When we wrote our first legal book, Seven Common Mistakes That Can Wreck Your Oregon Accident Case, we were very careful to write it simply, with a minimum of technical “legalspeak.” The idea was to write a book that would help non-lawyers settle their own cases, or decide if a lawyer was warranted. This book […]
What is a life worth? What is the value, in dollars, of the loss of a father, a wife, a grandparent, or a child? There is of course no answer to this question. The value of a life is not measured in dollars. But even though this is true – and obviously true at that […]
There seems to be more and more criticism of personal injury lawsuits. People have tried to claim compensation for some very frivolous injuries. We hate frivolous lawsuits more than anyone. We make our living pursuing justice in the courts, and frivolous lawsuits give the courts and justice a bad name. Most personal injury suits are […]
In personal injury cases, there are two basic forms of “damages” a client may recover: economic and non-economic damages. Some lawyers will refer to them as “general” and “special” damages, but the correct terms are economic and non-economic damages. Most wrongful death damages are determined by law using the criteria defined earlier (see the ORS 30.020 damages described […]
You will hear a lot of people talking about “damages” during a wrongful death case. “Damages” can refer to the amount of money you have lost and the suffering you have undergone as a result of the loss of your loved one, but “damages” also refers to the amount of money a jury decides is […]
If alcohol was involved in a death, and if the server of the alcohol was partly responsible for the death because they served an already visibly intoxicated person, or served a minor, or failed to perform their server duties correctly in other ways (which are defined by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission), you may be […]
If the death was caused by a public entity, or someone working for a public entity, then a “Tort Claim Notice” has to be received by the proper person or department within one year of the incident that caused the death (If it’s an injury that does not cause death, the time limit is only […]
In addition to the normal statutes of limitations, there are also “statutes of ultimate repose.” For example, in a product liability case, which is where a person sues the maker or distributor of a product that was unsafe, the lawsuit must be started before the product is ten years old. So if someone buys a […]
