Nitro Legal Blog

People often think of falls from heights, such as falling off of a ladder, as the real danger. While these falls are dangerous, it's important to remember that even a simple slip-and-fall incident on the same level can lead to serious injuries. You do not have to be at any substantial height. Even slipping on a wet tile floor in a local store can be enough to cause a significant head injury.

The most common TBI, or traumatic brain injury, is a concussion. For instance, if you slip and fall backward, striking your head on the tile floor as you go down, your skull's job is to protect your brain. It may do so, preventing an open injury, but the brain can still get jarred against the inside of the skull. This is what leads to a concussion, and you could lose consciousness, have no memory of the incident or need extensive medical care.

In many car accident cases, the assumption is that the driver who caused the crash is liable. There are minor exceptions to this, such as when a manufacturer defect causes an accident, but that's rare. Usually, the driver just makes a mistake.

With truck accidents, though, there are a lot of different questions to ask. Since that truck driver was employed by a trucking company and working at the time of the crash, is the company also liable?

Move from one room to another in any home or building and you may see a lot of changes in the flooring materials being used. It could be from a carpeted hallway to a tiled bathroom in a hotel, for instance, or just from one type of tile to another. Flooring around fireplaces is often made of stone and sits higher than the floor around it. Wood floors often switch over to tile or laminate -- or a composite material -- in the kitchen.

We often think of these things as mere cosmetic changes. However, when you look at common examples, you can quickly see a theme: The flooring changes can create a trip-and-fall hazard.

Railroad crossings are pretty dangerous places. It's commonplace for there to be lights that illuminate and bars that come down at significant intersections and bigger cities here in West Virginia. These alert or safety systems aren't as abundant in smaller towns like Nitro, though. It's in areas like these that it's good that the Train Horn Rule, or 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 222, exists. Federal regulators enacted this bill to protect innocent individuals from being struck by trains.

This legislation requires conductors to sound their train horns between 15 and 20 seconds before crossing through public crossings. The "good faith" rule applies in instances where a conductor can't determine how far away they are from the railroad crossing. In cases like this, the conductor can give up to 25 seconds of notice before arriving at the crossing.