Intentional Torts (Assault, Battery, ETc.)
Most personal injury lawsuits have to do with accidents. Car crashes, dangerous conditions, things like that. But sometimes someone injures you on purpose. Sometimes a road rage incident escalates until someone is punching you, or a disagreement at a bar gets heated until somebody is trying to hurt you.
You would think that someone hurting you on purpose would make it easier to get your bills paid. Unfortunately, it actually makes it harder. The reason for this is that most ways a person can intentionally hurt you are crimes. That’s great if what you want is them on probation or in jail, but the criminal system is not designed to compensate victims. At best, you get a restitution order that says the defendant has to pay your bills out of their personal property. Sometimes they can pay some of it, most of the time they can’t. You end up left with a nice piece of paper saying that you’re owed compensation from your bills from someone who will never pay. That’s assuming the cops catch the person who did it at all. Most insurance policies also explicitly exclude crimes and intentional torts committed by their insured, so you can’t even make a claim against their insurance.
This is where I come in. Because of the difficulties outlined above, I may very well tell you that your best bet is getting that restitution order, hoping they can pay some of it, and consulting tax professionals about writing off the rest. However, sometimes we can do better than that. The person who attacked you isn’t always the only person responsible for your injury. Oftentimes the reason they were able to attack you in the first place is because someone who does have insurance made a mistake that they should have known to avoid. This could be a negligent security claim against the bar that should have known they needed a bouncer to step in before a shoving match turned dangerous, a negligent hiring claim against the apartment complex whose doorman punched you rather than politely asking you to leave, or a negligent entrustment claim against a security company whose overzealous guard used a weapon they shouldn’t have been given on you.
If you have been assaulted or otherwise victimized by someone who was trying to hurt you and you want something more useful to your recovery than that person being incarcerated, give me a call. Your consultation is free and you lose nothing by investigating whether or not you have a case.
