The girl will receive $65,000 in personal-injury claims, $100,000 for a college fund and $450,000 in five-year installments from the ages of 25 to 50.

The increase was spurred largely by an especially severe winter of 1993-94, which resulted in more personal-injury and property damage claims involving accidents on slippery roads and icy sidewalks.

Without such a trust, most legal experts say, any successor to Robins would be engulfed in years and years of litigation over the personal-injury claims.

Taxi companies are known for battling over liability, using all of the tactics of the hardball world of personal-injury claims, plus their particular brand of asset protection.

His firm employs 11 lawyers - six working on medical malpractice cases, the remainder focusing on other personal-injury claims.

In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1980, the last before the 15-day-notice requirement went into effect, 3,113 personal-injury claims for sidewalk defects were filed, he said.

When I was a practicing attorney, my cases were interspersed with personal-injury claims and contract disputes.

Any crew member is allowed to submit a claim, but the Pentagon has declined to discuss details of the personal-injury claims, citing the seamen's right to privacy.

That's why the exonerated usually lose when they file personal-injury claims, as they can in every state.

The largest amount is $150,000 owed on a personal-injury claim.