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Following the filing of your lawsuit for the recovery of damages arising from your personal injury action, it is common that the defendant’s attorney will want to take your deposition. A deposition is a scheduled meeting where a witness, accompanied by their attorney if they have one, responds orally to questions from the opposing party’s attorney. Also present in the deposition is a court reporter who assists in reducing the oral testimony to written form for later use in court or for discovery purposes. The purpose of a deposition is to gather information that is relevant to the prosecution or defense of the case.

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Compensatory damages or “actual damages” are those monetary amounts that are awarded to compensate for a proven injury or loss. Compensatory damages are broken down into two sub-categories, called “special damages” and “general damages.”

Special damages are those damages that are readily identifiable through documentation and must be specifically claimed and proved. Some examples of special damages include: medical bills, property damage, lost wages, rental bills, and economic loss.

General damages are those damages that the law presumes follows from the type of wrong complained of. General damages would include: loss of enjoyment of life, pain and suffering, and emotional distress.

Punitive damages are those damages awarded in addition to compensatory or actual damages. Punitive damages are awarded in those circumstances where the defendant’s actions are outrageous, oppressive, fraudulent, wanton, reckless, or the defendant acted with malice. The goal of the award of punitive damages is to serve the public policies of punishing a defendant and deterring future like conduct.

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Idaho has adopted the Comparative Negligence Doctrine when damages are being assessed in situations such as automobile collisions. Basically, this doctrine provides that a plaintiff’s recovery is reduced in proportion to the plaintiff’s degree of fault in causing the damage. If a plaintiff’s degree of fault is 50% or greater, then no recovery can be had by plaintiff. An example of this doctrine is explained as follows. John Doe is involved in a collision and sustains $100,000.00 in damages. The jury decided John was 40% at fault in the collision and the Defendant was 60% at fault. John’s damages of $100,000.00 are reduced 40% due to his own negligence, thus John’s recovery of damages is $60,000.00.

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By Fred Lewis and George Casper

As we have touched on in previous entries, there are times when an injured worker’s claim for worker’s compensation benefits is denied by the employer’s insurance company (hereafter referred to as “surety”). Many injured employees (hereafter referred to as “claimants”) wonder why the surety would deny their claim because the facts all seem to point to the acceptance to the claim. As with many things in life, the surety’s decision to deny most compensation claims boils down to one word: money.

Worker’s compensation sureties normally receive contractual discounts on the price of medical procedures. However, the discounts given to a claimant or a claimant’s personal insurance are far greater than the discounts given to a surety. Knowing this fact, worker’s compensation insurance companies or sureties will be tempted to deny the claim initially. They understand it will likely be found compensable by the Industrial Commission. The sureties will then come back years or months into the case and attempt to compensate injured workers by settling for a compromised amount based on the contractually adjusted amount the claimant’s insurance company makes with the medical provider. There are many previous cases that plainly state sureties cannot use this tactic and must pay the full invoiced amount (more than their contractual agreement amount if they accepted the game at first) of a medical procedure if they deny the claim. We will highlight three: Sangster v. Potlatch Corporation, IC -01-008322 (2004), St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center v. Edmonson, 130 Idaho 108, 111, 937 P.2d 420, 423 (1997), and Neel v. Western Construction, 147 Idaho 146(2009)

By Fred Lewis and George Casper

The red light and stop sign are arguably two of the most universal of traffic signals. Every driver knows what these signs mean: Stop. Yet, every day there are car accidents all across the country because one of the motorists involved ran through a red light or stop sign. These types of car accidents can often cause extreme amounts of damage because the motorist running the red light/stop sign is often speeding in order to get through the light or simply doesn’t see the sign. When you get hit by a motorist running a red light or stop sign, the damage can be quite extensive to your vehicle because of the amount of momentum the other car has.

These types of crashes can also result in the injury of you, the people accompanying you in the car, or both. In order to file suit and properly build a case against the opposing motorist, you will need an Idaho car accident personal attorney that is well experienced in automobile-related personal injury issues. Racine Law is the first firm you should call. We are dedicated to getting you the most favorable settlement possible for your claim and will work tirelessly to do so. At such a stressful time in your life, there is nobody better for you to put your trust in. Steve Muhonen is a former Idaho State police officer and has investigated many accidents involving stop signs and red lights. Steve is a partner at Racine Olson. Put his experience to work for you in your Idaho car accident case. Steve knows how to get the most out of your Idaho personal injury claim. Give him a call now at (877) 232-6101.

By Fred Lewis and George Casper

Car accidents in Idaho that result in personal injury can be upsetting to all. You accumulate medical bills that need to be paid, you lose wages due to time away from work, and you can suffer from pain that may never go away for the rest of your life. If you are not at fault in the car accident, you have the ability to use the other motorist’s insurance to help pay for all these expenses. There is only one problem. The motorist you hit is one of the roughly 14% of the driving population that doesn’t have automobile insurance. What do you do if this happens?

The best way to protect yourself from being hung out to dry after being in a car accident with uninsured drivers is to have a solid insurance plan in place before the accident even occurs. Review your insurance plan. Most general insurance plans have a specified coverage limit for accidents caused by uninsured drivers. Make sure your uninsured limits are high as you can afford in order to cover all the effects associated with the accident. A limit in the $250,000 may not be enough. This will be some of the least expensive insurance you can buy.

By Fred Lewis and George Casper

A Vocational Expert will be hired by the experienced Idaho workers’ compensation lawyer. The Vocational Expert will interview the injured worker and look at all of the documents related to the case as well as the injured worker’s work history and current job search. Once they do this, they will generate a Vocational Assessment report. This document will combine all of the pertinent factors in the case and determine how much labor market access the injured worker has lost and calculate the injured workers’ wage loss. Age, educational history, work history, and any restrictions are a few of the factors that help to create this loss of labor market access figure. The Vocational Expert then offers an opinion on the disability the injured worker has experienced in the form of a percentage which is placed in their report which is then used by an experienced Idaho workers’ compensation lawyer in the Idaho workers’ compensation case.

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By Fred Lewis and George Casper

An FCE is a one or two day test where a Physical Therapist puts the injured worker through a series of lifting exercises in order to test his or her ability to exert force in any kind of way. The PT also has the injured worker stand, walk and sit. Based on the results of this testing the PT then gives lifting restrictions, stating how much the injured worker can lift frequently, occasionally, and rarely. The PT also determines how long the injured worker can comfortably sit, squat, handle objects, or use fingers for tasks such as typing. The PT then compiles all of this data and creates a report listing all of the restrictions. The injured worker’s attorney then sends copies of the evaluation to the medical practitioner/s that gave the injured worker his or her impairment rating. The doctor then determines if the restrictions are reasonable and if so adopts these restrictions as the injured workers’ permanent restrictions. These restrictions then become the bedrock medical opinion that drives the disability case.

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By Pat George

A Nampa man who was driving drunk struck a 19 year old pedestrian in March, 2015. It’s a tragedy that plays itself out all too often across Idaho almost everyday. In 2012, one third of the accident fatalities across our great state were alcohol related. What this means is that innocent people in Idaho were killed leaving family and friends due to no fault of their own. Of course, this does not include those people who were injured but not fatally.

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