Personal Injury Law

The following are our areas of specialty in the field of Personal Injury Law:

• Auto Accidents

• Truck Wrecks

• Wrongful Death

• Wrongful Arrest / Prosecution

• Slip / Trip and Fall

• Machine / Product Injuries

 

 

 

Auto Accidents

Nationwide, hundreds or thousands of people are injured or killed each day through the fault of negligent drivers. Negligent drivers can be at fault through not paying attention, by speeding, by driving when overly tired, through inexperience, or even through being distracted by cell phones or other devices. Negligent drivers that cause collisions can cause injuries ranging from neck or back strains, to broken bones, to paralysis, to death.

 

Victims of auto accidents caused by the fault of others invariably have medical expenses, lost time from work, pain, suffering, and worry — all of which provides a basis for recovery. Even the non-injured spouse of a person injured in an auto accident may be eligible for recovery.

Many auto accident cases settle. Some must be tried. The lawyers at King Simmons, PC, have settled auto accident cases on behalf of their clients, and have tried them when the insurance companies would not offer fair settlements. In one case, a young man the firm represented who had been catastrophically injured in an auto accident could not receive a fair settlement offer; the firm took his case to trial and secured a judgment on his behalf of $2,400,000.00.

 

Sometimes, we have to get creative. One client was on the job when he rear-ended a tractor trailer that had stopped suddenly to avoid hitting a car that abruptly decided to make a U-turn – and which then left the scene. We blamed that car and sued our client’s employer’s uninsured motorist vehicle insurance carrier. Terribly injured, our client secured a jury’s verdict of $4,611,294, and his wife was awarded an additional $250,000 by the same jury for the loss of her husband’s companionship.

 

 

 

Truck Wrecks

Every day, people are injured or killed through the fault of tractor-trailer drivers. The enormous semis that travel our highways often present extremely dangerous circumstances, even for the most skilled and cautious drivers. High speeds and heavily loaded trailers compound these dangers.

We have handled many cases involving clients injured or killed when a semi ran their vehicle off the road, crashed into them, or failed to use appropriate care on the roads and highways on which our families travel.

 

We recently concluded a case where a passenger sustained a broken neck as the result of the negligent lane change of a tractor trailer. The company we sued claimed that it had no trucks even in the area of the accident, but we were able to secure a settlement that pays out several million dollars despite that defense.

 

In late 2004, we secured a $2,000,000 judgment against a trucking company whose driver crossed the center line and sideswiped a jeep driven by our client — who was reporting for military duty in Afghanistan. His jeep spun into an oncoming truck, causing fatalities. Our client spent weeks in the hospital with broken bones and severe internal injuries but recuperated well enough to continue his military service, deploying for the Middle East later than scheduled, but honoring our country with his service nevertheless.

 

 

 

Wrongful Death

Alabama’s wrongful death laws are unique – only punitive damages are recoverable. When a family member has been killed in an accident, several steps must be taken promptly to have the estate properly opened and the claim properly pursued.

 

We have successfully handled a number of wrongful death cases, ranging in variety from auto accidents to claims against a day care center that failed to properly supervise its children to nursing home neglect. We have handled wrongful death claims against co-workers, truck drivers, product manufacturers, business owners, and a variety of other people or companies whose fault led to the unfortunate loss of human life.

Recent cases of note include the successful confidential settlement against a major utility of a lawsuit involving the death by drowning of the sub contractor's worker when he fell into a dangerous and unguarded canal on the work site. In another case, a large agricultural business was sued when its employee was involved in causing an auto accident while on the job; the horrific wreck killed a woman whose family we represented, and we resolved the case before trial in a manner that will pay the family significant amounts for years to come in a structured settlement.

 

 

 

Wrongful Arrest / Prosecution

In 1999, lawyers with King Simmons, PC, secured what is believed to be a record verdict in Alabama for wrongful prosecution, and did so against the world’s largest retailer – Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. The jury’s verdict of $3,200,000.00 reflected evidence uncovered by the firm’s lawyers that Wal-Mart may well have its security personnel on a type of “quota” system that rewards the personnel based on the number of customers arrested.

 

If a person has been wrongfully arrested or prosecuted and has been acquitted of criminal charges that result from that, the person can have valuable rights. The indignity of being wrongly jailed, the fear of looming criminal charges that have no basis, the damage to a person’s reputation – these concepts can give rise to an entitlement to significant compensation, and the imposition of punitive sanctions against the wrongdoer.

 

 

 

Slip / Trip and Fall

Premises owners do not always keep their property safe. Items are left in walkways, obstructions to safe passage are created, lighting is poor, work areas are left in dangerous conditions. As a result, people are injured, and sometimes even killed due to the property owner’s negligence.

 

The lawyers at King Simmons, PC, have handled cases presenting an extensive variety of conditions involved in causing injuries or death to their clients, ranging from irregular terrain and unguarded water hazards involved in causing a drowning, rolled carpet left in an aisle at a department store that led to an elderly client tripping and breaking her hip, negligently maintained parking lot where a gas station customer stepped out of her car into a hole and badly injured her knee, and all types of cases where customers have been injured at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, grocery stores, and other businesses.

 

 

 

Machine / Product Injuries

Sometimes, prescription drugs don’t do what they are supposed to do – with devastating side effects. Tire manufacturers sometimes send defective tires into the stream of commerce.

Industrial machinery is used without proper guards or safety features. Products, devices, and machines that we encounter on a daily basis can be the source of causing catastrophic injuries or even death, at work, at home, or anywhere else where dangerous products are encountered.

 

The lawyers at King Simmons, PC, have handled an extensive variety of cases involving claims that defective products caused injury or death. Our lawyers have also handled cases involving claims of defective design or manufacturing of motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles, contact lenses, all types of factory and plant equipment and machinery, food products, farm equipment, medical devices, and items as common and ordinary as a simple lifting hook (one of which failed and resulted in the loss of a client’s leg).