Rear ended, not my fault in Texas

[Doglover]

I was rear ended on March 19th. I went to the ER for medical attention because my neck was hurting. My car was towed to a towing service since I was not able to drive it because I was in the ER. The car was just damaged on the bumper. Not knowing what to do, I left my car at the towing company until I heard from insurance company of the person who hit me. I did not get ahold of anyone until March 25th, and I had my car towed to the body shop. Meanwhile on March 22nd, I had rented a rental car. So I have had a rental car for 13 days. I finally get the approval today to get my car fixed. They tell me because my car was driveable, they will only pay for 2 days of rental car. But no one told me to go ahead and drive my own car. So now I am stuck with $450.00 in rental car fees. Is there anyway to get them to pay for this? My injury lawyer won't advise me on this. Someone please help.

 

[seniorjudge]

You could try suing the bad people in small claims court.

But renting a car when your car was drivable makes for a very weak case on your part.

 

[Doglover]

Well, I was never aware that the car was driveable, the service dept nor the insurance company communicated this to me.

 

[Duranie]

Do you have insurance? You can try submitting a claim to your own insurance company or suing the driver in small claims. Not as good idea to assume this other person even had rental car coverage. It seems the car was totally drivable and you just let it set there. That could be an expensive lesson learned. You may not prevail in court but you can try.

 

[PILawGirl]

Your personal injury attorney may not be advising you because most of them don't handle your property damage claim. They will "assist" with it if absolutely needed but, because they do not take a fee from the PD settlement they are reluctant to handle it. I'm too nice, I handle my clients PD all the time and PD claims are a huge pain in my rear.

Either way, I would assume that a body shop would have advised you that your car was driveable. Not only that, YOU have the duty and responsibility to mitigate your damages. I think its unlikely you will get the entire amount. Mitigate, mitigate, mitigate! I send a special letter to all my clients advising them on this so they don't get stuck in your situation.

 

[Doglover]

Well, this whole situation just sucks. I absolutely hate dealing with insurance companies. When I lived in Michigan, it was so much easier since they had no fault insurance. I have had severe neck pain from this accident and have been on medication, therefore I have not been thinking clearly, and the victims of car accidents should not have to deal with this added stress.

This concerns me if a PD claim is a pain in the rear for an attorney, how is someone with no legal training supposed to handle this? This whole system is messed up.

 

[PILawGirl]

Hey I'll be honest, it's only a pain in my rear when people are more concerned about their car not being worth $200 more than they thought it was. There are some PD claims I don't mind handling. But, for the most part, they don't want to handle the PD because no one likes to work for free You can resolve it, just compromise. Try to meet them somewhere in the middle.

 

[Doglover]

Great news, I wrote a very convincing letter to the claim adjuster's supervisor and it looks like they are going to pay for it all!