Articles Posted in Berniard Law Firm News

The Berniard Law Firm’s principal attorney, Jeffrey Berniard, recently taught an Introduction to Personal Injury course. Having been an active part of Continuing Legal Education (CLE), Mr. Berniard was selected to teach the topic due to the firm’s specialization in medical malpractice, first party insurance disputes, and premises liability claims. Some of the topics covered included: Personal Injury Protection and First Party Benefits in auto policies; medical records disclosure including mental health and substance abuse treatment records; recoverable personal injury damages.

Under many state’s no-fault insurance laws, a claimant’s insurance company will only pay for Personal Injury Protection, or the first $10,000 out-of-pocket expenses. The remainder of expenses must be recovered from the Defendant. Many auto insurance companies do offer First Party Benefits packages, an optional supplement that will cover all medical expenses in the event of an accident for the policyholder or anyone else listed on the plan. However, many auto insurance companies also use a computer program that performs a calculation to value the severity of a victim’s injury. The program does not take into consideration the stress, pain, inconvenience, loss of enjoyment of life that a victim may have suffered.

Medical records unrelated to a victim’s injury, but pertaining to his/her health, are discoverable if “good cause” can be shown. Both state law and the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) apply to a consent for release of medical records. The consent must contain ten items, including a statement that the health care provider cannot condition treatment upon the signing of the consent for release. However, because of the broadness of the item language requirements, HIPAA, and state law, a health care provider may refuse to honor the consent. If a consent cannot be obtained from the patient, HIPAA continues to allow health care providers to release information with a court order or a subpoena. If an attorney issues a subpoena without a court order, the health care provider will not release information unless certain assurances are made.

The Berniard Law Firm is proud to be a New Orleans-based organization and nothing says NOLA better than Mardi Gras!

We wish all of our readers a happy, and safe, Mardi Gras holiday!

A recent case within the Kentucky Court of Appeals demonstrates very extremely the need for quality counsel in all court proceedings. Regardless the subject or reasons you may find yourself in court, it is important that the lawyer you hire is not only able to represent you well in the courtroom and past it. While you would like to think the courts have the rule of law well established in the minds of their judges, a qualified attorney will also review the matters at hand to make sure all ‘facts’ are correct in the proceedings.

In the case of Bramer Crane Servs., LLC v. Structure Builders & Riggers Mach. Moving Div., LLC, a lien issue was reviewed by the superior court of the state. While the actual facts of the case are not important for this post, what is important is that the findings of the court were inherently flawed. Cited in the case was a fact that was severely outdated, as much as 20+ years and two revisions.

As the blog Zlien notes, instead of a clean finding, the court had lapsed in its research and failed to note updated law. The issue was that the ruling relied on judicial precedence rather than a review of legislation passed during this time. While one would like to consider the issue a simple lapse in judicial research, the fact remains that this unpublished decision could very easily have gone unnoticed without people stepping up.