I was in a car accident on march 26th. I wanted to know how long I have to file a claim. I live in NY State. I was taken by ambulance, collared and boarded to the ER. They only x-rayed my lower back and visually checked me and released me with prescriptions for a pain medication and a muscle relaxant and told to follow up with my dr in 2 days. I was also given a muscle relaxant shot before I left. I was very surprised they released me because at the time I could not even stand up and walk alone it was very pain and I was shaky. I finally followed up with my dr on April 5th as I was bed ridden until then and had no way to my dr who is 2 towns over and no one would take off work to drive me. Upon seeing me he gave me a referral for an x-ray of the shoulder and physical therapy and 3 prescriptions muscle relaxant, pain reliever, and an anti-anxiety medication, I had previously had Ptsd and paniac attacks but had not had a full blown attack in probably a few years. Since the accident my anxiety has become much worse. My dr's diagnose was strain lumbar, and strain shoulder.

So would I have a case? And how long do I have to find a lawyer and file? Thanks

Ps I was a passenger not a driver in the car, my mother was driving and struck a pole.

A case for what? Against the hospital? Against the other driver (if there was one)? Against your mother?

To get what? Medical coverage for your injuries? Compensation for lost income?

Do you have medical insurance?

You need to be more specific about what you want!

I have insurance, my insurance told me that it is typical to go through the driver's insurance and they usually only cover if the driver had no insurance. So my medical bills, the physical therapy which is not covered at all by my insurance and pain and suffering for being stuck in my house for over 2 weeks. And yes against my mother, there was no other driver.

So the first thing you do is file a claim against your mother's insurance carrier. You can see about filing a suit over pain and suffering later on. How much liability coverage does your mother have?

How do I file the claim, I was told she had to report it first and she refused to report it until Friday I believe, I finally got her to. They gave her a confirmation # but not a claim # or anything yet. I am not sure about her limits I will check.

Hello j:

You don't need your mothers cooperation or her claim numbers. You don't need ANYTHING from her. Just call the company up on the telephone, and they'll take your claim.

Do you really want to sue your mother?? Do you UNDERSTAND what suing your mother is all about? What makes you think you have MORE damage than her coverage will pay for? I don't know. If it was ME, I wouldn't be talking about SUING until I knew I wouldn't be compensated for my injuries. But, that's just me.

excon

I would not be suing her I would be suing/ making a claim against her insurance.

Oh and she would not even tell me her insurance company's name so there was no way for me to call them, it was not in the police report, and apparently she lied on the police report to cover her own hide.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by joebello

I would not be suing her I would be suing/ making a claim against her insurance.

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Hello again, joe:

Let's be clear about your terminology. Her insurance company didn't harm you. She did. Therefore, if you sue, you'll be suing your mother. She can, if she chooses, turn it over to her insurance company. They have a duty to defend her. She doesn't have to, though. I don't know why she wouldn't, but I also don't know why she would HIDE who they are from you...

My sense is, she has NO insurance, and if you want your bills paid, you're going to have to sue her.

excon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by joebello

I was in a car accident on march 26th. I wanted to know how long I have to file a claim. I live in NY State. I was taken by ambulance, collared and boarded to the ER. They only x-rayed my lower back and visually checked me and released me with prescriptions for a pain medication and a muscle relaxant and told to follow up with my dr in 2 days. I was also given a muscle relaxant shot before I left. I was very surprised they released me because at the time I could not even stand up and walk alone it was very pain and I was shaky. I finally followed up with my dr on April 5th as I was bed ridden until then and had no way to my dr who is 2 towns over and no one would take off work to drive me. Upon seeing me he gave me a referral for an xray of the shoulder and physical therapy and 3 prescriptions muscle relaxant, pain reliever, and an anti-anxiety medication, I had previously had Ptsd and paniac attacks but had not had a full blown attack in probably a few years. Since the accident my anxiety has become much worse. My dr's diagnose was strain lumbar, and strain shoulder.

So would I have a case? And how long do I have to find a lawyer and file? Thanks

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I'm a liability investigator in NYS. You would fill out a application for No Fault benefits - best to do this within 30 days. You can get the time frame extended but it's complicated and your request COULD be denied. You file the form with your mother's auto insurance carrier. If she does NOT have insurance you file with the State and it's a claim against an uninsured driver.

If you are considering a claim for pain and suffering you need to document how the accident worsened an existing condition. You would need a Physician to state POSITIVELY that the accident is the cause of your condition worsening.

You need serious injuries which cause you to be incapacitated for a period in order to sue. I'm not going to go into all of that here.

You do NOT need serious injuries in order to get no fault to pay your medical bills - it's automatic. As a passenger you cannot have any fault for the accident.

Your medical insurance, BY LAW, is secondary. No fault pays your medical bills. Your medical insurance CANNOT.

What is your prognosis? Are you disabled from the accident? Do you have lasting injuries?

I'm reading through the posts and trying to be thorough. You CLAIM against the insurance for your medical bills. Are you thinking of making a claim for pain and suffering? If so the "jargon" is that you are not suing the person, you're making a claim against the insurance company.

Obviously if there is no agreement reached, then it's a lawsuit. The insurance company would defend on behalf of your mother. That's part of why she has insurance (and, hopefully, she has insurance).

If she refuses to give you the name of her company the Police can track it down through DMV in connection with the Police Accident Report.

You have an absolute right to sue your mother for your injuries - question is whether you actually want to do that.

Comments on this post
joebello does not find this helpful : A bit sarcastic with ! And contained no useful info.

First, please review the rules of this site. Your use of a negative rating on my response was totally inappropriate. I also found it rather hypocritical. Citing me for no useful info when your post was totally vague about what you wanted help with was adding insult to injury. How did you expect useful info when you didn't ask a clear question?

As to sarcasm, it is often very hard to discern sarcasm online. I meant no sarcasm. All I did was try to help you and your gratitude was underwhelming.

She does have insurance and I finally got the info and she reported the accident. I have gotten a claim # an adjuster was supposed to get in touch with us within 24 hours. But has not so far. Yes I am making a claim for my medical bills, the ambulance etc. I was totally confined to my home for over a week. I still have pain but it is getting better. I have not had an MRI so I can only assume what is wrong.. there are no broken bones. But I have never been in such pain and limited to what I can do before. My Dr gave me a referral for physical therapy and an x-ray of my shoulder but I could not make the appointments until I had the claim #. I figured this was enough to receive some pain and suffering.. I never realized it was so difficult. My mother refused to be cooperative at first because as I found out when I received the report she lied in the police report about how the accident happened. I cannot sue her because she is on disability and what would I get?

I think it is clear most people come to sites like this to findout how to get money for pain and suffering... being picky about the technical terminology or making sarcastic remarks about suing family members, etc is just un-needed. I have seen several sites like this where anyone trying to "sue" a family member is usually given a negative attitude by some people. People need to realize what would they do in the same situation.. and that they do NOT even know the family situation.. no 2 families are the same. I also did not know how this site works and thought that was just a private survey type thing asking me if your comment was helpful. Honestly I found both your's an excon's responses to have a negative tone to them. They were not natural sounding like Judy's and sounded more like being rude then trying to be helpful.

I've been helping out on boards like this for decades and no it is not clear what people come here for. The fact is that most of the people who post questions here do not give enough information to give an initial answer. More often then not we have to ask follow-up questions to get information. All you asked was whether you had a case, but without knowing what type of case you were asking about, we couldn't answer.

As to being picky about terminology, do you want an accurate answer or do you want a guess? We pride ourselves on the accuracy of the advice giving here. But to give accurate advice we need to have accurate info.

Yes I understood you didn't know how this site works. But that is probably because you didn't take the time to learn. While that is no uncommon it does pay dividends when joining a site like this to browse around a bit and look through other threads and read the FAQs before posting. Had you done so you might have learned the proper use of the ratings. You might also have posted a more complete question. You might also have learned that the Answer options are what you use for follow-up questions or info, not the Comments.

And finally, as I mentioned, its often hard to tell negative tone, sarcasm and even rudeness. The fact is we offer advice. You can take the advice or not. If you don't like the advice or the tone, then you ignore the advice. But the only one who was rude here was you, by slapping people in the face when they tried to help you.

Hello again, j:

You got good advice and all you can do is complain about the people who gave it??

You suck. No wonder your family thinks about suing each other.

excon

I cannot sue her because she is on disability and what would I get?


This is a question of terminology - and I know it's confusing. I explain this to someone just about every day. You would collect from her insurance, not from her personally. If she did not have insurance, you would collect from a NY State fund. None of this expense would come directly out of her pocket. Yes, of course, her premiums could go up but that's not what we're talking about.

You don't (in theory) SUE your mother. You make a claim against her auto insurance. No fault/medical is completely separate.

Let's say you are incapacitated and in pain for 30 days. How much is that "worth" to you? Let's throw in a figure of $10,000. You claim against your mother's insurance in that amount. They either counter with another figure which you accept OR they deny your claim. If you settle, that's the end of that.

If you DON'T come to an agreement, then, yes, you sue BUT you cannot sue the insurance company because they have no fault (by that I mean no responsibility) for the accident. You HAVE to sue your mother because it's her insurance policy.

She gets the papers which say right on them TURN THIS MATTER OVER TO YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY. She turns the papers over and the lawsuit is on - it's a lawsuit against her BUT it's REALLY a lawsuit against the insurance company.

Do you understand why I'm saying?

You cannot sue the insurance company directly so you HAVE to sue the person who "owns" the insurance policy, they turn it over to the insurance company which will defend them and, hopefully, pay the claim.

I don't advise doing any of this yourself. You need an Attorney who knows what he/she is doing, who is reasonable (and isn't going to file suit for a million dollars) and who understands you are suing your mother and you just want to be compensated for your time and pain.

I think your criticism of my associates is unwarranted - but I do understand your frustration. I am confronted with this same situation on a regular basis (do I sue a relative or not? If not, where do I draw the line? Mother, father, brother, cousin?). People pay insurance premiums so that people who are injured can be made whole.

I make no moral judgments. You raise a very good issue - what would you do? Maybe the answer is, "I wouldn't sue." Maybe the answer, "I don't know." Personally - quite frankly, I don't know what I would do. I always thought I would never sue a family member. Then I investigated a case where a female passenger had her arm out of the car window, her husband (the driver) lost control and the car rolled - and she lost her arm.

The fact remains that this is a legal board - you have the legal right to sue.

I hope you understand my explanation. Any other questions, fire away.

Very familiar territory to me.