Speakers – Michael Levitis & Gregory Spektor
Gregory Spektor 00:01
Good day, everybody. It’s Michael Levitis with Gregory Spektor, an attorney, a founding member, a partner in Gregory Spektor and Associates, a personal injury law firm that deals with car accidents, construction, accidents, and slip and falls. Gregory, welcome back to our program, you’re always very good explaining everything from top to bottom, making it very accessible and basic.
And today, we’ll continue with the basics of a car accident, how to get compensated, what’s involved, how to make a claim and all that. So I want to ask you today, people are a little bit confused. Let’s say you’re riding as a passenger in some car and your friend is the driver, you get into a car accident. Whom exactly are you suing? What parties? Can you please talk about that? Sure. No, first, thank you for having me. Pleasure.
When when we talk about, you know, who are you suing? Many attorneys are asked that question by relatives by friends, you know, can I sue this person? Can I sue that person? The answer is always yes, right? Country that we live in this pretty much everybody can sue anyone now. But that’s all succes the outcome is what you know, what needs to be considered? More importantly, right. So when, when, when we’re nowadays, when there’s a car accident, there are many, many potential defendants.
And that is why it’s important to have a knowledgeable, experienced attorney. Because things first of all things change. For example, lately, we’ve got all these rideshare apps, like Uber, Lyft, and so on and so forth. It gets complicated. It gets complicated. But the funny thing is the layers of insurance, I don’t even know, I don’t even think they understand how many different layers of insurance they have, because they have Uber, and then they have raised here, you know, and they have this very complicated corporate structure, with all those layers having their own level, what they’re trying to protect themselves, and it’s your job to unravel that and represent the client.
That is why and that’s why we’re licensed professionals, because we will assume responsibility for missing an important defense. Because every time you you’re not naming someone you’re potentially missing on. But that’s kind of hypothetical. You are a passenger in the car. Would you rather it be your friend’s car, or an Uber car? A hypothetical. And the answer will be a very typical lawyer’s answer depends, you know, I mean, some friends might have, you know, huge umbrella policy was $5 million protection, and then some friends skin have the minimum of 25,000 out of the year.
It’s important, I think, to state when you when you say you’re gonna sue your friends, correct me if I’m wrong. It’s not as if yes, you’re naming your friend as a defendant in the court documents. But in reality, who’s gonna pay it’s gonna be your friend who’s going to pay for your damages, it’s going to be their insurance company. Correct? Right. Again, let’s go back to the basics. What’s a lawsuit? Lawsuit starts with us filing what’s called the summons and complaint in which you name all potential defendants, some of those defendants may not, you know, may not need to stay there.
Again, if it’s a rear end collision, let’s say somebody hits you in the rear, but you still want to you still want to name the driver with the car that you were in just in case, the other driver will allege this car stop short. That level of the process allegation is enough. allegation is enough.
She was the one on the whole, possibly all potential defendants and a lot of times it could be a friend it could be the other driver and then it goes up through my Car’s liability to be owners and the registers of that vehicle that can be different from the driver he could be a company it could be Corporation it could be a family member, then Wait a second so I just want to pinpoint this if a family member so you saying to me I’m gonna say stupid question. Let’s say you are driving and your son is in the car you get into a car accident your son can potentially sue you as well. Correct.
Even though your family living in one household? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. against anyone can sit down there is there potentially one own the only one potential I guess, limit the There is there is a husband and wife because of the spousal privilege that might be an issue. And some insurance companies specifically talk about that you may have a spousal privilege exception, so that you can still go out and sue them. And some not. But again, you’re absolutely right.
Whenever you name whoever you name as a defendant. In reality, it’s not going to be that person who will be defending and, and paying actually paying. Once you name that person, that the insurance company steps in the shoes is they say, Oh, that person I said they provide the defense, they provide indemnification, which is the actual payment for a claim that you make. There’s one exception to that is sometimes out.
Let’s say you get hit by a vehicle with 25,000 or even 100, that some small coverage, and you sustained injuries, exceeding that coverage by far. Millions of dollars in damages. All right. In case you have what’s called you, I am coverage that exceeds that insurance you I am as underinsured motorist protection.
Most most insurances, not most all insurances provide, it may be a little bit extra in your monthly premium payments. But it’s well worth, I mean, we’re talking maybe a couple of $100 a year or more, but you can increase that to to be something significant from $150,000, up to $5 million, whatever you want to go. But that gives you then an opportunity to actually sue the insurance company. So what happens is that, let’s say you get hit by a vehicle with lower insurance, or lower insurance coverage.
And your damages are estimated to be in the millions of dollars. And let’s say you do have a $2 million dollar you I am powerless, right? Of course, when you tell them listen, I have I have injuries worth $2 million, they will say, Oh no, we’re not paying that. And in that particular scenario, when you file a UM action report, you are actually naming insurance company as a defendant. And we love doing that.
Because not that often you’re in regular lawsuit when you’re naming a person, and the insurance company stands in the shoes of the person, if you say a word insurance during trial is going to be declared a Mistrial. Jury is not supposed to know that the insurance company is providing high spending and paying for them, they’re gonna know this deep pockets in love. Now, with the UM action, we’re actually putting GEICO and Liberty Mutual and all those big guys putting them on the stand.
And that is, of course, a lot, you know, more favorable disposition with the jury. Because between you and me, I don’t know that many people who love insurance companies, right, you know, we all have to pay them. And the end of the day when there was a claim, they’re not that quick to pay us back, right. But in that case, the cause of action is no longer a bodily injury, but it becomes a breach of contract. Because I’m saying okay, here’s the contract where you said that you will provide underinsured coverage for me, if I sustained injuries there in excess of the available policy of the driver and you’re not paying, therefore, it’s a breach of contract, you get a better statute limitation because of breaching an object you can bring that action within six years as opposed to three years for personal injury.
And you get to depose, you know vice presidents of GEICO vice, you know, big shots because whenever you sue a company, the standard provided by CPLR for deposing the defendant, you need to depose you’re entitled to depose someone with the full knowledge of the corporation. So you get people to somebody, and let’s say you want to ask them questions as to what are their practices and paying out on those UM claims? And the person says, I don’t know.
Next, I need someone who will know I need somebody with the full knowledge of the corporation. And yes, sometimes just that alone, because it’s much, much more of a burden on the insurance company, just that alone. That makes those claims a lot quicker to process and they don’t like them. So the great advice here is, if you’re available buy this, UM coverage, it’s up to you. Underinsured motorist, sometimes we call them supplement coverage if you see that on the other side, you will love that. It’s usually on your side.
Yes, it’s it makes your life a lot easier. The instrument you can use? Yeah, going back? Yes, sir. So from what I gather here, the best seat to be in is if you are get hit in the passenger seat, because then you can sue the driver, you can sue the other driver, you can possibly sue the owner of the car, even though let’s say the other driver is not the owner, you can sue the owner of the car that multiple people and insurance companies that could provide compensation. And I want to segue this into a next question.
If you get hit by a commercial vehicle, let’s say you get hit by some kind of truck delivery truck or what have you. What happens then? So anytime there is a an owner that is different from the driver, and you get to go through what’s called vicarious liability. Okay, the owner is a corporation or a family member, like we said there might curiously live now there’s a lot of litigation nowadays it as as to Uber and Lyft, because there’s still a lot of technicalities that are not worked out as to whether or not their drivers and their employees and therefore they’re trying to make a motion to dismiss or vicarious liability claims? Well, we’ve we found a way around that.
And we’re always claiming that besides vicarious liability, there are always there are also independent claims against them, which are negligent hiring. And they will just the trust, okay, for example, I mean, all, you know, in order to keep them again, in the lawsuit at the very first stage, allegation is enough, then we’ll go through discovery and find whether or not we’ll find enough meat to support that allegation, but allegations in the offing that it’s very important to name them independently outside of vicarious liability.
Because then once we go through discovery, and how many times we were able to get those, you know, that complaint blog, the way you’re not happy with the driver, and we say all kind of guy who was speeding or he dropped me off in the middle of the street, and then it becomes very relevant.
Yes. negligence, corporation disregarded that. And that will thanks them that would makes them responsible for negligent and trust Now interesting when negligent hiring. So when you get hit, God forbid, by a commercial vehicle, there are many more avenues for you should get compensated because, like you said, maybe the person driving was negligent the company negligence hiring this person, they probably have deep pockets as a big company. So definitely something to consider if you get injured in a car accident involving a commercial vehicle. And same goes for taxis. And Uber. Same thing. Right now.
I think just last week, they were talking about New York City, I just wanted to New York, I think last week, they reached some kind of a settlement agreement. Okay, there is, by the terms of that settlement agreement, Uber now is required to make taxi drivers available in their application. In other words, when you order an Uber, you may not know it, but a taxi might show up. Interesting, okay, right.
And if if that becomes you know it at that point in that taxi becomes part of Uber sharing app, then basically what we just talked about will apply a regular yellow cab on its own, I’m not gonna lie, they have horrible insurance they have on the $100,000, usually provided by American transit, which will not pay, they will wait until jury selection date to come up with some decent more or less, more or less decent numbers will take them to trial.
Well, if a prospective client of yours gets injured while being a passenger in a taxi, you would take probably more serious cases where you can get potentially much more compensation is or would you would you advise anybody who was in a taxi accident to call you anyway? Absolutely. Absolutely. So many.
There’s so many details to consider and and look, we’re the way we’re different from run of the mill personal injury firms is that we don’t mind the to get it. All right. It may take longer. Yeah, American transit, those that scared me will go through the whole motion practice, they usually file a motion for treshold motion for summary judgment on liability. That doesn’t scare us.
Michael Levitis 15:13
great. That’s a great point. You know, we consider every attorney will take on as a participant in attorney in JurisQ. And I actually go to your office, meet your staff, I was very impressed. How vast is your is your staff in terms of experience, and numbers? That was you have a whole army working for you. So you’re not afraid to go to trial against these big insurance companies? Because you can handle them and handle them?
Gregory Spektor 15:40
I don’t think we don’t, I don’t think we’re not afraid. We like trying cases. that a lot of attorneys don’t have litigation. I’ve tried cases. But at the end of the day we work for for our client, and when, you know, a substantial offer is presented to the client and we explain all the risks and benefits. It’s up to the client to decide what he’s gonna do with it. A lot of times, of course, they take the settlement and go to trial and get the verdict.
Michael Levitis 16:11
Yep. And you doing – you’re doing well. Gregor Yeah.
Gregory Spektor 16:15
Just one quick issue. Why it’s important to to discuss everything with a knowledgeable and experienced attorney? Because it’s not necessarily it’s not always so clean cut. And so black and white, you know, a driver Corporation, sometimes there is there multiple layers of corporations again, especially now with this Amazon and they deliver drugs, and then they and they get some other firms that do things for them.
And sometimes you have municipality involved. And then it’s a whole different ballgame. So please do yourself a favor if you are seriously injured. put everything aside. And once you’re stopped once you’re done, you know getting help for your urgent medical problems. consult with a personal injury attorney.
Michael Levitis 17:03
Right. And what is attorney one such firm is a firm of Gregory Spektor and Associates. Gregory, thanks very much for your time. You make it sound easy, but really it is not. There’s a lot involved in terms of research and analyzing a case. You really breaking it down for us. I appreciate it. And please stay tuned for more questions and more answers from Gregory Spektor & Associates. Gregory, you want to add something?
Gregory Spektor 17:30
Yeah, no, he’s just making sounds simple is because the I don’t think there is an equivalent for experience, because most of your hypotheticals that you think are hypotheticals, and we’ve done. We’ve been there, we’ve done those.
Michael Levitis 17:45
Between you and your partners, you have decades ofexperience, right?
Gregory Spektor 17:52
The talent journeys that we have working in this firm. Yeah, I don’t even I don’t know what enough, but it’s probably hundreds of years of experience.
Michael Levitis 18:00
Very good. Okay, we will see you next time. If anybody has any questions, you can call Gregory Spektor directly. The number is the bottom of the screen. The website is also on the bottom of the screen. Or you can post your comments below on this post on social media or YouTube. And we’re going to try to get attorneys from Gregory Spektor & Associates to address your question and to answer you, Okay, everybody, thank you very much. Until next time,
Gregory Spektor 18:27
take care. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye
