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When a person is injured in an accident caused by someone else’s negligence, the injured person has an obligation to take reasonable steps to minimize the effects of their injuries. This is known as the “plaintiff’s duty to mitigate damages.” This rule denies a personal injury plaintiff the right to recover any part of his or her damages which the court or a jury finds could reasonably have been avoided. A personal injury plaintiff’s obligation is to act in a way that an ordinary, reasonable person would have in a similar situation. Further, an injured person must act in good faith and with due diligence in the exercise of ordinary care and reasonable judgment when selecting a doctor or treatment for his or her injuries and in seeking alternative employment. A defendant in a personal injury suit will often attempt to reduce the number of damages that the plaintiff can recover by showing that the plaintiff failed to take reasonable steps to reduce his or her loss following the injury.

Below are four of the most common ways that personal injury plaintiffs can inadvertently sabotage their damages awards.

1. Choosing Not to Have Surgery

Before we get into the specifics of how to give a deposition, it might be helpful to explain what a deposition is. During the pre-trial stage of the litigation, each side must go through a process called “discovery” to learn facts and gather evidence that will deter define their strategies and avoid delays once the trial begins. Depositions are a part of the discovery process. At a deposition, the opposing side’s attorneys will ask the witness, or deponent, a series of questions about facts and events related to the lawsuit, and the entire deposition will be recorded word-for-word by a court reporter. The reporter is present throughout the session and will produce a transcript at a later time. All parties to a case may attend a deposition, including the deponent’s attorneys. The attorneys for the deponent may make objections to some of the questions being asked by the opposing counsel, but, generally, the deponent is obligated to answer all questions.

A deposition could be as short as an hour or as long as a week or more and, depending on the facts of the case, can be quite stressful for the deponent. As such, it is important that the deponent and his or her lawyer prepare adequately before a deposition. Below, we’ll share a few tips that will help your deposition go as smoothly as possible.

1. Always tell the truth: This is the most important element to any deposition. Lying in a deposition constitutes perjury, which is a felony. It can also damage your case if the truth comes out later at trial.

Millions of people go out for dinner or a beer every day without incurring an injury from the food they are consuming. When you go out to eat at a restaurant, you put your trust in the hands of the bartender or chef on duty. One thing that you would not expect is to leave with an injury derived from ingesting a dangerous chemical. A man whose esophagus and stomach were severely burned when he drank a beer tainted by a caustic chemical at an Atlantic City, New Jersey casino restaurant has been awarded $750,000 by a jury. The jury awarded the man, Richard Washart, $650,000 for pain and suffering and $100,000 for emotional distress caused by the accident, according to his attorney Paul D’Amato. The incident occurred at McCormick & Schmick’s, a popular chain of seafood restaurants, inside Harrah’s casino in Atlantic City.The chemical in question was a caustic agent that the restaurant used to clean its beer tap lines.

Washart, who is a former Ocean City, New Jersey police lieutenant, said he took a sip of the beer he had been served and noted that he immediately felt a burning pain in his mouth, throat, and stomach. After this, he went to the bathroom, where he experienced the first of six rounds of projectile vomiting. He tried to drink water from a faucet but was unable to do so because of the pain in his mouth and throat. A short time later, he began vomiting blood and was taken to a hospital. A doctor informed him that he had never seen a patient survive with such severe burns to their esophagus and stomach.

McCormick & Schmick’s shifted the blame for the incident to the company it uses to clean its beer lines, Kramer Beverage Co., which denied being at the restaurant when Washart drank the beer. Washart’s attorney also faulted Kramer Beverage, noting that the company doesn’t follow industry recommendations to use pH testing strips that cost 15 cents each to check beer after lines have been cleaned. But he also said the restaurant violated New Jersey’s Adulterated Food Act by serving a tainted brew.

A startling number of people are affected by drunk drivers, and in some cases, are able to collect significant damages for their injuries. A West Virginia jury has awarded more than $1.5 million to a woman who suffered life-threatening injuries as a result of a drunk driving accident that occurred in December of 2014. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a young woman against the drunk driver and the Beallsville, West Virginia American Legion. The young woman, who was 21 at the time of the accident, alleged the drunk driver was a patron of the bar and that the bar continued to serve her alcohol after she became visibly intoxicated. The victim was traveling home after dropping off a friend from a day of Christmas shopping when she was involved in a head-on collision with the drunk driver.

The black box recovered from the drunk driver’s vehicle showed that she was traveling 70 miles per hour when her vehicle went over the center line of the highway and hit the victim head-on. The drunk driver’s blood alcohol content (BAC) level was found to be more than two times the legal limit at the time of the crash. The victim was life-flighted to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia, with bleeding on the brain, a ruptured spleen, lacerated liver, broken arm, dislocated elbow, fractured femur, and other serious injuries. She still suffers from long-term physical and non-physical health problems and significant scarring as a result of the crash. She will require medical treatment for the rest of her life.

The victim’s attorney stated that “the people of Monroe County delivered a strong message to drunk drivers and the business who [sic] serve visibly intoxicated patron; it’s not okay, and you will be held accountable.” Similar to many states, including Georgia, West Virginia has a dram shop law that holds businesses accountable for serving alcohol to a visibly intoxicated patron. These types of laws also hold businesses responsible for serving anyone under the age of 21 who is involved in a drunk driving crash. Georgia’s dram shop law imposes liability on any person who:

In a series of end-of-term decisions by the Supreme Court, one decision has quietly made it harder for plaintiffs from diverse states to sue an out-of-state defendant in a class action lawsuit. The case, titled Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court, alters the rules governing the procedures whereby a particular state’s courts can exercise jurisdiction over litigants who do not live in that state. Before we discuss the case at issue, we’ll first give a general overview of how courts decide which cases they can hear.

A Primer on Personal Jurisdiction

In International Shoe v. Washington, the Supreme Court held that a particular state court (known as the “forum state”) could exercise jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants if the defendant had “minimum contacts” with the state. In subsequent cases, the court found that there are two ways of finding “minimum contacts.” The first is “general jurisdiction,” which requires the defendant to have “systematic and continuous contacts” with the forum state such that the defendant is at “home” in the state. If the defendant’s actions meet this test, then he or she can be sued for any actions in the state. The second is “specific jurisdiction,” which allows lawsuits against an out-of-state defendant only if the suit “arises out of or relates to the defendant’s contact with the forum” state.

No one is ever truly prepared for a car accident—you’re simply driving along, maybe listening to your favorite song, and out of nowhere your life changes in an instant. Although every accident is different, there are some important steps you need to take after you’ve been involved in one to make sure that the police and insurance companies have all of the information they need to make a determination of fault and compensate the victims. If an accident is particularly serious, you may even need to hire an attorney.

Let’s take a look at the steps you need to take immediately after an accident and when you might want to consider hiring an attorney.

What to Do After a Car Accident

Distracted driving is the number one cause of accidents in the United States. In fact, according to a study by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), about 80% of auto accidents are caused by some kind of distraction occurring within three seconds of the accident. Because of the rapid rise of texting as most people’s primary form of communication in recent years, it has become a serious factor in distracted driving accidents.

By the Numbers

Roughly a third of drivers between the ages of 18 and 64 report reading or writing text messages while they are driving. This can cause serious problems—the average length of time a driver can safely glance away from the road is two seconds; however, most drivers who are texting take their eyes off of the road for an average of 5 seconds. This makes drivers who are texting 400% more likely to be involved in an accident than drivers who are not.  All in all, there were a total of of 341,000 motor vehicle crashes involving texting in 2013, resulting in about 8 deaths per day. The age group that is most likely to send a text or an email while driving is 21-24.