Discussion: Lawyers: Law Forced Woman To Sue 12-Year-Old Nephew Who Her Broke Wrist With Hug

I’d like to see that bill!

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The bitter sister looks like one of the people in the listicle ads “15 Celebrities who haven’t aged well”

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“Jainchill & Beckert, Connell’s law firm, said her nephew’s parents’ insurance company offered her $1 over the fall, which occurred at their home.”

What’s criminal here is that the deliberately ridiculous and insulting offer made in bad faith was likely not admitted into evidence because it was an offer in compromise or settlement negotiations.

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According to the lawyer she’s gone through three surgeries… that usually interferes with work, and it costs a lot too. Insurance companies will do just about anything to try to evade or share the costs of paying out. Some 60 years ago my friend’s brother was killed due to a car wreck… his family’s insurance refused to pay out until they sued the owner of the other car; without the insurance money they couldn’t even afford to bury him let alone pay his hospital bills prior to death. So this is a time-honored practice. As for being able to hold the hors d’ouvres I’m guessing this was intended to show just how much damage there still was, that she couldn’t even manage something that light and easy.

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Yes, stupid stuff does get forced to happen by insurance companies playing a game of settlement chicken.
I once was on a jury trial where a daughter was suing her mother - Seems the daughter, her husband, her father and her mother were using a log splitter to split a large amount of fire wood - the daughter, her husband and the father would pick up logs & place them on the splitter - the mom being the smallest, was selected to pull the lever to split the logs. At some point there was a distraction & the mom mistakenly pulled the lever while daughters hand was still on log … much damage - many surgeries … insurance companies were jousting - so the whole sorry mess ended up in court - right from the start it was awful … daughter crying… mother crying … it was lunacy and you could see that these people were in agony having to be in court – Insurance companies got smart after one day & struck a deal.

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Oh, yeah. I knew right away that this was a homeowners’ claim issue. Who’s gonna pay? The health insurer or the homeowners’ insurer?

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WOW. People really need to find something better to do than go nuts over some woman they will never meet. I can’t believe anyone has the time and energy to vilify someone over something so trivial.

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When I was 19, in a car accident ( I wasn’t hit, but slid in snow and a van hit another car to avoid hitting me) and a man sued me for a lot of $$$. The laws in the state where I lived forbid the mention of any insurance policy, so it was a 60 something fella going after a 19 year old kid. The facts of the case were such that he plead disability while the PI on the case saw him climbing a ladder and doing work outside his house. My ins paid 25K toward medical, his wife didn’t get a big payout for ‘loss of consortium’

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I’m skeptical about your qualifications as an orthopedic surgeon. I’ve actually never broken my wrist and I find it odd that you’d think that everyone’s broken wrist requires the same treatment yours did.

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Well, I needed two surgeries for a broken ankle, and a wrist is a much dicier joint. So I find it completely believable.

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Homeowners liability claims means the homeowner ( or children of the homeowner) must be legally liable…at fault. Otherwise, any person who falls on their own butt can simply collect money off a homeowner policy. None of us could afford HO insurance if we simply had to pay for everything. The woman was an HR manager…bet you money she had medical insurance.

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HO insurance is supposed to pay for claims that the HO or their children are legally liable for. Few are going to consider an exuberant hug negligence. If you want insurance companies to pay for everything…you won’t be able to afford the premium.

Sheesh…they made the 1 dollar offer specifically because their client was NOT at fault. That’s what you do…in order to recoup your legal fees from the other side. This was a frivolous action, many of us feel.

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Homeowners Insurance companies are supposed to pay for claims that their clients ( the homeowner and their family) are legally liable for. Because there is an injury does not mean there is negligence. I have nieces and nephews and never in a million yrs would sue them for an " exuberant" hug. I doubt if many would.Sometimes…there are just accidents that no one is at fault for.

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If her health insurance company was refusing to pay because they claimed it was a negligence case and the homeowner’s insuror should pay, now she can go back to them and tell them to fork over the money already, plus interest.

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Or run insurance, according to a 60 minutes or 20/20 episode I watch a while back, like they do in Germany.Supposedly with health insurance, there are private companies, but they can’t make a profit. Their incentive to run well is they can pay their people well, but they can’t make excess profit to pay stockholders or owners.

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Exactly. In law school textbooks in the old days, at least, you quickly began encountering educationally significant torts cases that are on their face unfortunate disputes between family members or erstwhile friends, but have almost always been battles between the money interests, the insurance companies. Without them, the cases would never have been pursued far enough to generate precedent – or prevent it; these events are all components of ongoing underwriting decisions by the companies. It’s been that way so long as there’s been insurance, it seems. And, since a jury’s knowing that this fight is actually between insurance companies would not allow the excoriation of plaintiffs (or the sympathy for defendants against ‘ridiculous’ claims) that the article – as well as the comments – reveal(s), state laws most often specifically prohibit mentioning that a party has insurance, during a trial. You’d think the journos would have been aware of this, without resorting to the ‘her lawyer claims this or that’ line of snark. Give the lady a different sort of break, guys.

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My son stepped on a nail. There is apparently a specific bacteria in sneaker soles that gets very angry when it gets inside your skin. He was on an IV antibiotic for six days in the hospital to make sure it didn’t get infected.

The bill, which my insurance paid, was around $45,000.

'Murika.

At first I thought this was ridiculous on its face. However, there is an element of this driven by the ridiculousness of the medical system. Normally, I’d say that anyone who falls down in the process of normal activity unless aggravated by some non-normal situation should not have standing to sue. And thats what the jury decided, but still amazing that it got here. If you are paying out of pocket, the list prices for medical care are ridiculous. As a recent example, I had an x-ray taken of my hip. I have a high deductible plan, but with pre-negotiated rates even before the deductible is exhausted. I kid you not, my bill said $3356 of which $3339 was not allowed and I owed $17. (In addition to the $20 copay). So fundamentally, they make money at $40 for an xray, but someone walking in off the street would get charged $3500.

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for health insurance, Obamacare sort of does that by limiting the loss ratio…

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