Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

1st Question: That is too little. For a personal injury that is their fault, you are entitled to 100% of your actual out of pocket expenses and losses. So not only your medical bills, but also any other expense or loss (such as time off work) you incurred. Then you are entitled to your pain and suffering damages. Since it is hard to put a number on that, it is common to use a number that is a "multiplier" of your out of pocket damages. Usually they are multiplied by somewhere between 2 and 4, depending on how serious the injury, how painful, and how long it lasted. They will offer you less than you ask for, so I recommend you tally up all your bills and any lost time and ask for that plus 6-7 times that for pain. A reasonable settlement would probably be around 2.5 to 3 times your losses, plus your actual losses, for a total of 3.5 to 4 times your out of pocket.

2nd question: It sounds like you have a separate medical malpractice case.

Slip and falls on liquid or food are difficult claims. You have the burden of neglience. You did not fully describe the spill that you slipped on. Unless you have a witness as to how long that spill was there you can only prove it by circumstantial evidence. Time can be expressed in streak marks or foot steps in the food stuff you slipped on. What I mean is the condition has to have been present for a sufficient period of time that the Disney staff should have discovered the mess and had an opportunity to clean it up. IF there are streak marks from stroller or foot steps evidencing that people have gone through it then it suggests a significant period of time had past since it was dropped. If not meaning just a puddle with no streaks or steps it suggests that it was there only a short time. It would be best if you had photos to prove the streaks existed too. If there was insufficient time to clean/correct the condition Disneyland would have no liability for it. They might or might not agree to pay for your meds without liability (most premises liability insurance policies do have a no fault med pay provision to cover the bills) but to get pain and suffering monies there would have to be liability based on a failure to clean the mess up promptly upon notice or based on a reasonable expectation that notice existed. As to the hospital did you ask about the x-ray result? There may be med mal here but no proof that not telling you that you had a fracture must create additional damages which you did not indicate existed. You would have had to suffer damages for the nondisclosure... might be a failure to diagnose or report the diagnosis but if you did not suffer further by this then your damages claim would be limited in value here. You should consult an attorney to discuss your rights. Be advised there is a one year statute of limitations to file a hospital malpractice claim and the hospital must be given 90 days written notice in advance of intent to sue. As to Disneyland there is a 2 year statute of limitation but if you filed against the hospital you would have to file all claims including against Disneyland at the same time. I advise you to consult an attorney as to your rights. I hope this helps. Bob

I agree with a combination of Timothy and Robert's answer to your question. I don't think that you will get anywhere with a Medical Malpractice claim, and as Robert indicated, liability will have to be established against Disneyland to get them to pay anything over an above your medical bills. Did you take photos? Do you have any witnesses? Did it look like that spill had been there for some time?

BARRY BESSER

www.besserlaw.com

The value of your case depends on the extent of your injury. Guilty Defendants usually try to settle as early as possible so that you don't get a chance to fully discover the extent of your injury. This is very important in your case, because you have the kind of injury that might have very significant problems in the future.

A prior post mentioned "multipliers" as a way of estimating pain and suffering. That method has been out of use for a very long time, and it never applied well to all cases either. For example, a fender-bender with muscle sprains might end up with $4000 in chiropractic bills because of all the treatment sessions; a fracture like yours, however, often doesn't get much treatment besides a cast, so the bills might be quite low, like yours are. Everyone can see that a fracture is worse than a muscle sprain though, so you should get more pain and suffering even though the bills are less.

The way it actually works now is like a marketplace where insurance companies compare settlements and verdicts for cases with similar injuries to yours, to see what they "go" for. A simple fracture case typically will "go" for tens of thousands. So no, you are definitely NOT asking for too much. In fact, if they pay only your medical bills, they will get a hell of a deal, paying a dime on the dollar at least.

Do yourself a favor and "lawyer up" before you go any further. A lawyer will pay for himself several times over in a case like this. If you'd like to talk to me more about it, call me toll-free at (877) LION-FOR-LAW (546-6367) or email [email protected]