Find a doctor, a car repair shop, a rental car and myriad other tasks await you, Locating the at-fault driver's liability insurer and persuading them to pay the fair value of your property damage and the full period of your rental is far harder than it should be.

All good reasons to hire an experienced personal injury lawyer to maximize your recovery and simplify your life.  

In the end whether you represent yourself or hire a lawyer, you won't get paid until you sign a release.

So what is a release? In its simplest form it is a contract embodying terms ( typically financial) of agreement between parties terminating a disagreement or claim. In a car or truck crash, releases typically reflect a payment from a liability insurer to an injured party compensating them for injuries and/or economic consequences because of an accident. 

Insurers won't issue a settlement check until such time as a release protecting their at-fault insured and the insurance company is executed.

So what is in a release?

While larger cases often contemplate more complex terms, all releases recite the compensation amount from the liability insurer to the injured party and exculpate the insurer and its insured from any future liability The injured party explicitly gives up any and all lawsuits or claims stemming from the crash or incident described in the release.

All releases require the injured party to sign acknowledging the fact that once they are paid the amount designated in the release, they no longer can pursue the at-fault driver and his insurer for any additional compensation for the crash that gave rise to the claim.

Often releases make clear that no additional inducements have been made beyond the specified payment.

Many releases in larger cases include provisions that the injured party won't disparage the at-fault party or use social media to do so.

Other releases often note that the insurer and its insured are not responsible for any medical bills or liens once the settlement payment is made.

Many companies require releases in which the at-fault company formally denies liability, despite their making payment.

The bottom line is that understanding the substance of the release is a good idea although effectuating changes in standard form release provisions is virtually impossible.

Traumatic brain injury is defined as a trauma that disrupts brain function and is classified by its degree of severity. Diagnosing such an injury can be difficult as is treatment.

There are possible manifestations of TBI that are physical in nature such as difficulty with coordination, movement, dexterity and balance. There are also mood or emotive signs such as increased anxiety, depression and irritability. Finally and logically brain injuries can affect brain function such as memory and cognition.

 The Centers for Disease Control report that TBI's killed more than 69,000 Americans in 2021.

As a consequence the state of Maryland along with numerous other states have created a state fund to assist victims of TBI. When you renew your registration in Maryland you can donate to the fund. For more go to: https://www.biamd.org/maryland-brain-injury-trust-fund.html

Many crash victims leave the scene of the collision in rough shape. Thus, if you can reach out to friemds and/or loved ones, that would likely be very helpful. They will be better able to appreciate how the crash has altered your thinking and movement and may well pick up an injury before you do.

Often crash victims suffer concussions without losing consciousness and thus the headaches, confusion, fatigue and orneriness they exhibit after a substantial collision are not necessarily connected to it in their minds. These people need to be evaluated promptly to ensure they are not suffering from a traumatic brain injury or other serious injury.

They may not find it convenient but getting prompt, appropriate medical care is essential to the fullest and speediest recovery while also documenting for claims purposes the extent of accident-related injuries.

Injury documentation is also important in the event that you need to miss time from work. A lost work slip or medical document can help support use of PTO and also buttress a lost wage claim from the at-fault driver's insurer. If you don't have supportive paperwork you may not get paid by either your employer or the the auto insurer.

After, evaluating your injuries and medical care needs, there is of course the matter of getting your vehicle repaired or replaced. and if necessary, getting a temporary replacement ( think rental) vehicle. That of course necessarily involves negotiating with insurers and before doing so make sure you are thinking straight.

Obviously having an experienced personal injury lawyer for this purpose is very useful as they perform these tasks routinely and know the lay of the land. The fact is having such an attorney helps make every aspect of the post-crash process easier. They often know body shops, doctors and other useful professionals in your community.

There are many components of an accident claim and anticipating them all is virtually impossible. So if you are in a car or truck crash, take advantage of our free offer of our book. You will be glad you did.

The book originated at the behest of Tom Foster at Foster Web Marketing and grew from there. It starts with a vignette with the car crash victim, Denise as the protagonist and her understandable mistakes resonate in the vignette and the book.

She's in a hurry after being rear-ended and wants to pick her daughter up on-time at daycare and get home. Unfortunate events ensue and provide a lens through which to view the subsequent 17 Secrets.

Really the Secrets are suggestions for issues to be aware of if you have been in a crash particularly where it is not your fault.

Chapter 1 " What to do if you're in a crash". The most important consideration is of course your degree and nature of injury and the safety of you and your passengers immediately after the crash. Post-crash scenes are both fraught and dangerous. Tempers flare and often blame is assigned sometimes angrily without regard to reality.

Try and remain calm and evaluate whether your vehcile's occupants can emerge safely. If so do so and recognize that the evidence of who was at fault is ephemeral, here until it all gets cleaned up and everyone leaves the scene.

That is where cell phone pictures are essential to establish who hit whom and why. Locations of vehicles, crash impact locations, skid marks and traffic light locations can often be vitally important later on when suddenly the person who hit you in the rear doesn't rememeber it that way.

Conversing with the at-fault driver is fine but if they are apologizing for causing the collision it is much more valuable if they do so in front of the police or other witnesses. In a similar vein major crashes require police documentation and if you call 911, be aware a tape of your call will exist later.

If someone ran into the rear of your car or ran a red light make sure you describe it that way on your 911 call. 

Witnesses at the scene are also both important and unlikely to stick around long. If you speak to them thank them for remaining at the scene and get their name and phone number so they can later provide support for your description of events. If they are at the scene when the police arrive connect them.

If witnesses want to hurry off, taking a picture of their vehicle and tag might enable locating them later.

Finally, if you are hurt at least let ambulance personnel examine you if you feel going to the hospital is too much trouble or unnecessary. Be aware that injuries trigger responsibilities for EMTs and police and actual useful police reports will be authored with names of witnesses, particpants, insuarnec companies and determinations of who was at fault and why.

Better yet read Chapter One.

Traditionally, in Maryland, lawyers in circuit court jury trials submit written questions to the presiding trial judge who then determines which such questions will be asked. Often the actual trial lawyers who know the case facts intimately, disagree with the judge as to what questions might be hypothetically of value to tease out possible biases of potential jurors.

Frankly many trial judges feel pressure to complete their dockets inlcuding trials and are hesitant to probe very far into what animates and motivates jurors. As a consequence Maryland limits voir dire more than virtually anywhere in the United States.

This author has tussled with trial judges for decades about what information needs to be explored and now Dave Harak has shepherded a voir dire pilot program to multiple counties in Maryland.

What this means is that rather than the trial judge choosing which questions can be asked of possible jurors, now the actual trial lawyers will do so, This inevitably will result in lawyers drilling down further on jury pool responses that are shall we say..equivocal? 

Any trial lawyer who has attended a national trial seminar knows that much time and emphasis is placed on asking the prospective jurors the right questions in the right mannner so as to elicit meaningful responses. Every Maryland lawyer ever has skipped this seminar topic as unnecessary due to the complete absence of useful voir dire in Maryland.

Because if David Harak and his mates this will no longer be the case!

Fairer trials will become the norm and all will be right with the world!

Often we hear our clients say " I have full coverage" in an optimistic manner that suggests they anticipate fair compensation including payment of their medical expenses, lost income and ample pain and suffering.

Sadly, this optimism is often misplaced. Full coverage isn't sufficient coverage. To quote Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride " You keep on using that word. I do not thonk it means what you think it means."

Which is to say full coverage in Maryland can be as little as $30,000.00 in liability or uninsured motorist's coverage and 0 dollars in PIP or personal injury protection coverage. Obviously many car and truck crash cases produce medical expenses and lost wages that far exceed $30,000.00.

Zero PIP is literally nothing and many people perceive they have " full coverage" but really have grossly insufficient coverage for anything other than a minor crash. Similarly the Maryland minimum limit of property damage insurance is $15,000.00

One can imagine a crash with a late model expensive vehicle causing vastly more than $15,000.00 in repair damage. 

In an era when insurers advertise "only get what you need" it can be a race to the bottom because " need" as defined by the Maryland State Legislature is a very low bar indeed.

So do yourself and your family a favor, look to spend a little more and provide protection for everyone including other drivers and pedestrians with whom you might have an accident.

Is there Personal Injury Protection coverage or Medpay? How bout uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist coverage? How much is available and from whom? 

Does it matter if you are in a ride-sharing vehicle as a passenger or driver? What if the ride-sharing vehicle is at fault? If they are what happens if they have no passengers?

These are all fact variable questions that would benefit from legal evaluation, the one certainty is that Uber and Lyft drivers while transporting App patrons, all have at least the Maryland mandatory minimums.

1). Prospective verdict range. Valuing cases is a mix of experience and guesswork. If you've tried enough cases you know that seemingly strong cases can go sideways but also that jurors sometimes empathize with the injured party more than you might have expected.

It is however important to weigh the injuries sustained, the economics of lost income and medical expenses and whether the victim plausibly has a permanent injury from the accident. From these factors veridct values can be estimated.

2). Where the lawsuit can be brought geographically. It is well-known that some Maryland counties produce larger verdicts than others. While there are a variety of reasons for this there is little doubt that the potential for a larger award is much greater in the wealthier more populated counties of the Western shore of Maryland including Anne Arundel. Charles, Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties.

So if you can bring your lawsuit in one of those counties your upside is greater.

3). Can your case advantageously be brought in Federal Court? Federal court juries are composed of residents of multiple counties and often are perceived to be more generous than jurors in rural counties in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore.

Given a choice between trying a case in Garrett County or Federal court, the latter would almost always be more likely to produce a higher result.

4). Is there a need for speed in a case with limited value? Smaller cases will be reached for trial much more rapidly in Maryland State  District Court. Smaller means $30,000.00 or less.

5). Can a Maryland crash case be brought in state or jurisdiction outside of Maryland? If a Maryland driver or company causes a collision in another state, generally that state or district can be the location of a lawsuit. Obviously such a choice of venue is subject to consideration as to whether it is more advantageous then any alternative one in Maryland.

These Five Factors are best weighed by experienced trial lawyers familiar with all of the facts of your case and injuries.

Subrogation is when a party, typically an insurer, pursues monies they have paid to or on behalf of their insureds, from the at-fault party and/ or their insurer. The mechanism for this process is invariably described as the subrogee ( Insurance company) standing in or stepping into the shoes of its insured or subrogor. The concept is that some benefits paid to an injured party by their own auto or health insurers should ultimately be paid by at at-fault person or their insurer.

As an example, many of our clients find that the at-fault driver and their liability insurers, are initially reluctant to assume legal economic responsibility for the costs and consequences of a crash. Thus the innocent driver turns to their own insurer for a rental vehicle and repairs

Often the innocent victim's insurer subsequently pursues the at-fault driver's liability insurer for rental vehicle expenses and repairs they have defrayed. Their legal ability to do this is subrogation or substituting  themselves for their insured.

The most common obstacle to arriving at a fair sum to compensate an injured party is the legal subrogation by health insurers for medical expenses they have paid. Most health insurance agreements or schemes include the requirement that insureds cooperate in helping their health insurer recover sums expended for their accident-related care.

There are a host of different permutations of subrogation including on behalf of short-term disability policies and also workers compensation insurers.

If you are in an accident and collect workers comp benefits you can rest assured that the workers compensation payor will be looking for recompense out of your settlement or ultinate verdict.

It works somewhat like this. Jim gets hurt in a crash and the workers comp insurer for his employer pays his medical bills, lost time from work ( Temporary total or partial disability) and some permanent impairment benefits.

These payments total $27,000.00. Jim settles his crash case for $60,000.00. The workers compensation insurer is entitled to its $27,000.00 out of the $60,000.00 however if Jim had an attorney who is charging him 1/3 then the workers comp insurer is legally obligated to reduce their entitlement by 1/3 as well.

Thus the math on Jim's settlement is subrogation lien of $27,000.00 reduced by 1/3 to $18,000.00. Jim's lawyer gets $20,000.00, workers comp $18,000.00 and Jim $22,000.00 in addition to the workers comp benefits he received previously.

There are nuanced ways to reduce subrogative payouts and that is why a lawyer who knows this field is essential equipment.

We set out to explain this process on this website in various ways but today the focus on how and why medical bills are actually an important measure or mechanism, is the goal.

Yesterday, this author confronted this phenomenon twice on one claims negotiating day. The first instance involved an auto accident case where the client had discharged his former lawyer and hired our firm. Communication had broken down with the at-fault insurer and the client had undergone surgery as a result of the collision.

We had requested all the pertinent medical records for the client as well as their bills. Often medical records and bills are slow to come by and  the client was understandably impatient to resolve his claim as the policy limits of the at-fault driver were limited.

I called the insurance adjuster with whom I had successfully worked with before and he informed me that he had $17,000.00 in crash-related bills and told me he could put up his policy limits if we could provide the surgical bill.

I called the client and informed him that if he could lay his hands on the surgery bill his wait would be over. Needless to say the client was relieved.

The second case involved a client who had been in a bad wreck while in the military. She had received almost three years of medical care while in service and was still symptomatic. Unfortunately efforts to get bills for this care had been fruitless and as the date for the statute of limitations was upon us thus necessitating the filing of a lawsuit, we were in a bit of a pickle.

The at-fault driver's insurer, Geico, had assigned an experienced adjuster who had reviewed the thousand or so pages of medical records and agreed that the client had endured quite a lot as a result of the crash but proceeded to offer $33,000.00 to settle the case.

The reason, absence of medical bills! There is no way around it, insurers put an inordinate value on medical bills in their claims valuation. They can be unduly quantitative and miss the forest for the trees. The militray client has likely sustained a permanent injury but somehow the absence of large medical bills limited their sense of the claims value.

We see it everyday. Clients can sustain the same injury, with virtually identical symtoms and yet the one with higher medical bills gets paid vastly more.

So the lesson is make sure you keep track of and get copies of all accident related medical bills and provide them to your attorney. You will benefit.

This can be a problem because no two cases are alike and injured people oten have important questions. Like how to pay their bills when they can't work due to their injuries.

These questions are often addressed effectively by paralegals and administrative assistants but sometimes more nuanced and experienced thinking is necessary, which is why you hire an attorney in the first place.

We hear stories of clients calling their lawyers dozens of times without ever speaking to their lawyer and without a return call.

So how do you avoid such issues? The answer is simple. Test your prospective lawyer's responsiveness before you hire them. See whether when you call a nearby law firm you can actually speak to your future lawyer or whether you are sloughed off on someone else.

If you can't speak to a lawyer ask that one call you back and if you don't hear back from a lawyer, it's a safe bet that if you hire that law firm you'll never hear from your lawyer when you need him or her.

Hire a lawyer who is invested in you and your needs. Not one just trying to pay for their ads.

Many accident victims imitially go to a hospital emergency room or patient first immediately after their crash. Generally, those entities make suggestions for follow up care with orthopedists or other specialists. Those specialists often prescribe physical therapy or diagnostic testing such as x-rays or mri's.

Thus, it is easy to accrue 3 or 4 different healthcare providers without batting an eyelash. None of these instances constitute " duplicative" treatment as contemplated in this blog's title.

Duplicative treatment is where more than one healthcare provider is essentially doing the same thing as another. A frequently seen example is a crash victim that is receiving physical therapy while also undergoing chiropractic manipulation. 

Yes they are different but similar enough that insurance companies and juries often perceive that they reflect overtreatment and penalize pliantiffs for the dreaded " duplicative treatment."

There are ways to ensure that an ineffective treatment is dropped and an effective treatment is substituted. First, if a treatment isn't helping let your lawyers and primary healthcare providers know.

They can communicate this tactfully to the at-fault insurer and explain in medical reports why this is necessary.

The transition from chiropractic to physical therapy or vice versa can be tricky but if it doesn't take the doctors, lawyers and adjusters by surprise it makes it difficult to suggest that some how the treatment change is either duplication or double treating.

Once the initial actvities in the aftermath of a collision are taken care of,it often remains more difficult to accomplish everything. Despite this one of the most important matters to see to is consistently attending doctors appointments and therapy sessions.

 Aside from the likelihood that consistent care will get you healthier sooner, attendance at these appointments are often seen by judges, jurors and insurance carriers as indicia that you are hurt and need and deserve treatment.

Your testimony that you are injured and continue to suffer symptoms related to a collision will often be received skeptically if you miss scheduled medical appointments or fail to get care at all.

Insurance companies take the position that if you aren't treating, you are no longer injured. There are injuries that are not susceptible to continuing care but you sure as heck better have a doctor document that your particular injuries are permanent or ongoing in nature or judges and/or jurors may fail to connect your continuing problems to your accident.

So beware of missed appointments or delays in treatment unless you have a very good explanation. If you can't make an appoinment let your doctor or therapist know so they can document why you couldn't attend and not leave gaping holes in your case.

Sometimes this can be a sensitive issue as we regularly see cases where our injured client was a passenger in car being operated by a negligent friend or family member. As one can imagine, people don't like being sued and having to sue your friend or even spouse, can bring out some hard feelings.

So why not sue the insurer instead of the driver? The answer is twofold. The insurer for the at-fault driver wasn't driving the car, so they can't be sued for negligence and second, the at-fault insurer has a contract with the at-fault vehicle operator not with you. 

If you filed such a lawsuit it would be dismissed by the court in which it was filed. In Maryland car and truck crash cases injured victims are seeking compensation for their personal injuries and economic losses and must do so under " Tort" law.

Without a lenghty discourse " Tort" law is the law associated with compensating victims of wrongs visited upon them or their property by others. It originated in one form another in Roman times, Its purpose is to be a vehicle for people injured by others to receive compensation rather than resorting to violence.

So when you are in a car accident you pursue a claim for any injuries or damages from the individual or individuals, who caused the crash.

They in turn contract with auto or truck liability insurers to pay for any injuries or damages they have caused.

For those who are unfamiliar with the process of voir dire, it is the mechanism whereby attorneys ascertain whether jurors have biases or experiences which should preclude them from jury service in particular cases. This determination is made presently through questions submitted by the trial attorneys to the presiding judge, who then asks the jurors the questions the judge feels are germane to the case and possible bias.

The problem with this system is twofold. First, the judge only has cursory knowledge about the case and parties before them and may not appreciate lines of potential juror bias.

Second, judges always have an incentive to " move things along" and often feel that genuine detailed inquiry about juror life experiences or biases is not warranted.

Having tried quite a number of jury trials and spoken to the jurors afterwards, I can say without a doubt that judges rarely tease out the full extent of biases and life experiences that would likely effect the ability of jurors to fairly deliberate and decide cases.

Dave's tireless efforts championing the rights of all litigants to get a truly fair trial are admirable.

In writing a recent blog on " full coverage" I glanced at a recent auto insurance declaration sheet outlining my coverages and saw that despite two or more decades of maintaining PIP coverage in the amount of $10,000.00, our friends at Geico had seen fit to reduce my PIP limits to $2500.00.

I was flabbergasted. Certainly I had never authorized such a reduction in my auto insurance and frankly it was pure fortuity that I'd picked up my Dec sheet and looked at the coverages.

I called Geico the next day and made sure I had the benefits I'd always had in force but my friendly Geico person could provide no explanation for why the benefit had been lowered.

I must admit I am a lttle paranoid that if insurance companies want to screw you they can slip a change in coverage into your policy and probably 90% of their insureds would  never notice until too late.

So crisis averted. But I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if I hadn't noticed and had been in a bad accident and required more than $2500.00 in PIP benefits? Some how I think Geico what have said sorry Mr. Clark we sent you a notice of your coverages and you didn't point the discrepancy out to us.

Moral of the story look closely at your insurance bills and declaration sheets . Even if you are a long-time personal injury lawyer.

I explained that the phrase meant that they would likely pay for repairs to his vehicle and provide him a rental car. I said it made it more likely that they would make an offer of settlement but that the words prompt and full were not often part of the equation.

I also explained that in modern America it is routine for insurers to make grossly inadequate settlement offers that if accepted would actually not allow for payment of medical bills and lawyers. https://www.maryland-law.com/blog/want-a-fair-offer-on-your-maryland-crash-claim-file-suit-.cfm

As an example, I told him about a recent offer of $19,000.00 in a case where the client incurred over $14,000.00 in medical bills. I explained that if that offer was accepted the client would owe us 1/3 of $19,000,00 or $6333.33 leaving $12,666.66 to pay $14,000.00 in medical bills. The math isn't complicated.

The client would not only receive nothing for pain and suffering but wouldn't have enough to pay all the medical bills. So I filed a lawsuit and will likely at least double the present offer. So while that case was one of accepted liability the " accepted" part still yielded an absurdly low offer.

A second misleading aspect of " accepting liability" is that once the case morphs into a lawsuit, the adjuster's " accepted liability" has no binding effect on the defendant of their defense attorney. None,

If they can craft a defense they will. So the next time your in an accident and the at-fault driver's insurer accepts liabillity understand the limited benefits that really accrues.

Just today I spoke to a prospective new client who is facing a follow-up back surgery due to a bad crash. He informed me that he had full coverage and it was clear to me that he may have " full coverage" to the extent that he has all the coverages required by Maryland law.

But to quote Inigo Montoya " I do not think it means what you think it means." Full coverage is not remotely full.

In this era of Liberty Mutual's " Only pay for what you need" that often translates into get the cheapest policy available that only includes the Maryland required basics. You see, the Maryland state legislature followed virtually every other state in the union in requiring drivers to have a smallish amount of insurance to protect both the policyholder and the driving public.

Which is to say if someone negligently runs into you there is at least $30,000.00 in liability insurance to pay for your injuries and a total of $60,000.00 for all injuries they bring about.

So hypothetically, a bad driver rear-ends your SUV and injures you and your three kids significantly and that means four people divide up $60,000.00. Medical bills can soar and you might find that there is nothing left for your lost wages or any other accident-related expenses.

Fortunately there is a separate requirement for property damage but that is merely $15,000.00 and in the era when the average cost of a new car is said to be $45,000.00, you can imagine how inadequate $15,000.00 often is and our hypothetical SUV driver might lose literally tens of thousands of dollars in property damage.

That is conceptually what the problem is with this " Full Coverage." It's full if you never have an accident where more than $15,000.00 in property damage is involved or where any lasting personal injury is involved. We see a lot of cases where our clients are injured to a degree that they expect greater compensation than $30,000.00 and they are fully justified in their expectations.

The problem is of course that most of the time the drivers who caused their injuries have Maryland minimum coverage and they too are laboring under the illusion that it will be sufficient. The victims of these crashes generally don't realize that they can protect themselves from just such a situation by purchasing more than the Maryland minimum coverages on their own policies.

Using our hypothetical above the same bad driver rear-ends you and injures you and your three kids and totals your late model SUV. But you have purchased more than the Maryland minimum and can make up for the inadequacies of the at-fault driver's " Full Coverage."

You have at least property damage coverage equivalent to the replacement cost of your SUV say $50,000.00. You also have $10,000.00 in PIP or personal injury protection coverage to take care of medical expenses and lost income.

Lastly you have at least Uninsured Motorist Coverage in the amount of $100,000.00 per person and $300,000.00 per accident. What this means is once the at-fault driver's insurance has paid out its $30,000.00 per person and cumulative $60,000. maximum per accident, you can collect up to another $240,000,00 in uninsured/ underinsured motorist benefits.

Your policy can ensure that your vehicle is fully repaired or replaced, your immediate medical bills or lost wages are paid by PIP and instead of splitting $60,000.00 four ways for personal injury compensation you can split up to $300,000.00. Yes it costs more but protecting your family in the event of a bad crash should be your goal when you but truly " Fuller Coverage."

A few thousand dollars may seem enticing in the immediate aftermath of a bad crash but the short term relief often doesn't take care of the long-term consequences and regrets soon follow.

You see, insurance personnel are trained to win the trust of unsuspecting accident and personal injury victims. Ordinary folk are not. It is one reason insurance company commercials are so light-hearted. Gekkos emus and " good neighbors" dominate the commercials during sporting events but insurance companies make far more money for their executives and shareholders by holding down claims costs.

Several liability insurers spent more than one billion dollars on their " happy advertising" with sports stars, quirky characters and animals in recent years.See: https://www.carriermanagement.com/features/2024/01/18/257945.htm

Why? To win the public's trust so they just might swallow ever increasing auto insurance premiums and ever declining settlement offers

Maryland is dominated by insurance money in its politics and its rare that laws benefitting injured people are sucessfully passed but every once in a while behavior so unfair and reprehensible is made public and efforts to alay public upset occur.

In Maryland Sec 5-401.1 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article is just such a remedial law. It provides an avenue for injured parties to get out from under releases signed " within 30 days of the infliction of injuries without the assistance or guidance of an attorney".

What this means is if you are injured on say, January 1, 2025 and you are persuaded by the liability insurer for the at-fault driver to accept a settlement offer, sign a release and accept compensation, you have the ability with certain specific constraints, to void the release, return the money and start over with one caveat, that you can't have worked with " the assistance or guidance of an attorney at law."

Which is to say, if you had an attorney the law doesn't help you.

So why does this law exist? The answer is an increasing incidence of ordinary folks getting undercompensated by insurers because they don't have lawyers working with them. At Clark and Steinhorn, we hear from such people regularly albeit, often too late for us to sve them from their settlement mistake.

So if you think you've made a mistake in accepting an early settlement act fast because the la provides you a sixty day window to nullify your settlement made within thirty days of your injury.

To be clear, there are nuances in the law to be aware of the text of the portion of this law we are focused on today is the following:

The short answer to this issue is that all claims that are released are only effective to that extent that some form of consideration or compensation flows from the releasor to the releasee. Which typically means that the mere signing of a release form doesn't make it legally effective until money flows from the at-fault party or insurer to the victim for specific claims.

Thus, a payment for property damage and/or rental vehicle, will not affect one's entitlement to bring a personal injury claim in Maryland. Should one  carefully read the release? Absolutely. but thus far at Clark and Steinhorn, we have never had an issue with an insurer or at-fault party trying to foreclose an injury claim because of the execution of a property damage release.

Our next blog topic is related but different. It involves insurance company efforts to settle claims before the injured party has an opportunity to recover and where necessary, hire an attorney. Shockingly insurance industry unethical settlement practices necessitated legidlative action to curtail such behavior. More tomorrow.