What is a Transvaginal Mesh Claim?

As we all know, as part of the child bearing process, when the child grows within the womb, it actually compacts your internal organs and then you have your child and then everything can shift afterward. The problem that sometimes occurs is what’s called prolapse and what that actually means is where some of your internal organs can actually shift and fall into your lower region. It causes discomfort and pain among other issues, and potentially people really could get hurt or potentially die from contraindications of this particular issue happening.

The medical community came up with this concept of transvaginal mesh and essentially what they do is they go in there and they place a mesh and put everything exactly where it needs to be and then they attach it internally and then you back out. Hopefully all of your symptoms subside. 

The problem that they have found is not only with the actual product itself but with the implementation and the way that they suggested the doctors actually implant it. It was negligent and the way that they suggested that you go about doing it has led to both erosion and perforation.

Erosion is essentially where the mesh itself rubs against your internal organs and can cause the skin to become thinner and then you’re open to potential bleeds or infections and that sort of thing.

Perforation is where it actually cuts some of these internal organs that are shoring up and can cause internal bleeding and potential life-altering effects.

The transvaginal mesh is the subject of an ongoing mass tort litigation in America right now. It’s pretty cutting-edge and we’re still waiting to find out what the results are going to be as far as potential settlements, results, and more.

There are so many of these going on. In fact, currently the numbers are – there are about 40,000 ongoing cases against these particular companies that marketed transvaginal mesh to the American public and it remains to be seen what sort of settlements are going to come of it, what sort of negligence is actually being implicated.

My suggestion would be to keep up with the news to look out for yourself and loved ones, and then contact the Hartman Law Firm at (843) 300-7600 should you need representation for your personal injury.

Should you Allow the Police to Search your Automobile When you’re Pulled Over by a Police Officer?

The simple answer is no.

This brings into question the actual Fourth Amendment, which we’re going to (for our purposes for documenting history), we will discuss.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Historically, the British – and this was obviously prior to the constitution and the Bill of Rights – had a habit of coming in and simply taking things or taking people. They didn’t put it in front of a judge and obviously it angered the American colonials and that’s part of the reason why you see this represented in the constitution and in the body of the Fourth Amendment.

As we’ve moved forward and we’re 230 years into the founding of America, and especially in the 20th century, a large part of the meaning of the Fourth Amendment has essentially been taken away.

By that I mean by precedents that have been issued by the Supreme Court. Basically starting in the 1920's right up into the present and with each case and with each precedent, they carved out another exception to the Fourth Amendment that made it easier for police to move forward without a warrant, without probable cause. There’s something called reasonable, articulated suspicion which is actually a lower standard than probable cause and there’s probably 50 or 60 cases.

When you combine those bodies of cases together over a period of 40 or 50 years, for the most part, the Fourth Amendment in large part really doesn’t exist anymore. It exists on paper and you can certainly still make arguments in a criminal court but a lot of protections that we enjoyed as Americans have been taken away.

Eighty percent of the time when a police officer asks someone, “Hey, man, is it all right if I search your car?” and then just have a look around to make sure there’s nothing in there, more often than not because people are trying to cater to the police officer, they will simply say yes.

In doing so, what they’ve done is they’ve waived their Fourth Amendment rights simply because they don’t know their rights under the law. I would say something to the effect of yes-but or if you want to be more – because you can actually limit the scope of whatever it is that they want to do.

You could say, “Yes, but I don’t see any reason for you to actually go through my physical car. If you want to make a pass with your flashlight just to make sure that there’s no weapons or anything, feel free to do so.”

You can actually limit the scope of the search that the officer wants to do. That’s provided he doesn’t already have reasonable, articulated suspicion or probable cause.

Why is this important to you? Well, there’s also case law on the books that says that the Supreme Court and judges generally are not going to look to the subjective intent of the officer when he pulls you over. What does that mean? Well, there’s a case in which the police very clearly pulled somebody over. They had a taillight out which is a classic pretense for a police officer to pull somebody over.

They pulled the guy over for a taillight, knowing full well that likely he had drugs in the car and they used the taillight as the pretense for pulling him over because it was a technical violation of the law.

He stopped on the side of the road and allowed them to pass their flashlight through his car and ultimately finding whatever it was they were looking for.

Interestingly enough, a flashlight in your car actually is not a search under the technical term of the constitution nor is a dog actually walking around the outside of your car. That’s not considered search under the constitution either.

The point is, is – some people disagree – personally, I’m a civil libertarian and I think I read this I think literally. I think that should be the letter of the law.

The judges however set the law, the Supreme Court judges, and they set the precedent, and for purposes of essentially preserving evidence, the judges have allowed the automobile exception to essentially become the rule. The exception has superseded the rule and the rule of law no longer exists because there’s about 10 or 12 different exceptions that when you place them all together, when you’re in an automobile, you have an extremely limited sense of what your Fourth Amendment protections actually are.

It’s only when you actually get into your home that the Fourth Amendment becomes more relevant, because the home and an automobile are two different things and the reasoning behind it is the judges consider an automobile as mobile. In that respect, you could drive off with the evidence.

In large part, that is the reason behind all of these automobile exceptions and why you are subject to search when you’re pulled over. Keep a civil tongue. You can say, “No, officer,” or “Why is it that you want to search my car, officer? What’s the reasoning behind it?”

It’s a very fine line that you’re walking because obviously you want to be polite but you also want to let him know that you’re informed of your rights.

So be diplomatic and the important thing is, is don’t waive your rights by immediately consenting, like 80 percent of the people do, because again, this also implies the Fifth Amendment.

Now you’re providing evidence against yourself to the prosecution and making prosecuting yourself easier to do.

If you have questions about the Fourth Amendment, automobiles or auto accidents or law generally, contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600.

Can you get a loan based on your auto accident claim and more importantly should you?

This is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart because invariably, I would say 50 to 60 percent of the people that I represent in car accident cases call me at some point usually at the beginning portion of their claims and they’re asked – they want to ask me for a loan.

Unfortunately South Carolina law prohibits personal injury lawyers or lawyers generally for providing loans to their clients based on any expected recovery that they might get from a personal injury claim which leaves my clients a little bit out in the cold.

Because of the fact that your lawyer cannot provide you with a loan directly, there are a lot of companies that have moved into this particular vacuum that want to provide my clients with loans while they wait for the cases to settle.

Classic examples would be 877 Cash Now, JG Wentworth, Blue Sky, which is the Indian reservation, Peachtree Lending, and a whole host of other companies that have moved into that particular area.

They obviously serve a purpose and they’re talking about structured settlement, this, that and the other. What they’re really kind of gearing that towards, where it really needs to be used is when someone is going to be receiving an extraordinarily large sum of money, i.e. a medical malpractice action or a large settlement based on mass tort. But it’s going to take them two to three to four years to actually get the thing processed.

That’s an instance where these particular companies might actually serve a purpose. The people who are in car wrecks unfortunately – obviously their cash reward is going to be considerably less and so what they’re ultimately going to walk away with is going to be – it’s not going to be millions of dollars. It’s going to be thousands of dollars.

So if you go out and you borrowed 1000 bucks, 1500 bucks, but you’re doing it at 120 percent interest rate which is the part that they fail to mention to you, then you’re going to be paying out the nose and what I often see is my clients are the victims of their own success in the sense that they go and they get this particular loan. They tell me about it. I facilitate it in some way, shape or form or basically just wash my hands off it. Then when it comes time to settle, invariably, I’m giving the overwhelming majority of their money to the company that they actually borrowed money from to begin with.

So let’s just say for demonstration purposes, they were going to walk away with a $3500 amount of money after I paid their medical bills and I take my legal fee.

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But they’ve got a $1900 outstanding loan plus interest with Bridge Loan, which is a local company. They’re looking at maybe $1300 in their pocket and that is a really bad situation not only for them to be in but for me to be in, because my job is based on good customer service and providing my clients with great results.

They’re not real happy at the end of the day when they’re walking with $1300, even if on some level they realize that the reason why that occurred is because they insisted on getting a loan that I told them really was a bad idea.

You need to be aware of these particular companies and you need to weigh the pros and cons about whether you actually want to borrow money because there’s a distinct possibility that at the end of the day, you walk away with nothing or very little. I don’t want you to find yourself in that situation.

If you have any questions regarding a car accident claim or loans in general, contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600.

What is a Deductible and Why is it Important to You?

The deductible is the amount of money that you agreed to pay your insurance company in order to be able to make a claim typically through your collision coverage. You're going to run into this in the event that you decide to use your collision coverage instead of the defendant's insurance company to get your car repaired.

A typical deductible is going to be anywhere between $250 to $500 to $1000. The higher your deductible, the lower your premium and that's kind of a balance that you have to strike depending on ultimately how much money you have in pocket and how much you're going to want to come out of pocket.

In the event that you actually have an automobile wreck and this is relevant to you of a deductible, you typically will get your deductible back but it's going to be anywhere between three to four months down the road, once your insurance company actually recoups it from the defendant's insurance company.

If you have any questions concerning your car accident or your insurance deductible, don't hesitate to contact the Hartman Law Firm at (843) 300-7600 for a free consultation today.

Is There Any Reason For You To Delay The Settlement Of Your Property Damage Claim?

No. In fact, under the law, you have a duty to mitigate your damages. You need to get your car moved from the storage facility because once it gets towed, it gets taken to the tow yard and then it typically starts running a tab of about $20 to $30 a day.

The insurance company needs to be contacted immediately and they need to go and take it from the tow yard to a storage facility so that it will not continue accruing storage fees. Lastly, the liability carrier, once it has accepted liability, only has an obligation to provide with a rental car for a reasonable period of time and typically a reasonable period of time is going to be the period of time in which it takes for them to talk to their driver, find out whether there was what the liability issues were and essentially how the wreck occurred.

More importantly, make a determination about whether your car is going to be a total loss or not. Once they make a decision about whether they're going to repair your car or whether it's a total loss, their obligation to provide you with a rental car ends at that point. It's actually in your best interest to resolve your property damage claim as quickly as you possibly can.

If you have questions regarding your property damage or your auto accident, contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600 today.

What is GAP insurance and why is it important to you?

I run into this a good bit with a lot of my clients. Pretty much anybody who’s in a situation where they have a car that is financed by an outside lender needs to have GAP insurance in place and I will explain why.

A classic hypothetical is going to be a case in which you’re involved in a car accident and your car is totaled. Let’s just say it’s a 2004 Ford Explorer. You paid $10,500 for it two years ago.

Unfortunately, the blue book value of that car is going to be maybe $6000, $5500, because of the mark-up of the dealer when you bought the car originally.

Naturally you’re going to have to borrow that money plus whatever down payment you come up with. You’re going to have to borrow that money from a lender and if you do not have GAP insurance, this is where the math actually breaks down for you.

When the insurance company for the defendant eventually totals out your vehicle and they hand you a check for $6000, that check first of all is going to go directly to your lender. You’re not actually going to get it, which is fine because it needs to go there in order to pay off the overwhelming majority of what it is that you owe.

However, the additional $4500 that you owed on your note for your car is still out there and viable to be collected by the lender from which you borrowed the money. If you do not have GAP insurance in place, you are still on the hook for that $4500.

Most of my clients, chances are this is their primary vehicle or it’s their only vehicle and it’s usually their means to get back and forth to work. So now not only can they not make it to work but they’re also stuck with being injured and they have an additional $4500 that they have to pay their lender, plus they get the joy of going out and trying to find the money to buy a new car to get back and forth to work with, with the burden of this particular $4500 that they still owe.

Really the only option that you have at that point is you can try to finance that debt into the car that you’re about to purchase and you’re going to have to find a really good lender, someone who’s really willing to work with you and that’s going to be a difficult proposition, I have to tell you, to find a lender who’s willing to do that because essentially they’re giving you $4000 in addition to whatever it is you’re borrowing for the new vehicle and they have absolutely nothing to show for it, nothing that they can actually seize to get that $4000 back. They’re doing it on good faith. That’s a highly unlikely scenario.

So what I find is, is that my clients are in a bind where they owe that kind of money and then they call me and they want to know, “Well, what is it that we should have done in order to protect ourselves in this particular situation?”

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You have to buy what’s called GAP insurance and apparently this is a closely held secret in the auto insurance industry, which is kind of strange because a lot of times, lenders will require you to have GAP insurance but sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.

Either way, you need to be aware of it and you need to secure it if you’re in a situation in which you owe considerably more than what your car is actually worth, because if that’s the case, you’re going to be left on the hook for a substantial amount of money and you’re not going to have anything to show for it.

Go out. Google “GAP insurance”. Find yourself a third party insurance company that’s specific to GAP insurance and purchase a policy for your vehicle, so that you don’t find yourself in this scenario in which you get into a car wreck, you’re hurt, you can’t get back and forth to work and on top of everything else, you owe an additional $5000, $6000, $7000. I’ve seen as much as $10,000 or $11,000 in some instances. I really can’t tell my clients anything. I just tell them that they’re kind of in the position that they’re in and to make the best of it.

So my suggestion to you, the public, would be get some GAP insurance. If you have questions about GAP insurance or auto accidents generally, contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600.