Recently in Personal Injury Law and Process in Boston:

Bostonians love their booze. Does that really surprise anyone? In a recent study, the city placed highest in terms of drinking statistics, reports the Daily Beast.

Statistically it is a perfect storm of alcohol-consumption numbers:

• Population over age 21: 4,750,296
• Avg. monthly drinks consumed per person: 15.5
• Percent of population that are heavy drinkers: 7.4%
• Percent of population that are binge drinkers: 20.1%

If you bring a personal injury claim, the defendant may offer to settle the matter to avoid going to court. With a settlement, you'll basically be given money to compensate you and end the case.

However, not all settlements are equal. Besides the obvious difference in dollar amounts, you and the defendant may also structure the settlement to come as a lump-sum payment or as structured settlement annuities where you will receive a set amount on a recurring basis over a period of time.

You may have been injured in a car accident, medical mishap, or you may have simply slipped and fell on a walkway. You know the injuries are not your fault, and you know that someone bears responsibility for your injuries, but do you know how to collect damages?

Hiring a personal injury attorney is the first step to get what you are owed. Hiring the right attorney is critical, and for many people, the hiring process can be taxing and unnecessarily complicated.

Steven Woods was killed in a boating accident over the weekend when he was thrown overboard from a pleasure craft and apparently drowned. The boating death in Marshfield has led to criminal charges against the pilot of the boat, Justin McDonald, and may involve federal maritime admiralty law if a wrongful death lawsuit is eventually brought against him.

According to The Boston Globe, Woods and his best friend McDonald were alone on the 20-foot pleasure craft when they were both thrown overboard. McDonald claims that the steering wheel on the boat pulled uncontrollably to the left throwing the two men off the boat.

Jon O'Keefe, a 31-year old teacher, was recently fired from his job for allegedly "friending" a student on Facebook and engaging in other inappropriate communications. While the details of O'Keefe's exchange with his student have not been disclosed, his actions bring to light activities in the cyber-world that can create real-world injuries.

According to the Boston Globe, O'Keefe was a substitute teacher and tennis coach at Abington High School. As a teacher and coach, O'Keefe was in a position of power over his students, and he potentially abused this position by developing a personal relationship with a student on the social media website Facebook.

Personal injury suits in Boston can be filed for various types of cases ranging from car accidents, defective products, assault, and wrongful death. If you are considering filing a tort suit for an accident or injury, one key thing to keep in mind is the legal rule of "statute of limitations." This means that legal claims for injuries must be filed within a certain time limit.

Injured parties in Boston will lose their right to sue if they do not file their claim within three years from the time they realized they had suffered harm and recognized the nature of the harm. This is commonly referred to as the "discovery of harm" rule.

The wrongful death lawsuit filed by the mother of Danielle Tarsook against the City of Beverly may be settled soon. The Boston Herald reports that the judge presiding over the $10 million wrongful death lawsuit of Danielle Tarsook has urged both parties to reach a settlement by ordering the lawyers to attend a settlement conference in John Adams Courthouse in Boston this week.

The lawsuit is based on the city of Beverly's police response to a call from Danielle Tarsook's boyfriend. He called 911 and told the operator that he was worried for Danielle's safety. The lawsuit filed by Beverly Tarsook (Danielle's mother) claims that the police failed to protect her daughter when they turned the girl over to her father. Her father happened to be Sgt. Dennis Tarsook with the Beverly police department at the time. When Dennis Tarsook brought his daughter back home, she committed suicide by hanging herself.

A man who walked off Newport's Cliff Walk in the nearby state of Rhode Island was permitted to proceed with his lawsuit against the City of Newport. WCVB Boston reports that Simcha Berman and his wife were walking along the scenic Cliff Walk in August 2000 when he fell 29 feet onto the rocks after mistakenly taking a path that led from the attraction.

Simcha Berman subsequently became a paraplegic as a result of his injuries. He claims that the City of Newport and the state of Rhode Island failed to properly maintain the walk.