Personal Injury Primer

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 wanted to sue over the death of his wife who died in a car crash when another driver ran a red light.

When I mentioned to the caller that a wrongful death estate would need to be opened, he was shocked. The caller responded that he and his wife had living trusts so he didn’t think an estate needed to be opened.

The caller’s confusion is not surprising.

There are essentially two types of estates, one is the type of estate where a person dies, and a court needs to determine what happens with their property. Most people have heard the term probate. Probate usually involves a court examining a will, or deciding who gets property if there is no will and issuing orders regarding property disposition.

The type of estate that needs to be filed to pursue a legal claim for death caused by negligence is referred to as a wrongful death estate. This is a much different type of estate.

When a person dies, they no longer can hire an attorney and file papers in court to pursue the party whose negligence led to their death.

An entity must be created under the law to file lawsuits, hire attorneys, etc. This entity is called a “wrongful death estate.”

In the typical case where the decedent is survived by a spouse, the attorney that the surviving spouse hires will help them open this wrongful death estate and ask the court to name the surviving spouse as the executor of the wrongful death estate.

Once named as executor the surviving spouse and his or her attorney may then file a complaint naming the negligent party as a defendant.

If a settlement is reached, then the court must approve any settlement which the estate may recommend before a settlement can be completed.

The estate doesn’t have free reign to act without the permission of the court in terms of settling. But for other purposes, the estate can act without any court intervention.

Like a wrongful death estate is a guardianship. Let’s suppose the caller’s wife, instead of having been killed in the crash, was placed in a coma and needed round-the-clock care. The surviving spouse could be appointed as a guardian with the legal authority to file a lawsuit, hire an attorney, and take other steps to protect the rights of the injured spouse.

So, while the caller was right to be confused in thinking that he and his deceased wife had done estate planning and could bypass the probate estate laws. In order to pursue a wrongful death claim on behalf of his deceased wife, an estate dealing with just the wrongful death issues would have to be opened in court to enable a complaint to be filed.

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 topic is prompted by a client for whom we recently settled a case.

He reminded me at the conclusion of the case, that years earlier before he came to our office, I took his deposition as an employee of a business defendant that I sued.

He said that we were so thorough in questioning him at his deposition as an employee for the defendant company he worked for at the time, that he knew we would do a good job handling his car crash case.

He is not the first person who hired us, after having encountered our office in the past.

Over the years we have deposed many witnesses in other cases. Many times, we have had people who served on juries and decided the fates of our clients at trial decide to hire us to represent them in a legal matter years later.

I remember one gentleman who called and started out saying “I am not sure if you remember me, but I served as the foreman on the jury in the case where you represented a family hit by a semi-truck about 10 years ago.”

I vaguely remembered the case, but he remembered everything about it. In detail.

I have to say it’s a strong endorsement to have people who have been in an adversarial relationship with you as an attorney representing another client, who find themselves so persuaded that you know what you’re doing that they decide to hire you when they need an attorney.

The only other thing I could say about the subject is when we take the deposition of a defendant in a case or of an employee of the company that is sued as a defendant, we always try to be kind and polite to the witness.

Someone famous once said, “If you treat people with respect, they will treat you with respect.”  Of course, not everyone deserves to be treated with respect. Still treating another person with respect says more about you than it does about them.

I remember one case where a defendant driver was drunk when he hit my client. We had to take his deposition when he was being held in jail.

He had done some awful things. He had multiple drunk driving convictions. But he was sober when we questioned him. He was also truthful.

Though alcohol would turn him into a monster, when he was sober, he was pleasant.

Under questioning, we learned that he had served in the military, and did not start drinking until he came back. He started drinking because several buddies had been killed right before his eyes. He drank to kill his pain.

In any event, I would say that it is good advice, no matter what your profession, and no matter who you encounter in doing your job, to be respectful to those you encounter.

Today’s adversary may be tomorrow’s client.

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 episode was prompted by the deposition I recently prepared for on a food poisoning case that settled.

The preparation reminded me how demanding we are, and rightly must be, with our restaurant industry. Indiana food safety and health regulations are well set forth and well organized. Failure to follow them at a restaurant will invariably lead to illness caused by a lack of sanitary conditions.

In preparation for this deposition, we contacted the local health department and received all of the complaint and inspection records for five years prior to the incident where our client says he experienced salmonella poisoning after eating at the restaurant.

The inspection records were quite revealing. The local health department noted problems with cockroaches, a sink in the kitchen that was inoperative, a lack of paper towels in the kitchen, employees engaging in food preparation without proper hand sanitation, and a lack of any hairnet worn by food preparers. They also found a lack of proper functioning dish and silverware cleaning equipment in the kitchen, a hole in the refrigerator door, a slimy green substance found in an ice chest, and no functioning temperature probes to be used for preparing chicken, fish, and beef. On one inspection the cooking griddle was filthy. On another occasion, no Certified Food Handler was present as required by Indiana law. The list goes on and on.

The witness I prepared to depose was a food preparer who was hired to prepare food at the table side and put on a show for guests. Obviously, this is not how most food preparation occurs.

But if you’re selling point is to make a show of preparing food at the table side you must still comply with regulations requiring the use of temperature probes. You’re supposed to still make sure the grill is operating at the required temperature. All food items must be properly handled and properly refrigerated before the raw food is brought out from the kitchen to the table side. But in this instance, it appears that none of that was done.

So contracting salmonella poisoning was highly likely under the circumstances.

Why? Because Salmonella infection occurs from the consumption of raw meats and eggs, contaminated dairy foods, such as unpasteurized milk, or fruits and vegetables contaminated by unsanitary food handlers. Food may be contaminated by rodent feces. The contamination may be spread by food preparers who fail to wash their hands, unclean utensils, and unclean cutting boards.

This is why having a Certified Food Handler, present as required under Indiana law is so important. A Certified Food Handler is a person who has a certificate from an accredited Food Protection institution.

What are these highly trained people expected to know? Things like requirements for heating and serving precooked foods and preparing and serving packaged or unpackaged foods that are potentially hazardous foods.

A Certified Food Handler must successfully pass an accredited examination administered by an accredited testing service. The restauranter must also always have this trained food specialist’s certification document and photo identification present at the food establishment. Furthermore, no person should be designated as a Certified Food Handler or in any way represent himself or herself to be a Certified Food Handler unless they hold the certification.

Restaurants of certain square footage are required to have a trained person in charge present at the food establishment during all hours of operation.

In short, under Indiana law, the restaurant has to have someone knowledgeable in all of the food safety requirements to make sure that the lower-level employees are doing their jobs properly and safely handling food.

I hope this episode hasn’t destroyed your appetite. But perhaps it will make you more critical when you go to a restaurant.

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.

In today’s episode, we’re discussing a product recall that was issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for 26 designs of children’s pajamas by a U.K.-based company named Selfie Craft. From 2017-2022, around 40,000 pairs of the now-recalled pajamas were sold for ages 3 through 12.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the recall was due to a failure of the pajamas to meet U.S. flammability standards, presenting a risk of burns to children wearing them. Although no injuries or incidents have been reported for the pajamas, the Commission urged parents to discontinue using the pajamas and to destroy them.

The safety of products like these children’s pajamas are regulated, in part, by the federal government under what’s called the Flammable Fabrics Act. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1191-1204. The Act controls the manufacture of highly flammable clothing and gives authority to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to issue mandatory flammability standards. These standards apply to products like clothing, vinyl plastic film (such as the material used in disposable diapers and certain raincoats), carpets and rugs, children’s sleepwear, and mattresses and mattress pads.

The flammability standards for children’s sleepwear are more stringent than those for typical adult and children’s apparel. Under the law, apparel manufacturers have to test their products and determine the relative flammability of the textiles used in the apparel. The average burn time and surface characteristics, such as char, are observed and recorded in testing the clothing. The textiles are put into one of three class designations based on the testing outcomes. A Class 3 textile, for example, is considered dangerously flammable and unsuitable for clothing use because it burns too rapidly and intensely. Examples of common noncomplying Fabrics include sheer 100% rayon, sheer 100% silk, 100% rayon chenille, and 100% cotton terry cloth.

In the 1970s, special regulations were developed regarding the flammability of children’s sleepwear to be more stringent than the regulations already in place since the 1950s for adult and children’s daywear clothing. These more strict rules for children’s sleepwear were designed to protect children from small open-flame source fires—such as matches, candles, stoves, and space heaters–rather than large fires started by flammable liquids like gasoline.

Children’s sleepwear is defined as a clothing product manufactured with the intent to be primarily worn for sleeping and activities related to sleep in sizes 0 – 14 and applied to things like children’s nightgowns, pajamas, and robes. Under the law, the fabric used in children’s sleepwear must be flame resistant and self-extinguish—meaning it must not continue to burn—after removing it from a small, open-flame source.

Manufacturers of children’s sleepwear must test the clothing fabric in its original state and after 50 laundering cycles. The tested samples must be retained and recorded.

Importantly, there are a few exceptions under the children’s sleepwear product category for things like diapers, underwear, infant garments, and tight-fitting sleepwear. However, tight-fitting sleepwear must have a specific label on it, noting that it is not flame resistant and that loose-fitting garments are more likely to catch fire.

We 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 burn suffered during surgery.

The caller said he was injured during surgery due to one of the surgical tools malfunctioning. At least, that is what his doctor told him about why the injury occurred.

While doctors can and do make surgical mistakes, there can also be issues with malfunctioning surgical equipment that leads to an injury.

For example, not too long ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a recall of certain electrosurgery tools manufactured by a well-known medical supply company reporting that the usage of the tools could lead to injury or death.

The device is used with pediatric and adult patients and has caused burn injuries. The tools are soft pads that conduct an electric current through the patient’s body during electrosurgical procedures to heat, cut tissue, or stop bleeding.

Before the recall, the manufacturer received reports of 63 injuries related to using the devices. The FDA did not identify the cause of the patient’s burns, but the burns were noted to be quite serious.

While the manufacturer or seller may be legally held responsible for such burn injuries related to using the devices, a common defense a manufacturer would make is that the products were improperly used.

This likely means that whether the caller likes it or not, he may have to include his doctor as a defendant in a lawsuit against the manufacturer to prevent the product-maker from blaming the injury on the doctor. Unless the doctor is in the courtroom asserting that he did everything he was supposed to do, but the product still malfunctioned, the product maker could perhaps convince a jury that its product was not to blame for the injury.

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 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.”