federal government – which is great news for plaintiffs!

If you would like to discuss the specifics of a personal injury accident case with an experienced California attorney, please schedule a free and confidential evaluation of your case with attorney Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates at 1-800-300-0001 or at www.ledgerlaw.com.

Many personal injury accident cases are settled through negotiations between the plaintiff and defendant long before an actual lawsuit is even prepared. There are times, however, when a personal injury accident case simply cannot be resolved through negotiations and therefore a trial becomes inevitable. When a personal injury accident goes to trial, the outcome is in the hands of 12 people that neither the plaintiff or the defendant have ever laid eyes on – the jury.

Jury selection will vary slightly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the basic procedure is the same. The first step in finding a jury to hear any case is to randomly select a group of people from the jury pool to report for jury duty. We’ve all heard of jury duty right? The jury pool is comprised of all the registered voters in the county where the trial is to take place. The court administration will determine how many juries-criminal and civil- that they anticipate will actually begin on a given day, Based on that, they will bring in a number of potential jurors from the jury pool. From the initial group of potential jurors, 13 of them will be brought in to the courtroom for a 12 member jury. In most jurisdictions a personal injury accident case will be heard by a 12 person jury. A 13th person will hear the case as the alternate juror but will not deliberate at the end of the trial unless one of the original jurors is unable to complete her duties.

The potential jurors will have filled out juror questionnaires at some point either before arriving at the courthouse or once they get there. The questionnaires are intended to give the attorneys some basic background information about the potential jurors. Once the potential jurors are seated in the courtroom, the process of voir dire begins. During this stage, the attorneys are entitled to question the jurors in person. Again, the idea is for the attorneys to get a better idea of who the potential jurors are and to try and determine who they want on the jury. Each side can challenge a jury for cause for very specific reasons such as bias or personal knowledge of the case. Each side will then also be able to exercise a specific number of peremptory challenges. These challenges do not require a reason. This is an attorneys’ chance to try and prevent a potential juror from becoming part of the final jury if it appears after voir dire that they would not be likely to be sympathetic to his clients’ claim or defense. Potential jurors will continue to be called until all challenges have been used and there are the required number of jurors to hear the case.

As you can see, while your attorney will have some input into who ultimately sits on the jury, chance plays a large part in determining who will decide your personal injury accident case.

If you would like a detailed evaluation of a California personal injury accident case that you may have, please call attorney Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates at 1-800-300-0001 or visit him online at www.ledgerlaw.com

Ledger Law Firm (Los Angeles Office)
811 Wilshire Blvd
Suite 1000
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Office: 213-493-6588

Personal injury accident cases come in many forms. Most people think of a car accident when they think of a personal injury accident but there are an infinite amount of other accidents that can be considered personal injury accidents as well. For example, a dog bite, a fall at a store or injuries suffered in the workplace cam all be personal injury accidents. Many personal injury accident cases are settled before the plaintiff even files an official lawsuit in court. If negligence (fault) is clear and the plaintiff’s injuries are not contested by the defendant then the case frequently ends with a settlement agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant. In some cases, though, a settlement agreement is not able to be reached between the parties. It may be that the defendant denies any negligence on her part . In states that use comparative negligence approach, such as California, it may be that the defendant accepts some negligence but the parties disagree as to how much negligence should be attributable to the defendant. Lastly, the parties may actually agree on the issue of negligence but the defendant may not agree to the monetary amount of damages that the plaintiff is requesting. In any of these situations, the plaintiff may consider taking the case to trial.

Before a plaintiff decides to proceed to trial, he should understand the potential risks and rewards associated with taking a personal injury case to trial. When a personal injury accident case goes to trial, it is heard in front of a jury. The jury will ultimately decide whether or not the defendant was negligent, what percentage of negligence the defendant is responsible for and how much compensation to award the plaintiff if they find the defendant negligent. While a jury verdict or award may be appealable in some cases, the plaintiff should consider the decision of the jury to be final. Therefore, one of the biggest risks with taking a personal injury case to trial is that it is a gamble. Whether the plaintiff receives anything at all in the form of compensation is totally in the hands of the jury. Juries can be unpredictable and hard to read. A plaintiff may think she has a rock solid case only to lose everything when the jury returns with its decision. Anything risk that the plaintiff must consider s the time involved in taking a case to trial. Time frames will vary from one jurisdiction to another, but you can plan on months, if not years, before your case will actually reach trial. In the meantime, the plaintiff receives nothing in the way of compensation. Lastly, a plaintiff must consider the reality of the defendant’s financial situation. Many settlement offers are based on the amount the defendant is able to pay. Insurance policies generally have caps that maximize the amount they will pay out as well. If the plaintiff refuses the defendant’s settlement offer and ultimately wins a larger award at trial but the defendant has no resources to pay the award then the plaintiff is essentially in no better of a position.

The potential rewards for the plaintiff are apparent. If the defendant has refused to accept negligence and made no settlement offer then a plaintiff has nothing to lose by taking the case to trial. If the defendant is accepting no responsibility, then the plaintiff needs to consult with her attorney before proceeding to trial to analyze her chances of convincing a jury that the defendant is responsible. If the defendant has made a settlement offer but the plaintiff feels the offer is too low, then the jury could award the plaintiff significantly more at trial. The bottom line is generally that a plaintiff could win big or lose big by taking a personal injury case to trial.

If you would like a California personal injury accident case evaluated at no cost, please contact attorney Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates at 1-800-300-0001 or visit him online at www.ledgerlaw.com.
Law Offices of Ledger & Associates (Los Angeles Office)
811 Wilshire Blvd
Suite 1000
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Office: 213-493-6588

Most people have heard the term “negligence” before. The most basic definition for the term negligence is “fault” or “blame”. While these explanations are adequate for a simple and quick explanation, negligence is actually much more complicated and complex. Negligence is the basis of the majority of tort claims in the United States. A tort claim is a claim for injury. The United states also recognizes intentional torts and strict liability torts but the vast majority of tort claims fall under the purview of negligent torts.

The definition of negligence has evolved over the years and continues to evolve today. Some scholars content that negligence in its most basic form only requires three elements ( conduct, causation and damages) while another minority claims that negligence actually requires five elements (duty, breach of duty, actual cause, proximate cause and damages). The majority of scholars and courts, however, require four elements in order to prove negligence: duty, breach of duty, causation and damages.

Duty is the first, and most important elements when attempting to prove a negligence case. Basically the defendant must have owed a duty of care to the plaintiff. In some situations, duty is easy to prove. For instance, most courts have held that the operator of a vehicle on a public road always owes a duty of care to the other drivers. Therefore, in a personal injury car accident lawsuit the duty of care is clear. In other personal injury cases the duty of care is not as clear. For instance, what is the duty of care owed to a trespasser on your own property? What is the duty of care owed to an employee? These situations are not as black and white and often require an experienced attorney to argue that there was, indeed, a duty owed to the plaintiff.

The second element – breach of duty – has also been the subject of much debate over the years. Most courts explain the duty of care as a “failing to use reasonable care that an ordinary person would use under the circumstances”. As you can see, this leaves much room for debate. What is “reasonable care” ? Who is an “ordinary person”? A good example of the difficulty in deciding whether there has been a breach of the duty of care involves a swimming pool drowning. If a plaintiff installs a swimming pool on her own property, posts no trespassing signs and even puts a fence around the property but a small child manages to open the gate and ultimately drown in the pool has the plaintiff breached her duty of care? Swimming pool drowning s have been the subject of much debate over the duty of care element. The bottom line, however, is that to prevail in a personal injury lawsuit the plaintiff must prove that the defendant did breach his duty of care to the plaintiff.

Causation is the next element that must be proven in a personal injury lawsuit. As it sounds, causation requires the plaintiff to show that the breach of duty of care made by the defendant actually caused the plaintiff’s injuries. This may sound obvious and simple, but it is not always as straight forward as it appears. Imagine that an employer fails to use proper safety equipment in the workplace – clearly a breach of the duty of care. The plaintiff, however receives injuries as a result of asbestos. The asbestos exposure is not a result of the failure to use proper safety equipment and therefore the breach of duty is not the cause of the injuries. It may be that the defendant breached another duty of care by exposing the plaintiff to the asbestos, but the breach for failing to use proper equipment is not the cause of the injuries.

Last, the plaintiff must prove damages. In most states, the plaintiff must prove actual or economic damages before she can receive compensation for special or non-economic damages. What this means is that she must first prove that she received some type of physical injury as a rule before she can ask for pain and suffering type damages. Damages can also include things such as lost wages from missed work or property damage.

If you have any questions regarding negligence or California personal injury law, please contact the personal injury law firm of Ledger & Associates at 1-800-300-0001 or www.ledgerlaw.com.

A plaintiff in a personal injury accident case is certainly entitled to represent herself in her quest for compensation for her injuries. There is no law or rule that requires victims to hire counsel to represent them in a personal injury accident. For very minor accidents where the plaintiff received little or no injury, an attorney may truly not be needed. However for most personal injury accident cases an attorney is not only helpful, but will likely result in a significantly larger settlement amount for the plaintiff. Understandably, if the case goes to trial, a plaintiff will need the help of an attorney. Studies have also repeatedly shown, however, that a plaintiff that is represented by an attorney will receive a larger negotiated settlement amount than an unrepresented plaintiff in cases that are settled outside of the courtroom.

One reason that settlements tend to be larger when a plaintiff is represented by an attorney is a direct reflection of the experience and knowledge that the attorney lends to the case. An attorney is trained to understand the law and generally has years of experience handling similar cases. As such, an attorney can direct the plaintiff to the proper medical services and treatment that she needs to substantiate the injuries she received. An attorney also knows how to find and preserve evidence that may be needed to prove the case. For instance, many underrepresented victims rely on the police report to prove negligence. While a police report can be used in a personal injury accident case, it is not, alone, proof of negligence on the part of the defendant even if the police officer cited the defendant in the report. Additionally, an attorney will proactively contact potential witnesses and call them in for depositions that may be used later in the event the witness becomes unavailable. For complicated accidents, an attorney may be able to utilize the expertise of accident recreation specialists or other expert witnesses that a plaintiff alone does not have access to.

Additionally, an attorney “ups the anti” for the insurance company. Once an attorney is involved, the insurance company knows that there is a realistic chance that the case could proceed to a trial if a settlement agreement is not reached. The cost for an insurance company to try a case is substantial. Before an actual lawsuit is filed the insurance company usually has an adjuster handling the negotiations with very little time spent by an attorney on the case. Once a lawsuit has actually been filed the cost to the insurance company starts to skyrocket. At that point, an attorney must take over handling the case and the fees start adding up quickly. Remember, the insurance company must pay their legal fees even if they ultimately win the case at trial. For this reason, an insurance company has an additional incentive to settle a personal injury accident case outside of the courtroom when an attorney is handling the case for the plaintiff. In most cases, spending a few thousand dollars more on a settlement outside the courtroom will actually save the insurance company a considerable amount of money in the long-term.

If you have been the victim of a personal injury accident and would like an experienced California attorney to provide you a free detailed evaluation of your case, please contact the personal injury law firm of Ledger & Associates at 1-800-300-0001 or visit them online at www.ledgerlaw.com

At some point or another you have undoubtedly heard about an astronomically high jury award for a personal injury case. Maybe it was the McDonald’s hot coffee case where the jury initially awarded the plaintiff $160,000 in actual damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages (the award was later reduced and the parties eventually came to a secret settlement amount that has never been disclosed to avoid further appeals). Just this month a Humboldt County, California jury handed over a $677 million award for the death of a nursing home patient. The award was actually intended to compensate 32,000 current and former nursing home patients that filed suit as a class action. Stories such as these are common place in the news. As a rule, however, the full story behind them is not reported. Understandably, a victim in a personal injury case hears the big verdict headline and starts wondering why she would settle her personal injury case when she could be awarded a huge verdict at trial. A trial is, occasionally, the best option for a personal injury accident victim but the majority of the time a trial is simply to risky, time consuming and unpredictable.

One of the biggest reasons that taking a personal injury accident case to trial is such a gamble is that you have no idea who will be deciding your case. In most jurisdictions 12 people from the community will be deciding whether you are awarded anything at all and if so how much you will be awarded. While your attorney will be entitled to question the jurors that are called in for jury duty, he will have nothing to say about who is called in. Your attorney and the defendant’s attorney will be able to excuse a certain number of jurors from the case in most cases, but after they have used there allotment of challenges the people that remain will be the jury – for better or worse. Juries are unpredictable and can make decisions based on things the attorneys may never have considered to be important. The judge will advise the jury of the law, but to some degree they can base their decision on any piece of evidence-or lack thereof- that they deem important. For this reason, taking a case to a jury trial can be a roll of the dice even when you have an excellent case and an excellent attorney representing you.

On top of the jury themselves being unpredictable, when you decide to take a case to a jury trial in some ways it is like starting from scratch. In most jurisdictions settlement negotiations are not admissible in court. What this means for the plaintiff is that in many cases the defendant was willing to admit negligence for the purpose of reaching a settlement. Once the decision has been made to go to trial, the defendant has every right to deny that he was negligent to the jury forcing the plaintiff to prove negligence. If the plaintiff fails to convince the jury that the defendant was negligent then the plaintiff will receive nothing in the way of compensation.

Finally, a plaintiff must consider the time involved in a trial. While many personal injury accident cases can be settled in a matter of months, a personal injury trial may not actually go to trial for two to three years. Even if the plaintiff wins at trial, she may still have to wait for her money. The defendant will likely appeal the verdict-especially if it was a large award. The initial award could ultimately be substantially reduced or at a bare minimum will take years to be finalized. Then there is the problem of collecting from the defendant if the plaintiff wins a large award. Many settlement offers are based, in part, on the defendant’s ability to pay. Winning a large jury award doesn’t do the plaintiff much good if she is never able to collect any of the money.

You attorney will analyze the downside risk versus the upside potential. If your attorney has been retained on a contingency fee the firm will have a huge incentive to maximize your recovery and should give you a detailed explanations of ALL your potential options.

For additional information, please contact the California personal injury law firm of Ledger & Associates at 1-800-300-0001 or visit their website at www.ledgerlaw.com.