dont count on the sue him/get money part. My wife was hit head on last october by some knob that dropped a cig in his lap, the van was totalled and we got 1600 less than what we owed (third party warrantee is what made the numbers off).
I have 6 months worth of court judgements in my hands that show that juries are less likely these days to give you big settlements.
Think carefully before you make any decisions, I can assure you that you will get screwed in one way or another.
First think carefully about whether you want to give a lawyer 33% of any pre-trial settlement, then think carefully if you push it, whether you want to give same lawyer 40% of what a jury would award you.
As an example, there is somebody who got t-boned similar to your fiance who wanted 20K as a settlement, was offered $2500 (which didn't include vehicle settlement) they turned that down from the insurance company and when the jury trial was done, because her medical was paid by their company (in other words, no out of pocket expenses for medical) she got a $400 check from the insurance company because there was no long term medical problems.
What she is about to go through sucks and you can expect that her insurance company may total the vehicle, if she is upside down (negative equity) she will need to come up with cash to pay the bank as soon as the vehicle is declared.
The other part of this is that none of this will happen quickly, if you caught the first part of the post, my wife was hit last October (the 27th to be exact), I gave nationwide (fukt@rds insurance company) 60 days to say something to me other than "we are not accepting responsibility for this accident yet" (again, she was in a turning lane, in a school zone waiting to turn left, he was coming the other way and drifted to the middle lane and hit her head on. The court records show his statement, he was cited for a couple things and all the records show this, yet the insurance company at 60 days still had not accepted responsibility). This was in a school zone where it was supposed to be 20 mph as well, the tow truck driver, police officer and EMS people were all quoted in the police report that there is no way this person was doing 20 mph, he had to be doing twice that (my wife was not moving, so there was no, he was doing 20, she was doing 20 so the force was 40 mph).
After 60 days, we engaged legal counsel and just about three weeks ago they submitted the medical records and have indicated to Nationwide insurance that they are ready to talk about a settlement, it is 9 months after the accident and there is still nothing new to report.
The quickest way to get the fukt@rds insurance moving is to have her insurance going on eval'ing the vehicle for damage, etc. and that will result in her insurance company engaging what is called subrugation (sp?), what that means is her insurance company will pay for totaling the van and then they will go after said fukt@rds insurance company to get re-imbursed.
Your girl can expect to get re-imbursed for rental car (make sure that she talks to her insurance company for guidelines on when she can start a rental and when she must terminate rental, I think you have to terminate when the vehicle is declared a total loss), she can also expect to get re-imbursed for her deductible (whatever it is for a total loss claim).
The absolute best thing you can do is have her keep excellent records of doctors visits and when she spends money (if there is pain medication, etc.) also and I cannot stress this enough, if she is feeling any pain, she needs to see a doctor. We didn't trump up any false medical claims, however if/when this goes for settlement or jury, they are going to look at doctor office visits and medical claims.
As far as medical and settlement, my attorney has indicated that we submitted a number to Nationwide for four times the amount of the medical records (12k) and we are expecting that to go down a bit.
As far as my wife's injuries she had the bumps and bruises on her head, face and her knees from hitting the dashboard, we dont believe there is long term issues.
Take all this for what it is worth, we live in Ohio (cuyahoga county to be exact), our attorney is in downtown cleveland and he is a managing partner for Nuremburg, plevin and associates, so he is not just a second rate lawyer, he is a managing partner. The lawyer indicated that he would be glad to go and ask the insurance company for anything we wanted, but he has the experience. Listen to your lawyer, if you don't think he is the right guy, get somebody else, but dont be a d!ck and think that you know more than they do. Ask him for the recent court reviews and jury judgements from the Court Reporting journal, there will be a ton of info in there.
If you have any more questions, pm me, I will be glad to help in any area that I can, but rest assured, this sucks and the sooner you accept that there isn't a d@mn thing you can do about it, the better off you will be.
Good Luck..
T
p.s. I thought the thread was going to say something like "... was polishing my knob when all the sudden". After all, the thread title was "So my fiance was..."
p.s.s. When her insurance gets involved (if at all, have her call her agent to find out what to do) ask as many questions as she can and keep a notebook to write it down. Even if you/she thinks you know the answer ask anyway and if you feel like asking the same questions 10 times to the same/different people, ask anyway, it is their job to answer your questions, if you don't understand the answer, ask them again or to rephrase the answer. This is going to be a tremendous learning opportunity, don't pass it up.
. Discuss amongst yourself's lol.
