AUTO ACCIDENTS
If you are at fault, turn everything over to your insurance company. A liability policy covers hiring the lawyer to defend you. So you will not need me. But, read on if you want the nuts and bolts.
If you are not at fault-or in Mississippi; only partially at fault-but you cannot get the other side's insurance company to talk to you about settling, call me at 1-800-748-9673. We'll see what we can do to get things started. You might want to read on about common injuries and how cases progress. You might also want to skip down to the bottom to "Settlement" for ideas about getting the insurance company to move without hiring a lawyer.
If the other side's insurance company wants to settle fast, watch out and read everything here.
If the other side is at fault, but they have no insurance, make an immediate claim under your own policy for uninsured motorist coverage. Then, come back to read this.
If we can help, don't hesitate to call or e-mail. (Enough questions on the same point will tell me to add a new section to this page. So, you can help everyone with your questions.)
Don't Settle Fast
I know this will sound like a lawyer, but the first order of business in an automobile case is to keep quiet. You really do "have the right to remain silent." Tell your insurance company any and everything. Cooperate with them fully, but only your own insurance company. The other insurance company will call you. They will want you to give them a statement or to answer their questions. They are trying to get something from you so that they will not have to pay you at all. Do not talk to them! Keep quiet. You don't have to talk to them. If they persist, tell your insurance company to discuss the matter with them. If that doesn't work, then you might want talk to a lawyer about it. Although, you normally won't need a lawyer in the first stages unless the other side is at the extreme of calling all the time to settle or refusing to talk reasonably at all. In either extreme, call a lawyer. In the middle, wait and heal up.
I'm sorry to say there may be other people calling you. And, these are other people who passed a bar exam and call themselves lawyers. I have heard of people they hire showing up at accident scenes after listening to a scanner. There is one story I have yet to confirm about "runners" from two law firms showing up at the same accident and getting into a fist fight. I've heard of nurses at emergency rooms who make calls to lawyers so they can come to the hospital unbidden. Some lawyers get the accident reports illegally. Some hire ambulance drivers and tow truck drivers to refer or call. If a person on the accident scene, police, EMT or the like has a lawyer's card, run away as soon as you can. One good sign is that if more than one of these unethical folks call or keep calling, it probably means that the accident report shows you in the clear and the other side at fault. Be that as it may, this is illegal and unethical. I don't think you need a lawyer who breaks the law. Don't talk to them but call the Bar Association. In Alabama, call 1-800-354-6154, and in Mississippi, call 1-800-682-6423.
After you have fended off the calls and visits, your next order of business is to heal and do nothing quickly about settling your own injuries and claims. Settle for the property damage on your car. If you have to, get your own insurance company to pay it. It can turn around and get its money from the other insurance company if the other person is at fault. Your car needs to be fixed as soon as possible so that you can get back on the road. Do not be as fast to settle about your personal injuries. You might not be fixed as fast as the car.
My advice is to never settle within 90 days of the collision. Too many other problems can show up and injuries that you thought would go away just might linger. For example, the scientific test to decide whether or not you have pulled muscles or pulled ligaments is to wait six to eight weeks. If it still hurts, you probably pulled ligaments. If it stops hurting, you pulled muscles. That is the closest thing you can get to a scientific test because nothing else shows up on any type of film or fancy electronic test or blood work.
If there has been a loss of consciousness, definitely don't settle any less than 90 days. Loss of consciousness means there has been a concussion and that most likely means that the brain has bounced off of the bone pan inside your skull. If that leaves a bruise, which leads to scar tissue, you could have some truly serious problems down the line. I'm not trying to frighten you. Most folks-in fact, the vast majority-do not. (I've had my head rattled more than once with various non-auto accidents and, in my younger days, by people who objected to something I said.) However, if a serious problem does show up and you've settled, then you may not have a way to make the other insurance company pay for the medical care you need. Again: DO NOT SETTLE EARLY!
If the other driver is at fault, the other side's insurance company may want to settle as fast as possible. Its idea is to get this over and done quickly, cheaply and cut you off from any obligation to pay for damages that continue or show up later. Experience shows that if it can get people to settle fast, then it saves money. It is to the insurance company's advantage to settle early, not yours.
Ligaments, Tendons, Muscles, Nerves, Discs and Other Soft Tissues: Whiplash and the Neck
Automobile accidents can produce all sorts of injuries: cracked skulls, cracked bones, torn arteries in the heart. You name it in trauma and an automobile collision or rollover can probably produce it. For our discussion today, let's assume that you noticed the broken bones and the like and your doctor told you what to do about those. If you have any questions about the legal implication or settlement on a particular injury, call or e-mail me. I've run across a lot more than I can cover here. For today, I'll go over ones most misunderstood: soft tissues, the muscles, ligaments, tendons, discs and the like.
These soft tissues, when they involve the neck, upper back and head, are often times dismissed as whiplash. The name "whiplash" does not describe the injury at all. What it tells you is that your head snapped around on your neck like a cracking bull whip. Your head is a twelve-pound weight on a thin neck and it's going whatever speed the car is going when you hit something or something hits you. At the collision, the car stops. If you are in a seatbelt, your body stops. Your head's not restrained-it moves at the car's original speed when the body stops, making it pop around the end of your neck like the end of a bull whip. This hurts!
Oftentimes it doesn't hurt immediately. For most people, there is no immediate pain and they can get out of the car and discuss matters with the other driver. (Disorders of the Cervical Spine, Bland, 1987, p. 349) The pain begins within minutes to about two to three hours. How badly you're hurt has nothing to do with how long it takes for the pain to start. (Disorders of the Cervical Spine, p. 349)
The pain probably has to do with the development of bleeding and bruising and swelling around torn tissue. Muscle spasms follow. When you get to the emergency room, the stiffness is obvious. You will have a headache because when the muscles tighten up in your neck-the spasm. When the muscles knot up or spasm, they have to take up slack from somewhere and these places are the side of the head and dead between your shoulder blades. So, you'll have a one-sided headache and pain in your shoulders. Oftentimes you're going to have numbness and tingling in your arms and hands. The nerves that run your arms and hands go out of your neck and past the collarbone, before they get to the arms. They can be pressed and pulled by the muscle spasms and swelling. (Keep your fingers crossed it's not a ruptured disc.) Tell your doctor immediately about numbness and tingling.
As you heal up, the neck movements can be restricted in all directions. You're not going to be able to bend your neck backwards. You may be able to bend it forward. Side-to-side comes back later. If numbness and tingling in your hands continue, this is a bad sign. If you haven't already followed up with the doctor, follow up. Pain in both shoulders, the back and side of the head as well as between the shoulder blades is almost universal. Average symptoms will extend for at least ten months if you have a normal cervical spine (neck). If you have osteoarthritis or other problems, the average duration is about seventeen months. (Disorders of the Cervical Spine, supra, p. 349)
The only thing that might show up on an x-ray will be a very straight neck. The muscle spasms straighten out the normal curve you have in your neck. My suggestion-and one my own wife didn't follow when she had her last accident-is to go to a doctor immediately after a crash. You will at least need the muscle relaxants to get through the night. If the accident happens during the day, get to your doctor. If it happens at night, get to the ER. There are also other problems that can show up that you wouldn't expect in an accident that need to be checked.
These so-called whiplash or soft tissue injuries can be long lasting, painful and will cost you time from work. Physical rehab and chiropractic care seems to work best for my clients. You will need some painkillers and muscle relaxers to get through the first stage, but get off of them as soon as you can. Stay on these pills long enough and you can turn into an addict, so try the alternative therapies as much as you possibly can.
As I told you at the beginning, do not settle early. One of the reasons is because of soft tissue injuries. They can last and last and you can have all sorts of problems getting healed up. So don't settle quickly because you think you're going to get better. You don't know what's going to happen.
Ligaments, Tendons, Muscles, Nerves, Discs and
Other Soft Tissues: The Rest of the Body
The lower back and, in fact, the rest of the body, will often have soft tissue injuries, too. They can be damaged: pulled muscles, strained ligaments, ruptured discs and the like. For example, a ligament is basically a rope made of small rubber bands. When you pull a ligament-and ligaments are all attached all along those little knobs on the spine-those little fibers break. When they heal, they don't heal back like tendons, cartilage or anything nice, smooth and slippery. They come back and scar tissue just like the outside of the body. Scar tissue is rough. If you have ever cut up a chicken, you know how slippery the inside of muscle tissue feels. If you have a scar, you know how rough it feels. That rough material irritates the soft, slippery material and the muscles around it. This sets up a sterile inflammation that sets up swelling and edema which sets up muscle spasms and you keep hurting.
Don't dismiss these muscle spasms, even if you were hurt so badly as to rupture a disc-those are the spacers in between the vertebra in your spine-it is the muscle spasm that makes your back hurt. There are no pain sensors inside the discs. The surgery is not done to relieve that back pain. The surgery is done to relieve the pressure caused by the disc on the nerves that run the legs if it's the lower back, or arms and hands if it is the neck.
Don't be fooled that a low speed collision cannot cause serious injuries. I had one case where a woman and an older lady passenger were in a low speed collision. The younger woman wound up having a spinal fusion in her lower back. The older woman had a crick in her neck that was cured by the collision. It has to do with angles of force. And even lower speed collisions bend metal and frames-that takes a good bit of force.
As one biomechanical engineer explained at a seminar I attended, "millions of times I have taken steps and walked and had no problem. But when my foot got sideways on the ice, I came down at a bad angle and broke my ankle." The same in true when you are in an automobile accident. You will have more damage depending on which way your head is turned…you could be looking forward, to the side or in any way in between. If you're not sitting straight, you will put more pressure in pinch points in particular areas. Slower speeds at bad angles are going to hurt a lot more and cause a great deal more damage than if you were sitting straight or looking straight ahead, i.e., right in line with the impact. The angle of impact makes a difference because that's how it is transferred to the body.
The long and short of it is that your body is not designed to take travel at 70-20 miles an hour when everything around it stops. Don't belittle any of your injuries.
Broken Bones, Broken Skulls and Other Serious Injuries:
Bad Enough for Maximum Payment
Again, never settle until the doctor clears you. The insurance company will want to settle early. Do not do this no matter how bad the injuries are unless they decide to offer you something called "policy limits". Each insurance policy has a certain maximum. You bought a certain maximum on your policy. However, do not take "policy limits" from the other side until you notify your own insurance company because, in some states and in some amounts, you are able to get both the other person's policy limits and your uninsured motorist coverage. However, if you settle early without alerting your own insurance company, they may not have to pay you the extra money.
The rules vary from state to state and almost from court term to court term as there is so much litigation over this. Mississippi underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage differs from Alabama's uninsured and underinsured insurance rules. So, again, don't settle early and, before you settle, check with your own insurance company and notify them about what you're going to do so that your interests are protected and you can get your uninsured motorist if it is available.
Your Insurance
Most of your own insurance policies will have:
- Liability, which will never pay you a dime. It either pays the other side or pays nothing at all.
- Uninsured motorist will pay you if the other side doesn't have insurance or has very little insurance.
- Collision to fix your car, no matter who is at fault.
- Med pay will pay 100% of your related medical payments and costs up to whatever amount, typically $500.00 to $5,000.00.
Use your own insurance. you've paid for it. If the other side is at fault, your own insurance company will be able to get the money back in something called subrogation. If you have to hire a lawyer, they will recover it for your insurance company. Don't be shy about using your own insurance.
Settlement
I will say it again: DO NOT SETTLE EARLY! I will be happy, for free, to look over anyone's settlement for Alabama and Mississippi. If I think that it's too little, I will tell you what I think ought to be done.
If you want to use my name with the insurance company for an accident in Alabama of Mississippi to get an offer, you have my permission. Again, for at no charge. Tell the insurance company that you will have me look at the case to see whether or not I think it is fair. Please call to tell me when you do this (205-342-3622, 662-328-9365 or 1-800-748-9673) because the insurance company may call me. It doesn't do any good at all to bluff if I don't know who you are.
However, tell them you haven't hired me yet but that I will review any offer. This would tend to make them give you the best offer up front so that you don't hire a lawyer.
If you do this, I do need to know what the other side's policy limits are. If you don't know or can't find out, I will. I will also need to see your medical records. So, if you do this, I will also ask for medical authorization so I can get the medical records. You might be able to get them yourself for free. If you have them, send them to me when you tell me you're going to use my name.
If I can help you at all, let me know if it is Alabama or Mississippi or, if it is another state and you need a recommendation, we oftentimes work with lawyers in other states.
Wrongful Death
If you need this section, please accept my condolences. We lawyers don't need to add to these problems. But, the wrongful death laws in Alabama and Mississippi are radically different. Call me. I'll try to walk you through this with minimum lawyer involvement.
Watch out. You may not need a lawyer at all. But, the unethical lawyers may descend I'm sorry to say. The insurance companies may take advantage. Especially long haul trucker's insurance. They have policy limits of at least $1,000,000.00 to protect. We'll talk to you about getting the breathing space you need to bury the dead, grieve for the loss and then and only then, turn to the legal side. You're too vulnerable at this time. Slow down. Don't do things quickly-you don't have to.
This practice covers Alabama and Mississippi. If we can help you; if you have any questions; call today, 1-800-748-9673, or e-mail, Email Me
|
