Stipe Injury Law Blog

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is a Federal government program that provides financial assistance to those suffering from disabilities that make them unable to work.

If you are unable to work due to a physical or mental disability, you need to apply for Social Security Disability benefits. It is recommended you obtain legal representation to guide you through the process or to assist you if you have already been denied benefits.

A permanent disability refers to any condition that renders you incapable of returning to any job under any conditions. A partial disability refers to a condition that allows someone to perform some job duties but may need vocational rehabilitation or a job change in order to remain employed.

The application process for receiving these benefits is complicated and can take as long as sixty to ninety days to complete. There is also a six month waiting period before the first benefit payment arrives.

The Social Security Disability attorneys at Stipe Injury Law are very experienced in gathering together all your evidence and documentation that will prove your disability or illness meets government requirements, and they will then determine the best course to take to represent you successfully and efficiently.

Please contact Stipe Injury Law today in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma if you are applying for SSDI benefits or have already been denied your benefits and get the legal representation you deserve.

Truck accidents are responsible for catastrophic, life-threatening injuries and deaths for the occupants of the other vehicle involved in a collision 94% of the time. Truck driver error is the fault of these collisions in many cases. Demanding delivery deadlines instituted by the trucking companies and long hours behind the wheel without rest are contributing factors to many accidents. Truck driver fatigue is a danger to all of us that use the roads nationwide.

Sleep deprivation or sleep interruption is said to be a major cause of truck driver fatigue-related accidents. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is supposed to enforce federal regulations that govern how many hours a truck driver can be behind the wheel before they are required to rest. It is a well documented fact that these regulations are ignored or disregarded on a routine basis.

It is important to hold negligent truck drivers and trucking companies legally liable for the damage they cause to innocent citizens by their blatant disregard for the federal regulations governing time driving these massive trucks that are responsible for so many lives being interrupted by life-altering injuries or fatalities. Stipe Injury Law truck accident attorneys have the experience and legal expertise to hold these truck companies responsible for their injurious and fatal business policies.

If you live in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma or the surrounding area and you have been involved in an accident with a truck, please contact Stipe Injury Law today.

The Toyota Motor Corporation has recalled millions of vehicles for safety concerns involving incidents gas pedals getting stuck under floor mats, and gas pedals that get stuck in the depressed position causing unintended and uncontrollable acceleration.

Motor vehicle accidents involving runaway Toyotas continue to cause catastrophic injuries and wrongful deaths across the United States. The Toyotas involved include the 2004 to 2010 model RAV 4, Corolla, Matrix, Avalon, Camry, Highlander, Tundra, Sequoia, Prius, Tacoma, Lexus ES350, Lexus IS 250 and Lexus IS 350. At least fifty-six deaths can be attributed to accidents caused by sudden and unintended acceleration in runaway Toyotas.

If you have been injured or someone you care about was killed in an accident caused by a defective Toyota Motor Corporation vehicle you are entitled to financial compensation from Toyota. The experienced product liability attorneys at Stipe Injury Law have the legal resources necessary to litigate these complex claims quickly and efficiently. The customer must prove the accident was not due to driver error or negligence but was caused by a defective vehicle.

Please contact Stipe Injury Law if you live in the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma area today to schedule a confidential no cost to you consultation with a Toyota recall attorney to protect your legal rights and learn how to proceed with your claim against Toyota Motor Corporation for your pain and suffering.

Before giving medical treatment, healthcare professionals must obtain your informed consent. "Informed consent" is a term used to describe a person's agreement to allow medical treatment to be given based on full disclosure of the facts necessary to make an intelligent decision.

In order for you to give informed consent, you must understand what the proposed medical treatment entails, what procedures will be performed, whether medications will be administered or surgery will be performed, what if any alternatives are available, as well as what the potential risks or complications and side effects may be.

In the event you are prevented from giving your informed consent because of a physical or mental condition, healthcare professionals may proceed with your care and treatment in your best interests without your informed consent.

You can designate someone to make your healthcare decisions for you if you are no longer able to by obtaining a health care directive or living will. An attorney can assist you in preparing this document.

If you have questions and concerns about healthcare directives, living wills, or a durable power of attorney for healthcare, please contact the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma office of Stipe Injury Law today to schedule a consultation to discuss these very important documents that can give you peace of mind in the future.

It is possible to prevent nursing home abuse using a combination of strategies to protect vulnerable older adults. Many nursing homes do provide quality care and are staffed with decent, dedicated and hard working people, but some older adults may find themselves in less than ideal conditions which gives us cause for concern.

Caregiver's education and training in managing difficult resident care situations, problem solving, conflict resolution, stress management techniques, dementia care and witnessing and reporting nursing home abuses should be supported and encouraged.

Work conditions for caregivers should include adequate staffing, enhanced communication between administration and direct care givers, competitive salaries and greater recognition, respect and acknowledgment of the difficult work nursing home staffers do on a daily basis.
It is also important to be sure hiring practices in nursing homes include stringent screening of prospective employees for criminal backgrounds, a history of substance abuse or domestic violence and examine their true feelings about elder care and their ability to manage their anger and stress levels.

Even the most diligent strategies cannot prevent some abuses in nursing homes from occurring. If you feel someone you care about has become the victim of nursing home abuse despite all efforts to prevent this from happening, please contact Stipe Injury Law in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma today to learn what you can do to prevent this from happening again, and to obtain justice for your loved one.

Psychiatric malpractice is defined as misconduct on the part of a psychiatrist or failure of the psychiatrist to provide a certain standard of care and treatment for their patient. Statistics reveal that over 25% of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental illness at any given time, so it is very important that high standards need to be held by psychiatrists. When these standards are compromised, allegations of psychiatric malpractice may be the result.

Some forms of psychiatric malpractice can include the failure to diagnose accurately, the failure to treat appropriately, medication errors, physical, mental or emotional abuse of the patient, breach of privacy and sexual abuse.

Since the ultimate goal of a psychiatrist is to treat people's minds and emotions, extreme caution must be taken in the care and treatment of their patients. A misdiagnosis or medication error can result in catastrophic consequences with a patient's life hanging in the balance.

Most psychiatrists study for many years and work long hours under the most stressful circumstances, however if there are unscrupulous members of the psychiatric community that need to be held accountable for their actions.

If you feel you have been a victim of psychiatric malpractice, do not be victimized again. Please contact Stipe Injury Law in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma today to schedule a confidential consultation with our experienced psychiatric malpractice attorneys to protect your legal rights and find out whether you are entitled to financial compensation for your pain and suffering.

Airbags are thought to be an important defense against serious injury or death in a car accident. However, an investigation into the facts has found airbags often fail, leaving victims seriously and often fatally injured.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has done little to protect consumers from the threat of airbag failure. Airbag failures are responsible for hundreds of fatalities annually, yet little is being done to correct the problem.

The investigation found over fifteen hundred people have died as a result of front-impact car accidents after airbags failed to deploy, but the investigators feel the actual number is closer to four thousand deaths when all possible accident scenarios are included in the equation. Another aspect of airbag deployment injuries is that they can inflict serious injuries when they deploy unexpectedly not during an accident or after a minor fender-bender.

The most recent airbag recall was announced by the Honda Motor Company for nearly five-hundred thousand vehicles that could contain a dangerous and deadly airbag defect which has recently resulted in six injuries and one fatality.

If you have been the victim of a defective airbag injury, please contact Stipe Injury Law in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma today to schedule a consultation with an experienced defective airbag attorney to learn about how to protect your legal rights and get the financial compensation you deserve.