This past Sunday, I was driving one of the county ambulances to a medical emergency, and I was being followed by 2 other squad members in their private car. I missed the driveway of the address we were called to, hit the brakes, and my ambulance was rammed at low speed by the trailing car. No appreciable injuries, and none for me at all.
Damage to the car was a hole punched in the cosmetic bumper of the car, and the step bumper of the ambulance was loose and bent. It was repaired a couple hours later the same day, and the unit is back in business. If this had occured off the road, I doubt we would have even bothered with calling the Highway Patrol for a report.
My lame rant? My wife just called me at work, laughing hysterically, because I recieved a solicitation from a PI lawyer to represent me for my pain and suffering. Four days after the event, with one of those a weekend day. For added irony, in May, she rear-ended someone else at hghway speed, and we’re just now getting past her medical and legal fallout from that episode. She got the same solicitations then, and knew what this was on sight.
"You money grubbing, ambulance chasing bastards. You don’t even take the time to see that I was driving a government vehicle on an emergency run on government time, and was hit by someone who was also on the same emergency run, albeit lawfully driving their private vehicle. Even if I was hurt, this would not be my case to give to you if I wanted, because it’s a matter for the Rescue Squad’s insurance coverages.
Personal Injury Lawyers: first against the wall when the revolution comes."
I was hit by a car while on my motor cycle. One of my coworkers called the next morning pretending to be Ron Bell. About twelve years ago when I was living in Albuquerque Ron Bell was an annoying little guy who ran a lot of TV ads saying he could get you money if you were injured in an accident.
I was ticked off. They had me going and didn’t tell me it was them until I came back into the office.
You’d like to kill all PI lawyers because one asked to represent you in a situation in which, in your amateur opinion, there were no cognizable legal claims? Geez. I’d hate to see what you’d do to telemarketers.
No, he wants to line up all the personal injury lawyers on general principals. It’s just this one letter that brought things to the point to rant about.
I too hate it when I go to the Supermarket one week and buy a few bottles of wine, then next week I get a circular through the mail from that supermarket advertising their wine specials. They didn’t even take the time to work out if I had bought the wine the previous week because I had to take it in for a work social event. For all they know I might never drink at any other time.
It’s just a solicitation. You appeared in an accident report, and so are a potential plaintiff. God forbid you just throw the damn thing away. And unlike most advertising, solicitation by PI attorneys is incredibly highly restricted.
Not illegal, just very highly restricted. I seem to remember in VA it has to say it is a solicitation from an attorney on the outside of the envelope, or at least at the top of the letter. And their are time limits usually regarding how soon after the accident one can get in contact.
It’s been a while since I took the Ethics exam and I don’t solicit customers myself, so I am not too up on that aspect of things.
IIRC, mail solicitations / ads are ethically OK because there is no high pressure sales tactic or manipulation by the attorney. The recipient has the easy option of simply throwing it away. Junk mail sucks though.
Sure, why not kill them all? Lawyers are nothing but the larval form of politicians.
:rolleyes:
To make my point absolutely clear: I was not injured, and it was not my vehicle that was hit. Not only do I have no grounds for a tort case, but also in my arrogant opinion, the fact that we were responding to an emergency should relieve her from sizable portion, but not all, of the liabilities involved.
ETA: Telemarketers should be used as human trapshooting targets. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Yes they are, but I doubt that any of them go trolling through the NC accident report database to get your address(es) for their solicitations. That’s a practice I find particularly vile and slimey.
If you are in Massachusetts, as your “location” seems to indicate, then my memory is that it’s ok to solicit by letter, but not by phone or in person. It’s been a few years since I took the bar exam, though, so I wouldn’t rely on that memory without looking it up.
VunderBob, it’s unlikely that the lawyer was able to actually see the accident report to know that you probably didn’t have any legally cognizable injuries. But the fact that you were responding to an emergency wouldn’t actually affect your damages as much as it would affect the choice of defendant. If you get hit by a police officer carrying out her official duties, she might be immune, but you might have a claim against her employer, instead. Even if you have the same employer. Since it occurred while you were working, it’s possible that you would have to go through Workmen’s Comp (or some government employee equivalent) first.
I hope you never actually get injured due to someone else’s negligence in a case where you actually need an attorney to recover.
Unbelievably vile and slimy for someone who represents injured people to go to an accident report database to find potentially injured people who might need legal representation. And then sending them a letter!
Many people lack the education to know when they’ve been legally wronged, or to know what to do about it if they have. But aside from this, do you hold all solicitations to the same standard? All advertisers should be condemned. If you want a shiny new gadget, by golly, you’ll call them?
:o :dubious: :smack: 
:rolleyes: