What is a Personal Injury?

When you or a loved one has been injured, the first thing that comes to mind is simply receiving medical treatment and moving forward with your life. However, it is important to recognize that some people may have legal recourse.

Suffering a physical or psychological injury due to another individual's negligence is a simple definition for a personal injury. In the court of law, it must be proven that a person's careless actions caused your injuries, which led to further damages, such as lost wages or mental anguish.

A personal injury case may go through civil court proceedings or be settled out of court through an informal settlement. In most cases, a personal injury claim can be settled before heading to court. However, in cases where a settlement cannot be agreed upon, it is important to find a lawyer who has experience going to trial.

Types of Personal Injury Claims
It can be difficult to determine if someone else's careless actions caused your injury, however, these are some of the most common causes of a personal injury:

• Car accidents
• Motorcycle accidents
• Workplace incidents | Construction accidents
• Slip and fall | Premises Liability
• Defective products

In each of these situations, the person(s) at fault had a duty of care to behave in a responsible manner that would not lead to an accident or injuries. Unfortunately, their failure to exercise a duty of care led to serious consequences.

Contact Us
When you or a loved one has suffered at the hands of another, the personal injury lawyers of Miller Weisbrod, LLP can help you file a claim for compensation.

Our experienced personal injury attorneys offer free case evaluations to those who believe they may be entitled to compensation. For more information, we invite you to contact our offices in Dallas at 214.987.0005 to schedule a free initial consultation with our experienced personal injury trial lawyers.

If you are calling from outside the DFW Metroplex, please call us toll free at 888.987.0005. You may also contact us by e-mail now for prompt attention or to request an appointment.

Read More

Construction Worker Freed From Trench

IRVING, TEXAS — Crews were able to a free a construction worker more than three hours after he became stuck in a 15-foot trench in Irving. The accident was reported at about 2:52 p.m. Thursday (5/5/16) in the 2100 block of Ridgewood Street.



At about 6:20 p.m., the worker, strapped onto a gurney, was pulled from the trench and placed into a ground ambulance in unknown condition.

Trench Accident Lawyers
Working in trenches or other contained breathing areas is one of the most dangerous jobs in the construction industry. Contractor and subcontractor negligence and OSHA safety violations can turn an already hazardous situation into a recipe for a serious and fatal trench accident.

Miller Weisbrod, LLP serves the legal needs of construction accident victims and their families in Texas and nationwide. Our attorneys are nationally-recognized leaders in the field of plaintiffs' personal injury trial law. We have the experience, skills and resources to help you seek maximum financial recovery after a trench accident results in catastrophic injury or wrongful death due to a trench accident.

If you were badly hurt or permanently disabled or a loved one died in a trench accident anywhere in the United States, please contact us today to schedule a free consultation with an experienced lawyer.

Call 888.987.0005 for Legal Help After a Trench Accident

Miller Weisbrod, LLP has a proven record of success in obtaining large financial settlements and jury awards for victims of negligence. Our lawyers have the experience, industry knowledge and legal skill to handle a wide range of trench accident cases, including:

• Broken natural gas lines leading to suffocation or explosion
• Trench collapse accidents caused by improper shoring and supports
• Water infiltration resulting in drowning
• Accidents in other enclosed spaces such as manholes, sewers, storm water drains and tunnels
• Any trench accident resulting in brain injury, spinal cord injury, other catastrophic injury or wrongful death

Contact Us
If you were seriously injured or a loved one died in a trench accident caused by contractor negligence or OSHA violations, we encourage you to call our main offices in Dallas today at 214.987.0005 or toll free at 888.987.0005 for a free consultation. You may also contact us by e-mail today for answers to your important questions or to schedule an appointment.

Read More

Demolition Construction Accident Verdicts

Some of the most hazardous construction operations involve the demolition of structures. In June of 2013, a building being demolished in Philadelphia collapsed onto an adjacent structure killing a half dozen people and seriously injuring more than a dozen more. This case brought to the front page news what our firm has seen time and time again in demolition construction accidents—there is no requirement under most state and local ordinances requiring a company obtaining a demolition permit to show any level of competence.

Several of our cases have highlighted this sad fact. Two years ago, a young husband and father was killed when a two-story chimney on house he was demolishing on the TCU campus collapsed on top of him. Our lawsuit against the employer revealed the company was a paving contractor that had only ever demolished portable buildings (cheap mobile home structures used at schools for temporary classrooms) on a single occasion. But when this paving company applied for a demolition permit from the city of Fort Worth to demolish nearly a dozen brick buildings (including a large church and a two story apartment building) no inquiry at all was made into the qualifications of a company that spent its entire time building and paving parking lots. When deposed, the company’s owner and superintendent admitted none of the crew, including the deceased, had any experience before the day of the collapse in demolition. He also admitted that he was completely unaware of any of the OSHA or industry demolition safety standards and he had no written demolition plan for any of the structures.


The remains of the demolished house on the TCU campus

Subpart T of the OSHA construction safety standards lays out the minimum requirements for demolition safety.

The very first section of the standard requires that an “engineering survey” be performed by a competent person before demolition operations begin. The stated purpose of this standard is to prevent any “unplanned collapse” during the demolition of the structure that could endanger workers or bystanders. This standard is almost universally violated in every demolition lawsuit we have pursued—usually because an inexperienced or incompetent company decides to take on a demolition job that it is not qualified to perform.

But this failure to perform engineering surveys is not just ignored when a paving company decides to become a demolition subcontractor. In another case, an actual demolition contractor failed to perform an engineering survey prior to beginning operations. As roof joists were being cut, the building collapsed upon other workers killing our client. What is unforgivable is that our investigation revealed the company had been cited by OSHA 3 years earlier for failing to perform an engineering survey during a surprise inspection by OSHA. Here are excerpts of our cross examination of the demolition company’s safety director that was hired just months after the first citation:



Following this deposition, we settled the gross negligence only death case (the employer had workers’ compensation insurance) for the full amount of all available insurance.

Contact Us
Miller Weisbrod has partnered with law firms across the state of Texas on a referral and joint venture basis to pursue cases of catastrophic injury and wrongful death arising from construction and work site incidents. We would welcome the opportunity to work with you to obtain justice for your clients injured or killed on the job.

Contact our office in Dallas at 214.987.0005 or toll free at 888.987.0005. You may also contact us by e-mail today for prompt answers to your questions or to schedule an appointment.

Read More

Miller Weisbrod Wins $3,000,000.00 Arbitration Award

One of the highlights of 2015 for Miller Weisbrod was a $3,000,000 Arbitration Award for a man that lost his right hand as a result of a work place injury. Greg Turner was working at a local chocolate/candy factory operating an industrial chocolate mixer. While dumping melted chocolate from plastic buckets while the mixer was turning, he accidentally dropped a bucket into the mixer. Turner then reflexively reached into the mixer to retrieve the bucket. The blades of the mixer caught Turner's right hand taking it into a pinch point on the side of the mixer severing the hand at the wrist. A surveillance video caught this incident partially on tape — though the point of operation was obscured by the lid of the mixer.


Surveillance image

Turner's employer was a non-subscriber to worker's compensation. The employer had an injury benefit plan but denied Turner benefits because a post-accident drug screen showed amounts of two drugs in his system. Our firm filed suit and the case was removed to arbitration because the plan signed off on by Turner included an Agreement to Arbitrate.

Our claims of negligence involved the failure of the mixer to have an adequate guard over the opening of the mixer or, more practically, to have a lock-out device on the mixer that would shut the mixer off when the lid was lifted. Through deposition questioning, the Defendant's supervisors admitted that it was not necessary to have the lid open and the mixer on and turning while loading the chocolate. Our position was that the machine should be loaded with the machine off-but the company had trained all employees to load the mixer while it was on and turning. In fact, the surveillance video showed Turner's supervisor watching him for an extended period of time loading the mixer while it was on and turning.

The employer claimed that risks of the mixer were open and obvious and that it had warned Turner of the risks of sticking his hands into the machine; therefore, there was no duty to take additional precautions. In support, they cited numerous cases in the premises liability context that affirmed this position. We took the position that the instrumentality (the mixer) was dangerous and this was a separate duty in the non-subscriber context. The arbitrator agreed with this argument and denied a "no duty" motion. The Texas Supreme Court has recently also agreed with our position in a similar case Austin vs. Kroger Co., 465 S.W.3d 193 (Tex. 2015)

The Defense hired two main experts including a safety expert arguing against the need for a lock-out device. This expert was revealed to have no experience in machine guarding and expressed some irrational opinions that we pushed on to destroy his credibility. The second expert was a well-known prosthetic expert who advanced the theory that Medicaid was the industry standard for reasonable of charges for prosthetics and arguing that instead of a myeo-electric hand our client should get a hook and a rubber hand. We showed that he had been "out of the game" as far as upper limb prosthetics and that his "opinion" that Medicaid was the industry standard for billing rates was not supported by anything other than his word and then at arbitration confronted him with a prior case where he had taken the opposite position when hired by the plaintiff.

Below are a couple of short examples of the deposition cross examination:





At the Arbitration we proved that all the co-employees who encountered Turner on the day of the incident found him not to be impaired — eliminating the drug screen argument.

At the end of the hearing, the Arbitrator issued an award finding negligence and damages in the amount of $3,044,888.33. Miller Weisbrod has partnered with law firms across the state of Texas on a referral and joint venture basis to pursue cases of catastrophic injury and wrongful death arising from construction and work site incidents. Miller Weisbrod would welcome the opportunity to work with you to obtain justice for your clients injured or killed on the job.

Miller Weisbrod,LLP is a national law firm specializing in catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases. Partners Clay Miller and Les Weisbrod have built the firm’s reputation with successful verdicts, settlements, appeals and favorable decisions across the country. With resources and finances available to take on the powerful interests that have caused harm, the firm is committed to providing quality representation for clients who are seriously injured and families of victims who are killed as a result of the negligence or misconduct of others. Miller Weisbrod has offices in Dallas and affiliate offices in Houston and Austin. For more information call (888) 987-0005 or visit www.millerweisbrod.com

Read More

Crane collapse with numerous injuries & ruptured gas mains in NYC

In New York City on Friday morning, it was snowing with strong — though not exceptionally strong — winds at the time of the collapse. Winds at nearby La Guardia Airport were gusting to around 30 miles per hour from the north-northeast on Friday morning.

The city often experiences stronger winds than this, but it's possible that the wind was a factor if crane operators did not anticipate the conditions, and improperly aligned or failed to properly secure the crane in advance of the weather.

New York Fire Department is on the scene of a crane collapse in Manhattan. One fatality confirmed, two seriously injured are being reported.

First responders are on the scene as photos have started trickling out from the crash site, which is near West Broadway and Worth Street.

(image accredited to @NYCFirewire)

The workplace can be a potentially dangerous environment, no matter what type of job you do. Whether working on a construction site or in an industrial setting, a workplace accident can result in catastrophic injury or even death.

If you or a loved one has suffered a workplace accident, you should discuss your rights and options with an experienced personal injury attorney. Without experienced representation, you could settle for far less than you are entitled to.

At Miller Weisbrod, LLP, we offer informed counsel and experienced representation to clients in Texas and throughout the nation. To discuss your case in a free initial consultation with an experienced lawyer, please contact us to schedule an appointment.

As experienced trial attorneys, we understand the serious and potentially lifelong impact a catastrophic work injury can have. From amputated limbs to paralysis to traumatic brain injuries, we use our experience and resources to help clients recover just compensation from negligent parties for their medical expenses, lost wages, partial or permanent disability, and − most importantly − the pain and suffering they have endured.

Our experience includes:
• Construction accidents such as trench collapses, scaffolding falls and other accidents
• Warehouse accidents
• Inadequately guarded machines
• Lack of safety policies, e.g. lock-out/tag-out, etc.
• Accidents caused by defective machines or defective products
• Electrical accidents
• Oil field accidents
• Fires or explosions
• Delivery or commercial trucking accidents
• Other commercial vehicle accidents
• Accidents resulting from repetitive physical or psychological stress
• Slip-and-fall accidents and other issues of premises liability

Many employees who have suffered injury in a workplace accident find that insurance companies are often quick to offer settlements or pressure them into signing waivers that effectively limit their rights. Our attorneys have significant experience taking on big insurance companies or liable third parties, and defend our clients' right to receive full and fair compensation.

Contact Us Today
If you suffered a workplace accident or a loved one died due to someone's negligence on the job, we encourage you to contact us to discuss your real options for pursuing legal action in a free consultation. Call our offices in Dallas at 214.987.0005 or toll free at 888.987.0005. You may also contact us by e-mail today for prompt answers to your questions or to schedule an appointment.

Read More