A ‘take it or leave it’ demand by a St. Louis attorney has led an insurance company to settle a car accident case for $450,000, well beyond the original $50,000 policy limit.
An MRI revealing that crash victim Ronald Howlett had injured spinal discs, which resulted in back surgery, is what upped the ante for Kemar Cooper’s insurer, AAA, according to media reports.
“We had an interesting situation because the policy limits were only supposed to be $50,000,” said Howlett’s attorney Tarun Rana of the Rana Law Group in St. Louis. “Once an insurance company is given the opportunity to settle the case within their policy limits and chooses not to, then you have what's called an open policy, which means I can get any amount of a verdict from a jury subject to the insurance company being able to appeal.”
Missouri Lawyers Media reported that the car accident happened in St. Louis on Interstate 270 near Riverview where Cooper and his vehicle allegedly collided with great force into the back of Howlett’s car.
“We first tried to negotiate with AAA before he had the surgery when he had minimal treatment and they just offered too little relative to what the actual injury was,” Rana told the St. Louis Record. “He probably had a $20,000 to $25,000 case at the time but they offered $15,000, which led to filing the lawsuit because they wouldn’t increase it.”
Instead of presenting medical bills, Rana used his client’s past and future pain and suffering to secure the triple-digit settlement.
“If the medical bills aren't going to be huge amounts, or they're going to be distracting, we don't actually use those,” he said. “The basis of the $450,000 is the fact that this gentleman had surgery and that his past and future pain and suffering were going to be substantial. He is potentially someone who needs future medical care.”
Had AAA offered to pay the $50,000 policy limit when first asked, the insurance company would have less likely been required to pay any more money, according to Rana.
“The insurance company is still on the hook for only $50,000 if we had gone to trial and been awarded a million dollars because they did the right thing, which is offer the full policy limits, and the remainder of that would go against the person individually,” Rana said. “Most lawyers don’t want the scenario of a big judgment against individuals. People can file for bankruptcy in certain circumstances.”