Cubit said:Actuaries have no heart.
I'll keep note of that. Do you have any statistics to back that up?
🙂
Quoted message said:Pay more than the market value to repair a damaged car? Yup. Been there,
done that.
I never said the defendants' insurance carrier paid for the repair
bill - as a rule, in insurance subrogation (which is what this is), if
the cost of repairs is more than the Kelley Blue Book value of the
car, the insurance company purchases the vehicle back at the Blue Book
rate.
Quoted message said:How do you run up $7000 in medical bills without being injured? I suppose
it could be outright fraud from crooked doctors, but if the whole thing was
a scam, how could they arrange for your client to run into them in a parking
lot. -and why a parking lot?
The accident was real, the injuries weren't. Simple as that. The
plaintiffs' car was bumped in the parking lot, and they saw dollar
signs. So, they hired an ambulance chaser because most insurance
companies find it cheaper to settle than to litigate. The ambulance
chaser, in turn, sent his clients to a "mill" doctor - certainly not
their primary treating physician under their own medical coverage. In
this case, I'm surmising that the defendants' carrier refused to
settle, and the case went to binding arbitration rather than to the
Superior Court (cheaper that way).
Usually, when PI cases settle, the amount is 3 times the medical bills
- which gives the doctors their cut, the lawyer his/her cut
(one-third), and a third to the plaintiffs. In this case, the
arbitrator (the partner in my firm) awarded the plaintiffs a much,
much smaller amount, but not small enough to *my* liking! LOL! But,
then, the partner and I both acknowledge that he's a much nicer person
than I am! In truth, though, I suspect he awarded the plaintiffs the
small sum he did because the expert used in the case was hired by the
defendants. I'll ask him on Monday.
Quoted message said:Might it be your young driver that is telling mommy and daddy that it was
less than 5 mph?
No, not lying on the part of the driver. The driver's testmony was
not take into consideration. The speed was based on the actual damage
to the Toyota (scuff mark on the bumper, which was rated to 5 miles
per hour) and the Crown Victoria (small dent in one of the rear
panels), plus the testmony of the expert - a biomechanical engineer
who examined the evidence and estimated the speed, as well how much
movement the plaintiffs experienced during the collision. He
concluded that they moved less than 2 inches, which was not enough to
cause the injuries claimed. All the injuries were "soft tissue" -
back, neck and leg aches, which are almost impossible to prove one way
or the other (i.e., subjective complaints).
Quoted message said:If they exaggerated their claim a little, how else can they pay their
lawyer?
Are you talking about the plaintiffs or the defendants? In personal
injury cases, the plaintiffs' attorney is on a contingency fee - a
percentage of the award. The defense attorney is usually paid by the
insurance company, assuming the defendants had insurance, which they
did in this case.
Quoted message said:Lawyers are advocates. Whoever is on the other side is going to get upset
with them. The true crocked lawyer is the one who fails to do his best for
his client.
While you're correct that attorneys are advocates for their clients,
they're also legally held to a higher ethical standard than the
average person - or at least, that's the theory. Unfortunately, it
doesn't work that way in real life. A truly ethical attorney would
never have taken this case to begin with.
Quoted message said:We live in dark times, where defense lawyers for those accused of notorious
crimes get death threats.
Have you ever read old 19th century newspapers? It's always been like
this because human beings are human beings, with all their frailties
and strengths. Times change; people don't.
Myra
