Hit & Run Accidents

Video Transcript:
Cindy: What can a person do if they were struck by a hit and run driver in South Carolina-that’s our topic for today’s episode of Main Street Law TV News. I’ve asked South Carolina personal injury lawyer, George Sink of George Sink Injury Lawyers to be my guest today. So George, thank you for being with me.

George: Thank you for having me, Cindy.

Cindy: My pleasure. Well George, what can a person do if they were struck by a hit and run driver in South Carolina?

George: Well, the funny thing is they—in South Carolina, you must have an uninsured motorist coverage and that coverage covers you against people who either hit or run or they hit you and they don’t have any insurance, so it’s uninsured motorist coverage, but the legislature was wary of a situation where someone comes out of a bar and has too much to drink maybe and then drives off the road and hits a tree and says, “Someone made a pass at me and I swerved to avoid them and went off the road. I want to make a recovery against my uninsured motorist coverage.”

So in order to make a recovery, you have to do three things before you’re entitled to have a claim and those three things in our state are—you have to make all reasonable efforts to determine the identity of the car or driver. Second, you’ve got to call the police or the right authorities and report the collision in a reasonable amount of time and then it gets a little tricky, but if you have an impact between the two cars, ones that rules apply and if there is no impact, that’s the, “I went off the road, hit the tree,” thing. There is no impact, you have to have the right sort of witness to make the right sort of affidavit to allow you to have a UM claim—uninsured motorist.

So you’re not entitled to it even though you have the coverage. You have to go through this series of requirements and then you can proceed.

Cindy: Now uninsured motorist coverage that you speak of, is that mandated by state? In other words, would every person be carrying that in South Carolina?

George: Yes, it is required and everybody has it and it’s wonderful because it helps you. So I advocate everybody getting as much of that as possible. It’s really good!

Cindy: Okay and what about in other states, George?

George: The same thing. Because it covers that same contingency, but there’s the same set of policy constraints involved because the legislatures of the states which are influenced by the insurance companies and probably rightly so probably have some requirements that you have to meet before you’re entitled to file a UM claim properly and that’s to avoid people trying to trick them or I hit the tree, so I’ll get paid and most people think that’s not a good idea if you’d been drinking a lot and there really wasn’t anything. So you have to guard against that and that’s why these requirements are in place, these hurdles, you have to go over to allow yourself to legally file and process and collect from uninsured motorist coverage.

Cindy: Well, that makes sense and George, if someone comes to you, is that something that you can help them with?

George: We do this all the time, yes.

Cindy: Alright and how can they reach you for more information

George: George Sink Injury Lawyers is at 1-800-849-SINK. That’s toll free, 1-800-849-SINK and our website is www.sinklaw.com.

Cindy: Very good. Well George, thanks again for your time today.

George: Cindy, thank you for having me.

Cindy: This is Cindy Speaker reporting for State Law TV.

Job Related Auto Accidents

Video Transcription:
Cindy Speaker: What special issues come up when someone is involved in an auto accident and the at fault driver was on the job? That’s our topic today and my guest is Houston attorney, Terry Bryant. Terry, it’s nice to have you with me today.

Terry Bryant: I’m glad to be here. One of the things that happens when a person is hit by someone who is working for a company is to make sure that the coverage of the company would come into play. That is the people who were working for these big companies’ out driving 18 wheelers and other large trucks that are involved with accidents with my clients often times have additional insurance available to them.

Cindy Speaker: Okay. So you’re saying then that employer is definitely held responsible in these claims?

Terry Bryant: The employer would be held responsible if the employee was on a mission for the employer.

Cindy Speaker: What about if the at fault driver was driving a company vehicle but he was not on company time, how does that work?

Terry Bryant: That’s a much more difficult situation because if the person was not on a mission for the employer, he or she would not necessarily be covered by insurance. However, often times there are insurance policies that cover the vehicle regardless of whether the person is actually working or not.

Cindy Speaker: Let me ask you another question. What if the at fault driver was drunk, or in some way negligent. Can the employer be held responsible for that?

Terry Bryant: The employer can be held responsible for what the employer knew. So if the person was given the keys to a company vehicle and the employer knew that the person was drunk, then we would have a cause of action against the employer for what we call negligent entrustment.

Cindy Speaker: Okay. But if the employer did not know that the employee was drunk, is there still that type of action?

Terry Bryant: It’s not always that clear cut. Basically, there may be situations in which the employer has some knowledge and the jury would have to make the determination as to whether or not that was enough knowledge.

Cindy Speaker: I’ve heard that on occasion, if an employee who is at fault in an accident has somewhat of a past history, maybe of negligent behavior, maybe drunk driving was in their past, etcetera, is there a way that the employer is held responsible because he hired someone that really was not fit for the job?

Terry Bryant: Right. That happens often where the employer does not do a proper background check, particularly for truck drivers or other people that are going to be out driving for the employer. The employer should make sure that the people that they’re hiring are capable of safely driving on the streets in Texas.

Cindy Speaker: I have one other question. Are there times in these scenarios where punitive damages would come into play?

Terry Bryant: Yes, punitive damages come into play when the jury determines that someone, whether it be a company or an individual is grossly negligent. If they are found to be grossly negligent, the jury can award what is called punitive damages. Damages to punish the individual for the negligence and carelessness that’s caused harm to other people.

Cindy Speaker: Okay. This is certainly complicated stuff. Terry, if someone has specific problems or questions, how could they reach you?

Terry Bryant: My toll free number is 1-800-444-5000 and we have a website, www.terrybryant.com.

Cindy Speaker: Terry, thank you so much for your time today.

Terry Bryant: Thank you for having me.

Cindy Speaker: This is Cindy Speaker.

Job Related Auto Accidents

Video Transcript:
Cindy Speaker: Job related auto accident injuries, that’s our topic for today and my guests is South Carolina attorney, George Sink. George, how are you doing today?

George Sink: I’m doing fine, how are you, Cindy?

Cindy Speaker: Very good. Well, George, I know that you handle all kinds of personal injury cases, but I’ve heard that one kind of case that you handle is particularly complex and that is this area of job related auto accident injuries.

George Sink: This is a fascinating area and the big idea to keep in mind is Workers Compensation which should be a job injury relates to permanent injuries most of the time. So you look for permanent injuries.

Now auto, you can have almost any sort of injury—something that hopefully will go away in a little while which is not permanent, and so if you’re on the job driving a car and you’re in an auto collision, you have to do some quick sorting. It takes a little bit of thought to decide which case or both to pursue.

Cindy Speaker: So when you say which case to pursue, then what you’re talking about is, am I correct, a case relevant to your employment and being hurt on the job, but there’s a second case because of the auto accident?

George Sink: Absolutely! And that’s a 50/50 proposition. In South Carolina, if you’re in an auto collision and it’s your fault. Let’s say you run into the rear of someone, you can’t bring a claim against that person you hit. Or you can, but you cannot recover, but if you are on the job and you’re going to the store to pick up something and you run in the rear of somebody, you can bring successfully a Workers Compensation claim if you have the right injuries for that accident.

Cindy Speaker: And what exactly does that mean to bring a claim?

George Sink: What that means was, in the history of the development of the legislative structure, which we now call Workers Compensation law, in exchange for a worker’s right to bring a claim to get money for an injury they sustained on the job, they had to give up their right to sue their employer, so now, instead of going to the courts, they go to a legislative mandated system of recovery for injuries which occur on the job, so accidental injuries on the job, you go to this legislative structure and they call it Workers Compensation.

Otherwise, you’re free to use the courts if it’s not on the job, so you gave up your right to sue your employer in almost every case. If they came up and hit you in the head with a baseball bat deliberately, that would fall outside the scope of that naturally, but in general, you can’t sue your employers.

Cindy Speaker: Suppose, I have an employee and that employee rear ends somebody else, so he’s at fault, but he’s injured, is it widely known by employees that they have a claim.

George Sink: They would have a claim against you in your own business. The insurance company who insures the Workers Compensation for that business would pay. If they were waiting at the light and someone hit them in the rear, it wasn’t their fault. They have an automobile claim, a tort claim against that person who hit them in the rear and if they’re seriously injured, they have a Workers Compensation claim. How those two work together is fascinating.

The big thing to watch is, you can’t settle your auto claim while the comp claim is pending because there is interacting liens the Workers Comp system has a right to get money back from you if you recover from the auto claim to pay for weekly pay and other medical bills that the Workers Compensation system would probably pay for while you’re recovering.

So they have that interaction that’s sort of complicated.

Cindy Speaker: I would think that the average person would not understand this at all.

George Sink: They don’t and it’s fun to educate them and usually the people that come trust us, so we’re able to do it very easily and we tell them what to do, we guide them gently through the system, we have them file the right forms for Workers Compensation, bring the right claims for the auto accident and the big thing is the chemistry between those two. How do you handle it for example, if you had a serious auto accident while you were on the job, the Workers Compensation system says you have to use the employer’s doctors—the ones the system prescribes, so you start off with them and if you’re not happy with them, you can get your own doctors outside of that system, but you have to pay for them.

So it’s sort of complicated, and you have to balance the cost, keep track of all of that, but eventually it all works out, but these systems are interrelated in a way it could be confusing to the ordinary person so it gives me some joy to explain it to them because it does work out well in the end, but it’s a little bit of a confusion in the middle. It’s usually a little—it’s tougher in Workers Compensation because the statutes are just what they are. You have to comply with them and it has to be noticed within a certain amount of time, you have to do this, you have to check the right box in this form and that form so it’s very precise and the auto, it’s a little easier, but the interrelationship between those two is, I’d say very difficult for anyone except a trained lawyer to understand.

Cindy Speaker: Well, George if somebody needs more information in South Carolina. They’ve been in a work related accident and they need somebody to help them, how can they reach you?

George Sink: Oh, we’d be glad to talk to them if they called 1-800-849-SINK or they can find us on our website at www.sinklaw.com. We’re here available all hours of the day and night, so please feel free to call and we’re delighted to talk to anybody who has any questions.

Cindy Speaker: Very good. George, thanks so much.

George Sink: Thank you, Cindy.

Cindy Speaker: Until next time, this is Cindy Speaker for State Law TV.

Top Driver Distractions

Video Transcript:

Cindy Speaker: Something that has always been a significant cause of auto accidents is driver distraction.  My guess today is South Carolina attorney, George Sink and he is going to talk with us about this topic.  So George, welcome and thanks for coming today.

George Sink: Well, thank you for having me, Cindy.

Cindy Speaker: Well, I want to pick your brain today and the first thing I want to ask you is what are the different ways that drivers get distracted?

George Sink: Well, Cindy, I think there are about three—visual, that’s taking your eyes off the road; manual, taking your hands off the wheel and cognitive, taking your mind off what you’re doing.  There’s a lot of trouble with various things from CDs to tobacco, eating and then we know about the cell phones don’t we because I was just looking at our legislative agenda for South Carolina in 2010 and it looks like there are seven bills being introduced in our state legislature to curb texting with fines from as low as $25.00 to up to DIU type of punishments—some pretty severe punishments to prevent distracted driving.

Cindy: Wow, now is that specific to South Carolina?

George Sink: Yes, but I think across the nation, everyone is recognizing these problems.  Using a cell phone while driving delays the driver’s reaction as much as blood alcohol level of 0.08% which is our DIU level in South Carolina.

Cindy Speaker: Is this something that now is on your radar that if someone is in an accident and you’re representing someone that may be was rear-ended or whatever, do you routinely check phone records?

George Sink: Oh absolutely!  Everyone can relate to being damaged, hurt or upset by a distracted driver and I think that ranks very high on a juror’s attention scale, so we pay a lot of attention to that.  Eighty percent for example of all crashes involve some kind of distraction, so it has a tremendous effect on younger drivers, which we know are higher risk drivers than middle aged drivers are the second highest risk area, so our young people who are out on those highways texting, talking and—it really is increasing dramatically the rates of collisions due to this distracting driving issue.  It’s something we’re all aware of now and we all need to take some steps to handle.

Cindy Speaker: Right, right!  And in speaking about that, let’s talk a little bit about safeguards.  How can we protect ourselves from the worst drivers, the distracted drivers and secondly, what steps should we have in our minds so that we’re not a distracted driver?

George Sink: I think you have to double your alertness and just keep your eyes open for this new type of danger that could result in damage to you, your loved ones, your family, without any fault of your own, so high alert level is probably your only defense.

Cindy Speaker: Well, George, I thank you so much for your time today.

George Sink: Well, thank you Cindy

Cindy Speaker: Until next time, this is Cindy Speaker for State Law TV.

Distracted Driving with Peter Steinberg

Video Transcript:

Cindy Speaker: We are all hearing a great deal about distracted driving and the danger of it. But what is distracted driving?  That’s our topic on this episode of Main Street Law.  My guest today is attorney Peter Steinberg of the Los Angeles law firm of Steinberg & Spencer.

Peter, how you doing today?

Peter Steinberg: I’m doing great, Cindy.  Thank you for your asking.  How are you?

Cindy Speaker: I’m pretty good.  I want to talk about this topic, distracted driving is getting in a lot of attention, but what exactly is it?

Peter Steinberg: Well, distracted driving is any driving while your mind, eyes or hands are doing something else.  It’s basically any activity that takes your eyes and concentration away from the road.  And that can be cell phones, it can be eating, it can be applying make-up, brushing your hair or even reaching down to grab a piece a paper off the sit or off the floor.  All of these things raise the risk of a crash by basically taking the driver’s attention away from the road.

Cindy Speaker: Why is distracted driving getting so much attention right now?

Peter Steinberg: Well, there is a lot of studies that are coming out now that are showing that distracted driving is a serious threat, and distracted driving raises the risk of a crash, injuries and even death.

Cindy Speaker: Let’s talk a little bit about statistics. How many accidents are caused by distracted driving?

Peter Steinberg: Well, there was a federal study that found that distractions contributed to 22% of all crashes and near crashes, and there is police data which shows that 16% of fatal crashes and 21% of injury crashes involve distractions.

Cindy Speaker: Well, that’s unbelievable.  Now, do you routinely check cell phone records in auto accident cases?  Is that part of your process?

Peter Steinberg: We do it when we need to do it and it is becoming more and more a part of our practice.

Cindy Speaker: And do you find that there are times when there were issues with cell phone driving.

Peter Steinberg: Oh absolutely, and as I said it’s becoming more and more prevalent, so we’re checking that more and more often.

Cindy Speaker: And what effect, if any, does that have on the outcome of the case?

Peter Steinberg: Well, it can greatly aid our clients’ cases when we find that the other party is talking on the cell phone.

Cindy Speaker: Well, that makes sense.  Now, why aren’t safety groups focused primarily on cell phone use?  Because there is really a lot of different areas where we find distracted driving.

Peter Steinberg Well, cell phone use is so front and center and part of cell phone use is texting, and I think texting is even far more distracting than talking and not only that, but both texting and talking on the cell phones is growing tremendously.

Cindy Speaker: Is it legal to drive while using a cell phone in the State of California?

Peter Steinberg In California, it’s legal to drive while using a cell phone provided that you’re on a hands free device.

Cindy Speaker: Okay.

Peter Steinberg: It is not legal to drive if you’re holding it up to your ear.

Cindy Speaker: All right.  Now, do you have any statistics on that nationwide, are most states go into that kind of a law?

Peter Steinberg: Absolutely, Cindy.

Cindy Speaker: Well, Peter, thank you so much for joining me today.

Peter Steinberg: Cindy, it’s been a pleasure being here.  Thank you for having me.

Cindy Speaker: This Cindy Speaker reporting from Main Street Law.