Woman fell in my wife's shop

You will need to be more specific.

Why did she fell? Wet floor and you didnt put warning slippery? She had sunglasses on and didnt see where she is walking? Any witnesses? Without details no one can give you right advice. Copy of that letter you received from lawyer? Asking insurance doesnt mean that they will automatically sue you. Maybe he is just "testing" his options and looking is it profitable...

Some people here gave you right advices (check if she got history,tell lawyer that you are broke, talk to her etc) but no one knows enough to tell you exactly what to do.

Best of luck.
 
My grandmother fell at a doctors office a few years ago and was able to successfully sue them. You have to watch out for these old people.

I would make it clear to them you are broke. I know I wouldn't go through the trouble of hiring a lawyer to chase someone with no money. Maybe you could offer her some free clothing. She was in your store.
 
Thank you for the input. As for the details of how she fell or anything that would come up in court I will not go into in in a public forum for obvious reasons.

As for her injuries, they were very extensive. Broken rib, nose, wrist, gash on her head. My wife was the one who called the ambulance and held something on her head to stop the bleeding. Her husband passed a year ago so a lot of people say she may just give up on life soon.

I do not plan on it going to trial either way. The whole blood from a turnip thing...

I was trying to figure out how they sent the letter to my wife then I figured it out that the ficticious name was still in my wife's name at her previous location. I guess it gets very complicated as far as where I had the business transferred over to the LLC (she moved her shop from another county). The lease is in the LLC name and the property owner does have insurance.

Either way, I am planning on if it goes to trial to plan on losing. If they go after my wife, we can get a divorce and she can go bankrupt. If they go after the LLC then the LLC goes away and gets replaced by LLC v2.0.

My next step is to have my wife mail them back telling them that she is no longer the owner and give the LLC address for any follow on communications.

We sent her flowers the next day and my wife called her and wished her the best telling her that she would send someone to see her to do her nails and hair once she was feeling better. She had several forms of insurance including Medicaid so her bills should have all been covered. My wife even helped her to get her insurance cards ready after the ambulance arrived.
 
Elwar said:
My next step is to have my wife mail them back telling them that she is no longer the owner and give the LLC address for any follow on communications.
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Tread lightly here - you don't want to get caught in a lie.
 
What happens if you file for bankruptcy after you lose a lawsuit? Does the debt go away?
 
I do know of a business owner that refused to get insurance. He had lawyers call or write to get his insurance company and he would just tell them "I don't have insurance. Get in line to sue me. Everyone else is." He never heard back from the lawyers.
 
klamath said:
I do know of a business owner that refused to get insurance. He had lawyers call or write to get his insurance company and he would just tell them "I don't have insurance. Get in line to sue me. Everyone else is." He never heard back from the lawyers.
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I"ve often thought that would not be a horrible way to go, as long as you can protect your personal assets. Obviously this might not be the best plan if you have a multi-national corporation, but for Mom and Pop shops with no real assets? Why bother?
 
angelatc said:
(Note that all you people who want to eliminate corporate personhood apparently want everybody to be open to this type of frivolous lawsuit.)
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Ah, no. We want you to get insurance to cover accidents and eliminate corporate personhood to make you personally liable for criminal acts.
 
angelatc said:
Tread lightly here - you don't want to get caught in a lie.
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Understood. Not lying, we have been acting as an LLC since she moved locations. The shop is registered in the county as an LLC and the lease is in the LLC as well as our vehicle transferred into the LLC name. The state fictitious name thing is the only thing that was not transferred. But the fictitious name record refers to the old location so technically, according to the state, she is still the owner of the old shop (which is closed). But not the owner at the new location.
 
Jovan Galtic said:
Why the heck you'd be responsible for someone who fell!? Unless you've pushed him. I'll never understand...
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bases of a lawsuit is

Duty of Care
Breach of duty
Damages

It's not enough (at least according to my paralegal training) that she fell in your wives store. There must be a proximate cause, that is the women's attorney must argue that because you did or did not do x my client fell and hurt herself. That being said, lawyers make millions stretching the definition of "proximate cause." Was the tile wet? did She trip over something? Is there a police report, or an ambulance report?
 
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hmmm.. more the reason not to open a brick and mortar store. ill just stick with making an ecommerce store >.>
 
Just throw the lawyers letter in the trash. Ignore it. Make them actually take you to court. Don't settle. Make the bastard work for the money. And who knows...maybe they won't pursue it. Or maybe the 92 year old lady will die of something else before anything is decided.
 
And let's say they take you to court and get some big judgement... How are they going to collect on it? You don't have anything to lose. Just throw that letter in the trash and totally ignore the lawyer.
 
bighairycaveman said:
Just throw the lawyers letter in the trash. Ignore it. Make them actually take you to court. Don't settle. Make the bastard work for the money. And who knows...maybe they won't pursue it. Or maybe the 92 year old lady will die of something else before anything is decided.
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That's stupid for two reasons

1. The estate of the 92 year old lady can still sue you after she dies

2. The Lawyer is not going to just go away if you ignore him. He doesn't need any of your participation to collect from a lawsuit.

2.
 
You need to talk to an attorney. Sorry if that is not what you want to hear.

My education is in the legal field. There are so many variables to many legal situations, and often times an attorney will have to do a bit of research in order to give you the best advice. So what quality advice do you think you will get from random people on the internet? Its worse than just free advice, if you follow bad advice and make your situation worse.

I'm not going to give you legal advice, but I will say that some of the posts replying to you contain some stupid and dangerous ideas.

You should be able to get a consultation with an attorney for a few hundred dollars, and for another few hundred he will probably write a letter to the opposing attorney for you, and you will be much better off and possibly save yourself a great deal of pain.

Think of spending four or five hundred bucks on an attorney as a "stupid tax" that you are paying for not having insurance, in order to possibly prevent paying a much larger stupid tax down the road.

If you don't know any attorneys, check your state bar website. These sites usually tell you how long the attorney has been practicing and whether or not he has any disciplinary actions from the state bar.
 
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