009 Auto Accident Lawyer Explains Truck Accident Settlements

0:01                 ANNOUNCER: Welcome to “Lawyers in The House” with Montlick. Wish you had a lawyer in the family? Now you do! Here’s your host, Veronica Waters.

VERONICA: Welcome to “Lawyers in The House.” It is moi, your host, Veronica Waters. We are here with Montlick injury attorneys for another week, giving you all the law you need to know. And today is a topic that I think a lot of us probably need to know about.

0:39                 There’s not a day that goes by, I think, that the WSB traffic team doesn’t talk about a traffic accident somewhere on one of our many, many interstates. And still there is something about hearing that a big rig was involved, a tractor trailer jack knifed or something. There’s something about that that makes me sort of have chills because I think of just how potentially much more horrible that is than what we would consider a typical car crash. What we would call typical, which is already something that can be life changing… So commercial truck accidents are the topic of the day. And with me today are two of the most well-respected attorneys that Montlick has to offer. First, next to me, Mike Moran, who recently – do we have applause? Because he just celebrated his 20th year at the firm. Congratulations.

 

1:35                 MIKE: Thank you.

 

VERONICA: And Mike, you dipped your toe into defense work back in New York before you came. We’re gonna talk to you a little bit about that.

 

MIKE: Sure.

 

VERONICA: I think that’s fantastic. Now Mike has argued a lot of successful cases in the state courts and in the federal courts. And he is known as a skilled litigator and negotiator. And someone… interestingly, Mike enjoys taking on cases that have been rejected by other firms or insurance companies. I think that’s amazing. Cases denied by insurance companies or rejected by other law firms. What’s up with that? What drives that passion?

 

2:13                 MIKE: Well, thanks. Well, it certainly it doesn’t lessen someone’s pain or injuries if it’s been denied. And so I think every case needs a fresh look. And oftentimes when you apply a fresh look, you can uncover viability for a case. It can be a very workable case. And I’ve always had the approach to give someone a fresh look, if they would like to seek a consultation with us. Oftentimes an investigation or a little bit of a deeper dive makes it eye-opening. And you can see that really somebody had a viable case that they didn’t realize, or they had been told was not. And so it’s always worth the look.

 

VERONICA: Fresh set of eyes can make all the difference. Also in the chair next to me is Nathan Kratzert. Happy to welcome back my buddy from our previous show talking about insurance company traps. Don’t know if you remember Nathan. Let me refresh your memory. He has been a Georgian for most of his life, but he came to us by way of Cleveland when he was just a kid. He’s now considered… what’s the male version of a Georgia peach? I don’t know what that is, but he’s that by now, right? He is also a husband and father, as is Mike. And Nathan has four little ones at home. Mike has two. Four little bitty ones at home.

 

3:32                 NATHAN: That’s correct. It’s very, very chaotic.

 

VERONICA: Very, very chaotic. Unlike your law office is which I hear is extremely well organized.

 

3:39                 NATHAN: Completely well organized.

 

VERONICA: The other thing about Nathan that you may remember (or I’m gonna tell you if this is your first time meeting him) is that he is also a skilled litigator. He’s been a very successful prosecutor and appellate attorney, has argued some winning cases before a lot of courts here in Georgia. And so comes to Montlick Personal Injury with a lot of experience under his belt. And I’m curious to know when you knew you were doing the right thing, Nathan.

 

NATHAN: I think I knew I was doing the right thing probably around my second year of law school. After going there initially the first year, which they always say is the hardest… And it is, because they are trying to see who can make it, who can’t. And then my second year into school we started getting into, I think, more of the meats and bones of what you’re gonna be actually doing as an attorney and something about those clinics where you’re really applying what you’re learning really clicked for me. And I had a lot of fun with it. I enjoyed it and I could see that I was gonna be… I felt like I was gonna do a lot of good and actually be able to help people, which I really enjoyed.

 

VERONICA: You really enjoyed law school.

 

4:46                 NATHAN: Ironically I did enjoy law school. I think a lot of people don’t necessarily have that same experience. But I think looking back on it, I had a good time. I learned a lot. I made several very, very good lifelong friends and there’s still people I trust today. And sometimes when I need to, I refer them matters because they handle things outside the scope of what I do.

 

5:08                 VERONICA: Love that, so it really brings home how specialized some of this work that you guys do is. So Nathan Kratzert and Mike Moran, thank you so much for being in the house…

 

MIKE: Thank you.

 

5:19                 NATHAN: Thank you.

 

VERONICA:  …with us today. Listen guys, commercial truck accidents is what we’re talking about today, but my question for you right outta the box may sound a little naive. So please forgive me, but exactly what is a commercial truck? Is a commercial truck always a semi?

 

MIKE: No, it’s a great question. It’s not. It’s anything that weighs over 10,000 pounds. And so there’s light duty trucks. There’s box trucks that you see often on the roadways.

5:45                 Those would be considered commercial trucks. You can have large, super duty Fords that can be considered commercial trucks because of their weight. And so it’s really the weight as the driving factor as to what would be considered a commercial truck.

 

VERONICA: Okay, so is it just by sheer force of engineering and size that commercial truck accidents have so much more, I guess, power behind them, for lack of a better word? It seems like a simple matter of physics.

 

6:14                 MIKE: Yeah and there’s a lot going on with the weight there. Stopping distance is incredibly different. Your car and my car, if we’re going 65… it still takes us a football field to stop. But a large truck, sometimes pulling trailers, sometimes fully loaded, could be 80,000 pounds. Those can take up to two football fields to stop.

 

6:39                 VERONICA: Two football fields.

 

MIKE: Yes.

 

VERONICA: To stop.

 

MIKE: Absolutely.

 

VERONICA: That’s incredible.

 

MIEK: And that’s after the brakes are applied. Lots go into the actual stopping of the vehicle, right? There’s the recognition of some sort of hazard or something in front of you that could be problematic. So that takes a moment, your reaction. How are you gonna react to that? That takes a moment. Commercial trucks, like trucks we were talking about earlier, the 18 wheelers… they have air brakes, which are different than the brakes that you and I have. We have hydraulic brakes, liquid brakes. We touch our brakes. It’s almost instantaneous. Commercial trucks have air brakes; and there’s at least a half a second before the application of those brakes, even after they’re touched.

7:26                 And so, you have the recognition, you have the decision making and then you have the delay in the brake. So that coupled with the two football fields to stop at 65 makes these things problematic if something were to happen in front, or if someone’s not attentive.

 

VERONICA: Talk about what happens in front, Nathan. One of the first things that I learned when I was a teenage driver is how dangerous it is to try to dart in and out of traffic in front of one of these big rigs especially, not just the big box trucks. Right Mike? But the semis too, Nath?

 

NATHAN: Absolutely, because what a lot of people don’t realize, and I don’t think anyone realizes until they actually start learning about these things is that, as Mike indicated, it takes so much longer for those trucks to be able to stop. They have a lot of different blind spots that, for example, you and I would not have on our vehicles. We can see things that they cannot see, despite how many different mirrors they might have on their sides. Even despite the fact that they have cameras on some of these vehicles to help the driver see. It’s just not perfect and they cannot stop in time for you.

8:35                 And what a lot of times we see is that there are situations where people will call our firm. And unfortunately, that individual may have actually caused that wreck themselves because they felt that they were in the right ’cause they switched lanes correctly. But in reality, they didn’t give that driver enough time to stop. He had that assured clear distance or she had that assured clear distance, the two football fields Mike was talking about; and when the brakes are hit, they don’t have that opportunity to really stop.

 

VERONICA: So guys, when we talk about commercial truck accidents… literally to me… It seems like on the surface, it’s the same kind of thing as a car crash in a way, right? Because you cut somebody off and boom, you got rear-ended, right? But I would imagine that even though the accident may happen the same way, maybe there’s a distracted driver or whatever… it’s the aftermath that’s probably really, really different when it comes to handling a case, which would result from that.

 

NATHAN: The aftermath is definitely a critical thing with respect to the commercial vehicle accidents, especially the larger the vehicle. Generally speaking, I think Michael can echo me on this… The larger the vehicle, generally speaking, the impact is gonna be much greater. One of the basic things you learn in physics, force equals mass times acceleration. The greater the mass of something, if you increase that speed, it’s gonna be a much greater force that’s being transferred.

9:58                 So regardless of who’s right, or who’s wrong in that situation, there’s going to be a greater aftermath just because of the size of the vehicle. The other issue that comes down to it as well is that because commercial vehicles are different, they’re treated differently. They’re insured differently. There is a significant amount of interest with the truck companies and the commercial vehicle companies to make sure that they got… they get out in front of whatever might occur later, and their investigation starts immediately.

 

VERONICA: What do you mean immediately? What do you mean immediately?

 

NATHAN: Immediately in the sense that… I think we had spoken once before… where there are defense firms out there that literally have 24/7 investigative teams that are ready to go right then and there, as soon as the truck accident happens.

 

VERONICA: Whoa.

 

NATHAN: They’re on the scene, their immediate response. They might get there before the EMS gets there.

 

10:49                VERONICA: Talk about a first responder.

 

NATHAN: Exactly.

 

VERONICA: But not for me.

 

NATHAN: Exactly. And unfortunately, when our clients call us at 1-800-LAW-NEED, most of the time, that’s not until two or three days later. And sometimes these commercial vehicle companies have already done their investigation. I’ve had a situation to where, even though they hadn’t even begun their investigation and I had already sent them letters telling them, “Don’t touch this vehicle, I want to inspect it,” they inspected it anyway. They fixed the vehicle, and they put it right back in the service.

 

VERONICA: Truck was back on the road before anybody got a chance to look at it?

 

NATHAN: Back on the road.

 

11:25                VERONICA: Is that legal?

 

NATHAN: Legal in the sense that they are allowed to do that. Now from the civil standpoint, from our standpoint, that can definitely carry some penalties for them later on. But it still, no matter what, even with those penalties, it still can really hamper the person that’s injured in that case that’s called us. And they want to get justice for what has happened to them. And there may be things that even if we get those penalties, it still may end up costing them in the long run.

 

11:52                VERONICA: Mike, I’m thinking if the first responder – I said it, I used the term lightly – but it seems like it’s a very serious thing because I’m imagining there’s evidence that’s gotta be preserved. And who knows what this truck’s company is doing? Whatever it’s… whatever they’re doing, it’s not on my behalf.

 

MIKE: It’s absolutely right. I mean, I have friends and family that work in a trucking industry. And they’re all honorable people. And it’s an essential business, right? It puts the clothes on our back and the food in our refrigerator.

 

12:25                VERONICA: Then you say, there’s, like, an Amazon truck at your house every day?

 

MIKE: Every day, every single day.

 

NATHAN: The same here.

 

MIKE: But so, if something goes wrong, we are up against rapid response teams that they employ. And that’s just the way of the world today. And so, by calling us and calling us immediately at 1-800-LAW-NEED, we can at least try to put our clients on an equal footing, and even the playing field I would say, and let a team get to work for them as aggressively as we know that these companies have teams working for them. And that’s just what we’re dealing with these days. And things do need to be preserved like you had said. And all kinds of investigations get launched on our part, for sure. Like requesting body cam and dash cam from an officer is really telling, getting 911 transcripts in audio. Very telling.

 

VERONICA: All right, let me break you off right there, Mike, because I’m already fascinated. We’re gonna get right back with Mike Moran and Nate Kratzert. This is Veronica Waters with you on “Lawyers in The House” on WSB.

 

13:37                VERONICA: Back with you here on “Lawyers in The House” with Montlick on WSB. I’m your host Veronica Waters. With me, Nate the great Kratzert and Mike Moran, two of Montlick’s most specialized, I would say, injury attorneys when it comes to commercial truck accidents, which I am quickly finding out is quite a specialized field.

13:57                And we left off with Mike talking about the very detailed sort of investigation that has to be done after one of these. Can you pick it up for me, Mike?

 

MIKE: Yeah, sure. So once the lawsuit is filed as the investigation mushrooms as well… and it begins with the hiring process, right? I mean, that’s the frontline of safety is, is looking at the hiring process of any given company. And did they ask the probing questions? And did they look into gaps in employment of a potential driver?

14:24                And so that is kind of the launching path to an investigation.

 

14:29                VERONICA: Is that because they’re like…? Like training is an issue…? Or, I mean, what are they looking for there if you’re talking about a driver’s history?

 

MIKE: Absolutely, safety history of that particular driver. Number one is, “do they have a history of driving while distracted or driving aggressively?” for example. And they need to find that out and they can do that by running searches on a driving history. And they need to be done and they’re required to be done. But sometimes they’re not probed once they’re done. So that’s one of the issues is looking into the driving history of the driver. Their capability of driving a particular truck, right? And doing actual ride-alongs and those kind of things – did they do that? Did they administer a driving test? Is this person capable of handling this vehicle that’s 80,000 pounds when loaded? And so that’s another thing that needs to be looked into as well.

 

15:21                VERONICA: I don’t wanna be in that driver’s seat. What else can you tell us, Nate?

 

NATHAN: I think part of that hiring process also that gets into it is they look into that individual’s medical history as well. And they have to have something called a medical card. The medical card is a safety check mechanism; because again,

15:38                these individuals are handling significantly large, very heavy equipment that the results, if it’s not handled correctly, can be catastrophic. And they don’t want people on the roadway that might sometimes have medical events. And that has been an issue in some cases that I’ve dealt with personally. They also train them on their policies and procedures. Or at least they’re supposed to train them on their policies and procedures. And they’re also supposed to be very well trained in the Federal Motor Carrier Rules, which Georgia has adopted as well. So they have to be well versed in those, in those rules and regulations. And oftentimes what we find when we do litigate these cases, when we are asking our questions and depositions, is that some of these drivers, unfortunately, they are not as well versed as we would like them to be.

 

16:26                VERONICA: Wow, that is really stunning considering how much is at stake, right? And it sort of points me to the fact that you probably need an attorney who knows these very specific laws and how to navigate you through them in a really tough time.

16:42                Coming up on “Lawyers in The House”, we’re gonna talk about some of the mechanical things and the technical parts of investigations and black boxes, how much they play a role. We’re talking to Mike Moran and Nathan Kratzert right here on “Lawyers in The House” with Montlick. I’m Veronica Waters. Be right back.

 

VERONICA: Back with you on “Lawyers in The House” with Montlick on WSB.

17:04                I’m your host, Veronica Waters talking to Nate the great Kratzert and Mike Moran about commercial truck accidents. I think I need a nickname for you, Mike.

 

17:15                NATHAN: Mike, the hammer.

 

VERONICA: Mike, the hammer Moran. Do you like it? I like it.

 

MIKE: No.

 

VERONICA: He does not like it, okay.

 

17:22                NATHAN: We’ll workshop that.

 

MIKE: We’ll work out something.

 

VERONICA: We’ll circle back to that.

 

MIKE: Yes.

 

VERONICA: Something that I think is… if you don’t mind me sharing, Mike, I wanna really ask you what led you to personal injury to begin with?

 

17:35                MIKE: Yeah, sure. So I was in law school and my sister was in a very bad wreck and had a little delay in treatment. But then a really catastrophic injury set in and it was questioned. And it was fought tooth and nail for her. And I thought that was really unfair. She was very, very young. And that right there, just her treatment at the hands of an insurance company just caused me to kind of dedicate my career to working for people like my sister.

 

VERONICA: When did you know you had done the right thing?

 

MIKE: Oh, right away and it continues every day. Like, as you said earlier, I’m at the firm 20 years. This week, I took a call from a client’s son who was a baby when I worked for her. And unfortunately he’s been hurt, and I was called. And what a compliment that is, is in their time of need I get that call. And so I knew right away, I made the right decision.

 

18:32                VERONICA: Nate the great, you interestingly told me something that I thought was actually pretty funny. I mentioned that you’re a sports hound.

 

18:39                NATHAN: Right.

 

VERONICA: But you love hockey. You love sports, but hockey apparently is your thing.

 

NATHAN: Yes.

 

18:44                VERONICA: So much so that you had like a pickup game with Tom Glavine, which is like…

 

NATHAN: There’s things called stick time where you can go and play. And he, I think he happened to be at one. He’s also… he played in a men’s league that we played in a little while. And I think one time I just saw him make an incredible pass. And I was on the bench next to him. And I just looked at him and said, “you sure baseball was the right choice?” And he just kind looked at me. I was like, “I’m just kidding, man. Don’t, world series MVP…” you know, and everything.

 

19:13                VERONICA: Don’t punch me.

 

NATHAN: Yeah, yeah, please don’t punch me. But no, yeah. Getting to just skate around in the same ice with that guy was pretty amazing. But yeah, I am. Mike, also. Big sports people, I guess.

 

VERONICA: So I think what I… what was… what got me thinking about that was… you are personal injury attorneys and hockey is a pretty kind of dangerous sport. I mean, we see a lot of knocked out teeth in there. Has that…? Seriously though, did that kind of serve you as an attorney?

 

NATHAN: Yes and not all my teeth are real, but that’s okay. But yeah, I think so in the sense that certainly from just all athletics that I’ve had growing up, I’ve been injured. I’ve been through, I think, four knee surgeries, a couple shoulders. I’ve had concussions, I’ve lost some teeth, I’ve broken my nose. I’ve had stitches more times than I can count.

 

20:05                VERONICA: The show is only an hour long.

 

NATHAN: Exactly. Mom, if you’re listening, we both know how many times we were at Scottish Rite. So yeah, I mean, I’ve been through that ringer. And I think what that does help is when I hear a client talk to me about what what’s going on… And it may not be the same in terms of like a neck or a back injury, but I can certainly empathize a lot with their pain. And it helps me connect with them, especially as they’re going through or recovering from a surgery, giving them that positivity that they need to get through that rehab. And I’m very real with them. I tell ’em, it’s gonna be really hard. It’s gonna just… it’s just terrible, but you have to fight through it. And if you need something, call me, let’s talk about it. And sometimes they may just need a pep talk. And that’s what we’re here for.

 

VERONICA: Commercial truck accidents, the topic of the day today on “Lawyers in The House.” Gentlemen, how important is it to hire an attorney after one of these?

 

20:58                MIKE: That’s incredibly important. There’s a federal agency that governs commercial trucks, but there’s over 700,000 companies that they have to regulate. And they do put out regulations and rules. And it’s our job as attorneys to make sure that after someone is hurt in a situation like this that these companies are following those rules. And they’re very specific rules and they apply to very specific kind of collisions. For example, I’m handling a case where someone made an improper backing at night and blocked a roadway and a client of ours did an under ride. They ran underneath the actual trailer. And regulations regarding reflective material on the side of the vehicle is extremely important. If this vehicle arguably had the right reflective material, this would’ve never happened. Their presence would’ve been announced. And that’s just one of the regulations that are there and sometimes not complied with. And so there really needs to be a deep dive into why this happened and then cross check it against the regulations.

 

VERONICA: So what are the chances that any personal attorney, any personal injury attorney could handle this the right way?

 

NATHAN: I think a lot of times what will happen is you will have a call and as a personal injury attorney they’ll be excited and they want to try to help that person. But unfortunately you don’t know what you don’t know. And unless you have an extensive amount of experience in dealing with these types of cases, as I said, you don’t know what you don’t know. And oftentimes what will happen is Mike and I will… a client will call us at 1-800-LAW-NEED, and we’ll be the second or third phone call, I think.

 

MIKE: Yeah.

 

22:46                NATHAN: After they’ve been turned away by a couple other attorneys… because what those attorneys see is that there’s not necessarily very clear liability, meaning that it isn’t a 100% certain that that truck driver or that company was at fault. And they haven’t gone through the litany of boxes of questions that Mike and I may have written down. And we’ll spend an hour or so with that person on the phone, just kind of trying to get an understanding of what really happened. Because we’re working through those regulations in our heads and going through that with respect to our consultation. And when you do that, you end up learning things about what actually happened. I had a situation to where a young lady was charged with failing to maintain lane where the semi ended up hitting her head on. Turned out… we ended up… I took the case. She was charged. She had a citation in a county out here in the Metro area, and I was able to get the black box… or the electronic data recorder is what it’s called.

23:46                And we ended up finding out from the truck data recorder that the truck actually veered, and our client’s car was going straight the whole time. And he was speeding; she was not speeding. And in fact, she had no ability to move. And that case obviously turned out -in terms of a result for our client- well. She was seriously injured of course, but we were able to use that also to go and get her traffic citation dismissed too, because she was wrongly charged, which was great. She was a young lady. She had a clean driving record and she had wanted to keep that. And I think her father wanted to keep that as well. So that was really good. But those are the kinds of things that you have to really look for and listen for. And oftentimes, like I said, it’s… I kind of enjoy getting that second or third phone call to really follow with that person. ‘Cause we’ll find out more information than what I think other attorneys who are not as experienced, won’t find out.

 

VERONICA: Black box is so key, we always hear about those when it comes to airplanes. But I really wanted to ask you about that because I heard that they were on, like, big rigs and stuff like… Mike has taught me, it’s not always a big rig. Doesn’t have to be a big rig to be a commercial truck. But so… accident reconstruction…? Is that like kind of what you guys do? And tell me if I’m wrong, when those regulations talk about… you talked about the driver, but sometimes the issue is not maybe operator error, so to speak, right?

 

NATHAN: That’s very true. Another situation (just to give an example of a non-operator error) I had a client… she was driving down the roadway. And the next thing she knew, she saw a big, metal object that looked like a large pizza, but much thicker, coming at her at close to 60 miles per hour. And what had happened was that a truck was driving down the roadway; and because maintenance was not performed correctly, the whole entire brake drum just broke and just skipped across the highway, going some 65 miles per hour. And I’ll tell you those things weigh around at least a hundred pounds. And so from that standpoint, the driver himself had no clue what was happening. All he knew was that, oh my gosh, something happened. He immediately, of course, started pulling over the side of the road, which he should have done. But even if he had done his inspection like he should have before he got on the roadway that day, what we learned is that it would not have even been found from that inspection. It should have been found earlier. And there are certain rules and regulations about just how you should store certain tools and equipment to repair vehicles because you can’t just put certain things in the Georgia sun. Because, as we all know, it gets hot, things can expand, can melt.

 

VERONICA: Bridges can light on fire.

 

NATHAN: Exactly, exactly.

 

26:30                VERONICA: I think, when we talk about commercial truck accidents, the first one that pops into my mind is with the actor and comedian Tracy Morgan, which you may remember had a Georgia tie because the driver of that big box retail store’s truck was actually a Georgia resident. And we know how that was a deadly accident. Tracy lost one of his dearest friends, and it was life changing for him. I find that these things seem to be so intimidating in a way and people wanna point fingers. But I wanna say, as Mike said, some of his friends are in the industry and they’re honorable folks. But it’s not sometimes a mechanical issue. The driver could be well trained. But tell the truth, drivers, you are overworked out there.

 

NATHAN: They are. They’re extremely overworked. I’ve had clients where we’ve discovered two logbooks of where the driver is logging one set of hours versus what his hours actually are.

 

VERONICA: The work hours.

 

NATHAN: Exactly.

 

VERONICA: You mean like how much time they spend driving on the road.

 

NATHAN: Exactly and these drivers are very overworked because again, let’s face it… especially in what we’re dealing with now in terms of supply chain shortage… they’re trying to get stuff to us as consumers. And I think that drivers are trying to do the best job that they can. And unfortunately, some of them will face situations to where it’s, you either do this or you don’t have a job anymore. And that’s a reality that they face and they’re trying to do the best that they can.

 

VERONICA: Mike, is speed like a major factor in a lot of these accidents?

 

28:09                MIKE: Oh, absolutely. And just because of the inability to stop for such a long period of time, that’s a major issue. The industry tries to follow a six second rule where they really need to be allowing the vehicle in front of them to be at least six seconds ahead of them before they would need to stop. And that’s helpful if it’s followed, but it’s not often followed. But they don’t even have to be moving to be creating a hazard. There’re federal rules that say if a vehicle’s pulled to the side of the roadway, for example, they need to deploy signage behind their vehicle at certain distances to announce that they’re on the side of this roadway. And because you come across these and they can’t often get into the emergency lane fully, or they fail to… And so sometimes you see them protruding into a lane of travel. And so this signage is very important. There’s an amount of time that they have to put those out.

29:03                And when you get involved in a case like that, getting the 911 calls, getting the cellular calls are super important so that you can… everyone’s gonna say I put the sign out in a timely manner, right? So you do need to dig down deep into these things and you’d be surprised what you can uncover.

 

29:20                VERONICA: When you have somebody who is experiencing this… Do I need to make a point to call you…? When do I need to make a point to call you? Is it okay for me to just wait until I get outta the hospital?

 

29:33                NATHAN: As soon as possible. I think it’s the best rule’s to call 1-800-LAW-NEED because we have the resources available to our clients to get out there, to be also an immediate response, to help start that investigation as well. To… again as Mike said, I think you said it best… was just to kind of equal the playing field. Because ultimately, we really just wanna find out what actually happened. And if what happened is that the other party,

29:58                the other driver, the other company is responsible, then ultimately they need to be accountable for what occurred. And sometimes we find out that unfortunately our client… we can’t do anything for them, and we have to tell them that. And that’s okay. But we just wanna find out the truth and give them an equal footing.

 

VERONICA: Getting to the truth. Nathan Kratzert and Mike Moran with Montlick Injury Attorneys on “Lawyers in The House”, I’m Veronica Waters back in a moment with Montlick’s closing argument.

 

30:26                VERONICA: Time again for the Montlick closing argument here on “Lawyers in The House” with Montlick on WSB. I’m Veronica Waters here with respected attorneys, Mike Moran and Nathan Kratzert. And until we come up with a good nickname for you, I’m just gonna call you by your first name.

 

MIKE: Please.

 

VERONICA: Gentlemen, it is time for the closing argument. We’ve been waiting all hour to hear it, take it away.

 

MIKE: Yeah, I think the most important thing is to call right away. Call us, at 1-800-LAW-NEED. Let us put our own rapid response team into play for you. Let us equal the playing field for you. Evidence goes away in cases like this. Evidence can be overridden in cases like this and it needs to be preserved. There’s no reason to wait. And even if the investigation wasn’t thorough… I had a client call me one time and he was listed as a witness on the police report. He wasn’t a witness. He drove through a debris field created by two semis that had collided and became really hurt. Torah’s shoulder needed surgery, and he was more than just a witness. And getting the body cam and dash cam helped us identify him at the scene, and everything he said was absolutely true.

31:34                But if you looked at the police report, he was a witness. And so let us jump into this as quick as possible so that we can really get to the truth before sometimes the evidence goes away.

 

VERONICA: Even if I think I’m at fault, Nathan, or I’ve been told I’m at fault, can I…? Should I…? Do I just go away, sit down and take my lumps?

 

31:55                NATHAN: No, I think you call us as Mike said at 1-800-LAW-NEED and talk to someone like myself or Mike, because ultimately, I think we’re gonna ask the right questions about what exactly happened. I think too oftentimes when we are the second or third call, what I hear often is that they get rushed off the phone by an intake specialist. They don’t actually speak to a lawyer. Here, you’ll speak to a lawyer that’s experiencing these issues and we’ll ask the right questions. And oftentimes, as I’ll tell those folks

32:23                that have been potentially found at fault is that this is worth the investigation. Let’s take a look at it, let me see what I can do. The result may not be what we want, but let’s find out what happened. And let’s find out the truth. We have the resources available to our clients to do that for them and to get a thorough investigation done so that they actually, again as we said before, equal the playing field… give them an opportunity to see what exactly happened. Because, especially if the injuries are catastrophic enough, you’ll have clients where they’re incapacitated, and they never even actually had an opportunity to speak to the police when they were doing their investigation. And so the police are forced to try to come up with something when they have potentially two drivers that are incapacitated and they may not necessarily have the accident reconstruction experience necessary. So they’re trying to do their best job and figure it out. But they also probably don’t know.

 

33:14                VERONICA: These are complex cases with a lot at stake and evidence that you need somebody who knows what the heck they’re doing. They really are just different from a couple of Honda Civics on the roads. It’s a big deal. Nathan Kratzert, Mike Moran, thank you so much for being in the house with us this week. Catch us @MontlickLaw on all things social and get the replay. If you missed all the goodies the first part of the show you can find us on the YouTube or always at lawyersinthehouse.com. I’m Veronica Waters, your host, see you next time.

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