Believe it or not, your credit score can affect your auto insurance rates. What’s a credit score? It’s a risk rating calculated from credit reports using special mathematical formulas. Lower scores result from paying bills late, having few or no credit references, or poor credit-card practices. Even fiscally responsible consumers suffer premium increases of more than 100 percent when insurers credit-score them. For 34 years, Mattie Grainger from South Carolina insured her autos with Allstate. She had a perfect driving record, few insurance claims, and enjoyed safe-driver discounts. Yet Allstate raised her premiums, telling her she didn’t qualify for a lower rate because of a low credit score. Grainger’s credit score was low because she simply didn’t need extensive credit. Many argue that applying credit-scoring in preparing insurance quotes or policy premiums is inherently unfair. We do, too.

To minimize injuries in a collision or rollover, automakers have a legal duty to design and construct car, truck, and SUV roofs that provide structural protection to drivers and passengers. Sadly, that’s not always the case.

A 16-year-old was a belted front-seat passenger in a 1998 Ford Explorer rollover accident. She suffered a spinal fracture and head injury that caused partial quadriplegia, memory loss, and impaired ability to organize and process thoughts. She has limited use of her arms, uses a wheelchair, and requires assistance with daily living activities. Injury to her lungs paralyzed torso muscles, so she trained herself to breathe using her diaphragm. Her past medical expenses totaled about $1 million, and future life-care costs are estimated at $20 million. Her attorney sued, alleging the Explorer’s roof was not crashworthy and could not withstand the impact of a foreseeable rollover collision. The parties agreed to a confidential structured settlement before her suit was filed.

Sometimes we must discredit frivolous lawsuit myths. Corporations have spent millions to spread falsehoods about how lawsuits are out of control and responsible for all of America’s ills.

Facts often tell a different story. Take, for instance, the popular legend that a woman sued because she spilled coffee on her lap. Those looking to weaken civil justice mocked Stella Liebeck and the McDonald’s coffee case. Unfortunately, the case’s facts are no laughing matter. Ms. Liebeck’s injuries included third-degree burns—the most severe—to her groin, inner thighs, and buttocks. She was hospitalized for eight days, undergoing skin grafting and surgical removal of damaged tissue.

What really happened? Ms. Liebeck sought to settle her claim with McDonald’s for $20,000, but management refused. At trial, McDonald’s grudgingly identified more than 700 victims burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1993, some involving third-degree burns like Ms. Liebeck’s. McDonald’s clearly knew of the hazard. The company’s quality-assurance manager testified that any food served above 140 degrees is a burn hazard.

McDonald’s coffee was kept at a scalding 185 degrees. A jury awarded Ms. Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages, but reduced the amount to $160,000 because they found her 20 percent at fault for the spill. The jury also awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages, equal to two days’ worth of McDonald’s coffee sales. This was eventually reduced to $480,000, even though the judge called McDonald’s conduct reckless, callous, and willful. Jurors expressed similar sentiments in interviews after the trial. Ms. Liebeck and McDonald’s eventually entered a post verdict settlement.

What is insurance bad faith?

It’s when an insurer of businesses, disabilities, homes, lives, or vehicles refuses to live up to what it promised to do for a person it insured. Just as you are obligated to pay premiums, insurers are obligated to live up to the terms of their policies. Our clients have experienced many of the tactics that insurers use to avoid dealing with clients in good faith:

• Offering an unreasonably low payment for an auto accident claim.
• Unfairly delaying investigation of a homeowner’s property-damage claim.
• Misinterpreting policy language to refuse to pay a business-loss claim.
• Denying payment of a death-benefit claim by retroactively canceling a policy.
• Unilaterally declaring that an injured or disabled worker is well enough to return to work.

If you have paid your premiums and feel an insurance company has treated you unfairly, please contact us today at (480) 833-8800 or attorney@sgplaw.com.

Who’s really at fault? While driver errors cause many vehicle accidents, other accidents occur because of factors outside any driver’s control. Drivers who believe they have been injured because of others’ carelessness or negligence should seek counsel from an experienced auto-accident attorney.

Here is a case in point. An 18-year old driver swerved to avoid a head-on collision with a truck that careened into his lane. He steered to the shoulder, which was six inches below the road. His car spun around and collided with a guardrail, which sliced through his car’s left side and nearly severed his left leg and arm, and fractured his right leg. He underwent 34 expensive surgeries an extensive rehabilitation. His accident attorney sued the county, alleging the road’s shoulder and guardrail were dangerous and failed to meet state highway standards. A jury recommended a multimillion-dollar award to cover past and future medical costs and pain and suffering.

Use the “Golden Hour” after the accident to gather information to protect your rights:

·         Get immediate medical aid for injuries.

·         Call an attorney for advice right away.

·         Admit no wrongdoing. Sign nothing.

·         Also……..

o   Write down names and addresses of witnesses.

o   Call for police. Ask officers to write an accident report. Request names, badges, and phone numbers.

o   Try not to move cars until police arrive, unless vehicles impede traffic.

o   Ask for other drivers’ and witnesses’ names, addresses, and insurance information.

o   Write all cars’ tag numbers.

o   Inform your insurance carrier.

o   Use your cell-phone camera to photograph injuries, damage, skid marks, and other relevant images.

The shock of getting into an accident, being injured, or losing a family member in a crash can be traumatic.  Equally nerve-rattling is that a victim may face life-changing injuries, discomfort and pain, police questioning, complex auto insurance forms, and unfeeling adjusters who pressure to settle quickly.  Next come medical treatment and rehabilitation, medical bills, lost wages, and vehicle and property damage.  A victim may even suffer partial disability, permanent impairment, or loss of ability to enjoy a normal life with his or her spouse and family.

If you’ve been a victim of an auto accident, contact our team of personal injury attorneys today!

As you can probably guess, no two personal injury cases are alike.  Attorneys can’t respond to “What’s my case worth?” until they do a lot of case homework.  Here are factors we weigh:

1.       Nature of injuries

2.       Injury treatment needs

3.       Treatment cost and amount already paid

4.       Future medical treatment costs

5.       Types of treatment, from surgery to rehabilitation

6.       Where the suit will go to court

7.       If you were partially at fault

8.       Your prognosis

9.       Preexisting medical condition

10.   Wage, benefit, and vacation losses

11.   Future wage-earning limitations

12.   Third-party insurance coverages

13.   Emotional-and mental stress value

14.   Loss of spousal consortium

15.   Property-damage deductibles

16.   Similar verdicts in local courts

17.   Defendant’s insurer

18.   Judge assigned to case

19.   Defendant’s counsel

Answers to these questions help build mutual trust between a client and attorney.  With mutual trust and credibility, we can strive to earn injury victims fair outcomes.

When someone slips, falls, and suffers injury because of another’s negligence, an attorney familiar with premises liability accidents can help.  Victims can obtain compensation for medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other damages.  An experienced personal injury lawyer can assess the incident, communicate with property owners, negotiate with insurers, locate witnesses and experts to testify for the plaintiff, and if required, present the case at trial.

Politicians, television commentators, and magazine writers sometimes ask why trial lawyers file “junk” auto accident, medical malpractice, or product liability lawsuits. Lawsuits are never “frivolous” to people who are seriously injured.  Just ask victims of an auto accident how inconsequential their injuries and suffering seem and if their lawyer’s services were frivolous.  Were the extensive medical and rehabilitation bills that someone incurred after slipping and falling on a piece of squashed fruit on the floor of a supermarket produce aisle trivial?  Talk to the mother of a child disabled during childbirth because of a hospital’s negligence about how insignificant her baby’s lifelong care costs and her own emotional pain are.  Injury lawsuits and our strong civil justice system help deserving individuals obtain justice and hold wrongdoers accountable.  Civil justice attorneys work to make sure everyone has a fair chance through the legal system-even when it means taking on the most powerful corporations.