In personal injury law, we always have clients who come in and have no idea whether they are limited tort or full tort. All they know is that an insurance agent put a paper in front of them and said that “if you sign here, your rate will be cheaper.” They were never clearly told “if you sign here, your rate will be cheaper and if you get into a car accident you will find it much more difficult to recover for your pain and suffering.”
What Is The Difference Between Full Tort And Limited Tort?
Quite simply, if you are full tort, you can recover for pain and suffering regardless of how serious your injuries are. If you are limited tort, you will have to prove that you have suffered a “serious injury” in order to obtain financial compensation for your pain and suffering.
This may not seem like an important distinction, but every year, thousands of people are prevented from receiving compensation because they chose limited tort on their policy and cannot breach the threshold.
The Courts have often found that in order for an injury to breach the limited tort threshold, it must be very serious. This means that whiplash-type injuries that heal after months of treatment often fail to breach the threshold if not combined with some other serious demonstrative injury.
So I Chose Limited Tort. Is There Anything That I Can Do?
Yes. The attorneys at the Law Offices of Samuel Fishman have extensive experience at pursuing Limited Tort cases and obtaining recoveries for their clients. Just because you selected limited tort does NOT mean that all hope is lost. You can even read about one of our recent limited tort settlements where we obtained $180,000 for a limited tort client.
The first thing that we will do is examine whether a specific exception to limited tort applies in your case. These exceptions will make you full tort even if you selected limited tort:
- The other driver was operating a vehicle that was registered in a state other than Pennsylvania
- The other driver was convicted of DUI or entered ARD
- The other driver acted intentionally to injure himself/herself or another person
- The other driver was uninsured
If an exception does not apply, we will examine your treatment and injuries to see if we will be able to breach the threshold. Many times, we have been able to successfully argue on behalf of our clients that their injuries alone are sufficient to breach the limited tort threshold. This has allowed our clients to recover significant monetary awards despite their limited tort election.
So What Do I Do Now?
Contact our office for a FREE consultation, we will immediately set up an appointment and meet with you to go over your case. We will show you how our experience attorneys can help you fight the insurance companies and recover the financial compensation that you deserve. Also, with our No Fee Guarantee, you are assured that you will never pay a single fee until we recover money for you. There is no reason for the delay. The doctors, nurses, and medical facilities have insurance companies and attorneys working for them. You should too.