On Saturday, August 2nd hundreds assembled at Sloan’s Lake Park in Denver, Colorado to participate in Mother’s Against Drunk Driving’s 3rd Annual Walk Like MADD fund raising event. In spite of the record breaking, triple digit temperatures, spirits were high and the pace was brisk as attorneys and staff of Bachus & Schanker, along with their families (and 6 dogs), joined hundreds of other walkers and volunteers to ultimately raise over $99,000 ($5,000 over their goal of $95,000) for the Denver MADD chapter. These donations are used to support the local community by providing support programs for victims of drunk driving and programs to help prevent drunk driving and underage drinking.

After the 5K walk was completed, the staff and families of Bachus & Schanker and families of our clients who are victims of drunk driving accidents, moved on to another section of Sloan’s Lake Park for our Annual Family Bar-B-Que. The food was terrific and the company was even better. There were games of volleyball and badminton, great bar-b-que, ice cream sandwiches and lots of babies!

In addition to our corporate sponsorship of $8500, Bachus & Schanker employees raised and additional $985. Jeffrey Drouin won a $100 Mastercard Gift Card as the top fund raiser with $275 and Melissa Baker took second place, earning a $50 Mastercard Gift Card by raising $125.

If you’d like to participate in this meaningful and FUN event next year, please contact Linda Snyder at 303-893-9800 or at linda@coloradolaw.net.

Working at Bachus & Schanker, I typically find myself on the victim’s side of drunk driving collisions. As we represent plaintiffs in auto collisions (and other personal injury cases), I am well-versed in what happens to drunk defendants, how to set up claims with the various insurance companies, and how to help our clients make their way through the American legal and healthcare systems.

When I left for vacation last Thursday, I wasn’t expecting to use this knowledge for myself.

My boyfriend and I travelled to Seattle to see family this weekend. On Saturday night, we had dinner and caught some live music at a bar in Ballard called the Tractor. His sister and her husband even called the babysitter to ask her to stay late as we were having such a blast.

The following morning, Matt and I were ready to see Seattle in the daytime. We got geared up for a run at Green Lake, lunch at Pike’s Marketplace and a view of the Olympics from the Space Needle. As we drank our morning coffee on the porch and discussed our day, I watched Matt’s facial expression change. His eyes were glued to our rental car and he was ignoring me in that way he does sometimes when he becomes intensely distracted. I looked where he was looking, and my heart dropped into my stomach. The entire driver’s side of the car - from bumper to bumper - was crushed.

Matt immediately called the police to report the hit and run. No note was left on the car, and we could only guess it was a drunk driver barreling down the narrow road the previous night. As we had not opted for the rental insurance, I called our own auto insurance company. My heart sank further when I realized we had a $500 deductible. We could have stayed in the Ritz and taken cabs all over the city had we known we were going to spend $500 for nothing.

Over the course of the next several hours (waiting for the police to arrive at our non-emergency), we talked with neighbors and scanned the neighborhood for other damaged cars. The story that unfolded was an unbelievable string of coincidental events.

Early that morning, about 1:30a.m., Mr. Jones was in his living room getting ready for bed. He heard a terrible crashing sound and walked outside to see what happened. What he saw was a Dodge 4×4 pick-up truck pulled over on the wrong side of the road, halfway into Ms. Macabee’s driveway. The front of Ms. Macabee’s Subaru Outback was crushed, and Mr. Jones immediately called 9-1-1. Mr. Jones didn’t realize that the drunk driver was still in his truck - passed out on the steering wheel.

The cops arrived shortly thereafter to assess the damage. There they found Mr. Larkens, drunk and sleeping in his truck. After further investigation, it became clear that when Mr. Larkens’ truck collided with Ms. Macabee’s Subaru, the tie rod on Mr. Larkens’ Dodge 4×4 broke, rendering the truck immobile. With no opportunity for escape, Mr. Larkens passed out and was woken up with handcuffs and a ride to jail.

As Matt and I uncovered the details of what had happened that morning, we inspected the broken truck further. We found the paint from our rental car on Mr. Larkens’ truck. The damage on our car was perfectly aligned with the damage on his vehicle, and we feverishly took photos. Clearly, this guy’s truck had bounced off of our car and subsequently ended up in Ms. Macabee’s driveway. Relief overwhelmed me when Ms. Macabee offered up Mr. Larkens’ auto insurance information. Matt and I were not going to be on the hook for this damage. I stopped figuring out which of the summer’s remaining events would have to be cancelled to pay for the damage and started to get angry that this guy thought it perfectly acceptable to get wasted and drive home.

There were 9,000 things that could have been worse in this situation - and for that we felt tremendously lucky. Matt and I could have been in the car when it was hit. Matt’s little nieces could have been crossing the street when this guy was driving down the road. We could have been arriving home from the Tractor as Mr. Larkens was headed the opposite way down the street, meeting head on. The car could have been ours. Mr. Larkens could have been uninsured. Or we could have missed the evidence linking our collision with Ms. Macabee’s and been out $500.

After seeing the tragedy that some of our clients have endured due to drunk drivers, I know we are among the luckiest of victims. Yes, we waited for Seattle’s finest for 3 hours. And yes, we spent hours setting up claims, repeating information and filling out paperwork. And no, we didn’t get to run around Green Lake or summit the Space Needle. But we were fine. Just inconvenienced.

Ironically, at the same time Matt and I were setting up claims with Travelers and Progressive, taking photographs of the damage, chatting with the rental car agency and discussing the collision with the Seattle Police Department, Bachus & Schanker was sponsoring Denver’s Walk Like MADD event at Sloan’s Lake. In addition to the firm’s $8,500 corporate sponsorship, the staff raised an additional $915, money to be used for education and awareness in the hopes of eradicating drunk driving from our society. Our experience this weekend pointed out how much our society clearly needs MADD’s efforts. If you would like to volunteer for or contribute to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, please visit the MADD web site.

Jodie Sandell
Pre-Litigation Department Manager

We’ve all been there, or we know someone who has; feeling the frustration of waiting for an insurance company to decide on a claim, or seeing an offer that is substantially less then your expenses come in, or having a legitimate claim flatly denied. Sadly, up until recently, there was little that could be done about it. Sure, there were a few lawsuits that you could file, a few complaints you could make, but all of these had huge obstacles to success. Basically, unless things were horrendously and catastrophically bad, unless the insurance company was behaving in an almost criminal manner or endangering the public, there was nothing to be done. At the end of the day, you just had to take it.

But not any more, thanks to a historic bill passed by the Colorado Congress and signed into law by Governor Bill Ritter. House Bill 1407 will, to cut through the legalese and put it simply, allow normal people to file a lawsuit when their insurance company delays, decreases, or denies a claim on an unreasonable basis. You and I, and every individual, are held to a “reasonable person” standard, and now that is the same standard that will apply to insurance companies when they make claim decisions.

This shouldn’t tread on any insurance company toes. If a claim is clearly excessive, it can be denied, so can a frivolous claim. All this means is that insurance companies must behave reasonably; they can’t delay a decision indefinitely, they can’t offer substantially less then a claim in the hopes that the injured person will take the lesser amount and just go away, and they can’t arbitrarily deny a valid claim. And if an insurance company does any of these things, if they fail to live up to the requirements of their insurance policies and contracts, then the law will help individuals to recover that which is owed to them. It even allows for increased damages and attorney’s fees, maximizing both the penalty to the insurer and easing any burden on the injured person.

All in all, this new law will serve as a powerful tool for helping injured people, and the only people that it will harm are those insurance companies who are attempting to put the screws to their customers.

Nathan T. Swanson
Summer Intern
JD Candidate, 2009
University of Denver

After almost a year, one of the few things that really stuck with me from my week-long law school orientation is that cheating is not acceptable. Well, of course, I knew that already, but in law school, it is really not acceptable.

Stressing “professionalism” and the philosophy that our personal reputations and the reputation of our profession rely mainly on our integrity, honesty, and competency, the faculty and staff made it clear on numerous occasions that an appearance before the Honor Council for any kind of violation would not bode well for a successful legal career.

Read the rest of U.S. District Court Nominee Accused of Plagiarism

The Rocky Mountain News has launched a 3-part series on the plight of the workers who formerly worked to assemble the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Many of those individuals now have significant health problems, and the government has lied, concealed, and dissembled in a drive to avoid paying any form of compensation.

During the Clinton administration, the Republican Congress joined with the President to create a system for compensating the workers, but to no avail. As the years past, the agencies in question and the present administration have put more and more roadblocks in the way of these people getting any kind of medical or financial help. No matter your feelings regarding the Cold War, the plight of these workers will pull at your heart strings. And the actions of the government will, and should, exasperate you.

Read the rest of Denial by Design: US Government Avoids Compensation to Ill Workers

Nothing feels quite like being proven right.

Some time ago, I blogged about a defunct Colorado effort to limit the amount of money a plaintiff’s attorney could charge. I suggested that this was the future of “Tort Reformers,” reducing access to attorneys by attempting to lower the amount of money they earned, rather then the past effort to convince people that injuries and lives could only be worth set amounts.

Well, guess I’m right.

Now comes Oregon Republicans with a horrible ballot initiative, that they have tried to claim will “Protect Citizens from Excessive Attorney’s Fees.” Never mind the fact that the limit proposed is far, far, far below the industry wide norm. Never mind that nothing in the initiative would prevent defense attorneys defending corporations, or otherwise representing the people that can afford to pay high hourly rates upfront, from charging any amount they want an hour.

Read the rest of Oregon Aims to Limit Attorney Fees

The Fourth of July is coming, along with all the traditions that make the holiday so immediately memorable, especially to children. There are barbecues, gatherings of friends and family, and of course, fireworks. I love fireworks as much as the next guy, probably a little more, but I’m not ignorant of the risk involved.

On Sunday, the Denver Police Department found a huge cache of what they are referring to as a “recreational explosives” in Denver. They found an entire garage full of fireworks, describing it as equivalent in danger to having a meth lab next door.

Read the rest of When Fireworks Don’t Work

With the election looming around the corner, we should glance over the controversial issue we will inevitably be seeing on the ballots in November - a national health insurance program. Is it a good idea?

Advocates in favor of the nationwide program say it could save approximately $150 billion on paperwork alone. Because of the administrative complexities in our current system, over 25% of every health care dollar goes to marketing, billing, utilization review, and other forms of waste. A single-payer system could reduce administrative costs greatly.

Read the rest of Is Universal Health Care Really the Best Medicine?

The Supreme Court issued a decision, reducing the punitive damages Exxon would have to pay as a consequence of their continued employment of a known drunkard who caused the catastrophic Exxon Valdez oil spill. Thus ends a long and storied battle over responsibility for a massive oil spill.

In 1994, a jury awarded punitive damages of $5 billion, which was then reduced to $2.5 billion. Now, the Supreme Court has further reduced the punitive award to $500 million, stating that in these situations (which are admittedly limited), the ratio of compensatory damages to punitive damages must be 1 to 1.

The Court based their decision on a perceived need for consistency, stating that punitive damages are sometimes high and sometimes low, and similar facts do not necessitate a similar award. I have a hard time arguing with that; one of the underlying theories of the Common Law is that it should be consistent and built on precedent. But I feel that the Court missed the forest for the trees, so to speak.

Read the rest of Justice Delayed and Justice Denied

Flooding and no insurance coverage is about to become much more common in the Mississippi Gulf Coast. State Farm announced that it will not be renewing homeowners policies to those living within 1,000 feet of the beach and those between 1,000 and 2,500 feet will not be getting wind coverage renewed. Mike Chaney, the Mississippi Insurance Commissioner, is confident that people will be able to get coverage and states that rates may even decrease.

However, I am wondering, will it really decrease the rates. And will everyone be able to get covered? The real question is whether any other insurance companies will follow suit. If they do, basic economics tells us that the rates will go up. The less companies offering insurance to homeowners in that area, the less supply. People are unlikely to move at any significant number away from the area so demand will not substantially change. This will drive up the price. Also, if less companies are offering the insurance, the more risk they are taking on to pay out, so naturally the price would increase that homeowners pay for insurance. The fear of flooding without insurance coverage is well deserved for homeowners after Katrina, and with the recent developments up north in the Midwest.

Read the rest of Record Breaking Flooding and No Insurance Coverage?