AboutDoctor Settlement Expertise 27 years of front line plaintiff`s trial lawyer experience in PERSONAL INJURY INSURANCE CLAIMS. Along with other attorneys and insurance adjusters, we have created a website to help injured people settle their own personal injury claims. With the help from feedback from hundreds of satisfied members, www.settlementcentral.com has become THE AUTHORITY for Internet personal injury insurance claim settlements. I am humbled and honored if people can benefit from my experience and current volunteer work in helping injured people. I hope I can explain things in a manner that is useful for the questioner. If not, do not hesitate to e-mail me and I will take a second shot at it! Best Wishes for your physical and financial recovery.
Experience
Life Experience: 27 years of front line plaintiff's trial lawyer experience
Organizations: American Trial Lawyers Association (AAJ)
Washington State Trial Lawyers Association
Awards and Honors:
I am humbled and honored everytime I am selected to help injured people. And when people give feedback that they have benefited from my experience and current volunteer efforts, then that is a double honor and award for me.
Question QUESTION: Just came across your website and read a story similar to mine about a pregnant woman and want to know if my accident will bring similar results.
About a year ago, I was leaving out of a major store, 30 weeks pregnant with twins and tripped over "defective carpet" and fell forward hitting my head on the sliding glass door that popped open because of the impact. I was by myself and persons around me ran to my aide and helped me walk to the nearest bench. The store's manager called the ambulance so that I could be rushed the hospital. I demanded that they take me directly to the Maternity ward to have my babies checked after denying myself to be seen. I had a huge shiner on my forehead and my stomach didn't feel right. The doctor on call "checked me" and I had started dilating 2 cm and kept increasing. Just 2 days before my accident, I had a check-up and not dilated at all. I ended up having to get a catheter and that medicine that tries to stop birth because it was too early to have my twins. I had to remain in the hospital for 2 additional days for monitoring and the doctor put me out of work on bedrest the remainder of my pregnancy and was ordered to take prescription medication to try and prevent giving birth. I was able to keep my babies inside for 2 more weeks until the medicine stopped working. I gave birth to 2 beautiful girls. Thank God, that my babies were healthy, but I had to remain in the hospital for another week before discharged. I was working up until the accident, which happened on a Sunday. I injured my neck and back when my head hit the door and had been experiencing pain in both areas right after the accident. I couldn't get any X-rays during my pregnancy, obviously. After the delivery I went to my doctor to get x-rays and found that my neck profile was curved the wrong direction. I started taking all of the medications and muscle relaxers...Anyway, during this entire time, the store's insurance adjuster had been calling me 24 hours a day even after I had my kids, pressuring me to send in all my information about missed work, wanting to know if I or my husband had ever sued anyone...blah, blah, blah. She seemed very caring and concerned, asking about my babies and then sneaking in a question hear and there about my insurance. I had planned on staying out of work for a while with my twins but because I had to go out earlier than expected, I kind of had to be rushed back to work. I also lost my sick time for the remainder of the year, which I was counting on, because I had to consume all of that first before disability kicked in. I had alot of sick days left because I carried the babies without any problems up until my accident. I talked to the adjuster about how I would be compensated for my loss time, and bills, and my neck and back problems and it was like the lady "CHANGED"on me. So, I felt like I needed to protect myself and about 7 mos. after my accident, I decided to get an attorney. It's been more than a year now and my lawyer has just submitted all of my documentation at the end of August. The adjuster told my attorney that they would respond in a week. Just followed up with my attorney to see what feedback received and the adjuster told him that it would be another 2 weeks because they were separating the "pregnancy bills" from my "post pregnancy" that incurred from my neck and back injuries. My attorney submitted documentation that totaled $20K. What is a realistic amount that you think will be offered by the store and do you think that the adjuster has something up their sleeves since they have pushed the feedback from them out 2 more weeks?
Thanks for your time."
ANSWER: Hi Bee,
That sounds like a scary fall and indeed you are lucky with the children. As for your two questions, the answers are simple:
(a) we cannot give any indication of value for two reasons—first neither the owner here nor I want to be exposed for malpractice—and second, there is totally insufficient information on your injuries, so we will leave that for your attorney to provide the best guidance; and
(b) nothing fishy is going on at all. It does take a long time to sort through a claim when there would be an expected medical condition such as the pregnancy and then the accident treatment on an overlay.
I will also comment that premises liability claims are not so clear as shoppers think they should be. There is no automatic liability against a business; one has to show negligence on their part. What if some shopper just before you by a few seconds turned a cart sideways and caused the carpet to ride up? Is the store liable then?
Isn't that akin to someone dropping a jar of something and one minute later a shopper slips on it and breaks her hip? There are plenty of defense verdicts in such cases since the store DOES NOT have any duty to make continuous patrols to look for spills or raised carpets.
Your attorney would argue that the carpets should be heavy enough or secured enough so that they do not ride up. Hence, no matter if the carpet was raised up for thirty minutes or three minutes: the store is negligent for not anticipating that a cart could be turned and the friction would raise up the carpet.
Premises Liability (Slip Or Trip And Fall Accidents) http://www.settlementcentral.com/page3006.htm is an excellent review of premises liability or slip and fall accident confusion as to liability. There are three good examples on that page to show you the difference between liable property owners and those whom one cannot sue.
The store IS NOT AN INSURER OF YOUR SAFETY. You can recover ONLY if you can show that the store was negligent, and even then, your award will be reduced TO THE EXTENT OF YOUR OWN NEGLIGENCE IN FAILING TO WATCH WHERE YOU WERE WALKING. The store will raise this defense in an effort to reduce your award.
The duty of the store toward its patrons is one of affirmative obligation to inspect and to remove any dangers, such as a loose carpet or a raised carpet. But there is also an affirmative duty to protect the patrons from a foreseeable risk if the cost of that protection is reasonable. In this case, the cost of providing heavy carpet that would not rise up is minimal. So that would indicate negligence on the part of the store.
Now, once again let’s look at your own liability. It will not defeat your claim, but your negligence can be used to reduce the amount of your award. So here is your lesson: assume that they will claim that you are at least one-third at fault, and be prepared to defend on the basis set forth above.
DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED about that defense, but just be aware that it will be raised if your claim has any value. You might return to that store and see what kinds of eye-level signs or other distractions were there that prevented you from watching where you were walking. Certainly you could not look downward owing to your pregnancy, and maybe there is some reason you could tell your attorney as to why you did not see the carpet. That will help him in negotiations since the issue will likely be raised.
As for the time involved to negotiate the settlement, the insurer is well within a reasonable time. And also your attorney's time for submitting the claim is reasonable. For one thing, we do not want to send out a claim until we are certain that there will be no continuing injuries that we did not anticipate when we settled. In this case, the attorney got the case seven months after the accident, and within five months he made the demand. That is excellent work in my opinion, as I am sure some of my former clients would have liked for me to move that fast on some of my cases!!
So I am happy with his timing and I see no problem with any of the insurer's timing to review. Just have patience, and understand some of the reasons above for the delay.
I trust that my time here has produced some information that has been of value to you, and thus I would respectfully request that you take the time to locate the FEEDBACK FORM on this site and leave some feedback for me.
QUESTION: Just wanted to follow up that I returned to the store about 3 months after delivery and they pulled up the carpet and have replaced with nice tile floors. I still missed out on the time that I was going to spend off work with my twins after they were born. Is there some recovery for that. Is that considered part of pain and suffering?
Answer Hi Bee,
Thanks for the nice comments in feedback. I appreciate that.
As for the tile replacing the carpet, that COULD be considered something that was done to eliminate an obvious hazard. Maybe they had others trip on that carpet.
As for the elimination of the time off to be with the twins, YES, that is compensable. It is a BOTH a loss of vacation or family bonding time, AND a loss of relationship with the twins. Hence it is a separate item of damages.
