Insurance Companies Calling Shots in Personal Injury Lawsuits
Trying to Limit the Personal Injury Award You Receive
About five years ago I wrote the original post “State Farm Insurance Company’s law firm is Michael Maguire & Associates in the O.C.” to emphasize that the juries that sit and decide what is fair and full compensation for an injured person probably will never know that an insurance company is calling all the shots regarding the negligent person’s defense. Whether they are one of the big five insurance companies in California: 1. State Farm Ins. Co., 2. Interinsurance Exchange of the Automobile Club and AAA Northern, 3. Allstate, 4. Mercury Ins. Group or 5. Mid-Century Ins. Group. There is more likely than not a billion-dollar insurance company calling the shots and attempting to limit your recovery of money for your injuries due to someone else’s negligent, unsafe and sometimes reckless or even intentional actions. They will hire the attorneys defending that person that caused the car crash, dangerous condition that resulted in a slip and fall, the owner of the dog that bit you or the person in a position of power or authority that sexually harassed or molested you or a loved one.
Then in the case of a law firm like Michael Maguire & Associates, the insurance company does not even have to “hire” them, because they are already employees of State Farm Insurance Company. Most of the big insurance companies have their own legal departments that will often spend tens of thousands of dollars to limit your recovery for injuries you sustain as a result of someone else’s negligence. They will have you examined by a doctor that will most likely dispute the nature and extent of your injuries from the incident caused by the negligent person. The insurance company doctor will often provide the opinion that your injuries are to degenerative processes in your neck or back and just a normal part of getting older. The insurance company doctor may tell the jury he is “giving” you a sprain and strain of your neck but will swear under oath “in his opinion” that disc herniation that you need surgery for is not due to the collision. The insurance company doctor will even go as far to claim that the collision did not aggravate the same “pre-existing” medical condition that he just told the jury ten minutes earlier that you had.
Personal Injury Lawsuit Tactics by Insurance Companies
Now the insurance company lawyers are using a new method to limit your recovery. It is a book called “Nuclear Verdicts: Defending Justice for All” by a defense attorney, Robert F. Tyson, Jr. Mr. Tyson is one of the partners in a defense firm called Tyson & Mendes. It is the type of firm that the insurance companies like Safeco, uses when they think the stakes are too high to assign the injured person’s case to their own insurance company employee lawyers. The Nuclear Verdicts book claims:
“This is the defense “playbook” for justice. You will learn trial techniques to even the playing field for defendants seeking a fair trial. Every aspect of a civil jury trial will be covered, from voir dire to opening statements to witnesses and finally closing arguments. There is a formula for defeating plaintiff attorneys’ deceptive tactics and psychological gamesmanship, and you will learn it.”
So you can see as an injured person, not only are there billion dollar insurance companies like State Farm and Allstate creating law firms and hiring defense doctors to minimize your injuries and limit your compensation for those injuries, they are also using techniques that are designed to counter your attorney’s ability to fairly and directly present to the jury the facts of your injury case. Some of the tactics they use include having the negligent person, known as the defendant in a lawsuit, to admit to something small and no consequence. Such as having the negligent person who crashed their car into the back of your stopped car say in court, “I absolutely admit liability for the accident”. Of course they do, there is no question that they are at fault for the collision that they caused. The person admitting fault for the collision is not true acceptance of responsibility, it is a tactic. We know it is a tactic because after admitting liability for the car crash, the negligent and unsafe driver will then have his attorney tell the jury, but we absolutely dispute the nature and extent of plaintiff’s (the injured person) injuries.
Another tactic is also to attempt to prejudice the jury against providing fair and full compensation by asking the injured person, what would you do with all that money? They want to portray the injured person’s demands for compensation as being greedy and excessive to the jury. These types of questions will probably result in an objection and motion to strike at trial, but the risk is that they are asked in the first place. It is difficult if not impossible to unring the bell of prejudice that an improper question creates in front of the jury.
Then to make matters worse, the jury will never actually know whether or not there is insurance that will in most cases be the only party responsible for paying the injured persons’ damages for physical pain, mental suffering, past and future medical bills and loss of earnings that result from the collision, the slip and fall, sexual harassment or sexual molestation. Pursuant to CACI 105:
“You must not consider whether any of the parties in this case has insurance. The presence or absence of insurance is totally irrelevant. You must decide this case based only on the law and the evidence.”
This jury instruction is based upon case law that believed that ‘The evidence [of liability insurance] is regarded as both irrelevant and prejudicial to the defendant.” (https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/100/105/)
You would think that jurors would realize that it is required to have insurance in order to drive a vehicle in California or that the average person that causes a car crash or whose dog bites someone would not have the thousands of dollars it takes to pay for the defense of a negligent person at trial. But the jury are not allowed to be told whether or not there is insurance. And even if someone inadvertently mentions insurance during the trial, the law is that the presence of absence of insurance is totally irrelevant to the verdict. Nuclear Verdicts uses tactics that make the jury wonder how the negligent person is going to pay for the large amount of money that is going to required to fully and fairly compensate the injured person. By creating sympathy for the unsafe and negligent person that caused the car crash, they hope to limit the injured person’s compensation. Which in the end results in a big discount for insurance companies, like State Farm.
Hiring the Best Personal Injury Attorney to Fight Against “Big Insurance”
A lot has transpired since I last wrote my original post “State Farm Insurance Company’s law firm is Michael Maguire & Associates in the O.C.” What hasn’t changed is that if you have an injury that will impact your life for months, years or potentially the rest of your life, then you are entitled under the law to recover full and fair compensation for those injuries caused by someone else’s negligence. If the jury doesn’t give you all the money that your injuries are due under the law, then you don’t get to come back in ten years and ask for more.
That is why I am convinced that you need a competent law firm that can present your case to the jury. A firm that knows that the defense is always looking for new tactics or tricks to limit your recovery. Kyle Scott Law, PLC is a law firm that only handles claims and lawsuits for people injured due to other people’s negligence. Call us at 949-423-3944 or email us at info@kjslaw.com and we will evaluate your case and if we can, we will help you get the most money for your injuries from the insurance company. We can even provide a second opinion when you already have an attorney that is not getting you’re the most money available under the law for your injuries. No matter whether the unsafe driver is represented by State Farm’s in-house attorneys Michael Maguire & Associates or house counsel for Allstate, Interinsurance Exchange of the Automobile Club or some other insurance company, Kyle Scott Law has been helping injured people in Orange County, Los Angeles County and all over the State of California get the most money for their injuries under the law.