Personal Injury Primer

I’m Katelyn Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics.

Today’s episode takes a look at a recent case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States about the rights of a nursing home resident as it pertains to the right to be free from chemical restraints imposed for purposes of discipline or convenience rather than treatment as well as the right not to be transferred or discharged from a nursing home facility unless certain criteria are met. Health & Hosp. Corp. v. Talevski, 143 S. Ct. 1444 (2023).

The case centered on the language of a couple of provisions in the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act.  In general, the Act is a federal law that sets forth minimum standards of care that state-run nursing homes must meet to receive Medicaid funds. The Act also has a section that lists out certain rights of nursing home residents regarding their health and safety.

Included in that list of the rights of nursing home residents are provisions regarding the right to be free from restraints and the right not to be transferred or discharged from a nursing home facility unless certain prerequisites are met.

The Supreme Court affirmed the 7th Circuit appellate court, answering the question about whether parts of the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act setting forth certain rights for nursing home residents to receive federal funding through the Medicaid program also conferred private rights of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for nursing home residents to sue nursing homes for alleged violations of those rights.

The Court determined that the Act did confer privately enforceable rights of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 regarding the right to be free from restraints and not to be transferred or discharged from a nursing home facility unless certain prerequisites are met.

What is 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and why is it important? The short answer is it is a federal law that gives an express cause of action to any person deprived (by someone acting under color of state law) of rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the US Constitution and federal laws.

Here, the federal law was the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act. The specific language of the Act enumerating the rights of a nursing home resident to be free from restraints provides:

The right to be free from physical or mental abuse, corporal punishment, involuntary seclusion, and any physical or chemical restraints imposed for purposes of discipline or convenience and not required to treat the resident’s medical symptoms. Restraints may only be imposed—

(I) to ensure the physical safety of the resident or other residents, and

(II) only upon the written order of a physician that specifies the duration and circumstances under which the restraints are to be used …

The other right of a nursing home resident described in the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act that was at issue in this lawsuit is the right not to be transferred or discharged from a nursing home facility unless certain criteria are met. Section 1396r(c)(2) of the Act specifies under which a nursing home is permitted to transfer or discharge a resident and provides that a nursing home “must permit each resident to remain in the facility and must not transfer or discharge the resident from the facility unless:

(i) the transfer or discharge is necessary to meet the resident’s welfare and the resident’s welfare cannot be met in the facility;

(ii) the transfer or discharge is appropriate because the resident’s health has improved sufficiently so the resident no longer needs the services provided by the facility;

(iii) the safety of individuals in the facility is endangered;

(iv) the health of individuals in the facility would otherwise be endangered;

(v) the resident has failed, after reasonable and appropriate notice, to pay for a stay at the facility; or

(vi) the facility ceases to operate.

Basically, the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act sets out pre-transfer and pre-discharge notice requirements and clinical record documentation requirements, which effectively create a right for residents of nursing homes to remain at a facility unless these enumerated requirements are met.

Now, in determining whether a federal statute creates a private right that is enforceable under § 1983, there are several factors that courts look at. Ultimately, the courts have to decide whether the text and structure of the federal statute at issue unambiguously establishes an individual right for a specific class of beneficiary.

Here, the US Supreme Court found that the parts of the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act dealing with the right to be free from restraints and the right not to be transferred or discharged unless certain criteria are met specifically identified nursing home residents as the intended beneficiary of said statutory provisions and that those parts of the statute unambiguously conferred individually enforceable rights to nursing home residents to bring their own private causes of actions against a nursing home facility for alleged violation of those rights under § 1983.

The Court found that the statutory provisions used clear rights-creating language and had a particular focus on the benefited class of people—namely nursing home residents.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”

I’m Katelyn Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics.

Today’s episode is a follow-up to an earlier podcast episode, where we discussed the issue of a driver developing an aortic aneurysm following blunt force trauma of his chest hitting the steering wheel during a car crash.

But, in that caller’s case, the doctors quickly diagnosed the condition and associated it with the car crash.

Sometimes, however, no immediate symptoms are associated with heart trauma beyond minor abrasions and bruises.

In many situations following blunt chest trauma, whether through an automobile crash or a work injury, the heart injury may not show up for months or years following the injury incident.

We suggest that attorneys be alert that cardiac injury does not fully develop in some circumstances until months or years after an initial trauma and that the late development of a heart condition can be causally related to a traumatic event.

If an attorney suspects a cardiac injury, they should obtain all of their client’s medical records and history.

Having all of a person’s records may result in the attorney being the best person to spot clues that point to heart injury caused by nonpenetrating trauma to the chest or abdomen. Having all the records, the attorney should examine the medical records of their seemingly healthy client who later suffers a heart attack or dies from heart failure to see if there is a link between the collision and the cardiac conditions that develop.

Where the clues point to heart damage, the attorney should seek a competent medical or biomechanical expert to see if, indeed, there is a causal link between a trauma suffered in a vehicle collision or other mishap to a subsequent aneurysm, arterial blockage, arrhythmia or ventricular rupture that manifests itself months or years later.

Let’s consider the case of a man suffering a blow to the chest that left the steering wheel of his vehicle badly distorted and a mark across his chest caused by the pulling of the shoulder strap. In this gentleman’s case, he began to experience severe shortness of breath a few months following the crash, and an angiogram revealed an 85% blockage of the left anterior descending coronary artery. The man had been perfectly healthy before the crash. He did not have high blood pressure, he was not diabetic, and he did not smoke.

In fact, before the crash, he frequently would jog several miles a day and, in doing so, experienced no chest pain or other problems.

In such a case, the attorney should consult with a competent medical professional to have them look over the patient’s medical records and consider the patient’s medical history to determine if, in fact, the trauma suffered in the auto collision resulted in the blockage discovered on the angiogram.

Even though the heart, and the associated arteries of the heart, are protected by the sternum and the rib cage, the compressive force exerted by a steering wheel or other heavy object against the chest can compress the heart and surrounding tissue between the sternum and the spine. Acceleration or deceleration can thrust the heart against the sternum or vertebrae.

Sudden deceleration from as low as 20 mph has been shown to produce injury to the heart without obvious external signs of trauma.

Cardiac injury can also result from a blow causing indirect compressive force to the chest or the sudden decompression of the abdomen or lower extremities. This results in a marked increase in intra-thoracic or intra-vascular pressure and imparts a hydraulic ram effect to the heart.

Another way the heart can be injured similarly is by a baseball or baseball bat or even a golf ball striking the chest, or compression of the legs or abdomen.

The magnitude of deceleration in a crash can be explained by Newton’s law of dynamics. The forces imparted upon the body can damage the pericardium (the tissue surrounding the heart), the myocardium (the heart muscle), and the valvular structures of the heart and the coronary arteries, which supply blood to the heart muscle.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”

I’m Katelyn Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics.

Today’s question comes from a caller concerned about a chest injury suffered in a rear-end collision.

The caller was in a car crash and even with a seatbelt and shoulder harness his chest slammed into the steering wheel causing pain and bruising, and when the ambulance got him to the ER his blood pressure was extremely high, and a CT scan showed an aortic artery aneurysm. He wanted to know his legal options.

Over the years, we’ve had several cases where a client involved in a collision suffered a cardiac injury.

These types of injuries have become less frequent due to airbags becoming a standard car option compared to a few decades ago.

But how would an attorney go about establishing that an injury to an artery connected to the heart was caused by the impact of a motor vehicle crash?

In this caller’s case, it was clear to the medical doctors that the crash damaged the main artery coming up from the heart, which is called the aortic artery. The fact that the artery was shown as enlarged on a CT scan immediately following the crash, coupled with the patient’s complaints of extreme chest pain, bruising, and elevated blood pressure, led the medical personnel to associate the crash with the findings of an enlargement or bulging in the artery visible on the CT scan films.

In our next podcast episode, we will discuss the difficulties posed by a cardiac injury that is not readily apparent and takes months to develop following an initial injury.

But, in the caller’s case, the impact, coupled with the high blood pressure, led his doctors to associate the aneurysm developing in the artery right where the impact of the steering wheel was felt with the crash.

But is an aneurysm caused by the blunt force trauma of a crash a significant injury that justifies taking a case to trial?

Well, it can be a very serious injury. Depending on the size of the aneurysm, it may require surgery. Repairing an aneurysm is a complicated surgery and can certainly result in death.

But even if the aneurysm is small, the patient will have to see a cardiologist and will likely require annual CT scans and perhaps even annual echocardiograms, to monitor the size of the aneurysm and ensure it is not enlarging. Further, the patient will most likely be on a lifetime of medications to control their blood pressure.

High blood pressure is one of the nontraumatic causes of an aneurysm and certainly will complicate an aneurysm that starts due to trauma.

The attorney has to work with the medical professionals to calculate the costs over a patient’s life of having to regularly get these cardiac tests and discuss with the medical professionals the prognosis of the aneurysm enlarging, the consequence of continued exposure to radiation year after year to get the CT scans, and other costs associated with monitoring the condition which was precipitated by the crash.

So in the caller’s case, our best advice was to hire an attorney to investigate the medical facts and establish the party at fault for the crash.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”

I’m Katelyn Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics.

Today’s question comes from a caller whose son was in a crash involving a semi-tractor trailer. She wanted to hire an attorney even though her son was in the hospital, and the crash only happened the morning she called.

In every case, hiring an attorney as soon as possible after a vehicle crash is helpful.

However, hiring an attorney promptly if you are a trucking accident victim is critical.

A promptly hired attorney can quickly arrange for an accident reconstructionist to go to the scene and inspect the roadway and vehicles and learn what happened.

We’ll discuss accident reconstruction in more detail in a moment.

But first, documenting the crash scene is crucial. Especially if the crash involves shipping items on a flatbed trailer that become dislodged and fall.

When, for example, a shipper loads a flatbed trailer with steel coils, the shipper, not just the motor carrier, can be held liable for a load that breaks loose from the trailer.

An attorney, promptly hired, can send an investigator to the scene to video, photograph, and measure everything about how a load was fastened, even before the crash scene is cleaned up.

A shipper must secure a load to a flatbed trailer in such a way as to prevent the load from breaking loose. There are detailed standards and regulations with which a shipper must comply.

When a shipper fails to comply with regulations and mandatory safety standards, the shipper may be held liable for harm resulting from the load breaking loose during a crash.

Accident reconstruction in commercial truck accident cases is crucial to determining fault and liability. Even if you have a good eyewitness, you still need an accident reconstruction expert.

An accident reconstruction expert looks at all the evidence and uses technology to recreate the crash scene.

An accident reconstruction expert may go to the scene of the crash and set up cameras linked to computers to image the scene and record skid marks and other pavement markings.

Where a nearby homeowner or business camera captures the crash on video, such video recordings are incorporated into the expert’s digital recreation of the crash.

From the digital record, simulations can be run to determine what happened, accounting for vehicle recorder data and other evidence.

Being an accident reconstructionist requires careful training.

Many such experts are retired police officers who use their knowledge, skill, experience, combined with advances in technology to determine each vehicle’s travel direction and speed.

They rely upon site surveys, police reports, witness accounts, physical vehicle damage, and other evidence to understand who is at fault and the extent of any negligence. Reconstruction experts rely upon principles of physics and crash mechanics.

Aside from promptly engaging a truck accident reconstructionist, hiring an attorney soon after a crash will enable the attorney to gather and analyze information from witnesses, photograph vehicles and the scene, secure vehicle event recorder data, and otherwise preserve evidence before it is discarded. As just one example, nearly all trucks have event data recorder modules that can be unintentionally overwritten if not promptly examined and preserved.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”

I’m David Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics.

Today’s question comes from a caller concerned about being bitten by a vicious dog that got loose from a neighbor’s yard.

The caller believes the owner of the property where the dog was kept has insurance. However, the property owner claims the dog was not his, and his insurance company denies coverage. What are our legal options?

This is a situation we encounter all too frequently.

Finding insurance coverage for dog bite injury victims is always a challenge.

Let’s say John Doe owns a three-acre property and has insurance on the property that includes coverage against liability for dog bites.

Suppose a delivery person for Door Dash is seriously injured when a dog got loose from a fenced-in area on John Doe’s property, chased her down, and bit her several times.

If John Doe owns the dog, most likely, there is coverage. Suppose, however, that the dog that attacked the delivery person, was owned by the nephew of John Doe, who was visiting with his dog for a couple of weeks.

In such a case, John Doe’s insurance carrier likely will sue the nephew who owns the dog, John Doe, and the injured delivery person seeking a determination from a court that the insurance carrier does not have to provide liability coverage for the nephew’s dog, arguing that John Doe didn’t own the dog and had no duty to control the dog.

Insurance companies often file a lawsuit of the type we just described seeking release from any obligations to pay a victim or the victim’s family in a vicious dog attack.

If sued, John Doe and the nephew would counter sue seeking an order that the insurance company must provide a defense and indemnify them under the homeowners’ insurance policy that was purchased.

The insurance company will maintain that John Doe is the only insured individual listed on the policy and that the nephew does not qualify as an “insured person.”

The victim is typically named in this type of lawsuit so that the victim is bound by the determinations made by the court.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”

I’m David Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law in simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss topics on personal injury law.

Have you looked at the dashboard screens on the newest cars being offered for sale?

Many new car makers have incorporated lengthy computer screens that replace the speedometer layout of older cars and extend into what has been a traditionally separate navigation and infotainment screen. Some screens are curved and spread 25 to 30 inches from the dash’s far left to the car’s middle.

Car makers can save money by presenting images showing a digital speedometer and digital tachometer instead of installing mechanical components that provide the same vehicle information.

But, is the motoring public’s safety compromised by presenting drivers with complex systems that might distract a driver?

When you position yourself behind the wheel of an unfamiliar car, the learning curve is high when it comes to figuring out how to work the navigation system, configure Bluetooth connections, and figure out how to access USB devices you might plug in.

Some car makers smartly prevent the car from moving when it senses the driver might be attending to something other than the road. But, when a driver is at highway speed, the vehicle cannot stop moving if it senses the driver touching a screen.

Some car makers are bundling radio and climate controls into a digital touchscreen layout. You need to navigate a touch screen to raise or lower the temperature, and you are back to scrolling a touch screen to change the fan speed.

Again, you are navigating a touch screen to select a radio station or choose to play music stored on a plugin USB.

Are these digital touchscreen layouts more distracting and dangerous than old-fashioned physical buttons and dials?

The jury is out, but the physical buttons are far less distracting to many people.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”

I’m David Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics.

Today’s question comes from a caller concerned about his mom, a resident of an assisted living facility.

He recently read an article from the Denver Post about an incident where a 97-year-old woman froze to death outside an assisted living facility, prompting an investigation and a lawsuit. He understands that the care at his mom’s facility is less than she would receive with nursing home care, but the story prompted many questions.

Assisted living facilities vary in the care provided, and some levels of care are patient-dependent.

But is it reasonable to expect some minimal level of care?

The woman described in the Denver Post was stranded outside in 15-degree weather and snow for five hours in February.

She stepped out of the building in the middle of the night wearing a nightgown, robe, boots, and gloves.

Unfortunately, the door locked shut behind her.

She had the presence of mind to use her walker to navigate the sidewalk until she ran into a 5-foot snowbank. She ditched the walker, climbed over the snow, and crawled 75 feet to a windowed door adjacent to a nurses’ station.

But the nurses reportedly sitting at the desks did not hear her banging on the window.

Such facts smack of negligence, at the very least. But remember, negligence is another name for lack of reasonable care.

In the woman’s case, a state investigation found no violation of facility safety regulations.

Let’s step away from the case of the woman who died, however.

Must an assisted living facility anticipate every dangerous circumstance that potentially could confront a resident?

Fire safety laws would prevent locking the doors from the inside. But alarms could have been placed on the doors. An alarm would have reported an opening of a door. Most movie theaters have such an alarm.

Would reasonable care require a doorbell outside a door set to lock once opened and used to exit?

Such a bell would allow someone outside to signal their presence.

Does the standard of care vary according to what a facility knows about a patient?

What if a facility knows a patient suffers from confusion and needs to be monitored at night for sleepwalking? Should such a patient be tagged as at risk for wandering?

Must a facility have security cameras showing if a patient steps outside?

If so, must the cameras be monitored constantly?

Does the assisted living facility engage in routine periodic room checks? Such checks would disclose a missing patient.

What if facility history shows other patients wandering about at night and exposed to dangers of varied sorts?

A past history of wandering would require more care in most circumstances.

In discussing this issue with the caller, he took our advice to ask important questions like these to the people running the place where his mom lived.

You might consider doing the same if you have a relative at such a facility.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – While there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”

I’m David Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics.

Today’s question came from a caller whose driver’s assist package malfunctioned and caused his car to slam on its brakes. Luckily there was no collision, but he wanted to know his legal options. He was told it might be months before the part is available to fix the issue. Thankfully, the dealer helped him disable the feature for now.

Maybe you’ve noticed that there have been quite a few articles on our blog about Tesla over the years. But the caller’s car was not a Tesla; instead, his car was made by a well-known German automaker whose name starts with the letter B.

We’ve shared our thoughts on Tesla’s autopilot (they call it driver assist). We have addressed their infotainment features, such as watching movies and playing video games while driving. In all those articles, you would think that we are anti-Tesla. We are neither anti-Tesla nor anti-technology.

What we are is anti-negligence.

Unfortunately, driver assistance systems that malfunction pose a danger on the highway. So do assist packages that lull the driver into inattentiveness to the road.

When a manufacturer creates a product that enables a consumer to no longer control their environment, it can potentially lead to another person being injured or, worse, killed.

Allowing that product to be fitted into a vehicle that can travel on highways at high speeds creates an opportunity for negligence to occur fast and with great destructive force.

One of the most important things to understand about personal injury law in the context of auto accidents is the principle of negligence.

To recover damages for an injury sustained in a car accident, you must be able to prove that the other driver was negligent in some way.

This means they failed to exercise the level of care and caution a reasonable person would have under the same circumstances.

The most common form of negligence in car accidents is distracted driving.

Distracted driving is any activity that diverts a driver’s attention away from the road, such as texting, eating, or playing with the infotainment display.

A distracted driver can be held liable for any injuries or damages that result.

What happens if a driver assist feature on a car, call it autopilot or something else, results in a driver taking their eyes off the road?

Or causes them to decide to take a nap while behind the wheel?

Recently a driver of a Tesla engaged the driver assistant and quickly fell asleep.

A police officer noticed the driver slumped over, pulled his cruiser next to the Tesla (while on a highway doing 82 mph), and tried to get the driver to wake up.

Fortunately, the driver did wake up and was able to safely stop. Nobody was injured, thank goodness. The driver was cited for “inattentive driving.”

The officer could not cite Tesla for contributing to cause “inattentive driving,” but Tesla’s safety system, albeit misused, actually did lead the driver to be inattentive.

Imagine if that scenario played out differently. At 82 miles per hour, the driver of the Tesla could have caused much death, and destruction had he collided with other cars.

Sadly, a California man died when his Tesla impacted the rear of a stopped tractor-trailer. The man had shared videos on his social media of him engaging the driver assistant shortly before the crash.

What is the solution when a company demonstrates that it values technology-assisted features over the laws that are supposed to keep consumers safe?

Many states are now pursuing legislation that would hold autonomous vehicle (AV) manufacturers accountable for manufacturing vehicles that directly result in a violation of traffic rules.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – While there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”

I’m David Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics.

Today’s question comes from a caller who said she was driving on the interstate after dark and a semi-tractor trailer truck pulled alongside her.

She said that without warning the truck drifted into her lane and struck her SUV causing it to roll into the ditch.

She speculates that driver must have fallen asleep.

However, the truck driver told the police another vehicle that failed to stop cut him off and he had no choice but to swerve and that the crash was not his fault.

You might be asking yourself; does it really matter whether the trucker fell asleep or had to swerve? Yes, it does.

By claiming that another unknown vehicle caused him to swerve, the trucker and his insurance carrier will argue that he was not at fault. He says he was as much an innocent victim as the caller.

But not so fast.

If it can be established that due to fatigue the driver fell asleep at the wheel, not only does it make him clearly responsible for the crash, it establishes that he is a liar. It means the truck driver made up his claim that some unknown car caused the crash.

Proving that the semi-driver fell asleep implicates him, and the motor carrier that put him on the road, in violating safety rules regarding maximum operating hours, if in fact, the evidence helps establish that the driver and motor carrier violated maximum operating hours regulations.

But how do you go about establishing that the driver was fatigued?

In most serious crashes involving a commercial motor vehicle, there is usually a DOT inspection of the vehicle.

An inspection will include a review of the driver’s operating logs. If there was no DOT inspection, an attorney will have to request that all driver logs be preserved. There must be a preservation request because the law permits driver logs to be destroyed after a few months.

The regulations require that a driver is not permitted to be on duty for a period greater than stated in the rules. When a driver exceeds the hours of allowable driving or on-duty time, they can be cited for a violation of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.

Drivers are required to keep written logs. Many drivers keep handwritten logs. Some motor carriers require electronic logs.

The handwritten logs are supposed to indicate where a driver was located when they stopped to enter information into the log. Electronic logs can also be tagged to GPS locations.

These logs can help establish whether a driver was driving longer than the rules permit.

This may require hiring an expert to review all of the information.

However, if the driver was exceeding the number of hours permitted, it makes it more likely that the driver was fatigued.

In addition to having a commercial driving expert, it may be necessary to look at the medical history of a particular driver.

We had one matter where a driver suffered from sleep apnea, which made him fatigued.

Another driver had recently been diagnosed with narcolepsy which caused him to fall asleep at the wheel.

Driving log requirements under the safety regulations help keep fatigued drivers off the road.

What is worse than a fatigued driver? A driver who is fatigued and lies about an unknown driver causing a crash to cover up his own fault.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”

I’m David Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics.

Ordering auto parts online has become so easy that even a non-mechanic can do it. It didn’t use to be this way. In years past, you would need to take the broken part to an auto parts store and find a match that worked for your car. Unfortunately, the pandemic put a squeeze on the availability of some parts. This meant finding what you needed in-store or online was more difficult. Then the opportunists stepped in and said, “Hey, we have a solution. We can print 3D parts for you.”

Sure, 3D-printed parts filled the void created by manufacturers failing to process orders for consumers. But who is liable when component parts fail after they are installed in vehicles? Those individuals printing parts are akin to modern-day snake oil salesmen. They will argue that their 3D printed part is just as good, safe, or equivalent to the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) part. It’s at a fraction of the price. If you want a 3D printed shot glass or pencil holder, buy one…but when offered 3D printed auto parts…run away. Your safety is not worth risking.

Those 3D-printed parts are not tested for quality, and no research and development to support the merchantability of those printed parts has taken place. A design code is downloaded from the internet and fed into a computer. The code instructs the printer how to shape the item. And most likely, no application test results are given to show how the part works under load pressure. When the item is installed in place of an actual auto part, it will experience heat/cold, grease, chemical fluids, and motion. All of which can lead to catastrophic failure.

Let’s delve into the types of legal liability that exist for 3D Printed Parts:

So can you sue over 3D Printed car parts?

As is always the case, it depends. These cases are growing as the popularity and convenience of 3D printing become mainstream. Unfortunately, they are not always open/shut cases. And proving the design was defective when it left the care of the creator or retailer can be a challenge. Also, it may be a challenge to prove the producer of a 3D printed part was in the business of selling such parts when they could just be a tinkerer or hobbyist.

Lastly, think about the collectability of the seller of a 3D-printed part. Are they insured? Are they as financially stable as Ford, GM, or Mercedes?

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, a product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”