Author: jeffreyhoward

Sometimes, a blog post isn’t as much about providing relevant legal information to help the public and to bolster my SEO; sometimes, a blog post is about me ranting. I hear it’s called “catharsis,” so if there’s a fancy word for it, it must be OK.

One of the reasons I’m thinking about not handling traffic tickets in Orange and Chatham and Durham Counties anymore is because people think they’re special. Thankfully, for the most part, my clients are understanding, patient, and humble human beings who understand that they’ve been caught breaking a rule that’s there for the safety of all of us and there are going to be some consequences. Those clients I love! They hire me to help mitigate those consequences, guide them through the process, and soften their landing on the other side of it. That’s something I’m happy to do as an attorney. Those clients are grateful for the help I provide and glad I could make the outcome better than it would have been. What I’m not happy to do anymore is to explain to a 40 year old white man that the law does, in fact, apply to him and he must, in fact, comply with it or he will, in fact, face consequences, despite his social standing and delusion that his white mediocrity somehow insulates him from the social contract.

Here is the reality: Speed limits are enforceable by law. Speeding is a “strict liability” offense, meaning your intent isn’t a necessary element of the crime. In order to prove in court that you were speeding (and therefore breaking a law) the ONLY evidence necessary is for the law enforcement officer to say he saw you driving and it’s his/her opinion that you were speeding. That’s it. That’s admissible evidence and sufficient to prove the commission of a crime. If a judge hears that they can, and often will, convict you of speeding.

So let’s say you’re charged with, I don’t know, let’s say a 66 in a 45. That’s 21 mph over the speed limit. If you’re convicted of that, DMV will revoke your license. You’ll also have a huge increase in your auto insurance premiums. What sounds better, that outcome above, OR you doing a driving school online for a few hours and having your charge reduced to a non-moving violation that won’t get you any DMV or Insurance points and your driver license will be saved? CLEARLY the latter is the better outcome, right?

The problem with the entitled members of our population is that they think they’re too special to do a driving school. They think, at least subconsciously, that they should be insulated from consequences because of whatever their mom or society has so far told them and that they shouldn’t have to face any repercussions for their mistake. The irony is that if you talk to many of these folks about crime and punishment in the abstract, they’re generally all for super strict law enforcement and draconian punishments for other people who break laws, but when they are the ones in trouble, all of a sudden the “system is broken,” or “this is bullshit.” Maybe both of those are true, but welcome to reality, friend.

Don’t get me wrong. If you’re wrongly accused of a crime, I am all for you getting a solid defense and having your day in court. But speeding tickets are, for the most part, fairly written. And in terms of relative effort, the path of compliance – getting me to work a plea deal out to save you money and save your license – is FAR better and simpler then you facing a trial for a ticket.

The bottom line is that there’s a segment of the population that thinks that the law shouldn’t apply to them. They think that other people should have to obey the rules but they should, for whatever reason, get a pass when they screw up. That’s what’s wrong with banana republics, my dude. When the law doesn’t apply to some, it help anyone. The best legal system fairly and reliably applies to EVERYONE.

If you get a ticket, suck it up and get some help. Hire a lawyer who knows the lay of the land and can help you mitigate the consequences of your mistake. Do what the lawyer says. Do not call the lawyer or email the lawyer and whine about “But it’s my first ticket!” or “But I only bumped into that old lady!” or “But it’s SOOOO easy to do 80 in my Lambo!” or you’ll run the risk of sounding like an entitled 5 year old. Let the lawyer guide you, follow their instructions, jump through the goddamn hoops like a responsible adult, and understand that the law does apply to you, too, pumpkin.

Just tell them they’re fired. That’s it.

It doesn’t have to be those words, exactly. You can tell them you don’t want them to represent you, or you can ask them to withdraw, or whatever. English is a very versatile language and it’s easy to get the meaning across any number of ways.

The bigger question is about the consequences of that decision.

Most personal injury attorneys in North Carolina work on a contingency fee basis, meaning they don’t get paid unless they get you an award (be that by settlement or award at trial), at which point they get a percentage. As long as the case hasn’t been resolved, then you don’t owe them a fee if you fire them, at least on the contingency fee front. An attorney might make what’s called a quantum meruit claim, which is asking for payment of a reasonable hourly rate for the work they did. The vast majority of us won’t raise this unless there are some unusual circumstances, but it’s worth considering. If it’s early in the case, not much is likely to have been done, so you may not be risking much, but if it’s late…

Also, in North Carolina there is no such thing as an attorney lien. Some firms that are from out of state but somehow do business here will assert a lien on NC injury cases that they get fired on and I would not hesitate to let them know that’s a per se ethics violation according to the NC Bar.

This is, of course, not considering costs that the lawyer/firm might ask to be reimbursed. Costs are not fees. Costs are what the firm might have spent in pursuance of the claim, so if they spent money they’ll probably want to get paid back.

All of this, of course, should be covered in your fee agreement, so start there if you have questions. And remember, maybe getting a new attorney is the best thing for your claim, but maybe it’s not. Get some quality advice and do your due diligence before making any rash decisions. Call me at 919-929-2992.

If you’re injured in an accident in North Carolina, your health insurance is your front line of defense against medical expenses. Just because the injuries came about as the result of an accident and someone else might be on the hook for your damages DOES NOT take your health plan off the hook for what they should be paying.

Sometimes, though, you run into problems. One of those problems is just not having health insurance. Another of those problems is finding a health care provider who thinks they should not bill your health insurance simply because of the existence of a liability claim.

In the former situation, where you just don’t have health insurance, you’re in a pickle; you need health care but you don’t have a way to pay for it easily up front. In that case, going to a provider that will treat you on a lien basis makes sense. See the link for a more thorough explanation of what that is, but essentially it’s a deal where they treat you on the hope that they’ll get paid from your potential settlement proceeds. That’s totally fine (and frankly the norm with chiropractors).

In the latter situation, where you either have health insurance and the provider (very often Wake Med or some fancy PT office) just won’t bill it, the health care provider might ask your attorney for what they might call a Letter of Protection (LOP). I cannot and will not do that. To me, an LOP creates a conflict of interest for me, where I’ve promised to hold someone else’s interest above those of my clients. See the NC Rules of Ethics for why that’s bad. I particularly don’t like this idea when its obvious that the provider is just looking for a better payday on the belief that they will get paid more from a settlement than they would. To me, this is a violation of the provider’s contract with the health plan which probably states that they HAVE to bill the health plan (but be stuck with the plan’s “adjustments” which is another word for “discount”). It’s all very sketchy in my opinion. If they don’t want to take your health insurance you should talk to your health insurance about whether the provider has that sort of option, or even better, you should just seek a more reasonably provider.

This stuff gets complicated. Call someone with experience. Call someone you can trust. Call me at 919-929-2992.

USAA has all of these commercials where they brag about how well they take care of their insured, the men and women of the United States Armed Services. Pffffttt.

If you don’t know what Med Pay is, this won’t make any sense to you, so let’s start with that. In North Carolina, we’re what’s called a liability state when it comes to auto accidents. Each driver is legally required to carry liability insurance to cover the damages caused to others by the insured’s negligence. Your own automobile insurance doesn’t (generally) cover your bodily injury damages UNLESS you have what’s called Medical Payments coverage (Med Pay for short). That’s a tiny bit of coverage ($500, $1000, $2000, sometimes more, but rarely) of no-fault coverage that you pay extra for that will help reimburse you for auto-accident-related treatment costs regardless of whether the accident was your fault or not. Cool, huh?

Not so cool if your insurance carrier is USAA. I’ve represented dozens of USAA insured over the years and almost every time they play insurance games with Med Pay claims. With almost every other carrier (State Farm, Geico, Nationwide, Allstate, whatever…) if it’s their first party coverage (a claim for their own insured) they look at the bills and write a check, easy as that. But USAA almost always first denies the claim. They won’t say you don’t have coverage when you do, but they will say that the billing isn’t right (even if it is). What they clearly want is for you to give up so you can’t get the benefit that you’ve been paying extra for.

Don’t put up with that crap. And definitely don’t put up with that crap from a company that is advertising how well they take care of their insureds. If you’re having trouble withe your liability claim and your USAA Med Pay claim, give me a call at 919-929-2992 and see if I can help. I’d love to metaphorically slap them about the face and neck.

Like it or not, if you have an injury claim in North Carolina, you’re probably going to have to deal with a liability insurance company. If you’re dealing with an insurance company your life is going to be a lot easier if your facts don’t deviate much from the norm.

At the end of the day, all of us in the injury claims world have to think, “What would a jury do with this?” If it’s something that is very average and happens with pretty much every case, then we can make a pretty good guess. If it’s something outside of average, or something that doesn’t often happen, then it’s harder for us to predict. The odder it is, the harder it is to predict.

That lack of certainty makes claims valuation really difficult when we’re working with unusual facts. If you’re lucky your injury claim will be average – average mechanism of injury, average diagnoses, average treatment, average cost, average recovery time – because that helps all of us (both the good guys and the bad guys) have a lot more certainty about what we might face at trial, which makes agreeing on a case value much easier and more likely. Conversely, if you’re unlucky enough to have some weird stuff – a weird accident, bizarre diagnoses, strangely prolonged recovery time, astronomical and inexplicable treatment costs – then that’s going to make it harder to agree on case value, which will make your claims experience much more trying (pun is totally intended).

Whether your North Carolina injury claim is average or not, or you don’t know, call someone with experience who can guide you in your case. Call me at 919-929-2992.

I bet in your line of work, people have certain myths they believe and you have to spend an inordinate amount of time dispelling them.  This is like that for me. 

Sometimes people get a ticket they think is kinda fast (That varies wildly depending on who you are…some folks think 15 over is fast, some don’t really get worried until they’re past 30) and they often ask this question: “Does that count as reckless driving?”

Ugh.

In North Carolina there’s no such thing as a speeding ticket that is automatically turned into a reckless driving charge. It might be different in other states, but this is not a thing in NC. If you’re charged with reckless driving, you are charged with reckless driving.  If you’re charged with speeding, then you’re charged with speeding.  You might get charged with both, but you’ll know, because it’ll say both.  But just having a fast ticket does not get it promoted to reckless. 

You ARE charged with reckless driving if you’re charged under Sec. 20-140. It will be either (a) or (b). But you’re only charged with reckless driving if THAT statute is referenced in your ticket. Let me say it again for those folks in the back. There is NO speeding ticket that automatically becomes a reckless driving charge. That is not a thing.

Don’t listen to your friends unless they’re a lawyer, and even then, don’t listen to them talking about traffic law unless they regularly handle traffic tickets. Call someone who knows this stuff. Call me at 919-929-2992.

If you get a traffic ticket in North Carolina, it might not be as simple as paying a fine and going on your merry way.

Even on the lower end of the spectrum, traffic tickets can have drastic consequences. North Carolina follows the Safe Driver Incentive Plan which financially punishes drivers (and awards insurance companies) when they’re convicted of moving violations. That means a ticket you pay off and/or plead guilty to (same thing!) can result in hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars in increased insurance premiums for three years. As you go up the chain to more serious offenses, the consequences can get much worse than losing money, though. You can lose your license or even go to jail in rare circumstances!

How do you protect yourself from these undesirable consequences when you have a ticket? Call an attorney! If you get a ticket in Orange County or Chatham County particularly, give me a call at 919-929-2992. You’ll be glad you did!

I could write almost endlessly about the interactions between your North Carolina injury claim and your health insurance, but as I was composing this post I realized that, distilled to its essence, what this really boils down to is in-flow and out-flow.

In-flow

You get your health insurance by paying for it, one way or another. The deal is that when you need it, they pay for stuff for you. For purposes of this article, I’m thinking of that as “in-flow” because it’s money/benefits coming into your situation from an outside source. The way I look at it is that you have (if you’re lucky) several sources of funds that are putting money into your claim bucket: a liability carrier, perhaps your auto policy in the form of med pay coverage, and hopefully health insurance. How does that impact your injury claim? YOUR HEALTH PLAN SHOULD PAY FOR YOUR HEALTH CARE. I can’t repeat this often or loudly enough, so I’ll do it once more. YOUR HEALTH PLAN SHOULD PAY FOR YOUR HEALTH CARE. Yes, if you’re injured in North Carolina, YOU are responsible for your health care (NOT the at-fault party), which means your health plan is now responsible for your health care. We do NOT wait around for the liability carrier to pay for anything (they won’t). We do not assume anyone else is responsible for our care! We are NOT a PIP state and we do not do Coordination of Benefits when it comes to injury claims. If you seek health care, for whatever reason, your health plan should be on the hook. Now, there are some rare times that you might not want to use it (like with super-frequent care that you might get from a chiropractor) because of the frequency/amount of co-pays, but when in doubt, use your health insurance!

Out-flow

But do benefits ever go the other way? Do we ever have to pay the health plan back? YES! But not always! North Carolina has an anti-subrogation rule, meaning that the average state-specific health plan does NOT have a right of reimbursement in third party claims, meaning we generally do not have to pay your health plan back. However, there are exceptions to every rule. And there are several here. The most common is Medicare. You have to pay Medicare back from your settlement, but I’ve written about that elsewhere. Medicaid is pretty much the same, though with a different, more cumbersome and unreliable process (you guys who work there aren’t great…sorry, but it’s true). The State Health Plan has a statutory “super lien” which means they get paid back before, over, and above anyone (after attorneys) so you really have to watch them. Finally, even if you live in NC you might work for a large employer that’s set up their health plan through a Federal law (overrides NC law) that allows for reimbursement in third party settings. That law is referred to as ERISA and it gives me no end of grief. You probably won’t know if you have this sort of plan without asking, but the problem is that the people who answer phones at these places often don’t understand the question you’re asking, so it can be really difficult to learn your responsibilities in this situation. If no one there can seem to tell you, then you’ll want to get the Summary Plan Description of your plan and look at it. That will tell you what you need to know, but you may have to read 80 pages of nonsense to get there.

Look, injury claims get way more complicated than any of us would like, so get some help. Call an experienced attorney to get the guidance you need so you don’t inadvertently make things worse than they already are. Call me at 919-929-2992.

In any profession, there some common questions you hear ALL the time. The question I get most, phrased in varying ways, is “When should I hire an attorney?” That’s a more complicated question than you might think, but the short answer is, “Probably now.”

I’m a lawyer so I’m full of caveats…this post is about injury claims, not every potential legal dispute you might have, so take it as such. If you and the neighbor are arguing about a tree, you probably don’t need an attorney asap. But injury claims are a different story.

If you’re injured in an accident, whether it’s a car crash, dog bite, slip and fall, medical malpractice, you are going to get the most benefit from hiring an attorney immediately as opposed to waiting to see what happens. Here’s why:

The sooner we get involved, the more mistakes we can prevent you from making.

The moment your accident was reported an entire industry was set forth against you. They’re sole mission was to prevent you from getting what you might deserve and they’re trained to make you do dumb stuff! Don’t let them! Think of it like a Miranda Rights situation; everything you say (and do) can and will be used against you by the insurance company. If you hire an attorney sooner rather than later, we can build a virtual wall between you and the insurance carrier to prevent these mistakes.

The sooner we get involved, the more we can do to set up your claim for success.

There’s a lot that we can do to help set up your claim so it can be viewed in the light most favorable to you. And the sad bit is a lot of this needs to be set up early in the process; if you wait too long, it can be too late to do what we need and/or it can diminish the effects of what we try to do. This is what we do for a living! If I came to your job and tried to do it today I’d totally suck at it, and the same can be said for you trying to do my job. If you let me do what I know how to do, it’s probably going to help your claim.

The protest I get most often is, “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this.” But that’s the wrong way to look at it. By hiring an attorney, you’re only making sure that the insurance company doesn’t get away with making a smaller deal out of this than it otherwise should be. It’s not you making a big deal out of something, it’s you making sure you’re treated fairly. That’s all.

If you have an injury claim, call me at 919-929-2992.

If you’re in need of an automobile accident attorney in North Carolina, you might look for a personal recommendation from someone you know. That’s probably a great idea. Many folks turn to a Google search, and more often than not, the search term will turn into “personal injury attorney near me.” What you see after that search is really interesting to me, for many reasons.

PAY TO PLAY

Like anything these days, getting business through Google is definitely a “pay to play” proposition. As of the writing of this post, the first results you’ll see on the above search will be the Google Screened results, which come from the Local Services Ad that many professionals are sold. Can these results help? Yes, in a way. But the reality is that who shows up first, or at all for that matter in the Google Screened list is based on who is paying the most for you clicking that ad and making a call. So if what you’re looking for is a big injury practice with a big marketing budget, then you’re likely to find what you’re looking for with those results.

GOOGLE MAP LISTINGS

The results you’ll see after the GS/LSA lists will be the Google Map that will be slightly more organic, but the first one will STILL be a paid ad. You can simply read the “Sponsored” note on that first listing under the map. The next results are more relevant and will help you to see which attorneys that purportedly (though not always) practice in the area of personal injury and have an office near you. So the real map listings are by far more responsive to the search term than anything else we’ve seen so far. Interestingly, these hits are based on proximity, but they’re also (purportedly) stacked based on useful content. That means that the unsponsored/organic map listings will show the websites with the most helpful information that you can use even if you don’t hire them. That’s a worthwhile bit of info. Another thing that influences those rankings are Google reviews, so use those as a good indicator of experience.

Here’s the point I’m trying to make: Be an intelligent user of Google. When you search for help, know what listings are the results of bids and what are the results of actually helpful websites of reliable, trustworthy law practices with content on them that can help you whether you hire them or not. If you’re looking for an attorney that’s near you (which may or may not be actually relevant), look for the one with the most helpful information and, more importantly, the one with the most/best reviews. At the end of the day, you want a positive experience with a trusted attorney, not a drive-by settlement with a “case manager” that works at Big-Time Jack’s Super Mega Injury firm because they had the most money to pay for ads.