| Below are some common questions a person may have when involved in an automobile or other type of accident.
What is a Personal Injury Case & how long will it take for my case to settle? What about harmful products, medical malpractice & slip and fall cases? Do I really need an attorney to settle my case? How do I find a qualified Personal Injury Attorney? What can I expect of Child & Gordon in a personal injury case? Are there any issues that can sink my case & what is my role? Can I file a lawsuit in Small Claims Court? What is a Personal Injury Case & how long will it take for my case to settle? A personal injury case is any type of situation where a person has been injured or killed due to someone else’s carelessness. If the only damage in your case is that your car got banged up, then you don’t have a personal injury case – but you may have a property damage case. We do not handle cases where there is only property damage, but there are many lawyers who do. If both you and your car have suffered an injury, then you have both a personal injury and a property damage claim and case. In those circumstances, either your insurance company or their insurance company will usually take care of the property damage claim. If someone’s negligence causes the death of another, this is called a “wrongful death” claim. The laws may differ significantly regarding what can be recovered in a wrongful death case in California as opposed to a normal personal injury case. You should consult an attorney who understands the specialized wrongful death laws. There is no set time for your case to settle. Each case is unique and has its own set of circumstances. For example: First, there is the fact gathering phase. It is critically important that you obtain the right care from the right physicians who will properly diagnose you and your injuries at this phase. Once treatment is finished, we request a final set of medical records and bills to make sure we have not missed anything. Cases are typically not settled until the main treating physician diagnosis you with a serious injury which may extend the value of your case beyond what the available insurance carrier has on their policy limits, and if not, then it is usually after the physician has released you from his/her care. This treatment phase may be months or over a year depending on how serious your injuries are. The nature of your injury may affect the length of your claim (i.e. scars need to mature and heal & sometimes need revision, waiting for a doctor’s final narrative report could take 3 months, serious injuries take longer to heal and are sometimes followed up with therapy and/or surgery.) The response time to our requests from medical providers vary. Some are quick to respond and others are not. We do our best to push the process along. If your case does not settle, we may Arbitrate, Mediate or file a Complaint through the Court system. These options will be discussed with you as your case progresses. If you Arbitrate or Mediate, your case could be settled within 2-3 months of application. If you pursue your case through the Court system, it could take a year or longer before your case is tried in front of a jury. Sometimes your auto insurance carrier or the defendant’s carrier requires that you mediate or arbitrate before pursing it through the court system. Sometimes it will be necessary for you to personally provide us with information, especially in the initial stages. Every effort you make to get this information to us in a timely manner helps move your case forward. During your personal injury claim, we need to work as a team, and we need to communicate with each other. You also need to communicate with your treating physicians. What about harmful products & slip and fall cases? Whenever you are hurt by anyone’s negligence, including that of a builder, land lord, real property owner, a manufacturer or a store merchant, you have a “personal injury” claim. Products liability (injury by harmful or defective product), medical malpractice (injury by a doctor, hospital or other healthcare provider), slip and fall (injury because someone did not take care of the walkway) are all subtypes of personal injury cases. Our firm specializes in automobile accidents, slip and falls, and products liability. We do not handle medical malpractice cases. Furthermore, we do not handle injuries that occurred while you were at work (“worker’s compensation cases”) unless a party other than your employer was the cause of your injury. Do I really need an attorney to settle my case? You definitely do not need an attorney for every small injury case. In fact, our office does not accept cases where there is little or no property damage or the injuries are minor. Why not? Simple. In a small case the work required by the attorney is not that significant, and the added value to the case by an attorney would not be significant enough to justify the attorney fees and costs, and might leave little or nothing for you after your medical bills are paid. We don’t believe that would be fair to you. Nonetheless, you should CALL an attorney on every case to determine whether or not your case falls in this category, as your case may be worth much more than you realize. For example, some impacts are relatively minor, but the vehicle impact may have caused the client to develop symptoms of radiating pain from the neck down into their hands and fingers which may be a sign of a very serious neurological injury, particularly in older clients or other persons who are highly susceptible to spinal injury even from minor trauma. Thus, we strongly encourage you to call an experienced attorney in personal injury matters on every case so that you do not settle a case for hundreds of dollars when a short call to an experienced attorney could have informed you that your case was actually worth tens of thousands of dollars. How do I find a qualified Personal Injury Attorney? Choosing an attorney to represent you is an important task. Your decision should not be made on the basis of advertising alone. The internet, television and radio are full of attorney ads. In particular, we believe that experience in the specific field of “personal injury law” is very important. The partners of Child & Gordon have been handling personal injury claims and lawsuits for 17 years, and have litigated thousands of automobile accident cases involving all manner of orthopedic, neurologic, emotional and other injuries. We do not handle bankruptcy, divorce criminal or other cases. Our experience and results result in a high retention rate of referrals from prior clients and medical professionals. See below: “How important is experience and expertise in personal injury cases?” How important is firm experience and expertise in personal injury cases? Personal injury cases are actually highly complex and the value of your case can be greatly impacted by having the right attorney who has the medical knowledge, legal experience and expertise, resources, experts and firm organizational structure to support a complete and timely work up of your case. It is our opinion that many attorneys merely dabble in personal injury cases for extra money, but do not have the knowledge, resources or expertise to truly litigate with an insurance carrier, and therefore will often take a quick settlement for a low dollar figure, not even realizing how great a disservice they have done for their client. The partners of Child & Gordon have settled thousands of personal injury cases, and we believe that our experience could play a definitive role in the outcome of your case. Our attorneys are extensively trained in personal injury law and cater to that field of study in our continuing education. Personal Injury is our exclusive area of expertise, and every facet of our firm is set up from beginning to end to accomplish the goal of maximizing your recovery, including our specially tailored legal software, high tech paperless system for ordering and maintaining medical records and personal injury case data and legal documents, advanced demand letter formats that includes highly specialized biomechanical research, and a complete office system that revolves entirely around the processing, handling, and effective administration of personal injury cases. Our non-attorney staff are trained and experienced in this area of law. Our partners have cross-examined and deposed hundreds of expert witnesses in personal injury cases, including orthopedic surgeons, neurological surgeons, spinal surgeons [both orthopedic and neurologic emphasis], neurologists, medical doctors, physical therapists, chiropractors, biomechanists, accident reconstructionists, vocational rehabilitationists, etc. When you bring your case to Child & Gordon your case will be assigned to a “team” of trained professional attorneys, paralegals, case managers, and administrators. This team will gather all the facts and learn everything we can possibly learn about your claim. This team will simplify the process for you, and help you navigate through the difficult and often complex treatment process, and assure that you obtain the highest quality objective forensic medical care and diagnostics available in order to assist you in maximizing your recovery. This team will work hard for you to bring your case to a favorable conclusion. What can I expect of Child & Gordon in a personal injury case? Here is a list of the tasks that we may do for you in a personal injury case. Remember that each case is different, and that not all of these tasks will be required in every case: Initial interview with the client by and attorney (we make visits out of our office for the convenience of our clients); Educate client about personal injury claims and process; Gather documentary evidence including police accident reports, medical records and bills; Analyze the client’s insurance policy to see whether there is any coverage which the client has that may pay all or a portion of the medical bills while the claim is pending; Analyze the client’s insurance coverage and make suggestions as to what coverage should be purchased for future protection; Interview known witnesses; Collect other evidence, such as photographs of the accident scene; Talk to the client’s physicians or obtain written reports from them to fully understand the client’s condition; Find medical providers that will work on a lien for clients with no health insurance or other benefits; Gather all forensic medical information and analyze causation and injuries, and obtain additional independent medical expert witness opinion, biomechanical expert witness opinions, or accident reconstructionist expert witness opinions, and corresponding objective factual evidence and medical forensic diagnostic studies as per physicians recommendations; Analyze the client’s health insurance policy or welfare benefit plan to ascertain whether any money they spent to pay your bills must be repaid pursuant to statutory lien subrogation rights; Analyze the validity of any liens on the case such as doctors, insurance companies, welfare benefit plans and employers may assert that they are entitled to all or part of the client’s recovery; Contact the insurance company to put them on notice of the claim, if this has not already been done; Decide with the client whether an attempt will be made to negotiate the case with the insurance company or whether a lawsuit shall be filed, and render legal analysis of liability, causation, and damages to the extent possible at this stage; If suit is filed, serve defendant, prepare the client, witnesses and health care providers for depositions; Prepare written questions and answers and take the deposition of the defendant and other witnesses; Produce to the defendant all of the pertinent data for the claim, such as medical bills, medical records, and tax returns; Go to court/file court documents for pertinent court dates such as case management conferences and to set a trial date; Prepare for trial and/or settlement before trial & prepare expert witnesses & client; Organize the prepare highly qualified experts for trial for medical testimony, biomechanical testimony, accident reconstructionist testimony, vocational rehabilitationist testimony, and other expert testimony; Prepare highly effective cross-examination questions to be used on defendants’ experts based on the medical records, forensic diagnostic studies, and sound medical science supported by publications and journals personally researched by our firm attorneys; Organize the preparation of demonstrative exhibits for trial; Prepare for mediation and/or arbitration; File briefs and motions with the court to eliminate surprises at trial, and/or eliminate prejudicial or other faulty evidence relied upon by the Defendant; Take the case to trial with a jury or judge; Analyze the jury’s verdict to determine if either side has good grounds to appeal the case Make recommendations to the client as to whether or not to appeal the case. (However, our contract with you does not obligate us to participate in any appeal.); At any point in the above, settle the case with the insurance carrier, process all final release documentation, checks, pay medical provider’s liens and other providers liens out of client trust account, and pay the client. Do we take cases involving clients who do not speak English, and what languages do we speak? We enjoy and welcome diverse clientèle of all languages, races, religions, cultures, ethnicities, and disabilities. We can hire interpreters for almost any language, or you can opt to use family members, relatives, friends or other persons who are fluent in both English and your particular language to aid and assist you in our initial intake meeting with an attorney. Our current staff members speak Spanish, Tai, Lao, Hmong, Vietnamese, Russian, Ukrainian, and Norwegian. We gladly take non-English speaking clients, and encourage all potential clients to not let your language or cultural barrier deter you from seeking out an attorney to represent you in your personal injury case. Your legal rights are not lessoned in any way simply because of the language you speak. Are there any issues that can hurt my case & what is my role? There are many things that a client can inadvertently say that can hurt a case, which can be taken out of context by a good defense attorney or insurance adjuster. However, here are some areas you may want to consider: a) Clients sometimes ask their attorney to refer them to a doctor. Your attorney will handle the legal aspects of your claim. Your treating physician(s) should handle your treatment and referrals to other physicians. Child & Gordon does not refer clients to specific doctors, however, if you have been referred to a specific type of specialist but you do not have insurance to pay for such a specialist, we can recommend several physicians in that field that you can choose from that will work on a lien basis, meaning that they will send our firm the bill and we will pay them out of the recovery in your case. This will assure that you receive desperately needed medical care as a result of another’s negligence despite the fact that you do not carry health insurance. b) Do not hide past accidents from your attorney or the insurance adjuster. The reality is that the other side likely already knows if you have been in prior accidents. All insurance companies subscribe to insurance databases that have all of this information and often the only reason they ask you about prior accidents is to test your credibility. Be honest. Tell the truth in all aspects of your case. c) Do not hide past injuries. If you have seen a doctor in the past, there is a record in existence that the insurance company will find. If you lie about it, and the insurance company finds out, your case could be over. Ironically, having a past injury that has been exacerbated by an accident is often worth as much or more that a wholly new injury, depending on the level of exacerbation. Once again, be truthful at all costs. d) Not having accurate tax returns in cases where you are self employed. Most of the time, a claimant will have lost income. You will only be able to claim lost income if your past tax returns are pristine. Again, being honest with your attorney is the only way to be, because he or she can deal with the problem if they know about it. e) Misrepresenting your activity level. Insurance companies routinely hire private investigators to conduct video surveillance. If you claim that you cannot run, climb, stoop or lift, and you get caught on videotape, your claim may be over. There is no explanation that overcomes the eye of the camera. Nevertheless, if you can perform these activities but they cause increased pain, or you “pay for it later," simply say so. The attorneys at Child & Gordon are not afraid of trying cases where there has been video surveillance (and have done so on more than one occasion and prevailed) so long as the client was honest about their medical condition. Can I file a lawsuit in Small Claims Court? If you are unable to agree with the insurance company or other driver regarding property damage, and you do not have collision coverage, you can sue in small claims court. Small claims courts are designed to handle cases where the amount of the dispute is $7,500 or less. There are small claims courts located throughout the Northern California area. However, if you were injured in the accident, you will have to make a claim for “both your injuries and the damages to your car.” You should always talk with an attorney before making this decision. If you file in small claims court on the property damage claim, you may later be prevented from pursuing your claim for personal injuries in a separate lawsuit. |