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I’ve dealt with situations like that too. Where the insurance company’s default position is to make claimants sue because some people are so afraid of the process that they’ll go away. It’s not until that point that some carriers will even begin talking, so the people who absolutely will not sue have a problem.</p>
<p>Yes we’d have sued if the insurance company had been even more awkward than they were. We were well informed - had found the value of the car before the insurance made an offer - and yes they did try to low ball us now that I think of it. But once they realized we had researched the car value they paid up. </p>
<p>And they did try it on with our medical costs, even as low as they were (@ $2000 I think). There is a deadline (2 years I think) for claiming medical expenses (longer for a minor). The insurance companies (in our state anyway) must inform you in writing when the deadline is approaching. We had delayed claiming a while to make sure there were no medical problems down the road, and the broker very snottily informed me we could no longer claim, saying we had missed the 2 year deadline (just). I was really furious , especially as we had been so honest about everything, and not tried to sue. I think my fury showed in the polite but forthright (blunt and a bit snippy) letter to the broker and CC’d to his head office. I told them that, after seeking legal advice, we were aware that they should have informed us of the approaching deadline in writing, which they had not, and that we were also advised of the longer deadline for the minor. And I threatened to turn them into the State insurance commission etc. I rapidly received a grovelling stuttering phone call from the broker (quite a different attitude from the snotty manner of the previous call) and they actually paid double the medical costs. I am generally pretty mild mannered but I get really steamed when anyone tries to be dishonest with me.</p>
<p>Thank goodness for the internet, which is where my ‘legal advice’ was found after a little research on my part!</p>
<p>But I have to say I ended up feeling at the time that if I were ever involved in another situation like that maybe I would get a lawyer involved. Finding my honest approach met with a somewhat lass honest response was a surprise to me. Yea I know - naive.</p>
<p>I would not be surprised if the brother or his wife sue because of the loss of their children.
I also would not be surprised if the spouse of the driver files a lawsuit.</p>
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<p>She had gestational diabetes with her last pregnancy with no history of diabetes since, and the coroners report states were blood sugar was normal at the time of her death. </p>
<p>My guess is that she was an alcoholic and maybe did a good job of hiding it from her family. And how many diabetics keep a 1.75 (do you know how large that is???) bottle of vodka to down if they feel their sugar is getting low? A diabetic knows to NEVER do this if their sugar is crashing.</p>
<p>She was impaired. The toxicology tests released showed she was NOT impaired by a low blood sugar.</p>
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<p>Oh please! I know I don’t really know much here but does anyone really believe this woman was not an alcoholic? I guess it’s possible but nothing would shock me more than to find out this woman was not a drinker. It’s frustrating for me to hear that her husband said this. Maybe the frustration I feel with his remark is the same frustration the families who are suing are feeling.</p>
<p>This has been an interesting thread for me to read. I agree that in general our society is too litigious and I always believed that I would file a lawsuit only under the most extreme circumstances. But reading what everyone has said has shown me that there are many valid reasons to file a lawsuit other than getting a large sum of money.</p>
<p>swimcatsmom – I am so glad the outcome of your car accident wasn’t worse than it was. It’s always amazing when the mangled wreck of the car indicates a person should have died but they didn’t. I think someone was watching over you.</p>
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Thanks. yes I think we were very lucky.When we went to the tow place to try and retrieve some items from the trunk the guy was amazed we were walking around - he pointed to the car next to mine and said the young driver of that car was killed - and it wasn’t anywhere nearly as damaged as mine.</p>
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<p>Exactly, cartera. It always surprises me how little the general public knows about how insurance works and what the process is when a claim is filed. This thread is no exception.</p>
<p>I keep thinking that this was some kind of sick suicide with a revenge component (directed at the husband? the grandparents? the world?); and that she used the alcohol and pot to “fortify” herself to go through with it. It seems deliberate to me – not that I can even pretend to begin to understand how someone could deliberately hurt any child, let alone kill one’s own children and neices. I wouldn’t think being an alcoholic would necessarily be a given in such a situation. I would wonder about a history of mental instability.</p>
<p>Alwaysamom and Carters, you’re both right, of course, but if what you are after is information, rather than money, you do need to file suit as you can’t count on being looped into the insurance investigation and you can’t be sure how thorough that will be. Sometimes it’s just a good thing to get people under oath and have an advocate on your side to deal with whatever comes up.</p>
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<p>The same thought has run across my mind and certainly I’ve heard of other cases where a disturbed spouse has taken their kids lives along with their own in order to get back at their partner. What I have never heard of before is when other kids lives are part of the plan. That is the part I just don’t get. I’m having the same reaction as other posters who have said this story isn’t quite making sense yet.</p>
<p>My thought was that the driver and her husband were partying, had a fight and left separately.</p>
<p>zm, That occurred to me as well. But I still can’t grasp anyone continuing to drive aggressively with all the on-coming traffic directed at them unless they are intent upon a crash. It seems that a drunk’s response to the on-coming traffic would be to stop the car in its tracks, or maybe try to pull off to the side. All speculation, though…and incomprehensible.</p>
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<p>Thank you, zoosermom, for spelling this out. I knew something was bothering me and it was the lack of clarity of who is at fault.</p>
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I am so sympathetic to the brother. It’s my gut feeling that he had no idea that his sister had a problem (I don’t believe the husband didn’t know) and would have moved heaven and earth to get to her that day if he could have. He has to live with that every day of his life and he has to look at his wife and witness her living death. But at some point both he and his wife may want to know what happened, as well, to give them some peace and take the shadow of suspicion off of them, and a lawsuit can do that for them. I hope God grants them some peace, although I don’t believe that either of their lives will ever be worth living again.</p>
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She may just have been too incapacitated to even know. I can say honestly that I’ve stormed off from my husband in a rage (not driving and never drunk) and in the rush of adrenaline, I didn’t always think too clearly. Magnify that screwed up perception a thousandfold because of the substances.</p>
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<p>Could be. It would make sense for there to be an element of impulsiveness at work here because I don’t know why anyone would plan to take the lives of someone else’s children. I don’t know how parents move on after the death of one or more of their children. I hope God grants them the strength to do that.</p>
<p>I doubt if the brother will sue the sister’s estate - there probably isn’t a lot there. I just saw that the deaths have been ruled homicides. They will likely call it negligent homicide or vehicular manslaughter. There is no insurance coverage for murder and the DA is not going to interfere in that. They can’t prove murder anyway.</p>
<p>It’s a cheap shot by the DA to charge homicide. We’ve had other recent deaths caused by drunken drivers where the driver lives and there havent been homicide charges. It is a disgrace that living drivers are not pursued.</p>
<p>Maybe if some of the drunk drivers who lived had been charged with homicide it would have had a discouraging effect on other drivers, which would probably be a good thing. There have been some high-profile slap-on-the-wrist cases lately in the NYC area and elsewhere. The disgrace is that driving a car recklessly and/or while impaired is not universally treated like pointing a loaded gun at people.</p>
<p>Nothing will take away the tragedy of this particular case, and the haunting thought of how frightened the children must have been during the ride–I didn’t know until I read the paper this afternoon that one of the older girls had been on the phone with her father (the driver’s brother) and told tell him she saw a road sign for Tarrytown. You have to wonder what was going through the kids minds–none of them strong enough probably to do anything except sit there and hope their aunt would pull over and calm down until their father could get to them but most of them old enough to know something was really wrong. So horrible for them as well as their parents. I don’t know if the surviving boy is old enough to give any kind of verbal account of the events–what an awful position he is in.</p>
<p>ZM–</p>
<p>Where are you seeing reports that the driver was a drinker? Just curious because I’ve googled and nothing like that shows up.</p>
<p>PS–Just saw it on google news–the NY Post seems to be the source.</p>