Lafayette Louisiana Personal Injury Law blog

The losses associated with car accidents can range in severity. Some Louisiana residents will only experience damaged property, while others will experience physical and/or emotional trauma due to personal injury or the death of a loved one. Following motor vehicle accidents, victims or their surviving family members have every right to question if compensation is available to them and how much they can get.

Recoverable damages are different in every case. When insurance providers look at paying out settlements to victims, they will look at a number of factors. Some of these are:

• Policyholder coverage
• Property damages
• Cost of immediate medical care

Law enforcement authorities in Louisiana were called to the scene of an accident involving an impaired driver and a pregnant woman. This incident occurred in a parking garage in Baton Rouge on July 31. The victim of this incident may be entitled to seek compensation for her losses through legal means, which is true for victims of most motor vehicle accidents.

According to reports, a 17-year-old male was high on LSD and speeding through the parking garage when he lost control and hit a parked car. The victim was in the process of entering that parked car when it was hit. She became pinned between her vehicle and the one parked next to it. Rescue teams had to free her. She was transported to the hospital with serious injuries, and it has been reported that she may possibly miscarry as a result of her injuries.

Numerous women in Louisiana choose to go to medical facilities when they are in labor. They do this for a number of reasons, but the biggest reason is so that they have trained medical professionals on hand if anything goes wrong. Unfortunately, too many women end up experiencing fatal or critical birth injuries due to a hospital staff not taking appropriate actions before and after complications arise. What should hospitals be doing to prevent mothers from experiencing birth injury?

According to a recent report, roughly 50,000 of women in the United States suffer injuries during childbirth every single year and approximately 700 die. In a country with highly sophisticated medical care, this should not be happening. It is, though, because too many medical providers are skipping basic safety practices -- such as weighing feminine pads in order to track a woman's blood loss or giving blood control medicine within an hour of noting a high blood pressure reading. Who is to blame? Medical providers who skip these steps or hospitals for not having these safety practices included in their standard protocols -- or both?

A man in another state recently filed a lawsuit against a cruise ship company for injuries he says he suffered while as a passenger. As maritime law applies in this case, the lawsuit has been filed in federal court. Louisiana residents who find themselves in similar situations as this gentleman can turn to an attorney who has experience handling maritime cases in the federal court arena.

According to a recent news report, the plaintiff took a cruise in June 2016. While aboard the Spirit of Norfolk, he was playing a game of cornhole and fell because he was not able to slide his feet on the type of flooring laid in that part of the vessel. The report did not specify what type of injuries the victim experienced. It was only noted that he is seeking $375,000 in damages.