On March 15, 2013, our client and his wife were driving the speed limit traveling south on Route 29 Business near its intersection with State Route 151 (Patrick Henry Highway) in Amherst County, Virginia. Another motorist attempted to change lanes while speeding and failed to signal as our client approached the intersection. The motorist struck our client and caused a crash.
Both our client and his wife were transported to the Lynchburg General Hospital emergency department by the Amherst Life Saving Crew. Our client had back pain and both him and his wife suffered from whiplash. Our client’s airbag did not deploy, and his head hit the roof of the car.
He had a small abrasion on the top of his head and was diagnosed with head/scalp abrasion and multiple site contusions. He followed up with his primary care physician and was able to receive chiropractic treatment that went on for a long time. His medical bills relating to the accident amounted to just under $56,000.
The other motorist was charged with following too closely and possession of marijuana and was convicted on both charges.
Gathering medical records evidence in this case was unusually difficult because of providers who provided some information but not all. With a lot of back and forth email and letter correspondence fighting to obtain medical records from providers, we were able to assemble all of the necessary documents to present our client’s claim to the insurance company. After doing so, Brandon and our personal injury team were able to settle the lawsuit for the policy limits of $100,000.
This settlement did not represent the full value of this case, but it represents a policy limits settlement. This means that the defendant had an insurance policy that would only pay up to $100,000 per person for any one accident. Often times, we also request insurance policy limits from our client because, if the defendant is underinsured, we will make a claim for the additional underinsured motorist coverage over the defendant’s policy limits. In this case, our client’s policy limits did not apply in this case because it didn’t exceed the defendant’s $100,000 policy.
If you or someone you know has been involved in a car accident, contact us to discuss your injuries. We can discuss your accident, injuries, and insurance policies to help you identify where your case is and where it should go.
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.
