Mr. O’Donnell recently successfully concluded an insurance “bad faith” case against Allstate Insurance Company. After a two-week trial, the jury found that Allstate had failed to disclose and pay Mr. O’Donnell’s client $100,000 in Underinsured Motorist Coverage that was available from a prior class action settlement. The jury not only…
Over the years we have handled numerous “insurance bad faith” claims against auto insurers. These cases often involve situations where, following a serious auto accident, the insurance company fails to disclose and pay all the insurance coverage that is owed to the injured insured. We have seen that auto insurers…
Mr. O’Donnell recently successfully concluded a jury trial against a defendant who caused a head-on collision on the Seward Highway. The defendant was driving her vehicle while intoxicated and had allowed her vehicle to cross the centerline. The plaintiff, a young woman, suffered extensive hip, leg and foot injuries. The…
Congratulations to my partner Mike Moody, and his co-counsel Dennis Mestas, for their excellent work in the Ennen v. Integon Insurance case. The Alaska Supreme Court recently held in Ennen v. Integon Insurance Corp., Opinion No. 6637 (1/20/12 Alaska), that insurance companies owe a duty of good faith and fair…
One of the increasingly common arguments I see defense experts make in our automobile collision practice and our aircraft crash practice involves the misuse of statistical evidence. Defense experts have taken the prior odds of a particular type of injury occurring in a certain type of accident and then applied…
Most individuals who call our office recognize they can recover damages when they have been injured through the negligence of others. The wrongful conduct could be any number of things: drunk driving, running a stop sign, speeding, crashing a plane, marketing a defective product, creating a dangerous work environment. They…
May is a particularly perilous month for motorcycle and bicycle riders given the Alaska Personal Injury Law Group’s totally non-scientific sampling of individuals who contact our office throughout the year. After six months or more of winter, auto and truck drivers are simply not used to looking for motorcycles and…
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that 32,788 people died in traffic accidents in the United States in 2010, the lowest number of motor vehicle related deaths since 1949. This is a remarkable achievement given that the population of the United States more than doubled between 1949 (149…
Individuals who are severely or catastrophically injured must assert a one-time claim for all the economic losses they will experience over their remaining life expectancy on account of their injury. An injured person only gets one trial. The injured individual cannot go back to court in 5, 10 or 15…
The National Highway Transportation Administration (NHTSA) recently reported that the number of people killed in motor vehicle collisions dropped to 33,808 in 2009. This is the lowest number of annual motor vehicle deaths since 1950, a time when the population of the United States was only half of today’s population…