Today a metro bus hit my aunts expedition and totalled it inside were her, 2 yr old son and 18 yr old daughter.

Their all hospitalized with cuts and bruises and my aunt has broken bones and whiplash.

I need to know if you any of you has a # to a good personal injury lawyer that can help us in this case.

thanks

 

http://www.jamesdavis.org/

Tell em the guy from superpages sent yall.

 

My suggestion would be to see if her health insurance can pay the bills for now.

Now if you are planning on suing, I would wait. Any GOOD lawyer will tell you to wait til you are healed up. But a lot will readily jump on the case as METRO's insurance policy is huge Im sure. Theres no way to tally up all your final medical expenses until you have completely healed (as in gone through rehabilitation, which might take months, etc), and thats part of the suit. The more expenses you have, the more it will increase what you receive for "pain and suffering".

Also, it looks MUCH better to a jury when you are suing many months after the accident as opposed to 1 week later. Dont get in a rush, thats a bad move.

 

Is Jim Adler still on TV in Houston?

"Jim Adler, The texas HAMMER!"

-justin

 

Yep, he's still on tv only now he has some cheesy commercial with a CGI dog.

 

"I want that lawyer what wears a cowboy hat!"

 

Do NOT get a lawyer invovled, it is completely UNNECESSARY and COSTLY even for you.

Most personal injury lawyers will take between 30-40% of your compensation as their fees, and more if it goes to trial. Your better off taking the compensation direct from the at fault insurnace company. This is what insurance is for.

As an example, we were T-Boned by a minivan in Dec 2005. The at fault drivers insurance company denied liability, i got MY insurance company involved free of charge (that's what they are for). They finally agreed to liability.

our heath insurance covered us until such time was necessary and they got paid back from THEIR insurnace company and we got the difference.

Here's the breakdown:

The liability limits for the at fault driver was 20/40/15:

Our medical bills for the accident reached $10k
We got a the compensation of the balance of $10k.

A LAWYER is going to take 30% OF THE TOTAL compensation of $20k. Which is $6k for their fees. That would have left us with $14 BEFORE medical payment to the hospital. So, we would have lost $4k, JUST in lawyer fees.

Now, if you want to try to get MORE than what they were covered for, then that's all on you, but don't expect to much more, depending on the insured income/assets etc etc. And honestly, if you think it's ok to DESTROY a family by suing for personal assets you might want to re-consider. An accident is an accident.

Then on the other hand, the more they pay out, it WILL push EVERYBODY elses rates higher.

 

You make it sound like insurance companies just pay out their policy amounts without hesitation.

I would personally recommend that everyone tried to handle things on their own, until the point where the insurance company get scandelous and or stubborn.

Heres my "recent" and on going dealings with an insurance company I wont name in this post (tho youve all heard of them). This is long, but its informative and useful if you are ever hit by someone. Especially if you have liability only on your daily beater.

About a year ago I slowed for traffic infront of me. As i sat there for a few seconds after coming to an almost complete stop, i looked in my rearview to see a truck coming up on my 6 at a high rate of speed. He never touched the brakes. He never even slowed down. He was going the speed limit when he hit me. Hell, he didnt even know he was about to wreck. He told me he was "busy looking at his cellphone".

Open and shut case. Should be easy to settle right? Wrong.

A couple days after the accident his insurance adjuster calls me, admitting fault, being really nice etc. She asks if I went to the hospital, I replied "yes" told her that they X-rayed my neck. She asks what the outcome of that Xray was, and I told her it was "negative" (meaning i had no fractures in my neck). She replies with "oh, well your fine then". Shady attempt #1. I told her that xrays of my neck dont show what might be wrong with the discs in my spine, and that Ill need to be evaluated further. She goes on to ask if ill give a recorded statement. When I asked what she needed, she said "oh, just the details of the accident, give us the details of your injuries etc". Shady attempt #2. I replied "Im not a doctor, I cant give you the details of my injuries, especially when the only evaluation ive had was a neck Xray. I will gladly speak about the accident, but I will not speak to you about my injuries." After that she decided she didnt really want to do a recorded statement then.

A few days later she tries Shady Attempt #3. She wants to come over so i can sign some papers. The papers were "medical record release forms". These arent just your average medical record release forms. These are forms that will allow them to go back and get EVERY medical record you have ever had. In hopes of placing the blame, in regards to your injuries on some other accident that may have happened 10 years ago. On top of that, they then SELL your medical records to other insurance companies, who will try to use them against you in the future if one of their customers hits you.

I got my own release forms from the hospital faxed to me, where I specified the DATE of the records that could be released. And i specified only the date that i was there for the injuries related to this accident.

I receive an MRI and turns out i have a bulged disc in my lower spine. I go through treatment for that, which ends up taking months.

In the meantime i was getting screwed on my car. I wont go into how much, but lets just say that if you had $8000 worth of parts and labor in reciepts, theyd give you probably $550 or so added to the value of the car. Two lawyers told me the same thing "Theres nothing you can do about it, but try to make it up on the personal injury side of the case".

I was finished with therapy for my back in late November. The Adjuster was ducking my calls. Ive called that adjuster probably 30 times over the course of 7 months, and not ONE ******* TIME did she answer the phone. You have to leave a voicemail, and HOPE that she calls you back, which I might add, rarely happened. I was ready to get everything settled by late december, since therapy was finished and I had all the bills tallied up. I wasnt able to get a settlement offer til MAY.

They do their best to drag it out as long as possible for two reasons: #1 the longer their money stays in their account, the more interest they make on it. #2 As the bills start to pile in, people tend to take lesser settlement amounts as the are in a pinch for cash. This company did everything they could to stall. "Ok, fax me your medical bills and we'll get this settlement taken care of". I faxed them the same day. I didnt hear back from her til 1 month later. "Ok now get your medical records released so we can get this taken care of". I called the Dr's office once a week over the next month, and the insurance company had yet to even request them.

So finally about 7 months after the wreck, she gave me the offer: $6300...

First of all, all this was put on my health insurance. Its a private policy so it has a large deductible. My out of pocket costs were going to be $5k. THEN I was legally obligated by contract to reimburse my health insurance for what they spent: $2500. So thats $7500 just to be squared up on my bills, with me not making a penny more. The insurance adjuster wouldnt budge. I had an attorney friend call, and she was willing to increase the offer by $40. He just laughed at her. Whats even funnier is that the adjuster told me to not worry about paying back my insurance company, as shes never seen them go after someone for it. Right. How about YOU PAY YOUR ******* BILLS!?!

So, in summary Ive taken a beating on my car by a huge amount. Ive got a damaged disc in my spine, which could just deteriorate 5 years from now and require expensive surgery. Ive made about 30 trips to the neurosurgeon for appointments and physical therapy, and in the end, they want me to lose an extra $1200 out of my pocket just so I can get squared on medical bills that THEY should be paying.

So, I had no other choice but to sue them. And it may be another 1 1/2 years before I get paid. Insurance companies like to fight it all the way to court lots of times.

Now other peoples experience with insurance companies might have been better. But I can say first hand that they will try to **** you in a hundred different ways if they can. Allstate and Farmers are the worst. So beware, especially with the some of the sneaky tactics mentioned above. Dont let them fool you into screwing yourself.

Car was totaled. The car was tweaked so hard that the passenger side door was frozen shut,being clamped in place by the quarter panel, and parts of the dash where popping out.

 

^^ Well, I'm feel bad for your situation, this might be one where a lawyer is a good idea, however, in my situation, where the injuries weren't that BAD (the that t-boned us was only going 30 and ran a stop sign).

It took us a good 8 months and we paid the health insurance company back (hey, it's their money anyway). And the money that we "lost" on the totaled Sebring we did get back on personal injury, lost wages, etc etc.

It took a LOT to get that $20k out of that insurance company mind you, constand calls, faxes, medical records going back and forth. I kept a spreadsheet of EVERY expense that WE incurred (travel to and from every dr and EVERY co-pay I paid).

Insurnce companies are ******** thats for sure, and I didn't mean to make it sound "cut and dry". I guess once you get the check it doesn't matter H"OW you got it huh?

 

You don't need a lawyer yet--you need YOUR car insurance company. They have lots of lawyers that handle cases like this everyday.

Ryan

 

Me?
At the time money was tight so i had liability only. So it was all on my hands. Besides, getting your own insurance company involved is for when you claim damages on your insurance and someone else is at fault. Then they go after the responsible person's insurance company to get reimbursement for what they had to pay and nothing more. On top of that, even though your insurance company got reimbursed, they'll still hold it against you for making a claim, and they'll keep it on record (and possibly raise your rates too). Insurance companies are something else.

There is a common saying among Lawyers that deal with personal injury, and 90% of the time its accurate. "You can get a quick settlement, or you can get a fair settlement, but you cant get both"

 

SJRTX: I was posting a message to the original poster.

In your case, its a very bad deal. I will always have full coverage.

I had a similar accident as you did, though I wasn't injured. A guy with no license or insurance ran a stop light and I T-boned him. State Farm gave me a very fair settlement for my car a week after the event, a little cash for pain and suffering, and are holding my rates the same.

I will say that anytime I've ever had or heard of an insurance claim + car mods it hasn't been pleasent. They don't like them and they don't return anything for them.

As far as insurance companies go I won't stand up for them, but I will say that they deal with alot of scum on both ends. However, my experience with State Farm was tolerable. It wasn't completely smoothy and fun, but in the end I got what I needed.

Ryan