Sean Callagy - Attorney and Entrepreneur

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

On Mother’s Day and Motherhood | Callagy Law"s Blog

This past Sunday my wife and I attended Mass in New York City prior to visiting my wife’s elderly mother. We would be spending the day visiting with my mother-in-law and my wife’s family. As you would expect, the priest gave special recognition to all of the mothers in attendance, and asked that they stand up and be recognized. I say “as expected” not only because it was Mother’s Day, but also because Catholicism is particularly reverential toward motherhood, given the church’s veneration of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. At Mass they also distributed a Happy Mother’s Day card that contained a short piece of verse called “A Mother’s Love.” The first two lines read

Of all the gifts that God has given both here on earth and up above.

The gift more precious and dear is the gift of a mother’s love.

The sentiment expressed, of course, is a beautiful one and you would think is beyond reproach, but there are those who might scoff at, or worse, be offended by this type of veneration.

Putting aside the religious aspect of motherhood, without a doubt the most cherished possession in Nature is the Mother. Even before this past Sunday, I was struck watching a National Geographic special about mothers of innumerable species and the importance of them. All of nature is about survival of the species–the mother always choosing a mate in a way meant to ensure, or at least improve the likelihood, that her cubs will grow strong and survive. Reptiles, mammals, birds, amphibians—it is all about mothers and them doing what they can to guarantee the survival of their offspring so that the species lives on. Nature has no greater treasure than Motherhood and what it does for life. It is Life—its start and its continuation.

So, whether you are religious or not, whether you are a naturalist or not, know this: Motherhood is at the heart of all of it.

Learn More About Callagy Law Here:

On Mother’s Day and Motherhood | Callagy Law"s Blog

Monday, May 16, 2016

Callagy Law - The Record Reporter - Arizona

Callagy — Record Reporter

Callagy Law - The Record Reporter - Arizona

Callagy Law"s 27.6 Million Dollar Jury Verdict - NOT BAD!

Dear Client and Friend,

I hope this Monday Morning finds you doing well. This is the first in what will be an ongoing communication from me to our client and other friend base.

One of my goals has been, for a long time, to build a sense of community around Callagy Law. The idea is to find likeminded people of integrity, empathy, caring, urgency, aggression and a desire to grow and live a life of passion and positive energy. We want this in the people with whom we work as both clients and business teammates.

As you may know, we post videos on our callagylaw.com website, our Facebook page, our LinkedIn page and throughout our social media. Please join us there to receive our videos and other content that is designed to foster that sense of community, fun, adventure and growth for you and your career.

Today’s Why Not message was about one of my favorite quotes: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The challenge is to examine our lives and really determine in which areas we want growth and change.

The key though, is to focus as much on the feelings we want as the “things” we want. Peace, for example, is a critically important feeling for our life. Joy, fulfillment, adventure and many other feelings are also critically important for most of us. If we only focus on “things” or tangible outcomes (e.g., winning a trial), then we can miss many of the critical feelings we NEED in our life.

So, the quick message for today: examine your life and set your goals. I did this on Thursday, and it led to me on Friday ending up a half mile off shore in 50 feet of water free diving by myself in another country. While that’s a story for a different day, it was the result of this process, and a tremendous boost to my energy level and mind set!

By the way, for those that don’t know, we just obtained an over 27 million dollar jury verdict for our client Marc Wichansky. It has been a five year odyssey, which will be the subject of other videos and articles, but I want to thank our entire team for once again putting Callagy Law, and me personally, in America’s top 100 verdicts, as well as putting us in the running for Arizona’s highest verdict of 2016. The American jury system is the great equalizer and human lie detector. I am so appreciative for the work of Michael Smikun, Chris Miller, Robert Solomon, Sam Saltman, Taylor Gallo, Dally Shala and everyone at Callagy Law and outside the firm, who helped make this result a reality.

By the way, I think we are America’s only trial team to have two verdicts in excess of 27 million dollars within the past two years. Not a bad team to have helping you with your legal challenges….

Also, we have added a Family Law team to our world of Callagy Law. Chris Cavalli and Brian McCann have joined the firm as partners and hold the special designation of Certified Matrimonial Attorneys. If you have any divorce, child custody or other family law issues, please call us, we are here to help.

Please also be on the lookout for live events we will be doing at the firm to help educate, inspire and even network as we continue to grow the Callagy Law community with awesome like-minded people.

I am so thankful to work with you, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

In your service,

Sean Callagy

Please subscribe on YouTube and spread the word.

You can see all of our WHY NOT – HUDDLE videos by clicking here and subscribing! If you have questions about any of the content you see or to have your questions answered on an upcoming show by Sean, please email your questions directly to him by clicking here.

The Daily Why Not Huddle is for you if you want to exponentially increase your money, time, or fulfillment. The Why Not Huddle with business coaching expert, successful entrepreneur, and attorney Sean Callagy provide the essential daily ingredients for you to create and achieve your destiny.

Callagy Law"s 27.6 Million Dollar Jury Verdict - NOT BAD! #CallagyLaw, #FamilyLaw, #SeanCallagy, #WhyNot

Monday, May 9, 2016

What is No-Fault Auto Insurance and How does the Arbitration Process Relate?

The purpose of this post is to help assist those with questions they have concerning their business or medical practice. The Callagy Law team is knowledgeable in many law practice areas and will frequently post topics ranging from Medical Revenue Recovery, PIP, Workers Compensation, and Commercial Insurance. We hope to have this blog shed a light on many common questions.

One of the primary functions of Callagy Law, P.C. is the representation of New Jersey medical providers for collection of unpaid medical bills incurred as the result of motor vehicle accidents, which operates within the construct of what is called “Personal Injury Protection.”

To understand the relationships at play, the first thing to understand is that under New Jersey Law, all operators of Motor Vehicles must carry automobile insurance. This insurance can be obtained in two forms, “liability only,” or “liability plus collision.” The difference between the two is that the former is limited to payment of vehicular damage of another party’s vehicle – should it be determined that the accident was your fault. The latter includes coverage for damage to your own car in addition to damage caused to another person’s.

However, what many people do not realize is that, if you are injured as a result of a motor vehicle accident, the primary payor (i.e. insurance company) will typically default to your automobile insurance, not any personal health insurance that you may have. This is termed as the PIP coverage portion of your automobile insurance.

If a party is injured in an accident, their default payor will be their own car insurance company, not the other party involved in the accident, even if you feel the accident was caused by them. This is because New Jersey is one (1) of twelve (12) “No-Fault” states.

Specifically, the term “no-fault” auto insurance generally refers to any auto insurance plan that allows policyholders to recover reimbursement from their own insurance company, regardless of fault. However, the State of New Jersey utilizes the strictest definition of no-fault coverage, which provide for the payment of no-fault first-party benefits and restrict the right to sue any third parties with regard to the accident. As noted above, this “policyholder benefit coverage” is known as personal injury protection (PIP). [See: Insurance Information Institute, “No Fault Auto Insurance”- http://www.iii.org/issue-update/no-fault-auto-insurance]

Currently 12 states and Puerto Rico have no-fault auto insurance laws. Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have verbal thresholds of PIP coverage. However, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Kentucky only, motorists may reject the lawsuit threshold and retain the right to sue for any auto-related injury. [Id.]

Therefore, in the most typical situation, when a patient is injured, and requires medical treatment, their personal car insurance company is responsible for making the appropriate covered payments. However, in many cases, the insurance companies’ unjustly deny payment based on purely procedural or theoretical grounds, or based upon differences in medical opinions between the patient’s doctors’ and the insurance companies’ hired “physician experts.”

Therefore, to take the burden of establishing the medical necessity of post-accident treatment, most patients “Assign” their right to payment to the physicians, who must then seek to recover any underpayments on their own accord, as subrogee of the insured patient. In order to protect their right to payment, the matters of PIP disputes are contractually stipulated to take place within an authorized New Jersey Arbitration Forum, rather than the more costly State Judicial System (ie Court).

At present, a company called “Forthright” administers New Jersey No-Fault Arbitrations, wherein its sole focus is management of No-Fault PIP Arbitrations under the State’s Automobile Insurance Cost Reduction Act. [See http://www.nj-no-fault.com/]

Callagy Law, P.C. represents all facets of medical providers from all stages of the arbitration process. We pick up your unpaid files, file the Demand for Arbitration, and send one of our highly skilled PIP-Litigation Specialized Attorneys to the scheduled hearing, where the provider’s argument for payment is presented to a Forthright Dispute Resolution Professional, who will subsequently render a decision, awarding the unpaid medical provider the fees to which they feel it is entitled. To date, almost $135,000,000.00 has been recovered for our PIP clients, a result of our 90% Claim Success Rate in the 44,000 cases that have been handled to date.

Learn More About Callagy Law Here:

What is No-Fault Auto Insurance and How does the Arbitration Process Relate? #Arbitration, #DemandForArbitration, #NoFault, #Pip

Friday, May 6, 2016

Success Is Easy—All It Takes Is Hard(er) Work | Callagy Law

Cael Sanderson is currently the head wrestling coach at Penn State. Since he began coaching there, Penn State has won 5 National Team Championships in the past 6 years. After winning 4 National Championships his first 4 years there as head coach, Penn State lost the year before last, and re-gained the title this past season.

I had heard stories about Cael Sanderson over the years—how he trained incessantly year after year–and was struck by one story my son told me when he was wrestling in high school. My son’s high school coach, in an attempt to inspire his wrestlers at St. Joseph’s Regional High School in Montvale, New Jersey, showed a video about Cael Sanderson. Cael Sanderson was undefeated in college, with a record of 159-0 and won 4 National Championships. In the video the St. Joseph’s coach showed his wrestlers, Cael Sanderson, shortly after winning one of his National Championships, apparently had a bite to eat—well-deserved of course—and then immediately started training for the next season. I thought to myself, “Relax a little. Go see a movie. Play some video games.” But then I realized, it was no accident or coincidence, nor was it fate or destiny, nor luck, serendipity, or any other name for good fortune that brought him the success he achieved, and continues to achieve. It is pure, unmitigated hard work and dedication, always beyond even the most dedicated wrestlers around him. He took nothing for granted. He believed he had room for improvement, no matter how successful he had been, and simply worked, and worked, and worked some more, and continues to do so, knowing there is always more room for more improvement.

So, what are we to make of this? Okay, Cael Sanderson was a great wrestler and now a great wrestling coach, and he achieved his success through a great deal of hard work. We are not all as dedicated as he is or perhaps as crazy to be so obsessed with something as to dedicate our entire being to it the way did and does. Tell me something that is not obvious!

Well, you might come away from this with the moral that hard work and dedication pay off or are important to success. You might think it is necessary to always strive to improve. And both of those are noble lessons to have learned from the example of Cael Sanderson.

I have a slightly different take. I come away from his example not thinking that success is hard, but that success is easy! But by easy I am not suggesting you can be lazy and succeed. Success is easy because, for the most part, all you need to do is work harder than everybody else, and, in most instances, that is not difficult to do. I understand that Cael Sanderson had more going for him with wrestling than simple hard work. So many things go into the level of success he enjoyed—the very highest level, a level that Sports Illustrated regarded as the second greatest college athletic achievement in history, behind Jesse Owens who set four world records in one afternoon. But for the great majority of us, achieving success among our peers requires simply an increment over and above their performance. It need not be a very great increment either. It only needs to be enough to enable us to stand out. We stand out by performing beyond those around us. Perform over and above and you will succeed over and above. It really is that simple.

Too often, people follow the pack, falling in line with the expectations of their peers, and succumbing to the pressures not to do too much. That is fine if you do not want to succeed. In fact, that is a sure-fire formula for not succeeding. But if you do want to succeed and, indeed, excel, just raise the bar above the expectations of your peers and colleagues, not even necessarily by much, and success will come swifter than you can imagine, perhaps not in the form of 4 National Championships and an undefeated record, but at least enough to earn a raise or a promotion or your supervisor’s recognition.

Success is easy—all it takes is hard(er) work. After re-capturing the National Championship for Penn State this past season, Cael Sanderson was quoted as saying, “We’re happy, but we leave here ready to improve, and build . . . . We’re happy we won, but we are excited about the future also.” I wonder how many other coaches at his level say that. My guess is that virtually any other coach would savor the moment, enjoy the high note he was on, and pay no mind to the next season for awhile. Not Cael Sanderson.

The team at Callagy Law hopes the information in this article was helpful in either your personal or professional life. Businesses and people are multi-dimensional and at times may need a guiding light. The legal world pertains to all walks of life and businesses, therefore, we aim to provide information which will help you navigate through your life. Callagy Law, is a multidisciplinary law firm, headquartered in Paramus, NJ owned and operated by Sean Callagy. We are committed to providing legal representation and advice to our clients at our law offices located in New York, New Jersey and Arizona. Please note that the information posted here should not be used as a legal argument of defense. If you find yourself needing legal advice pertaining to your unique situation, you can contact us at by writing us here. Feel free to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn! Additionally you can subscribe to our daily videos on YouTube.

Learn More About Callagy Law Here:

Facebook

Success Is Easy—All It Takes Is Hard(er) Work | Callagy Law #CaelSanderson, #CallagyLaw, #SeanCallagy, #Success

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Uninsured Employer’s Fund for New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Claims

The New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Law established the Uninsured Employer’s Fund (UEF) in order to provide benefits for any employee injured while working for an employer who did not have the required workers’ compensation insurance coverage. Benefits from the Uninsured Employer’s Fund also paid to an injured employee when an uninsured employer does not pay the benefit payments awarded by the Division of Workers’ Compensation. The benefits provided by the Uninsured Employer’s Fund include payment of medical expenses and temporary disability benefits. These benefits are administered by The Office of Special Compensation Funds (OSCF).

When a Petitioner files a Claim Petition, the insurance carrier or the approved self insurance of the employer is indicated on the application. If none is provided, then a search is performed with the Compensation Rating & Inspection Bureau to identify the whether the employer is uninsured. In the employer is determined to have no workers’ compensation coverage, then an attorney for the Uninsured Employer’s Fund will be assigned to the claim and will appear at the scheduled court proceedings.

We hope you found the information provided in this article helpful to various questions you may have had concerning the healthcare industry. For information pertaining to our services for medical providers, please click here. Please note, Callagy Law has recovered over $200,000,000 for medical providers, and that number grows daily. Please free to reach out to Sean Callagy of Callagy Law at any time for questions you may have concerning personal and business matters. Callagy Law offices are located conveniently in Paramus, NJ. Beyond the scope of information, Sean Callagy has developed multiple areas of our healthcare legal practice and business coaching. Feel free to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn! Additionally you can subscribe to our daily videos on YouTube.

Learn More About Callagy Law Here:

Facebook

Uninsured Employer’s Fund for New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Claims #CallagyLaw, #NewJerseyWorkersComp, #NewJerseyWorkersCompensation, #NjWorkersComp, #Oscf, #SeanCallagy, #Uef

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Supreme Court upholds Agreement terminating alimony upon showing of cohabitation

The following article was written by Callagy Law’s Legal Team, and will focus on many common questions and concerns surrounding new developments, legal matters, and other procedures within the practice area of Family Law. Our mission is to answer any questions and give knowledge to many different aspects of these matters.

In the recently published opinion Quinn v. Quinn (A-5-14, decided May 3, 2016), the Supreme Court upheld the parties’ divorce settlement agreement which provided for a termination of alimony upon cohabitation. The majority’s decision is not surprising given the strong public policy favoring agreements and, absent a showing of fraud, coercion or overreaching, agreements will be enforced as written. The wrinkle in the dispute was that, absent the parties’ agreement calling for an outright termination of alimony upon cohabitation, cohabitation may not have resulted in a termination of the obligation and the court would have had the discretion to modify or suspend the obligation. In fact, the trial court in Quinn v. Quinn did suspend the alimony obligation for the period of cohabitation, rather than terminating the obligation in total, reinstating the obligation as of the date the cohabitation ended. The trial court’s decision was affirmed on appeal, but the Supreme Court reversed, finding that the trial court was bound to enforce the parties’ agreement, which was entered freely, voluntarily and with the advice of independent counsel. By failing to enforce the terms of the agreement, the trial court effectively created a different agreement not contemplated or intended by either party.

Two (2) of the Supreme Court Justices dissented noting the severe financial consequences to Ms. Quinn as a result of the termination of the alimony obligation. The dissent believed that the provision of the parties’ agreement mandating a termination of alimony upon cohabitation is contrary to public policy and would effectively “pauperize” the ex-wife. The dissent cites a lack of evidence of any financial or economic benefit received by the ex-wife as a result of the cohabitation. The dissent viewed the anti-cohabitation provision in the parties’ agreement “as a means to oppress an ex-spouse,” viewing the provision as requiring the ex-wife to choose between her right to alimony and her “desire to enter into a loving relationship.”

The majority opinion, in addressing the dissents concern regarding the economic consequences, acknowledged the “serious” financial consequences to the ex-wife resulting from the termination of alimony. However, the majority clearly felt that the ex-wife understood without doubt that her conduct could result in a termination of the alimony obligation, yet she proceeded to cohabit anyway. Interestingly, Ms. Quinn stopped cohabitating just after her ex-husband sought to terminate the alimony obligation. Yet, the majority found that the cessation of cohabitation was of no moment and irrelevant. Will this open the door for similar applications to terminate or modify alimony obligations based upon cohabitation that existed months or maybe even years earlier, but subsequently ended?

The Quinn v. Quinn decision exemplifies the clash of equities often experienced in family law disputes. Certainly Mr. Quinn believes that enforcement of the bargained for agreement was equitable and the majority of the Supreme Court agreed. If nothing else, the Quinn decision should serve as a reminder that notions of equity and fairness are subject to judicial interpretation.

The Team at Callagy Law hopes the information in this article was helpful in either your personal or professional life.. Callagy Law, is a multidisciplinary law firm, headquartered in Paramus, NJ owned and operated by Sean Callagy. We are committed to providing legal representation and advice to our clients at additional law offices located across the United States. Please note that the information posted here should not be used as a legal argument of defense. If you find yourself needing legal advice pertaining to your unique situation, you can contact us at here. Feel free to search us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn! Additionally you can subscribe to our daily videos on YouTube.

Learn More About Callagy Law Here:

#Alimony, #BrianMccann, #CallagyLaw, #ChristopherCavalli, #Divorce, #DivorceBergenCounty, #DivorceLaw, #DivorceLawyer, #FamilyLaw, #SeanCallagy, #SeanRCallagy, #SupremeCourt