Motorcycle Injury Disability Cases Example

Motorcycle Accident Injury Disability Case Example

43 year old Harley Davidson rider was heading home after work.  As he was proceeding on a busy highway, he approached an intersection with a blinking yellow light for him.  Traffic entering the highway had a blinking red light.  The motorcyclist was traveling behind a plumbing van intending to make a right hand turn at the intersection.  As the plumbing van began to take a right hand turn, the motorcyclist proceeded straight, and unfortunately, another driver operating a car proceeded into the intersection, causing the motorcyclist to break hard, try to avoid collision, resulting in his motorcycle crashing into the car and motorcyclist sliding into the pavement in front of the car.  The motorcyclist was run over and subsequently died.  The motorist only had $100,000 in insurance coverage and her insurance company offered the $100,000 policy.  Before the motorcyclist family agreed to settle, they required that the driver also pay an additional $20,000 in her own personal funds.  Additionally, the motorcyclist had underinsured motorist coverage available so that the family collected another $100,000 on the motorcyclist’s own policy exhausting all insurance coverage available.  This is an example where all riders should have at least a $250,000 liability/UM policy with an extra rider of $1,000,000.  That extra rider probably costs only $200 per yeah but would afford the rider and the rider’s passenger a million dollars in uninsured motorist coverage, should there be inadequate coverage available from the wrong doer.

Facts: 
Claimant was 35 years old. Claimant suffered a mental breakdown in February 2010 and was hospitalized with severe depression with suicidal ideation. Since that time he was on medical leave from his employer and stopped working as a truck driver. His alleged onset date of disability is February 12, 2010. He was denied on August 31, 2010 as Social Security Administration found his condition was not severe enough to warrant benefits. He retained our firm to file the appeal which we did in September 2010. At the hearing the claimant testified regarding his impairments and the Administrative Law Judge from the bench found that he was entitled to benefits.

Case Result:
Claimant was awarded $8700 in retroactive benefits along with a monthly benefit of $1300 going into the future.