A Commercial Appeal article yesterday by Richard Locker detailed State Senator Jim Summerville’s view of the Tennessee Lottery. Summerville described the lottery as “blight,…immoral…and corrupt.” He is now advocating his bill to require all lottery advertising to have the warning: “You will probably lose money playing the lottery.” As a Memphis bankruptcy attorney, I agree with him 100%. It’s an abomination against the poor and the State shouldn’t be in that business. “Maybe you, like I, have seen people in convenience stores, liquor stores – which even I patronize – watching some poor son-of-a-gun line up his Social Security numbers, birthdays, marriages, death days in order to select the best possible combination of numbers to lift them out of the economic calamity of
Workers’ compensation is a form of insurance provided by an employer when employees are injured as a result of work or on-the-job accidents. In general, workers’ compensation covers a wide range of injuries; but in the case of transportation, things can be a little tricky. While most of us would never commute to work unless it was job-related, that commute isn’t covered by workers’ comp because of a law called the “coming and going” rule. This rule limits workers’ compensation claims so employers aren’t obligated to pay for accidents or injuries caused by traveling to and from work. So if a car hits you on your way into the office, or you’re injured on your bike while traveling home, your
Lately our drug injury lawyers in Memphis have been hearing a lot about back surgery problems, especially after the patients received a bone graft.Perhaps you were injured during a back surgery. You may be concerned it was medical malpractice. Maybe you’re wondering: “Did the doctor made a mistake? Did the surgery not go as planned?” But it could be neither of these things. There’s a type of bone graft right now that’s under severe scrutiny: the Medtronic INFUSE® Bone Graft. If you were injured during a back or neck surgery, you may want to look into this product as a possible cause. Basically, INFUSE® helps regrow bone during and after a surgery. It’s supposed to be used in specially-approved lower
Why you shouldn’t compare YOUR credit card debt to others’ By: Darrell Castle Daily Finance posted an article online today in which it posed two questions: 1. Is your credit card debt average? 2. What is average? The article went on to state that getting a definitive answer can be a challenge as different sources have gathered different information. Listed were three different sources – MagnifyMoney.com, NerdWallet.com and CreditCards.com. Based on their findings, if you have anywhere from $5,000 to $11,000 in credit card debt, you’re average. My answer? It doesn’t matter! You shouldn’t judge your credit card debt based on what the average US consumer’s credit card debt is. Instead, you should be basing your credit card debt on
Alcohol, drugs & medical malpractice By: Darrell Castle “Is your doctor stoned?” That was the question posed this morning on a Today show segment mixed with emotions of shock, heartbreak and rage – or at least those are the emotions that ran over me when I watched it. 100,000 – that’s the number of doctors addicted to drugs or alcohol! And addiction’s one thing, but for doctors to be under the influence while at work, PERFORMING SURGERY, is another. But it’s happening! “There are doctors out there right now under the influence of prescription narcotics as we speak, putting patients at risk,” said Dr. Stephen Loyd, a Tennessee doctor speaking from personal experience. At his worst, Dr. Loyd, who is
By: Darrell Castle Medical malpractice can happen to anyone. If you don’t believe that, just ask Joan Rivers’ family members. This past August, Joan Rivers died after a medical procedure left her unconscious. She never regained consciousness and died a few days later. The following details came out after her death: Rivers never consented to the medical procedure that left her unconscious Doctors in the charge of Rivers’ care failed to identify deteriorating signs and therefore failed to provide timely intervention for those signs A staffer snapped cell phone pictures of Rivers as she lay sedated Medical records lacked Rivers’ body weight and the dose of sedation medication she was given. A patient’s weight is critical in determining how much
In recent years, the Memphis pension debt has been national news. Basically the city doesn’t have enough money to pay the pensions it promised to city workers. There have been a few causes, including: investments gone bad from the financial crash underestimating how much they’d need and overestimating what the investments would make union negotiations and how the city has used its other budgeted money The problem deeply affects city workers. Police don’t want to risk their lives unless they know their families will be taken care of. Many workers feel betrayed, and some have sought work elsewhere or been recruited by other cities and states. It also affects non-government citizens. As a result of Memphis’ debt, the government can’t
In 2007, the housing bubble led to an international crisis: millions of people lost their homes. their jobs, and their life savings. The cause? In short, banks gave out mortgages to people who could never possibly pay them back. Today we face a similar threat. It has never been easier or cheaper to get an auto loan – even if you can’t really afford one. Questions about filing for bankruptcy? We can help! Since 2010, auto loans have risen 50% in the United States. In 2015, the auto loan market hit over $1 trillion for the first time. And there’s no sign of slowing down. This past week, Tesla received 276,000 orders in two days – what most car companies sell
There’s a lot of fear in the credit world right now – fear that we’ve reached a bubble much like the housing market did in 2008. And it’s our addiction that’s gotten us there. It didn’t look this bad a year ago. We had a lot of credit card debt – $35 billion of it, in fact – but we paid a lot of it off with tax refunds and bonuses. Then the 2nd-4th quarters hit, and that’s when the real problem started to show. Questions about bankruptcy? We can help! According to a recent CardHub report, Americans truly are addicted to credit card debt: We spent more on credit in each of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters of 2015
Have you been injured in a car accident and it wasn’t your fault? An experienced attorney can help you ease the trauma and recovery process by fighting for the compensation you deserve. However, what if instead of your injury being at the fault of another driver, it was the result of a faulty product such as your air bags failing to deploy? An airbag case usually doesn’t depend on another driver’s fault. It can even be one car. Statistics show that airbags reduce the risk of dying in a direct front crash by about 30% . While driving, we expect our airbags to keep us safe if we find ourselves in a car accident. Sometimes however, the airbags may not