Brandon helped his client settle a lawsuit over a violent car crash on Wards Road involving multiple cars for $50,000. The recovery came from two insurance policies which are discussed below.
On February 21, 2016, our client was driving north on Wards Road and started to slow down in order to make a left hand turn ahead. As he approached the intersection, the driver behind him rear ended his car. This caused his car to spin into the opposite lane of traffic where he was T-boned by a southbound motorist.
Our client suffered a laceration on his face that left a permanent scar. He was eventually diagnosed by Dr. Elkhamra with OrthoVirginia with a concussion evidenced by loss of consciousness, dizziness, headaches, and balance problems. He was also diagnosed with cervical spine pain. His medical bills amounted to a little over $24,000 most of which was diagnostic from the initial treatment.
When our client went to Central Virginia Oral and Facial Surgery to get an evaluation of his scar he was advised that surgery was not likely to improve the scar’s appearance. Even though the scar remains, our client obtained a settlement of $50,000 to compensate him for his injury with the help of the Osterbind team.
Scarring like that present here, or other permanent injuries, can lead to greater damages in a lawsuit. Several factors affect the amount of the settlement judgment that the insurance adjuster will offer: gender; where the scar is located on you (scarring to one’s face yields greater damages than to one’s arm, for instance); whether the scar limits mobility; and the size of the scar.
A good way to help ensure that you get a reasonable payment for the injury you suffer is to get your physician to note the potential residual effects of the injury for your records by asking him about what permanent effects there may be and whether surgery is recommended.
Recovering costs from an injury can be very time consuming and complicated. This case presented just such a situation. The defendant driver only had $25,000 in liability insurance coverage which is the bare minimum in Virginia.
Brandon researched other sources of recovery including policies of our client’s family members who lived with him. In this case, our client told us that he lived with his mother at the time of the wreck and so we obtained her insurance policy and made a claim. The insurance company denied coverage because during an unrelated phone call several months prior to the wreck, our client’s mother told the insurance company that no one else was living with her.
Our client verified he was living with his mother at the time of the wreck and we persisted in our pursuit of coverage. Brandon filed a declaratory judgment lawsuit against the insurance company for our client to get a court of law to order that the insurance company owed coverage to our client as a resident family member. Prior to responding to that suit, the insurance company agreed to pay an additional $25,000 over and above the liability insurance company to avoid risking a greater loss.
For many reasons, we valued this case in between $65,000 and $85,000. Because there was uncertainty of coverage on both sides, and he would incur cost to pursue a verdict not much more than the settlement value, our client opted to resolve his case instead of proceed to litigation.
The process may take a much longer time without a trusted personal injury attorney assisting you with expertise in how to value a claim and approach insurance companies to keep them reasonable.
If you or someone you know has been involved in an accident, you can contact us at any time.
The Virginia State Bar requires that we give a disclaimer whenever we talk about case results. As we are sure you already know, the case result described above must be read in context with the unique facts of this particular case. Each case result depends upon a variety of factors unique to each case, which is why we describe those facts in detail. To be clear, this case result does not guarantee or predict a similar result in any future case undertaken by the lawyers at Osterbind Law, PLLC.
