Landau Injury Law

Life care plans can be developed by a variety of health care professionals.  At ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd., we will engage the services of experts with medical backgrounds, especially in the long term care of patients with permanent disability, brain injury, mental handicap, spinal cord injury and paralysis.

Registered nurses, legal nurse consultants and certified vocational counselors are the most common professionals who seek certification as life care planners.  Herndon Reston area injury lawyer Doug Landau has had teams work up a Life Care Plan, and often, after the medical experts reach a consensus, he will hire an economics expert to calculate present value and income stream needs.  In other words, the treating health care providers records and input will be carefully studied.  Then, the certified life care planner will put together the information from the treating sources together with predicted needs, costs and frequencies.  The economics expert will then take these figures and extrapolate lifetime costs, present value and the income necessary to provide for these lifetime medical expenditures.  One of the reasons that trials in traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury and permanent disability cases takes so long is that each of these experts must be qualified to the satisfaction of the court, then given an opportunity to explain the foundations for their work, and then and only then, can they give their opinions “to within a reasonable degree of certainty.”

No.  Not necessarily.  The manager on duty may simply be offering to pay you out of the store’s “MedPay” insurance, which pays regardless of fault.  It is usually limited in amount ($500, $1,000 or even $5,000). Premises Liability MedPay checks are not an indication of fault or negligence.  They do not prove anything, and would not normally come into evidence at trial.  They are great “P.R.” for the store, and stave off many potential lawsuits.  There are cases where the insurance company paid $50,000 in medpay benefits but denied liability (or fault) for causing the accident.  So, if you are injured in an accident, and you receive money from a medpay policy, do not be duped into believing that the insurance company has accepted full responsibility or is admitting fault for purposes of a lawsuit.  It is simply insurance coverage for medical bills, for injuries incurred on the premises, generally limited to those arising within the first year, up to the modest limit purchased by the property owner or operator.  There is usually no requirement that a landlord or owner have this coverage, nor is there a rule requiring a minimum amount.  

In order to gauge the likely value of a case, the ABRAMS LANDAU team looks at a number of things, whether the client is involved in a car wreck, bicycle crash, slip and fall, dog attack or are injured due to a defective product, dangerous premises or other negligent conduct.  One of the best indicators is looking at jury verdict, mediation, arbitration and settlement amounts from similar cases in the same or similar jurisdictions.  This often requires Herndon Reston area injury lawyer Doug Landau use computer research.  Lauren Holtzman, shown here, utilizes the expensive Lexis-Nexus programs the firm pays for as well as other state, local and national sources.  We also look at our own, internal data in order to narrow the range of expected jury verdicts.  We also look at collectibility and assets in order to determine whether, once we win, we can economically collect compensation for our deserving clients.  

The trial team at ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd. get calls from all over the country from victims of negligence, assaults and permanent injuries.  We are often asked (or told) “there’s a formula to these cases, isn’t there ?”When a brain-injured client’s parent tells me, “My neighbor’s friend’s dentist said that you just multiply the medical bills times three and that’s what you get for settlement” it is hard to explain that this has no basis in reality.  If this was true, then the woman I represented who slipped, fell and then lost her ability to have children would not have been able to seek more than just her Emergency Room bills.  If there was a formula of “three times specials,” then my younger clients, who miss time from school, would not get fair compensation.   A homemaker or person who could not get medical care (i.e., no CT Scans, x-rays, heavy pain medications) because they are pregnant, would be treated unfairly.  And those people who seek out unethical lawyers and over treat or go to unscrupulous doctors, would be unjustly enriched.  So, there is no “magic formula.”  It would not work in the majority of our cases, and we do not apply it in setting our demands, amounts sought in court or accepted in settlement.  At our Herndon injury law shop, we try to help people with all kinds of injuries, losses and cases.  Every case is unique and special.   See tomorrow’s post for more information on how Doug Landau and the ABRAMS LANDAU team evaluates injury, disease and disability cases.

In an earlier entry, I wrote about how we settled a case for a Radford area client after filing suit in his premises liability case in the Loudoun Circuit Court.   In this entry, you’re never going to believe it, but I brought a check for over $25,000 to the workers comp defense counsel. That’s right, in a workers comp claim where there is a third party negligence case, the employer’s insurance company has an “IOU” against any settlement, verdict or other monetary recovery.  In other words, if you are hurt on the job, and you sue someone who DOES NOT WORK FOR YOUR EMPLOYER for their negligence, or because of a defective product, or because their premises was dangerous, or their dog attacked you, the insurance company for your employer will look to get their money back.  Sometimes, BOTH cases can be settled at the same time. (more…)

Despite the workers comp insurance company’s delay, Doug Landau was able to successfully settle a Radford area client’s slip and fall case for $117,300 after filing suit in the Loudoun County Circuit Court.

FACTS: The Plaintiff had finished his morning’s work. He headed to the men’s bathroom before going on to lunch. He had no warning that the floor was wet, and, as he stepped into the bathroom he slipped and crashed down onto the wet floor, twisting his right knee and causing a contusion to his right shoulder.

There was a cautionary “Wet Floor“ sign (more…)

Here are some reasons Herndon Reston area injury lawyer Doug Landau or ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd. may advise a client that it is in their interests to enter a compromise settlement rather than risk a jury trial: 1. Time - you get compensation faster,2. Cost - you save on the expenses of trial,3. Emotional cost - you eliminate the uncertainty of trial,4. Patient-Physician relationship not subject to cross-examination, in public, causing your doctor to have doubts or unpleasantness,5. Privacy - “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” but what comes out in discovery or Court, does not always “stay put,”6. A jury may award you less,7. A jury may award you nothing,8. A judge may take away the jury’s verdict,9. The Defense may appeal the verdict, causing more time loss, expense and stress,10.  If the defendant or insurance company goes into bankruptcy, the proceedings are stayed and there is often more delay.

On the evening of December 4, 2006, after working overtime, our client pulled into the dimly lit parking lot of the Defendant’s grocery store in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. A pothole (at least a foot-and-a-half wide) was between the space in which she parked and the handicap parking space next to it, near the sidewalk at front of the store. Hidden in the darkness, it caught her foot and threw her into the car parked next to her.  Herndon - Reston area injury lawyer Doug Landau took pictures and measurements with the claimant and co-counsel Tom Curcio of Alexandria shortly after this accident occurred. [Shown here: ABRAMS LANDAU’s Lauren Holtzman & Beatriz Vargas with a gift basket from the happy client.]

Early investigation is critical to building the liability case. There were no signs or warnings to alert customers of this latent hazard. Most importantly, the pothole was located (more…)

The short answer is “yes,”  you can collect medpay if you are injured at a store, office building or home.  Medpay is short for “Medical Payments” insurance, which generally covers medical bills incurred, by someone legally on the property, who is hurt, up to the limit of the insurance.  So, if a client slips, falls, and cracks his skull because the Defendant Store had a leaky roof that dripped water for years and froze in the winter, the client could collect on the medpay insurance.  If the store had a $5,000 medpay policy, he could collect those funds, generally for bills that were reasonable, related to this accident and not the product of over treatment.  Usually such medpay (or “no fault” policies) require that payments be made only for medical bills incurred within a year of the accident.  This type of policy comes in very handy for clients who have no health insurance.  It is also great “Public Relations” for the store and saves them from many lawsuits.  The managers on duty typically run up and say, “It’s OK, we’ll pay for your medical care.”  They do not say, however, that there are monetary and time limits.  Private homes and officve buildings can also have “medpay coverage.”  So if you, or someone you know is injured due to a dangerous or defective building, store or home, please call us at ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd.  We can investigate not only the liability claim to determine fault but there may also be medpay or other “no fault” type coverages available to help get you back on the road to recovery.

The Virginia Workers Compensation Commission ruled this week that our client, a Barista who slipped and fell on wet mats her first week at work, did not refuse to have medically necessary surgery.  While Doug Landau won her original claim, securing significant wage loss and medical benefits, because it had been so long before this injured single mother got her winning decision, she eventually lost her home.  When the doctors recommended she undergo a total knee replacement surgery, the insurance company seized the opportunity to cut off benefits when the client, who had no home, could not schedule the operation because she and her son had nowhere to go to recuperate safely.  The insurance company’s lawyers took the position that the injured worker “must have surgery in order to cure a refusal” of necessary, reasonable and authorized medical care.   As the treating orthopedic surgeon agreed that his patient needed adequate housing so as to avoid post-surgical complications, the Deputy Commissioner found in favor of the disabled worker.  The judge wrote, “we find under the circumstances the claimant’s refusal to undergo surgery at this time is justified.”  The claimant’s benefits were reinstated, retroactively to the date the insurance company filed papers to cut her off.