The family that was interested in international child adoption wanted a little girl, because they already had two boys. They had looked at two possible countries from which to adopt in China and Russia, and after much deliberation, decided on China. They fell in love with both little girls that they were thinking of adopting, but felt like the child from China was in a worse predicament and would benefit more from being a part of their family.

They made the trip to China having gone through every step of the international child adoption process and then drove to the village where the little girl lived. When they went to complete the process, they learned that the young girl had an uncle that was not willing to give her up. After hours of pleading, making phone calls and generally just trying to get something worked out, they realized that there was no use, and they returned home without the girl. I was at the airport when the couple of arrived, and it was one of the saddest sights I have ever seen.

After a few weeks of getting over the emotional trauma of making such a long trip and experiencing such disappointment, they revisited the little girl from Russia and learned that she was still available for adoption. They had almost completed the international child adoption process for her, but still had a little way to go, and it took them about another week to complete everything. Then they embarked on their second trip of several thousand miles within a few months in hopes of finally getting the daughter they so desperately wanted.

When they got to Russia, they quickly learned that the international child adoption process was nearly as complicated there as it had been in China, and, as we would later learn, ran into numerous logistical issues, including losing contact with their family and friends. Apparently, the husband had forgotten to bring his cell phone and the wife lost hers while in Russia. We again went to the airport and waited for their flight, but had no idea if they would be on it or if the little girl would be with them. Finally, the couple emerged with a little girl in the mother’s arms and practically every family member and friend burst into tears. International child adoption can be quite emotional, and that is something I saw first hand.

A post from: Great Articles

But not every slip or trip allows you to sue people for something. The law does recognize that you can’t make public places completely safe. Falling is a regular and normal part of life. For instance, in the Jennifer Lopez movie The Wedding Planner, Jennifer is crossing the street in expensive high-heeled shoes, when her heel gets stuck in a notch in a manhole cover set into the street. She doesn’t want to lose the shoe, and she desperately tries to free it as a car bears down on her.

Getting injured on drainage grates and other things that you should know about does not give you the right to sue.

When people build homes and public buildings in many individual ways, it’s very hard to define what exactly constitutes safe building and what doesn’t. Each case that comes up where a victim points a finger at the owner or builder of a place for how he slipped or tripped and hurt himself, the judge tries to decide the case on its individual merits. He tries to see if there was terrible carelessness that went into the building of the place.

If reasonable care by the victim couldn’t possibly have kept him safe, that’s when he wins.

In general, for the owner or management of a place to be held accountable, the victim has  to prove that he knew about a worn spot or torn carpet or slippery place or something and still chose to do nothing about it. Not every area of award carpet for the loose tile will get you something. He has been able to prove that anyone in the course of reasonable building maintenance, will have come across this.

Before you get all litigation-happy, you need to ask yourself tough direct questions the way an opposing counsel would, about what exactly caused the accident. Slip and fall cases have two because by and area of lose, torrent, bulging or damaged flooring bath has been around long enough that the owner could have noticed it. If the accident occurred because you tripped over something that was left somewhere, you have to think hard about whether the object had any reason to be there. If it did, you won’t have a case.

Whatever it was that caused the accident, you have to show that a simple warning sign or barrier could completely take care of it. Or else lighting could have helped to notice it.

So as you see, slip and fall cases aren’t as cut and dried as you might think.

A post from: Great Articles

You can’t for instance, trip on a drainage grate and then claim it was careless of them to have a grate around. Everyone knows that you have to be careful around drainage grates. Perhaps it might help if we looked at a couple of slip and fall lawsuits that could actually get somewhere in court.

Let’s say that you’re walking along an industrial area and you’re looking for a certain address that you can’t find. There’s no one on the street that you can ask directions of,  so you decide to go into what looks like a factory loading area.

Right out there, there’s a sign that says “Authorized personnel only”. And yet, you choose to go in to ask the loading clerk for directions. As you step in, it’s dark and you don’t see that there’s a quite a bit of spilled oil on the floor. You slip and you break your tailbone. Do you get to sue?

First, the fact that the place is poorly lit and there is oil there on the floor, would make you think that you had a viable case. But the factory could fight back. They would say that they had a sign out there. But then you could fight back and say that since the door was wide open and there was no doorbell or anything but which you could get their attention without entering, they were at fault. This case could go either way.

But say that you are at an airport. You’re walking past the food stall at the airport, when you step on a half eaten apple lying on the floor, fall and break the aforementioned tailbone. Is this one of those viable slip and fall lawsuits?

It may be that or it may not. The judge will probably ask to see some kind of evidence that the half eaten apple was there on the floor for long enough. He might order security footage to see if there was anything visible about how long it was there. If it was there only a short time, you may not have a case. On the other hand, if they find that the apple was on the floor because the garbage can was overflowing, having not been emptied in a long time, then you can really stick it to them.

Basically as you see, slip and fall lawsuits completely turn on reasonable responsibility. You have to be able to show that they didn’t take even a little bit of responsibility for what they were doing.

A post from: Great Articles

Even if such a thing hasn’t happened to you, it doesn’t hurt to know about what the law says about the process. It always helps to carry with you an idea of what to do in such a situation. Should something happen one day,you’ll be ready with all steps you need to take to consult a lawyer, to assert your legal claim and then to file a lawsuit.

But before he can do any of this, you really have to learn what the law says. A lot of people aren’t clear about what defamation means, because there are a number of similar sounding legal terms that they’ve heard of as well – like libel and slander. There are slight differences among these terms, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to learn the difference.

Defamation is the general all-inclusive concept – it refers to how someone at some point says something malicious and untruthful about you in public. When they just say it, they call it slander. When they print it, they call it libel. But basically, all of this together is called defamation.

If you believe that there are have been statements made against you that are detrimental to you, you really can consider filing a defamation lawsuit. But before you do so, getting an experienced attorney to take your side should be considered your first step. It isn’t easy proving defamation and it’s harder still getting remedial measures granted. You need someone who is truly experienced.

Once you have a lawyer and you have a certain amount of proof in hand that the the statements you claim were actually made against you, it’s time to file a complaint. You need to go to the court, fill in the necessary paperwork and file your complaint. Of course, your lawyer will do this for you.
As your case progresses, you’ll have to prepare a list, with your lawyer’s help, of all the ways in which you have lost something as a result of the defamatory behavior of the person you’re suing.

The basic idea is that the person you’re suing, made false statements against you to other people, and that these statements harmed you. It has to be proved to the court that the harm you’vesuffered is significant. It is just enough to point to imaginary harm or mental pain and suffering. You need to point to actual losses you have suffered – a lost job, a failed marriage and so on.

A post from: Great Articles

Corporations are always very anxious to not put out the image that they are easy targets. They serve very large areas – sometimes the whole world. They have millions and millions of customers everywhere. If they let on that they can be had, they’re going to be drowned in lawsuits all over. So they try to fight very hard.

But they don’t always stick a battery of high-priced lawyers on you for everything. If you have a small claim, you can expect to see them in small claims court. But you’d better make sure that you live in a place where the law requires that people represent themselves in these cases.

You’ll have to go ask your local courthouse about whether they require people to represent themselves when it’s a very small amount of compensation that is on the line. In other places, you can find yourself staring at four high-priced lawyers wearing Armani suits, arguing that you shouldn’t get $73.12 in damages.

It’s really important that you try to find out what the policy is on how to sue a company for small claims in your jurisdiction. Because if the other party is going to be hiring a lawyer,  you might as well, too.  if you want to not have to pay a great deal in lawyer’s fees, make sure that you do quite a bit of the work yourself.

Get as much as the relevant paperwork together as you can, learn about what part of the corporation you need to sue – the headquarters in another city or the local branch – and learn about the specific person in the company whom you will name in your lawsuit. It’s very easy to get an old name from an outdated directory on the company website.

A lot of this information, you’ll probably be able to get what from your attorney at your first meeting with him. The first meeting is likely to be a free feeler meeting. You’ll learn something about the specifics of how to sue a company. Some lawyers will be willing to take you on a contingency basis sensitive on an hourly basis. This means that they will work for you for free until the verdict comes in. When you’re awarded something, they’ll get a generous percentage of that.

A post from: Great Articles

Doctors are protected by their malpractice insurance company. They will likely have all kinds of experts going over your case with a tooth comb. And so, your first step learning how to sue a doctor, will involve finding every way possible to put good information together that could help build your case.

Just think about it – if you are the victim of medical malpractice now and you are thinking about how to sue a doctor, don’t you wish that when you first started out accepting treatment from the doctor, that you had thought to make a note of everything that transpired? As you sit there now trying to think of everything that happened, as you find that your memory fails you, don’t you wish you had written everything down? If only you had thought about it then.

Let this be a lesson to everyone who accepts major treatment from a doctor. From the moment you first step into a doctor’s clinic, you want to pay close attention to everything he’s saying, and as soon as you step out, you want to write it down in a diary.

In fact, you want to buy a notebook or a diary just for this purpose and note things down step-by-step. Should you ever need to sue the doctor, the jury will be very impressed with your recordkeeping. They’ll think that you couldn’t possibly be telling untruths. That kind of trust is important.

There can be so much complexity involved in collecting all the relevant information and interpreting it and putting it together into a lawsuit. It is usually not a good idea to do it yourself. In most cases, if you don’t want your costs to run out of hand, tryg to get a lawyer who will take your case on on a contingency basis.

When this happens, instead he ofcharging you like a regular client, he will work for free at first, and get a generous percentage of whatever settlement or damages you win. Of course, this would be much higher than an hourly arrangement would work out to. But if you d not win a generous settlement, it can be very cheap.

Make sure that you get someone who is experienced in the kind of medical malpractice you’re thinking of. If it’s cancer practice that you’re interested in, get someone who’s experienced in it.

A post from: Great Articles