Yes, my client fired me.  Or did I fire my client?  It’s hard to explain exactly who did what, but let me give a little bit of background.

My client was a long-time acquaintance.  I’d known him for decades. He was a professional who had referred some of his own clients to me when they needed a personal injury attorney.  I’ve handled a few cases for him personally over the years too. So when he told me about the horrific car crash he had been in, I was only too happy to help him out.

As is my standard practice, I emailed him my sign up forms, retainer contract, and requested the relevant documents from him.  I received them back and sent my letter of representation to the other driver’s insurance company.

And that is where the problem began.

My former client is a strong-willed individual, which has served him well in many situations. Unfortunately, it also meant that he sometimes did not accept advice that would have benefited him. He refused to listen to me, or heed my blogs, encouraging him (and you!) to always be well-insured, no matter what type of a rust bucket you are driving.

Unfortunately, that stubbornness led to a parting of the ways.  More on what happened to precipitate that below.

Horrific Injuries; Horrific Insurance Limits

 On its face, his was a pretty valuable case.  Hit head on by another vehicle, and he sustained many serious injuries, among them, fractured ribs, a fractured sternum, a lacerated spleen, a contusion to the heart, a head injury.  And that’s the simplified version.

So that sounds easy, you say.  Just get all the money you can for him.

And I did.  And it wasn’t much.  

Let’s back up.  The other driver had insurance, but it was limited to the state minimum of $25,000.  That should not have been a problem, if my client had robust insurance limits himself.  If he had, he’d have had a viable Underinsured Motorist (UIM) claim for up to the difference between his policy limits and the other driver’s limits.  For example, had my client had $250,000 limits, he could have recovered the $25,000 from the other driver’s carrier and then gotten as much as another $225,000 from his.  

Unfortunately, my client had a $29,000 hospital bill, just for the emergency room, and would have to undergo months of therapy.  Plus, his injuries would prevent him from working at his medical clinic for months. The potential damages in his case could very easily be considered to be in the $250,000-$500,000 range.

And they would have been.  If he’d had robust insurance.

Wait for it.  He didn’t.  Nope, he had state minimal limits too.

Meaning the $25,000 available was all there was.

What did I do? 

Settlement—Not

I obtained only the initial emergency bills and records, submitted them to the other side’s insurer, and demanded the policy limits.  Which they agreed to pay immediately.  I also negotiated with his health insurer to limit its recovery efforts solely to that initial hospitalization, and then secured a significant reduction in that amount. Finally, I presented this to the client.

And he refused to accept it.

He insisted the case was worth far more—it was—but refused to acknowledge that his own failure to have robust insurance limits made that academic. 

So I told him he was free to go find a lawyer who could do better.  I knew this was impossible.

Amazingly, he found someone to take his case.  And then I got a call from that lawyer wondering why in the world he had not accepted my settlement package of the policy limits.

And all I could do was ask him if this client was insisting his case was worth far more (he was), claiming it was too early to settle, and all the things he’d told me.

Yes, that’s exactly what happened.

The new lawyer agreed to do everything he could to convince the now former client to accept the settlement.  After many months, he was able to do what I had done earlier.

Fortunately, the new attorney is a fair person and agreed to share a portion of the fee with me, with the client’s agreement.

So I got fired, the client settled, and it all worked out.

But I’ll bet you a whole bunch of money that someone who should upgrade his insurance limits will not do so. 

Takeaways

  • Insurance limits control the realistic value of cases in most cases
  • Ensuring that your own limits are robust can protect you if you are seriously injured by an uninsured or under-insured driver
  • Having horrible injuries is not enough to get you a lot of money—there has to be enough in available insurance limits to collect.  Otherwise, all you have is a case that “could be” valuable.

Contact Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer Stephen Hoffman

As in all cases involving personal injury, auto crashes, dog bites or injuries, workers’ compensation, medical malpractice, or other injury and potential liability, if you have been hit by a vehicle immediately get medical treatment, report the crash to police and your own insurance company, and contact a lawyer with expertise in your type of case, such as bicycle accidents or pedestrians hit by cars.

If you’ve been in an accident and have questions, contact Chicago personal injury attorney Stephen L. Hoffman for a free consultation at (773) 944-9737. Stephen has over 30 years of legal experience and has collected millions of dollars for his clients. He is listed as a SuperLawyer, has a 10.0 rating on Avvo, and is BBB A+ accredited. He is also an Executive Level Member of the Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce.

Stephen handles personal injury claims on a contingency fee basis, which means you don’t pay anything up front, and he only gets paid if you do. Don’t wait another day; contact Stephen now.