By Erin Tucker

​Sunday, November 11 was Veteran's Day. Now a federal holiday, it originated in 1919 as Armistice Day on the one-year anniversary commemorating the agreement that was signed at 11:00 AM on November 11, 1918 ending World War I.  

Also known in the years following as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, by any name, unfortunately it did not end all war. 

Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance on November 11, and in 1938 it became a national holiday. If the 11th falls on a Sunday, as it did this year, the following Monday is designated as the federal holiday; if it falls on a Saturday, then either the previous Friday or the following Monday is the observed holiday. The name was changed from Armistice Day to Veterans Day in 1954 to honor all men and women who have served in the United State armed forces. November 11 of this year was particularly significant, marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I which began July 28, 1914 and ended November 11 1918.

At Tucker Law we have a special place in our hearts for veterans. Makes sense, since I live with one! My partner in life and Avery's daddy, Greg, served six years active duty in the Navy. He spent most of it on a small frigate with a proud history called the USS Samuel B. Roberts. He was deployed three times to the Mediterranean Sea to assist with anti-terrorism efforts and participated in the decommissioning of the Roberts in 2015. Greg left active duty as a First Class Petty Officer and is currently in the Reserves, stationed in Des Moines.

Tucker Law has assisted no small number of veterans over the years. If you need help, don't hesitate to call us. We're here. 

If you work for someone other than yourself, you probably are at least somewhat familiar with worker’s compensation. It’s a program designed to provide benefits to employees who are injured on the job, suffer a hearing loss or develop an occupational disease as the result of their on-the-job duties.

​Although workers comp might seem like a modern idea, the basic concept goes as far back as 2050 BC. Ancient Sumerian law included a list of the monetary value of specific body parts if lost or injured. Ancient Greek, Roman and Chinese laws had similar indexes.

Fast forward to the mid-1700’s and the Industrial Revolution. After emerging in Britain, the revolution spread to other parts of the world, and with it came factories and factory jobs — work which was often extremely dangerous and carried out in the harshest conditions. The resulting injury rate was enormous. 

In theory workers could seek compensation through the court system, but the existing laws were such that injured parties rarely received any renumeration. Workers were for all intents and purposes on their own. Industries even went so far as to make employees sign contracts — workers named them “death contracts” ​— as a condition of employment which forfeited their right to sue for damages if they were hurt.

The 19th century ushered in a more enlightened era. In an effort to quiet social unrest, in 1871 Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck implemented a system of social insurance known as the Employers’ Liability Law that provided some degree of protection for workers in industries. Thirteen years later he championed Workers’ Accident Insurance, which was the forerunner of today’s Workers’ Compensation Insurance.

Unfortunately, the idea of taking care of injured workers was slower to catch on in America. It took Upton Sinclair’s shocking 1906 novel The Jungle, which details the horrors workers experienced in Chicago slaughterhouses, to stir public outrage. In response Congress passed the Employers’ Liability Acts of 1906 and 1908, which made contributory negligence doctrines less restrictive. Wisconsin passed the first comprehensive workers’ compensation law in 1911, while Mississippi was the last state to follow suit in 1948. 

Iowa passed its law in 1913 requiring employers to have the means to compensate employees, with limited exceptions, for any work-related injuries. To provide this coverage, the majority of Iowa employers purchase workers' compensation insurance from a private insurance company.

Insurance companies are required to follow the law. Like any company, however, they’re in business to make a profit and provide a return on investment to their owners and stockholders, so it’s in their vested interest to minimize payouts as much as they can.

Here are the most frequent reasons clients turn to us for help getting compensated for workers’ comp claims:

• The insurance company is refusing to pay benefits or is significantly delaying benefits
• The injured worker is under the mistaken belief that he or she is prohibited from getting necessary medical care
• The injured worker is offered nothing or an unreasonable amount for his or her claim

If you have been injured on the job and feel that you’re not being treated fairly, we’re here to help.

A year ago next month, I wrote a post that contained a list of the ten most dangerous accident sites in Iowa, and alerted readers that three of them are in Ankeny — which happens to be the town I live in, and moreover, those three all intersect with Ankeny Boulevard.

It’s a dangerous street! 

As material proof, on August 25 there was a horrific accident on that very road right in front of my friend Kelly and her husband Paul’s home.

The crash was literally earth-shaking; their house shook. Paul ran out the front door to discover such widespread destruction that it looked as if either a tornado had come through or a bomb had detonated.

A pickup truck, which according to witnesses was traveling at an extremely high rate of speed, hit a wooden utility pole with enough force that it sheared off the bottom of the pole, leaving the top dangling above attached to the wires. 

The truck carried so much momentum that after removing the lower half of the first utility pole, it continued across McDonald’s parking lot, hitting a parked car on the way, transporting itself and the parked car across the lawn dividing McDonald’s from Taco John’s where the truck crashed into and took down a second utility pole, ran up a guy wire and was suspended in midair. Can you imagine the force it took to do that?

The entire road was yellow-taped and closed from the time it happened at about 8:30 PM until early morning, chockablock with police, EMTs, fire trucks, ambulances, utility vehicles, and more than a hundred on-lookers.

The two people in the truck were killed instantly. Amazing, luckily, the two in the parked car didn’t suffer life-threatening injuries, but as I’m always reminding you, you aren’t really capable of evaluating your own condition in the aftermath of an accident. (Follow this link to a list of precautions.) 

The pickup had been racing with a motorcycle according to the witnesses, and had been going at least 70 in this 35-mile-an-hour zone. 

We all assumed it only teenagers would be so out of control as to literally race down a busy street at 70 miles and hour, but no, they were two adult men, age 41 and 50.

Be careful out there! Wear your seatbelts, obey speed limits, keep clear of crazy drivers and use this accident check list if something happens.

Iowa Identity Theft Victim Assistance Coalition is urging Iowans to consider using a new state law that was effective July 1, 2018 that permits consumers to 'freeze' their credit reports at no cost. 

Before this new law, Iowans had to pay each of the three major credit reporting agencies $10 to freeze their credit reports and another $12 to temporarily suspend the freeze if they wished to apply for credit, for a total of $66.00. 

Iowa’s law also permitted companies to each charge up to $10 for permanently removing a credit freeze. The new law does away with all those fees and permits any Iowan to place, suspend or remove a credit freeze at no charge.

Often called a credit security freeze, the effect is to bar new creditors from seeing your credit report and credit score. Consumers may want to freeze their credit reports for several reasons, including to prevent someone else from applying for credit cards or loans in their names. Placing a credit freeze also helps prevent others from using a consumer’s name to apply for a job or rent a home or apartment.

The core purpose of placing a credit freeze is to prevent identity theft. Before this new law, a person had to become a victim of identity theft to freeze your credit at no charge. Iowa’s new law is similar to a new federal law that will become effective later this year. 

However freezing your credit doesn’t prevent all forms of identity fraud.  

Even if a credit freeze is in place, scam artists may still try to make charges on your existing accounts so it’s still important to check your credit card bills closely every month. Freezing your credit also doesn’t stop credit card offers from coming in the mail.  

Consumers who freeze their credit reports, but later wish to apply for credit will have to contact the credit reporting agencies in order to lift the credit freezes which is also now free to consumers.

No matter how carefully you drive, sometimes auto accidents are inevitable. One unfortunate result of the shock people feel in the immediate aftermath of an accident is an inability to think clearly about best practices to protect their own interests. Consider printing out the attached checklist at the bottom of this article and keeping in the glovebox with your registration. How many of these steps are crucial depends somewhat on the severity on the situation, but try to follow procedure even in the event of a simple fender-bender.

Immediately after an accident:

Stay put. Don’t leave unless you require immediate medical care. You’ll want to be present to make a statement to the responding officer.

Don’t admit responsibility at any time to anyone present. People have a tendency to say “wow, sorry I hit you” without thinking of it as an admission of fault. Try to limit your comments to factual statements.

Check on all parties involved to make sure that nobody needs medical care. When in doubt, call for help. People in shock often can’t feel their injuries yet.

Whenever possible, keep everything as it is. Warn other drivers with flashers, lights or flares. Exceptions to this rule would be congested roadways, interstate highways where the likelihood of actually causing another accident is high.

Call the police or highway patrol. You'll need an accident report filed to help with your insurance claim. 

Exchange information with the other parties involved. You’ll need the other driver(s) name, address, phone, insurance policy carrier and policy number. Limit your conversation to these details only. If they make a statement of responsibility, write it down before you forget it.

    •    vehicle make, model and year of the other driver's vehicle
    •    vehicle registration number
    •    plate number
    •    date and time
    •    road and nearest cross street
    •    direction of both vehicles
    •    weather and visibility
    •    responding officer name and contact info

Make a record of the incident. If you have a camera, take pictures or even better, take a video with your phone describing what happened including the details from the list above. If you don't have a phone to use, write down all you can. 

If there are witnesses, get their contact information. They don’t necessarily need to stick around to speak to the police, but their accounts may be important at a later time.

Follow all instructions given to you by law enforcement. When police arrive, tell them only what you know. If you aren’t sure of something say so, don’t speculate or guess, and for your own safety and that of others, follow instructions from law enforcement and emergency medical professionals.

As soon as possible after the accident:

Get medical attention. Even if you feel fine there may be injuries that aren’t apparent at first. If airbags were deployed, consider this an absolute must-do.

Report the accident to your insurance carrier. The faster you get this done, the better.

Keep all records, notes, correspondence, photographs and recordings about the accident. You never know what legal and health repercussions may arise in the future for you or anyone else involved in the accident, so keep everything about what happened organized in a file for easy reference.

By Rob Tucker

It was my pleasure to once again serve on the Rotary Club of Des Moines scholarship interview team for East High School. Every year RCDM awards six $8000 scholarships, one to each of the Des Moines School District's six high schools: East, Hoover, Lincoln, North, Roosevelt and Scavo. And every year my interview partners — Kelly Sargent and Mark Lyons — and I wish we could give scholarships to all four East High finalists.

This year was no exception.

Difficult as it always is, our job is to select a winner, and this year’s East High RCDM scholarship recipient was Ashley Martinez-Torres. Although Ashley has only been in the U.S. four years, and English is her second language, she earned a 3.5 grade point, qualified for membership in National Honor Society and participated in volleyball and theater, all while working part-time at a restaurant and a radio station to help support the family. Ashley plans to major in multi-media communications and photography at Des Moines Area Community College, then transfer to Grandview University to complete her degree, with a goal of a career in broadcasting.

Because our second-place finisher, Alicia Rojas', story was compelling, our interview team decided to make a modest personal contribution to her college future. Alicia lived in Nashville, Arkansas, population 4500, until last year when she made the gutsy decision to move to Des Moines alone to finish high school. Her goal was to improve her chances of being accepted into college by attending a school with greater educational and resume-building opportunities, in a larger city that could also offer more employment options. Although Alicia was fortunate to be able to move in with her aunt and uncle in Des Moines, her living arrangements also entailed providing childcare for their three under-the-age-of-three children, working part-time at Dunkin' Donuts, while still making sure she earned college-worthy grades at an enormous, unfamiliar school.

Alicia succeeded. She graduated in the top 15% of her class and was awarded a nearly full-ride scholarship to attend Drake University.

Kelly, the distaff member of our scholarship team, is small in size, but Alicia is — so Kelly tells me, even smaller. Ya’ know that jokey phrase, “What’s less than zero?” Who knew that in the world of women's clothing, there are actually sizes that are less than zero?! Apparently not only are 3, 2 and 1 adult human clothing sizes, but there are 0’s, and . . . wait for it . . . double 00’s. Guy clothes are much easier!

​Based on Kelly’s experience, she knows that finding clothes in those sizes is a challenge, so she asked if Mark and I might be willing to throw in a little money along with some of hers in order to take Alicia on a little shopping excursion for college clothes. They made two shop-till-you-drop trips and had lots of girly fun along the way.

The other RCDM Des Moines School District scholarship winners are:

By Rob Tucker

Do you know the significance of April 20 — besides being five days after your taxes are due? I didn't until I came across an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

Each year on April 20 tens of thousands of Americans celebrate marijuana use on an unofficial holiday known alternately as 420, 4:20, 4/20 or weed day. This counterculture holiday isn't as popular as New Year's Eve, but it's making headway. Twenty-five percent of users say that celebrating the 'high holiday' is more important to them than New Year'e Eve and 36% of them plan to take the day off to do so. That percentage is even greater in states where recreational marijuana has been legalized: as many as 41% of users plan to skip work. Who knew!

The most important thing to remember is that marijuana is an intoxicant. The greater the concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the blood, the slower reaction times become and both lane changing and speed fluctuation increase. 

Although when it comes to driving impaired, alcohol is almost six times more likely to be the cause of a car accident, high driving is not safe driving. Canadian researchers compared fatal accidents one week before and one week after April 20 and found a 12% increase in the risk of a fatal crash on weed day. 

So don't use marijuana and drive and be extra careful every year on April 20.

By Kelly Sargent for Tucker Law

​A friend's daughter was recently in a car accident. It was relatively minor, and Emma was sure that she was perfectly fine, but dad and mom insisted that they take her to urgent care to be looked at. 

Wise parents. It reminded me of something that happened in my life.

When Paul and I were first married — we were just back from our honeymoon for a few weeks — I was hit by a pickup truck that ran a red light. When I say I, I mean me in the car I was driving; I would have been dead if it had just been me. 

It was 100% percent the other driver's fault. Not only did I have a green light, but it was a blind intersection from my direction. There was nothing I could have done to prevent it.

By Kelly Sargent for Tucker Law

​I don't remember how it was that I happened to read an article years ago about a tactic employed by a certain group of uber-famous theme parks that I won't mention by name. It stuck in my mind, though. Fortunately.
 
It described a purposeful strategy that all staff members were trained to employ as a means of avoiding being sued or at least mitigating the amount of damages the company could be found liable for. The truly amazing thing about this tactic is that not only is it so incredibly simple and easy to put into practice, it has the added advantage of 1000% seeming like the natural and right thing to do. The deliverer seems altruistic, a good Samaritan, even a savior.
 
What is it? I'll tell you, but I'm guessing at first blush, you'll be underwhelmed. Stick with me, though.
 
The employees are trained to be instantly there on the spot and immediately say to the injured person, "Are you okay?"
 
I told you you'd be underwhelmed. What's not right about that? How could that be a "tactic" to mitigate damages?
 
Here's how: Think about your own experiences of being injured. Once you realized that you hadn't been killed, weren't gushing blood from anywhere and seemed to have all your body parts intact, when someone near you asked if you were alright, you probably said, "I'm okay." 
 
Obviously, if it's a severe injury, the injured party isn't likely or may not be capable of saying they're okay, but barring that extreme, it's reflexive to say, "I'm okay."
 
The problem is that we very likely don't know whether we're actually okay or not, because in the immediate aftermath of an injury we're often in a certain amount of shock, plus the adrenaline kicked in the micro-second you hurt yourself, literally preventing you from feeling your pain. In that moment, we lack the capacity of knowing whether or not we are in fact okay.
 
Beyond our immediate, frequently unreliable self-evalutation, without being properly examined by a medical professional, we don't know if we are 100% okay — or what potential ramifications may manifest in the fullness of time.
 
In light of that, now consider this: if someone representing the entity at fault for your injury gets you to say . . . subliminally helps you to say . . .  that you're okay, documents that that's what you said, probably with witnesses, possibly has you sign something — there you are on record, with a list of witnesses, as having stated that you were in fact "okay." 
 
Later on if complications manifest such as headaches, back problems or recalcitrant pain, and you discover that you're going to need physical therapy or other interventions, possibly having to miss work, and you seek compensation for what it will cost to make you whole again, the statements you made at the time of your injury can be used against you. 

Of course what not to say, isn't just applicable at theme parks. Twice in my life I've been glad I remembered the point of the article I read. More about that next time.