Toms River New Jersey Personal Injury Blog

Understanding negligent entrustment

On behalf of Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents on Tuesday, January 8, 2019.

For those in Toms River that have been involved in motor vehicle accidents, perhaps nothing is more disheartening to learn that their insurance payout will not be enough to cover their accident expenses. In such cases, people may feel as though they have little choice but to take legal action against the drivers that caused their collisions in order to earn compensation. However, in those instances where a crash was caused by a blatantly negligent, reckless or incompetent driver, the odds of such a driver having adequate insurance coverage themselves may be slim. So what are accident victims to do at this point?

The legal philosophy of negligent entrustment allows car accident victims to assign vicarious liability to parties who may have loaned their vehicles to poor drivers. The logic behind this concept of shared liability is that the vehicle owners had to have known (or should have known) that the people they were borrowing their cars to were either irresponsible or incompetent behind the wheel. Even with this knowledge, however, they loaned out their vehicles anyway, thus inadvertently putting others at risk. Indeed, New Jersey state courts had recognized for years in the their rulings that entrusting a vehicle to one who lacks legal authority or competence to operate is considered to be negligence.

The attractive nuisance doctrine

On behalf of Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson posted in Personal Injury on Friday, December 28, 2018.

Parents in Toms River send their kids out to play each day with the hope that they will exercise sound judgment in all their actions. Depending on the age of a child, however, that expectation may be unrealistic. Young kids, in particular, can be especially curious, often only learning through experience. The trouble with this is that their curiosity may lead them into dangerous situations (whose risks they do not fully appreciate).

The law has attempted to make up for this lack of understanding by creating the attractive nuisance doctrine. Per the Cornell Law School, this establishes the threat of liability for property owners whose lands contain potentially dangerous attractions if those property owners do not take adequate steps to protect kids from said attractions. This standard often holds true even in cases where a child may have come on to a property to investigate an attractive nuisance without permission.

How you can protect yourself against road rage

On behalf of Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson on Wednesday, December 19, 2018.

For some people, when a football game does not go their team’s way or when frustrations from work are just too much, they may end up taking their anger out while out of the road. Driving angry, which can easily slip into road rage, is an all too common fact in our lives and it can lead to serious injuries and even fatalities.

Road rage has become so prevalent, it is likely that most people don’t need to get into the car already in a bad mood to have it happen to them. Dealing with normal traffic situations seem to be enough of a trigger. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has released information stating that 78 percent of respondents to a survey reported that they had engaged in at least one act of aggression towards another driver in the past year.

What does prevention through design mean for you?

On behalf of Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson posted in Workers' Compensation on Saturday, December 8, 2018.

At your job in New Jersey, you probably learned about the risks that are an inherent part of your responsibilities when you went through the hiring process. Your employer may have provided training designed to help you learn about how to use specific equipment or machinery safely, as well as how to mitigate certain risks to protect your safety and wellbeing at work.

Something else that your employer may use is a technique called Prevention through Design. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this method of creating processes at work encourages your employer to prevent risks by working them out before a process is put into use by you and your cohorts. Anything from facilities to machinery that you can tangibly touch to how a process is created and organized should be thoughtfully analyzed to eliminate any danger. In some cases, this may require your employer to redesign or modify certain things to meet adequate standards to protect you and the other workers who use whatever is being analyzed.

Truck strikes young girl getting off school bus

On behalf of Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents on Friday, November 30, 2018.

Many in Toms River may initially question the motives for filing a lawsuit following a car accident. The fact that such incidents are termed "accidents" in the first place may seem to indicate a sense of randomness. Yet oftentimes, the legal action initiated after a car accident is not necessarily meant to be punitive, but rather to assist with handling the enormous expenses that can accompany them. Families may be left facing huge medical expenses, not to mention the psychological and emotional toll that an accident can exact.

A recent auto-pedestrian collision that occurred in Maryland reaffirms this fact. A 7-year-old currently sits in a medically induced coma after she was struck by a truck immediately after getting off her school bus. Authorities investigating the accident say that the school bus's stop sign was extended and that its lights were flashing, yet the driver of the truck did not stop or even slow down. It was not reported whether the driver has yet been charged with anything. Three young boys who were with the girls were also nearly hit; all three are said to be struggling to cope with what happened to their friend.

Risky driving behaviors on the rise

On behalf of Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents on Sunday, November 18, 2018.

Thanks to advancements in technology, cars on New Jersey highways and streets are safer than ever before, from airbags and lane departure warnings to automatic braking systems and 360-degree cameras. However, these safety features cannot protect drivers when they engage in risky behaviors. At Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson our experienced attorneys represent clients seriously injured in motor vehicle accidents due to driver negligence.

The AAA Foundation 2017 Traffic Safety Culture Index reports that while many drivers want to be safer on the roads, their activities while behind the wheel do not echo that sentiment. Distracted driving has taken center stage in recent years. When you are on the highway, and the driver next to you is using a hand-held cell phone, texting or reading an email, there could be severe repercussions if their attention wanders from the road for even a few seconds.

What is a repetitive stress injury?

On behalf of Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson posted in Workers' Compensation on Wednesday, October 31, 2018.

Are you one of the many workers in New Jersey who suffer from the effects of a work-related repetitive stress injury? According to Medical News Today, this common condition goes by many different names: regional musculoskeletal disorder, occupational overuse syndrome, cumulative trauma disorder and repetitive motion injuries, to name a few.

Regardless of what you call it, however, the causes are the same: repetitive tasks, vibrations, sustained or awkward positions and forceful exertions. As long as there has been manual labor, there have been repetitive stress injuries, although the first description of a repetitive stress injury in a medical text came from an 18th-century Italian physician who described 20 categories of injury among industrial workers.

When can I sue for car accident injuries in a no-fault state?

On behalf of Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson on Friday, October 19, 2018.

New Jersey is one of only 12 states with no-fault insurance laws, allowing residents who are injured in a car accident to cover associated treatment or lost wage costs up to policy limits of their insurance -- no matter who is at fault for the accident.

But under what circumstances does this no-fault policy fail to cover expenses? Here are a few examples of when a victim of an accident should pursue a personal injury claim in court.

New Jersey's workers' compensation benefits

On behalf of Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson posted in Workers' Compensation on Saturday, October 13, 2018.

If you are employed in New Jersey, you should educate yourself about the type of assistance that you may seek should you be hurt while at work. As explained by the State of New Jersey Division of Workers' Compensation, the program provides benefits to cover medical costs and some wage replacement if you are unable to work either temporarily or permanently due to your injuries.

If you need urgent medical care, you are free to get that from the nearest emergency department. Beyond that, however, you must visit a provider approved by either your employer or their workers' compensation insurer.

What should I know about job-related hearing damage?

On behalf of Rosenberg, Kirby, Cahill, Stankowitz & Richardson posted in Workers' Compensation on Sunday, October 7, 2018.

Many industries can contribute to hearing loss for people of all ages. Whether you work in construction where jackhammers and work trucks assault your ears or in an office with the constant drone of machinery and radios in the background, your hearing can suffer. You and other New Jersey residents should understand the impact of job-related hearing loss.

Hearing loss is not limited to the physical inconvenience of being hard of hearing. Your ability to perform your job and your quality of life can suffer when you can’t hear as well as you used to. Hearing loss can cause depression as you feel left out of things that people with good hearing still enjoy, such as conversation and music. You might also be put in danger if you can’t hear an approaching vehicle or a safety alarm, and you could suffer anxiety and irritation by working in a place with constant or sudden bursts of loud noise.