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For a few years now Progressive insurance company has been pursuing an aggressive policy about settling personal injury claims against them. Shortly after an accident is reported (usually within a few days) Progressive will dispatch one of its claims adjusters in one of those little white trucks to visit the injured person. Ostensibly this visit is to discuss the claim and make sure that everything is okay.

In this morning's Star Tribune was a short article discussing the annual report on car crashes in Minnesota from 2013. Apparently some department at the state keeps track of this sort of thing and releases this report once a year. The statistics of interest are

There's an old saying that goes something like "no man's property is safe while the legislature is in session." That does not apply to the recent Minnesota legislative session that ended last week. There was a lot of stuff that was enacted into law that will help consumers.

If you have been injured in a car crash or similar unfortunate event, and it wasn't your fault, you might wonder if and when you  should call a personal injury lawyer. Just yesterday I got a call from a woman who was injured last February. She wasn't fully recovered by any means, and it does not look like she will fully recover any time in the future. With serious injuries like that, a phone call to an attorney right after the fact is usually a good idea.

If you really want a good look at how insurance companies think when it comes to claims, take a good look at this: http://www.insurancebadbehavior.org/ The lawyer who makes a couple of short cameo appearances is my good friend, Craig McClellan, an excellent lawyer from San Diego.

Much has been written about the drawbacks to The Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. An article in the February, 2014 issue of Minnesota Monthly caught my eye. The article talks about salaries in Minnesota and there is mention of the wage gap between the average working Minnesota male and the average working Minnesota female.

Last week one of my fellow trial lawyers was sitting in court in Ramsey County waiting for his case to be called. Ahead of him on the docket was a case involving a little boy who was seriously injured in a car accident. He suffered a broken thumb and a nasty gash on his head which could still be seen through his hair a year after the crash. The little boy had no lawyer. His mother had agreed to a settlement with the insurance company for the driver responsible for the crash.

In this morning's Star Tribune was the sad story of a 10-year-old boy, Gavin Sutton, who was killed last Sunday near his home when the four wheeled ATV he was driving rolled over on him. The Todd County Sheriff reported that the boy was legally operating the vehicle because he was on private property. The sheriff also noted that the boy was "experienced on this vehicle", was wearing a helmet, and was traveling at a slow rate of speed.

In today's Star Tribune there was a follow-up article to one earlier this week about a boating accident on Lake of the Woods last Sunday. In the earlier article mentioned that three friends were out boating and two of them died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. There was some question as to how this could of happened. That is answered in today's article. It turns out that the boat's owner (who died in the accident) had jury rigged the exhaust system of the boat due to a leak.

ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council. A pretty benign sounding name. It's purposes, however, are anything but benign.  It is a political group funded by large corporations. It's job is to create model legislation to promote the aims of its supporters, and then wine and dine state legislators to get them to introduce such legislation and get it passed. The sorts of bills that ALEC advocates are the anti-consumer sort of legislation popular in some state legislatures.