A recent decision by the Kentucky Court of Appeals reminds me of the need that a claim is not over until it is over. In fact, this case involved an appeal of an erroneous trial court ruling that I successfully prosecuted to the Kentucky Court of Appeals.
There are so many steps that the lawyer must anticipate to insure that an injured claimant is fully compensated. When you are injured it is very important to contact a good personal injury lawyer to begin preparation of your claim. These steps include not only identifying insurance to compensate the victim and the evidence you will need to prove the injuries and damages, but anticipating how the insurance company is going to try and refuse to pay or deny the claim.
Every personal injury attorney must prepare the claim and accumulate and identify the needed experts, witnesses, medicals, wages, permanent injuries, etc. to simply document the claim. And should the insurance company continue denying the claim, then be ready to file suit and try the case. However, trying the case is not the end of the road as attorneys for the insurance company defending the claim will attempt to raise issues in case they should lose at trial to get the case reversed on appeal.
I refer to this as being ready to try your case again on appeal should the trial judge get it wrong or make a wrong or incorrect legal decision. Trial judges can make mistakes and make more incorrect legal decisions than you would think. For example, in a recent period, the Court of Appeals found serious enough errors to reverse, remand or dismiss an appeal because of mistaken rulings by the trial judges in 12 of 37 appeals. That is nearly 1 out 3 trials have mistakes made by the judge which favor one side or the other.
Therefore it is important to hire a lawyer prepared to prepare your case to settle, to be tried, and to be appealed, if necessary, to see that justice is done.
The appellate decision that again reminded me of this need to prepare and preserve the record and to fight until you get the right result was Lynch v. Claims Management Corporation.
In Lynch v. Claims Management Corporation, Charles Lynch suffered serious and permanent injuries to his knee when struck by an uninsured motorist. Fortunately, Mr. Lynch had uninsured motorist benefits to cover him, and he recovered $160,000 from his insurance company. He was also fortunate to have personal health insurance to pay his medical bills and disability insurance to cover his lost wages while he was unable to work since his $10,000 in personal injury protection benefits would not cover his entire loss. However, his disability and health insurer wanted to be paid first and off the top for the nearly $68,000 it had paid. And they wanted to be paid out of Mr. Lynch’s own recovery under his own separate policy for uninsured motorist benefits. The trial judge ruled against Mr. Lynch at trial which required Mr. Lynch to hand over nearly $68,000 of his $160,000 recovery to the insurance company that paid his medical bills and disability (and to whom he had already paid policy premiums for the coverage!).
I thought the policy language was wrong, the insurance company was wrong, and the trial judge was wrong; and the Court of Appeals in Lynch v. Claims Management Corporation agreed with me reversing the trial judge and returning the $68,000 to the client.
Still the fight continues as the insurance company does not want to pay the statutory interest to the client during the pendency of the appeal and when he was deprived of the use of his money. Thus, another legal fight to protect the client’s money.
