Golf Cart Insurance Policy Pays for Motorcycle Rider's Injuries

NOTE: This article is part of our ongoing series highlighting recent cases.

Our attorneys, believe it or not, were have been successful in forcing an insurance policy insuring a golf cart to make a payment to one of our clients injured in an accident while riding his motorcycle.

The story behind the actual accident is not too spectacular, nor out of the ordinary, other than the nature of our client's injuries, which were unbelievably significant.  He was required to be hospitalized for several weeks, underwent several surgeries, and was required to endure months of physical therapy, rehabilitation and missed time from work while he convalesced.

Our attorneys were very quickly able to establish liability against the driver who caused the accident and were able to engage in very fruitful settlement negotiations with the at‑fault party and reach a settlement of the claim.  We were also able to tap into our client's available underinsured motorist policies and leverage payments of those limits in addition to the settlement that we had obtained from the at-fault driver.  However, we also were aware that our client, who lives in a golf cart community, had an insurance policy on the golf cart in the garage.  The insurance company had issued a recreational vehicle policy on the golf cart, as opposed to a standard motor vehicle policy.  They claimed that a recreational vehicle policy was not required to cover other household vehicles, like regular motor vehicle policies are required to.  We contended the insurance company was wrong and Georgia law, the local county law, and the local community law, all required a motor vehicle policy to have been issued on the golf cart, not a recreational vehicle policy.  We argued, therefore, that the applicable policy limits of the recreational vehicle policy would apply as an additional underinsured motorist policy that could be stacked into coverage behind the underinsured motorist policies on the family vehicles.  After presenting our case, including the legal argument we contended required the golf cart policy to pay for this accident, the insurance company, ultimately, agreed with us and tendered the limits of the recreational vehicle policy as underinsured motorist funds in an effort to satisfy the injuries suffered in this accident.

This is one of our most favorite cases to tell people about because of the successful result we were able to obtain for our client and because it illustrates our legal creativity and willingness to explore it for the good of our clients. 

Biker forced to Lay Bike Down and Suffers Injuries After "Un-Insured" Bus Illegally Turns in Front of Him

NOTE: This article is part of our ongoing series highlighting recent cases.

Our attorneys settled a case that began when a gentleman on a motorcycle was forced to lay his bike down on the road when a bus made an illegal left-hand turn in front of our client, who had the right-of-way.  The client did not initially hire our law firm and, instead, went to an attorney who was quickly rebuffed by the bus company's insurance company.  The was that the bus had just been purchased and had not yet been reported as part of the company's fleet to the insurance company.  The VIN was not yet part of the insurance package or declarations page.  In rejecting the obligation to make a payment for the injuries the client suffered, the insurance company claimed that because the bus was new and had not yet been listed on the declarations page of the insurance policy that it was an uncovered vehicle and that no insurance would be applicable.  They, therefore, declined to agree they were responsible for his injuries or make any payment.

When the client finally retained our law firm our attorneys knew, immediately, that the issue as to whether the bus was part of the declarations page or insurance package was not important because Georgia law places certain obligations upon this commercial carrier to insure this bus, even if it was brand new, and had not been reported to the insurance company.  We were able to, quickly, show the insurance company the appropriate law in Georgia that would govern their conduct and, quickly, thereafter, were able to settle our client's case.

We share this example with you because we feel that it is indicative of our law firm's tenacity in pursuing cases that other lawyers have either abandoned or do not have the appropriate appreciation of the issues and nuances related to common carriers and truck accidents as we do.  And our refusal to be bluffed or bullied by insurance companies through their usual tactics.

Military Health Insurance Lien Resolved and Additional Monies Found at a Reduced Attorney Fee Rate for an Active Military Service Member

NOTE: This article is part of our ongoing series highlighting recent cases.

We were contacted by an active duty Army sergeant who was injured when a truck cut off his motorcycle and he, too, sustained serious injuries to his leg.  He was required to undergo a number of surgical procedures and, when he contacted us, the military was in the process of assessing whether he needed to be medically discharged seven months shy of 20 years in service and retirement.  To add insult to injury, he was unable to reach any type of settlement with the at‑fault party's insurance carrier because of a lien placed against any settlement funds.  When we met this sergeant we, again, reviewed his entire case and, again, were able to find an additional insurance policy, worth $100,000.00, that he was unaware of that had liability to make payment for his injuries and accident.

Knowing everything that we did about the case, and how valuable it could be in terms of attorney's fees, we still reduced the fees that we charged this service member in thanks and gratitude to his two deployments to Afghanistan.  We were immediately able to provide the at‑fault party's insurance carrier with adequate assurances that the lien would be satisfied and they shortly they turned over the available insurance monies to satisfy his claim. 

We were also successful in our efforts at lobbying the military with regard to his situation and we received a waiver their lien.

Again, a client who we were able to enhance the value of his settlement, significantly, through our knowledge and efforts.  Yet at the same time that we provided value to this client, we still maintained our office's own pride and integrity in adjusting our fee for this serviceman.

Help Resolving Medical Bills and Liens and Discovering More Money for our Clients

NOTE: This article is part of our ongoing series highlighting recent cases.

If you have medical liens from doctors, or other healthcare providers, or, more scary, claims of liens or rights of repayment/subrogation from a health insurer, the government, or anyone else who may have provided medical services to you and they are demanding back money from you, you need to speak with an attorney.  Here are two very good examples of our clients, who we have recently worked with, who called us to resolve lien issues and, in both cases, we wound up enhancing the value of their settlement, significantly.

One case involved an older man, back at work after his accident caused when his motorcycle was hit by a privately owned intrastate contracting company.  He was run off the road and suffered significant injuries, including a broken leg, pelvis, and other damages requiring significant hospitalization.  Our client left the hospital with permanent disfigurement to his body and several hundred thousand dollars in medical bills.  He was lucky that he had good health insurance that paid for the medical bills, so his out-of-pocket costs really were as low as they possibly could have been.

But his health insurance company had in its health insurance contract a provision, like every contract for health insurance in America, that requires him to repay them for the value of the medical services they provided to him if he was able to collect any money from the at‑fault third party who caused the accident.  After he went home from the hospital, our client was able to settle his claim by himself with the at‑fault party's insurance company for its policy limits, and signed an appropriate release.  Unaware he might need to repay his health insurance carrier, he began to use the money how he needed to given his financial condition resulting from his lost wages following the accident.  About nine months later he was contacted by the health insurance company who demanded repayment for the monies it had paid for his medical services.  By this time the funds he had recovered from the available insurance monies had dwindled significantly and he was unable to pay the claimed lien amount.  By the time he called us he was having difficulty negotiating with the health insurance company.

When we reviewed his file with him we reviewed this not only to see if we could help him in minimizing the amount of monies he would have to repay for the healthcare lien, but also to determine whether he had already received full value for his claim.  When we looked at this case we discovered that there were two other insurance policies he did not know of that were available to provide an additional $200,000.00 in coverage to him for his injuries.  We don't think that he ever would have discovered the existence of these policies or known that they had legal obligations to make a payment for his injuries, and we believe that our evaluation increased his value of his case by that $200,000.00 that we were able to recover on his behalf.

 In the meantime we were also able to negotiate the liens for repayment.  Our lawyers know that just because some health insurance companies claim that they have a right to be repaid means that legally they can force you to pay them back.  Using our knowledge of these laws we were able to negotiate a settlement of this gentleman's health insurance lien and agreed to pay only 25 percent of the amount that the health insurance company claimed was owed to them.  By the time we collected the additional $200,000.00 for our client and paid off the health insurance lien, we were able to put in excess of $100,000.00 into our client's pocket that he did not know existed prior to meeting with us, which initially was only supposed to be so we could help him resolve a lien.