Atlanta Injury Lawyer Blog

Suicide Case to be Argued Tomorrow Before the Georgia Supreme Court

February 6, 2017 | Robin Frazer Clark

As many of you know, I often watch oral arguments in the Georgia Supreme Court via its livestreaming capability on its website. I encourage you to watch, as well. If you are reading my blog it means you must be interested in Georgia law, and what better way to gain some insight than to watch arguments before the State’s highest court? Having available online the live streaming of oral arguments really is a public service to Georgia citizens and a nod to open and transparent government from the Judicial Branch of Georgia government.

I wanted to let you know that tomorrow, February 7, 2016, an interesting and very sad case will be argued before the Georgia Supreme Court, City of Richmond, GA v. Maia. I blogged about the Maia case when it was before the Georgia Court of Appeals. My blog then asked “Who is legally responsible for suicide?” Suicide and suicide prevention has been an interest of mine since one of my dear friends committed suicide in 2012, when I was President of the State Bar of Georgia. His suicide led me to form the State Bar’s Suicide Prevention Campaign “How To Save a Life.” The issue of who is to blame for suicide is squarely before the Georgia Supreme Court now. The City of Richmond argues you can never blame a third party for someone’s suicide because suicide is also an independent, intervening act. This is based on years of rather old Georgia case law. But we know now, after suicide prevention has become more of the public conversation and as open discussion about suicide is helping to remove the stigma associated with suicide, that sometimes it seems suicide can often be traced directly back to bullying of the victim by third parties. It will be an interesting case to watch. My good friend Carl Varnedoe will be arguing for the Plaintiff and my good friend Pat O’Connor will be arguing for the City of Richmond. Below is the Supreme Court’s case summary. I’ll keep you posted, as promised.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017 10:00 A.M. Session

DeKalb County Jury Returns $3 Million Verdict Today Against DeKalb Medical Center

February 3, 2017 | Robin Frazer Clark

Today, a DeKalb County jury returned a verdict against two nurses who are employees of DeKalb Medical Center in the amount of $3.012 Million. The case is Edwards v. Nicome, et al., 11A36121. filed in the DeKalb County State Court. The case centered around the May 2009 death of Shari Edwards, age 31, who died of heart failure three days after being admitted to DeKalb Medical for preeclampsia and ultimately giving birth to her daughter. A third defendant, a physician, was not held liable by the jury. Congratulations go out to Plaintiff’s attorneys Bill Atkins, Rod Edmund and Keith Lindsay for what was obviously a valiant fight for justice in a three week trial. The case was defended by a trial attorney who I have tried a case against before, Tim Bendin. Bendin and his law firm often represents DeKalb Medical Center in personal injury cases. Because the nurses who were found to be at fault are employees of DeKalb Medical Center, DeKalb Medical Center is responsible for the verdict.

The plaintiffs, the parents of the deceased Ms. Edwards, argued their daughter died because of peripartum cardiomyopathy, or heart failure, and the failure of her healthcare team, including Defendant physician Nicome and nurses Cox and Huber-Smith, to detect or treat her deteriorating condition. The evidence showed Edwards’ blood pressure problems had initially been treated, but in the hours before her death her condition became more precarious with low oxygen levels and blood-gas levels joining her complaints that she was short of breath. Despite this, Edmond said medical records showed staff did not take Edwards’ vital signs for three hours before she went into the cardiac arrest that proved fatal. The defense, however, argued Edwards’ condition was stable in the hours before her cardiac arrest, and her healthcare team treated her appropriately throughout her stay, including ordering tests and intervention where necessary. Bendin, the nurses’s attorney, seemingly attempted to cast blame on the attending physician, arguing they were just trying to follow doctor’s orders. This simply didn’t work. No word on whether DeKalb Medical Center will appeal the verdict. They have 30 days from the entry of judgment to do so.

I have often had defense attorneys tell me that doctors and hospitals win 95% of their trials in Georgia. If that is true, to say the odds were against this family and this team of trial lawyers would be an understatement. And $3 Million for the value of the life of a 31 year old could never be characterized of being a “runaway” verdict by any of those who think the Georgia Civil Justice System is out of whack and needs reform. In my opinion, $3 Million for the full value of the life of this mother is probably even slightly conservative. This verdict was a unanimous verdict by 12 DeKalb County citizens who all saw the evidence of negligence the same way, demanding justice in favor of the deceased patient’s family. There is nothing about it that could be labeled “runaway.”

Snapchat: “Don’t Blame Us”

January 27, 2017 | Robin Frazer Clark

This week in Georgia a Georgia State trial court ruled in favor of the social media application Snapchat in a personal injury case and granted Snapchat judgment as a matter of law based on immunity. The case is Maynard v. Snapchat and is pending in the Spalding County State Court. The plaintiff, who suffered severe brain damage in a wreck when he was hit by a teen who was using Snapchat at the time of the wreck is ably represented by several of my friends, including Mike Terry and Michael Neff, both wonderful lawyers. The suit asserted that Snapchat’s speed filter—a feature which allows a user to photograph how fast a user is going—”motivated” McGee to “drive at an excessive speed to obtain recognition and to share her experiences through Snapchat.” Apparently, young drivers who use Snapchat are now often driving recklessly fast so they can snap a photo of the speed of the car they are driving to share it with all of their Snapchat followers, and then I guess the reckless driver gets to brag to all of her friends, “Hey! Look at me!! Me! Me! Me! Look how fast I am driving!! Whoopeeee!” But the Snapchat app encourages the driver to break the law, drive way too fast, illegally fast, and then requires an action by the speeding driver to capture the not-to-be-missed moment. Those few seconds of distraction force the young driver to take her eyes off the road and they often lose control of their car or fail to stay in their lane, resulting in a horrible car wreck and causing untold devastation to an innocent person minding his own business driving on the road that night. In the Spalding County case the evidence showed the teen driver reached speeds of 113 m.p.h. AWFUL!

The defense attorneys argued successfully that Snapchat was entitled to complete immunity under the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, and whose Section 230 states, “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This provision seems to grant immunity for written communications published on the social media application, not for creating an app that encourages someone to break the law in the first place. Simply reading the literal words of the immunity provision, they would seem to be inapplicable to the facts of this case. But I’m not a judge and the only opinion that counts is the trial judge’s and he disagreed with me. Plaintiff’s counsel, I would assume, are considering an appeal.

This case shows a horrifying trend with the Snapchat “speed filter.” In November of last year in Tampa, Florida, a teen driver who reached speeds of 115 m.p.h. lost control of her car, crossed a median and hit a minivan carrying a family. The wreck killed five people. Snapchat says it actively discourages “their community” to use the speed filter while driving. If that is true, what is the point of it? Can Snapchat claim, with a straight face, argue that the speed filter is not designed to be used while driving when it’s entire purpose is to measure a vehicle’s speed? There is also currently pending in Texas another lawsuit against Apple with essentially the same facts and allegations as the Maynard case here in Georgia but involving Apple’s application Facetime. In that case, a “driver rear-ended the Modisettes with his Toyota 4Runner at 65 miles per hour — killing five-year-old Moriah Modisette. The driver, Garret Wilhem, told police he was on FaceTime at the time of the crash, and officers found his phone in the car with FaceTime still engaged.”

President Obama Grants Pardon for My Client Who Was Convicted of Being Gay in the United States Army

January 18, 2017 | Robin Frazer Clark

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE LAW OFFICE OF ROBIN FRAZER CLARK

ATLANTA, GA

JANUARY 17, 2017

You Think We Have a Litigious Society? Blame the Insurance Companies Who Say “So Sue Me.”

January 5, 2017 | Robin Frazer Clark

I constantly hear, even from jurors, that we are a “litigious society,” that everyone sues over everything these days. Assuming this is true, who is to blame? Critics immediately place the blame at the feet of the injured plaintiffs who must bring the lawsuit for compensation for the injuries they have suffered that were caused by someone’s carelessness. If those darn hurt people who can’t work any longer because of their injuries would just not file a lawsuit we wouldn’t be a litigious society!! The nerve of these people! Getting injured through no fault of their own and then expecting compensation for the medical bills, lost wages, pain, inconvenience, inability to work, permanent scarring, loss of their normal quality of life, etc., from the person who caused it all. The gall! Can you believe these people?

Yes. Yes, I can. I believe these people because these are the people I represent every single day. These are the people who began their day with their normal routine like every other person but who, unfortunately, came into the path of someone who was careless, someone who wasn’t paying attention to the road, someone who was texting while driving, someone who was reckless and causes an upheaval in the life of someone else due to their negligence and carelessness.

But don’t blame these injured folks. Blame the insurance companies of the careless individuals, because it is the car insurance companies who take the stance “so sue me” and invite litigation that easily could have been avoided had they simply been reasonable in negotiating an insurance claim for personal injury.

The “Gotcha” Effort By Nursing Homes In Forcing Arbitration Instead of Jury Trials

December 8, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

It seems that the issue of forced arbitration clauses in contracts seems to be increasingly in the public conversation, given the debacle of Wells Fargo creating fake accounts by employees to achieve performance bonuses without their customers’s even knowing about it. Unbelievably, Wells Fargo is attempting to rely on forced arbitration clauses in the fake contracts for the fake bank accounts they fraudulently created to avoid being held accountable by a real jury. It’s really hard to believe Wells Fargo’s lawyer would even agree to submit such a position to the court with a straight face and an unburdened conscience. But they are. At least maybe the Wells Fargo fiasco is bringing to light this attempt by many corporations to take away a person’s Constitutional right to a jury trial to resolve a dispute before a dispute even arises and force the aggrieved person to have the dispute heard by a panel of arbiters (often picked by the corporation). They know they stand to fare much better before an arbitration panel than a jury of 12 American citizens, the greatest dispenser of Justice ever conceived by man.

I have written before about the “gotcha” tactics of nursing homes in attempting to steal a resident’s right to a jury trial. I have fought off several attempts on behalf of clients in nursing home malpractice lawsuits. An interesting opinion from the Georgia Court of Appeals recently was issued that deals with an embedded arbitration clause in nursing home admission papers, which, once the resident’s family members sued the nursing home for malpractice in causing the death of their family member, the nursing home asserted to the court as eliminating their right to have a jury hear their case. Gotcha!! This case is Kindred Nursing Centers v. Chrzanowski, 338 Ga.App. 708 (2016) and the facts of the case confirm the nursing home’s attempt at Gotcha! The plaintiff’s mother was admitted on December 4, 2016 to Kindred Nursing Center in Marietta for rehabilitation following surgery for a broken ankle during a fall. Ms. Chrzanowski’s medical records showed she suffered from several chronic medical conditions and also cognitive impairment. According to the appellate record “[i]n the month before her fall, Jeanne went to the emergency room twice within a few days, and reported feeling “loopy” and out of sorts, with some memory loss. The second time she went, she had no recollection of her prior visit just 48 hours earlier. A neurological consult identified an altered mental state, with mild cognitive impairment, depression, and some amnesia. Kindred Nursing Centers Ltd. P’ship v. Chrzanowski, 338 Ga. App. 708, 709, 791 S.E.2d 601, 602 (2016). Two days before Jeanne signed the ADR Agreement, occupational therapy evaluated Jeanne and reported that she was confused, even though she was able to participate in establishing her plan of care. In weekly progress notes from December 5 through December 12, occupational therapy reported that Jeanne was very anxious and confused, commenting to staff, “look at the walls, they are coming out.” In addition, a speech pathologist evaluated Jeanne on December 7 and found that she was severely impaired in understanding yes and no questions; moderately impaired in concentration, understanding sentences, and conversation; and moderately to severely impaired in memory, reasoning, and judgment. That same day, a dietitian performed a nutrition therapy assessment and found Jeanne was very confused and could not remember if she had eaten breakfast. Another assessment determined that Jeanne was at risk for falls due to weakness, medications, confusion, and forgetfulness. Ms. Chrzanowski signed the admission papers on December 7, 2011, which contained the embedded, hidden arbitration clause. On April 25, 2012 Ms. Chrzanowski died in the nursing home after suffering several other falls and hospitalizations. Her family then sued in court for malpractice.

In response to the suit, the nursing home filed a motion with the trial court to enforce the arbitration agreement that was in the admission papers signed by Ms. Chrzanowski while she was obviously suffering from dementia and cognitive impairment. Does that even sound fair to you? I hope not. The trial court denied the nursing home’s motion to compel arbitration and the nursing home appealed. The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, not on the merits of the case but on the basis the trial court had applied the wrong standard in making its decision. So now the case is back in the breast of the trial court who must apply a different standard in making its decision on whether to compel arbitration and allow the nursing home to steal the Chrzanowski’s Constitutional right to a jury trial.

How Much Is Your Life Worth?

November 22, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

Two fairly interesting court opinions were issued this week, one by a trial court judge in a bench trial, and the other from the Georgia Court of Appeals, both of which place a dollar value on the life of someone and both of which are, strikingly, very close to each other in amounts. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at them, as the value of a life is something I ponder quite often as a trial lawyer, and it is something I often have to ask juries to do in wrongful death trials. I am currently gearing up for the trial involving the wrongful death of a 23 year old young woman who was a kindergarten teacher in Gwinnett County. The trial will be taking place in Fulton State Court. So the value of a life is at the forefront of my thought these days. Let’s take a look at the wrongful death cases from this week.

The first case involves the wrongful death of Bobbi Kristina Brown, daughter of Bobbi Brown and Whitney Houston. I am sure you are familiar with the incident surrounding her death. It was a tragic case. This week, Judge Jackson Bedford of the Superior Court of Fulton County, issued an award of $36 Million for the full value of the life of Bobbi Kristina. You may recall that, like her mother, Bobbi Kristina was found face down in a bathtub full of water. She survived on life support systems in a hospital for several months. The award was made against her life-partner, Nick Gordon. Mr. Gordon was not present at the trial of this case and it appears he may have been in default in the civil suit, meaning he never filed an answer to the lawsuit which would entitle the plaintiff to a trial on damages only, which is, apparently, what occurred. The young woman’s family blamed Gordon, accusing him in the lawsuit of giving Brown a “toxic cocktail” before putting her face-down in the water. Gordon, an orphan three years older whom Houston had raised as her own, has not been charged with a crime. Brown had referred to Gordon as her husband. Investigators with the medical examiner’s office were unable to determine exactly how Brown had died. An autopsy showed she had morphine, cocaine, alcohol and prescription drugs in her body. But the medical examiner couldn’t determine if she killed herself, if someone else killed her or if her death was accidental. Regardless of the amount of the award, it is unlikely that the Brown Family will ever collect a penny of it from Mr. Gordon. It is my understanding that he has no personal assets and could always file bankruptcy against the award. It is important, however, to note that a very seasoned trial judge, Judge Bedford, when faced with placing a dollar value on the life of a person, deemed $36 Million an appropriate number. Judge Bedford has presided over many wrongful death trials and is well versed in the law of wrongful death and what factors go into that decision of what is the value of life from the deceased’s point of view. Interestingly, under Georgia law, when determining the value of a life for wrongful death purposes, the jury is instructed they must value the life from the deceased’s point of view, meaning did the person who died value his or her life? The only “tool” the jury is to use to help them with this endeavor is their “enlightened conscience.” What was his life worth to him? What was her life worth to her? Judge Bedford decided $36 Million was the value of the life of Bobbi Kristini Bown. That may seem like a lot of money, but ask yourself this: If it was your daughter who had died, have they printed enough money to compensate for the loss of her? Name a dollar figure you believe adequately reflects the full value of the life of one of your children. It’s hard to think about, isn’t it. Now put yourself in the jurors’ shoes.

The second case this week involves the wrongful death of a little boy, Remington Walden, who burned to death in a fiery car crash when he was a passenger in a 1999 Chrysler Jeep Grand Cherokee. Two amazing trial lawyers, a father and son team, Jim Butler and his son, Jeb Butler, tried this wrongful death back in April 2015 in Decatur County (Bainbridge) Georgia. The plaintiffs alleged the 1999 Chrysler Jeep was defective due to the placement of its fuel tank in the rear of the Jeep, making a fuel-fed fire highly likely in a rear-end collision, which is what happened in this case. Unlike the Bobbi Kristina trial, which was a trial in front of a judge who decided the case, this was a good old-fashioned jury trial. The Decatur County jury found for the plaintiffs in the amount of $120 Million. That’s right…$120 Million. The trial judge then reduced or “remitted” the verdict, which is a power the trial court has, in lieu of a new trial. The trial judge reduced the $120 Million verdict to $40 Million , which the plaintiffs’ accepted. Chrysler did not, however, and appealed even the reduced verdict to the Georgia Court of Appeals. Well, the Georgia Court of Appeals this week affirmed the trial court, meaning it agreed with the trial court’s decision to reduce the verdict to $40 Million. Chrysler lost their appeal but has vowed to consider its options to appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court. I’ll be watching for that appeal. There was evidence in the trial that Remy, the little boy, burned alive for 60 seconds. It may seem that the jury thought $2 Million for every second of burning alive was appropriate. Who could argue with that? Who could even argue with $40 Million for that kind of death? Chrysler, I suppose. Chrysler still refuses to accept any responsibility for their defective product and refuses to accept any responsibility for the death of Remy Walden. Contrary to the Bobbi Kristina verdict, the plaintiffs stand to collect every penny of this verdict, plus interest, assuming it is affirmed on appeal by the Georgia Supreme Court.

My Falling Out With Mediation

November 3, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

Friends: I have to confess, I back slid recently and agreed to mediation of a client’s case. I had not agreed to a mediation of my clients’s cases in several years, primarily because of a sense that mediation generally was not successful and perhaps was even counterproductive, pushing the opposing parties even further into their corners as positions became entrenched due to ridiculous positions taken during mediation, all through the implicit stamp of approval of a rather expensive mediator (who, by the way, gets paid regardless of whether he or she is successful in resolving the case). I regret allowing my client to agree to mediate his case. And again, I have made my pact with myself not to make that mistake again. Here is a short list (certainly not exhaustive) of reasons why I have fallen out with mediation of personal injury cases.

Defense counsel get away with childish, immature positions and remarks. I had a case once in which the insurance carrier wanted to try to settle prior to my filing a lawsuit. I gave them a dollar amount to do just that. They refused. They took the “so sue me” attitude. So I accommodated them and sued their insured. After two years of litigation, when the insurance carrier is in the corner because of the egregious facts that I have now exposed during discovery, I make a new demand reflecting the increase in value of the case in the last two years. Defense lawyers and the insurance adjuster say they “are hurt” by the increase and take away their initial offer in bad faith at medication. Did I not tell them that their best opportunity to settle the case was before I filed suit and litigated the case for years, and that in so doing, their case would only get worse?
Defense counsel approach me to mediate, saying “they really want to get the case resolved.” So I agree to mediation. My clients take a day off from their jobs. We are paying a mediator. Insurance adjuster offers at mediation only what was already on the table BEFORE mediation and says that’s it, take it or leave it. That’s one of the most UNprofessional things I can even imagine, yet it happens. A simple phone call to me would have sufficed. Yet they put my client through the stress and expectation that maybe finally, after two years of duking it out, they have come to their senses and want to resolve the case for what is only fair. Nope.

Will Wells Fargo Customers Get Their Day in Court?

September 22, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

The news, even for the most jaded of us, was shocking: Wells Fargo employees had created thousands of fraudulent bank accounts in their own customers’ names, without their customers’ permission or knowledge, so that employees could receive bonuses for opening a certain number of new accounts. These unscrupulous employees would take money out of their customer’s legitimate accounts and put them in the newly created fraudulent accounts. If this caused a legitimate account to experience an overdraft, the Wells Fargo customer would be responsible for paying the normal fine for an overdraft. This really happened. And, so far, no one has been indicted and no one is going to prison for it. Kudos to Senator Elizabeth Warren for suggesting that, but I wouldn’t count on it happening. And according to CNN, Wells Fargo may be the tip of the iceberg for banking fraud.

The question that is foremost in my mind now is whether Wells Fargo customers will get their day in court? That’s a big question mark. Why? Because the self-dealing of Wells Fargo includes inserting an arbitration clause in their banking agreements that essentially says if any dispute arises, the customer agrees it will be decided by arbitration. This clause, found in all types of consumer contracts, including credit card agreements and nursing home admissions, is the same as forcing a customer to waive their 7th Amendment Constitutional rights to a jury trial. Yet, a constitutional right cannot be unknowingly waived. Waiver must be knowing and intentional for it to be valid. I am willing to bet that none of the Wells Fargo customers knew they were waiving their right to a jury trial when they became customers of Wells Fargo. I doubt they were told about it, I doubt they read any of the small print legal agreement they had to sign to open an account there and I doubt any of them had any knowing understanding or appreciation for what they were signing. In fact, with “e-signatures” now on documents sent to us by email, it is highly unlikely that anyone reads anything now. But lawyers for Wells Fargo have promptly raised this issue as a possible defense to any lawsuits filed against it for its fraud. They may attempt to use an arbitration clause from when the customer opened a legitimate account to defend against lawsuits brought for the opening of fraudulent accounts. Seems like that, alone, should be against the law. This is particularly insulting when Wells Fargo executives took home millions of dollars in bonuses while defrauding their customers. Huh?

People are fighting back. The Wells Fargo incident simply brings to light the practice of forcing arbitration on consumers in a variety of transactions without the customers knowing anything about it. The American Association of Justice (“AAJ”) is fighting back. Likewise, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working on a rule that would restore your rights in situations where you unwittingly signed an arbitration clause. If you are the victim of banking fraud, you can submit a complaint to the CFPB. “Take Justice Back” is a grassroots campaign of AAJ that seeks to restore accountability and ensure American consumers have access to justice in the commercial transactions. Consumers have to keep fighting the good fight on this issue. That good fight starts with being aware of forced arbitration clauses. Check the fine print in any agreement you enter. You will likely find an arbitration clause in there somewhere. Cross it out, intial that, and THEN sign the agreement. I once did this on surgery consent forms when my daughter was having knee surgery. I thought for sure they were going to call me up to the desk and tell me they couldn’t perform my daughter’s surgery because I had not signed their agreement to arbitrate. But, no, they never called me up to the desk and her surgery went on without a hitch. Take back your power and don’t be bullied by corporations. Don’t sign these arbitration agreements.

Does Your Own Insurance Company Owe You a Duty?

August 31, 2016 | Robin Frazer Clark

Does your own insurance company owe you a duty? The simple answer is “yes, of course.” But for any of you who read my blog, you know when dealing with an insurance company nothing is ever simple and you should never assume your own insurance carrier “is on your side.”

I just recently settled a case for my clients for the maximum insurance policy limits of the at-fault driver, even though my clients’ injuries were so severe I am confident a jury would have returned a verdict in their favor well in excess of the insurance limits. Let me explain the situation. This case involved a car wreck in which a young driver turned left in front of my clients at an intersection early in the morning. My clients had a green light and were going straight through the intersection. The young driver stated to the police officer he “didn’t see them” before he turned and my clients could not stop their vehicle to avoid the other car that suddenly was directly in front of them as they attempted to travel through the intersection on a green light. Both of my clients suffered severe personal injuries and were hospitalized as a result.

Now a reasonable person at this point would be thinking the driver making the left turn was at fault and his insurance company should pay my clients’ bills, right? Well, in the words of Coach Lee Corso, “Not so fast!” The insurance carrier for the driver who turned left in front of my clients at first claimed their driver was not liable! The insurance carrier was not going to pay a dime! That’s when I get involved. After some discussion about the fact that their insured, the young driver, had violated the Rules of the Road by failure to yield the right-of-way to my clients, the insurance company then asserted it’s second position, i.e., my client, who was driving the car, was contributorily negligent by speeding and so it would not be willing to pay anything for his claim, but since his wife, who was a front-seat passenger, cannot be legally contributorily negligent, they would be willing to pay her something for her trouble, but not the policy limits. The absurd position of the insurance company forced me to file suit. In fact, you can say the insurance company actually invited the litigation, taking the “so sue me” attitude, and I obliged them. I am sure they didn’t consult their own insured about how he wanted the claim handled. I had to hire an expert accident reconstruction, which is expensive. Neither car had a “black box” that would prove my client was not speeding at the time of the wreck, so my accident reconstructionist performed a signals analysis that proved the defendant could not have possibly had a green left-turn arrow and could not possibly have had the right-of-way at the time he turned left in front of my clients. Then the insurance company’s lawyer took the depositions of my clients. Their undisputed testimony left no room for doubt that they had the right of way and the defendant was at fault. Following their depositions, I made a settlement demand on the insurance carrier for the insurance limits of their insured. I gave the insurance company 30 days to respond to the demand, and if they did not pay policy limits, the demand would be withdrawn and we would proceed to trial.