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doglywolf t1_j64lubi wrote

Reply to comment by Wildwilly54 in Bicyclist involved in Jersey City hit-and-run by Councilwoman DeGise files $1M tort claim by EyesOnImprovement

If she would of stopped , she could of been the one suing him.

The fleeing the scene puts an interesting legal spin on it.

There is a thing called something like reasonable diligence or something along those lines . That if there is an accident that is someone else fault it could still be your fault if you can't prove you didn't have a best effort to avoid it.

She never even braked....out of this entire thing that the part the shocks me...not even so much as a break tap till she is almost at the corner of the end of the block before you see break lights ...

That shows depraved indifference or an inebriated state which would make her liable .That whats going to make this an interesting shit show.

Some law firm probably doing it probably for like 60-70% of the take . Probably came to this guy and were like hey we can probably get you a few hundred thousand for this and wont charge you shit just sign this letting us sue for you.

If i were him and someone came to me and said hey we might be able to get a few hundred K from this clearly horrible person at no cost to you win or lose. Id be like fuck ya go for it.

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Wildwilly54 t1_j64p9m8 wrote

You do bring up a good point. If I’m a Uber eats delivery guy, and some ambulance chasing lawyer offered me a chance at 1mill I’d take it.

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doglywolf t1_j64r08p wrote

Its zero cost to him - most injury lawyers work on commission but they take the lions share to compensate for the risk .

My mom got a million dollar settlement from an accident that jacked up her arm for life. She barely got enough out of it to cover medical cost .

After medical bills which were about 80k after multiple surges (AFTER insurance covered their part no less) i think she got like less then 40k and lawyers ended up with the rest.

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PolarExpress333 t1_j64tcv0 wrote

Actually by law in NJ the most lawyers can take on a personal injury contingency is 30%.

Edit: actually it’s 33.3% max to be exact

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Marshalrusty t1_j65mfry wrote

Keep in mind that, if you take a close look at N.J. Ct. R. 1:21, any out-of-pocket fees are taken off the top, prior to the calculation of the contingency fee. This includes things like paying for expert witnesses, and can be very substantial in a tort case. This is why many firms won't even bother with cases where the expected payout is under 6 figures.

So it's absolutely possible to have a court award $150K, of which half is paid out as fees, and then for the attorneys to take $25K of the remaining $75K, leaving just $50K for the injured party.

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doglywolf t1_j64tj5c wrote

they are lawyers im sure they find ways around that because 2x that has not been the experience i have seen and multiple others heard of

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Mysterious_Ad_8105 t1_j66demh wrote

>Some law firm probably doing it probably for like 60-70% of the take

I have no views on this case, but I’ll just point out that under New Jersey Court Rule 1:21-77, attorney contingency fees in cases of this type are capped at 33.3% of the net recovery. An agreement purporting to award an attorney a higher contingency fee would be unenforceable.

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samwiseganja96 t1_j661upn wrote

Id argue that the video alone would be enough to show she probably couldn't have done anything to avoid the accident. You can watch the biker go into multiple blind spots for the intersection. This video would 100% be shown in bike safety videos of what not to do in an intersection.

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Muchamuchacha42 t1_j6cye9q wrote

Yeah. There’s nothing she could have done except drive the speed limit, avoid intoxication, stop at the scene, and report to the police sooner than 6 hours later. SIX HOURS.

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