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Indio Motorcycle Accident Kills Rider Wearing Novelty Helmet

Barry Regar — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:05:00 GMT

In a recent Indio motorcycle accident that occurred near Coachella, the rider who was wearing a helmet was ejected and subsequently struck his head on a rock. The helmet he wore was commonly referred to as a, "novelty "helmet. The helmet showed evidence of cracking and the rider died of brain injuries caused by blunt force trauma. This kind of helmet is not certified by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, and testing by NHTSA has indicated that serious brain injuries are more often found in motorcycle riders wearing the, "novelty" type helmet as opposed to a helmet certified by NHTSA of DOT.

There is no doubt that wearing a helmet which is more than a fashion statement can limit the severity of brain damage and resulting death. The cost of medical care for motorcycle accident victims is much greater than the medical charges for those persons involved in Coachella Valley car accidents. A new client at the law office of Barry Regar who was driving a compact car was a victim of a negligent texting driver in Palm Desert and was hospitalized in Palm Springs for a broken leg suffered when his car was hit broadside by a small truck. His medical bills at Desert Regional Medical Center were approximately $125,000.00. Another one of our clients was involved in a head on accident with a truck in La Quinta and suffered neck and hand injuries. He was on a motorcycle; but was wearing a very expensive NHTSA approved helmet. His medical bills were over $500,000.00. He made a good recovery and is working. We obtained a large settlement for this personal injury client. I have no doubt that if he had been wearing a "novelty" type helmet that his widow would have been my client because he would have died of head injuries. He struck his head on the curb after the impact with the truck and his helmet saved his life.

Motorcycle riders who ride without helmets are breaking the law in many states. However many states don't require any standard type of helmet to be used by the rider. California passed a helmet law that became effective on January 1, 1992. The use of helmets increased to 99 percent from the approximately 50 percent usages before the law was passed {American Journal of Public Health 85{1}:96-9.

Motorcycle riders who stubbornly refuse to wear helmets will inevitably have higher medical costs if they have a crash. Unfortunately many riders have no health insurance and their medical bills become a burden on society. In 2002 NHTSA completed a review of 25 studies of medical costs of the injuries caused by motorcycle accidents and found that helmet use reflected a reduction of the cost of medical care, length of a hospital confinement and the probability of prolonged disability for the riders involved in motorcycle accidents.

If you drive, don't text. If you drive, don't drink. If you ride a motorcycle, wear an expensive NHTSA, DOT approved helmet. It is not cool to wear a light plastic half helmet. It won't save your life or prevent you from long term brain damage. Buckle up in your automobile and strap on a good helmet if you ride. Barry Regar A Professional Law Corporation has plenty of personal injury clients who didn't follow these simple rules.

If you or a family member have been in any type of vehicle accident you can call our office for a free consultation about your case. Stay safe.

Palm Desert Distracted Drivers Put Down Your Cell Phone

Barry Regar — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 07:41:00 GMT

Palm Desert distracted drivers cause car accidents and the city has taken action to do something about it. Statistics from the Highway Transportation and Safety Agency as well as from the National Insurance Institute confirm that more and more auto accidents and truck accidents are being linked to cell phone use as well as texting while driving. A driver who is actively texting while behind the wheel is just as impaired as a person driving over the legal limit for alcohol content in his or her blood stream.

We have laws in California that make it a citable offense to use a hand held cell phone while driving. It is also illegal to text while driving. The Palm Desert Police Department has reported to the media that it will participate with other law enforcement departments in an attempt to clamp down on these, "distracted" drivers that are causing countless vehicle accidents in the Coachella Valley. Our Palm Desert police officers will be making a conscious effort to find and ticket motorists they see texting or using a hand held cell phone. This campaign will take place during April.

The first ticketed offense for the violations cited above cost $159 and increases to $279 for the next ticket for the same kind of violation. Police agencies in other parts of California are also participating in this attempt to cut back on the number of drivers who think nothing about texting while driving or jabbering on their cell phone without a hands-free device. The campaign will be called," it's not worth it". Hopefully this effort which is long overdue will cut back on the carnage on our roadways. Last spring over 57,000 tickets were issued to California drivers for a combination of texting and hand held cell phone use. In 2012 there were almost 450,000 convictions for these offenses.

At the Law Firm of Barry Regar A Professional Law Corporation, our Palm Springs personal injury attorney reviews countless traffic collision reports written by the California Highway Patrol, the Riverside Sheriff's Office, and the Palm Springs Police Department that record car crash facts that often appear to be related to a cell phone. It is usually quite difficult for the investigating police officer to know whether or not a cell phone usage was a factor in causing the auto accident. It is easy to smell alcohol on the breath of a driver who evidently caused a Palm Desert car crash; but without a witness to the cell phone use or texting, the officer most often can't determine that there was a cell phone involved in causing the vehicle crash.

If you or a family member has been a personal injury victim caused by another driver, let the lawyers at this firm investigate your accident to discover if you were injured because of the other driver's negligence caused by unlawful cell phone use. Even if the police report is written in a way finding you at fault, we may be able to prove the other driver was texting or using a cell phone when the accident occurred.

Contact us now for a free consultation. Don't give up just because the police report finds you at fault if you know that you were not negligent. We can often find the evidence you need to win your case.

Palm Desert Injury Lawyer Explains Pain And Suffering Damages

Barry Regar — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:30:00 GMT

Palm Desert car crash accident victims who are not able to settle their cases with the not so friendly insurance adjuster for the party who caused the accident will probably have to hire an experienced personal injury lawyer to file a lawsuit. This may ultimately result in going to court and letting a jury decide on the damages to be awarded. Many of our clients at the Law Firm of Barry Regar have difficulty understanding how jurors can listen to medical testimony and then decide on how much money to award the plaintiff, the person suing the defendant who caused the accident. I will explain this process.

Jurors are not allowed to begin their deliberation process after the presentation of evidence is concluded until the judge reads the jury instructions that are contained in California Civil Jury Instructions {CACI}. CACI contains the law applicable to a particular kind of case and explains the law in terms that are supposed to be readily understood by lay persons. Although I have been a Palm Springs personal injury lawyer for over 4 decades I must admit that the so-called, “user friendly” jury instructions are often confusing and hard to grasp for non-lawyers. Nevertheless jurors must listen and use the instructions in order to arrive at a verdict. For the most part jurors seem to get it and are able to use the collective wisdom of a group of twelve citizens of Riverside County and get through the process which is how our American legal system is designed to work.

If a person suffered bodily injuries caused by the wrongful act of another person, that injury must be, “paid for”, by the defendant. The jury decides how much the defendant must pay for all damages inflicted on the injured party. California Civil Jury Instruction 3905A says in part, that the injured party should be compensated for, “Past and future physical pain/ mental suffering/ loss of enjoyment of life/ disfigurement/ physical impairment/ inconvenience/ grief/ anxiety/ humiliation and emotional distress. This instruction concludes by stating, “No fixed standard exists for deciding the amount of these damages. You must use your judgment to decide a reasonable amount based on the evidence and your common sense”

Thus the jury has the power and the legal mandate to listen to all the evidence and award the injured person what they the jury feel is reasonable in light of all the evidence presented in court. Of course the lawyers for the person suing and the person being sued are permitted to argue their respective cases at the end of the trial which is called, “closing arguments”. When I am giving my closing argument at the end of a jury trial in Indio I go over all the evidence that has been presented during the trial. I explain how the law should be used to consider the evidence presented and I then give reasons why I believe my client should win the case. Probably the most important part of the trial is to give the jury some guidelines and methods to translate, “pain and suffering”, evidence into a money verdict. To that end I can point out to the jury that my Coachella Valley auto accident client has been in pain since the accident and the medical evidence presented shows that the pain and suffering will continue for the rest of my client’s life. I can only ask for a reasonable verdict for past and future pain and suffering if I have presented believable medical evidence that supports my request for a certain sum of money to be awarded to my client for what they have endured in the past and how they will suffer in the future.

I have found that even more important than the testimony of medical doctors as to my client’s painful injuries is the testimony of my client. If the jury doesn’t believe my client, then regardless of what my client’s doctor says on the witness stand, the jury is not generally inclined to give my client the money verdict that I think would be appropriate and reasonable in light of all the evidence presented. So people injured in accidents that end up in an Indio personal injury trial should understand that their testimony must be truthful and believable. Jurors are very skeptical about people who come into court asking for money for personal injuries. They have all heard the propaganda disseminated by insurance companies about frivolous lawsuits. So I tell my clients that jurors are up to the task of arriving at reasonable money verdicts for pain and suffering when they are given honest and convincing evidence to support such a verdict and are willing to follow the jury instructions.

If you find that you need an experienced trial lawyer on your side, then you should contact the lawyer at Barry Regar A Professional Law Corporation for a free consultation. Make the call today.

Indio Personal Injury Trial Lawyer Explains The Voir Dire Process

Attorney Barry Regar — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:51:00 GMT

Indio personal injury trial lawyer Barry Regar explains the Voir Dire process of selecting a jury to hear a civil case involving a Coachella Valley car accident victim's attempt to recover reasonable damages from a negligent driver. Before a jury of twelve Riverside County residents are empanelled to sit on a civil jury, the lawyer for the Plaintiff, the person suing, and the lawyer for the defendant, the person being sued are supposed to be given the opportunity to question the prospective jurors to see if they are free of any bias or prejudice that would disqualify these persons from sitting on the jury. This questioning procedure is called, "voir dire".

The California Code of Civil Procedure section 222.5 provides that the attorneys for each party shall have the right to examine the prospective jurors by oral and direct questioning so that they can intelligently exercise both peremptory challenges and challenges for cause. This code section further states that, "the trial judge should permit liberal and probing examination calculated to discover bias or prejudice with regard to the circumstances of the particular case." This code section does not dictate the length of the voir dire process to be allowed by a judge. However, Code of Civil Procedure section 222.5 does state that, "specific unreasonable or arbitrary time limits shall not be imposed"

So what is really going on while the lawyers are asking the prospective jurors questions that seem to a lay person to be inane and much too personal? The lawyer for each side of the dispute is merely trying to find out if the person being questioned can be fair to the lawyer's client. We all know that the people that are called to sit on a jury trial don't want to be in court earning a few bucks a day plus mileage. The seats are uncomfortable and the temperature in the courtroom never seems to be warm enough or cold enough. Add to that the jury trial process is filled with long delays and often boring testimony from witnesses. Having said that, it is still is a fact that the United States system of justice is the fairest and most reasonable in the world.

What happens all too often in some of our Riverside County courtrooms is that some judges seem to ignore California Code of Civil Procedure section 222.5 and impose an unrealistic time limit on the attorneys for the voir dire process. This time limitation makes it very difficult for the lawyers to ferret out those jurors that hold a bias or prejudice that should mandate that the judge excuse that particular prospective juror for, "cause". When a judge excuses a prospective juror for cause, it means that the person gave answers to questions asked by the lawyers that revealed reasons such as a bias or prejudice that would make that juror favor one side or the other even before hearing any evidence or the jury instructions that explain the law that is applicable to any particular case. In all the years that I have been asking prospective jurors questions during the voir dire process in civil jury trials in the Riverside County courtrooms I have rarely encountered individuals that didn't have some bias or prejudice that needed to be brought to light in the voir dire questioning process. Often a juror honest enough to admit to favoring one side or the other before hearing any evidence will not automatically be excused by a judge for cause because the judge wants to move the case along and not take any more time picking the jury. A judge may hear a prospective juror admit to not liking Coachella Valley personal injury trial lawyers representing injured plaintiffs. Of course that person should not be allowed to sit on that kind of case. Yet the judge may go ahead and ask that person, "In spite of your feelings, do you think you could still be fair to both sides"? The person being questioned may then become embarrassed and answer that, "yes I still can be fair to both sides". That answer does not remove the taint of obvious bias toward the defense side of the case. So now the lawyer representing the plaintiff, the injured party, must use what is known as a, "peremptory challenge". A lawyer may exercise a peremptory challenge against a prospective juror for any reason at all. The lawyer may not like the fact that the juror has a wife that works as an insurance adjuster who would be a horrible juror on a personal injury case which almost always involve an insurance company paying the bills even though a jury is not supposed to know that fact. This subject has been a subject of a blog by Barry Regar. Each side of the case has six such challenges to use on prospective jurors when a lawyer feels that Mr. X would be a bad juror for his client's case.

Whether the person suing was a Palm Desert slip and fall victim, or a Palm Springs car accident victim, the innocent accident victim is suing the negligent person or business entity for money damages. Some people don't believe that people should be able to be awarded money damages for such things as, "pain and suffering". Obviously a person with that mindset would not be a proper juror in a personal injury case which is about holding a wrongdoer accountable for the injuries inflicted on another person. If the judge doesn't follow California case law and excuse such a person for, "cause", then the lawyer representing the plaintiff seeking money damages will have to use one of his six peremptory challenges and get rid of the juror who would not award money damages to a deserving innocent accident victim harmed by the negligence of another person who is covered by liability insurance even though the lawyers are not allowed to bring out that fact during the trial.

If you have been injured in an accident that was not your fault and you are unwilling to accept that "lowball", settlement offer made by the not so friendly insurance adjuster, you should contact the lawyer at the firm of Barry Regar A Professional Law Corporation. Some cases need to go to court and be decided by a jury of responsible and fair citizens of Riverside County. This firm has many years of experience in selecting fair jurors and winning jury trials for its clients. Call or email the firm for the help you need.

How To Get Medical Treatment After A Car Accident

Barry Regar — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 08:41:00 GMT

Getting medical treatment after you have been in a Coachella Valley car accident can be difficult if you don't have major medical insurance through your employment or private medical insurance coverage that you pay for yourself. If these two options don't exist you may still be able to get the medical treatment you require if you have medical payments coverage as part of your auto liability insurance policy. Failing that last option you will find it very hard to find doctors who will be willing to treat an uninsured patient outside of an emergency hospital visit scenario.

If you have been a car crash victim and it is determined by the police or other first responders that you are in need of a trip to the emergency room, you will be transported to the ER by ambulance without being asked whether or not you have medical insurance. If you have been in a Palm Springs auto accident and need emergency medical treatment you will most likely be taken to Desert Regional Medical Center for ER treatment. Desert Regional has a highly respected trauma department that often treats accident victims who eventually retain the law firm of Barry Regar A Professional Law Corporation for their personal injury cases.

Once the injured person is discharged from the ER it is usually recommended that the patient follow up with a family practice doctor or a specialist. It is at this point that the uninsured innocent accident victim begins hitting the wall in trying to get in to see a doctor. Urgent care facilities often want cash up front or an insurance card. These clinics sometimes don't want to treat patients that have been injured in car accidents because they don't want to get involved with lawyers and litigation. Although this policy seems odd considering that a back injury patient deserves the right to medical treatment whether the injury was caused by a car crash or just old age, I have been told by some of my clients that they were refused treatment for auto accident injuries at certain Palm Desert and Palm Springs urgent care offices.

In Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and larger Southern California cities it is much easier for uninsured accident victims who were injured because of the negligence of another driver to obtain medical treatment on a lien basis if the treating doctor can feel secure that the prospective patient will be successful in litigation and the doctor will be paid after an out of court settlement or a favorable jury trial verdict. Unfortunately there are not many doctors in the Coachella Valley that will treat personal injury patients on a lien basis. The lien arrangement simply means that the doctor, physical therapist, radiologist or other medical provider treats the patient without immediate payment from the patient or an insurance company. However there is a catch to this kind of arrangement with the doctor. An accident victim who seeks medical treatment on a lien basis without an attorney representing that person will find it extremely difficult to get treated because the medical provider is not generally inclined to trust the patient who doesn't have a lawyer to be able to handle the personal injury case to a successful conclusion. Think about it. Doctors know that insurance adjusters don't treat accident victims with respect and certainly don't have the injured person's best interests in mind when negotiating a settlement. Therefore most doctors or chiropractors that I know refuse to treat patients on a lien basis without legal representation.

If you are injured in an accident and don't have insurance you may have to apply for Medi-Cal or other government medical assistance. Some of my clients who got medical treatment before retaining my law firm, had to go to the Riverside County medical facility in Moreno Valley for follow up medical care for their car accident injuries after they were discharged for a local ER room. Because it is very important for those injured to get prompt and reasonable medical care for their injuries to be able to begin healing and to document the injuries, the accident victim without medical insurance should consult a lawyer as soon as that person determines that they are unable to get the medical treatment they so desperately need. Insurance adjusters and their lawyers love to argue that a person who claims to have been injured must not have really been injured if there is a medical treatment history lacking after an auto accident. Very often the lack of medical treatment is not because the injured person didn't have real painful injuries; but because that person didn't have medical insurance or the money to go to the doctor.

Contact the Barry Regar Law Firm to get advice about how to get the medical treatment you need after a car accident.

Men Are More Likely to Die In Pedestrian-Auto Accidents Than Women

Barry Regar — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 05:24:00 GMT

Traffic accidents in the United States result in pedestrian deaths as well as those deaths suffered by the occupants of vehicles. In fact 12 percent of all traffic related fatalities occur to pedestrians. It is interesting to note that in a recently published article in, Injury Prevention, researchers at the West Virginia University School of Public Health and Injury Control Research Center discovered that men are at greater risk of being involved in an auto-pedestrian accident than women. The study also noted that men are 2.3 times more often killed in these accidents than women. Although the research revealed that men and women actually walked approximately the same distance every day, the auto accident statistics involving pedestrians confirmed the disparity between the deaths of male and female walkers when struck by a car. The research leader, Dr. Motao Zhu, was not able to explain the difference of the accident statistics as related to gender.

Dr Zhu suggested that there may be certain factors that make men more likely to die in these collisions. He queried whether men may take more risks such like crossing highways in the middle of the roadway or even being willing to walk along high speed roadways? The research also attributed some of these pedestrian deaths to drunk or otherwise impaired pedestrians.

At the law firm of Barry Regar A Professional Law Corporation we recently settled a Palm Springs pedestrian- auto accident for a client who was legally intoxicated and crossing East Palm Canyon at a relatively low lit corner. He was not crossing in a crosswalk that was located about 50 yards from the point of impact with the car. During the litigation process Attorney Barry Regar was able to prove that the driver of the car that struck the drunk pedestrian was probably exceeding the speed limit and was not paying attention to the roadway ahead of him. In that particular case the investigating police officers had concluded in the traffic investigation report that our client was the primary cause of the collision. It was only after many depositions were taken and a traffic reconstruction was performed by an expert hired by the firm that the defendant's insurance company was willing to settle the case for a substantial sum of money.

Contact the Palm SpringsPersonal Injury attorney at this firm for a thorough analysis of any traffic related injury or wrongful death matter.

Medial Treatment For Whiplash In The Coachella Valley

Barry Regar — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 21:13:00 GMT

How to treat a, “whiplash injury” is often frustrating for doctors and discouraging for the patient. Most of our clients at Barry Regar APLC who have been involved in Palm Springs auto accidents have suffered some form of “whiplash “injury as a result of the accident. The term, “whiplash” is really not a medical term. It is a word that merely describes a mechanism of injury. The medical term for this kind of injury is actually called a flexion-extension injury. When the driver or passenger in a car that is stopped is suddenly, “rear ended”, the heads of this occupants, “whip” forward and backward in a whipping motion to cause stretching and or tearing of the soft tissue structure of the neck causing pain, muscle spasm, and a limitation of motion. These symptoms often persist despite medical treatment.

Physicians who treat these, “whiplash” injuries resulting from Coachella Valley car crashes most often prescribe anti-inflammatory medication, muscle relaxers, and pain pills to their patients. The ER doctors order x-rays, CT scans, and other testing depending on the presenting symptoms of the accident victims. Usually physical therapy is part of the treatment regimen. In a recent published article in, The Lancet, a prestigious English medical journal dated 18 December 2012, the authors who included Professor Sarah E Lamb started the article stating that,” little is known about the effectiveness of treatments for acute whiplash injury.” One of the goals of the research study was to determine if a course of physical therapy treatment would be more effective than just one physical therapy advice session in those patients whose symptoms had persisted after the initial ER room visit.

These patients who were suffering from the neck injuries were randomly selected and a group was then assigned to receive 6 physical therapy sessions while another selected group was simply given one advice session. The advice session instructed members of this selected group how to do exercises and stretches. The outcomes of the patient follow ups were obtained for four, six, and eight months and recorded. The physical therapy package of up to six treatments showed a modest improvement in symptoms at the four month mark when compared with a one session of just advice about how to stretch and exercise. However at the eight month and twelve month time period there was no difference in the persistent symptoms in the studied groups.

The interpretation of the study was that a 6 session physical therapy treatment regimen may have provided a modest acceleration for early recovery of persisting symptoms in some patients; but it was not cost effective for the British health care system.

In our Indio personal injury law practice we are constantly asked by our clients for advice about how to treat these lingering neck and back complaints resulting from auto accidents. I always tell my clients that I am not a doctor although I have represented thousands of accident victims with similar complaints. The sad truth is that certain people either because of their individual physical or emotional makeup just take longer to heal. Some never heal if healing means the absence of complaints of pain and disability. We often suggest that our clients with chronic pain seek the services of physicians who specialize in pain management. Pain and disability for these people are real and life changing despite what insurance lawyers argue in court when I have to take my client’s case to a jury for the award of fair and reasonable compensation for their damages caused by a negligent driver.

Contact the Law Firm of Barry Regar for a free consultation about your accident claim. We will also advise you if you are getting the medical treatment that you may be entitled to receive with your available insurance or whether you can obtain this treatment without medical insurance.

Palm Springs Car Crashes And Mind Wandering

Barry Regar — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 06:15:00 GMT

What are the most common factors that cause fatal traffic crashes in and around Palm Springs? In my experience as a personal injury trial lawyer I have found that speeding, weather conditions, alcohol, and texting are by far the real culprits for these deadly statistics. These factors that occur during the year seem to become more influential during the holiday season in the Coachella Valley.

During November and December there is an increase in the number of cars on the roads with many more of these visiting drivers unfamiliar with our streets and highways? Now add to this mix the greater consumption of alcohol and you get a recipe for more Coachella Valley wrongful death claims as we have noted at Barry Regar APLC.

When a new auto accident client consults with our office we start the litigation process with a thorough investigation of what facts most likely caused the accident. There are many serious accidents that are not caused by drunk or speeding drivers who are unfamiliar with our roadways. These accidents are caused by local drivers who are not driving in the rain and often can’t explain why they didn’t see the red traffic signal or the stop sign. A new French study published in the December, 13^th issue of the Journal BMJ found that drivers just “zone out” and this loss of concentration accounts for many auto accidents.

“Day dreaming, or mind wandering, accounts for a significant proportion of car crashes” reported researcher Emmanuel Lagarde a researcher at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research at the University of Bordeaux. He concluded that he had no solution to the problem because drivers just cannot stop thinking when driving. He opined that if we can’t control the mind than the task will be to explore technologies that will alert drivers to dangers that they may not be paying attention to as their minds are wandering off to thoughts about money, deadlines, bills, family, and a myriad of other thoughts.

Researcher Lagarde acknowledged that distractions such as using a cell phone or texting are known to be connected with car crashes; but that inattention from distractions like worries and obsessing is not well understood. The French study involved interviewing almost 1,000 adult drivers who were injured in car accidents between April 2010 and August 2011. The interviews occurred in the ER of local hospitals. In 52 percent of the crashes caused by the interviewed drivers it was reported that these drivers found that their minds wandered off just before the crash.

Accidents will continue to occur because of all the factors stated above. We can do our part to protect ourselves and our families during this holiday season. We can limit our alcohol consumption before driving. We can always use our seatbelts and demand that any passenger in our car buckle up. Make certain that any extended family member with small children use properly fastened and positioned child car seats. Drive safe.

If you or a family member is unfortunately involved in traffic collision you can always count on a free immediate consultation at Barry Regar A Professional Law Corporation.

Palm Desert Slip and Fall Accident Not Always Negligence

Barry Regar — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 06:43:00 GMT

A slip and fall accident in the Coachella Valley doesn't mean that you will collect money from the store where you fell even if your fall caused you serious personal injuries. Although business property owners are not insurers of the safety of their customers, these businesses do have the duty to exercise reasonable care in maintaining and controlling their property to provide a safe shopping environment for the general public. Imagine a shopper entering the Palm Desert Town Center Mall during the Christmas season. Our shopper is sober and has no physical disability which could account for any slipping and falling accident. A few minutes before our shopper walks over a specific location on the tile floor a young boy spills some of his Mochachino on the tile. The shopper doesn't see the spill and slips on the liquid and falls backward injuring his head, neck, and back. The young boy has disappeared and the injured shopper is helped up by a kind gentleman.

As a Palm Desert personal injury lawyer I get contacted every week about accidents very similar to what I have described in the above scenario. At the Barry Regar Law Firm, we will routinely turn down this type of slip and fall case because they are extremely difficult to win in court or to get an insurance company to accept liability for the accident because they will argue that the Mall didn't have notice of the dangerous condition and certainly didn't create the condition. It wasn't a Town Center security guard or janitor that spilled the liquid. We can't sue Starbucks for selling the drink and the careless young boy is in the wind. If the boy could be identified and his parents owned a home with homeowners liability insurance a claim could be made for the negligence of the boy which would be covered by the homeowners liability insurance company.

Under California law an owner of property whether residential or commercial is only liable for harm caused by a dangerous condition of the real property if the owner created the dangerous condition or had actual or constructive knowledge of said condition. Ortega v. Kmart Corp. 26Cal.4^th 1200 is a California Supreme Court case that discusses the law of Premises Liability in California. In our case of the spilled drink in the Mall, the Mall could be found liable by a jury if it were proved that an employee of the Mall spilled the drink. The Mall would also most likely be found responsible if the spilled liquid had been seen by a Mall employee who did nothing to clean up the spill or warn customers of the spill while trying to get another Mall employee to bring cleaning materials to remove the spill and any slippery condition that was caused by the spilled liquid.

The injured shopper can also prevail against the Mall if it could be proved that the Mall had, "constructive notice" of the spill. This method of proof requires evidence that the Mall didn't have a program in place that mandated that Mall employees go around and make regular inspections of the Mall. The Ortega case cited above held that the store's duty to inspect the premises is continuous and inspections should be done frequently. Thus evidence that the Mall didn't have an inspection system in place may create a legal inference that the dangerous condition was present for a sufficient period of time for the owner of the premises to have noticed the condition and cleaned it up. Unfortunately in the real world of personal injury claims and lawsuits if the Mall had a video of the accident that showed the spill was there for a few minutes and the Mall had an inspection policy in place, it would be very difficult for our injured shopped to win his case.

Contact the Palm Springs slip and fall lawyer at this firm to investigate and analyze the facts of your accident. The consultation is always free and confidential.

Bullying Is A Personal Injury In Indio And The Coachella Valley

Barry Regar — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 23:17:00 GMT

Bullying in the Coachella Valley and Indio is a major problem in the valley schools. This activity is not limited to the higher grade levels. In a recent survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they found that in the past 12 months almost 1 in 5 school children reported being bullied. It was also reported in the same study that 6% of the students stayed home from school at least one time per month because they were afraid of being bullied at school.

Bullying can take the form of online harassment. Social media has become the tool of willful and cruel minors who act out their own psychological issues by targeting their classmates. Quite often the victims are unwilling to report these physical or online attacks for fear of being labeled a, “snitch” or worse. The minor victims keep the bullying activities from their teachers and parents. So it is very important that parents be on the lookout for possible signs of bullying. According to Victor Gardner, a child and adolescent psychologist with the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, “parents should watch for the following signs or symptoms which may be evidence of bullying. Children may complain of headaches, stomachaches and nausea, or they may develop low self-esteem and lack confidence. Their grades may drop. If the bullying is occurring online, the child might stop participating in their favorite online activities.”

Parents of children who have been or are currently being bullied should know that they and their children have legal rights that can be protected. Bullying resulting in physical or emotional injuries are personal injuries that can allow the parents of the bullied minor to file a lawsuit for their child against the parents of the bully or even the school district under certain circumstances. At Barry Regar APLC we have investigated these Indio, Palm Desert, and Palm Springs injury claims against our school districts and the parents of the children who bully their classmates. At times, if the bullied child has not suffered a significant injury and the parents of that child does not want to file a lawsuit, we have been able to put a stop to the bullying by threatening the Coachella Valley school district with a lawsuit unless they investigated and intervened to stop the alleged bullying activities. At times warning the parents of the bullying minor that the parents of the bullied minor who contacted our firm has resulted in those parents stopping their child from continuing this bullying activity. Our Palm Springs personal injury law firm handles much more than seriousauto accident cases.

California Civil Code Section 1714.1 provides in part that the act of willful misconduct of a minor that results in injury or death shall be imputed to the parents or guardian who has custody and control of the minor for all purposes of civil damages not to exceed 25 thousand dollars. This means the parents of the bullying minor can be on the hook to pay a damage award against them for at least 25 thousand dollars in the evident that they are named as defendants in a lawsuit and are found liable by a jury because of the intentional bullying acts of their child. If these parents had homeowners’ liability insurance or renters’ liability insurance then their insurance company would have to pay the damage award under the terms of the particular policy. It should be noted that the insurance company will have to pay the amount of the damage award which can exceed 25 thousand dollars up to the liability coverage limit of the policy. For example if the child who was the victim of the bullying suffered personal injuries, medical bills, and income loss in an amount of one hundred thousand dollars as determined by a jury, then the insurance company of the parents being sued for the tort,{bullying activity}, of their minor child will have to pay the one hundred thousand dollar award to the injured minor if the liability coverage was at least one hundred thousand dollars and if the bullying activity also had an element of negligence included in the activity. The insurance issue can be complex under certain fact patterns and will be the subject of another blog. In certain circumstances the insurance company can and will deny coverage.

California Penal Code Section 272 imposes possible criminal prosecution against the parents of a minor child who engages in bullying activity if there is evidence that the parents failed to exercise reasonable care, supervision, protection or control over their children and the child causes significant damage and the parents had reason to know of the activity.

Our Coachella Valley school districts can be sued and have been sued for allowing bullying activity to continue when knowingly allowing such activity. The schools have a duty to supervise the activities of the pupils. The schools can also be sued on the legal theory of allowing a dangerous condition to exist on their property or in creating a dangerous condition of their property.

If you know or suspect that your child is a victim of bullying at school or away from school, you should contact the personal injury lawyer at the Barry Regar law firm to learn about your legal rights and the rights of your children. Your free consultation is totally confidential.

Car Crash Injuries And Sciatica Treatment Failure

Barry Regar — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 07:28:00 GMT

A large number of the Palm Desert auto accident clients that have been represented by the Barry Regar law firm have suffered from sciatica. This is a very common form of a traumatic low back condition which results in an intense shooting pain moving down one leg. Often the client experiences numbness and tingling along with the above symptoms which most often comes from pressure to or injury of the sciatic nerve which branches off the spinal cord.

Treating sciatica is often unsuccessful and offers less than satisfactory long term results. Dr. Steven Cohn, a professor of anesthesiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore has recently said that, "when you examine alternatives for sciatica, no treatment is very reliable or effective."

Against this background of a painful and disabling low back condition medical science has offered patients spinal steroid injections as a treatment option. As a personal injury lawyer I know that my clients who have received spinal injections have mostly received only temporary relief if that. Despite my own observations of the effectiveness or lack thereof of these epidural steroid injections I hear my clients with chronic back pain and sciatica tell me that they are willing to undergo a potentially risky procedure with the hope of getting symptom relief. I understand sciatica and recognize the reasons for reaching for a non-narcotic treatment of that gnawing shooting pain down a leg. Recently there have been a significant number of patients receiving steroid epidural injections that have contracted a deadly fungal infection because of a filthy compounding pharmacy back east. I have already blogged about that last month.

In the November 13^th issue of the Journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the researchers from the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney in Australia found that after an analysis of 23 clinical trials following over 3100 patients that these injections resulted in short term improvement of pain and disability for these sciatica patients and no real long term cure. After a couple of weeks and three months following treatment, 10 trials with these injections demonstrated leg pain improvement and 14 trials found improvements in disability. However, after a year or a little longer, there was no differences found in leg pain, disability, or back pain in those patients having the injections as compared to patients given a placebo. These findings are similar to findings in an earlier study that found that after six months following the steroid injections the patients were not any better than patients who had taken an anti-inflammatory drug.

Professor Steven Cohen offered, "It is likely that, at least in some people, epidurals may decrease the likelihood that they will need surgery, not because they last so long, but because they decreased the pain enough for their body to heal itself and/or prevent those deleterious changes from occurring in the nervous system."

In the personal injury litigation process we know that insurance adjusters put a higher settlement value on a car crash claim which is brought by an accident victim who submits to epidural injections to relieve sciatica. These usually cynical representatives of the insurance industry recognize that claimants who have these injections are not faking their symptoms because no one in their right mind would have these shots unless they have run out of options. Depending where in the Coachella Valley one gets these injections, they can cost thousands of dollars. There is a charge for the doctor, the medicine, and the facility charge. Dr Cohen who I quoted above also added that, "doctors should be more selective in choosing which patients could benefit from the injections in view of the results of the most recent efficacy studies."

Contact the Palm Springs Auto Accident lawyer at this firm for any of your medical-legal questions resulting from a serious car accident in the Coachella Valley. There is never a charge for a consultation.

How To Pick A Coachella Valley Personal Injury Lawyer

Barry Regar — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 18:23:00 GMT

Hiring a Coachella Valley personal injury lawyer to handle your auto accident case should require a decision making process that takes at least as long as shopping for a new car. I am constantly amazed at how little research and effort some accident victims expend in choosing a lawyer who can potentially provide legal assistance that may or may not be the best legal help available. I recently received an email message from my answering service informing me that a certain individual called seeking a free consultation about a motorcycle accident involving a family member. The call was made to the Law Firm of Barry Regar at 11pm on a Sunday night. I called back early Monday morning and spoke to the potential client. He told me he had already hired a lawyer at midnight. I found that rather odd. I wondered why he was so anxious to hire a lawyer without taking the opportunity to at least speak with me since he had called my office. Having interviewed thousands of clients and potential clients I have learned that many clients pick a lawyer by chance. They may have just opened the yellow pages to an ad for lawyer, "X", and liked the graphics and colors. Some accident victims go through the phonebook and start calling a random list of lawyers and hire the first lawyer to return their call. I know that fact is true because I always ask new clients how they were referred to my office. Many times I am told that they chose me because I took their call or was the first lawyer to call them back. I appreciate the business; but I am a strong advocate for potential clients doing their homework about a lawyer's qualifications before signing the contract for legal representation.

All lawyers are not equal in ability, experience, and determination. I am not certain that the average victim of a careless driver fully appreciates that the choice they make about the lawyer they hire can and will determine whether they receive fair compensation for their injuries or a lowball settlement recommended by an inexperienced lawyer. It also must be understood by potential clients that all accidents don't result in identical injuries to different classes of people. A car crash that totals a car will result in a more serious injury pattern for an older occupant with pre-existing arthritis than will be experienced by a young healthy college football player. I make this point to emphasize the fact that as different as victims of accidents are in physiology so are lawyers different in talent and experience.

I recommend that those persons seeking the legal help of a lawyer to handle their injury claim spend a reasonable amount of time researching the experience and reputation of a lawyer they are thinking about hiring for their case. Use the web for research. Read what the lawyer includes in their website about the lawyer. Look for proven experience. Read about case results and client testimonials. Look at the badges that are displayed showing awards and ratings from prestigious lawyer rating services. Don't get lost in links to other sites that provide news, and research sources that tell you nothing about the ability of the lawyer whose website you are viewing.

Last but not least, you must meet the lawyer before you sign a contract. Don't sign a contract provided to you by an attorney investigator or paralegal. Have a face to face with the lawyer you want to hire. Ask questions that you want and need to know about this lawyer and how his or her legal ability and experience can serve your interests. Do you buy a car without seeing it and driving it? The answer to that question is obvious. Don't be afraid or intimidated to let the lawyer know you have questions they need to answer before you hire that lawyer.

At Barry Regar APLC we are ready, willing, and able to answer

Palm Desert Personal Injjury Lawyer Comments on Botox For Pain

Barry Regar — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 05:34:00 GMT

Botox injections which have been traditionally used to decrease wrinkles in our aging population obsessed with looking beautiful have recently been used to treat patients with chronic neck and shoulder pain. Headaches very often accompany chronic neck pain caused by the trauma suffered by our Coachella Valley and Palm Desert auto accident clients. Dr. Robert Duarte of the Pain Center at the Cushing Neuroscience Institute in Great Neck, New York confirmed that at his pain center it is known that neck pain can bring on headaches. Many of our clients at Barry Regar APLC report that their headaches started after a car crash in which they have no recollection of hitting their heads. They are puzzled about the cause of these headaches and seem somewhat relieved when I advise them that they will experience relief from their headaches when their neck symptoms resolve or improve. They appreciate our medical knowledge at our law office which is usually validated by their own doctors or physical therapists.

A research team at UCLA selected 118 patients who had been suffering pain that had lasted over two months. These patients had failed other forms of pain management medication. The group was divided, thus providing some of the test subjects with injections of botulinum toxin type A while the others received a placebo set of injections. The Botox group reported a greater decrease in pain scores than the placebo group. Also noted was that the Botox test subjects experienced a significant reduction in the frequency of their headaches and their intensity.

The UCLA researchers explained that their results certainly suggested that injections of Botox may in fact be a viable option for patients who have chronic neck and shoulder pain that has resisted the usual modalities of treatment such as pain pills, muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatory meds and physical therapy. Dr. Andrea Nicol, the director of research at the UCLA Pain Management Center stated, "At best, long term benefit with traditional therapies is transient and unpredictable."

Dr. Victor Khable chief of the department of surgery at the Orthopedic and Spine Institute at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York, stated that, "Botox injections may play a role for those patients who have failed more traditional treatment protocols" He cautioned that the preliminary test results are promising; but additional studies are required to fully determine the efficacy and safety of the use of Botox for patients with chronic neck symptoms.

I have seen evidence in our Palm Desert personal injury practice of clients who have had some positive symptom response to Botox injections.

Although I am a lawyer and not a doctor I nevertheless have the medical knowledge to evaluate our client's injury claims.

Contact a lawyer at this firm for a confidential and thorough analysis of your personal injury case. There is no charge for your telephone or, "in office", consultation.

Indio Car Crash Might Cause A Fungal Infection

Barry Regar — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 04:35:00 GMT

Many of our clients at Barry Regar APLC suffer from chronic neck, back, shoulder, hip, and knee pain as a consequence of Coachella Valley auto accidents. Despite conservative medical care including pain medication such as vicodan, muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatory prescriptions and physical therapy some of these accident victims continue to experience pain and disability.

The next step in medical treatment for some of our clients is often steroid injections. These people who are having chronic pain commonly receive injections of methylprednisolone acetate into the symptomatic joint to reduce the inflammation that causes the pain and limitation of movement. Although these types of injections luckily will not cause meningitis which has been nationally publicized as having been linked to a compounding pharmacy suspected of selling steroid injection medication contaminated with a fungus, any joint infections tied to these contaminated steroid medications can result in serious health consequences to the patient.

Fungal infections in a joint are often extremely difficult to treat and can be quite devastating according the Dr. Sanjeev Suratwala, a spine surgeon in Glen Cove, New York. Dr. Suratwala reported that these patients require several months of antibiotic therapy and often suffer relapses and may need surgery to remove infected tissue. He also stated that fungal infection in joints can take longer to manifest than spinal meningitis that is diagnosed within one to four weeks after the spinal injection for back or neck pain has been administered.

Because the Massachusetts pharmacy that combined and mixed ingredients to produce the steroid medication that has been used for spinal injections has been identified as the alleged source of the fungus contaminated steroid products, the fear is that there will now be a rash of joint infections caused by these defective and contaminated products having been injected into the joints of patients with knee, shoulder, ankle, and hip pain.

It has been reported that this week the CDC released interim guidelines for doctors on how to treat fungal joint infections. The CDC issued warnings to patients who had received joint injections with methylprednisolone acetate to immediately seek medical treatment if they develop symptoms of infection, including swelling, redness or warmth at the site of the injection. Increasing pain at the site is also a sign that should be checked out by a doctor.

A personal injury victim who obtains medical treatment which includes contaminated steroid injections in the spine or a joint can hold the negligent driver who caused the spine or joint injury liable for the fungus infection contracted from a defective drug{steroid injection}. My office would also sue the pharmacy supplying the contaminated steroid medication under a defective products theory of liability. We would consider suing the doctor who gave the contaminated injection if it could be proved that in light of the current publicity about fungal infections and their relationship to compounding pharmacies, the doctor didn't make a reasonable inquiry into the origin of the steroid medication he or she injected into my client. The doctor could be sued for medical malpractice for a failure to make a reasonable investigation.

Contact a lawyer at the firm of Barry Regar A Professional Law Corporation for an immediate and confidential free consultation about your injury case.

Working After A Car Crash Injury. Will It Hurt?

Barry Regar — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 06:21:00 GMT

"Attorney Barry Regar, will going back to work too soon after my auto accident hurt my case?" I can't tell you how many times over the years that I have been handlingpersonal injury cases that my clients have asked me that exact question. My usual answer is that if the doctor releases the patient to work and the patient feels able to work then returning to work has a neutral affect on the lawsuit. I also advise my clients that if the client legitimately feels physically unable to work because of increased pain with working then the client should not return to work and should seek another medical opinion about working.

Income loss is one of the elements of damage that a person injured by the negligence of another can recover as part of the injury claim or lawsuit. However the income loss claim must have some medical basis for the inability to work after an accident. Some accident victims unfortunately believe that just being in a fender bender will allow them to stop working for a period of time and be paid for the income loss by the insurance company. That mindset is not based on the realities of personal injury litigation. At Barry Regar APLC we seek to have our clients work restrictions documented by solid medical opinion when available. I have always encouraged my clients to return to work when recommended by their doctors and to continue to work unless pain or other symptoms become too overwhelming. At that point the client should return to the doctor for additional evaluation and testing to rule out a more serious injury than first diagnosed by the treating doctor.

I have actually observed many of my clients feeling better after returning to work. I have suspected the reasons for this phenomenon; but have now just read an article in the June issue of Current Biology that documents the benefits of working with pain. A new German study has proven that work distraction can reduce pain and that it is not purely psychological. They found that distraction causes a physiological group of events that operate on the brain and the spinal cord.

The researchers used special MRIs to view the spinal cords of twenty men as they were caused to have heat applied to their arms producing pain. During this heat application the men were asked to complete either a difficult or an easy memory task. The test subjects who were given the hard memory assignment perceived less pain than when they performed the less difficult memory task. Also the MRIs picked up less activity in the spinal cord with the hard mental task compared to the easier test. The researchers concluded that fewer pain signals were being relayed to the brain during the harder memory test.

The authors of the study opined that distraction could be releasing natural opioids which are known to play a vital role in pain relief. When the participants were given a drug that blocks the effects of opioids and were asked to repeat the testing they found that the distraction was notably less effective at reducing the pain which supports the opinion that distraction operates as a pain reducer in part through opioids.

Earlier studies have demonstrated that distraction is very effective in reducing our perception of pain. Some of the studies revealed that distraction interferes with pain perception when other experiments indicated that one's pain increases when it becomes the focus of our attention.

When my car crash clients who have chronic pain that has been resistant to conservative treatment or even surgery enter a pain management program in the Coachella Valley that utilizes guided imagery, cognitive therapy, or Yoga, they sometimes find relief from their chronic pain cycle.

Contact the Palm Desert Auto Accident lawyer at this firm for a free and thorough confidential analysis of your personal injury claim that has caused you to suffer from chronic pain.