The Trial Lawyer is the quarterly magazine of The National Trial Lawyers’ Top 100 Trial Lawyers. Its Spring 2014 issue features two articles about vehicle crashes, two about brain injuries, and one about medical malpractice.
The first is “THE UNHOLY TRINITY: TALKING, TEXTING AND TRUCKING – THE EPIDEMIC, THE LAW AND HOW TO WIN YOUR CASE – PART 2.” Id. at 18-21. “It is important to discover all mobile devices in the truck owned by the driver or by the motor carrier that can be distractions for the driver and whose usage can result in violations of state laws and/or the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.” Id. at 21.
Its second article is “More Than Ten Years After Firestone: THE CONTINUING PROBLEM OF DANGEROUS TIRES”. Id. at 24-26. “The tire industry has known for several decades that tires degrade over time and, as a result, become more likely to fail simply due to their age.” Id. at 26.
Its third article is “THE A TO Z BASICS OF PROVING CLOSED HEAD INJURY”. Id. at 22-23. “TBI [traumatic brain injury] cases are some of our toughest cases to prove. *** The attorney must be interactive in correlating the diagnostic imaging findings with the clinical findings.” Id. at 23. Potentially useful brain imaging includes SPECT (single photon emission tomography), PET (positron emission tomography), and the following MRI (magnetic resonance imaging): SWI (susceptibility weighted imaging), f (functional), DWI (diffusion weighted imaging), DTI (diffusion tensor imaging), and S (spectroscopy). Id. at 22-23.
Its fourth is “SELECTING A JURY IN A BRAIN DAMAGE CASE”. Id. at 58-61. “If you don’t understand the medical issues in your case, how do you expect the jury to understand them? Gone are the days that attorneys can solely rely upon experts to tell them what the injuries are in their case.” Id. at 60.
The final one is “FINDING EVIDENCE IN MEDICAL METADATA FOR MALPRACTICE CASES”. Id. at 54-57. “Today, our discovery requests include electronically stored information and we want it in its nature electronic format – because in electronic format, the records will contain metadata that tells us important facts about the authors, recipients, date and time of creation, alteration and the like.” Id. at 54. “[In an ‘audit trail’] you will begin to see a very detailed timeline, as well as inventory of witnesses and documents, that does not appear from the [printed electronic] medical record alone.” Id. at 55. (emphasis added).
Mr. Waterman is a member of The National Trial Lawyers’ Top 100 Trial Lawyers in Virginia. His practice includes vehicle accidents, medical malpractice, and other cases of brain injury, serious personal injury and wrongful death.
THE VIRGINIA STATE BAR REQUIRES ALL LAWYERS TO POST THE FOLLOWING DISCLAIMERS ON ALL CASE-RELATED POSTS. MR. WATERMAN’S CASE RESULTS AND CLIENT TESTIMONIALS DEPEND UPON A VARIETY OF FACTORS UNIQUE TO EACH CASE. THEY DO NOT GUARANTEE OR PREDICT A SIMILAR RESULT IN ANY FUTURE CASE BY HIM.
