Squeezing blood from a turnip: personal injury actions and judgment proof defendants.
All personal injury cases are not created equally.
You've seen the commercials, the social media advertisements, the anecdotes from dinner parties and gatherings. People often think that if you’re the victim of an accident on the road, you're somehow on the fast track to getting rich. That very well may be so! But it's likely a bit more complicated than that. Let me explain.
1. Insurance Policies Limit the Amount the Insurance Company Has to Pay
Insurance policies are contracts first and foremost — contracts between a company that runs statistical analyses and crunches various numbers to come up with what they say is a fair price for the consumer to pay for their services. And what is that service? In the context of a personal injury action, it's money.
Most people buy the minimum level of auto insurance required by the state because they don't think anything will happen to make it likely they'll need to file a claim. For automobile policies where the car is paid off, that means $50,000 per person for bodily injury, $100,000 per accident for bodily injury, and $50,000 for property damage. So if someone damages your car and injures you on the road, their insurance policy only has to pay up to $50,000.00 to cover your injuries and $50,000.00 for your car repairs — even if your car is totaled and worth $85,000, and your medical bills exceed $200,000.00.
That leaves you $35,000 short to replace your car and $150,000.00 short on your medical bills. What a terrible position to be in, right? Well, there's hope.
2. Insurance Policies Are Not the Only Source of Recovery
Actions against individuals who commit negligence are usually defended by the insurance company, but the action itself is against the individual. That means the judgment you obtain is against the individual. Once you have that judgment stating that money is owed to you, you can use it to place a lien on that person's assets and foreclose to satisfy the debt.
For example, say Ricky Roadrage is speeding at 100 mph and slams into 10-and-2 Timmy. Timmy is going to sue Ricky for compensation. But Ricky cheaped out on his insurance and only purchased $50,000 in coverage, and Timmy's medical and property costs exceed the limits. Timmy can hire Etheridge Law PLLC to sue Ricky's faux leather pants off. Once Timmy gets his $5 million judgment against Ricky, he can go through the process of placing a lien on Ricky's property — his cars, his antique furniture, his jewelry, his beach house, etc. After a lien is placed on those items, Timmy can force a sale to satisfy his judgment.
On the flip side, if Ricky Roadrage lives in an apartment next to N.C. State and is a college student with no assets and no money, then it wouldn't make sense to pursue him in court. Even if Timmy won and received a large verdict from the jury, it wouldn't mean much — because Ricky doesn't have any assets to satisfy it.
Conclusion
It's important that your personal injury lawyer conduct a thorough investigation of the defendant, the insurance policies available, and the risks and benefits of trial, because civil litigation is anything but straightforward. The fact that your personal injury attorney doesn't want to take a case to trial and is suggesting settlement does not mean they aren't advocating for you — it could mean quite the opposite, in fact.
