Jared Richards

Clear Counsel Law Group / Jared Richards

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May You Still Sue if You Signed a Release Waiver?

How Signing a Waiver Will not Foreclose Your Option to Sue

Transcript:

Jared: Hi, I'm Jared Richards. I'm one of the partners at Clear Counsel Law Group. One of our readers has asked, "If I sign a release form concerning possible injuries, is there anything I can do if I get hurt?" The answer is sometimes. A lot of times companies and doctors, for example, will make you sign waivers acknowledge that there are certain possibilities of danger. Now different courts handle these different ways. Quite frankly, different judges handle these differently. In general, just because you acknowledge that there's a possibility that you might be injured doesn't necessarily give the person who injures you license to act negligently. They still have a level of duty and care that they have to perform.

Now the fact that you've sign a waiver for potential injuries is never helpful, but what you need to do is take that waiver to your attorney, talk with him, and ask that attorney if this is something that you can get around. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. It's a very case-specific thing, but the general principle is was the injury that you received foreseeable at the time that you signed that waiver. Is it something that that waiver really was meant to address, and is the injury the result of somebody else's negligence that happened after you signed the waiver? If so, then there's a chance you might be able to get around it.

Brian: A quick question. Is it different if an establishment posts a sign saying they're not responsible for an injury? Is that different than signing a waiver?

Jared: No, I don't know that a unilateral posting of a sign saying they're not responsible for a injury actually gets them out of anything. I would be pretty skeptical actually on that.

This all goes down to issues of fair play and notice. For example, if there's a sign that says wet floor, and it was noticeable and you saw it, then maybe the person's not responsible for that injury. If there's just a big sign on the establishment saying I'm not responsible for any injury, I'm not sure that I buy that. I'm not sure that saves them from anything.

Personal Injury / Personal Injury Videos - 12/09/2015

Who to Sue in a Car Accident Caused by Road Conditions

Knowing Who to Sue in a Car Accident Caused by Bad Road Conditions

Transcript:

Hi. I'm Jared Richards, one of the partners at Clear Counsel Law Group. One of our readers has asked us who do we file claims against if there's an accident due to road conditions that are not weather related? By this I assume that they're referring to potholes or some obstacle in the road. The answer is you file a claim against the person who's responsible. If for example there's an obstacle in the road and we know who put it there, then that's who we would sue.

If it's an actual street condition, the street is poor or there's a stop sign that's missing, we would contact the city government or the county government, whoever it is that maintains the road, controls the road. Now something to be aware of, if you are suing a city government or a county government, anything that is the state level government, often there is a cap on how much you can recover. For example in Clark County, Nevada or all of Nevada, there is a cap of $100,000 per claim. That's something to be aware of when you're making a claim and selecting who it is that we want to make a claim against. So anyway, the short answer is try to figure out who's at fault and that's who you file a claim against.

Personal Injury / Personal Injury Videos - 12/07/2015

Will a Person on a Car Title Be Held Liable in a Car Accident?

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Jared Richards. I'm one of the partners here at Clear Counsel Law Group. One of our readers has recently asked whether the person who's on title with him on a car is going to be liable or responsible if he is at fault for an accident. The answer is maybe, but we have another video on this and please check it out. The quick answer is that person is going to be responsible if the responsible is just lending somebody a car or having somebody as co-title on the car. It's not going to mean that they are instantly responsible. Now there are generally 3 methods that we go about to show that somebody else who isn't driving is responsible.

Method one is that the person who owns the vehicle is the employer or in law sometimes we say the master of the person who is driving. Meaning the owner instructed the driver to drive and while the driver was doing what the owner said, they got in an accident. Now generally this applies in an employee or employer relationship. It certainly doesn't happen every time. If somebody is on co-title with you, it's generally not the case. The next thing that we look at is what we call negligent entrustment. Negligence entrustment is when you own a vehicle and you give it to somebody that you know is not fit to drive.

Now there is a lot of case law on negligence entrustment and there tends to be an exclusion. You want to talk to your attorney and your attorney will have to do probably some briefing for the court on this, but there is an issue of whether negligence entrustment can even happen on somebody who is on co-title, who is on title of the car because they have a right to drive. You're not letting them drive it. They have a right to drive. There is a law on that and some area for argument. The last is the person who is on co-title with you. If they are a member of your household, if they're family and a member of your household, then the answer is yes they probably actually will be liable then that has to do with the family responsibility act.

Most of the time no, the person is not going to be responsible, but there are times specifically if they're your employer, if you're running an errand at their specific request behest or if you are a family member living with them, then they might be responsible. Thanks and will see you in another video.

Personal Injury / Personal Injury Videos - 10/23/2015

What is an Appropriate Amount of Car Insurance to Carry?

How Much Car Insurance Coverage Would You Recommend?

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Jared Richards. Hi, I'm Jared Richards. I'm one of the partners here at Clear Counsel Law Group. Now, one of our readers has recently asked us how much insurance coverage he should have on his car. It's an interesting question because there are many different types of insurance coverage you can have on your car. There's insurance coverage that will cover the property damage that you cause if you're at fault. There's insurance coverage that will cover property damage done to your car even if it's your fault. There is other coverage that will cover your car if it's somebody else's fault and they don't have enough or they don't have any insurance. That's for the property damage. Let's talk about injury.

Now, it's the same idea. There is liability insurance that's going to cover you if you hurt somebody else. There's uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage that covers you if somebody else hurts you. Then there's MedPay. MedPay simply pays for medical bills. Now I want to talk about how much coverage we have in liability. The answer, I think, is having as much as you can afford. Now, it's tempting sometimes to either not buy insurance, which is just wrong, I think it's immoral to not buy insurance, or to simply go with the state minimums. I think that's also problematic, and possibly also a moral issue.

Now, I understand there are budgetary issues that every family has to deal with. Sometimes, realistically, minimum policies is all that the family can possibly afford. Even if you had the best budgeter examining and altering their budget, they would still put them on a 15/30, a minimum policy. If you have more money, and getting more insurance is not relatively all that much more expensive, buying is helps two people. One, it helps protect you. I had somebody come in recently and say that they had been in a car accident and somebody was suing them. They had assets that were exposed. If you have assets, if you have a lot of money in the bank account, if you have property, if you have real estate rental property, if you have other investments, you need to have insurance. You should also talk about it to an attorney, and you can come talk to our asset protection department, about how to set up those assets so they are protected.

Let's move on to what I view as a moral issue of protecting others if it's your fault. The idea is that none of us wants to cause an accident, none of us. It's so easy to do it. Some are from sheer stupidity. They're doing things that they shouldn't be doing: drinking driving, things like that. Some of them are just simple mistakes. We all mistakes when driving. Luckily, for most of us, we don't make mistakes when somebody's in our way. But people screw up, and it's an accident and people get hurt. Now if you find yourself in that situation where you have seriously hurt somebody, don't you want to be in a position where you can offer up your own insurance policy? You know it's not going to make it right. You know it's not going to bring them back their legs or make them work again. It's not going to make it better. It's not really going to truly make it even, but it's the best you can do.

If you're sitting on a 15/30 policy and, heaven forbid, you nod off at the wheel or you over-adjust your car and you over-adjust your car and you make a mistake that anybody can make, and you kill somebody or you paralyze them for life, or you otherwise seriously, seriously hurt them, you want to be in a position where you can make it as right as possible. For those that have financial ability, I really encourage go buy at least $100,000 of coverage, at least, preferably 250. I've even seen a 500/500 policy. Now on top of that, both to protect yourself and to protect others, umbrella policies are very inexpensive. Purchasing a million dollars in coverage on top of your car insurance policy for just negligence, it's a very affordable prospect. It protects your assets and it fulfills your duty to try to make things right if you have committed a wrong, even if it's accidental.

I'm not selling insurance here, but you may want to talk to your insurance agent and make sure that your limits are appropriate to protect you, to protect your family, and to protect the other people that are on the road around you. If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call. Thanks for watching this video, and we'll see you in the next video.

General Interest / Personal Injury / Personal Injury Videos / Uncategorized - 10/11/2015

What to do if You are in a Car Accident with a Person that has No Insurance

You have been in a car accident with a person that does not have insurance; now what?

Transcript:

Hi. I'm Jared Richards. I'm one of the attorneys here at Clear Counsel Law Group. One of our readers has asked what to do if they have been in a car accident and it turns out that it's not their fault. It's the other side's fault. The other side has no insurance and there is no underinsured motorist coverage. I'm not sure there's much to do. You may be in trouble.

A couple of things we want to make sure is that the other side, the person who hit you, doesn't have assets sufficient to cover your claim. Most people don't, unfortunately. Nevada has certain laws, I think of them as the bankruptcy laws. It's really laws against enforcing a judgement and what that means is let's say we are taken to court. We're to go all the way to get a court to issue a judgement saying that the person who hit you owes you $20, 30, 40, 50,000. Insert your number. It doesn't really matter. Nevada has laws that say we can only collect against certain property of the defendant. Usually, as a general basis, that means that we can only collect 25% of their take home income after deducting minimum wage.

That might not be a lot of money. People get to protect $15,000 in equity in their car, up to $500,000 in equity in their house, about the same amount in an IRA, unlimited amount in a life insurance policy or an annuity. For most people, it's very difficult to collect and so there may not be much to do. Most of the time in that situation, it's not worth suing.

That leads to another interesting question and an important question and that is what kind of insurance should you have. First of all, you need to have health insurance. If you were injured in that accident, you need to have that health insurance to get the treatment that you need. Unfortunately, health insurance is not going to cover certain things. It is not going to cover your pain and suffering. It's not going to cover your lost income. That's where we get into two other very, very, very important types of insurance.

The first is life insurance. Heaven forbid, you were to die in an accident and your family is relying on you as a bread winner. This is where having your own life insurance policy makes a whole lot of sense. They're generally not very expensive if you get term and if you are responsible for a family, then you really need to consider having it.

The second is underinsured motorist coverage. This is also extremely important. I would encourage everybody and I understand there are budgetary issues that some people just cannot find room in their budget. Sometimes it's not their fault. Sometimes it's because of bad budgeting and sometimes it's really not there fault. There's just no room. One, I would encourage everybody to have more than the state minimum insurance levels. Really, I would like to see everybody at a least $100,000 of coverage or more. I'd prefer more but at least $100,000.

Second, I would encourage everybody, everybody, to purchase underinsured motorist coverage. Underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage is so very important. The point is that if you're driving around you cannot rely on the person that hit you to do the right thing because we have so many who are uninsured and so many that are insured at minimums, at state minimums. $50,000 when we are dealing with medical bills does not go a very long ways and so I would encourage everybody to have at least $100,000, I'd prefer $250,000, of coverage both on liability and on underinsured motorist coverage.

In case I didn't talk about it before, underinsured motorist coverage is that coverage that's going to kick in once the other side's policy has paid out. Uninsured motorist coverage, it's the same thing. It's just that the other side has no coverage. Your own coverage is going to come in to cover your injuries, your pain and suffering, your lost income. Please don't drive around assuming everybody else is doing the right thing and you should protect yourself. Thanks for watching and as LeVar Burton would say, we'll see you next time.

Personal Injury / Personal Injury Videos - 10/04/2015

Will You Recover Damages if You Are Not Wearing a Helmet in a Motorcycle Accident?

What if You Are Not Wearing a Helmet in Your Motorcycle Accident?

Transcript:

Hi. I'm Jared Richards. I'm one of the partners here at Clear Counsel Law Group. One of our readers has recently asked what happens if you get into a motorcycle accident and you're not wearing a helmet. Well, other than your head might splatter against the ground, there's a question as to how it affects any settlement you might get.

Really, when we're doing settlement posturing, we always have an eye to what would happen if this went to a jury. The question is, what would a jury do if they know that you don't have a helmet on?

Well, this is kind of an area of undiscovered country. Now, this hails back to what we call the seat belt defense. Now, the seat belt defense is something that a defendant would want to try to bring to say that the injuries wouldn't have happened, or they would not have been as bad if the victim had been wearing a seat belt, and they weren't.

Well, in Nevada, we have a statute that specifically says that defendants cannot bring that as evidence, that a jury doesn't get to see whether or not there is a seat belt in use.

Thanks to our 2015 legislature, thanks, guys, for listening to lobbyists, that rule has been repealed specifically against cab companies.

That's right, because clearly cab companies are the people that we need to defend, because it's not like we put our lives and bodies in their control and protection. I hope the sarcasm came through on this video.

But anyway, generally, the jury will not see whether or not there is seat belt use. Now, there are a few limited exceptions that we won't go into here. But the question is, is that fair? Before I answer the motorcycle helmet question, the question is, is the seat belt rule fair?

Well, one of the answers, it doesn't really matter if it's fair. It is the law. As long as it's the law, we follow it. But I think it is fair. There is a reason for it being far. Follow me through.

The Seat Belt Question Is More Difficult Than You May Think

Most people when they first hear that, they think, "Well, if he wasn't wearing a seat belt, it's his own darn fault." Is that true? The question I have is, is not wearing a seat belt an invitation for somebody to hit you?

Not wearing a seat belt did not cause the accident.

Not wearing a seat belt did not cause somebody to run a red light or run a stop sign or drive drunk and hit you.

Wearing a seat belt is simply not wearing a seat belt. It's not an invitation or consent to get hurt.

Now, yes, if you'd worn a seat belt, it would have prevented more damage. Now, that is a specific legal theory that the defense will try to bring up. The defense will try to bring up a term called "mitigation of damages." The term "mitigate" means to lessen, to soften.

The rule is that if you're a plaintiff and you're an injured victim, you have the obligation to lessen your damages any way that you can.

Now the question is, does mitigation of damages apply in a seat belt situation? The answer is, the courts go both ways.

But the majority of courts seem to say that the answer is no. You don't have a duty. Because mitigation of damages, that duty only starts after the injury is imminent.

Either it's happened or it's imminent. Most people don't have cat-like reflexes that they see the accident coming and they can throw their seat belt on real fast. Now, my 7-year-old thinks he has those reflexes. But in reality, none of us do.

There's not enough time between the accident and the injury to put on a seat belt, so that duty does not actually start. The obligation to mitigate damages doesn't exist, or at least you are incapable of doing it in time, and thus it shouldn't apply.

Now courts go both ways on that issue.

If you're not in Nevada, and you don't have a seat belt rule statute protecting you, then I don't know which way the judge is going to go. But it makes sense that mitigation of damages only starts after the injury is imminent, then it wouldn't apply.

Now, some would say, well, you should put your seat belt on every time. Look, you should, of course. Of course, we advocate, everybody should wear their seat belt. But the question is, for mitigation of damages purposes, when you get into your car in the morning and you drive away, is it reasonably likely that you're going to get into an accident?

No, it's not. Now it is possible.

It happens. But reasonably likely, do you think there's a 50% chance every time you get in your car you're going to get into an accident? A 20, a 10, a 5, a 1% chance? Not even a 1% chance that you are going to get into a accident that day when you get into your car.

So it's not reasonably likely that you're going to be injured. So while everybody should wear a seat belt, a jury should not know about it, about whether or not they were wearing a seat belt, in an effort for a defendant to try to decrease the amount of damages, decrease the jury award.

How All of This Applies to Your Motorcycle Accident

Now let's move that over into the motorcycle accident arena. Well, I think you can see pretty clearly that wearing a helmet and wearing a seat belt, the analogy holds true between the two of them.

If duty to mitigate damages doesn't exist in a car accident with a seat belt, it shouldn't exist in a motorcycle without a helmet. The difference is, we do not have a law, a specific statute in the state of Nevada that says that use of a helmet does not come into evidence.

Really, you'd have to talk to your attorney and he is going to have to argue that how we deal with seat belts should bleed over to how we deal with helmets, that the law should be consistent across the two arenas. Even though we don't have a statute, the principles that I just spoke about, that failure to wear a helmet is not an invitation to hit you.

Failure to wear a helmet is not a failure to mitigate damages, because you didn't know you were going to be hit right then.

That being said, although it should not in theory, and I think in all ethics, should not affect the settlement amount, or the amount you get from a jury, please wear a helmet. Let's just avoid the situation by having you wear the helmet.

If you have trouble after a motorcycle accident, please call me (702) 476-5900.

Well, that's this video, and I hope to see you in another one.

Personal Injury / Personal Injury Videos - 10/01/2015

What if I do not Accept a Settlement Offer before Trial?

The risks of rejecting a settlement offer before trial

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Jared Richards. I'm one of the attorneys here at Clear Counsel Law Group. One of our readers has asked: What are the risks if I don't accept a settlement offer before trial? I don't know who this reader is. It's anonymous, but I would tell you talk to your attorney. This is a very case sensitive question and it completely depends on your case, but as a general matter, I would say this: it depends on the case.

There are certain risks that are inherent in every case. That has to do with the jury. Juries can be erratic. They can be unpredictable. A jury is generally made up of just general citizens. Some of them have a better understanding of the law. Some of them have less understanding of the law. Some of them have a worldview that is going to line up with your worldview, and some of them are going to have a worldview that in no way lines up with your worldview.

Any time that we take a case, even if it's a very strong case, and we present it before a jury, there is a risk, sometimes a significant risk, that a jury is not going to see it the way that we see it. One advantage of accepting a settlement before trial, or at least specifically before you have a jury return a verdict, is at least you know what you're getting. It's the old phrase "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Settlements are good because we know what we're getting.

Now sometimes the parties, the defendant and the plaintiff, just cannot see eye to eye and are nowhere near settlement. The plaintiff thinks that the potential value of the case far exceeds any settlement offers on the table. At that point, yeah, maybe you need to proceed to trial. There are two other risks that you should look at when you're rejecting a settlement offer that's going to force you into trial.

Risk number one is cost, your costs. Going to trial can be very expensive. Depending on the case, it can mean spending sometimes tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes more, on expert witnesses, bringing them in, having them testify. Experts can be terribly expensive. Let's say that you do get more than you were to get in a settlement. Again, this is where we get very case specific. Depending on what the judgment is from the jury, you may find yourself actually putting less into your pocket than if you had accepted the settlement, because you have the cost of a trial.

Now let's talk about the cost of losing. The cost of losing means that you might be subject to the other side's costs. Heaven forbid, you might even be subject to their attorneys' fees. You can talk to your attorney about offers of judgment, and we'll have those in another video. Again, this is where it's very case specific, but if you reject an offer and you lose at trial, it is possible that you could end up paying the costs and maybe even the fees of the other side.

Now you need to sit down with your attorney and you need to go over all of the risks, the costs, the benefits, and see if settling now makes sense, or see if really the offer is too low and your chances at trial are too good. That it's really worth presenting this to a jury to see what they're going to say even if you run the risk of losing. Again, final advice is it's case by case and you need to talk to your lawyer. That's the answer to that. We'll see you in another video.

Personal Injury / Personal Injury Videos - 09/25/2015

How to Find out Insurance Policy Limits from a Car Accident

After a car accident, how do I learn the policy limits of the driver who hit me?

Transcript:

Hi. I'm Jared Richards, I'm one of the attorneys here at Clear Council Law Group. One of our readers has recently asked us how to find out policy limits in a car accident situation. For those of you that are unfamiliar, it becomes important to know what the defendant's car insurance limits are, in order to negotiate a settlement, which I think makes sense. Prior to 2015, it was a fairly simple procedure in Nevada. We used to have law that was, unfortunately, repealed a few months ago. The insurance companies were rather aggressive during this legislative session. As of a few months ago, we had a law that required insurance companies to disclose the limits, the amount of the insurance policy, if we sent a medical record, or if we sent authorization for them to go gather their own medical records. Unfortunately, that is no longer the law. What is left is a big gaping hole, there is no legal requirement, or at least no statutory requirement, for insurance companies to disclose that information.

Since that law has been repealed, we've had conversations with a number of adjusters trying to get that information, and here are the results of some of those conversations. In some conversations, the adjusters reluctantly tell us, or sometimes whisper it so that we know. In some of those conversations, they outright tell us that the law has changed, and now it's illegal for them to tell us the insurance limits. That, of course, is a bunch of baloney, and yes, I used the word baloney. It is absolutely not illegal for them to tell us. It may be against their company's internal policy, but there is no statute that prevents them from telling us. What they're trying to do is just simply keep people negotiating, trying to negotiate in good faith, in the dark, which, in my opinion, and in the opinion of certain courts, is not good faith negotiation.

I want to talk about that for a second, of why disclosure of policy limits is important. It is difficult to negotiate a case, often impossible to negotiate a case, unless you know what you're actually dealing with. We disclose to the other side the size of our claim, they should disclose to us the size of the funds available to settle that claim. In support of that idea, if you file suit, one of the very first things that the defendant is required, by law, to disclose in the state of Nevada, is the insurance policy. All available information about the insurance policy, including policy limits. There's a reason the courts force it, because the courts understand that you have to have that information to negotiate in good faith. Unfortunately, now that are statutes have changed, pre-litigation before you file a lawsuit, more and more insurance companies are refusing.

Sometimes, they're third party sources that might have the size of the information, the size of the policy information. One tactic that we've tried, sometimes it's worked, sometimes it had simply led to a lawsuit, which, I guess, is life, is the threat that if they don't disclose to us, then we have no option other than filing a lawsuit. There is some case law in that. There is some case law that tells insurance companies that if they don't disclose the policy limits, there's no way for the plaintiff, the claimant, you, to negotiate in good faith, so it requires a lawsuit. Certain courts have held that that, in fact, is bad faith on the part of insurance companies. You can watch our other videos about the ramifications of bad faith, it's a pretty big deal.

To review, simply asking, sometimes third party sources, threatening a lawsuit, and then the last is finally, filing the lawsuit. Sometimes we find that necessary that you have to file the lawsuit. Unfortunately, the Nevada legislature has let us all down a bit, they've increased the number of lawsuits that have to be filed because insurance companies no longer feel like they have to disclose. Unfortunately, that also means that, for the average person, it's more difficult to settle the case without the use of an attorney, because now it's becoming even more necessary to have an attorney to even find out the basic information about the policy. Anyway, there's the answer to that. If you have more questions, keep on watching our videos.

Personal Injury / Personal Injury Videos - 09/23/2015

Who to Sue in a Car Accident

Knowing who to sue in a car accident

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Jared Richards, I'm one of the attorneys here at Clear Counsel Law Group. One of our readers has asked, "If I've been in a car accident, who do I sue? The driver or the owner of the vehicle who's on the insurance policy?"

The answer is: Well, it depends. Instead of talking about suing, I want to talk about who is responsible for a wrongful act, which we call a "tort." Now, the driver is almost always responsible, so assuming that car is at fault, then the driver who is driving it is almost certainly also at fault. There may be a few exceptions, that we won't go into here. The answer is one, you would have a claim against the driver. Now the question is, do you have a claim against the owner or the insured?

Now, those are actually two different distinctions. The owner of the vehicle may own an insurance policy. Most of the time, does. The insured may be the owner, but most of the time, almost every time, the insurance policy will cover the driver, and so it doesn't really matter ... in a normal situation, it usually doesn't matter if you have a claim against the owner. The insurance company is going to cover the driver.

There are certain circumstances where you do have a claim against the owner, and the question here is, is the owner responsible at all for the accident? There are usually two main theories of liability that indicate that the owner is, in fact, liable. The first one is that of, we're going to throw a nice attorney Latin phrase in for you, a term called "respondeat superior."

"Respondeat superior" simply means that the superior is going to be responsible. For example, the employer. If an owner of a business sends his employee to go pick up supplies, and the employee, while doing what the business owner has told him to do, gets into an accident, then the business is responsible for the actions of its employee. The question here, the thing that we have to look for, is, was the employee acting within the scope of his employment?

I'm sorry if I'm getting into legalese terms. Sometimes you get too buried in the law, and it's tough to pull yourself out, but essentially, if you are running an errand for your boss or for your employer, and you get into an accident, the employer is on the hook. You are on the hook too, but the employer is also on the hook. He is responsible for the actions of his employees. Now, we can talk, and we probably will in another video, about the exceptions to that rule, and there's a lot of case law on this, a lot of rules involved in that. In general, the employer, if the person who gets into a car accident is acting as part of his employment, the business is going to be on the hook.

Outside of that, because that's a special rule of law, that just simply says the master is responsible for the actions of his agent. Now the question is, let's say that it is simply you lend a car to a friend, and the friend gets into an accident, are you responsible? The answer is, most of the time, no. You have really no responsible for the actions of other people with one principle exception, and that is what we call "negligent entrustment." If you know that your friend is a drunk, specifically if you know that your friend is currently drunk, or you know that your friend is an unsafe driver, you know you really shouldn't hand over those keys, if you hand over the keys, you are responsible.

There's a plethora of cases that talked about that as well. That certainly doesn't apply in every case or even the majority of cases, but it absolutely can apply. Now, the final ... I think I said there were two ways, I'm going to talk about a third, and that is what we call about the "family responsibility act." In Nevada, we have a statute that says that if you're in the household, and you lend your keys to somebody in the household, and they get into an accident, you are going to be responsible, regardless of "negligent entrustment," regardless of employment, you're going to be on the hook.

Here in Nevada, those are the three main things that we look for to see if somebody else, if the owner of the vehicle might be responsible and not just the driver. Now the question that he asked is whether he should sue. We always try not to sue if we can, but we always are ready to sue if we cannot resolve the claim without litigation. Anyway, there's the answer to that, and I hope to see you in another video.

Personal Injury / Personal Injury Videos - 09/22/2015

What is a Personal Injury Loan?

What you need to know about a Personal Injury Loan

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Jared Richards. I'm one of the partners at Clear Counsel Law Group, and one of our readers has asked "What is a personal injury loan and should I get one?" The short answer is, I would say 90 to 99 percent of the time personal injury loans are the devil. They're not good. Let me explain some of the basis here.

When you get into an accident and you're hurt, and it sounds weird to a lot of people, but it is the way the law works, is that you have a property right. You have a property right in your injury, and there are some people out there that are willing to lend money in exchange for a lien on that property right. Sometimes when somebody gets hurt there are companies out there that will offer them a loan in exchange. Let's talk about what the nature of this loan is.

It has some good things and it has some horrible things, usually. The good thing that is in most of these loans, every loan is different so you have to look at the fine print, but most of these loans are what we call non-recourse loans, meaning that so long as you don't otherwise run in default of a loan which, you have to look at the fine print, we'd see what that means.

If you lose the case generally you do not have to pay back the loan. That's what non-course means. The only recourse the lender has, the only recovery he has, is against the lien that he gets put on your case. He doesn't have one against you directly. Now, that is good in general for borrowers because if, for whatever reason, the jury comes back with a low settlement or a low award that doesn't pay off the loan, or heaven forbid you actually lose the case, you don't have to pay back the lender, so that's good.

The bad is this, that essentially these are hard money loans and the lenders charge outrageous interest rates. The most reasonable interest rate that I've seen is about 38 percent. The more common I've seen is 10 percent a month. Don't be fooled. If you see somebody offering you 10 percent it's probably 10 percent a month, which means 120 percent a year.

The worst that I've seen, and I don't want to name names, but I really want to name this name, but I won't, is 240 percent, 20 percent interest a year. Other things we have to look at are the underwriting fees. Some charge underwriting fees. I find that most that offer 10 percent don't charge an underwriting fee. The one that was charging 20 percent a month charged a 50 percent underwriting fee.

I've seen other underwriting fees from fairly reasonable, I think, of 100 bucks, or a couple hundred bucks to thousands of dollars. The next question is, "Should you get a loan?" I would say 95 percent of the time the answer is "No." These loans are so expensive and the frustrating part that people find is yes, it is using your asset that you have, and I hate to call it an asset but under the law that's technically what it is.

Your injury claim, you're using money that you will eventually get, but you're using it now, and you're using it now at a very expensive rate, so that by the time that you get to actually settlement and you're looking to what you get in your pocket, well, you've already gotten some of it in pocket, and you've already spent it.

In order to get that into your pocket, you have purchased a loan that is so very expensive, sometimes doubling, tripling, quadrupling, the amount that you borrowed to begin with. What are situations where you might need it? I've only found two where I think it might make sense.

The first situation is, I'm thinking of a specific case, where the father was the sole breadwinner and he was injured to the extent that he could not work. His family would be out on the streets because he wasn't able to work, and we helped find him a loan that was the best interest rate that I could find, and it supported his family for a few months, not many, but a few months, while we were trying to settle the case.

There may be an occasion where you need certain treatment, or let's say you need to go to another state to get treatment, and the only way that you can have your room and board is borrowing against your case. I can see that may be justifiable, and remember, this is not in every situation, this is in case-specific situations.

I would tend to advise everybody else "Don't touch them." They're not good. They're very expensive. They're going to leave you dissatisfied, and they make settling the case at the end sometimes problematic. I won't go into all of that, maybe in another video, but in general I think that hard money loans on your case are problematic.

People should avoid them, but there are a few situations where it might be justifiable. I would talk to your attorney if you're thinking about doing that. I certainly would not rush in, and I would really act with caution and try to avoid them. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in another video.

Personal Injury / Personal Injury Videos - 09/20/2015

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