The driver was a 22-year-old young woman.  She had no insurance, and worked as a waitress.  She was allegedly using her cell phone at the time of the accident.

I had to decline the case.

The reason?  The parents of the 15-year-old did not purchase Uninsured Motorist (UM) coverage under their own auto policy.

In Washington State, auto insurance companies have to offer UM coverage unless it is rejected in writing by the insured.

The parents had rejected UM coverage five years ago as a way to save money.  That decision proved tragic, and in the end deprived their son with the opportunity to obtain full compensation for his medical treatment and injuries.

Relatively speaking, the cost of UM coverage is very cheap.  Right now I pay about $150.00 per year for $1 Million in UM coverage on two separate vehicles.

Statistically, most accidents are caused by uninsured and underinsured motorists.  These are individuals that are more likely to be irresponsible on our roadways.  Most of us have to protect ourselves from irresponsible drivers.  Adequate UM coverage is one way to do this.

The mother of that 15-year-old boy told me that she and her husband will likely have to declare bankruptcy because they won’t be able to pay for their son’s medical bills.  Understandably, she and her husband are angry that this could happen.  Through no fault of their own, they may be ruined financially.

My message to parents is to carry adequate auto coverage, including coverage for uninsured motorists.  This coverage can prevent financial ruin if one of your family members becomes the victim of an accident.

Either side may request a deposition at any time, but the request is most likely to come after you and your attorney have responded to interrogatories (written questions) and requests for production of documents.  If your deposition is requested, it is very important that you prepare for this with your attorney. 

Your conduct at the deposition can influence the value assigned to the case and also affect the likelihood of whether the case will settle before trial. A deposition is a little like an oral version of interrogatories.

Many of our clients at Davis Law Group are nervous before depositions, but that is quite common especially if it is your first deposition.  Not to worry however.  Your lawyer will be there to observe throughout the deposition and can object to inappropriate questions or ask for breaks if you need them. This is important, because it is essential for you to stay calm and professional during a deposition.

The deposition is the first opportunity for the other side to evaluate you in person, so you should appear neat and as confident as possible. You should usually dress neatly and conservative so you make a good impression.

Your lawyer (or his or her staff) should prepare you ahead of time for the questions in your deposition. You may be asked to attend a meeting where you review all of the written information your lawyer has, as well as any responses you gave to interrogatories. It is especially important to make sure that your testimony is truthful and consistent with these interrogatory responses, because the lawyer for the defendant will probably question you closely about any inconsistencies. This process should also help refresh your memory about the details of your injuries, your treatment and your recovery.

At your deposition, you will probably start by reviewing the information in your written interrogatory responses. The deposition is an opportunity for the other side’s lawyer to clarify or have you explain those written answers, and to obtain additional information. As we said, it is important to make sure that your testimony is truthful and consistent with your interrogatory responses, so the other lawyer does not spy a seeming inconsistency between your oral testimony and your written testimony.

Your answers in a deposition should be based on your own personal knowledge; do not guess. If you do not know or remember the answer to a question, you should say so. Many people feel embarrassed to admit they do not know something or had a memory lapse, but these things are quite common.  No person is expected to remember every little detail about past events.  It is only human. But when you are under oath, it is important to be as straightforward as possible.

As with the written discovery, you may feel that some of the questions are invasive or do not directly relate to your accident. However, unless your lawyer objects or tells you not to respond, you should answer every question in the most honest way you can. The court rules actually give wide latitude to the lawyer on what questions can be asked, or what areas can be covered.  If some of the questions upset you, you can usually take a break during your deposition testimony, although you may have to respond to any unanswered questions first. If you would like a break, you can simply tell your lawyer. If the break is allowed, you will be permitted to get up, walk around, get a drink of water or just clear your head.

Your deposition is a very good opportunity for you to answer the defense attorney’s questions succintly and without interruption.  The deposition is one of the more important legal proceedings in your case.  So please make sure you prepare for it and ask your lawyer any questions to help you feel more at ease.

In Washington, you will typically file your case in the county where your accident happened, or in the county where one or both of the parties involved lives.  If you are filing suit against a business or corporation, then the venue can occur in the county where the company does business.  Your lawyer can explain to you how these rules affect your case.

A lawsuit formally starts when you file a written complaint with the court. This complaint describes the facts of the case, your injuries and why the person you are suing is responsible for your injuries. It then separately lists each “cause of action,” which is a reason for suing. 

The complaint ends with a request for financial compensation for the injuries you have listed. This can be quite detailed, depending on your state’s requirements, but it always contains enough information to inform the other parties why they are being sued.

Along with the complaint, your lawyer will also file a summons, a document that must be personally served on the defendants. The summons explains how the defendant should respond to the complaint and gives a deadline to do so. As a courtesy, your lawyer may send a copy of the complaint to the defendant’s insurance company.

After the complaint is filed, your lawyer may have to specify whether you prefer a jury trial or a “bench trial.”  A bench trial is one that is conducted before a judge and not a jury.  The judge decides the case.  Most of the time the defendant’s lawyer will request a jury.  The conventional wisdom is that a jury may be more conservative on damages then compared with a judge.  A jury will also be more influenced by matters outside the law, whereas a judge is trained to disregard irrelevant evidence.

You and your lawyer should have agreed on this ahead of time. In a jury trial, a group of randomly selected citizens from the area decides the case while the judge acts as a referee and resolves legal issues involved in the case. By contrast, a bench trial involves a judge deciding the entire case (issues of fact and legal issues). Bench trials are less common than jury trials. If your lawyer recommends one, he or she should be able to explain why.

For example, the statute of limitations for most personal injury lawsuits in the state of Washington is three (3) years. Statutes of limitations are different in each state and often change according to the type of case you have, but all of them are hard deadlines. That is, if you wait too long, you will not be able to pursue your case, no matter how strong it is.

One of the first things your lawyer will do after learning about your case is calculate the statute of limitations that applies, and take any action necessary to preserve your right to sue.  To start a case you must personally serve the other party.  That means it is very dangerous to wait until the statute of limitations is about to expire before you file your case.  If you fail to locate the correct defendant, or serve the wrong person, your case gets dismissed if the statute of limitations period has passed.  It doesn’t matter to the courts that you had trouble locating the other party.

There are also legal deadlines that apply in certain specific circumstances. For example, if you plan to sue a government agency, you may be required to give that agency notice within a relatively short period of time, or file an administrative complaint, before you may sue.

In Washington, if a party wishes to sue a governmental entity he or she must first file a claim with that entity and then wait sixty (60) days before filing the lawsuit.  The failure to comply with this rule may mean the dismissal of your lawsuit.  Because these deadlines can be short and missing them can take away your right to sue, it is essential to learn about them and take action as quickly as possible.

The laws dealing with the statute of limitations and governmental claims forms are just some of the reasons why it makes sense to consult with an experienced personal injury lawyer as soon as is practical after your accident.

The students at Chiawana High School listened to Reggie Shaw from Utah.  Mr. Shaw a 19-year-old college student was working as a house painter.  He was driving to work in an SUV.  Approaching him, in a Saturn sedan, was James Furaro, 38, and his passenger, Keith P. O’Dell, 50. They were rocket scientists commuting to their work at ATK Launch Systems.

Mr. Shaw crossed the center line on the two-way road, and clipped the Saturn. The Saturn lost control and spun across the road where it was hit by another vehicle that was towing a trailer.  The two scientists were killed instantly.

The police talked to a witness who observed Shaw swerving within his lane just prior to the collision.  The investigating officer watched Shaw after the accident take out his phone and start texting.  The officer was skeptical, and decided to subpoena Shaw’s cell phone records.  The records showed that Shaw had sent 11 text messages to his girlfriend in the 30 minutes before the crash.  The last one occurred just one minute before Shaw called 911.  The police determined that the last text message was the one which caused Shaw to cross into the other lane.

In the end Shaw’s conscious got the better of him.  He later pled guilty to two counts of negligent homicide.  Shaw now tours his home state of Utah and other states to talk about the dangers of texting while driving.

I applaud Mr. Shaw’s willingness to devote his time and attention to teaching other young people about what can happen while using your cell phone and driving.  It’s a shame that he had to take the lives of two innocent people to realize what I and many other lawyers have known for years: texting while driving a motor vehicle is extremely dangerous. 

I hope the students in Paco, Washington were moved by Mr. Shaw’s story.  I have to believe that hearing from someone who has actually caused the death of two other people due to texting and driving will cause most of these young people to re-think whether to use a cell phone while operating a motor vehicle.

For more information about Shaw’s story and the dangers of texting while driving, please read this story by NPR.

As he was riding his Harley, a car pulled out in front of him.  He braked suddenly, and had to lay the bike on the road.  Unfortunately, the motorcyclist still hit the front fender of the car.  This catapulted him over the vehicle at least 50 feet in the air.  He landed on his head and shoulder.  He suffered multiple fractures to his legs, pelvis, arm, low back, shoulder dislocation, and a traumatic brain injury.  The guy was lucky to be alive.

It turned out that the driver was 19 years old and unemployed.  He had no insurance on the car.

In Washington, there is a type of auto insurance called Uninsured or Underinsured Motorist coverage.  This is coverage that will protect you if you’re hit by an uninsured driver.  In Washington, UM/UIM coverage must be offered on your vehicle unless you reject it in writing.

Unfortunately, the mandatory UM/UIM coverage does not apply to motorcycles.  This means you must specifically request UM/UIM coverage on your bike, or it will not be offered. Most motorcycle riders are not aware of this.  They think if they get “full coverage” it means they are fully protected.  Not so.

The most important type of insurance coverage a motorcycle rider can get is UM/UIM.  This is because more often than not the other driver either does not have insurance, or does not have enough insurance.  The injuries to motorcycle riders are usually much more serious (for obvious reasons).  That means the medical bills are usually a lot higher – sometimes several hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

The guy who was seriously injured on his bike was understandably upset.  Without insurance, there was nothing I could do for him.  Unfortunately, I get similar calls from other motorcycle riders at least a handful of times each year.

If you are a motorcycle rider, please, please, please…. Call your insurance agent right now and ask for UM/UIM coverage with the highest limits  you can afford. You will be doing yourself, and your family, a very big favor.

The first thing to consider is that lawyers, much like doctors, often concentrate their practices in a specific area of the law. If you need hip replacement surgery, you probably want to see an orthopedic surgeon, not a cardiologist. You may also want that surgeon to routinely perform hip surgery on other patients instead of doing the procedure a few times per year. 

Similarly, if you are in an accident, you will not want to hire a lawyer who focuses on divorce or real estate or business law. Similarly, you probably don’t want a lawyer who just does a few personal injury cases a month or in a given year along with other types of cases. 

Although a non-specialist lawyer may be able to help you, he or she will likely not have the same experience and skills that a lawyer who specializes in personal injury law day in and day out. No one person can do it all.  The same is true for lawyers who specialize in a particular practice area. 

A lawyer who specializes in personal injury law will likely understand the individual nuances in the legal, procedural and evidentiary areas that come with representing accident victims.  And believe me, there are many “nuances” in the field of personal injury law.  They may deal with questions concerning insurance coverage, subrogation claims, medical expertise, proving the injury in question, proving the amount of damages, procedural traps, and a host of many other issues that may arise in the typical personal injury claim.

The personal injury specialist will also better understand and implement the successful strategies, arguments, and tactics that can maximize the value of your personal injury claim, because they work with these issues every day.

At Davis Law Group, we find that most of our clients come to us after a recommendation from someone they know who has used us in the past. For this reason, you may want to begin the search by talking to family and friends. Ask if anyone can refer you to a personal injury lawyer who helped them get good results, or who they have heard good things about.

You can also do your own research to find a lawyer.  The internet is a good place to start.  Some very reputable personal injury lawyers provide substantial information on personal injury claims and the law on their websites.  Sometimes the lawyer’s successful cases are reported in the press and may show up on news feeds or in newspaper stories.  Sometimes the lawyer may be featured on news stations or other programs as a credible source the media turns to for information about personal injury matters.  If that’s true, that lawyer may be a good choice.

More and more lawyers are using video on the internet.  This may be a good source to check out a lawyer.  Look for a lawyer who actually offers helpful information about the type of case or injury you may have.  Stay away from those lawyers who only brag how good they are, or how successful they have been in the past.  Although success is certainly important for obvious reasons, the lawyer’s video should do more than just brag, it should actually help the potential client understand his or her rights or some potential problem that often arises in personal injury cases.

There are some lawyers who advertise heavily on TV and in the phone book.  Although this may be a good place to start your search, I would not rely entirely on a lawyer’s TV or yellow page ad.  Sometimes the lawyer who advertises heavily on TV or in the phone book will operate a volume injury law practice that relies heavily on the quick settlement of cases.  That may not be in your best interest because often times a case requires a tremendous amount of work before a good settlement can be achieved. 

There are also companies that run TV commercials where the lawyer pays to be the “next lawyer” on the referral list.  Any lawyer can pay to be on the referral list so that lawyer may not necessarily be the best lawyer for your case.  Be careful.

In the end, do your research.  Go to the lawyer’s website.  Review articles or books that the lawyer has written.  You’ll want a lawyer who commands credibility, in and outside the courtroom.  You’ll want a lawyer who has been successfully representing injury or accident victims for several years, not someone who’s only been testing the waters for a few years.  After all, you don’t want to be the “test case” for a lawyer who is still learning.

One common defense is to suggest that the victim suffered from similar injuries before the accident, or that the victim was predisposed to the type of injury he or she suffered.  We at Davis Law Group have had cases where the insurance company actually relied on a medical record that pre-dated the motor vehicle collision 15 years earlier!  Even though are client was symptom-free for more than 12 years, the insurance company still tried to argue that her “pre-existing” injury predisposed her to an injury 15 years later in the car accident!  That gives you some idea as to how absurd some of the defenses the insurance company will allege.

Yet another defense is to try to prove that the victim’s injuries were not caused by the accident, but by other events in the victim’s life (e.g., a prior fall, prior accident, or some other medical condition). When insurance companies cannot dispute fault for the accident they may resort to the age-old tactic of attacking the accident victim’s character or preexisting medical history.

A good lawyer will successfully challenge these common defenses and help the victim present his or her injuries clearly, concisely and coherently.

For example, even if you suffered from a similar medical problem (such as a back or neck condition) before the accident, your lawyer can help you prove that your previous injury was made worse as a result of your accident.

 Washington law supports the premise that a wrongdoer “takes his victim as he finds him.” This means victims are entitled to recover full compensation even if they were particularly susceptible to an injury, or predisposed to experience greater pain or suffering than could have been foreseen by the defendant.

For example, you have a bad back that never required surgery, but then you are involved in a serious car accident that aggravates the back condition enough to require surgery, you are entitled to recover compensation for the surgery. After all, you would not have needed it if the accident had never happened.

If you have a claim where the insurance company seems to be looking for any fact, circumstance or excuse to deny your claim or lessen its value, it’s time for you to speak with an experienced attorney.  Don’t try to fight the company alone.  With its vast resources and knowledge, the insurance company can be a very formidable opponent.  The things you do or say early on in the claim process can make a difference on whether you achieve a successful outcome.

As you work to resolve your accident claim, you may hear insurance adjustors, lawyers and doctors talk about different degrees of injuries. You may hear injuries described as minor, moderate, severe or catastrophic. Minor or moderate injuries can be injuries such as sprains, strains, fractures, bruising or superficial cuts. These may be painful, but they usually heal well and quickly, with minimal medical treatment.

You may hear insurance adjustors refer to “soft tissue injuries.” Soft tissue injuries are injuries to the non-bony parts of the body, such as internal organs, nerves, muscles and connective tissues. Sprains, whiplash and pulled muscles are all types of soft tissue injuries. Even if you have a bruise over the affected area, you and your doctor may not realize you have a soft tissue injury under the bruise, because it can be hidden from sight and hard to detect with tests. Soft tissue injuries may heal quickly, but some do not. Some can even result in chronic pain and disability, which can be permanent if not treated properly. Typically, it is harder to recover substantial compensation in these cases than in cases involving serious or catastrophic injuries.

A catastrophic injury is a serious injury that is expected to permanently change the victim’s life. Examples of this type of injury include burns, amputations, spinal cord injuries, paralysis and head injuries (also called traumatic brain injuries). These types of injuries result in the most significant settlements and verdicts, because the injuries can be proven objectively and are more obvious to the insurance company or a jury.

Although catastrophic injuries are obvious in most cases, sometimes the full extent of the injury is not immediately revealed. This is especially true when the victim has suffered a traumatic brain injury, also called a closed head injury. In some cases, the brain may be affected in ways so subtle that only people close to the victim notice changes in abilities, behavior or personality.

A closed head injury can be caused by physical trauma (a hard blow or penetrating wound), a blast wave from an explosion or violent shaking of the head. It often results from actual jostling of the brain. Such trauma can damage the tissues of the brain, which in turn affects the abilities controlled by the damaged tissue.

A concussion is the mildest form of a brain injury, but more serious brain injuries leave their victims permanently disabled. As one often expects, a brain injury may affect many aspects of the injured person’s life, including physical movement, the senses, intellectual ability, creativity and even personality. Sometimes, what appears to be a minor concussion or brief loss of consciousness following a car accident can turn into in a more serious closed head injury later on, with symptoms such as chronic headaches, memory loss, loss of concentration or changes in a person’s personality or behavior.

One of the more severe, significant and complex types of claims is the wrongful death case.  Each state typically has their own laws and procedures governing a wrongful death claim.  In Washington, the wrongful death statutes are complex, both substantively and procedurally.  A personal representative must be appointed by the court to represent the deceased’s estate and the surviving family members.  Only certain surviving family members can recover compensation for the loss of their loved one.  There may be several claims involved in one case – the estate’s claim, and each claim brought by a surviving spouse and children.

The law of personal injury and insurance law is continually changing and evolving.  You should definitely speak with a qualified and experienced personal injury attorney about your claim, especially if it involves permanent or longlasting injuries and/or the loss of a loved one.

Take, for example, the case of a 25-year-old day laborer named Rick who was seriously injured as a passenger on his way to the beach with a few of his friends.  Rick’s injuries were severe and permanent, rendering him unable to work anymore. The other driver (the defendant) was clearly at fault, since he crossed the center line and hit the vehicle Rick was riding in head-on. 

The defendant driver’s liability insurance carrier said there was a total of just $25,000 on his policy, so Rick would not be able to recover any more compensation than this for his significant injuries.  Rick’s medical bills alone exceeded $100,000.

Rick had consulted several lawyers in Seattle who declined his case, saying there was limited coverage (the $25,000) and his bills already exceeded $100,000.

Then Rick spoke to a friend who referred him to Davis Law Group.  We determined that while the vehicle Rick was riding in did not have underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage, the trailer it was pulling did have coverage though his friend’s father, a small business owner with a commercial insurance policy. 

I was convinced that there was UIM coverage through this policy, which would allow Rick to collect the full amount of his injuries.  We negotiated and “worked” the case for over a year, finally convincing the insurance carrier that Rick should collect on $500,000 in additional insurance coverage.

Rick ultimately found additional coverage from the limits of the trailer’s commercial policy.  These additional settlement proceeds were placed in a special needs trust, which allowed Rick to keep receiving Medicaid.  Rick was able to spend his settlement proceeds on other necessities.  By fully investigating the case and understanding insurance law, Rick was able to recover much more compensation and provide for his future medical and financial needs.

Although Rick’s case turned out successful, I cannot help but think of all of the other accident victims who decided not to consult with a lawyer before accepting a “final” settlement offer from the defendant’s insurance company.  For every case like Rick’s, I bet there are at least a few hundred similar cases where the accident victim likely recovered much less compensation than what was possible because they did not elect to consult with an experienced personal injury lawyer. 

Please, if you have been seriously hurt in an accident caused by someone else, you should at the very least consult with experienced counsel to make sure you are getting the best result possible.