What is Dram Shop Liability?

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When you’ve been injured by a driver who drank and drove, it’s not just the driver who is liable. In some cases, the bar that served a driver too much alcohol before turning them loose on the roads is also liable for your injuries. This is called “dram shop liability,” named for an old-fashioned term for bars.

Dram shop liability is a common law principle that holds establishments that serve alcohol liable for the damages caused by drunk patrons after they leave the establishment. This includes situations where someone leaves the bar drunk and gets into a car accident and kills a family member of someone else. In those situations, the family of the person who was injured or killed may sue not only the actual drunk driver, but also the bar that served them excessive alcohol. Dram shop liability in Pennsylvania requires showing that the bar was aware that the person was intoxicated and continued serving alcohol beyond the legal limit. This is fact specific injury and is generally only attachable against the bar, not against the bar’s insurance.

Determining whether the bar knew the person was intoxicated can be difficult, but surveillance footage, witnesses, and the person’s own testimony can contribute to proving the case. Bars are governed by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, and there are regulations about when they can serve alcohol. When a customer is visibly inebriated, that person should not be served any more alcohol.

One of the reasons that insurance does not typically cover these situations is because it is considered an intentional tort. That means that the actions taken by the bar were reckless or intentional, rather than merely negligent.

It’s not just bars that are covered, by the way. Hotels, restaurants, and any other establishments that serve alcohol can be liable under these rules.

If you or a loved one has been in a car accident you should consult with an attorney about whether bringing a dram shop action will make the case stronger or weaker. By bringing a dram shop issue into the mix, you risk the possibility that certain insurances will not kick in, which are usually your surest source of recovery in an injury case. Contact the personal injury attorneys at Cornerstone Law Firm for a free consultation about your injury.

Dangerous Dogs in Pennsylvania

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Pennsylvania’s Dangerous Dogs Statute aims to take the bite out of potentially dangerous encounters with canines. A common misconception about dogs is that only certain breeds of dogs pose a threat of serious bodily injury, or that a dog must be a certain size to be dangerous, but this is not the case. Just browse through the state’s current Dangerous Dog Registry, and you might be surprised to see your favorite miniature breed on that list. This is because the statutory definition of a dangerous dog is based solely on the animal’s record of interactions with people and other domesticated animals. A single unprovoked attack on a person could be enough for a judge to find a dog to be dangerous and its owner or keeper subject to a host of additional legal requirements.

How can a person be convicted of harboring a dangerous dog in Pennsylvania?

Any person found to be harboring a dangerous dog is guilty of a summary offense and will be required to take certain measures with the goal of ensuring public safety. If the owner of the dog is convicted in summary court proceedings, the owner or keeper of the dog must confine the dog as defined by the statute, which includes certain controls while outside confinement. The owner or keeper also is prohibited from selling, offering to sell, or giving away the dog. If the owner or keeper intends to keep the dog after the proceedings are completed, he or she must register the dog with the Department of Agriculture. Pursuant to Chapter 27 of Pennsylvania’s Title 7 on agriculture, this registration will require proof of the issuance of a surety bond as well as a certain level of liability insurance coverage. Additionally, the dog must be confined and controlled according to requirements of Chapter 27 for the duration of its life.

The required “bond” or insurance policy is typically prohibitively expensive. As a result, the practical effect of being convicted of harboring a dangerous dog is to have to euthanize the dog. This is obviously traumatic for many dog owners, who would do anything to keep their pet safe.

If an encounter with a dog has risen to the level of a judge finding that the animal is dangerous, the matter must be considered serious regardless of the dog’s breed, size or previous history of gentle behavior. Although proper professional training can help correct a dog’s behavior, the owner or keeper of the dog is subject to all applicable rules for as long as the dog is kept regardless of whether any other such incident occurs again. From posting clear notice on the property of the dangerous dog’s presence to microchipping and muzzling, monetary restitution to the victim is not the end of the process if your dog injures a person or another domesticated animal. That is why it is prudent for all dog owners to take prophylactic measures to ensure that these types of incidents do not occur.

What do I do if I’ve been attacked by a dog?

If you’re the victim of a dog bite, you have certain personal injury rights. You can bring suit against the owner or keeper of the dog. But Pennsylvania does not embrace a “strict liability” approach to these cases. In other words, you must prove the owner or keeper was negligent in the way they kept the dog on the occasion in question. Failing to keep a dog on a leash in a public place, failing to secure the dog behind a fence or in a home, or failing to keep the dog appropriately fed can all contribute to a negligence finding.

Conclusion

If you’ve been charged with harboring a dangerous dog, it’s important to defend the case rather than plead guilty. Defending the case can involve showing that the dog was provoked into attacking or not “at fault” in a given incident. But it’s best to keep your dog out of this situation to begin with, if you can. Keep him appropriately secured and away from tempting situations if at all possible. If you have questions, call the attorneys at Cornerstone Law Firm for a consultation on your unique situation.

Your Car Insurance May Cover You as a Bicyclist

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If you’ve been injured in a traffic accident while on a bicycle, your car insurance may cover the personal injuries you sustained. When you are out on the roads as either a pedestrian or a bicyclist, injuries from a car striking you or otherwise causing you injuries can be claimed against your car insurance.

Typically, car insurance that covers personal injuries in motor vehicle accidents falls into two general categories. The first is coverage when you strike someone else. This is what many people assume is the entire purpose of car insurance. But the second part of your car insurance is that it covers you when you are injured by someone else’s negligence in a car. This is true even if you are not driving. More surprising still is that your insurance protects you even when you are not in a car if the cause of your injury is someone else’s negligent driving.

There are several examples of how someone’s negligence on the road can cause an injury. The first is when a car hits you on a bicycle. In that case, both the person who hit you and you will have car insurance that should cover that accident. Surprisingly, the insurance of family members that you live with also may cover your injuries. A second example is when you are riding a bike and a car negligently fails to stop in front of you, or even merely goes beyond a stop line, but looks like it might keep going. An action the driver takes that causes you to take evasive action or slam the bike brakes can cause you an injury. In that case, their insurance and yours may provide coverage for your injury.

In all of these cases, insurance should cover:

  • your medical bills,
  • your pain and suffering,
  • your lost wages,
  • and any diminished earning or life capacity you have down the road.

All of this illustrates why it’s so important to call a personal injury lawyer when you’ve been injured. Call Cornerstone Law Firm today to speak with an attorney experienced in dealing with motor vehicle accidents, bicycle injuries, and more. We offer free consultations for injury cases and can help you determine what would be appropriate compensation for your injury.

Mediation in Personal Injury Cases

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When you’ve been injured by someone else’s mistake, the long legal process that follows with insurance and lawyers can feel frustrating. Getting your injuries treated, dealing with medical bills and health insurance, and talking with an insurance representative about the value of your injury can add mental anguish to the physical pain you are experiencing.

One mechanism that our attorneys employ for getting the best settlement for our clients in a quicker manner is to pursue a mediation instead of going to court. This is a process where instead of going and having a trial in front of a judge or a jury, the attorneys on both sides of the case can meet with a mediator and try to resolve the case amicably.

A mediation involves hiring a third party, usually a retired judge or an attorney, to help both parties try to find a resolution they can agree on. These settlements usually involve a lot of compromise. As mediators often say, “A good settlement in a mediation is one that no one is totally happy with.” Usually, the insurance company pays a little more than it might otherwise have agreed to short of trial because they know how much a trial will cost them and that there is a risk that a jury gives a big award. The injured person may take a little less than they could have gotten at trial to avoid the additional months or years it would take to get money from the case.

Compromise might sound bad at first, but when you consider that mediations are less expensive and quicker than trials, injured clients often find that it’s best to take even a little bit less than they feel they could have gotten after a trial if they can get the money now and move on with their life. Mediations don’t always require compromise—sometimes it’s the perfect tool to help the insurance company see how serious the plaintiff’s injuries are and to get the case resolved.

Mediation is not the same as arbitration, which is a different mechanism we’ve talked about in other articles. Arbitration is less about compromise and is more like having a trial earlier in the process without a jury in the room. If you or someone you love has been injured in an accident or otherwise, talk to the personal injury attorneys at Cornerstone Law Firm to discuss how we can help you to reach a settlement in your case.

Peer-to-Peer Carsharing: A Sunday Drive or a Nightmare Ride?

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Not all side hustles are created equally, but they all come with serious considerations. Of course, the first consideration for most is financial. After all, the whole point is to supplement your income. The upside must be worth the investment of time and capital, if any, as well as the relevant risks. Even if all you are doing is selling homemade peanut brittle to people you know, there is a risk. What happens if your product makes someone seriously ill or even worse? Risk assessment must be part of that initial analysis, and the side hustle trends seem to get riskier every day.

Just like that mountain cabin or that spare room, many have turned to peer-to-peer car rental services to make an extra buck. These services function much the same as their property rental cousins. Vehicle owners rent their vehicles to other drivers through an app like Getaround or Turo, and the rate is typically hourly. Renters might need the car only for part of the day to run errands or make a special trip to a location devoid of access to public transportation. It seems like a great idea to make money with a car that would have sat unused while helping someone in the process. However, there are many unfortunate places where this type of arrangement could lead.

The two main concerns are damage to property and injury to individuals. When you drive your car, you rely on your insurance coverage to protect against those risks, but that coverage as written could prove worthless in a peer-to-peer car rental scenario. The Pennsylvania legislature has recognized this issue and has passed Senate bill 1222 as a result. This bill, as amended, requires carsharing companies to provide additional insurance to fill the gap when a vehicle owner’s policy excludes the peer-to-peer rental from coverage. The problem is that the coverage provided by the carsharing company might be much less than the vehicle owner enjoys under his or her own policy, meaning that an accident still could pose an unreasonable risk when compared with the relatively meager income gained from this enterprise.

When we think about lending someone a car, we might think that damage to the car is the big risk, but a dented fender or a cracked windshield really sits on the conservative side of the damage spectrum. The truth is that damage to the car might be the least significant risk you take when lending your wheels to someone else. Consider that any motor vehicle accident could result in significant damage to another’s property or the death of anyone involved. The potential litigation could be something much more than most would envision ever encountering. This is why it is important to understand fully the risks involved in these trendy ventures before handing over those keys.

Whether you are considering starting this kind of side business or any side business, or whether you already started and are in need of legal assistance, the attorneys at Cornerstone Law can help. Call us for a consultation today.

August 2022 Review

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This month the attorneys at Cornerstone Law Firm have been busy with:

  • landlord/tenant actions all over the state
  • personal injury cases that are settling and going to court
  • insurance disputes
  • contractor fights
  • a trade secrets and corporate freeze-out trial

Attorney Stephanie Rauch-Mannino has spent much of her month working out final custody arrangements for families that are splitting up, challenging a post nuptial agreement for unfairness, litigating the proper amount of child support to be paid to a single mom and working on a final distribution of assets in several divorces.

Attorney Tony Distasio has been handling landlord/tenant work for Section 8 clients, where evictions are based on everything from unpaid rent to allegations of criminal misconduct and violence. Attorney Distasio has been everywhere from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia this month as part of hearings on these issues.

Attorney Carl Carrero has been writing briefs and motions and has been to court to handle a request for a delay of a sheriff sale. As sheriff sales pickup and foreclosures continue, Attorney Carrero and the Cornerstone Law Firm team are expecting to see more last-minute litigation over attempts to sell houses after foreclosure.

Attorney Joel Ready began the month handling a 2-week trial on a claim regarding trade secrets and a fight over corporate ownership of a large company. From there, he has handled several contract disputes. He has also been finalizing a few guilty plea agreements in the last 2 weeks to ensure the best possible deal for individuals facing criminal charges.

Finally, the whole staff at Cornerstone Law Firm has been working to ensure that clients’ wills are being drafted, contracts are getting signed, deeds are being drawn up and filed, and that clients are getting quick responses to their concerns. If you have a question about your legal issue, call Cornerstone Law Firm today so we can help you.

Evaluating Injuries After a Car Accident

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When you’ve been in a car accident and are in the process of making an insurance claim, often the most crucial part of the process is to properly evaluate the cost of your injuries. Many victims injured in car accidents ask our Personal Injury Attorneys:

“How do I appropriately value the pain I’ve suffered”?

This article covers just a few of the factors that we use in working with insurance adjusters to come to the appropriate value for your injury claim.

The Amount of Your Medical Bills

The primary factor in determining the value of an insurance claim is the amount of your medical bills. This includes not just the outstanding bills that you owe, but also the bills that have been paid by your insurance or even Medicare or Medicaid. Pain is hard to quantify, but bills are not. The dollar amounts that you have paid to hospitals, ambulance services, and rehabs, the costs of prescription medications and more, are all relevant in determining the size of your claim.

Lost Wages

Although not directly related to pain specifically, the amount of money lost from missed work or the number of personal days you have had to take can be considered in your claim. Attending appointments or time spent dealing with the car accident in general are considered “out of pocket” expenses for which you should be reimbursed. This includes not only visits with your doctor, but also consultations with your attorney or days spent in court dealing with your personal injury claim.

Permanent Damage

Are your injuries temporary, or will they be permanent? Has a doctor told you whether you can expect a full recovery, or will these injuries linger and cause you pain and suffering indefinitely? Permanent injuries are weighed heavily when considering the value of your claim.

Length of Time for Treatment

Another important factor in determining the potential value of your claim is the length of time that treatment will be required. For example, if treatment was required for only a few days or weeks after the accident, the claim is worth less than if treatment were required for months or years. The value of the claim is also impacted by how quickly after the accident treatment was sought and initiated. Was it started, in earnest, quickly? Did it require a trip to the hospital immediately? Was the injury something that developed weeks or months later? The answers to all of these questions can assist in evaluating your claim.

Future Medical Expenses

Just as the length of time that treatment was required can impact the value of your claim, so also can the potential for future medical expenses. If you will need surgery because of your injuries, or if you will need long term treatment and care, that will increase the value of your claim in most cases. Conversely, if no future medical treatment will be required and you have made a complete recovery, that often can put a cap on your potential damages.

The Effected Parts of the Body or Types of Injuries Involved

Another factor considered for your claim is the type of injuries you sustained. Is it a back injury, or a neck injury? Is it a head injury? Each of these have different potential impacts on you and your future quality of life and can be valued differently because of that.

Conclusion

If you have been injured in a car accident, it is vital that you have an experienced Personal Injury Attorney to help you with your case. At Cornerstone Law Firm, our Personal Injury Attorneys help people every day to get the settlement that is right for them. Call us to learn more.

Do My Medical Bills Get Put on Hold While I Pursue a Personal Injury Claim?

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When you are injured in a car accident, a common question that you may confront is what to do about your mounting medical bills. Some people have medical insurance that covers their medical bills, and they are less concerned with this problem. But for those who have lower-grade insurance, or for those whose insurance has been depleted as a result of the injury and injury recovery process, a big concern is how those medical bills will be paid.

To begin with, your medical bills are not put on hold or “paused” while your personal injury claim goes forward. Hospitals and other medical care providers typically do not wish to wait on the conclusion of a personal injury claim to get paid, and will insist on immediate payment. In some cases, they’ll even send these bills out for collections. So, what should you do about this?

First, ensure that all of your medical bills have been run through your PIP (Personal Injury Protection) coverage, which is part of your car insurance. PIP coverage is provided by your car insurer, and you can read more about it in our article on PIP coverage. Your car insurance (not the person who hit you) is required to pay for your medical bills up to a certain limit. Sometimes victims of car accidents are worried that their car insurance will be negatively affected by using their PIP coverage, but don’t let this worry you. Your PIP coverage is there for you to use to ensure that you get better, medically, and you should have no concern about submitting your car accident-related medical bills to your car insurance directly.

Second, if your PIP coverage is exhausted, and you have further medical bills, you should talk to a personal injury attorney about how to ensure that these claims are handled as you go through the process. In some cases, this means that your personal injury attorney sends letters to the medical providers or collection agencies explaining to them that the process is continuing and that, at some point, you expect payment on your claim. Personal injury lawyers can sometimes negotiate these claims or at least establish a delay in payment for you.

Third, establish payment plans if necessary. Some medical providers will agree to accept payments and can do so without any interest if you begin making certain amounts of good faith payments on these bills. Furthermore, you can sometimes negotiate these bills to a more reasonable level by offering to pay cash up front for a reduction in the overall bill.

Finally, medical bills can also mount after someone has passed away in a car accident. In that case, the estate of the person who died will be responsible for the bills, but these costs can be recouped from the wrongdoer in a wrongful death action.

If you’ve been in a car accident or otherwise injured on the road, contact the personal injury lawyers at Cornerstone Law Firm to discuss your case and see how we can help you. To learn more, read our article on your next steps after a car accident.

How Do I Get the Police Report After a Car Accident?

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When you’ve been in a car accident that causes you an injury or property damage, you may want to view the police report that was filled out at the scene of the crash by the responding police officer. Depending on whether it was a local police department or the Pennsylvania State Police, this can be a rather involved process.

Some police departments actually charge for their police reports, and others claim that they cannot give them out without a court order or subpoena. You may face opposition trying to get the basic official information that was gathered. This can be particularly frustrating if you’re trying to make an insurance claim based on your injuries from the accident.

Police reports are not technically considered a public record, and if anyone was charged in the accident, whether with a traffic ticket or something more serious, then the police department will usually refuse to provide the report in response to Right-To-Know Requests.

After someone has died in a car accident, the process can be particularly difficult. You may have to open an estate to pursue getting information on the accident or to set up a wrongful death claim. In these instances, police departments often refuse to give out the police reports except to an authorized representative of the opened estate.

Accordingly, if someone in the department won’t provide it to you, and if the police refuse to include it in a Right-To-Know request, what else can you do? Sometimes the only option is to retain an attorney to begin working on your personal injury case, or to pursue a small claims lawsuit for property damage to your car. An attorney can file a Writ of Summons or a Complaint to begin a civil action to recover damages and can advise you on the discovery rights this gives you. Most of the time, a simple subpoena can be sent—but only after a lawsuit is filed. Subpoena power does not arise under Pennsylvania law until a suit is filed.

If you’ve had trouble getting hold of a police report or have questions after your car accident or personal injury claim, give us a call today at Cornerstone Law Firm. Our personal injury attorneys can discuss with you how to move forward.

May 2021 Update

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May 2021 has been filled with trials and advanced litigation for the attorneys of Cornerstone Law Firm. On the civil side, attorney Joel Ready spent time litigating a partnership dispute in Lehigh County court, giving advice to several businesses to avoid personnel and human resources litigation, promulgating discovery in personal injury cases based in Berks County and preparing for a summer of trials. A number of Cornerstone Law’s criminal clients were able to obtain trial dates this month, allowing them to finally pursue their innocence in a proceeding before a jury.

On the transactional side, several businesses hired Cornerstone Law Firm to draft contracts and to create new bylaws and other operating agreements for their businesses and nonprofits. These ranged from employment agreements to more complex inter-business cooperation agreements, and also agreements to resolve potential areas of dispute between rival businesses.

Attorney Crossett has been involved in several mediation for personal injury clients, obtaining settlement for car accident victims and those injured in other accidents. Furthermore, Attorney Crossett has finalized complex land deals this month for clients with conflicting real estate claims.

At Cornerstone Law Firm we are happy that the world is slowly getting back to normal, and we are looking forward to the nice weather in the summer months!