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Two weeks ago a woman came in my office and asked for my help concerning a cat bite that she had suffered when a neighbor's cat had bitten her on the hand and upper arm as my client was trying to remove the cat from her own home. The neighbor lets the cat run loose in the neighborhood all the time. Most people would think that a cat bite wouldn't be as big of a deal as a dog bite. In a lot of cases that thinking would be incorrect. Legally there is a huge difference.

In last Tuesday's Star Tribune was a discouraging article concerning a significant increase in traffic deaths in the United States. The United States now leads the world in this category. 29 nations were studied and only five of the 29 saw an increase in traffic deaths between 2010 and 2016, with the US having the highest rate of increase at 13.5%.

In today's Star Tribune on the Opinion Page was a report on the recently completed legislative session. In particular it dealt with the fact that a bipartisan bill to tax the opioid industry to help pay for some of the damage their drugs have caused, didn't make it to the governor's desk.

When we purchase auto insurance we all have an expectation that we are getting the coverage that we pay for.  Lately, however, insurance companies have discovered yet another way to make certain coverage disappear when we need it the most. Underinsured motorist coverage is mandatory in Minnesota and is there to protect us if another driver causes us injury and does not have enough coverage to fully compensate us for those injuries.

The big banks and the credit card companies recently scored a big win over consumers with the assistance of all of Minnesota's Republican congressional delegation. Every Republican House of Representatives member voted in favor of eliminating a consumer's rights to join class actions when they've been ripped off by their banks or credit card companies. You need to understand that no one can be forced to participate in a class action, it is totally voluntary.

One of the major obstacles in presenting and proving that somebody has sustained a permanent brain injury from a concussion is that such brain damage does not show up on a typical MRI or CT scan, much less an x-ray. However, some recent developments have provided some exciting evidence in this regard. There is something called DTI imaging which is a software program that can provide a picture of the disruption in a human brain caused by concussions.

In the Star Tribune newspaper this past Thanksgiving day was an article about crash avoidance technology in automobiles and the fact that auto manufacturers have not made it standard equipment yet, despite overwhelming evidence that it is cheap and incredibly effective. The National Traffic Safety Board reports that there was a 7.2% increase in highway deaths in 2015. The agency was extremely frustrated by this and is "calling for action to reduce fatalities on multiple fronts."

In today's Star Tribune on page B5 they noted that 2 pedestrians who had been hit in Minneapolis this week had died. Both of these individuals were struck in broad daylight and neither drugs nor alcohol were involved in either crash. Why aren't people paying more attention when they are driving? How much carelessness is necessary to kill someone? Apparently not much. How should the families of these individuals be compensated?

In this morning's Minneapolis Star Tribune there was an article about trampoline park injuries. As these parks have grown in popularity, the number of emergency room visits has also increased dramatically. In the five years ending in 2014 emergency room visits went from 581 in 2010 to 6932 in 2014.Most of these parks require that the user or the user's parent sign an ironclad waiver before using the facilities.

In today's Star Tribune the headline on page 1 read as above. The article went on to note that there was a 21% increase in 2015 in traffic deaths in Minnesota attributed to distracted driving. Perhaps more worrisome is the fact that traffic deaths went up in 2015 over 2014. The good news was that speeding related fatalities were reduced by 17%.