Forney

Published on: January 31, 2019

Civil Litigation in Kaufman County

For many folks in Kaufman County, they will never have to deal with the stress and costs associated with civil litigation. However, if you are a small business owner, the chances of litigation will probably go way up. Either you are going to need to sue someone, or they are going to sue you. In today’s world, it is almost an inevitability that if you do business long enough, you will be involved in litigation at some point. Still, for most people, there is still a lot of potential out there for litigation to occur.

Own some rental property? You will probably have to evict someone at some point. Drive a car? It is always possible that you could cause an accident and get yourself sued. Planning on having some work done on your home, or to build a home? You may end up having to sue a contractor or two.

Listen, the fact is this: lawsuits happen. Deals go sideways. When they do, you need to know who to call. Guest and Gray law firm is the highest and best rated local law firm. Our firm handles various forms of civil litigation, from general breach of contract claims, to real estate issues, landlord-tenant claims, fraud, personal injury, business and commercial litigation, and much more.

Published on: January 23, 2019

Kaufman County’s Trusted Real Estate Attorneys

by Guest and Gray Law Firm

Guest and Gray has been a fixture of Kaufman county for years. We are the largest and highest reviewed law firm in Kaufman county for a reason. We put our clients needs first. That is why more people choose Guest and Gray than any other law firm in Kaufman county. Period.

We have a team of attorneys with various areas of practice. Need a family law attorney? We have that. Need a criminal defense attorney? Yeah, we can do that. Personal Injury? Check.

Real estate law? You better believe it. We have real estate attorneys who know and understand the Kaufman county real estate market, home trends, and legal issues to watch out for, whether it be a residential or commercial property. David HagEstad, a member of our real estate law team, actually sold real estate in the Kaufman county area prior to practicing law. His knowledge of the real estate market and connections to the real estate community, as well as his knowledge of real estate law are a real commodity to our clients.

Published on: January 2, 2019

Forney: New Neighbors, New Business and New Problems

by Guest and Gray Law Firm

Forney is a town on the move. Literally. Even those of us who live in the city have to drive to get anywhere we want to go. Nothing is in walking distance. That is okay. As residents of Dallas-Fort Worth we are well accustomed to driving every where we go.

Guest and Gray Law Firm, P.C. has called Forney, Texas home for decades. Scott Gray and his father, Don Gray, served Forney for decades before joining forces with Robert Guest to become Guest and Gray in 2011. Most of our staff and several of our attorneys, including the author of this article, grew up in the Forney and Kaufman county areas (the author is from Crandall. Don’t hold that against me) and we have seen the exponential growth that is happening in our city and our county. Here is looking at you Terrell and Crandall.

What I have notice, just in the past year, is that if I fail to drive on one side of town for a while, when I finally do, there is a new neighborhood where a piece of land once stood. For instance, that I-20 corridor near FM 1641. There is a new neighborhood over there that I didn’t notice for about 6 months. I came back from court that way one day and BAM, there is a neighborhood off to the left. An entire neighborhood. Well, howdy new neighbors.

Published on: December 19, 2018

Guest and Gray: Dedicated to Serving Kaufman County

by Guest and Gray Law Firm

Guest and Gray Law Firm is committed to serving Kaufman county and its residents who have been injured as a result of someone else’s negligence.

We get it. Lawyers, in general, get a bad rap. We are portrayed on TV as money hungry people who will do anything to get ahead. We readily admit that there are those in this industry that are that way, especially in personal injury. But, let me ask you this: are there people like that in your industry? I bet there are. There is probably a lot of them, and I would not for one second automatically think that is what you were simply because you work in the same industry as those people. At Guest and Gray, we work hard for our clients.

At Guest and Gray, our goal is to serve the people of our local community and protect them from being taken advantage of by insurance companies, hospitals and medical providers. That is our number one priority. After you have been injured in an accident, a lot of things happen: you are hurt. You need treatment, so you go to the hospital and then probably follow up treatments, etc.. That is expensive. Emergency hospital care can cost upwards of $100,000 depending on the types of treatments performed. On top of that, your car is messed up and either needs to be fixed or replaced. Your own health insurance company will pay for a lot of the medical bills, but they will want a cut out of any personal injury settlement you get. So, they will be hounding you about settling. The at-fault insurer will give you LOTS of run around about how much they are actually going to cover and what amounts they will not. You may be missing time from work.

Published on: December 17, 2018

Dog Bites Are The Worst: An Overview of Texas Law on Dog Attacks

by Guest and Gray Law Firm

Ever been bitten by a dog? It is not very much fun. The personal injury lawyers at Guest and Gray Law Firm are keenly aware of this fact. Over the years, Guest and Gray Law Firm has helped victims of dog bites recover top dollar against negligent dog owners.

For the most part, dogs are man’s best friend. Not like those useless cats that just lay around the house and look at you in disgust. Dogs are sweet and caring and love you unconditionally. However, dogs have it in their system the capacity to become dangerous. Certain breeds more-so than others. Pit Bulls, Bull Dogs, and Rottweilers are some of the main dog breeds that people associate with a dangerous capacity to injure people.

However, in Texas, you really cannot just use a dog’s breed as a means of proving your dog bite case. It must be dog specific. This is a good and bad thing. Texas does not have a statute that covers civil liability for dog bites. Rather, in Marshall v. Ranne, 511 SW 2d 255 (Tex. S.C. 1974) the Texas Supreme Court adopted the view of dog bite law contained in the Restatement of Torts section 509. That means Texas is a “negligence” or “one bite rule” when it comes to dog bites. In order to recover damages for a dog bite, the injured person must show that:

Published on: December 14, 2018

Kaufman and Rockwall UPS Truck Accident Lawyer

by Guest and Gray Law Firm

This time of year, it is not uncommon to see UPS drivers dashing from stop to stop delivering packages, like Santa trying to make it to every child before Christmas morning. Just last week I was driving on Highway 175 towards Kemp and I saw a UPS delivery truck driving faster than I was on the highway and HE WAS ON THE SERVICE ROAD.

That kind of dangerous driving leads to accidents. UPS puts a lot of pressure on these drivers to deliver an almost impossible amount of packages during the Christmas season. That is why you hear about so many drivers simply dumping out packages on the side of the road because they simply couldn’t make their delivery times and were desperate.

By the way, those UPS trucks are big, commercial vehicles, so if that driver doing 75+ mph on the service road had struck another vehicle at that speed, its pretty much guaranteed that there would be significant injuries, and possibly fatal.

Published on: December 13, 2018

Subrogation Issues In Kaufman and Rockwall County Personal Injury Cases

by Guest and Gray Law Firm

Subrogation. The word itself is strange and seems scary to the uninformed. However, it is a very common legal tool for health insurance companies to recoup monies that they have paid out when their insured has been injured due to the negligence of a third party, i.e. a car or trucking accident, dog bite, etc..

The experienced personal injury attorneys at Guest and Gray navigate the complicated field of subrogation on a daily basis in pursuing personal injury cases for our injured clients. We have represented injured parties in Forney, Rockwall, Dallas, Terrell, and all over East Texas in hundreds of personal injury cases.

In most cases, if you are involved in an accident, you go to the hospital and you provide your health insurance information and you think that is that. However, unbeknownst to you, that gives rise to a subrogation claim by your health insurance company and they are pretty quick to pick up on the charges due to the type of treatment and billing codes that are entered by the hospital or other treatment facility.

Published on: December 7, 2018

Guest and Gray: Local. Client Driven. Results Oriented

by Robert Guest

Guest and Gray Law Firm is Kaufman and Rockwall county’s trusted, local personal injury law firm. We are a client driven and results oriented personal injury law firm. Our personal injury team is dedicated to serving the needs of the injured. Our personal injury practice is diverse, spanning from automobile accidents and 18-wheeler wrecks to dog attacks and beyond. No matter the case, our experienced attorneys and knowledgeable staff are prepared to take on the at-fault party and their insurance company.

We are a Local Firm, Dedicated to our Local Community.

We are not a big name Dallas law firm. We like it that way. We don’t have call centers full of assistants. We don’t have claims specialists running your case. We have lawyers dedicated to each matter who personally reviews your case and handles the negotiations with the at-fault party and their insurer. If you call our office, you can speak to your attorney, not their assistant or a claims specialist. Our staff is trained to handle the needs of each case. We do it this way not because we can’t do what those guys in Dallas do. We do it this way because we want to provide the best possible service to our local community. Our main office is in Forney, Texas. We also have an office in Rockwall to serve Rockwall county clients. This is where we are from. Scott Gray, one of our founding partners, graduated from Forney High School. David HagEstad, our personal injury associate graduated from Crandall High School. Most of our staff and assistants are local and grew up in the Kaufman county area. We believe in staying local and serving the community where we grew up. We believe this makes us uniquely capable of serving this area because, well, we know the area. We know what areas are particularly dangerous for drivers and where the majority of accidents occur. We know why. We know that Kaufman county and Rockwall county are experiencing unprecedented growth and that the increased traffic in areas like Rockwall, Forney and Terrell are leading to more accidents. We know that Terrell’s commercial growth will lead to more truck accidents and Forney’s residential growth will lead to more injury accidents involving passenger vehicles.

Published on: December 6, 2018

Kaufman County’s Trusted 18-Wheeler Accident Attorneys

by Guest and Gray Law Firm

Guest and Gray prides itself in being the largest and highest rated law firm in Kaufman county. We are number one because we care about our clients and their situation. Personal injury cases are just that: personal. They happen to real people and it causes REAL problems in their lives. No accident situation can bring more drama to a family’s life than an 18-wheeler accident. These are simply the most destructive types of accidents that can occur on Kaufman county roads. Every year, Kaufman county residents and passers-through die on our local highways due to negligent truck drivers and as our roads become more congested and traveled as a result of development, the numbers will only go up.

Kaufman county is one of the fastest growing counties in Texas. Growth in cities like Forney, Terrell and Crandall will lead the way over the next few years. All three of those cities are corridors in and through Kaufman county with interstate highways and state highways leading right through them. Forney and Terrell have the highly traveled highway 80 and interstate 20 passing right through them and Crandall, as sort of the gateway to East Texas has highway 175. All three cities are gearing up for exponential growth over the next few years as pastureland is converted to shopping, retail and most of all, homes. Crandall has the Wildcat Ranch Development that plans to bring nearly 3,100 unites, which would effectively more than double the population of Crandall alone. Travel anywhere in Forney and you will see new community development and shopping and retail going in, and Terrell leads the way in commercial development. The result of this population increase will be an economic boom. Increased economic out put means an increase in commercial traffic. Commercial traffic means 18-wheelers and other commercial vehicles traveling on our roadways will only increase to meet demand.

At Guest and Gray, our personal injury lawyers see this as being a potential problem for our local citizenry and those who travel our major highways to get to and from home and work. The greater the number of commercial vehicles means that our current and future citizens will be at a greater risk of being injured due to negligent commercial truck drivers as they come into our area. A semi truck, without the tractor-trailer, weighs around 80 thousand pounds, without a tractor-trailer attached. In comparison, the average passenger vehicle weighs about 5,000 pounds. When the two meet at high speeds, the results can be absolutely devastating.

Published on: December 5, 2018

Injured In An Accident and It Wasn’t Your Fault?

by Guest and Gray Law Firm

Have you recently been injured in an accident and it was not your fault? Then you need to contact the law firm of Guest and Gray today. We handle cases just like yours every single day. From car accidents, to 18-wheeler wrecks, premises liability and beyond. When you are injured as a result of somebody else’s negligence, Guest and Gray is there for you. We fight hard for the rights of the injured.

Injuries as a Result of Other’s Negligence Can Happen Anytime You are on the Road

Negligence can occur in the most innocent seeming moments. The most common is while driving a car. For most people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we become very accustomed to driving longer distances to get where we need to go, whether it be to work or to even the grocery store. The problem is that people can become so used to driving in those areas that they lower their guard and drive more dangerously. Messing with the radio, talking with others in the car and texting and driving are common factors in these types of accidents. People get bored driving so they distract themselves. In doing so, they make it more dangerous for others on the road because they are paying less attention to the 2-ton projectile they are driving at high speeds down the road. Driving is something that we do every day. Unfortunately, as a result, North Texas experiences catastrophic and fatal accidents on a daily basis.