Wrong-way Interstate Accident Reports to December 20, 2011
Here are another 12 wrong-way interstate highway driver accidents in the news. This group includes wrong-way driving events from the following states: Connecticut (intoxicated driver); Alabama (driver being sought); Texas (intoxication manslaughter); Montana (driver reportedly charged with six misdemeanors including driving under the influence and drug possession.); another Montana wrong-way on I-90 (appears to be a mental health issue); Wisconsin (erratic driving with cause unknown driver died), South Carolina (I-26, DUI arrest); Texas (Sam Houston Parkway, driver died, cause not stated); Montana on Highway 40 (driver died cause unknown); Forth Worth, Texas on I-35 and arrested for suspicion of intoxication manslaughter and endangerment of a child; Lake Mills, Wisconsin on I-94; Houston, Texas on Highway 290, raw video still working; and Montville, Connecticut (charges related to drunken driving).
"Let's take away their right to buy booze. Taking away the driver's license isn't enough."
Wrong-way driver charged with DUI
Norwich Bulletin
4, 2010, Ellen H. Noordzy, 22, was reportedly driving the wrong way on the southbound side of I-95, in the area of exit 93, when state police said she struck a southbound car head-on. The two occupants of the car Noordzy hit, Bruce A. Wall, 22, ...
A recent school bus accident that killed an 11-year-old boy and another accident striking an 84-year-old pedestrian have school officials evaluating their fleet drivers. No driver can have a squeaky clean driving record, but there shouldn’t be anything that makes one conclude their driving, based on past issues, would endanger the children or other pedestrians. While I think the effort is a good one, I don’t think the article sheds light on what convictions should keep a person from driving a school bus once they pass the standard qualifications.
I ran across several articles posted on the Insurance Journal’s website. One title was 
A recent article I read interested me from a professional standpoint towards workplace safety but I thought it missed a major point about litigation. This article of interest explores the dangers of being a farmer, but ignores the contribution of civil trial lawyers. With this I take exception.
My office mate and I recently litigated and successfully settled a cow-in-the-road case in southern Iowa. The facts are as simple as a black cow weighing 1,000 pounds out on a county road after dark where there are no lights doesn't show up in your headlights until it's too late to stop. In that case the driver's wife died. The driver was a family doctor and we thought that would help him in the community with farmers who admired his dedication to Iowa families. Think again. No one in the community came forward to admit ownership of the cow.
For a measely 
What’s going on in Iowa courts? That depends on what you read and who you talk with. There are many different cases of interest from the Heartland. There is one I just couldn’t help but report about.
A 
There are times when as a personal injury lawyer who does a lot of car, truck, motorcycle accidents along with workers’ compensation claims I am completely baffled. This week I got a call from an out-of-state resident who visited Iowa and was injured at a hotel. The matter was a trip-fall type of claim. We lawyers refer to them as premise liability cases. Premise liability is a difficult case to prove, you really need an artificial defect in the property to win these cases. By artificial defect I mean something created by the owner, the lessee or the business that increased the risk of injury.
A Man Need Not Apply
Iowa's Version of MMA Tort-Reform Was A Recipe for Disaster 
Make Politicians Publicly Disclose their Stock Options within 24 hours of Purchase
Is the legal system rigged against people; and in favor of big business or does it just seem that way?
Crimes of hyperbole?
This is one of three blogs I write for and this past weekend was very busy. One attorney I coordinate blogging with is from Texas. The more blogging you do the more you find yourself talking to people from different states. I like people so I tend to take most of those telephone calls. More and more I work for clients to place them with attorneys from different states. Brooks, the Texas lawyer, and I have jawed about doing this for several years now and so this past month we started this process of helping clients all along Interstate 35 from Texas to Minnesota. If you have an auto-truck-semi-truck-motorcycle-suv or any other type of crash on i35 contact us and we’ll do the best we can to help you either directly or indirectly through a referral. Today let's talk about the weather in Iowa.
A few years ago I heard about this kind of an accident, but have no knowledge of such it occurring in Iowa; till now. In the December 31, 2010 Des Moines Register tells a story of it ice falling from the top of a semi-trailer on Interstate 80 and a female passenger being injured. This one occurred in Colfax, Iowa on Interstate 80, Jasper County. The people in the car are from Pekin, Illinois. Apparently a thick sheet of ice came off the truck’s trailer, slid down into the windshield of the oncoming car and struck Linda Mickley seated in the front passenger seat. She was taken to the Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines. There is no indication as to the exact details.
I did a quick search of the Iowa stories on the notion the remaining four justices that authored Brien vs. Varnum (the gay marriage license case in Iowa) and came up with a list of stories that is both interesting and disturbing. To have lived the law for over 30 years and assisted people, not corporations, with people problems of significance to their lives, I must say this one stumps me. We have so many economic problems right now; and so it’s difficult for me to understand why the gay marriage license issue is worth all the time, money and effort being put into it. Vote No morphed into what now appears to be a show-down in the Iowa legislature over judicial impeachment procedures involving the remaining four justices. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s strict constructionist point of view expressed this week further inflamed those proposing impeachment. To say that a point of view about Constitutional law is a reason to impeach a Justice is to ask for a dumber society and a pathetically weak judiciary. Points of view are nothing more than an opinion, but in the case of the judiciary it’s a learned point of view developed after law school and a long distinguished career. How did we ever get to throwing justices out of office because of a learned point of view? This is a prime example of the tail wagging the dog. If you want Judges and Justices with no backbone, a lack of intelligence and the will to do nothing, but what the public asks, then just keep up the flames of the impeachment process.
Today we are covering several more wrong-way collisions, drivers, events and incidents on our nation's interstate highways. I've been following these for several years hoping to make people more aware of how they occur and more importantly how to avoid being a wrong-way driver. If you get clobbered by one it's likely you will be seriously injured or even killed. So knowing how to avoid them is equally important. I post more of these than I really would like to be writing about, but it is what it is so here are more news stories telling us all about wrong-way drivers across the United States. At the end in the footer I’ll list my suggestions on how to avoid wrong-way drivers and how to avoid being a wrong-way driver. Enough said; if you’re injured by one give me a call and we can talk about your legal rights. Onward we march...
I read the story about the Fayette County, Iowa mobile home fire that killed two children and an adult this past Saturday, January 01, 2011. The Des Moines Register news story gives few details about causes or ownership so from that story I can draw no firm conclusions. [ 
Today the question presented would be something like this:
Cedar Rapids Iowa has found a different way to cash in on law breakers; 
I chose this title because interpretation of the Iowa Constitution isn’t a matter of public opinion or the will of the legislature; it’s a matter of judicial study over a long period of time and after a lifetime of education, training and professional development. To believe or hope that the Iowa Constitution and the rights it created are something a person without a law degree can interpret is asking for chaos. In this case the Vander Plaats interpretation is complete and utter foolishness which if implemented would lead to lawlessness.
Hickory County, Missouri – I ran across this little noticed news story about an accident in Missouri where one Iowa resident was killed and another person injured. The person that died was only 45-years-old, the driver 49. According to the 
The headline reads “
I’ve lived in Iowa since 1978. I arrived on a bus from Chicago via a train from Providence. With me I had one trunk and a typewriter. The trunk was large enough that no taxicab driver would stop to give me a ride. I finally figured it out and hid the trunk behind the electric train's iron support beam and stood there with only the typewriter. Once in Iowa City I stayed overnight in a local hotel before being picked up the next day and dropped off at temporary housing in Reno Hall. Everyone thought I talked funny. I admit to being different from Iowans in many ways. What I soon discovered about Iowans was how accepting they were and surprisingly how open-minded. People back home asked why Iowa? (Actually they asked why Idaho, or Ohio or Utah… but we won’t talk about New England’s version of geography.)
Already having pleaded guilty to federal charges in a $1.3 Billion Florida Ponzi Scheme a woman is free while she cooperates with the U.S. Government. The law firm where the Ponzi was being carried out is now bankrupt and shuttered. So the office manager finds herself unemployed. My source sends me a news 
Growing up in a seaport town you learn early that when rats are leaving the ship it means it’s going to sink.
You can do this personal injury work only so long before it’s clear to you that the system is rigged to make money for insurance executives and not to resolve personal injury claims. To the insurance executives that run our insurance system, injured people are nothing more than a necessary evil, a mere nuisance. For that matter so am I. They love to hate me. The system simply tolerates injured people while claiming payments to them are a waste; all the while the system is the waste that feeds the pigs running it.
In this post I want to point out the systematic destruction of evidence by insurance companies.
Why should any parent be allowed to release from liability any adult for behavior that has yet to occur and causes injury to their minor child?
If you’re going to bash gays you may at least have the decency to do it openly and without the guise of hiding your fears and anger behind a smear campaign against judges that you know aren’t going to be able to defend themselves.
Tomorrow Iowans will vote on whether to retain three justices on Iowa’s Supreme Court. What we must ask ourselves is whether, aside from the distraction of job creation, it is in our collective interest for Iowa Justices to be re-schooled, retooled, brow-beaten or intimidated into decreeing the undoing of gayness. It's my belief this is all just a big distraction from our main problems of the budget deficeit and creating jobs in this country. But some don't and so let me begin today with this idea; if this isn't foolishness and it is a legitimate way to spend our limited government recourses then they should prove it.
In the July 27, 2010 WSJ I read where Steve Jobs in the past ten years has been paid over 
Do you believe lawsuits are about blame? Do you say to people that we need to kill all the lawyers? If so, you’re missing the point and should ready yourself for the day when the unreasonable and the irresponsible rule the world. As trial lawyers our goal is to explain to a fact finder in simple terms what made America the greatest country on earth.
“I’m going to get the mail Mom!”
Some would-be 
A friend of mine from New England was bidding for government work. He’s been out of work for several years and he’s an honest guy so his bids were accurate and came in very reasonable. For some reason he wasn’t getting the work. He wondered if his bids were too high so he sharpened his pencil and added more detail to his bid. Still no work was awarded. He wondered what was he missing, because after losing the bid he would get contacted and then hired as a subcontractor for the guys who were awarded the bids. It became obvious that he knew more about the cable industry than the guys winning the bids.
Yes, I'm posting again. I was sleeping but then then I realized life was happening without me and I had to get up and write. Today is all about law school. The 
Lawyers know squat-diddley about marketing; really we don't understand the concept. Judges know less and I'm guessing they will admit their lack of understanding. After all, they are an independent judiciary and don't need to market. Right? Is that right? If so why are the three that are doing their job under attack in Iowa? So I have to wonder, do they need to better understand marketing? Today let's discuss why lawyers and judges would be wise to appreciate at least something about Internet marketing.
What's wrong with this picture? Your daughter says she just bought a car from the local used car dealer; she's already signed the papers, but never drove it and never even thought of looking under the hood to see what the engine looks like. She tells you she spent $10,000 buying it. What do you say to her when she asks you if it is a good deal?
The flooding in Iowa is too almost Biblical proportions. We are so tired of rain, rivers overflowing their banks and dams breaking, that the idea of buying a boat and moving north to a lake is looking pretty attractive to most of us. So what are Iowans with flood damage supposed to do when insurance companies tell them there is no coverage? The answers may surprise you when you find out this is going to turn into an expensive lesson for many people.
Texting while driving is like driving while drunk and sooner or later we will have to pass a law requiring people to just think. 
For my east coast friends who remain geographically challenged Missouri is a state, a part of the United States and just south, that’s down, of Iowa. Missouri is the “Show Me State” which once again Iowans are stuck showing them the errors of their ways. Missouri’s elected officials are picking on exotic dancers a-g-a-i-n. If Missourians are going to pick on exotic dancers then we may as well debate the merits of that age old tradition, the demolition derby. Boiled down to its essence, assuming there is an essence, the demolition derby is a contest that seeks to find several people dumb enough for a small cash prize, to climb into a car or truck and ram other contestants until you’re the last fool moving. Sounds a little like some marriages, but let’s leave that comparison for another day. In the derby the cash prize comes from a promoter who sells beer, pretzels, popcorn, hotdogs and maybe a t-shirt or two. Exotic dancers on the other hand are usually young woman dancing on a stage or in someone’s lap for tip money. The promoter is a bar owner who charges an entry fee and gets paid handsomely for selling inebriated patrons watered down drinks containing a small portion of alcohol. They aren’t selling t-shirts; in fact clothing is optional, well … at least it is for the dancers. 
I can always tell when FOX’s ratings are slipping because the producers decide it’s time once again to pick a fight with lawyers who help the injured. Either that or my Republican Party needs campaign contributions and they are going to stir up the doctors to get out their credit cards. I read the teaser on FOX titled, 
Yesterday we discussed lawyers providing estate and trust services to a man later charged with the killing of another man; the effect was to make the grieving widows efforts to enforce a civil judgment somewhat difficult. My point was that what the lawyers did was ethical and that it wasn’t the lawyers’ job to delve into the motives or reasons for the accused farmer asking for that legal advice. Today let’s go a step further with what the general public doesn’t get and seems it will never get because they aren’t schooled in the law. Let’s say the Iowa Bar Association’s ethics committee decided to investigate the lawyers who created the trusts and executed the transfers of titles for the accused farmer and his wife. Would they be successful in gathering evidence? No they would not. Because even if the Iowa Bar Association investigated the lawyers those lawyers under investigation would never be able to disclose what they had learned from the farmer and his wife at their meetings that took place following the killing. What a client says to a lawyer can’t be disclosed without the clients consent. And it’s doubtful the client would ever consent to such a disclosure. It’s called the attorney-client privilege and it’s there to protect the client – which someday may be you.
Some of you, who can’t mow grass, cut weeds or afford to fix city parks may wonder how you too can help.