It really depends on your policy and their coverage. How hurt are you? If it's a simple whiplash/soft tissue thing, deal directly with their insurer for your medicals and property damage. You probably have an obligation in your policy to inform your company of any property damage if you have comprehensive coverage.
It wouldn't be the DA in need of time. I'm reading this as the police do not have PC for an arrest. They make the arrest and then at first appearance the Judge is releasing the def only to be rearrested for the exact same incident. I guess their PC is that weak. In Florida they make an arrest and the State has 30-33 days to file charges or def gets released. Not to mention first appearance within 24 hours.
Thanks for the input. I initiated a claim with my insurer so I could get a rental car. They said if I don't continue to proceed through them then they will require I return the car by mid next week. I've spoken with 2 adjusters from my policy (both property only). One said I should do the claim through my policy; the other said I should do it against the other driver's policy on my own. The medical adjuster hasn't returned my call yet. I don't think I'm too hurt. Real tender in he lower neck, shoulders and mid back, and I have some burns/bruises from the airbag, which are healing. My concern is my head. Ive had a steady headache since the accident and am showing concussion symptoms (dizzy, no ability to concentrate, short term memory loss). I don't think my head hit anything, but I've heard you can still get a concussion from the jerk motion. The last thing I want to do is go spend thousands on ER/CT scans, only to ultimately recover a fraction of the cost.
-I would look on the police report get the other driver insurance information and contact them and get a hold of the adjuster. Tell them you want to get paid for your property damage and ask for a rental car. don't expect to get a rental car. I'd call your insurance and tell them what happened and tell them you're pursuing the coverage from the tortfeasor (at fault driver) -i would use your own insurance. many health care providers don't accept 3rd party liability as form of payment. Yes your health insurance will have lien. Make sure you fill out any forms about the wreck that they send you or else they'll screw you on the back end. -don't ask the hospital to send you a bill without filing it on insurance-it could be months or a year before you get paid and the hospital will start trying to collect and could report on your credit.
If I were in your shoes, I would get the car repaired under your insurance. You will most likely have to pay your deductible, but it will be reimbursed when the third party insurance accepts liability. Third party insurance is a lot more likely to pull some bullshit with the repairs than your insurance company--they want to keep collecting your premiums every month. If you do your medical stuff through your health insurance, there will more than likely be a lien on any settlement/judgment. Also, if you want to avoid spending a ton on imaging or other associated medical costs, almost all PI attorneys have relationships with providers and can get you help and can agree to pay the imaging and/or other associated docs out of any settlement you would get. If you have like a 10k deductible, that might be the route to go.
Would my health insurer have a lien on the portion of my recovery attributable to property damage? There's no way my car isn't totaled. I'm going to need every penny of that recovery to pay off my current car loan and put towards a new ride.
No. Property damage will be handled separately. Typically, your insurer will go to arbitration with theirs. And definitely submit all your health stuff to your health insurer. They'll reduce their lien by about 40% by the end, and it won't be more than a couple grand even after the diagnostic tests.
what state are you in? If you're in a state that follows the "made whole" doctrine, and your health insurance refuses to reduce their lien, tell them you'll interplead the funds into the registry of the court and file a declaratory judgment asking for equitable relief under the made whole doctrine.
5-6 years ago, the at fault driver's insurer tried to screw us out of $4 grand on the value of our totaled minivan. I used a website that had every make, model, and mileage for our car that was listed for sale in a 100 mile radius. We got the $4 grand difference from what they claimed was bluebook. I had to sue them though, representing myself.
have a trial in mid september that is a MVA case. Suing at fault driver and UM carrier. We have the full gamut of experts: life care planner, vocational rehab, economist. THey haven't identified any experts. Tortfeasor has $50k in coverage and UM has 1.5M. Life care plan and lost wages are 1M+. Is it standard for defense not to hire any experts in a case like this? I guess they'll just try to do their damage on cross of the experts and don't want to spend any more money on the case hiring experts.
Unless there is some super complex issue, I've never found economist experts to be particularly helpful or for juries to care for them all that much. Has the underlying carrier tendered limits?
Anyone know where i can find a basic lease agreement, or anyone want to draw one up for a minimum fee? Going to pick up a roommate (friend of mine) on a month to month lease deal. I don't particularly feel like he would try and screw me over but should probably be safe. And yea, yea "farva laughs at you for having a roommate". But this is going to help me get out of debt far faster and still have money to enjoy life. Plus we both have full time jobs and drive part time for lyft/uber so we'll probably never be around each other often.
I guess you're talking about from the defense perspective. In MS if you you're going to have a life care plan or claim future lost wages you have to adjust to present value and thus have to have an economist. This case is actually pending in Catoosa County GA though. Underlying carrier tendered limits but UM wouldn't consent to the settlement and instead tendered the 50k themselves but put stipulations on it that my boss wouldn't agree to. This is the case where its a 3 car wreck in Chatanooga. My client is from MS, gets hit by TN driver, who gets hit by GA driver and theres a second impact. So my client goes home to MS gets a lawyer who lets the SOL run on the TN driver. So we get hired for legal mal claim. So we have a case pending in GA and a legal mal case pending in MS. When we get done with the GA case and hopefully get way beyond the 50k even with apportionment for the GA driver at maybe 30%, we'll ask UM to tender the excess. There's a stay on the MS case until the GA case resolves. UM has stated that whenever the GA case is over they're going to file a dec action in MS to determine the obligations of coverage as between legal mal and UM. The TN driver had $300k in coverage. It makes my brain hurt to think about all this. Also I love how legal mal claims if we have a crappy verdict in GA they'll use that as evidence in the MS legal mal trial but if we have a good verdict in GA that said verdict wouldnt be admissible in MS.
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A life car planner on a lumbar injury seems rather excessive. I only see life care expert's in catastrophic wrecks when the Pltf is paralyzed or rendered a vegetable. I'm guessing at $190K they probably had a good bit of injections and then a subsequent fusion? I see economists rarely for general PI cases, not common though.
his treating neuro says he can never work again due to this incident. lumbar injuries can be catastrophic. the life care plan is like $700k in future medicals. he had surgery and then later had to have a spinal chord stimulator implanted. we'd never be able to get a proper price tag on future medicals in front of the jury without a life care planner. we often hire life care planners on spinal chord injury cases if there is enough coverage available.
the economist I use is $1000 for lost wages report and $1000 for report that adjusts life care plan to present value i use a nurse life care planner for the mid sized catastrophic injury cases and she charges me like $3000 by the time I get the final report. There's an elite life care planner MD here who is like $10k retainer that I'd consider using in maybe a catastrophic trucking case.
pretty sure one of the clients i signed up today is/was a nazi born in rome, moved to argentina when he was 2, moved to the us like 10 years ago. old and blonde a f. has 10k pip though so yolo
litigation loan companies and clients that use them are very frustrating. Especially when you're trying to make a deal work and have a decent outocme for your client. Just had a client take out a 5k loan and will have to pay back 300% of that. Now he wants another one. I also had a funding company put up about $60k for his medical treatment/surgery. I think tortfeasor has like $250k in coverage. It's going to be a mess. He has no insurance and now can't work because of the accident. I will say that the loan company and funding company in that case are a necessary evil otherwise he would have gotten 0 treatment, no surgery, and would have forced me to accept a super low offer. At the end of all this I'll be able to say but for me he would not have gotten all the medical treatment that is paid for, would have just starved on the street, and I put some money in his pocket. The medical funding company is one of the greatest contacts/assetts I have, many firms dont have access to them/pretty selective in who they work with.
The best lit loan companies will loan someone money then call 2-3 months later trying to give them more.
oh for sure; and this chick will take every fucking penny they offer and not even look at the interest rates. but a lot better than me giving them money out of my pocket.
I'm scared shitless of doing anything unethical. I bend over backwards to be ethical. I think I do it to the point where I lose business or they go to someone that is more willing to live in the grey area or bend the rules. But if you get your license taken away, what do you have?
been working on jury instructions this morning for this trial next month. not my favorite part of the job although really important. I've heard ppl say that second chair is always trying to make a big deal out of the smallest thing at the charge conference because what else does second chair even do. well that's exactly true for me. i think i pissed off the federal judges clerk at the last jury trial we did as second chair because she had a bunch of typos and shit in the jury instructions and i asked for all of it to be fixed.
apparently the made whole doctrine in MS is pretty limited. I have an insurance company claiming $85k lien on that case going to trial next month. Expected $400k verdict/settlement would mean client walks away with $100k. Apparently made whole usually applies in MS when there are low limits or your damages are reduced by caps. Neither of those situations apply in this case. So I'm being told I'll have no luck arguing made whole in this situation but that I should look into common fund doctrine which I have no clue what that is but will research.
Common Fund is easy. Basic idea is that everyone should have to pay their fair share of attorney's fees on any pool of money created due to the services of an attorney, i.e., the subrogated carrier will be required to reduce their lien by the same percentage of attorney's fees and costs paid by client. So if you try it and get 40% fees plus costs (hypothetically let's say it adds up to 44% of total recovery) then the carrier must reduce its interest by 44%.
yep just researched and figured this out. This applies on cases that are settled too, correct? Not just on cases where you get a judgment. If it applies to cases that are settled then wouldn't you argue this every single time someone claims a lien in order to get that lien reduced? If so, then I'm going to start claiming this every time someone refuses to reduce a lien or won't reduce it enough. I often get them to reduce liens, this case I've been talking about is an anomaly where they refuse to reduce at all.
When I did PI I would argue it every time. Easy to do and doesn't hurt to try. In Colorado it wouldn't work for certain things like self funded ERISA, ambulance services, hospital liens, or medical lien companies. But would work every other time.