Ocean County Workers' Compensation Law Blog

Whenever talk of estate planning comes up in Ocean County, you likely hear the same topic again and again: Avoid probate at all costs! Why is that? Most assume that the probate process will almost always be protracted, which will inevitably result in inordinate expenses paid from the estate's assets that can cut into whatever interest you and others may have in it. Yet the truth is that many estates can actually avoid the probate process altogether (or at least be probated quickly). 

According to Section 3B.10-3 of New Jersey's Statutes, if you are the spouse or domestic or civil union partner of the decedent, you can present a small estate affidavit to the court if the total value of his or her estate is less than $50,000. Doing so allows you to bypass administration and automatically inherit the entire value of the estate (with $10,000 protected from collection efforts by any of your deceased spouse's creditors). The same is true if the decedent was a loved one with no surviving spouse, only in this case, the value of his or her estate cannot exceed $20,000. 

The “Tide Pod Challenge” that swept the Internet in January of this year is just one example of several potentially dangerous household products of which New Jersey residents should be aware. What may have started as a bad joke became something much scarier as teens took up the “challenge” to eat them in a video that went viral. Harmful ingredients in the soap include toxic polymers, hydrogen peroxide and ethane. For two toddlers and eight seniors with dementia, eating the packets has proved deadly.

In the space of one year, between 2013 and 2014, some 62,000 youths younger than six were exposed to both laundry and dish detergents. Consumer Reports pulled its endorsement of the packets due to the risks it posed and urged stronger safety measures be put in place.

If your aging parent resides in a New Jersey nursing home, his or her safety, welfare, comfort and contentment are always on your mind. Even though you probably checked out the facility thoroughly before helping your parent move in, nevertheless you keep hearing about nursing home negligence and abuse on TV and reading about it on the internet. Since you cannot visit your parent every day, you worry that (s)he could receive substandard treatment without your knowledge.

Accidents happen at even the best nursing homes, and the most common accident among elderly residents is a fall. If your parent falls and hits his or her head, (s)he may be at very high risk for sustaining a traumatic brain injury.

Every year in the U.S., many thousands of people die in vehicle accidents, several hundred of them in New Jersey, while those injured in car crashes number several million, according to Fortune magazine. Along with this tragic cost in lives comes a cost to society. A very real financial cost that in 2016 was $432 billion. This total accounts for property damage, medical expenses, administrative expenses and lost wages and productivity. Worse even than these costs is the knowledge that many accidents can be avoided.

Nobody will be surprised to learn that distracted driving is a top reason for car accidents, according to Huffington Post. The topic has increasingly been in the news over the last decade or so in-car and cell-phone technologies grow ever more popular. Distracted driving is about more than texting and talking on a smartphone, however. It covers just about anything that pulls your attention away from where it should be—on the road. Applying makeup, eating and operating car stereos and other, in-car entertainment are also distracted driving.