Five Ways to Ruin Your Personal Injury Case

Most people don’t set out to make things worse for themselves, but many times they succeed. I once tried my hand at cooking indoors (as in not on the barbeque) without a recipe. I saw a dish on one of those TV chef shows and thought it looked easy. It was an absolute disaster. Although it looked simple, I didn’t realize there were several tricks to avoid ruining the dish. The same can be said for a personal injury case. Most people want a fair and reasonable resolution when they have been injured by the carelessness or wrongdoing of another. However, there are a few traps that injured people need to be aware of to avoid ruining their chances at a fair outcome.

Not enough health care

Sometimes people want to tough it out, or avoid taking advantage of anyone by simply dealing with pain and hoping it will go away. A cruel irony in our legal system is that those are the people who have the smallest chance at a fair settlement or jury verdict. Insurance adjusters and defense attorneys are well trained at taking advantage of those who don’t get treatment for their injuries. They will take the approach that if you were actually hurt, you would have been getting treatment. It is simple logic that is easy for jurors to adopt. This is true even if in reality you were flat on your back and unable to move with pain, or if you simply were worried about getting stuck with medical bills that you can’t afford.

Put simply, avoiding health care will not help you. You will be far more likely to get out of pain by going to get help. Use your Personal Injury Protection (PIP) benefits to pay for care and treatment for your injuries. If you have already used all of your PIP coverage, use your health insurance. If you don’t have health insurance, find a doctor who will work on a lien basis (we know of lots of them, just call us). Avoiding care and treatment is perhaps the worst thing you can do.

Too much health care

Before we get ahead of ourselves with all of this health care, remember one thing: don’t over-treat. Getting too much treatment can be just as bad as not getting enough. Adjusters and defense attorneys, ever the masters of simple thinking, will try to convince a jury that you are just “malingering” or faking your injury to avoid returning to work, or some other reason. Too much medical treatment is an easy way for them to create skepticism of your injuries. Don’t give them the opportunity! Only get as much care and treatment as you need to heal from your injuries.

Not following doctor’s orders
You probably are wondering then, how much is too much? Listening to your doctor and using common sense is the best way to determine this. It is difficult for an adjuster or defense attorney (or jury for that matter) to fault a person who is honestly doing what they believe is necessary to get better, by following their doctor’s advice. Furthermore, it is easier for your attorney to convince a jury that all of your health care expenses are reasonable and necessary if we can show that you were simply following medical advice. In other words, do whatever your doctor tells you to. Don’t miss your appointments, and do whatever home exercises your doctor prescribes for you. Your doctor will tell you how to get better. It is your responsibility to do the work. Being too busy to get better will prolong your pain, and make it look to a jury like you are not hurt.

No re-examination

Admittedly, to ruin your case in this way you need your doctor’s help. I recently attended a trial where the treating physician (a very fine and capable professional) was brutally beaten (metaphorically) on the witness stand by the defense attorney. The biggest problem was his lack of objective records in the file. Your attorney needs to be able to show through medical records that your treatment was working and that you were getting better. The best way to do this is to have the treating physician re-examine the patient and create a report for the file. This is different from the daily records most doctors have the patient fill-out (where you mark on the picture where it hurts). This should be done every three to six weeks by the doctor. If your doctor doesn’t remember to do this, you need to remind him or her.

The doctor on the witness stand knew the patient was getting better, and approximately how much more treatment the patient would need. However, there was no re-examination to document the file with objective findings that show that the patient was getting better. That makes it easy for the defense attorney to bring into question whether the treatment was necessary or even working.

Poor communication

Building a personal injury case requires a team effort. If you don’t want to ruin your case, be a team player. Occasionally, a client will tell us they are dissatisfied with the progress they are getting in their recovery from injuries. Sometimes they don’t think the treatment is working at all. Other times, they may like the results they are getting for one part of their body (for instance their neck), but don’t feel like they are getting improvement in other areas of their body being treated by the same doctor. Interestingly, they often don’t want to tell the doctor because they don’t want to hurt their relationship with the doctor, or perhaps don’t want to stop the improvement they are getting in the areas that are improving. I suspect that there are also times when a client won’t tell either the doctor or their attorney about their dissatisfaction.

This poor communication hurts the case because it slows down the recovery process, and possibly creates gaps in treatment that are difficult to explain to a jury. Communication with both the treating doctor and the attorney is essential because there are always other options. Treating doctors can try different techniques, or perhaps coordinate with another health care professional to help solve the problems. Good physicians won’t be offended by this, and will be able to speed your recovery process with this better communication. Keeping your attorney in the loop is also vital so that your progress can be tracked. Furthermore, your attorney knows many different doctors in many different specialties who may be able to assist. Being a team player will help you make your case the best it can be.

In conclusion, there are many ways to ruin your personal injury case. I have listed only a few here. However, following the guidelines listed here will help you get the fair compensation you deserve after being injured by the carelessness of someone else.

Article was written by Adam G. Larson Esq.

Fair Market Value

If you have ever been in an auto accident it may not come as a surprise to learn that the insurance company of the person who caused the accident may not pay you the amount necessary to pay-off your vehicle, even if it was damaged or totaled in the accident. This does, however, come as a surprise to many people who have never been in an accident before, and find themselves having to deal with an insurance company for the first time. The reason for this is that auto insurance companies are only required to pay what is called the “fair market value” or “actual cash value” for your damaged car. This value may be less than what you actually owe on the car. This is because many auto loans are structured so that during the first couple of years the value of the car depreciates faster than the balance of the loan. The majority of your payments in the first two years of an auto loan go to paying off the interest on the loan. After that, a larger percentage of each payment goes toward paying down the principle of the loan. As this occurs, the market value of the car depreciates. Many times when you drive a new car off the lot, the value of that car depreciates a thousand dollars or more. Even if you owe more money on your car than it is worth at the time of the accident, the insurance company is only required to pay you what the car is worth, and nothing more. To make matters worse, insurance companies often will “low-ball” you when it comes to what the actual fair market value is. One way of insuring yourself against losing a large amount of money if you find yourself in this situation is to purchase GAP Insurance. GAP Insurance covers you for the difference between what you owe on the car and what the car is worth. So if you are involved in an accident and owe more than what your car is worth, paying for GAP Insurance will ensure that you get the difference. Having an attorney assist you in dealing with the insurance company can also help assure that you do indeed get the fair market value for your vehicle and that you are paid for the medical and other related expenses incurred because of your accident. If you have been in an accident call us today!

We Have a YouTube Channel.

Larson Law now has a YouTube Channel. It has a number of videos on topics that affect you. To see the videos just go to youtube.com and type in Larson Law Utah. As of right now we have a couple of videos about "Tort Reform" but we will continue to add videos as we come across them.