Pennsylvania Injury Law Report : Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Stuart Carpey Law Firm : Auto Accidents & Product Liability : Pennsylvania Injury Law Report

The quality of bumper design systems in cars these days has a direct effect of the severity of the occupants in rear and front end accidents. A high quality bumper system is designed to absorb the force of the impact by “compressing.” A low quality bumper system fails this test and the forces of the impact are passed through the vehicle to the occupants. Many cars on the road today have the lesser quality bumper.

Insurance companies who evaluate property damage and personal injury claims as a result of rear end collisions and front end collision are adept at minimizing the extent of the presumed damage to occupants if minimal damage is visible on the bumpers following an accident. They have stables of “biomechanical engineers” ready to testify in court. The insurance company experts equate minimal visible damage to a bumper to little or no physical injury to the occupants of the car. This is just a trick, however. It takes common sense, a basic knowledge of physics, and opposing expert testimony to defeat the insurance company experts in this regard.

Rear end car accidents are the most common type of car accidents in Pennsylvania. With the advent of cell phone use in cars and other devices that auto manufacturers continue to place in new models(for example, GPS devices) these type of car accidents will continue to rise.

Federal vehicle safety standards regarding bumpers go back to 1978. The standards were not intended to reduce potential injuries to occupants. Rather, the standards were designed to protect the vehicles. Lower speed impacts frequently result in minimal deformation of plastic/polyurethane bumper parts. However, this results in a greater proportion of force directed to the occupants of the vehicles.

Insurance company rely on experts who supply reports which may contain the following type of language: “since the impact speed of the striking vehicle was extremely low almost no energy was transferred to the occupants of the vehicle which was struck.”

Such a position of an expert for an insurance company would be in violation of Isaac Newton’s second principle which basically states that if you place force on an object it will accelerate. And, an object accelerates in the direction that you push it. The acceleration is directly proportional to the force. In other words, if you push twice as hard, it accelerates twice as much. The greater the mass, the more the object that is struck will move. For instance, twice the mass of an object behind pushed into an object in front equals twice as much acceleration. So if a small car is struck in the rear by a larger car, being of more mass the larger car will force the smaller car to accelerate more then if the smaller car had been struck by a lighter car.

Newton’s laws are common sense. They are taught in high school physics classes. Impact causes motion. There can be no disagreement about the fact that when an object is struck it will move.

Bottom line- low speed impact or plastic bumpers do not mean the occupants of a car sustain no injury where bumper meets bumper. The transfer of energy must go somewhere, and it is carried through the car into the occupant’s body.

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Yes, but not the way the recession is affecting everyone else.

What I’ve notice is this: Vendors I deal with are more willing to negotiate prices with me. Many of my clients are more anxious and hope that the courts will give them earlier trial dates, (they won’t). Anecdotally I’ve noticed that insurance companies are stingier with their settlement offers, and are slow in delivering settlement checks.

However, personal injury law practices are much more affected by changes in the law than the public is aware of. Washington, Harrisburg as well as the state and federal courts are constantly making changes in the law that affect the rights of injured plaintiffs. Attacks on victim’s rights are cyclical, as are changes in the economy. Those cycles usually do not go up and down at the same time. I certainly hope to ride out the recession like everybody else. What’s coming down the pike to attack my clients’ rights is as of now an unknown, but whether or not we are living through a recession; there will certainly be attacks of the rights of accident victims. 

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Personal injury lawyers in Pennsylvania know too well that their clients get shortchanged when purchasing car insurance coverage, whether directly from an insurance company (ie: Progressive or GEICO), or from an agent. The difference between full tort and limited tort is rarely if ever explained, nor is uninsured (UM) or underinsured (UIM) motorist coverage.

Full tort coverage means that you and your family members have unlimited access to the court system to seek compensation for personal injuries from a car wreck.

Limited tort means that for a lower premium, usually about $100-$200 less per year, you and your family members have a very limited access to the court system if you are claiming compensation for personal injuries following a car wreck.

In real terms, if a person who has purchased limited tort coverage does not have debilitating and disabling injuries, e.g; broken bones requiring surgical repair, herniated disks in the spine requiring surgical repair, then they have no claim. There are very few exceptions to limited tort coverage. Full tort coverage is not limiting at all. Full tort coverage is the better coverage, hands down, and should be the only choice when purchasing auto insurance in Pennsylvania. Uninsured motorist coverage protects you and your family in the event you or your family members are injured in a car wreck by an "uninsured motorist.” Underinsured motorist protects you and your family in the event you are injured in a car accident by a driver who did not have enough insurance to pay for your injuries. Full tort, UM and UIM are absolutely necessary.

I felt it was so important that my clients understood the value of these coverages that I wrote a book on the subject called Purchasing Auto Insurance in Pennsylvania. You can purchase it at Barnes and Noble, or Amazon, or you can get it from my office for free.

Maybe you’ve seen the Progressive television commercial depicting a Progressive insured going into a Progressive store (they do not exist because Progressive sells its coverage online) gleefully surprised that his insurance company is quickly paying for the damage to his car after an accident and also providing the insured a rental car.

“It’s all part of the price” the Progressive employee says. No kidding! That’s what you pay for when you buy insurance coverage. I don’t mean to single out Progressive. State Farm is not there, despite their ad that says “State Farm is there.” We all recognize the jingle. That’s just effective advertising. State Farm will make it extremely difficult on you if you have an auto claim. And if you’re insured by Allstate you are not necessarily in good hands.

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Our founding fathers did not foresee subprime mortgages, credit swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and the housing bubble, but they did foresee the need to preserve the rights of citizens to have jury trials in civil cases. The Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads as follows: 

Amendment VII: Rights in Civil Cases

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. 

In today’s legal community are citizens getting their day in court in front of a jury of their peers? The answer is generally no. There are several reasons for the lack of use of the jury trial as a means to resolve dispute is civil cases. 

• Rise of contractually mandated arbitration clauses. For example, take a look at the typical automobile insurance policy. It usually contains a clause to the effect that in uninsured or underinsured motorist cases, each party will choose an arbitrator, and the two arbitrators will select a neutral. (In Pennsylvania, since the holding in Insurance Federation vs. Koken, auto carriers are no longer required to have arbitration clauses in their policies. The implications of Koken, and whether the ruling was more favorable to claimants or to insurance carriers will be left for another article.) 
• Greater use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as a means of resolving claims for damages. 
• Court mandated settlement conferences. 
• Impossible time requirements and notice of trial imposed on litigants by the Courts. For instance, it is not uncommon in Philadelphia and Montgomery County to be on twenty four hour notice, or less, of an upcoming trial. So while litigants are made aware that their case may be called for trial in any particular month, the litigants are not given anything close to a date certain for trial. This can place severe constraints on parties, witnesses and expert witnesses. It is no surprise, therefore, that some counties impose these constraints on parties as a method of clearing their dockets of cases by forcing the parties to settle. 
• Lack of trial experience of counsel. ADR is a good way to resolve some personal injury cases. But, with the increase of the use of ADR, and mandated arbitration, fewer and fewer personal injury lawyers are gaining actual jury trial experience. 

Trial lawyers represent people who can least afford lawyers, which is why the contingent fee system in personal injury cases is so important to ensuring access to the court system. It evens the playing field. While alternative means of resolving disputes is useful, helpful and appropriate in some cases, other cases require a hearing in front of a jury as a means of maximizing a client’s claim. As long as the client is informed of the trial risks and related expenses, counsel must be ready to utilize the jury system.

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