You can take your offer, fold it until it's all sharp corners, and then...

[denny]

The insurance company of the guy who knocked me off my bike made an offer to settle liability last week. At 60/40 (in my favour).

i.e. he takes 60% of the blame (and pays me 60% of whatever my settlement works out to) and I take 40% of the blame (and pay him 40% of whatever fixing his car cost).

I instructed my lawyer to reject the offer rather firmly. Negotiations continue.

My lawyer did recommend that I reject this offer by the way, not that there was any chance of me accepting it. As far as I'm concerned, he's 100% to blame and I'm not settling for anything less. I strongly suspect that this is their opening move in a haggling game which will settle down to the ultimatum "80/20 or it goes to court". At which point I will go to court, unless my lawyer advises otherwise in a very convincing manner.

I spoke to her on the phone this afternoon and got a few very tentative ideas as to timescales and ballpark figures for settlements, as well as a bit of a feel for how she's viewing the liability negotiations so far. I think she sees it going to court, but I think she believes it's got a good chance to win there. Of course it might be in her interests for it to go to court, I'm guessing she earns more that way, but I really don't care what her motives are as long as it aligns with my determination to try and drag full liability out of the idiot.

She's going to ask them if I can have another interim payment, as my finances are a bit dire at present. She's not particularly sure that they'll grant it though, until the liability issue is settled - there's no onus on them to do so. However, she did give me a rough idea of what will happen with the negotiations over liability now that they've opened the bidding. It seems likely that if negotiations haven't settled on a desirable outcome by Xmas, then it'll go to court in the new year. That'll take a while obviously, but when I asked if essentially it should all be sorted out one way or another within three months, she said that sounded reasonable. Once liability is settled, it'll be much easier to extract some more money out of them to pay my bills etc, pending the resolution of exactly how much the settlement is going to be for. So I've possibly got to keep myself afloat one way or another for another three months, which is just about doable with credit cards if work continues to be elusive.

As far as the final settlement is concerned, she gave me a rough idea of what similar cases have been settled at in the past. The loss of earnings stuff is obviously going to be a long drawn out argument now that I've been laid off, making it much harder to prove exactly what I've lost, so she didn't venture any guesses there, but as far as the injury component of the claim goes (which is the bit I was interested in finding out about), she said past cases have been resolved in the region of 15 to 20 thousand. Which isn't really all that generous for losing the ability to walk/dance/etc for a year, if you stop and think about it, but at least it's an appreciable sum.

Incidentally, a line of reasoning presented for your inspection/comments: My intuitive feeling about the injury part of the settlement was that I should receive the value of my life for however long it's put on hold for by the accident, which I've now come to define as how long it is before I can dance again. The only way I can put a cash value on some time from my life is by how much an employer was prepared to pay me for my time, so... I feel I should be paid ITRO £2500 for every month that I'm unable to dance (my last salary being 30k pa). Although, I've just thought about it, I guess this settlement will be tax-free? Hrm. If it is, then I'd seettle for the sum I would have earned after tax for whatever period I'm unable to dance. Note, this is on top of the money I want for loss of earnings etc, I'm just talking about the injury compensation part of the claim - the part that compensates me for the mess this accident has made of my life.

Funnily enough, I've just realised that I'm not even considering that I should be paid any money for the pain and unpleasantness of the accident and the month in hospital, it's the medium-term damage to my lifestyle that I want paying for. Maybe that's because that's the bit I'm having to cope with now, and it's really starting to drag me down.

Anyway, back to my lawyer. She wanted to warn me that these things don't tend to be resolved quickly, and I told her that I figured I was looking at a few years to final settlement, going on what I've heard from other people who've been in accidents of this magnitude - she seemed relieved that I was being realistic about the timescales involved.

She's still waiting to receive the independent medical report from the guy I went to see in London, but once she gets that she wants to come to visit me at home and interview me about the accident, preparation for should it go to court I guess, and just discuss everything in more detail with me. I find that I'm really looking forward to this, I can't quite figure out why - maybe just the feeling of progress that I think it will bring with it.

(NB: All of what she said was bracketed with the expected disclaimers about how she can't make definitive statements about anything, please take them as said here. Obviously nothing is guaranteed until it's all over and done with.)

Comments

[kissycat1000.livejournal.com]

You do seem happier that there's some progress and things are closer to being resolved. You're right of course, the offer is outrageous and shouldn't be accepted. Is there a way to discredit the 'witness' and has it been tried yet? That'll make it easier to get 100% responsibility.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

The witness didn't see the impact, they've only given a statement of their guesswork based on the positions of the vehicles after everything had finished (and they acknowledge that it's guesswork). According to my lawyer, a court won't consider that testimony particularly useful.

[kissycat1000.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes things much much easier then. I think I was under the impression that there was someone actually saying they saw you speeding into the vehicle as it was doing a legitimate turn in the road or something.

I'm assuming that if it goes to court, the fact that the driver can't guarantee that he didn't miss you in his blind spot as he wade the turn should go in your favour, I'm also assuming that these things would go in favour of the injured party if there's doubt over liability. I mean, it's not like you'd plow into his car for the fun of it, is it? *sigh*

[naranek.livejournal.com]

All sounds like the usual form(s) of ick :-(. I guess the thing about lifestyle is that it's the major component of the injury .. IME, acute pain is quite easy to live with, usually, because you're only worried about the pain it's easy to ignore how much you're missing out on everything else. Only once you've got past that, and you're able to see everyone else having a good time can you measure your state against theirs and feel deprived by comparison. Or possibly I'm just talking rubbish, of course .. :-).

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Or possibly because you were so full of morphine you weren't capable of thinking about it for a couple of weeks...

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Bit of both, I suspect. I do remember how unpleasant it was being in hospital - I don't really remember the pain of the actual accident, although I remember it was quite extreme... I suspect a nice healthy mental block has installed itself there, which I'm quite happy with.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right - I've got far more concentration to spare on noticing how crap my life is now, compared to immediately post accident when all I was concentrating on was trying to forget how much my leg hurt.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

You're looking forwards to this because it's the first tangible evidence (someone's personal effort) that people really are going to sort stuff out and you are going to be recompensed for your inconvenience/discomfort/etcetera.

[lzz.livejournal.com]

*hugs you tight* Am glad your lawyer seems positive about long-term outcome, and it sounds like she knows what she's doing as well which is good...
when do you next go to hospital for progress reports etc?
*more hugs*

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

when do you next go to hospital for progress reports etc?

Next Tuesday.

[lzz.livejournal.com]

Let me know how it goes. In fact, do you want me to arrange to ring you at a certain time in case you forget to set your alarm clock again?

[alixandrea.livejournal.com]

All I can say is good luck. Oh, and offer you a little ray of sunshine in that my violinist was knocked off his motorbike some years ago, breaking both his legs and leaving him wheelchair-bound for some time. He _did_ win compensation - enough to buy a house with in fact (although he didn't keep it for long, but that's an entirely different story!) He's now perfectly able-bodied and none the worse for wear - even after a slightly more recent accident where the mast of his dutch barge fell on him fracturing his spine... Did I mention my violinist is a bit accident-prone...? ;-) Anyway, he advocates yoga, which is something I'm also trying to start doing with Erik...