When you are in a car accident in Georgia and your car is totaled, if you are "upside down" on your loan you may have to write a big check. As part of my job as a Georgia injury lawyer, I teach my clients that Georgia law provides that a party that damages or destroys property is only responsible for the fair market value of the thing destroyed.
Continue reading "Gap Insurance and Georgia Car Crashes, How Does it Work?" »
The Georgia Insurance Commissioner's Office released a directive last December to all of the insurance companies reminding them that when evaluating Diminution in Value, they cannot simply cite the Mabry v. State Farm decision and declare that their formula is gospel. The directive can be found by clicking here.
As an Georgia injury lawyer, I frequently have clients ask me how to handle their diminished value claims and have even shot a video on how to handle diminution in value claims in Georgia. The most frequent response that consumers get from the insurers is "sorry but we use the State approved formula" and that is a corruption of the law. This directive makes it clear that each case is different and the Insurance Commissioner has not endorsed any particular diminution formula. If you are arguing with the insurance company and they cite the formula from the Mabry case, be sure to email them this directive.
You can change Georgia car insurance companies even if there is a claim pending against you or if you have a claim pending against your own insurance, like a Georgia Uninsured Motorist claim. The only thing that matters is whether there was valid coverage on the date of the loss. Whatever happens after that is irrelevant and won't affect the claims.
Continue reading "Georgia Car Insurance Claims Unnaffected When Policy is Cancelled" »
Section one of my Book on how to buy Car insurance in Georgia is now complete and I have uploaded it to the resources section of my website. This is a step by step guide that will walk you through how to buy good insurance coverage and it is the first half of my insurance book which is due out in January. In addition to the materials on how to buy car insurance, the second section of the book contains instructions on how to handle car accident claims written from the perspective of an Atlanta wrongful death lawyer. As a Georgia car accident book,. it has no peer.
If you are in a car accident in Georgia and the person that hit you is not a resident, you have the right to hale them into Court in the County in Georgia where the crash happened or in your home county. As Georgia injury lawyers, we frequently deal with issues regarding venue (the proper court in which the lawsuit must be filed). Normally, under the Georgia Constitution you have to sue a Georgia citizen or corporation in the County where they reside so that there is a jury of their peers. GA. CONST. Art. VI, II, Para. VI. However, the Non-Resident Motorist statute makes an exception for drivers who lived outside of Georgia at the time of the crash. O.C.G.A. 40-12-3.
Under Georgia law, the complaint (the document that starts a law suit) must include facts that establish venue. O.C.G.A. 9-11-8(a)(2). A skilled Atlanta injury lawyer knows which counties are more favorable and can walk you through the options. If you decide to file the suit on your own though, be sure to read the statutes first.
As an Atlanta personal injury lawyer, I get a lot of questions from clients that have been in serious crashes and they worry that using their medical payments insurance or their Georgia Uninsured Motorist insurance will cause them to have their own car policy canceled. This is untrue unless you exceed the number of claims listed in the statute below. Under O.C.G.A. § 33-24-45(c), the insurance company cannot drop you for claims unless:
You have three or more of the following within the preceding 36 month period:
(1) Accidents involving two or more motor vehicles in which you were not at fault;
(2) Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage claims;
(3) Comprehensive coverage claims or towing or road service claims.
As an Atlanta personal injury lawyer, I spend my days battling with insurance carriers to get them to treat people like human beings, so there is no love lost there. However, even I am annoyed that the New York Times would write a piece attacking AIG for not paying claims for the travelers on Captain Sullenberger's flight. Collision insurance, Georgia medical payments insurance, and a few other coverages are the only ones I know of that kick in without requiring liability. I am constantly explaining to people that when they fall and get injured in Georgia, the property owner does not automatically have to pay. All liability insurance is, wait for it....based on liability! This plane appears to have gone down due to bird strikes and last I heard Canadian geese were not insured and subject to socialist Canadian health care. .jpg)
Continue reading "Thankless Claimants of Hudson River Crash Need to Reassess Their Blessings" »
Here is part two of the CNN piece on claims handling practices by the major insurance companies. In Georgia car accident claims, I can tell you that the deny, delay defend mantra is the order of the day.
I handled a case for a father who broke his hand in a car accident in Riverdale, Georgia and missed out on five months of work as a schoolteacher. He had medical bills of $28,000.00 and lost income of over $23,000.00. The Allstate insured driver had only $100,000.00 in coverage and when we demanded the entire policy, they refused to even offer the full amount of his bills and wages. I filed suit and gave the in house lawyer with Allstate one more chance to do the right thing and after deposing my client and realizing that his case was legitimate, she overturned the adjuster's decision. The point is that it should never have come to that. It dragged the matter out for three more months, forced me to put the case into the courts and increased my client's costs and ruined his credit. Watch the conclusion of the investigative piece and make up your own mind.
As a lawyer in Atlanta that deals with car accidents, I speak with many clients that have been injured in Georgia car accidents and the clients that assumed in the early going that the insurance company for the driver that hit them will pay for their medical care, only to be rudely surprised when the time came for the bills to be paid. A year or two back, Anderson Cooper did a very nice investigative piece on dealing with Allstate insurance that teaches good lessons on how to deal with a Georgia insurance company after a car accident. Here is the first portion.
In my practice as an Atlanta injury attorney, clients frequently call me panicking about a notice of a Georgia medical lien they received after their car accident. For those clients with health insurance, I have written previously about whether your health insurance has to pay your bills after a car accident, and the answer is a resounding "yes." I have added a new page on the site that describes your rights and duties when it comes to Georgia medical liens. If you have received notice of a Georgia medical lien as a result of a car accident or other injury, check with an injury lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia to make sure that you are handling your case correctly.
As an Atlanta Injury lawyer with twelve years in the business, I am pleased to report that my clients still call me years down the road with unrelated legal questions. A current client called today and he is changing jobs but his new health insurance won't start for 60 days. His wife is on the plan and is undergoing medical care for a serious neck injury from an Atlanta car accident. The client had just planned on holding off on getting medical care for 60 days. I advised the client that he needs to pay for COBRA continuing coverage with his old plan to make sure there is continuous health insurance coverage. Otherwise, the new plan will exclude medical care for her neck injury for 12-18 months as it is a pre-existing condition and there is no continuing health insurance. By having the COBRA coverage in place, there is continuing coverage and it won't be a problem.
COBRA is just an acronym for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, a Federal law that requires that any employer with more than 20 employees extend health-care coverage to any eligible employee after they leave. Public Law 99-272 Title X and its subsequent amendments require employers to offer continuing coverage to employees and their dependents. It is available to insured employees when they:
1. Quit.
2. Are fired for reasons other than gross misconduct.
3. Are laid off for economic reasons
Health insurance and liability insurance issues are complex and you should be choosy in hiring an Atlanta injury attorney.
As an Atlanta Injury lawyer, this question gets asked of me repeatedly so I will write a brief post on this here. Yes, your health insurance will pay for medical care incurred as a result of a car accident so long as 1) the non emergency care is in network, 2) you provide confirmation to your health insurer that you did not have Georgia medical payments insurance or it was exhausted, 3) you actually give the medical providers your health insurance information in a timely fashion. The bottom line is submit the bills to the health insurer and make sure you give the hospital your health insurance information up front or in the days following.
Will you have to reimburse your health insurance company in Georgia? Probably. The loopholes are getting smaller and smaller but it basically boils down to whether you are still insured with them and whether they are a self funded plan or not.
As an Atlanta injury lawyer and Atlanta trucking lawyer I can tell you that the key to succesfull coordination of benefits for a case with serious injuries is to bring the attorney into the case in the early stages so you do not make irreversible mistakes.
Many clients come to me after being injured in a car accident in Georgia and they complain that their health insurance company is refusing to pay their bills claiming that it is a car accident and therefore the money has to come from the other driver.
This is a lie being spread by the health insurance companies. It is a complex issue,but it breaks down this way. Your Georgia health insurance is obligated to pay for your medical care after a car crash so long as you presented the bill within the time allowed under the policy and so long as there is no medical payments coverage. If there is no medical payments coverage, your health insurance is the first payor and they must pay. That's it.
As an Atlanta injury attorney, I do advise my client that they do need to provide them with information about the driver that caused the crash and the health insurer may claim a right of reimbursement if you make a recovery for bills that they paid, but they have to pay.
Do be careful though because some hospitals will lie to you and claim that they submitted the bill and that the health insurer refused to pay. In my practice as an Atlanta injury lawyer, I find the best practice is to submit the bill yourself to the health insurer the minute you get it and to send a certified letter to your medical providers with your health care information attached as well as a letter from your own insurance company confirming that there are no medical payments benefits (usually in the form of a copy of your declarations page)
Be careful about deadlines, especially for emergency medicaid applications as one of my Conyers, Georgia clients recently found out, getting the DHR to reverse their decision can be difficult. As a Conyers, Georgia injury lawyer, I can tell you that vigilance in the first 60 days after the bill is incurred is critical.
As an Atlanta Georgia car accident lawyer, I see hundreds of cases a year and we are getting more and more Georgia notices of medical liens. This past week I noticed that we have received several Georgia Medical Lien notices filed by Feiler and Associates and Clinton Harkins on behalf of their medical provider clients against potential recoveries by my clients. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but the problem is these clients all have health insurance! If you get notice of one of these liens being filed and you have health insurance, you need to call an Atlanta injury lawyer, immediately.
Atlanta Injury Lawyers find that they have to file suit more often to obtain fair compensation for their clients than in years past. Years ago when I represented insurance carriers for injury claims in Georgia as a defense lawyer, I found that most of them had a fundamentally sound philosophy. They would pay for valid claims and they would fight exaggerated claims.
Due to the success of the big three insurers with their deny, delay, defend philosophy, insurers that formerly operated in a reasonable manner seem to have adopted a "me too" approach. I am noticing that the adjusters handling cases prior to suit are less seasoned and more likely to make the standard silly arguments like "we reduced the bills because they are unreasonable" and "your client did not follow up until 3 weeks after the hospital." Many of these arguments sound fine on the phone but the insurers know that in trial they just don't fly.
So, the question becomes, what to do about getting fair value for my clients when they are seriously injured? The answer is that more often than not, we file suit. In a recent case I handled for a client in Dunwoody, Georgia he had a rear end collision with an insured where there was around $2300.00 in damage to his VW. He went to the hospital that day and was ultimately diagnosed with a herniated lumbar disc. As with any moderate damage case, the insurer blew off the demand letters from a prior lawyer and offered him $5,000.00 claiming that the injury pre-existed the crash and that the property damage was too low to cause a disc herniation.
Continue reading "Atlanta Injury Lawyers Having to File Suit Against Insurers More Often" »
As we have been discussing, the new Georgia Uninsured Motorist laws that went into effect on January 1, 2009 are drastically different. Check out this video for more details
When you are injured in a Georgia collision, you need to put your Georgia Uninsured Motorist Insurancecarrier on notice as soon as possible because the failure to do so can void coverage. Problems usually arise with these coverages when you are covered under your parent's or grandparents policy and you don't realize that until a year down the road when you finally hire an Atlanta injury lawyer.
Depending on the facts of the case and the Uninsured Motorist Insurance policy language, you can be required to give notice in as few as 30 days of the crash. See Flamm v. Doe, 167 Ga. App. 587 (1983). In Manzi v. Cotton States Mutual Insurance Company, 243 Ga. App. 277 (2000), the Court of Appeals ruled that the insured's failure to give notice within 60 days voided the coverage. Keep in mind that if the policy is worded correctly, you can lose thousands of dollars of potential insurance coverage just by not asking the right questions. Failing to hire an injury attorney when there are serious injuries involved can have dire consequences.
What are some other sources of Georgia Uninsured Motorist coverage? If you have multiple car policies even with the same carrier, so long as there are separate policy numbers, these policies likely stack under OCGA Sec. 33-7-11(b)(1)(D(ii)
You may also qualify as an additional insured on the policy of a relative that you live with pursuant to OCGA Sec. 33-7-11(b)(1)(B). One final place to look is at your employer's policy if you were on the job at the time of the Georgia crash. See Chastain v. USFG 199 Ga. App. 86 (1991).
Georgia wrongful death attorneys will help you work through the stacking of these coverages because the stacking rules can be complex.
Let us imagine a situation where we have litigated your Georgia personal injury case and the insurer has finally come to their senses and has agreed to settle the case. One huge question is, will I have to reimburse my health care insurer out of the settlement? The answer is maybe. This is an extremely complex area of law and if your medical care is paid by insurance then it makes sense to hire an Atlanta personal injury lawyer but for the sake of this conversation, here are some general truths:
First I will order a copy of the policy to review the policy language to see if it entitles the plan to reimbursement from the settlement. These days, most of the health insurance plans issued in Georgia have refined their language to permit their recovery.
What are some of the pitfalls of representing yourself and not hiring an Atlanta Georgia injury attorney after you have been injured in a car accident in Georgia? One of the major challenges is how to coordinate Georgia injury medical care benefits. 
Many people are hesitant to hire a Georgia injury attorney, worrying that they would have done better in their quest for just compensation without paying the lawyer one third of the recovery. It is a good analysis to go through. I have written extensively on the subject of when you need and attorney and when you don’t after a Georgia collision injury and you can see that article here. This entry will get into a real world example of the value a lawyer can bring.
For those of you that never read this article by CNN exposing State Farm and Allstate for adopting a combative strategy of deny, delay defend with regard to handling their claims, I strongly recommend it. You can draw your own conclusions from the research, but I can tell you that from my experience litigating both as an insurance defense attorney and as a plaintiff's attorney, they are spot on.The article highlights evidence that came to light in a series of lawsuits against Allstate and State Farm by plaintiffs that had been low-balled and the juries saw the truth. The portion of the article dealing with the consulting firm's recommendations is stunning. The strategy of deny, delay and defend is put into practice across the board by these carriers and others and I am finding that I am taking more and more of my cases all the way to jury trial in order to obtain fair compensation.
The problems in this industry lie at both ends of the spectrum. Insurance companies are turning a blind eye on legitimate injury cases and some plaintiffs lawyers are ignoring common sense and turning a blind eye when they know that they are putting up a less than legitimate case. The fact is that this industry would be better for the public as a whole if both sides would step back and take a realistic approach to handling injury cases.
If you want to discuss the state of the industry further, this Georgia personal injury lawyer is always interested.
Continue reading "A Georgia Lawyer Looking Back at CNN's story on Allstate and State Farm" »
These insurance coverages are frequently misunderstood in Georgia insurance policies. Collision coverage protects you against yourself when you cause a crash either with another vehicle or with an object. It will pay to repair damage to your own vehicle. It is required on cars that you finance or lease. You have a good deal of control over the rates as you can set a deductible. The idea is that if you crash your car and the repairs cost $5,000.00 then you pay the deductible and the company pays the rest.
Comprehensive insurance is a catch all coverage that protects you against a variety of dangers. If you have it, you are insured if the car is stolen, or keyed, flooded out, struck by hail, or a tree falls on it. If your car is more than 10 years old or not worth much for some other reason, I would not worry about getting it.
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist coverage in Georgia. In 11 years of practicing as an Atlanta injury lawyer, I have found that the people that cause the most devastating injuries in automobile collisions tend to be uninsured and underinsured drivers. Bad drivers tend to have a lot of speeding tickets and prior collisions and cannot afford decent coverage. As a result, the at fault driver did not have enough liability insurance to repay my clients for the medical bills they incurred and the injuries they sustained.
Most drivers in Georgia operate with the minimum mandatory limits of $25,000.00. That may seem like a lot of money but that's only if you have not been to the hospital recently. For example, in Metro Atlanta, the typical ambulance ride costs $600.00, the Emergency room visit is at least $800, X-Rays cost around $250, an MRI is $1100, a CT scan can cost $2000 and so on. Even a modest trip to the emergency room usually costs around $2,000.00. Then there can be mountains of bills from physical therapy and medications. In short, even a simple auto accident case with sprained muscles that requires an ER visit and physical therapy can leave a person with over $5,000.00 in bills. If there are any broken bones, the value of the case in front of a jury quickly grows to over $25,000.00.
Now imagine you have been in an accident in Roswell, Georgia and a driver has totaled your car by negligently failed to leave enough following distance. You have gone to the hospital and learned that you have a herniated disc in your neck that is going to need surgery. The total cost for your medical expenses will be well over $45,000.00 which does not even include the amount of income you will lose for missing work during surgery and recovery. You make contact with the at-fault driver's insurance company and learn that the driver only had $25,000.00 in coverage and is not a wealthy person. Reality is that there may be no recovery for you beyond the $25,000.00. As your grandmother told you, you cannot get blood from a stone.
That is where Georgia Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist insurance coverages play a critical role. I suggest that everyone carry at least $100,000.00 in liability and $100,000.00 in Uninsured Motorist coverage. In Georgia (for the time being, there are big changes afoot in the legislature) if the situation described above occurred, you could collect the $25,000.00 from the at-fault driver and then another $75,000.00 from your own insurance company. In essence, the UM coverage "pretends" to be the insurance for the at fault driver. You are buying insurance that protects you from drivers with low end policies. And guess what coverages most bad drivers have? Yep, that's right, they have minimum limits policies because they get into frequent accidents and cannot afford more coverage. The bottom line is you cannot afford to go without the coverage. As an Atlanta injury lawyer I insist that my clients increase their coverage to at least 100/300 after they meet with me. Although it does not work retroactively, you would be shocked how many people have other crashes in the years to come.
If your agent cares about you or you are tuned in, you will put medical payments insurance on your Georgia car insurance policy. This is a coverage that directly benefits you and your passengers in the event that you or they are hurt in an accident. It pays regardless of who caused the accident and does not have to be repaid if you make a recovery later against an at fault party. This coverage is comparatively inexpensive and I highly recommend that you at least get $5,000.00 in coverage. An Atlanta car accident lawyer knows that it can make all the difference between getting collections phone calls and sleeping through the night.
The easiest way to find out if you have the coverage is to pick up the phone and call the number on your insurance card. Just ask them, do I have medical payments or medpay insurance and in what amount. They will then walk you through how to open a claim.
Granted I do only review Georgia car insurance policies for people when things have gone wrong but isn't that the way you should approach your insurance purchasing? The most common thing I hear from people after they have been in a terrible accident is "I have full coverage." What does that mean?
In the insurance industry, it can mean very little. Many insurance agents will tell you that you have "full coverage" and what that really means is you have liability insurance, collision coverage and comprehensive coverage. It has nothing to do with the amount of the these coverages.As an Atlanta injury attorney I have to break this news to people all too frequently.
So... First step is to get out your policy information. Every six months or so you should receive a declarations page. If you cannot find it, pull up your insurance account. Almost everyone has their policy documents available online these days.
The declarations page should list the types of coverages you have and the dollar amounts of those coverages.
The first one is usually "Liability/Bodily Injury" This is one of the most important coverages. If you collide with someone or something and a person is injured, this coverage steps up to protect you. Lets assume that number is $50,000.00. That means that if you hit Steve and Betty Smith and they get hurt and have medical expenses, your insurance company will do two things if a claim is made. 1) the Insurer will pay the Smiths up to that dollar amount for the claim (if the insurer determines the claim is worth that much). 2. The Insurer will provide you with a free lawyer under the "duty to defend."
Here is an example. You hit the smiths and break their legs. Under a policy that lists $50,000/$100,000.00 the policy would pay up to $50,000.00 to each of them if appropriate. If they had smaller injuries, the dollar amounts would be more appropriate to the injury.
Liability Property Damage
The next coverage protects you for damage you cause to other property. It could be from hitting your neighbors fence or running into their car. Your policy will investigate and appraise the damage and pay the appropriate amount for the damage you caused up to your limits.
To recap, Liability coverage is to protect you from other people that come after you when you allegedly harm a person or property on accident. I suggest that you carry a minimum of $100,000.00 in liability coverages per person. Please note that there is no coverage for you if you do it on purpose.
When a car is damaged and repaired in a Georgia car accident, it is not "as good as new" when fixed. Diminution in value or diminished value generally applies only to cars that have not been in a wreck before. The idea is that in this day and age of Carfax and vehicle background checks everyone will know if the car was in a wreck when you try to sell it. No one will pay the same price for a used car when choosing between a previously repaired car and an undamaged one.
If the car is in a wreck and fixed and it is not a high mileage clunker, there will be a diminution in the resale value of the car no matter how well it is fixed. The hard part is determining what that value is. There are many "experts" that can be found on the internet, but I have found that if you and the insurer are far apart on this number, long distance experts really won't help.
If you had a newer car and it received over $1,000.00 in damage, it is worth looking twice at their offer.
1. Make sure you ask them for their estimate of diminution in value figure and how they reached it.
2. In Georgia, most carriers have a formula they use and they will not tell you what it is. This all stems out of a delightful appellate case called Mabry v. State Farm. Here is a cool article that gets more into the details about the formula for diminished value. http://www.consumercollisionservices.com/mabry-vs-StateFarm.pdf
3. The only way to deal with the problem is to go to a real expert like a used car salesman or someone in the wholesale business, get an opinion and file the case in small claims court.
Lets get a real world example. I recently had a client with $6000 in damage to her Toyota 4-Runner. Thats a great truck that sells well on the resale market and it was some significant damage. The insurance company offered her $82.00 for the diminution which is just silly. I called the adjuster and let her know that I used to represent the carrier an that we never used to do business that way. She confessed that she had no latitude in the number and that it was derived from a formula and reached because the client had 70,000 miles on the truck. We ended up filing suit for her injury claim and the diminution and worked out a $500 settlement on the diminution in addition to settling the injury claim. $500 is much closer to the real world value of the diminution in value.
Bottom line. Be persistent but understand that you may have to take the claim to small claims court. Lawyers will not touch a case like that unless we are talking about a very expensive car.
The leverage you have is that there is a bad faith property damage claims
Follow this statute in your letter stating your evidence of your diminution in value and you may get good results
§ 33-4-7. Insurers' duties with respect to settlement of motor vehicle liability policy claims; bad faith refusal to pay claims
(a) In the event of a loss because of injury to or destruction of property covered by a motor vehicle liability insurance policy, the insurer issuing such policy has an affirmative duty to adjust that loss fairly and promptly, to make a reasonable effort to investigate and evaluate the claim, and, where liability is reasonably clear, to make a good faith effort to settle with the claimant potentially entitled to recover against the insured under such policy. Any insurer who breaches this duty may be liable to pay the claimant, in addition to the loss, not more than 50 percent of the liability of the insured for the loss or $ 5,000.00, whichever is greater, and all reasonable attorney's fees for the prosecution of the action.
(b) An insurer breaches the duty of subsection (a) of this Code section when, after investigation of the claim, liability has become reasonably clear and the insurer in bad faith offers less than the amount reasonably owed under all the circumstances of which the insurer is aware.
(c) A claimant shall be entitled to recover under subsection (a) of this Code section if the claimant or the claimant's attorney has delivered to the insurer a demand letter, by statutory overnight delivery or certified mail, return receipt requested, offering to settle for an amount certain; the insurer has refused or declined to do so within 60 days of receipt of such demand, thereby compelling the claimant to institute or continue suit to recover; and the claimant ultimately recovers an amount equal to or in excess of the claimant's demand.
(d) At the expiration of the 60 days set forth in subsection (c) of this Code section, the claimant may serve the insurer issuing such policy by service of the complaint in accordance with law. The insurer shall be an unnamed party, not disclosed to the jury, until there has been a verdict resulting in recovery equal to or in excess of the claimant's demand. If that occurs, the trial shall be recommenced in order for the trier of fact to receive evidence to make a determination as to whether bad faith existed in the handling or adjustment of the attempted settlement of the claim or action in question.
(e) The action for bad faith shall not be abated by payment after the 60 day period nor shall the testimony or opinion of an expert witness be the sole basis for a summary judgment or directed verdict on the issue of bad faith.
(f) The amount of recovery, including reasonable attorney's fees, if any, shall be determined by the trier of fact and included in a separate judgment against the insurer rendered in the action; provided, however, the attorney's fees shall be fixed on the basis of competent expert evidence as to the reasonable value of the services based on the time spent and legal and factual issues involved in accordance with prevailing fees in the locality where the action is pending; provided, further, the trial court shall have the discretion, if it finds the jury verdict fixing attorney's fees to be greatly excessive or inadequate, to review and amend the portion of the verdict fixing attorney's fees without the necessity of disapproving the entire verdict. The limitations contained in this Code section in reference to the amount of attorney's fees are not controlling as to the fees which may be agreed upon by the plaintiff and his or her attorney for the services of the attorney.
(g) In any action brought pursuant to subsection (b) of this Code section, and within 20 days of bringing such action, the plaintiff shall, in addition to service of process in accordance with Code Section 9-11-4, mail to the Commissioner of Insurance and the consumers' insurance advocate a copy of the demand and complaint by first-class mail. Failure to comply with this subsection may be cured by delivering same.
www.ChristopherSimon.com
What should you do when your car was damaged in a car accident in Georgia and it was the other driver's fault? Let's assume that the officer cited the other driver and your car is driveable. What should you do? Everyone knows that you exchange information at the scene. What next?
You should contact the other driver's company that day and you should contact your own insurance company and provide them with notice of the accident. If the other insurance carrier is not a fly by night operation, they will schedule an appointment for either an adjuster to come out of a location for you to take your vehicle to for a damage appraisal. You should take photos of the damage before you leave your vehicle with anyone. When I am hired as an Atlanta personal injury lawyer, I take great pains to lock down the photographic evidence from the police officer's dashboard camera, satellite photos and other evidence to assist with arguing liability. However, unless you take pictures of your own vehicle, you will be at a serious disadvantage if you try to handle the property damage on your own.
If you took it to a shop, you will get an estimate on cost and time to repair from the shop. The other carrier should provide you with a rental car for the duration of the rental. If the other insurance carrier is being a jerk about these things and you have collision coverage, you have the option of turning it over to your own company.
If you do have your Georgia car insurance pay for the damage, you will be out the deductible. If the other person's carrier is a large company, they are probably a signor to the Intercompany Arbitration Agreement which is a forum where the insurers argue over who caused disputed wrecks. They will try to get your deductible back but there are no guarantees and it can take a while. Use your own coverage if the other company is dragging their feet and you cannot afford to wait. Otherwise, file the claim with the other company.
Be careful to look at the estimate and ask if OEM parts are being used.
Now lets assume that your car was damaged to the point that it cannot be driven. Understand that the other company may not make up their mind on responsibility for a few days. Be prepared to have to catch rides or get your own rental in the interim. Be firm but polite in your efforts to get them to make up their minds.
If they decide to total it out, you will only have the rental until the time you get the settlement check. After that, it is incumbent upon you to replace the vehicle. If you want them to total it and they want to fix it, there is little you can do. What I have done for clients in the past is advise them on filing a magistrate court suit seeking the repair costs and combining that with the Georgia diminshed value claim. This will sometimes force their hand.
One of the things many of my clients want to know is how to get your car fixed after a crash in Georgia go about getting their car fixed after it has been in a crash in Georgia. If the accident report came out against you and in favor of the other driver just understand that you are facing an uphill battle. Police Officers frequently get the blame issue wrong. It's not because they are mean, it's because they are not in the business of deciding liability. Some do a more thorough job that others, but many times they will simply write out the ticket that they feel seems most obvious. As an Atlanta personal injury attorney, we frequently spend half of our time tracking down eyewitnesses and developing evidence to prove liability.
If the accident report assigns blame to you under the "contributing factors" section on page one or you got the citation, you better have collision coverage on your own policy. The other car's insurer will not pay for your property damage and rental car unless it looks like they are to blame. Under these facts, submit the claim to your own insurer. If you have no collision coverage, then you are in a pickle. As an Atlanta Injury Lawyer, I will bundle the property damage claim with the bodily injury claim when clients hire me but that decision is made on a case by case basis.
If there is no injury claim and you have a sound reason why the other side is to blame; do the following:
1. Go to Court and fight the ticket. Understand that if you are unrepresented and the cop no shows the first time, they will probably continue the case. If he no shows the second time then the ticket gets tossed.
2. Never plead guilty to a traffic citation that you intend to fight liability on. This is an admission that you were to blame. In most Georgia Courts, you can plead NOLO CONTENDERE once every five years. Be careful and save it for important charges. Second option is to try it before the judge and lose. If you lose, that is not binding on a civil case for damages.
3. After the traffic court issue is resolved, go down to the magistrate court for the county where the other driver lives (get the address on the accident report) and file a civil suit on your own. It costs around $125.00 to do it. Lay out in simple sentences why the other side is to blame and how much it cost to fix.
4. When you go to court you will either need a paid receipt for the repair if it was done as evidence of the damages they owe you or if the repair was not done, you need to bring a live person from the body shop to tell the judge how much it will cost. Affidavits won't cut it. Unless the witness is live, it will be kept out as hearsay.
5. In court the rule is to be organized. Be prepared to show the following as the plaintiff.
a. What traffic rule or duty did the other person fail to follow. Did they speed? Did they fail to yield? Did they fail to use a turn signal etc.
b. You may testify on your own behalf and say what you saw. The first part of the case is for testimony. "I saw this...." Do not launch into a long speech about the whole case and how no one will pay you. Stand up and tell the judge what you saw and what rules or duties the other driver broke. Then introduce your evidence of the damages. Show photos. Introduce paid bills or call your witness on damages.
c. Call the other party to the stand. You may ask them questions on cross examination. Do not argue with them but ask them about their speed, where they were looking, familiarity with the roadway etc. You should plan out your questions ahead of time so you do not get nervous. The questions should be about how the crash happened and not much else. Less is better.
d. Before you rest your case, go over this checklist:
1. Did I tell the judge all my evidence as to why it is their fault and not mine?
2. Did I put in all the pictures and documents showing damage?
3. Did I tender my exhibits? Every piece of paper or photo you want the judge to look at must be numbered and you must say "i am tendering exhibit x and hand it to the judge" Remember to show it to the other party before you attempt to introduce it to the judge. This is required.
e. You will have a chance to give a summation or closing argument. Tell the judge what facts are strong for you and why the other side is wrong.
I do help my clients with their property damage claims when I represent them as their Atlanta personal injury lawyer.
I am writing this blog as an Atlanta Injury lawyer to explain civil litigation in Georgia as best I can. As time goes on there will be more and more complex articles that may be of great use to other attorneys, but in the beginning we will cover the essentials that will allow ordinary people to feel more comfortable in handling their civil cases on their own.
The most important distinction in the law lies between criminal law and civil law. Think of them as two distant branches of the same family. They have some similar features in that they involve trials, many shared rules of evidence, the thrill of cross examination and defense lawyers. Otherwise though they are systems of justice administering to totally different components of our society. Georgia workers compensation attorneys work in a specific subset of law governed by Georgia workers compensation law. There is an administrative law board instead of jury trials and the case law and rules of evidence for workers comp are completely different.
Criminal Law is a body of law designed to delineate between criminal and non-criminal actions. It covers everything from speeding tickets all the way through death penalty murder trials. The party bring the case is always a government entity and the whole purpose of the case is to determine guilt or innocence and the appropriate punishment. Think of it this way; criminal law is only about crime and punishment.
In every case the government (whether it be Federal Government, the State, the City etc) brings the case against the defendant person or corporation. The defendant is charged with the crime and the defendant has the option of hiring a criminal defense lawyer, having one appointed by the court if they are broke or representing themselves (pro se in the latin).
The government has the burden of proof. That means it is the government's job to bring evidence (testimony, photos, documents) to trial to convince the jury that the defendant is guilty. If you think of the burden of proof as one of those carnival bell hammer things, the government has to hit the device hard enough for the ball to fly up and hit the bell. The burden in a criminal case is much higher than in a civil case. They must bring enough evidence to prove to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did the crime. In the law that is like making the jury think there is a 90% chance the person did it. Think of the OJ case. There the jury wasn't necessarily saying that they did not do it, but simply that they were not 90% sure that he did it.
Next, we will discuss how a criminal case generally progresses.
Christopher Simon
Order a Free Copy
of Mr. Simon's Book
The Georgia Guide to Buying Car Insurance and Handling Car Accident Claims
