I could write a book on the various and sundry ways you can make your North Carolina personal injury claim worse. There are a lot. But these little nuggets are the most common that you should look out for…

Southern Hospitality/Taking the Blame

One of the things I like about the South is that, in general, we do tend to be pretty polite in public. How many times have you been holding a door for someone and then have a polite argument about how the other person should go first? That’s kinda nice. But this instinct can be killer for your claim. After an auto accident you will likely be interviewed by law enforcement and/or an insurance claims agent. If your Southern instinct to demur and not place the blame on someone else kicks in, that could lead to claims disaster. Always tell the truth, but never even come close to accepting blame, or even acknowledging partial fault, if that’s not definitely the truth! EVERYTHING you say can and will be used against you in this claim, so if it was the other guy’s fault, you say that and stick to it!

Health Insurance/Auto Insurance/What? What!?

Insurance is dumb. I’ll be the first to admit it. But in our current system it’s a necessity. But necessary or not, it can be super confusing. Do you use your health insurance if someone has liability insurance that should be paying for your medical expenses? What is this “Med Pay” stuff in my own auto policy? All of this can be confusing, but here’s the bottom line: North Carolina is NOT a PIP (personal injury protection) state, so you DO use your Health Insurance for auto-accident related injuries! Let me say that again louder for the people in the back. YOU DO USE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE! Here’s the best way to look at it: Your health insurance is on the hook in NC, no matter who else might be on the hook in theory. Yes, your health plan might have a right to get paid back IF you get payment for those bills from someone else, but that’s way down the road. When you incur the health care bills, your health insurance is on the hook for them. Period. How does your auto “Med Pay” play into that? Well, that’s no fault coverage that you can access after any auto accident, but be careful when/how you access it, because lien-holders might have a right to it. That’s another blog post altogether, though, so call me for details on that one.

Tough Guy/Gal Syndrome

“Yeah, I’m a little banged up, but I think I’ll wait a few weeks to see if I really need treatment,” is a great attitude to absolutely shred your injury claim. Here’s the skinny: Insurance companies LOVE to take advantage of good intentions. You might be trying to be tough or trying not to “make a big deal” out of something, but if you’re hurt, you should seek treatment. If you don’t seek treatment, the insurance company is going to argue to your future jury that you must not have been hurt. So that week or two or three or whatever that you’re waiting, albeit for the kindest of purposes, gets used against you as “proof” that you weren’t really hurt in the first place. The bottom line is if you’re hurt after an accident, get checked out and go ahead and start whatever kind of treatment you need or you’ll regret it if you don’t.

Sadly, there are tons of other ways you people will act that will compromise your claim, but I can’t go into all of them. I wish it wasn’t so fraught, but insurance companies have come up with all kinds of tactics to avoid paying reasonable value for claims, so you have to get good advice fast to avoid falling prey to them. So if you’re hurt in an accident, call an attorney asap. Call me. 919-929-2992.

If you have a worker’s compensation or auto accident injury claim in North Carolina, there’s a fairly high chance that you may be involved in a mediation at some point. So what the heck is a mediation anyway?

A mediation is a moderately formal meeting of two or more adverse parties to convene, under the guidance of a mediator, in an attempt to resolve the conflict between the parties. In some instances a mediation is mandatory in North Carolina, but not always. I tend to like them as a dispute resolution alternative and here are a few reasons why:

• Your attorney does all the talking, really. You don’t have to be examined or cross examined or get all worked up about that. For the most part your attorney will do all the talking for you. Don’t get me wrong: You’ll be involved and your decision-making is critical but you won’t be under any pressure to “perform,” which is great.
• The mediator is NOT a judge. The mediator, who is normally agreed to and assigned by the parties, is a non-partial, independent third party who gets paid no matter what so s/he doesn’t have a horse in the race. Generally, they’re just nice old lawyers or judges who like helping people figure stuff out. Often times you can really lean on their experience to help you gain a better understanding of the issues. Whereas a judge often tells you the outcome, a mediator only helps you to come to an outcome that you agree to. That’s way better in my opinion.
• You’re not with the adverse party very long. Generally speaking, there is the opening where the mediator briefly explains the process, the plaintiff’s attorney recounts what the issues are, the defense attorney responds, and then you separate into different rooms. This is called “caucusing” which just means you’re separate and free to talk to your attorney and the mediator about what’s going on. When you’re in a caucus, you can confide in the mediator if you feel it’s necessary/appropriate, and tell them not to share that info, and they won’t. Plus, you get to confer with your attorney while the mediator is away and that allows you plenty of real-time reaction to what you’re learning.
• You get to hear the other side. Everyone knows the strengths of their claims, but depending on your attorney’s style of practice, you may not know a great deal about the weaknesses of your claim, or how another party might perceive them. This is a great opportunity to hear the adverse parties’ viewpoints on your situation AND you get to have that filtered by an experienced, independent, NEUTRAL third party – the mediator – and that is worth its weight in gold. Maybe your case is great, but maybe it ain’t. This is where you often find out.
• You have the power to decide. In a trial, the “finder of fact” gets to decide the outcome of your case. That’s normally a judge or a jury. But that takes the power of your outcome totally out of your hands. In a mediation, you get to agree or not. I have found throughout the years that clients really appreciate having the power to agree to a resolution of a claim to be very, well, empowering, for lack of a better word.

And that’s really not all of the benefits, that’s just all I can explain in a blog post. If you’re in a position to potentially resolve your case in a mediation, it’s a good opportunity to at minimum learn about your case and best case scenario get the best, most reasonable outcome possible.

There’s a very good chance you will need an attorney if you get a speeding ticket. It is the vast minority of ticket situations that allow for you to simply pay them off without long-term adverse consequences, so get some good legal advice.

The best way to get good advice is to know what you’ve got and what you want. Here are some tips to help you help yourself!

• Know what you’re charged with. I can’t really tell you much about what I might be able to do to help or what needs to be done if I don’t know what you’re charged with. If you’re calling without the ticket in front of you, you should carry it with you. It isn’t that heavy.
• Have the person charged available to speak. I know, I know, you want to help little Johnny because you’re a helicopter parent, or you want to help your boyfriend because he’s mostly useless. That’s fine, but have him there near the phone so he can answer questions about the situation if need be.
• Know WHERE you were charged. Same as the first one, all of this information is on the ticket in case you forget where you were when it happened, but your potential attorney HAS to know the jurisdiction to give you an idea of what might be done or if s/he has any knowledge of what might done. Practices vary a lot between jurisdictions, so this is extra important.
• Empty your cup. Don’t call an attorney with the idea that you’re going to tell them what needs to happen. It’s cool to have goals and all, but you’re SEEKING advice, not giving it, so listen up.
• Stay local. I’ll be the first to tell you that local guys tend to do better locally. That’s not to say that I can’t handle a Wake County ticket, but if it’s something out of the ordinary, I will refer that out because my experience is that if you need a little extra because your charge is a little extra, then you are better off calling someone who is in that court house semi-daily.

That should help set you on the road to success. Just don’t try to go too fast on that road. You don’t want another ticket.

When you get a ticket in North Carolina you should take it seriously. Tickets aren’t just about the dollar amount on the paper you were given (if there is one). They can have HUGE impacts on your future insurance rates for years to come and MIGHT even result in the loss of your license. Tickets can be a big deal!

Most of you know this, so you naturally want to use everything you can think of to defend yourself against the consequences. But I’m here to tell you, “But this is my first ticket!” is NOT a valid defense.

Sure, if you’ve got a clean record that can help you in negotiating a better outcome. But PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY get the idea that you get one free ticket out of your head. This is NOT a thing.

If you’ve got a speeding ticket in NC, you should seek legal advice immediately, preferably from an attorney in the same geographic area as where you received the ticket. Call me at 919-929-2992.

I learned a great lesson from a story early in my life and I’ve found that lesson to be relevant almost every day of my life since. It’s particularly relevant when you are going to seek help from someone who is an expert in their field. Here’s the story:

A young man who had begun studying a subject and who had discussed said subject with his friends and family decided it was time to further his studies in the field by seeking an acknowledged master in the field. The teacher he sought had studied the field in a rigorous academic setting for years, had been tested by other recognized experts in the field, AND had decades of practical experience working hands-on within that field.

The young man finally found the teacher and asked her to teach him. She said that first they should have a cup of coffee and discuss things. The teacher began to set out cups and to pour the coffee. As she filled the young man’s cup, it began to overflow, but she continued to pour. The young man exclaimed, “Teacher! My cup is already full!”

The teacher replied, “Exactly. When you come seeking knowledge you must first empty the cup of the knowledge that you are looking to improve upon. If your cup is already full, I cannot fill it.”

This is something we should all carry with us. We might think we know something, or even a lot, about a certain subject. We might have talked to Uncle Joe or Cousin Suzy or our friend Aaron and gotten their take on it, but we must consider the source of our so-called “knowledge.” Did we learn what we think we learned from actual experts in this field? Did the people we discussed this with give us hard-won, field-tested practical knowledge they had gained through study and work, OR did they simply confirm our own bias/prejudice and we sucked it up just because it felt good to be validated?

If you really want to learn, empty your cup. If you seek the information/guidance/assistance of an actual expert in a field, then dispose of the dross that you’ve accumulated in your head from non-authorities. Do not insult the practical experience of the expert whose help you’re seeking by contesting it against the anecdotal drivel you’ve allowed yourself to be poisoned by.

If, on the other hand, you just want to keep believing what you already believe, or thinking what you already think, just because that feels comforting then do that. But don’t try to compare your feelings to the expert’s knowledge. They are not the same.

This title is a little misleading in that I can’t tell you EVERYTHING you would need to eliminate the possibility of a nightmare injury claim scenario in NC, obviously, but I can only put so much in a title. Bear with me.

I’ve seen this so many times and its tragic each time: Person is driving along, minding their own beeswax, when out of nowhere BOOM some knucklehead rams into them, resulting in horrific injury. As knuckleheads are wont to do, this particular knucklehead only purchased the bare minimum insurance coverage required by the State of NC to operate a motor vehicle legally. That, by the way, is $30,000 per person/$60,000 per accident. That means if you’re the unfortunate victim here. The MOST their insurance company has to pay you, regardless of the extent of your injuries and the cost of your medical care and the time you missed from work and whatever disability you have now, is $30,000. That’s it.

Of course, you are welcome to sue the bad guy and try to get a judgment in excess of that $30,000. That’s totally within your rights. But how do you turn that into actual money? What you would have to do with your judgment is called “execution,” which means you send the Sheriff out to collect his personal belongings and sell them. What do you think are the odds of a person who has $30,000 in liability coverage also happening to have a significant dollar amount worth of personal property? Pretty low, I’m thinking. If someone were to empty the contents of a rando’s home in NC, there might be, what, $10,000 worth of stuff at an auction? Is that really going to help you?

This all sounds really depressing, right? I know. So you’re probably asking, “But Jeffrey, what can we do to avoid this scenario? We can’t make people get more insurance? Is there anything we can do to protect ourselves?” You’re totally right and I’m glad you asked. The first step is to call your insurance agent. What you need is as much “Underinsured Motorist Coverage” (UIM) as you can possibly afford. Some companies will let you purchase this increase independently of your own limits. Otherwise your UIM coverage will match your own liability coverage. But if you have to increase your liability to get some reasonably high UIM, I think it’s worth it. Obviously, don’t go bankrupt over-insuring yourself, but chances are you won’t. This sort of coverage is relatively inexpensive and if buying that stuff and never using it is the worst financial decision you make in your life, you’re lucky. But if you do end up needing it, you’ll be SOOO glad you did.

Oh, lort. I’ve heard ’em all. Everyone has a reason why they were speeding. But guess what!? The reasons almost never matter. Speeding is speeding. If you’re going over the limit, whether you meant to or not, or had a very compelling reason, you’re still breaking the law. Not my fave either, but it’s how it is.

What are some good old chestnuts? These are classics:

“But I was driving with the flow of traffic!” This is just another way of saying everyone, including myself, was speeding. That’s not a great alibi, buddy.

“I didn’t know the speed limit had changed!” There was probably a sign. Derp.

“I wasn’t speeding until this guy started tailgating me, and then I had to speed to get away from him.” OK, Magnum, good job getting rid of your tail, but you were speeding.

“I was behind this tractor trailer that was going so slow and I just sped up to pass him!” If you speed while speeding you’re speeding.

“Yeah, I was speeding but this is my first ticket.” You don’t get speeding ticket mulligans, my dude. Although, the PJC is kind of that, come to think of it, but don’t rely on your clean record as a defense.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. I have seen tickets get dismissed for some very valid reasons. The most obvious one is where I had a lady produce a birth certificate for the child she bore right after getting the ticket on the way to the hospital. Free pass on that one is totally the right call. But unless you’re popping a kid out, your excuse is probably dumb. Just sayin.

If you follow my writing or have been a client, you know that to help build the framework for the pain and suffering aspect of my clients’ personal injury claims, I recommend that they document their recovery/suffering/experience in a Pain Journal. Many of them ask, “How should I write my pain journal?” and I don’t have a super clear answer for them, sadly. Here’s the deal:

Your pain journal should be yours. It should be in your words, in your ways. I want it to not only reflect your experience throughout your recovery, but to reflect you and your personality. Because of all of that, I can’t say it should look like this or look like that; this is a very personal account of a painful experience, and the more micromanaging of that process I do the less powerful it tends to be.

Having said that, the minimum standard I ask for is that the journal should reflect 1) what hurts, 2) how badly, and 3) how it affects you in your day to day life EACH DAY FROM THE ACCIDENT UNTIL YOU REACH MAXIMUM MEDICAL IMPROVEMENT. I prefer them in a Word Doc or a Google Doc because they’re easily shared. Otherwise, formatting and content are totally up to you. More is more, generally, but you can guess that there’s a point where it becomes oversharing. Trust your gut.

For the most part I’m an extremely lucky guy (for being an attorney, anyway). The vast majority of my clients get it. They know that this is a two-party relationship where each of us – attorney and client – have individual roles to play that, when combined, are greater than the sum of their parts. When attorney and client worth TOGETHER on a claim, the best results for the client are far more likely to be obtained. Conversely, when the client doesn’t participate, bad things happen in the claim.

Once again, I’m luck enough that most of my clients do not fail to participate. Most of my clients are actively involved in the development and management of their claims, which is great for both of us. The claim is made healthier by client involvement, which typically results in better settlements, which results in happier clients and a happier attorney, frankly. Everyone wins in that scenario!

The opposite is true when clients fail to participate. What do I mean by failing to participate? Here are some examples:

• I need to know how your treatment is going. I’ll typically reach out by email to each client every 2-4 weeks, depending on circumstances, to obtain updates as to treatment. If you don’t let me know what’s happening (or not happening, as the case my be) I can’t help you manage that situation to better your outcome. You gotta communicate!
• I need you to complete the tasks I set you. Some folks think that when they hire an attorney for their injury claim, the attorney does ALL of the work. The truth is the attorney does A LOT of the work, but there are some things that the attorney CANNOT do for the client. I can’t write your pain journal. I can’t make you attend your treatment regularly. I can’t make sure your health insurance is being billed. I can’t talk to your health insurance for you about potential subrogation issues. I can’t provide documentation about your own auto insurance coverage to myself. I can’t make sure that you’re adequately describing all of your symptoms to your providers and making sure you’re going to the right ones. I can’t guess if you want to make a diminished value claim, nor can I make your appraisal appointment for you. I can’t send myself bills that you are getting in the mail. There’s simply a lot of stuff that I cannot do for you because, in short, I ain’t you.
• I need you to respond to questions, particularly about settlement. This one is less of a problem because if we’ve gotten to the point of settling the claim then that’s normally because the client has been reasonably responsive so far (or else we wouldn’t have likely gotten there, though there are exceptions). But sometimes you’ll run into clients that simply lose interest (or maybe just have some other stuff going on) and as a result they don’t respond to questions about settlement authority. I can’t settle your case without your consent. Another way to say this is unless you tell me it’s OK, I can’t get you the money you hired me to get you. So it’s in your interests to talk to me.

What it really boils down to is this: It takes two to tango. In the immortal words of Jerry McGuire, “Help me to help you!” As much as I can do for you (and I can do a lot!) I can’t handle your case without your help. It really is about communication. If you just respond to questions and assignments this entire process will be better and easier for everyone involved. Don’t ghost me, or your claim will be the thing that really suffers.

Liability for dogbites/dog attacks (let’s just use the latter for now, because it doesn’t have to be a bite for it to be bad) in North Carolina can be a bit confusing.

Nominally, there is strict liability for dog attacks in NC. But it’s very contextual. IF a dog owner has knowledge of a dog’s “dangerous propensities” and the dog causes injury, then they’re on the hook. So what does all of that mean?

First, you have to show that the dog possessed “dangerous propensities.” This is just another way of saying that the dog had a history of doing something that might cause injury. Had it bitten a dog before? A person? Does it love to jump up and knock people down? Those are all dangerous propensities.

Second, you have to show that the owner was aware of those propensities. Assuming the previous action happened on the owner’s watch, then they’re aware. Though you can imagine some scenarios where this might not be the case.

This has led to the nomenclature of the “One Bite Rule.” That essentially means if your dog is sweet as sugar and has never done anything bad to anything or anyone, THEN it does, it’s first bit of shenanigans gets a pass because you weren’t aware of any dangerous propensities.

But after that, now you might be on the hook. After a dog has been involved in an attack (bite, tackle, whatever), the owner is theoretically legally liable for the damages caused by all future incidents.

The history of the one-bite rule goes back to English Common Law. That’s right, we still employ legal principles that were invented before people bathed regularly and slavery was no big deal. Although the majority of states have amended these laws, some have not (I’m looking at you, backwards ass NC legislature).

While North Carolina still has the One Bite Rule, you aren’t necessarily stuck with that. You can still make a normal negligence argument stick in a situation where you can prove that a reasonably prudent person in the same or similar circumstances would have acted differently. However, this also puts into play another stupid old English Law we have – Contributory Negligence – so watch out for that.

Like many injury claims, dog attacks can be complex. It’s worth talking to a lawyer, so if you’re in this unfortunate situation, call a lawyer. Call me. 919-929-2992.