I am currently handling a very interesting case dealing with a hip replacement surgery.  My client was involved in a moderate three car accident.  His knee jammed into the dashboard which caused the ball of the hip bone to ram into the hip socket.  

As the weeks and months passed by after the accident, my client noticed his hip was getting worse and worse.  Soon, he was issued a handicap placard for his vehicle and was walking with the assistance of a cane.  None of his doctors could figure out what was going on, and he unfortunately endured multiple pain injections, none of which helped him in the long term.  It was extraordinarily frustrating for him.  He couldn’t even walk with his family without stopping frequently to sit down.  It was very painful.  

Finally, an orthopedic surgeon took another x-ray and found that his ball and socket were basically bone-on-bone at this point.  The doctor explained that when the ball was forced against the socket during the accident, the cartilage was compromised.  As a result, the cartilage was obliterated over time, leading to the bone-on-bone condition that was causing the client so much pain.  As a result of the car accident, he ended up needing full hip replacement surgery. 

You don’t have to use the other party’s insurance company to pay for your property damage.  Some insurance companies are actually telling clients to do that.  You might call your company and they will tell you that you have to use the company of the responsible party to fix your car.  

However, if you have your own insurance company’s comprehensive and collision coverage, you should be able to turn to your own insurance company and have them fix your vehicle. In fact, this is usually the best way to go. I’m not sure why the insurance companies are doing this (passing the buck), but I’ve been hearing this story more often than not. You have every right turn to your own company to fix your own vehicle.  You will incur a deductible, but your insurance company will reimburse that to you eventually in most cases.  There might be some rare cases where your insurance company won't impose the deductible.  Just ask them if they'd consider waiving the deductible, especially when it's pretty certain they're going to recover the money from the opposing insurance company.

After they fix your car, they will demand repayment from the other party's insurance company.  If they can't resolve their claim, they might enter into arbitration - this is the process by which insurance companies resolve their property damage disputes.  Suffice it to say that when they get repaid, they should reimburse your deductible to you at that time.  You might have to check with them every so often about that.  Believe it or not, sometimes they forget but they usually do remember to reimburse you.

When dealing with an insurance company or attorney’s office after a car accident, you will inevitably be asked to provide photographs depicting damage to your vehicle and any other vehicles involved in the accident, photographs of all bodily injuries sustained, and any and all additional photos taken at the scene. On occasion, photos will be taken by police officers, but that is rare.  However, don’t rely on others – you should take some of your own. In fact, take tons, and from many different angles, so that everyone from a lay person to an accident reconstructionist will have an easier time forming an accurate picture.  The reason you have to take photos from different angles is because photos are only two dimensional and sometimes it's hard to fully appreciate the extent of damages if you only take a couple of photos.  Also, take some close ups and take some from further distance to show the entire car.

If taking photos at the scene, make sure to take pictures of skid marks.  Skid marks are faint imprints left on the road by tires during the braking process, before the tires actually skid. These marks only remain visible for 24-48 hours.  A photograph of impending skid marks leading into actual skid marks provides an accident reconstructionist with the necessary perspective to determine the speed of the braking car. A photo of a measurable object, such as a shoe, beside an impending skid mark will make distances more clear.

Obviously, having a camera on hand is very important. You might want to consider keeping a disposable camera in your glove compartment or with your road hazard kit in case of an accident.  You can never take too many photos of the damage or the scene.

Just because an accident occurred, and it wasn’t your fault, does not necessarily mean that some insurance company is going to pay your medical bills and other related expenses. There needs to be a showing that another party or entity actually caused the accident to occur, whether it is a car accident or other kind of injury matter. You must be able to show that someone was negligent at the very least and that negligence caused your injury to occur. Many times clients tell me that they were involved in an accident but it wasn’t anyone’s fault. If we cannot show the other party did something wrong or negligent, we will likely be unable to prove that you should recover any kind of compensation. 

Aside from a basic showing of "negligence," we also have to prove you had "damages" from the incident.  Just because you can show someone was negligent doesn't automatically mean you get compensated.  If you had no injuries, then you can't legitimately bring a claim...especially one for personal injury.  You can of course bring a claim for property damage if you actually incurred property damage.  Therefore, there needs to be a showing of negligence, and there needs to be a showing of actual damages incurred.  Without both, you are wasting your time.

If you didn’t get hurt, don’t bother bringing a personal injury claim.

Sometimes some people believe that just because there was an accident, they are entitled to some kind of compensation.  Without any damages, you can’t simply collect money.

I’m reminded of a fellow who slipped at McDonald’s.  I asked him if he was hurt.  He said, “No, I’m fine.  My pants got a little wet, but otherwise, I’m fine.” I told him that without an actual injury or lost wages, he doesn’t have a case.  I have clients who call and say there was a bug in their fast food sandwich, but they weren’t hurt by it.  Again, no case there either!  Simply because something happened to you doesn’t mean you have a personal injury case to pursue.  Life happens every day.  Sometimes bad things happen and we simply move on with our lives.

There are still clients who don’t understand, so I give them the following example which seems to help:   Imagine if I went to your home and slipped on your lawn.  I wasn’t hurt, but I knock on your door and demand $10,000 from you!  Are you going to pay me if I wasn’t hurt?  Probably not.

One of the questions I often get is whether or not a client can settle their property damage claim before they settle a personal injury claim.  The truth of the matter is the attorney is rarely involved to a large extent with the property damage portion of the claim.  In most cases, my clients resolve the property damage issue on their own, with occasional guidance from my office.  Either the insurance company will offer you something fair or they won’t. 

Generally speaking, when it comes to fixing your car, you are better off having your vehicle fixed by your own insurance company because they owe you a duty the opposing party’s insurance company doesn’t owe you.  Therefore it is sometimes better to incur the deductible by going through your own insurance carrier.  If they don’t fix your car properly, you can complain because you actually have a contract with them.  They need to do an adequate job.  You generally don’t have that leverage when dealing with the other party’s insurance company.  If you use the other party’s insurance company to fix your car, you don’t have to pay the deductible, but you also don’t have the leverage that you might have with your own insurance company.

Settling your property damage claim should not affect your personal injury claim.  As a matter of fact, it is most often that property damage claims are settled before personal injury claims.  Some people think they are the same thing.  Property damage is NOT a personal injury which involves an injury to the body in most cases.   When settling your property damage claim, you must make sure that you’re not signing a general release.  You need to make sure that whatever documents you are signing pertain only to the property damage portion of your claim.  Some unscrupulous insurance adjusters will have you sign a general release and argue that you are cut off from bringing any further claim for personal injury. You need to make sure that you understand your rights and your attorney can guide you through that minefield.

It is important to obtain a property damage estimate on your vehicle after a car accident.  If your car has been damaged, make sure you get a property damage estimate for your vehicle, maybe even two.  Take it to a shop, a dealership, wherever you want to take it and make sure you get a detailed property damage estimate.

Sometimes people say, “Well it was a total loss.”  Well, a total loss doesn’t really mean much except that the value of the car was less than what it cost to fix the car.  So if you have a $1,000.00 vehicle, and you have $1,500.00 worth of damage to that vehicle, which isn’t very difficult to do by the way, you might have a “total loss.”  But that doesn’t really tell the attorney anything about what exactly was damaged in the automobile accident.  A detailed property damage estimate shows exactly what was damaged as a result of the accident.

Your property damage estimate is very helpful because it’ll show whether there was a any frame damage, any damage to the door frame, any damage to the axle of the vehicle, wheel alignment issues, etc., bumper support structures.  Those kinds of things, those kinds of bits of information in a property damage estimate can be very helpful to the attorney when they’re advocating for you.  So even if you’ve been told, “Oh, it’s a total loss,” see if you can get a property damage estimate nevertheless. 

If you have a car accident case, you better have some visible property damage.  I had a client call me recently.  He got bumped in a parking lot.  When I asked him about the extent of the property damage, he explained that it was hard to actually see the damage.  In fact, his car looked just fine.  However, he explained that the bumper was damaged and one would be able to better understand the damage once the bumper was removed and examined more closely.  I told him that juries don’t want to examine bumpers closely.  They want to easily see the damage to your vehicle.  Juries don’t want to “work” to see your property damage.  They don’t want to squint.  If they have to squint to see the damage, then it is going to be a very uphill battle to persuade them the impact was significant enough to cause injury. 

I’ve done enough jury trials to know that if the jury can’t see damage to your car, then 98% of the time, you’re going to lose your case no matter how significant the impact was.  I’m not saying it’s fair….I’m saying it’s just the way things are. 

I’ve spent much of my career as a defense lawyer.  I never lost a trial where the plaintiff had no visible property damage…no matter how hard they tried to explain things.  That is why I can’t take a personal injury case unless there is some degree of visible damage.  Of course, take pictures of any physical injuries you have as well.

If you are involved in a car accident, make sure you get a copy of a property damage estimate.  If you’ve been involved in a car accident, it is very important to obtain a copy of the property damage estimate.  This is especially important when the visible damage to your vehicle doesn’t tell the whole story.  An itemized property damage estimate will help outline all the parts of your vehicle that were damaged as a result of the automobile accident.  You can use that to your benefit when arguing to an insurance company that the impact was major.   What is most important to my analysis is a finding of frame damage.  That information is usually contained near the end of the estimate.  

Some clients tell me their car was totaled and their insurance company did not prepare an estimate.  Even in those cases, you want to get a property damage estimate if you can.  Again, you want to validate and confirm the severity of the impact by noting what exactly was damaged.   Make sure you also take pictures of all the damage to your vehicle from a variety of angles.  Sometimes, one angle simply doesn’t do justice, and people may doubt the nature of the impact.  Remember you are trying to impress an insurance adjuster, and they want to see more evidence than most people.

If you’ve been involved in a car accident, don’t forget to take photos of any visible injuries you might have…no matter how trivial. You can talk about your injuries all day, but when it comes to convincing an insurance adjuster, pictures truly do speak a thousand words. Remember I use to work for the insurance companies as a defense lawyer, and I know how persuasive good photos can be.  Insurance adjusters have supervisors who review their decisions and actions in most cases. 

If they cut you a large check, they are going to need documentation in their file as to why they did so.  Insurance adjusters generally won’t pay you out of the goodness of their heart.  Take photos of bruises, cuts, scrapes, or worse.  If you can’t do so, have a friend or family member help you.  Make sure the photos are taken from several angles and they truly capture the injury.  Don’t wait till the injury fades, or else you will be out of luck telling stories to people who, as a general rule, need to see to believe.