Updates

A house was burned down, a dog was killed, two power lines were toppled and an entire neighborhood lost power, all because someone decided to risk driving after having too much to drink. That's the sad story that residents of Metairie, Louisiana, woke up to yesterday morning, as a drunk driver rear-ended a pickup truck and set off a bizarre chain of events.

We've been covering a lot of stories of people who got injured and needed some money. When you read about how bad some of the accidents are, you may wonder if the money they get from their settlement will really be enough to cover everything. Often people are dealing with a bad combination of medical bills and being out of work for months or years, which makes it extremely costly.

At 9:30 this morning, a factory worker in Carlstadt, New Jersey was in the middle of work when something went horribly wrong. The factory worker who suffered the injury was actually a crane operator. He was in the process of shifting steel onto a pile so that it could be transported when the crane began to shift. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't stop the crane in time, and the load of steel that he was moving fell from the crane's clutches, crushing him.

June Weathers has been struggling for months, and it doesn't look like there's an end in sight. On July 18th, a semi-truck hit an overhead utility wire, dragging it down and knocking out the power in her neighborhood. For her neighbors, this was an annoying inconvenience that was alleviated when the wire was fixed and power was restored. June's problems, however, were just getting started.

Happy President's Day to you and your family, from everyone at Simia Capital. We hope you're enjoying this rare opportunity to have a Monday off. While you're at it, we'd like to take some time to go over the core goals and values that we have here at Simia.

Can you believe that the site's already been live for a month and a half? In that time, we've discussed a number of cases, ranging from enormous product recalls that involve thousands of people, to individual torts that impact only a single person. One thing that's been true of all those cases is that there's always been someone injured people can identify as the person or company responsible for their suffering.

Yesterday, we talked about the case of a woman who'd been so badly treated at a hair salon that she had to abandon her dreams of being a model. Some time ago, we'd talked about a case where a man slipped and fell on a patch of ice that hadn't been properly cleaned up. While the circumstances of these cases are very different, they can both fall under the umbrella of "Premises liability."

Myrella Ikeda was a woman with a dream. She wanted to be a model, and she was incredibly close. After years of hard work, she'd landed a photo shoot for a high profile magazine. She envisioned this as her path to stardom. In fact, the only thing left to do before her date with destiny was to hop into a salon to get a quick touch-up on her hair.

At Simia, we're constantly striving to provide the best service possible to our clients. That's why we're honored to be the newest member of ALFA, a trade association that's dedicated to ensuring fair, ethical and transparent funding standards within the legal funding industry.

Car accidents are pretty terrifying, and we've covered a few of them before. However, you usually aren't too worried about being hit by a car when you're in the comfort of your own home. As more news has come out of the colossal snowstorm that battered the northeast last week, we've learned about a shocking story from Pehlam where a car crashed into a house!