Seattle Injury Lawyer Blog

You buy insurance to protect yourself against lawsuits and other claims in the event that you negligently injure another person on the road or at home. But what happens if you injure someone in your own family, even your own child, by accident? Is that same liability insurance available to help compensate your child or injured family member? The short answer is yes. Your child or injured family member may assert an insurance claim against your own liability policy to obtain compensation for their injuries. You should not ignore this important source of compensation that you purchased with your insurance policy.

In the aftermath of a major injury to someone in your family, the immediate focus is on getting appropriate medical attention for the injured child or family member. You may spend days or even weeks at the hospital talking to the doctors or waiting for your family member to come out of surgery. When they return home from the hospital, the medical bills will start to come in and you may begin to confront the permanent changes that will impact your family member for the balance of their lifetime.

Like any other type of insurance, you purchase insurance to protect yourself in the event you cause injury to someone else, even someone in your own family. You should consult with an experienced personal injury lawyer to determine whether your family member is entitled to compensation from your liability policy for the injury and the expenses related to the injury. Although compensation can never erase the harm caused by an accident, it can help provide financial assistance for the consequences of that harm.  If you fail to make a claim under these circumstances, you will only benefit the bottom line of your insurance company and let them off the hook for insurance benefits you purchased.  Our firm offers a free consultation. You may consult with our firm about a potential claim without obligation. We can tell you if you have a valid claim.

Yesterday morning, a runner was rushed to Harborview Medical Center with a head injury and multiple broken bones after she was hit by a car at a Burke-Gilman Trail intersection in North Seattle. Medics were dispatched at 9:14 a.m. to the 5800 block of Northeast 65th Street. Police said the woman runner was in the crosswalk when the car hit her.

Most people know that in a situation like this, the pedestrian probably has a right to recover against the driver of the vehicle under that driver’s insurance policy. But what do you do if the other driver is uninsured or the policy limits of their insurance do not cover your losses?

In Washington drivers are required to carry insurance with a minimum of $25,000 in liability coverage, however in cases like this involving serious injuries, the injured person’s medical expenses alone are likely to exceed such a bare-bones policy-not to mention the injured person’s lost wages due to taking time off from work to recover and general damages for pain and suffering.

Over the last few months, injuries and deaths at Western State Hospital in Lakewood have been in the news. In April, there was both a murder and a suicide perpetrated by patients civilly committed in the hospital. One patient was murdered after he allegedly urinated on another sleeping patient. A fight ensued in which one patient stabbed the other patient in the ear with a pen and strangled him to death. The following day, another patient, a 20-year-old woman, committed suicide by hanging herself from her doorknob.

Today, the Seattle PI reported yet another attempted murder in the hospital. A patient is accused of attacking another patient with a metal lock in a sock and has been charged in Tacoma with assault and attempted murder. The patient pleaded guilty to fourth degree assault in April for an unrelated attack on another patient in the hospital.

After the two deaths in April, the national hospital accrediting group known as the Joint Commission started looking into safety at Western State. The Joint Commission highlighted a dozen ways in which Western has failed to meet national standards for keeping hospital patients safe from harm, including understaffing, failures to monitor patients properly, and unsafe doors. With too few nurses and psychiatrists working each shift, patients were able to harm themselves and others unseen. As far back as 2010 Western State officials had determined that hundreds of door handles and closing mechanisms above each door could be used by patients to hang themselves. The hospital began replacing door handles in October 2011, but hundreds of the old handles were still in place this spring, allowing the young woman to hang herself from her door in April.