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Your best bet would be to return to the surgeon who performed the reduction surgery and discuss your concerns with him or her. Until you know for sure whether the poking is from a foreign object (i.e. needle, surgical tool, etc), there is no way to know whether medical malpractice has occurred. Once you find out the cause of the discomfort/poking, if you wish to discuss a malpractice claim, please feel free to contact me and I would be happy to discuss with you.

Best of luck.
Joe

Unfortunately, there is no statewide or national database which reports whether an attorney has had a legal malpractice claim filed against him/her. However, if the attorney has been disciplined by the Ohio Supreme Court for unethical behavior, that is reported and available to the public by going to the web address below and entering the attorney’s information.
http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/AttySvcs/AttyReg/Public_AttorneyInformation.asp
Best of luck to you.

Technically speaking, there is not much you can do about it. Once they offer you full value for the vehicle plus the salvage value, they are entitled to take ownership of the vehicle and salvage it. Your only option would be to keep the vehicle. But there are some problems with doing that. First, they will deduct the salvage value of the vehicle from the amount they are offering you, meaning you will get less money for the car from the insurance company. Second, they will require you to convert the title to a salvage title before releasing the money, meaning the car will not be allowed to be operated on a public roadway until all repairs are made and it is certified repaired by the Ohio Highway Patrol. This will cost you more money in addition to the repairs, and you will not be able to use the vehicle until all repairs are made and certified, not solving your problem.
The only other option I see would be to request that the repairs be made since it is less than what the vehicle is worth. But they will probably deny the request, as it is their choice whether to repair or total.

As to the loan balance, that is an unfortunate situation that I see in my practice quite often. Check with your daughter’s insurance company to see if they provide gap coverage, which will pay the difference between the total loss value and the amount owed on the loan. Also, check with the bank. Some banks include gap coverage in the application for financing, so they may have it. If she has gap coverage through either, then she may not be liable for the deficiency balance between the value of the vehicle and the amount owed on the loan.

Tough situation, and I wish I had better advice for you. Best of luck to you and your daughter.

Generally speaking, under Ohio law, an owner of a vehicle cannot be responsible for the damages caused by an adult driver of the vehicle except in two instances: 1. the driver is acting as an agent, employee, or servant of the owner (i.e., is running an errand at direction of owner, delivering goods at direction of owners, etc.), or 2. The owner has reason to know that the driver is not fit to operate an automobile, either because of a mental or physical impairment or disability (which includes under the influence of drugs/alcohol, no driver’s license, blindness, health condition, etc.).
If neither of these situations apply, then generally the owner of the vehicle cannot be held personally liable for the damages caused by the driver. So if your son would be in an accident that exceeds your insurance coverage, they could take an excess judgment against your son and his assets, but not your assets, so long as the two scenarios above do not apply.
If you are really concerned about your son driving your automobile, then you can either not let him drive it, or you could increase your insurance limits beyond the $1.3M in coverage you currently have. Though, to be honest, in most instances, you would have more than sufficient insurance, with the exception of a death resulting from the accident.
Best of luck to you.

A competent personal injury lawyer cannot adequately evaluate a case based upon information posted on a forum such as this. My best advice for you would be to contact a competent and experienced personal injury lawyer in your area. Only after gathering all of the information about your dad and the circumstances surrounding his death would a lawyer be able to adequately and fairly evaluate the case. And regardless of how intelligent you are, a layperson simply does not have the necessary knowledge to handle a medical malpractice case on their own. Medical malpractice is a very specialized area of practice, and there are many lawyers who are not even competent to handle them.

As to the statute of limitations, you are incorrect about it being two years. Under Ohio law, you only have one year from the date the cause of action accrued to file a lawsuit for medical malpractice. See R.C. 2305.113. However, because your father died, there are two statutes of limitations applicable.

First, for your father’s conscious pain and suffering from the date of his injury until the date of death, you have one year from the date the cause of action accrued to file a lawsuit.

Second, for the wrongful death claim, which is for the injuries and damages suffered by the surviving family due to the decedent’s untimely death, you have two years from the date of death to file a lawsuit against all responsible parties.
Also, you must have an executor/administrator of the estate appointed by the probate court before you can even file the lawsuit.
Hope this helps. You should contact an attorney immediately, as time can quickly run out, and it takes a considerable amount of time to properly investigate a claim and get a case ready to file. This includes the need to have the case reviewed by an expert(s) physician to obtain the necessary affidavit of merit required in all medical malpractice cases.
Best of luck, and very sorry for your loss.

You should speak with a malpractice lawyer. You only have a limited amount of time to pursue the claim on your son’s behalf, and it is very important to gather the information needed to review and pursue the claim as quickly as possible. If interested, you are welcome to contact our firm and we would be happy to discuss your claim with you.
Best of luck.

You should look at your own automobile insurance if son was living with you, or your son should look at his own auto insurance. Most insurance policies provide for medical payments coverage, which provides coverage for medical benefits incurred as a result of an automobile accident.
If your or your son’s insurance does provide for medical payments coverage, you need to contact your insurance company and make a claim for medical payments coverage. Also, if your son was injured, you should make a claim for uninsured motorist coverage under your or son’s policy, since the driver was uninsured. Then your insurance company will pursue the claim against the uninsured driver.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.
Best of luck.

If the other driver is now making a claim against you and/or your boyfriend for the damages to his car or for injuries he suffered in the collision, you need to contact your boyfriend’s automobile insurance company and put them on notice of a claim being made. If your boyfriend did not have insurance, you need to put your automobile insurance company on notice of the claim being made. You must do this in a timely manner, as most policies have a clause requiring prompt notice of all claims and a duty to cooperate in the investigation and handling of claims. If you fail to do so timely, they could deny your claim for failure to follow all conditions of the policy. Call them today. If a lawsuit is filed against you and/or your boyfriend, the automobile insurance will provide you with legal counsel to defend you.
If neither you or your boyfriend had automobile insurance at the time of the collision, you will have to defend the action yourself, either on your own or with your own lawyer.
Best of luck to you.