Dietrich Law Firm PC Jed Dietrich Do You Need an Injury Lawyer in Buffalo

Attorney Jed Dietrich who's back in this new year with some very good legal advice for us all, and your phone calls are always welcome at 644-9840. Happy new year sir. Hi Linda good to see you. So listen, we don’t like them but, we're all a victim of a car accident usually at one time or another. It happens and what you need to do is get the police involved right from the get-go so you get a police report, so the insurance companies know what happened. Then you need to get checked out by a doctor and and then you need to contact an attorney and you need to contact a lawyer who has done this type of work for me 95% of my work is car accident work and we get involved even if people aren't that injured in the beginning because you don't know how serious an injury is and sometimes injuries develop so there's a certain number of doctors in Buffalo who specialize in the spinal injuries and my firm and some of the other firms in Western New York know those doctors and we work with those doctors to try to get people back on their feet.

We're lucky in New York because New York is a No-Fault state which means that all of your medical bills are paid, there's never a deductible, you don't need a pre-authorization to get treatment after a car accident and your wages are reimbursed. So people come to my office they say I can't miss work I can't afford to miss work but the doctor thinks I shouldn't work. I say you have to follow the doctor's instruction and we can help you with the No-Fault and we work with your own insurance company the No-Fault company and we get your wages reimbursed and in New York you're lucky because 80% of your gross wages tax-free are reimbursed from no-fault so you can live you can pay your bills and you can recuperate and during that period of time in the beginning of the case, that's why it's so important to contact a lawyer right away you have questions and a lot of people haven't been involved in accidents like this before and that's why you contact a lawyer.

You contact them free of charge I work free of charge and that standard my business, until the end of the case. At the end of the case then there's a contingency arrangement so that's good for me and for the clients because the more money I receive for the clients, the more money I get for myself and my firm. There's a relationship there where we're working together to get you on your feet and to get the case resolved in a fair and reasonable way. You're right Jed and you know sometimes of course the accident happens so fast. You're not thinking. You're just wondering if there is anybody hurt. I was involved in a fender-bender where somebody - we're at a light - and somebody, the first guy who was at the light, stalled out, everybody started to go so is this chain reaction so a guy hit me pushed me into the guy in front of me. Okay? So, we pulled over then the guy behind me says “I don't see the - I don't see any damage, bye.” Well, when the police officer showed up he was really upset that that guy took off, I didn't know to make him stay and the thing is within 30 days you have to report that to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles or they’ll send you a letter.

Yes exactly. And it's in these impacts these rear-end collisions which again are about 90% of my work. Sometimes there might not be that much damage to your car but the thing is the cars are designed right now to absorb a certain amount of impact about 5 to 10 miles per hour without showing damage, but what the cars do is they take the damage and they put it through your spine because the car absorbs the damage but then you move forward even though you're restrained by your seatbelt and then your head moves forward and it snaps back and that's when you can cause the injury. In my office we work with experts who have been trained to go into court and to tell people what this reaction is all about. How the mechanics of the injury occur, because sometimes the insurance companies, the defense attorneys they'll say “hey oh there wasn't a lot of damage to this car,” and they'll show pictures in front of the jury and we’ll come in and if we've got a client who makes a nice impression, she or he is very reasonable, that's where the case hinges.

I mean and I work with my clients right from the beginning I prepare every single case as if it's going to go to court I know most people don't want to go to court and 95% of the cases don't go to court, but what you need to do to prepare the case properly, to achieve a fair and reasonable result, is to prepare every case like it's going to go to court so you talk to the doctors you talk to the clients you make sure the history is provided properly and then you you put a case together where you can say to the insurance company look we've got a strong claim here let's try to work it out. If it doesn't work out then we go to trial and and my results which are on my website calljed.com I mean they speak for themselves. You want a lawyer who's got a track record and that's what I try to show through my marketing that I've got a track record that the insurance companies know about, other lawyers know about, and my current clients know about and that brings people to my attention. Alright Jed, we have a phone call for you and we'll go right to the phones because you're welcome in this segment. Hello welcome.

Hi caller can you speak up for us? Yes, Cliff from Orchard Park. Hi, I’ve got a question. People are tailgating a lot lately. Oh yes. In a tailgate accident where the person ends up hitting you from the back? Yeah. Yeah Cliff? Yeah Cliff that's a good question in the the reality is that almost 100% of the time if you hit someone from behind the person that does the hitting from behind is at fault. The law is very clear on that, that you are supposed to be aware of what's in front of you so even if the person in front of you is going too slow in their particular lane or perhaps they're turning abruptly, the obligation almost exclusively is on the person who's following from behind to not rear- end the person in front of them. So if you're in a situation where you've got someone who's tailgating you my suggestion would be to turn on your right-hand blinker and pull off to the side let them pass.

You don't want to get into a situation where you're in a conflict or a road-rage case and I've had those cases before and frankly the person can be a victim and it's not their fault but once you start talking about road-rage and you hear a jury talking about that they think two people might be at fault so the best thing to do is just to back off and get out of their way and let those people go forward. Jed how do you prove that somebody was on the phone? Because I was behind a van who was doing like clearly ten miles under the speed limit in the left-hand lane and then when you finally get around or you looked at she's on the phone. I got to tell you Linda that is a great question and today with the society going toward the smart phones and the texting and all the rest of that, obviously you should never be texting while you're driving in a situation where there are other cars around you or there are on-ramps or off-ramps and I can get the records from the the cell phone company and I do that through subpoena and very frequently I do that and then I got to tell you the police are generally pretty good when there's a collision they kind of poke around at that so and we'll use the police report and get that information.

All right we have another phone call coming from Elma this morning. Good morning. Good morning Linda. Hi go ahead please. I have a question for Jed, its weather-related. When we had the bad snow storm start a few days ago I was at the show with my little daughter and I came out the movie theater didn't have anything salted or shoveled and I took a bad fall and hurt my knee and I'm wondering if there’s any recourse for that. Absolutely, there is in New York you're under an obligation to keep your property in a reasonably safe state. Now if you fell during the snowstorm there is a defense for the property owner that says if it's during a storm in progress the property owner has the right to have a certain period of time to try to correct that. So let's say it's snowed in the morning a couple hours before you fell and they knew the movie theater was starting two hours after it's snowed and they didn't get out there they didn't salt it, they didn't sand it, they didn't move the snow away.

Absolutely, positively, there's there's a legitimate claim there and if you have further questions call my office at 716-839-3939 and I'd be happy to speak with you. The other thing is Linda, I know you mentioned this a moment ago is I give my cell phone to every single client and that's an important thing because when you have a lawyer that's a relationship. An attorney-client relationship is a close relationship it's like a doctor-patient relationship and I like to keep those lines of communication open. So, every single client I have I give personal attention to. Well that's why you do a great job for everybody Jed. Thank you. Your commercials and your work I think speaks for itself. The Dietrich law firm right here (716) 839-3939. (716) 839-3939. Or you can go to Jed’s website at calljed.com. They're located on John James Audubon Pkwy in Amherst. Give him a call today. And this preceding segment sponsored by the Dietrich Law Firm.