$917,792 Settlement in Tractor-Trailer Crash

$917,792 Settlement in Tractor-Trailer Crash

Our clients, husband and wife, were driving on I-285 in DeKalb County when a tractor-trailer rear-ended them, causing our client’s SUV to crash into a car in front of them. The crash resulted in a chain reaction collision. In total, there were four other vehicles involved in the wreck.

Both of our clients were transported by ambulance to a local hospital. The husband suffered a forehead laceration requiring 15 stitches and two fractured vertebrae in his thoracic spine. He also was diagnosed with a concussion and subdural hematoma. The wife broke her nose and cut her lip, requiring stitches. Their medical bills for the hospital and some initial follow-up visits were around $70,000.

The driver of the tractor-trailer admitted to police that he “was not looking at the road” when he caused the crash and was cited for following too closely. This was a case of clear negligence. One problem for the case was that the trucking company and its driver only had a total of $1,000,000 in insurance for everyone involved in the crash, and there were other injuries from the chain reaction collision. Additionally, the insurance policy was a combined single limits policy, meaning that the payment of other claims for property damage reduced the amount of available liability insurance for our clients.

The Champion Firm acted quickly to send a demand for the policy limits just 5 weeks after the crash. The remaining insurance limits were $917,792. The insurer initially requested that our clients and the other claimants go to a mediation to divide up the insurance policy limits. We rejected that idea and reiterated our time-limited demand. Less than 3 months after the crash, the insurance company agreed to pay every dollar of the policy limits to our client.

This case demonstrates the importance of choosing the right personal injury lawyer quickly after a wreck. Because our clients hired us shortly after the wreck and we pursued their case aggressively without delay, we were able to get them the full policy limits before the insurer paid any other claims.