Author Archives: Robert I. Feinberg

A weapon in Massachusetts personal injury cases is our Consumer Protection Statute, 93A. Passed in the late 1970’s, this is a tool that may have originally been designed to aid the consumer in his/her fight against the retailer for unfair and deceptive acts or practices in commerce. Over the years, it has also been used […]

Pricing personal injury cases is not easy. Having said that, experienced attorneys will often put a value on cases in amazingly similar amounts. Lawyers will also ask other lawyers who they respect to “price” their case. Sort of a blind taste test if you will. The difference in assessments is often not great. The most […]

The recent tragedy involving Natasha Richardson has brought to light the science of head injuries, particularly with respect to epidural hematomas and skull fractures. Fortunately, the vast majority of such injuries do not have such a terrible outcome. Nevertheless, her sad case should cause insurers to concede the seriousness of these accidents, even if the […]

An unfortunate twentieth anniversary has just passed. A law that went into effect on January 1, 1989 greatly curtailed the rights of Massachusetts auto accident victims. This concerned uninsurance and underinsurance motorist coverage. The Legislature passed a bill, called the Massachusetts Auto Insurance Reform Act, signed by Governor Michael Dukakis, which eliminated stacking of policies […]

I am forever asking people in business how their work has changed since their career began. Let me offer my opinion on the sea change in personal injury law. The prevalence of alternative dispute resolution- arbitration and mediation has quickened the resolution of cases and has made their processing cheaper. Those are significant advantages. When […]

How many times have we heard that “you only get one chance in life” or “you only get one bite of the apple?” We have been told this countless times. In an on-the-job injury those adages may not be quite true. A worker cannot sue his/her employer. Our workman’s compensation statute provides the employer with […]

If a child wanders onto a construction site and falls injuring himself/herself, how do we assess the child’s conduct? We do not have “attractive nuisance” in Massachusetts, unlike many other jurisdictions. We do have a statute, MGLc 231 § 85Q governing trespassing children which sets out five criteria for negligence not unlike attractive nuisance. As […]

In follow up to my last blog post about words of legal significance, I am reminded of the following word: disinterested. Often that word is confused with uninterested. To not care is to be uninterested. To be impartial is to be disinterested, not favoring either side. Obviously we want our judges and juries to be […]

When a person opens an umbrella what does that tell us about the weather? When a ship’s captain brings aboard his wife and children what does that say about what he thinks of the seaworthiness of the vessel? These are classic examples of conduct from which we make inferences. Indeed, Judges instruct jurors that inference […]

When I started practicing personal injury law, I was always told that there is a prejudice against motorcycle operators and that this will hurt in the representation of motorcycle victims. First, let’s turn that on its head: motorcycle operators, to the extent that one should and can generalize, are pretty meticulous people. Yes, they are […]