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SMDA, PC is proud to announce that one of our founding partners, Phillip Serafini, has once again been selected as a Super Lawyer for Plaintiff’s Personal Injury Attorneys for 2022.

Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Their patented attorney selection process is peer influenced and research driven, selecting the top 5% of attorneys to the Super Lawyers list each year. This is the third time that Mr. Serafini has received this award in addition to being named as one of Metro Detroits top attorneys by Crains Detroit Business.
We feel that these awards reflect the continuing commitment by Phil Serafini as well as the entire staff at SMDA to providing the same quality compassionate representation we have provided to all of our clients over the past 16 years since we opened our doors in 2006. Please feel free to call us for a free consultation if you have questions or concerns about matters within our practice areas:

SMDA is proud to report that survivors of catastrophic crashes and their loved ones, including a number of my clients at Serafini, Michialowski, Derkacz & Associates, PC, won a major victory in the Michigan Court of Appeals today. The Court issued its long awaited decision in Andary v USAA and held that benefit reductions passed as part of 2019 auto insurance reforms could not be applied retroactively. The decision Represents a Major Victory for Survivors of Catastrophic Crashes and their Families, has binding effect on retroactive application of benefit reductions.
The Court ruled 2-1 in favor of the plaintiffs in the case of Andary et al. v USAA Casualty Insurance Company et al. The lawsuit was filed in 2019 by guardians of two catastrophically injured auto accident victims — along with the nationally renowned brain injury rehabilitation clinic Eisenhower Center — and names Citizens Insurance Company of America and USAA Casualty Insurance Company as the defendants. The victims, on whose behalf the lawsuit was filed, are Ellen Andary, of East Lansing, and Philip Krueger, of Ann Arbor.
The decision will enable thousands of severely injured accident victims to continue receiving medical expense and home care reimbursement at the benefit levels that were legally enforceable under insurance policies that those victims bought and paid for for years before the new law went into effect. The decision will prevent insurance companies from reaping windfall profits by retaining premiums they collected to pay benefits they would no longer be required to provide if the Court had allowed the Insurance Companies to retroactively apply the new law to these claims some of which stem from catastrophic collections that occurred more than thirty years ago.

If your parents are at the age when illnesses and medical conditions are a concern, you will have worries about the costs of long-term care. One of the biggest problems confronting senior citizens today is the extraordinary cost of this care. Such costs can exceed one’s entire lifetime savings. When proceeds come to an end, the only option may be to apply for Medicaid.

However, while Medicaid does pay the costs of long-term care, eligibility is complex. One of the eligibility requirements is that the amount of assets your parents can own individually and jointly is extremely limited.

“Look-back” period

You may be over at a friend’s house when, out of nowhere, an otherwise friendly dog bites you. Over 4.5 million Americans receive dog bites each year, shares the American Veterinary Medical Foundation. While a decent amount are superficial wounds that do not require any medical attention, plenty of people need to go to the emergency room to address the wound. 

You are put between a rock and a hard place when a friend’s dog bites you. You want compensation for your injury, but you also do not want to damage the friendship. During this time, the most important thing is your health, and you should take the following steps after suffering a dog bite. 

Get medical attention

Getting divorced at any age creates profound stress and uncertainty. However, this is even more so for older individuals. There are several considerations to help prepare yourself from financial pitfalls.

1.) Create an inventory of all assets, before meeting with your attorney. You should know how each asset is titled (jointly or individually).

2.) Be mindful of past employment and any pension or stock options that you may have.

We handle numerous probate and trust administration cases, where siblings do not get along. It is better to work through issues with your siblings, prior to your parents’ passing away, as there is less stress and emotion.

There are several questions to ask your adult siblings, which may help repair and strengthen your relationships.

1.) What can I do to help us grow closer? This question opens the door to issues that you may not know exist. It may give your sibling the ability to finally open up about something that is bother them, and in turn, the ability to work through the issue.

How to reconcile the valuation of a business, its potential equity distribution, and support obligations.

If you are a business owner, you want to ensure that your spouse is not able to “double dip” in receiving part of the business, and spousal support based upon your income. This would allow your spouse to receive double recovery on one asset.

Related Posts: Cases in the news: Bonk v. Bonk, Ways to manage financial pitfalls during late-in-life divorce, Same-sex marriage ban, Deciding where to live after divorce

The Hawaii Supreme Court is listening to arguments in a significant LGBTQ case, involving legal parenthood. The case involves a lesbian couple, where one of the women sought out a sperm donor and became pregnant while the other woman was deployed in the military. Upon returning from deployment, the non-pregnant spouse filed for divorce. The child was born before the divorce was finalized.

As a general family law principle, when a married woman gives birth to a child, the birth mother and spouse are presumed to be the child’s parents. A presumption that can be rebutted. In this case, the spouse argued that there was no way she could have been the child’s biological parent. The family court denied the spouse the right to sever her parental obligations. The spouse is claiming that the standards of presumed parentage do not apply to same-sex couples; however, to adopt such a view would be at odds with the landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which set precedent that states cannot impose different terms and conditions on marriages between same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

Related Posts: Cases in the news: Bonk v. Bonk, Ways to manage financial pitfalls during late-in-life divorce, Same-sex marriage ban, Deciding where to live after divorce

The new tax overhaul will remove a 75-year-old tax deduction for alimony payments. The new rule will not affect anyone who divorces prior to 2019; however, it will certainly change divorce negotiations.

What’s changing? Currently, the spouse paying alimony can deduct it from their taxes and the spouse receiving the alimony pays taxes on it. The idea is that the payer is generally in a higher tax bracket. Thus, with the alimony deduction, they are paying less tax. The payee is generally in a lower tax bracket, and pays less tax on the income received. The current setup preserves more money amongst the ex-spouses. The new rules will result in alimony recipients receiving 10-15% less than what they would receive under the current law, and more money to be paid in taxes.

For more information on the consequences of the tax changes, contact SMDA, PC at (586) 264-3756.

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