personal injury law

  • Personal Injury: Maximizing Settlement Value

    her scenario, your doctors will tell you when you are no longer expected to improve. This is called reaching “maximum medical improvement”. At this point, it is time to try to evaluate the claim you have and find out what settlement you should take. The bulk of your claim is made up of the costs of your medical treatment. Typically, if you get back to 100%, this will only include your past medical treatment. If you find yourself permanently injured, then future medical expenses are included in the compensation, as is a potential permanent impairment. Other expenses that an injured party is entitled to compensation for our past and future lost income, the mileage you incurred medical appointments, and pain and suffering. All of these…

  • New Medical Payment Legislation In NH: Why Senate Bill 303 Should Be Passed

    A proposal in front of the New Hampshire legislature this month was Senate Bill 303. Senate Bill 303 clarifies language in the medical payment statute relative to payment of health insurance liens in personal injury cases. In every private health insurance policy is a provision involving a right of reimbursement, or “subrogation clause”. This clause states that if a person receives a judgment or settlement from someone relative to injuries they sustained, then the health insurer has a right to be reimbursed for any bills they paid related to those injuries. This is a complicated provision, so it is important to ensure you seek the advice of an attorney before trying to deal with this on your own. The issue that was created by the initial…

  • What is Negligence and Who Is A Reasonable Person?

    A large number of personal injury claims are based, at least in part, on a theory of negligence. Negligent conduct is conduct that falls below the standards of behavior established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm. A person has acted negligently if he or she has departed from the conduct expected of a reasonably prudent person acting under similar circumstances. To use an old logical saw, that ultimately begs the question of who a reasonably prudent person is. To some, the definition of that person comes as a surprise. The reasonably prudent person can sometimes be generalized as “Debbie Do-Gooder”. The reasonably prudent person stops completely at lights and stop signs. They signal a full 100 feet before making…

  • Personal Injury Series: Having A Lien on Your Settlement or Judgment on An Injury Case

    When a person gets injured, the last thing they are thinking about is how the various insurances interplay with one another. The first thing that should always be focused on is getting the necessary medical treatment. At our firm, we have a textured knowledge of insurance law and how each policy affects the other and we can unwind the confusing mess that a personal injury claim becomes. This allows our clients to focus on the treatment they are receiving, while we focus on getting the right insurance to pay for our client’s medical bills. There are three basic sources for payment of medical bills. The first is obvious, and it the health insurance for our clients. The second is no-fault coverage, and not everyone is…

  • Injury Claims: The Road Map To Getting Back To Normal

    The key to understanding injury claims is that claims handling is driven by insurance requirements. The vast majority of injury claims are resolved by settlement. The parties to the settlement discussions are most commonly the injured party, his/her attorney and an insurance company. It is necessary to know how insurance companies process claims in order to achieve the best possible result. The most important thing to remember is that insurance companies rely heavily on objective information to form a valuation of each claim. This comes in the form of medical and billing records, accident reports, pictures, lost wages documentation, investigative reports and other related records. The more complete your documentation the better your chance of a satisfactory result. Gathering documentation should be your first priority…

  • Personal Injury Series: Health Insurance Liens

    In almost all injury cases, when the plaintiff gets injured they seek healthcare almost immediately. Most times the person’s health insurance company pays the bills generated by an accident in the first instance. Sometimes, this is a private company like Blue Cross Blue Shield, and other times it is government-provided insurance like Medicare or Medicaid. In each scenario, both types of insurance will have a “lien” or right of reimbursement from the settlement an injured party can get from a third party insurance policy. Most commonly, it is a private health insurer like BCBS that pays the bills. As part of all health insurance contracts, the health insurer reserves a “subrogation” right through the contract. This allows the health insurer to get paid back through…

  • Non-Traditional Injury Cases: The Non-Auto Accident Personal Injuries

    Most injury cases that are handled by personal injury lawyers are auto accident cases. Auto accidents are by far the most common, as driving a car comes with significant inherent risks. However, there are many other types of cases like slip and falls, trip and falls, dog bites, and other incidents that lead to injuries. While we have addressed slip and falls and our strategy in approaching them, the trip and fall case is often confused with a slip and fall. A trip and fall generally come as a result of some unknown invisible object that causes a person to trip and fall, or dangerously constructed stairway or walkway. In order to properly handle such cases, it is very important to first focus on building…

  • Personal Injury Series: How Does Potentially Criminal Conduct Affect My Injury Case?

    Getting injured is unfortunate enough as it is, but sometimes someone is hit by a drunk driver, or someone speeding, or someone texting and driving and it can compound the injury. People involved in such accidents can suffer from increased anxiety, and become very fearful of driving after the accident. These folks not only suffer from their injuries, but also from the fact that another person was committing a crime when they were hurt. Ultimately, we get asked, how does this affect my case? The answer, like most in the legal field, is that it depends. Things like crossing a yellow line, speeding through a stoplight or stop sign, or something as simple as failing to yield to oncoming traffic are all violations of the…

  • Slip and Falls: New Effective Recovery Strategies

    Slip and Falls are known as being one of the most difficult areas of personal injury cases to win for Plaintiffs. When a person slips on a spilled drink in a supermarket, the supermarket often blames the person who slipped as being the responsible party. They argue that the victim should have looked where they were going, and often trot out the ineffectual argument that others in the area didn’t fall so it must have been the victim’s fault. These arguments can be tricky to deal with, but often it is easier to overcome these arguments than others. The most difficult thing to overcome in slip and fall cases is often proving the Defendant knew or should have known the spills or hazards were present…

  • Personal Injury: Documenting The Scene

    We have talked about the general overview of personal injury cases and some important things to remember when you are involved in a personal injury case. Another question we get a lot when we meet initially with clients is whether the client should have taken pictures or tried to do more to document the scene of the accident. In auto accident cases, most police departments will take pictures of the scene of the accident and the damage to any vehicles in the accident. So, for the most part, some evidence will be saved by the investigating officers. However, there are many ways with which our clients run into unfortunate accidents leading the injury. These range from slip and falls, dog bites, trip and falls, and…