If you have a question relating to an accident where you were not at fault and it resulted in injuries, I have answered many of the common questions I have been asked over the years. Just below, you’ll see a number of categories where the questions and answers are listed.

You can click one of the categories that applies to your situation, and all the answers will be presented to you. An even easier way to get an answer to your question is to type the question in the search box to the right…. and every answer that applies to your question will be shown.

If by chance I don’t have the answer to your question on this site, call me at 513-621-4775. The call is free and I’ll take the time necessary to answer your question.

Q & A About Motor Vehicle Accidents
General Q & A About Accident & Injuries
Specific Q & A About Injuries & Accidents
Q & A About Truck & Big Rig Accidents

It’s not written in the sky; there are a number of different factors.

There are the standard “metrics” – Paralysis, amputation, or loss of use of an arm or leg; disfigurement or scarring; time spent in the hospital; total medical bills; time off work, future impairment and pain and suffering; future wage loss.

Some factors depend on the person who caused the accident. Was the conduct intentional, or reckless? Is a corporation involved? (Is it a “good” corporation that everyone loves, like Procter and Gamble, or Skyline, or LaRosa’s, or is it a corporation that specializes in Waste Disposal or concrete construction? Don’t get me wrong, there are bad pizza drivers and wonderful garbage truck drivers, but we’re talking about public perception). Was the other vehicle a truck? Did the other driver try to run away, or act goofy at the scene? Was he drunk?

Was it a big wreck? Did your car have more damage than the other driver’s? (The last shouldn’t matter, but it can.)

Then there are the “stories”, or the cases where something happens that no one expects.

• The teenage girl who is knocked out by the collision – her parents think she’s dead – and then wakes up with a quarter inch scar on her face. The insurance company offers her $17,000, but the probate judge tells them he won’t let her accept that amount. (I settled it for $35,000.00.)

• The case where the victim’s wife has alzheimer’s; when the victim doesn’t come home from the accident right away, the wife wanders the neighborhood, looking for the only person she can trust. Or the victim suddenly can’t care for his wife because of the injuries. In each case, the “story” was a substantial component in what I considered a good settlement.

• The wife with charges against her because she bounced a check at the grocery store. She makes good on the check, but the grocery store forgets to tell the district attorney; so six months later, the police come to her home and put her in a cell for six hours with a lady who keeps screaming about the bugs around her before her husband can convince them the charges have been dropped.

• Taser cases. I’ve had two. In one, the victim was an innocent person standing by when the police shot a taser at the bad guy, who was trying to avoid questioning. In another, the victim was being wrongfully held in prison when a guard tased her for refusing to remove the extensions that were braided into her hair. Each involved minimal hospital treatment – one visit in each case – no lost wages and low bills, but relatively significant settlements.

In every lawsuit, the most important thing is to bring out – and let the insurance company know about – the human factor. That the injured person is a person with feelings, with a family or friends, and that the person they insured took something out of a human life.

I have been a lawyer over 30 years. It’s a lawyer’s job to look for the stories; so I listen to my clients. That’s how to sell a case to the insurance company. If you’ve been in an accident, give me, a Cincinnati personal injury attorney , a call. My phone is 513-621-4775.

Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed. All discussions are limited to Ohio law unless otherwise indicated. And past performance cannot be used to predict future results.

Very rarely.

The “American Rule” is that generally, everyone – winners and losers alike – pays their own attorney fees. (It’s called the American rule because in England, the rule is different – the loser pays.)

There are exceptions to the American rule. One – that doesn’t apply in most personal injury cases – is that a law passed by congress or the state legislature can provide that the loser pays in certain types of cases. Ohio allows attorney fees for violation of some trade secrets laws. The federal government has laws that require payment of attorney fees by the losers in cases of civil rights violations, and in patent cases.

In most auto accidents, there are no attorney fees available. Attorney fees might be available if:
• You can prove the other side acted intending to harm you, or that they acted in a manner entitling you to punitive damages. Examples would include driving while severely intoxicated, or in a reckless manner – for example, leading a police chase.
• In the case of a truck, that the driver or the trucking company was acting “with reckless disregard” of the safety of the public – for instance, violating a series of traffic laws at the same time.

I have been a lawyer over 30 years. Awards of legal fees are rare in auto and truck accidents; but their threat can help encourage a settlement. If you’ve been in an accident and want to know if you can get attorney fees, give me, a Cincinnati injury lawyer, a call. My phone is 513-621-4775.

Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed. All discussions are limited to Ohio law unless otherwise indicated. And past performance cannot be used to predict future results.

You go to a lawyer.

This is relatively simple if your lawyer knows how to do it. If you try to do it yourself, you might screw things up. Here is what your lawyer has to do:

1) Get the other driver’s insurer to offer their limits, in exchange for you signing a release that says you can not sue the other driver. In your case, this should be simple. The lawyer has to get the insurance company the medical bills and records – if it’s clear they were caused by the accident, the other driver’s insurance should offer its limits (in this case, $25,000.00) right away.

What if they don’t acknowledge the case is worth that much? You have to sue the other driver.

Can you settle with your own insurance company on your underinsured motorist claim if the other driver’s insurer won’t offer their limits? That is up to your own insurance company. But chances are, if the other driver’s insurer won’t offer their limits, your own insurer probably won’t either.

2) Once the other driver’s insurer makes an offer of its limits, your lawyer has to tell your own insurance company that the offer has been made.

3) Then your insurance company has a choice. It can either (a) let you take the money from the driver’s insurance company and sign the release of the other driver or (b) substitute its own money for the other insurance company’s money (that is, your own insurance company has the opportunity to pay you, in this case) $25,000.

Why would your insurance company take option (b)? There are a couple reasons. Whenever an insurance company pays money to its own insured under an underinsured policy, it gets the right to recover that money from the other driver and his insurance company. This is called subrogation.

And when you sign a release from the other insurance company in exchange for their payment of their limits, you are signing away not only your right to recover the money from the other driver, but also your insurance company’s right to recover that same money.

So when your own insurance company is presented with the option of advancing its own money, or letting you release your (and their) claims against the other driver, it needs to know certain information. One question is how likely will they be to recover anything at all from the other driver. If the other driver is Warren Buffett, or Bill Gates, it is not that much of a risk for the other insurance company to advance its own money. Your insurance company will be able to recover from Warren or Bill every penny that it pays you.

But let’s say that the other driver is not Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. Instead, he is like a lot of other underinsured drivers – no assets, no substantial employment, a poor collection risk. Your insurance company is more likely to just let you release the other driver, and then make a claim against your underinsured coverage for the difference between what the other driver’s insurer paid and the full value of your claim.

And let’s look at a third scenario. Suppose that the other driver has some – not a lot of – assets, but also some unattractive traits – for instance, maybe he was drunk, speeding, and running a red light when the accident occurred. There are reasons you may not want to release him until you are ready to resolve your underinsured claim.

Because as long as he is a defendant, you would have a punitive damage claim against him, and in front of the jury your lawyer will be able to talk about how drunk and irresponsible he was. (You cannot collect punitive damages from insurance; but the fact that you might ask for it will make everyone else nervous.) And your own insurance company will be worried that the jury will be mad at the other driver for being drunk, resulting in a much larger (compensatory damage) award, that they will have to pay.

From your standpoint, if you release the other driver, you get money now(whatever the other driver’s limits are) but you lose your chance to inflate your verdict against your own insurance company by talking about how drunk the other driver was.

And if your insurance company chooses to advance the other driver’s insurance limits to you, it keeps the other driver in the case as a defendant – again, so you can talk about him in front of the jury. But if it lets you release the other driver, it won’t be able to recover whatever money it pays out on your claim.

4) Finally, there is this to think about. If you don’t tell your insurance company that the other driver’s insurance has made a limits offer, and just release the other driver in exchange for a payment of the limits, you may be invalidating your own underinsurance coverage. Why? Because your release of the other driver also blocks your own insurance company from recovering on its subrogation claim against him. And there is a clause in your underinsured motorist coverage policy that says that you have to do everything you can to help your insurance company get its money back.

OK. That’s enough for anyone to think about. But after all this, I think you can probably see why I started with the advice to go to a lawyer.

I have been a lawyer over 30 years. If you want everything you are entitled to, it’s not always easy to get to it. If you’ve been in an accident and you don’t know how to deal with the insurance company give me, a Cincinnati personal injury lawyer, a call. My phone is 513-621-4775.

Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed. All discussions are limited to Ohio law unless otherwise indicated. And past performance cannot be used to predict future results.

No. Not yet, anyway. And you shouldn’t, unless you know for sure.

There are lots of reasons you may not want to take the insurance company’s offer. It may not be enough. You may not know how much is enough. And you might be afraid that if you give an adjuster your best number, he might try to take advantage.

(And even if you don’t want much at all, he probably will try to take advantage of you, in the sense that he will offer you less than he has the ability to pay.)

It doesn’t make sense to take an offer you are not sure about unless you literally have no alternative. It won’t cost anything to call me – or any other personal injury lawyer – to ask what I think of the offer, and what I think the case is worth.

And there are lots of options. Whenever an adjuster makes me an offer, I do some combination of the following:
• Tell him I will have to talk about it with the person I am working for. (That’s kind of a no brainer)
• Tell him I need more information from him – like why does he think this is such a great offer
• Tell him I need to get him more information (usually about how bad my client’s injuries are, but maybe whether my client’s hospital will take a discount on their bill, or whether my client’s insurance company will agree to reduce the amount they are asking for)
• Tell him that’s not enough, and my client needs more money.

Sometimes, if I think the offer is too low, I might just sit on it. A couple times, the adjuster has called me and raised the offer without my doing anything. It doesn’t happen very often, but my client feels better when it does.

The only time I accept the offer is when I am sure that I have been through all of the important options with my client, and I know he will accept it.

I have been a lawyer over 30 years. Just because the insurance company is making you an offer, doesn’t mean it’s a good one. If you’ve been in an accident give me, a Cincinnati personal injury lawyer, a call. My phone is 513-621-4775.

Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed. All discussions are limited to Ohio law unless otherwise indicated. And past performance cannot be used to predict future results.

Hardly ever.

In the last couple years, lots of people have called me, and said that the insurance adjuster had called them after the accident, and told them that the insurance would settle for their medical bills plus $500, or $1,000, or even $2,000.

Is this a good deal?

No. For a couple reasons.

First, as I pointed out in my last blog, I can almost always do better, even after attorney fees.

Second, look at what they are offering.

When someone injures you, you are entitled to:
• Your medical bills
• Your lost wages
• Your pain and suffering caused by the accident.

The insurance for the guy who hit your is going to have to pay the medical bills caused by the accident. But your medical bills have already been paid – in most cases – by your health insurance, or by your medical payments coverage on your car.

The right to recover money for your medical bills belongs to the insurance company that pays it, and the other guy’s insurance company usually pays them directly. So offering to pay medical bills is not offering to pay much at all.

But they also have to pay any lost wages caused by the accident, and if you are making $35,000 per year and miss three and one half days of work, that’s $500 right there.

And they also will have to pay pain and suffering. And – believe it or not – that is the part of the award that scares the insurance company the most. Why? Because there is no practical cap on that amount. The Ohio legislature has limited pain and suffering awards to $250,000 per accident – more in certain circumstances.

So any offer that is structured the way I described isn’t really much of an offer at all.

I have been a lawyer over 30 years. Just because the insurance company is making you an offer, doesn’t mean it’s a good one. If you’ve been in an accident give me, a Cincinnati personal injury lawyer, a call. My phone is 513-621-4775.

Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed. All discussions are limited to Ohio law unless otherwise indicated. And past performance cannot be used to predict future results.

If you’re reading this, there’s a decent chance you’ve heard this from an insurance adjuster after you’ve been in an accident.

Is this all you can get?
No.

When someone injures you, you are entitled to:
• Your medical bills
• Your lost wages
• Your pain and suffering caused by the accident.

I am sure that at some point – probably in a really bad lawsuit – I recommended that my client accept an offer that valued their pain and suffering at $500.00. But I honestly cannot remember when.

The truth is that once the insurance adjuster is confronted by an attorney, they open up their pursestrings. No one ever gets everything they want – but almost everyone that I represent gets substantially more than the $500.00.

To take home.

After the deduction of the attorney fee, and after the medical bills are paid.

It may take a little time. You have to complete treatment, and I have to get the insurance company all the records they want.

But if I don’t think I can get you more than $500.00, I won’t take the lawsuit.

I have been a lawyer over 30 years. Just because the insurance company is making you an offer, doesn’t mean you have to take it. If you’ve been in an accident give me, a Cincinnati injury attorney, a call. My phone is 513-621-4775.

Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed. All discussions are limited to Ohio law unless otherwise indicated. And past performance cannot be used to predict future results.

I will be honest – I can’t predict. I think that juries – and insurance companies – will be very interested in a number of different factors, including the extent and permanency of your injury (amputation is more than a broken arm), the total of your medical bills, your lost wages, whether you were at fault, the horror of your accident, and – sorry about this, but it’s true – whether the jury will “like” you.

But you can try the same case to different juries, and get different results. Same thing with insurance adjusters, and judges.
But if you want an interesting perspective from someone who is – at least a little bit – outside the traditional system, try reading some of the comments of Kenneth Feinberg.

Kenneth Feinberg – on Morning Joe, a talk show that my wife and I watch every morning – said that for the case he is now working on, it’s the time you spent in the hospital.

Who is Kenneth Feinberg? He is the administrator for the 9/11 victims fund, for the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Victim Compensation Fund, the One fund (compensating victims of the Boston Marathon bombing), the fund to compensate the victims of the Aurora shooting, and other funds set up to compensate victims of massive tragedies.

And his job is different from that of the typical adjuster, or juror, because when he makes an award, he is usually applying some standard other than the personal injury law of the state where the tragedy occurs. It might be a charity, or a compensation fund set up by statute (which is part of what happened with 9/11. He may have more or fewer funds than he thinks the victim would be able to get at trial.

But he usually has a set amount of dollars to award to a number of people. His job is to break it up in amounts that will hold up in court.

And what case is he working on now? It is the One Fund, compensating victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. Most of the funds he is planning on distributing are from private donations, but it’s really too early to tell.

And he has different strictures. One is the fact that it is too early to know how much will be available. So he probably has a lot of concerns addressing survivors’ immediate needs – mortgages, special medical care, living expenses, things like that – rather than long term awards for pain and suffering.

What does this tell you about what a jury will award you for a truck accident? Probably not that much – because of all the different factors that go into a jury’s award.

But it might tell you something about what an insurance adjuster will do. The fact that one person spends two weeks in the hospital in intensive care may be more impressive than the $75,000 in medical expenses someone else incurs for a back surgery.

And it gives me an argument if the case does go to a jury: “Mr. Johnson spent two straight weeks in the hospital after this accident, and still came out needing more surgery. I am lucky – but there are a lot of people who don’t have to spend that long in the hospital their whole life.”

If it makes you stop and think, that’s good.

I have been a lawyer over 30 years. One of the most important things about what I do is maintaining a fresh perspective. If you’ve been in an accident with a truck, give me, a Cincinnati personal injury attorney, a call. My phone is 513-621-4775.

Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed. All discussions are limited to Ohio law unless otherwise indicated. And past performance cannot be used to predict future results.

Because they don’t have to until you file a lawsuit.

Insurance companies don’t have to tell you what their limits are until you file suit. As a general rule, I have a lot of trouble getting them to do this.

Sometimes, it’s not that important. If my client had one trip to the emergency room, with a total of $1,000 in bills, the case is probably not going to settle for over the policy limits, whatever they are. (Policy limits start at $12,500 in Ohio.)

In other cases, though, you need the information. If you have underinsured motorist coverage, you need to know the other driver’s limits so you can put your own insurance company on notice.

Sometimes, I can get the truck insurance company to tell me their limits by telling them that I have to know whether I need to contact the underinsured motorist insurer. Or by telling them that my client has a lot of medical bills, and needs to know whether there is enough auto insurance to cover the damages.

I have been a lawyer over 30 years. Generally, lawyers are better at dealing with insurance companies than accident victims are. If you’ve been in an accident with a truck, give me, a Cincinnati injury lawyer, a call. My phone is 513-621-4775.

Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed. All discussions are limited to Ohio law unless otherwise indicated. And past performance cannot be used to predict future results.

Whatever doctors your family doctor says you need, and a scar specialist or plastic surgeon.

Usually, so long as you tell your doctor about your problems, he will tell you what specialist he thinks should treat you.

But not always.  With dogbites, there is often a lasting scar.  You need to see a specialist for that, because it might be permanent.

If there is a permanent scar, you need a plastic surgeon – sometimes an ear nose and throat specialist – to give an opinion as to permanency, and to provide an estimate of the cost of reconstructing and masking the scar.

But other doctors may be required too. I have recommended that a client see a neurologist or an ENT to assess balance problems caused when the dog knocked her over.

If there is a fracture or an injured ligament, an orthopedist might be a good idea. And if there is nerve damage in the area of the scar, a neurosurgeon or neurologist ought to assess the injury as well.

I have been a lawyer over 30 years. Sometimes, you need to see a specialist. If you’ve been bit by a dog, give me, a Cincinnati injury lawyer lawyer, a call.  My phone is 513-621-4775.

Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed.  All discussions are limited to Ohio law unless otherwise indicated.  And past performance cannot be used to predict future results.

Ask Your Doctor.  If You Don’t Have A Doctor You Trust, Get One.

Why is your doctor the best person to recommend a specialist for injuries you sustain in a truck accident or dog bite?  Because he knows you, he knows the specialists in your area, and he’s neutral.

What if you don’t trust your doctor to recommend a good specialist?  For instance, some people in small towns may feel their family doctors are just fine, but don’t feel that they have good options for specialized care near them.  Or maybe they just go to their family doctor because they are isolated, and don’t feel like they have much of a choice.

One option is to go to the emergency room of the hospital you feel the best about.  In Cincinnati, University Hospital has an Emergency Room staffed by some of the best doctors in Cincinnati – and so do the other large hospitals. They may not all be five star, but you have a better chance of getting good treatment than you would if you walked into a smaller clinic.

If I represent you, you can ask me to recommend a doctor.  I am usually reluctant to recommend a doctor, because if the case gets as far as a jury, it will look like steering if my client testifies truthfully that he went to see his doctor because I recommended it.

On the other hand, I really want my patient to trust his doctor.  It is almost impossible to resolve his case unless the patient trusts his doctor.

If you live in Northeast Ohio, you may be able to be treated at the Cleveland Clinic. That is an excellent place to find a good doctor.

I have been a lawyer over 30 years. There is nothing more important than trusting your doctor.   If you’ve been hurt by a truck, give me, a Cincinnati truck accident lawyer, a call.  My phone is 513-621-4775.

Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed.  All discussions are limited to Ohio law unless otherwise indicated.  And past performance cannot be used to predict future results.