Law Office of Harold E. Bishop, Maryville Tennessee

Maryville Tennessee lawyer providing workers compensation, personal injury, and will & probate services for Knoxville, Maryville, Alcoa, and surrounding cities.

"The worst form of injustice is pretend justice." -- Plato

East Tennessee lawyer dedicated to Protecting the Rights of Injured Persons.

Personal Injury

Workers' Compensation

Wills & Estates
Preparing Wills Probating Estates

HAROLD BISHOP
ATTORNEY-AT-LAW

The clients I represent are a diverse group, from all social backgrounds. The one thing they have in common is that their lives have been shattered by the fault of another, whether it is negligence in the operation of an automobile, a defectively designed or manufactured product, or medical negligence. In some cases, someone may have been injured at work, even if nobody was at fault.

Tort Reform

Tort reform is the new phrase and it simply means eliminating the right to certain damages altogether and/or reducing the amount of damages that a person is entitled to recover. Multibillion dollar corporations are the force and money behind the "tort reform" movement. "Tort reformers" want to cap or eliminate non-economic damages and eliminate or cap punitive damages.

Non-economic damages include things like pain from broken bones, loss of enjoyment of life for a paraplegic who will never hike the Smokey Mountain trails again, or the suffering of a parent for the death of her child.

Punitive damages are damages designed to punish willful reckless or intentional conduct, and to deter that conduct in the future. Capping, or limiting, punitive damages would eliminate one of the most effective means to make sure big corporations don’t put out products which pose a hazard to consumers and their families. A "punishment" of a few hundred thousand dollars is no more than a drop in a bucket to a multibillion dollar corporation and would not deter reckless conduct.

Understanding Insurance Companies

Often, people do not know how insurance companies operate. In a liability situation (the Defendant was at fault and you were injured), the insurance company will often try to contact you immediately. The adjuster will want a "recorded statement" to support your claim. Giving this statement without the advise and presence of an attorney could seriously affect your claim since adjusters often will subtely phrase their questions in such a way that your claim is minimized. They are trained to do this. The insurance company's goal is to minimize the amount of money they pay out to you, not to take care of you. The insurance company is not representing you or looking out for your interests.

The interest of the insurance company is to collect as much money in premiums as it can, and to pay out as little to victims as it can. It tries to accomplish this by training all of its employees on how to treat victims in order to minimize claims. You should have someone on your side who is trained to combat those tactics and seek fair compensation.

Those are the reasons it is important for you to contact a lawyer as soon as possible after you have been injured.