Utah Personal Injury Cases

If you’ve been injured in a personal injury case in the state of Utah and the insurance company isn’t treating you fairly, it’s required for you to file a lawsuit and take the matter towards trial or to trial. There are several steps in that process. To start the lawsuit, there’s a complaint that’s filed. Then the other side files an answer. After that, there’s a period of time called discovery, which lasts several months. This includes figuring out what happened in the case. That’s done by written questions to the other side, taking depositions, and doing informal investigations. Everybody’s trying to figure out what happened, why it happened, and who’s to blame for it.

There’s a period of time where they have expert discovery. The experts take the information that was learned and say how they view it, and why they think somebody’s at fault or not at fault. The medical experts are saying why they believe an injury is related or not related to the accident. You’re going to have some period of time for that. Then you’re going to have a period of time to file motions and to do all the final pretrial workup, and then you actually have the trial.

If it gets that far, you need to have somebody who’s prepared to go to trial, who’s prepared from the minute the complaint’s filed, to take that case all the way through to trial.

I’m often asked, “Is it a good idea to give a recorded statement to an insurance company?” My answer to that is it’s not a good idea. Insurance adjusters are trained to ask questions in a specific way to get the information they need to help their case, which means hurting your case. Their entire goal is to reduce the amount of damages they pay out. I would recommend that you not speak to an insurance company or give them a recorded statement until you’ve talked to an attorney.

When negotiating with an insurance provider in Utah, we never recommend taking the first offer. In fact, unless the insurance adjuster is offering one-hundred percent of the insurance policy, we have never had a situation where an insurance adjuster is unwilling to give more money above and beyond their first offer. We do not recommend that if an insurance adjuster offers some amount of money, that that is an offer that you should take. It’s our experience that there is typically more money to offer, more room to negotiate with, and we can help you through that process.

In the state of Utah, if you’ve been injured in an incident, you need to have $3,000 worth of medical bills before you can file a claim. The caveat is that it only applies if you have PIP protection. If you have a slip and fall case, that doesn’t apply. If you have a motorcycle case where you don’t have personal injury protection, that doesn’t apply. If you’re in a car crash case, you would be required to have $3,000 worth of medical bills. Unless there are some other circumstances, you would have to have $3,000 worth of medical bills before you could file a claim.

Preexisting conditions are interesting because insurance companies look at them and say, “You’ve already had the injury; we didn’t really cause an injury.” The problem is with the preexisting injury, you’re more susceptible to a new injury or a re-aggravation of that injury, and so when they cause something new, oftentimes because of the preexisting, it makes it worse.

One of the areas that an injured party is able to recover is for the damages of emotional distress. People come in and they ask me about that, and sometimes initially chuckling about it and then we get a few weeks down the road and they understand the reality of emotional distress. They understand that when you’re in pain, any aspect of life is less enjoyable. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing; if you’re hurting, it’s more difficult to enjoy and appreciate the life that you’re living. One of the areas of damages that somebody who injures another person is required to compensate you for is your emotional distress. In Utah, you do get compensation for the emotional stress caused by the injury.

If you’re in a lawsuit involving a personal injury, one of the things that may happen is you deal with expert witnesses. Expert witnesses put evidence in front of a jury to show things that the average person may not understand or may not have the expertise to understand. An expert witness could be hired on a variety of different topics to come in and explain to the jurors how a particular thing happened, how it should have happened, or how it works. It’s expertise beyond what a normal juror would have, so they are used to provide additional information to the jury and to the court.

A lot of my clients are wondering, “Is my case going to go to trial?” The reality is most cases do not end up going to trial or being decided by a jury. Many cases can settle prior to filing litigation; you can negotiate a claim with an insurance adjuster and you reach an agreeable resolution. We’re unable to do that with some cases, and so we file litigation and start the litigation process. During that process, there are a lot of things that happen that can help the case continue to negotiate and work towards a resolution. Even most of the cases that do end up in litigation still end up settling before trial. In the event that a case does go to trial, rest assured that we are attorneys that handle cases that go to trial, we’re not afraid to take a case to a jury verdict, and we will make sure that you’re comfortable with the process, understand what to expect, and are well-prepared for a trial.

I was meeting with a client the other day and they said, “No matter what, I do not want to go to trial. Is that a possibility?” I explained to them that in Utah, you always have the option of settling the case before trial. This is your case. We’re not going to file a lawsuit without asking you first and explaining to you what the process is. The ultimate decision is the client’s decision. What we offer is our opinion and our expertise on whether or not we think filing a lawsuit and taking the case to trial will add value and give you the opportunity to settle your case for more and fair money.

One of the questions that I’m asked most frequently is, “What is my case worth?” Those are very difficult questions to answer because there’s no formula that can be used; it’s based on the specifics of the case. It depends on how severe the injury is, how bad it impacts the individual who’s hurt, how long it’s going to impact them, and how severely it’s going to impact them. What are they going to lose for work? What kind of future medical bills are they going to incur? All of those things go into it.

One of the other things that you have to factor into it is the amount of insurance that’s available to cover that loss because you could have a significant injury but not enough insurance to cover it, and that affects the value of a case.