Your Employer Is Responsible for Injuries Sustained on their Premises If They Do Not Carry Workers’ Compensation Insurance
If your employer does not have workman’s comp insurance, then you can sue your employer as well. Basically, if you get hurt on the job and your employer does not have workman’s comp, then you can hold your employer accountable.
If your employer does have workman’s comp but someone else hurts you on the job, such as an employee from a different company, then you can sue that company. If you were hurt by a product on the job, you can always sue that manufacturer.
I don’t take medical malpractice cases from advertising on the internet. I occasionally will take a medical malpractice case, but it’s only from personal doctor friends who refer them. I don’t advertise for any medical malpractice. The laws in Texas make taking medical malpractice cases almost prohibited.
The other specialty cases that I handle is forklift cases. There’s a page on my current website about that too. Because there’s so much cargo in Houston and factories and plants, I handle a large number of forklift injury cases.
Interviewer: What about dog bites, animal attacks, slip and falls or other areas?
A Number of Premises Liability Cases Occur in the Large Warehouse Retailers Such as Costco and Home Depot
Stephen: When I talk about premises liability cases, that includes slip and fall cases. We take about one of every ten slip and fall case that contacts us, but we do take slip and falls. In the Houston area, like the rest of the country, we’ve been taken over by these warehouse stores: Costco, Sam’s, even Home Depots and stores of that nature, these big warehouse retailers or big box stores.
You would be shocked to learn how many customers get hurt in these stores from falling merchandise or different types of dangerous conditions that are created within the store. I do handle a large number of those, and we do handle many dog attack cases. We have leash laws in Texas and for some reason many people here have a fascination with dangerous dogs: pit bulls, German Shepherds, Shar Peis, Australian Shepherds, and Rottweilers. We see a lot of dog attack cases.
While Regulated by the Attorney General’s Office, Personal Injury Cases Also Occur at Daycare Centers and Involve Accidents with Children
I encounter many cases involving children, too. Some specialty area cases that I’ve handled are daycare injury cases. I’ve handled a couple of incredibly severe injury cases coming out of daycares. Daycares in Texas are regulated by the Attorney General’s office but many accidents occur.
More than being subject to the scrutiny of the Attorney General regulations, what keeps daycare safe is the fear of liability. You sent your child to a daycare and you have nothing more valuable than your children. You trust them to people and then those people often act careless when they’re supposed to be careful and children get hurt.
Texas Has Capped the Amount of Damages in Cases against Nursing Homes
Interviewer: Do you handle any nursing home cases or other kind of cases?
Stephen: Nursing home cases fall into the medical malpractice realm. I don’t advertise for those because the laws in Texas are just prohibitive now, especially for nursing homes. In Texas, non-economic damages are capped at $250,000, no matter what the nature of the incident was.
If a drunken doctor amputates the wrong leg, you can only get $250,000 for non-economic damages. They passed laws here so that it makes it almost financially impossible or economically unfeasible to pursue a medical malpractice and nursing home case.