Maximizing Damages in Small Personal Injury Cases

How to Maximize Efficiency and Settlements in Small Cases

Instead of being blindsided at any point during the case, Maximizing Damages in Small Personal Injury Cases will help you be fully prepared and armed to take on the insurance adjuster, the defense attorney, and even the judge if necessary.  Maximize the value of your case by either removing or reducing the weaknesses in your case. This book is based upon Mr. Rundlett’s 40-year experience in dealing with the most difficult insurance carriers in the country.

While the costs of processing small cases continue to rise, insurers and jurors are constantly reducing settlements and awards. This puts intense pressure directly on the shoulders of personal injury attorneys. This book helps to relieve some of that pressure. It delivers guidelines, techniques, checklists, and forms to help you screen, document, negotiate, and settle or litigate your smaller cases. It also includes more than 100 custom-drafted checklists and forms to help reduce your time and costs. Maximizing Damages in Small Personal Injury Cases will teach you dozens of proven techniques for obtaining top dollar in small cases. For example:

Settlement

• 14 negotiating techniques that really work. §445
• Insurance carrier negotiating tactics and how to deal with them. §450
• How to minimize the impact of independent medical examinations. §458.4
• 18 steps to evaluation of a small personal injury case. §466
• 16 mediation preparation tips guaranteed to lead to settlement. §474.1
• How to deal with unreasonable insurance adjusters and carriers. §490.2

Commencing suit

• 9 major case weaknesses to consider before filing suit. §512
• 14 defense tactics you need to know about before filing. §513
• How to deal with nominal property damage impacts. §512.7
• 23 tips on how to deal with large chain store cases. §131.3
• Strategies for maximum discovery at minimal cost. §522

Trial

• The 30 most common objections in small-case trials. §664.1
• Techniques to avoid in openings and closings. §§643, 684
• Topics that are prohibited in closing argument and how to get around them. §682
• 37 trial tips from jurors. §685

In addition to the practical advice and tactics, over a hundred forms and checklists will help save you time on your small cases. Most published forms are overkill for small cases, but these short and simple forms will save time and dollars, both of which are limited in smaller matters. The custom-drafted pattern-specific forms are specifically tailored for small cases: liability checklists, interrogatories, deposition checklists, adjuster letters, motions, trial preparation checklists, and even public relations letters. Some of the forms and checklists include:

Screening

• 11 liability checklists for common small non-auto cases: falls, falling objects, animal attacks, dram shop, inadequate security, intentional torts, medical negligence, pharmacy negligence, and school negligence. §131
• Minimize the time-consuming task of dealing with clients’ questions and concerns by distributing the author’s original 20-page information booklet for small-case clients. §251

Investigation

• Checklist of 13 items to tell the new small-case client before he or she comes to the first meeting. §202
• A handy three-page list of abbreviations and symbols commonly found in medical records. §344.1
• Simple, direct letters to doctors that request only the essential information. §340
• A letter to the employer requesting lost wage data that avoids many of the common information shortfalls. §352

Negotiation

• Small-case negotiation checklist. §410
• Model paragraphs for demand letters. §421
• Pattern written responses to unsatisfactory settlement offers for specific types of small cases. §463

Discovery

• Pattern responses for abusive deposition tactics. §521
• Litigation cost-containment checklist. §511.3
• Motion for protective order from extensive interrogatories. §521.1
• Pattern language for handling abusive deposition tactics. §521.4
• Checklist of maximum discovery techniques for minimal cost and time. §522
• Model interrogatories, deposition checklists, and requests for admissions for the key types of small cases. §§523-26
• Timetable and accompanying task checklist for avoiding stale files. §372

Litigation

• Checklist for building small-case trial notebooks. §621
• Sample direct examinations of plaintiff’s physician, occurrence witness, before-and-after witness, and employer or co-worker. §§653-56
• Foundation checklists for medical charts and models, medical and business records, and maps and charts. §674

REVISION 21 HIGHLIGHTS

This update to Mr. Rundlett’s popular book Maximizing Damages in Small Personal Injury Cases offers dozens of new techniques and tools for obtaining top dollar in your small cases. In this update you receive:

§ 148.2 Nine Reasons to Avoid Taking the Very Small Case
§ 570 Anatomy of a Small Personal Injury Lawsuit – In Real Time
§ 571 Underinsured Motorist Claim Filed with Plaintiff’s Own Carrier
§ 572 Commencing the Lawsuit
§ 573 Deposition Preparation for the Plaintiff
§ 574 The Mediation

Now Maximizing Damages in Small Personal Injury Cases can do a better job of helping you fight back against low settlement offers and defense verdicts and other barriers to fair settlements and awards. Remember to use these timesaving tips and tools in the book—suggestions based on over 40 years of trying cases.

ABBREVIATED TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 THE SMALL PERSONAL INJURY PRACTICE
CHAPTER 2 INITIAL CLIENT CONTACT
CHAPTER 3 INVESTIGATION AND PREPARATION OF THE CASE
CHAPTER 4 SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS
CHAPTER 5 WHEN SETTLEMENT FAILS—COMMENCING THE LAWSUIT
CHAPTER 6 THE TRIAL
CHAPTER 7 AFTER THE VERDICT
CHAPTER 8 PUBLIC RELATIONS IN SMALL PERSONAL INJURY CASES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ellsworth T. Rundlett III is a personal injury trial lawyer with over 40 years of experience. He is the former president of the largest county bar organization in the State of Maine and a former member of the Board of Governors of the Maine State Bar Association. He is a past president of the Maine Trial Lawyers Association and a former state delegate of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. Mr. Rundlett is a diplomat of the National College of Advocacy and has been certified as a civil trial specialist by the National Board of Trial Advocacy since 1991.

He has lectured on various topics, including “Winning in Court,” “Settling Cases in the 1990’s,” and “Achieving Optimal Recovery in Personal Injury Cases.” He has also lectured at the Melvin Belli Seminar and served as an instructor on negligence law for the National Academy of Paralegal Studies. Excerpts from his book and other articles have appeared in the Association of Trial Lawyers of America’s Trial Magazine, The Insurance Settlements Journal (James Publishing), and various state trial lawyer publications. He is also the author of a chapter in Insurance Settlements Handbook (James Publishing, 1998 rev.). Mr. Rundlett is co-host of a television show, Law on the Line. In the January 2007 edition of Lawdragon magazine, he is listed among the 500 leading plaintiff’s lawyers in America.

Mr. Rundlett has been a subject of biographical reference in Who’s Who in American Law since 1985 and is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates.