Massachusetts motorists must stay at the scene of a crash to provide their information to injured parties—the failure to do so carries serious civil and criminal consequences.
In a recent case before Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court, the court was asked to clarify under what circumstances an injury victim was required to provide 30-day notice in cases involving road defects.
Massachusetts personal injury cases involving more than one potentially liable party can become complicated when it comes to determining each party’s liability. A defendant’s negligence does not need to be the sole cause of a plaintiff’s injury for the defendant to be legally responsible for the plaintiff’s injury.
Whenever someone is injured in a Massachusetts car accident, they can pursue a claim for compensation through a Massachusetts personal injury lawsuit. When the allegedly at-fault party is a government employee, however, certain additional rules apply.
Anyone who has lived in Massachusetts over the winter season knows that the state gets it fair share of winter weather. Whether it be snow, freezing rain, or black ice, Massachusetts roads can get ugly between December and February, increasing the likelihood of a Massachusetts car accident.
In an important decision for Massachusetts wrongful death claims, a federal appellate court asked the Massachusetts Supreme Court to consider whether wrongful death claims brought by the decedent’s heirs can be bound by an arbitration agreement signed by the decedent or by someone else on the decedent’s behalf.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court recently issued a decision discussing whether a plaintiff could file an asbestos claim beyond the time period set forth in the statute in cases involving diseases with extended latency periods. In this case, the claim was filed after a man died in 2016 of mesothelioma after he was exposed to asbestos when he working on the construction of two nuclear power plants in the 1970s.
In a recent federal appellate case, a man was badly injured while he was operating a machine at work in Lakeville, Massachusetts. Evidently, the man mistakenly hit the foot pedal on the machine, causing the machine to activate, crushing his left hand. The machine was manufactured by Schechtl Maschinenbau, a German company, and was sold to the man’s employer by MetalForming, Inc., an American company. The man sued Schechtl and MetalForming in Massachusetts. Schechtl argued that it could not be sued in Massachusetts because there was no personal jurisdiction.
Some laws can lead to harsh results, but when courts apply these laws they generally do so because of an honestly held belief that they are enforcing the law exactly as it is written. In a recent slip-and-fall case before a Massachusetts appeals court, the court dismissed the claim even though the plaintiff claimed she could not have known who the responsible party was within the allotted time.
Massachusetts personal injury victims can suffer devastating consequences if an insurance company rejects their claims for coverage. In a recent case before the Appeals Court of Massachusetts, the court had to determine whether the plaintiff was considered a “household member” in order to be eligible for coverage.