Mike: It’s “Mike and Tricia Mornings” at 93.1 KISS-FM. Our feature is “Ask a Lawyer” with Michael Gopin who answers your legal questions, tries to steer you in the direction that you need to go to take things where they need to be taken to.
Tricia: Okay. So here’s Annette. She says, “I think I have a potential claim against my mom’s ER doctor. She fell and went to the hospital. They sent her home saying that everything was okay but they didn’t do any X-rays or MRI to check for damage. She had a brain aneurysm that caused her death.”
Michael: I’m so sorry about your mom, Annette. There’s a lot of questions I have regarding your case. How much after she went to the hospital did the brain aneurysm occur? Was it the next day, a couple of days later? Can we relate the brain aneurysm to the fall, first of all? That would be the first question.
Yes, we do handle medical malpractice cases. Well, I guess what I’m saying is, is the aneurysm related? Did the aneurysm…the aneurysm was probably there before this happened but, you know, why and when did this occur, are the key questions here. The ER doctor may be held responsible if the standard of care that they gave was less than normal and reasonable. We will have to get a doctor to review all the medical records. We get all the medical records from the ER doctor and the hospital and have them looked over by a physician in that same area to decide if the treatment they gave your…was it your daughter?
Tricia: Mom.
Michael: Your son? Your mom, excuse me. Yeah, your mom, was reasonable or not and if an X-ray or MRI was necessary. So the time length is the most important here. How far after the hospitalization did the aneurysm occur? I think that’s the key in this case.
Tricia: Okay. And then Bonita says she wants to adopt her granddaughter after her mom passed in March of 2021. She wants to know, is there some kind of form she needs? Can she process this through the downtown courts? Is this possible without getting a lawyer?
Michael: It’s possible without getting a lawyer but most likely, you’re gonna need a lawyer to help you. You’d have to file an adoption with the courts. It would be at the courthouse downtown. I don’t know if there’s a father involved who has parental rights. Is the granddaughter living with you now or not? So those are key questions. Certainly, grandparents can adopt their grandkids if necessary and it happens a lot. So if there’s no father involved, it’s a very, you know, good possibility that you could win and get the adoption going through. You could also get a guardianship perhaps. But I think a good family lawyer would be somebody that you wanna talk to because this can be complicated and it’s not as easy as just a form or anything.
Tricia: Right.
Mike: Yeah, it probably is best they get some kind of legal.
Michael: That would be my advice, yeah.
Tricia: Yeah.
Mike: Right? Or at least speak to somebody first before you feel like you can proceed on your own without their help.
Tricia: Yeah.
Michael: Right. Because this can be what’s in the best interest of the child, and so that you might need an expert. There’ll be a lot of background checks of you and your husband if you have one. And so all that is time-consuming and things that you may need assistance with.
Mike: Yeah. All right. Thank you again, Mr. Michael Gopin.
Michael: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
Mike: Appreciate you coming in. We’ll see him again next month. This is “Ask a Lawyer” on kisselpaso.com. On the “Must Read” bar, there’s a section where you can ask questions for his next go-around on kisselpaso.com. You can also ask him via the apps, submit audio, or you know, text away, and then we’ll see you next month.
Michael: Sounds good. See you guys then.
Mike: Michael Gopin, “Ask a Lawyer.” “Mike and Tricia Mornings.”
Announcer: Read our latest articles to know everything that’s happening in El Paso on the 93.1 KISS-FM mobile app.
Introduction: You’re listening to “Mike and Tricia Mornings” on 93.1 KISSFM.
Mike: It’s your monthly ask a lawyer feature with Michael Gopin. You submit the questions, Michael Gopin will give you some legal advice or at least point you in the direction that he feels you need to go with this, you know, issue that you have.
Tricia: Okay. So Jordan says he works for the city and he was doing a cleanup job over in the Northeast. He got bit by a dog and needed stitches on both hands. So the dog belonged to the house they were in front of, and the owner refuses to help with the situation. He says he has no home insurance, can’t afford to help. He said, does your office handle these types of cases? What can I do in this situation?
Michael G: Well, the best advice I will give you at this point with the facts that you’re telling me is that I would file a worker’s comp claim with the city. You were definitely on the job at the time of the accident. So the city would pay for your medical bills and expenses if they haven’t already. You do of course have a potential claim against the owner of the dog. There is a one-bite free rule kind of in Texas.
Tricia: Oh really?
Michael G: Yeah. It’s kind of unusual, but a dog has to have a propensity for violence. So you kind of get, if he’s had one bite before then the owner’s going to be liable. Of course, without the homeowner’s insurance to back him up, you know, there’s probably a difficult situation for you actually collecting. So it seems like, with these particular facts, the best thing to do is to file a claim with your worker’s comp, get the bill paid, hopefully, you’re back to normal and don’t need any future treatment. But if you do, worker’s comp would pay for it also.
Mike: And then what do you mean by the one-bite rule? It’s like one incident, right? Like he said, he was bitten both hands. It’s not okay. This was one bite and this is another bite.
Michael G: Well, more like two incidents. So if he had a first incident, like a dog bit you yesterday, and then tomorrow the dog bites me, the owner then has knowledge that the dog has the propensity to bite so he has to be more careful.
Mike: Right, right. Okay.
Tricia: Okay.
Michael G: Does that make sense?
Mike: Yeah.
Tricia: Tricia says a person in front of me was hauling some furniture and a shelf fell off the truck and hit my front windshield. The driver didn’t notice and kept on going, what should I do? I did file a police report.
Michael G: Well, I’m assuming that you do not have the license plate number of the truck. In that event, what I would do is call your own auto insurance coverage and tell them what happened. As long as you have collision coverage or uninsured motorist property damage coverage, one of those two, they will cover it and pay for the damages of the vehicle. The police report will be good to give to them just to verify what happened. But if you don’t have any information on this truck, there’s no way to make a claim against this, you know, phantom vehicle that was out there. So the best and only answer would be to go through your own coverage.
Tricia: You know, and the worst thing about it is that you have to cover deductibles. And so a lot of times you look at it and they’re like, “Okay. Well, we’ll cover it to 500 bucks.” And you’re like, “My deductible is 1200.”
Mike: Yeah, that’s my deductible.
Tricia: So, yeah.
Michael G: So yeah, I mean, and then with that type of coverage and making a claim, your insurance may go up. So there’s no free claim rule for that. So if you use your collision coverage, your insurance probably would go up and you have to make a decision. Weigh if the damages are worth making a claim for them.
Mike: Yeah. Would that also pertain to like this time of the year, when the winds blow debris all over the place and sometimes stuff fall, you know, goes on the road and you see it too late and you run over a like a pail or something, you know, and it does some damage to the underpart of your car. It would be the same, you would use that same type of…
Michael G: Exactly the same logic, yeah. So yeah, it’s definitely a problem. I mean, if you, let’s just say, you saw a truck and it was just a brand name vehicle, and you knew who it was, maybe you got license plate number, then maybe you could make a claim against them for, you know, improper storage of their thing in the back of their truck and not securing it well enough to keep it from flying out. But on the highway, you can get hit by lots of different things. And there’s no way to know who actually caused this to hit you.
Tricia: Okay. So this is from anonymous. She says she recently lost her son to a drunk-driving incident where he was the only one involved. But she says, the bar he was served at served him so much that it was almost three times over the limit from the report that the police gave them. Not to mention, he was only 20 years old. She wants to know if the place can be held liable for the accident.
Michael G: It’s certainly possible they could be held liable. We’d have to investigate and find out more facts. This is what they call a dram shop case where you sue the bar for exactly what she’s talking about. So if there’s witnesses, friends of his that were with him at the bar, acquaintances, we’d wanna investigate, find out all the facts, what happened, how he got in. Did he have a fake ID? Why did they serve him? Was he at more than one place? All those questions are important, but yes, it’s certainly possible. And I am so sorry to hear about your son. Just such a horrible, horrible, horrible thing. I can’t imagine.
Mike: I imagine this type of a case would take a while because there’s so much investigating that needs to be done.
Michael G: There’s a lot of investigating and I would imagine that the place or the bar would probably not be willing to settle very quickly. They may be willing to settle after some time, some investigations, some depositions…
Mike: Or if there’s some kind of irrefutable evidence.
Michael G: Correct. And they’re not gonna be cooperating before a lawsuit’s filed with giving you information or, you know, you would have to talk to, you know, maybe the bartenders, the employees that were there yeah who have seen this kid and all those factors.
Tricia: But then you have to ask the bartender, “Oh, by the way, were you over serving this kid?” And then they can be liable.
Michael G: Right. I mean, did he pay cash for the drinks? Did he charge the drinks? If he charged the drinks, there’s more of, you know, you could see exactly what he had drunk. So that would be important too. I would definitely come talk to a lawyer, come talk to us. We’d be happy to try to investigate and help. It’s just a tragedy and there’ll be a lot of work to determine if there’s a valid case for sure.
Michael G: Okay. “Ask a lawyer.” Michael Gopin will be right back. More of your questions, his answers.
Michael: And now you’re gonna sing it for everybody, right?
Tricia: Yeah.
Michael: That would be the really cool point.
Mike: Hey, that’s how we get around the copyright laws.
Tricia: That’s right.
Mike: I just go, taan-taan-taan-taan-tan-ta-ta-ta-tan-ta-ta-ta-tan, while you talk over me.
Tricia: Okay.
Mike: Hey, this is how ideas get born, boys and girls.
Tricia: Just spitball anywhere.
Mike: Just like that.
Tricia: That’s right, that’s right.
Michael: That’s right.
Mike: So, “Ask A Lawyer.”
Tricia: Okay, first question. This is from Hilda, she said she was rear-ended on I-10 last week. The insurance company told her her car was a total loss. But she bought the car two years ago, and now they only wanna give her half of what she still owes. She’s like, “I can’t do this. There’s no way I can afford two car payments. Is there anything I can do about it?”
Michael: What the question is, is what the value of your car was at the time of the accident? So they are responsible to pay the fair market value of the car. That doesn’t mean what you owe on the car. So that could be higher, less, just depending on the deal that you struck to start with. So, you may have purchased a car that was worth…you may have paid more than what it was worth, it may have depreciated more, or they may be giving you a bad deal. So you would have to look up and find out, you know, what the fair market value of the vehicle is, maybe a NADA book, and see if they’re giving you a raw deal or a fair deal. But if the situation is, is that you owe more than the car is worth, you’re upside down on your loan, and the only way to prevent that would have been some type of GAP insurance. So that’s a definite problem. The way I’ve seen it resolved is to refinance the debt into your next car…
Tricia: Oh.
Michael: …so you only have one payment. So if you’re, let’s just say, you’re down $2,000 on your current car that’s been totaled, you add the $2,000 into your new car to finance it, and that’s how it would work out. But that’s the problem, is when you keep adding debt…
Tricia: Adding debt onto debt. Yeah.
Michael: Right.
Mike: Yeah, yeah. And you’ll never get what you owe.
Tricia: Yeah.
Michael: Right. So that’s the issue, is you’re gonna owe, and if you get into a wreck and total your car, you’re gonna be in a bad situation.
Tricia: Yeah, yeah. Okay, Bento wants to know, he was getting his car washed at a local place here in town, and the person letting the cars through didn’t give his vehicle enough space between him and the one in front. He said I ended up rear-ending the person with an infant in front of me, and the carwash said they can’t help with it because he needs to file a claim with his insurance. So is there anything he can do about that? He said neither one… Oh, file a claim against the persons in front of his car. So he said, “Neither one of us were at fault for the collision. Minor damage, but is there anything we can do about this?”
Michael: Well, you’re still entitled to make a claim against the carwash and allege that they were negligent in the timing of the vehicles. I don’t know if you were inside the vehicle or not, that does change the complexion of it. If you were inside the vehicle, you could probably have hit the brake and stopped and not caused…or, you know, not had your car hit the other vehicle in front. So that may be an issue as well. So you could be comparatively negligent in this situation.
Mike: Even though he waved you through?
Michael: Sure. But if…
Mike: And there wasn’t enough car…
Michael: …you are sitting in the car and then you see that you’re gonna hit it…
Tricia: If you’re coming up too fast.
Michael: Right.
Mike: Yeah.
Michael: So, I certainly see that the carwash is gonna be held negligent in this case from the facts that you’re giving us. I don’t know what the damage is to your vehicle, but I would certainly, you know, maybe write a letter, maybe hire a lawyer to see if they could get that taken care of and paid for you.
Tricia: Okay. Okay, so Martha, I’m sensing a bad accident theme here this morning. Martha says she was in a bad car accident at the end of last year, her medical bills were high and they’re getting higher. She said the person’s insurance isn’t covering all my medical expenses. She says, “I am gonna be in some serious debt. I don’t know what to do. Is there anything else I can do to get this matter fixed?”
Michael: Well, I would think that in this situation, you may wanna go to an attorney, we’d be happy to try to help you. The insurance company is responsible for reasonable and necessary medical bills. Not all your medical bills, only the ones that are related and only the reasonable costs for those. So if the insurance company is gonna be arguing that either your medical bills were too expensive, not related, unnecessary, all those type of arguments, they’re gonna be fighting us on those. And they do that all the time. So that’s something that we would need to work on to try to get your medical bills paid, get you some money for yourself. The real question is, are they related? And they don’t settle the cases early. So they don’t settle the cases or pay the bills typically as you go, they will settle the case at the end of your treatment or when you decide you’re ready to negotiate with them, and then from that money, you can pay your medical bills yourself. So that’s kind of typically how it works.
Mike: So you get a whole bunch of stuff done and some of it is not gonna get covered?
Tricia: Right.
Michael: It’s possible. I mean, if, let’s just say you go to the doctor twice a day for 60 days, there’s nothing. They’re gonna say, “Well, that’s not really the reasonable course of treatment in this type of injury. You overtreated, you went too many times, you went too often by the medical guidelines, and we’re not gonna be responsible because you wanted to go more.”
Tricia: And I think a lot of people think that you do submit things as they happen. You don’t.
Michael: Yeah, you don’t. And that’s one of the typical reasons some people get attorneys, is because an attorney can have those bills delayed, basically. So you don’t have to pay upfront, the doctor will work with the attorney and get paid at the end also.
Tricia: Right.
Michael: And that’s really important. And we also work with the hospitals and the ambulances and all those MRI places to make sure that they don’t harm your credit as you go along too, because if you can’t afford it, either they won’t treat you or they’re gonna put you to the collection company.
Tricia: Exactly, exactly.
Mike: Those are problems.
Michael: He’s Michael Gopin, we’re Mike and Tricia, the feature is called “Ask A Lawyer.” We’ll be right back with a few more of your questions for Michael Gopin.
Carol: You’re listening to “My Contrition Morning” on 93.1 KISS FM.
Man: It’s our monthly segment. We call it “Ask a Lawyer with Michael Gopin“. In fact, if there’s, like, a legal issue that you would like him to weigh in on, there is a spot on kisselpaso.com, where you can click on it, look for it in the Must Read bar, and you can send over your question. Or if you have our app, you can smartphone over your question for Michael Gopin. And we’ll put it in front of him the next time we have him in-house, which will be in February. These are some of the questions that came in prior to his visit today.
Carol: Okay. This one’s from Estefania. She says, “In a four-car pileup on the freeway, I was the second car involved in the crash. One car rear-ended another and so on, I was rear-ended into the person in front of me. And now that person is coming after my insurance for the accident. Is this how this works? I would have never hit that person if it wasn’t for the other car running into me. Any information would be greatly appreciated, Mr. Gopin.”
Michael: Well, these are always tough, the multi-car accidents, rear-end after rear-end after rear-end. We know for sure the lead car is always…
Man: It’s like, I am sorry, that movie, “The Human Caterpillar.”
Carol: No. It’s not.
Man: It’s like a vehicle caterpillar.
Carol: Okay. Sorry. You’re dealing with Beavis and Butthead.
Michael: I tell you. But anyway, the lead car is always in good shape, in terms of liability. We know that the lead car didn’t cause this accident. But all the cars behind them may have contributed to the accident. So, we don’t know which really occurred first. You’ll have different stories from all these different cars.
Carol: The chicken, the egg…
Michael: Yeah, exactly. So, is it the fourth car’s fault in this case which caused a chain reaction? Or was everybody following too close, which caused the problem? The lead car is definitely gonna go after, probably, everybody in line to look at their insurance to see, you know, who’s gonna be willing to pay, who’s not willing to pay?
So, this is kind of how it works. The question, usually is, was there more than one impact? Sometimes you could feel two impacts. And so, you know, that maybe the back car didn’t start this, maybe it was another accident. So, all those things come into play. Let your insurance company handle it. I hope you weren’t injured. If you were injured, then, of course, the third and the fourth car are the ones that you’ll be looking at.
Carol: Ah. Okay. Okay.
Man: Mess.
Carol: What a mess?
Man: It does look like it, right?
Michael: Those can be tricky facts situations.
Carol: And see, this is why I hate driving on the freeway because I’m…and, you know what, I just don’t like it. So, I will go on Mesa, or Montana. And I’ll go from one end of town to the other on Montana because I hate the freeway. And for that reason… Because people just drive too crazy here. I’m sorry, but they totally do.
Man: Well, they don’t drive much less crazy on side streets either, Carol.
Carol: No. I mean, I don’t know. I know you can get into an accident there too. But I don’t know, I just feel like I’m so much less likely to get, you know, run into on Montana.
Michael: Well, you’ll also be going slower than when you are on a lower freeway. So it’s…
Carol: Slower, yeah. There you go. Jackson…
Man: I don’t know. You’ve never driven with her, have you?
Michael: That’s true.
Man: The only place that she drives slow is over the spaghetti bar because she’s so deathly scared of it.
Carol: I hate the spaghetti bar.
Man: I think I still have the marks for holding on to me saying, “Shut up stupid.”
Carol: Well, he was talking and making fun of me. And I’m like, “I’m driving. You should probably shut up.”
Man: Yeah. Yeah.
Carol: I don’t like heights.
Man: So, don’t assume that she drives slower on the side streets. Okay?
Michael: She’s on the spaghetti bar.
Man: Yeah, yeah. I mean, the only thing really that stops her from going too fast are the constant lights.
Carol: Yeah, shut up.
Michael: She stops for them, right?
Carol: I know, right? There you go. Jackson says, “I fell off the roof during a shift of mine installing solar panels for a company here in town. Initially, they were offering to pay for my medical bills. But after I missed two weeks of work, I was, like, go for my job and my workers’ comp was voided from what they’re telling me. What can I do about this?”
Michael: Well, that depends if the company has Texas Workers’ Comp or not. If they have official Texas Workers’ Comp, you just need to file your claim with the Texas Workers’ Comp Commission, and file your claim and send them your bills and everything will be covered under workers comp. If they’re a non subscriber to the Act, that’s when it becomes a little tricky, you’ll have a direct action against the employer. You’ll have to be able to prove that the employer was at least 1% negligent in this case. So, they had to have done something wrong or negligent that caused you to fall off the roof. So, that’s what you have to think about, what they did to contribute to this accident.
Carol: Okay. So, let’s say they are 1% negligent. Does the percentage change the amount of money you’re gonna get?
Michael: Not in non-subscriber cases. Because the negligence of the employee can’t be held against him in those cases. So, in a typical car accident case, yes, it would if it was 1%, 99%, I can’t recover. But in the non-subscriber Workers’ Comps, as long as there’s some negligent 1%, very small, yes, they can recover, and they’ll get their full damages. There won’t be any stopping that. You know, the question through your employer is, you know, are they judgment proof? Do they have assets that can be collected upon?
Carol: See, that’s the thing. I mean, so many companies, the first thing they do is they go and they make sure that they don’t have anything personally that you can go after.
Michael: Right. So, it depends on the size of the company and their financial situation.
Carol: Okay. I guess it’s probably a good thing to find out with your employer, if they are a subscriber or not? How do you know?
Michael: Well, they tell you, they have to post it.
Carol: Okay. That’s if those things are like in break rooms and stuff like that.
Michael: Correct. Yes. So they have to post it there if they have Texas Workers’ Comp or not.
Carol: And they don’t have to be?
Michael: They don’t have to be. You can be a non-subscriber. And basically, as a company, risk the liability. Many companies do because of the Worker’s Comp rates. But they have a definite fear factor there. And some of them try to treat their employees right and pay and do what’s right, and others just ignore.
Carol: Oh, wow. Sonny says that she did not renew her commercial lease in late December of last year, but she had done some improvements as a tenant under the commercial lease that had allowed her to do so. Then she said, “I was told that I had to take the improvements down, and I would be charged $4,800.” But her landlord would not allow her to get her contractor to take the improvements down. And as of now, she still hasn’t given been given back her deposit or the difference between the deposit and the improvements. “The owner of the building is a lawyer. What are my options?” And is it worth it to sue him over her $6,000 deposit that’s still owed to her?
Michael: Well, it’s certainly worth looking into. I would need to read the lease to determine whether or not this issue was even brought up in there. Was there a clause in the commercial lease that talked about your right and ability to make improvements? And what would happen at the end of the lease? So, all these things were probably thought out in advance and in the lease. So, depending on what the lease says is the answer to this question.
Carol: Okay. But what happens if it’s not addressed in the lease? And it was, like, just, kind of, a passing verbal type thing?
Michael: Well, then I think it’s worth pursuing. I mean, it may become a swearing match between you and the landlord. But if your landlord told you that, yes, you could do it and didn’t tell you, you know, anything else, like, well, you’d be charged for it later or anything like that. But then I think you’re in pretty good shape because they’re gonna hold the landlord because they’re the one who wrote the lease to a higher standard than they’re gonna hold you. So I think you’ll have a lot of benefits there and potential to be able to succeed. You know, I would sit down with the landlord and see if you can work it out. If not, I would, you know, talk to a lawyer, have them write the landlord a letter, and see if they can negotiate and resolve it.
Carol: Because we’re always talking about make sure everything’s in your contract, make sure everything’s in your lease. But sometimes things like this do come up. I mean, like, probably, you know, a couple of months in she’s like, “You know, what, I wanna do this and the other.” And he was like, “Yeah, okay, whatever. That’s fine.” And then you just never think to get it in writing because you’re like, “Oh, no, you know, I’m already in the lease, whatever.”
Michael: And I don’t know if these improvements were really an improvement in the landlord’s view, or it’s just an improvement because of the type of business the tenant had. So, you know, that’s a question too. What is an improvement to one may be a detriment to the other. So, all those things will need to be determined by the facts.
Man: All right. Was that our last one?
Carol: Yep.
Man: I wasn’t counting.
Carol: I know.
Man: I try not to call.
Carol: I know you…
Michael: You did good. You did.
Man: Did I? Good. Good. Because about this time of the morning my throat gets so irritated. It’s like the last thing I have. But from the positive test, but so annoying. Although I’m cool now that, you know, I have this superpower, right? You get a superpower, right, for, like…you’re good for like, what? 30, 60 days?
Carol: At least, yeah.
Man: Yes. Guess who’s going to a park now? Okay. All right. So, “Ask a Lawyer with Michael Gopin” if there’s a legal question you would like to put in front of him. Go to kisselpaso.com, Must Read bar. There’s a place there that you click on and you can send us your question or use your free 93.1 KISS FM mobile app. Michael Gopin, thank you so much. We’ll see you next month.
Mike: You think you have the shivers now, wait until tomorrow, tomorrow morning. It will be like in the mid to upper 20s tomorrow. You’ll have the shivers then.
Tricia: Yeah.
Mike: Mike and Tricia Mornings on 93.1. Kiss FM, and it’s time to “Ask A Lawyer,” specifically Michael Gopin. You have questions. He has answers. And now I have his microphone on.
Michael: Well good, thank you.
Mike: There you go. See, I told you he was really here. I told you we weren’t making it up.
Tricia: Okay, first question up. We’ve got Michael. He said, we saw your toxic baby food commercials, and we’re wondering, which baby foods are included, and should we stop feeding our kids these certain types of foods?
Michael: Well, there is quite a few different baby food manufacturers who have been…had problems with this Beech-Nut, Gerber, Hain Celestial Group, Nurture, Plum, Sprout Foods, Walmart, Parents’ Choice. So there’s quite a few different entities that have been pointed out to be having these levels of toxic metals, higher than the FDA approval. Some of them have taken those products off the market. Some of them have not. So I would definitely be careful. I would research it. Make sure you’re giving the kids, you know, proper food that’s healthy. Now there are plenty of sites now that talk about baby foods testing, great, and don’t have the toxic elements in them. So that information is available. So I would use it and follow it, and make sure you protect your baby.
Mike: What if they all use, like, the same recipe or something? Because that’s kind of…isn’t that kind of rare with so many different companies.
Michael: Well, these heavy metals are naturally in food, so it just has to be at a certain level to be safe. So I mean, lead, arsenic, mercury, all these different toxic elements are in our food and our water. But if they rise to a level that’s too high, that’s when it becomes dangerous and can cause problems, which it has in these infants. And these young kids. So that’s the issue and the problem.
Tricia: Well, and since their systems aren’t really designed to handle those yet. I mean, they’re, you know, it’s a lot more toxic to them in smaller amounts. Joanne says, also about the types of toxic baby foods, what types of neurological disorders are involved? And would autism be one of the symptoms developed from a toxic baby food?
Mike: Yes. In fact, autism is the big one. Autism and attention deficit disorder, those are the two problems that we see mostly in these cases. So if your child has those two issues, and you fed them these types of foods, that’s where you may have a potential case and connecting the dots here.
Tricia: Okay. Okay.
Mike: All right, we’re doing “Ask A Lawyer” with Michael Gopin.
Tricia: Okay. Gilbert says, my son was involved in a car accident but wasn’t the driver. He was the passenger in a friend’s vehicle. And they were struck at an intersection by another driver. Unfortunately, the son wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. Sustained some serious injuries. Had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital. So now Gilbert wants to know, who’s responsible and where should he file a claim?
Michael: We can certainly help you with that, Gilbert. In terms of filing a claim, we’d have to look at the facts of the accident and determine which of the two drivers were at fault, the car that you were in, or the other vehicle. From your description, I don’t think even you know which of the drivers were at fault. We know for sure your passenger’s son was not negligent in any way, so he’s going to be safe. So he may have a case where he has to make a claim against both of these drivers, his friend, and the other vehicle, or it may be clear that one of these cars was at fault.
The fact that you weren’t wearing a seatbelt, they could use that against you in damages. In other words, if you wore your seatbelt, perhaps you wouldn’t have been injured as badly. So they could try to attack your son that way. But typically, that won’t happen, but certainly, if the case goes to a trial, and they find out he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, that could certainly be an issue.
Tricia: Okay. Okay. And Maria says, with COVID cases rising and a lot of people getting infected, she’s kind of struggling to leave her home to go to work. She says, her employer will not allow her to work from home and is threatening to fire her if she doesn’t go in. She says, is there anything I can do about this? I don’t feel like my employer is practicing the right methods to protect employees from the virus in the office.
Michael: Well, your employer has the absolute right to tell you to come to work. So you’re in a difficult situation. I understand, you know, to protect your health, and psychologically you may feel that you need to stay at home. So at some point, you may have to decide, which is more important to you, keeping this job, finding another job, or staying healthy. You can certainly wear a mask at work and isolate from people 6 feet away and more to make it safer for you. However, if the employer wants you to be at work because they believe it’s more efficient and more effective for their business, they certainly have the right to do that.
Mike: As far as protecting his or her employees, there’s not really any mandate or anything like that, right? I mean, there…
Michael: No. There is no mandate. I mean, common sense prevails. I mean, so you don’t want to put your people in a situation where they’re more likely to, you know, get COVID.
Mike: Sure. But if the employer doesn’t want to do anything, there’s nothing to prevent him from not doing anything, correct?
Michael: True.
Tricia: Now, I’ve heard a lot of cases where people are told, don’t wear a mask. You know, like, the employers are saying, look, you know, whatever. I mean, just I don’t want you to wear a mask here. Can they do that? Can they say, you know what? No, I’m not going to have you walking around here with a mask on?
Michael: I haven’t personally heard of companies doing that type of thing. I think that if you brought that up to, you know, HR or something, you know, they would, you know, allow you to wear a mask. I don’t see how that would be harming the business in any way, or making your job less effective any way that I can think of, unless, you know, you were needing your voice, and maybe your voice was muffled or something of that nature. But in terms of wearing a mask, I don’t think it will detract from your work performance in any way.
Mike: But would that be up to the employer?
Micheal: Technically, it would be, but I would be very surprised if an employer was that unreasonable to…
Mike: No. Yeah. They’re…
Michael: You never know, right?
Mike: Yeah. No, I’ve…
Tricia: They’re out there. Yeah.
Mike: Yes. Absolutely, man. Absolutely.
Tricia: I’ve actually heard callers tell me…listeners tell me, yeah, my boss says no, you cannot wear your mask while you’re at work. And I’m like, what?
Mike: Yeah. You’ll make me look bad.
Tricia: Or they just don’t believe in it.
Mike: All my QAnon friends will laugh at me.
Tricia: Right. Exactly.
Michael: Politics.
Mike: Okay, we’re playing. We’re doing “Ask A Lawyer”…We are playing, but we’re doing “Ask A Lawyer” with Michael Gopin. We’ll be right back and answer a few more of your questions.
National Consumer Protection Weekhelps people understand consumer rights and consumer protection laws that affect them. The goal is to help consumers avoid scams and defective products that could harm them.
When Is National Consumer Protection Week?
National Consumer Protection Week will take place March 6 to March 12, 2022. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be hosting educational events and webinars this year about subjects such as:
One important consumer right is to be free from injuries caused by defective products. A defective product is one that poses an unreasonable risk of harm to someone who uses the product for its intended purpose. Defective products are the cause of many injuries and deaths in the United States every year. There are generally three types of product defects:
Design defect– A design defect is present when a product design is faulty. Design defects affect all of the product line, not individual units or batches. For example, products may be defectively designed because they cause fires, lack safety guards, or pose a choking risk.
Manufacturing defect– A manufacturing defect occurs when there is a problem during the manufacturing phase that affects certain batches of products. Common types of manufacturing defects include products missing components or contamination occurring during production.
Labeling/warning defect– A labeling or warning defect arises when a product lacks important warning labels or instructions, which makes the product unreasonably unsafe for normal use. Labeling or warning defects include not listing other medications that a medicine may have an adverse reaction with, missing safety instructions, or a lack of warnings that toys can present a choking hazard.
Anyone who puts their product in the stream of commerce must ensure that consumers can safely use the product. Nonetheless, greedy manufacturers still continue to sell defective products to the most vulnerable consumers, includingtoxic baby foodmarketed to infants ordefective combat earplugsto our nation’s heroic military servicemembers. If you or a loved one was injured by a defective product, adefective product lawyercan help you pursue compensation for the harm you have suffered.
How to Find Out About Product Recalls
You can visit thisgovernment siteto check for active recall cases. You can also check for current lawsuits related to defective products, such asdefective hernia meshproducts.
How to Get Involved in National Consumer Protection Week
You can take part in National Consumer Protection Week by:
Joining the FTC for its scheduled events
Interacting on social media with consumer protection groups during the week
Hosting a forum, workshop or seminar in your community about an important consumer protection issue
Need a Defective Product Attorney? Contact Michael Gopin Today
If you were injured by a defective product, an El Paso Injury lawyer from the Law Offices of Michael Gopin, PLLC can help. The firm is a pillar of the community, standing since 1987. Its legal team is very dedicated to helping members of the community.Contact ustoday for a free case review.
