I'll bet you would drive better with that cell phone up your ass.

The BBQ Pit
101

Things have changed a lot in just one day. I got a call from the insurance adjuster, asking me to take my bike to the local Harley dealer for an estimate. When I mentioned that the custom paint wasn’t done at the dealer, he just asked me for pictures. He asked me about my leathers, did I know what it would cost to replace them.

He did explain several times that his job was to put me back where I was before the accident, make things right, but that I shouldn’t expect to replace my medium quality gear with top quality gear because that would not be what happens.

Then he said that he knew that I’d taken a couple of days off of work and wondered if $500 would be enough to cover that.

He said that after the Harley dealer contacted him with their estimate and he got my pictures of my paint job, they would cut me a check right ASAP because he wanted to get me back on the road right away.

I asked why the first person had said that those things wouldn’t be taken care of and he gave what sounded like a well practiced talk about how motorcycle claims were hard because they didn’t have amortization tables for custom work, which is why it was bumped up to him.

By this time, I was having so much trouble not shouting “THAT’S FUCKING BULLSHIT!!! THE ONLY REASON YOU ARE DOING THIS IS BECAUSE I LAWYERED UP!!!”, that I told him to send me the numbers and hung up.

I knew that the call was recorded and didn’t ever say that I agreed to anything he said. Lots of “hmmmm” and “I see’s”.

Next I called my lawyer. (I have never said that before…odd feeling.) Lawyer sounded positively gleeful. I’m to sign nothing and agree to nothing, lawyer wants full control now. Junkyard dog mean lawyer’s contract gives him 30% over my payment and an invitation to our wedding for lawyer and his wife.

(According to lawyer, he hasn’t seen Bill for a “coon’s age” and wants to catch up. There won’t be a lot of catching up happening in the middle of a formal wedding and reception, but whatever. Bill sounded happy that lawyer wanted an invite, so they are now on the list.)

Oh…and he’s asking for 100 grand for my pain and suffering and another 50 grand for Bill’s loss of sex. He says the pics of my naked body artfully draped with a towel to only show the bruises are great.

So, now, I’ve been hit by a selfish bint because she’s too busy talking on her new smart phone to pay attention to her driving, I’m dealing with a sleezy insurance estimator who lies and a lawyer who seems to fit all the stereotypes.

I sure wish I had stayed home on Saturday. I’m sure I could have found much more fun things to do. I could have been cleaning my fridge out.

Dang, I’m hijacking my own thread. Gets back on track…back when I started riding, when I saw someone weaving on the road, I assumed the driver was drunk. Now I assume the idiot is on the phone.

102

Gotta say, flatlined, I’m positively chortling with glee. I’m so glad Bill got you that lawyer, and I’m equally glad said lawyer is a pitbull.

103

Haha! It sounds a bit shystery, but don’t worry. He’s going to do right by you. The first settlement request is always some ridiculous amount, with the implicit understanding that it will be negotiated downward.

Speculating from my claim background here: they probably reassigned your claim to a senior handler who regularly deals with litigation. Litigation adjusters have significantly more latitude and higher authorization limits (in terms of $$). The first guy you talked was probably just a basic handler who has claim payouts nickle-and-dimed by his boss. Save more money and get a bigger bonus at the end of the year. Most claims start off with a basic handler and get assigned upward as needed. Nature of the beast!

I gotta say, though, I’ve never heard anyone try to claim “loss of sex” on behalf of an injured party’s partner. That’s a new one. Apparently it’s called “loss of consortium” and can actually be a legitimate claim (yay for armchair research!).

104

The Lawyer is doing his job. Most of these demands are bargaining chips that will be severely reduced during negotiations. Can’t say I have much sympathy for the insurance company - their policies, universal or not, got them to this stage. Most companies really have these things in place to avoid the ‘well the Ming Vase I had in the car that was hit was worth $100,000!’ scams, but they really fail to see the forest for the trees when they start arguing over $200 worth of cloths in a case where their client is 100% at fault.

105

I’m so glad that you’re okay flatlined! And good for you going after her & her insurance company.

I’m trying really hard not to say anything inappropriate here, and I’m sure no other Dopers will either :slight_smile:

106

:eek: :eek: :eek:

Hey, it’s not that I don’t think Stupid Cellphone Driver deserves to take a serious financial hit over this on pretty much any pretext that can be dreamed up.

But…this information is going on a statement that’s going to be filed in court for other people to see?

What if the opposing lawyer argues that adequate replacement sex during the period of deprivation would have cost Bill no more than, say, $500, and offers that amount instead? Does this issue get discussed in open court?

:eek:

Well, in any case, I hope the insurance company and/or the stupid driver have to pay big bucks for this one. That was definitely one of the most revolting instances of reckless carelessness and selfish disregard for others that I’ve ever heard about in the context of car accidents.

107

How do you go about proving in court that your sexual favors are worth $50,000?

108

Submit receipts from the hookers?

109

Take bids from the courtroom?

110

It occured to me that if her cell phone had GPS, she really might drive better with it up her ass.

111

Q: When tracking a person in the snow, how do you tell a drunk from a cell phone user?
A: You can’t.

112

I got sued when I was 18 for “loss of consortium” when a lady crossed the double yellow and hit me head on. I was driving my mom’s Grand Caravan and she was driving uphill in some shitbox.

I will never forget the deposition for as long as I live. The lawyer for my insurance company split up the lady and her husband and asked each of them individually, point blank, how often they had sex and whether the collision had affected their sex life. They must have been in their late 40s or so.

Husband: “We have sex four or five nights a week, easy. Accident affected our sex life for a week or two, and then we were right back in the saddle.”

Wife" “Once or twice a week, tops. After the accident I was kind of sore so we couldn’t have sex for a few weeks, so we fell out of the sex habit and it was great because I didn’t care for sex much.”

Meanwhile I was being sued for $500k on the lack of consortium grounds alone. It was sad because the couple had no idea what they were even suing me for. They just wanted easy cash, and their lawyer just made up some standard crap to get $50k out of my insurance company.

113

How on Earth would they have any grounds to sue you when she was the one that crossed the double yellow and hit you?

114

Ain’t that the truth! I just now saw this thread, I’m so glad you’re OK flatlined! Glad you’re lawyer’d up too!

115

Out of commission for three weeks at four times a week – what’s that, about forty grand a pop? Nice work if you can get it.

116

This was 16 years ago and I live in big city and don’t drive much, so my explanation may not be precise.

I live in a no fault state with a serious injury threshold. As I recall, to sue, you just need to claim that your injuries exceed a certain level of seriousness. Between the lady and her husband, they claimed that their injuries were $1.5M (yes, one-point-five million dollars) more than they received from the insurance settlement. They probably got $30k, $50k tops from the insurance company, of which their lawyer likely took a third.

My wife promises to sue for at least this much if something should happen to me.

117

That’s the point, I don’t use it in the car virtually ever, unless there’s some sort of emergency or situation where the people that I’m trying to drive to need to know about, like a wreck ahead that means I’ll be pretty late.

118

What is it, you don’t use it in the car or you use it in the car when you deem that there’s an “emergency” or “situation” that warrants it?

119

You guys are cracking me up!

I’m not sure how the lack of sex thing will work out in court, we don’t even live in the same state. I think my legal pitbull is just tossing everything he can at the insurance company. He wants $10,000 for cosmetic damage for my $5,000 bike. That is pretty embarrassing, I’m really not the sort of person to spend 5 grand on modding the looks of my bike.

OTOH, I’m having a LOT of fun with Bill over that 50 grand. Of course, I’m totally worth it…this is his one and only chance to fuck a smerf, afterall.

Rachellelogram and Mr. Miskatonic, thank you for explaining that.

My pitbull kinda told me that, but he wasn’t really clear.

I’m not allowed to discuss any details in any online way about the case anymore. My pitbull was very clear about that, which saddens me. There is going to be so much entertaining stuff happening.

I am having unholy amounts of glee every time I imagine that stupid bint and her husband discussing their lawsuit.

They totally deserve the heartstopping fear that she put into me and that poor guy who almost ran me over.

I really do wish that cell phone use in cars was banned out here, but it isn’t. Distracted driving is a civil offense, but its kinda hard to prove unless a stupid bint almost kills people and then wails to all the witnesses that she had just broken her phone.

120

Sorry about the frivolity of the claim against you (and hope it didn’t work), but I can’t help snickering thinking about how hubby must have felt about wife’s comment about not caring much for sex. :smiley: