Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

Without knowing the facts of your case, none of us can say whether or not your lawyers did a good or poor job. Insurance companies are very tough on personal injuries arising from car accidents.

Tell your attorney about your questions and worries; he/she may be able to explainin better detail what happened. For vehicle damage, you are only entitled to the cost of repairing the vehicle or it fair market value at the time of the accident, which ever is less. Since the fair market value does not take into account the dealer's profit is selling a car, the injured party never is placed back into the situation they were in just before the accident. You also are entitled to the cost of renting a car during the time it would take to repair your vehicle. Normally, when a case is settled, the health care treater gets a portion of their billing and dismisses the rest of the charges. If you yourself do not have insurance, the law limits your damages to your out of pocket expenses, and you are barred from collecting any damages for bodily injury.

I agree with George, but let me give you some guidelines from my 25 years of experience in dealing with personal injury cases.. Sounds like clear liability and an aggravated fact situation so you should get top dollar assuming you had insurance coverage and you sought medical care within two days of the collision.. If your injuries were only soft tissue, the general range is from $8K to $15K or about 2.5 times the total medical bills plus whatever lost wages you have. On top of that you get the Fair Market Value of your car. This is usually where the insurance company begins to short change you. If the value of your car is less than the cost of repair then all they have to pay you is the value of the vehicle. In addition you are entitled to the loss of use or payment for a rental car while they were figuring out how much your car was worth.

Even given the limited facts it seems that you should have gotten more than $1K.

If you want you can call me to discuss the matter further.

If you settled your only recourse is to sue the lawyer for malpractice.

Check out our website at www.bellilawfirm.com or give me a call at (866) 981-1850.

Good luck and hope that helps.