How the economy is affecting your ability to recover for your injuries

The gas crisis, the bad economy and other factors, are playing an important part of your injury settlement with the insurance companies. Years ago, when insurance companies offered their clients Personal Injury Protection (PIP) most of them would pay their clients if they ever got involved in an accident, if they had PIP coverage. That is no longer the case. Some insurance companies now have independent third party auditors that would, in most cases, challenge the validity of medical bills, and wage losses of the clients. Therefore minimizing the recovery of your claim.

This is particularly true for major insurance companies. As businesses, insurance companies, just like any others, must keep up with the reality of inflation, economy and "the bottom line." Gas prices must be one of the reasons why, insurance companies now must try to keep most of the profits for themselves, and not pay on no-fault insurance claims, such as PIP.

PIP coverage varies depending on the State and policy. In most cases, the PIP could range from $2,500 to $10,000, depending on the type of coverage. Once an insured is injured in an accident, if they have PIP coverage, it should cover most of the medical bills and the loss wages, assuming that the insurance company pays the full policy. This is independent on who is at fault. That is why is called, no-fault insurance.

Very few insurance companies are paying on their PIP policies the full price. They would question every aspect of a bill, in order to keep more profits. Good hands policy has now become boxing gloves policy, even for no-fault insurance claims. The key operative word is "reasonableness" of the medical bills.

One of the major insurance companies that is doing this drastic change in policy is USAA. They have opted to send every PIP claim to independent, or so they say, third party auditors that would evaluate every claim. The auditors would in tern, dictate the price of the medical services offered, price the reasonableness of the services provided, and advise the insurance on how much to pay on the claim. All of this again, in order to keep more profits. It must be that the economy is affecting them as well.

If you have been in a car accident, truck accident, fatal accident, major collision, roll over, SUV roll over, motorcycle accident, car wreck, serious injury, death from an accident, broken bones, or any other injury in San Antonio, please contact our law firm. We are San Antonio personal injury lawyers, law firm, and attorneys that specialize in all aspects of personal injury for our clients. We have experienced attorneys that would handle your case with respect and dignity. That is why our motto is "we care about your legal needs!"

Visit our website: http://www.thebaezlawfirm.com/ or http://www.sanantoniopersonalinjurytriallawyers.com/

How much training is the police really getting?

The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 created the first police force. These newly form policemen, were known as––the Peelers’ and Bobbies’–because their creator name was Robert Peeler. Form the inception, people has always hated them. That was because more than half of them were drunkards and improperly trained. Many cartoonist have depicted them as such. Eventually, the impact that the police had on crime, specially organized crime, has lead to the acceptance of the police force.

Today, the police force is submitted through rigorous training in order to become a cop. The famous "Police Academy." Although that is not the case for all police forces. Many Sheriff’s Departments in the Nation allow "deputies" to start a job with the department without having a licence first. For example, in Bexar County, deputies begin their careers at the jail, whether or not, the deputy has a TCLEOSE Peace Officer License. Which means that, their training, may not be as suspected by most people.

In order for the police force to work, a two prong mechanism has to be in place. Restrain and Respect. The police needs to exercise restrain in order to get respect by the people. But, how can the police show restrain, if they have not been properly trained. And vice versa, how can the people show respect, if the police force does not restrain themselves under all situations.

There needs to be psychological evaluations to all prospective policeman before they are let out in the streets. If the force has not been properly trained, or licensed, then superior officers need to supervise their cops more closely. If the police does not perform well in simulated dangerous scenarios, and do not show the proper restrain, then the police should not be allow to handle any situation on the streets.

Within the last few years, Americans have seen an increase of police mishandling of situations. What was once a simple traffic stop by a friendly policeman, has now become a nightmare. That’s because again, in most cases, police does not show the proper restrain needed to handle the situation. With great power comes great responsibility, and since some police officers are not getting the proper training, the power, and lack of restrain, is overpowering.

If you have been submitted to police maltreatment, or abuse, please contact our firm for a free initial consultation. Please call (210) 979-9777 or visit our web sites at http://www.thebaezlawfirm.com or http://www.sanantoniopersonalinjurytriallawyers.com/ for an evaluation of your case. This is why we say "we care about your legal needs!"

Glad we can help!

Recently, we posted a blog about business fraud conducted by Nigerian individuals against US Law Firms. We have received hundreds of calls from attorneys thanking us for the information and informing us that they too have been victimized.

We are encouraged by the fact that the scheme is been recognized and that other lawyers are spreading the news that these crooks need to be put in jail.

Let us remind our readers that these people from Nigeria will used any name of reputable companies in order to achieve their objectives. Regrettably, it is the name of these companies that will suffer by the actions of these crooks, as well as the law firms involved. Also, let us remind you that not all the people from Nigeria are responsible for this, it is just a selected group that have upted to defraud others by doing the wrong thing.

We urge you to share the information with other attorneys about the Nigerian plot, and that if you are aware of any activities of these nature, to contact your local authorities or the FBI.

Thankfully, we can share this information in a positive way in hopes that, we one day, can put a stop to this perpetrated fraud.

Another police brutality article

We wrote an article about police brutality about one month ago, and to our surprise, we have had more clients commenting on how the police really treated them. Come to find out, all our clients have suffered from the same "police brutality syndrome." As research are getting closer to an answer pertaining to police behavior on the job, citizens continue to suffer based on the ability to the police to get away with murder before the city, or county, does anything about it.

Our latest case just happened this weekend. Our client was just minding his own business when he was stopped, beaten and incarcerated by the police. The police used the "usual" language of evading arrest, terrorist threats, and failure to follow orders when given by a police officer. How ironic that, the police who stops you and bitts you up, is the same that states that he/she felt threatened by your behavior. They use the pretext of terror in order to advance their own agenda of terror against the citizens that they are supposed to protect.

Let me remind our readers that: not all cops are corrupted! But is hard to differentiate between good cops and the crooked ones. Supposedly, cops feel pressure from the jobs as they get older and wiser on the jobs. This is why we have witness in the past year or so, so many increases of allegations of police maltreatment. This weekend alone, we know that the jails were crowded with suspected terrorist and people that the police felt had threatened their lives. That we know of, at least 5 people were beaten by police because they felt threatened. This includes man and females alike.

Makes you wonder what kind of training are these police officers getting at the academy. Nevertheless, we are supposed to continue to put up with the behavior of police officer because they feel the need to state the they were threatened by our actions. Lately, police have made more violations to our constitutional rights than ever. Maybe is time that we do something about it.

If you have been a victim of police brutality, please give us a call. We are a law firm that care about your legal needs. Call us at (210) 979-9777 or visit our website at http://www.thebaezlawfirm.com or http://www.sanantoniopersonalinjurytriallawyers.com for a free initial consultation.

Severe head injury and epilepsy

Patients who have severe head injuries have 22 times the normal risk of having epilepsy in the year following injury and seven times the normal risk even 10 years after the initial injury, according to the results of a study. The results were presented at the 61st Annual Meeting of the American Epilepsy Society (AES) by Per Sidenius, MD, Epilepsy Epidemiology Consultant, Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Aarhus.

Doctors and colleagues identified 73,326 individuals with mild brain injury, 5,099 with skull fracture, and 3,850 with severe brain injury. A total of 17,470 people born within the time period had a diagnosis of epilepsy, and of these, 1,031 developed epilepsy after some form of brain injury.

Among patients with mild brain injury and those with skull fracture 1.14% and 1.5%, respectively, developed epilepsy in the 10 years following head injuries, whereas 3% of individuals with severe brain injury developed epilepsy in this time period. Although the relative risk for epilepsy with mild brain injury and skull fracture was higher in the first year following the head injury, the long-term risk was about double that of the general population [relative risk (RR) 2.22 and 2.17, respectively, with 95% confidence intervals (CI) of 2.07-2.38 and 1.73-2.71, respectively].

The relative risk for epilepsy in the year following a severe head injury was approximately 22 times the risk for the general population with an ongoing relative risk of over seven times the risk for the general population (RR 7.40, 95% CI 6.16-8.89). When the researchers examined other risk factors, they found that a family history of epilepsy resulted in an even greater long-term relative risk for individuals with all three injury types (mild brain injury RR 5.75, 95% CI 4.56-7.27, P=.03; skull fracture RR 2.71, 95% CI 0.87-8.41, P=.04; severe brain injury RR 10.09, 95% CI 4.20-24.26, P <.00001).

Anecdotal evidence of a link between head trauma and increased risk of epilepsy has been a part of epilepsy care for a long time, but doctors emphasised that this study provides an empirical basis for this link and quantifies the risk. Physicians caring for patients with severe head trauma now have the evidence to support continued evaluation and possibly prophylactic care for these patients. These results should encourage additional attention to safety among the general population. "If you prevent head injuries, for example by giving your children bicycle helmets, you are also preventing epilepsy."

If you have been injured as a result of severe injury, or if you have been misdiagnosed by a doctor for epilepsy, please contact our firm (210) 979-9777 or visit our websites http://www.thebaezlawfirm.com or http://www.sanantoniopersonalinjurytriallawyers.com for a free evaluation of your case.

U.S. Law Firms, please beware.

First and foremost, we would like to take this opportunity to thank City Bank Fraud Department for preventing our firm from falling under the scheme that we are about to reveal to Law Firms all over the United States. Again, thank you!

Recently, our law firm received a proposal for business representation from Asia. We are expanding our Internet marketing, and apparently, it was working. Our first clients from the Orient had arrived with a proposal almost impossible to resist. In reality, this crooks are not from Asia, they are from Nigeria and their base of operations is Canada.

This is how their scam works. They will contact you via mail, or electronically through the firm’s website page. They will pose themselves as Asian corporations in need of representation against their clients. Their alleged name was Daechang. (This is not to say that Daechang was the company perpetrating the fraud, this was the name that the crooks used this time). We believe that they used real companies names in order to achieve their objectives. So, we conducted research, and it was all legitimate. Daechang, happens to be an Asian corporation with international clients.

According to them, they have clients all over US and their clients have delinquent accounts. They will tell you that, they have tried the same techniques in Europe with great success. So apparently, all they would need is a reputable firm (so far, our law firm fitted the profile). Our firm was to contact these American companies, in an effort to avoid litigation. The operations department from our firm sent Daechang the retainer agreement, and so the usual hourly contract was sent to the Asian corporation, and it was signed by their alleged president Mr. Si-young, cho. In most cases, our business retainer pre litigation is $25, 000.00 and our firm will not start any representation before the retainer is sent to our main office.

The next day, their president contacted us and indicated that (PCC Logistics) was ready to write a certified check for them through our law firm for the amount of $194, 000.00. They would need immediate representation from the firm, in order to help them collect from PCC Logistics. Mr. Si-young, cho instructed the PCC Logistics to send the check to the law firm, since the law firm represented them in the US.

We informed Mr. Si-young, cho that unless we received the retainer, we would not represent them; however, that same day, a certified check for the amount of $194, 000.00 arrived via Federal Express to our main office attached with an invoice from PCC Logistics. Mr. Si-young, cho had indicated that we were to subtract our retainer agreement from the $194, 000.00 and sent them the rest. Sounds familiar?

We were skeptical, so we took the alleged certified check to our bank. They informed us that "all of the right features of a certified check were present" that "we had nothing to worry about, to deposit the check in our accounts." Thank God that we decided to go to the drawee bank before depositing into our accounts. The folks at City Bank worked very hard to let us know that the check was fake.

We pray that the crooks conducting this schemes will get caught. We also pray that no other law firms in the U.S. will be affected by their fraud.

Police brutality in Texas

Most people turn to the police for protection and safety. As citizens, we trust police officers to use their authority and training to keep us safe. Occasionally, however, some police officers use poor judgment and abuse this authority, causing harm to the very citizens they have sworn to protect, and beginning the cycle of mistrust.

If you have been a victim of police abuse you probably feel helpless and frightened. Your sense of security and right-and-wrong has been forever shattered. While the vast majority of law enforcement officers are dedicated and ethical, the officers who are not tarnish the reputation of the force as a whole, and the community suffers.

Police officers have a duty to know and abide by the limits of their position. Whether or not a crime has been committed, they have a legal responsibility to act within reason. If a crime was involved, you may feel that you have no real defense against the abuse and that taking action puts you at risk for a harsher punishment. If there was no crime, you fear for your reputation and an undeserved permanent criminal record which will follow and limit you for the rest of your life.

Not only is police brutality and misconduct an egregious violation of public trust and authority, it is also illegal, and guilty law enforcement officers can and must be held legally accountable for their crimes. Some common claims upon which police brutality or misconduct charges are built include: excessive use of force, and wrongful imprisonment.

If you have been the victim of police abuse you must act quickly. There are several things you should do right away:

1- Seek medical attention
2- File a complaint
3- Take photos of your injuries
4- Get statements from witnesses
5- Contact The Baez Law Firm

If you, or someone you know has been a victim of police brutality, contact The Baez Law Firm, P.C. at (210) 979-9777, where experienced lawyers will handle your case with respect and dignity. Visit our websites http://www.thebaezlawfirm.com or http://www.sanantoniopersonalinjurytriallawyers.com We care about your legal needs!