Wrecked my truck yesterday

[jix]

Wow. Bad deal. I would think you will have to file a claim for diminished value with her insurance. You should be able to get advice from your agent on how to get compensated for it.

Hope you don't need to get a lawyer to get her insurance to pony up.

All opions considered: The time to get a lawyer is before you file a claim with the ins co, not afterwards. ALL ins co.'s will try to negate costs, unless they see that you mean business. I assume that the other driver is in a losing position, and that their ins co knows this fact. In such cases, the common reaction with the ins co in general is to wage their battle against the claimant by attrition ( in other words to frustrate, deny and wqear you down.
Ins co.'s will not do this if you deal with them through a lawyer only, since they will then see that such tactics will only increaser their costs eventually. They will then propose a settlement which your layer will review on your terms.
I have been in such situations several times myself. There are no white hat guys in the insurance co.'s. NONE. Period.

Lawyers are good and bad.. so you need to do a referral check before you hire one. Avoid the big law firms. Use a small firm, with less than three associates, and without intimidating olfices, and without a billable hours orientation. I find theses guys to be the best value for money types. Any lawyer with basic legal competence can do this work. (IE for less than two thousand dollars, total. Step ONE : file a lawsuit, statement of claim. That puts the lawyer under court supervision on the record Step TWO. negotiate a closed end cost for the lawyers work with your candidate lawyer (before he files the lawsuit) In this cost, do NOT INCLUDE HIS REASONABLE AND JUSTIFIABLE EXPENSES. (these are extra to his fee). in such a case as yours might be, a settlement proposal from an ins Co. will incude your legal expense as defined and approved by you and your lawyer before settlement is reached.
Such tactics put the Ins Co on notice. They must Settle reasonable or face much higher costs. Step THREE. ensure that your lawyer does not have the righ6t to accept a settlement without your approval, although he may negotiate on your behalf. Step FOUR. Establish your right to terminate your lawyer without costs (except for expenses).
step FIVE. Establish a report requirement with your lawyer on a periodic basis, so that you know what is going on and to hold his feet to the fire. this meeting should be verbal, not by correspondence. Step SIX.
if you are not happy, terminate your lawyer, and pay the charges he can justify. Step SEVEN. if YOU GET THE FEELING YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE SRVICE YOU EXPECT pay attention to that feeling and discuss it at an early point. You are the boss, not your lawyer. He advises, you decide. BE TOUGH, you are the boss If your lawyer does not agree, fire him forthwith... and be BRAVE. Lawyers will always try to intimidate you. Keep in mind what amount you have to lose, what you have to gain...be ready to throw in the sponge if the math begins to go negative.

Have good Courage, my friend. You are David against Goliath outside the court.--- Inside the court, you are a citizen in the land of the free---and the home of the BRAVE. That is both a blessing and a challenge. It often costs money to be one of those.

May Fortune favor your bravery.. Fortune never favors the meek (except in heaven) they say

Jix:thumbsup:

 

[crashz]

Sorry to hear about this.

I like Gator6x4's reply the best. This is the true value that the lady cost you. So you should be entitled to that. But I can see it being an uphill battle at best. I wish you the best with this.

 

[ultrarunner]

jix... can you represent yourself in superior court in Canada?

The reason I ask is my post above explained how my brother was able get a $100,000 settlement.

He got nowhere but frustrated until he filed his lawsuit in superior court and the nice thing is he had no legal fees... did spend about 40 hours putting it all together...

Had there been a lawyer involved... fees could have easily been 1/3 or over 30k...

 

[Btown]

That was my first thought and I called them because I figured they would be on my side. They told me however if they handled it I would be responsible for my deductible and told me to contact that at fault drivers insurance company,

Time for a new insurance company. Yours is not a good one if they said that.

 

[jix]

Yes is the short answer. In Canada we have provincial and federal courts. The highest court is the Supreme court of Canada Federally. Sine every province may have different laws, we also have Provincial Supreme courts. We have provincisl superior courts for appeals, and both systems have just plain courts for the mundane stuff. If you are a defendant, you can represent yourself in any court If you are a plaintiff it depends upon the judge as to whether you can or not. We also have some small claims courts where you can (must) represent yourself.

That is in theory..our judges are not elected at any level, they are appointed by government, which sometimes really sucks because we have a few that stink, especially divorce law courts... Most people do not understand the courts rules..these people usually do not get much help from judges, like on TV. Judges are in a hurry to get Justice done and settled so they can get back to drinking or whatever. Not all, but some. You cannot choose your judge in civil or family (divorce) matters, nor even in Criminal matters. Lawyers may be able to arrange that, but Joe citizen cannot. Layers must kiss a lot of *** to wangle a hearing or a case before a favorable judge. If your lawyer is a turkey you will get a turkey judge most often. Who says justice is blind..naw..mostly blind drunk. Yep, it really sucks.

Your brother was very good to do so well on his own. Most are not. A defendant who acts for himself has a fool for a client is usually a valid cliché Ditto for a plaintiff. Civil Courts have too many rules that only lawyers are trained to know. If you break one, your case is lost on the spot, usually. Criminal matters are a horse of another colour, these are more concerned with the rights of the accused..and appeals on many, many procedural grounds reversing a verdict are quit common so criminal court judges are picky as heck... and usually quite fair, maybe too fair, some think.
Learning enuff law to adequately represent yourself is a formidable task. Years of reading and sudy just to get your feet wet...and access to a law library is not always available to a layman... and that is a critical requirement in preparing for court. Books of the law are myriad and expensive as cannot be believed. There a thousands of volumes of case law, different in every province. Court arguments on law must be based on precedence in lower courts. That is why case lawbooks are so indispensable.. judges want case law cited in arguments if it is to be creditable for consideration in argument. Case law is history, compiled for hundreds of years. Canadian law, except for Quebec is based upon British law going back for ten centuries. Quebec law is based upon the Code Napolian..or French law. In Canada, a lawyer must be "called to the bar" in every jurisdiction where he practices.. takes fifty years to get all of them done.

So no, in practicality, you cannot represent yourself unless you wish to lose. But you are free to lose,

sleepy time now, Good night sir,

Jix

jix

 

[ultrarunner]

Appreciate the explanation...

In my brother's case the jury had already been selected and just before opening arguments the insurance company agreed to settle for the full amount requested.

I do believe a big part of it was my brother was willing to go distance and having a 40 year old pregnant wife with their first child that is a Doctor and confined to bedrest after the accident made for a very sympathetic case... again, her Volvo was totaled and impact was right on the driver's side and the defendant was 17 and cited for reckless driving through on a red light and brother had witnesses the teenager was on a Cell Phone...

Insurance balked at having to pay for lost wages and pain and suffering and wanted to depreciate the Volvo that was bought a few weeks prior from Volvo... they said my brother overpaid... it was one owner, very low mileage and like new in every way.

Off topic... a scavenger woman claim she tripped on the city sidewalk in front of my property... at night she would illegally go through garbage cans on collection day pulling the recyclables... she sued saying the combination of the city sidewalk, lighting a placement of my garbage cans contributed to her tripping... she walks with a shuffle and speaks no English... Insurance company settle with her by giving her a $3000 check... which is crazy... they said it was less expensive to settle than to go to court...

So the moral is the Insurance Company will look for the least costly scenario even if it means paying a questionable "Nuisance" claim and might think ignoring or low balling works since it often does... remember, the Insurance Company does this for a living.

 

[bdog]

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry for my delayed response. Work has been hectic. My insurance is State Farm. To be fair I did not talk to my agent as when I was able to call it was outside of their normal business hours so I just called the 1-800 number. I called the at fault party's insurance company and started the claim process. They seemed real fair on the phone. They did not try to deny it was their client's fault, said to find a shop of my choosing and they would take care of it. Without me even asking they said it sounded like my truck was a specially equipped work truck and that a normal rental wouldn't serve me well so if I wanted to find someplace that rents something that works for me and have them direct bill it to them that would be ok. The insurance adjuster has not seen my truck yet though so we will see how that goes.

Here is the kicker. I stopped by the dealer where I bought the truck yesterday and explained the situation and asked them how maybe we could go ahead and just do the trade now. That way I wouldn't be out a vehicle I could just get the new one and fix it up the way I need it and then the insurance could pay them to fix it. They made me a trade in offer on my truck in as is condition and said I could keep whatever insurance proceeds I get. The offer was 8-9k less than what I would think my truck would be worth prior to the wreck. I am leaning towards doing this as I am not sure it would be fixed to my liking and there is the down town issue. I guess it all hinges on what the insurance company says and I hope to find that out tomorrow.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry for my delayed response. Work has been hectic. My insurance is State Farm. To be fair I did not talk to my agent as when I was able to call it was outside of their normal business hours so I just called the 1-800 number. I called the at fault party's insurance company and started the claim process. They seemed real fair on the phone. They did not try to deny it was their client's fault, said to find a shop of my choosing and they would take care of it. Without me even asking they said it sounded like my truck was a specially equipped work truck and that a normal rental wouldn't serve me well so if I wanted to find someplace that rents something that works for me and have them direct bill it to them that would be ok. The insurance adjuster has not seen my truck yet though so we will see how that goes. Here is the kicker. I stopped by the dealer where I bought the truck yesterday and explained the situation and asked them how maybe we could go ahead and just do the trade now. That way I wouldn't be out a vehicle I could just get the new one and fix it up the way I need it and then the insurance could pay them to fix it. They made me a trade in offer on my truck in as is condition and said I could keep whatever insurance proceeds I get. The offer was 8-9k less than what I would think my truck would be worth prior to the wreck. I am leaning towards doing this as I am not sure it would be fixed to my liking and there is the down town issue. I guess it all hinges on what the insurance company says and I hope to find that out tomorrow.

I would get it looked at first by your body shop. Maybe you will get lucky and they will just total it.

If not maybe the trade deal will work?

You are right though, the offenders insurance seems like a fair outfit.

Chris

 

[dodge man]

I'm a little shocked at people that say "get a lawyer". I've had two vehicles totaled out and another one with major damage on accidents where it was the other drivers fault. I always thought the other guys insurance treated me fair and never got screwed. The time to get a lawyer is after you have problems with their insurance.

 

[riptides]

I'm a little shocked at people that say "get a lawyer". I've had two vehicles totaled out and another one with major damage on accidents where it was the other drivers fault. I always thought the other guys insurance treated me fair and never got screwed. The time to get a lawyer is after you have problems with their insurance.

Fantasy world. I just had a car totaled a few weeks ago. The first thing out of the smucks mouth was "I am getting a lawyer"....
People are sue happy. Last time I hit someone it cost my insurance company 10k. All I did was crack his tail-light. All I did to mine was crack my grill. His lawyer claimed he needed physical therapy and I caused "mental anguish". No citations for either of us.

It's this attitude that costs all of us in the long run.