Check your pattern jury instructions. Alabama has one that says, "In addition, (name of plaintiff) can be awarded damages for (the cost of towing (storage)) (loss of the vehicle's use) and other reasonable expense caused by harm to the vehicle. The measure of damages for loss of use is the reasonable cost to rent a similar vehicle for a reasonable period of time to repair (name of plaintiff's) vehicle." Who's paying for the repairs and who chose the repair shop?
They are going to pay for the repairs. I'm not sure who chose the repair shop. Will check the pattern jury instructions, thanks.
If they're paying repairs, they can't bitch that the shop is taking too long; they could have chosen another shop at any time. If they make that argument you might also be able to inject insurance into the case.
Not sure how it works where y’all are but in Texas my clients can pick pretty much whatever repair shop they want
Yeah most of the time that's how it is, but I've seen carriers demand additional quotes and then say they'll only pay the amount of the cheapest quote which can force your hand.
at a mediation a month or two ago, a baby lawyer who was recently assigned our case and was very argumentative about *everything* was pretty adamant that when he sees a continuance filed in a case he just assumes that the plaintiffs dont actually want to go to trial. anyway, we didnt settle, we are set for monday, and he emailed at 8am and asked for a continuance. i said no for i think the first time in my career. he has missed every deadline and at this point he can't argue the amount of the bills or really anything other than causation and can only call his client to testify.
Alabama lawyers, do you get to claim the full amount of the medical bills as past medical bills in a personal injury case or does the carrier get a credit for what health insurance has paid?
Currently in a mediation with an attorney who doesn't want to pay for "matching" damages. Something that is required by Florida Statute. This is going to be a very quck impasse.
I'm sure there are. In MS if we go to trial , and the bills are $100k at a hospital, we get to put $100k in bills into evidence and get $100k for bills. IIRC it works differently in AL and what I would consider collateral source items in MS come into play in AL such as bills paid by health insurance carriers. IDK that's why I'm asking.
Florida used to let you put in the total bills and then it was reduced post-verdict to the lien amount. But that changed here recently and now they only let you put in the lien amount. Not sure what Alabama does.
She is also claiming prejudice due to a 3 day delay in reporting the claim. The policy itself says the insured should report the claim within 14 days of the loss. Oh and the reason it took 3 days to report the loss was because the pipe burst the morning of her husband's funeral who had died in a car accident 3 days prior... I am going to absolutely bury this OC in trial.
In the same way settlement talks aren't allowed into evidence, each side should get like 3 emails that aren't allowed to be disclosed to the judge. Man that'd be fun. But, then we'd never get "pay up fuckface."
Pretty tight when a CPA to whom I have referred a dozen lucrative/repetitive (year over year) clients finally reciprocates and opens the flood gates to a pool of potential clients. College fraternity life may finally be living up to the hype
so far the esquire bank people are pretty legit--always available and helpful. the lady who picks up the phone has the biggest new york accent i think i've ever heard and ~half of the people laugh when i think them before hanging up.
Denied comp claim with zero evidence that notice was ever given to employer/carrier . Carrier paid no idemnity or medical. Although I think they fucked claimant and knew about injury and never made a 1st report of injury. Lower Back surgery eventually. Lots of other bad facts. Settled at mediation this morning for $100k
New WC claim. Haven’t talked to the guy but he has already sent me a fuckload of emails between him and HR complaint about “abuse” and “harassment” and a all the great buzz words that make you think a motherfucker is about to be high maintenance.
I'm about to go have a hearing on the merits tomorrow on a comp claim with soft tissue damage to the knee, like a month of TTD, and they won't pay for her PT. Denied claim by Wendys. Why am I doing this you ask? I have no clue. It will be good to get into a court room at least.
In better news local hospital's lawyer told me the $292k comp settlement we arranged last week was the largest ever approved by their board of directors. Self insured.
Always a good sign when the other lawyer calls me and says "i'm having problems with my folks" and "how serious are you about our trial date in January" 12 hours before the mediation.
Jury gets both the retail charges and the collateral source/subrogation amount and can choose. They always go off the collateral source number if the defense lawyer has any idea what he’s doing. For negotiation purposes, retail charges are only relevant or there’s a hospital lien.
Similar in Texas some dickheads in the legislature are trying to get it to where we can only present Medicare rates if that happens basically everyone who is somehow in the personal injury game, on either side, is going to have to find a new line of work
This is a first for me: Liability carrier has $25k UM has 2 cars on the policy, $25k per person for a total of $50k. In MS there is a limits to limits set off. So subtract the $25k liability from the $50k UM. So UM only owes $25k. UM says they are tendering limits. Cool. $50k check shows up. They have waived subro and consented to the underlying liability settlement. They just paid an extra $25k.
because taking advantage of an insurance company is unconscionable. I dunno I was pretty drunk when I posted that last night.
Deposed an old dude via zoom today that ran over my client who was a pedestrian in a walmart parking lot cross walk. He got mad at a question and told me I need to clean my ears out and listen better
No. The dude lives here in the same town as my office and the policy has his address here in the same town. It's not like he lives out of state and the policy is written to an out of state address.
My remedies professor used the following names as characters on our exam: Saban, Kiffin, Helton, Fuente, Harbaugh and...Edsall
I just had the most absurd conversation with an adjuster. Originally 2 days ago she calls me and makes an offer. I make a counter that puts the mid point at what I want the case to settle for. She makes more counters I keep making the midpoint where I want it to be. She says I'll call back in a few days after I look over it. She then tells me that I'm too far away. I told her she's equally too far away. Mind you , this case needs to settle for like $15,500 and she's at like $10k and I'm in the 20s. So we aren't talking big numbers here. She wanted to make incremental moves today. At some point I told her this is stupid because my bottom line is $15,500. Let's cut through all the bullshit. That's my number. But I understand you work for an insurance company and that's just how you have to operate so I'll make my counter like $19k to help you out and we can make these stupid little moves. Then she started telling me that she didn't think the process was going to work because they'd never get to $15,500. Then I told her look this is dumb. My best and final is $15,500 and I need an answer by the end of the day Monday. Either pay or we'll filing suit. Negotiating with an insurance adjuster is the dumbest thing ever.
Job just asked me if I'd be interested in staying on past Dec 31 in this same contracting role. Just have a lot of cases I'm still litigating, scheduled several depos for January my old boss doesn't want to handle. I'm working 3-4 hours/day, on a Mexican beach, and making decent money. I could do this for a long fucking time. Should've done this a long time ago. Better late than never!
Have signed up four really good death cases in the past two months. One involved a toddler and could have eight figures in coverage (based on a prior case with this defendant). I'm just trying to be BUstang when I grow up.
I'm hitting road blocks left and right. MVA settlement-turns out client is in bankruptcy Comp settlement-$40k child support lien to resolve Comp settlement-the self insured employer is having to "move money around" to pay the settlement MVA settlement-dude worked for USPS when some drunk ass smashed into him so there is a federal comp lien against the MVA All those cases are settled and I thought would have already paid out by now.
in a mediation right now for a case i didnt know existed before today slip and fall in a grocery store with 4 cones out. my client slipped on a mat in front of a frozen section cooler but the defense attorney in their written discovery claimed they didn't know about the dangerous condition so they had 4 cones out but didnt know about the dangerous condition--ie the wet mat. seems like they shouldve known considering the aisle was wet theyre making some shitty offer and i'm leaning toward trying it based on that written discovery response how dumb am i?
A small-town plaintiff's lawyer who I have had a dozen or so cases and tried a couple with just told me that he's out of the practice of law and going fully into the cannabis/CBD game. I'm pretty jealous.
Seems like the cone plays into contrib as much as their knowledge which is why I hate those kinds of cases. If they offer BS money then you don't have any choice, though.
Told them 15 was my bottom line and they offered 11 We’ve basically only exchanged written discovery and I guess they’ve already paid $14k to their lawyer to do that have fun paying like 5x that to get through trial if that’s what they’re charging you to answer discovery that probably took them 2 hours
That's why premises cases are generally pretty easy to defend. Oh, you don't know what you slipped on? We didn't have notice. Oh, you're certain it was leaking from the refrigerator and had been there too long for us to not know about it? Open and obvious.