Tom McCutcheon – Attorney at Law
We receive a lot of calls where people ask what kind of law we practice. We practice accident and injury law. This means that Joel and I handle automobile accidents from the initial investigation and documentation of injuries through settlement or trial. We handle on-the-job injury cases that fall under the Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act. We handle tractor-trailer accident cases. Tractor-trailer accidents are not like automobile accidents. Professional drivers that hold commercial driver’s licenses operate under a set of Federal and State rules that non-commercial drivers do not have to follow. There are often very serious injuries or death when a car and a tractor-trailer collide.
We have Richie Whitten in our office who is an excellent social security attorney who handles Social Security cases from helping someone file the original application to the hearing phase before a Federal Administrative Law Judge. Often injury cases overlap and someone seriously injured may need to file for Social Security Disability for either a permanent injury or a closed period where the healing process and the inability to work exceed one year.
One thing that I have noticed is that there are advertisements that seem to indicate personal injury settlements without going to court. I have handled thousands of automobile cases. The vast majority of these cases did settle without going to court. I don’t think there is any doubt that insurance companies know which lawyers can and will go to court and try a good case. In the last five or six years, I have tried 30 or 40 cases and in several of those cases, there was an insurance company representative in the back of the courtroom watching the trial. Those representatives are interested in how both sides try the case and what juries in a particular area do. Any trial lawyer and every trial lawyer knows that different counties will yield different results.
The relationship between on-the-job injury cases and social security is vital to understand. One fact that consistently surprises people is that workers’ compensation is entitled to pay doctors more than Blue Cross Blue Shield. We hope that judges always realize that many workers’ compensation doctors actively solicit worker’s compensation business, speak at workers’ compensation seminars and host receptions for the claims adjusters at these seminars. It does not take long before you begin to see whose side a doctor takes in an on-the-job injury case. We always hope that the doctor takes the side of their patient and many times they do, but there are several comp doctors that we discourage our clients from seeing.
If someone is injured through the negligence of another, whether it is a defective product, a slip and fall case or an injury resulting from a dog bite, we are interested in looking at the case. Joel and I routinely, day in and day out, handle cases that involve accident and injury law.
McCutcheon & Hamner, P.C.
2210 Helton Drive
Florence, Alabama 35630
Telephone: 256-764-0112
Facsimile: 256-764-1124
