South Carolina dog bite law adheres to strict liability when it comes to dogs biting or harming people, S.C. Code Ann. § 47-3-110:. The only defense would be if the dog was provoked in some way by the person that it attacked.

Recently the South Carolina Supreme Court rendered an opinion that helps in better illustrating the specific phrase of the dog bite law, "other person having the dog in his care or keeping." In Clea v. Odom Opinion No. 27029, the court determined that claims for strict liability and common law negligence could move forward against the landlord for a tenant’s dog that attacked a child in the common area of the apartment complex. Citing Harris v. Anderson County Sheriff’s Office, 381 S.C. 357, 364, 673 S.E.2d 423, 427 (2009) the court stated, the presence or absence of a duty determines liability in situations that involve a statutory claim against a person having the dog in his care or keeping.  Id. at 365, 673 S.E.2d at 427.  There are three scenarios under § 47-3-110 when the attack is unprovoked and the injured party is lawfully on the premises:

First, the dog owner is strictly liable and common law principles are not implicated.  Second, a property owner is liable when he exercises control over, and assumes responsibility for, the care and keeping of the dog.  Third, a property owner is not liable under the statute when he has no control of the premises and provides no care or keeping of the dog.

Although each set of facts in a case are unique to that particular case, the SC Supreme Court helps limit the dark corners for the at fault owner or keeper’s liability insurance company to hide.

 If you know liability insurance companies trying to hide from their duties to pay a fair and reasonable amount for the negligence of their insured, let me know.

 

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If 100 people were polled about the the most important aspect of their insurance company, sadly 90 percent would say the cost, or price.  Yet, what good is paying insurance premiums if you are never going to be able to have peace of mind in the time you are in need of that insurance coverage? What? You never thought about actually having to use that insurance coverage?  

Automobile insurance is mandated by most states, homeowners and property insurance is mandated by most mortgaged backed lien holders. When your life insurance policy goes into effect you won’t have to worry because you’re dead but wouldn’t it be comforting in your final days to know that your family will have no additional worries or hassles?

Then do your homework or just Google the insurance company you are thinking about engaging in coverage of your most valuable assets-you and your family! My friends ask me all the time what are the best insurance companies on my end to deal with. Of course I am jaded and cynical but there are those insurance companies that are fair and equitable. There are more that are inequitable and immoral but those are easy to find in an Internet search. Try Googling  "Allstate sucks" to see what comes up.

Chubb Insurance started a recent advertising campaign entitled,  "Who insures you doesn’t matter. Until it does."  Chubb states the reason for this advertisement campaign:

A new corporate print advertising campaign reminds commercial and personal insurance purchasers and their agents and brokers that an insurer is only as good as its financial strength and its willingness to pay its claims in a fair, prompt and hassle-free manner.

The reason this campaign caught my attention in a recent magazine was not the headline but the photos. I have posted links to two of my favorite photos from their advertisements below. 

Be in the 90% of people that talk about insurance costs, not in monetary value, but intrinsic value that go much further in your time of need.

  1.  Picnic with bull;
  2. Golfing with alligator;

 

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Would You Take Advice from the Devil on How to Get to Heaven?: Insurance Company Lies; and

 

Allstate Policy Holders and Victims Should Know They Are Not in Good Hands.

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, July 30, 2011, a driver of a northbound 18 wheeler apparently fell asleep at the wheel causing his large tractor trailer to cross the median and run head on in to another semi-trailer traveling southbound on I-85 in Anderson, South Carolina.  After the two 18 wheelers collided, the southbound semi-trailer’s back end jack knifed and collided with an SUV towing a boat.  Unfortunately, the drivers of the SUV and 18 wheelers were killed in the collision. Anderson Independent and Channel 7 News reported on this collision  shortly after it happened and provided on the scene video of the incident, detailing the carnage and wreckage at the sight. 

Channel 7 reports that the northbound tractor trailer driver that crossed over the median into the southbound traffic has been identified as 69-year-old Eddie Wyatt, of Rockmart, Georgia. It is believed from the Anderson County Coroner’s Office  autopsy Monday that Mr. Wyatt did not have any health problems and most likely fell asleep at the wheel.

Additionally, the driver of the northbound tractor trailer has been identified as Clay Johnson, 38 of Charlotte, North Carolina.  The third victim, Jeremy Scott Wilson, 33 of Blacksburg, South Carolina, was driving the Toyota Tundra involved in the accident.  Medics airlifted two other people to Greenville Memorial, who were in the SUV. It was a couple from Simpsonville Chris Schulve is listed in good condition at Greenville Memorial and his wife has already been released. 

Driving interstate 85 every day from Greenville to Anderson for my daily commute to Trammell Law Firm, P.A., I can personally attest to the massive amounts of unpredictable traffic. You never can predict the actions of others but always be alert to others around you. 

Anderson Independent published the picture below, video and story entitled, "Three Killed in Accident on Interstate 85"

 

 Please Click on the link below for the video:

http://www.independentmail.com/videos/detail/three-die-in-head-on-i-85-truck-collision/

 

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            First of all, Social Security disability is a crazy, frustrating, mostly broken system which will confound you at every turn and make you curse, if you are that type of person, as most of us are or will be by the time we get through dealing with Social Security.  Several years ago when the Trammell Law Firm attorneys were asked to come up with TV commercial scripts for our areas of practice, I entitled my script about Social Security “It’s A Nightmare”, and it was then and it still is now, and it most likely always will be a nightmare.

            For example, most of the time when people come to see me about their disability claim, it’s right after they get their first turn-down letter saying that they are NOT DISABLED.  One of the most important things for you to know is that getting that turn-down letter most often means absolutely NOTHING about the strength of your disability claim and whether you will ultimately be successful.  I would conservatively estimate that 99.9% of EVERYONE who applies for disability gets turned down at least once, and most often for a second time as well. For a long time after I first started practicing Social Security disability law many years ago, I tried and tried to come up with some reasonable way of explaining to my clients, who were understandably upset, why they got turned down.  But you know what?  There is NO REASON, except that Social Security wants you to give up and go away.  That is a terrible thing to say, but I believe it is the only way to explain all these constant turn-downs for everyone, even people whose medical records show that they are obviously sick or injured and cannot work.

            So, the lesson to be learned is: DON’T GIVE UP!  You have to keep fighting Social Security by appealing every time you get turned down until you finally get your day in Court before a Judge.  Except in very, very rare cases, only when you get your Social Security Disability Hearing with a Judge will you finally get a fair and honest review of your claim.  When you get a letter from Social Security turning you down for disability, it will state very clearly that you have 60 DAYS TO APPEAL the denial decision.  Pay attention to the date on the front of the letter, and DO NOT LET THAT 60 DAYS RUN OUT BEFORE YOU FILE YOUR APPEAL!  If you let the 60 days run out, and you do not appeal, Social Security will most always make you start all over again with a new claim, and if you have to start over, you might ultimately lose some money if you win your case.

            OK, then, that’s all for today, and thanks for reading my first official blog.  Sorry about all those capital letters, but every time I think about what Social Security disability does to my clients for no reason, it makes me mad all over again, so thanks for letting me vent.  My plan is to try and talk about some more of the Social Security disability nightmares from time to time, so be on the lookout for future posts.

 

 

 

Hello everybody.  I’m Brad Bledsoe and I am the Social Security disability lawyer here at Trammell Law Firm.  Trey has invited me to contribute to his “blog” by “blogging”. I don’t really know what that means because I’m old and not up on all these technological things like Trey and the other youngsters.  My paralegal’s 4-year-old was nice enough to show me (more than once) how to take a picture with my new iphone, as an example.  (Between you and me, the word “blogging” reminds me of the sound a cat makes before it coughs up a hairball, but what do I know?)  Anyhow, Trey says it means to write something about Social Security disability which might be of interest to people who want to know some things about how it works – or doesn’t.

 

Recently, one of my clients had the misfortune of being in oncoming traffic while a young girl was talking on her cellphone with her boyfriend. The young girl veered into oncoming traffic and struck my client.

When she got out of the car to check on my client, he begged her to call 911 because he was in a great deal of pain (he was suffering from a broken hip-among other things). She screamed and jumped into the car which did not have the emergency brake on, causing it to roll back over my client in the road.  She jumped out and said, "Oh no!" She then used her cell phone to call her boyfriend to ask what to do. Either her boyfriend heard my client screaming in the background for medical help or he was smarter than his fifth grade educated girlfriend and told her to call the POLICE.

Eventually my client was able to get his cellphone from his pocket and call 911  and get much needed medical attention. After a  week in the local hospital his medical bills from the collision greatly exceeded the dumb girl’s insurance coverage.

This is an excellent illustration for the need in having UIM, or underinsurance, coverage and PIP, or personal injury protection, coverage.  There are a lot of dumb drivers out there with minimal limits which in South Carolina is $25,000.00. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of their ignorance and negligence.

Yes, this is a true story.

 

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Insurance companies and defense attorneys frequently question injury claimants on their specific degree of pain and suffering. Knowing this is a subjective element of damages the big corporations and their hired guns move next to the medical providers to seek better clarity. Inevitably there is the case where the doctor did not believe the patient was truly in pain but subsequently prescribed pain medicine. Why on Earth would a medical provider be at such odds with themselves? It must be because he fears legal repercussions and higher insurance premiums, right? Or is it because he is paid more, or even paid by the pharmaceutical company?

Two articles caught my attention over the past few days:

  1. "Diagnosing a Patient as a Faker" by Melinda Beck of the WSJ– reporting on several issues in medicine and not totally in line with her eye catching headline. However, she cites the Archives of Internal Medicine, 2011 indicating: a) Prescriptions rose nearly 50% from 2000-2009, b) Abuse of opioid pain relievers is the second leading cause of accidental death in the U.S., after car crashes, and c) 15%-20% of doctor visits in the U.S. involve an opioid prescription; and
  2. "Doctors Already Know Secret to Better Health Care" by Walter Ezell in The Greenville News-illustrating the need for more in depth time between patients and doctors, not just quick visits, drugs, and positive reinforcement for negative health habits. To quote Ezell’s article: 

Only medical doctors can prescribe prescription medicine or perform surgery. This isn’t necessarily because surgery and drugs are the most important contributors to human health, but because in the wrong hands, they are dangerous.

Here is the paradox. Because doctors have a monopoly on drugging and invasive procedures, and spent a lot of money to join the guild, they get paid more for those practices and need to get paid well. There is an economic incentive to do more drugging and surgery, with little incentive to give patients the time, empathy and wisdom that are critical to achieving optimum health.

Doctors who want to address the whole person (and there are many) are swimming against the tide of their own economic interest. Unless they are working in an academic medical center, or already involved in an alternative practice, they may not have time to lavish the needed attention that each patient deserves.

We could all use more in depth time with our doctors in explaining all that ails us. The doctors may prefer more one on one time but being mandated by corporate interests within the hospital administration and/or through pure bottom line views of paying overhead, can’t manage this need.

Patients are certainly to blame in going into the doctor’s office and not being as detailed as possible in explaining mechanisms of injury or symptoms. Of course, some patients probably take advantage of this being their only human interaction outside their normal day and talk about unrelated issues.

The bottom line is that only doctors can prescribe pain medications and only patients can control their adherence to healthy habits. Unfortunately there is too much subjective gray area in between and too many entities vying for a piece of that control.

You’ve been injured through no fault of your own and need medical treatment. What do you do when somebody else is responsible for your injuries but their insurance company will not pay up front for your medical care? Instead they will offer you payment all in one lump sum upon you reaching maximum medical improvement.  How do you get from where you are to where you need to be?

  1. Don’t sign anything from the at fault party’s insurance company or do a recorded statement until you are in a the right state of mind to do so.  That does not mean in the hospital bed with a morphine drip hours after the traumatic incident. Regardless of what the insurance adjuster says, it can wait and it will not expedite anything. It could only complicate things. (It’s never a good idea to sign anything from an insurance company without at least talking to an attorney-most times without any costs to you);
  2. Seek treatment from an emergency room or minor care facility where there is no appointment or prior consultation necessary.  Only you can judge the need for emergent medical care based on your injuries and pain level, no one else;
  3. If you have health insurance, Medicare, and/or Medicaid file all medical care you seek with those providers. Yes, someone else caused your injuries. Yes, you will have to reimburse them for expenses paid. HOWEVER, those expenses will be less than had you not filed through the benefits mentioned above because of the reduced, contracted rates they have with medical providers. (Darren Tobin wrote a great article on this reimbursement process, known as subrogation, entitled "Understanding Subrogation-Why You May Not Be Keeping It All".);
  4. If you have no means of health insurance you can still be seen at the emergent facilities in your area or free clinics. Make sure you have a copy of the form filled out by the trooper if you were injured in an automobile accident. If from other negligence, be sure to indicate to the doctor how you ended up being injured and in need of medical care. Details are important, both in the doctor’s understanding to provide efficient & effective care and in determining the proximate cause of your injuries;
  5. If you have a primary care physician you have previously visited and sought care from make an appointment with them and explain how you ended up being injured and be detailed with your specific complaints;
  6. If you are a doctor, nurse, and/or otherwise medically trained & educated do not seek gratis, undocumented care because you know what your injuries are or what to do to make them better without anyone but you knowing. That is the worse thing you could do. As a well known Greenville attorney told me, "Insurance companies are like the Russians during the Cold War…."  What does that mean? Don’t confuse them. By not having documentation from a third party about your injuries, it confuses them. They don’t know how to value that so they don’t; and
  7. If you are hard headed or adverse to medical treatment, okay. Just don’t expect the insurance company to put a value on your "pain and suffering" sitting at home without anyone knowing what you have endured but your loved ones. If it is not documented, you are not injured in the mind of the insurance company. If you wait weeks after the incident that injured you, insurance companies call that a "gap in treatment".  Essentially giving them more reason to low ball you or make excuses on how you were injured other than reality.

I know you don’t know what to do. I realize you think the insurance company will take care of you because you didn’t ask to be put in this situation. Plus, it was the person, company, and/or entity they insure that put you in this condition.  I understand you have values and morals where you would treat others as you would want to be treated.

However, my job is not to help you strengthen misplaced beliefs in how the world SHOULD work. My goals and objectives with every client interaction are three part:

  • Educate you on the law, specific to your situation;
  • Help you get compensated for what you have had to endure at no fault of your own; and
  • Make sure you are satisfied with our attorney/client relationship so you brag about me to your friends, family, and others you know that may need me to fight the faceless insurance companies on their behalf.

 

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This is the second of a series of blogs written to tell workers in South Carolina what they need to do if they suffer a work-related injury.  

2.    Tell the treating doctor that you got hurt at work!

In my previous blog, I stressed the importance of reporting your work injury immediately to your employer.  Today, I stress the importance of telling your doctor that you got hurt at work and how you got hurt at work.

In many denied workers’ compensation claims, there is, for lack of a better word, a swearing match going on between the injured worker and the employer.  The worker claims to have been injured on the job.  The employer denies that the worker got injured on the job or claims that the injured worker did not properly report his injury to the employer.  The workers’ compensation commissioner is charged with the responsibility of finding the truth and, therefore, must decide which one to believe.  

In my experience, the commissioner often relies on the medical records to break the tie.  He discounts the injured worker’s testimony as well as the employer’s denial because they are both taking self-serving positions.  Then, he especially looks at the initial medical record of treatment of the injured worker to find the truth because he assumes that the initial treating doctor does not “have a dog in the fight.”  If the initial medical record documents that the employee was being treated due to an injury that the employee contends occurred at work, and especially if the record describes how the injury occurred, the commissioner will view that record as giving credibility to the injured worker’s claim.  On the other hand, if the injured worker does not mention anything about the work injury to the initial treating doctor, the commissioner will likely view that record as giving credibility to the employer’s defense that the employee did not get hurt at work.

Therefore, if you were injured at work, it is imperative that you document that you are at the doctor’s office seeking treatment for an injury that occurred at work on all of the forms that the doctor’s staff may ask you to complete prior to your examination and then you must describe the injury to the doctor when he examines you so that he will include it in your medical record.  

As a general rule, the more details that you can give to the doctor, the more believable your claim will be to a commissioner.  For example:

  • know the exact date of your injury before you go into the doctor’s office.  Do not guess at your date of injury because it will come back to haunt you if your claim is contested and the date of injury that you give the doctor is wrong.  I have seen situations where the injured worker haphazardly reports to the doctor that he got hurt at work on Wednesday about two weeks ago and then prior to the workers’ compensation hearing we learn from  reviewing his time cards that the worker did not even work on that Wednesday.  At that point after closer examination, we realized that the injury actually occurred on Wednesday, but it was three weeks ago rather than two weeks ago as reported to the doctor.  That is an error that can be explained and corrected, but it could have been avoided all together if the worker had been prepared when he initially went to the doctor.

  • be specific in your description of the injury to the doctor.  Which is more believable?

    • “I hurt my back at work last Wednesday just doing my job;” or
    • “Last Wednesday afternoon at work, I injured my back lifting a 75 pound box  off of the floor.  I was going to put the box on my work table.  As I twisted while lifting up the box, I felt a sharp pain in my lower back and pain even went down my left leg.  I had to put the box back down on the floor and was never able to lift it up to the table.”

In conclusion, it is imperative that you give your doctor specific details about your work-related injury during your first medical appointment after the injury.  If you do so, the employer and insurance carrier will likely admit that you got hurt at work and will provide you with workers’ compensation coverage without unnecessary delay.

My next blog will be about the fact that you can suffer a work injury without being required to suffer trauma.


 

(Ernie Trammell is the author of this blog post and subsequent posts on Workers’ Compensation in South Carolina. Mr. Trammell has been a Workers’ Compensation attorney in South Carolina for 29 years, primarily in the Upstate encompassing the counties of Anderson, Abbeville, Greenville, Greenwood, Laurens, Oconee, Pickens, and Spartanburg.) 

This is the first of a series of blogs written to tell workers in South Carolina what they need to do if they suffer a work-related injury.  

1.    Report your work-related injury immediately!

The most important advice that I can give an injured worker is to report the injury to his supervisor immediately and to make sure that the injury is documented by the employer.  While the law only requires the injured worker to report the injury within 90 days of the occurrence, the practical effect is that most employers will deny the injured worker’s claim if the injury is not reported immediately.

Having represented only injured workers for more than 29 years, I can’t count the number of times that a potential client came to see me because his workers’ compensation claim had been denied by his employer solely due to the fact that he had waited a few days to report his work injury.  The most common excuse given to me is this:

“I thought I had only strained my back and that it would get better in a couple of days so I did not tell anybody about my accident.  It was only after it did not get better that I decided to say something about it to my boss.” 

While the excuse may sound reasonable to the employee, it often gets him in trouble when he subsequently decides to report the injury.  

How does it get the injured worker in trouble?  
 

  • First, the delay in reporting the accident gives the employer greater reason for questioning whether the worker truly got hurt at work.  After the injury is reported, the employer will likely investigate the accident by questioning co-workers.  If the worker did not say anything when he got hurt, there will not be any co-workers to confirm his injury claim.   Even if the injured worker did say something to his co-workers when the injury occurred a few days earlier, they may, as a practical matter, be too afraid to speak up on his behalf to the employer for fear of job retaliation.  It is an easy way out for the co-worker to simply say to the employer that “I don’t remember it.”  I have even seen some co-workers try to gain favor in the eyes of the employer by saying that the injured worker told them that he had gotten hurt at home rather than at work.  The bottom line is that a delay in reporting the accident by the injured worker gives the employer justification to question the injured worker’s credibility and to deny the claim.
  • Second, some companies even have a policy that requires injured workers to report their injuries immediately to the company.  Failure to report the work accident immediately is deemed to be a violation of company policy for which the injured worker may be terminated.  Therefore, the worker who does not report his work accident immediately because he fears that he may get fired by his employer for getting hurt at work (which is against the law for the employer to do in South Carolina) actually gets fired for violating company policy when he reports the accident late.

In conclusion, it is imperative for the injured worker to report his accident at work immediately to his employer regardless of how insignificant he may initially think that his injury will be.  Often the very severe pain from an injury such as a back strain may not arise until the following morning. 

How many times have you gone out and done some strenuous work or exercise only to feel a little sore immediately after you finished, but then felt like you could not move the next morning when you woke up?  Don’t take the chance.  Report the injury immediately!

My next blog will be about the importance of the medical history that you give to the physician when you go for medical treatment after you have suffered a work related injury.

 

 

 

 

 

 


 
(Ernie Trammell is the author of this blog post and subsequent posts on Workers’ Compensation in South Carolina. Mr. Trammell has been a Workers’ Compensation attorney in South Carolina for 29 years, primarily in the Upstate encompassing the counties of Anderson, Abbeville, Greenville, Greenwood, Laurens, Oconee, Pickens, and Spartanburg.)

 

An article in Fast Company magazine by Malia Wollan entitled "Progressive Uses New Driver-Focused Technology to Determine Insurance Rates" initiated my contemplation into the vast depths insurance companies will begin to delve in an effort to enrich their already unfathomable net profit. 

The article describes a palm sized device named "Snapshot"  that is set up on a  wireless network and provides Progressive with real-time driving reports, to include the number and time of miles driven, incidents of hard braking or quick acceleration, and speed.

This may sound great from an insurance standpoint, but are you the consumer really gaining more by allowing your privacy to be invaded and having equal opportunity to both lower or raise your premiums? The selling point from Progressive’s standpoint would be the lowering of premiums. However the the sword cuts on two sides, as Progressive’s own Chief Executive Officer Glenn Renwick found out about his wife’s driving:

In March, Renwick plugged a device called Snapshot into the on-board diagnostic computer in the couple’s shared car… When he logged on to monitor the couple’s stats, he saw "more hard brakes than I expected."

As the article aptly points out, "Luckily for Renwick, bad driving does not result in higher rates." Other hard nose bottom line insurance companies are hot on the technology trail with Allstate Insurance Company rolling out Drive Wise, a device similar to Snapshot, and GMAC Insurance  partnering up with OnStar to offer discounts to infrequent drivers willing to track their mileage through the in car service.

The true issue here is that insurance companies want someone to pay their premium and never have any claims. That is how they make money.

As Gregory Locraft with Morgan Stanley stated:

Insurance companies are always trying to find the little old lady who leaves her car in the garage.

 

 

 

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