Exactly.
I always do..it is (sometimes) your only proof of intent to defraud. Judges have winked at insurance fraud cases for years..but we all pay for this.
Five years ago my wife was accused of denting a guy’s truck bumper-I called my insurance agent out..and they investigated:
the guy claimed he had four people in the ruck at the time (the truck was parked and empty)
He also claimed over $2500 in damage (the “bump” left no visible mark.
Thankfully, my insurance company fought back..but most firm pay these thieves and allow fraud to happen.
I completely understand everything that you are saying; what I am saying is that my insurance company bought my version of events, believes as I do that she is likely milking the system with aid from a “1-800-GET-PAID” type attorney, and they are STILL probably going to throw a small amount of cash at her to just make it go away, rather than go to the expense and effort of a trial. This is a huge, glaring flaw in our legal system. And I’m a huge, glaring hypocrite because I’ve always known about it, and only became indignant about it when it affected me personally 
I wouldn’t even begin to know how to fix it. I thought about laws that would limit the average personal injury lawyer from setting up a “You Pay Nothing Now!” kind of operation, but that would also mean that people who are legitimately injured via someone else’s gross negligence, and didn’t have the means by which to pay a retainer fee, would also be out of luck. I suspect that this will always be a flaw in our existing system that will always be exploited by scammers.
I don’t think my situation actually rises to the level of “frivilous” lawsuit (readily acknowledge I have no legal training, and my ‘authority’ comes from google searches of dubious websites) because I did not contest the citation, nor her version of events (I did tell the police officer that she had initially said I almost hit her and then changed her story). So frivolous it’s not, at least, in technical terms.
I suppose I could reassure myself that if I didn’t have insurance, and faced a civil suit, I could always recoup my losses by standing on my brakes the next time someone follows me too closely, staging a slip 'n fall in the local grocery store, or watching closely for a driver with his/her head turned so I can slap the hood of the car and claim I was hit (I googled this - it is actually a real scam). I’d have no shortage of lawyers willing to take on my “personal injury” cases. But then, that would make me a reprehensible, bottom-dwelling, scum-sucking leech attached to the pimpled ass of our tort system. Choices, choices.
You know, I didn’t focus much on how she was behaving, because it was a stressful situation and the circumstances wouldn’t bring out the best in anyone. When I was hit from behind a few years ago, a minor fender bender but other driver clearly at fault, I was aghast when he climbed out of his car and the very first thing he said to me was “Why did you stop!!! You had plenty of room to keep going!” … we were pretty much parked on the highway, and I had not stopped. I was already AT a stop and in that awful moment where I could see him coming up too fast upon me and had time to know I was going to get hit, and wonder if I was going to be plowed into the car in front of me too. He was clearly and fruitlessly attempting to CYA, and my reaction to him wasn’t pretty. I get stress, and the righteous anger over harm coming to you based on someone else’s carelessness. I even fantasizes about ‘whiplassssssh’ not as a way of collecting payola but as a means of getting even with him for being an asshole.
But perhaps I should have mentioned that, in addition to her agitated pacing, yelling into her phone at whoever was attempting to calm her down, yelling at me and calling me every colorful name she could pronounce (and some she couldn’t), yelling at the very courteous parking attendant for calling her “lady” (ok he was mostly polite), when I asked her to explain why she said I almost hit her and then said that I DID hit her, she responded with: “Who the fuck are you to tell me I’m lying? You’re lying to my face right now!” And before the lawyers clamor to defend her, I get that it is her word against mine. I am skeptical that in the “trauma” of the moment, she didn’t know that she’d been hit, or perhaps she was confused and meant that I’d almost killed her. But I’m not in a court of law, defending my honor. I am certain of two things: I was not at any time lying and was in fact quite stupidly open and honest. And she did say that I almost hit her.
This is the reason behind my skepticism towards her. I guess I will never know for absolute certain that I didn’t. I’m not even angry with HER so much as just resigned and disgusted. I certainly caused her a fright, if it wasn’t orchestrated, and I admit that I don’t have any proof that it was.
My real contempt is reserved for a system that allows for punitive damages no matter how minor or insignificant, and given that she did own a DEGREE of responsibility for walking into the street in front of me rather than directly behind me on the pedestrian cross, I don’t see where punitive damages are warranted. She seemed physically fine. She was a’pacin’ and hopping mad. I was actually afraid of her. She was screaming even more incoherently into the phone at whoever was talking to her. I was leaving work, with the government center right in front of us, and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps she’d just left a mental health appointment. I was relieved to return to my car and watch her pace and shriek behind me. It was not a normal reaction to what had just occurred. I called my husband while this was going on and had a bit of an emotional breakdown because I wondered if I’d set off a mentally ill patient.
But she sure got her act together fast when the police arrived. She was the very picture of cool and calm. I watched her performance until one cop broke away to come question me. She wasn’t gimping or favoring one leg or sitting down to recover from the trauma. She was just as composed as she could be. As if they were discussing the weather.
I am a little surprised by some of the feedback that I’ve gotten. I had just assumed most reasonable people would find the whole thing as implausible and outrageous as I did. And we’d swap stories about who has the most ridiculous scam story. And we’d all break out the angry mob paraphernalia and roast us some personal injury lawyers. I am not unaffected by the man-on-the-street assessments. It is something to think about.
The lawyers among us, however, are cordially invited to bite my ass. Though they hardly need an invitation for that
Go look up the standards for awarding punitive damages and come back to tell us why you’re wrong.
Homework?
OK, you’re right. That was sloppy. If the case were to go to TRIAL, there are standards.
There is also another standard for cutting losses and offering a lowball settlement that is less than the cost of defending a lawsuit, even if there may be a reasonble degree of certainty that a jury of peers would find “patient complains of leg pain” to not be a basis for awarding any pain & suffering damages.
That is the standard that I have a problem with.
You have no clue what you are talking about. “Punitive damages” has a very specific meaning, and applies only in certain circumstances, which do not appear to exist in your case. Pain & suffering are elements of compensatory damages, which is an entirely different concept.
Maybe before you launch a broad brush attack on the legal profession you should try to learn a little bit about the law.
I had a very similar event happen to me one day when I was leaving for work, except I really did hit not one but TWO people, although after yelling at me, they kept going and one bounced off my hood.
In my case, I was getting ready to turn right on to a busy street and looked right, but then looked left waiting for a break in traffic and was inching forward. Though there was a hedge blocking some of the view to the right, I could probably see about 20 feet of the street.
What I didn’t see was two young women who were out for a morning run and decided it was a good idea to run in front of (instead of behind) my car since I was already in the crosswalk. I was mortified I did this and felt my heart jump out of my chest when I saw the one go off my hood, but I must admit thinking about it now, it does irritate me. If I was a pedestrian and saw a car blocking my way ahead, I would always make eye contact with the driver to make sure they saw me or else I would go behind the car if there was any question as to whether they saw me. I find it odd these runners didn’t think to do that, but I’m grateful neither one even suggested suing me.
Sorry, I’m too busy filing my nails as a government wage slave. I’d rather earn my law degree via Google and internet message boards, just like everyone else who didn’t actually (or technically) go to law school.
I may not be using the right legalese, but average Joe/Josephina understands what I mean, just fine. As do you.
Any response for post #37?
IANAL, and I’m not giving you advice, and I am most definitely not qualified to give you advice, but here’s some anyway:
On the off chance that this matter ever goes anywhere, it might not be the best idea for you to discuss your case on a message board that anyone, anywhere, can read, especially not if you’re going to write stuff like “I own a degree of culpability.”
Not unless you apologize for the snark and rephrase it in a way that doesn’t question my professional ethics. Probably not even then.
I think you just answered it.
You just asked him if he was willing to help someone commit fraud for less than a thousand dollars. Isn’t it obvious that he would get irritated by that?
The way the process generally works, is that once the case is filed, and the Defendant is served, the Defendant has a period of time to file a response.
During the lawsuit, both sides can propound Discovery. This generally consists of document production requests, interrogatories, and depositions. For something where one party is claiming injuries, they will have to produce their medical records going back quite a ways, and they may have to submit to a medical exam.
Years ago, I did a summer internship at an insurance defense firm. They would routinely subpoena medical records, and have their expert examine the Plaintiff. I remember getting twenty odd years of someone’s medical records and having to review it.
It sounds like the insurance adjuster is reviewing the medical report that the other side is producing. They may try to settle for nuisance value, but if not, they can easily fight it. A lot of the insurance defense firms are actually employees of the insurance company. It doesn’t cost them that much to fight the case.
Look, Oakminster is not explaining the holes in your theory very well, but there are rather a lot of them, so it’s not his fault. That’s not a slight on you, though. I work for a law firm that defends personal injury cases, so trust me when I say I’m far more jaded about frivolous claims than you will ever be. He’s absolutely correct; it’s just hard for you to see where he’s coming from without a view from the inside.
(1) You frankly admit you didn’t see her, so how can you be sure the noise you heard was just her hand?
(2) She was almost run over. It’s quite believable that she would say “I can’t believe you almost hit me” when what she meant was “I can’t believe you almost seriously injured me.”
(3) You haven’t seen her medical records. Police officers are not physicians and are not qualified to, nor particularly interested in, documenting minor injuries.
(4) Your insurance company already has a complete history of her prior insurance claims. However, the fact that she has sued for personal injuries before is not necessarily indicative of a fraud. She may just be unlucky.
Thank you. I hadn’t thought of this, because it’s a screen name and not entirely associated with my real name, but somewhere, somehow, I am sure it can be traced back to me.
I haven’t disclosed anything that I didn’t already (unfortunately) disclose to the police and my agent. Not that I would have lied anyway; I would have just been more insistent about her own degree of negligence.
I did hear from my agent late this afternoon. They are rejecting her claim. He explained why, and what this could mean, but anticipated a favorable ending. I am being cautious, but will say it wasn’t rejected for suspicion of fraud. It was for another reason that I had not anticipated but was very, very happy to hear. If anyone is actually curious, I will respond with slightly more detail in PM.
Not exactly vindication of what was discussed in this thread, I will say. But some personal relief about things I had been questioning and only alluded to here.
I’m glad things are working out the way you wanted, but I think you owe all the lawyers who posted here an apology. And so does Czarcasm. A few bad apples don’t spoil the whole barrel. We’re generally a pretty ethical bunch.
Good luck with everything and watch out for pedestrians.
Would probably be taken as admission of fault, leaving the poster open to being sued for damages.
So you think lawyers should be protected from snark? This isn’t a courtroom-this is the SDMB, and when you respond like this you should expect to get some back.
You’re right. I was a bit of an ass, minus the ‘bit of’, and I do sincerely apologize. I was lumping the lawyers who remarked here in with my general skepticism of a system that I believe has many exploitative faults, but even for all that … it is also why we live in a country where we can walk into stores and purchase products that we can believe are not defective, can go to restaurants without fear that we’ll leave with something nasty percolating in our guts, and, in the case of Pizza Guy’s rather serious (and oddly, hilarious) explanation of events with his case … we can recover damages when we are seriously injured. In a little over a week I will be vacationing for a month in Malaysia, my husband’s place of birth. I have also lived there for a brief period of time, but long enough to see (and miserably experience) what can happen when there is no general fear of liability and lawsuits among the general populace.
I am not acknowledging anything other than what I already have about the circumstances that prompted me to start this thread, but will make myself wide open to the charge of madly generalizing fool, and hope that a very sincere apology will stand in for a stay of execution.
ETA: “we live in a country” etc … I still can’t get away from my standard default assumption that this board is wholly populated by Americans, apparently.