Personal Injury

Spinal Cord Injuries

Spinal cord injuries change lives. Victims and their families often must deal with permanent disabilities that lead to significant medical and legal needs. The causes of these spinal cord injuries are widely varied and are frequently the result of another’s negligence—car accidents, falls, and gun shot wounds are just a few. Lawsuits for most spinal cord injury accidents are brought under negligence, strict liability, and third party liability laws. (Even uninvolved third parties can contribute to an injury; for example, the company that made a faulty seatbelt or tire.)

If you or a loved one has experienced spinal cord and nerve damage as the result of an accident or another’s negligence, you should seek medical and legal assistance as soon as possible.

Brain Injuries

Brain injury can cause physical, cognitive, social, and vocational changes. Recovery is often a lifelong process of adjustments and accommodations for the injured individual and his or her family. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke defines a traumatic brain injury as an injury that occurs when a sudden physical assault on the head causes damage to the brain. Traumatic brain injuries can be caused by a variety of accidents, including those involving trains, cars, trucks, and motorcycles. These accidents additionally may cause spinal cord injuries.

Appropriate treatment of a brain injury can involve diagnostic testing, drugs, surgery, and rehabilitation. Rehabilitation, a critical aspect of optimal recovery, is prohibitively expensive. For catastrophic injuries, an extensive team of caregivers may be necessary. It is not uncommon for an injured individual to see a neurologist, neurosurgeon, physiatrist, neuropsychiatrist, vocational expert, life-care planner, neuro-psychologist, and physical, occupational and speech therapists. In most cases, the lives of the injured individual’s family are completely disrupted as they focus their energies on securing proper medical care.

Car Accidents

While car accidents comprise a significant portion of personal injury and wrongful death claims, it would be wrong to think that they are always simple to resolve. We understand not just the “rules of the road” and the special duties imposed on commercial and public carriers, but also the complex scientific and engineering principles often necessary to unravel just how an accident occurred on the roadways of New Mexico and who was at fault. We understand the medicine needed to evaluate what complaints, as well as the economic and accounting principles needed to evaluate losses. We handle accident cases involving:

• Rear end collisions
• Intersection accidents
• Alcohol related crashes
• Hit and run accidents
• Passenger injuries
• Driver injuries
• Motorcycle accidents
• Semi-truck and tractor trailer crashes
• Pedestrian accidents
• Bicycle accidents
• Uninsured / underinsured motorists

We prepare every case as if it were to be tried, although many cases settle before trial. In this manner, we are prepared to go to court on every file in our office. When cases can be optimally resolved through negotiation, mediation, arbitration, or other Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) methods, our attorneys can aid in achieving the best result. When cases must be tried, our firm recognizes that and can tap into our extensive experience in the courtroom. Whatever the practical or legal issues that arise out of a motor vehicle accident, we are prepared to address them in order to maximize our client’s recovery.

Truck Accidents

Lawsuits arising from an accident involving a semi or 18-wheeler involve a complicated group of laws and large amounts of evidence. Because the trucking industry is heavily regulated, an accident involving a truck is significantly more complex than an automobile accident case. Frequently, an action can be brought against both the driver and the insurance company. Consequently, you need a firm that has the experience and specialized knowledge to lead the investigation into the cause of the accident and to help you collect the maximum amount allowed under the law. Our firm has experience in representing the victims of accidents involving trucks. Our years of practice have resulted in our access to experts in a variety of specialty areas related to trucking and transportation litigation. This access and expertise enhances our ability to maximize a recovery for our clients.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Claims

If you were injured due to the negligence of a motorist, you are entitled to be fully compensated for your medical bills and lost wages from the insurance company covering the vehicle that struck you. If the driver has no insurance or not enough insurance, then you may be able to pursue a claim against your own personal auto insurance or the auto insurance policy of a member of your household, depending on those insurance policy provisions. If you carry Uninsured / Underinsured Motorists Coverage you may be compensated by your insurer for amounts that you would be legally entitled to recover as damages from the owner or driver of the motor vehicle.

Dangerous or Defective Products

Our firm has experience representing individuals who have been injured as a result of an unsafe product that was designed, manufactured, sold, and/or furnished by a person or company. Our attorneys have represented individuals injured by defective tires and defective vehicles.

Dog Bites

Many dog owners will not take the necessary minimal steps to train and supervise their dogs to prevent them from attacking innocent people, and especially children. Dogs, particularly some breeds, including Pit Bulls, can, and often do, cause serious, permanent and extremely painful physical and emotional injuries. In most circumstances, a dog owner will be financially liable for all of the personal injury their dog causes.

Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect

The most common types of neglect and abuse are malnutrition, falls, dehydration, pressure sores, infections, burns, and assaults. Staffing and training deficiencies often cause these injuries. If your loved ones are victims of neglect or abuse in a nursing or residential facility, there are probably other residents in the facility who are also being neglected or abused; in fact there is probably a continuing pattern of neglect at the facility. The facility's history of violations of both federal and state law can show this pattern. Our firm will aggressively pursue all forms of neglect, abuse and assault.

Food Poisoning

We have extensive experience representing victims of food poisoning. Food poisoning results from consuming contaminated foods or beverages. Many different disease-causing microbes, or pathogens, can contaminate foods, so there are many different foodborne infections. In addition, poisonous chemicals, toxins, or other harmful substances can cause foodborne diseases or illnesses. Commonly, a microbe or toxin enters the body through the gastrointestinal tract, causing the first symptoms there, so nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and diarrhea are common symptoms in many food poisoning cases. Victims of food poisoning deserve compensation for their treatment expenses, loss of income from time missed at work, for their extreme discomfort and for other related damages.

Dram Shop Claims

Some car accidents are caused by drunk drivers. Generally, a dram shop claim arises when a bar or liquor store sells alcoholic beverages to a person who is under the influence of alcohol at the time. If the person to whom the liquor was sold injures a third party while under the influence, the courts may impose liability for the third person’s injuries on the commercial seller of the liquor. The dram shop claim may be especially helpful when the other driver is uninsured or underinsured, and may add significant coverage in the case of serious and extensive injuries.

Workplace Injuries

If you have been injured at work, you may think that the only legal action you can bring against your employer or co-workers is a claim for workers' compensation. Unfortunately, workers ’ compensation payments are often low, usually are limited in duration, and do not necessarily provide any form of lump sum payment. Additionally, compensation for pain and suffering or losses to family members is generally not allowed.

You may also have a claim against a "third party," such as a negligent driver, the manufacturer of unsafe equipment, the owner of the premises where the injury occurred (if different from your employer), or against another company whose employee caused the injury. These third party personal injury cases can be brought in addition to a workers' compensation case. Unlike a workers’ compensation case, however, third party actions can include recovery for pain and suffering and future damages.

Premises Liability

Premises Liability cases arise from injuries occurring in residential and commercial buildings, shopping centers and parking facilities, hotels and casinos, amusement parks, airports, healthcare facilities, nightclubs and bars, as well as universities and public schools. The general rule of law is that the owner or operator of the premises has a duty to keep the premises in reasonably safe condition or at least warn customers of a dangerous condition of which the owner or operator caused, knows about, or should know about. If you or a loved one has been seriously injured as a result of dangerous premises then you may have the right to file a legal action.

Negligent Security

When injuries arise as a result of negligent security, a premises liability case is pursued. Negligent security injuries can occur in residential and commercial buildings, shopping centers and parking facilities, hotels and casinos, amusement parks, airports, healthcare facilities, nightclubs and bars, as well as universities and public schools. Inadequate security can give rise to assaults, robbery, sexual assault and homicide; and may be the result of a great variety of elements, including security guard operations, hiring, screening, training needs and supervision; and/or inadequate alarm systems and other security methodologies, including lighting and CCTV.

Construction Site Accidents

Construction is the United States’ largest industry, and unfortunately, construction site accidents kill and injure thousands of workers each year. Despite legal and trade provisions in place to prevent construction accidents, one out of every ten construction workers suffer some kind of on the job injury, including:

• Falls
• Scaffolding, Crane, Derrick, Conveyor, Ladder, Winch, Grater, Scraper, Backhoe, and Boiler Accidents
• Electric Shock
• Trench Collapse
• Fire and Explosion
• Highway Vehicle Accidents
• Compressed Gases Accidents
• Welding Accidents.

Although most injured workers will be entitled to Workers’ Compensation benefits, these benefits will not cover all of the expenses faced by an injured worker and generally do not cover pain and suffering and the full range of damages available to the loved ones of a worker who is killed in an accident.

When a construction site accident occurs, responsibility for the personal injury can be attributed to a variety of individuals or businesses, including the owners, contractors and subcontractors, engineers, electricians, scaffolding companies, architects, insurance companies and manufacturers of equipment. For example, the general contractor and subcontractors must provide a reasonably safe work environment and manufacturers of construction equipment are responsible designing and maintaining safe products. In complex cases, in addition to negligence and workers’ compensation, the legal principles of agency and corporate law may be necessary in determining liability.

Knowledge of federal and state regulations governing construction sites is imperative when developing theories against all of the third parties who may be responsible for a construction site accident. Any attorney you choose should be experienced in the inspection of worksites, preservation of evidence and identification and questioning of critical witnesses.

Farming Accidents

Farming is hazardous. Each year, hundreds of children and adults are injured, permanently disabled, and killed in agriculture-related accidents. In addition to the injuries that are caused by agricultural machinery and equipment, farmers and their families suffer from a variety of diseases caused by toxic agricultural chemicals.

Livestock Accidents

Because of the amount of ranching country in New Mexico, accidents are frequently caused by cattle or other livestock that have wandered on to the highway either in open range areas or in areas where drivers never expect them to be. Livestock owners in non-open range areas have a duty to keep their animals off of the road. The New Mexico Highway and Transportation Department has a duty to keep highways under its jurisdiction adequately fenced. If you ran your car into a cow, horse or other farm animal, you may have grounds to bring a legal action against the animal’s owner and the highway department.