Vlog: Case Timeline Section #2 - Pre-Litigation

Transcription:

Hi guys, Matt Clendenin here. Hope everyone's doing well. We are now in the second stage of the five stages of the case timeline. Again, this is based on our new pamphlet, personal injury case timeline. We're just trying to help our clients and anybody understand the process of a personal injury case. The second stage is what's called pre litigation. Litigation's just a fancy lawyer word that means you have a lawsuit in court. You officially have a lawsuit in court. Some people say we're in a lawsuit. Other people say we're in litigation. Some people just say we're in court. All that means is that we have started the official process with the court. 

So if your pre-litigation, we haven't done that yet. And so there's a lot of stuff that happens in the pre-litigation section that's really key for your case. The most important thing about pre-litigation is, if you're able to settle your case without a lawsuit, it saves a lot of time and it saves a lot of money for everybody. 

So if we are pre litigation, there's a lot of work that's done with the defendant and their insurance company, to try to figure out what their policy limits are. You know, we investigate your medical treatment to see if this case is a larger case or a smaller case. And we see if it's possible to settle a case pre-litigation. Generally speaking, cases that can be settled pre-litigation are much smaller and also don't have any tricky issues. So if everyone agrees that it's one person's fault, you know, let's say it's a rear end car crash, pretty straightforward. And the defendant says, look, I'm sorry, it's my fault. You know, no one's gonna argue whose fault it is. And let's say the victim's injuries are relatively minor. You know, they went to the ER, they saw their doctor, they got some physical therapy, maybe some chiropractic care, but then their injuries got better. You know, we're not going to fight over that. It's just not worth it because lawsuits are very expensive and litigation is very expensive. So that's a case that might settle pre-litigation.

Another type of case that settles pre-litigation is when there's a policy limits issue. This is not a fun thing to talk about, but in California, the minimum insurance for personal injury is $15,000 per person. A recent insurance study showed that about 13% of drivers who are on the roads have minimum insurance. That means that anytime someone gets hurt, there's a 13% that the person who hurt them only has $15,000 to cover the case. So, sadly in a lot of cases during the pre-litigation stage, we figure out that there's not very much insurance. And then you're stuck in a really sticky spot of, do you accept the insurance offer? But if you accept the insurance offer, you have to let the person off the hook, you're settling your case, or are you going to try to sue this person directly, above and beyond their insurance. And that's almost never advisable. You turn into a collection company, it's just like, American express or visa, you know, a credit card company. You're going to try to track somebody down for your personal injury case? It's usually not worth it. So policy limits can cut a case off right at the beginning. And if there's a policy limits issue, your case isn't going to go to court. 

So those are the things that we try to wrap up in the pre-litigation stage. The way we do that is by negotiating with the insurance company, we send settlement demand letters, requests for policy limit disclosure. We send letters that threaten bad faith. If the insurance company doesn't play ball, those are the types of things we do in Pre-litigation. Once we get an offer, or once we figure out that a case is not going to settle, it's up to you and your lawyers to decide whether it makes sense to either take what you can at that stage, or go to court and fight for more. 

That's a tricky process. And of course we're balancing the litigation costs. Because the lawsuit costs a lot of money and time because a lawsuit is going to take two years, at least. We're also balancing the attorney fee because most lawyers increase their percentage that they charge if you file a lawsuit. So here at the Clendenin Firm, we have a pretty standard fee structure. We charge a third of the total settlement if we settle pre-litigation. But if we go into court, we go into litigation. We raise that just about 6% to go up to 40%. That's just because it takes so much more time and there's a lot more risk. So that's the second stage, that's pre-litigation. We're going to jump into the third stage next week, which is litigation itself. Take care guys.