Britton Law Blog

People in North Carolina might have heard about a fire on April 7 at Trump Tower in New York that resulted in the death of one man. It was the second fire in 2018 at the building. In January, a fire in the heating system led to minor injuries to three people.

When the building was constructed in 1983, sprinkler systems were not required in buildings. Once they became a requirement in new residential high-rises, safety advocates pressed for them to be added to all apartment buildings, but developers and then-mayor Rudy Giuliani resisted the addition because of costs. If major renovations are done in old buildings, sprinkler systems must be added.

Many North Carolina entrepreneurs could benefit more from buying an established company compared to starting one themselves. However, it is still important to research the type of company that one would potentially thrive in. Furthermore, investors need to know why they are putting their money into an acquisition and what makes it stand out above the rest.

By looking further into what makes a business worth buying, a prospective business owner can tackle the question from as many angles as possible. It will also be critical to understand what a payback period is and how it can help a person buy an existing company. In many cases, the buyer makes a down payment and pays the rest from business profits earned over time. However, buyers and sellers can get creative when it comes to negotiating a deal that works best for them.

Sharing road space with big rigs is a safety risk that Arizona motorists take almost every day. The size and weight difference between fully loaded tractor-trailers and passenger cars creates extreme danger when collisions happen. While most truckers are highly trained and skilled, they are only human, and the slightest mistake can have deadly consequences. Considering the volume of freight transported by trucks, the large number of injury and death claims against negligent trucking companies is not surprising.

In the immediate aftermath of a crash, the first concern is medical treatment for the injured. However, victims should also obtain a copy of the incident report as soon as possible. Investigating officers typically list obvious contributing factors to a crash on the report as well as the exact name of the trucking company involved. All of this information is important when filing a claim. Incident reports often include witness statements and contact information useful in higher-level investigations completed in the course of a liability claim.

The number of truck accidents in North Carolina and around the country has risen quite a bit, and a comprehensive study from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggests that truck driver errors and recklessness are largely to blame when lives are lost. The federal safety agencies studied 120,000 fatal truck accidents that took place over a 33-month period, and the truck driver was determined to have been at fault more than two-thirds of the time when multiple vehicles were involved.

The Large Truck Crash Causation Study was based on accident reports from 68,000 fatal commercial vehicle crashes involving truck drivers who had made an error of some kind. Performance issues, such as overcompensating or panicking in emergency situations, were cited as the cause of the accident about 9 percent of the time, but reckless or negligent behavior like speeding, using cellphones while behind the wheel and remaining on duty despite being dangerously fatigued was determined to have caused 78 percent of the crashes.