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

Under a new Philadelphia Police Department policy, police will no respond to "minor" car accidents. The purpose is to save money and resources. But this is a very dangerous policy. For instance, who decides what is a minor car accident. (The directive from the Philadelphia Police Department  website is anything but helpful).  Is it the dispatcher who answers the phone when you call 911? What are the criteria for calling an accident minor? Is it the degree of impact? The amount of visible damage? What if there is damage that's not immediately apparent? What if the cars look ok but a tire is blown out or a wheel is damaged in such a way so that the car is not able to be driven from the scene?

What's the degree of injury that will now require the police to go to the accident scene? Does someone need to be bleeding?

After 23 years of practicing law and handling thousands of car accident cases, and having been in car accidents myself, I know that people can sometimes act "not themselves" at accident scenes. It's the adrenaline I suppose. And no one wants to admit they did something wrong, like cause a car accident. Police certainly act as a buffer at accident scenes. They are necessary, even in minor accidents.

Will it now be more likely that drivers leave the scene of an accident? Sure it will.

What do you need to do now? First, make sure to get at least the license plate of the other driver at the scene.  Certainly obtaining more thatn that on the other driver, like name, address, phone number, insurance company information is important. But with a tag number you can obtain the information you, your lawyer, and your insurance company will need from the Pennsylvania Department of Motor Vehicles. Second, report the accident to the police immediately and confirm in writing that it was reported.  Go to the local police station if necessary. Most insurance polices require that the police be notified of an accident within 30 days of the accident in order to protect your right to uninsured motorist benefits.  The reason is your insurance company has a right to investigate the case. So you have an obligation to protect their interests as well as your own. Third, make sure you have uninsured motorist benefits on your auto insurance policy. That way if the other driver leaves the accident scene, you have the right to make an uninsured motorist claim against your own carrier, because a driver that leaves the accident scene is defined as an uninsured motorist under Pennsylvania law.

Take a look at this video from CBS3 for more information.

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PennDOT doesn’t say much in terms of helping consumers decide how much car insurance coverage to purchase. That's a problem for consumers.

We’ve always recommending buying more than the minimal limits!

Every state has a minimum required amount of auto insurance. Depending on the state, the costs will vary. In Pennsylvania, the state required minimums for liability auto insurance are $15,000 of coverage for injury or death of a single person, $30,000 of coverage for injury or death of multiple people, and $5,000 of property insurance.

According to the PennDOT website, "you are in compliance" with the law if you have liability insurance in the following amounts:
• $15,000 for injury or death of one person in an accident
• $30,000 for injury or death of more than one person in an accident
• $5,000 for damage to property of another person

Simply put, you should purchase more than the minimum coverage required by law. You should buy as much as you can afford.  Some insurance companies, although surely not all,  do a better job  than PennDOT does of explaining the coverages you need. It's inexcusable that PennDOT's web site is so lacking in this regard, particularly since the Pennsylvania Insurance Department does is somewhat better job of explaining to consumers the various different types of coverage you can purchase when buying car insurance. The Pennsylvania Insurance Department web site even goes on to state "having the right insurance coverage may prevent you from suffering a large financial loss in the event of an automobile accident."  We couldn't agree more.

In other words, don't skimp on your car insurance coverage.  We would only hope that someone from PennDOT would look at the Insurance Department's web site. Changes to PennDOT's website are needed to give consumers something more than "buy the minimum legal insurance coverage." That's just bad advice.

Optional, yet highly recommended additions to the state minimum are full tort coverage, rather than limited tort, as well as uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. This is separate and apart from liability coverage. For more information about these coverages, go to the Insurance Department's web site or order my book on the subject.

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I settled a case a few weeks ago where the cell phone records of the defendant driver turned out to be important. She denied being on the cell phone at the time of the accident and my client was adamant that she was on the cell phone and that was why the defendant had run the red light, because she wasn't paying attention. Turned out that when we attempted to subpoena the defendant's cell phone records the defendant driver's cell phone carrier was unwilling to turn over the records without an additional court order. (Note that a subpoena is a court order, so the cell phone carrier was just delaying the inevitable- eventually we would have gotten the records). The defendant was apparently concerned about what those records might have revealed, as compared to what she testified to at her deposition. Apparently those records would have jeopardized the defendant's denial of cell phone use, because her attorney quickly agreed to settle the case for the figure we had suggested to him after I filed a motion to obtain the cell phone records.

Obviously cell phone records can be used as both a sword and a shield in terms of vehicle accident investigation, depending on who is accused of using  a cell phone. But, think of the other technologies in place that can also be used to prove or disprove liability in a car accident case. For instance...

• Text messages/e-mails.

• Video footage: This may be particularly true if the accident occurred during rush hour and the scene is captured by a traffic helicopter.

• GPS devices: Garmins, Magelllan and Onstar all record information, including the driver's route of travel.

• Black box technology: Common on trucks, black boxes are now being equipped on private passenger motor vehicles. Black boxes are designed to record and preserve critical information at the time of an accident, just as black boxes are used in airplane crashes to recreate the events leading up to the crash. Black boxes typically record speed, braking and acceleration. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking at the possibility of requiring data recorders for all new vehicles. 
   
• Speed Pass: Data from these devices, also discoverable via subpoena as are cell records, tell where a vehicle was on the highway and can pinpoint time of day. 

• Traffic camera surveillance: This is becoming more common in cities throughout the U.S. Designed to identify drivers who run stop signs and red lights,  traffic surveillance footage can also be useful in showing how a collision happened.

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Since 1984 bodily injury limits (BI) on a typical automobile insurance policy has been mandated at $15,000/$30,000. BI coverage is the coverage that provides financial protection to the at fault driver in an accident. 

The $15,000 number reflects the maximum amount of coverage the injured party can collect from the at fault driver's policy of insurance (if their injurIes warrant that amount). The $30,000 figure is the amount that any combined number of injured people can collect; for example, if the at fault driver injures more than one person in the same car accident.

Maryland has just increased their limits to $40,000/$60,000, up from $20,000/$40,000. This change was long overdue for Marylanders. Our hope is that the Pennsylvania legislature will pay heed to what their colleagues in Maryland have done and increase Pennsylvania's mandated BI limits. In fact most states have limits above Pennsylvania's $15,000/$30,000 amount.

To put the $15,000/$30,000 BI limits into perspective, consider what a dollar bought you in 1984.

• Average Cost of new house $86,730.00
• Average Income per year $21,600.00
• Average Monthly Rent $350.00
• Movie Ticket $2.50
• 1 gallon of gas $1.10
• Dodge RAM 50 Truck $8,995.00

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Former Washington Mutual (WaMu) CEO Kerry Killinger doesn't understand the concept of personal and financial responsibility. He told lawmakers in Washington this week that the reason Wamu went under (the largest bank failure in U.S. history) was because the Fed, Treasury, and D.C lawmakers decided not to save his bank, yet chose to save other banks.

Specifically Killinger said, "for those that were part of the inner circle and were 'too clubby to fail' the benefits were obvious. For those outside the club, the penalty was severe."

Let's be clear here. Wamu made bad decisions on mortgage backed securities, as did other banks. The fate it suffered was due to poor decision making, poor investment decisions, the rose colored glasses syndrome, hubris and greed. CEO Killinger wanted to make Wamu a "supermarket bank" where borrowers of all types could seek loans. That is not a good policy for a bank to have. All businesses must specialize or fail.(Mine included.)

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), chair of the investigations subcommittee has stated:

"WaMu built its conveyor belt of toxic mortgages to feed Wall Street's appetite for mortgage backed securities.To keep the conveyor belt running and feed the securitization machine on Wall Street, Washington Mutual engaged in lending practices that created a mortgage time bomb."

Meanwhile, Mr. Killinger has two homes; one in Palm Desert, California (outside of Palm Springs), and one in a a gated community in Seattle, Washington. While CEO of Washington Mutual in 2007, Killinger earned a total compensation of $14,364,883, which included a base salary of $1,000,000, a cash bonus of $0, stocks granted of $10,120,731, and options granted of $2,846,400. In 2008, the year Washington Mutual ceased to exist and Killinger was fired as CEO, he earned $25.1 million in compensation. Killinger received a $15.3 million severance payment in September 2008 as well as a $445,200 lump-sum payment for vacation benefits and an additional $300,669.He has no problem blaming others for the demise of his bank.

This is a  blog about personal injury law. So what does the Wamu story have to do with that?

All I know is not watching the bottom line is no way to run a business. As a personal injury lawyer, I have to finance each case I take. I don't get paid until the end of the case. That's the essence of the contingency fee agreement I have with every one of my clients. Careful evaluation of each case is required, or I, like Mr. Killinger, could see my law practice go down the tubes. That's why from a philosophical and practical point of view  I only take on meritorious personal injury cases that have a good chance of success. I represent people who have real problems, have suffered real losses and terrible injuries. I have no interest in filing lawsuits on any other type of case. To me, that would be like investing in toxic mortgages. And, to my knowledge, Washington has no plans to come to the aid of the owner of a personal injury practice who didn't pay close attention to the business side of the practice.

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