Owning a household pet is joy that many individuals and families currently experience. Cats are common domesticated animals that people tend to bring into their homes as a family pet. They can reside either inside or outside the home, and are generally relatively small and low-maintenance animals. While people may derive a lot of pleasure from providing shelter and care for cats, they also put themselves at risk of injury from cat scratches and bites.

Treatment of Cat Scratches

Whenever an individual suffers a cat scratch, they must take proper care of the injury in order to prevent infection from arising. The first step to take is to stop any bleeding that may have occurred as a result of the scratch. Once that has been controlled, clean it with soap and water before bandaging it up. It is also a good idea to apply anti-bacterial ointment to the affected area in order to further eradicate the chance of infection.

If you begin to experience symptoms of infection after the injury occurred, consult a doctor immediately. Cat scratches open up the possibility for tetanus, rabies, cat scratch disease (also known as cat scratch fever), or other infections to enter and affect the body. All of these may be fatal if they are left untreated, so it is of vital importance that medical attention is sought if there is any possibility of infection.

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If you or someone you know has suffered a serious injury as a result of a cat scratch, the Minneapolis personal injury lawyers of Terry, Slane, & Ruohonen, P.L.L.C. can help you. Please contact their law offices today at 612-362-0000 to set up an appointment.

It is estimated that 30% of Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash during their life. Drunk driving can have horrific effects, taking the lives of loved ones and severely injuring others. In a court of law, alcohol is generally classified as an aggravating factor in motor vehicle accidents. An aggravating factor is used to give a guilty party a harsher sentence.

When a claim is filed with aggravating factors, you are filing for punitive damages, which are rewarded in order to punish the defendant responsible for the injury.

In filing a case, it is important to determine who is liable. While it is obvious that the drunk driver is a liable party, in some circumstances the case might qualify for dram shop liability. Under this type of liability, the party which supplied the alcohol is held responsible. If this is the case, then multiple claims could be filed.

Drunk drivers can face not only civil charges but criminal as well. Through state victim assistance and compensation programs, you may be able to receive compensation. These programs exist to assist victims of crime by offering them some reimbursement. An experienced attorney will be familiar with programs in your state.

Be aware that insurance adjustors want to establish liability and limit damages paid out. Therefore, it is best to have an attorney speak with the insurance company to ensure your rights are being upheld. You attorney will be able to help you receive the greatest reimbursement for your injury.

If you or a loved one is a victim of a drunk driving accident, contact the Minneapolis drunk driving victim lawyers at Terry, Slane & Ruohonen, P.L.L.C. by dialing 612-362-0000 today. Our partners have years of experience with cases involving car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, and pedestrian accidents and they are the recipient of the 2008 MADD Choice Award.

Negligence is a legal standard often applied in Minneapolis personal injury cases to determine whether a defendant can be held liable for damages or injuries suffered by the plaintiff. Under the law, all citizens have a responsibility to exercise a “reasonable duty of care” when driving, owning property, or simply going about their daily lives. When an individual fails to uphold this duty of care, they can be held liable for the effects of his or her misconduct.

Negligence and Your Minneapolis Personal Injury Lawsuit

If you choose to file a personal injury lawsuit in Minneapolis, it is important that you understand the idea of negligence. In many instances, only by proving a defendant negligent can you legally claim compensation from them for your injuries. Proof of negligence consists of three parts:

• Proof of duty. Evidence that a defendant knew or should have known about a potential danger or hazard which is located on their property or could be caused by their actions.
• Breach of duty. Proof that the defendant failed to correct, repair, or warn about the potential danger or hazards mentioned above, or that the defendant failed to refrain from taking actions which create potential dangers or hazards.
• Proximate cause. Proof that the defendant’s actions or lack of action led directly to and were the proximate cause of the injuries suffered by the plaintiff.

Why You Need a Minneapolis Personal Injury Attorney

Negligence may not always be easy to prove. Not only does the right evidence have to be collected and analyzed quickly, but it must also be placed in context for jurors to review. Furthermore, establishing the link between a defendant’s breach of duty and your injuries is often difficult; the defense will often argue that other factors – such as your own actions – were at fault in causing your injuries.

Only a competent and experienced Minneapolis personal injury lawyer can adequately handle the challenges facing your personal injury case. For more information, call Terry, Slane & Ruohonen, PLLC at 612-362-0000 today. Our partners are skilled, dynamic litigators with years of experience.

Product liability is an area of the law that holds retailers, manufacturers, suppliers, and others responsible for all products they create and disseminate to the public, and for any injuries that these products may cause. Typically, product liability claims are based on a design defect, a manufacturing defect, or a failure to adequately warn consumers.

Most cases of product liability claims regarding manufacturing defects are not based on a negligence claim—stating that the manufacturer acted in a negligent manner, resulting in injury. Instead, claims are typically based on strict liability, meaning that a manufacturer is held responsible for the products their company produced regardless of their actions. As such, a manufacturer is liable for any defective products, even if the manufacturer was in no way negligent when making the product(s) in question.

Since this can be a very harsh and costly standard for a manufacturer, strict liability is typically used only in claims of manufacturing defects or errors, and NOT for any design or warning errors. If there is a defect in either design or proper warnings, courts typically proceed using standards of negligence, and not strict liability. For these cases to move forward, the plaintiff will need to prove negligence by proving the following:

• That there was a duty owed
• That there was some breach of this duty
• That an injury occurred
• That the injury was caused by the defendant’s breach of duty

If you or someone you know has been injured as a result of a product defect and would like to schedule a consultation with a Minneapolis product liability lawyer, contact the experts at Terry, Slane & Ruohonen at 612-362-0000 today. Our partners are skilled, dynamic litigators with years of experience.

Car crashes can be incredibly dangerous; however, cars are designed to protect the people within them. There are seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, and a variety of other safety features that help to keep people safe while in a vehicle. While you have all of these things to protect you in a car, a pedestrian has none.

Because pedestrians are defenseless, any situation in which a car hits a pedestrian becomes exponentially more dangerous than a normal crash. Pedestrians are far more susceptible to the dangers of a crash than the people who are in the car.

The speed of the car is a very important factor in any crash. The faster a car is traveling, the more damage will occur in a crash. The same is true when pedestrians are involved. The faster the car travels, the worse the injuries to the pedestrian. In fact, once the car reaches high enough speeds, pedestrians have very little chance of escaping the crash alive.

This is because cars are so much more massive than pedestrians. The mixture of high mass and high speed makes the transference of force incredibly high. In many cases, it is so high that the human body cannot withstand it.

Speak with a Minneapolis Personal Injury Lawyer

If you or someone you know has been hit by a car, contact the Minneapolis personal injury lawyers of Terry, Slane & Ruohonen at 612-362-0000.

Pharmacy errors are one of the leading types of medical malpractice. Mistakes in prescriptions occur far too often, and if the pharmacist does not call the prescribing physician to clarify, it can mean danger for the patient.

Pharmacy errors are avoidable. Unfortunately, if there is doubt surrounding the prescription, it can take time to get a confirmation from the physician who prescribed the medication. This leads to the pharmacist making a best guess as to what was written on the prescription. One reason they do this is to keep the patient from getting upset about the process because it is difficult to reach the physician. This, however, is not an excuse for negligence.

When pharmacy errors occur, they can pose a very real danger to the patient. In some cases, a patient can receive a medication that will cause death. Luckily, many health care professionals are taking steps to alleviate the incidence of pharmacy error. Many physicians are using electronic prescriptions so that the pharmacists will not have a problem reading what has been written.

Even with advances in the manner in which pharmacists receive prescriptions, pharmacy error can still occur. This is highly unfortunate, and those involved should be held accountable for endangering the very patients that they swore to protect.

A Minneapolis Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help

If you or someone you know has been injured because of the negligence of pharmacy error, contact the Minneapolis personal injury attorneys of Terry, Slane & Ruohonen at 612-362-0000.

Most employees trust that their work environments are generally safe places in which to operate, as they should. However, accidents do happen, and sometimes they can be very dangerous. It is the responsibility of the employers to inform and train the workers in how to move and work in a safe manner in the workplace. Factories and buildings that pose potentially volatile environments need to have work codes and regulations in order to ensure the safety of the people laboring inside and around them.

There are special safety standards in place for workplaces that have explosive atmospheres. The proper precautionary measures must be up-to-date in addressing the prevention and control of workplace explosions. OSHA, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, has regulations set in place for work environments that contain potentially reactive chemicals.

Material safety sheets and MSDS data must be posted in areas that contain explosive content. It is a violation for someone to remove this information from the pertinent area. Information regarding safety procedures following a chemical mishap must also be present. The correct fire extinguishers must be readily at hand as well. Should the workplace be in violation of these standards, it is at risk of being punished by the government.

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If you or someone you know has been harmed by an explosion in the workplace, please do not hesitate to contact a Minneapolis workplace injury lawyer of Terry, Slane & Ruohonen, P.L.L.C. at 612-362-0000.

Our judicial system understands that employees should not have to suffer pain or loss of earnings due to avoidable accidents at work. For this reason, your employer is legally required to carry liability insurance. If you suffer an injury at work and are entitled to workers’ compensation, your employer has no legal excuse not to pay you what you are owed.

Workers’ compensation should cover the cost of your medical bills, any re-training necessary to resume your job after recovery, and the wages you would have earned during any period of work you have missed due to injury. Even if you are partially responsible for your injury, you are still entitled to workers’ compensation.

It is a good idea to notify your employer of your injury and file a workers’ compensation claim as soon as possible. Even if you do not think your injury will interfere with your job, it may cause complications down the road. It is best to begin documentation now.

Taking Legal Action

In addition to workers’ compensation, there are some cases where you may be able to file a personal injury suit against a third party if you were injured because someone else was negligent.

For example, if you are injured by defective equipment, you may sue the manufacturer. If a third party is visiting your place of employment and causes you injury, you may be able to file a suit against that third party. Similarly, if you are on a third party’s premises while on the job, that third party may be legally responsible for an injury you suffer.

If you have been injured on the job, contact a Minneapolis workplace injury attorney from Terry, Slane & Ruohonen, PLLC at 612-362-0000 today to learn more about your legal options or submit our free online contact form.

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, medical malpractice suits are one way in which problems or areas in need of improvement can be identified within the United States medical system. The process can be a bit complicated at times, and it is important to know if your medical situation fulfills the basic requirements to constitute a malpractice claim.

A medical malpractice case, in its most basic form, is a negligence case brought against a medical provider, stating that negligence in their work caused injury or death to you or a family member. In order to win a negligence case, you will have to be able to prove the following:

• “A duty was owed.” – When a doctor, hospital, or other medical professional agrees to accept you as a patient, they are entering into an agreement whereby a legal duty exists for them to provide you with medical assistance to the best of their ability.
• “A duty was breached.” – The medical professional undertaking your care “failed to conform to the relevant standard of care.” In order to prove this point, an understood standard of care has to be proved either through expert testimony or by errors obvious enough that expert testimony is unnecessary.
• “The breach caused an injury.” – By failing to work according to the relevant standard of care, your medical professional’s failures can be identified as a proximate cause of the injury / death in question.
• “Damages.” – For you to have legal basis to file a claim against a health care professional, you (or the individual bringing the case) must have incurred damages, either pecuniary or emotional. Even if your medical provider was clearly negligent, without damages, there is no basis for a claim.

If you or someone you know is in need of a medical malpractice specialist, contact the Minneapolis medical malpractice lawyers at Terry, Slane & Ruohonen, PLLC at 612-362-0000.

Tetanus, otherwise known as lockjaw, is a potentially fatal disease that is caused by the bacteria Clostridium tetani. When this organism gets under the human skin, it causes many painful symptoms, ranging anywhere from headache to inability to breathe. Since tetanus is such a virulent and dangerous disease, it is important to take the proper precautions ahead of time.

How Might I Get Tetanus?

Tetanus tends to live in natural environments, such as soil, dust, or manure. It is common for someone to become infected with tetanus when he or she sustains a puncture wound, as from a nail or splinter. The bacteria like to enter the skin through some sort of break in it, such as a cut. Once it breeches the barrier of the body, the bacteria emerges from its spore form into its active state and begins to poison the muscles.

What are the Symptoms?

Tetanus has a wide range of symptoms that vary in severity, depending on the stage of infection. In the beginning stages, one would experience muscle stiffness and spasms, along with sweating and fever. If the infection continues to go untreated, the muscles spasms will increase in intensity, to the point where the affected individual might suffer a broken bone as a result. In the worst cases, the muscles of the chest are affected, and the individual can lose the ability to breathe. This will likely result in death.

Contact Us

If you have ever suffered from tetanus due to a puncture wound, the Minneapolis personal injury lawyers of Terry, Slane & Ruohonen can help. Please contact their law office at 612-362-0000 today to set up an appointment.