Panama City Florida Injury Lawyer Blog

The 2,400 page Affordable Care Act, now known as Obamacare, is difficult to decipher not just because of its length but also because of the legalese it contains. 2011 included an attempted House of Representatives repeal of the act and several court cases challenging its constitutionality. Those cases are in disarray with some courts ruling it constitutional while others disagree.

This law is one of the most far reaching and profound pieces of legislation passed and signed into law in decades. In 2012 Medicare health care providers will be able to start affordable care organizations to cut costs and improve quality of care. Other major provisions won't be effective until 2014, but big changes in health care insurance have already been implemented. For example, senior citizens started paying 50% less in prescription drug costs under the new law. That was due to drug company discounts worked out under the law. Seniors can also receive annual exams and some screenings without having a co-pay.

Insurance for those with pre-existing conditions, a huge health care insurance gap in previous years, became available. Those patients could join the government's Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. Premiums dropped from an average of $390 a month to $234 a month. Older people weren't the only ones who were helped by the act. The law allows young adults between the ages of 19 and 25 to stay on their parents' health insurance policies. Proponents of the law say this has made it possible for young people to take jobs in fields they like rather than to take jobs mainly to get the benefits they want. Young people, too, are permitted by the law to maintain health insurance despite pre-existing conditions.

The Supreme Court is slated to consider the constitutionality of the law this year and has allotted an astounding 5 hours for oral argument.

A week ago I was in Cuba. It was a fascinating trip to a place frozen in the 1950s. I was fortunate to have been included in a small legal research group to investigate Cuban law. Cuba has been a Communist police state since Fidel Castro and his band of revolutionaries overthrew the government of President Batista in the late '50s, but I felt no danger even in the outer provinces far from Havana. The greatest danger seemed to be from a potential wreck in one of the ancient taxis, which in combination with ox carts and wagons, are still main conveyances in Cuba. The old cars, many from the late 1940s and early to mid-'50s, had no seat belts or padded dashboards.

Although Cuba has a constitution that provides for a national assembly, something like our Congress but consisting of only one house instead of our two, all power is really vested in one person, the president. Due to declining health, Fidel gave up the presidency a couple years ago, and now his brother, Raul, is president.

Private ownership of property under Cuba's strict communist doctrine has been impossible, but Raul has made some gradual reforms in the law. A limited number of houses can be bought from the Cuban government and owned by individuals. Selling them is another matter. They can't be sold unless the sale is back to the state itself. Upon death, a house passes to the owner's heirs.

Wage and hour laws to protect workers are nearly non-existent today, but some small positive changes are occurring. At the present, an average monthly wage is $30. Yes, $30 a month. Overtime is not paid. Taxi drivers are forced to limit their hours of work to accommodate other drivers who want to earn money. Employment discrimination is not supposed to be possible, but the law is not enforced.

In Cuba, the rule of law has not yet developed. In this beautiful country, change is occurring in that direction under Raul but very slowly. The law is constrained by the iron boundaries of Communism, but I will share some of its nuances and more interesting aspects with you soon.

Ten percent of us are hurt every year, usually due to someone else's carelessness. Last week, I talked about setting goals for successful completion of your legal case if you were in that group hurt last year. Today, I'll add to the list of things you can do to help your attorney and, therefore, yourself in a meaningful way.

1. Don't talk to anyone except your attorney and immediate, trusted family members about your case. That is especially true when the insurance adjuster for the at fault party calls you to get facts and take a recorded statement. You will be on thin ice if you talk to that person.


2. Keep and give to your attorney every item that comes into your possession that may be evidence in your case. That includes oral statements and written ones, like letters, made by the defendant at the scene or later. It also includes things like parts of equipment that failed and hurt you, shoes if you slipped and fell, and any foreign substance that you slipped on in a store.


3. If possible take photographs of the accident scene, damage to vehicles, wounds and surgical sites, and pieces of equipment or appliances that may have injured you. Give them to your attorney who may use them as evidence to support your case.


4. Since lost wages is an important part of any injury case, keep track of the time you have lost and the wages you were earning. If you were injured so badly that you cannot return to your old job, make a list of places where you seek new employment, the dates you apply, who interviews you, and the results you get. Jot down the reason you are given for not getting the job, such as, "We can't use someone who has a hurt back." That kind of statement is very important to prove the harmful effect of an injury on future employability.

The following is a guest post from Rick Console, a New Jersey personal injury attorney from Console and Hollawell, PC.

When it comes to a personal injury case, social media will only work against the plaintiff. It would be very difficult to find a post online from the defendant admitting fault, which leaves social networking as a resource that can only be used by the defense attorneys and insurance companies. Most personal injury lawyers know of the risks posed by these websites and will warn their clients, but sometimes that is not enough.

During discovery, the defense attorney will most certainly request the login information for all of the plaintiffs online social networking accounts. Of course the attorney will object to this and fight it rigorously, but more times than not this information will have to be disclosed. The information on these sites could be misconstrued and used to dispute a client's claim.

If a case does make it to trial, chances are that the jury will be more understanding than the defense attorneys about what the plaintiff posted. They will know that a life-altering injury does not mean you should not be able to attend your nephew's third birthday party, but they will be able to understand that someone with a serious back injury should not be in a limbo contest. The problem with this is that many times the case does not make it to trial so this tolerance will not be found.

It is important for personal injury lawyers to find out what their client has been posting online because even if they insist the client shut down all of their sites, the defense may win a motion to obtain the login information. For example, in one recent Pennsylvania case a defense attorney won their motion to obtain the plaintiff's Facebook login because her page was public and had information contradicting her claim. This ruling will no doubt be used as evidence that Facebook is a definite well of information, but the court did explain that this will not be a hard-and-fast rule.

The court stated, "The Court does not hold that discovery of a party's social networking information is available as a matter of course. Rather, there must be a good faith basis that discovery will lead to relevant information." The court went on to explain that since her information was already public it was appropriate and just for the defense to have that information.

New Jersey personal injury lawyer, Richard Console explained that he always urges his clients to shut down their social networking sites when they file a claim, but sometimes it's not enough. "Despite disabling their accounts the defense can still request information from these social networking profiles. It is a hard situation because the information found can be so subjective that it is misconstrued as proof that the claim is not valid."

The role of social networking in personal injury claims becomes larger each year as more and more people join and share information on these sites. As it stands now, most jurisdictions will evaluate these requests on a case by case basis, but a firm rule on whether or not social networking sites are public domain could be made in the near future.

It's time to set goals for 2012. If you are one of the roughly ten percent of the population injured last year and that injury was caused by someone else's carelessness, putting your legal case on track for successful completion should be a major goal. Here are some things you can do to achieve it.

1. Have patience. It takes time to get medical care to determine the extent of injuries, which are permanent, and how they will affect your future. It also takes time for your attorney to complete the investigation. That includes ordering all of your medical records and bills.


2. Tell your attorney about all injuries and medical problems both before and after the accident. Good cases can be destroyed if this information is concealed or forgotten. Insurance companies use an indexing system that will discover injuries and claims.


3. When you visit the doctor treating you for an injury, list all the problems you are having. If those complaints don't show up in the medical records, they don't and never will exist in the minds of insurance adjusters or jurors.


4. Notify your attorney if you change doctors, go to the emergency room because of pain, are admitted to a hospital, or are discharged from care. All these things will influence the course of a case and will determine when the law firm should order medical records and bills.


5. Keep a diary of your experiences following the accident or injury. Record important matters like pain levels, activities that you can't do or do only with pain because you have no other choice. Maybe you don't have help, so you have to work despite the pain. Describe it in your notes. Pain isn't always physical, so describe any emotional pain such as your feelings about not being able to lift your child.


6. Finally, keep a list of out-of-pocket expenses.

Doing these things will put you well on the way to successfully resolving your injury case. I'll add to this list next week.