I think there may be county court differences because I specifically recall once in miami that the judge reset the small claims preliminary hearing because the business did not have an attorney present.
It’s a statewide rule. While I haven’t used it in every Florida district, I’ve used it in a lot of them. The company in your scenario may not have had an authorized representative present.
know i've talked with a lot of you on this lyft case i have, but what are your thoughts on this: the unlicensed dude who hit my clients was using someone else's car and was logged into that person's lyft account when the wreck occurred progressive is denying the negligent entrustment claim basically saying that their policy is void when someone is logged into a rideshare account. like the guy is obviously liable under the neg entrustment theory because he knew this dude didnt have a license, but i have no idea if a rideshare exclusion would apply in this instance. like the unlicensed dude wasn't logged into his own rideshare account. not sure on this one
I know nothing about this stuff, but it seems like this is one the insurance carrier would have an interest in settling out to avoid the possibility of a ruling causing an adverse precedent
If the guy was illegally driving for hire on another person's rideshare app then I don't think that exclusion is valid.
it's a 30/60 policy too. i sent a stowers after the adjuster told me that they were denying it hoping they would just send a denial letter without running it up the flagpole, and that's what they did clients have like 800k in meds loco
oh man just talked to the progressive adjuster and he is totally fucking clueless. he was saying hey if your clients have uninsured contact their carrier like bruh this is a mid seven figure case you are totally lost. he thought his insured was the driver and not the dude who let him use his car hope their policy is applicable because theyre stowerized
Anyone have any experience with NAICS codes and how accurate they need to be/how strict they're interpreted?
Been awhile since I worked for Progressive but and I was in Alabama - not Texas - but any coverage denial with injuries went to our coverage committee that included the reps manager, state manager, regional manager, in house counsel and some times outside counsel before a formal denial was made/sent. They buttoned up all denials with injuries pretty tight. I’d be curious if he’s telling you if “coverage is denied” or if he’s of the option it’s “going to be denied”
Was he driving a fare paying customer? If so, I would litigate a coverage denial. I know very little about Texas auto, but there is a ton of case law on business use or operation of business exclusions in personal lines coverages.
Yeah, they’re pretty well-established exclusions. I think it being a negligent entrustment claim makes it a little different, but you’d have to walk the tightrope to prove the entrustment and not walk your way out of coverage. Still, paying the $60k occurrence limits seems like an easy business decision when we’re talking about catastrophic injuries.
Yeah he would clearly be excluded if this was a personal policy and he was driving for Lyft just not sure how the exclusion works with entrustment also not sure if there is a Rideshare policy out there somewhere
have a trial coming up against state farm. they hire the same experts in literally 95% of their cases handled by in house lawyers. that should be fun to talk about
There are cases in the home daycare sex abuse context that are similar fact patterns. Homeowners policy covers husband and wife. Wife babysits kids out of the home on a regular basis for cash. Husband is a pedophile. Parents sue the husband and wife. Husband has no coverage because his acts are deemed intentional. Try to sue wife on any variety of negligence-based claims (entrustment, hiring, supervision, etc). If there is a business use exclusion in the policy and the kids are there as part of a money-earning day care situation, there is no coverage. If the driver was clocked into Lyft on another drivers account, the personal lines should not cover it. If he’s driving a fare paying customer, that’s exactly what the exclusion is designed to hit. I don’t know what your exclusion says, but these are usually directed to the act, not the actor. If he’s in the act of performing a Lyft, excluded.
Gallant Knight what coverage does Lyft have or require? Seems like, if Lyft is receiving compensation because this driver had a customer, whether he’s authorized or not, then does Texas require them to carry any coverage as a common carrier? Is Lyft negligent in choosing drivers/independent contractors if this guy is letting anyone clock into Lyft and drive?
$1m that everyone knows about that covers their drivers. There is probably umbrella coverage there, but I won’t know for a couple of weeks Lyft and Uber get out of almost every one of these via msj because their drivers are independent contractors. Don’t think they’ll be able to on this one though. Tbd on the amount of coverage they have but I think it’s substantial
They should not be able to argue independent contract without a contract on the actual driver. They are accepting fees from a driver without a contract. Also, check your construction law to see whether Texas recognizes negligence in selecting contractors without proper licenses or medical malpractice law on negligent credentialing. Base claim, they had an unlicensed driver earning them money. I had a hospital that allowed a doctors group to treat dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. One of the doctors was letting his wife see patients although she wasn’t a doctor. We successfully denied coverage and the doctors went bankrupt from judgments because there were 100+ patients, so the hospital got crucified for negligent credentialing of an unlicesnsed doctor who used their facilities.
Thinking out loud here because I have an interesting Uber case coming up. Are Ubers/Lyfts common carriers? If so, can they skirt liability by using an "independent contractor" driver? The contract is with Lyft. The customer pays Lyft. The driver uses the Lyft app to navigate. Even if there's some way to escape on a respondeat superior theory for negligence, is there a breach of contract claim directly against Lyft/Uber? Or maybe a fraud claim? Even though there's no intent to defraud, Lyft has basically negligently misrepresented that the person picking you up is a qualified driver.
Gallant Knight once you figure out how to hit Lyft, shoot me the contact for that Progressive adjuster so I can give them coverage advice. We don’t want to see any insurers harmed here.
We don't charge an administrative flat fee for hard costs like copying , mailing etc but we probably should. Does all the other plaintiff lawyers on here do that?
Most small firms that I’ve seen have a flat fee of between $50-$150 in their fee contract. Our firm itemizes everything from copies and postage to long distance phone calls. It’s wack.
My fiancé was deemed at fault for a car accident a year ago. She was making a left across traffic and got hit on the driver side rear bumper by an oncoming car. It was a curvy road, trees/shrubbery blocking some view and the car was likely speeding. None the less she pulled out in front of the car. A year later she is now being sued by the other driver. Is this something we should be really worried about or is the insurance company likely to handle this?
Very likely that yall have nothing to worry about. Technically depends on how much coverage yall have and how bad the injuries are. Likely the parties couldn’t agree on value of claim so it had to be litigated. Very unlikely that the case goes to trial and even more unlikely that the plaintiff would come after yalls personal assets if the judgment was above and beyond your policy limits.
Looks like we're opening a satellite office 30 minutes west of us in a bigger metro purely for SEO purposes for around $1k a month so that we can get in the map pack in that metro. 32% of clicks come from LSA 30-35% of clicks are map pack 10-15% google ads 10% google organic
Nice dude! MS is a reciprocal bar in case you need a remote rainmaker. Let me know an interview time and I'll drop you a Zoom link.
If you can figure out a way to generate $400k in revenue annually working entirely remote, I'll pay you $100k to do it, provide you a paralegal, and give you health insurance and a 401k matching plan. You'll have to fly to MS for healthcare but that's not a big deal right?
I think I've mentioned it before, but WA has a mandatory arbitration system whereby if Plaintiff stipulates their damages are capped at $100K, the case is fast-tracked thru arbitration with limited discovery and an expedited hearing date, usually within 2-3 months. Each Party gets a list of 5 potential arbitrators and you can strike two, circle two, and the odd lawyer out is often chosen as arbitrator. The arbitrators are attorneys in private practice, usually solo guys just supplementing their income -- you get about $750 - $1,000 per hearing, not bad for reading submissions and overseeing a 3-4 hour hearing. When I started my firm last year I signed up for pretty much every county in WA to be an arbitrator. It's free and you just have to fill out a form. This week I received my first two case appointments as arbitrator, both look like simple car wrecks. Both will be Zoom arbitrations while I'm in Mexico in late June. I also don't remember the last time I even looked at the rules of evidence. Judge Nug.
Curious, why do you think that? PI lawyers love it -- most arbitrators are injury lawyers, most awards trend near the max amount, and it gets you a check a lot faster with minimal work? There is an appeal structure where the aggrieved party can appeal de novo, but if you do not improve your position at trial you have to pay for the other party's fees + costs incurred from arb to trial. I've never actually seen it happen, but it's on the books.
What all does your firm do to cultivate morale on the staff ? How often are you doing half or full day paid time outings outside of the office? What else do you do to increase morale? I feel like we've done a bunch of stuff in the past that is just expensive , doesn't help morale all that much, and it spoils the staff to the point where if you don't keep doing it they say morale is bad and it creates a high overhead viscous cycle. I'm guessing most firms aren't doing all that much other than a Christmas party and an occasional firm event outside of the office. I've come to the conclusion that the #1 thing that keeps staff at a firm is $$$$. If you pay them in the top 5-10% for your market , they aren't going anywhere. You can be super nice and throw all sorts of benefits and outings etc there way but they'll leave for a higher paying job. Those are kinda 2 separate subjects but intermixed. Thoughts on any of that?
I let them work from home on Friday’s. It’s always a half day the day before a holiday weekend. They get a mid year and year end bonus While you might think you’re doing something nice for your staff by organizing stuff for your firm outside the office, I think most people don’t want to hang out with coworkers and would rather just be able to go home
My old firm just fired our IT guy of 10+ years last week. An awesome Vietnamese immigrant that was available at the drop of a hat and worked tons of weekends. Of course, we've outsourced it to a third-party from who knows where. I obviously don't know the inner financials of the firm, but I do know the shareholders are doing just fine -- at least based on the amount of work we continue to bring in -- and it really leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
I agree, people would rather have time by themselves or with their friends and/or family . Making them go hang out with each other isn't what they want. And if you throw alcohol into it things can actually turn nasty and they get drunk and start talking about how shitty things are. I've seen that happen before.
They saw they could outsource legal work (you). So now they're actually outsourcing everything. You owe that guy a job.
You’ve just figured out that the number one job priority for 99% of people is to get paid appropriately for their time and worth. All the rest of it is bullshit window dressing.
Honestly if you spend $2k a year per staff member in outings and other small stuff, they'd rather just have that $2k in their pockets.
I asked my staff if they wanted to go to a nice steakhouse and have a blowout Christmas party at like $500-700 a head or if they wanted a $1k bonus They got $1k and we went and got fajitas