BEHIND THE CURTAIN: How a Personal Injury Lawyer Works Up a Car Accident Case for Success!

At Frekhtman and Associates, we take pride in our thorough and strategic approach to personal injury cases, especially when it comes to car crashes.

Join us for an inside look at our process, as we review a recent case and highlight the steps we take to build a strong case for maximum results. From determining liability and venue to advocating for our client's medical treatment, our team of experienced attorneys is committed to providing the best possible representation.

Discover how we can help you with your personal injury case at Frekhtman and Associates.

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✅  CHAPTERS:

00:29 - Introduction, Case Description
00:49 - Intake Questionnaire, Venue
01:30 - Importance of Venue, Insurance Offers
02:00 - Liability Clear, Client Hospitalized
02:30 - Serious Injury Requirement
03:00 - Records and Evidence Gathering
03:56 - Car Crash Case Treatment Focus
04:23 - PJI and Deposition Preparation
05:20 - Stop Sign Violation Charge
06:01 - Policy Limit Importance, Case Strength

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi, this is a Arkady Frekhtman in New York City personal injury trial attorney, and today we're taking you in an inside look behind the curtain of how we work up a case. This is a new case that we just signed up. It happened a few weeks ago in late February of 2023. It was a car crash case, and we're gonna take you, I'm gonna go through it and do a file review so you could see how we build up a.

[00:00:29] So basically this is a case where, uh, another car ran a stop sign and hit our client. So liability is pretty clear right away. So what I usually like to do is I like to talk and, and go to the intake because the intake is where we give the client a questionnaire and they fill it out and we kind of control the questions, right?

[00:00:49] We put whatever questions we want answered, and that's a starting ground and we always wanna keep in touch with the. But that's a good place to start. So this says that, um, it gives the person's [00:01:00] name, their address, so immediately when we see an address, we already know, okay, we have to look at where our client lives or where the incident happened, where the crash happened, or where the defendant lives.

[00:01:13] And then we pick the best one of them, and that could be our venue for if we need to file a lawsuit later on. So it's good to do a review and put that right up on top so you can consider your venue. You always wanna pick the best venues. If you have, like your client lives in, say, Brooklyn, but it happened in Westchester, the defendant is from Westchester.

[00:01:30] Well, you could file in Brooklyn because your client lives in Brooklyn and it's a better venue than let's say Westchester. But you know, sometimes you want to keep that in consideration because if it's a bad venue, then the insurance company may be offering you less money because of that. You may have to take it to trial, or you may have to, you know, build.

[00:01:47] In a different way. So it's always good to be, to be aware of everything right from the beginning and to give it like a, like a, like a, like a very in-depth review. So this case, uh, is like I said, is fairly [00:02:00] straightforward. The defendant blew through a stop sign, hit our client. Um, there were no witnesses and our client went to the hospital.

[00:02:08] And he also is now treating with a doctor. And that's very important because in New York, we have to meet the serious injury requirement. So we have to make sure that our clients who get into car crashes get their medical care at least two or three times a week for at least 90 days, hopefully more than 90 days, maybe like four months, five months, but at least three months, because that's the bare minimum.

[00:02:30] If you don't meet the bare minimum, then you can get nothing because you, you that that's the serious injury t. And sometimes you have to argue that to a jury if the case goes to trial. And one of the ways to argue it is just kind of show them a door with a little threshold. You know, like that's how much you have to show in order to step in.

[00:02:50] Like once you step in through the doorway, then you've, you've met the burden, right? Because it's just a serious injury threshold. Just a, a, a very, very [00:03:00] minimal. Threshold that you have to step through. And the easiest way to do that, if you have a fracture, if you have, let's say a herniated disc with range of motion deficits when they are compared to normal.

[00:03:10] And if you have that three months of care, usually you overcome the threshold. So then, um, we have here that we ordered and received the hospital, um, records. We did a g a Google Map search of the location. So we have photos of the car crash location showing that there was a stop sign. Including like an aerial photo and some photos from the defendant's perspective as well as the plaintiff's perspective.

[00:03:36] We have the defendant's, uh, insurance information, plaintiff's information. We have the police report and the MV 1 0 4, which the drivers fill out themselves. Uh, and so you kind of go through all that. So the, the main thing with a car crash case, it's a little different. When we did the premises case, it was more about, you know, going to the.

[00:03:56] Taking photos of the condition, documenting the condition with a [00:04:00] car crash case, especially something like this where liability is determined. The focus is more on the treatment, making sure the client is treating, finding out what doctors they're going to, are they happy with their doctors? And kind of assigning somebody like a client manager, uh, one of the intake people to kind of hold their hand and be their liaison throughout the process so that they're happy with their doctors.

[00:04:23] And then once they do the M R I, they'll know, Hey, this is my injury cause I've done an M R I, my injury is a herniated disc or a bulging disc. Once we have that, we have the diagnosis. Now we can have a conversation about whether the person needs further treatment, like seeing a pain management specialist to possibly.

[00:04:39] But with respect to what we have to prove, we also like to go to the P G A I, which is the pattern jury instruction, and then for car crash cases, they have a P J I. And that tells you what you have to prove. So knowing that right from the very beginning, you, it's good to take a photo of that. Um, and put it right in the [00:05:00] file so that way when you're gonna be doing the deposition and questioning the defendant, you know, because this is the instruction that the judge will read to the jury, and it includes things like whether they failed to operate their vehicle with reasonable care, whether they were negligent, whether they kept a lookout for other vehicles, whether they fail to see what there is to be seen.

[00:05:20] And then there's a specific charge for a stop sign, which you also. And that could be a vehicle and traffic law violation if it astounded the defendant, uh, did not stop. Failed to stop for a stop sign, uh, failed at. Keep a proper lookout and then crashed into our vehicle. And then of course we want to get photos of the property damage, um, photos of the scene like we talked about.

[00:05:45] But the main thing I think with the car crash case is treatment and making sure they're getting the right treatment. The other thing that we're gonna do very, very suited when we send our initial letter of representation to the insurance company, we want to ask them and make sure we find out all of their [00:06:00] policy limit.

[00:06:01] This I to leave was a hundred thousand dollars policy. So it's unlikely that they would have any excess or umbrella beyond a hundred thousand, but sometimes you could find a policy that's, let's say 250,000, and then there could be a million dollar excess beyond that. So it's always good to find out the full policy limits and get that as early as possible.

[00:06:23] Okay. I hope this has been helpful, but this is one of the ways that. Work up these cases at how we review the case early and keep in touch with our clients and make sure that they're doing their part and that we're doing our part and make the case as strong as possible, and that's how we get maximum results.

[00:06:40] Have a great day, everyone.