In today’s video, Attorney Ben Schwartz answers the question, “Are people sue happy?”

Hi, I’m Attorney Ben Schwartz,

Today we are going to answer a question from Liam in North Wilmington, Delaware. Liam writes in and gives us a very long question. I am going to sum it up as follows, “Are people sue happy? The answer is, I do not really know if people are sue-happy or not. I think that my experience may not be representative of all people’s experiences. I am certain that there are some people out there that would like to sue at the drop of a hat. My experience has been that people are not suing happy. People, generally speaking, are not looking to get involved in personal injury lawsuits or other types of lawsuits. My experience has been that, it is more the situation that people call an attorney when they are having trouble handling things themselves.

That is more the situation, generally speaking than people go running to attorneys after an accident. My experience has been that a lot of people get in accidents and sustain injuries and they do not really have any interest in going to a lawyer because, for whatever reason, maybe they are anxious about going to an attorney. Maybe they do not want to get involved in the legal process. Maybe they feel like they can deal with the friendly insurance adjuster by themselves.

My observation doing personal injury law for almost 16 years now has been that what drives people to go to a personal injury lawyer is not the hope of getting a lot of money. What drives people, generally speaking, to go to a personal injury lawyer is that they try to handle things themselves and they have so much trouble and so much difficulty dealing with the insurance claims representatives or they have so much trouble trying to understand what essentially is a very complicated process. In many cases that drives them to seek out the assistance of an attorney.

A lot of people that come to me in my office and the lawyers in my office after a personal injury accident, after a car accident, or a slip and fall with personal injuries, what drives people to come to us is their medical bills are not getting paid by their insurance company. They cannot figure out how to coordinate the insurance coverage to get their doctor paid or their physical therapist paid. Something that drives people to lawyers after a personal injury accident, after a car accident, are things like their car is not being fixed or the tow company has a big tow bill and it is not being paid. Or, they are being put into collections because they cannot afford to pay for some damage after the accident and they need their insurance company to pay it but their insurance company is not paying it. This has them at risk of having a bad credit report, they are at risk of being sued because bills are not being paid after the accident.

That is what drives people to a personal injury lawyer, generally speaking, not the idea that they are looking for some big payday.
Liam, I hope that answers your question, “are people sue happy?” The question was a little more detailed and a little more opinionated than that. I hope you do not mind me summing up your opinion about lawyers, personal claimants, and personal injury plaintiffs, but essentially that was your question and I hope you appreciate my answer.

If you have questions, feel free to email me below. Anything you ask, I may modify it a little bit to make it palatable, but essentially anything you ask, I will answer. Thanks for watching!