Arkansas Injury Lawyer Blog

Teams of lawyers from around the nation are mobilizing for legal battles over the massive Gulf Coast oil spill, filing multiple lawsuits in recent days.

The oil slick will likely poison popular beaches, ruin fisheries, disrupt traffic on the Mississippi River and ruin the tourist trade. There will likely be hundreds of thousands of plaintiffs from Texas to Florida seeking monetary damages from oil producer BP PLC and other companies that ran the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

At least 26 federal lawsuits have been filed since the spill by commercial fishermen, charter boat captains, resort management companies and individual property owners in Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Many of the suits claim the disaster was caused when workers for oil services contractor Halliburton Inc. improperly capped a well — a process known as cementing.

Toxic residues remain to this day after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound, studies have shown. Thousands of fishermen, cannery workers, landowners and Native Americans were initially awarded $5 billion in punitive damages. That was reduced on appeal to $2.5 billion and then, in 2008, cut down to $507.5 million by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Most of the lawsuits filed so far are potential class-action cases, meaning the plaintiffs seek to represent an entire group of people in similar situations who claim to have suffered economic losses due to company negligence.

BP says it will pay for the oil cleanup. A fact sheet on the company website says BP takes responsibility for the response to the spill after the offshore drilling rig explosion and will pay compensation for "legitimate and objectively verifiable" claims for property damage, personal injury and commercial losses.

We all hope that BP will follow up on this promise. All persons and businesses that are damaged by the Gulf oil spill need to speak with an attorney as soon as possible to make sure their damages are documented and ready to be presented to BP. Lawsuits are often necessary to make sure Gulf Coast Oil Spill victims are fully and fairly compensated. If you have been harmed by the Gulf coast oil spill please speak with an attorney who is handling oil damage claims as soon as possible.

Little Rock, Arkansas has been ranked in the top ten most accident prone cities. According to an article in a popular health magazine, Little Rock ranked fifth in the number of accidents that occur each year. This finding appears to be based upon statistics from the Bureau of Labor, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association.

As someone who deals with Arkansas accident victims, this finding is quite troubling. Arkansas accident injuries include car accident injury, on the job injury, slip and fall injury, motorcycle accident injury, truck accident injury, dog bite injury, medical injury, and nursing home abuse injury. Arkansas personal injury victims have a right to have their medical bills paid, lost wages paid, pain and suffering fairly compensated and be fully compensated for their damages.

If you or a family member has suffered a personal injury in Arkansas, please contact an experienced Arkansas personal injury lawyer to make sure your injuries are fully and fairly compensated.

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has fined Chesapeake Energy Corp. after well drilling fluids were spilled.

The ADEQ issued the order fining the natural gas driller $8,400 for the Sept. 8 incident. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality says there was evidence a layer of drilling mud had been deposited in the tributary and that agency representatives were not allowed to inspect the site when they arrived at the site.

This incident exemplifies the new problems that are associated with the scale of drilling taking place in the Fayetteville Shale areas in Arkansas. Problems ranging from pollution causing personal injury or property damage to drilling site injuries to industrial and truck accidents have increased due to the drilling activity. If you have suffered property damage or a personal injury, please contact an Arkansas lawyer to discuss what can be done to compensate you for your damages.

The Arkansas Supreme Court declared a portion of the 2003 tort reform law unconstitutional. The Arkansas Court found that the law violates the Arkansas Constitution separation of powers clause.

The Arkansas Justices decided questions over the provisions regarding the negligence or fault of non-parties when considering liability and regarding evidence of damages for the costs of necessary medical care, treatment, or services.

This is a very important decision for Arkansans who suffer a personal injury. This change will stop the negligent party from escaping liability by blaming a non-party for the personal injury. The decision also allows an personal injury victim to recover the full amount of damages in a Arkansas personal injury lawsuit. The case will help Arkansas accident victims receive reasonable personal injury settlements. If you or a family member has suffered a personal injury please contact an experienced Arkansas personal injury lawyer as soon as possible to make sure your rights are protected.

A recent tragic event occurred in Benton Arkansas. An inspector for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department died after he was hit by a crane at a construction site in central Arkansas. According to the news report, the inspector was walking a platform behind a crane when it turned and hit him. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the accident.

Unfortunately, industrial accidents are all too common in Arkansas. This incident reminds me of a case in which I represented two men who were hit by a crane and suffered serious personal injuries. We were able to prove that the crane operator and the company he worked for were negligent and did not use the necessary safety protocols to prevent this type of accident. We were able to recover a substantial verdict in this case.

When such dangerous equipment is being used, it is vital that operators make safety their number one priority. If an accident occurs, it is important that an investigation take place as soon as possible to discover what happened and why the personal injury accident occurred. If you or a family member has suffered a personal injury in an industrial accident, it is important that an experienced Arkansas accident lawyer be contacted as quickly as possible to help.