Personal Injury Help - SHould I hire an attorney??

mAKiTO

Colombia4171 Posts

August 11 2011 02:04 GMT

I was involved in a car accident, 0 liability on my part as I was a passenger. I had chiropractic treatment for over 5 month, a cervical mri that showed 2 herniated disc. had an emg that showed evidence of acute c5 radiculopathy. Had 1 epidural injection at a surgery center.and had 2 consultations with a neurosurgeon which he recommended disc replacement surgery at the c5 level, Now mi pip is exhausted and my out of pocket is so far over 7k, all which i have signed letters of promise to pay. The at fault BI carrier is one of the big insurance companies. I just got an offer from the adjustor of $5,800... i almost asked him if he was serious? I am a 23 year old male, with no prior accidents or injuries and no hardcore work history ( no construction etc). policy limits are 50k it appears

and I am still under treatment at the chiro, and thinking of getting another injection as they seem to help with my pain. Also truck that the accident was totaled.

5.8k dont even cover my out packet!! .. i thought i could handle this on my own since I have some experience with personal injury, but will the insurance company just try to hustle me because I do not have an attorney? would it be worth it to hire one and just file suit? what is a"reasonable" settlement offer?

btw this is in Fl USA

Battleaxe

United States843 Posts

August 11 2011 02:11 GMT

If you have any way to get some free legal advice beforehand, I would explore my options first before going ahead and hiring an attorney. I don't have much experience with this kind of stuff, but it seems like a no brainer to try and get some free advice first just because you don't want to go paying for an attorney when in the end they only throw their hands in the air say, "best i can do..now pay me".

I think if you were to get attorney then there's a possibility you could get more money, and then try to get the lawyer fees tacked on to what you get paid.

Best of luck in either case, that injury sounds terrible

mAKiTO

Colombia4171 Posts

August 11 2011 02:20 GMT

I will try to see, but you are right, even if I get a contiguous fee attorney they will charge something crazy like 33%-40% of whats recovered :s or pay hourly $200 =X

I figured I would ask here ! maybe some law students can enlighten me haha.

and yeah man this injury sucks ass. Got me out of the gym and my heavy lifting and sometimes I start feeling good and forget about it and over work myself and bum, back not even being able to move my neck lol x(

downmaster

Canada116 Posts

August 11 2011 02:28 GMT

This happened to my mother. She was in an accident where the other car sideswiped her. She was left with a severed tendon in her shoulder. We thought there was nothing we could do, but we saw an ad for legal counsel that specialized in car accidents. We said what the hell. Turns out that our insurance wasn't the only one to blame. Turns out the only car driver's insurance had stiffed us too. So we are now almost at the end of these lawsuits and we haven't had to pay for the legal counsel. This legal counsel takes a certain percentage of the settlement, so you don't have to pay ridiculous amounts of money. I would suggest this route if you want to make sure they take you seriously and make sure you get what you deserve.

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

August 11 2011 02:31 GMT

Talk to an attorney for a free consultation, they usually offer those. There's pretty strict regulation that protects you from getting lied to about whether it's worth it or not. Generally, the attorney will give better advice on whether litigation is worth it or not than web denizens.

esla_sol

United States756 Posts

August 11 2011 02:34 GMT

id say definitely. they will only take you seriously if you have one. it likely will not be expensive to you because the lawyer will take a portion of the settlement.

aNDRoM

United States637 Posts

August 11 2011 02:37 GMT

If you're not at fault, your settlement should absolutely be at least all of your out-of-pocket costs, plus pain and suffering, loss of wages, etc. Did you miss work and lose pay (or had to use sick time you wouldn't have used otherwise)? Basically imagine that you were not involved in the accident and how different your life would be in all aspects (financially, career-wise, physically, emotionally, etc) and that's how you determine what a reasonable settlement offer would be. It should be a decent amount greater than your actual out-of-pocket costs (actually, if you have insurance and a copay, you should use the actual cost of any treatments, rather than your costs).

An attorney will take a healthy cut of any settlement, so even if you get, say, $10,000, after fees you might get $7,000. It sounds pretty straight forward, you weren't even driving. Which car were you in, the at-fault driver's or the not-at-fault driver's? Either way, you should be able to do your own settlement without a lawyer.

We got into an accident a few years ago, and this book really helped us figure out how to deal with it. It's worth the $25. If you don't want to spend the money, here's some free information:

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/write-winning-demand-letter-29858.html
http://expertpages.com/news/base_formula.htm

Some people say using a formula to determine your claim amount is outdated, but it's still a good starting point. On a scale of 1 to 10, how impactful was this accident? So let's say you don't think you were that impacted, and rate it at 2. If you had $7,000 worth of loss (medical expenses, loss of wages, etc), then you may want to demand $14,000 and negotiate from there. Maybe the insurance company comes back with $8,000, and you come back with $12,000, and you settle on $10,000. That means you'd get $3,000 for "pain and suffering" beyond your own expenses. If that's not an acceptable settlement to you, then you'd want to start higher.

mAKiTO

Colombia4171 Posts

August 11 2011 02:42 GMT

Thank you aNDRom. Very helpful info.

I was a passenger in a big truck that flipped over because of the drivers crazy driving and negligence. The truck was a 2002 or so, and was totaled.

I have to keep in mind I am still under treatment, I do not know if I will be doing the surgery recommended, as I will want to seek a 2nd Neurosurgeon opinion, as the disc replacement didn't sound that great :S.

I am deff ordering that book!

xHassassin

United States270 Posts

August 11 2011 02:43 GMT

Insurance companies are the devil.

Our car got crushed by some careless construction driver working down the next block, but none of the workers are fessing up. Repair estimate was ~12k since the entire chasis was disfigured. Insurance offered 8k or they would take the entire car for 10k. It was a 20k car.

:|

aNDRoM

United States637 Posts

August 11 2011 02:50 GMT

#10

No problem. Been there. Hope everything works out. Also, most states give you 2 years to settle or sue. So don't rush, if you don't have to. I know, the faster you settle, the faster you'll get the money to pay your treatment bills, but like you said, your treatment is ongoing, so your expenses related to the accident will continue to accumulate, thus affecting what your desired settlement amount will be.

If I had the book still (it was the previous edition, but I can't imagine the contents change too much), I'd send it to you, but I already passed it onto someone else last year who got in an accident and told that person to pass it on.

Edit: I reacted IRL when I read what happened but forgot to comment on it. Holy !@#$. Hope you and the driver aren't friends anymore. BTW, what is the relationship between you and the driver? If it was work-related, other factors may come into play.

LaSt)ChAnCe

United States2179 Posts

August 11 2011 03:19 GMT

#11

definitely see a lawyer

i recently (five months ago) got a settlement of $80,000 (most of which covered lawyer fees, medical visits, etc) and came out with about $36,000.. it will obviously depend on the coverage of the person who was at fault, but it's definitely worth doing

mAKiTO

Colombia4171 Posts

August 11 2011 03:23 GMT

#12

how much medical treatment did you have? did you end up getting a surgery?

mAKiTO

Colombia4171 Posts

August 11 2011 03:25 GMT

#13

On August 11 2011 11:50 aNDRoM wrote:
No problem. Been there. Hope everything works out. Also, most states give you 2 years to settle or sue. So don't rush, if you don't have to. I know, the faster you settle, the faster you'll get the money to pay your treatment bills, but like you said, your treatment is ongoing, so your expenses related to the accident will continue to accumulate, thus affecting what your desired settlement amount will be.

If I had the book still (it was the previous edition, but I can't imagine the contents change too much), I'd send it to you, but I already passed it onto someone else last year who got in an accident and told that person to pass it on.

Edit: I reacted IRL when I read what happened but forgot to comment on it. Holy !@#$. Hope you and the driver aren't friends anymore. BTW, what is the relationship between you and the driver? If it was work-related, other factors may come into play.

it was not work related, but I was in that truck for reasons beyond my control, when the crazy driving started going on, I wanted out of the car and offered to drive myself. driver ignored me and kept driving like a maniac. all of these i explained in my demand letter

aNDRoM

United States637 Posts

August 11 2011 03:33 GMT

#14

So you've already sent a demand letter?

mAKiTO

Colombia4171 Posts

August 11 2011 03:39 GMT

#15

yeah, with my lil experience i figured I had enough for them to tender their policy limits of 50k and he called back offering me 5.8k lol

aNDRoM

United States637 Posts

August 11 2011 03:43 GMT

#16

Wow, so they really did low-ball it. Okay, as long as you don't sign anything, you can always submit supplemental information. Did you send them the scans and doctors' reports and stuff?

Anyway, the book will tell you how to organize all of that and write and send in a strong letter.

mainerd

United States347 Posts

August 11 2011 05:20 GMT

#17

get a lawyer, the insurance company won't take you seriously if you have no legal representation, it's not worth the headache

aNDRoM

United States637 Posts

August 11 2011 05:33 GMT

#18

Insurance companies will take an informed claimant seriously because you can always lawyer up later. So don't hire one unless you can't get anywhere with the insurance company yourself.

One compromise is to do as much of the heavy lifting as possible and then find a lawyer to review your demand package for a flat fee rather than a percentage. The problem is that you have to pay for that upfront, whereas having a lawyer represent you and taking a cut will take the cut at the end, so no upfront costs.

brian

United States9626 Posts

August 11 2011 11:30 GMT

#19

as soon as you tell the adjuster you have a lawyer he won't talk to you anymore, and only your lawyer. If you beat around the bush with the "idea" of getting a lawyer, the adjuster will probably offer you some more moneeyyy.

brian

United States9626 Posts

August 11 2011 11:33 GMT

#20

also, if it's allstate, just get a lawyer. They'll undercut the amount to the very end. They pay out so little that these cases often do go to court, and they fight it tooth and nail still, and sometimes wind up settling for over the policy limit to fuck their own insured instead of just doing the right thing from the start.

though on the other hand it also seems their idea of winning is "our pockets are deeper so if we can drag it out long enough we can just bankrupt the other side."

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