
There’s more than meets the eye in a commercial vehicle claim
Our client was a passenger in a car in Fort Worth two years ago that stopped at a flashing red light on a wet morning when she and her husband were rear ended by a delivery van. Property damage to their car was minor and there was only a scratch to the front bumper on the commercial vehicle. The driver said that his brakes had locked up on the wet pavement and blamed the light for confusing him. No one reported any injuries, the police were not called, and both vehicles drove off.
End of this story? No, just the opposite.
As often happens after a collision, the woman’s neck and back started hurting. Four days later, her PCP said she had a strain/sprain and prescribed anti-inflammatories.
She filed a claim with the other company but the insurance adjuster said she could not possibly have been hurt in this low speed impact. Further the adjuster told the woman that her husband and the company’s driver were not injured and its driver had a valid excuse. The insurance company made her a paltry offer of settlement of several hundred dollars, referred to in the world of personal injury as a “nuisance offer.”
Adding to the complexity of her case, she had fallen earlier in her life and had just had three vertebrae in her cervical spine fused the year before this wreck. Proving that someone’s current pain is not preexisting can present a problem for a personal injury lawyer. Further, her medical treatment consisted of only two routine visits at her PCP.. And she was salaried and did not lose any wages from her job. Her damages were minimal.
She hired our firm a month later after other personal injury firms had turned her case. But we knew we could help her. Mr. Berenson has represented a lot of people who were injured in wrecks caused by a commercial vehicle over the past almost 40 years and knows what to do. Our firm went to work.
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