QuestionYou are basically correct. Jason received a certified letter 6 days before court 1 year ago. He was to be in court 8 hours away from where he was living. He called the attorney he received the notice from. (Before he told me) The attorney said Jason would not be required to go to court. If he couldn't make it that's fine. Being 22 at the time and not knowing better, did not go to court. He did not hear anymore, until about a month ago. He was told there was a hold on his license and they wanted payment of $5000.00. I made many phone calls and tracked the owner of the business down that my son used to work for to find out he had never turned in a claim at all. He has since sold the company and is basically hiding out from many shady business dealings. I found out from the current employees who he was insured with at the time of the accident. I contacted the insurance company on 8/23/06 and explained the situation. The took the claim and said they would expedite as much as possible since there was a suit involved. The suit was from the other persons insurance company against the company my son worked for and Jason himself. I have told the insurance company there is a suit and sent them all the paperwork my son has received. So, you are right, it is now a judgement I guess. Jason has received any judgement papers, but when he contacted the attorney last month after speaking to the License Bureau, the attorney mailed him an installment agreement form to sign and said my son would be responsible for all of it because they were not able to collect from the company. They could not find the owner of the company. Funny though, I was able to find him in one afternoon! The owner of the company did not show up in court either apparently as the attorney has never been able to locate him.
So, you are saying the insurance company will not pay the subrogation because it has already gone to court? It is now too late?
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Followup To
Question -
Thank you for the information. My son currently has a call into the insurance company and waiting for a call back. With the holiday weekend here I will wait until Tuesday and try calling them myself. I will keep you posted as to the outcome. Due to the suit against my son and the company he worked for, they haven't been able to locate the owner of the company and therefore, have not received payment from the suit. They have suspended my son's Missouri driver's license and are waiting for him to sign an installment agreement to pay the suit of $5,000.00 to release his suspension. I have instructed him not to sign anything as of yet, but this causes a major hardship for him not having a license now until this is settled.
I will keep you posted on what happens.
Thanks again.
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Followup To
Question -
My son was involved in a car accident in a company vehicle. He assumed the owner of the business turned in the insurance claim. We now found out it was never turned in to the insurance company and the other person involved was insured and their insurance company has sued my son for the damages to his car as they were also not aware there was insurance. I now found out who the insurance company is and turned in the claim. However, we received a letter that says they may not cover the insurance claim because of the age of the claim. Is there a timeframe to turn in a claim on an auto accident. There is a police report. There was insurance at the time of the accident. However, the accident happened on 8/28/03 and we just turned it in on 8/23/06. We as in my son and I turned it in, because the business owner that he worked for at that time will not turn it in. So, can they deny the claim for that and then my son is responsible for the subrogation?
Answer -
There is no direct answer to your question as insurance and civil tort laws vary from state to state. I can only address Georgia law and general legal principles.
First of all, the liability in an auto accident generally first follows the vehicle owner and subsequently, their insurance. Only after this remedy has been exhausted does one normally pursue a non-owner/driver. My guess is that the claimant first went after the owner and for one reason or another is now pursuing your son. It's possible that they are only pursuing your son out if ignorance of the law.
Second. Generally speaking, the insurance policy doesn't carry a time frame for filing claims. Instead, they follow state law regarding the statute of limitations involving each type of damage.
For example, in Georgia the statute on Bodily Injury is two years while the statute on property damage is four years. I would ask this insurance company what their exact legal defense is for denying the claim. If it's statute of limitations, then you're done as they will apply to everyone, your son, the employer etc.
If they are trying to deny a valid claim that was reported within the statute, then you have a battle and need to be prepared for some serious letter writing or an attorney. An insurance company risks a bad faith lawsuit by denying a claim that is within the statute, but not necessarily reported. Such a denial is rare and generally involves the cancellation of policy with a refund of all premiums paid.
I'd start out my sending a certified letter to the claimant that denies any liability and provides the name and address of the vehicle owner. I would copy this and include it with your answer to the suit. The judge may, at that time, force the claimant to file against the vehicle owner.
At the same time, I'd do some research to find out what the statute of limitations is for Injury and Property Damage. If the claimant is within the statute, I would then compose a letter to the vehicle owner and copy his insurance company advising them that you will be suing for any awarded damages in addition to "bad faith" on the part of the insurance company. Though it was not your son's policy, as a company policy there is implied coverage on your son so he may be party to a bad faith suit.
You need to act very quickly here, like tomorrow. It's possible that the statute is three years and the insurance adjuster is trying to stall you so you can't file a suit or the claimant won't have time to change who he is suing.. Be prepared to pick a number and file before the three year mark if that is the expiration.
Please keep me posted on this one and I'd appreciate your feedback. I'd really like to know more about this one.
Answer -
Wow, I thought that you just got served with a notification of suit. From what you're telling me now, this is a judgement, not a suit.
If this is a judgement against your son, then it's too late for you to fight it. Did he not attend the trial to defend himself or something?
I'm thinking there is more here than I was originally told. They cannot suspend his license and start asking for a payment plan unless he has already lost a suit in court or just didn't show up. If we're talking about $5,000 you need to have this reviewed by an attorney who specialized in insurance law to see if you can file suit against the insurance company for not paying the claim.
AnswerThat is not good news.
Because no one ever filed a claim or notified the insurance company of the suit until after the judgment, they are off the hook and rightly so. The insurance company has a right to investigate a claim and defend a law suit. If that right is taken away by the insured's and your son's failure to report the claim, then they shouldn't be held responsible for paying the judgment. It states this in all insurance policies.
There are only two other angles that I could think of to approach the situation. As a sworn officer of the court, the other attorney had the duty to tell your son to be present at the hearing if he was asked. If he intentionally told him not to show up as a way to get a default judgment, then he can be disbarred for that type of behavior. Therefore, I'd notify him that you're filing a complaint with your state bar association and then follow through.
Though it would likely take an attorney to explore the other angle, the insurance company could possibly be forced to pay the judgment if there were no defensible questions of liability. In other words, if they had known about the suit and there would have been nothing that they could have done to change the outcome, then there lost rights to defend may no longer be a defense for not paying the claim. This is especially true in cases of summary judgments.
Oh, there is one other issue that you brought up that I'd like you to explore further. The other attorney and insurance company need to show that they made a good faith effort to locate and contact the owner of the company and his insurance company. Something does not smell right there. If they have a copy of the accident report and if your state requires insurance to be on file, then why would they not have the policy information at hand to file a claim against the company's insurance from the start? Some fact finding needs to go on there.
At this point, as your son is without a license and on the hook for $5k, I would really like to see you go ahead and seek the advice of an attorney first thing next week if possible.
I'm so sorry that your boy is in this mess. I know that he likely could have done some things to prevent it, but it also sounds like there has been some dirty dealing on the part of the insurance companies and attorney as well. This is why I feel so strongly about you seeing an attorney yourself.
Lastly, I'd like for you to respond to this post and mark the response "private". There is a check box. Once I receive your reply, I'm going to send you my personal Email address so you can contact me and we can discuss this in a little more detail. I may not be able to fix this, but I’d like to try.
For now, it's a long weekend and all you can do is try to relax, don't lose any sleep over it and know that in time, most things usually work out for the best and for a reason.
