Posts Tagged ‘accident’

What Kind Of Lawyer Do Need In A Work Related Car Accident, Personal Injury Or Worker’s Comp?

Saturday, December 17th, 2011

A lot of individuals are involved in jobs that require the use of car while working. This means that they are at risk for having a job related automobile accident. If you sustain injuries in that accident and it is caused by somebody else’s fault, and along with a workers compensation claim you may also end up being entitled to a third-party liability claim. Keep in mind though that you are not allowed to sue a coworker or your employer for any job related injuries sustained in an accident.

Once the auto accident on the job is sustained be certain to follow to the letter the workers compensation claim filing. You need to notify employee about the injuries sustained in writing, and then you have to go wherever your slowly decides for the initial injury care. This also entails filling out a compensation claim form that begins the claim process. Even if something else was at fault for the accident you should start the workers compensation claim process is that we can get immediate medical and compensation benefits.

You may already be aware of this, but the liability claim with the asphalt insurance company may not resolve for years. You will need to complete your treatment and get to a point of what’s known as maximum medical improvement in order to gain the highest settlement that you can. You should definitely work with a personal injury attorney who also has familiarity with workers compensation law in your particular region.

If the attorney is knowledgeable in both personal injury law as well as workers compensation law, it may be possible in that state for the workers compensation insurer to pay medical bills rather than needing the settlement monies from the personal injury case to pay for those. This would essentially be money out of your pocket paying for your medical bills. Make sure to ask the personal-injury attorney whether or not you should be seeing a physician who is on your workers compensation provider list.

Keep in mind that if you have a workers compensation claim along with a personal injury lawsuit, the workers compensation carrier is legally entitled to share the money that you get from liability insurer. The term for this is a subrogation lien. Still though it is better for the injured individual to have both claims going. It is actually not unusual for an individual to have two attorneys, one working on each case. It would be better however if one attorney had experience in both to streamline things.

Want to find out more about the best car accident attorneys Phoenix, then visit RJ Hurwitz Law site on how to choose the best Phoenix personal injury attorneys for your needs.

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Should I Wait To Heal Before Settling After Being a Victim in an Auto Accident?

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

After becoming a victim in an auto accident, a large “bite” is taken out of your life. This entails bodily injury, damage to your vehicle, and plenty of missed time potentially from work. To the insurance company who deals with these things every day it may seem like an inconsequential “bite”, but to you it will upset completely the baseline world in which you exist.

Your new existence will entail doctor visits, therapy, and mounting medical bills. The injuries you sustain from the accident may take months to heal or even over a year.

Unfortunately you will need to deal with phone calls and estimates to body shops and auto repair centers, as well as dealing with insurance companies. Nobody would call this a fun time, and an experienced personal injury larger can help significantly with all of these issues and your case against the other party. A veteran personal-injury attorney can help recommend when would be the appropriate time to settle your case.

The question is though, do you need to wait until you are healed to seek money or is it appropriate to seek monies earlier? In reality, that is exactly what is in your best interest. Why? The problem is sometimes injuries take a while to surface, such as a long term effect of traumatic brain injury (TBI) or potentially a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Because of this, settling too soon with the insurance company may leave additional monies on the table.

The key to receiving an appropriate settlement that you will not look back on with regret is patience. This is a tough mantra to hold, especially when the accident takes this “bite” out of your life. But patience will help make the “bite” get filled to make you somewhat whole again, as the end result would be a higher settlement.

This is one of the primary reasons insurance company may be pushing you to settle to quickly. Which you truly want to do is to reach “maximum medical improvement” before settling with them. What exactly does this mean? This is the point where the doctor reports that the maximum healing is complete and you have reached the maximum recovery as much as possible. At that point you have a really good understanding of what your care needs will be in the future and your lifelong limitations.

If you are not healed back to complete baseline as before the accident, calculations exist which can help predict future medical expenses which can be added to the expenses incurred to that point. Once all of that is put into numbers, the settlement process can be initiated into realistic numbers. If you have been patient enough to allow these realistic settlement calculations to be generated, this will give you the best chance of making yourself whole again and receiving the highest settlement.

Want to find out more about the best accident attorneys Phoenix, then visit RJ Hurwitz Law site on how to choose the best personal injury lawyer Phoenix AZ for your needs.

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Is A Personal Injury Settlement Taxable?

Monday, December 5th, 2011

If you were in a car accident as a result of someone else’s fault and ended up breaking some bones along with other medical problems, you probably had to miss work and deal with significant pain and suffering. You go through doctor visits, physical therapy, imaging studies, some nightmares, counseling, and overall it amounts to a very stressful time.

Eventually your case settles and all of your damages are reduced to a monetary amount. Do you then have to pay taxes on that amount? It depends on whether or not the settlement money is being received for the injury or for the loss of economic benefit.

The premise is that basically if the monies are being received for the injury then it is not taxable. if however the money received is for loss of economic benefit than it is included in gross income and subject to taxation. If you are out of work and lost wages and part of your injury settlement replaces those amounts, you would have to pay taxes on that because you would’ve been otherwise working and paying taxes anyway. There has been some precedents with case law as to this, put it is not always clearly defined. This article also is not being written by an attorney so this does not constitute definitive legal advice!

The IRS has a tax code dealing with physical personal injury payments and how they are excluded from gross income. That section is text 2104. It is not extremely clear to find as directors not give specific guidance on the terms “physical injuries or physical sickness”. If the settlement compensation is being received for “physical sickness or personal injuries” than that amount is supposed to be excluded from a person’s gross income amount.

An IRS case in the past known as LTR 200041022 involved in IRS ruling about a woman who got a settlement from her employer as it related to unwanted physical contact. Since the settlement that the woman received was not based on actual physical injuries and there was no “observable bodily harm”, the IRS ruled that the settlement monies had to be included in her gross income.

There was also a United States Supreme Court case section 104, Schleier v. Commissioner. there was a two-step mandate that was adopted by the court with the cause of action need to be a tort type action with the monies received being on account of personal physical injury or sickness.

Since it is not clearly defined, individuals in this situation should talk to a competent tax lawyer to clarify exactly what should be included in gross income or excluded. Since settlements at times end up in the millions of dollars, this should be a definite prerequisite since if calculated incorrectly the IRS may get involved.

Want to find out more about personal injury lawyers phoenix az, then visit RJ Hurwitz Law site on how to choose the best car accident attorneys Phoenix for your needs.

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