Do You Really Need a Lawyer in Your Case Against Erie Insurance

The auto accident happened on December 2, 2005. Our client was a passenger in a car driven by her supervisor from work. The supervisor made a left turn in front of a snowplow which collided with the vehicle. Our client was thrown forward into the seat in front of her. She lost a tooth, fractured another tooth, and required a brief hospital stay followed by several painful dentist visits. Fortunately, though, she had a great recovery. Hers was a personal injury case that was small, but it was still one that merited some compensation.

The supervisor’s insurance company was Erie Insurance. Our client also had an insurance policy with Erie. Our client thought that her case wasn’t very big and that she’d just handle it herself. After all, she thought, “I don’t really want much and my insurance company insures both of us. I’m sure they’ll be fair about this.”

Ere Insurance told our client that the limited tort option applied to her case and that they would offer her nothing to settle the case. What was wrong with that? The problem was that the limited tort option did NOT apply in the case and Erie Insurance knew (or should have known) better.

After several more conversations in which Erie insisted that our client had limited tort and refused to offer her anything, our client called us.

It was a small case. But we were convinced that Erie Insurance was dead wrong about the limited tort issue. We took the case.

We filed suit, conducted written discovery, and deposed the parties. On the verge of us filing a summary judgment motion to resolve the limited tort issue, Erie settled the case. This much is certain. The insurance company never expressed the slightest willingness to resolve the case until we’d pushed them to the eve of a judicial decision on their false assertion that their insured was bound by the limited tort option.

Awarded: Not a lot, but a lot more than Zero!