This episode discusses negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and how cases get settled In my view as a serious injury lawyer.

This episode addresses what to do when hit by a drunk driver and how punitive damages claims can help me to win as a serious injury lawyer.

This episode addresses why you should not sign a genera release or waiver after an injury in my opinion as a car accident lawyer.

This episode talks about what insurance you should have and what your insurance coverage means and should you have hit and run insurance in my view as a motorcycle injury lawyer.

This episode addresses what a basic serious injury case looks like and how it develops in the eyes of a serious injury attorney.

This episode addresses the basics of what to do after a car accident from my view as an injury lawyer

This episode addresses why you should take time to settle your case and why the insurance company wants you to settle early to me as an injury lawyer.

Transcript

Good morning and welcome to Ask Andy. This is a daily podcast about personal injury practice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I’m Andrew Neuwirth. I wanted to talk to you today about the fact that I am not a quick fix. So a lot of people, you know, rightfully believe that if they’re the victim in a car accident or slip and fall or something like that, that they’re entitled to get paid. And you know, that may or may not be true. But the critical point I want to discuss is the fact that the insurance company is not particularly interested in paying out money to make your life better. That’s not their job. Their job, in their view, is to collect premiums from their customers and to pay out as little as possible, because that’s how they make money. That’s profit to them. So like it or not, that’s how they approach the world. And how do you avoid paying out money or paying out claims you fight them and you challenge every part of a claim that’s being made? So what does that mean for you and for me? Well, as the injured person, even if the accident is totally somebody else’s fault and you have a broken leg? So no question what happened. Are they going to pay you today? No. Should they? Yeah, probably. But are they going to? No. So that’s where the I’m not a quick fix comes in because the fastest possible thing we could have happen is car accident.

Police report broken leg. Order your medical records. That takes 30 to 45 days, usually. So maybe within 60 days. We know that your broken leg was the result of a car accident and you’re not at fault. Ok, so that’s 60 days. That’s not super speedy and most people’s world, but that would be unbelievably speedy in my world. Now what happens in 60 days? Well, at 60 days, now that we have your records, we’d have to write a letter to the insurance company asking them to pay you. You know, whatever the value of your case is, let’s say it’s $100000. There’s a decent chance that the person who injured you or the homeowner, particularly or the sidewalk owner, doesn’t have $100000 policy. There’s maybe there’s 15000, so maybe they give you 15000. Do you want that 15000? You know, is that quick, good money useful to you? Well, I’m going to take a third of it as my fee. There may be some expenses. Are you going to want to take $10000 for your broken leg? Well, again. Do you want to settle the case 90 days down the road, maybe 100 days down the road, which would be lightning fast? You might say, sure, sure. That’s good, I’ll take ten grand for, you know, my broken leg. What happens if I, as your lawyer, tell you, look, you don’t want to do that because you don’t really know if your leg is better? Three months after it’s broken, bones will heal.

But you know, there’s rehab. There’s bills to pay from that, and your medical provider is going to want some of their bills paid back out of your settlement. And we just don’t know if you’re all better. You know, a lot of times, yeah, your leg bones may look good on an x ray, but it may not feel good. It may not feel like you know you’re back playing hoops again. So you know, that’s why usually we want to wait six months from a serious injury to know that you’re all better now. Maybe if you have a strained back or something like that or a more minor injury, that’s, you know, all better in four months, that’s a different kind of case. But, you know, in the broken leg example, like, I don’t know for me, I’d want 60, 70, 80 percent of full value of my case, but a lot of people want their cases resolved quickly, like we’re used to, you know, dealing with American Airlines back in the day before pandemic. You would pick up the phone or you go on the internet, make a flight reservation boom, all fixed. If you had a problem, customer service would be on the line pretty quickly. I can change your flight, sir, or you could do it on the internet boom. All these things get done really quickly these days, but what’s the holdup here in these cases? What’s the holdup? The holdup is the insurance company doesn’t want to pay you, and whether it’s written down or set so or not, they will do or make a lot of efforts to avoid paying you full value for your case.

So let’s say you’ve got your broken leg, you’ve got all your ducks in a row. We make a demand. I think the case is worth $100000. They offer you $15000. Ok, well, you got your fairly quick result. What are you going to do about it if you want to? Maybe you have your own car insurance that you can pursue, or maybe there’s another person responsible. Maybe there’s a homeowner, or maybe the City of Philadelphia is responsible. What are you going to do? Well, now you’ve gotten some quick money and now you want to go after someone who maybe has more insurance to make up the difference between 15000 and 100000. Ok, well, how does that play out? Are you going to get quick money from that? Again, the answer is no. And first of all, and sort of more importantly, you probably don’t want to take that 15000 first because you want that person to be involved in the lawsuit for the larger insurance policy. So you probably should not take that 15000 from the first car accident or from the first car. So there’s a lot going on, like strategically like you don’t want to be letting someone out who’s responsible if there’s more insurance somewhere else. So what does that do? Well, that slows things down.

And one thing as a lawyer is I know that the insurance company wants to give you a quick payout, sometimes just to get the thing behind them because, you know, they know that a lot of people are kind of living paycheck to paycheck most days. So, you know, there are people out there who will take $10000 settlements on a $100000 claim just because they want, they want the $7000 they’ll end up with. So that’s what the insurance company is banking on now. You know, people need the money, they need the money don’t really care that there’s $100000 down the road. There’s nothing they can do about it. They need the money now. But, you know, then there are people who have a little bit more ability to wait. And that’s kind of the critical thing here is do you have the ability to wait? Because if you have the ability to wait and you can wait a year or so or a year and a half, you’re going to get paid something pretty close to full value. But it’s that ability to wait that is hard first for people to understand and second for people to go through. And I’ll tell you that by the end of a personal injury case, most personal injury clients of mine are tired of the process. They’re tired of dealing with lawyers. They’re tired of having questions as they’re tired of trying to track their, you know, physical therapy appointments and all the doctors they’ve seen to get better and all the work they’ve done, you know, they’re tired.

People want the case to be over, but it’s the ability to wait for the case, to be over, to get the full value. That is the critical thing. And so then you know, the question for you and for you know me is the lawyer is the following are you the sort of person with the sort of injury that can afford to wait or has the ability to wait? You don’t want to wait on a little injury case on a tiny little injury like you want that case resolved faster than slower. But if you do have the proverbial broken leg from a car accident, that person can wait. Whether they, you know financially can wait is a different question. But that person should wait because they’re going to get full value for their case. It’s just going to take some time. But, you know, 60 or $70000 a year from now to me is better than $7000 tomorrow. So, you know, that’s why I’m always looking for serious injury cases with people who are willing or who understand that they have a serious case and they need to wait. Those are the best clients for me, and I think those are the people that the system and I do the best job for. It’s hard to do a great job for someone who’s got a sprained, you know, shoulder because they have to wait 60, 90, 180 days and their injury’s better.

And, you know, they felt like they should have gotten $10000, but you can only give them $3000. That person is not going to be as happy with me or the process. So look, those are some of the considerations that go into, you know, whether you’re going to be a great personal injury client, whether you’re going to have a great result, whether you’re going to be happy about the process and why things take time to develop and understand. So it all comes back to two things one can you wait? And two, the insurance company drives this process a lot of times, and they want to delay, delay, delay and in between my side of the fence with you saying, can we wait? And the insurance company is saying, I’m in no rush, there’s the court system saying, let’s move this thing along. So that’s part of the strategy and the analysis that, you know, I go through and my clients have to go through as well. That’s enough for today. This is ask Randy. This is not legal advice. This is a daily recitation of things I think about in my daily practice. This is sponsored by my law firm Neuwirth Law Office, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, in the suburbs of Philadelphia. You can reach us on Facebook through Facebook Messenger or by phone two one five two five nine three six eight seven. Thanks. Have a great day.

This episode addresses the slow steady process of building a case for you in my view as a personal injury lawyer. https://neuwirthlaw.com/askandysc/

This episode addresses insurance claim denials for business interruption insurance and how I view them as an injury lawyer.

This episode addresses lawsuits and claims against Wawa and why you should not do it yourself as an accident lawyer.

Transcript

Good morning, and welcome to Ask Andy. This is a daily podcast about personal injury practice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I’m Andrew Neuwirth. I wanted to talk to you today about slip and falls at Wawa or car accidents in Wawa parking lots.  Today is all day Wawa. So if you’re not from Philadelphia and you’re listening to this podcast, Wawa is our beloved kind of convenience store. They feed us coffee. They give us gas. And unlike pretty much everywhere else, I’ve lived in my life, everybody loves Wawa. So they’re like a good, you know, part of our community. They are just kind of like a good member of society, like they’re always like the most popular, well-regarded convenience store on the planet. They do a great job for their employees. Their employees are seem fairly happy to us as consumers, so on and so forth. All right. So, but the flip side of that is that they’re running a commercial business. People fall on their property all the time. They have narrow, busy, crazy parking lots around me at least, and stuff happens and people get injured. And I know people who have been badly injured in falls who’ve broken their hips. I know people who have been hit by cars in Wawa, parking lots. And, you know, so look, they’re responsible for their own negligence, just like any other commercial property owner is. And do I mind suing Wawa? No, I don’t. Do I think jurors give Wawa the benefit of the doubt? I have no idea.

I think we all sort of have a place we call our Wawa. But frankly, like, hey, look, this is my profession, this is my job, and I don’t mind pursuing someone who’s responsible. So far, I’ve sued. I think everyone on the planet, from yoga studios to churches to this, that the other thing just as an aside, I think like the one place we don’t like to sue is CHOP, the Children’s Hospital, because everyone has a very positive image of CHOP and medical malpractice cases are tough enough without suing CHOP. So back to Wawa. What can you sue Wawa for and what happens at Wawa that’s a problem. Well, first of all, you’re going to get a fair number of drink spills, et cetera, that cause falls. Can you sue for a spilled drink outside of Wawa? Yeah, yeah, maybe. But they’re not great cases because you know you’ve got to prove notice. You’ve got to prove Wawa was aware of the spill and even the best grocery spill cases are usually indoors. You know, in the Wawa stores are fairly narrow small stores, so they’re going to know it’s not like a huge supermarket where there have been bananas or, you know, broken bottles on the ground and someone slips and the grocery store just, you know, should have seen it or should have known it. The Wawa stores are pretty small and usually, you know, stuff that’s cleaned up fairly quickly as my experience.

The more serious Wawa cases are really the parking lot cases and, you know, people who fall on problems generated by the parking plan. So sometimes people fall on painted lines that are too slippery if you don’t paint your lines properly in a parking lot with proper paint. People can slip as soon as it rains, and you can guess it rains fairly often here in Pennsylvania. So that’s not a good situation. You know, a lot of times they’re just tight little areas, people backing up. It’s a high traffic area. And if the driver doesn’t have a good line of sight, you know and doesn’t pay attention, the driver is going to hit someone or, you know, who’s a pedestrian. And those are the most serious Wawa cases I’ve seen really is people getting hit as pedestrians in the Walmart parking lot now as Wawa primarily responsible there. No. But do they hold some responsibility for the design of the parking lot? Yeah. Was there a problem? You know, some of these Wawa parking lots are pretty old, like the Wawa I go to primarily is it’s a very dicey operation to get in, park your car, get your coffee, and leave within, you know, seven minutes or whatever it takes, just because it’s a tight little parking lot on the side of a hill. And you know, no one’s going to be surprised.

Looking at that thing, if people are injured in the parking lot, it’s pedestrians. So, you know, is that the pedestrians fault? Maybe. But did Wawa know they have a crappy, you know, congested, dangerous parking lot? Yeah, absolutely. Do they do anything to fix that? Probably not. Just because that’s the property they’ve got. So, you know, there’s a gas station across the street Wawa could be there with a larger parking lot, but they choose to keep their small little space there. So, you know, do you hold Wah-Wah responsible for someone getting hit in that lot? Yeah, you do. But is the driver responsible also? Yes. Is the pedestrian responsible? Also, yes. So maybe you got a third, a third, a third, you know, responsibility one third on the pedestrian, one third on the car, one third on Wawa. You know, most likely, that case is going to get settled. My experience with Wawa so far is that, you know, they do want to work things out. They do try and resolve cases, you know, within reason. And I’ve seen, you know, okay offers from them in the past. So, you know, there’s a chance for resolution if you want to resolve, if you want full value for the case, as I’ve probably told you in an indirect manner over and over again, you know, full value means you’re going to file suit and you’re going to go to court.

So just to take a moment, this is podcast is sponsored by my law firm Neuwirth Law Office.  We are a personal injury firm in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, which is just in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. We handle work all over the counties surrounding Philadelphia, and it’s also important to note that this is not legal advice. This is mostly my opinions on my practice and what impacts me and my clients. But don’t take my legal ramblings on podcast as advice and most of the time, as you probably know if you’ve listened before this is not a DIY situation. do it yourself situation the practice of law. So, you will make more errors and mistakes trying to do this on your own and save yourself the legal fee, then you could possibly imagine. So look, some of us like me, you’ve been doing this for 20, 25 years. We make money doing this. We feed our families doing this. And for the most part, my view is that most lawyers are, are, you know, good at what they do or they wouldn’t still be in business, especially the solos who, you know, support themselves entirely on their own wits and skills. So, you know, for the most part, go find a lawyer. You know, I was talking to a guy yesterday who was, you know, had a serious case, has a good case. And, you know, he was thinking about doing it by himself.

And you know, the first thing I say to people who are trying to do things by themselves is, you know, you get what you pay for. If you’re going to do it yourself, you’re not going to get success, you’re not going to know what your case value is. You’re not going to know how to pursue it. The second thing is like, how are you going to finance the case? How are you going to pay for experts? You know, most cases I spend at least $10,000 on pursuing the case to, you know, to get the case in a position to settle it and, you know, before trial or near trial. If I’m going to trial, it’s going to be, you know, $20,000. Are you going to have the confidence in your abilities, DIY to, you know, want to spend ten or twenty thousand dollars of your own money on that? No. You know, what do I diy? I diy my raised vegetable garden. And even then I had to kind of watch a bunch of videos on YouTube on how to do that. I used to cut my grass, but I didn’t do a very good job at it. Certainly, I wouldn’t spend $20000 on something if I didn’t know I was, you know, a master craftsman or something. So that’s kind of how I look at it. We’ll see what my friend from the other day wants to do, whether he wants to DIY or go with me.

You know, it was one of those situations where I came highly recommended to him by people I didn’t know, but he really wanted to do it himself, and he didn’t want to wait, you know, two years and he got an offer of, you know, something around $10000 or less on a case that was worth $100000 or so. So we’ll see. But you know, back to the important place where we started today, which was suing Wawa. Their a commercial property. They are responsible just like everybody else is for, you know, having people not get injured on their property and commercial properties, whether it’s in Bucks County or Chester County or anywhere else in the country are pretty much bound by a responsibility to look at their property to investigate what is potentially dangerous and fix it. Unlike your residential homeowner, you know, if you’ve got a dangerous thing in your home, in your home and you’re not aware of it, it’s not your job to figure it out. But if you’ve got a spill on your property or a pothole in your parking lot or your sightlines are crappy in your parking lot, as a commercial property owner, you have an obligation to figure that out and fix it. And if you don’t, I’ll be there waiting. So that’s enough for today. This has been Ask Andy on Wawa. Take care. Have a great day. I hold people accountable.