Boston Injury Lawyer Blog

On highways outside of Boston and Route 128, Massachusetts raised the posted speed limit to 65 miles per hour. This was a result of legislation passed in 1995 whereby Congress allowed Massachusetts and other states to raise the posted speed limit. The Law Office of Neil Burns has represented hundreds of individuals injured as a result of speeding vehicles. Massachusetts raised the posted speed limit to 65 mph first on the Massachusetts Turnpike. President Richard M. Nixon established a 55 mph national speed limit on highways during the oil crisis in the 1970s to reduce the country's reliance on imported crude oil. He signed the legislation on Jan. 2, 1974. Thus, some 20 years later, states were then able to set their own speed limits.

Fifteen years after the national speed limit was repealed, some believe going slower on highways is a way to conserve energy and fuel consumption, and remain safer on the roadways. Meanwhile, others maintain that increasing the speed limit has not increased speed-related crashes and does not conserve energy. According to a 2008 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, of the 34,017 fatal crashes in 2008, 6,908 were reported at speed limits at 60 mph or higher, and 9,794 at 55 mph. In Massachusetts, the number of traffic fatalities went down 16 percent in 2008, from 434 in 2007 to 363. Of that number, there were seven speed-related fatalities reported on interstates with speed limits above, at or below 55 mph. The highest number of speed-related fatalities -- 30 -- were reported at speeds of less than 35 mph.

Continue reading "Massachusetts Speed Limits and Traffic Safety" »

The New Year brought good news to Boston and Massachusetts residents. The Massachusetts state fire marshal says 35 people were killed by fire in Massachusetts last year, the lowest number in nearly seven decades. As Massachusetts attorneys, we have represented victims of fire in wrongful death cases and serious burn cases.

Massachusetts State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan attributed the low number to a variety of factors, including the widespread use of smoke detectors; fire-safe cigarette laws; public education campaigns that also target children; better training of firefighters and paramedics; and better burn treatment at hospitals. Coan said smoke detectors are the first ingredient in home fire safety. Also important is holding home fire drills so everyone knows how to leave safely, he said.

Coan's office says 17 men, 13 women, and five children died in residential, car and outdoor fires in 2009. That was down from 49 in 2008, and the lowest number since the early 1940s. Coan said smoking remains the leading cause of fire deaths. The number of smoking-related fire fatalities dropped from 17 in 2007 to eight in 2009.

Remarkably, Boston, the largest city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, reported no fire-related deaths in 2009, the fire marshal's office reported. There were four in Springfield, the state's third-largest city, and one in Worcester, the second-largest city. In addition, there were no fire-related deaths of firefighters in 2009, Coan said.

The U.S. Fire Safety Administration says Massachusetts has one of the lowest fire death rates in the nation. We remain dedicated to keeping our clients informed of any and all safety information.

Safety Insurance Group, Inc., a leading Boston based writer of personal automobile insurance in Massachusetts, recently announced that it has reached an agreement with the Massachusetts Attorney General's office to change the way in which it calculated motorcycle insurance premiums for certain types of coverage dating back to January 1, 2002. Wherefore, our clients and all Massachusetts residents who own and insure their motorcycles in the Commonwealth may be getting a refund.

Policyholders whose premiums would have been greater under the method agreed with the Attorney General will not be billed for additional premiums. Policyholders who would have been charged less will receive a refund in exchange for a release of any claims they might have against Safety related to the premium calculations.

According to Safety's outside counsel, Peter Rice, "Although we disagreed with the Attorney General on a number of points, we believe that after extensive discussions Safety has arrived at a resolution of the issue and an agreement with the Attorney General's office that provides for the best interests of Safety's policyholders. Safety had followed standard practices generally used by many Massachusetts insurance companies to calculate appropriate premiums for motorcycle coverages. It cooperated fully with the Attorney General's review of those industry-wide practices and participated in the development of the new method."

Safety is working with the Attorney General's office to identify the policies on which refunds will be issued and the amount of the refunds to each individual policyholder. Safety will notify policyholders of the amount of any refunds offered and, upon receipt of the appropriate releases from the policyholders, intends to issue the refund checks in August 2010.

If you have any questions regarding your right to a refund and how the refunds are calculated, contact your insurance agent. At the Law Office of Neil Burns, we are committed to insuring our clients remained informed regarding insurance policies and practices whereby the consumer's best interest may have been jeopardized.

Choose a qualified lawyer if you have been injured as the result of the negligence of a landlord, restaurant, parking lot owner and other private business owner. These cases include slip and fall injuries, burn injuries, and many other type of injuries our clients are the victims of.

Attorney Neil Burns has represented families and loved ones who are victims as a result of negligent maintenance of premises for decades. Massachusetts law protects victims who are injured as a result of accidents caused by the negligence of land and business owners: especially when they knew or should have know about the condition causing the injury.

Often our clients need to recover damages for pain and suffering, loss of earning capacity, hospital and medical bills, and emotional losses.

We are experienced in working with clients who have suffered injuries from a host of accident sites - buildings where they live or work, stores where they shop, inadequate security, and falling products. We work aggressively to gather information and fight the insurance companies who often blame the victim.

Slip and fall victims in Massachusetts are the beneficiary of new law. Massachusetts has adopted a new standard regarding premises liability law with regard to grocery stores, for example, and other self-service retailers. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the state's highest court, sitting in Boston, Massachusetts, decided Sheehan v. Roche Brothers Supermarkets, Inc., which lightens the victim's burden of proof in slip and fall cases.

In Sheehan, the plaintiff slipped on a grape inside a supermarket sustaining significant injuries that required a month of hospitalization. In reversing a decision for the defendant, the Supreme Judicial Court adopted a new approach to premises liability. Previously, Massachusetts followed the traditional approach for premises liability cases. That is, a store owner simply had to "maintain its property in a reasonably safe condition in view of all of the circumstances, including the likelihood of injury to others, the seriousness of the injury, and the burden of avoiding the risk." Thus, a store owner could only be held liable for an injury if the store owner knew or should of known of the dangerous condition and had sufficient time to fix the condition.

In deciding against this approach, however, the Court stated that stores had changed the way they do business from individualized clerk-assisted retail stores to self-service retailers. Due to this change, the Court stated that focus should be on the reasonable foreseeability of a patron's carelessness. Consequently, where a store's chosen mode of operation makes it reasonably foreseeable that a dangerous condition will occur, a store owner may be held liable for injuries if the plaintiff proves that the store owner failed to take reasonable precautions necessary to protect him or her from the foreseeable dangerous condition.

Thus, in order to prove a claim the plaintiff must do the following: (1) show the injury was attributable to a reasonably foreseeable dangerous condition on the owner's premises that is related to the owner's self-service mode of operation; (2) show the owner failed to take reasonable measures, commensurate with the risk involved, to prevent the injury; and (3) persuade a jury that the owner acted unreasonably. At the Law Office of Neil Burns, we represent clients injured in slip and fall accidents and are dedicated to protecting their rights.

In 2008, Boston, Massachusetts was the twenty-first largest city in the United States. We have seen our share of this in our personal injury practice. Because Boston is such a large city, a number of pedestrian accidents happen each year. In fact, more than 5,000 pedestrians die each year in the United States because they are hit by motor vehicles or bicycles.

To be safe when sharing sidewalks and streets, it's important to be aware of your surroundings. By taking simple precautions, you can prevent injuries and possible death. Three of the most common accidents involving vehicles and pedestrians are caused when pedestrians make the following mistakes:

Continue reading "Avoiding Pedestrian Injuries in Massachusetts" »

Our blog normally does not comment on pending legislation and the political process, however, the bill passed by the Massachusetts House of Representatives in Boston on February 4, 2010, would make it safer for drivers. Period. We would be the seventh state to outlaw the use of cell phones without a hands free device. Thus, drivers would be able to keeps their hands on the wheel and their attention on the road.

While the bill now faces the Massachusetts Senate, and the various lobbyists for and against the proposed law will present their focus there. For example, the AARP will oppose the portion of the bill that imposes a greater penalty on younger and older drivers; the bill imposes a fine of $100 for the first offense on all drivers; however, drivers under 18 who violate the law would have their licenses suspended. The proposed legislation also allows insurance companies to impose surcharges on violators. We would submit to the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys as to how to respond to new powers to the local insurance industry.

Notwithstanding the process, we would urge our readers and our legislators to hammer out any problems and pass a law that makes our roads safer for all of us.

Under new Department of Transportation regulations, truckers in Massachusetts may not use any device to text message others while operating commercial vehicles. This new federal regulation has come about (not because of common sense, as you would think) but as a result of numerous fatal accidents. The most notorious offense was when two Washington, D.C Metro workers were struck and killed by a maintenance truck, the driver of which was found to be texting; other collisions occur with distractions as well. Fines can be imposed up to $2,750 for truck drivers caught texting. The DOT noted a study that found that while texting, drivers remove their eyes from the road for 4.6 seconds out of 6 seconds.

This follows an Executive Order of October 1, 2009 stating that federal employees "shall not engage in text messaging" when driving. The Order applies to all civilian federal employees. The law existed in California since January 1, 2009.

The new law, however, is broader, as it applies to all citizens, public and private. The DOT has ample research on texting and other driver distraction issues for public use.