TheOhio truck accident lawyersat GB Law have been protecting Ohioans for more than 35 years and understand the very unique aspects of trucking industry regulations.
While our attorneys are very familiar with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) and standard practices, we also work closely with trucking industry experts who have an in-depth understanding of the training, recommendations, and knowledge level required of trucking companies and their drivers.
When a truck accident occurs, we look closely at records and determine if the truck was within weight limits or had the necessary permits to be overweight.
Axle Weight Guidelines in Ohio
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulates the trucking industry, and state laws set forth limits on the height, width, and length of commercial trucks.
The Ohio Revised Code and the Ohio Administrative Code are the authorities on the maximum allowable weights on roadways and bridges in the state. The Ohio StateHighway Patrol enforces Ohio trucking rules and regulations.
Maximum weight limits for trucks in Ohio are as follows:
This establishes the maximum weight any number of axles on a motor vehicle may carry on the interstate and federal highway systems to reduce damage.
The bridge formula was enacted by Congress in 1975 under the Federal Bridge Law to limit the weight-to-length ratio of a vehicle crossing a bridge.
The Federal Bridge Formula has three primary components:
The maximum weight allowed on a single axle is 20,000 lbs.
The maximum gross vehicle weight (GVW), or the maximum allowed total weight on any group of consecutive axles on a vehicle, is determined by the Federal Bridge Formula.
The maximum gross weight on interstate highways is 80,000 lbs, even when the result of the formula is greater.
One exception to the bridge weight formula exists: The maximum total weight allowed on any group of two or more consecutive axles spaced eight or fewer feet apart (i.e., tandem axles) is 34,000 lbs.
Additionally, Ohio takes tire loads into account when calculating weight with a specific formula. For each axle, the maximum weight allowed is the number of tires, multiplied by the tread width of the tire in inches times 800.
Why Exceeding the Ohio Bridge Law Weight Limits Causes Truck Accidents
The Federal Bridge Formula is designed to protect bridges and reduce damage to roads. But overweight and overloaded trucks can also put motorists at risk.
Overloading a truck affects its maneuverability and makes its various components more prone to failure, and the vehicle ismore prone to rollover or jackknife (where the trailer swings from behind the truck and moves forward to create a jackknife position).
Our legal team can help you understand your rights and options to recover compensation for your injuries in a free consultation. If we represent you, we will take immediate steps to ensure that everything is done to preserve your case. As part of our contingency fee arrangement, there are never any fees unless and until we recover money for you.
For more information, call GB Law at 614-222-4444.
At GB Law, we are proud to announce that several of our Columbus personal injury attorneys have once again made the Ohio Super Lawyers list for 2023.
J. Scott Bowman
Michael K. Geiser
Matthew E. Ice
Our attorneys have a long-standing track record of success in advocating for the rights of our clients in Columbus and across the state of Ohio.
What is the Super Lawyers Award?
Super Lawyers is a distinguished organization that recognizes and celebrates the outstanding, peer-recognized successes of some of the world’s most accomplished members of the legal community.
The goal of Super Lawyers’ patented multi-factor selection process is to produce a credible, diverse, comprehensive list of exceptional attorneys that clients can use as a resource when seeking legal counsel in their area.
Making the Super Lawyers list is an accolade achieved by fewer than 5% of lawyers in any state. It is earned by those that have gone above and beyond to demonstrate expertise and success within their practice area.
Other GB Law Super Lawyers Achievements
Amongst our outstanding attorneys, we’d like to recognize other Super Lawyer milestones and achievements in consistently delivering the highest quality of work, diligence, and resources for their clients.
On September 28th, 2022, a GB Law client met with attorney Mike Geiser to pick up his settlement check, putting a conclusion on two of the most difficult years in his life.
Our client sustained extensive injuries due to a motorcycle accident in early September 2020. His injuries were serious enough that he needed ongoing medical treatment for a year and a half after the accident.
To add insult to injury, the insurance company blamed our client for causing the wreck even though the defendant motorist turned in front of him, causing the collision.
We filed a lawsuit in Franklin County, which was settled through hard work, creativity, and persistence.
We hope our client’s positive experience working with us will encourage other injured motorcyclists to choose us as their Columbus motorcycle accident lawyers.
Upper Arlington dad ordered to pay families of students who got sick eating marijuana edibles
COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 16, 2022 – GB Law partner and personal injury attorney J. Scott Bowman will be representing two families affected by the negligent actions of an Upper Arlington father who left THC gummies in reach of his 10-year-old daughter.
Scott Macre’s daughter thought her father’s THC gummies were leftover Easter candies and took them to Windermere Elementary School, where she shared them with four of her classmates.
The five children (including Macre’s daughter) experienced hallucinations after eating the THC gummies and were promptly taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital for treatment on April 22, according to TheColumbus Dispatch.
In May, Macre pleaded guilty to inducing panic, obstructing official business, and possession of a controlled substance — all of which are misdemeanors. Prior charges of four counts of endangering children were dropped.
On June 14, Macre was sentenced to two years of nonreporting probation. As part of his probation, Macre is required to fulfill any insurance claims for medical bills. He was also ordered to pay court fees, a $300 fine, and up to $5,000 in restitution that would be split evenly among the four affected students’ families if they are not otherwise compensated.
GB attorney J. Scott Bowman is working on obtaining a settlement from Macre and Macre’s homeowner’s insurance company. These settlements would be in addition to the court-ordered restitution which was split amongst all of the victims, and did not cover the medical bills and other damages sustained by the clients.
National news outlets have been watching one of the state’s largest murder cases involving Dr. William Husel, 46, who worked as a nighttime physician at the Intensive Care Unit of Mount Carmel West Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
From February 2015 to November 2018, Husel was known to prescribe extremely high doses of fentanyl painkillers to his patients. Over the course of two and a half years, numerous deaths of patients occurred, which were documented by the Columbus Dispatch. The ages of the patients who died ranged from 37 to 82.
After questions were raised about patient care, Husel was fired on December 5, 2018. At that time, the hospital notified the State Medical Board of Ohio and met with the Franklin County prosecutor. After an internal system, the hospital system said it fired 23 nurses, pharmacists, and managers.
In the nine-week murder trial which concluded earlier this month, jurors considered whether Dr. Husel was providing compassionate “comfort care” to patients near death or was intentionally overdosing them to hasten their deaths. In their opening argument, Franklin County prosecutors stated that the case was not about “comfort care” but about a doctor’s abuse of sick people.
Ultimately, after six delays of deliberations, Husel was acquitted on 14 counts of murder. Although he had been charged in 2019 with 25 counts of murder, a county judge had dismissed 11 of the charges, for reasons that are still not clear.
Husel was defended by Jose A. Baez. If the name sounds familiar, Baez famously represented high-profile defendants Casey Anthony, Aaron Hernandez, and Harvey Weinstein. Baez argued that there was “no such thing as a medical murder case.”
For the family members of all of Dr. Husel’s victims, the verdict is disappointing. However, he still faces civil liability related to his patients’ deaths. The civil justice system often plays a significant role in bringing victims closure, albeit a different type of closure. The burden of proof in a civil case is different than that in a criminal case. In the criminal cases, the prosecutors had to convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt, that Dr. Husel intended to kill his victims. In a civil case, the plaintiffs, who are the estates of the deceased victims, will have to prove that more likely than not, Dr. Husel’s decisions and actions were negligent and that his negligence was the proximate cause of the victim’s deaths.
A common example of exoneration in a criminal trial but a different result in civil court is the OJ Simpson case, where Simpson was acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman but ended up with a $35 million verdict against him in the civil case. Although Dr. Husel did not testify in his murder trial, he will most likely be deposed in his civil case.
In Dr. Husel’s case, the hospital’s involvement is significant, particularly their administrative action of firing 23 other employees. If the hospital’s negligence, or the negligence of their employees, contributed to the death of patients, they may also be liable for their actions. In the end, the families who lost loved ones who were in the care of Dr. Husel and/or Mt. Carmel will have a second opportunity to seek justice in Ohio’s civil justice system.
We will be closely watching the development of the civil case and the implications for Ohioans, especially the most vulnerable of all needing critical care.
If you’ve been injured in a car accident, you may be wondering how your settlement will be handled by a claims adjuster and calculated by an insurance company.
What is the settlement value of a personal injury case?
What factors go into the decision?
How do they calculate the compensation and/or damages you are eligible for?
In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at how car accident settlements are calculated and the factors that may reduce the settlement value of your case.
How Do Insurance Companies Calculate a Car Accident Settlement in Ohio?
Historically, a claims adjuster would manually take down your information and provide the calculations for your car accident claim. The modern approach to calculating a car accident claim and settlement value doesn’t quite have the same human element it used to.
Today, when a claims adjuster takes your information, they enter it into a specialized piece of software. The software runs an algorithm that automates most of the accident claim assessment and valuation process for them.
The program is able to provide a settlement value based on high-level data the insurance adjuster provides it — vehicle information, policies, driver information, accident reports, etc. Note: This can include any call recordings they have of you discussing the details of your accident with them as well as medical records from your doctors.
These programs can take this information and reference it against hundreds of thousands of other “similar claims.” Insurance companies use software to streamline and automate processes, which saves them a lot of time and money. Using a software program also eliminates human sympathy or rationale that a claims adjuster may have.
Unfortunately, profit is their top priority. Far more so than taking care of the health, well-being, lost wages, pain, suffering, and accident-related expenses of car accident victims. Insurance companies will always put their profits before people.
The problem with an automated settlement calculation is that there is no room for nuance.It likely won’t factor in critical information that may be totally unique to your claim vs. others in their database, such as…
The variety and severity of your injuries
Current and future medical care expenses for your injuries
What you’ve personally lost in wages while being injured and out of work
Critical details of how your accident impacts your personal and professional life
All of these elements play a major role in putting together the full scope of economic and non-economic losses you have suffered from your car accident that are totally unique to you and your claim.
If insurance adjusters’ best interests are in preserving capital, and they (and their software) don’t factor in all of these data points and unique aspects of your accident, how can they possibly offer you a fair settlement?
How Do You Respond to a Low Settlement Offer?
We highly recommend you do not speak to a claims adjuster on your own, negotiate your claim, or accept an offer before youcontact a personal injury attorney.
The best way to respond to a low settlement offer (or any settlement offer) is with experienced legal representation from our attorneys.
In our experience, it’s rare to see insurance adjusters make fair initial settlement offers to any car accident victim.
In fact — because of the company’s financial interests — it’s commonplace for them to downplay accident victims’ injuries and expenses. This leads them to propose inadequate settlement offers that are far less than what is necessary to cover the damages, lost wages, and expenses incurred by victims.
This is especially true if they are aware that you do not have legal representation.
If you choose to negotiate your claim on your own, you could be missing out on tens of thousands of dollars that you may not only be entitled to by law, but that you may need to cover critical expenses and losses associated with your accident.
Insurance companies are also aware that not all personal injury attorneys or firms are the same. Some firms have reputations for accepting first offers or refusing to file a lawsuit for their client. Insurance companies track these firms and know just how little it will take to resolve claims with them. At GB Law, we have a reputation of being true trial attorneys who will file a lawsuit and go to trial, which equates to better settlement offers because insurance companies know we are not bluffing.
Don’t go into debt over your car accident injury.
Our Ohio personal injury attorneys have decades of experience in representing our clients’ best interests — fighting for fair settlements in negotiation, renegotiation, and litigation against the insurance companies.
A personal injury attorney should negotiate your claim or case for you.
Our injury attorneys work closely with all our clients to put together a full scope of the unique economic and non-economic losses they have and may have experienced as a result of their accident, without leaning on generalized outputs from claims software. Each claim, case, and settlement we work on and build is totally unique to each of our clients.
To further support our clients, our attorneys can discreetly reference detailed records of similar claims and cases we’ve worked on in the past. We can use this along with professional insights from doctors, engineers, vocational experts, economists, and/or other specialized experts we have worked with in the past to help us gain a better understanding of the nature and severity of your accident, and the current and future damages you may incur as a result.
These resources can give us indispensable leverage in building the value and validity of your claim.
To help our clients even further, our firm works on a contingency fee basis, meaning you will not have to pay for anything of our legal services unless we are able to successfully settle your claim or case.
Get the Car Accident Settlement You Deserve with GB Law
If you’ve been injured in an accident, you may be wondering what the next step is. Our personal injury attorneys realize that navigating the legal and insurance process can be daunting.
Unless you’ve been through the injury claim or case process in the past, the legal vocabulary can be difficult to navigate.
Many of the questions we receive from our clients include:
What is a personal injury claim?
What’s the difference between a claim and a case?
What is a settlement?
What is a verdict?
In this blog post, we will explain what personal injury claims are along with some of the key steps in the personal injury case process.
What is the Difference Between Personal Injury Claims vs. Cases?
What is a Personal Injury Case?
The nomenclature can be a little different depending on who you speak to. We often refer to a “case” as when a client seeks legal representation in the process of filing a claim and/or seeking legal recourse with their insurance company.
Some firms may use “case” or “legal case” interchangeably with “lawsuit.” From a technical standpoint, your case doesn’t become a lawsuit until a personal injury attorney files a lawsuit against an insurance company.
What is a Personal Injury Claim?
Filing a claim with the insurance company is the initial step car accident victims take toward seeking compensation for lost wages, medical bills, pain and suffering, and damage to their vehicle that were a direct result of the accident.
An insurance claim is the report submitted to an insurance provider after an accident. A claim may be filed with the at-fault insurance company, your own insurance company, or both. When a claim is reported, they often ask for the details and circumstances surrounding the event of the accident and for information about the extent of the injuries you incurred.
The claims process can vary depending on the insurance company involved. If you have claims with your own car insurance provider, the type of claims may vary depending on the coverage or insurance you have purchased. Insurance companies assign each claim a claim number, which is open from the moment they take record of it.
Note: In general, we recommend that you do not speak to a claims adjuster and/or open an insurance claim without consulting with a personal injury attorney first. Here are some other tips on How To Talk To Insurance Claims Adjusters in Your Injury Case.
What’s the Difference Between a Settlement and a Verdict?
Cases will typically end in one of two ways:
Settlement
Settlements require all parties involved to agree on a specified payout amount. The settlement process involves your lawyer communicating with the insurance company to negotiate what is fair and reasonable compensation for the economic and non-economic losses related to your claim or case. Settlements can occur before a lawsuit is filed or after. Settlements after a lawsuit has been filed are often times reached through a mediation process.
Keep in mind: Insurance claims adjusters’ primary goal is to lower or diminish the value of your claim by any legal means possible.
At GB Law, our experienced personal injury attorneys can work with you and advise you on whether the settlement the insurance company offers you is reasonable or not.
Unlike some personal injury law firms, our attorneys at GB Law work off of a contingency fee-based structure. We will not take a dime for any legal services rendered unless we are able to recover a settlement in your case.
When parties cannot agree on a settlement offer, the case will go to trial. There, a jury or judge will determine the outcome of the case and payout amount to the claimant (and possibly other issues, such as who was at fault or negligent, etc.). That final determination of a case is known as a verdict.
Many personal injury law firms strongly prefer reaching a settlement to avoid litigation at all costs. This is due to the fact that many firms lack litigation and trial experience in pursuing insurance companies in court.
Our attorneys have decades of experience in not only successfully reaching settlement agreements outside of court, but also in taking insurance companies to trial on behalf of our clients when necessary.
In fact, The National Trial Lawyers (an invite-only organization of premier trial lawyers) lists GB Law as one of its top-100 trial law firms.
If you’ve suffered one or more injuries from a car accident, calculating the amount of money as compensation for your pain and suffering is a major part of putting together yourpersonal injury claim.
However, this process is more complicated than it sounds. How do you calculate the full scope of physical, mental, and emotional pain and suffering caused by a car accident?
Our car accident attorneys have over 35 years of experience in calculating and factoring in pain and suffering in order to build full, fair, and reasonable claims.
Today, we will provide an overview of how to calculate pain and suffering in a car accident claim, taking into consideration key aspects of your lifestyle that help inform these damages.
What are Pain and Suffering Damages?
Pain and suffering damages are types of compensatory damages that are awarded to plaintiffs who have been injured in accidents.
These damages are intended to compensate the injured person for the physical pain and mental anguish they have suffered as a result of their injuries and trauma.
Pain and suffering damages also take into account how your injury and trauma impact activities in your daily life, such as your sleep, relaxation, hobbies, and your ability to do the activities you enjoy.
Because these are non-economic damages, pain and suffering damages can be more difficult to calculate an exact value of your pain vs. economic damages like lost wages and medical bills which have a precise dollar amount.
What is Considered Pain and Suffering in a Car Accident?
Pain and suffering from acar accident can include (but is not limited to):
Pain interrupting your work activities, leading to poor performance reviews or frustrated employers
Difficulty remembering tasks
Severe anxiety and stress, such as when getting back behind the wheel of a car or being overwhelmed by doctors appointments
Inability to do activities you enjoy, such as exercising for health or social interaction with friends
Pain that keeps you awake at night
All of these things can affect your ability to live your life to the fullest, and to the full extent that you could prior to the accident.
How Can I Prove Pain and Suffering?
While it’s easy to calculate property damages and medical expenses, current and future pain and suffering damages can be challenging to figure out on your own.
Fortunately, our personal injury attorneys can help calculate them for you.
Our attorneys can help you document examples of how your injuries and trauma are impacting your work, daily life, and activities you enjoy.
Medical Records for Emotional Distress and Physical Pain and Suffering
A personal injury lawyer can also review medical records and doctor’s notes that can bolster proof of any pain and suffering you’ve experienced. These are crucial pieces of evidence our attorneys can use to paint a picture of your health, mental health, activities, and quality of life before and after the accident.
Pay Stubs and Timesheets for Lost Wages
Your pay stubs and work timesheets may be good resources to prove some of the financial losses you’ve incurred from any pain and suffering your injury caused. Any communication from your employer regarding your quality of work before and after the accident can be useful in settlement negotiations with insurance companies as well.
How Do You Calculate Pain and Suffering Damages?
While a pain and suffering calculator can estimate the value of your claim, it may not take into account more specific, special damages.
A calculator cannot pin down the severity of the pain and suffering you have endured following the accident and your injuries or how your injury affects the ability of things you like to do.
Using a simple web tool to calculate a pain and suffering settlement amount also means the historical data of cases like yours, if any, would be limited, and you might not be getting fair compensation.
Our attorneys can discreetly review previous, similar car accident injury claims and other personal injury cases we’ve worked on in the past –– as a reference for calculating pain and suffering for your claim.
This historical data from other car accident cases can serve as a valuable resource and benchmark for estimating the non-economic losses you have suffered.
Along with these records, the skilled personal injury lawyers at GB Law may also use the following methods of calculating pain and suffering:
Multiplier Method
We can calculate pain and suffering damages by multiplying your economic damages (i.e., medical expenses, lost wages, etc.) by a factor depending on the level of pain you’ve suffered. If your pain is more severe, then we’ll use a higher multiplier.
Per Diem Method
The per diem method sets a daily rate of compensation based on the days of pain and suffering that you have endured (and may continue to endure) following an accident.
Note that these are simplified explanations of how we can calculate damages for pain and suffering. It’s important to work with attorneys practicing personal injury law. GB Law’s team has more than 35 years of experience seeking compensation for pain and suffering.
You are entitled to a fair amount of compensation for your pain, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that you receive as much compensation as possible.
What Should I Ask for in a Settlement for Pain and Suffering?
Your negotiated settlement amount should factor in pain and suffering (non-economic losses) as well aseconomic damages like lost wages, medical treatment, and rehabilitative care.
Our experienced attorneys can help you calculate the economic and non-economic damages you have suffered from your accident.
We can then review the insurance company’s initial settlement offer to let you know if it is fair or not. If it isn’t, we will put together a formal counteroffer and help you renegotiate your settlement, continuing to fight for what you deserve.
How Much Can You Claim for Pain and Suffering Compensation in Ohio?
Since 2005,Ohio has been subject to tort reform, which put a $250,000 cap on pain and suffering claims.That sum can be as high as $350,000 depending on the amount your economic losses for items like your medical bills and lost income.
However, this limit does not apply to catastrophic physical injuries or some permanent injuries that prevent a client from being able to care for themselves.
Why Do I Need a Personal Injury Attorney?
Our experienced personal injury attorneys know how to locate and obtain the evidence needed to prove both the economic and non-economic damages of your case.
Preserving the evidence needed early and comprehensively will enable us to fight for the full and fair settlement you deserve.
If you’ve been in a car accident, you will likely have to talk to an insurance claims adjuster. Though speaking with them may sound simple, this process is often deceptive, challenging, and daunting.
Navigating this process alone could mean missing out on tens of thousands of dollars — or even hundreds of thousands — in economic and non-economic damages that you may be entitled to by law.
Fortunately, our personal injury attorneys can guide you through this process. Our top priorities in working with our car accident clients are building a comprehensive claim, avoiding common pitfalls set by claims adjusters, and pursuing a fair settlement for your case.
The auto insurance companies should be notified of the location of your car as soon as possible. We recommend that someone immediately tell the auto insurance companies where your car is located so that the damage can be inspected as soon as possible. This means that you, your lawyer, or a family member should provide the location of your car to the at-fault driver’s insurance company and your own auto insurance company. However, you should never give a recorded statement to the at-fault driver’s insurance company.
Continue reading to learn more on how to talk to insurance claims adjusters and what they are looking for in a car accident claim.
What are Insurance Adjusters?
An insurance claims adjuster is a professional who works for an insurance company. Their job is to review car accident claims and determine how much money the company should pay out. They will also be your primary contact working with you to settle your claim. You may have several different adjusters to deal with; one for the damage to your vehicle, one for your bodily injury claim, and even another one for your medical payments coverage claim. You must be very careful in dealing with all of them.
Initially, insurance adjusters will make it sound like they have your best interests in mind. To you, it may seem like they are working with you to ensure you get a full and fair settlement that accounts for the economic losses, expenses, pain, and suffering caused by your accident.
However, insurance claims adjusters are not out for your best interests.
In fact, their job is the exact opposite. They are out for the best interests of their employer, the insurance company, and it is in the best interests of the insurance company to pay you as little as possible.
Their “script” will include things like:
“There’s no need to contact an attorney.”
“We will pay your medical bills.”
“As your insurance provider, we’ll handle everything for you.”
Meanwhile, they’ll put your bills in a file and opt for inaction during the claims process, as your lost wages, medical expenses, therapy, and rehabilitation bills start piling up.
What Does an Insurance Claims Adjuster Look For?
Insurance claims adjusters actively listen for anything they can use to
Create doubt in your injury claim, and;
Reduce your total settlement.
Even the smallest details can affect your ability to get full and fair compensation for your car accident injury or personal injury claim.
For example: Say you mention to the insurance adjuster that your treatment seems to be helping and you are starting to feel better. However, after you get back to all of your normal activities, your condition declines because you still aren’t fully healed.
The insurance adjuster will use your comments about getting better as evidence that your accident injury had healed and that something else was now causing it to get worse. This seemingly innocuous bit of information can often be enough for them to either substantially lessen your claim or throw it out entirely.
What Should You Not Say to an Insurance Adjuster?
Do Not Sign Any Medical Authorization Forms for the Insurance Company
One of the worst things you can do is give medical authorizations to an insurance claims adjuster. Signing a medical authorization gives the insurance agency full access to all your medical records, even those not related to your injury claim.
Again, they will use anything they can find in your records to cast doubt on whether or not the accident was the sole source of your injury and trauma in an attempt to reduce the cost of your settlement.
Our attorneys can guide you through this process and away from the common pitfalls that car accident victims fall prey to when speaking with insurance adjusters on their own. Once you hire one of our personal injury attorneys, more often than not, you won’t even have to talk to an insurance claims adjuster. We do the talking for you.
Do Not Share Details About Your Injuries with the Claims Adjuster
Mentioning anything related to your health or injury is a huge risk. Remember: sharing the smallest detail with the claims adjuster can weaken your claim and decrease your settlement amount.
Do Not Share Details About Your Prior Medical Conditions or Old Injuries
You may have seen your primary care physician or other doctors before the accident for numerous medical conditions that have nothing to do with the car accident. Do not share this information with the claims adjuster. The claims adjuster will use any information that you provide about medical treatments you had before the accident to undermine your injury case.
Do Not Tell the Adjuster Details About the Accident
Do not share any information about the accident, either. In some cases, sharing too much information (or any information) about the accident itself may result in the insurance company claiming you’re the at-fault driver when that may not be the case.
For example: You mention to the insurance adjuster that, as you approached an intersection with a green light, you noticed the at-fault driver in the opposite direction, in the left turning lane, waiting to turn left. You then say you continued to proceed toward and through the intersection because you had the right of way, and all of a sudden, the at-fault driver turned left in front of you, causing the collision.
Believe it or not, a slick insurance adjuster will use your “admission” that you saw the other vehicle getting ready to turn as an admission that you failed to keep a proper lookout and, therefore, the wreck is partially your fault. Yes, that is ridiculous, but it is used all of the time by insurance companies to devalue your claim.
What Should I Say to My Insurance Adjuster?
Before speaking with an insurance adjuster, you should contact our office first for information. Insurance adjusters handle claims all day every day. Level the playing field by finding out how to protect yourself rather than falling victim to traps you otherwise wouldn’t be able to avoid. If you decide to hire one of our attorneys, you won’t have to speak to an adjuster at all.
Our attorneys will take your insurance claims adjuster’s contact information, and serve as their direct point of contact as we guide you through the claims process.
There’s a saying that goes, “A person who represents himself has a fool for a lawyer.” This directly applies to personal injury claims and cases.
Don’t get taken advantage of by insurance adjusters. A seasoned personal injury attorney or firm are the only parties qualified to negotiate with an adjuster and formally handle your claim or case.
In addition, trying to negotiate with an insurance adjuster on your own is, in itself, another common mistake that can quickly devalue your claim. In circumstances like this, we see insurance adjusters fall back on, “If your accident was so injurious or traumatic, how are you healthy and able to represent yourself?”
Our injury attorneys have decades of experience in avoiding these pitfalls, speaking with insurance adjusters, and representing clients through the injury claims process. We know what to look out for and will fight for our clients and the settlement they deserve.
How Do I Get the Most Out of My Insurance Claim?
To get the most out of your insurance claim, contact GB Law today.
Later this month, the Ohio Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Amanda Brandt v. Roy Pompa. Ms. Brandt, who as a child was repeatedly raped and assaulted by Pompa, bravely sued him for the lifetime of pain and struggling she suffers as a victim of trauma. During the trial, the jurors heard extensive evidence about what Ms. Brandt had gone through and how her life was forever changed by this abuse. The jury found Roy Pompa legally liable to Ms. Brandt for the extensive pain and emotional suffering he caused her.
After the trial, Pompa successfully invoked Ohio Revised Code Section 2315.18 to reduce his legal liability to Ms. Brandt. This law places an arbitrary cap on the non-economic damages that a jury may have evaluated as higher or worth more than what the cap provides. Although the creators of this law candidly admit that the law was never intended to protect rapists, there is nothing written in the law to make a distinction for courts to follow.
As a result, Amanda Brandt has appealed the Ohio Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of this Ohio law. The Supreme Court has the authority to review laws and ensure that they “bear a real and substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals, or general welfare of the public and not unreasonable or arbitrary.” As evidenced by this case, a law that allows a rapist to shield themselves from legal culpability is not in the best interest of Ohioans’ public health, safety, morals, or general welfare.
A considerable number of groups representing corporations and insurance companies, including the United States Chamber of Commerce and Ohio Association of Civil Trial Attorneys as well as Ohio Attorney General David Yost, have also filed amicus briefs in support of Roy Pompa.
Why Would the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or Ohio Attorney General Yost File Briefs in Favor of a Rapist?
It is likely that large corporations and insurance companies want to avoid legal responsibility for claims for which they may be liable. As evidenced by higher profile cases in other states, it is not uncommon to find out that employers such as medical practices, university, schools, and religious organizations fail to act when confronted with evidence of sexual abuse. These failures lead to more abuse and more devastating consequences of their inaction. However, if this Ohio law is upheld, they can protect themselves should cases against them arise in the future.
Is Anyone Challenging This Law?
Adding additional interest to this case is the fact that four of the justices that will be deciding this case will also be on the ballot this November in Ohio. Justice Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, is running to become Ohio’s next Chief Justice, replacing Republican Maureen O’Connor, who is ineligible to run for re-election. In a bipartisan approach, both Justice Brunner and Chief Justice O’Connor voted to re-examine the constitutionality of this law. Republican Justices Sharon Kennedy, Patrick Fischer, and Patrick DeWine voted against reviewing the statute, thus upholding the decision of the lower court to allow Roy Pompa to avoid the verdict rendered against him.
Judge Marilyn Zayas, a Democrat from the First District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, is challenging Republican incumbent Justice Pat DeWine, who is also the son of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. Judge Terri Jamison, a Democrat from the Tenth District Court of Appeals in Columbus, is challenging Republican Pat Fischer. It is likely that the Ohio Supreme Court will issue a ruling in Amanda Brandt’s case before the November election.
