Do I have to repay my automobile insurance company if they pay my medical bills from my medical payments coverage and I recover a settlement from the at-fault driver?
Probably. Most automobile insurance policies that have medical payments coverage require that you re-pay them if you make a recovery from the at-fault driver. Under certain circumstances you can force the company to reduce the amount of the re-payment. Your lawyer can help you with this issue.
I was hurt in a car accident. I do not have health insurance. I heard that my auto insurer might pay some of my medical bills under what is known as "medical payments coverage." What is that?
Many car insurance policies have medical payments coverage. This insurance coverage pays your medical bills if you are involved in an incident covered under the terms of the policy. There is a limit on the coverage provided, often $10,000 but it may be much higher.
If you have this coverage you should definitely use it to get the medical care you need without paying the medical bills out-of-pocket.
I was hurt in a car wreck., My doctor prescribed physical therapy. I am supposed to go three days per week. The physical therapist is 60 miles away and I simply cannot afford the gas to go back and forth three days per week. If I don’t go to physical therapy will it hurt my case?
It might hurt your case. If you don’t go to physical therapy as prescribed the insurance adjuster and the lawyer for the insurance company will assume that you were not really injured or that you did not do everything you should have done to minimize the impact of the injuries on your life.
More importantly, the failure to get therapy may actually impact your recovery.
I was supposed to have an operation on my right ankle. When I woke up I discovered that they operated on my left ankle. Now, I have to wait to recover from the operation to the wrong ankle before they will operate on the ankle they should have operated on (the right ankle). To top it off, I have a hospital-acquired infection in the left ankle and am receiving antibiotics via an IV. Do I have a case?
Yes. There is no excuse for wrong-site surgery. The doctor may blame other operating room staff, and they may blame the doctor, but at the end of the day every person working in the operating room has a responsibility to know what ankle they are operating on. The only exception to this rule is in you are asked, before receiving any type of sedative, to mark what ankle you are having surgery on and you mark the wrong ankle. Then the wrong-site surgery may be considered partially your fault.
Tragically, this is a growing problem. According to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, wrong-site surgery occurs 40 times a week in U.S. hospitals and clinics. This estimate s based on voluntary reporting – one-half of the states do not require reporting. Minnesota had 48 cases last year and Pennsylvania has averaged 64 cases for the past few years.
I have filed a lawsuit concerning my Depuy ASR hip implant and it is part of the MDL. How soon will additional action be required from me?
I mentioned in an earlier post that the court overseeing the cases for defective Depuy ASR hip implants issued an order requiring claimants to file forms describing when the patient received the implant and providing some medical records from the patient’s treatment. Originally, the judge set a deadline for all claimants to file the form at the same time, but the judge recently changed the order.
Now, all claimants who are already in the combined Depuy cases have one deadline to file the completed form– July 5, 2011. Any claimants who file their lawsuits after June 2, 2011have thirty days from the date they file the lawsuit to file the information form.
My husband was killed in a wreck with a tractor trailer. It was not his fault. What is the minimum amount of money I can recover for his death in a lawsuit?
There is no minimum. The amount of damages that can be recovered depends on a multitude of factors. You can get some idea of the relevant factors by reading our legal guide, "Understanding Wrongful Death Cases in Tennessee."
Remember that under Tennessee law a wrongful death case must be filed in court within one year of the time your husband received injuries that resulted in his later death.
I live in a neighborhood where one person has a backyard portable pool that is a couple feet deep. However, there are lots of little kids in the neighborhood – one of them is mine. There is no fence around the yard where the pool is located. I am worried sick about a kid falling in the pool and drowning, but when I spoke to the property owner about it he said "if you keep an eye on your kids nothing will happen." What can I do about this?
Recent news articles have demonstrated the risk of such pools, reporting that one child drowns every five days in portable pools. However, unless local zoning rules or homeowner association rules require that the pool be fenced, there is no way you can force your neighbor to fence in the pool or keep it drained when it is not being actively supervised by an adult.
The law requires that the property owner exercises reasonable care for the safety of those who come on his property. In my view, the pool creates what is known as an "attractive nuisance," meaning that it is an instrument of danger that the owner knows that children will want to play in. This puts the property owner at high risk of being sued if a child is injured or dies in his pool.
My lawyer settled my personal injury case. He said that he put the check for $60,000 in his trust account and that I would get my share in 10 days. Ten days later I received a check for $38,500 – the amount I was supposed to receive. However, I deposited the check from my lawyer’s trust account in my checking account and just found out it bounced. What should I do?
This should not happen. Lawyer trust accounts are accounts that are kept separate from a lawyer’s operating account – the account he or she uses for rent, payroll,etc. Trust accounts are a "parking place" for client money. There should never be a bounced check on that account because the account is holding client funds that have already "cleared" the bank – and client funds can only be used for client purposes.
Thus, you need your attorney to explain exactly how this happened. If you do not get an immediate, satisfactory answer, call the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility immediately.
I was hurt in a car wreck in Tennessee. How do I find the best lawyer to represent me in my case?
We have written a guide that provides an extensive list of factors that you should consider when deciding what lawyer to hire for your personal injury case. We believe that you will find it very helpful in finding a lawyer who help you get the best result for your case.
I live in a small town in East Tennessee. I just had an addition put on my house. The building inspector from my town came and approved the work done on the house, including the electrical work. Two days later the entire house burned. The cause of the fire was improper wiring work on the new addition. Can I sue the building inspector for failing to discover the bad wiring job?
No. Under Tennessee law a local government cannot be sued for negligent inspection. Thus, even if you could show that the building inspector did a bad job, neither the inspector nor his employer can be sued.
You may have a claim against the electrical contractor and perhaps even the general contractor. An experienced trial lawyer can help you investigate this claim and determine what rights, if any, you have.
