California Personal Injury Lawyers Blog

We obtained a settlement of $140,000 for a Los Angeles car accident victim, for an accident that the insurance company tried to call a minor impact. This accident occurred because the other party failed to properly stop at a stop sign and collided with our client, who stopped and waited for her turn to go and went when it was her turn. Sometimes a case like this can be difficult because without witnesses, both parties may accuse the other party of not stopping.

We were able to overcome this liability hurdle on the stop sign case as our client was more credible than the other party. The next hurdle was that there was not very much damage to our client’s car, so the insurance company tried to consider it a minor impact, an excuse they would try to use to pay less money for our client’s injuries and damages.

The estimate for the vehicle came out to be under $6,000, but our client was legitimately injured and received the medical care that she needed to get better for her injuries, that were caused by the other party. If the insurance company used the property damage excuse to pay an unreasonably low amount, we would have filed a lawsuit and litigated the case, but our approach is to try to resolve claims without litigation if possible, this way it saves the client time and money. Since we were able to get a fair settlement for our client through negotiations, a lawsuit was not necessary and our client was very thankful and happy. That is our number one goal, to have a happy client at the end. We are not a mill law firm with thousands of clients. We give our clients close personal attention and we think that leads to the best results for our clients. If you are injured in an accident, even if the damage to the car is nothing major, you still have a case and we are happy to help you get the compensation you deserve.

Last week we were able to obtain the full policy limits for a client who was in a Baldwin Park car accident where she was placed at fault in the police report (traffic collision report).  Our client was placed at fault because she was making a left turn and the other vehicle was going straight. The police said she violated California vehicle code section 22107, unsafe left turn.

However, in this circumstance, we still took her case because we believed her that the other party was speeding, even if it was not captured on video. We were fortunately able to show that the other car was speeding and that was why her turn turned out to be unsafe. We were able to get the other driver’s insurance to pay their full liability policy limits. Not only that, but we also obtained the full underinsured motorist policy limits for our client.

Many people do not understand how underinsured motorist coverage works in California. First, you need to have more uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage than the other person’s liability coverage. If you have the same amount, they cancel out and you cannot use your underinsured motorist coverage.  Once you are able to get the full policy limits from the other party, then you can make your underinsured motorist claim with your own insurance company. For example, in this scenario, the other person had $25,000 in liability coverage and our client had $50,000 in uninsured motorist coverage. So after we obtained the first $25,000 from the other party, then our client’s coverage kicked with the underinsured motorist portion of another $25,000. Since the policies do not stack in California, our client’s insurance gets to write off the first $25,000 and they paid an additional $25,000 so the full settlement comes out to $50,000, which was the maximum amount obtainable in this circumstance.