My sister’s husband injured his arm on a friend’s property while helping them with some minor construction. He had to have surgery to re-attach a muscle in his arm. Friends were not negligent and have used the medical coverage on their homeowners policy to pay out what it pays out. I believe it was $2500. My sister seems to think, since husband will be off work for 12 weeks to heal and does not have short-term disability insurance at his job, that these people should be offering them money to help out with that.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. I think it would be NICE if the friends offered to kick in some money but they’re certainly not legally obligated to since there was no negligence involved. It has me wondering what I’d do if I was the property owner where it happened.
Interesting situation. I assume you are not asking for “legal” opinions, instead, as to what we think socially appropriate. If so, I agree with you.
It is really nice to help someone out, but you have to consider the possibilities. My neighbor was pulling down a tree, but for some crazy reason my wife didn’t want me climbing up in his tree with a chainsaw! :rolleyes:
There is a reason for hiring bonded and insured workmen.
Yes, just socially appropriate. They offered her a low interest loan to help them get by and she hit the roof. I don’t know what to say to her (or whether I want to say anything) since I don’t see where the friends are obligated to do anything more for them. And I can’t see my sister shelling out money if the situation was reversed.
I don’t see an obligation on the part of the homeowners, legally or socially. When someone offers to help out a friend, they also assume the risk inherent in every day life. He could have just as easily hurt himself in his own backyard. Since they didn’t do anything wrong, I don’t see how they sure be seen as having an obligation to pay 12 weeks of his wages. For some people, that would be a major financial hit. Personally, I could afford it, and consider myself generous to a fault, but it wouldn’t cross my mind that it would be my responsibility to hand over the money.
And I predict that you could edit your OP to replace “friend” with “soon-to-be ex-friend.”
I wonder how far your sister would take this. If her hubby was shooting hoops in the friend’s driveway, and broke his ankle, does she think the friend should do more than cover the med bills through the insurance?
I see your OP says the insurance pay-out was $2500. Doesn’t sound like much for surgery and subsequent services such as PT. I could imagine going somewhat above and beyond that to cover copayment, or med costs not covered. But would never cross my mind to make up for lost work.
Did they ask him to help, or did he offer? If I were them, I would be offering to help out with chores around the house, to drive him to PT, bringing over food, and generally trying to get them through the 12 weeks, but I’m wondering why he doesn’t have short-term disability at work. Did he pass up the chance to get it in order to make his insurance premiums cheaper, or does his employer just not offer it? Neither of those things are the neighbor’s fault. Maybe BIL should learn a lesson, and if his employer doesn’t offer short-term disability, he needs to take out a private policy.
I think the friends have done all they are obligated to do. It would be nice if they volunteered to help with chores and the like, but that would be their choice. Just like hubby wasn’t obligated to help out; he chose to do so and accepted the possibility that he could get hurt. He could just as easily been hurt falling down their stairs - would the SIL expect the homeowners to pay for 12 weeks of missed work?
That just seems bizarre. I can see the justification in not helping monetarily. I can see offering to lend money to help out instead of giving money. A low interest loan seem strange. I’d like to help you out as a friend, especially since it happened on my property while you were helping me, so I’ll lower the interest rate, but, you know, I’d still like to make a little* money off of you*
She’s already made it clear they’ll no longer be friends with them and made a couple of other totally inappropriate remarks about entire populations of people based on their actions. I wanted some other points of view before I decide whether to open my mouth or not because my opinion is that they aren’t entitled to any more than what they’ve gotten.
If you open your mouth, I’d suggest you say little other than:
“Aw gee, that sounds rough. How bout them (insert sports team/weather event of your choice)?”
Your sister sounds like a borderline loon. Helping friends and getting injured in the context described by the OP does not entitle you to a blanket loss of income insurance policy. I can only imagine how they must feel if she’s pressing them for cash compensation. I suspect the loan offer is how they are setting limits on her when faced with her insane expectations.
A low interest rate on a loan is breaking even, you’re ignoring the time value of money if you think that loaning someone $2000 for a couple of years means you’re ‘breaking even’ when you finally get it back. Also, putting interest on a loan gives incentive for the recipient to repay the loan, instead of just putting off paying it forever. Also, by giving the loan a formal structure on paper with interest, if the ‘friend’ decides to stop being a friend, it’s possible to sue them in small claims court and garnish their wages for the amount plus interest, and interest makes that more of a breakeven than just getting money back.
Personally, I don’t loan more than ‘can you spot me dinner’ amounts to people and don’t really expect to see any money loaned out ever again, but if I was going to loan someone a significant amount of money it would definitely have interest.
Wow, I don’t really know anyone who would help out a friend and then want monetary compensation for their injuries beyond helping with the medical bills.
And this thread makes me very glad of that.
If a friend helped me, was injured during the course of it and then expected me to replace their income, I’d laugh in their face from the shock and gall of it. Then I’d say no. I simply cannot imagine asking for that if the situation was reversed.
Your sister’s husband should contact a local attorney to see what his actual options are. Many personal injury lawyers will offer a free initial consultation, and he can decide where to go from there.
I don’t think you’d be breaking even at all, I can just see an emotional reaction to an offer of a loan with ‘just a low interest’ as opposed to even an offer of no money at all.
I’m not condoning, of course, the demand of money to cover missed work.
Did the husband get injured because he tried to perform the task in an unsafe manor?
Not sure that matters anyway as the husband opted out of LTD. LTD, is dirt cheap at my place of employment and you would be a fool to opt out of it in my opinion.
Maybe they would be cashing out bonds or a CD, and they just want the same rate that they would get if they didn’t cash out, which is pretty damn low, and only significant when compared to a savings account.
You mean STD. LTD comes from the government, and works on the assumption that your disability is permanent, barring some breakthrough new treatment.
STD sounds funny.
Do we know the husband opted out of it, or maybe the employer just doesn’t offer it. Or maybe it’s tied to health insurance. I was in that bind once. When I got married, I wanted to go on my husband’s health insurance, because his was better than mine (he had dental, and a much better deal on prescriptions) and it was cheaper to have us both on one family policy than two single policies in two different places. However, I couldn’t get STD with his insurance; the only way to have it was to stay with my policy at my work. My type of work had actually a pretty good chance of a work-related injury that might lay me up for a week or so, so I really needed it.
Second year we were married, I got the option of just getting the dental.