Here Are The Surfire Personal Injury Legal Tips You Need
Between doctors and insurance companies, there is a lot of jargon thrown around. If you cannot understand what is being said to you, it's time to call for help. Read this piece to have a successful outcome with your personal injury suit. Stick by your medical and legal professionals until the case is closed.
What a personal injury case boils down to is who was careless in causing the accident. That is the person who will end up paying the bills of the other injured party. Legal liability tends to fall onto the lap of anyone driving recklessly, or someone who didn't fix a problem which caused the injury of another.
If you lost income as a result of your injuries, you will need proof for court. Speak with your employer and ask them to give you a statement that outlines how much money you earn and how many days of work you missed because of what happened to you. Depending on whether you earn an hourly wage or not, your income tax return could also be valuable documentation to bring with you.
Don't let flash advertisements be your sole criteria for choosing a personal injury lawyer. This can become a disaster. If you are thinking about enlisting the help of a lawyer, you should do your homework before scheduling an initial consultation. If you do not, you may end up spending money for nothing. Or, you could end up with an inexperienced lawyer.
During your first meeting with an attorney, don't hesitate to ask as many questions as necessary. No question is out of bounds - whether it be on anticipated costs, expected trial length or questions about outcomes achieved by previous clients. This will allow you to feel comfortable as you take on your case.
When you're in the midst of a personal injury dispute with an insurance company, you'll need to keep proper documentation of all your bills, hospital visits, and other pertinent information. You not only need to prove you were actually injured, you also have to show the costs incurred to get get better. Then, any award will more accurately reflect what you deserve. When you do not attend these checkups, your credibility is reduced.
When you are considering a settlement for a personal injury lawsuit, give yourself enough time to make a good decision. There is no reason to be overly eager to settle or give in to pressure from a claims adjuster who may want to tempt you by offering a quick payment.
Do not try to file a personal injury claim without the assistance of a great lawyer. There are too many things to know about personal injury law for you to navigate through it all without a professional. If you want to win the money that you should, you should definitely find a qualified lawyer.
If you are in pain after an accident, be very vocal about it and never try to hold the feelings in. This is not a good idea because it will give the other party leverage during a lawsuit. They will argue that you never said that you were injured at the time of the accident.
In any personal injury case where your medical bills are paid by workman's compensation, you should contact them directly and get a list of all bills they paid. You need to study these bills to ensure you are receiving everything you are entitled too. It will also show you how much you might owe when everything is paid and finished.
If the lawyer you are talking to normally works with insurance companies, you probably want to pass on their services. Instead, you want someone who has experience helping the injured person. These personal injury attorneys should have the background that you need to successfully win your case, and you will probably feel more comfortable with them as a result.
Take pictures of the scene of your injury as soon as you can. With the technology available, you should be able to always find someone that has a camera on them. If not, you should return to the scene with one as soon as possible so that you can have evidence of what occured.
Before receiving treatment, thoroughly document all your injuries with photographs. This will prove how extensive your injuries were, making your case is stronger. Having photo evidence can greatly increase the size of the settlement you are awarded.
An injury can cause you a life of pain more info as well as costing you money to pay your medical bills and depriving you of income from your job. Taking legal action can be helpful. The tips you have learned in this article will help you with your personal injury lawsuit. Your time and hard work will be rewarded in the end.
Auto insurers play hardball in minor-crash claims
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- If you are injured in a minor car crash, chances are good that you will be in the fight of your life to get the insurance company to pay all the medical costs you incur -- even if the accident was no fault of your own.
That's what CNN discovered in an 18-month investigation into minor-impact soft-tissue injury crashes around the country. Those are accidents in which there is little damage to the vehicle and the injuries to people are not easy to see by the naked eye or conventional medical tools like X-rays.
Since the mid-1990s, most of the major insurance companies -- led by the two largest, Allstate and State Farm -- have adopted a tough take-it-or-leave-it strategy when dealing with such cases.
The result has been billions in profits for insurance companies and little, if anything, for the public, according to University of Nevada insurance law professor Jeff Stempel.
"We can see that policyholders individually are getting hurt by being dragged through the court on fender-bender claims, and yet we don't see any collateral benefit in the form of reduced premiums even for the other policyholders," Stempel said.
"So I think now we can say to continue this kind of program is in my view institutionalized bad faith."
If you have never heard of the strategy, it's because insurance companies don't want you to know that they are paying out less and less for minor crashes even while their profits soar and your premiums continue to rise.
But after a review of more than 6,000 company documents and court records, interviews with a dozen people nationwide, including former company insiders, and conversations with accident victims, the picture is clear: If you challenge the offer by some insurance companies you will be left with no option but to go to court, where you will be dragged through the wringer.
Expensive, time-consuming
In an affidavit in a New Mexico case where Allstate is being sued, one of the company's former attorneys said the strategy is to make fighting the company "so expensive and so time-consuming that lawyers would start refusing to help clients."
Shannon Kmatz, a police officer and former Allstate claims agent, said company employees were encouraged to get rid of claims quickly and cheaply and even offered accident victims as little as $50, telling them to take it or leave it.
Both Roxanne Martinez of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Ann Taylor of West Lafayette, Indiana, saw the practice firsthand.
Martinez suffered neck and back injuries when she was sideswiped by a driver insured by Allstate.
After three years, the company finally offered her $15,000 -- a little more than half of what she needed for lost wages and medical bills.
She went to court, and four years after the accident a jury awarded her $167,000 plus interest.
"It's kind of hard when you are thinking they are going to leave you broke. ... That was very stressful," she said.
Taylor was not as fortunate when her case went to trial.
The Indiana nurse was rear-ended by a State Farm employee driving a State Farm car. Damage to her car was minimal but she suffered herniated disc and muscle tears.
Taylor racked up medical bills and lost wages amounting to about $15,000. The company offered her $2,000.
"I was just very insulted," she said.
She sued, but three years later a jury came back with a judgment for her of only $1,500.
The jury didn't believe she could be hurt in an accident in which the vehicle had barely a dent.
Three jurors told CNN photos of the two cars involved in the accident -- enlarged and prominently displayed by the defense -- played a huge role in their decision.
And one said they assumed Taylor had already been compensated by the insurance company and was just trying to get more money.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tK7Cq0WYE_Jbut9wKINYSEnPSaXFndpmovl-Sg3Focw/edit?usp=sharing