Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
Earlier, you mentioned that after you review the case, you decide to take the case. What factors do you use in deciding whether you take the case or don’t take the case?
Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County, NY
Well, I love that question. So, one of the things that we make sure of is we look at how can we put faults on another party? Do we believe that another party might be at fault? If you’re 100% at fault for your accident, there’s just not much that we’re going to be able to do for you.
If you rear end somebody who stopped at a red light, for instance, that’s the most typical scenario where you’d say it’s 100% somebody else’s fault. If somebody is innocently stopped at a light and you run into the back of them and you get hurt as a result of that accident, which certainly happens, and you came to me with your problems. I would discuss your rights with you. I would discuss the no-fault application that we talked about where that needed to be filed within 30 days.
But in all likelihood, I would say, but unfortunately, there’s nothing that we can do for you because in my determination and in my opinion, and certainly you can seek the opinion of another lawyer, but I think that you’re 100% at fault for the case. And in that event, I don’t see a road to recovery for you. So that might be a bar to us taking a case.
If a person says, if they walk through the door here, another instance where we reject the case, a person says, hey, I had an accident six months ago. Okay, what happened? And they go and they tell a story and maybe the liability is great. Maybe they say, hey, I was stopped at a red light and I got rear-ended. Okay, that sounds terrible and I think that we might be able to help you with that.
And then I might say, did you go to the hospital? Well, no, I didn’t go to the hospital. Okay. When did you first follow up for medical care? Oh, I haven’t followed up for medical care yet, but my shoulder is really hurting me now. Well, six months goes by. It’s going to be very difficult for me to cautiously relate the pain that somebody is experiencing now, maybe complaining about it, maybe documenting it now for the very first time six months post-accident. That is going to be very difficult for me to take on.
So, the person’s medical care, of course, is a consideration. The insurance involved is an important assessment. How many people might be involved in that accident is an assessment because you might be subject to a limited recovery if there’s a minimal policy and there’s seven people in a car and I’m going to represent only one of seven people that were injured as a result. That’s going to be tough because there’s going to be some sort of cap on that potential insurance recovery.
So, fault is an issue, the issue of liability, the issue of how hurt is this person, is absolutely an issue. And then there’s a slew of other things that we can get into, but primarily we’re looking at liability, the issue of fault, insurance and damages. Damages meaning how hurt are you and what have you lost as a result of that accident.
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