Sarasota Injury Attorney Blog

Investigating the accident and injury

In every new case, I find myself explaining to the new client the anatomy or stages of a Sarasota or Bradenton auto accident injury case. New clients want to know the major events in any injury case. This includes the basic what and when for each milestone, as well as the overall time frame from beginning to end. The first thing we do after any Sarasota County or Manatee County auto accident injury case is meet with a potential new auto injury client. After a meeting at your home or my office, if your case meets our criteria for acceptance, we will sign a written contract if you select me as your auto accident lawyer. Next, we open a new file. Simultaneous to opening the new file, I immediately send a notice of representation letter to the defendant, or if known, their insurance company. This letter also contains a request for a copy of the insurance policy with the declarations or limits page. A Sarasota or Bradenton auto accident injury lawyer must determine the amount of insurance to confirm that any settlement or judgment is collectable as many individuals without liability insurance are insolvent. This is commonly referred to as making sure there is a deep pocket to pay you for your injuries caused by the at fault driver. Ninety percent of the time the client brings an accident report to our first meeting, but if not, then we would order the report before sending any letter requesting coverage information. I immediately investigate the scene, or retain an investigator to inspect it. We make sure to photograph the accident scene and to photograph auto damage to show the impact points and severity. I also photograph the at fault vehicle, but sometimes this is not possible before the repairs, in which event we rely on auto damage photos taken by the at fault party’s insurance company. Sometimes a preservation of evidence letter will reach the at fault party and/or carrier before repairs, in which event we can get our own photos before they repair which essentially destroys the evidence if there are no prior photos to be had. Often our own client will have helpful photos of the scene, the vehicle damage and their injury or injuries. We make sure we have photos of the injury or injuries if they are visible as opposed to internal. For internal injuries we immediately request or obtain an MRI or CT scan or X-rays and so on. If liability is at issue and the injuries are significant enough, we obtain expert evaluations of the accident scene, vehicles etc. Don’t have an auto accident attorney yet? Visit our Free Consultation Page now to call or email us.

Monitoring treatment and obtaining medical evidence

After notifying the at fault party and/or carrier of the auto accident injury claim, I request medical records and bills from all medical providers up to this point, between the date of accident and the date I am hired. At this point I am simply monitoring the medical treatment and recovery. The client keeps me updated by calling or emailing before and after each appointment relaying the doctor’s diagnosis and prognosis and treatment plan. Once the client completes the plan, including all doctor visits, testing, physical therapy, medications, and surgeries (if any), I then request the doctor’s final medical report when the client is stable and reaches a point where he or she is not expected to improve anymore medically. In personal injury law, this is called reaching “maximum medical improvement”. A way for my client to know he has reached this point is when the doctor says “come back as needed” without giving you a future appointment. At this point, I request all updated medical records and bills, and sometime I also order a special narrative final report summarizing the case from a medical standpoint. This is particularly true, helpful and necessary when a doctor’s records do not address critical points that a Sarasota or Bradenton auto accident lawyer believes must be addressed to maximize a client’s potential recovery. Often I can make a special appointment with the doctor just for the purpose of “conferencing” him on important points to make sure not only what he will say in his report but to also see how his opinion might hold up under cross examination at a later date if the case goes that far. You got it, I want to know the doctor’s answers to critically important matters before he commits it to writing. Why? Well because if I do not like the answer, I will not later ask him to address that topic in a report. Or I might learn a way from the doctor to ask it so that he can honestly paint the case in the best light for my client.

Demands, offers and negotiation

Once I have final medical reports, as a Sarasota Bradenton auto crash lawyer, I review all records and bills, and along with all the other photos, medical records, medical bills, lost wage records, and any other documentary evidence, I prepare a settlement demand to the at fault party’s automobile insurance company. You can see right away that the length of time between hiring a personal injury lawyer, and the making of a settlement demand, all depends on the length of time it takes for you to treat and reach maximum recovery. In minor auto crashes this is a relatively short time period between a few weeks to a few months. In significant auto injury cases, this time period can stretch out to a year or even longer. A personal injury lawyer cannot and will not settle your case until the doctor releases you. Otherwise the damages we calculate would be flawed. We give the carrier thirty days from receipt of our demand to tender a settlement check for the amount demanded. In most cases, but not all, there is negotiation back and forth until both sides reach agreement. Neither side can force the other to take a settlement. So this is always the client’s call, subject to the auto accident lawyer’s recommendations and advice, whether or not to settle and the amount. The client can refuse a good settlement that any reasonable auto accident lawyer would counsel him to take, and likewise, the client can accept a bad settlement for pennies on the dollar compared to its actual worth, should the client order a “low ball” offer be accepted. From the date of the demand until settlement is either reached or impassed, can take from thirty days to three months, and there is no exact set period, which again is subject to the parties willingness to continue serious negotiations. The final point to make here is that sometimes a Sarasota Bradenton personal injury lawyer will file suit immediately after an accident or immediately after settlement negotiations break down. This can depend on many factors such as the deadline for filing suits etc., but the majority of the time an auto accident injury lawyer makes this decision on filing suit, along with client consent, along these lines. If the carrier is admitting fault or the majority of fault, and recovery will take less than one year, then mostly we hold off on suit until we finish our demand and subsequent negotiations. However, if the carrier does not admit or agree to fault, then we typically, but not always, file suit immediately so that we do not waste time for a year or two and then find out the insurance company is not serious about the claim. Mostly the disagreements that result in suits being filed are over one or two or three simple points. Either the insurance company is not recognizing the fault of their insured, or that his or her fault caused your injuries, or that the injuries are as severe as claimed by our doctors and/or you. As a Sarasota Bradenton personal injury lawyer, my main job is to make sure our case is solid on all three fronts, and if not, decline the case to begin with or settle it later for a fair sum if I end up taking the case. I take cases to trial, but only good cases, not weak ones. Trial is costly and a case has to make both economic and legal sense to take it to trial.

Conclusion

Doing all of the above, and doing it right, requires great attention to detail by the lawyer and a team approach from the client. That is why here, at Harris Law Group, I say that we purposely limit the number of takes we take for quality control reasons. I firmly believe that fewer cases means more time for yours, which allows us to have a better chance at maximizing the settlement value or verdict in your Sarasota or Bradenton personal injury automobile accident case.

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