Car Accidents

March 22, 2012

Fatal School Bus Accident Prompts Suit Involving Seatbelts

A fatal school bus accident last week has prompted a lawsuit alleging unsafe conditions for the bus’ lack of seatbelts.

The details here are sad. The 60 year old school bus driver and a five-year-old little girl were killed in the crash. The bus, which struck a bridge, was carrying approximately 50 children, ages 5-16.

A suit has now been filed by the family of three of the injured children, with injuries ranging from a broken leg to claims of post-traumatic stress. The suit claims that the bus company failed to inspect the school bus for defective and unsafe conditions, including the lack of seatbelts, though a state police investigation determined that the bus was in fine working condition. The suit further alleges that the company failed to “discover, determine, and /or monitor the health conditions” of the school bus driver, though an autopsy revealed no signs of a medical condition that may have caused the driver to strike the bridge.

This is obviously only one of many more suits to come. The accidental death of anyone, especially a child, prompts frustration and anger, but I’m not sure how the unsafe claim for the bus’ lack of seatbelts will play out.

October 24, 2011

New Medicare Rule

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Medicare continues to make efforts to try, post Haro v. Sebelius, to make for an easier solution for dealing with Medicare liens. The latest? In very small cases, they are more likely to be handled by injury victims themselves as opposed to personal injury lawyers, Medicare will offer a 25% gross payment alternative to dealing with Medicare on a lien.

It is certainly not the deal of a lifetime by any stretch. More importantly, it is only for cases that do not exceed $5,000. But the option applies in:

Cases after November 7, 2011
Involve physical injury
$5,000 or less
The option is selected in a to-be-determined time frame
Medicare has yet to make a final demand
The beneficiary does not expect to receive future third party injury payments

If these conditions are satisfied, a beneficiary will resolve and satisfy Medicare’s lien by paying Medicare 25% of the insurance settlement. While the primary application will now, more than likely, be small soft tissue car accident claims, a successful run might lead to larger scale implementation down the road.

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March 14, 2011

New York Car Accident Verdicts

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The average car/truck/motorcycle accident verdict in New York is $837,020, which is stunningly high compared to most other jurisdictions.

Why is this? Are New York jurors just that much more generous than, say, jurors in Maryland?

The answer is that New York’s no-fault accident law requires that plaintiffs suffer a “serious injury” before a lawsuit can be brought against the at-fault driver. While there is some question that having a magical threshold that needs to be crossed is going to be fraught with great flaws, there is no question that this New York scheme, as desultory as the justice it might bring, keeps minor personal injury car accident cases out of court.

What’s my point? My point is that this completely distorts average car accident verdicts in New York. I read Metro Verdicts Monthly and Mealey’s which provide a lot of individual verdicts in car accident cases in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. It is amazing how many jury verdicts there are for $10,000 when, if you look at the case, is really not such a bad result. New York has none of these cases deflating their average.

September 9, 2010

Average New York Car Accident Verdicts

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A recent Jury Verdict Research (JVR) study found that the average verdict in a New York motor vehicle accident case is $837,020. The median verdict is $150,000. This data does not include defense verdicts which, if considered in the data, would obviously reduce the average award.

To be sure, $837,020 is a lot of money for the average car accident case. But you have to keep in mind that in New York because of the threshold level of injury requirement, juries are more likely to hear a serious injury case than a jury would in, say, for example, Maryland.

Rear-end accidents accounted for 21% of the successful verdicts in the study. Pedestrian lawsuits were 17% of the verdicts and intersection accidents made up 15%.

May 7, 2010

Car Insurance Costs in Each State

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

MSN provides the average annual premium for car insurance by state. The numbers are provided below.

The numbers are interesting for their relativity but not for their absolute values. Because the numbers are based on a male driving a 2010 vehicle with slightly better than average coverage (100 (per person)/300 (per accident)/50 (property damage). Why not shoot for a more average driver who is not driving a brand new car? These are insurance company statistics and insurance companies want us to read this and say (1) my insurance company is not charging me that much, it must be cheap, and (2) rates are high all over so we must need tort reform to lower car insurance.

With those caveats, here are the numbers:

February 15, 2010

Soft Tissue Injury Settlements

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

There is a fundamental problem with soft tissue injury cases that few plaintiffs’ lawyers will admit: some percentage of soft tissue injury plaintiffs are either completely faking the injury or exaggerating the symptoms. Maybe you are not, dear reader. But many do and the key – and the hard part – is figuring out who is who, both for lawyers considering taking a case and for judges and juries.

Whiplash Does Not Sound Like a Big Case

Make no mistake: judges, juries, and even insurance companies struggle with these cases. Whiplash. Car accident. What comes to mind when you hear these three words? Now, wait. Make sure you answer this question as you would before you got hurt. It is probably a much different answer.

October 15, 2008

Phantom Vehicle Uninsured Motorist Claims in Maryland

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Mr. Miller:

Hi, I am a Maryland attorney and would like to get little mentoring on any differences between an unidentified motorist claim and an uninsured motorist claim. Please call or send me an email and I promise I’ll be brief. Thanks so much for any help!

Dear Maryland Attorney:

September 3, 2008

Washington Appeals Court Ruling in Legal Malpractice Car Accident Case

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Court of Appeals of Washington in Shoemake v. Ferrer, 182 P.3rd 992 (2008) considered an interested argument by a defendant in a legal malpractice case. The Defendant lawyers blew a statute of limitations by two days in a serious head-on car accident collusion case with a drug driver. This was a guy that needed a car accident lawyer in Washington that was competent to handle his case.

The problem was that he apparently did not find a competent car accident attorney. Instead, he found a lawyer that ignored State’s Farm’s $100,000 offer to pay on Plaintiff’s uninsured motorist claim because he was “was unsure of the legal ramifications of accepting that payment.” The lesson, as always: if you are not qualified to handle a serious car accident case, don’t to it. So many lawyers who don’t handle car accident claims regularly think they can. They think it sounds so easy. But it is not.

But that is not what is interesting about the case. What is interesting is the Defendant contended successfully to the trial judge that the negligent car accident lawyers were entitled to have the damages awarded reduced by the amount stated in the lawyer’s contingency fee agreement with the client.

August 20, 2008

First Bad Faith Car Accident Insurance Claims in Maryland

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Bob Zarbin and Jim MacAlister write a telling article in this month’s journal of the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association about Maryland’s new bad faith law. The authors note that the avalanche of bad faith claims the insurance companies said were coming down the pike with Maryland’s new bad faith law was actually only 12 in the first quarter of the 2008 and only 12 all last year.

Similarly, on the medical malpractice front, Maryland malpractice insurers claimed the sky was falling one minute and the next they are declaring $74 million profit to their doctor shareholders and lowering malpractice insurance rates. The legislative process requires that the viewpoints of all stakeholders. But can we at least make sure we put the proper discounted value on “the sky is falling” on the next go around? I’m hoping the next go around includes a revised bad faith law with more teeth than mere costs and expenses.

In the same issue, Kevin Goldberg, who is with Goldberg, Finnegan & Mester in Silver Spring, Maryland, writes a great article laying out a great checklist of avenues to explore when you have a catastrophic accident and what appears to be limited coverage.