In this article we focus on yet one more claim in which an insurer made only low ball offers to settle a motor vehicle lawsuit in which the plaintiff suffered a serious injury. In this case an injury that definitely impacted the victim’s ability to work.
In this lawsuit an individual driving an SUV was involved in an accident with bicyclist. The plaintiff reported seeing the driver come from the opposite direction then make a U-turn immediately in front of him giving him no time to stop his bicycle. This caused him to go over the hood of the vehicle. The bicyclist suffered from a wrist injury in which his cartilage was torn. Due to his injury he had problems when he went back to his job as a mechanic with a dealership of high-end vehicles. And a doctor testified that the bicyclist's wrist will likely at some point have to be fused and that this will likely end his career as a mechanic. As a result the victim would probably not be able to make as much money in the future leading to a loss of earning capacity.
In the course of its investigation into the circumstances of the case the law firm that represented the victim found that when the accident happened the driver was test-driving the SUV for his employer. The reason for the test drive was to create an advertising review of the vehicle.
The bicyclist, undoubtedly with the advice of the law firm representing him, did not take these settlement offers. The law firm was able to record that the case went to trial where they got a verdict from the jury for $550,000.
Here we have a claim where liability was not an issue. What was in dispute was the value of the victim’s injuries. The insurer likely viewed this lawsuit as only involving a minor injury that solved itself in a short amount of time. With this perspective an offer of $30,000 might seen reasonable.
But the law firm that helped the victim positioned the claim so that it was not about an injury that resolved itself but about an injury that would do even more significant damage in the future. The injury may not have required surgery immediately but it caused enough damage to the wrist that it would require in all likelihood, not only surgery but a fusion. And this would probably put an end to the plaintiff's career as a mechanic of high-end cars. By letting the jury consider the total impact of the injury the law firm was able to attain a verdict over 18 times the amount offered by the insurer.
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Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting catastrophic injury cases. To learn more about how a bicycle accident attorney can help you and about other vehicle accident cases including pedestrian accident visit the websites
