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Why not wait a while before I seek legal representation?
Whether it's an automobile accident, a motorcycle accident, an injury involving a defective product, an accident that occurred
in someone's home or real property, on a boat, in a plane, in a hospital or under almost any other conditions, there will be
physical evidence to be preserved, witnesses to be interviewed, photographs to be taken, preliminary medical assessments to be
made and a variety of other chores which cannot safely be put off for any significant period of time.
It's a safe bet that the person or company that caused the injury is wasting no time to have investigators and adjusters go to
work putting together strong defenses and expending lots of energy to minimize the value of your claim. A highly skilled team
of plaintiff lawyers and their support staff can "beat them to the punch" or at the very least make sure that all of the pertinent
evidence is well preserved: The scene will be photographed and measured, photographs of all pertinent objects will be taken,
witnesses will be interviewed as quickly as possible and provide statements helpful to your side of the case and competent,
understanding health providers will be consulted with respect to the nature and extent of your injuries. Those are just a few
of the things that should be done early on.
Finally, once you have employed a skilled team of attorneys, the insurance adjusters and other investigators for the wrongdoers
or insurance companies will not be able to take advantage of you; they will have to go through your attorney.
Why shouldn't I meet with the Insurance Adjuster or the Wrongdoer's Investigator?
The investigator or insurance adjuster is not out there to see that you get everything you deserve. His or her job is to make sure
that your claim is either completely defeated or at least minimalized. An adjuster does not move up the ranks by doing favors for
injured people or providing advice on how you can best have your claim fully appreciated. At the end of the day, the adjuster's
promotions or salary raises and bonuses depend upon how effectively he has dealt with injured people in such a way as to lessen
the amount of benefits that the company he or she works for will be required to pay.
It is not unusual at all that an insurance adjuster will contact an injured person when the latter is weak or disoriented, emotionally
confused or without any knowledge as to what to do or what to say. Of course, not every investigator or insurance adjuster is at fever
pitch to defeat your claim but who knows which one is going to end up at your front door or hospital bed. An injured person's plight
is too important to gamble on this point.
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Why not at least just let the Wrongdoer's Investigator or Adjuster take a short statement
from me as to how the accident happened and what my injuries are?
Insurance adjusters and accident investigators usually have taken hundreds of statements from people and have
had plenty of practice on how to "skew" a paragraph or a sentence, or even one word, in such a manner as to make
the statement you give a real liability against the value of your claim. .
We have seen countless examples of injured people foolishly letting adjusters insert language such as "I never
saw it before impact" or "I only saw the other car out of control for ten or fifteen seconds before it hit me"
or "I actually felt okay after the accident" or even worse, "I haven't been to see a doctor yet because I think
I'm going to be okay".
Suffice it to say that any statement that an injured person gives to an adjuster will never be used to enhance the
injured person's claim or help him or her win his or her case.
What about giving statements to my own insurance company?
Most insurance policies have a cooperation clause in them which means you have to give your insurance company a
brief statement regarding the accident. However this should never be done until you have employed competent
legal counsel to instruct you on what will be expected in the way of a statement and to accompany you at the
taking of any such statement.
Your own insurance company may turn out to be your adversary for many reasons. First of all, you will have
personal injury protection benefits payable to you under any automobile insurance policy or it may well be
that it will become necessary for you to make an uninsured motorist claim or underinsured motorist claim.
This type of claim is one in which your insurance carrier steps into the shoes of the negligent party and
assumes the responsibility of providing full compensation to you because the negligent party has no automobile
insurance or does not have enough to equal the value of your claim for injuries.
Won't I end up with more money for my injuries if I don't have to pay attorney's fees?
In most cases the answer is a resounding NO. As stated earlier, insurance adjusters are not in the business of
seeing how much they can pay out in the form of benefits on injury claims. The insurance adjuster is trained to
minimize your claim and to convince you that whatever he or she offers to pay is more than you really deserve.
We could cite hundreds of examples to prove to you that you most likely will get a far greater amount of monetary
benefits by going through a well established and skilled law firm, but for the sake of gravity and clarity I will
just provide a couple of examples:
Example 1
Claimant suffers two herniated vertebral disks. The claimant meets with the insurance adjuster after receiving medical
information from the claimant's treating doctor that the patient has two herniated disks from the accident. The claimant
has not had surgery and hopes to avoid it. The claimant lost four weeks from his $1,000.00 a week job before returning
to work and has no plans to receive further medical treatment. He thinks he can endure the pain and assumes he will
get better with the passage of a few months in time. The insurance adjuster will happily pay him $4,000.00 for his lost
earnings, another $5,000.00 for his pain and suffering and another $4,000.00 for his hospital and doctor's bill.
(The claimant's own insurance company has already paid $10,000.00 to the hospital to cover treatment under his personal
injury protection coverage).
Thus, this claimant will receive a $13,000.00 settlement and will owe no one any attorney's fees.
Here's what should have happened and probably would have, had the claimant secured competent legal counsel!
The claimant has not only suffered pain in the past but will continue to have off and on pain throughout the
remainder of his life due to the nature of the back injuries. The claimant has a life expectancy of another
40 years and even at $1,000.00 a year for the anticipated pain the amount for this alone would be $40,000.00
plus the pain and suffering he has suffered before the settlement which would presumably be at least another
$5,000.00 for a total of $45,000.00. With two herniated disks the likelihood of complicated spinal surgery
is at least 2 to 1 and he will incur surgical and hospital costs of another $50,000.00. We are now at $95,000.00.
The claimant has lost four weeks from work which entitles him to $4,000.00 and he will no doubt over the course
of his life expectancy including the time out for surgeries lose another ten weeks from work or an additional
$10,000.00. We now see that his claim has at least a value of $109,000.00. The attorney's fee and costs would
leave the claimant a net of well over $60,000.00.
Example 2
The claimants' eight year old son has been killed while riding his bicycle due to a negligent driver going out of
control. The claimants do not employ a competent attorney and they handle it on their own. Funeral expenses are
$9,000.00, medical expenses are $4,000.00.
The insurance adjuster also wants to see that they get an additional $100,000.00 for pain and suffering due to the loss.
The claim is therefore settled for $113,000.00 payable straight to the claimants.
If the claimants had employed competent legal counsel the results should go something like this: funeral and medical
expenses $13,000.00, pain and suffering due to the loss of a child $2,000,000.00. Your total settlement $2,013,000.00.
The claimants should receive after payment of all fees and costs well in excess of $1,300,000.00.
The above examples are extreme but realistic. Each case will depend upon a lot of facts and circumstances peculiar to the
individual accident victim and the nature of the claim. However, it is safe to say that as a general rule the claimant
will definitely fare better with competent legal counsel than without.
What does "Florida Bar Board Certification and National Board of Trial Advocacy Certification" mean?
To obtain certification by the National Board of Trial Advocacy or by the Florida Bar, a personal injury
lawyer must have established himself as an extremely high skilled, experienced lawyer in his particular
specialty. He or she must have tried numerous jury verdict claims over the years, have the strong endorsements
of many judges for whom he or she has tried cases, shall have written and had published many articles regarding
his or her specialty and have lectured on numerous occasions. Certification is the strongest form of recognition
available to announce to the public that the person who has received board certification is extremely highly
skilled. Only three to six percent of personal injury trial lawyers in the state of Florida have achieved such
certification. (The writer is board certified with both the National Board of Trial Advocacy as well as the
Florida Bar. The High Stack firm requires that all of its trial lawyers achieve board certification)
How do I know what value to place on my injury claim?
You don't. The High Stack Law Firm was founded in 1962 and its sixty plus (60+) lawyers over the years have
handled literally hundreds of personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits and settled just as many claims without
going to trial. The process of determining the value of any given claim is difficult, complicated and extremely
detailed. It is a huge mistake to compare one's claim to something they have read in a newspaper or seen on
television or perhaps had some friend tell them about. Each case has its own different facets and determining
factors.
Some of the tools to determine the value of a given case over the years that the High Stack Law Firm has used
are as follows:
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There are certain publications which perform surveys all over the state of Florida, and nationally for
that matter, whose function is to determine in as many instances as possible what a certain type of claim
has brought in terms of monetary payment. These publications attempt to classify the injuries in terms
of the part of the body affected; for example, herniated disk cases are given one value, amputation cases
are given another value, blindness cases are given another value and so on and so on. These publications
alone are not enough to form the basis for a final evaluation.
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Lawyer conferences where colleagues in your specialty tell you what they have gotten for their clients in
cases similar to yours. Of course the value of this information will depend upon what part of the state or
country the trial or settlement took place. The age and occupation of the accident victim, the quality of
the defendant's attorneys, the difficulty of proving a strong liability case (who is responsible for the
accident) and the actual out of pocket expenses paid or which are likely to be accrued in the future are
also important considerations
These are just a few of the means by which case values are arrived at. The attractiveness or appeal that the client
has before a jury is an important factor, the social attitudes that are prevalent with respect to prospective jurors
regarding large settlements or payment of compensation and the culpability of the person causing the accident along with
that person's personality traits all are important in further assessing the value of a claim..
In summary, every available fact must be studied in order to determine the future value of a serious accident claim.
We can always give you a rough idea of how much a claim is worth during the early stages of handling it, but it may
vary depending upon a variety of circumstances which have occurred before the accident, at the time of the accident
and during the claims process.
Should I ask a law firm for a free consultation or will there be strings attached?
Absolutely. No attorney who offers free consultations has any right to turn around and bill you for the time spent or to
demand that you allow his or her firm to represent you. A free consultation is just that ... you go in and ask all the questions
you want to, the attorney gives you as many answers as he in good faith feels that he or she can and you decide on your own
initiative who, when, what and why.
Please call us if you wish to meet for a completely free and no strings attached consultation.
If you do decide that you want our assistance, you will not be obligated for any fee or costs unless we are successful in your behalf!
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