Need to rant about an unexpected consequence

[ForTheBest]

Some of you may remember that I had a pending personal injury claim when I filed. My first lawyer didn't list it as an asset and didn't exempt it. My second lawyer amended the schedules, the trustee then questioned the claim and required all sorts of documentation, but finally issued a report of no distribution. I was so relieved when that happened and the claim was able to go forward. Everything was going to be fine.

Not. I learned today that when the insurance company found out about my bankruptcy, they changed the terms of their final settlement offer and the amount I'll end up with is less than half of what it was supposed to be. The thinking is that because I filed bankruptcy I'm desperate for money and will now take whatever they offer.

Unfortunately for me, they're right. My personal injury attorney says it would take at least another year to fight it out in court (it's been 15 months already), and because the accident happened in another state, it would necessitate retaining yet another lawyer. Enough already. They win. I've had enough.

What really gets me about this is how the accident happened and who it involved. My three-week old car was stopped at a stoplight when it was rearended by a box truck that lost its brakes. The truck was owned by a national big box home improvement store. (I am soooo tempted to tell you which one, but will be mature about this and refrain.)

I had three very elderly passengers with me; two of us were hurt. The damage to my brand new vehicle was just slightly under the percentage necessary to total it, so now I have a car that not only lost value when I drove it off the lot, but lost more value because it was involved in a major accident.

AND the accident happened on a hot, humid August day. The home improvement store sent another truck to take the first one's load, and the driver that hit us waved us a cheery goodbye saying, "At least I can go swimming now. Too bad you can't."

Don't get me wrong here. I'm very grateful that we all survived the accident and I've made peace with the fact that whatever money I do get is money I didn't have before. I also believe that even losing half the settlement is worth it to be out from under all my debt.

But just for one moment, please allow me to say... sometimes bankruptcy really sucks.

[Michigan1951]

Some of you may remember that I had a pending personal injury claim when I filed. My first lawyer didn't list it as an asset and didn't exempt it. My second lawyer amended the schedules, the trustee then questioned the claim and required all sorts of documentation, but finally issued a report of no distribution. I was so relieved when that happened and the claim was able to go forward. Everything was going to be fine.

Not. I learned today that when the insurance company found out about my bankruptcy, they changed the terms of their final settlement offer and the amount I'll end up with is less than half of what it was supposed to be. The thinking is that because I filed bankruptcy I'm desperate for money and will now take whatever they offer.

Unfortunately for me, they're right. My personal injury attorney says it would take at least another year to fight it out in court (it's been 15 months already), and because the accident happened in another state, it would necessitate retaining yet another lawyer. Enough already. They win. I've had enough.

What really gets me about this is how the accident happened and who it involved. My three-week old car was stopped at a stoplight when it was rearended by a box truck that lost its brakes. The truck was owned by a national big box home improvement store. (I am soooo tempted to tell you which one, but will be mature about this and refrain.)

I had three very elderly passengers with me; two of us were hurt. The damage to my brand new vehicle was just slightly under the percentage necessary to total it, so now I have a car that not only lost value when I drove it off the lot, but lost more value because it was involved in a major accident.

AND the accident happened on a hot, humid August day. The home improvement store sent another truck to take the first one's load, and the driver that hit us waved us a cheery goodbye saying, "At least I can go swimming now. Too bad you can't."

Don't get me wrong here. I'm very grateful that we all survived the accident and I've made peace with the fact that whatever money I do get is money I didn't have before. I also believe that even losing half the settlement is worth it to be out from under all my debt.

But just for one moment, please allow me to say... sometimes bankruptcy really sucks.

I am glad nobody was hurt badly in that accident. Sorry about your car too.
Life sucks sometimes, but you will get a clean start so don't look back!!

The road is long and sometimes rough.
Hold on tight, I know you're strong enough!!

[jribe]

I was in a similar accident a few years ago- i was at a complete stop and was hit at about 45 MPH by another driver who "didn't see me" after she came whizzing around a corner. I can let you know my settlement offer if it helps.

Is your attorney licensed only in your state?

Also- please remember that personal injury attorneys (for the most part) are in it for the money. They don't care how much you get (unless you've got a muilti-million dollar case) - they just want to be done and get their 30%.

I had to fight my case myself. I had an attorney, but i did all the leg work. If i would have listened to him- i would have gotten half of what i ended up getting.

The bankruptcy should in NO WAY determine the settlement. They are offering money because you were injured. It has nothing to do with your bankrtupcy.My advice: get a new attorney, or let it go to court. Then let the judge decide what kind of scum insurance company recinds a settlement offer to less than 50% because of a BK.

BTW- why was the original offer not already accepted? Was the attorney trying to get more? Maybe there was already a verbal acceptance in place? I would check on this.

Some of you may remember that I had a pending personal injury claim when I filed. My first lawyer didn't list it as an asset and didn't exempt it. My second lawyer amended the schedules, the trustee then questioned the claim and required all sorts of documentation, but finally issued a report of no distribution. I was so relieved when that happened and the claim was able to go forward. Everything was going to be fine.

Not. I learned today that when the insurance company found out about my bankruptcy, they changed the terms of their final settlement offer and the amount I'll end up with is less than half of what it was supposed to be. The thinking is that because I filed bankruptcy I'm desperate for money and will now take whatever they offer.

Unfortunately for me, they're right. My personal injury attorney says it would take at least another year to fight it out in court (it's been 15 months already), and because the accident happened in another state, it would necessitate retaining yet another lawyer. Enough already. They win. I've had enough.

What really gets me about this is how the accident happened and who it involved. My three-week old car was stopped at a stoplight when it was rearended by a box truck that lost its brakes. The truck was owned by a national big box home improvement store. (I am soooo tempted to tell you which one, but will be mature about this and refrain.)

I had three very elderly passengers with me; two of us were hurt. The damage to my brand new vehicle was just slightly under the percentage necessary to total it, so now I have a car that not only lost value when I drove it off the lot, but lost more value because it was involved in a major accident.

AND the accident happened on a hot, humid August day. The home improvement store sent another truck to take the first one's load, and the driver that hit us waved us a cheery goodbye saying, "At least I can go swimming now. Too bad you can't."

Don't get me wrong here. I'm very grateful that we all survived the accident and I've made peace with the fact that whatever money I do get is money I didn't have before. I also believe that even losing half the settlement is worth it to be out from under all my debt.

But just for one moment, please allow me to say... sometimes bankruptcy really sucks.

[ForTheBest]

Thanks to you both for taking the time to reply.

Jribe, to answer your questions... Because of my own stupidity and bad/lack of advice from my first bankruptcy attorney (and others with whom I consulted prior to retaining him), this whole thing has been a fiasco.

My bk attorney was aware of the claim but chose to ignore it, insisting it wasn't necessary to list it on my schedules because "we're not sure you'll even get anything." He also said he had talked to the pi lawyer about it, but it turns out he had not. Because of that, I thought the pi lawyer had been made aware of my filing, but of course he hadn't been.

I didn't find this forum until after filing, and it wasn't until I started researching here that I began to realize what a schmuck the bk attorney was. I didn't learn that the claim definitely should have been listed and exempted until a few hours after my 341 (which was coincidentally continued for a month because of other "mistakes" my lawyer had made.)

At that point I finally contacted the pi attorney myself and found out that he didn't know about my bk. He had the claim almost settled at that time but had to suspend final negotiations because of the bk (just before he would have given a verbal acceptance to the settlement offer).

After a change of bk lawyers on my part and the second 341, the trustee issued a report of no distribution and the pi attorney resumed negotiations. By that time, though, the home improvement store (they're self-insured) had found out about the bk and reduced their offer.

I have made SO many mistakes through all of this and kind of feel that I deserve to have it turn out the way it has.

I should have researched bankruptcy more before I filed. If I had, maybe I would have waited to file until after the claim was settled. But I'm a 60-year-old unwell wimp who couldn't face the prospect of months of collection activity after also going through the accident, the death of a loved one and an unexpected job loss.

I also should have talked to the pi attorney myself before I filed, but I was embarassed, and also was under the impression that it was going to take a lot longer to settle than it did.

The list goes on, but you get the picture. I can only hope this lengthy post will "smarten up" somebody else who might read it in the future before they file. Thanks for listening.