New Pennsylvania Driving Laws You Need To Know About

This week is Highway Safety Law Awareness Week in Pennsylvania, and lawmakers are spreading the word about some new rules of the road you should know about. Highway Safety Law Awareness Week runs from Feb. 19-25.

Here are four driving laws passed recently in Pennsylvania you should know about:

The “Child Passenger Safety” Law Update

In August 2016, Pennsylvania updated its Child Passenger Safety Law, making it mandatory for children to be buckled into a rear-facing car seat until they are age 2 or meet the maximum weight or height requirements set by the manufacturer of the seat.

Daniel's Law

Honoring motorcyclist Daniel Gallatin, who died in 2013, this law was signed in January 2017. It increases the penalty for texting while driving resulting in serious bodily injury or death.

Ignition Interlock Law

Second or subsequent DUI offenders will be required to install an Ignition Interlock system in every car they operate or lease for more than a year. Each system costs $1,000. The law will go into effect in August 2017.

Pedestrian Safety Laws

A driver of a vehicle emerging from or entering an alley, building, private road or driveway shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian approaching on any sidewalk extending across the alley, building entrance, road or driveway. Failure to do so could lead to a fine and three points on the driver’s license. It is illegal to overtake or pass a vehicle yielding to a pedestrian within a crosswalk. Pedestrians are also required to use the sidewalk and marked crosswalks where provided. When there is no sidewalk, pedestrians should walk along the shoulder or the road’s edge as far away from traffic as possible and in the opposite direction of traffic.

New laws like these are designed enhance the public’s safety on Pennsylvania’s roadways. If you or a loved one are injured as a result of a motor vehicle accident, our attorneys can help. Get your free consultation by calling 1-800-444-5309.

What is a Dram Shop?

A dram shop claim often represents one component of a vehicular accident case involving a DUI or DWI. For example, if you were injured by a drunk driver to whom a bar sold alcohol when he or she was obviously intoxicated, your dram shop claim would be against that bar. In fact, even if the accident is the persons fault who drank the intoxicating alcohol, on some occasions the entity who served the alcohol can still be held accountable. 

One American dies every 30 minutes in an alcohol-related traffic crash, meaning that drunk driving shows its face in 41 percent of the country’s traffic fatalities. Three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives. States enacted “dram shop” laws to help prevent some of these tragedies.

What is a Dram Shop?

In 18th Century England, thousands of so-called “gin-shops” sold homemade gin by the dram (about a spoonful). When the King of England decided to tax the sale of gin, these “dram shops” quickly went underground in an effort to avoid paying taxes. Today’s legal system considers any establishment selling liquor illegally as a modern day equivalent of these “dram shops” of the 1700’s.
Furthermore, the law holds these establishments responsible for the dangerous actions of an intoxicated person when they have illegally sold liquor to that person. In addition to bars and liquor stores, these establishments can include restaurants, social clubs, and even private events, public events, stadiums, golf courses, shooting outings and any place where liquor is sold.

When are Dram Shops Liable?

Generally, dram shops are liable when they have violated a law or regulation in the state where the liquor was served. While selling liquor to an obviously intoxicated customer represents the most common dram shop violation, the illegal sale of intoxicating beverages can take other forms, such as:

• Selling alcohol without a license to do so;
• Selling alcohol after hours; or
• Selling alcohol to a minor.

Our accident lawyers can help you determine if a dram shop violation played a role in your car, van, motorcycle or bicycle accident.

Dram shop laws vary state by state. While a few states impose no dram shop liability or restrict that liability to cases involving sales to minors or known alcoholics, most states do recognize some form of dram shop liability.

How Will We Protect Your Rights?

In order to protect your rights, we act quickly when pursuing a dram shop case. Verifying the obvious intoxication of a patron often relies on the eyewitness testimony of employees and other patrons who were present. By locating and interviewing these witnesses quickly, we avoid potentially losing track of the witnesses as well as the possible blurring of memory as time passes.
The statute of limitations governing the dram shop portion of an accident case can differ from those that apply to the rest of the case. If a dram shop claim is not made within that time frame, you can potentially lose the right to pursue the claim at all.
To contact The Pisanchyn Law Firm about a potential dram shop claim, call toll-free at 1-800-444-5309 or fill in our online-consultation form.

Personal Injury Myths - Lawsuits Make Consumer Costs Rise

Punitive damages, or exemplary damages as they are sometimes referred to, are noneconomic damages for things such as pain and suffering. Punitive damages generally fall under anything related to the case that doesn’t have a fixed bill.

Juries normally decide on the amount of punitive damages that are paid out to the injured party. If a judge feels the punitive damage amount is excessive the judge can reduce the amount.

Punitive damages are not meant to reward the victim (the injured party), rather they are fines for disregarding human safety. This could be against a business selling a defective or dangerous product, against a medical professional who didn’t practice up to the standard of care they are required to, or against a driver who was too busy texting to pay attention to the road.

History has proven that financial punishment is the best way to prevent future wrongful behavior and to encourage change to any current wrongful behavior. Punitive damages only punish the party who has participated in wrongful behavior; they do not affect the general public or the economy in any way.

Yes, punitive damages are taken from businesses at times, but only when that business has knowingly participated in wreckless outrageous behavior endangering the general public. Yes, their costs as a business can go up, but only to correct any defective device or product they are selling. Costs to consumers do not go up, generally, unless the fix has added an extra cost to the product.

There are limitations on punitive damages that help protect the cost of doing business so prices do not have to go up.

In addition consumer costs rising, it is also a common belief that medical malpractice lawsuits cause an increase in health care and health insurance costs. This is not true. 

In Pennsylvania, there are only about 1500 - 1600 medical malpractice lawsuits per year. Most of them are lost, despite medical negligence in hospitals being the 3rd highest cause of death in the United States.

Top 10 most frequently cited OSHA standards violated in 2015

The following were the top 10 most frequently cited standards by Federal OSHA in fiscal year 2015:

1. Fall protection, construction
2. Hazard communication standard, general industry
3. Scaffolding, general requirements, construction
4. Respiratory protection, general industry
5. Control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), general industry
6. Powered industrial trucks, general industry
7. Ladders, construction
8. Electrical, wiring methods, components and equipment, general industry
9. Machinery and Machine Guarding, general requirements
10. Electrical systems design, general requirements, general industry

Can I Get Compensation After a Winter Weather Accident?

Can I Get Compensation After a Winter Weather Accident?

Many people may be under the mistaken impression that simply because poor weather conditions contributed to an accident, victims may not be able to recover for their injuries. In fact, an insurance company may try and claim that the accident in which you were involved was unavoidable and did not reflect negligence on the part of the other driver. The truth of the matter is that negligence is complicated legal concept, and you should have the circumstances of your case reviewed by an attorney regardless of what any insurance company says.

In the context of the law governing car accidents, “negligence” has a very specific meaning. All drivers have a duty to operate their vehicles as would a reasonable person in similar circumstances. The determination of “reasonableness” is at the heart of most personal injury cases and may require the raising of complicated legal arguments.

For example, while driving your vehicle at or near the speed limit would likely be deemed “reasonable” on a clear, sunny day, the same is almost certainly not true for those driving in a Pennsylvania snowstorm. So, while the insurance company may claim that another car skidded into you simply due to snow accumulation and the collision was unavoidable, the reality is that the other driver may have been following too closely or driving too fast for the conditions. An attorney will investigate the circumstances of your accident and uncover any evidence of negligence should it exist.

Some common examples of driver negligence in poor weather conditions include the following:

• Driving too fast in light of the conditions
• Failing to use headlights
• Improper vehicle maintenance
• Failure to use windshield wipers
• Taking turns too quickly

If you’ve been injured in a winter weather accident, you could be eligible for compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and in some cases even pain and suffering.

Call the accident injury attorneys at Pisanchyn Law Firm today. We’re available 24/7, and there is never a fee unless we win your case. Call 1-800-444-5309 for a free consultation.

Lithium Ion Battery Explosions

Recently, we wrote about the Samsung Galaxy 7 explosions. These phones are back on the shelf after the company recalled millions of phones and fixed the manufacturing defect that caused these explosions. But why are more and more lithium-ion batteries having this same issue?

Lithium-ion batteries have been making this kind of news for years—they’ve caused fires in hoverboards, laptops, in other phones, and even in the electrical system of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner jumbo jet.

So why, 25 years after the batteries hit the market, are lithium-ion batteries still prone to these problems? And when will engineers finally have a solution?

Manufacturing defects are often the cause of these explosions and apparently that was the situation with the Note7 phones. Here are some other common causes of these explosions:

• The batteries are charged too quickly.
• The batteries are charged with the wrong accessory.
• The walls separating batteries erode, spurring a chemical reaction that causes an explosion.

Other devices that have had this issue lately include:

• Vape Pens—Whether you refer to them as vape pens or e-cigarettes, the lithium-ion batteries powering the electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) are prone to explosions. According to federal statistics, there have been 126 reports of e-cigarettes overheating, spewing flames or exploding, causing users burns (some required skin grafts) and other injuries.
• Hoverboards—Hoverboards were last year's hot buy, but they made headlines for the wrong reasons after their lithium-ion batteries began overheating and catching fire. A consumer took legal action recently against Amazon after a Hoverboard purchased from the online retailer exploded and the ensuing fire destroyed his million-dollar home.
• Computers—After reports surfaced of computers overheating and in some cases, even melting, HP this past summer recalled 50,000 Compaq, HP ProBook, HP Envy and other computer models.

If you're using a product powered by lithium-ion batteries, there are a few simple steps you can take to lower your risk of having it catch fire or explode:

• Keep them cool. Don't store devices in hot cars or other extreme temperatures. Safety experts even recommend keeping your cell phone somewhere other than your pocket because they can get too warm from your body heat.
• Keep them separated. If one lithium battery explodes, one that is stored nearby may also catch fire. Keep your devices powered by lithium-ion batteries in separate places.
• Use the correct charger. If you use any charger except the one the device came with, you could be at a greater risk of a fire and/or explosion.

We know that no matter how careful you are, accidents sometimes happen. When it comes to exploding devices, sometimes it's not your fault.

If you've been injured by an exploding vape pen, cell phone or other device powered by a lithium ion battery, you could be eligible for money to compensate you for medical bills, lost wages, and in some cases even pain and suffering.

Call the product injury attorneys at Pisanchyn Law Firm today. We’re available 24/7,and there is never a fee unless we win your case. Call 1-800-444-5309 for a free consultation.

Most Common Workplace Injury: Hearing Loss

Hearing loss is now the most common workplace injury in the United States—and those who work in the construction or manufacturing industries are often the most at-risk of suffering auditory damage.

Sometimes, people hear a high-pitched humming noise because of exposure to loud noises at work. Other times, people can't hear much other than muffled conversation following a shift operating loud machinery. Too often, workers subjected to sustained levels of moderate to loud noise suffer permanent hearing damage.

• 22 million – The number of workers exposed to damaging levels of noise at work each year.
• 4 million – The number of workers who are exposed to damaging levels of noise each day in the United States.
• $1.5 million – The amount U.S. businesses were forced to pay in penalties for not adequately protecting their workers from damaging levels of noise at work.
• $242 million – The amount of money spent each year on workers' compensation claims related to hearing loss.

The workers' compensation attorneys at Pisanchyn Law Firm know all too well how an on-the-job injury can have lasting—sometimes even lifelong—consequences. We've represented thousands of injured workers and we can tell you this: All too often, workers suffer on-the-job injuries that are absolutely no fault of their own.

Advanced technologies to help prevent hearing loss in the workplace already exist. However, because of cost and other considerations, many companies do not seek out that technology.

Worse, many workers in construction and manufacturing often work without protective equipment like earplugs. This is because their employers never trained them on the risks associated with being subjected to long periods of loud noise.

Do you work in construction, manufacturing or another field where you are subjected to loud noises during the course of your work day? If so, don't delay seeking treatment if you suspect you are suffering from work-related hearing loss.

You should contact a doctor if you:

• Find it increasingly more difficult to understand a conversation—especially when there is background noise or if you are in a crowded room.
• Sounds seem muffled and you can't make out consonant sounds.
• Find yourself cranking up the volume of your television, cell phone or radio to properly hear what's being broadcast.

If you or someone you love is the victim of a workplace injury, don't make a call to the doctor the only one you make. Call Pisanchyn Law Firm—our skilled workers' compensation attorney will answer all of your questions and help you through this difficult time.