I think one-third is standard. I’ve seen a range from 25% (out of court before a trial date is set) to 40% (in court), and variations depending on when settlement was reached.
Somebody above mentioned costs, and they can really add up. Copies, faxes, messengers, long distance phone calls, travel and mileage, depositions, transcripts, court reporters, expert witness fees, videos, medical records, jury experts, photo exhibits for trial, etc. Lawyers bill for all that stuff. It’s a racket!
Something else to consider is whether they settled too early. Shouldn’t a plaintiff be in as good a shape as they’re going to get before anyone starts talking money?
Lawyers bill for all that stuff because lawyers have to pay for all that stuff.
DoctorJ Wal-Mart is not a party to the lawsuit because they weren’t directly involved in the car wreck. Their claim for the money is based upon the terms of their health insurance contract with the plaintiff. Making them participate in the lawsuit would add unnecessary delay and expense to the process without adding anything of benefit.
Also, there is a long-standing and almost universal rule that discussions of insurance are forbidden in these cases. It’s not really fair to either party if you allow whether or not a plaintiff’s had insurance enter into the damage calculation. A jury’s job is to determine how much a plaintiff has been injured, not to look into to how the recovery will be divided after the fact.
The totalled car example works well here too. Joe Defendant runs into me and totals my car. I sue him. It’s the jury’s job to determine how much my car was worth. Should they award me more than it’s worth if I have insurance? Or if I don’t have insurance? The whole idea behind damages is to make people whole, not to provide a windfall. How does the existence of insurance relate to what the car was actually worth?
I did read the original article, which I hadn’t before my prior post. If anyone is to blame for this family’s situation, it’s their lawyer – not Wal-Mart. This wasn’t a judgment, it was a settlement. Steps could have been taken to structure the settlement so that the family kept the money. Wal-Mart could have been made a party to the negotiations and the agreement. Some jurisdictions allow you to specify that a settlement is for pain and suffering and not for prior medical expenses. Looks like nothing of the sort happened here.
If the existing medical expenses were utilized to establish damages in the settlement, then I can see where Wally World has a claim to at least a portion of those funds. I would think that expenses already incurred would always take precedence over possible future expenses.
What I don’t understand is why Wal-Mart’s interest, via their insurance company, weren’t a party in the settlement in the first place. While Wal-mart may not have been directly involved, they were via their coverage of the insured.
This has been my question since the beginning of the thread. Would it not be better as Wal-Mart to say "OK, look, here’s our legal eagle, he’s gonna beat up on the guy who did this to you. Know that we’ll be taking back, according to the clause $470,000, and a percentage of our fees, but the remainder is yours to apply to long term care’?
I think it would, and would also show Wal-Mart to be kind of corporation that they always say they are. Of course we know better, but still. I think corporations are not by definition evil, I think policies and self-imposed regulations can be, especially when they do to people what these policies did to the Shanks’.
I think this is an egregious miscarriage of justice and a moral crime of the highest order. I think that Wal-Mart is lucky to have Mr. and Mrs. Shanks’ son die in this Godforsaken war to protect their freedom to bankrupt his father and doom his mother.
My other question is why did they wait three years to sue for the money? Sloth, Spite, Stupidity?
Not that it will make a damn bit of difference to the folks in Arkansas, but I’m voting with my feet here. There were options available, whether through the quagmire of “policY” or wanton ignorance, Wal-Mart refused to see them. They won’t be getting another cent of my money until they make that family whole.
Legally they were right, morally, they were wrong.
I was in a car accident some years back, and got into a conversation with a family friend who’s a lawyer about suing the guy who hit me. He asked me a little bit about the bills and insurance policies that had paid them. He told me that that settlement I got would be too small to be worth it-- whatever was left after my legal fees would be taken by the insurance companies and the state. I’d go through a tremendous amount of stress and hassle for not much.
He also warned me that many unscrupulous personal-injury lawyers would tell me different-- because they’d get their money. This guy has managed legal affairs for my best friend’s (extremely wealthy) family for like 40 years, so I took his advice-- and am glad I did.
Looks to my (non-legal) mind that the lawyer saw a chance of a swift $600,000 and took the easy road. I’m assuming that a shelf stacker from WalMart has no choice but to hire the kind of lawyer that advertises on the back of a bus.
Of course, WalMart was legally right here. They have every legal right to put their hands all over that money, and I don’t think anyone is really contesting that.
I’m pretty pissed that WalMart won’t do the right thing, though. This woman will have ongoing medical bills for the rest of her life. Sure, WalMart probably didn’t see that coming when they issued her policy, but shit happens and sometimes you take a loss when you gamble with insurance.
OTOH, maybe that $600k lawyer can help make things right by donating some of his “legal fees.” Won’t hold my breath, though.
At the other end of the spectrum are people who see a lawyer on the way to the hospital. We actually had a client who wasn’t going to let his injured wife continue medical treatment until he knew whether or not he’d be able to collect some damages.
The family might have consulted an attorney fairly early but waited to file until they had a better idea of what her medical status was gonna be.
True, and I’m not letting the lawyer off the hook here. Aside from the grubbery on his (or her) part, he (or she) did a shit job, to boot. A Million bucks ain’t all that much for a catastrophic event like that.
The lawyer is an incompentent twat, and Wal-Mart is the devils gift shop.
That was a bit of sarcasm there. If the lawyer committed some malpractice, that’s another story. But asking for the lawyer to refund his fees is exactly the same as asking the doctor to do the same.
No, it really isn’t. There is nothing to distinguish asking the lawyer to give back the money from asking the doctor to give back the money except for irrational bias.
Believe me, this is asked routinely when cases settle. The attorney will send a letter asking Dr Feelgood to accept a certain percentage of his fee in order to give the plaintiff a bigger settlement. Of course this makes that attorney look great to his client.
When I work a case like that, I agree to reduce the physician fee exactly the same percentage as the attorney has reduced his.
“We’re the reason there is ANY money for the medical bills” is often the explanation.
“Yes, well without the physician’s services, your client would still be in a wheelchair, coma or possibly dead. You reduce and Dr. Feelgood will reduce. Deal?”
Unfortunately, I rarely hear back after that and my client is paid in full.
I like your solution. Seems fair to me. My qualm (and subsequent sarcasm) was as much about putting legal fees in quotations as anything else. Lawyers in these cases deserve to be paid for their work as much as the doctors deserve to be paid for theirs. Unlike doctors, who get paid regardless of the outcomes, lawyers on contingency only get paid if they win. That is the market explanation for the relatively high contingency fees, and one of the likely sources of the greedy lawyer stereotype.
