Differences in Personal Injury Cases – Pre-suit vs Lawsuit

 Posted on May 31, 2023 in Personal Injury

If you have been the victim of a personal injury incident or accident due to the fault of another, the best advice is to retain an experienced personal injury counsel to protect your interests while you focus on the healing process.  A qualified legal team such as Burress Injury Law will help you understand the claim process, maximize the value of your case, and quite possibly keep you out of unnecessary litigation. 

You may wonder whether your legal team will need to file a lawsuit. The Burress Injury Law team begins each relationship with new clients with a minimum two hour sign up  meeting with the actual attorneys (not some investigator or intake person). Here, our attorneys personally explain all of the common elements of a personal injury claim and transfer a lot of their knowledge to our clients so that they understand “best practices” to help their claims go smoothly.  

Then, the team at Burress Injury Law typically has our clients obtain all necessary medical treatment in the pre-suit phase (no lawsuit has been filed at this stage).  Thereafter, we communicate with our clients to understand all aspects of the damages and losses and prepare an extremely comprehensive demand. This letter minus the exhibits averages around 25 pages. With exhibits, it can be hundreds or even thousands of pages.  Our demand letter details how the defendant was liable (at fault) for the incident, and then highlights the client’s damages, which includes things like past and future medical expenses, loss of earnings, physical pain, mental anguish (pain and mental anguish are commonly but incorrectly referred to as pain & suffering), physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium and punitive damages. The Burress Injury Law demand process is tedious as we include all injuries, diagnosis codes and symptoms in every demand.  

Once our client’s demand package is in final form (which involves approximately six teammates working on it), we submit it to the insurance company(s) and give them approximately 25 days to review and provide a fair settlement offer.  

Approximately 75% of the time, we are able to achieve full value for our clients’ claims without recommending a lawsuit be filed.  This is terrific for clients because they are paid full money damages, yet they avoid the stress of litigation.  If, however, the insurance company(s) provide an unfair settlement offer, we can then file a lawsuit to ensure we obtain justice for our clients. Just because a lawsuit is file does not mean the case will go all the way to trial.  Over 90 percent of our cases (including those in which lawsuits are filed) will eventually settle for fair value before we arrive at the courthouse for trial. 

Texas Law in Personal Injury Cases?

Texas is an at fault state, meaning the driver(s)/company(s) at fault (usually through their insurance companies) can be held legally responsible for paying money damages to an injured victim. If the responsible party(s) is uninsured or underinsured, we obtain permission from our clients’ insurance carrier (which is required in Texas) in order to proceed with bringing the applicable uninsured/underinsured claim.  These claims, along with first party insurance components such as Personal Injury Protection (PIP) and MedPay, can make up for shortfalls with the at fault party’s insurance.  

We are often asked whether making a claim on a client’s own insurance raises premiums.  But for the very rare “claims made policy,” it does not.  Additionally, we occasionally recover the entirety of the at fault party’s insurance policy plus force responsible parties to pay out of pocket over and above their insurance policy. This is absolutely legal in Texas for personal injury law claims.  This typically happens when a client does not have enough first party insurance and the at fault party has appreciable assets recoverable under Texas law.

What is a Lawsuit?

A lawsuit is a legal action that is filed against the person(s) and/or entity(s) responsible for causing the incident that resulted in injuries or wrongful death. If we file a lawsuit on behalf of a client, we are asking for monetary damages to make our client whole for the injuries and damages he or she suffered. This lawsuit will seek money damages for the elements (both past and future) mentioned above.  

Contact a Collin County Personal Injury Attorney

Contact the experienced McKinney personal injury lawyers with Burress Injury Law at 214-726-0016 for a completely free consultation and case evaluation.

Source:

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/personal-injury/injury-compensation/