What Is The Statute of Limitations? Why Is It Important to Contact an Attorney if You Think You Have a Case?

Dalton:
Welcome back. FM Talk 106.5 Mobile Mornings with Dan Brennan and Dalton Orwig. And a pleasure to be joined again by attorney Bryan Comer with the personal injury lawyers Tobias & Comer Law, LLC. Hey, Bryan, good morning.

Bryan:
Good morning. Thanks for having me, Dalton.

Dalton:
So, man, I'm so excited to have you in because. Well, I think just like so many other people, the closest brush most of the time I get with lawyers or courtrooms is through watching TV. And I know a lot of that stuff never actually happens. It's dramatized for theater. But I've got so many questions. One thing that I always hear over and over again is a statute of limitations. I mean, it's in so many news stories that we talk about here on this show. Can you kind of lay it out for me? The statute of limitations for something like a personal injury case. How is that different from criminal statute of limitations? Or is there a difference?

Bryan:
Yes, the statute of limitations applies across the law, whether it's a criminal case where somebody's charged with a crime or whether it's a civil case where somebody has been injured by someone else or even, say, a contractual dispute. And a statute of limitations is a bar that's put in place by the Alabama legislature that says that if after so long of a period of time runs, then if you're not going to bring the case by then, then you can't bring the case. And so typically for a personal injury action, those are covered by something called negligence, the failure to act as a reasonable person. That's whether it be car wreck case or whether that be a defective product. That statute of limitations in Alabama is two years from the date of the incident. And then there are different statutes of limitations. So say if you had a breach of contract with somebody, that's six years. But the concept is the same, whether it's in criminal law or whether it's some civil law.

Dalton:
Okay. So if something happened to someone or to someone that they know and they feel like maybe it happened too long ago, it doesn't hurt to get a consultation anyway, right?

Bryan:
Not at all. And in fact, there's always exceptions to every rule. If there was some kind of a fraudulent concealment or some bad action to try to prevent somebody from finding out that they have a claim, then that also extends the statute of limitations. And always I tell anybody, if you think you have a claim, call a lawyer, call us. We'll be happy to talk with you. Sometimes I hear folks who say, well, I'm intimidated to talk to an attorney, and there's absolutely no reason to. If you call my office and ask for me, you're going to get me. You're not going to get some other person that you've never heard of or isn't even on our website. You're actually going to get me. And the same is true for both of my other partners, and so you can call and there's no fee to consult with us, and we're happy to look into your case and determine: What is the statute of limitations? What are the issues here that we need to look into? And then do you have a case? And is it one that we can help you with?

Dalton:
And you guys are local? We've talked about before too. Give you a call. We're not talking to somebody from New York City or any other city. You are right here, right?

Bryan:
Or even from out of state, from Birmingham or even something like that. I mean, we are local. We all three live here. Desi Tobias and I, we live here in the community. Born and raised in the community. Our kids go to school here in the community. We go to Church here, and we're not some TV personality. We're not some person out there "call me" to do this. We are actual, real people. And like I said, if you call and ask for me, you're going to get me.

Dalton:
Yeah. If you're just tuning in, talking with attorney Bryan Comer with the personal injury lawyers Tobias & Comer Law, LLC. So we talked about the statute of limitations. Maybe somebody feels something happened too long ago. What are some other reasons that people may be, I don't know, a bit reticent to check in and see whether they have a case or not.

Bryan:
Honestly, the biggest thing that somebody says to me, it's all 90 plus percent of the people who sit across from me in an initial consultation say, "I'm not the suing type." Well, nobody really is the suing type. Nobody would voluntarily undertake this because it's a big burden on a plaintiff. And so perhaps that scares people. But the whole process, we like to guide you through it from the moment you first walk in the door, and we're right there, and we can help you in every way we can answer your questions. But then also, we have the expertise to know: where should the lawsuit be filed, what is the statute of limitations like we just talked about, and then making sure that that gets met, who are the actual responsible parties that need to be held responsible for what happened, and then also being able to actually try the case and then see it through all the way to the conclusion if the case is appealed or what have you, and that is critically important, is hiring a lawyer and a law firm with that expertise. And that's what you get with us. I mean, we collectively have 50 years of experience litigating cases, helping people between the three of us.

Dalton:
Wow. That's incredible to hear. I'm a nosy person. So, of course, Bryan, when I met you, first things I'm asking are, tell me about some of the big cases you've worked over the years, and one that you were telling me about really kind of stood out to me. And it's this man named Johnny Williams, is that right? And he was in a crane accident. Now, correct me if I'm wrong. But Johnny had been working on a crane for a long portion of his life. So he knew what he was doing. And something awful happened to him one day, kind of lay that out for us. And what happened in this case, it seems like it's another one of those where you learned a lot about some things you didn't know beforehand. And that helped you to kind of get Johnny and his family kind of what they deserved after this happened.

Bryan:
Right. And you're right. And Johnny was just a member of a phenomenal family. His wife got the call that no one wants to get that he had been injured in a terrible accident. And what then happened after that, our investigation showed that the crane he was operating, he was actually doing something called a two person lift where there were two cranes picking up a huge piece of a ship that they were building at a shipyard And the other crane pulled his crane over. Well, in the process of doing that, Mr Williams' crane had these counterweights on the back of it. There were 16 counterweights, each one weighed what three F 350's would weigh. Wow. They were secured by nothing but gravity. And so when that crane tipped forward, all those counterweights came down and struck the cab that he was in. And so that is a prime example of a case where you say, Oh, my goodness, he was in this horrific accident on the job. This is so terrible. And it absolutely was, it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. But our investigation showed that there was a completely responsible party that people didn't look to to begin with. And that was the crane company. And come to find out this had happened multiple times before, and the crane company knew about it.

Dalton:
They knew about it.

Bryan:
Yeah, they know about it. They went and investigated it, and they tried to keep it, try to keep it secret. And so what we did is we investigated it. We brought suit. And then we litigated the case, actually, meaning that we took depositions, we filed legal briefs, and we tried the case in federal court in Mississippi. And over two weeks, and we got a verdict, a successful verdict for the family. The crane company appealed it. And we were able to handle the appeal successfully. And so that's when you get us and our expertise, it is the ability to take a case from the moment you walk in the door through the absolute conclusion of the case. And this is a Prime example of that.

Dalton:
And it's interesting that the reason that Johnny Williams wife found out about you is through a neighbor of there. So they referred from another client who you did a fantastic job.

Bryan:
Yeah. And that's the best compliment that we can ever get from someone. Thankfully, we don't have many repeat customers. Since when we see people, it's usually after the worst day of their lives. But to know that you've done a good job for another client of that client to then recommend you to friends, neighbors, family members is the highest compliment that we can receive.

Dalton:
So I know you said you touched on this a little bit earlier, but one thing that people for sure are getting of many things, but one thing they're for sure getting when they give a call to Tobias & Comer Law, LLC is experience. Combined, you guys have plenty of experience work cases like this.

Bryan:
Yeah. So like I said, we have over 50 years of experience helping people in litigation, helping people who've had something really bad happen to them. And there's really no substitute for that. It's like I heard someone say one time you could tell someone how to ride a bicycle. You can read books on how to ride a bicycle, but until you actually get on the bicycle and fall a few times, you don't know what it's like to ride one. And the same is true for trying a case. And so we have tried cases. We've tried a lot of cases as a firm, and there's just no substitute for that experience.

Dalton:
And you've had success in trying those cases, too, which anyone can see. And all they have to do to see that is go to the website TMCLawyers.com. So, Brian, if someone wants to reach out to you individually, how can they do so so they can email me?

Bryan:
My email address is bryan@tobiascomerlaw.com. Or they can reach me at the office at 251-432-5001.

Dalton:
It's easy enough, isn't it? Man, we really appreciate you coming on with us this morning.

Bryan:
Thanks for having me.

Dalton:
All right. That's Bryan Comer. He's with the personal injury lawyers Tobias & Comer Law, LLC. And that does it for another show. Mobile mornings with Dan Brennan and Dalton Orwig.