A Brush with the American Legal System

I got sued. Number 3 Daughter, while driving my cherished Grand Cherokee, did something dumb and had a fender bender in a mall parking lot. I figured I was in trouble when the lady in the other car opted to go the hospital “just in case.”

Everything was quiet for three years and then the dreaded registered letters arrived with the news of a law suit being filed against my daughter, because she was driving the car, and your’s truly because it was my insurance policy and my car.

After cursing long and loudly I dumped the whole thing in the lap of my insurance company. This wasn’t the first time this had happened to me. I had gotten sued over a dumb left turn Number 1 Daughter had executed which had resulted in a far more serious accident. I mean, this one should be easy right? It was just a parking lot fender bender. WRONG!

About 10 months later we were sitting in an office taking depositions. The lawyer I got assigned from my insurance company was a West Point graduate named Dennis, a nice guy and a pretty good lawyer. The first case had never gotten this far and I sort of figured again that I was in big trouble when I saw that the opposing lawyer had photographs of the accident scene! I was immediately reminded of Alice’s Restaurant.

The deposition revealed that the lady whose car my daughter had chosen to bump into was what I can only describe as a medical marvel. This lady had more stuff wrong with her than religious fundamentalists have hang-ups. She knew more doctors than the capacity of Giant’s Stadium. The very day after the accident she had her foot operated on. Plus, she had several degenerative diseases.

What she was claiming was that the accident caused her to bang her head on the window and hurt her neck. Given her medical history I was flabbergasted she didn’t simply disintegrate. My lawyer and the insurance adjuster suspected that she was blaming the accident for a pre-existing condition. The fact that they were having trouble getting medical records sort of strengthened that suspicion. I just wanted the whole thing to go away.

Incredibly, sometime last December I got a letter that a trial date had been scheduled for June. That didn’t happen because of the aforementioned difficulty in obtaining medical records and the trial date was moved to September 17, 2007.

Now, I don’t know anything about court mechanics other than what you see on Law and Order is pretty much nonsense. I’ve never been on a jury because defense attorneys don’t seem to trust me for some reason and I’m usually the first guy they boot. As the fateful date approach I searched longingly for either a phone call or a letter telling me that the case had been settled and I was off the hook. Labor Day came and went so I decided I'd better call Dennis and find out what the hell was going on.

I managed to make contact on September 6th. After finding out that the trial was still on, but it wouldn’t be unusual for it to be settled the Friday before, I asked where exactly my daughter and I were supposed to be on the 17th and when. To this Dennis replied that we probably wouldn’t be needed on the 17th since it was only the first day. The first day? THE FIRST DAY!

Yup, apparently the medical marvel and her lawyer were seriously demanding the value of the insurance policy in compensation because they were claiming a permanent neck injury.

Note two things about the previous statement. The first is that we are talking about a boom-boom that both parties agree was at about 5 miles per hour and, more interestingly, we’re not talking about a specific amount, but the maximum on my insurance policy. That maximum happened to be $250,000. More about this maximum stuff later.

Clearly the problem was that my insurance company, who Dennis worked for full time, had no incentive to settle for their maximum liability. I got a call on September 11th from the office paralegal that the judge may have a conflict and the trial may be postponed.

By now things were starting to get scrunched and I’m trying to figure if I should think about re-arranging my business schedule and my daughter is trying to figure out if she would be able to accept some free lance work that might come her way during the week of the trial. Since you can’t really predict what’s going to happen, you get sort of paralyzed.

By Thursday the 13th I was starting to get really annoyed at everyone involved, the medical marvel, Dennis, the judge and even the para legal, but I couldn’t locate Dennis. Finally we touched base about 10 o’clock that night. Dennis had been unavailable because his father had to have an emergency bypass operation that day, but he had managed to gather some new information.

First, they had finally gotten all of the medical records by literally camping a private investigator at a doctor’s office. Second, as expected, the records showed some iffy stuff. Third, for the first time the insurance adjuster and the opposing attorney were talking directly and fourth, the judge was up for re-election and didn’t appear too interested in anything other than campaigning. What this all meant was that everything was pretty much still up in the air.

Friday and the weekend came and went with no news. Finally, on Monday the 17th, I got a call from Dennis that the case had been settled. Dennis said when he found out he had called every number he had for me including work, home, and my daughter’s cell. Like I said, Dennis is a nice guy.

They settled for $125,000. That’s a pretty big hunk of change but supposedly neck injuries average $200,000 to $250,000. Of course this is assuming she really had a neck injury caused by the accident.

A lot of things about this experience bother me. First of all is the length of time involved. It was three years from the accident to the notice of a law suit and then another two years to arrive at a trial date. When the accident occured my daughter was entering her senior year in High School. When it was settled she was a college graduate working free lance while searching for a permanent job.

The second is the implication that the suit was for the maximum on the policy. What would have happened if I only had $100,000 in liability? Would they have tried to get the additional $150,000 in the original claim from me? Clearly that would have been a harder sell to a jury then trying to collect from a perceived fat cat insurance company so I suspect the answer is they would have settled for the $100,000.

Then let’s talk about the $125,000. At least 33% of that goes to the lawyer after deducting for expenses. Dennis told me that the doctor they had lined up to testify was well known around the courtroom and didn’t come cheap. Even though he didn’t have to testify I sure they had to pay for consultations and so on and so forth. How much? $5,000 to $10,000 perhaps? If we assume only $5,000 in expenses to keep the arithmetic nice and even, that means $40,000 for the lawyer and $80,000 for the medical marvel. Too bad judgments from personal injury claims aren’t taxable.

Personally, I think the claim was nonsense. I base this conclusion upon the answers I heard, and the body language I saw, at the deposition. I’m not saying the lady doesn’t have neck or shoulder problems, she may even honestly believe that the accident was the cause, but in my opinion there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that they're related to the fender bender in the mall parking lot. I think Dennis and the insurance adjuster agree with me, but it just wasn’t worth the risk of letting this go to a jury because juries are too unpredictable.

If the statement “juries are too unpredictable” doesn’t bother you, it should. The only good news out of this whole affair is that Dennis’ dad came through the bypass surgery with flying colors and is well on the way to recovery.