Landau Injury Law

Sometimes more than one recovery may be had from the same tragic accident. In a case handled by my late friend Bob Arthur, a self-employed structural engineer fell from a ladder and broke his leg. The injured plaintiff brought suit against the owner of business for failure to provide ordinary care in providing and holding the ladder the plaintiff was using.
The plaintiff asked an employee of the corporate defendant to hold the ladder while he examined the upper structure of the building. After the plaintiff climbed the ladder and started his investigation, the employee allegedly stated he would be right back and left the ladder unattended. The plaintiff fell, with resulting injuries and medical damages of $29,138. The case settled for $95,000, just under the total policy limit of $100,000. After a subpoena produced the declaration sheet of the applicable insurance policy, it was noted that there was $5,000 medical payment coverage, which was demanded and paid. Reported in Virginia Lawyers Weekly [95-T11]

At ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd. our trial team asks for our own clients’ insurance policies that may be applicable to an accident and also makes demand for ALL of the Defendants’ insurance coverages that may apply to our clients’ injuries. That way, funds may be provided early on in the case to pay for deductibles, expenses and investigation. In one case, $50,000 in medical payments coverage was available to our injured client, regardless of fault in the crash and without set off as against future recoveries from the Defendant’s liability insurance policy !

During the recent hearing on a client’s theater scarring case, the judge noted that he would need to see the actual scars in controversy. The experienced Fairfax judge noted that while he had received pictures of the claimant’s permanent leg scars, he was mindful of a case where the original pictures did not show the subsequent improvements achieved by the plastic surgeons. The judge recalled a case where the horrific facial injuries that were reflected in pictures taken in the weeks after a pyrotechnical engineer blew himself up had healed. The Judge also noted that it was Herndon injury lawyer Doug Landau’s case !

Landau took it as a compliment that the judge remembered his pyrotechnical engineer’s case from so many years ago. And indeed, while that client had achieved and excellent result cosmetically, he still won a significant permanency Award for his scars and then went back to work for Disney on Ice (after a short light duty work tour with the rock group KISS !). In the present case, the judge was impressed by the ABRAMS LANDAU client’s scars, and Awarded additional workers compensation benefits for severe marked disfigurement. Landau is shown here with his clients after the successful Hearing, with a candy cane from the Commission’s candy dish !

In motorcycle crash cases, the past medical bills and wage loss can be proven with medical records, testimony by the treating doctors, pay checks and W-2s.  However, the cost of future medical care for brain injured clients is more difficult.  The ourts generally require an expert witness to testify as to the needs and costs of future care for these head injury victims.  The trial judges act as “gate keepers” to keep out “speculative” or unsupported evidence.  The jurors are not allowed to speculate or “guess,” the qualified expert guidance is required in many motorcycle crash cases involving permanent, long-term injuries and medical services.

In a trial before the Federal Court in Alexandria, Virginia, our life care planners found that our brain and orthopedically injured client would need some $13 million in future medical care.  The judge accepted the life care plan expert’s figures, so the final amount was well in excess of the $13 million needed to take care of our client for the rest of her life.  While life care plans can be expensive, often costing thousands of dollars to be researched correctly, they can have huge impact on the final figures presented in court and entered by the trial judge.  At ABRAMS LANDAU, we invest in our major cases and use Life Care Plans by qualified experts, so that our clients can have the benefits they require.

While many so-called personal injury lawyers “talk the talk,” very few really “walk the walk.”   Few actually visit the scene of the crash, workplace accident or fatal injury.  Few actually go to look at the official Court files on their clients’ cases.  Few visit their clients’ homes.  And few, if any, invite their clients and their families to come to court and see them try cases.  At ABRAMS LANDAU, we do ALL OF THESE THINGS.  We do these things because it is critical that we understand your case and it is important to us that you understand what we do and how we do it.

Shown here is Herndon Reston area trial lawyer Doug Landau inspecting the scene where his client fell 60- feet to his death.  While the ABRAMS LANDAU law shop had numerous pictures of the scene and OSHA, Police and other official reports, Doug Landau advised, “without actually climbing the steps and “walking in my client’s shoes” I would not have the perspective or thorough knowledge of the fatal accident that would enable me to present the case in court.”  If you or someone you know has been in a catastrophic accident, call upon us to help.  At ABRAMS LANDAU, we will thoroughly investigate and prepare the case properly for trial.

While in Richmond to try a jet crash case, Doug Landau visited with friend and co-counsel David Bailey of the Environmental Law Group. Like the Herndon trial lawyer Landau, Bailey has a background in science and went to graduate school for biology. He was the ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND’s Senior Attorney/Scientist and Director of Virginia Office. Now in private practice, Mr. Bailey helps individuals injured due to toxic chemicals, faulty construction practices that lead to the formation of mold and other environmental claims.

Doug visited with David at his lovely office on Staples Mill Road, and the two compared notes and strategies in toxic cases. Landau has served as an expert on workplace chemical injuries in a Fairfax Circuit Court case for Bailey, and he has also referred clients with mold and other latent injury cases to the Richmond litigator. Combining expertise and resources with experienced and renowned innovators like Bailey, enables the ABRAMS LANDAU team to maximize results for their clients.

Shown here is Senior Workers Compensation Legal Assistant Dianna Meredith at the witness stand where she testified on behalf of a client in a workers comp hearing this week. The insurance company had not paid for items in the original Award Order Doug Landau won for this family. This non- payment had been going on for nearly 2 years. The Workers Compensation Commission scheduled a Hearing to hear testimony in Richmond (VA) so that a ruling could be made.

Ms. Meredith testified as to the fact that the insurance company had been sent billing statements and correspondence showing that they had failed to pay: the claimant’s trust fund accountants; the lawyers who set up the trust; the treating doctor’s deposition, and the correct amount of compensation to be direct deposited into this special account in his name.

Shown here are pictures of the front of the Virginia Workers Compensation Commission’s Fairfax Hearings Office. You can see that construction has resulted in street disruption and fewer parking spaces. This is why is is imperative to get to your Hearing EARLY !

It is also why the ABRAMS LANDAU trial team urges clients, their families and witnesses to observe hearings weeks before their own case is to be heard. That way, they will know where to park, how to get to the Hearing site, and what is expected of witnesses and injured workers when they testify before the Workers Compensation judges.

If the Hamaker Court street and Prosperity Plaza front parking lot is full, there is parking in the back of the building and an elevator to the main floor where Fairfax County Northern Virginia workplace injury, disease and disability cases are heard. Shown here are Chief Deputy Commissioner Szablewicz, Commissioner Williams and other VWC staff visiting from Richmond and using the elevator from the back parking area.

While visiting his son and daughter at Virginia Tech, Herndon injury lawyer Doug Landau and his eldest daughter ran in the Blacksburg Classic 10 miler. The Triathlon Trial Lawyer had previously raced in the Blacksburg Striders 5 km event and won an age group Award. This year, however, the fleet footed multi-state lawyer competed in the longer premier event, as his daughter was using it as a test of her fitness in her preparations for next month’s half-marathon. Landau managed to finish in 74 minutes, and his daughter put on a kick at the end, to the delight of her brother, a third year honors Biology and Spanish major.

Ms. Landau is running in next month’s Virginia Beach half marathon as part of her sorority’s charitable fund raising. While very proud of his daughter’s finish and future long distance running plans, the ABRAMS LANDAU senior counsel has no plans to run farther than 10 miles any time soon ! Had they not “run” in the Virginia Tech pool shortly after finishing, Doug Landau relates that “rigor mortis” would have set in and he would have needed someone to have driven him back to Northern Virginia ! Post-race “hydrotherapy” is helpful for those rehabilitating after an injury and for those recovering from an intense workout or long distance event.

When Doug Landau’s law firm received word that a pending case in Florida would also need to be tried in Virginia, and that this fatal airplane crash had already generated boxes of documents, the ABRAMS LANDAU trial team set about to load materials into the firm’s computer system. This way, when the traveling trial lawyer went to visit the clients in Carolina, South West Virginia or prepare them for testifying at the State Capitol he would have all the materials he needed at his fingertips.

Doug Landau is shown here at the Workers Compensation Headquarters after presenting the case on behalf of the surviving son of the deceased pilot. The Herndon Reston Virginia lawyer used his laptop to cite correspondence and crunch numbers in this complicated fatal jet crash case. Clients who have come to see Doug try cases in court have remarked upon how his side of the table is so neat and orderly while his opponents have piles of disorganized paper and folders ! Come see the ABRAMS LANDAU team in action. Call today to find out when we are next in court near you !

Jury trials look so easy on television and in the movies.  In “real life,” preparation for a jury trial takes many months.  Every single piece of evidence is like a building block.  The early investigation is like the”foundation.”  Any missing bricks can be exploited by the insurance company lawyers and cause the entire structure to come crashing down.  That is why it is important to contact an experienced personal injury or workers compensation lawyer earlier, rather than later, for your dog attack, car crash, premises liability, negligence or bicycle accident case.  It takes time and serious thought and team work to properly put together a winning trial presentation.

At ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd., we often reject cases that come to us too late in the process, since we cannot salvage the mistakes that have been committed or do investigation on evidence that no longer exists or has materially changed.  It is also why we ask clients, their families and witnesses to “see us in action,” so that they can witness firsthand, the time, effort and money we invest in our client’s injury and disability cases.

Doug Landau, and his daughter, a 5th year Virginia Tech Architecture student and University Ambassador, is shown here in Blacksburg, Virginia, with a “Hokie Bird” sculpture made out of thousands of LEGO bricks.