Martinson & Beason, P.C.
The next episode of the Mo Show Live will air Wednesday, April 17th at 3:00 PM Central Time and will feature Attorney and NFL Agent Derek Simpson. Morris and Derek will be discussing what it’s like being an NFL agent, how being a trial lawyer helps him as an Agent, his career path, and the story of his client, Malcolm Butler, cornerback for the Tennessee Titans.
If your phone rings today, chances are, it’s probably spam. New research suggests you’ll get more than one robocall inthe next 24 hours. If you do decide to pick up, you’ll more than likely be greeted by a familiar computerized voice playing a pre-recorded message. These automated calls, which can end up in your voicemail box, usually contain official-sounding, personal, and even alarming instructions. Watch out, because often, these spam calls claim to be a company, insurer, or bank you do business with. You’ve probably noticed you’re getting way more of these spam calls now than at any time in recent years — a trend that will unfortunately continue. A new report from the telecommunications firm First Orion says that by next year, half of the mobile phone calls we get will be spam.
Recently, the Alabama legislature has been attempting to modify the states civil forfeiture laws, but, as reported by AL.com, those efforts failed recently when the reform bill was voted down.
Civil forfeiture is a type of action in Alabama whereby law enforcement can file litigation to take property and assets (including cash) from a person they believe to be involved in criminal activity, and that the property or asset being taken was paid for with money from criminal activity, or that the property is assisting the criminal activity. For instance, police can seize a drug-dealer’s car if they believe the car is used to transport drugs or can seize the dealer’s cash if believed to be from drug sales.
In 2017, roughly 6,000 pedestrians died in automobile crashes, a figure that is up about 9% from the two previous years, according to a recent article in USA Today. A primary reason for the upswing in these fatalities is attributable to distractions, both inside and outside of the vehicle. Experts quoted in the article link the proliferation of technology, such as touch screens and smartphones, with increased distracted walking and driving, which in turn results in more pedestrian crashes and deaths.
Alabama is one of 46 states to have a direct law prohibiting texting while driving, but do lawmakers need to consider a prohibition on texting while walking? According to the article, distracted pedestrians are just as much to blame for the crashes as drivers are. The small city of Montclair, California passed an ordinance prohibiting the use of a cell phone or headphones while crossing the street. Honolulu, Hawaii has a similar ordinance in place for pedestrians as well. You can find a lot of other useful and interesting information on distracted pedestrians from our previous blog piece, here and general information on pedestrian accidents.
Recently, McDonald’s, Kmart, Grubhub and Empire Today settled lawsuits brought against them for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. A similar suit against Ace Hardware remains. The claims were brought in federal court in Illinois, and allege that the companies’ websites and apps are not accessible to the blind. The plaintiffs were represented by The Dann Law Firm and were dismissed between October 11th and October 30th.
Top-rated Huntsville personal injury attorney Morris Lilienthal recently resolved a car accident claim on behalf of a family that was struck by drunk driver while traveling on US Highway 72. The wreck occurred when the drunk driver pulled out from an intersecting road striking the passenger side of our client’s SUV.
Our investigation revealed the at-fault driver had been drinking at his son’s house where he’d consumed more than 12 Busch Beers. Due to his intoxicated state, the drunk driver failed to yield the right of way by pulling out on to US 72 causing this accident. Following the crash, our clients were all transported by ambulance (HEMSI) to Huntsville Hospital.
As is often the case, the drunk driver was a repeat offender that did not have any automobile insurance. Our background search revealed he didn’t have any assets to pay a judgment. As such, we then considered available uninsured motorist coverage. In this case, our clients were a husband and wife and the father of the husband. It should be noted the father did not reside with the son and daughter-in-law. The plaintiffs’ SUV was insured with State Farm so we opened an uninsured motorist claim with State Farm for all 3 claims.
